Anyway in between all these VERY IMPORTANT THINGS that I have been doing (helloooo Hilary) I have managed to immerse myself in what old people and school teachers call 'culture' and I would like to mention two main such immersions in this post. Prepare for digression.
1. Pipilotti Rist's 'I Packed The Postcard In My Suitcase' exhibition (read more here)
I saw this exhibition not long ago and I really loved it for several reasons. Firstly, my family saw it before I did and raved about it which generally means good things as we share similar taste in most things especially cereal (Weeties), Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, the particularities of Joni Mitchell's 'Blue' and, also, art. I went into it expecting to love it, which perhaps says a lot about being in a certain state of mind when you go out to consume art as a viewer but that's not really the point I'm making here; to be honest I think I liked it so much largely because it reminded me of my family. Perhaps it did this not only because they had recommended it so highly but because the whole exhibition was based around, I think, is taking the best, most beautiful parts of this world, and creating an oasis of sorts. Naturally I would file family under the best most beautiful parts of this world, and in those warm colours and that happy ambience I was reminded of all the good things about being here.
I love, but am truthfully a little wary of, video art as a medium but in my opinion Rist has created a real sense of time and space - or rather, the lack of - and I found it quite easy to immerse myself in the work. If you like beautiful, simple, kind of naive things then you will enjoy this. My only recommendation is to enter with your mind wide open and without a big hairdo as it will be squashed if you want to experience the work properly (in this case, lying on your back).
2. Woody Allen's 'Midnight in Paris'
Ever since I was a little red-cheeked primary schooler I have been fascinated by different worlds. Of course this is totally normal, to find solace in fantasy or friends in foreign fiction. As I grew older I didn't lose this fascination, in fact, I became weirdly intrigued by the notion of dead people and what they would be like, well, living. It's hard to describe this strangeness which resulted in obscure short stories where I would write about meeting John Lennon and playing that white piano in 'Imagine''s film clip or sit, with our feet dangling over the front of Woodstock's stage, with Janis Joplin as we passed a bottle of Southern Comfort between us. Yeah, I know.
Anyway the point is, this strangeness that still exists in me was delighted by Midnight in Paris where Ernest Hemingway, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Picasso and Dali, among others, all came to life within the realms of a narrative - interacting with a 'normal' guy from this era in the way that many would imagine, or hope, that they would. I mean, in all my youth and haven't-even-read-Pride and Prejudice-literary naivety, I had always been so romantic and fanciful as to imagine these people to react to the world around them as Allen depicts them. It has been cast exceedingly well and I just love Owen Wilson because I think he's a sensitive soul (sigh). Similar to Rist's work I guess this film explores the notion of different worlds - or rather, experiencing this world in a dramatically different way. And I loved this film, for its light comedy, for its cinematic beauty, and for its strangeness that fed the girl who once read a genuine The Beatles fanfiction on the internet where the main girl had a love affair with Paul McCartney and I DON'T EVEN LIKE HIM HE'S THE WORST ONE.
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