Last night, I crouched in our living room at
This is the confession of an Olympic junkie. So far, I have watched men’s and women’s gymnastics, beach volleyball, water polo, double scull rowing, badminton, weightlifting, swimming, synchronized diving – need I go on? Events I haven’t yet watched likely just haven’t happened yet. If it’s Olympic competition, I will watch it. (With one exception – I don’t enjoy watching
As if the spate of Harry Potter posting didn't tip you off, I'm going to seal the bargain: I am a nerd.
For the past few weeks, I've been watching Simon Schama's The Power of Art on PBS, which comes on a couple of hours after my mother's weekly dose of Antiques Roadshow. The Power of Art is like Behind the Music: Classical Art. Each one is about the rise to heady success, the onset of arrogance, the downfall, and the death in utter disgrace. It's kind of addictive. And I'm mildly in love with Schama, an affable British historian who possesses something of a Tim Gunn air about him. He strolls through galleries in the same open-collar white button-up and black tailored jacket in each episode and tosses out pithy, almost gossipy information about each of the artists and their masterworks. Like Bernini, a sculptor who committed adultery, only to find his brother was doing the same with the same woman, and therefore sent a servant to slash his mistress's face with a razor blade.
I'm no art critic, and, in fact, have very little real understanding of the meaning of most art. But Schama makes these artists into the rock stars of the day, celebrities mingling among the rich and powerful until they decide to make a scandalous statement with their work. It is his exploration of their work that I find so fascinating. The way he talks about it, wandering through the veriest details, it is so captivating that suddenly I can see why David's The Death of Marat is unholy and beautiful and transcendent and treason. And after he raptured about the exquisitely fine line between reverence and revelry in Bernini's The Ecstasy of St. Therese, I hope I get to see it firsthand before I die.
There are only eight episodes, and I'm sorry to say I missed three of them - Van Gogh (featuring Andy Serkis as Van Gogh!), Picasso and Caravaggio. I saw Bernini, Rembrandt and David, and still have Turner and Rothko to go. The show is an absolute culture clash in my mind: art deemed so great that it demanded reverence and an explication of it the brings in all the messy passion and rebellion and irreverence. It is art historian meets Perez Hilton. And I can't get enough.
Tagged by Pen - here we go.
1. Noticing. Everything. Contemplating the light through the windows in the apartment in the late afternoon. Considering Kudzu's regular patterns of movement from room to room and neat jumps onto the windowsills. Ways of getting from one place to the other in town, recognizing the acute knowledge of each curve and straight and landmark - I know this road. Wondering (but trying not to overly much) if this will be the last time I do this or that in Wilmywood before I move. Noticing. Everything.
2. Quiet solitude. Not that quiet is the way anyone would describe me - prone to nervous chatter as I am and filling silences with it. And generally talking too much and too loudly. But today is quiet, and I relish the quiet and hold the quiet.
3. Oakdale Cemetery. Having never been there until yesterday, I was unaware that it holds the esteem of being quite possibly the only place in Wilmywood that I might describe as "hilly." Any other season, it might be drab - naked wintry branches or fully-leaved summer trees. But in spring, it is blossoming and fragrant and serene.
4. Songs that I hear that have a confusing context. How sometimes The Killers' "Smile Like You Mean It" sounds like a song Kim and I would've listened to in the car on the way to the beach, even though it came out after we graduated. Or how The Fray's "How to Save a Life" feels impossibly like a song from college that I would've listened to on repeat going up Stretch Road and hummed to myself as I rattled around Frost Chapel.
5. Kudzu's relentlessness in waking me these days when he wants to be fed. His pawing the covers off me and wet nose on the eyelids. He drives me mad until I stumble into the kitchen and crack open a can. But then, after he's eaten and I've gone back to bed, he'll curl up against my spine in a tight circle and I feel loved.
6. My secret day off. I hedged about going home for Easter because I selfishly wanted a three-day weekend to myself. Other than my sister, sworn to secrecy, my family thinks today was just another day at the office.
I was going to say thank you for taking the giant bags of Skittles off the two-for-five-dollars sale. When I noticed the absence of the yellow sales tag, I thought for sure I'd be saved from myself. My need to taste the rainbow has recently spiraled out of control. Unfortunately, your non-sale price is only five cents more. I bought two bags anyway. Please, for the love of my pants, increase the price to something I can't justify - like $10 a bag.
Thanks ever so much.
Skittleholics Anonymous
I noticed yesterday morning that you said 6,893. And then at the end of the day, you said 6,893. When I logged in, you told me that no one - not one single person - had visited the humble little blog all day. I felt sad that no one had stopped by to see if anything was new.
This morning, I noticed that you said 6,893. And that I had comments! Comments mean that someone is reading the humble little blog. I felt happy again.
But still you say 6,893. Here's a little confession. I like to know how many visitors I have each day. And how long they stayed. And how they found the humble little blog. Sitemeter confesses on its blog that problems have been occurring with a server and that your data is not lost. And I don't like to be pushy, but if you could hurry up and get that fixed so I can continue stalking my readers, that would be great. I'm trying to be patient, but I need you.
Bloggerly,
Ash
It's happening again. It happened shortly after Heaver Things came out back in '03. And now it's happening again. I'm Ashley and I have a John Mayer addiction. I seem to only be able to listen to Continuum repeatedly, and with baby steps, have included other albums, going all the way back to the B-side Inside Wants Out. For a few weeks, possibly more, I will be disinterested in listening to anything other than John Mayer. I can remember Kim being so tired of listening to Heavier Things (until I wore her down and made her like it! Bwah hahaha!). I'm just like that little Zoloft rock. I become withdrawn and antisocial unless I'm allowed my daily dose of Mayer. Unfortunately, the closest his tour is coming in the next few months is to Atlanta (Chastain Amphitheatre, baby!) but I'll be in Saint Louis.
Oh, and check out his blog (linked to the right) if you're so inclined. It's pretty funny. T., I think you'd enjoy his recent entry about avoiding zombies. I'm trying not to be too jealous that even John Mayer has a book deal these days. That's right. Simon & Schuster. The Pioneer. Due out by Christmas. Not sure what I think about that.
But I have come to the conclusion that I'm kind of digging the longer locks - just one of those side effects of being a Mayer-holic, I guess.
