diptych

INSPIRATION: ZERO

Went with my mom to view the Musée d'Orsay paintings at the National Museum today, met friends-of-family-friends, of which the salt-and-pepper haired patriarch (not quite the word but it does describe his role) said Hello to me over at the urinals after the show (adults are oblivious to social awkwardness) and later proceeded to quiz me about NS life. At the same time, I was like, 'oh god I am being questioned by a member of the public intelligentsia and he brought along a friend who's a UOB painting of the year recipient ONE NEEDS TO LOOK LIKE ERUDITE MEMBER OF HIS ILK OH NO THEY SEEM TO BE WALKING OVER TO ONE AND ONE WILL NOW GAZE INTENTLY AT THIS MONET'

Therein lies my problem: I cannot take high culture very seriously because it feels like I am betraying my background (even though I take pleasure in betraying my very roots because they're obviously socially conditioned and therefore artificial), attendant to which is a self-ironizing attitude I wield as I approach the social world. Sincerity isn't dead, it's just suffused with a sort of playful jesting and constant parody. 

In any case, I did enjoy the show because I saw a painting that Renoir did of a cat!! (and a naked child) But seriously, the range and quality of paintings are worth the time. The exhibition was cogent and coherent. There was, as it were, a logical flow that described the progress of French painting sensually and cerebrally. It broached the usual questions of art reflecting life, but raised more pertinent, moving, perspectives on areas like War and the Abject or even Solitude. Impressionist paintings are also very pretty. 

Anyway here's the painting that had the cat (ok fine, Pierre August Renoir The Boy With The Cat):

"MONTHLIES"

When I have 'good laughs' I remember them for life. For example, when I was 13 went out to this now-defunct noodle place, Nooch, at citylink mall. My friend said something silly and the whole table quaked with bubbly pubescent giggling, surely much to the ire of the chi-chi noodle slurping yuppie crowd. With some horror, I now realize this had happened six years ago. In our later years this crazy friend and I would recall that moment with some fondness and, I believe, saudade. Around the same period, my dad bought The Complete Companion to Dibley and I actually thought I was going to die mid-laughter because I couldn't breathe. Yes I was that sort of kid.

Similarly, I've had some good laughs recently. This is because in 2010 I discovered the genius that is 30 Rock. Also because I go out with friends (I have friends!!) and we gang up against The Past and we laugh at it. OK, so the past also conceals some pain, some frustrating times, even some problems that still remain unresolved, but it's most convenient and forgiving that time buries things very nicely for us, and troubles only come back to haunt us sporadically in our moments of solitude!! Anyway I titled this section Monthlies as an in-joke which was really a "you had to be there" moment between some friends and I. I've not laughed that hard in the month of October before! (Mainly I sneered haughtily)