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An Update from Your Not-So-Tragic Heroine

What I've been up to lately:
* Seeing Aviv Geffen with special guest Steven Wilson at Bush Hall
* Having my first bacon roll (at Honest Sausage in Regent's Park)
* Walking around Fleet Street (see Twinings pic above)
* Exploring the Wallace Collection and having tea on monogrammed plates in their gorgeous courtyard
* Taking a Robert Burns day tour of the Kenwood House in Hampstead Heath and then having tea and a read at the Spanish Inn (pic of G. above)
* Seeing U2 cover band Achtung Baby
* Visiting Dulwich Picture Gallery for the "Age of Enchantment" exhibit featuring Aubrey Beardsley and contemporaries and as a bonus getting to see one of Joshua Reynolds two portraits of Sarah Siddons as The Tragic Muse (the other is at the Huntington in Pasadena)

Elizabethan Heartthrobs, Etc.

Yesterday, under gorgeous blue skies, we walked though St. James Park (where I imagined Gainsborough's lovely models sashaying along in furbelowed frocks) to Buckingham Palace and then crossed over Green Park to Piccadilly, where G. and I parted ways. I headed off for a secret assignation with Sir Philip Sidney among the Tudor Collection at the National Portrait Gallery, while he went shopping for music. Later, I ended up having not one, but two teas in Covent Garden. The first was at Candy Cakes, which was really crowded. So we moved over to another little tea shop a few blocks away. I can't remember the name of the place but the elderly proprietor is the sweetest man. He convinced me I had to have the almond cake pictured above (with the sugar cherry), but alas, I only had room left for a bite. The surprise mentioned in yesterday's post turned out to be tickets to the last night of Glengarry Glen Ross at The Apollo. The movie was much better than the play and though you'd think they would give it their all for the final performance, the actors seemed instead to be channeling Britney at the VMAs. 

Dutch Acquisition

My favorite San Francisco museum, The Legion of Honor, has acquired a masterpiece by the 17th century painter Jan van Noordt. A "near life-size work," Susannah and the Elders has been placed alongside other "Baroque-era Dutch and Flemish works by artists including van Dyck, Reubens, and Jordaens," reports the Thinker Blog.

Desperately Seeking Stylish Site Designer

My site needs a makeover (that's an understatement--it's been wearing the same shirt since 1997). If you or someone you know might be a good fit, please send them in my direction and we can talk scope and budget. Merci!

Galsworthy and the Goya Dress

From 'Style Bubble': "I've been re-reading (for the gazillionth time) The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy and in the third book 'To Let', there is a passage which has long been noted as one of my many literary costume fantasies..." 

The Forsyte Saga also happens to be one of Amy's favorite adaptations.

Baroque Sensibilities

On exhibit at the Catharine Clark Gallery are several of Julie Heffernan's disturbingly lovely allegorical paintings. Details on the opening at SFist.
 

Queen of the Nile

"Shakespeare's Cleopatra may have been darkened by 'Phoebus's amorous pinches', but in Tiepolo's magnificent frescoes in the Palazzo Labia in Venice she is as pearly-pale as the earring she is about to drop into her gilded cup, with albino eyelashes and opalescent breasts. It wasn't until the very end of the 18th century, the period when Napoleon sent his troops and his scholars to Egypt, that Cleopatra's exoticism became once more (as it had been in her lifetime) the most important thing about her. Delacroix painted her as a kind of Gypsy fortune-teller, dark-eyed and tousle-haired." ("The Most Wicked Woman In History," The Guardian)

Image: Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra

Related from the Archives: Maggie the Cat and Lord Byron

Foppish 18th-C. Aristocrats

"Perrottet provides a peculiar fusion of the historic grand tour as practiced by foppish 18th-century aristocrats and the extreme vacations taken by Americans who share the author's age and interestst. As the author compares his trip to both the ancient journey and to contemporary tourism, the reader gets the sense that it's not the vacation spot so much as the act of packing up and hitting the road — the timeless attempt to break with the ordinary — that matters." (From the "Escape" issue of Boldtype)

Image: Portrait of a Young Man ca. 1760-65  

Risque Business (Or Of Monks and Men)

I always say that winter is my favorite season (perhaps it's because I have fair skin that burns easily and I tend to wear a lot of the heat-hording color black, or maybe it's because a fireplace is my only indispensable appliance...), but this summer has, so far, proved to be exceptional.

Friday night Nicki and I had dinner at Blue Plate, where I chose a glass of the Tempranillo from the "Risque" section of the wine list, before seeing one of her favorite musicians, Grant Lee Phillips, at Cafe du Nord. The show was sold out when we arrived, but it was our lucky day. We both managed to get in thanks to two patrons, one of whom proved to be a particularly charming and well-traveled person, so we ever so quickly befriended him and began our interrogation of his habits and interests.

In Nicki's overview of the evening she neglects to mention the besotted, rock-star-like Australian who was so enamored of her (and equally drunk on spirits and possibly other substances) that all he could do was simply kiss her jacketed shoulder like a penitent and adoring monk placing his lips reverently to the hem of St. Theresa of Avila's gown. It was a sight to behold.

On Saturday Linda and I watched French heartthrob Romain Duris (The Beat That My Heart Skipped) get/lose/get/lose/get women in Russian Dolls, the sequel to the international traveler's favorite L'Auberge Espagnole. Afterward we met up with her friend David who took us to the fabulous Savannah Jazz club.

Sunday I woke up knowing that the only place I wanted to be was in the Medieval and Renaissance wing of The Legion of Honor Museum, where I was lucky enough to be the only person signed up for the European tour. I decided it was time that I learned a bit more about some of my favorite paintings. I have secrets to share, but I will save them for another day. After a champagne cocktail brunch with my friend Ryan who's leaving for Japan for a few weeks and a stop at Green Apple to unsuccessfully hunt for a used copy of an essay collection by Wendell Berry, I enjoyed a peaceful sunset at my new favorite spot.

It was there that I found myself wishing, if only summer could last forever...

Image: St. Theresa In Ecstasy by Bernini

Classic Girl

"Clothes, in Veronese, are sexier than nudity." ("Life In Venice: The Colorful Paolo Veronese," Peter Schjeldahl in the New Yorker)

I could just stare at portraits and allegorical paintings all day long. In fact, there's this painting of Sir Thomas More by Hans Holbein that just thrills me every time I see it. As does this, this, and this.  A wonderful collection of works by Veronese, including Virtue and Vice, is currently on view at The Frick.

Image: The Choice Between Virtue and Vice by Paolo Veronese

From the Archives: Napoleon Dynamite, Bonaparte Crossing the Alps