I have decided to become an ‘art baron.’ Please note I made up this new title, but it truly feels like what I want to do with my life after my two recent visits to the Tate Modern.
I am unsure whether I am qualified. If it does involve having large amounts of cash, it may be a slow climb to the top. As I look around my sitting room I also hope it doesn’t involve actually having good taste. I say this specifically with reference to the framed takeaway menu on my wall (if you had eaten there you would understand.) I might have to settle for being less than an art baron, maybe just an ‘art bar,’ which on the upside might mean I get free membership to the Members Bar on the Tate top floor.
A girlfriend asked me to go all arty on the day that London got down to -11 Celsius. As it was -15 in my basement flat I decided a stroll along the Thames would warm me up.Upon arrival she asked me what I wanted to do first. My response was ‘Bathroom, bookshop, then art. In that order.’ This also does not bode well for my baron potential. Yet within 2minutes of being in the ‘Pop Life’ exhibition I knew that no matter how stacked the odds are against me I wanted to be involved with art. The fact that I draw like an epileptic and can barely dress myself is a minor detail.
Having met Tracey Emin last year and subsequently developed some kind of career role model crush on her, I spent most of my time hovering over one particular glass case. In there were obscenities scrawled across everything she could get her hands on. If writing the word ‘fuck’ on every texture provided by God isn’t art then I don’t know what is. I cannot bring myself to say the same thing about a calf in a vat of formaldehyde, and I was tempted to offer to get in there myself for several million pounds. My friend most certainly would have obliged.
What I did next however does lead me to believe that I do in fact have potential: I went on a bar crawl that started in the Tate Modern and wound up somewhere near Tower Bridge. I say ‘somewhere’ as the only record I have of the last place we went was is my camera and the shots involve a bowl of what is hopefully olive oil. I will leave this one to Colombo, but I like to think that these shots are a testament to my ability to find and even create art. I wonder whether out of professional courtesy I should offer the shots to Charles Saatchi before someone else snaps them up.
When I sober up the next day, I decide to go back and start my collection of work that shows ever slightly more potential than my own: I buy a Tracey Emin print. When I get it home however I realize that it will have to stay in a drawer, as it doesn’t really go with my framed menu.
My spell check has just advised me that I am unable to spell the word 'exhibition' without assistance, so I may after all have to take a glance at the job section to see if there is something more appropriate than ‘art baron.’
Saturday, 23 January 2010
Monday, 11 January 2010
My unfair lady
It has just occurred to me that I talk funny. I don’t have an accent when I talk in my head (and believe with the volume of conversations that go on in there, I would know.)
Having lived in London for four years I sort of assumed that I would now be mistaken for a local…the upside down smile and the fifteen additional kilos I am carrying not being enough. Yet I was taken aback on the phone today when, after announcing to the person on the other end that I was an Australian, back came ‘no shit’ as the response.
I must point out that thousands upon thousands of Australian dollars (approx £2) was wasted on elocution lessons in high school. My mother wanted to ensure that even in Australia I wouldn’t sound Australian. Had these lessons not been taught by a nun who was convinced I was the anti-Christ, I may have turned up to a few more of my Wednesday morning lessons. Believe me, after six years it becomes harder and harder to explain how it is possible for the public transport system to be thrown into turmoil at exactly the same time every Wednesday morning, or how every one of the 127 goldfish you claim to have had during high school seems to meet its maker on a Tuesday night.
I should not be that surprised that my accent can be detected; hell I can tell when the author of an email is Australian. The first clue is that words are shortened. It has always surprised me that a race of people considered to be hardworking (settling a wild island does tend to take it out of you,) are so lazy that they cannot even be bothered to finish the words coming out of their mouth. Afternoon becomes ‘arvo’ in most cases, in my case because the faster I finish talking about going to the pub in the afternoon the faster I can get on with getting there.
One morning on the tube (my beloved BMW has not coped with the cold spell and alas is not even a tasty enough model to be served up as a frozen dessert) I try and listen into the different accents around me. It is then that I realize I do not even know what a Londoner sounds like (apart from angry.) There are only a handful of people who do sound like they may be on their way to sell fruit or fish at the local market, the rest are Eastern Europeans and Americans (they may be Canadian and if so are they not just known for being almost American anyway?) Another clue that the six-figure sum spent on my education was not entirely fruitful.
