Revolutionary Road vs Maria

We went to bed at two a.m. last night after two glasses of whiskey. As G. and I sat slumped in our armchairs, chatting peacefully, I looked around our house and positively embraced Maria Callas. I gave her two massive big smakeroons on the cheek, dusted down her skirts and straightened her hair. I even lit a scented candle in her honour. Last night, in the wee hours of a Tuesday morning in late January, I positively loved my mistress and promised that no expense would be spared on her beautification. “Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you,” I said over and over again to her, “for sparing me a life in the suburbs. I know you and I have had our moments over the past five years but we’ve weathered the worst and being together was, absolutely the right thing to do.”

Why this sudden fondness for Maria Callas? Well, because G. and I had just come back from watching a late night showing of Revolutionary Road with Kate Winslet and Leonardo di Caprio. Veerle sent us a rather unexpected e-mail yesterday asking if we would like to have a couple of spare tickets she had for the cinema that needed to be used by the 26/01? We were pleased to accept and, in the absence of any other film that looked interesting, decided to go and see Revolutionary Road. G. had to pick J. and Tuur up from footie at eight so an early showing was out of the question. Luckily we have Inna these days so, unlike a few months ago, a late night trip to the cinema is perfectly feasible.

Kate Winslet and Leonardo give a great performance – more like a stage play than a big Hollywood movie. What is it, I often wonder though, about the suburbs that brings out the ire and frustration in script writers? This is the second Sam Mendes film deriding the suburbs. Betjeman began the trend in the 1930’s when he sneered at suburban conventionality. What, though, is wrong with wanting to live in a green, spacious, safe, comfortable environment? In our first grim year of learning to live with Maria Callas, when the hall-way peeled, water dripped onto the kitchen floor and the house lay in disarray I could think of nothing nicer than coming home every day to a clean, perfectly finished house at the end of a driveway.

I can still see K.M, age four, crying on the stairs saying she hated our house, questioning why we had ever sold the Pieter Coutereel and vowing to go live with her best friend Marie because they had a nice modern house. The worst part was I couldn’t blame her. Looking at the filthy state Maria Callas was in then, the even filthier state of our finances and the never ending round of petty disagreements with contractors, I too was wondering whether I could go live with Marie and escape Maria Callas. I fantasised about selling our mistress and handing her demands over to someone with a bigger wallet than ours – but who would buy a mistress in such a distressing state?

Hey and you guy’s should have seen Kate and Leonardo’s house on Revolutionary Road – it was just amazing! I can’t rave enough about their furniture, artwork, style. The windows! The light! It looked like something out of an Elle photo-shoot. I would have been first in line for their garage sale before their big move to Paris. I had my eye on quite a few of their table lamps which I just can’t seem to source anywhere around here – plus their kitchen chairs, and that pale green sofa in the living room …. and the bed room furniture … but I digress.

When the credits began rolling I looked at G saying, “Geeeee, G. aren’t you glad we opted for Maria Callas rather than a comfortable house outside of the town? We could be divorced, or worse, by now if we had settled for a suburban solution.”

It was tough getting up this morning though. Am glad I didn’t opt for the third whiskey as I was seriously tempted to do. We still have a busy week ahead of us. Now, we must get round to calling contractors to get the best price for painting the front of our dame.

Where were you?

So, yesterday was inauguration day and boy didn’t we know it. All the hype. The media was in a total frenzy days before the event. The Times had a “countdown to the inauguration” link on its front page, the BBC promised “live coverage” throughout the day, Anja held an inauguration party and Becky and Erwan popped open a bottle of champagne. I missed the speech and Obama’s fluffing of the oath since I was putting kids to bed so I picked up on the BBC’s live coverage as Obama was in the middle of his inauguration lunch. Outside the massed media looked frozen as they stood in the cold January air. Who was it that chose 20th January as the official inauguration date? June or July would have been much better. Something to do with the Revolution no doubt.

