We had planned to travel on a bit further today and stay somewhere between Newcastle and Edinburgh, but we were wiped out and thought we should make the most of this rare day off and stay put where we were.
It was a terrific day. Just great to be free of work or driving or anything else and to have some fun. We went to
the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. I really enjoyed it, especially the
A Duck For Mr Darwin exhibit. I really liked the film in which artist Marcus Coates dressed up as a Blue-footed Booby (the bird) in the Galapagos Islands and did a report for local television. The puzzled reaction of the hosts was almost as funny as the piece itself, which whilst amusing, also made some interesting points about the human race, from the perspective of a giant bird (or at least a man dressed as one)
This article explains more.
Even more amazing and funnier was the same artist's footage of a pair of giant tortoises attempting to mate. It was hard to tell if they were being successful, but was fascinating viewing and not for reasons that podcast listeners might assume. It's not only amusing to see these cumbersome, massive animals trying to procreate, as well as their third wheel friend who seems to like watching, but just occasionally gets clouted in the head for his troubles, but it's also intriguing to see these bizarre creatures at close range. They look almost entirely alien with their rock like skin and strange heads and toothless mouths and the vast cloak of skin that connects their neck to the shell. It feels inappropriate to be party to such an intimate moment, but the male tortoise makes such peculiar noises and is so persistent in his attempts to mount his uninterested lover, whose face is stuck down in the muddy water that it was hard to not stay watching for hours. The male tortoises leg scraped against the shell of the females, over and over again and I remarked to my girlfriend that you could tell the slutty giant tortoises from the shiny rubbing damage on their shells. It was almost endlessly fascinating and a little scary, especially when the male tortoise seemed to roar at the goosebury tortoise (with rage or pride or God knows what?) and they almost seem to kiss. As he keeps rubbing furiously and heaving himself forwards. Is he having sex at all or completely failing? How difficult is it for these two semi-spherical creatures, mainly made of shell to just make love?
But I didn't find it sexy and anyone who says I did is lying.
I was a bit more bamboozled by
Sarah Sze's exhibition as well as constantly concerned about how to pronounce her surname. But it was fun looking at the room which was filled with odd constructions made out of string and flowing water and chairs taped sideways to walls and plastic fish bones.
Fun too just to look at Newcastle from one of the viewing galleries.
Later I saw the Millennium Bridge rising up to allow a pleasure cruiser through and we had a hearty dinner before watching an Audrey Tautou film.
Nice to escape the strange pressures of the last couple of weeks and to experience calm before the storm of the coming month.
It was an oasis free of the kind of pricks who have been disrupting my life of late - not all of them journalists. It was all rather luxurious too, though I have been working hard enough to justify the excess.
I can't believe I will be in Edinburgh tomorrow. How fast it all comes round. I wonder how this one will go. You can find out about the last five (or six if you include the week I spent up there in 2003) by looking back at the August blogs. My feeling is that this should be the best one yet. But hubris is a theme of the show, so who knows?
