'Midnight Ink' on vacation!

I am temporarily retiring this blog site and will be blogging at http://www.20countriesin200days.blogspot.com/.

Dalí

I never had such fun at a museum as I did at the permanent Dalí exhibit in St.Petersburg, Florida. It's a tiny museum with about 70 pieces, so you don't need to rush from one room to the next. The exhibit centered on the influence of Sigmund Freud and surrealism on Dalí's work. It was mesmerizing and bizarre, and played on my mind for days.

Here's some "did you know?" stuff that I found interesting -

* When Dali first met Gala, she was married to a surrealist poet and in a ménage à trois, not odd considering that the surrealist movement was anti-family. They met at a weekend party hosted by Dali, by the end of which, Gala had chosen to leave her husband and daughter to stay behind with Dali.
* There were nearly 300 instances of Gala in Dali's paintings, and he intertwined their names when he signed his paintings.
* Dalinean symbols such as the grasshopper, ants, water, elephants and keys appear repetitively through his work - symbolizing death, fear, sexual desire...
* Strangely, Dali was fixated with his brother's death although he was born 9 months after his brother died.

Two paintings that blew my mind - Gala contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at 20m becomes the portrait of Abraham Lincoln. There is so much to be said about all the little symbols he has inserted into the painting, but you need only to squint your eyes and see the profile of Lincoln to acknowledge Dali's talent.

The second painting is the Hallucinogenic Toreador. The Wiki entry describes it best:"Examined from a distance, the body of the second Venus reveals the face and torso of the toreador (bullfighter). Her breasts as his nose, while her arms transform into his mouth. Their long skirts make up his white shirt and red scarf of the Toreador. The green layer makes up his necktie. His eye is found within the face of the second Venus. The soft white area unveils a tear slipping from his eye."

Florida Americana

The past week in Tampa and Orlando was an immersion in Americana. Here is a sampling -

* Patriotism is hard to miss. We dined at a local diner, which had 9/11 murals on every square inch and table mats with quotes from George W. Bush.

* Driving in Tampa felt like a Hitchcock movie. Often for more miles on end, all we saw were strips of shopping malls with flickering fluorescent signages followed by RV and trailer parks.

* City-dwelling-gourmet-food-snobs that we are, we had little choice but to patronise not one, not two, but *five* all American fast-food/casual dining chains! We indulged in saturated fat gluttony at (drum roll please)...Denny's, Waffle House, Cracker Barrel, Chili's and Sweet Tomatoes. The food was underwhelming and at times resembled a penitentiary meal. Never the less, you can't beat southern comfort food - grits, buttery biscuits and breaded steaks.

* We saw some breath-taking wildlife at Homosassa Springs State Park. Manatees lolling around in the warm spring waters, flamboyant flamingos resting on one leg and America's national bird - the bald headed eagle. Like the park ranger said, "This is the real Florida". Move over Miami!

* Florida has always been a winter haven for retirees, but I wasn't expecting to see so many polite 70 year old toll booth attendants along the highways. Clearly retirement in Florida isn't just about wealthy old men playing golf or angling in some river like I had come to imagine.

* And the quintessential Florida experience would not be complete without a trip to Disney World. For Tariq and I, it was a trip down memory lane, remembering our respective first visit to Disney World in the 80s. Little has changed in 20 years. I had flashes when I could recall what it felt like to be a squealing 8 year old again.