KINKY BOOTS & REBECCA

Okay...the blog is late being posted. We've been busy and time overlapped. Cope! It's now 10:30 PM here and we're doing the best we can! Oh yeah...sorry...not many pics.

Royal Academy Entrance

Great news from France! The EU may stay together for awhile longer. As for us, we didn't. Karin and Susan spent three hours at the Wallace Collection, a small mansion museum with an eclectic group of paintings including some Rembrandts and Fragonards. Bob and I meanwhile walked to the Adelphi Theatre on the Strand for tickets to Kinky Boots for tomorrow. Then we stopped by the National Portrait Gallery to ask what they'd done with Winston Churchill. (In storage. Can you imagine?) Across the street, we had lunch in the crypt of St. Martin-in-the-Fields church before going upstairs for a free half hour concert of Bach choral music.

Rebecca Salter

Later, we all gathered at the flat before setting off for the Royal Academy of Art, an organization that dates back to the 18^th Century and admits only eighty members at a time. Pim, our friend from New Zealand, had arranged for us to meet Rebecca Salter, an old friend of hers who is now one of the Royal Academicians. We had tea with “Becky” in the members' lounge and then viewed a special exhibit America After the Fall, a series of paintings from the depression era. The exhibit included many impressive works of art including the most famous, American Gothic, the one of a stony-faced woman and man, the latter holding a pitchfork. Part of what I found most striking was the feeling of yearning, particularly by “middle Americans,” for “the good old days.” These were the very ones who, last year, voted for You-Know-Who as President.

Becky, I want to add, was what people in the 18^th Century used to call “an original.” She was at once funny, charming, intelligent, knowledgeable, and—I don't know—just fun to be with. I'm extremely grateful to Pim for arranging the meeting.

Tonight we plan to kill a bottle of Prosecco before going out to dinner somewhere in the neighborhood.