Vivienne Westwood's London

I watched the first installment of Vivienne Westwood's London on CTV on Saturday. Really, who has the TV at 7 on a Saturday? I had to rearrange my dinner schedule. Any way the show garnered a "nudity warning" and it made me wonder.

The aim of the program was to  persuade visitors to London to eschew the tourist route of Madame Tussaud's, Buckingham Palace and Big Ben/Westminster Abbey.

It was great fun as slightly-barmy Westwood dragged us around to her favourite London haunts. She showed us incredibly famous art at a couple of less well-known institutes;The Wallace Collection and the Cortauld. At the Wallace she showed us one of her favourites whose name I've forgotten. Very dark, she said, but it contained all the colours in the world. It also contained a nipple. Was this the reason for the nudity warning at every ad break. She focused on Fragonard's The Swing, and said that the joke was that the girl didn't have her knickers on. Vivienne Westwood frequently goes about without her knickers on. Is this the nudity?

Then Westwood took us to the Cortauld where she waxed poetic about Renoir's La Loge.

Other places Westwood introduced us to were an outdoor market underneath the railway arches. It reminded me very much of Toronto's St. Lawrence Market. With the aid of her former muse and model, Sarah Stockbridge, we visited notorious White Chapel and walked down Brixton's Electric Avenue.

Vivienne Westwood loves the Barbican and carried on a bit about how important live theatre is. She loves Henry the VIII's Hampton Court and the authentic kitchen. Me too. She was also intrigued by one of the historical interpreter's cod piece. That must have been the annoying nudity even though he was covered in layers of red felt.

For somebody who is known as one of the architects of  the punk movement, her being so enamoured with the past is strange. Over lunch at the Wallace Collection she said to the Globe and Mail's Elizabeth Renzetti,

"The 20th century was a mistake,” she says. “There was nothing produced in the 20th century, no ideas. There’s not one person alive who could paint one flower on that porcelain” – again, the hand flutters toward the Wallace galleries – “or anything that’s in there.”

Wow, that sort of negates punk, and grunge and the way clothing, music and art have evolved over the past 35 years. Hmm.

I never had much time for Westwood, being much too much of a flake. She has always been too outre for me. But watching this programme I grew to really like her. She had boundless energy for someone about to turn 70. She bikes all over London.  Although I was mentally combing her bright red hair through most of the show I really admired her nutty, eccentric style.

Vivienne Westwood's had a major impact on the 20th Century despite that she now says "no ideas were produced in the 20th Century."  She and her spouse of the time, Malcom McLaren made the Punk movement happen. Doc Marten owes her a debt of gratitude. Now I know that she loves good art makes me like Vivienne Westwood even more. Maybe she's one of my red-headed muses - Although with Vivienne I don't think the red hair will last.

I was able to find this video of VW at the Wallace. In this video she is actually much more subdued than the one I watched thanks to FashionTelevision.

Tip for the Day

Now that I have your attention, my tip for the day is:

BUY LOW, SELL HIGH

Completely unrelated is the photo of RD JR from Italian Vanity Fair with his son's name tattooed on his shoulder. Oh, and  buy Apple. That would really help.

More Pictures of Moulin's Sleeping House

I found these photos of Mantin's sealed house on http//amandedouceamere.canalblog.com et www.bellesdemeures.com

Portrait of Louis Mantin I found on www.allier.fr

Another Untouched French Gem

The French house untouched for 100 years

By Hugh SchofieldBBC News, Moulins

Click to play

Click to playA look around Monsieur Mantin's preserved house

A late 19th Century town-house in central France that was sealed up for more than 100 years has finally been opened to the public in accordance with its owner's last wishes.

Louis Mantin was an aesthete and gentleman of leisure who bequeathed his opulent home to the town of Moulins on condition that a century later it be a museum.

After he died in 1905, the mansion was closed up and fell into dilapidation. Now thanks to a 3.5m euro ($4.7m; £2.9m) refit funded by local authorities, it has been returned to its original pristine state.

The result is a remarkable time-capsule, combining rich fin-de-siecle furnishings, archaeological curios, skulls and other Masonic paraphernalia, a collection of stuffed birds, as well as the latest domestic gadgets such as electricity and a flushing loo.

The house was forgotten, but not by locals

Mantin only had a few years to indulge his aesthetic fantasies. Knowing that his death was approaching, he made a will in which he made sure his treasured house would be saved.

