....celebrating.

G’day Possums,

Time for celebrations…. 

 

The Wombat’s No:1 daughter has arrived home after another year in France and a surprise gathering was organised for her close friends by daughter No:2 and one of the friends. Unbeknown to daughter No:2: she had been deliberately misinformed as to the correct time of No:1's arrival and was thus and duly happily surprised herself.

 

So the surprise was completed at Collingwoodworld    ta’s to  Layla for helping organise things.

  Second celebration was daughters No:1 tale that Wilde’s tomb at Pere Lachaise had not only been cleaned up but also protected from his “admirers”. I was quite appalled at its condition and the mentality behind the state of this stele when we saw it last year. 

 

I found this recent sample of the new “look” at

www.soundlandscapes.wordpress.com

The sculpture is made from Hoptonwood stone, a good architectural limestone that fairly well can absorb oils, inks and vegetation stains.   If you examine the image of the surface of the newly cleaned sculpture you will see that the “love-damage” is still apparent.

Each time this type of stone is cleaned the detail is abraded away, ultimately till nought is left.

I can more readily understand the raison d’etre of the Taliban dynamiting the ancient Buddhas in Afghanistan than I can the slow destruction of a memorial by you, of someone you allegedly like and admire.  Perhaps it’s a childishly plaintive cry in seeking identity or recognition?

 Politics 

Mr Rabbit gave his reply to the federal budget...... fizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......

He was defended by one Right Winger (“Boris” Kroger, power maker with a sweet tooth [whose "ex" btw has just been dumped from the Federal No1 place on the Senate ticket] ) as “…a Rhodes Scholar in economics..” to which a talk-back caller quipped,  “You mean roads, dontcha?” (Mr Rabbit is a keen cyclist). Jon Faine ABC.774

Same RW is also in a spat with a former colleague Peter Costello, but said Costello was “Aus’s greatest treasurer..) Uuuumm…. I know he spent like fury before every election and funded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the tune of $20 billion whilst refusing to acknowledge infrastructure, educational, medical, environment and development needs.

Allegedly a poll of business types when he first got the job suggested they thought him an idiot.

Costello’s timing (as noted in a prior post) of this latest infantile dummy spit is……. superb! Virtually wiped Mr Rabbit’s reply speech away…. Which is probably a good thing as he fired shots that were blanks.

(Another talk-back quip, “We need an Abbott and Costello in parliament!”)

Costello's seen walking from a plotting session with Kelly O Dwyer…..I want to know who was giving Bitchy lessons to whom?

Mr Rabbit says he wants Aussie kids to have better foreign language skills, whilst saying he’ll vote down a Labor budget initiative, “School Kids” bonus. Perhaps he’ll have a chat with Mr Kennett ( ex Liarbril premier, Victoria) and see where all the language teachers went after they were made redundant some 12 years ago?

Mr Rabbit also wants to abolish the mining tax  “ … will make Australia a better place to invest and let the world know that we don’t punish success”.

Hmmmmm… “….a better place to invest…”  Invest in?  or Invade? 

Hope I quoted a “typo”.

So, the world’s richest woman along with the biggest Queensland miner (6 billion-dollar-man) need tax breaks?

Mr Rabbit thinks that the Labor budget was… “…an ignoble piece of work ….. that will offend the intelligence of the Australian people”.

I rather think that the Liarbril Party is by design offensive; that their pre-selections catfights are the really ignoble things in the best of middle class, aspirational bad taste and that they seem conflicted as to their own meagre policy positions.

In the Tardis STATE of Victoria where everything goes backward, the Minister for Anti Corruption Andrew McIntosh….. looks, in a meeting, like he really shouldn’t be there ‘cause he’s really not interested and why should you be …oohhh this is boring….  But thinks the new guidelines for anti-corruption are fantastic.

Law Council and opposition  think they are Byzantine and designed to obfuscate!

He is also “unavailable” to discuss this matter with the redoubtable and attractive Josie Taylor on ABC “Victoria”.

Hello Mr Baillieu.

Poor Ms Josie T. then gets to interview the Baillieu appointed Governor of the Tardis State…….

Daughter No:1 could have opined … “at least Sarkozy had panache…” Mrs Wombat begins to snore…

so I’ll leave you Possums with these quotes from “The Age”…..

 “Mr Chernov replaces a man not afraid to speak out. Professor de Kretser used his own migrant experience to criticise the Howard government's citizenship test, and passionately warned of the consequences of climate change”.

 “But it is clear Mr Chernov will not be an activist. Asked if there were issues he would pursue, Mr Chernov said: ''I'll leave those things to the Premier. He decides the issues.''

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/our-new-governor-was-quite-the-wag-in-his-day-20110221-1b2hh.html#ixzz1uYRHeC7e

And because we're talking of dead things….. another  image from Pere Lachaise......

 and one from the beautiful Cistercian Abbey of Fontenay

cheers Petals,

Shane.

