Extraordinary Machine
17 - 21 October, Ian
One of my few very early memories is of being
wheeled along one of Wolverhampton's old arcades. This arcade and most others
like it were swept away under an urban planning ideal of a modern town with
pedestrianised streets,
newer
arcades and galleried semi-open malls. Like the concrete from which the new
building was constructed, the town must have looked much finer on the blueprints
than it did in reality. I recall that you could buy postcards depicting the
town's public spaces, with shoppers resting (as planned) on the benches that
were set around the little gardens and water features. The postcards were done,
I think, in the same spirit of modernist optimism as the planning project rather
than in a spirit of post-modern irony. As bold as the very idea that people
would freely purchase picture postcards of Wolverhampton town centre was the
impossible blue sky under which the shopping tableaux were set. The three
primary colour layers that merged to form the cards were also aligned slightly
imprecisely, giving a jarring blur to the edges of every object shown (not
unlike the imprecise tracking of audio to video on the "Wolverhampton Then and
Now" tapes that were made in a similar
vein).
I've been reminded of all of this, which was in another lifetime, over the last week as I've walked around Santiago. The old, slightly seedy, arcades that run haphazardly off the main shopping drag remind me of those from my childhood, and if they seem a bit grubbier and less full of promise here I can rationally (if not emotionally) admit that it's only because I'm grown up now: what, as an adult, could be as alluring in a shop window as a large box of Standard fireworks are to a child far too young to buy them? Outdoors, the sky here really does have that impossible picture postcard blue, and people genuinely sit on the benches.
Of course, there are other Wolverhamptons than that of the main shopping area, ranging from the Blakean industrial-revolution-era district that you see from the train windows, which a decade or two ago was the crack-dealing centre of Europe, to affluent suburbs on the side of town that reaches out towards rural Shropshire. And there is much more to Santiago than the narrow band of streets around Huerfanos. For example, before we decamped here last week we had seen the US-style malls - both the mid-market one near our original base and the ritzier Parc Arauco, which has the Apple store and the Rolex dealership. In my bones I prefer walking around the older part of town, although if you're shopping for anything other than joke-bad shoes the choice in the malls is much better, and the malls also shield you from the gaseous soup of fumes that passes for air in the Centro; the mountains around the plain on which Santiago sits form a natural bowl, restricting atmospheric circulation.
Bookshops have been a disappointment - I had high hopes of finding a couple of decent English books to take on to Rangiroa next month, but so far all I've seen that I'd consider are a P.D. James novel, Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco and The Autumn of the Patriarch (to re-read). None of these is exciting me. Right now I'm enjoying Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full. A couple of nights ago I read one short section of dialogue and in reading it I learned that a senior officer of the firm that employs me had read the same book: I recall him using two memorable terms together exactly as in the book a few years ago to give an inappropriate description of a woman in the workplace. It was interesting to see that a book could leave foot prints. I've never read The Bonfire of the Vanities or any other book by Wolfe before; it's a great read but more Elmore Leonard or Carl Hiassen than I'd expected. I'd defy anyone to explain convincingly why Elmore Leonard writes genre fiction while Tom Wolfe writes literature.
One person who doesn't write literature is the recipient of the latest Nobel prize for it. When I heard on Democracy Now last week that the prize was being awarded to Harold Pinter I was astonished. It reminded me of when they elected Thatcher to be a Fellow of the Royal Society - despite having an undistinguished degree in Chemistry she harmed the cause of science even more than the cause of women when she was in power. Given how easy it is to list dozens of great living writers who don't have the Nobel prize I'm perplexed as to why they awarded it to a placard socialist from leafy Holland Park. If they didn't want to give it to a writer of serious novels and/or journalism they could have chosen more creative or influential figures in other forms: the Coen brothers, for example, or Bob Dylan, or even J.K. Rowling!
