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exhilarationLet's start with the Wasp and the Unicorn:
1. Love, so love all on the costuming. I love period episodes.
2. Ok so Donna said something along the lines of "all the good men are gay" and then the Doctor said "all Timelords" or "or Timelords." So... that means what, exactly?
3. So are we deliberately playing "reference other eps" this season? Is it all going to add up to something in the finale, perhaps, kind of like the bad wolf references? Charles Dickens and the ghosts at Christmas, obviously, but then there's also the "hey, flyboy" comment Donna made.
4. The bit about how the wasp let Agatha go at the very end seemed incredibly tacked on. Sloppy writing! I would have been fine with it just drowning, honestly. We didn't need to wonder for a second if Agatha would be okay.
5. The Unicorn was hot. I'd slash her with Martha. And, I want her hairdo.
Other than watching Doctor Who, today I got my shift covered at the last minute and decided I was going to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit before it ended.
I've been wanting to see it for a while but getting all the way to Philly is such a pain in the ass especially with working around my new very busy schedule. I mentioned it to a few people but no one I'm around seems to be very into art in the first place, let alone interested in going to Philly with me. So I sucked it up, called me a cab to AC, and got on the bus.
Oh, god, the freakin' bus. I hate the AC bus. But it is quite a bit cheaper than taking the train. It's just always full of people coming back from the casinos and they're all in shitty moods and stuff. And of course the museum was mobbed, because it was the last day, and of course, of course like six different people cut in front of me in line, because "oh they already had tickets so they can just go ahead." Well you know what? So the fuck did I. That's why we were all in the same line, assholes. This is part of why I hate going places by myself - I never get dicked around like this if someone else is with me. I guess it doesn't really matter, I mean, even if it was ten people who cut in front of me, really, it's not like I had to wait hours longer in the line, it's not like it was this big huge deal or anything. It just pisses me off when people decide they're so goddamned entitled to everything they set eyes on. I got in the door before you. I got in line before you. You don't get to just step in front of me like that because "you already have tickets." I got mine ahead of time too.
Whew. I hate being pissed off like that, too. So I'll just put that aside for now and I'll continue on to the exhibit.
Well no wait, I'll just also say that it was really, really crowded in the exhibit, you know, since it was the last day, and people were pretty awful to me, always standing in front of me and pretending they didn't hear my "excuse me" because they had the audio sets on and walking into me and leaning into me and slowly but persistently pushing right past me - hi, my name is Lara and I am obviously a piece of furniture. I was really nervous and jumpy the whole time I was in there because I was afraid someone was going to do something totally thoughtlessly that would end up with me flat on my face and them with no idea they even caused it. Is someone gonna bump into me wrong? Am I going to try to pull off some maneuver to get a better view and totally fail? Is someone going to actually push me out of their way so they can get a better view and knock me right over?
These are the things I think about in crowded places.
But it was mostly okay.
I was really excited to see her work in person. I've seen reproductions of course, many times over, but I really wanted to see the actual canvases. There's some things you just can't get a sense of in prints, like size, one, but also I really wanted to see what the surfaces were like - how thick the paint was, if you could see the brush strokes, etc. (I really couldn't, btw.) I love her work. I have always loved her work. I've also always fancied myself a half-assed artist anyway - yeah, in all my travels, I spent some time "just painting." It was a sweet deal, really, when I look back on it. I probably made hundreds of paintings - I don't have them now, of course, and I have no idea what happened to them all. I try to paint now but... somehow I don't really feel into it these days.
I wanted to go to art school, see, pretty much my entire life. I didn't, of course. My mom talked me out of it/forbid me to go. I mean, she forbid me to do pretty much everything, but her constant mantra of "you can't do it" sunk in far enough for me to never actually attempt art school. And now? Well, now I feel like that has completely passed me by. I don't need to go to school to learn how to do art. I took some art classes in college, in community and in university, and they were interesting, and I've made plenty of art on my own. I'm sure I could learn some skills in art school, but I'm sure it's nothing I couldn't also learn in a weekend class at a community center or something. No, what I wanted was to be in art school with other artists, you know, right at that young and edgy age, eighteen to twenty two, you know, the college age: I wanted to experience art school.
I think that's pretty much passed now. Of course I'm not saying I could never go. But I'd be a "non-traditional" student, I'd be older than everyone else, and it wouldn't be the same. Not the same thing at all. And I don't even care about the degree. I just wanted the environment. And when I was eighteen I probably could have done it. Now? Blegh. I've got too many issues and too many problems, and that's the short explanation.
