" everywhere is sufficient. i mean it's probably possible to call anywhere 'home' as long as you leave often enough. the alternative perhaps would be to just never settle in anywhere. to be constantly on your toes and invigorated by, but enervated by your environs. that's really no way to live. and so we venture out every once in a while. clearly, the impulse to travel is manifold, for everyone. and i'll not be one to assume i know your motives, or anyone's... or quite frankly my own really. however, perhaps it's possible to simplify it into two impulses: on the one hand, we leave to fortify our connection to whatever place that is (or person, or emotion, etc) we call 'home.' on the other hand, traveling, leaving one's comfort zone is also perhaps a good test of one's wits. (as noted in previous blog entry) to expand on that, i think i meant that it's part of testing our selves (whomever we are at home) out in a non-familiar environment. and concomittantly the inverse--the non-familiar environment offers souvenirs {i'd always imagined this as getting stuck in brambles, or rolling down grassy hills...you bring all sorts of surprises back with you}.
everyone gets a souvenir! like it or not. your time away from 'home' will have a residual effect on your future interactions with 'home.' the very first time i went to California was in 1998. i distinctly remember wanting to maintain that California-ness {i think i'd called it the glow} upon my return to Pittsburgh. having visited half a dozen times since, and coming down from three years living there, i'm still quite sure there's no word to describe 'having been psychically affected by living in California.' and i was. and i remember after returning to pittsburg, how in the days and weeks that followed, something died...or faded rather. the light. and. because i could never figure out what it was, it remained impossibly irresurrectible.
i don't intend to suggest that one would ever think to venture off to some alien environ in hopes of becoming affected--though maybe this happens too--i'm just reflecting.
in the end, i was correct in presuming that a trip out of Paris might do me some good. getting there, or rather, getting together the means to get there, was in itself a day of traveling and tribulation. after a day and a half (literally 15 hours) of scouring ticket websites, kelbillet, and similar sites, i found the facebook-eurostar ticket exchange group and hooked up with two brits living in France, who'd found themselves stuck with extra passes. all told, the extra effort saved me a few hundred euro, though planning a month in advance would have done just as well. i'll spare you the gory details of waking up at too-too early & spending hours, cell-phone-less, attempting to rendez-vous with this chick.
friday night, around 8:30, i linked up with a dear friend from Philly days. you can see his blog at thevanities.org. a charming and brilliant cabbie gave me a lift from the station to Tottenhamcourt, where Will'd hunkered down for the moment. we had some drinks, caught up, and rounded out the evening at some norwegan metal pub.saturday at the frieze fair: my eyeballs ache just to think of it. what is it about convention hall lights? that dry out the eyes, induce headaches, and wash out everyone's skin? the booths' rubber carpeting was pleasant: grey, cushioned, non-slip.
about the art:
if you have the means, i highly recommend going to marianne boesky gallery to see the Barnaby Furnas'. or buy one--they'd sold out the booth by saturday though.claire fontaine . (period)
i'd like to propose an open forum on the works of Turner-Prize nominee Roger Hiorns. while i'm fairly certain i could fabricate some cleverly construed criticism of this work, i'm not entirely convinced by it. i mean, because i could argue either way--in 20 directions really--and truly believe my own words. by far, the most beautiful aspect of the piece on exhibit was it's ghostly remains on the gallery floor. briefly, the Hiorns involved a soap bubble extruding compressor and wire. the bubbles, extruded vertically, from a 4" diam. tube, tower precariously above the viewer. they eventually topple over--when they do, the bubbles leave behind a sea green residue on the carpet. here's a much larger version:
Bill Woodrow's Electric Fire with Yellow Fish
it's hard to see here, but the fish is cut from the heater itself. every once in a great long while you come across a work of art like this. one that reminds you why you got into this racket in the first place.later, much later, i went with some friends to a gallery party at le moustache II, where i drank a bit (much) whiskey and apparently professed my love for Matthew Higgs (in the way that i love, say, Cyndi Lauper, or SpongeBob...as a fan). anyway, the gaggle of curator-ladies i arrived with and i danced the night away and had a grand old time."
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