Everything about this show was simply masterful… from the music, Ennio Morricone’s score to The Mission with the show being closed to Aretha Franklin singing Natural Woman. So much colour, so much verve and attack; the structure and that ruffled purple gown at the end. Bravissimo!
Go on cool kats, you know what to do, push down, plié, push off and start flying your merry little hearts out… cause life is a dream and you damn well can…. I love you more. Thanks for the ongoing support…
One thing that the marriage of the TRH Duke & Duchess of Sussex has revealed, is just how hideously racist Britons are. Naturally, as all bigots especially the most invidious racially predatory will have you know, ‘It has nothing to do with race!’ The DailyMail has made an industry of acting as a de facto wing of the EDL in its campaign of destroying the marriage of the Sussexes.
Every single day its gaggle of writers launch another volley of hate to feed their hate-filled multitude of devotees whom they simply abuse in their quest for more advertising revenue. Last week, their legions of bigots were gleeful when not only was the Duchess of Sussex not at Royal Ascot but neither was her husband. Naturally, the rumour was that Her Majesty The Queen had banned the Sussexes from attending Royal Ascot. Of course, last year when Catherine, HRH Duchess of Cambridge was on maternity leave, she did not attend Royal Ascot. Furthermore, not once did her husband attend Royal Ascot. That is the tradition.
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Naturally, when these photographs of this year’s Royal Ascot emerged, the plethora of bigoted DailyMail trolls were celebratory of how happy and wholesome everyone looked. Of course, they were commenting on the homogeneity of the group; their was even talk that the RF looked so much happier without the American in their midst.
The following day, it was announced that the Royal Foundation was disbanding. This not only gave cause for wild celebration by the DailyMail trolls but in hindsight, it was speculated that the group looked as happy as they did at Royal Ascot because at that point, the dissolution of the Royal Foundation would have been known to all. This was seen as more proof that HM The Queen did not want Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex around Indeed, clearly, the Sussexes were headed for divorce and it was only a matter of time before there would be an announcement to that effect.
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By no means was tabloid culture then what it is today; however, there was no getting around the fact that there was unrelenting animus that was decidedly racist towards Yoko Ono because she was non-white. Of course, at the time as now and is always the case, there was strident denial that there was prejudice involved in the animus towards Yoko Ono. Heaven only knows that Linda Eastman was not a Briton, yet she was not reviled and hated for being an outsider as was Yoko Ono.
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So intense was the racial animus towards Yoko Ono that John Lennon had to relocate to New York City to seek peace away from being unrelentingly reviled by Britons, who were nothing more than unmasked Klansfolk; though there were three other wives, Yoko Ono was solely to blame for the demise of the Beatles. Indeed, Britons have John Lennon’s blood on their hands for having racially preyed on this man and his wife to the point where he had to flee and take refuge in a land where guns rule. Paul, Ringo nor George had to flee England because Britons did not approve of their choice of a wife.
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Neither Linda Eastman nor Montréalaise Autumn Kelly were subjected to the same animus as Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex for being outsiders marrying much-loved Britons. True, every woman marrying into the BRF experiences blow-back. Sarah Ferguson, Camilla Parker-Bowles, Catherine Middleton and on and on. Truth be told, neither Linda nor Autumn were subjected to similar animus as Yoko or Meghan simply for being Caucasian and therefore, deemed acceptable.
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Britons may well succeed with running TRH Duke & Duchess of Sussex out of town as they did John Lennon and Yoko Ono but know this, Tungsten has got powerful players in her corner. For starters, if the Sussexes were exiled, Oprah et al have the power to have her appointed as honorary chairperson of the Academy Awards – some such title of an American-British film society – not the American wing of BAFTA – which would see Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex each year present the award for Best Film at the Academy Awards.
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More to the point, when are Americans going to stop kowtowing to Britons because of the latter’s archly over-compensatory inferiority complex, of all things, masquerading as posh, sophisticated, superior and aristocratic. Why should an American actor, after having graduated with distinction from Julliard sit by and watch yet another English actor waltz in and claim the American award for best actor in a film which was not even an American production; this has repeatedly happened in the past. And so like Britons it is; they are the only island dwellers in the English-speaking world who never lose their god-awful accent regardless how long they sojourn abroad. Whether five years or fifty, you can also count on the expat English to maintain their posher-than-though English accent. Some may be readily charmed/fooled by all that posh posturing but it is so much obvious BS.
Glenn Close did not win the Best Actress BAFTA in 2019 that honour went to Briton, Olivia Colman in The Favourite. Ever possessed of this obsequious need to suck up, the Academy and its members voted Olivia Colman Best Actress at an American Awards show when the production was not an American production and Glenn Close was not going to win the Best Actress BAFTA and did not. One thing is clear from her acceptance speech, Olivia Colman is a one-hit wonder and will never win an Oscar again, just as Matthew McConaughey never will; after all, his Best Actor award was by default – so great was the need to deny Chiwetel Ejiofor an Oscar for his masterful performance in 12 Years A Slave.
When Britons prove themselves such ugly racist boors as with Yoko Ono and now Meghan Markle, why indulge, suffer or tolerate these people overlong? Throwing Oscars at them because they talk as though they’ve got a horse’s hoof stuck up their arse, there is nothing much to celebrate when one’s claim to fame is having subjugated 2/3s the world way back when and having enslaved and or brutalised those persons.
Of course, Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex chose not to move next-door to the Cambridges at Kensington Palace. For one, there is every reason to believe that the Cambridges’ marriage currently is nine parts façade and with a numerology attitude of 9, HRH Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, apart from not being the sharpest tool in the box, is also conceited, stubborn, bigoted and intolerant and also is in tight with those pompous-arsed minor royals the Michaels of Kent et famille who with their racist perspective were none-too-shy about showing their true colours, blackamoor and all with Meghan suddenly in their midst and to whom they would have to curtsy.
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A den of racial predators is no environment in which to bring up black children and that would also include those generational members of Kensington Palace staff, who would think nothing of being openly racist towards Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex and her children, For Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex the minor royal Micheals of Kent are no different to Samantha Grant and Thomas Markle Jr. She endured the racially predatory bullying in childhood, which is precisely why she has absolutely nothing to do with them and with damn good reason. Trust you me, there is not a single black person on this planet who would suffer any such environment. It is not human, not civilised and a goddamn waste of time.
