July 22, 2010
They're All Frauds
I took a student to see the Close Examinations: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries exhibit at the National Gallery today.
It confirmed a long-held theory of mine.
Over the years, I've visited a number of museums in a number of cities on a number of continents (and in the UK as well; we really can't count knifecrime island as a continent, can we?). In several of these institutions, I've seen paintings where I say to myself, "Self, that looks really familiar. Haven't I seen that somewhere before?"
After spending a couple hours looking at forgeries and reproductions and attribution errors, it's clear to me that, as I have long suspected, 9 out of 10 paintings in museums are copies of each other and we poor unsuspecting patrons who know very little (if the curators can't figure out the fakes, how are the punters supposed to?) just smile and say, "Oh, yes, that's beautiful, isn't it?"
Overheard, between two old dowagers, fresh from the wig dressers, with clipped accents straight out of Brief Encounter:
"If they do find out it's a forgery, won't it reduce the value?"
"Oh yes. Indubitably ."
"What a shame."
"Still, it's a lovely piece."
"I doubt the curator thinks so."
I do hope they had a flask of gin in their handbag.
April 25, 2010
What My Life Has Become
Exhibit A
We used to watch* the marathon** and become inspired to run. This year, we saw interviews with:
- a man who had a heart transplant
- a woman who had a double lung transplant
- a man who only had one lung
- a (very cute) bloke who had cystic fibrosis (target age of death = 31) who pledged to run 31 marathons now that he was 31
The only thing that we were inspired to say was, "they're just showing off."
Is that wrong?
Exhibit B
We found a shortcut to our new favorite local pub, the Nelson's Head. Now it only takes us ten minutes to walk there instead of 15.
On the way home tonight, we stopped at The George and Dragon cause Larry had to relieve himself, and then at Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen (we love Helen, go visit her before she moves to warmer climes) because we needed to have some dinner.
Coming home from dinner, Larry says, "thank God there are nice rest stops on the way home from Nelson's, cause it's just too far to walk."
Ten minutes = too far. Oy.
Bring on next year's marathon.
* In person, not on television
** Yes, I was supposed to run it this year. During my second round of bronchial brouhaha that required physician-prescribed (self-medicating was so last decade) pharmaceuticals, my doctor said "quit running for a while", so I deferred my entry till 2011.
February 24, 2010
What's the Buzz?
In Joshua Ferris' new novel, The Unnamed, the protagonist finds himself in Bryant Park, where "he sensed the crunch of fallen leaves" (although he knows it's not the right season).
Leaving the park, he realizes that they are not leaves,
but rather a thin blanket of dead bees. He lifted his feet as if to avoid stepping on them, but they were everywhere. The thinned out only when he reached the street. He looked back in amazement — at the hundreds, the thousands of delicate brown and yellow carapaces. In a city of odd sights, it took the prize.
JF talked to our MA group the other night (he's great, one of the most pleasant, down-to-earth personalities we've had in the past year or so), and the moderator asked him about this. Why the bees? Was it a Biblical reference? Did it have anything to with something he (the moderator) had read about masses of bees dying in the US?
Ferris nodded along with the questioning, pondered for a moment, and simply said, "I got stung by a bee. And it really hurt."
So he killed them.
Perhaps there is truth to the theory that all fiction is revenge.
February 9, 2010
Sniff Test
If your man looked, sounded, felt and tasted (okay, I'm letting my imagination run wild) like this ... I could live with the Old Spice (or most any) smell.
Lucky horse.
January 27, 2010
Row, Row, Row Your Boat
Odd how one finds random connections; strings that connect one thing to the next.
I finished Celestial Navigation last night. Vintage Anne Tyler full of wondeful characters and nary a happy ending in sight.
Much of the second-to-last scene (actually the last scene, as the final short chapter is pretty much an epilogue) takes place in a rowboat.
Started Sue Miller's While I Was Gone (which has been on my to read pile for almost a year now) this morning, and, oddly enough, the first scene takes place in a rowboat.
An odd enough coincidence in itself, but the scene I've been working on is a confrontation between a woman and her mother and takes place in a room overlooking a bay, and the daughter keeps wishing she was in the kayaks she sees out the window, paddling away from the her mother's clutter and coveting the freedom of being alone on the water.
Funny thing is, I started writing that scene before the rowboat scenes drifted into my world.
Everything is connected. Or is it?
January 22, 2010
Procrastination Project 3,917
I want to write an essay about how it would be great if I could find a novel-writing regimen that suited me as well as the marathon training program I'm following.
Or maybe about how training for / running a marathon seems to be easier than writing a novel.
But that would take up valuable time and I have work to do for my job, as well as a chunk of fiction to knock out today, so I'll get back to you on this. And I think that I want to hit a yoga class this afternoon, so I'll be moving right along.
Thanks.