The BBC journalists were pukka and doing their best to look enthusiastic and cheery as they shivered outside on the mall; their smiles about as frozen as their noses. “He’s been delayed,” they said graciously as they awaited for the Obama/Biden cavalcade to come down Pennsylvania Avenue – but one could see them wishing the Obama’s would “hurry-up for f…’s sake. It’s freezing out here….” Hugh Edward’s eyes were squinted up as he tried to stay warm under one miserable looking blanket and one could feel his discomfort at having to give an enthusiastic running commentary on the BBC’s roof top in temperatures close to freezing.

“In years to come people will be asking – where were you when the first black-African American President was sworn in?” Hugh gushed as his hair was whipped up by the lovely fresh breeze. Sitting on the sofa watching in the warmth of a cosy sitting room waiting for G. to come home from Munich is the answer. Much as I am a sucker for historic houses; films; books and events – I’m not that much of a sucker to want to spend a day in the freezing cold to catch a “glimpse” of the Obama’s as millions of Americans were doing.

Funnily enough my mind was cast back to what many would regard as being a non-event - where was I when President Bush was declared the official winner of the 2000 campaign. I was standing in the kitchen of the Begijnhof listening to the World Service incredulous that enough people had actually voted for him. Somehow that event sticks in my mind more than Obama’s inauguration. At least Obama talks sense of course he should have won the election – but Bush? I couldn’t then – and I still can’t quite fathom how on earth the American electorate, the very same that voted in Obama, managed to vote in a twit such as George Bush – and this was even before 9/11 or his by now infamous remarks such as: “the problem with the French is that they have no word for entrepreneur.”

I remember feeling vaguely disturbed at the thought that America was going to be run by a guy who looked, well, dim. Its not that I hold politicians in particularly high regard nor is it that I expect them all to be hugely intellectual academics but they must at least look as though could write a moderately good thesis on Keynesian economics if they really had to. Well, phew, yesterday, we said good-bye to all that and welcomed in a new era. Huge sigh of relief all round. HOPE in desperate times. Just what the doctor ordered after eight years of sitting on the edge wondering what gimmick George W Bush was going to pull out of his hat.

Now, I have to say that under any other circumstances I would look at a guy who pulled in such a huge crown with scepticism and cynicism. I mean Hitler rallied adoring crowds like that in Nuremberg right? Or the Ceauşescus who relied on “rent a crowds” to wave flags and look adoringly at them. Such big crowds are normally the preserve of nasty dictators – not democratically elected Presidents. Its very hard to be sneering or cynical about Barak Obama though no matter how hard one tries. He seems genuinely nice. A cool head on strong shoulders. A wise guy. A man who looks as though he’s really concerned about the good of all and not just the good of vested interests. In any case his wife looks lovely and the girls adorable – so perhaps it really is the dawning of a new, hopeful, era.

No doubt the crowd will go on loving the guy even after he retires from politics. I wonder how long the media’s love affair with him will last. The parallels with Tony Blair are striking – he too won the election in 1997 with a huge majority. Adoring crowds lined the streets leading up to 10 Downing Street. They cheered and waved as he stood outside the front door with his young photogenic family. He went on to win two more elections credibly. Even after he had committed British troops to Iraq he still went on to deliver Labour a credible majority in Parliament. The voters still liked and trusted Blair. Even now though the media deigns not to cover Blair’s achievements – only his mistakes. We’ll see how long this hero is reduced to zero by the media.

In post script I have to add, the one thing I love about the Obama campaign – more so than all his moving speeches and soaring rhetoric - and for that alone I would have probably voted for him, superficial girl that I am, is his iconic HOPE poster by Shepard Fairey. Its fantastic artwork combining Andy Warhol pop art with art deco design. Obama’s a good looking guy and his face lends itself to such graphic imagery perfectly. I’m seriously tempted to hang it up in the house – not because I’m such a slavish fan of Obama, you understand, but because I think the poster would look nifty hanging in the hall way somewhere.