But anyway, Frida. The woman is pretty fascinating. I recommend googling her if you don't know her work. And she inspires me in so many ways - I don't do it deliberately, but my work is similar to hers in more ways that I initially realized: yes I like to do self portraits, and much for the same reason she did them - you want someone who's always available to sit for you and will stay still no matter what? Look no further. The artist can always sit for themselves. And she painted herself most often when she was most alone - I definitely understand being alone.
She's Mexican - actually, she is half Mexican, more or less. So am I. More or less. She was really into wearing Mexican traditional dress and she used a lot of folklore/religious symbolism in her art. I love that kind of stuff. It feels weirdly home-y to me, and I'm pretty American. I'm about as American as you can get, in fact. But there is this gallery in Philly called "The Eyes" gallery, which is really also a store, it's on South Street and it's pink and I've always loved it, and it's full of Mexican stuff, and every time I go in there I'm just like, "ah, how nice!" cause it's all this brightly colored hand painted creepy stuff with skeletons and bleeding hearts and Virgin Marys and stuff... so yes, I enjoy the fact that she embraced her ethnicity so much simply because I have this affinity for Mexican art anyway.
Frida painted a lot about her health issues and how vulnerable they made her - if you've never seen her work, her paintings are very literal and illustrative - I don't work like that at all (like you care, as if I'm anything at all compared to her) but the ideas behind it are all the same - and according to the text on the wall at the exhibit she was the first woman painter ever to paint about the pain of a miscarriage. I don't remember what the first painting of hers that I saw was but the first one that made me want to look into the rest of her work and her life was "Broken Column" and I was like, omg I have to see more of her stuff, cause, hi, SCI here. It's a self portrait where she's split open from throat to navel and you can see her spine, but it's actually a column, like an architectural column, and it's all cracked and going crooked. Like... mine. And it really, really delighted me to find out that she wasn't some contemporary one-hit-wonder who did a show about her medical issues and that was that - she painted about everything. When she was in pain, she painted about pain. When she was in love, she painted about love. When she was in despair, she painted about despair. And when she was alone, she painted herself.
My favorite painting of hers was the last one in the exhibit and I'm sure they set it up that way on purpose. It's one of her being held in the arms of the the two faces of the universe - and she's wounded, cause she's bleeding - and she is holding her husband in her arms as if he is her child. I always saw it like, here she is existing in this big uncontrollable world, not even able to control herself because her body is falling apart, and yet it is up to her to be the stability in someone else's life and hold him together.
I'm really, really glad I decided to go. I'd be kicking myself forever if I bailed out on this one.
1. Love, so love all on the costuming. I love period episodes.
2. Ok so Donna said something along the lines of "all the good men are gay" and then the Doctor said "all Timelords" or "or Timelords." So... that means what, exactly?
3. So are we deliberately playing "reference other eps" this season? Is it all going to add up to something in the finale, perhaps, kind of like the bad wolf references? Charles Dickens and the ghosts at Christmas, obviously, but then there's also the "hey, flyboy" comment Donna made.
4. The bit about how the wasp let Agatha go at the very end seemed incredibly tacked on. Sloppy writing! I would have been fine with it just drowning, honestly. We didn't need to wonder for a second if Agatha would be okay.
5. The Unicorn was hot. I'd slash her with Martha. And, I want her hairdo.
Other than watching Doctor Who, today I got my shift covered at the last minute and decided I was going to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit before it ended.
I've been wanting to see it for a while but getting all the way to Philly is such a pain in the ass especially with working around my new very busy schedule. I mentioned it to a few people but no one I'm around seems to be very into art in the first place, let alone interested in going to Philly with me. So I sucked it up, called me a cab to AC, and got on the bus.
Oh, god, the freakin' bus. I hate the AC bus. But it is quite a bit cheaper than taking the train. It's just always full of people coming back from the casinos and they're all in shitty moods and stuff. And of course the museum was mobbed, because it was the last day, and of course, of course like six different people cut in front of me in line, because "oh they already had tickets so they can just go ahead." Well you know what? So the fuck did I. That's why we were all in the same line, assholes. This is part of why I hate going places by myself - I never get dicked around like this if someone else is with me. I guess it doesn't really matter, I mean, even if it was ten people who cut in front of me, really, it's not like I had to wait hours longer in the line, it's not like it was this big huge deal or anything. It just pisses me off when people decide they're so goddamned entitled to everything they set eyes on. I got in the door before you. I got in line before you. You don't get to just step in front of me like that because "you already have tickets." I got mine ahead of time too.
Whew. I hate being pissed off like that, too. So I'll just put that aside for now and I'll continue on to the exhibit.