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Carping on about how much better Cressida Bonas would have been as a wife to HRH Prince Henry of Wales, is a moot point. Who knows, perhaps, Harry was being forced into the relationship so that his older brother could have access to Cressida’s older sister, Isabella Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe. Is it any wonder why Sam Branson keeps his wife as far away from the isle of England as possible. Of course, had Harry married Cressida, this newfound media love for Catherine, HRH Duchess of Cambridge would not have eventualised. She would be portrayed, even more so, by the DailyMail as workshy and they would even up the practise of only printing photographs of her when her face is at rest, which is a decidedly hard affair. For being blonde, blue-eyed and with an artisan’s fey beauty, Cressida, had Prince Harry married her in May 2018, would currently be eclipsing Catherine, who is now being seen as a fashion icon. No matter how DailyMail repackage and champion Catherine, she is a relative dud when publicly speaking as Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex has time and again proven. The Duchess of Sussex’s commanding performance at the 2018 British Fashion Awards at Royal Albert Hall truly was a study is grace, poise, elegance and commanding stage presence. You’ve either got it or, as in Catherine’s case, you don’t. Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex is quite confidently aware that a mic is Catherine, HRH Duchess of Cambridge’s kryptonite.
The DailyMail and its gang of racist boors can vent and gloat all they want but if HRH Prince Henry, Duke of Sussex were to have married a conservative Muslim and converted, for fear of ending up with their fetid skull on the small of their back, every one of their cowardly racist boors would know to keep their damn mouths shut. Of one thing they are certain, fucking with blacks will earn you no serious repercussions. The DailyMail‘s hacks have proven that England is the isle of the original hooded klansfolk; they are just a little bit more evolved to the point where their hoods have become invisible but no less ugly are they. In the end, who could give a fuck; the boors of the isle of England most certainly did not invent Jazz and speaking of which…
After having pored through this year’s TD Toronto Jazz Festival lineup, I knew that there was only one show that I cared to attend. The Diana Ross show at the Sony Centre though tempting, however, the centre is just too cavernous a space. Jazz needs the warmth and intimacy of a smaller venue. Besides, I knew damn well that coming the day after the Pride parade, there would be queens aplenty in the audience. Most of them would be expecting the usual Diana Ross show; however, this was going to be a Jazz show.
As ever, I did not attend Pride parade, never have. Back in 1986, Merlin and I hauled arse to a dinner party in the Annex where an artistic director associate of his, held court. Frankly, neither men liked each other but for professional reasons one endured much. Among the group of 8 souls was a redhead interior decorator from New York City who was the most vile dirty-arsed bigot conceivable. Naturally, with yours truly present, he just had to wax overlong about what a scourge on human civilisation blacks the world over were.
Merlin stealthily reached across my plate and removed my steak knife from the plate and placed it to his left as I sat on his right. Finally, when we got home by cab as Merlin sought to shift my mood by playing some Miles Davis, I went and retrieved a pair of scissors and demonstrated to him on returning to the living room, “That’s it, I am cancelling my membership in Gay society. God only knows it is not as if these blasted, motherfucking lisping, bottom-feeding people invented Jazz.” For me what really settled it, was the redhead boor’s decree, “Sorry dear but there is no black in the rainbow.”
Of course, a couple of years back the Black Lives Matter delegation, which had been invited to march in the Gay Pride parade, were booed, heckled and pelted with unopened water bottles. That very day on my way home, I was also attached and it was much fuelled by the general anger at having had the Black Lives Matter contingent in the parade. To this day, the pride community are still mad at the Police and had banned them from participating in the parade, all because they allowed the Black Lives Matter group into the parade. Even though the group had been invited, they were treated by spectators as though they did something as irresponsible as simply showed up and high-jacked the parade.
The above photograph was the look for the opening act, one of those regrettable experiences, which alas the Canada Council foists on one, god only knows why. Banal and as sexually intriguing as a live webcam set up on a couple of koala bears in repose, some things just have to be endured to get one through to the real deal. As my date, an ageing Jewish actor/writer with the most wicked sense of humour is always great company, we sat in the back row, all to ourselves, in fits of delicious giggles – we were poring through online photographs of Céline Dion parading in haute couture in Paris in the lead up to Paris Fashion Week; when asked what I thought of her whacky, over-the-top, beyond desperate behaviour, I flatly put in, “it ought damn well to be kept leashed and staked out back.”
Next, it was my turn to come undone when no sooner than having slipped in the breath mint that he whispered, “those are the new mint-flavoured super laxatives, I was telling you about.” How soul-gnawing is emulative institutional Jazz whose practitioners know nothing either of blacks or black culture? Hell, even after the bass solo, there was no applause from the house.
Finally, like a lover with the most foul breath but whose girthsome jousting simply won’t be denied – then the malodorous rogue leaves and you shudder in disgust and return to breathing like a human rather than a goddamn humpback whale – the opening act vacated the stage and when the stagehands were done, only the grand piano was left. Out then walked Cécile McLorin Salvant with a puckish accompanist and it was readily obvious that there is an indelible soul connection between the two, which speaks to intimacy most rare and also more than a dozen past-life connections. Even Cécile’s body had changed, she looked more lived in, she was getting good loving and it showed.
Before proceeding, let me just state that this was the most phenomenal and best Jazz concert that I have ever attended. From Hoagy Carmichael, to Barbara Streisand, to Bessie Smith, every song was her own and every song was a master class in musicianship and phrasing. Then two things happened that blew me even further away; firstly, she sang, Midnight Sun. This is a song that for me as long as I live, will always evoke the most pleasurable memories of living at John Hirsch and Brian Trottier’s Moore Park Home at 187 Hudson Drive in the summer of 1990 after Merlin had passed and I reinvented self and took the time to travel. Until this concert, no one had ever done a better version of Midnight Sun than Sarah Vaughan, whose version daily played at that lovely Moore Park home.
Secondly, Cécile paused and asked if anyone in the audience was French, to which there was a boisterous response and then she asked to sing a song in French. By the time she was done, I was reduced to tears, even my usual jaded friend was blown away. At the conclusion the house went wild and I was reminded of those years living in Montréal and attending all those summer festivals across the province.
Let’s see Canadian, Diana Krall sing en Français in this supposed bilingual country and I am not talking any of that tawdry attempt at French musicianship as with the likes of Emilie-Claire Barlow et al. Unlike those frauds who suffocated the blackness out of Jazz in the 90s and beyond, Cécile is the real McCoy. The primary musical instrument in human civilisation is the voice and when it comes to Jazz, not only is it a language that is the extension of the griot tradition, nothing sounds like, feels like, moves you like the instrument that is the black voice; there simply aren’t any comparisons. This is the voice, the instrument, when on walking through your door can revivify and empower you like no other instrument can and most especially so after having experienced racial animus for the 14th millionth and fifty-seventh time in this lifetime.