January 12, 2010
Me Being Catty
I did a voiceover for an animation project this morning. It's being considered for a show at the Tate Britain this summer.
Five of us, each in our own soundproof booths, doing silly voices and making each other laugh. There are worse ways to spend a morning.
My character is Lenny, the sardonic American-accented cat of a down-and-out British stand-up comedian.
Weird how projects unexpectedly drop into your litter box.
January 8, 2010
The Power of Music
What? Your firm doesn't have a company song? What better way to build a brand?
Let's all drink to the Russian gas.
January 4, 2010
He's Not Blogging about the Weather, Is He?
Yeah, I'm now that guy. Sorry.
Ah, the beauty of sense/memory.
During this morning's slog lively, energetic jog through the arctic tundra that used to be known as Central London, I was transported back to early spring days in Chicago, when I'd stand on an El platform, the wind cutting through however many layers I was wrapped up in (enough to make me look like the Michelin Man) and think, "it should never be this cold."
So yeah, I guess a winter cold snap in London is the equivalent of spring breeze in the Windy City.
Once I got to work, I saw headlines that there hasn't been such a chill in the London air since Princes Di ran into Camilla at Harrods' 1997 January Sale.
So I wasn't just being a wimp. It is cold out there (for England at least ... notsomuch for Chicago).
On the way home, I stopped by my friends at Runners Need and picked up a pair of glove liners (turns out layers aren't just for the torso), as the wind-proof ones I already weren't quite cutting it. I also got a new hat to my ears warm.
Isn't it ironic that it bears the name of he who says the globe is getting warmer?
January 1, 2010
The Year that Will Be
Oh sure, anybody can look backward and say what the past year has brought them.
So I think I'll try something different. A bit of time travel in honor of the Doctor's last episode.
It's January 1, 2011. Here's what I'm most proud of happening over the past twelve months ...
1. Finishing my novel, which leads to ...
2. Getting my MA in Creative Writing.
3. Finishing the London Marathon (5th marathon, 2nd London)
4. Getting back to a weight I haven't seen for the past five or so years (<190)
5. Logging in more hours on the page than in front of the TV screen ... well, at least changing the ratio
What do you see in your crystal ball?
December 29, 2009
Ignorance is Bliss
I spend the last (almost) fortnight trying to avoid newspapers, CNN, BBC, etc.
Now I'm back and inundated with executions in China, ethical questions about mental illness, how (much more) miserable it's going to be fly in the US (and elsewhere), how nobody likes Obama because he didn't live up the the hype (come on people, does anything?), Iran's going to blow itself up, and ... speaking of things getting blown up, "how long do we have, Ros?"
Oh, and it's cold here and it gets dark very early and stays that way for quite a long time.
December 27, 2009
They're Everywhere
We're lounging by the Reef Villa pool, and of course, since it's our last day we've taken to being chatty with some of the other guests here.
Why don't people start talking to each other until they know they're leaving?
Anyway, we're continuing a conversation from breakfast with a lovely couple from Bombay (which they don't like to call Mumbai because it was "right-wing government' that changed the name") and we get on the subject of work and how L works for ML. The woman's brother-in-law is a bond trader and he's going through much of the same ML vs BoA political shenanigans (which once again reaffirms my happiness about being out of the corporate world and doing what I'm trifling about in the EFL / Creative Writing).
We talk about banking and the bonus brouhaha and the media witch hunt coverage of compensation issues (she heads up one of the news departments for an Indian tv network). L says something about at least he's not an FA, because they're commissioned-based and sometimes it seems they're more worried about closing the deal than what's good for the client, because it the more they sell, the bigger their paychecks are.
After our Bombay buddies have breast stroked back to their lilos an L's headed back to the room to do some packing, the Polish guy (who's kind of hot, but we've barely exchanged cześćs with) on the chaise next to me says, "Excuse me, I couldn't help but overhear. You are with ML?"
I tell him I'm not but L is. Seems he is too. He works for Global Wealth Management.
Oh, so does L.
"Where is he based?" asks my fellow traveler.
"London."
"So I am I, but I'm rarely there."
"You're an FA?"
"Yes," he says (oops, I wonder if he overheard the whole conversation), "I head up Poland, and there aren't that many client meetings for me in London. What is your friend's name?"
I tell him.
"Oh yes, we have exchanged several emails with him over the past few weeks, and were on a conference call with him about a deal just before leaving on holiday."
I pull Larry out of the room. "Come meet your colleague."
And the world just gets smaller and smaller. He's delightful, we trade photo galleries on MacBooks, they're looking for a place to stay up north, we recommend Lavender House, they book it and tell us we have to go to India, "it's much more magical than Sri Lanka."
L and T arrange to meet up next time he's in the London office.
Hopefully, they'll both now be able to write off this trip as a business meeting.
