Sunday, Apr. 03, 2005 - 8:06 p.m.
Do you know what this is son? This is the panopticon
What I think is interesting about the Queen Elizabeth Hall is that it appears to be staffed entirely by little old ladies. Not nana types but the impeccably turned out, made up and well-spoken types, in manner of one of my grandmothers but not the other. The pension traumas of recent months must have hit these ladies hard if they are having to work so long into their golden years.Of course they may well enjoy their work and getting to listen for free to the concerts put on there. I hope they enjoyed Joanna Newsom last night, too, even if the proliferation of [foxy] young beardy men might have been a novelty for them. In any case, I certainly enjoyed the great harping on (geddit) of Newsom, and particularly the uninterrupted view and acoustics. And her lovely skirt and her lovely harp.
At a party afterwards I spoke to Cal about how we're too well rounded and too comfortable to ever really amount to anything in our lives. And yet maybe my thing in life should be patron of the arts. As long a 'patron' doesn't have to involve the giving of money and can just involve general encouragement. Yesterday I gave some encouragement and words of wisdom about how to be a writer. Not, of course, that I know from first hand but I have read books on it. And failed to write myself.