Several orders of business:1. No other way to say it: living in a big city is crazy a-sane. I drove through Fife this past weekend and realized with some measure of alarm that the leaves were changing and I had missed them! I suppose it's easy to forget about seasons when you're too busy holding a protective fistful of keys in your pocket on the bus home. Nearly undone by a sudden and violent urge to reconnect with mother Earth, I explored Leith yesterday and was delighted to find the World's Largest Park just three blocks from my flat. And this isn't just some old park; no-- there was grass and trees and a football field! Every part of my Western North Carolina heart exploded when I saw the ground carpeted with dead leaves; I considered eating a few handfuls for good measure.
2. Following the theme that seemed to be expanding yesterday (man's relation to nature; specifically my own) I went again to see the Richard Long exhibit at the National Gallery. Another artist who works in the environment like Andy Goldsworthy, Long’s work always seems to strike me as more physical. This might sound a touch daft considering many of his works consist just as descriptions of walks, or events on walks. However, the materiality of his art - the journey that he has undertaken to produce those descriptions - are so important in his work. Without the underpinning of our belief that he has slogged through these routes his work becomes just a literary event.
See the National Gallery website here.
I measure it on google maps and it seems I walk an average of five miles a day just going round-trip to the office. The more I walk in this urban landscape the more I can draw from Long's work. This second visit to the exhibit pulled back many more layers of the onion, and I'd say I'm as close as I might ever be to accepting Long's work. I think understanding and accepting are two different things. Which leads me to my next question: why am I not fitter?
[Above: one of Long's earlier pieces. I had a vicious battle with someone in tutorial last year about whether or not Long was a Romantic based on this image. The only thing I remember was shouting "he bloody well isn't -- he's ripping the heads off of flowers!" I am nothing if not eloquent and dignified.]3. Have you heard this new Radiohead? Well, you ought to: www.inrainbows.com
You can name your own price and download it from the website which I find to be equally cool and unsettling. It felt like I was standing in front of the bookshelf in that Latvian youth hostel all over again, the sign reading "Honur system! Plees Return Books," with the burly proprietor eying me down. I paid five pounds for the album. Is that too much? Too little? Why do they want to make people feel uneasy? Or maybe I'm just missing the point entirely. Either way, the album rawks. Scott and I saw them at Bonnaroo summer-before-last where they played a good bit of the new tunes. I'm glad to have them for my very own. All I Need is my new jam.
Right; it's Giorgione time. Or as I like to say, GO time.
