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War, Modernism, and Getting Soaked.
Oct. 23rd, 2009 09:45 pmGreetings, Internets!
I am back in the confines of the cozy hotel business centre,* waiting for my dinner to arrive. It is wet and rainy and there's this wind that just went through me like whoa, so dinner will be inside the confines of my room tonight, where there's the nice big warm bed and the TV and my book.
Today I walked my feet off, but in that way that means you've been doing stuff rather than an unproductive and cruddy way. Got up early this morning after a night of not enough sleep** and had a really nice big breakfast downstairs, and then hied myself off to the War Museum for the part of this trip that actually counts as work: WWI research for The Enchanted Generation.
I have apparently reached the point where I've read and taken in enough stuff about WWI that I've...well, attached. There's some really fantastic stuff in there -- even if I didn't always agree with the treatment, and that's another discussion -- like a trench recreation, access to thousands of scanned-in enlistment papers, photographs. It all made me pretty much want to bawl until my eyes bled.
And then I went to a coffeeshop and took down three pages of notes for The Enchanted Generation, so.
Met up with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kafkonia at said coffeeshop and went to lunch, which was awesome, since he's on the list of people I don't see too much/enough. After that I had a thought of going to the Parliament building for a tour, but apparently that ship had sailed for today (I forgot how everything in Ottawa closes three hours earlier than I am acculturated to find standard) so instead I just kept going to the National Gallery.
I struck out a bit at the National Gallery too: they were closing in an hour, the piece I had really, really, really wanted to see again (which is pictured in my icon here) wasn't out on display this month, and and and phooey. But I did get to see one of my favourite Lawren Harris paintings, and a whole chapel that they took down and reconstructed inside the gallery, and some modernist stuff which will also help with the book, and then thought thoughts about some of the general subtext of the modernist aesthetic when applied to painting (especially Cubism, actually. It's not what it looks like at first shake, I think) and just the...metatext of self-portraits; what it means, as an act, to paint self-portraits.
I may or may not have sprung for a Pretty Notebook (tm) at the gallery gift shop.
After that I had time to kill until 6:45, which is when my Haunted Walk tour started, so I went to the Rideau Centre and 1) had a coffee to warm myself back up and 2) searched in vain for cute tights, which could be found at one place but for horrendous price. And then, freezing and partially regretting that I'd paid for this on an evening where I was wearing a skirt and tights and it was raining and blowing cold like eeee, I went on the ghost tour.
The ghost tour is fun. It was worth it. We got cider at the end, and I got to (surreptitiously!) see the death cast they made of Thomas D'Arcy McGee's hand, since his face was all blown off and a death mask, as was standard, was kind of not on.
And now I am back ensconced in a warm place where my feet can be both dry and warm, at the same time! My Thai food is here too,**** so I am going to adjourn to my room and eat my pad thai and watch, perhaps, some more wholesome true crime TV.
More adventure will be reported tomorrow. *g*
*Just forget it. Next time I actually have to travel and want to have internet with me when I do? I am sucking it up and buying a laptop that works.
**I wanted to knit and decompress a bit before bed last night, so I thought Oh, there's a TV with cable here, I'll just watch something and knit a bit and then go to bed. Bad idea. There's this showmatociquala watches sometimes called The First 48, about real-life police teams trying to solve crimes and all the procedural and investigative stuff involved in, well, the first 48 hours.*** It is completely, fascinatingly mindsucking. I got to sleep at *cough*-o'clock. >.>
***Confidential to saidmatociquala: I saw Detective Sergeant Justice!
****Even though they screwed up the order, and I am down one bowl of tom kha. Foiled again.
I am back in the confines of the cozy hotel business centre,* waiting for my dinner to arrive. It is wet and rainy and there's this wind that just went through me like whoa, so dinner will be inside the confines of my room tonight, where there's the nice big warm bed and the TV and my book.
Today I walked my feet off, but in that way that means you've been doing stuff rather than an unproductive and cruddy way. Got up early this morning after a night of not enough sleep** and had a really nice big breakfast downstairs, and then hied myself off to the War Museum for the part of this trip that actually counts as work: WWI research for The Enchanted Generation.
I have apparently reached the point where I've read and taken in enough stuff about WWI that I've...well, attached. There's some really fantastic stuff in there -- even if I didn't always agree with the treatment, and that's another discussion -- like a trench recreation, access to thousands of scanned-in enlistment papers, photographs. It all made me pretty much want to bawl until my eyes bled.
And then I went to a coffeeshop and took down three pages of notes for The Enchanted Generation, so.
Met up with
kafkonia at said coffeeshop and went to lunch, which was awesome, since he's on the list of people I don't see too much/enough. After that I had a thought of going to the Parliament building for a tour, but apparently that ship had sailed for today (I forgot how everything in Ottawa closes three hours earlier than I am acculturated to find standard) so instead I just kept going to the National Gallery.I struck out a bit at the National Gallery too: they were closing in an hour, the piece I had really, really, really wanted to see again (which is pictured in my icon here) wasn't out on display this month, and and and phooey. But I did get to see one of my favourite Lawren Harris paintings, and a whole chapel that they took down and reconstructed inside the gallery, and some modernist stuff which will also help with the book, and then thought thoughts about some of the general subtext of the modernist aesthetic when applied to painting (especially Cubism, actually. It's not what it looks like at first shake, I think) and just the...metatext of self-portraits; what it means, as an act, to paint self-portraits.
I may or may not have sprung for a Pretty Notebook (tm) at the gallery gift shop.
After that I had time to kill until 6:45, which is when my Haunted Walk tour started, so I went to the Rideau Centre and 1) had a coffee to warm myself back up and 2) searched in vain for cute tights, which could be found at one place but for horrendous price. And then, freezing and partially regretting that I'd paid for this on an evening where I was wearing a skirt and tights and it was raining and blowing cold like eeee, I went on the ghost tour.
The ghost tour is fun. It was worth it. We got cider at the end, and I got to (surreptitiously!) see the death cast they made of Thomas D'Arcy McGee's hand, since his face was all blown off and a death mask, as was standard, was kind of not on.
And now I am back ensconced in a warm place where my feet can be both dry and warm, at the same time! My Thai food is here too,**** so I am going to adjourn to my room and eat my pad thai and watch, perhaps, some more wholesome true crime TV.
More adventure will be reported tomorrow. *g*
*Just forget it. Next time I actually have to travel and want to have internet with me when I do? I am sucking it up and buying a laptop that works.
**I wanted to knit and decompress a bit before bed last night, so I thought Oh, there's a TV with cable here, I'll just watch something and knit a bit and then go to bed. Bad idea. There's this show
matociquala watches sometimes called The First 48, about real-life police teams trying to solve crimes and all the procedural and investigative stuff involved in, well, the first 48 hours.*** It is completely, fascinatingly mindsucking. I got to sleep at *cough*-o'clock. >.> ***Confidential to said
matociquala: I saw Detective Sergeant Justice!****Even though they screwed up the order, and I am down one bowl of tom kha. Foiled again.
