Reading etc.

Well, last week saw the arrival of M who has spent the past couple of years working in Gaza. I haven’t seen much of him recently as it’s a long way from Gaza to Brussels and I was reluctant to visit him as I felt I owed it to my baby daughter to have her mother survive her infancy. So there was much rejoicing on his arrival in the capital of Europe.

M is always taking me to operas. He loves opera. Despite my best efforts, I do not love opera. I can’t help it, I try and I try but as far as I’m concerned, a day without opera is just fine. So we went to Aida, described by M as “fabulous Aida that everybody loves”. Not everybody, oh it was alright I suppose. But Aida and Ramades were very fat and as they stood at the front of the stage clutching each other’s chubby little hands, I was irresistibly reminded of the teletubbies.  And then Aida is so feeble. Ramades is sentenced to death (which is entirely her fault) and walled up in a tomb.  Guess who’s secreted herself in the tomb so that they can die together (I’m sorry, if I’m ruining the punchline for you).  Surely, the least she could have done was hidden outside and tried to get him out. Opera. Pshaw.

A trip to Ghent for the day was much more to my taste.  We spent quite a while looking at art and were able to entertain ourselves and nauseate passers-by with conversations along the following lines:

Me: Of course, I love the Flemish Primitives…

M: I think you’ll find that’s early Netherlandish

Me: Sorry, I’m so used to thinking in French.

M: Yes, well, look at the jewel like intensity of those colours.

Me: Yes, I feel that this is the peak of achievement of the Netherlandish school.  Those imports from Italy often don’t work.

M: Are you talking about the Caravaggisti?

Me: Well, no, they’re fine, I’m really thinking about Northern Mannerism.

M: Of course, the Northern baroque, one thinks of Rubens…

And so on. No truly.  We can’t help ourselves.  We’re made for each other. It was fabulous to see him.

So, do you want to vote?  Not from the US, not a problem.  Vote here.
And in other US election tat, I found this, which I really rather like.

I just finished Graham Norton’s autobiography and although it is not the kind of thing I would have bought myself, I really enjoyed it, even though I think his programme on the telly is kind of useless. Of course, he is from Cork and it was interesting to get the inside track on what it’s really like inside Bandon Grammar.  All we knew was that they were protestants and ferociously good at hockey.  I remember one girl who was expelled for giving cheek to the nuns went off there and I met her again in college and she had become a very talented hockey player in the meanwhile.  I think I can safely say her skills would not have prospered in the same way had the following exchange not taken place:

Nun with clipboard noting the names of latecomers (always including me but I was very humble about it):  You’re late.

Me: Sorry, sorry, sister, it won’t happen again (craven lie), I slept out, the alarm didn’t go off, my parents were away, the cat ate my bike, I’m an abandoned child, please, please forgive me.

Girl who was subsequently expelled: Well, ten out of ten for observation, sister.

Anyway, I digress.  I liked the Cork bits but I’m not sure that they would be so appealing to outsiders, but who knows.  All the stuff before he was famous was quite good but once he becomes famous, it’s a bit of a tedious list of the great and the good.  The good news is it takes him a long time to become famous.  There is one good bit from when he’s famous.   For reasons, I won’t bore you with, he ends up having lunch at Sharon Stone’s house with his mother who is an entirely authentic Irish mammy. And she tells Sharon Stone that her (Ms. Stone’s) child’s name which she (Ms. Stone) believes to be Irish isn’t an Irish name at all and only a made up one.   Mr. Norton was mortified.  But you have to admire the Irish mother, a reliable product all round.

Yesterday, the Princess and I went off to the Wiertz Museum.  I regret deeply that I have never done this before.  The place is fantastic.  Mr. Wiertz was a romantic artist, a very romantic artist.  His work reminds me a bit of Blake but on a monumental scale.  Housed in this museum are some of the largest canvases I have ever seen in my life.  The Princess and I wandered around saying “wow” and cackling. Cackling because to modern sensibilities Mr. Wiertz’s creations are hilarious and over the top.  Well, that was why I was cackling. I think that the Princess was cackling because we were the only visitors and she could roll around the wooden floors and run about like a headless chicken.

Let me give you a little taste of how weird Mr. Wiertz was, this from the official guide in the Museum:

“Wiertz died in his museum.  His remains were embalmed in accordance with Ancient Egyptian burial rites.  It was his wish to be buried in his garden, but this was refused him…[h]is heart was embalmed separately, and placed in a leaden box, which was handed over to ….his native town of Dinant…”

The rough guide has this to say :

“[the museum] is devoted to the works of one of the city’s most distinctive, if disagreeable, nineteenth century artists.  Once immensely popular (so much so that in Tess of the d’Urbervilles Thomas Hardy could write of “the staring and ghastly attitudes of a Wiertz museum”)…”

And here are some of his pictures’ titles:

“The thoughts and visions of a severed head”

“Premature Burial”

You can check out these pictures (and more!) at this useful site.  Well, useful, if you’re looking for Wiertz pictures.

Frankly, no trip to Brussels is complete without a visit.  Also it is free. And adjacent to the European Parliament (ok, that’s not much of a draw, I grant you).

This from the LRB review of the Republican convention:

‘The Muslims just hate us for our love of freedom,’ said a woman from Iowa wearing a cloth elephant on her head. ‘They don’t have any culture and they hate us for having a great one. And they hate the Bible.’

‘Really?’ I said. ‘The Iraqis had a culture for thousands of years before Jesus was born.’

‘What you saying?’

‘I’m saying Muslims were building temples when New York was a swamp.’

‘You support the Iraqis?’

‘No.’

‘You support the killing of innocent people going to work? People who have to jump out of windows?’

‘You aren’t listening to me.’

‘No, buddy. You ain’t listening. These people you support are trying to kill our children in their beds. Where you from anyway, the New York Times?’

Also an entertaining link to campaign ads. Fascinating stuff…