Culture culture and more culture

April 2

Well…the big news here of course is the G20 and protestors. While I do love to check everything out, I passed on the action down in the banking center yesterday. I figure Obama needs as much support as he can get if he’s going to fulfill any of his campaign promises.

You can feel the buzz of excitement here over the whole thing and plenty of news to incite yet larger demonstrations. We’ll see what today brings…

Unfortunately, the American School kids did not get to see the Prez, who apparently mentioned dropping in for a walk-through prior to his evening event there on Tuesday. (A group of ASL kids did get to see Clinton several years ago when he came through; they were bussed down to Hyde Park for meet/greet/photos.)

We saw plenty of snipers setting up on the roof and no doubt we were all being watched like hawks as we left the high school performance of Grease Tuesday afternoon. (Kids did a great job, Claire thoroughly enjoyed it, Ava thought the music was great but that it was 20 minutes too long. At least that’s what I inferred from the “when is it going to be OVER?” stage whispers.)

Tuesday was a big day for me – I spent some time at the National Portrait Gallery, where a Richter exhibit is on display. (That would be Gerhard Richter, one of world’s greatest living artists. Yes, well I found that online.)

Anyway, I very much enjoyed the exhibit – not terribly large, it came with a written guide to each photo – great way to understand the works better. Essentially, per Richter “A portrait must not express anything of the sitter's 'soul', essence or character.” Thus many of his works are deliberately “veiled” or appear to have a veneer over the subject matter, leaving a sense of mystery, of surface that is skimmed over rather than delved into.

Very cool, very good reminder that rarely is anything as it seems.

After wandering through Richter’s exhibition, I tuned into an exhibit of John Constable’s portraits (with a few landscapes thrown in). He is “celebrated as one of England’s greatest landscape artists but he also excelled in capturing likenesses and personalities.”

Paintings of Constable, drawings of friends and family, his wife and children and areas around his home were on display, as were wealthy families, clergymen and landed gentry (great terminology, landed gentry).

From the Portrait Gallery I headed to lunch at an incredible little deli that called to me en route to the paintings: Gaby’s. It was the food in the windows that was bellowing: a whole bunch of delicious looking side dishes, with a big sign for salted beef.

I bypassed the takeout counter and took a table; on the wall were all kinds of newspaper articles applauding the food, a picture of Matt Damon with the chef (that sold me, I’m sure my husband will say). I had the falafel but the owner gave me a slice of salted beef on the way out, told me it was better than America’s corned beef (salted beef/corned beef = same thing). Now I need to go back and tell him my mom makes a mean corned beef and cabbage. Plus I need to go back and have one of those salted beef sandwiches – the falafel was the best I’d ever had and that sample of salted beef was wicked good.

My high culture day – from portraits to Grease – continued with the ballet. I met up w/ a group of ladies from the international club at ASL for Swan Lake Tuesday evening. Great production, great theatre. I know very little about ballet, but Swan Lake was beautiful – a poignant love story with music that alone could carry one away. The ballerinas really did look like swans, so graceful and elegant. Apparently it was first performed in Russia in the 1800’s, circulating regularly today. Endings to the production vary; in this case the two lovers, unable to be together, commit suicide and are shown rising together to heaven in apotheosis.

One of the women in our group takes ballet twice a week, so it was interesting to hear her reactions, plus how cool is that to continue with ballet as a parent and adult. So often it seems we chauffeur our kids to activities and watch; it’s refreshing for them and us to change it up a bit.

Speaking of, yesterday I took my kids to school, then went to school myself. (Up to this point Ava’s been saying “Claire goes to school, I go to school, Dad goes to work, Mom goes home and does nothing.” Either that or she thinks I should grocery shop. Exciting stuff.)

My first day of class, “Ancient Britain,” kicked off yesterday – great group, mostly women, sharp and interesting. We discussed the first half of a very dry book (also called Ancient Britain) which contains very interesting information – descendents of 7 daughters of Eve, Britain as its own culture thousands of years BC, as opposed to a group that learned it all from the Romans, Celts, etc.

We’ll head to Stonehenge and a variety of other archeological sites as we get further into the material.

I did also watch a documentary on said material last night, great pictures of some of the sights where many artifacts and structures have been found. Not terribly exciting primetime viewing, per my husband’s reaction. He vacated the couch.

Today I got my first London hair cut – took a shot in the dark with a 29 pound offer for a 90 pound hair cut. Sounded like a great deal to me. After I’d booked I did think, gee what am I getting myself into flying blind w/ a hairdresser. (Reality is, the hair is already pretty short, what’s the worst he could do?) Plus it’s hair. Grows fast and is quite expendable.

I’m quite pleased with the result, I feel somewhat hip and young again – nothing too spiky or out there (but give me some time here and I may come home w/ it half shaved, complemented by a couple of groovy tattoos and some more piercings).