Hairdresser on Fire
By Morrissey
A silly force, synchronicity is. I was surprised when I found out that Pete Townshend wrote a rock opera about a deaf, dumb and blind boy called Tommy in Ebury Street in London near the house where Ian Fleming of James Bond fame wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and that Mary Shelly, the author of Frankenstein, died near the house where Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher was born. Consider for a moment that time could be like a stew. Imagine The Who guitarist musing about pinball wizards and acid queens, while the creator of Agent 007 dreams of stupid flying cars. Whew, the things that could only happen in London, giddy London – the home of whacked-out characters as diverse as Shakespeare and the Spice Girls, or mopey Morrissey and the dopey Monty Python Flying Circus.
I learned those pieces of silly reality aboard a red tourist bus, which passed by all the landmarks (Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, London Bridge, the London Eye, Tower of London, etc.) as well as those lonely boroughs where people as dissimilar as Jimi Hendrix and Handel, Townshend and Ian Fleming lived across each other – at the same time, or even across time.
It was my second time in London. I was alone when I went to the city last year and was able to visit Beatle landmarks such as Abbey Road and the Apple headquarters on No. 3 Savile Row (where John, Paul, George and Ringo played their last gig, as documented on the movie Let It Be), ending up at Blakemore Hotel teeming with kitschy décor; dodgy, Dickensian characters; and gnarly Filipinos spewing spit and politics, waiting for the former First Lady of the Philippines who had a speaking engagement in the hotel. Silly synchronicity, indeed: Her husband’s lonely hearts’ club henchmen beat the crap out of the Fab Four when they came to Manila for a gig in ’66 after they supposedly snubbed the "royal" family at the palace. And this "true, good and beautiful" behavior earned for the country a wisecrack from John Lennon and embarrassing entries in books about Beatlemania. City of Man? More like City of maniacs and man-handlers.
An observation: I encountered a guy with a beat-up acoustic guitar playing a song from The Who at King’s Cross Tube station in Central London. The line "I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth…" echoed in the subway halls. In another train station, a man breathed into a bronze saxophone. Misty, the tune was. At Piccadilly Circus, a musician with dreadlocks strummed away on a rusty guitar the chords of Redemption Song while lamenting about pirates, mental slavery, atomic energy and time. In blitzkrieg tours of foreign cities (in this case, London), all you’ll get to see are the landmarks in all their postcard glory when riding tourist buses. But there is a looming loneliness in London (or in any other city, for that matter) beneath the bright Frommer’s images. According to Pink Floyd, "Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way." London sure got the blues, too. Where do you think Morrissey gets his material?
There are many dimensions to the city. As the guy in the Tube information counter who looked like Spike in the movie Notting Hill once told me, "London is like an onion. There are many layers."
And we’re not just talking train zones here.
The Tate gallery in Bankside, London houses one of the world’s largest collections of modern art. Modern art, of course, is one of the most indefinable things on the planet. What’s the difference between a cheap gimmick and a work of art designed to shock, jolt and give the middle finger to institutionalized definitions of what art should be. What’s the difference between Francis Bacon and a guy who puts bacon in a box, dabs it with pink and paisley paints and calls it "a revolt against a universe where man is treated no better than rancid meat and that everything is glossed over with the pastel puke colors of falsity, artifice and apathy"? What’s the difference between modern art and canned shit? Sometimes none. Piero Manzoni put his poop in elegant tin canisters and dubbed them as "art." Tate Gallery bought them. Manzoni was able to sell his thumbprints on hardboiled eggs and his breath in a balloon as well. Of course, there are profound explanations for them. (I wonder what shit in a can means.) That’s the shtick of modern art.
But the artworks I saw at Tate Modern are beautiful in themselves even without profound explanations posited by eggheads who snack on zeitgeist, the id and fish & chips.
First of those mind-altering pieces is French-born American sculptor Louise Bourgeois’ "Maman" or "Mother," a huge spider (standing 30 feet tall) with a twisting dome for a body, marble eggs and eight, long steel tubes for legs. The spider is supposed to symbolize the artist’s mother, hence the title. If Bourgeois associates her mom with a figure that seemingly wants to take a bite out of Sigourney Weaver’s ass in the spaceship Nostromo that’s her trip. The towering sculpture can be found on the bridge across Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. Hey, I lost my lunch money a couple of times in spider-fights when I was in grade school. But if I had Bourgeois’ kick-ass arachnid…
Tate Modern galleries are divided into four motifs, and there are loads of great artworks to gawk at: Salvador Dali’s "Metamorphosis of Narcissus," "Autumnal Cannibalism" and a lobster telephone (which will leave the owner in a lurch as to what to ask for – a dial tone or a fork); Max Ernst’s "Celebes"; a René Magritte sculpture (a man with a cage for a chest – ribcage, get it?); Pablo Picasso’s "The Three Dancers"; André Fougeron’s "Atlantic Civilisation"; Andy Warhol’s pop art portraits of Elvis, Marilyn and Jackie O, as well as Communist propaganda posters, among others.
