Quirrel/Lizard

[nny]

I have a hell of a lot of friendslist to catch up on, and a hell of a lot of errands I should do, but for now have a picture. I saw this in the national gallery with apiphile today and it terrifies me. It's the idea of a hole in the sky, and all the air being sucked out. Also there's the mental association of huge skything = mushroom cloud. On a more cheerful note, of course, there's Portrait of a Man (the Tailor) by Giovanni Batista Moroni. Something about it is really intriguing to me. It's not a dynamic picture, there are no stories or huge themes, there's just a man with a very direct gaze. It caught me and held me for a little while, and that's something I love. I was hugely disappointed that there wasn't a postcard of it in the shop.

My trip to London was... powerful, I guess. It's an odd word choice, but a lot of things happened and a lot of them I'm not sure how to deal with yet. There was a panic attack on the tube due to too much thinking, which was no sorts of fun, but there was also houmous and grapes and cava in Hyde Park, and refugee week with stalls and a man in an orange kilt spasming wildly in an approximation of Irish dancing, and laying in the grass and wading in a fountain with someone important. apiphile is one of the most... I can't think of an appropriate word. One of the most vibrant people I've met, I guess. She has absolutely amazing things to say, and where usually I would be happy to listen and nod quietly, and where I am still sadly at the stage where that's all I feel I can do, she makes me want to try and work out a way to respond. I'm used to being intimidated, not inspired, so that was a pretty big deal to me.

She also showed me Withnail & I which was bloody amazing. I mean, everyone had always told me it was amazing, but I had no idea that it wasn't just... a cult-drinking film. Ridiculously beautiful use of Hamlet.

It (and Del, who thinks more about such things than I do and is far better at Themes) made me realise that I actually love relationships in which there is a completely unhealthy level of need. In fiction, I mean. I love long-established snarky 'marriages' in which neither could do without the other, and I want to write Remus/Sirius and Rosencrantz/Guildenstern and Aziraphale/Crowley and Withnail/Marwood and I haven't the time to do it. Ah well, it'd probably have frustrated me anyway, since I wouldn't have been able to get it Quite Right.

I accidentally tabbed up to the subject box when typing Quite Right, and the autocomplete thing came up with Quirrel/Lizard as an option. My journal is a place of High Intellect and Reason.

It's been an odd couple of days. I was thinking I might have to delete my journal to deal with it, since when my journal is here I will just pour words into it mopily in place of actual thinking, not answer comments, and then pretend it never happened. But the panic has faded a little. There are things that still require Dealing, but perhaps not so urgently.

Comments

[amphibienne.livejournal.com]

:) I take it you had a good visit, then? (wanna come talk about it?)

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

If I remember correctly the placcard by the picture said that it was unusual in using the same conventions in a portrait of an artisan as of a noble, which might suggest the elevating of him as an individual for reasons known only to the artist. The look seems to bear that out.

... and I am IGNORING the rest because I have no idea what to say. Have, er, a bee!

[unravels.livejournal.com]

I've been meaning to see Withnail and I for AGES. It's going on The List.

And I'm very glad you had a good time in London. & that you're feeling a bit better. :]

[vimeslady.livejournal.com]

I would be mightily sad if you deleted your journal, even temporarily. But you do what you have to do for yourself, dear.