When I was 19 I shared a house with three crazy girls. The house was filled with eclectic stuff collected from op-shops, a wild collage of housewares that had accumulated from years of rental since paleolithic times.
The only things I’ve kept from those days are some dear friendships. I know of only one object that endures from the same period: a large porcelain crab, The Crab, as it’s known to us. Its purpose is mostly decorative but when called upon could used to serve dip from its shell-lidded body while its legs make spaces for crackers, celery sticks and the like.
Some people might mistake The Crab for a piece of 50′s-60′s-70′s kitsch, but it’s my belief, that The Crab has Provenance. I don’t mean it’ s an antique, but it has a story and heritage that elevates it from being just a quirky piece of china.
It all began in Portugal.
Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro was born in Lisbon in 1846 into an artistic middle class family. He rapidly became an accomplished caricaturist and made his name first in Brazil then in Portugal as a satirist, writing and drawing for the major publications of the time.
Rafael became quite famous for being a pain-in-the-arse. He was against conservatism, conformity and corruption. He had a wicked sense of humour in creating a little man called Zé Povinho, a peasant and everyman whose most famous pose means “Up Yours!”. Through him, Rafael took sides with the powerless and the poor, in all their apathy, ignorance and discontent.
After about 20 years of stirring up trouble, Rafael abruptly pulled up stumps in Lisbon and relocated to Caldas da Rainha.
Rafael and his much less famous brother opened a ceramics factory dedicated to both utilitarian homewares and artistic endeavour. Rafael continued to apply his sarcastic and political wit in his work as a ceramic artist and sculptor. The high quality of their products became world renowned and as well as directing an arts school Rafael produced large scale commissions, imitating all kinds of fashionable art styles from Art Nouveau, to revivalist Manueline and Palissy (a 16th century French ceramicist who made plates piled with dead things). With clay, he lampooned well known society figures and expanded his family of characters, including Ze Povinho, into 3D. His work was prolific and extremely varied.
Somewhere along the line came the cabbages. As a part of the kitchenware range he designed a range of tureens, bowls and plates styled on cabbages. In Portugal, the cabbage is a symbol of rural life, of peasant life. You don’t normally see it on restaurant menus but cabbage is grown in every kitchen garden north to south. Caldo Verde, a cabbage soup, is a national dish. So you might say Rafael’s cabbages were yet another ambiguous smirk at society. Perhaps he fancied the irony of a bourgeois Parisian housewife with a plebeian cabbage as her table centrepiece. From the cabbages came all kinds of other horticulture, plates of fish for fish, and hence, crabs, I suspect, for crab dip.
It took only 10 years after Rafael’s death (in 1905) for a museum to be created to celebrate his work. Today there are two museums under his name and various others housing private collections. The factory, Faianças Bordallo Pinheiro, was recently saved from bankruptcy and continues to make beautiful ceramics both very stylish and very funny.
If there is further proof of his talent, endurance and timeless fashionability, Rafael imitations can still be found for sale on the other side of the world. Here’s what my sister found in a Sydney furniture shop on the weekend…
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Brideshead is Revisiting me! I have been making my way through the 13 heavenly hours of this classic BBC series and I’m surprised that it still stands up after all this time. It hasn’t dated, at all. Mercifully shot on 35mm film, which was a massive luxury for television at the time, (even today only a few TV shows are shot on film). It really is charming and brilliant.
I was only 10 years old when I first (and last) saw it, and so I watch it now with new eyes and a proper understanding of the complex adult behaviour and the machinations of religion, friendship and family that drive the narrative of this great story. I’m also reminded of how much the book/film impressed and influenced me as a little person.
O Eurovision! I love you europy! How did this thing evolve into the Festival of Worstness that it is? Are there seriously no better songwriters than this in the whole of “Europe”? Is melody dead? And what’s with the dancing clowns and hip-hopping mimes? Jesus Wept! At least the semi-clad Roman gladiators doing fisting gestures succeed in distracting you entirely from the music. As for the people they call ‘Artistas’… Anna and Frida must be reaching for the Prozac.
Why the funk do they have to sing in English? “I’m in love with a fairytale/ even though it hurts/ I don’t care if I lose my mind/ cos I’m already cursed” – That was the offering from the winner. Sorry Norway: A LYRIC, IT AIN’T. Spare us your stupidity and sing it in Norwegian next time. I can just see the 2009 auditions : no singing or dancing involved, just an afternoon of smiling midriffs. It looks like every year the show’s heating budget increases, and the stylists’ budgets get cut in half. Next year the ‘Artistas’ will be performing in the nuddy. It’s got to be an improvement.