During the course of the show, her accompanist did something that I had never before witnessed, Sullivan Fortner got from the piano stool to reach inside and pluck on the strings, making for all intents the most beautiful mbira imaginable. Sullivan proved himself the perfect accompanist to Cécile and it was clear by the end of the concert that these two lovely, magical and gifted souls have thankfully found each other and how we are better for them being in the world. The love and harmony they share, was as rich and smooth as the warmest honey satiating the palate. Even the encores were concerts onto themselves. If there is anything that can be said to be good, to have come from Roy Hargrove’s passing, is that it created the opportunity for both Sullivan and Cécile to form a most productive collaboration.
As we left Koerner Hall, both of us giddy with joy for having been richly inspired, there was a guy outside the theatre, hawking the program for Jazz FM. Brusquely, I declined taking one, I soon explained that I had no desire to be associated with the Jazz radio when they went and hired someone whom Merlin dismissed back in his early on-air days as VJ at MuchMusic as a smug bigoted asshole. Indeed, an ageing leopard does not his spots lose. Just for writing a few hit songs and having made a few million dollars changes nothing. As Merlin always said, “a man changes clothes and nothing else.”
Though last year, there were three good concerts during the Jazz Festival; this year, one only needed to have attended one concert and boy am I richly inspired for having done so. On parting, we both agreed that it really was an awesome concert; more than that, we admitted that it was high time that we saw Rocketman before it goes to video.
For your ongoing support, I am ever grateful. Buy my glorious books, the incomparable series with Michael overleaves appendices; truly, they are human civilisation’s first dream memoirs.
HRH Prince Henry, Duke of Sussex announces the birth of his son.
Lips trembled and I came undone whilst watching this beautiful spirit revealing his sheer delight at becoming a father. As a last-born, I always more readily identified with this man rather than his brother.
Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor being introduced to his great-grandmother HM Queen Elizabeth II whilst his grandmother, Doria Ragland, his great-grandfather HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh by his enraptured parents, TRH Duke & Duchess of Sussex.
Doria Ragland, grandmother of Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, Earl of Dumbarton. This woman has the most exquisitely beautiful papaya-seed succulent, ensouled eyes.
Meghan Markle en route to be wedded and pronounced, Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex.
There is a reason why there was so much beauty and love overflowing at the marriage of TRH Duke & Duchess of Sussex, for less than a year later they would give birth to a most remarkable older soul. Before getting to that, I still think that the best dressed woman at their nuptials was the dowager Duchess of Westminster who looked for all the world as though she were merely traipsing about her lair in her favourite muumuu. There was something so disarmingly unpretentious yet elegant about the look and air she projected.
At once delicate and vulnerable; it is so immensely satisfying to see this young man flower into the true essence of his being.
As Meghan possessed of a true sense of theatre, she who was formerly Margaret Beaufort, entered and strode the knave of St. George’s Chapel alone… a Queen returned, she joined her lover and invited us in to share in a love that was tangible, real and undeniable.
Less than a year later, the love blossomed into the most beautiful, magical flower.
There he is, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, of all the senior royals he would prove the oldest soul. This young man will prove a most uplifting member of the British Royal family.
Mountbatten-Windsor, Archie H. 6/5/2019
Michael: This young fragment is a seventh-level mature priest – second life thereat. Archie is in the perseveration mode with a goal of stagnation. A, realist Archie does not yet have a centre.
Archie’s, as can be expected, does not have chief features.
Archie’s body type is Venus/Mercury/Mars.
The fragment Archie is second-cast in the second cadence. Archie is a member of greater cadence four. Archie’s entity is five, cadre six, greater cadre 7 pod 418.
Archie’s essence twin is a priest and the slave task companion is likely to be known at a later date.
Archie’s three primary needs are: exchange, acceptance and communion.
There are 6 past-life associations with Arvin and 7 with Merlin.
This fragment does have a facilitating agreement with the father, HRH Prince Henry, Duke of Sussex to be his son; he also has one with the artisan, his mother Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex and it is that of parent/child. All three, along with HM, The Queen are of course cadre mates.
We would say that this inspirational fragment is likely to have some notoriety as would be expected and can serve to inspire others to cross perceived boundaries.
HRH Prince Charles, Prince of Wales his paternal grandfather has to date been the oldest-souled senior royal. Like HRH Prince Charles, Archie is a seventh-level mature soul; however, whereas Charles a warrior soul is an ordinal fragment, his grandson, Archie is an exalted fragment for being a priest. Priests are the feel-good great souls. I rather suspect that this man will go on to have the same inspirational effect as have Barack H. Obama, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. all of whom are priest souls.
Of course, President Obama is a young-souled priest, whereas both Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela were both sixth mature priest souls. Archie is an older soul than the latter two mature-souled priests and like both, his role will prove rather uplifting and inspirational to blacks globally. Indeed, there is no happenstance that as TRH Duke & Duchess of Sussex departed St. George’s Chapel in the Ascot landau, after their nuptials, the Kingdom Choir sang, This Little Light of Mine.
All priests have one thing in common; they have the most radiant, magnetic eyes. You never forget their eyes; indeed, their inner beauty of spirit is more readily reflected in their eyes than with any other role – at least, that has been my experience of priest souls. Priests constitute roughly eight percent of all souls in the cosmos. They are greatly motivated by a sense of justice and are in the world to both inspire and promote harmony. With his father’s double sixness, Archie, born a six day, is well equipped to inspire and empathise with the needs of many. He is, like his father, greatly gifted with the ability to inspire others. Archie also happens to be a cadre mate of both his parents TRH Duke & Duchess of Sussex, plus his paternal great-grandmother, HM The Queen.
One thing is guaranteed, as the only priest soul who is a senior royal*, Archie is going to be a standout like no other. This is a family of slaves, scholars, warriors and artisans. I think that his parents’ open and abiding love speaks to them serving as parents to this rare soul being born into the BRF. In a way, he is the perfect maturation of the qualities that his paternal grandmother embodied; Diana, Princess of Wales with her inordinate empathy and compassion gave birth to a deeply empathetic warrior, HRH Prince Henry, Duke of Sussex, who in turn has fathered the very embodiment of all the higher ideals that both mother (Diana) and son (Harry) have represented.
*As I have not had channelled the Michael Overleaves of the other two children of TRH Duke & Duchess – HRH Prince George of Cambridge; George is an early mature king soul and an entity mate of Archie’s, HRH Princess Charlotte of Cambridge and HRH Prince Louis of Cambridge, I do not know if any of them are older souled than HRH Prince Charles or Archie. I also do not know if either of them is an exalted role – King, Priest or Sage, though, neither of them strike me as any of those three roles.
Third royal wedding in twelve months, featured the handsome Lady Gabriella Windsor – look at that neck! As always, one looks for the notable sartorial moments.
