C for Catastrophe

Archive Page 2

Now This..

22Jun07

is Beauty.

Finds from Flickr. I love the first one on the left.

1. Two Horses, 2. artichokes in bowl, 3. … and this week …, 4. sitting pretty

Filed under: Beauty, Random | 2 Comments

Another thing that made the trip even more memorable was the Venice Biennale. Naturally, when I found out (two days before the fact) that we were going, I googled it, checked the articles on The NYT, travel websites, everything. I got an even bigger kick when I realised that we would be there during the Biennale and booked us a couple of tickets to a contemporary dance.

We got down to it on our second day in Venice. The day before, Friday, we used just for walking around, admiring the Grand Canal, eating, and (for me) trying not to faint from all the beauty and new impressions. Saturday was designated The Day of Wearing Down The Soles of Our Shoes – which we did, walking for about six hours, from one art exhibit (grouped according to the artists’ nationality) to the other (the map looks deceiving I tell you, we had to take the boat to the Giardini after the first bit). Good thing we’d had a hearty breakfast at the B&B because we didn’t stop for lunch ’til about 4p.m.

Sidetrack: Don’t you just LOVE hotel breakfasts? At our little B&B, we had a lovely spread every morning. Butter and warm rolls, sugared croissants, yogurt, fresh coffee and a full jug of juice, and cereal and fruits (which I didn’t touch). Sigh.

Anyway, back to the Biennale. We had fun. A lot of fun. But not because the exhibits were particularly exciting. I was expecting to be wowed. But it turned out to be.. well.. crap. And there was, literally, Crap, hanging from an installation at one point of the exhibit. Then there was another of those infamous unmade beds, video “art” showing in detail, movements of the human throat, and another of someone blowing hard into a pipe (no I’m not kidding, it was on loop). It seems that you get rewarded for producing something ugly and difficult and “esoteric”. If not, it just has to be shallow.

Then there was the Dance in the evening. Well. Let’s just say that the opening act involved the lead dancer scrabbling furiously in her diaper-like underwear for what seemed like eternity (we exchanged looks that said, “oh no”). We left fifteen minutes in, while the dancers were doing their own version of stop-drop-and-roll, spinning very inelegantly for a bit and then crashing loudly to the floor.

We’re thinking maybe we’ll send in an entry of our own, titled “Nightmare at the Modern Art Show”.

Filed under: Events, Life, Travel, wtf? | Leave a Comment

Belated

19Jun07

Truman Capote once said that Venice is “like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go”. Well, I don’t fancy chocolate liqueurs, so instead, it’s this..

strawberriesandcream
chocolategelato
blueberrypancakeswithpuremaplesyrup

It was a surprise from The Boy, who had, for weeks, ~~went~~ gone [mistake spotted by The Boy] on about giving me a beautiful set of pots and pans. I’m not very good with surprises, I think, but he got me good here.

Venice, for my 22nd.

It’s surprisingly different from Florence. There, it’s infinitely louder, more chaotic. You feel that everyone is trying to get somewhere in a hurry (but where?) and have spent their lives perfecting the skill of getting through a tight crowd as quickly as possible.

Venice is something else altogether. Sounds cheesy, but it’s much like stepping into a beautiful, old painting thick with textures and light and colour. You smell the sea wherever you go, see people at cafes and open squares just having a good time, walk by the canal where boats and gondolas bump and roll with the waves. There are no cars honking, no ambulances wailing disruptively through the streets, no one running, flustered, to get to their destination. People are much nicer; ask for a custard-creme filled crepe and you get slaps of nutella along with it. There is genuine warmth in people’s eyes. Then there’s the food, the trees, the blue-green water.

Seriously, what’s not to love?

Filed under: Beauty, Photography, Rave, Travel | 9 Comments

So He Says

31May07

I should be wearing a sign to warn people when I walk down the street this week.

At one point today, I seriously considered melting a chunk of chocolate in the pan and pouring it down my throat.

But then I saw this:

(via The Travelling Hungryboy)

Now I want my BAN-MIAN!

Filed under: Life, Random | 7 Comments

24May07

edit: My kitten, the one in the first and second photo, I just found out that it died. Painfully. In the stupidest manner possible. Right..

Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments

The Anatomy of Melancholia

23May07

Main Entry:	melancholy
Part of Speech:	adjective
Definition:	depressed
Synonyms:	blue, crummy, dejected, despondent, destroyed, disconsolate, dismal, dispirited, doleful, dolorous, down, downbeat, downcast, downhearted, dragged, droopy, funereal, gloomy, glum, grim, heavy-hearted, joyless, lachrymose, low, low-spirited, lugubrious, mirthless, miserable, moody, moony, mournful, pensive, sad, saddened, saddening, somber, sorrowful, sorry, torn up, trite, unhappy, wet blanket, wistful, woebegone, woeful

I don’t think I’ve had an incident in which meeting new people actually upset me. But there it is. I literally have a bad taste in my mouth from last night.

Thing is, there was nothing wrong with them. There was nothing wrong with me. No one said anything unkind. All in all, one could say that the evening was nice.

But then “nice” would include me having to, for an hour, prevent myself from dashing out of their front door. I guess sometimes, it’s simply a matter of chemistry.

Right. I am going to make myself feel better now by

1. Staring at pictures of pretty cupcakes.

2. Staring at old pictures of kittensinmyshoe.

3. Going out for a walk and looking for pretty cupcakes to scarf down.

Filed under: Life | Leave a Comment

21May07

This is the coolest bit of news I’ve heard all this month.

Flamingo pair adopt jilted chick

A pair of male flamingos have become foster parents after adopting an abandoned chick in Gloucestershire.

Carlos and Fernando had tried to start their own family by stealing eggs from other flamingos at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) in Slimbridge.

But their sitting and hatching skills impressed staff so much, that when a nest was abandoned last week, they were chosen to “adopt” the chick.

The new flamingo family is said to be doing well.