Assaults on the Senses in Seville

As well Paris, we spent some months in Spain in 2003: Madrid mostly but also Granada, Seville, and Cordoba. This journey as much as anything seemed an attack on all the senses: visual, olfactory, auditory, taste and tactile. Let me explain.

Seville was for Semana Santa, the week leading up to Easter Sunday in which religious icons are solemnly and ominously processed about the streets of the barrios (suburbs) where they usually live. Before they journey to and squeeze into the La Giralda Cathedral. This main church of Seville stands on the site of the Grand Almohad Mosque, with Moorish influences being strong- past and present - all across the southern part of the country.



Much of Semana Santa we experienced from the balcony off our hotel room:


But we were inexorably lead into the streets to better be part of the spectacle:




During these processions, the olfactory and auditory senses are assaulted. The scent of burning candles and incense, The sound of solemn march music. And the roar of clapping and cheering, when the heavy icon floats, cunningly secreted with big strong men, were perilously and tembulously (new word) lifted to shoulder height, accompanied by dramatic drum-rolls. It now occurs to me that this exemplifies the Catholic notion of reaching spiritual experience through exciting the physical senses rather than by conscious introspection.




The Spooks or nazarenos with each icon wear pointed or cone shaped hoods, symbolizing repentance and grief. The color (black, purple, and so on) indicates the Order of Spook.


And this is all on into the night:





All over the city, there are monasteries of the various religious orders, which again assault the senses - visual, auditory and olfactory. This time through highly ordered, manicured and fountained pleasure gardens:




Food of course is the ultimate sensory experience, at least for me. And for the Spanish, as window displays only hint at ...




... with the major Iberian obsession being cured ham, sold tellingly in 'ham museums' or 'museo del jamon':


One visceral experience I was not so sure about was bull-fighting:




But perhaps our most profound sensory experience was on the bus back to Madrid. This super cutie sat beside us, pleasantly and disconcertingly distracting us from the passing countryside.



I only realized recently that he was giving himself a tactile experience in the second photo! Which now gives me a very nice visual experience. Or is it a hot sensual experience? Whatever!

They are watching you from space!

I don't wanna fuel anyone's already over-active paranoia about conspiracy theories, but I was playing with Google Earth Plus today and found the updated version now offers photographs like this one showing individual people. And it's from space!


And this is only the free 'el cheapo' version of the software. Just imagine what you'll get if dollars are involved. Or if you are a government agency with mega bucks to spend. A clarity that'd let you count the freckles on a face. In real time and with movement. This is not the future guys - this must be now. Privacy is a myth that we don't realize is as extinct as the dinosaurs. I guess 2007 is after '1984'!

The Perfect Paris Holiday Souvenir

2003. And we'd been living in Paris in the Le Marais (equivalent of Sydney's gay Paddo-Surry Hills area) at 17 rue du Bourg de Tibourg for a few months ...



... in absolutely the world's smallest oak beamed C17 studio flat:


... with it's very own and perfect 'La Boheme' (bohemian) outlook ...


... feasting on the local produce ...


... and decorating with the local flora ...


Our gay local was L'Open Cafe, where you'd bump into persons such as Jean-Paul Gautier (big deal!):


I'd staked out my favorite Picasso work at La musee national Picasso de Paris:


And had been looking for something major-ish to bring home to remember the major time we'd had. But we'd found nothing. Well, an C18 Miao solid silver bracelet (Southern China near the Loas border) pictured centre desk:


The piece had been part of the world-famous collection of tribal jewelery put together by Colette and Jean-Pierre Ghysels. It was illustrated on p.251 in 'A World of Bracelets' by Anne van Cutsem, one of three vast coffee table books documenting the collection before it was broken up on the death of the owners.

Then, on the second to last day, we were walking past the showroom ('Two Be') of a couple of hot Milanese gay guys and saw THE lamp, a Fil de Fer by Catellani and Smith, Milan. The original had been commissioned by Museo della Cartografia, Rome as an enormous ethereal chandelier globe of steel wire and tiny halogen lights to symbolize the universe. And now you could buy the lamp in various sizes - from bedside table top to ginormous.

We had to have it NOW, rather than sent. And so had it packed and bullied it through Customs and into 'Left Luggages' in countries round the world till we eventually had it back in Sydney:

I particularly love the shadows it throws on the walls when lit.

It's now one of my favorite things. And I spend copious amounts of time, usually late at night, staring into its depths. Letting my mind wander round its universe.

Gary Larsen Reprise

A couple more great (even classic) Gary Larsen 'Far Sides':




The first is my fav of this little batch. So fabulously quirky and off-beat.

