Dilly-dallying with Dali

I think the interview went pretty well yesterday. The word "Excellent" was used more than once to describe my test results. Then again, I loudly used the same adjective when I got my foot caught in the train door while getting off at Paddington. But whatever, I'll (theoretically) get a phone call later today to confirm whether or not I'll have a three week data entry contract which would start on Monday. The pay is decent (eight pounds an hour) and though about a third of what I'll make will go to transit, the rest will still be very helpful. One interesting thing that the nice young girl I spoke with (I'll be damned if she was over twenty, thus "girl") told me was how hiring apparently heats up in January. As she was the third person from as many different recruiting companies to tell me this, I reached a point where I could believe it.

The job would be near Charing Cross, by and by.

So okay, I might not get into London until January, but that's fine by me. Whatever defeatist bastard coined that phrase about horses and hand grenades obviously never played darts - which is a much better metaphor when it comes to life goals. I'm just happy to know that there actually are some good periods for job hunting (another is April, due to the fiscal year). I swear that no matter the time of year in Ottawa, I'd always have a few people tell me of how that exact moment in time was total shit for job hunting. ANYwho....

So London was gorgeous yesterday and after the interview I made a point of trundling about a bit. It was nice, actually, since I managed to connect a few dots and now I think I have a much better handle on central London. PROTIP: The tube is a great way to get around, but you won't learn the city as anything but a grouping of circular patches around the stations unless you walk or bus a bit too. Plus it's much cheaper! The bus is about half the price of the tube and shank's pony costs as much as it always has.

I started by heading over to Trafalgar Square and I pulled the ol' camera out. As with most of Central London, it is drenched in history and I highly recommend taking the time to read all the informative plaques etc. Which reminds me, until recently I have only been reading half of any informative plaque, placard, poster or what have you. I actually had to remind myself that ALL of the text was in English here, thus throwing off the habit of a lifetime...

Eventually I found my way to my beloved Enbankment area and grabbed some lunch, which I valiently devoured in front of a watching crowd of some four dozen pigeons. Despite the fact that entire battallions of the buggers can be seen marching up and down most streets, I have yet to actually get shat on and for that I am thankful. Only that though, otherwise I'm an ingrate. I don't think I've even seen any birdshit! Perhaps they aren't birds so much as the finest concealed CCTV cameras that money can buy?



Heading over to the Saatchi, I saw they still had an exhibiton on the most wretched of artforms - manga - in the main area. But luckily in one of the sub-galleries there was a Salvador Dali exhibit! Knowing that Dali has always been one of my dad's favorites and having grown up constantly seeing bits of his work around the house, I couldn't see a reason not to go in. I gotta say I'm glad I did because it turns out I was powerfully ignorant about the man. Yes the melting clocks were a running gag of his, but there were others which should have been just as famous. Keep an eye out for crutches, spanish beans and disguised self-portraits throughout all his work and you'll see what I mean. In particular, I enjoyed his use of shelving coming out of the body as a means of drawing attention to all that we conceal inside ourselves.

Also, I thought he died ages ago (you know, sometime before Transformers and all that other 1980's crap which won't die) but apparently he only passed away in 1989.

Though I was wary of the kind of "worshipful-masturbation-to-cover-up-the-Emperor" nonsense you often get with "the greats", I was pleased to find that despite it's surreal nature you could often find the meaning within it which was trying to be expressed. Not that this is the point of art! I just have a strong distaste for people coming in after an artists death and slathering his or her work with their own interpretations until they eventually calcify into what the artist supposedly meant.

There were also many, many statues - again, I had no idea he had done anything but sketches and paintings. Dali also had no reservations about doing several series of works which were tributes to what had inspired him over the years (his series on Don Quixote gets my highest recommenation). He also dabbled in surrealist film making, which was constantly broadcast from a few mounted televisions, as well as photography and even a bit of jewelry. He truly deserves the title of "renaissance man".

Also, he apparently did a cartoon with Disney that took over fifty years to get to completion?

For a mere 15,000 pounds I could have bought a signed print, a print, of my favorite work of his...but somehow I thought that this was outside my current budget. Maybe after I get a job?