A Certain Naïveté

I met the man of my dreams on the chairlift in Bariloche, the romantic Argentinean ski destination. When it is warm in the off-season, it has the feel of the Swiss Alps with a hint of the Virgin Islands and a Spanish sensibility mixed in. The chairlift led to the top of a mountain, where there is a vista of the world below that looks like Never Neverland.

I had noticed my mysterious chairlift companion while standing in the queue; he seemed to possess a South American pimp factor and a sharp sartorial taste, with his fetching leather vest and shoes. Then, fate had its way with me, and we were forced onto the chairlift together, to enjoy our ride to the top. He spoke as little English as I speak Spanish, so our communication was reminiscent of the scenes between Colin Firth and his cute Portuguese maid in Love Actually. It was a delightful struggle.

What a romantic story of first-meeting it would make, if we somehow end up together. He is coming to Miami on holiday in April. Maybe we will meet again, though I doubt there is anything as whimsical as a chairlift in Miami.

Anxious Landscapes

Months since my last Manhattan footsteps, contemplating the after-college depression-era job market, I read an article on "How the City Hurts Your Brain." The pace of urban life not only tends to put people in foul moods but also impairs a person's memory and ability to focus. Jonah Lehrer's article touches on a phenomenon that I experienced while living in Manhattan: "A city is so overstuffed with stimuli that we need to constantly redirect our attention so that we aren't distracted by irrelevant things." In the country there is no drunk male aggressor propositioning girls on the street corner, no subway system packed with people in unreasonably close contact, no shiny illuminated store windows luring passerby to buy luxury goods. With all the energy it takes to avert one's eyes, there is little left to pay close attention to all the lovely things in one's life: the good book, the face of the new lover, the beautiful film.

To alleviate the frenzied plight of the urban brain, scientists suggest that even a simple view of a tree outside one's window, or in a picture frame, can make a difference. A more major shift away from skyscrapers, density, and underground transit appeals to me. Perhaps I will move to Miami, take in some sun, and live with ficus trees and a cat. It will be a sort of retirement at age twenty-two.

In light of the natural world's benefits to the brain, the Tara Donovan exhibition at the ICA in Boston transforms everyday objects into whimsical landscapes that possess the gradual mutability of a wave. The above photo is of a man standing in front of a transparent wall of vinyl. It reminds me of the sand art toy at my grandmother's house on the beach.

W + Anchor

Things are strangely familiar these days. I went on a jaunt to New Haven to meet the celebrated transvestite-potter-artist-extraordinaire, Grayson Perry. He was in his little girl persona, Claire, who wore a poufy silk dress (pictured above) with red tulle underlay and a black bib embellished with rhinestone-encrusted phallic rocket ships. Perry's main source of inspiration is his childhood “cuddly toy,” Alan Measles, a teddy bear who takes on dictatorial status as “ruler of the establishment” in Perry’s art.

I sat in the front row and admired the artist’s dazzling glitter eye shadow and red patent leather shoes. I loved Perry’s insights into aesthetic, emotional, and global topics, especially his/her view that “testosterone is the most dangerous chemical on the planet.” I am also fond of his obsession with adding gold to most anything he creates: he says, “even the most sophisticated of collectors find their heads turned by a bit of gold.” Perry's firm belief in Barbaric Splendour (e.g. blinged-out pimp style, gauche use of patterns, etc.) contrasts any “minimalist or puritanical sense of restraint.” I like to think of it as Miami Beach vs. Beacon Hill.

Perry also showed his ingenious design of the letter “W” suspended above an anchor symbol--how clever: W + Anchor = Wanker (a pejorative term in British slang that literally means “one who masturbates”). I am in the midst of having a much-regretted tattoo removed from my hip bone (in a lengthy and somewhat painful five-month process), but I already envision my next tattooed mistake to be Perry’s W-anchor symbol. Maybe with “wanker” perpetually inked on my hip, I will cease to seek out these sub-par male characters in my everyday life.

When I approached Perry after the lecture, I noticed a fake black-glitter heart-shaped tattoo beneath the corner of “Claire’s” eye…the girlish embellishment speaks loads to art and life in general: glittery, heart-shaped, and black all over.