Carole Middleton wearing the best hat and outfit that easily surpassed the Catherine Walker ensemble which she wore to her daughter, Catherine, HRH Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding and her outfit at the royal wedding of TRH Duke & Duchess of Sussex last year.
Look, as we West Indians always say, ‘there is always a but’ her blackamoor brooch notwithstanding, I am always a sucker for a woman with a prominent forehead and HRH Princess Michael of Kent has always been a favourite of mine.
I definitely did not like her lilac outfit at the wedding; the mother of the bride looked infinitely more elegant in what she wore later to the reception.
HRH Princess Anne, The Princess Royal, Lady Frederick Windsor and HRH Prince Henry, Duke of Sussex.
Hands down, Lady Frederick Windsor was the best-dressed lady at the recent royal wedding – that hat, those feathers that soothing blue… perfection.
HRH Princess Marina, HRH Prince George TRH Duke & Duchess of Kent.
Without doubt, the most handsome Windsor male of the past century. Of course, that tiara was worn this past weekend at the royal wedding of the Mr. & Mrs. Kingston.
HM The Queen at Lady Gabriella Winndsor’s wedding.
HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh at Lady Gabriella Windsor’s wedding.
James Middleton attending the recent royal wedding at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, Berkshire.
There is no stronger validation for the fact that all gap-toothed Caucasians having been black in their immediate past life than this photograph of James Middleton. James is a spitting image of a black Haitian former co-worker in Montréal. Same vibe, same eyes and the exact same teeth. Jean-Yves was a pretty laid back man, who loved fishing and riding donkeys in his native Haiti. One gets the same vibe of James; his is a look that I have seen many times throughout the West Indian community – laid back men with the same gap-toothed smile. Moreover, his smile is exactly like that of a voluptuous woman who lived in Sandy Point, St. Kitts when I was a child; who knows, perhaps, James is her reborn.
Here’s to love! Here’s to this beautiful dream called life. Here’s to HM The Queen. God Save the Queen!
Most of all, thank you for your ongoing support, happy to have you vicariously along for this most lucid of flying dreams. Be well as ever, and don’t forget to push off and start flying for magic is the stuff of the sweetest dreams. I love you more.
Will you just get a load of this old fraud, all got up in her Dollarama/Poundland jewellery.
You just know that were the Markles a family with a fortune of more than 200$m, none of this dreck would shamelessly be dropping on the world.
Know your lane and stay the fuck in it!
Engine, engine number 9, time to hear the clock go…
‘Being excluded is like a dagger through his heart’: Meghan’s sister Samantha begs the Duchess of Sussex to let her estranged father Thomas visit his new grandson Archie so they can ‘heal the rift’
Never gonna happen!
Keep looking… no matter how you try, they will never have you. There is nobody named, Mama June to keep you company in Berkshire.
As ever, thanks for your ongoing support and especially for the lovely feedback on my dream memoirs, which are available everywhere! Sweet dreams and don’t you ever forget to push off and start flying.
This past week, I made the most glorious discovery whilst enjoying the BBC’s coverage of the Commonwealth Day Service at Westminster Abbey. As if the gospel choir were not enough or the Indian drummers rapturous, there in the middle of both performances was William Barton This extraordinary shaman with his didgeridoo weaved the most sublime magic; it was the music of cetaceans as experienced in the most elevated dreams. Truth be told, it was the music of a culture of the highest order.
Despite the horror which unfolded on the Ides of March elsewhere in the Commonwealth, this service served to remind and inspire us of what it is about our humanity that binds rather that separates us. Music is the language which moves, inspires, reflects and spiritually binds us as humankind. Shaman Barton’s music proved the most healing balm after the horrific events of the Ides of March.
Dream dear shamanic dreamers as never before you’ve dreamt, for I am you and you are me in this shared ocean called humanity. May William Barton’s magical whalesong inspire you to push off whilst lucidly awakened in the dream realms and start flying. I love you more… well, why not! No seriously, though, I sincerely do.
Opening nights are always such fun… Tuesday night past, I was reminded of all the opening nights that I would attend with a slightly neurotic Merlin as some show or other that he had directed was being presented to the world… As ever, it was great to see my plus one, Lucian Mann-Chomedy as the ideal partner for these occasions. Always reserved, pleasant and just the right amount of chatter and wit.
Whilst Lucian enjoyed the pre-show lecture in the Four Seasons Centre Amphitheatre, I slipped next door into the warmth of the Sheraton Centre Hotel and warmed myself on a glass of sherry whilst finishing off 2018’s Scotiabank Giller Prize winner on my KOBO.
What an utterly stunning tour de force. It was a moment to reflect, this Black History Month on just where we blacks are in the scheme of things. God only knows, it has been bruising to watch Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex become the print media’s most reviled and hunted fugitive from justice of that most vile creature, the racial predator.
I was still smarting at the events of a week earlier during the winter season’s first major snowstorm. I had been recalling to friends how strange it now was, compared to my first winter in Canada. December 1, 1974 and it snowed that day more than 8 inches. Back then it generally was guaranteed to snow once if not twice weekly. Now at end of January, 2019 and we were finally having our first major snow. This was not like snow from years past… Now it was a dirty, sooty-looking hard mess that lingered, largely in part because the city has contracted out its snow removal services.
As there are no windows in my apartment – Sol’s too damn bright by far and besides, boarded up windows afford me more art-hanging space – I got down in the early afternoon that Monday with my bike, only to be met by falling snow and several accumulated inches. Back up I went, retired the trusty chrome steed and returned and hopped into a snazzy Audi A6 Uber ride with a Macedonian whose spirit was as smooth and elegant as matchingly was his car. The mood set the tone for my day. As I am known to work 16-hr days, I called another Uber at the end of gig one whilst hoping to get to gig 2 in good time. The snow was still coming down; it was also bitterly cold and windy.
When finally, Uber #2 arrived, cold and dark with icy pellets mixed in with the snow, the driver rolled down his passenger side window and declared, “Sorry Buddy but I am going to have to cancel this ride…” Already running late, with my wheeled suitcase at the ready, he edged along as I tried to open the door and raised his voice, his eyes almost feral-looking beneath his turbanned, narrow skull. “I said I am cancelling you. One: I never take people like you in my car. Two: you have a shitty rating… Sorry, not sorry. Fuck you Buddy.” With that, he stepped on the gas and I had to swiftly haul me and suitcase out of the way as the rear of his red older model car whose interior did have that blasted malodorous melange of curry, dirty armpit, dirty arse, smegma and whatever the fuck else that passes for immigrants of choice these days. Finally, after having struggled out onto a still-not-ploughed Bay Street, I managed to hail the fourth cab whose West African driver insisted that I call Uber and report him… Days later, I was afforded assurances that the racist Dravidian was no longer part of Uber’s fleet. Similarly, when calling a Beck Taxi with a fairly generic name as Arvin, on coming downstairs the Indo-Canadian drivers on several occasions as though staying on script would feign obsequiousness and state that they were deeply sorry but owing to a family emergency, they were having to take the cab out of service. No sooner than having refused me a ride, they would then be observed heading out to Wellesley, turning on their unoccupied light and picking up a fare off the road. As if the blasted motherfuck, the likes of your overbred arse invented Jazz.
