Utter blather, but with pix!

What I really wanted to blog about today was how cranky I am made by some of the peers in the SCA. But that's a boring, whiney topic. So I thought that I'd intersperse that with little recent adventures and educational images.

So let's instead start off with my visit to the AGNSW. This is one of my favourite art galleries. Not because its collection is great, it's actually a little bit rubbish aside from the Pacific Rim pieces, but because it is such a kooky building and people act so weirdly in it. On Wednesday, I scampered up the Neo-Classical steps in through the impressive sandstone facade with its mis-spelt famous artist (can never remember which one, though, and forgot to check), through the marble Georgian foyer and into the 1970s brutal Modernist concrete and glass interior.

There I found loads of schoolkids who had all been dragged in to see the Biennale. Some were looking intently at a piece made up of thousands of small canvas squares each containing a random word or phrase. Some were fixated on the plasma screens that were attached to cameras and showed shots of people walking through the exhibit. Still others were stretched out on the settees watching the ceiling until it was time to go home. My favourite was the little boy who was playing under the cameras and watching himself on the screens and, when his mum told him to stop, protested "It's ART!"

My mission was to take a photo of the Laela painting. This is a very dodgy late Pre-Raphaelite painting that has a woman in a 'German' frock coming out of a cathedral, and the model looks exactly like Laela. I mentioned this to her in NZ and she replied "Yeah, but the other chick in the painting is YOU." Clearly, I needed evidence of such a kooky coincidence. I swanned into the gallery where the image was hung. Was being the operative word. It had all changed, changed utterly.

"Bugger," I said. And went to see if the nice woman at the information desk could help me. Since I could remember neither the work's name nor artist, we didn't get far, but she suggested the library. She warned me that most of the 19th century paintings had been on loan from John Schaeffer and that he had taken them back and sold them to fund his divorce. I also learned that the AGNSW library is open till 8.15pm on Wednesdays, which is good to know. The chap there produced a full catalogue of the gallery from the 80s and we found that the painting was Frank Cadogan Cowper's 'Faust's First Sight of Marguerite', and that it belonged to the AGNSW, not Schaeffer, so it would be back at some point.

Now in an ideal world, I would have come home and found a fabbo image for you all so that you could say "Oh my goodness! It really does look like the two of them!" But the only one on the net is rubbish. So instead, I found two other Cowper shots.
This first one is also from his Faust series, after Marguerite learns of the death of her brother. Sadly she is being so wracked with guilt that you can't tell she is secretly Laela. I think the woman from the other painting is also here wearing the dark frock and black hat.

Cowper was often called the last of the Pre-Raphaelites, as he was a big part of that whole faux-medievalism scene even though he only started painting around the turn of the 20th century. Like many of his contemporaries, he invested a great deal of time studying medieval and renaissance dress and architecture. The architecture he got mostly right, but he was a little bit on drugs when it came to the dress part.

This next painting, also by Cowper, is called 'Vanity', and it has exactly the same sleeves as one of the famous Italian portraits. Which I'd look up if I cared, but it's cold in the sewing room where the books are.

I do love the way that the Pre-Raphaelites pick and choose what aspects of old paintings they want to use. "Yeah, I like the sleeves, and the smock is okay, and I like the big head-dress, except it should be a bit different. And if she wears her hair like that she'll look a bit rough, so let's leave it loose. And I like my girls on the consumptive side, not the porky. And can we have just a touch more flesh? Yeah? Perfect. Fuck me, that's medieval."

They would have loved the SCA.

And yes, Laela and Deense, I AM expecting photos of the dodgiest bits of Pennsic. Although no need for obese people wearing teatowels as lap-laps, thanks. I can imagine it too much from Aunty Spyd's Tales for Terrible Tots.


Of course, the best SCA moment in the whole AGNSW is the Ford Maddox Brown painting 'Chaucer at the Court of Edward III' If you look carefully at it, you will find every available SCA stereotype, from haughty Laurels to screaming Blue Feathers and lecherous young lads. And aren't the clothes just spiffy? I'm sure I've been to that event.

So. Annoying Peers. I think we'll all agree that I'm a very forgiving person. But one thing I can't stand is peers who think that the game should be all about them. So a lot of the Westies used to drive me to distraction with their Courts that were all to do with how Mighty they were. That's what a mirror and a box of tissues is for, lads. Not Court. Court is for telling groups and individuals how good they are, or, at a pinch, for reminding people about the needs of the Kingdom or the local group when they are starting to lose a bit of focus.

