2008 — 22 September: Monday
Another midnight shoots gently into the immediate past, and it's time for tonight's picture of Christa:
Christa and the forgotten Bonsai, 1976
It's actually another shot of her by that little Bonsai tree in the back garden of the Old Windsor house. In the background is a blue-topped folding kitchen table that my parents bought in the late 1950s. It's still in use today, in what was Christa's study, to hold the screen, printer and keyboard of what was her last PC. Good value, methinks.
Novel imperial clothes revisited... dept.
Having quoted Robert Hughes a couple of days ago, I must say I very much enjoyed watching his film The Mona Lisa Curse in which he eviscerated many distasteful aspects of the modern art world.
He is, indeed, a tough cookie. Particularly fine was his gentle but wearily incisive interrogation of the Warhol collector. Hughes knew Warhol in the early days, of course, and has now come to regard him as one of the stupidest of chaps. I must admit I formed a similar opinion on initially reading, and then latterly skimming, Warhol's diaries.1 Emperor's new clothes, indeed.
Speaking of which, try this:
Here, finally, was a performer who — being maternal, wounded, righteous and sexy — could stride past the frontal cortex of every American and plant a three-inch heel directly on that limbic circuit that ceaselessly intones "God and country." If anyone could make Christian theocracy smell like apple pie, Sarah Palin could... The problem, as far as our political process is concerned, is that half the electorate revels in Palin's lack of intellectual qualifications. When it comes to politics, there is a mad love of mediocrity in this country.
See? Our cousins are just like us! G'night, at 00:45 or so.
Another sunny start
It's 10:01. Can you believe Twiggy is now 59? The sun is shining, the lower limbs still work, and there's a nice piece about (American) comic books here. And (finally) Boston Legal series 4 is available to order. Christa and I loved this series and Season #3 was one of the last shows she watched last year, laughing all the way. Her absence will, in AC Grayling's words, oblige me to learn again the task of navigating it alone. I suspect it will dampen the humour slightly. Oh well, time for breakfast.
Wait! Another new (to me) Feynman quote:
We have had to accept that our home, the earth, is just another planet circling the sun; our sun is just one of a hundred billion stars in a galaxy that is just one of billions of visible galaxies; and it may be that the whole expanding cloud of galaxies is just a small part of a much larger multiverse, most of whose parts are utterly inhospitable to life. As Richard Feynman has said, "The theory that it's all arranged as a stage for God to watch man's struggle for good and evil seems inadequate."
There's a Philip Larkin sting in the tail of the piece, too. Good stuff.
Although I used to regard myself as somewhat cynical, how can I compete with opinions such as this? "Policies are made elsewhere, the job of politicians and their staffs is to justify, apologise for, explain and obscure the dreadful details of what the thieves who hire them plan to do next." (Source.)
Bugged in bed?
More grief! "Increased foreign travel and a lack of awareness have been blamed for the rise in bedbug infestations being reported by airlines, train and bus companies." Did Attila the Hen have a point after all?
A toothsome mess... dept.
I'm afraid my recent visit to the dentist didn't entirely solve the problem, so on Wednesday morning (ahead of my drive up to the Midlands for the funeral on Thursday) I shall once again be gritting my teeth in hopes of a more lasting repair (from the feel of it, to the other side of the same tooth). It's fair to say I hate going to the dentist; guess who cheerfully helped me get through the process for the past 33 years?