So I realize that every Londoner sounds a bit foreign, it’s just a question of how foreign you are? And if it was between sounding like the call backs for Eliza Doolittle or a baddie in a James Bond flick or Danni Minogue I think I would chose the later anytime. Ideally my breasts would be more like hers as well.
Sister Sonia, if you are reading this, I must confess that the goldfish body count between 1988 and 1993 was zero. Although there really was a Mexican Walking Fish whose demise broke my heart. If it’s any conciliation my penance, it seems, is to one day, many years from now, end up sounding like I am selling them.
Having lived in London for four years I sort of assumed that I would now be mistaken for a local…the upside down smile and the fifteen additional kilos I am carrying not being enough. Yet I was taken aback on the phone today when, after announcing to the person on the other end that I was an Australian, back came ‘no shit’ as the response.
I must point out that thousands upon thousands of Australian dollars (approx £2) was wasted on elocution lessons in high school. My mother wanted to ensure that even in Australia I wouldn’t sound Australian. Had these lessons not been taught by a nun who was convinced I was the anti-Christ, I may have turned up to a few more of my Wednesday morning lessons. Believe me, after six years it becomes harder and harder to explain how it is possible for the public transport system to be thrown into turmoil at exactly the same time every Wednesday morning, or how every one of the 127 goldfish you claim to have had during high school seems to meet its maker on a Tuesday night.
I should not be that surprised that my accent can be detected; hell I can tell when the author of an email is Australian. The first clue is that words are shortened. It has always surprised me that a race of people considered to be hardworking (settling a wild island does tend to take it out of you,) are so lazy that they cannot even be bothered to finish the words coming out of their mouth. Afternoon becomes ‘arvo’ in most cases, in my case because the faster I finish talking about going to the pub in the afternoon the faster I can get on with getting there.
One morning on the tube (my beloved BMW has not coped with the cold spell and alas is not even a tasty enough model to be served up as a frozen dessert) I try and listen into the different accents around me. It is then that I realize I do not even know what a Londoner sounds like (apart from angry.) There are only a handful of people who do sound like they may be on their way to sell fruit or fish at the local market, the rest are Eastern Europeans and Americans (they may be Canadian and if so are they not just known for being almost American anyway?) Another clue that the six-figure sum spent on my education was not entirely fruitful.
So I realize that every Londoner sounds a bit foreign, it’s just a question of how foreign you are? And if it was between sounding like the call backs for Eliza Doolittle or a baddie in a James Bond flick or Danni Minogue I think I would chose the later anytime. Ideally my breasts would be more like hers as well.
Sister Sonia, if you are reading this, I must confess that the goldfish body count between 1988 and 1993 was zero. Although there really was a Mexican Walking Fish whose demise broke my heart. If it’s any conciliation my penance, it seems, is to one day, many years from now, end up sounding like I am selling them.
Saturday, 2 January 2010
Xmas miracle
Given the subject matter covered in my blog, I am always tremendously relieved that my family doesn’t read it, this post being no exception.
I know they won’t be reading it because they suffer from a severe case of technical retardation. Symptoms include a lack of desire to work out how to get online. This is common disability amongst Australians, who cannot imagine that everything they need to know is not found in their local paper. Happily what they won’t find in their local paper is this confession; I think I had my best Xmas ever in London, despite no one at the table swimming in my gene pool...for the best really, as it is rather shallow.
Now the fact that I was terribly intoxicated by 1pm obviously had nothing to do with it. Nor did the fact that with my neighbors away, I was able to dance naked to Madonna with the blinds up before I went off to lunch. I am joking of course: I dance naked to Madonna with the blinds up even when they are home.
Am I the only one who had never worked out that Xmas is far less stressful when you spend it with people you don’t know that well? No one cares what you do; because there is a very good chance you will never see each other again…that, and the fact they are just as hammered as you are. So there is no judgment when you ask for a vodka and coke at 11am, or a second vodka and coke at 11.03am.
There is also no judgment passed when whilst watching The Sound of Music you reveal to this room of strangers that you are sexually attracted to Captain Von Trapp. Admittedly after five bottles of Veuve and Moet the Captain is making everyone tingle…even the blokes.
The other bonus of Xmas with strangers is that because everyone brings a dish, you inadvertently reduce the odds of sitting down to a meal that leaves you rushing to find if there is a McDonalds open. Even if there is one dish that you would rather slip into a pot plant, the rest is pretty darn wonderful. If my host is reading this, I am sorry I really should have mentioned the incident with the pot plant sooner.
