For class, we had to use the mythical past of London for a creative writing piece, namely a detective story. We were promised a non-monetary prize for the best story written.
Hannah and I wrote our story together, harnessing our individual talents, to create a masterpiece entitled, "The Agony of Solitude," (seems a good soap opera name). Ms. Susan Rowland awarded us first prize and we received "a selection of 35 irresistable luxury milk, dark & white chocolate biscuits," according to the Marks and Spencer's box. They are quite delicious!
Free Entertainment:
Started at the Tate Modern for a class excursion. (I love that almost all museums here are free).
I'm not all that big on modern art. I find little talent in taking a plain white canvas and painting a perfectly circular red dot in the middle and calling it a finished work of art. If that is art, give me a paint brush. I'll churn those things out.
I know I'm supposed to recognize that perhaps the "post-modern" artists are trying to challenge the way we look at art, and maybe they are trying to challenge the perception that all art must have an inner meaning. But it seems an oxymoron to me that art should have no meaning. Meaningless to me means it is likely a piece of rubbish for the bin (throwing in the Brit English slang). But anyway, off my soapbox. Was there anything I did in fact enjoy?
Two things, actually.
#1 - Rodin's "The Kiss" scuplture. For some reason, it is one of my favorite works of art. Rodin himself was kind of a strange man, but I can appreciate this piece. I picked up a little knick knack reproduction of this sculpture when travling in Italy with my mom... so to see it in person for the first time was pretty cool.
#2 - A work by Miroslaw Balka, a Polish artist. It is a suspension piece hanging from the ceiling made entirely from soap.
I know, I know... I just ranted that I didn't understand the meaningless red dot on a canvas and now I am saying I really enjoyed looking at 100 pieces of soap hanging like a string of pearls from the ceiling. But it was intriguing. There were so many different colors of soap and they were all worn down to various levels. Some were almost new, some were super thin and brittle. It was almost like he went to visit friends houses, and when he used their bathroom, he'd slyly remove the soap from the shower. (How else would he get all that different soap). It seemed like it took some time and some creative thinking... and it just looked pretty cool.
Walking back to the tube station, Hannah and I ran into several pretty intriguing opportunities for entertainment. First, a juggling show outside the National Theater. These first guys just kept getting more and more and more balls and juggled them as a team. But it wasn't just juggling - it was hitting them off each other, spewing them out in really interesting ways that made them look like shooting fireworks. I tried to get some clips of them, so check it out (and excuse the small child running through the shot). The girl who followed them did a tango/juggling routine.
We then ran into a crowd of people peering intently down at the Thames riverbank where this musician who apparently constructed this sand living room setting to play for us. Very guerilla PR style... cause a scene to draw attention to yourself, make people notice you. He wasn't bad. Always something interesting going on in London.
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