"In the will, he says that he wants the people of Moulins in 100 years time to be able to see what was the life of a cultured gentleman of his day," said assistant curator Maud Leyoudec.

"A bachelor with no children, he was obsessed with death and the passage of time. It was his way of becoming eternal."

Some confusion surrounds the exact terms of the will.

According to local people, Mantin specifically said that the house should be locked up for a century and then opened up to the public.

However the truth is less sensational, if only slightly.

In fact, Mantin stipulated simply that in 100 years time the mansion should be a museum. He said nothing about what should happen in between.

Collective memory

The fact that the house was totally abandoned was thus not a predetermined condition - it was just what actually took place.

"The house was gradually forgotten by the world. But not by the people of Moulins," said Mantin's great-niece Isabelle de Chavagnac.

As well as electricity, the house had modern bathrooms.

"Here everybody was waiting for the day when a 100 years would have passed and the house would be opened once again. It is odd how the collective memory of a place never dies."

Curiously it was Isabelle de Chavagnac - as one of Mantin's last known descendants - who played a key role in getting the house re-opened.

Under the will, the house would have reverted to her had it not been turned into a museum once the century had passed.

She had no desire to take the possession of the house. Quite the contrary, she wanted Mantin's wishes to be fulfilled.

But by threatening to exercise her right in law to take back the mansion, she forced the local authorities to act. They found the money to renovate, and the house opened at the end of 2010.

Five years late, but no-one is counting.

(thanks to John Moreau for suggesting this to me). 

111

Take the last two digits of the year you were born and add them to the age you will turn this year. You'll get 111.

Last year it was 110, next year it will be 112. Why?

What Colour is Your Hoodie?

As many of you know, I started bridging classes at the U of T this week. I'm enjoying the energy my prof has to offer although we're still focusing on how to learn history and he hasn't really taught us anything yet. Next Tuesday we have a tour of the big library on campus, Robarts. As a child, my son said it looked like a big rooster. Yes it does.

The class is much bigger than I expected - upward of 40 students. I took a quick visual survey of my classmates and I'm the second oldest female, (which also means the second most fabulous!). On my first day of school, a group of hardies were standing on top of a 20 foot pile of snow playing Oh, When the Saints on extremely cold brass instruments in minus 18 degree weather.  It was a very cinematic experience.

Looking South from King's College Circle. Photo found on Flicker: Chris Orbz

My class is on the main floor behind the third and fourth windows right of the door. It is actually much snowier than this now. Photo found here: wvs.topleftpixel.com/08/12/22/

Now I shouldn't bitch, but I probably will, but as I'm trudging through the snow looking like a Terry Gilliam cartoon for Monty Python, I've noticed that out of the 45,000 students rotating to different classes at the campus, 44,999 of them are wearing black. It's like I've been plonked down amid a huge group of pious novitiates, not a campus of open-minded, free-thinking, hard-partying students.

The kids waste money on cell-phone plans and beer - they should waste some cash on a bright winter coat. That is my thought for the day. Now I must catch up on my reading.

Back to School

This will be my new school  - at least for a couple of hours a week. I've been accepted for Academic Bridging at the University of Toronto and I'll be starting tomorrow.

Academic Bridging is a course for those away from formal education for a while, in my case 28 years, to test their ability to do university-level work.

When I was in high school, Ontario had a thing called Grade 13. Grade 13 was required to enroll in University and I didn't take Grade 13.

Despite being practically "gifted" my whole elementary school life, attention was not paid to my educational path. I was the "spare" not the "heir" and was generally thought of as not as smart as my decade-older brother.

When my marks were faltering in Grade 12 - why did anyone in authority think I should drop Art and Geography to take Chemistry and a spare!? - I signed up for Fashion Merchandising at a college an hour away.  I did use what I learned there to a degree; I managed a clothing shop on Yonge Street for a whopping $4.25 an hour and I went on to manage the gift shop at the Royal Ontario Museum. Managing a staff of 13 was too stressful for me at 24 and I went on to clerical jobs, one at a Museum association and another at the CBC Radio union. Then I met G-Pup and had a baby and stayed at home with  Noah for 8 years. Since then I've had very interesting jobs; writing for a travel encyclopedia and working with a friend on historical research.

