Everything in its time

A nondescript sort of a day. 

 

Rain first thing in the morning, then a day of sun shine dampened by lowering clouds – but not cold at all.  Yet another brightly dull day.  And I have real faith that tomorrow will be a true beach day.  I believe.

And the writing is flowing a little more freely.  After my morning swim (which lasted a little longer than usual) I found it easy to scribble out a few thoughts that might well make it into poems in some future time.

The day was not made any better by a bitterly disappointing lunch in one of our regular restaurants: a forgotten meal meant that two of us had finished before the gambas for the third had arrived.  The paella starter was tasteless and the orange at the end of the meal was stringy and lacking in sweetness.  Hey ho!  You win some and you lose some.

The plan for the rest of our guest’s stay includes a barbecue and a visit to the library of MNAC: we know how to make people feel welcome.

There is a distinct feeling of the end of the summer about Castelldefels at the moment.  Not only has the temperature dropped appreciably, but also kids appear to be just that little more hysterical as they realize that shades of the prison house are beginning to grow around the jaded holiday-heavy kids!  And the retired sense that the streets are soon going to be returned to their suzerainty as the neophyte organisms go back to their institutions.

Talking of institutions.  Christmas came to mind as I availed myself of the facilities in our local shopping centre.  As I was washing my hands, the unmistakable strains of a particularly repulsive Musak version of ‘The First Noel’ accompanied my ablutions.

It is the end of August, literally months away from the Festive Season – and a Christmas carol!

In the UK I grew used to ‘Back to School’ promotions in supermarkets almost as soon as the kids had broken up for the summer.  No, wait a bit, as a working teacher I never got used to the vulgar, uncaring reminder that work was waiting a mere six weeks in the future, but the sickening shock was deadened after repetition: the first twenty years were the worst.

This is not on a par with hearing the first cuckoo of spring - there is a sort of leaden inevitability of suffering the season-before-the season with the relentless commercialization of anything that can give capitalism a buck!  But Catalonia used to be (is?) different.  The shameless extension of special days into previous months that is a characteristic of Britain is not quite so prevalent in this country.  Or at least it used not to be. 

 

I do hope that those musical strains are not a prelude to a very long countdown to Christmas!

Mind or Matter?

 

More books.

No matter how many books I acquire, I always have space left in my ‘enthusiasm quota’ to delight in a few extra to add to my library.  I would like to say that I am a discriminating purchaser, but I realize that what I actually am is an omnivorous bibliophile.  I find no problem in finding a reason to purchase a book and am an extremely good fabricator of justifications.

My self-imposed task of writing a short monograph on the famously un-famous German painter Adam Elsheimer has given me the ideal opportunity to spend more and have volumes winging their way to me.

The most substantial book is the truly excellent catalogue that accompanied the 2006 exhibition of Elsheimer’s work shown in Edinburgh, Dulwich and Frankfurt – a scholarly and exhaustive work extending the pioneering efforts of Keith Andrews.  This is going to be a key book in my research.

The second of my new volumes is a very much smaller books called “Lives of Adam Elsheimer” that is a compilation of early biographers of the artist translated by Keith Andrews with an introduction by Claire Pace.  It’s under a hundred pages long, but is an invaluable source of documentation of contemporary information.

The last if a book from the past, one of a series of large format magazines that comprised the series of “The Masters” published in Britain in 1966.  This one is number 53 “Elsheimer”, 14 colour prints with an introduction by Malcolm Waddingham.  Originally each of the issues cost the princely sum of 6/- (six shillings or 30p) though I paid considerably more than that and for a second-hand copy too!  Though I do have some of the other issues that I bought at the time.

I now have three books that deal principally with the artist and a series of other publications that mention him.  My reading so far has given me a clearer idea of the artist himself and also is beginning to suggest a way of approaching the writing I intend to do.

Or I could just sunbathe!

The flesh is willing, but in my view, it is still far too pale to be acceptable and autumn is almost upon us and lazing time has its expiration date.

One has to make a judgement between the intellectual and the sensual and, as the most interesting thing that I have experienced today is evaluating the new non-alcoholic G&T (not convincing) it perhaps gives you some idea of where my priorities lie!