Each and every time that one experiences racial animus, is preyed on racially, it always harks back to that first winter in Toronto. My best mate from two summers earlier, when I would come to Canada to visit with my dad during school break, had been sick. After Sunday church service at Knox Presbyterian at Harbord and Spadina before returning to our beautiful home at 122 Mortimer Avenue, I would visit – my dad and I – with Tommy who was holding up at Toronto Sick Kids Hospital on University Avenue. My father explained that Tommy was sick with the winter flu, which sometimes could last for months and well beyond winter. I was a scrawny little fourteen-year-old who looked like most ten-year-old Canadian kids as I crawled the halls at Harbord Collegiate where among my mostly Italian-Canadian chums was future lawyer, Rocco Galati. As Tommy, who was a couple of years older than me, had gladly shared books with me the two summers prior that I would take to Knox summer camp and read then have a good stroke off, lusting after my inamorato, Tommy, I readily agreed to do his newspaper route for him until he came home. My first Saturday, the cart was overflowing with the thick Toronto Star newspaper and there was a good foot of snow everywhere. It was hellish but for Tommy, I was game to go the distance – who knows what hot frottage, docking and more was in the offing for having done his route for him! When I got to the northeast corner of Floyd and Bater Avenues that first Saturday to collect the funds, the door opened to a woman whose response to me was the most hideous display of the displaced madness that is white bigotry. Screaming at the top of her lungs, the woman in her upper seventies, vituperatively cursed my black bugger arse off and laid down the law. Never again, “you dirty little nigger” was I to set foot on her verandah.., I was to put the paper between her screen and front doors, knock then return to the top of her steps and wait for her to pay the bill. That first Saturday, she ripped the paper from my hand, flung the money at me. She was terrifying, in her faded blue A-line dress, black spectacles that had those upturned pointed edges at the sides; she wore faux pearls. Most of all, she wore the most hideously terrifying eyes. I remember how much they looked like eyes of a rooster, especially so for being such puffy eyes. Like the evolved, winged and feathered reptilians that roosters are, her eyes truly did look not the least bit human. She was so consumed with racial animus that it was truly frightening. By the time I made it home, I found myself regurgitating. Thereafter, every Saturday, I would take my spot at the top of the steps and consistently she would hurl out pennies mostly at me rather than the verandah where that first winter I had to suffer the indignity of picking through inches of snow on the verandah, steps and lawn to collect my money. Naturally, without fail she called most Saturdays to the Toronto Star, complaining of either not having received her paper on time or that it was missing altogether. This would mean having to buy her a replacement at the corner store, take it and only to be fed on by the hideous-of-spirit racial predator. Like a true cockhound many an indignity I suffered in hopes of my spectacled, full-lipped and scholarly inamorato, Tommy hooking up with me for having been so loyal to him. The summer prior, I had ventured to the public pool on Broadview at Riverdale Park with him and a couple of others and thrilled beyond belief was I to spy his large pendulous balls and that hammer-headed girthsome salami that pummelled his bikinis. Indeed, for Tommy I would suffer much indignity. There was a low-rise apartment building at 1111 Broadview where on the ground floor, there was another predator, this one equally septuagenarian who lived alone, smoked incessantly and always answered the door in various stages of undress, mostly ever only wearing a soiled merino. He was always a generous tipper; a whole 2$ bill in 1974/75 was serious cash. Naturally, in the pre-Ciaslis epoch old anorexic, drunken paunched predator would sometimes tug on the old bulbous semi-flaccid/semi-tumescent, though, pendulous but perfectly useless appendage, trying to lure me in. Sitting there in all that squalor and acting as though he was sugar daddy material… indeed. He was always keen on trying to grab me when giving me the “tip” and I was ever sly and crafty enough to get away from him each time. He, too, lead me to regurgitate, which I had not done since age nine and suffering my first racial attack. Of course, to this day, neither academia nor medicine will concede that there is any such a thing as the racial predator and the effects it has on those preyed on – mostly blacks – and the psyche/mental illness of those who prey on others chiefly non-blacks in varying degrees of severity based on otherness.
Finally, the house lights went down and I was met by the whimsical vista of the COC’s production of W. A. Mozart’s glorious opera, Cosi Fan Tutte. Previously, I had caught productions of this Mozart gem in Chicago, Montréal and New York City. I was not expecting much at this rate. The Frida Kahlo connection was a bit of a stretch but the butterflies fast won me over.
From the moment that she stepped onto stage, my spirit soared aloft higher than Mozart’s glorious music to that point had spirited me. Never before had there been so captivating a Despina. My eyes teared up and I was ever on the cusp of explosive giggles. Then what made me truly come undone was the moment Tracy Dahl took to the stage as the notary… by now, I was losing tears and beginning to emit choked snorted chuckles. Each Saturday back in 1974/75 when doing Tommy’s newspaper route, I would end off taking the Saturday Star to Giovanna an octogenarian Italian, who was plump, charming and more adorable than any mere mortal ought to be. Soon, we were fast lovers and she loved fussing over me, baking me each Saturday nice, warm, oven-fresh biscotti washed down with a glass of ice-cold “gingah raleh”… her thick Italian accent was part of her charm. Hers was a large black and white cat, simply known as pussy gatto, who always sat nesting on the armchair. Each week, Giovanna sat transfixed as I read her the newspaper; her vision was to that point fairly deteriorated. As a way of better forging our bond and because most of my mates at Harbord were Italian, for three years, I studied Italian and that really impressed Giovanna, who was simply known as “Mama Mia.”
As the opera progressed, Ms. Dahl as the notary, dashed and took cover beneath the table at which point, I buried my face in the program with explosive laughter. Straight away, I was reminded of each Saturday when the ever silent pussy gatto would bolt from the armchair and take cover beneath the sofa where I sat as Giovanna began an explosion of long-winded farts. Even the singer’s voice sounded much like Giovanna’s as she sang the role of notary. Remarkably, it was as though she was channelling Giovanna. In that moment, I was healed of the bile, which the recent Uber incident had caused to surface, bile that dated as far back as 1974.
