I stop at a pond outside Flatrock to photograph a tree and a flag out stranded out in the middle.
Drop off film at Dominion
Develop only do not cut the negs and make a CD please. Ok it will be done in an hour.
Over to THE ROOMS.
It is even uglier from the Fort Townsend side than from the Harbour. It looks like a Monopoly piece that Gozilla would use. There is no grace to it at all. It seems to have forgot what rooms were.
And it only gets worse.
Inside it is a mess, a giant space with all this stuff leading off of it. the desk is in the back. It looks like a glass house that was built after the architect was screeched.
I go to the desk and while showing my I.D. ask if THE ROOMS honour the reciprocal agreements with other museums.
No – once again showing the true worth of the worlds greatest art school.
-where do you work? as she sneaks me a ticket.
I thank her.
Like that equally pretentious institution in Michigan Avenue, I head out to find Thaddeus’s show. A guard almost slams the door in my face at the Mary Pratt exhibit – just wait til next week.
When I make it to Thaddeus’s another guard comes up and asks for my ticket then says back packs have to be checked. I say that there is $1800 worth of cameras in it and it is a purse not a backpack.
OK
Two examples of why I hate THE ROOMS but love the province. People in their capacity of civil servants act gruff and give the standard response. Then they remember that they are Newfoundlanders and well everyone is ok and let the rules slide.
I contrast this with the arse wipe guard at the ‘tute who stopped a grad student and me leaving the museum to check our bags saying that we should know better than to walk through it not around it – it was the first time either of us had heard of it.
Or the welcoming impersonal way that one has to swipe one’s I.D to enter the Valhalla on the park. Met five new people to-day who invited me in the guards at the ‘tute whom I see everyday still refuse to acknowledge me.
No matter how hard a Newfoundlander tries to be that uncaring they never succeed it is not in the genes.
Thaddeus’s show was nice – I was jealous as I always am – but again the gallery did him no service too many nooks and crannies. I entered the gallery baffled as to which way to go – which is why I think the guard came up in the first place.
We photograph the same areas but his are more purely topographical, everyone - both north and south of the 49th parallel - tell me I shouldn’t be envious as the work is different but how can I not be?
Leaving before I got lost in the maze of THE ROOMS, I saw the raison d’être of the place – a café that overlooked downtown St. John’s, the Harbour, the Narrows and Signal Hill. Screw the art lets have a lattè up here.
Leaving I noticed that they only allow two hours parking time in the lot – where the walkways don’t lead to the building. Maybe they do know the true worth of the place.
Day went downhill a bit as I headed over to Newfoundland Imaging to buy a large tank to develop the film. I am shown a tank that isn’t worthy of a photo one student. I want at least a tank that can hold 4-120 spirals. He is not sure something like that I made. I mention Paterson for plastic ones. He goes in the back and finds one too small that can be here in a week – when I am told that it will be here in a week it means a month.
Think about options. See a Ziggy Peelgood’s stand, think beer to wash down the grease, think Smithwick’s, think the Duke, I look for a Globe.
Head down Rennies Mill Road and wonder if Angela is in. She is. I am offered Guinness while she has some wine, and I catch up on the happenings in St. John’s.
Her two cats come in one shaved the way my mother’s was again a Himalayan who rolled in plaster so now looked a miniature lion gone horribly wrong.
Am offered another Guinness
A hour later mention that I am heading to the Duke and she hands me a Globe.
It wasn’t needed, I can hardly move as the place is packed with people watching the junior hockey finals Canada 4 Russia 2. No place to sit – Clarke’s Beach was as packed as Baird’s Cove. Ordered my pint from Terry and watched the rest of the match.
Clyde Rose walked by exchanged greetings he asked if I had been out to Woody Point – not since I last saw him out there. Told him that the Seabreeze was closing. He kept looking around am I am betting it was for that blond Minnesotan that travelled with me the last time and finally asked after her.
He went to the bar the bar to hold court, not seeing any of the other regulars, I stumbled out onto Duckworth Street to pick up my negs – that were cut so no charge – and head back to Pouch. Put $20 worth of gasoline in the Volvo more so that I could clean the back window at the Irving Gas Bar. Took to the straightaway like a pro.
Did I say how great it was to be back?
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