But I feel like an anachronism. I'm a stay-at-home-mum with little education, but my son is 16!!  So I bit the bullet and signed up for the Bridging program. I'll be taking 6 months of Canadian History on Tuesdays and Thursdays with lots of essay writing in between.  If I pass that, I eventually I hope to take some Art History classes and maybe by the time I'm 60, I'll have a degree!

So Who Says You Can't Cook?!

I suppose a lot of people think it's odd that I can't drive or play a musical instrument or hold down a steady job. I think it's odd that I'm running into a lot of women these days, my age and older (48), who admit to not being able to cook. You know, "I don't know how to turn my oven on." " I can't remember the last time I cooked." etc., and they admit it as if this lack of knowledge was something to be proud of. Personally I find this admission to be akin to not being able to wash your hair. Good  Heavens, I'm a bitch.

I'm a homebody and I've always had a lot of time on my hands but here's a great meal that I was able to throw together in 50 minutes. Anybody can do it.

I had a pre-marinated boneless pork loin. It was sold that way.

I preheated the oven to 425 degrees.

While the oven was heating up I seared the pork loin in a little olive oil in a oven-proof skillet. 5 minutes. Flip, flip. I sprinkled it with the modicum of sage that I had left over from the holidays. In went half a cup of cranberry sauce left over from the holidays. Then some rosemary which looked a lot like the pine needles also left over from the holidays. Then I poured in about 3/4 cup of water and scraped the goodness of the bottom of the pan.

I put the lid on the skillet and put it in the hot oven for 35 minutes.

Now I peeled the potatoes and let them boil for 20 minutes. Drained them, then mashed them with a little milk and cream cheese.

Oven mitt time. The pork, when done, needed to sit for 10 minutes on a board. I took this time to boil some broccoli and I added a little corn starch and water to the liquid left over from the pork and made a pork-y, cranberry-y gravy over a low heat. With an oven-proof skillet, I find it very wise to put an oven mitt over the handle when done to avoid singed palms.

I sliced the meat and was done. Less than an hour, boom, boom, boom.

There was enough food for 4 and cost averaged out to 3.70 per person. We don't eat like this every night - that would break the bank, but good, quick food for relatively little can be accomplished. And you know what, out of all this the only garbage I had was the plastic wrapper the meat was sold in.

It is so important if you have children to sit down to a meal with the family as a whole. But that rant is  for another time.

Image from www.bigflavor.blogspot.com

the media IS the message

Please fill out the petition above if you appreciate CBC Radio and TV.

I used to work for a CBC Radio Producer's Union. I know how hard these people work creating intelligent and thought-provoking content. The equivalent of NPR, CBC  Radio provides commercial-free news programs like The Current and As it Happens. The CBC provides exemplar (good word) arts, culture and lifestyle  programs like Q hosted by Jian Ghomeshi and Sook-Yin-Lee's  Definitely Not the Opera. But there is Opera and a day filled with commercial-free music on CBC Radio 2. And I've always had a link to Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap on my blog because his show is so good.

CBC TV is generously peppered with ads and a smattering of American shows, but it's my favourite for news programming and comedy. Ranting Rick Mercer should be the next Governor General of Canada.
This Hour Has 22 minutes makes me laugh out loud and point at the screen. (Gavin Crawford really should be on SNL, but no, I digress, he should stay in Canada) and Ron James' mind-boggling word-play reveals his superior wit.

There is a full range of radio and TV on CBC's French network, Radio Canada, for the Francophone and Francophile among us on. The European-tinged easy-listening on Espace Musique makes me forget where I am for a while.

What I'm saying is that I love the CBC and you should too. If you do, please sign the petition above. It'll get to them somehow.

If you are unfamiliar with the CBC Radio you can listen online by clicking this sentence.

For the complete information about the petition please click here. http://www.friends.ca/ILoveCBC/

The Year of Living Creatively

The resolution that my husband and I came up with this year besides date-nights, reading more and losing the requisite 10 pounds, was to do something creative everyday, whether it be a painting, a meal, a song, or some doggerel written on the subway.

We toned it down to one creative thing a week. So far I have a work in progress - a painting. I don't know what it is, or what it means,  but it's bright and the G Pup has already learned the chords for Dylan's Shelter From the Storm. 


Hopefully this time next year we'll have 104 things to show for it.

Ron Howard Sings

Sonnet 29 Again

I love this. It's been a year since I first posted  it. Doesn't Matthew Macfadyen look  a little bit like "Jim"?