Update: With my trusty 'Paint' program, I've taken the 'Inconvenience Store' back to its original (Gary Larsen) form. Wish I could do the same for the reproduction from 'Google Images' where I found it. For the story of how this nasty bit of racism unfolded, see 'Comments' for this post. Thanks to Anonymous and Paul for their input on this too.

'The moment I wake up, before I put on my make-up, ... '

'Oiran' from the series 'Five Shades of Ink from the North Country' 1795

Ukiyo-e woodblock prints ('pictures of the floating world') developed in the metropolitan culture of the Edo (Tokyo) period, mainly the C18 and C19, and often represented a world outside conventional society. Of the geisha and the courtesans, actors and beauties, teahouses and the theatre, restaurants and brothels. The Japanese equivalent of the C19 French 'demi-mode'.

One of the great masters of this woodblock printing was Utamaro (1753-1806):

'Two Geisha's' 1803

'Courtesan with a Fan' 1798


'Passionate Love'

'The Music Lesson' 1804

'Too Much Sake' 1801

These prints also pictured nature and the landscape as in the work of Hokusai (1760-1849) and Hiroshige (1797-1858):

'The Wave' Hokusai

'Irises' Hiroshige

Even given that these 'pictures of the floating world' may show the life the half world of geisha, courtesans and the like, they depict it with an easy intimacy that surprises Westerners. Particularly in scenes of daily life involving nudity or sexual activity:

'Teppô' from the series 'Five Shades of Ink from the North Country' 1795

'Courtesan in Deshabille' from the series 'Ten Feminine Facial Types' 1790?

'Mother with her baby boy looking into a mirror' 1798

'Nap Time' 1802

Not that such representations could not be also erotically-charged:

Suzuki Harunobu 'Lovers' 1760s

Japanese prints reached Europe in the C19, often as the wrappings for porcelain objects. Their influence on European painting - both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism - was immense. Tons has been written, with the usual litany of illustrating works by Degas and so on. But one of the loveliest paintings falling under this influence is Le Coiffure by Mary Cassatt (1883):

'Le Coiffure' (1883) Mary Cassatt

While not holding a seminal place in art history, this canvass shows many characteristics of this artistic cross-fertilization.

It is an intimate scene of everyday domestic life. There are similar European traditions, such as the Dutch interiors of de Hooch and Vermeer, of kitchens and dining rooms and the like. But now we have something far more intimate ... a woman in her boudoir fixing her hair after bathing. Nudity of course had been depicted in Western art but had been reserved for specific genres, such as historical scenes, like 'Greeks fighting Other Persons' by Someone-or-other. Rather than at home where is would be seen as pornographic.

There is a flattening towards two dimensions. The body of the woman is not modeled into the round. So that, as well as representing the human figure, it is a pink form functioning as a formal element in the composition of lines, shapes and colors. Though perspective is somewhat suggested by the lines of her mirror rising towards a central vanishing point somewhere to the back left.

Forms are outlined in black, giving the feeling of the work being woodblock printed rather than painted. So that, if the painting were turned upside down, it would dissolve into a abstract composition.

And unlike a 'good' painting or photograph, represented things are cut off, like the woman's left arm in the mirror. A parallel arm amputation can be seen above in Utamaro's 'Mother with her baby boy looking into a mirror' (1798).

One curious and final point. I actually prefer the faded almost monochromatic Japanese prints to the better preserved more full color ones. And this seems akin to liking Greek and Roman sculpture as we usually have it rather than in the original painted form:

Head of 'The Peplos Kore' (Male Body) c530 BC, Acropolis Museum, Athens

'The Peplos Kore' (Male Body) c530 BC, Acropolis Museum, Athens

'The Peplos Kore' (Male Body) c530 BC, Acropolis Museum, Athens (Painted)

Scary stuff! Reckon I'd walk on by if it were for sale in Khan El Khalili, the great souk in Cairo:

Actually, I remember meeting this hot Arab guy in the souk ... . But this is a whole other post. So 'To Be Continued'!

Voted Best Joke of the Year ('Rove Live', Sydney TV) 2006

A very loud, unattractive, overweight, hard-faced woman walks into Harrods, London with her two equally vile & unattractive kids in tow, screaming obscenities at them all the way through the entrance. The doorman says, "Good morning Madam and welcome to Harrods. Nice children you've got there. Are they twins?" The fat ugly woman stops screaming long enough to snarl "Of course they bloody well aren't! The oldest is nine and the youngest is seven. Why the hell would you think they're twins? Do you really think they look alike, you dick head?". "Absolutely not" replies the doorman, "I just can't believe that anyone would root you twice!"