Piet Mondrian: an exhibition

Piet Mondrian.  Without wanting to denigrate one of the masters of neo-plasticism, let's go ahead shall we?  

Ciné-Club has bust her leg skiing, so this afternoon we decided to avail ourselves of the disability services at the Centre Pompidou and rent a wheelchair.  I know, she's never been in a car with me, that's why.

I'm going to tell you that the architecture section is very interesting, and I have the utmost respect for someone who is said to have influenced architectural legend Mies van der Rohe.  However, based on the way Mondrian meticulously placed his squares in each of his paintings and even throughout his apartment (reproduced for your perusal as part of the exhibition), I'd put money on the fact that this is not the kind of man whose going to bend you over the kitchen table and ravish you. I'm just saying, on Valentine's Day he'll be folding his socks in the corner whilst you prance around the kitchen in your underwear.  Kind of how I imagine having sex with an accountant, which is pretty much what this exhibition felt like.

In which I wrestle with my inner gay man

You see I say that, but really, I only know one gay man that might actually have this dream, and he choreographs the dance routines at EuroDisney, so it's an unfair tarnish on the collective wonderfulness of the gays by imagining that their brains could even produce this shit.  It's just my inner gay man that clearly has an obsession with high-school dance-offs and overweight past it divas.  Which segways nicely into what I dreamt of last night:  Mariah Carey.    I know, and it gets worse:  Mariah Carey singing in a slave drama about a bad white farmer who beats a slave girl who then has a vision of Mariah Carey descending from heaven with a choir to 'sooth' the victim with her music... Googling 'lobotomists London' now...

Oh God I really am going to miss Italy...

Just as Berlusconi's life is going down the toiletta (I can't even get out the smallest violin for that one), let's revel in the fabulousness that is bad Italian television.  They do it so so well.  Note at what points the audience applaud the performance.

Tanti baci to the Silver Lake Gay Mafia for the link.

No no no no no

That's it, I'm going home.  This cannot be happening to me.  Really, it's a deal breaker, I want to divorce my own brain right now.  I just had a dream about Glee.  Yes, that's right, that dancing show that seems to be a quicker route to the comprehension of American culture than the Constitution.  I wouldn't have necessarily been repulsed by a dream about the Super Bowl (team dependent), but this just feels like the CIA infiltrated my brain.  Is this the beginning of the end for The Euro?

P.S. I am writing this to the tunes of Surfer Blood in the hope that it will some how wash away the candy coating on my brain but knowing my fucking luck I'll probably wake up having dreamt of Twilight...

Lesley, Tammy, Renee: please, no 'phone numbers

I want to share with you what we did last night but I am not entirely sure that the symbiosis of The Twinkie, The Yank and The Euro is entirely fit for public consumption. Needless to say at some point in the evening I was sitting nonchalantly sporting a pair of oranges in my bra that gave a very er 1950's curvature to my t-shirt. They were stolen from the fruit-bowl on the bar, which is, I suppose, a step up from a bowel of peanuts on the bar, which would, of course, have been a whole other look.

The photographic evidence will not be making it to a screen anywhere near you soon.

On the potent lure of advertising and why I should not buy a hot rod

A little background folks.  The last time I owned a car I totalled it into a tree somewhere in the region of Nantes.  But with good reason - a teenage tryst, champagne, and sex on the beach - which, I'm sure you'll agree, is a way better justification for trashing your vehicle than 'because I was on my blackberry'... (Los Angeles, I'm looking at you)

Anyways, I hate reason right now:  it's totally fucking with my American dream and I don't like it,  although you can probably understand why my gentleman entourage (note to self, must use this term more often) are strongly against this idea:

It all started when the Americano played me this, the latest commercial for Dodge:

Then I made like a good Angeleno and started surfing for car p$rn. This is always a mistake because, first and foremost, it takes you away from the primary task in hand (writing note on the back of a post-it  an Oscar winner) and secondly, because you realize that actually if you are going to do this country you really ought to do it right (a phrase that is, by design, left open to interpretation...).  It also does you the added disservice that you start judging men on the basis of their vehicles and so, another pillar in your European moral sensibilities falls by the wayside.  Anyway, here are my top five fantasy cars du jour:

1957 Porsche 356 A Convertible

1959 Cadillac Fleetwood

1960 Chevrolet Corvette

1968 Dodge Dart

1968 Chevrolet Corvette

As for the things America does well beyond cars and freedom, answers on a postcard please. I am after all conducting a survey.

Oh and FYI, the Americano has suggested sausage (the foodstuff, not the innuendo).

In which wanna-be Disney fucks with Tuscany

Really, there are no words.  So all I am going to tell you is this.  Some dude, let's call him Dario Sattui as that's what it says in the brochure, decides 30 years ago that Nappa Valley wasn't beautiful enough au naturel and gave it this back-yard Hollywood face-lift in the form of a reproduction Tuscan castle:

which is the countryside equivalent of the face of the Bride of Wildenstein.

Yes, absolutely, I knew you would see the rassemblance.

Anyway, in order to treat this project like the banged out back street whore that it is, they also have a gift shop:

I have no more to say on this matter.