A flying visit to York from Leeds. I more or less remembered how to get to the Minster, and I noted that even at 9.05 a.m. there was a queue outside Betty’s. On the way back I stopped to photograph a charming shop window.
In other news, snowdrops are flowering in the front garden.
I am trying to make sense of a recent New Scientist article on theories of consciousness as I watch The Great Philosophers, a 1980s BBC series presented by Bryan Magee. In each episode Magee (excellent) interviews a contemporary philosopher about a past philosopher. It’s very basic: two very clever people sitting awkwardly on a sofa talking to each other for 45 minutes. Just that. Frequently – not always – their conversation is so interesting and diverting that I daren’t even blow my nose for fear of losing the thread. The table in front of them is an occasional third: there to be used as an example of an object which is either materially real or something perceived through mental structures and perhaps not a thing-in-itself.
I hadn’t thought much about philosophy since an evening class in my early 20s (the era from which my musty paperback copy of “The History of Western Philosophy” dates) so it’s a long time since I stubbed my toes on the impenetrability of some of the arguments. Shall I ever get my head round the difference between idealism and phenomenology? I can see that I’m going to try it all over again now!
I went to see the “Turner: Always Contemporary” exhibition at the Walker, which was very good. Liverpool’s Turners have been brought together and exhibited with later 19th century and modern artists. The modern art link was a bit hit and miss; I smiled as the gallery attendant regularly asked people to stay outside the floor-taped cordon sanitaire around Damien Hirst’s formaldehyde-encased “Two Similar Swimming Forms in Endless Motion” as if she were part of some performance art. What was more interesting was comparing Turner to water scenes by Monet, Courbet and Ethel Walker. Their pictures seemed so lifeless and stilted beside Turner; somehow the mistiness of his work kept the images in motion as they came in and out of focus. I don’t think it was just a matter of fewer straight lines.
Serendipity: amongst the non-Turner paintings was one of Dordrecht, which reminded me of waterbus journeys to Rotterdam. (Turner learned from older paintings.) You could follow his move from representational landscapes (albeit ones where features were re-arranged for greater artistic impact), through his “mass” prints in the Liber Studiorum (some of which I saw in Manchester) to his later quasi-abstract paintings. J Atkinson Grimshaw also secured a spot with his paintings of Liverpool’s Custom House on the front; they are indeed wonderful, and you can see the build-up of paint in the foreground like mud on the cobbles.
Then I wandered around the rest of the Walker, venturing into galleries I barely recall visiting before. Elizabeth I by Hilliard, comparisons of Flemish and Italian Madonnas, a Rembrandt, wall after wonderful wall of 18th-century ladies and gentlemen that I didn’t have the headspace to look at individually, a Nocturne by Marchand, a view of Berne by a follower of Turner (I wonder why he didn’t make the exhibition?), and a horse painting that looked like one I had seen before.
Other things before I forget: a 1783 ceramic dish with a painting of a slaving ship, “Success to the Will”, was referenced in a modern work, “English Family China”, from 1998. They are cast from real skulls (never have the words “bone china” sounded so sinister) and implicitly comment on the link between wealth and horror. There was a painting by Joseph Wright of Derby, which, unsurprisingly, made neither the National Gallery nor this exhibition. I gazed at a lovely 15th-century Book of Hours and clocked another Beuckelaer. He must have churned them out.
The Christmas market was set up in the square outside and I contemplated a ride on the big wheel – but it was raining steadily and there was no inviting movement from the wheel, so I headed off for lunch instead.
Then the Museum of Liverpool for an exhibition on treasure unearthed in Wales and the north west of England. (A magnifying glass would have been useful.) Some of it was indeed treasure – gold or silver – but some had little value even at the time. The third-century Agden Hoard, for example – c 2,500 Roman copper alloy coins (“radiates”) from a time when galloping inflation made them almost worthless. There was also the golden Mold cape, which I have seen at the British Museum.
The sky was brighter as I left, but the big wheel was still static so I caught my train instead.
The first sentence establishes the rather repellent qualities of the protagonist, Michael Beard. So repellent that it’s hard to remember how clever he is (Nobel prize) and to believe that he attracts so many pleasant women. It’s been a long time since I last read a novel by a man about a man’s life; suddenly I was back in a Y-chromosome world made familiar by Saul Bellow (Herzog, maybe), Martin Amis and early William Boyd. I also remembered radio science programmes some years ago that mentioned the scheme of sending scientists and artists to the Arctic/Antarctic so that they could work together in some way to capture the public’s imagination about global warming. Apparently McEwan went on one such trip; this is his novel about global warming.
It’s about (a flawed plan for) solar energy for a planet that can’t wean itself off over-consumption of energy. And, in parallel, a man who, despite his initial resolution, just can’t reform his diet, his lifestyle and his womanising to live a healthier life. It’s clever, satirical, funny, well-researched and, perhaps, a bit too long.
Is this the third ballet I’ve been to in my life? (Giselle and Romeo and Juliet are the others. Plus something on stage in a school.)
This was absolutely wonderful. Everything was a delight: dancing, costumes, scenery, set transformations. The storyline is flaky, particularly after the interval – but who cares when it is so entertaining? It’s a pantomime for grown-ups.
I noticed that the average audience age was a lot lower than for an opera. Not surprising really since it’s a magical crowd-pleaser for everyone. In the foyer I found myself in a copse of incredibly slender and upright girls; I later learned that Elmhurst Ballet School had come out en masse to see it.
One of those whims you’re not sure is worthwhile. But it always is. I booked the ballet on impulse and then I came across a big wheel – which I had all to myself. Vindicated already! I then went half-heartedly to the Ikon Gallery (I still go blank in front of contemporary art) but the café was closed and the advertised mini-tour wasn’t happening; a nice lunch beside the canal seemed a better idea. However, had I not tried to go to the Ikon Gallery I wouldn’t have seen Birmingham’s Second Church of Christ Scientist (where’s the First, I wonder) nearby. Now a nightclub. My kind of mental catnip.
The Birmingham Christmas market does have some link with Germany so I was pleased to find some Nürnberger Lebkuchen. (I’m sure I can get some in Sainsbury’s, but it’s not the same.) The slowly re-opening art gallery and the Staffordshire hoard (this time with a magnifying glass) next. And I was upgraded to a suite on the tenth floor. Better and better.
I heard quite a bit of spoken German in the street; combined with the number of jovial blokes in scarves, I realised I should have checked the football fixtures. Yes: Villa v a Swiss club this evening. One other thing I noted was the glumness of the three people engaged in outdoor Christmas events whom I encountered. Note to self that it’s easier to make the best of things when they are stacked in your favour.
Director Federico Fellini with Giulietta Masina
This is more or less the plot of Sweet Charity, only less sugar-coated. Cabiria is a streetwalker in Rome whose hopefulness breaks the bounds of her circumstances. The film opens with her lover stealing her handbag . . . and ends with her new lover, who has promised her the happy-ever-after marriage she longs for, doing the same. But this time her handbag contains her life-savings. The final scene is her walking disconsolately, caught up in a group of high-spirited youngsters. Even while a tear trickles down her cheek, she begins to smile again.
Themes were familiar from other Fellini films. It embraces people living in caves and the film star in his swanky apartment – mixing La Strada with La Dolce Vita. The ending itself is out of 8½, as the central character is caught up in a kind of dance. Masina makes the role her own: her expressive dance and body are Chaplinesque.
Old Shoe Box 