The only culinary drawback of Xmas with strangers is that you finally get confirmation that as you always suspected your mother overcooks her carrots. ‘Overcook’ being an uncharacteristically polite euphemism for ‘murders.’ The massacring of vegetation is not really such a travesty; you didn’t eat them at home, and when you are with strangers you don’t have to clean your plate. In fact on reflection if I had asked for a bucket of gravy and a snorkel instead of a knife and fork, no one would have battered an eyelid.
Even the presents are better. No one attempts to second guess what you might like, and so they just buy you something that anyone with a pulse would like; in my case a set of wine glasses. How did they know? Santa Claus never contributed to my liquor cabinet. This is how I knew he wasn’t real; anyone who really knows me would have slipped me some crystal and ideally a cocktail of lets say legal stimulants, instead of a Cabbage Patch Doll.
By the time I get home from Xmas at almost midnight I was so drunk I could barely walk, again nothing new for the neighbors. Well, except for the bit where I started undressing before I got the door open. Which I can report lead to a rather unfortunate case of frost bite, given the below freezing temperature.
So next year I am just going to wander into someone else’s house and see if they will have me, but not before I dance around naked. For old time's sake.
Here’s to the people who are no longer strangers: Amanda, Em, Jo, Peter, Tim and the two little girls who made me fall back in love with Xmas.
I know they won’t be reading it because they suffer from a severe case of technical retardation. Symptoms include a lack of desire to work out how to get online. This is common disability amongst Australians, who cannot imagine that everything they need to know is not found in their local paper. Happily what they won’t find in their local paper is this confession; I think I had my best Xmas ever in London, despite no one at the table swimming in my gene pool...for the best really, as it is rather shallow.
Now the fact that I was terribly intoxicated by 1pm obviously had nothing to do with it. Nor did the fact that with my neighbors away, I was able to dance naked to Madonna with the blinds up before I went off to lunch. I am joking of course: I dance naked to Madonna with the blinds up even when they are home.
Am I the only one who had never worked out that Xmas is far less stressful when you spend it with people you don’t know that well? No one cares what you do; because there is a very good chance you will never see each other again…that, and the fact they are just as hammered as you are. So there is no judgment when you ask for a vodka and coke at 11am, or a second vodka and coke at 11.03am.
There is also no judgment passed when whilst watching The Sound of Music you reveal to this room of strangers that you are sexually attracted to Captain Von Trapp. Admittedly after five bottles of Veuve and Moet the Captain is making everyone tingle…even the blokes.
The other bonus of Xmas with strangers is that because everyone brings a dish, you inadvertently reduce the odds of sitting down to a meal that leaves you rushing to find if there is a McDonalds open. Even if there is one dish that you would rather slip into a pot plant, the rest is pretty darn wonderful. If my host is reading this, I am sorry I really should have mentioned the incident with the pot plant sooner.
The only culinary drawback of Xmas with strangers is that you finally get confirmation that as you always suspected your mother overcooks her carrots. ‘Overcook’ being an uncharacteristically polite euphemism for ‘murders.’ The massacring of vegetation is not really such a travesty; you didn’t eat them at home, and when you are with strangers you don’t have to clean your plate. In fact on reflection if I had asked for a bucket of gravy and a snorkel instead of a knife and fork, no one would have battered an eyelid.
Even the presents are better. No one attempts to second guess what you might like, and so they just buy you something that anyone with a pulse would like; in my case a set of wine glasses. How did they know? Santa Claus never contributed to my liquor cabinet. This is how I knew he wasn’t real; anyone who really knows me would have slipped me some crystal and ideally a cocktail of lets say legal stimulants, instead of a Cabbage Patch Doll.
By the time I get home from Xmas at almost midnight I was so drunk I could barely walk, again nothing new for the neighbors. Well, except for the bit where I started undressing before I got the door open. Which I can report lead to a rather unfortunate case of frost bite, given the below freezing temperature.
So next year I am just going to wander into someone else’s house and see if they will have me, but not before I dance around naked. For old time's sake.
Here’s to the people who are no longer strangers: Amanda, Em, Jo, Peter, Tim and the two little girls who made me fall back in love with Xmas.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