But even worse than wanky Kings are peers on councils who feel that their voice is the only one that matters. "What are they doing on the list? I said they should be dropped." is a genuine quote. And I've just had a quick read-through of my leaks policy to confirm that that is not a leak, because it identifies neither candidate nor peer, but rather is to do with the meta-conduct of councils, which we're allowed to talk about. God being ethical is annoying ...

Back to being whiney. The smallest Lochac Council has over 40 members. If you think that you, one single person, are more important than all the others, then I should be allowed to smack you upside the head. I realise that this will not solve anyone's egocentricity, but it will make me feel a whole lot better. And I'm not selfish, anyone else who wants to come in on the slapping is welcome to. We could have a roster.

I think I'd cope better if it was ever the really smart and involved people who took this stance, but it is always the insular tossers who don't look beyond their own little circles. As you can tell, I find it very annoying.

But whingeing is dull, so let's have a quick cat update, since I haven't spent much time talking about the cat as yet.

This is Minnie. She also answers to Mooky, Moodle, Slugface, Fat Kitty, Evil and Moomoo. You can tell that J and I have no children, can't you? She is sitting in one of the wool storage boxes here, which is one of her favourite winter haunts.

Min was once a poor wee feral scrap when she was lured inside by a well-meaning but inept gay couple. They fed her enough to keep her alive, but their other cats would beat her up and when Tony and Jan found her she was a psychotic mess.

Tony and Jan, who live around the back street from us, stole her with permission and took her home to live with their three very elderly cats. Two of whom promptly died. But we're assured it was just coincidence.

Not long after this, we moved in. She would often spring over the back fence and watch us doing the gardening or hanging out in the yard. She would stand close to us and was interested in what we were doing, but would shy away if we went to touch her.

Then, one day, she came and sat on my lap as I was gardening. Before long she was regularly walking inside and watching evening TV with us or 'helping' with the sewing and knitting. This shot shows one of her other favourite locations, beside her food bowl.

For about a year, she lived a happy life of hanging out with us in the afternoons, then trotting off home at about 9pm. Then she started to not go home, so we would walk her around the block and leave her outside Tony and Jan's. She turned up with gashes and bites and lost weight. Finally we met up with Tony and Jan one afternoon and asked what was happening. They hadn't seen her in months. She was living on rats alone. They had a new cat, who hated Minnie. Minnie, despite being very little (even in her current pudding phase of life) would stand up to the beatings from the new big tomcat and attempt to disembowel him. I should point out that she did quite well. Her vet bills totalled about $160, while she inflicted over $1000-worth of damage on the evil Benny.

Jan was at a loss for what to do, so we decided that she should just live here full-time and that we would start feeding her regularly instead of just ignoring her when she stole Thai takeaway (carrots and chillies. Strange.)

So that's how we ended up with Minnie, here seen nestled against the very best winter friend of all, the oil heater. She quickly gained weight on a diet of kibble from us and wet food from Tony and Jan (they pay access visits to her on the front porch every afternoon). She still hunts the occasional rat and mouse to keep her paw in, but mostly just slugs around during winter and defends the garden from all other cats in the warm months. She's battered and scarred, but she has character, dammit.

To finish up, some photos from last weekend. I had a last-minute call from Bethan saying "Come round for barbecue!" So we did, because we like her and we like charred meats. It was a lovely evening. George did some acrobatics on the swinging seat, you can see Laela wondering if now would be a good time to move. He also told J that he thought of him as a father figure, which made J feel old, and astonished at how much alcohol one slender young man could hold.

George, Annabel and Bethan played DIY Bailey's, with some success, then tried to find a good way of drinking Creme de Menthe, with less.

Hrothers distinguished himself by poking fun at J for being really old, so I poked him for being really mean to old women and he was suitably apologetic. He was very funny all night.

Miss Krin was intellectually funny, and then had to change the level of her delivery part way through the night as the audience divided into those who had been playing DIY cocktail and those who had not.

It was a very good evening of laughter and charred meat, yay for Katie's barbecue! We need one so that we can invite people around here. Although we need to deal with the mozzies of doom before we let our friends be feasted upon.

Let's end with a nice shot of Bethan and Hunnydd. Are they looking suspiciously at a J comment? Why yes, yes they are. And rightly so.

Next post: May Crown and Flametree, the biff and the ball!