There were samples of that inscrutable fish of the art world called installations. There was Icelandic installation artist Olafur Eliasson’s "Your Double Lighthouse Projection (2002)." Eliasson’s aim is to focus the viewer’s attention to fog, rainbows, waterfalls, reflections and other natural phenomena; his materials are often light, temperature and pressure. To experience his lighthouse installation, a person needs to enter two circular rooms, gaze at rotating lights that constantly change colors, and try to experience an epiphany. It varies from case to case. Some may see the face of God. Others may see, say, Daffy Duck. You either hear a choir of angels or a despicable black duck screaming, "Suffering suckatash!"
There was one magnificently huge sculpture: a monolithic piece of shit clambering up the ceiling with a wheelbarrow beneath it. It was supposed to symbolize the fall of the Berlin Wall or something. "I’ve seen enough rubbish for one day," said a girl as she exited the exhibit hall. Oh well, one person’s rubbish is another person’s demise-of-Communism or lightning-with-stag-in-its-glare sculpture.
A trip to London is incomplete without a trip to the Tower. People who went to the Tower of London include Anne Boleyn, Thomas More, Walter Raleigh and Wham! There were seven ravens (Hardey, Thor, Odin, Gwyllum, Cedric, Hugine and Munin) on the greens. Legend has it that if those black birds leave, the British monarchy would fall. Despite clipped wings, those ravens nearly packed their bags and split when George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley came a-visiting. Even birds cannot endure Wake Me Up Before You Go Go.
As for the British Museum, it is stupid to allocate two to three hours in order to soak in the place, for the sights are legion. The museum explores ancient cultures from Egypt, Japan, Greece, Africa, Asia, etc. Hey, I dig those Assyrian portal guardians called lamassu. One of them is a colossal statue of a winged human-headed bull from the palace of King Ashurnasirpal II. It guards the threshold against demonic forces. I had a hard time passing through. Not because I was an evil presence, but because there were busloads of German kids scampering around the statue. Marilyn Manson could go through those statues easily, despite engaging in blasphemy in the US. Even Johnny Rotten who once dreamed of anarchy in the UK. I’m not sure about shady politicians who get rich quickly in the RP.
Another such creature (a winged lion) used to protect the castle against the forces of chaos. There was also the winged bull from the palace of Sargon II, reportedly one of the heaviest items in the museum. Heavier than the gift shop bag carried by a Scandinavian guy who bought shirts, bags, mugs, everything – except the freaking mummy!
I could stare all day at The Parthenon, plus that chunk of Acropolis hill, found in one of the rooms of the British Museum. A hill, would you believe? Statues abound at the museum. Three headless women with flowing robes called the Nereids caught my eye. In Greek mythology, the Nereids are daughters of Nereus and Doris who dwell in the Mediterranean Sea. These nymphs ride on seahorses and dolphins, serving as guides to those who are in transit, including souls bound for the afterlife. Hmm… must be like the escort service of the Underworld. All the lost sailors of ancient Greece needed to do was call a toll-free number and vote for their favorite Nereid.
To soak in more culture, I watched a West End presentation: The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty’s Theater at Haymarket, London. Bad seat, though. I was so far back in the balcony I could almost hear the songs from the other show in the other theater. Tonight’s the Night, I think. There was also one guy eating a pack of chips while watching The Phantom. I didn’t know which was louder – the phantom gnashing his teeth out of despair or that boor crunching away on barbecue crisps. The stage and my seat were so far apart it had different time zones. I probably needed a visa to get to the orchestra. I could almost see Guatemala from where I was sitting.
The musical was not bad, although I would’ve preferred a rock opera like Tommy or The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Hedwig and the Angry Inch. When All I Ask Of You was played, couples started cuddling. All the people in the theater probably started dreaming of doomed love. Even the potato chip guy stopped chewing. I sat in silence, wondering what the weather is in front row.
That’s what I got for being born with a plastic spoon in my mouth.