Well no wait, I'll just also say that it was really, really crowded in the exhibit, you know, since it was the last day, and people were pretty awful to me, always standing in front of me and pretending they didn't hear my "excuse me" because they had the audio sets on and walking into me and leaning into me and slowly but persistently pushing right past me - hi, my name is Lara and I am obviously a piece of furniture. I was really nervous and jumpy the whole time I was in there because I was afraid someone was going to do something totally thoughtlessly that would end up with me flat on my face and them with no idea they even caused it. Is someone gonna bump into me wrong? Am I going to try to pull off some maneuver to get a better view and totally fail? Is someone going to actually push me out of their way so they can get a better view and knock me right over?
These are the things I think about in crowded places.
But it was mostly okay.
I was really excited to see her work in person. I've seen reproductions of course, many times over, but I really wanted to see the actual canvases. There's some things you just can't get a sense of in prints, like size, one, but also I really wanted to see what the surfaces were like - how thick the paint was, if you could see the brush strokes, etc. (I really couldn't, btw.) I love her work. I have always loved her work. I've also always fancied myself a half-assed artist anyway - yeah, in all my travels, I spent some time "just painting." It was a sweet deal, really, when I look back on it. I probably made hundreds of paintings - I don't have them now, of course, and I have no idea what happened to them all. I try to paint now but... somehow I don't really feel into it these days.
I wanted to go to art school, see, pretty much my entire life. I didn't, of course. My mom talked me out of it/forbid me to go. I mean, she forbid me to do pretty much everything, but her constant mantra of "you can't do it" sunk in far enough for me to never actually attempt art school. And now? Well, now I feel like that has completely passed me by. I don't need to go to school to learn how to do art. I took some art classes in college, in community and in university, and they were interesting, and I've made plenty of art on my own. I'm sure I could learn some skills in art school, but I'm sure it's nothing I couldn't also learn in a weekend class at a community center or something. No, what I wanted was to be in art school with other artists, you know, right at that young and edgy age, eighteen to twenty two, you know, the college age: I wanted to experience art school.
I think that's pretty much passed now. Of course I'm not saying I could never go. But I'd be a "non-traditional" student, I'd be older than everyone else, and it wouldn't be the same. Not the same thing at all. And I don't even care about the degree. I just wanted the environment. And when I was eighteen I probably could have done it. Now? Blegh. I've got too many issues and too many problems, and that's the short explanation.
But anyway, Frida. The woman is pretty fascinating. I recommend googling her if you don't know her work. And she inspires me in so many ways - I don't do it deliberately, but my work is similar to hers in more ways that I initially realized: yes I like to do self portraits, and much for the same reason she did them - you want someone who's always available to sit for you and will stay still no matter what? Look no further. The artist can always sit for themselves. And she painted herself most often when she was most alone - I definitely understand being alone.
She's Mexican - actually, she is half Mexican, more or less. So am I. More or less. She was really into wearing Mexican traditional dress and she used a lot of folklore/religious symbolism in her art. I love that kind of stuff. It feels weirdly home-y to me, and I'm pretty American. I'm about as American as you can get, in fact. But there is this gallery in Philly called "The Eyes" gallery, which is really also a store, it's on South Street and it's pink and I've always loved it, and it's full of Mexican stuff, and every time I go in there I'm just like, "ah, how nice!" cause it's all this brightly colored hand painted creepy stuff with skeletons and bleeding hearts and Virgin Marys and stuff... so yes, I enjoy the fact that she embraced her ethnicity so much simply because I have this affinity for Mexican art anyway.
Frida painted a lot about her health issues and how vulnerable they made her - if you've never seen her work, her paintings are very literal and illustrative - I don't work like that at all (like you care, as if I'm anything at all compared to her) but the ideas behind it are all the same - and according to the text on the wall at the exhibit she was the first woman painter ever to paint about the pain of a miscarriage. I don't remember what the first painting of hers that I saw was but the first one that made me want to look into the rest of her work and her life was "Broken Column" and I was like, omg I have to see more of her stuff, cause, hi, SCI here. It's a self portrait where she's split open from throat to navel and you can see her spine, but it's actually a column, like an architectural column, and it's all cracked and going crooked. Like... mine. And it really, really delighted me to find out that she wasn't some contemporary one-hit-wonder who did a show about her medical issues and that was that - she painted about everything. When she was in pain, she painted about pain. When she was in love, she painted about love. When she was in despair, she painted about despair. And when she was alone, she painted herself.
My favorite painting of hers was the last one in the exhibit and I'm sure they set it up that way on purpose. It's one of her being held in the arms of the the two faces of the universe - and she's wounded, cause she's bleeding - and she is holding her husband in her arms as if he is her child. I always saw it like, here she is existing in this big uncontrollable world, not even able to control herself because her body is falling apart, and yet it is up to her to be the stability in someone else's life and hold him together.
I'm really, really glad I decided to go. I'd be kicking myself forever if I bailed out on this one.
