Just dropped in to London town

Oh boy!!! I saw, with 100% certainty, my first celebrity in London! I was walking past Piccadilly Circus towards some art galleries down near the “fancy part of town,” when I did a double take and realized the lady I had just passed was Gina McKee. Obviously I didn’t know that was her name (imdb.com is a wonderful thing) and you probably have no idea who I’m talking about. But to most Americans, she will probably always be “that woman in the wheelchair from Notting Hill.” She recently starred in a Harold Pinter West End play and I’m guessing lives somewhere in or around London; so it’s not that far fetched that I would see her. But still! Woo hoo!

Apparently, the issue of God is a touchy subject, and so I must clarify what I said about a certain Jon Gezotis and his beliefs. His response to the Let’s Play Make Believe picture verbatim:
“It’s not that I don’t believe in God. It’s that I don’t believe in religion. You know this. But you are right…[arguing me is] a pointless effort once you finally realize that my debating skills are far superior to yours.”

So back to those art galleries I was going to. The first one wasn’t actually an art gallery; it was a Paul Smith “store” that happened to feature a collection of photographs taken by the Italian photographer Gian Paolo Barbieri. (Again, I had no idea who he was either, but his picture of Anjelica Huston in the newspaper pretty much secured the fact that I had to go see his works.) I wasn’t too smitten with the collection, but I did decide that Anjelica Huston was/is one of the sexiest people alive.

The second gallery, and the one you need to pay attention to, featured the photos of New York-born Gregory Crewdson. Okay right now you need to go Google images for him. Do it. Stop reading. Go. He is an incredible artist. Wikipedia says he “is best known for elaborately staged, surreal scenes of American homes and neighborhoods.” The collection that was on display in London (and the clincher that told me I had to check it out) featured pictures he took in North Adams and Pittsfield Massachusetts. When you look at his works it is as if you are looking at a movie still. He has an entire crew to set up a mere one photo - hiring actors, using huge spotlights, building sets, and in one case, setting fire to a house. I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of this guy before, especially because he was shooting in western Massachusetts between 2004 and 2007. But I could look at his photos for hours; there is just so much in them. People say he is reminiscent of David Lynch and I think this is so very true. Because just by looking at one his giant photos you can pretty much write an entire play/movie/novel/etc. They have that much character to them, that much detail, that much imagination. Again, I’m not doing this justice and, in fact, seem to rambling. But his pictures speak for themselves. So take a look. (Also, it was really cool to see him feature the thrift store in Pittsfield that I bought so many of my awesome t-shirts at.)

*music – I’d buy you Rogaine when you start losing all your hair, Sew on patches to all you tear ‘Cause I love you more than I could ever promise, And you take me the way I am