We've also been taking in some of the museums and galleries here. On Tuesday I took Zoe and Heidi along to the Chilean Musuem of Pre-Columbian Art, following the Lonely Planet recommendation that this was the best museum in town (by now I should know that this is a counter-indicator). It had a perfectly decent collection of pots and other artefacts arranged alongside explanatory boards explaining their provenance and giving timelines and geographies of the various South American cultural lines. The girls' experience was muted by the blanket ban on photography, which was a shame as they were keen to take snaps to record their visit.
The next day we went to the Museum of Visual Arts, which was a bigger hit with all three of us. The centrepiece of the exhibition was a set of sculptures by the local artist Juan Egenau. These were predominantly iron and brass pieces themed on machinery, medieval armoury and plated clothing on a female form. There was also a simple room with a display of ancient artefacts that was altogether catchier than that at the museum of the previous day. We learned, to my surprise, that the process of mummification was first recorded in South America sometime before 5,000 BC. And you could take photographs so long as you turned off your flash.
Yesterday we all went to the Metropolitan park and discovered the Palacio de Bellas Artes on the way. This was probably the pick of the bunch, with a great collection of contemporary sculptures and engaging art, as well as two exhibitions, showcasing respectively Andy Warhol and a contemporary etcher. It was nice to be reminded that Warhol was actually very creative and did a lot more than Campbells soup prints. And, to demonstrate that we'd reached a peak of user-friendliness, flash photography was permitted, apart from in the Warhol rooms. Here's a piece that generated some disagreement amongst our party of four; what do you think?
It's nice just to walk around a city again. There's no reason I should be as surprised as I am by the number of men in suits, apart from the extent to which it's an example of how people seem to wear more and heavier clothes than the hot weather warrants. There are also armies of girls kicking around in school uniform: the odd phenomenon here is that the absence of corresponding school boys. A couple of days ago when I was walking along with Heidi and Zoe three of the schoolgirls approached me and asked me for cash. I replied with a protective, "No entiendo, habla ingles?" and, unfazed, they laughingly just switched to "Money, money", which they pronounced like the name of the painter Monet. I think they wanted to go to the cinema, and it struck me that even though they shouldn't be doing it, it was nice that these schoolgirls weren't oppressed by fear of "stranger danger". On another occasion Paula and I were approached for cash by a woman and daughter who were dressed in quite classy gypsy gear. This time the "I know nothing" thing worked and they skulked off to the next family. A little later we saw them off duty: the woman and daughter had put their shoes on and they also had a little boy with them who was running around in a Harry Potter t-shirt.
The one category of people who generally seem to be short supply are tourists. I haven't noticed any out on the streets, and Paula has observed that it would be nice if there more tourist spots to hit up while we're here. The first place where I was conscious of hearing English (North American) spoken was in the first museum, and this was also true of the other two (although these seemed also to attract locals). We found more at the big park, from where the Virgin, amidst a forest of radio masts, looks down over the city. You can take a funicular up to the statue, and in the short queue we ran into a couple of travellers. He was a Scot who had been backpacking for almost a year, with just the inevitable walk along the Inca Trail and trip to Buenos Aires between him and his journey home. Although the Spanish for a return ticket to the top was spelled out on a board right by the kiosk, he asked for his ticket in a Scottish accent so broad that I could barely understand it myself. At the top we met a number of friendly North Americans and had an ice cream, enjoying the sun and the view over smoggy Santiago.
The Virgin statue is very decorative but it was a different encounter that made me stop in the street and stare in awe this week. In the middle of semi-pedestrianised and seedy Huerfanos a silver Mercedes had been left parked with the hazards on. It was a model I hadn't seen before - a 500 CLS - and it was breathtaking. A little like the newish BMW 6 series, only chunkier and altogether Merc-ier (I prefer BM's). In a place where you barely ever see any German cars it really made an impression. I've only just restrained my impulse to paste in the snap I took.
