Displacement writing?

And now wet!  Together with the cold, this is not what I signed up for when I came to live in Catalonia.  Roll on Grand Canaria and the holiday which never seems to get any nearer.

The OU course seems to have ground to a halt again.  I am resting in the smugness of having got ahead of myself by a week or so and I am reluctant to start reading about that Great Fraud, Andy Warhol.  To be fair, there is some of his stuff which I quite like and, of course, I can see his importance in the development of Pop Art and in inaugurating the surge of gullible buyers who have allowed the likes of Jeff Koons to command eye wateringly stupid prices for his work these days. 

One of the best things about Warhol is that however negative you feel like being about his work, you will probably find that the man himself has beaten you to your position and already voiced your own caveats about the art with that dismissive tongue in cheek honesty that is so infuriating when you are trying to lose your temper about something you find inauthentic.  From his hair to his ‘superstars’ to the Factory and his Polaroid’s his is the apotheosis of the inauthentic!  And there is something wonderful about that!

My research into Guevara progresses, albeit slowly.  At least I have the prospect of actually seeing some of the work in the flesh.  Though the painting I would really like to see, ‘Little Splash’ is infuriatingly difficult to trace.  I have not given up.  My latest wheeze is to contact the Rothschild Foundation and find out if their records for the Guevara exhibition of 1974 exist and they have a buyer for that particular painting, or if it wasn’t for sale an owner.

Guevara has taken up all my time and I have done no work at all on Hockney.  The problem with him is that there is too much information available and at least I know that I will be able to see the painting that I am going to discuss when I go to London for the study day in May.

I am now uncomfortably aware that we are in February and May is disconcertingly near – but such proximity usually galvanizes me into action and keeps the juices flowing.

The one item that I constantly forget to buy when I go to the shops is a box of tea bags.  This has meant that I have been drinking various mixtures of teas as my usually morning (and afternoon and evening) beverage.  These mixtures are much more potent than the insipid offerings from Typhoo and Brooke Bond, but it does mean that I have been hard lining on caffeine-heavy leaves and I think that my furred tongue and clogged veins need a bit of a holiday that commercial tea would give.  Sometimes all you want is the unstructured taste of obviousness rather than the complexity of reality!

            The one thing that I have not been able to get recently is my red Early Gray.  This potent blend was available from the most expensive coffee shop in the world, just by the car park in the centre of town.  For some reason (I suspect because I was the only person who bought it) they have stopped carrying this product and I have had to make do with the black.  This is nothing like as potent and as aromatic and is very much a second best.

            Another tea, coffee and spice shop has opened up (at the side of the same car park) and I have been buying my Darjeeling and Te Ingles from them.  I have done my best to persuade them to get some Earl Grey and they have (eventually) responded by buying some black and assuring me that they will try and get some of the hard stuff.  As far as I can work out from the enthusiastic Spanish of the lady owner there have been problems with the supplier and they require them to take delivery of far too great a quantity of tea to make it worthwhile for them to stock.  I will persevere and see what I can get them to do!

            Meanwhile a holiday of tea inspididity would not come amiss.

See also: smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es