THE AMORY SHOW

I have to talk about the art exhibtion I went to on saturday.
Lets take this same saturday to be the first day that I started this blog. ...........garrghh!!!!!
I had wanted not to make any big deal about starting it my blog finaaaaally...hence you might notice the first post did not have any introductory knowing-me-knowing-you's ,
Didnt want to jinx anything by drawing attention to THE BEGINNING.....anyways, much too late now.....
This exhibition being my first deliberate attempts at experiencing the metropolitan angle of the art scene, I blackmailed my poor cousin out of her obviously stretched-to-the-limit schedule to "take me out for fun" or else........
so she found this art show, whose only appeal at the time was the half price fee for students....It sounded better than nothing, so we bundled up and went.
Now there are two things I hate:
1. I hate walking fast
2. I hate the cold
naturally, I should hate walking fast in the cold.....which I did...possibly twice as much as the vector of the two combined.
when we got to the place, the scowl on my face was geniuine, but I suppose it rivalled the one on the faces of the various artists that had already littered the place...probably theirs was just the pained effort of having to inhabit the same atmosphere with other beings that didn't quite "grasp the underpinings of the subliminal message" who didnt know, much less know how "to challenge the status quo in neo-modernism" etc. etc.....
Once upon a time, i thought the tortured souls and dark circles under the eyes of any creative artist to be the sexiest thing in the world....(perhaps part of me still does)...but im a grown girl now...."the world does not understand me" is no longer a pick up line that would work on me...
No, no, Van-gogh,......aint buying, Lord Byron.....
The exhibtion proper? If you imagine that New York is one of the most cutting edge cities in the world, and this exhibtion advertised New Art, you can only imagine how avant garde the combination be.....now take that your imgination, and multiply it by two, and you are nearing what was presented at THE ARMORY SHOW.
First of all, it was HUGE......there was art in its various forms, photography, audio-visual medium, painting, scupture, collage, and some mediums that most of us could not describe...to a dishevelled white female mannequin wearing a battered european work-house dress of the great depression, also singing some kind deep-south blues, you wonder to yourself....so what is on display here? the mannequinn? Le dress? , blues music, or even the depression itself?
The trick is to make you wonder I suppose........
Nudity, naturally was also top dollar, with the ubiquitous female form having some stiff( no pun intended, I swear) competiton from the male bodies......
Politics was popular too...there was an interesting collage made up of quite a bit of the flags of the world...I dont want to bet that ALL the flags were there.....and what was suprisingly brought to the fore, is that GREEN occcurs quite a bit in the colour schemes of most the world's flags......hmmm....Unity or a brewing conspiracy theory? hmmmm...you can see that picture here.
It gets to you after a while I tell you, your brain buzzes, and then practically shuts down with the overload of action of the AMORY SHOW, it was certainly an intense stimulation of sensory neurones...
Just when I was about turn around and re-boot my RAM at home, I caught sight of them.....actually him first......in a photograph by VANESSA BEECROFT.....six-feet plus, carrying a naked baby, with a skin color so dark he was nearly navy blue, he looked like Midnight come alive.......and right next to him, but juxtaposed in context, was the most pristine looking caucasian woman I have ever seen, in pink, holding a clutch of delicate flowers, in mortal trepidation of....something sha...(see the picture in the upload, Im sorry Im a bad photographer, I shall improve...or get a better picture link, so you can understand me....).
There was something absolutely shocking in that picture, in a way that is indescribable as simply good or bad......I was stuck..for several seconds....literarily frozen to the spot where I stood, with my jaw unhinged....
This in fact caused an absolutely gorgeous fair-skinned woman to walk up to me, and ask me what I thought about the picture?...... what immediately struck me about it?
No, she wasnt the artist, but she worked on the project, it was shot in Sudan see, and there were several more from the collection (I have uploaded those ones too)....
Her name is Lehni Lamide Davies, and it turns out that she is Nigerian, like me, part Lagosian, like me....and quite intelligent and radical....well, you get the picture...
I shall save the story of Lamide my new friend for another day...., and leave you with pictures from AMORY for now.......
*All works the copyright of Vannessa Beecroft, and of the various artists whose names I dont know.....
Shalom!