Tomorrow we move out of our place here, which is at the Barrio Brasil end of Huerfanos and return to our miserable shack in its stunning hillside setting. The apartment here has been very comfortable, and our worst complaints have been that the fitted sheets don't fit that well (not that there's no appropriate bedding) and that the wifi reception is a little weak (not that we have no electricity or heating). It'll be a shame to move out. While I've been here I've used the wifi to download some more music, amongst which my favourite is the new Fiona Apple CD. We can walk to museums, shops and restaurants, and the car has been parked in the basement since we arrived. Like every single place that we've stayed since we've been away, we did have a power cut. I don't think that it's too rare around here: when Paula went down to enquire what was up they already had a note written out in English, saying that the power would be on again in an hour. I'm guessing that this wasn't hastily translated by the Spanish-only speaker at the desk and it turned out not to be the most accurate up-to-the-minute report.
Ian
I've been reminded of all of this, which was in another lifetime, over the last week as I've walked around Santiago. The old, slightly seedy, arcades that run haphazardly off the main shopping drag remind me of those from my childhood, and if they seem a bit grubbier and less full of promise here I can rationally (if not emotionally) admit that it's only because I'm grown up now: what, as an adult, could be as alluring in a shop window as a large box of Standard fireworks are to a child far too young to buy them? Outdoors, the sky here really does have that impossible picture postcard blue, and people genuinely sit on the benches.
Of course, there are other Wolverhamptons than that of the main shopping area, ranging from the Blakean industrial-revolution-era district that you see from the train windows, which a decade or two ago was the crack-dealing centre of Europe, to affluent suburbs on the side of town that reaches out towards rural Shropshire. And there is much more to Santiago than the narrow band of streets around Huerfanos. For example, before we decamped here last week we had seen the US-style malls - both the mid-market one near our original base and the ritzier Parc Arauco, which has the Apple store and the Rolex dealership. In my bones I prefer walking around the older part of town, although if you're shopping for anything other than joke-bad shoes the choice in the malls is much better, and the malls also shield you from the gaseous soup of fumes that passes for air in the Centro; the mountains around the plain on which Santiago sits form a natural bowl, restricting atmospheric circulation.
Bookshops have been a disappointment - I had high hopes of finding a couple of decent English books to take on to Rangiroa next month, but so far all I've seen that I'd consider are a P.D. James novel, Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco and The Autumn of the Patriarch (to re-read). None of these is exciting me. Right now I'm enjoying Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full. A couple of nights ago I read one short section of dialogue and in reading it I learned that a senior officer of the firm that employs me had read the same book: I recall him using two memorable terms together exactly as in the book a few years ago to give an inappropriate description of a woman in the workplace. It was interesting to see that a book could leave foot prints. I've never read The Bonfire of the Vanities or any other book by Wolfe before; it's a great read but more Elmore Leonard or Carl Hiassen than I'd expected. I'd defy anyone to explain convincingly why Elmore Leonard writes genre fiction while Tom Wolfe writes literature.
One person who doesn't write literature is the recipient of the latest Nobel prize for it. When I heard on Democracy Now last week that the prize was being awarded to Harold Pinter I was astonished. It reminded me of when they elected Thatcher to be a Fellow of the Royal Society - despite having an undistinguished degree in Chemistry she harmed the cause of science even more than the cause of women when she was in power. Given how easy it is to list dozens of great living writers who don't have the Nobel prize I'm perplexed as to why they awarded it to a placard socialist from leafy Holland Park. If they didn't want to give it to a writer of serious novels and/or journalism they could have chosen more creative or influential figures in other forms: the Coen brothers, for example, or Bob Dylan, or even J.K. Rowling!
We've also been taking in some of the museums and galleries here. On Tuesday I took Zoe and Heidi along to the Chilean Musuem of Pre-Columbian Art, following the Lonely Planet recommendation that this was the best museum in town (by now I should know that this is a counter-indicator). It had a perfectly decent collection of pots and other artefacts arranged alongside explanatory boards explaining their provenance and giving timelines and geographies of the various South American cultural lines. The girls' experience was muted by the blanket ban on photography, which was a shame as they were keen to take snaps to record their visit.
The next day we went to the Museum of Visual Arts, which was a bigger hit with all three of us. The centrepiece of the exhibition was a set of sculptures by the local artist Juan Egenau. These were predominantly iron and brass pieces themed on machinery, medieval armoury and plated clothing on a female form. There was also a simple room with a display of ancient artefacts that was altogether catchier than that at the museum of the previous day. We learned, to my surprise, that the process of mummification was first recorded in South America sometime before 5,000 BC. And you could take photographs so long as you turned off your flash.
