A Perfect Day

I slept until almost eleven and didn't feel a moment of regret either. The only reason I got up then is that the bedroom was slowly roasting me. I then made myself some Cameron Highlands tea my sister picked up for me in Malaysia, two pieces of toast buttered with raspberry jam, and a sliced peach. Ah the decadence of buttered toast. Butter is one of my favorite foods (or is it a foodstuff? what's the difference?). As a child, I'd savor slivers of butter I shaved off the stick. Now and again you can catch me eating butter especially when I'm baking. But I digress.

I lingered over my tea reading G.K. Chesterton's What's Wrong with the World. I find his diatribes against the Reformation and Martin Luther hilarious. If I was Catholic I'd probably feel the same way. In fact many Protestants think the Catholics are seriously misguided and all going to hell. So he's really just the flip side of the same sentiment.

After breakfast I puttered around in between bouts of lethargy spent lounging on the sofa reading catalogues, magazines, and the book Answering Islam. I then trolled through various books copying passages into my ideas notebook that I wanted to ruminate on at a later date. We batted around the idea of seeing a movie, but tired of the discussion and instead pulled up a Pat Novack for Hire radio detective show from the 1940's starring Jack Webb and Raymond Burr as Inspector Hellman. You can find MP3's for a few of the shows here. The writing's smooth, the humor dry, and the delivery laugh-out-loud funny. I love it. Agnes Bolton is my favorite episode so far.

Needing to escape the heat, we decided to see the Tim Hawkinson show at LACMA (after five is free!). But not before I insisted we stop at Canter's for a bowl of Kreplach soup (with an extra kreplach) and a cup of coffee. Strangely enough I get cravings for soup even when it's 98 degrees outside. But I can only eat it if I'm in an air conditioned restaurant or it's 10 o'clock at night otherwise I perspire. Back to Tim Hawkinson. From LACMA's website (which is hideous):

The central subject of Hawkinson’s work is often his own body,
whose likeness he inflates, measures, weighs, reflects, and animates. Eschewing
conventional self-portraits, Hawkinson uses his own physical form as a starting
point for investigations into material, perception, and time. His analytical
approach is often balanced by a suggestion of spirituality, as in Balloon
Self-Portrait (1993, refabricated 2004), a life-size, inflated latex cast of the
artist’s body that has been inflated and hovers over the gallery floor like an
apparition. In other works, though, Hawkinson reduces his self to a simple
machine effect, as in the kinetic sculpture Signature (1993), which ceaselessly
inscribes the artist’s own signature.

Creepiest piece was a small sculpure of a bird skeleton made from his fingernail clippings. If I could buy one of his pieces it would be his elephant "skin" made from aluminum foil and something else. For being made from foil it looked remarkably real, but not at the same time. Intriguing. It'd look fantastic hanging in a hunting lodge.

Next, we popped into view Andre Kertesz's photography which was breathtaking. I love his eye! I'll post a few of his photos in my next posting.

After LACMA, we dined with my sister and her husband on tri-tip and champagne with Cassis.

A perfect day from start to finish.