Half Celibate is better than none

So I’m sitting here o, minding my own business, have lied about having the flu to my preceptor so I can get out of going to school today je-je, and have stayed home instead to spend the day innocently surfing the internet.
I think for all of 2 seconds that if only my preceptor knows what my chat ID is, and manages to see me permanently signed on in the yahoo chat engine, instead of sniffing, coughing and feeling down right suicidal under the sheets that having the flu should rightly do to me…..then again, I think that he already sort of knows….I don’t think I did the cough-cough, sniff-sniff impersonation over the phone too well….
Anyway, see me see trouble o…I had thought that at 9.30 on a Monday morning and signed in ready to chat, only a few people would be around to see you, being that the greater population of the world’s other wise employed would be at work/school/garage/….
”Ping” goes my computer…someone wants me to know they are online, and has buzzed me.
Its my friend, …now me and this woman had lost touch for about 15 years, since like primary school basically…and had only by chance hooked up again last year…God Save the Internet…even though our paths had been in close tandem a couple of times, it just didn’t happen till she googled me. (by the way, until someone tells you that…Oh…I didn’t know where to look anymore, than I hit google and found a couple of stuff you had done, accessed those sites and sent them an email, and then found your address….you haven’t lived….)
Anyway we arranged to meet in person about Christmas, and we did, and it was nice. Fun, laughter, no awkward-ities……we both agreed that : being elitist-posh is SO out, throwing disdain in the direction of the elitist-posh is IN, we were unmarried because all men were dumb/blind/wolves/just-too-stupid, cheaters. etc.. and generally promised not to let the silence of 15 years repeat itself again.
When she headed back to her base in America, we promised that this time we would never part.
Well, it didn’t quite happen like that, instead of jumping on a plane, train, bus, whatever to see each other the minute I got there, our earlier enthusiasm for each other’s “hilarious company” and “sparkling conversation” had cooled somewhat.
I wasn’t in blazing hurry to spend money go see her, and the way she kept on pulling exams, schedules and impromptu weddings out of a hat, I’m guessing ditto for her too…However, we still managed to keep up general jists on the phone and do some thirty minute senseless online natter sometimes.
So it was this morning when she pinged me, after we had done the usual kabuki-like ritual dance around each other….
”you…you fashied me…”….
”me?…ah-ha it was you that has jaboo-ed me now…” etc.
out of that molar-grinding nonsense came a jocular jab…(to me)
In fact the whole thing went thus
Iminnthemoodfordisclosure99: what is wrong with you sef? I think you are stressed

Chattingsenselesslyonmondaymorning1: my dear, don’t mind me jare

Iminnthemoodfordisclosure99: I think you need sex*

(Huh?.......), *Note: allegation of no…or only spurious relation to prior subject matter, I promise….

Oh well in the spirit of the turn of the conversation
Chattingsenselesslyonmondaymorning1: hahahah! That wont be bad o, shay you will borrow me your man for a bit?

Iminnthemoodfordisclosure99: well,…..( frostily, the screen went cold I swear) I’m sorry, if you want to know, I have been celibate for 7 years now……waiting for my honeymoon night, I only said YOU need sex…..

Huh?

Chattingsenselesslyonmondaymorning1: oh really, that’s great, for religious purposes?

Iminnthemoodfordisclosure99: Yes, that and the fact that it helps keep the wolves away…..

Chattingsenselesslyonmondaymorning1: You are right, that’s a honourable thing to do

Iminnthemoodfordisclosure99: Besides, God loves me more

Chattingsenselesslyonmondaymorning1: God couldn’t possibly love you more, He loves you the same. Sin only makes us unable to accept that love

Iminnthemoodfordisclosure99: Well I feel his love more, so I guess we are saying the same thing

Chattingsenselesslyonmondaymorning1: I suppose you are right…but wait o, me I always have to ask when people tell me they have been celibate,…so you mean celibate as in celibate…..no kissing not touching, nothing, nothing

Iminnthemoodfordisclosure99: Ah! No-o, I kiss, even make out once in awhile when I feel like…in fact that was the reason why I was uncomfortable with (…lagbaja) he always liked to make out, that’s why we broke up…..

Chattingsenselesslyonmondaymorning1: errr….Ohhhhh-ok…..em…I have to get to work

Iminnthemoodfordisclosure99: Oh yeah, I was just on my way out myself, talk to you later

Chattingsenselesslyonmondaymorning1: Ok sweets, bye…

Right! Another one of those…just when I think I had met one of the true genuine ones, (to inspire me, mind) turns out to be just like the rest of them of the quasi-celibate creed.
Me I have never understood it. The good book is very clear on what it states about pre-marital sex, and its reasons for that doctrine are easy to understand….basically, lust for each other’s flesh and acting on it will bring dis-honour to the marital bed, that which is sacred, and undefiled.
But a worse evil than not following this law, is not follow it under the false impression that you are compliant, and to take the cake, further trick yourself into looking at other “full-time” offenders as graven sinners, complete with that slow shake of the head.
With the amount of my vitriolic in this post, it’s a little easy to see how much I, personally have defaulted the law, (and that’s all I’m saying about my sexual history present, past AND future on this blog), but I have never for once not realised that on those grounds: I’m a sinner, and in big trouble, and I better find my way back if I know what’s good for me
But this self-righteous half-and-half behaviour makes it easy for me to do my own (self-righteous by way of conscious sinner) head shaking of my own.
In fact , that healthy dose of moral superiority I got on Monday morning, was strong enough to make me get dressed, call my preceptor, re-cant my lie (well, not quite, I told him I was feeling much better, which I was, thanks to coming tops in a moral war the poor, unfortunate other half didnt even know they were fighting) and headed off to school.
Another day……..