Yesterday we all went to the Metropolitan park and discovered the Palacio de Bellas Artes on the way. This was probably the pick of the bunch, with a great collection of contemporary sculptures and engaging art, as well as two exhibitions, showcasing respectively Andy Warhol and a contemporary etcher. It was nice to be reminded that Warhol was actually very creative and did a lot more than Campbells soup prints. And, to demonstrate that we'd reached a peak of user-friendliness, flash photography was permitted, apart from in the Warhol rooms. Here's a piece that generated some disagreement amongst our party of four; what do you think?
It's nice just to walk around a city again. There's no reason I should be as surprised as I am by the number of men in suits, apart from the extent to which it's an example of how people seem to wear more and heavier clothes than the hot weather warrants. There are also armies of girls kicking around in school uniform: the odd phenomenon here is that the absence of corresponding school boys. A couple of days ago when I was walking along with Heidi and Zoe three of the schoolgirls approached me and asked me for cash. I replied with a protective, "No entiendo, habla ingles?" and, unfazed, they laughingly just switched to "Money, money", which they pronounced like the name of the painter Monet. I think they wanted to go to the cinema, and it struck me that even though they shouldn't be doing it, it was nice that these schoolgirls weren't oppressed by fear of "stranger danger". On another occasion Paula and I were approached for cash by a woman and daughter who were dressed in quite classy gypsy gear. This time the "I know nothing" thing worked and they skulked off to the next family. A little later we saw them off duty: the woman and daughter had put their shoes on and they also had a little boy with them who was running around in a Harry Potter t-shirt.
The one category of people who generally seem to be short supply are tourists. I haven't noticed any out on the streets, and Paula has observed that it would be nice if there more tourist spots to hit up while we're here. The first place where I was conscious of hearing English (North American) spoken was in the first museum, and this was also true of the other two (although these seemed also to attract locals). We found more at the big park, from where the Virgin, amidst a forest of radio masts, looks down over the city. You can take a funicular up to the statue, and in the short queue we ran into a couple of travellers. He was a Scot who had been backpacking for almost a year, with just the inevitable walk along the Inca Trail and trip to Buenos Aires between him and his journey home. Although the Spanish for a return ticket to the top was spelled out on a board right by the kiosk, he asked for his ticket in a Scottish accent so broad that I could barely understand it myself. At the top we met a number of friendly North Americans and had an ice cream, enjoying the sun and the view over smoggy Santiago.
The Virgin statue is very decorative but it was a different encounter that made me stop in the street and stare in awe this week. In the middle of semi-pedestrianised and seedy Huerfanos a silver Mercedes had been left parked with the hazards on. It was a model I hadn't seen before - a 500 CLS - and it was breathtaking. A little like the newish BMW 6 series, only chunkier and altogether Merc-ier (I prefer BM's). In a place where you barely ever see any German cars it really made an impression. I've only just restrained my impulse to paste in the snap I took.
Tomorrow we move out of our place here, which is at the Barrio Brasil end of Huerfanos and return to our miserable shack in its stunning hillside setting. The apartment here has been very comfortable, and our worst complaints have been that the fitted sheets don't fit that well (not that there's no appropriate bedding) and that the wifi reception is a little weak (not that we have no electricity or heating). It'll be a shame to move out. While I've been here I've used the wifi to download some more music, amongst which my favourite is the new Fiona Apple CD. We can walk to museums, shops and restaurants, and the car has been parked in the basement since we arrived. Like every single place that we've stayed since we've been away, we did have a power cut. I don't think that it's too rare around here: when Paula went down to enquire what was up they already had a note written out in English, saying that the power would be on again in an hour. I'm guessing that this wasn't hastily translated by the Spanish-only speaker at the desk and it turned out not to be the most accurate up-to-the-minute report.
Ian
Posted: Fri - October 21, 2005 at 12:07 PM
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