In the end, Tommy’s parents sold their house and it was not until a couple years later that I discovered from the neighbour next-door that Tommy, who had never returned to their Mortimer and Logan home, had died of Leukaemia. Indeed, the winter flu was my dad’s way of protecting me from the callousness of having to lose a friend so early in life.
Apart from the catharsis that Tracy Dahl’s performance personally effected, I don’t think that it would be biased of me to state that hers was the runaway performance in the COC’s fantastic, and fast-paced I might add, production of Cosi Fan Tutte.
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As ever, mischievously push down and melt with laughter in celebration of the joy that is life and start having yourselves a most glorious of flying dreams. Thanks for your ongoing support of this happening astral joint on this side of the astral plane. I love you more.
Michael: This fragment was a fifth-level mature scholar – 2nd life thereat. Roy was in the perseveration mode with a goal of growth. Roy was a realist who was in the intellectual part of moving centre.
Roy’s primary chief feature was arrogance and his secondary was impatience.
Roy’s body type was Mercury/Lunar.
The fragment Roy is second-cast in the fifth cadence; the fragment is in the first greater cadence. Roy is a member of entity six, cadre one, greater cadre 7, pod 414 – here we have another entity mate of both Arvin’s and Merlin’s.
Roy’s essence twin is a scholar and the task companion is a sage.
Roy’s three primary needs were: expression, adventure and security.
There are 9 past-life associations between Roy and Arvin and 14 between him and Merlin.
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I have always exquisitely found centre for listening to this recording. Time seems to drift away and ideas flow with greater ease… indeed, how sweet it is to be richly inspired by an entity mate.
“I’m in service. I am here to touch people and make them feel better through music.” – Roy Hargrove.
Well if that is not validation of being a member of an entity six of a cadre one, I don’t know what it.
I always good for long days after a concert of his. A beautiful human being.
Sweet and blissful dreams be yours dear ennobled entity mate.
With a spring in my step, I came up for air at Piccadilly Circus Station, whistling Ludwig Minkus’ glorious recurrent melody from La Bayadère with thoughts of the astounding Natalia Osipova uppermost in my thoughts.
I was returned to the Royal Academy to hunt for coffee table books.
More than that, I was on a mission; returned to Fortnum & Mason was I, directed there by the gracious clerk at The British Museum’s Grenville Room.
Armed with just over a dozen rose petal jellies, there was no less spring in my step as by now I sang aloud my merry little melody from La Bayadère. I truly felt as though, on this trip to London, I was lucidly awakened in the most sensual dream. Dreams so luscious are the ones which cause you to pause, smile and whisper near-mischievously, “Arvin, this is a dream and you’ve earned it. Now push off and start flying.”
At such times, there is no thunder more glorious than the roar of my very soul as I laugh, enjoying my creative soul fulfilling itself. I was reminded of those early days in our relationship in Manhattan when whilst ambling late at night for staying at Merlin’s agent Joyce Ketay’s Upper West Side apartment, whilst holding hands, I would push down as in dreams but end up doing an assemblé, in place of flying. His rosy choirboy lips would warm in a smile whilst the ubiquitous fag or joint was elegantly perched between left index and middle fingers.
Bailing into to Piccadilly Circus, still feeling mighty spiffy of spirit, I opted against heading back down into the Underground – the place leaves me with sooty phlegm each time nose-blowing. With that, I bailed out of the Circus and onto Shaftesbury Avenue and made my way to a favourite joint, Ben’s Fish n Chips.
There at a cosy table in the rear, I leisurely pleasured myself whilst finally reading the HRH Princess Margaret biography; it is delicious.
Blisters be damned, I elected to walk from Shaftesbury Square up to The British Museum and take in more art. This being a Friday, there were school kids everywhere; my goodness, children have got powerful noise-making lungs! Then again, what is childhood but play for the soul, which after having recently lived and died is now reborn and gets to celebrate and run up and down in a brand spankingly new and excitingly different body – to say nothing of being in the company of reincarnational travel companions some of whom now you can get a good schtup off of this time around, seeing that last time he now she looked like Quasimodo and even so, you weren’t then same-sexed focussed. Ha!
In the bookstore was a clerk with whom I shared an interesting conversation last winter; he was a dead-ringer for scholar soul, right down to the glasses. He suggested that I could take refuge in the Japanese wing and avoid the madness that was happily reincarnated souls screaming their lungs out and running hither and yon.
Before I could get there, moving around one corner from one gallery to the next, will you look at what I happened on.
On seeing it, I was readily warmed of spirit and let out a celebratory, “Yeah, yeah, yeah!” In that moment, the sense of fellowship and belonging I only ever feel when in Canada for being around First Nations cultures, whether at a pow wow or not, proved the most refreshing drink for my questing soul around a corner in my favourite city, London.
Up one elevator, down one corridor then up another elevator and one was then posited into the most serene of galleries. Now this is more my kind of groove.
All this exquisite splendour and not a single recently reincarnated soul running about and screaming way too powerful lungs out for such a tiny body.
This proved an interlude of slow-dancing with my very soul… the vibrations here were utterly harmonious with spirit.
Photography can never do this masterpiece justice.
I am reminded with this gem of the fabulous kimono of Merlin’s hung in our Cabbagetown home.
Can you hear my soul purring…
Phenomenal.
My very favourite piece in the gallery; warm, fecund, sensual, curvaceous, feminine, grounding. It truly is perfection; this after all is what womakind are: perfection of creation – we men just can’t handle it, hence religions which all without exception oppress womankind and tell them that creation is outside of themselves and some warring male god somewhere. Ha… we men can never endure the pain of labour then get up a completely new aspect of creaturehood – no longer a woman but a mother to whom that child will ever be more closely bonded. Love this piece.
This was the most beautiful adventure… for now, with a couple of coffee table books and toys for kids of a friend’s, I crisscrossed Russell Square Park and slept with my blistered feet raised whilst being held closer in sleep’s warm nurturing bosom and was readily tugged under into the world of lucid, inspired dreams.
On a gloriously balmy mid-November evening, I emerged from Covent Garden Station into a sea of humanity filled with love and laughter as the weekend was begun. As lovers ambled past holding hands, I was reminded then of my life twenty-nine years earlier when the Berlin Wall was being toppled. I was grateful in the moment because back then, two days before Merlin’s passing, I could not imagine myself being still focussed in this life with so much death and dying around me.
Yet, here was I with my happy little lambious (Merlin called me Lamb because I was more 9 parts enraged grizzly than timid lamb) self, in Covent Garden about to see a ballet because Marianela Nuñez, Natalia Osipova, Vadim Muntagirov, Matthew Ball, Francesca Hayward, Joseph Sissens, Steven McCrae, Iana Salenko were part of the most glorious group of ballet dancers.
Oh my, look at this; there have been changes afoot since last winter.
