The Economist

I spent most of the month reading back issues of The Economist. Each week a new issue arrives, and each issue is equivalent to a small book. Most of the articles are worth reading, and I'm glad to learn about events that took place in Africa, South America and Asia, since one doesn't normally find out much in Canadian newspapers about such far-flung places. The only problem is I'm always falling behind with my magazine reading. Perhaps we should subscribe to fewer of them.

Renoir Exhibit in Ottawa

Now that the weather was nicer, we drove to Ottawa to see Len and Louise again. Upon hearing from Louise about the Renoir landscape paintings exhibit at the National Gallery of Art, we went the next morning.

I must confess that I'm not a fan of the National Gallery. In 1990, while taking Grade 13 Fine Arts, my classmates and I had to write an essay defending the National Gallery's purchase of Barnett Newman's Voice of Fire for $1.76 million. While I did my best to conjure up meaning from the boring stripes in Newman's so-called painting, I disliked this sort of stuff with a passion. In my opinion, art represents either beautiful things or interesting things. Of course, what's considered beautiful or interesting is entirely in the eyes of the beholder. As far as I'm concerned, most of modern art is hideous and absurd. To this day, I view abstract art as the emperor's new clothes, daubed by fakes who have no more talent than you and me. For a national art institution to accumulate piles of this rubbish is pathetic; a look around the Gallery is enough to make one sick at most of the stuff hanging on the wall. To be fair, the whole world has been showering praises on the emperor's new clothes for decades.

Renoir, on the other hand, was not a faker. His paintings were both beautiful and interesting. My favourite was The Garden in the Rue Cortot, Montmartre. It is incredible to me how he used seemingly simple brush strokes to bring to the foreground the dazzling flowers and bland into the far side of the painting two people having a leisurely chat. Simply beautiful.

Las Vegas

Our friend Ron decided to celebrate his birthday in Las Vegas this year. About a dozen of us joined him and Marita at the party. It had been a long while since Jeff and I were last in Vegas. Despite being a full-blooded Chinese, I dislike gambling tremendously. There is, however, more to Vegas than gambling, and I usually enjoy my time there.

Marita was her usual generous and mothering self, constantly making sure everyone was fed and entertained. Consequently, every meal was a production, and every evening an event. We went to two shows, one of which the famous Phantom. This being Vegas, the staging of the show is out-of-this-world extravagant. Everything was lavishing to the extreme. I've always loved the songs in Phantom, and for weeks afterwards, couldn't get the tunes out of my head.

After days of gourmet food, fine wine, and ceaseless lights and sound, we stumbled out of the city dazed and fatigued. What a crazy place!