...with the Hordes to the Louvre

Making art is generally a solitary affair requiring concentration, application and time in order that conceptual and material matters coalesce into a coherent expression that satisfies the maker enough to put the results to public view.

 

It’s a serious business….. and Petals, I’m not wanly placing back-of-hand-to-forehead and sighing… emo-like… about the high nature of the creative act but thinking rather of Fragonards’ little bravura portrait in the Louvre.  A portrait of a priest in Pierrot costume about to attend a Ball: painted wet in wet, in an hour,  it is a hugely fun, frothy, lighthearted and ultimately very serious work of art.

Jean Honore Fragonard  Louvre

It deserves to be looked at because of its brilliant handling, the surety of its drawing, its composition and its sheer good humour. 

As do the Chardin’s in the same room.  

Chardin, Louvre

Quietly sober works of meticulously recorded thought that have influenced the likes of Corot and later Picasso, that pack into their modest proportions huge concepts and sensibility.

Watteau was a beautiful revelation, too...a very melancholy aura like a strange mysticism in his works and that drapery... stunningly painted. And the portrait of "Gilles" is rivetting in a way and depth of feeling I wasn't prepared for it engages you like a real event and... it is so, so sad

Watteau, Louvre

Fortunately, these works are not on the audio guide tour 

as is poor old Vermeer’s tiny “Lace-maker”. 

You are allowed time to consider them, make decisions and learn as the mass of tourists hurriedly pace past in search of ……in search of…in search of what?
Part of researching the visit to France was to discover that the D’Orsay Museum had banned photography within its walls and I read some well written diatribes against this negation of “rights” and thought;  ”Bugger, there goes an opportunity”. Until  Mrs Wombat and I visited the Louvre.  When you observe a tourist “flash” his point and shoot a metre from Ingres’ “Odalisque” you have to wonder at his suitability to be allowed in front of any artwork. To see people do this immediately they face a painting and in 15 seconds  move on to the next piece to repeat the exercise beggars belief. Or to see some-one stand in front of an artwork, listening to the audio, whilst reading the text or looking at everything but the bloody artwork!  And yep, you're correct, the lady with the red hair is photographing herself in front of a Vermeer with her mobile.

The Louvre should be next to ban cameras.

Perhaps there should be additional questions in visa applications. 

“When did you last visit your home town gallery?”

“What works held your attention for more than 10 seconds?”

“What does NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY mean?”

“Do you understand that the intensity of repeatedflash photography will eventually fade the colours of an artwork?”

“Do you really care? “Wouldn’t you really be happier back at home shooting (killing) what’s left of your native wildlife?”

I had never really believed the stereotype of “the tourist”… I do now.

The woman maniacally running around Notre Dame “flashing” every polychromed C15th sculpture she could; all glazed eyed and furrowed brow (like the White-Rabbit…. “I’m late, I’m late for a very important date….”)  some-one dislocated in place and time. A look seen on lots of faces: we’re here because we’re here, because we’re here and I’m not sure where I am or why.  And you just have to applaud the choir, don’t you? 

Notre Dame, Paris

(It’s not really a religious service…… is it?) 

It may have been her cousins outside, securing a photo-op with a very polite and compliant maker and vendor of Parisian water-colour scenes…(they didn’t buy one)....

“Oooh thank you soooo much … we only have one day in Paris.” (He was very gracious… )

One day in Paris?  Good grief, you wouldn’t see much of Ballarat in a day!

 

And yes, Madam, that C16th chair was placed there just for you when you got tired of traipsing through Chennonceaux. 

And certainly Madam, steady yourself against that bit of Renaissance furniture for your photo-op ….....and of course you can pick at the flower arrangements to see if they’re real! 

No probs!

I’m not at all sure Oscar Wilde would be appreciative of or agree with the attention his tomb receives from those who think they are latter day kindred kinky spirits… or would the sculptor, Jacob Epstein (for me, a unexpectedly and surprisingly moving piece) be happy to see his work obliterated in so Vandal a manner? Loved to death by tasteless children!

 Pere Lachaise is a wonderful, fascinating place and I had to laugh when photographing  a sculpture to hear a voice loudly exclaim “Oohh… woow, is he imporrrrtaaant?” and push in front of me to take a shot before scurrying off to “capture” another historically significant person.  It was the same principle as standing on a city corner looking up. Others will follow.

It occurred to me there when reading as best I could, the testament of some woman on her tomb that facebook and twitter are our present-day cemetary’s of thoughts.

It seems too, that when travelling to the fashion capital of the world and one of Europe’s most elegant cities you must dress as badly as possible.

I thought I was leaving the Bogans behind.

People-watching is fun, but tourist watching can really makes you feel quite ill. 

Well dressed tourists at Chennonceaux

 
So I’ll drop-kick the malady your way with a few more choice tourist antics in the next episode.






Here we are on a canal near the Loire

 And here in Paris

And the "important " character in question in Pere Lachaise.
Actually, Z.T.Gramme, developer of the dynamo....














Cheers petals.