My pilgrimage to the shrine of high art is finally here! What’s this, new coat check, new toilets, new dining area… wow!
No sooner than was I sat and along came a Jurassic hybrid, no chin, back so long may well have extra vertebrae and a neck that is too thick and long to be on a woman’s body but I am not judging just saying,..
Well I did not cross the Atlantic just for this obstruction and her pheromone were decidedly reptilian. As Frederick Jones would say, “I’m not havin’ it!” After a few gracious words with the accommodating ushers, my offer to stand through the entire performance seemed reasonable enough.
I stood on the steps up to the last row that was more centre of house than my ticket. I did my best to ignore the chinless spinster who sat at the edge of the row, who promptly repositioned her handbag, as if it were a blasted Birkin! Naturally, she kept eyeing me. As I always carry Shaniqua in my back pocket, I was ready to hiss, the minute she stepped out of line.
During the performance after the Bronze Idol danced his spectacular solo, I lost myself and yelled the loudest bravo in the house and wouldn’t the old bat have something to say, “Be quiet!” to which I leaned in and hissed, “grip harder on your butt plug and shut the fuck up!” Why do people insist on leaving their homes and act as though they are lord or lady of anyone else’s reality.
Never mind her, the lovely Russian couple who sat in the front row looked back and approvingly yelled “Da!” at my exuberance. Truly, what a glorious night in the theatre. You cannot possibly begin to fathom the amount of flying dreams I have had since that night; it is as though, I perpetually am now flying-without-moving. Of course, I haven’t yet shaken that exquisite Minkus melody from my lips but so be it. There was something simply transcendent about having experienced the purity and perfection of the Kingdom of the Shades opening of Act III that will ever keep me richly inspired.
Love is all and whatever it is that makes you want to fly without moving when awake grab on and tightly hold on – drugs don’t do it, they do you! As ever, come closer let’s have a group hug and a bit of air frottage because life, alas, is the sweetest of dreams!
Bright and early Tuesday morning and it was off to Oxford Circus in search of more art.
No faking this; the hustle is fucking real.
As I poured through this joint, I recalled my advice to the London cab driver whilst crawling along Pall Mall two days earlier.
Well if Daddy Warbucks’ little girl ain’t toothless, what is one to do but vacuously laugh with every breath.
As though I had just walked in on the most malodorous dump, I was out of this dive in a New York minute.
As I came up out of the Underground, I felt as though I had just endured a room whose stench was dirty ashtrays, liquor and coffee. Once at Hyde Park Corner, I made it to Apsley House, only to discover that it was not open during the week. Took the time to breathe the crisp – though not cold like Canadian – air with Hyde Park’s trees’ transitioning foliage predominantly apricot-coloured.
Vauxhall Tower (St. George Wharf Tower.)
Arrived at Pimlico and the air was comfortably cool; so nice to have a brilliant sunny day for a change. Nonetheless, you can bet your bottom dollar that I was protected by my extra thick-lensed black shades.
After working almost exclusively at nighttime and since before that when in the theatre, I have developed a genuine sensitivity to sunlight. You cannot convince me that we are not much too close to Sol for comfort. So to Tate Britain I was returned. After the scam that was the Klimt / Schiele, I was not rolling the die on Turner Prize 2018.
I went into this exhibition with zero expectations. Like the British Museum, I love the gift shop at Tate Britain as opposed to Tate Modern’s. I was on the hunt for unique gifts to purchase; this ticketed event was a gamble.
You cannot begin to fathom the degree to which I was wowed by the breath of this artist’s genius.
Remarkably, there was no end to this genius’ vision.
There is, throughout his art, movement and fluidity with the greatest grace and attack.
This is a colossal retrospective and his talent was unmatched.
The sensuality is breathtaking.
Every painting was a newly discovered masterpiece.
The breath of his work is astounding.
What a truly marvellous discovery.
His work left everyone moving through the exhibit in a state of harmony. There was such peace and serenity in each salon and every salon had some wow moment masterpiece.
One key element of his art was that each work was hung in the spot-on perfect frame.
Masterful!
For me, Edward’s genius epitomises where dreams and genius merge and produce the most uplifting art.
Quite simply, there are no words.
Besotted.
The moment that I laid eyes on this tableau, I immediately thought of Francis Bacon.
Breathtaking…
Now, this is Art, Next-level tapestry. The fluid sensuality is overwhelming.
This is everything.
I would gladly have paid thrice as much to view this exhibition.
This was like nothing I had seen before and it far exceeded anything that I had expected. Truly beautiful. After dining on a late lunch in Pimlico, it was back to Bloomsbury for a nap before heading out into the evening.
Though I was rather looking forward to hanging out at Ronnie Scott’s, the idea of listening to Charlie Parker and John Coltrane (an entity mate) being butchered by some Israeli appropriationist was not exactly high on my must-do list.
Happy was I to be in the comfy seats at Barbican Centre Cinemas to watch a LIVE relay from Covent Garden of that evening’s performance of La Bayadère, which at week’s end I would be attending. By far, this was the most glorious of cinematic experiences. I could not believe the sight of Natalia Makarova when she appeared on screen.
She was now full-bodied as we mostly get on ageing. Last time that I had seen her was during a class we took together at NYC’s Harkness House ballet school during summer 1983. That late spring was the last time that I had also seen the ballet live; it was May 19, 1983 and my favourite dancer, the dimpled, shy and oh so sweet, Fernando Bujones was dancing the role of Solor.
As ever, thanks for your ongoing support and dream as lucidly as you want to…
Strangely, though the major part of Armistice Day celebrations were long concluded, there were still more persons moving westward towards the Cenotaph than easterly towards Trafalgar Square. My companion, a spectacled, freckled guy in his early 30s, was keen on having me come back to his flat in South Bank – We were headed towards Charing Cross Station to take the Bakerloo Line towards his place.
Stalling for time, as I really was not feeling him, I firmly suggested that we go tour Banqueting House as I had never been, which was the truth. Of course, it did not help that the only thing at Banqueting House was the great ceiling art and the throne; the rest of it was just as empty as clearly, James, my “Mate” was dense. Long years ago, a channeller of dubious skills stated rather imperiously that I would meet someone named James, who would prove rather loyal and a long-term affair.
Somehow, this nebulous bit of arcana seemed to be the only sane reason why I was suffering this oaf overlong. His constant bitching about “Nutmeg,” as he referred to the Duchess of Sussex, was not winning him any favours in my books. I had hoped to have found much more archival fare associated with the spot where HM King Charles I was executed. Alas, there was nothing save a throne and an impressive ceiling.
