Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes…

Location: Madrid, Spain

Tuesday June 15, 2010

Who wouldn’t like a salad dressed in mayonnaise? My family and I had ensalada rusa for lunch. Think of it as an elaborate potato salad, comprised of potatoes (der), shrimp, crabmeat, carrots, peas, raisins, tuna, green beans, and egg and drenched in a thick, pink mayonnaise-based sauce. It was quite delish actually, but definitely not something the Clackers could eat to maintain their size double-zeros in the Conde Naste food court.

I think my late nights are finally catching up to me, because I kept falling asleep the whole time in my Prado class, which is pretty hard to do, seeing that we stand around the whole time. I don’t know why we don’t bring around little stools, like how classes/sections at the Yale Art Gallery do. That just makes so much more sense to me and to my lower back. It would have been an interesting class too, if I were to be conscious. We talked about the old Spanish court during Velázquez’s time, i.e.: beginning of the seventeenth century, and its habit of having little people around as entertainers, servants, and companions. The mention of this by the showcase of four portraits of these individuals (so P.C., I know! ><”) by Velázquez totally reminded me of the court dwarves carrying the queen’s train in that one medieval trivia game with the catchy tinselly minstrel background music, in which you had to navigate your way through a castle by answering a multiple-choice question in each room, that came with a CD-ROM encyclopedia. Did I just make a reference that perhaps only one person in the world would get? Yes, I believe I did.

As if we couldn’t get enough of art, Isabella and I wanted to check out a photo gallery exhibit before the Brazil vs. North Korea (oh, excuse me, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) World Cup game. PhotoEspaña, a city-wide and almost summer-long festival celebrating works of photographers from past to present, is going on right now in Madrid. There are events scattered on various days, and art galleries throughout the city are open free to the public, displaying specific photographer’s works or themed group exhibitions.

Isabella and I joined other IES kids at gallery Alcalá 31 to check out Juergen Teller’s “Calves and Thighs” exhibit. It was all very Teller: many photos with unexpected and unusually awkward composition, many both A-list and nameless models real and makeup-less, many shocking or unexpected nudes (is that an erect penis sticking out of pot of flowers? Why, yes it is. Is that middle-aged gingha really lying spread eagle on that couch? Why, yes she is.). The latter third rubbed some of the kids who joined us the wrong way. I don’t quite know what they were expecting when the exhibition’s named “Calves and Thighs.” I mean, the title already sounds like something from a bad (or good, matter of opinion) and twisted Harry Potter fanfic. One wall in the exhibit was lined with a series of fresh-faced models in their everyday street clothes, called “Go Sees.” Teller must have caught them right about to go into their auditions or right as they were exiting them. It’s quite different seeing those awkwardly, gangly girls out of their makeup and out of their element. Isabella and I also greatly enjoyed the archive of Marc Jacobs ads in an extremely long glass display case. Can you imagine shooting campaigns for a designer for a long run of eleven years? No wonder Jacobs gives Teller such freedom.

We didn’t go to a bar for the Brazil vs. North Korea game, because we figured we would go to a bar for the Spanish games, so a group of IES kids congregated at the San Augustín’s (dormitory building’s) lounge area with Complutense’s students. Lauren put it nicely by saying, “Where have all these good-looking Spanish boys been this whole time?” Apparently they all come out into the hangout area after sundown. Football-watching appeared to be a male-dominated thing in Spanish society, because we were the only girls there (there were also IES boys there, too). World Cup fans place a strong emphasis on rankings, and everyone was sure to that Brazil was going to cream North Korea. Granted, it did. But North Korea was playing a mean defense, i.e.: fighting for its life (in more ways than one, probably). And NK did get one goal in. So, good for them. I hope it made #9 feel just a bit better.