Anyway, still hobbling about with a cane, taking my powders and pills, waiting for a cure. I’m thinking I might start dressing in black just to complete the old-biddy image.
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Injuries: none… well nothing physical, anyway.
Life Satisfaction Index: down 18%
I should’ve known that a holiday would be a bad idea. But it’s not everyday you get invited to Paris by a generous brother, and we all need a shot of Paris once in a while.
It’s maybe my 4th or 5th visit to the City of Light but every time I’m spellbound by how beautiful it is. And I swear it’s getting more Parisian all the time. It’s as though every ordinary cafe has been retro-renovated to look like it was always a classic old French joint. Or maybe the rest of the world is getting more modern and bland and Paris is still as cool as it always was. Maybe it’s me who’s changed. I know I’ll sound like my mother when I complain about how expensive it is. Café Portugal: 50 cents. Café Paris €2.50! And to use my Portuguese friend Tania’s words “and it’s shit coffee!”. I’m not one for definitives when it comes to films or coffee, but I’m certainly used to the smooth, caramel flavour of Portuguese coffee. In contrast the french cup tasted like a burnt chop.
After waving my family goodbye on the train to the south of France I wandered dreamily around Montmartre without realising that the mobile phone that just died was the one with the correct time. My other phone was still on Portuguese time. I woke up to this ten minutes too late. Thus, I missed my flight home. After forking out for a new ticket, I bedded down at the airport, along with half a dozen other jet-set refugees.
Thanks to Ryanair, who will provide almost free flights for those desperate enough to want to check in at 4am, I am accustomed to an airport sleep over. Me and the world’s backpackers. I laughed out loud the first time I saw Stanstead airport after midnight. It turns into an industrial sized dormitory, with thermarests and sleeping bags lined up in orderly fashion along every available wall. Numerous times I have carefully selected a quieter, darker, sneakier spot, only to wake up sharing the bed with 50 others. The really professional air-slumber-party-goers carry eye-mask and ear plugs, courtesy of some airline, but at Paris Orly they were truly a cut above : they were watching tele on their laptops and portable DVD’s.
So anyway, I arrived home tired and emotional. The cat wasn’t at home. He hadn’t been seen by my house minders for two days. Panic. Just as I’m on the hotline to sympathy sister, he comes slinking in the door looking as fat and content as ever. Then I realise the reason he’s been out: the neighbour’s tom cat has been in and has pissed all over the house. It reeks. Mao not happy, me not happy.
And now to the dogs. Wookie has lost his voice from crying after being tied up 24/7. I appreciated his enthusiasm to see me but this was overshadowed by Babywookie’s absence. Where was my Babywookie? No one had seen him for 5 days.
Could it be that my neighbour’s threats to get rid of any dog of mine not leashed have been realised? According to my neighbour, all dogs are potentially bloodthirsty sheep massacring psychopaths (except his dog). Even the toy poodles that another neighbour keeps are lethal teeth-gnashing werewolves. I’ve tried explaining that in Australia dogs work with sheep and we also employ a concept known as a fence to protect our warm investments.
Another neighbour firmly believes that my over-fed, one year old playful pups are going to kill their goats. Goats: 120kg, Dog: 12kg. Goat: horns. Dog: bark. But forget logic and commonsense. “We know dogs here” I am told. They know maltreated dogs, more like.
At this moment I can’t help see the significance of the arrival of two lambs and two goats since my departure a week ago. Coincidence? Or motive?
However, as my ex-policeman neighbour pointed out, you cannot know for sure what you haven’t seen with your own eyes. And there it is. And I’d prefer not to know for sure. I’d prefer to believe he has charmed his way into a nice home a few villages away where they have taken him for an abandoned dog. Now that the truth is subjective, and I can choose what to believe.
Meanwhile I’m trying to occupy myself with the immediate reality. Wookie hasn’t eaten anything for three days. It seems he’s on a hunger strike until his little brother comes back. So I’m tempting him with things formerly forbidden. Cat food, fresh meat, vegemite toast… so far he’s only taken a toffee caramel, which we can’t count as any kind of victory.
I pacify my mind with sweaty hard work. I’m digging a trench down one side of the annexe to seal the lower part of the wall against water. My good neighbours, who are very very good, drop over to see how I’m holding up. We get talking about an overgrown patch of land that is standing between me and fire safety. And wouldn’t you know, they own it. “Want it?” she asks, in that off-hand portuguese way. “For how much?” I ask. And in a nice piece of circular symmetry she wants the same amount as the flight from Paris cost me. Either the flight was very expensive or the land is a bargain. But just like the truth, the value of things is completely subjective.
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