Last night, I ate a hamburger with a fork and a knife while debating the english-ness of occassion versus opportunity. Caroline had used occassion, Ariane corrected her. I can't remember the sentence, but I thought both worked. And who is the expert?
We talked about other things but I think I had a stronger sense of the fact that no matter how much you travel, your thoughts come with you. Your ghosts stay firmly in the pockets of your jacket, ready to be brought out accidentally while you search for a 2 euro coin. Cobbled streets and cafés on every corner are not eternal sunshine for spotless minds, they are just new places to think about them.
The only thing that manages to make those ghosts more opaque are new people. Like Caroline, who likes to make faces while she does impressions and should quit her job (apparently). And Julien who has had a bad year but an excellent apartment and looks a bit like a model.
Yesterday we went to a self-indulgent art exhibit on dreams which I enjoyed for all of its post post post modernism, and got to play a bit of bad guitar. And then Ariane took me to the canals which reminded me of the part in Amelie when she drops (litters) her empty fishbowl.
Lovely, for a Tuesday.
And Wednesday was another trip to that creperie that made me a believer in flat food covered in sugar and citrus (I was just a little bit skeptical before).
And then... Le Louvre. With La Jocund and Victoire à Samonthrace and a (painting of a) table covered in hacked open seafood being set upon by a barking seal, and egyptian hieroglyphics (in two places). Lots of art. Arty things. We were breezy, talking about anatomy depiction and the strange inability of dutch painters to paint interesting things, and the sheer ugliness of most women and babies in nearly all paintings. Sara: I'm afraid some of the art was lost upon a philistine like me, but I still had an excellent time.
Tonight: Be Happy!
That's the movie we are seeing and a general directive.
1 comment:
ugh, that's why i should have given you a list of things to see and explained their significance...i guess art is in the eye of the beholder but i have to disagree on the whole ugly women comment. ideas of beauty were much more strictly defined and every woman painted reflects the cultural views of beauty. and dutch painters are amazing, you just were looking at the wrong things. next time you look at the painting by a van eyck look beyond the frame and try to imagine the relationship between model and painter and what could have been underlying. with symbols and their meanings in your mind's eye, use that knowledge to look at the individual messages.....sigh. i wish i had been with you.
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