With the toilets at Banqueting House fully occupied and alarmingly foul-smelling, back outside we dashed in hopes of finding a toilet. A pub, whose name I did not even catch a few door towards Trafalgar Square, proved the right spot. He ordered a couple of lagers – I never drink beer, and off I went to the toilet to relieve myself. I waited overlong, waiting for him to possibly come in then use the stalls so that I could make a mad dash for it. No such luck. However, on rejoining him, he lustily talked about what he wanted me to do to him. Never one to miss an opportunity, I suggested he go unclog his plumbing so that I could give it to him good, long and hard when we got back his place.
Naively quick to take the bait, out I dashed into the larger-than-usual crowds when he eagerly bolted to the toilet; once outside, I then caught the tail end of the latest regiment to go moving from the roundabout as they made their way from the Strand and onto Whitehall. With that, I swiftly made it across Pall Mall, crossed Canada House and made my way to the new entrances to the National Gallery – this James clearly was not the one.
Taking the time to avail myself of the museum’s free wi-fi, I sipped on a boost of Pret A Manger’s little magic, yellow potion, Hot Shot. I then decided against the Bellini show – Italian art is way too religious for my liking and it strangely enough has never once addressed the fact that the Church of Rome has, in its role as civiliser, proven the most disruptive terror group this planet has thus far known. For me, there is something alarmingly dangerous about a culture, which would completely and utterly eclipse this rather crucial aspect that has decided their place in the world – but enough about that for now.
Having dodged James, I decided to do the Courtauld exhibition as it would beat having to attend the museum on this trip. Whilst standing in one of two long queues, along came Ms. Thang, who simply looked at us and grandly walked up to the next sales rep as though she had exited St. George’s Chapel on Ginger’s arm on the gloriously sunny early afternoon of May 19, 2018.
As I was next in line, I just as imperiously declared to her and the rep, “Take you, the weave and that blasted fake channel handbag to the back of the line; there are not two lines of invisible persons waiting to buy tickets.” Before she could turn nasty with me, the lovely Dravidian lady informed her that I was next in line and, more importantly, she intended to serve me next. Fake boobs that looked like flotation devices and feet that were too big to fit any glass slippers and, of course, there was a bulky turtleneck to hide the Adam’s apple.
Though “she” was prepared to do drama, I came to do me and look at art and that I did. I was really wowed by some of these works, which I previously had not seen.
Naturally, this Degas masterpiece only warmed my soul. Straight away, I was left humming the music from the grand pas de deux in Act II of La Bayadère, which I could not wait to see at week’s end.
Shades of Canada’s Group of Seven, to be sure. I like the fact that the artist did not include the entire tree in the portrait.
Ah yes, and who doesn’t love the sublime soulfulness of a Gauguin tableau.
Trees, trees and even more trees. What’s not to love!
After having been greatly inspired by the Courtauld Impressionist show – well worth the price – I bailed outside; there were too many parents using the free admission to the museum as a place to come in out of the elements and babysit their way too young children. Once outside, I hailed a cab, though, not the above – wrong day and time of day. This cab proved one of the most memorable journeys. As The Mall was closed, we took the roundabout from in front of Trafalgar Square and headed along Pall Mall. I wanted just then to get to The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace but did not want to use the underground; it was way too glorious a day out.
Finally, I laid down the law to the driver, who was a burly soul and looked like the quintessential slave soul. Soon enough, we got into a conversation when we began chatting about Canada, which I shared that I would give anything to flee in hopes of living in London. Soon, the topic turned to sex and whatever one would have to do to get by. Ha! Said he, he would give up this gig of 22 years and counting by marrying a fat, ugly rich broad to which, without so much as missing beat, I chimed in, “Don’t stop there, if you can find rich, fat, ugly and toothless, now you’ve got it made. To paraphrase Frank Sinatra from The Best Is Yet To Come, you ain’t been blown until you’ve had a gum job!” Never in long ages had I heard a grown man laugh so hard and for so long – a fellow cab driver going in the opposite direction even honked at him and asked what was so funny.
After having sat in traffic for far too long, though the metre read 12£, he asked for a 10£ note and thank me, saying he ought to have paid me for the company and humour. With that, I dashed past St. James Palace en route for The Mall which, of course, was closed. Finally, I made it up to the Queen’s Gallery and took in the Russia: Royalty & the Romanovs exhibition, which did offer some truly inspired gems from the Royal Collection.
Well, of course, he ruled something.
I was reminded in this portrait of Tsar Nicholas I of the 1970s when the goods were readily on display; however, along came AIDS and all that display and ogling readily evaporated. Instead, men were morphed into true peacocks with long blow-dry locks, which really did become tiresome after a season or two. Now, of course, it is the great and truly civilised age of the Internet, which lest you forget, is saturated with more than 80% pornography.
The Vladimir Tiara which is not dissimilar to the Cambridge Lover’s Knot Tiara, which always looked truly handsome when worn by the ravishing, Diana, Princess of Wales.
Set in the green drawing room at Windsor Castle, where on May 19, 2018, Alexi Lubomirski took the official photographs of the wedding of TRH Duke & Duchess of Sussex, you cannot possibly begin to imagine the overwhelming scope and grandeur of this tableau. Truly, one is left in awe of the fact that HM Queen Victoria was a tiny acorn who matured into a mighty oak who, through her womb, extended her empire far and wide across the continent. This was a ravishing exhibition and one of the most stunning paintings that I have ever seen from the Royal Collection.
After all that inspiring art, I needed to ground anew; thus, I opted to take a brisk walk, cutting through Green Park where the light fast shifted and danced below the horizon… never to be experienced again. With that, I hopped onto the Piccadilly Line at Green Park Station and made my way back to Russell Square Station; there, I resorted to my hotel room and took a lucidly awakened, dream-sodden nap before getting on with the final celebrations of this poignant Armistice Day.
Before making it to Barbican Station on the Circle Line, I had had the most awakened flying dream, which had me spirited across the spiral arms of Time to a past life in London.
To reflect, celebrate and give thanks, how could I not indulge in an evening of music and song with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Nice, plush comfortable seats with a troika of gay Jewish dancer/actors seated ahead of me. The evening was beautiful, the singing stellar.
As there was an empty seat on either side of me, I offered to move to the left and afforded the lovely young couple from Paris to sit together – she had been sat a row ahead and away from her spectacled, fey lover – he had more than a passing resemblance to Merlin. Leaning in, I whispered to him, “The universe always conspires to accommodate lovers…” he blushed, they both blushed sweetly and were pleasant company that added a certain magic to the evening. Here’s to lovers… indeed.
En route back to the hotel… a little late night smoothie snack was in order.
As ever, sweet dreams, don’t forget to push off and start flying and as always, thanks for your ongoing support.
Dreams are the poetic expression of the soul. 