Pollaiuollo Brothers

Pollaiuollo Brothers and The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian
Feb 17, 2010

I am spending my day trying to figure out how to spell and then pronounce the Italian name of the brothers who created the altar hanging called The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian. Pollaiuollo. I can get the “polla” syllable and the “ollo” syllable, but I can’t make those 2 vowels work in between, though the presenter could.

This week, I am a regular at the National Gallery Theatre lectures now, so I hurry to take my place at the appointed hour. And when I am sitting there, I decide that I am never going home.

I went to the gallery early today to preview the paintings of the early 15th century artists but there was an announcement on the intercom that due to “industrial action” most of the galleries would be emptied. People couldn’t get back into the building until 2:15 pm. That is the moment when I saw how many people are really in the National Gallery at one moment, when they all try to stream out of the building at the same time. Rows of employees stood, arms outstretched, silently pointing to Exit signs.

“Am I going to miss the lecture at 1 pm,” I asked.

“No, just the galleries are closed. Not the lecture theatre,” one nodded.

The only person who missed part of the lecture was the man who startled me half way through the lecture – the loudest catch of a snore that I have ever heard in a public place. As well, he woke everyone else up who had nodded off.

I looked for the collective personality of people who sit waiting for a lecture since I am so happy to have found a group like this – like-minded people. My cohort.
l see the dyed white hair of women in front of me, sparse and thin, a raspy orange red color now, dry, frizzled at the ends and I am so happy for her. Still dying her hair. Crooked lipstick. A sparkling pin on her lapel. Coming to lectures and sitting with her friends. I want to be old like that.

A man in a flowing ankle length wool coat walks by, the hem of it fluttering against his khaki pants – a circle of baldness rimming the top of his head and the long hanging shocks of hair hanging down by his ears and along his neck.

Some of the people here are definitely artists. A woman wears her body as art, so beautifully decorated in old age. Another has on a finely knitted yellow sweater full of complicated stitches – the colour flashing somehow under the lights.

Another walks by and nonchalantly pulls off the obviously silk and flowing scarf, a Van Gogh pattern with the sunshine colours of sunflowers from his painting by the same name.

My contemporaries sit alone or perhaps they are with each other. No pre-performance chatting goes on between them. Have they said everything in life they want to say to each other, I wondered. One has a pen in hand and I can see the black ink from its nib filling in the squares of the crossword puzzles.

Another has the daily newspaper stretched out before him, slowly scanning the columns and then flipping the pages.

The lady beside me is eating grapes out of her yogurt container. She reminds me of a woman in a Greek painting at a feast, lounging on a velvet couch and eating grapes? It is the way she is picking the grapes out of the bowl or the leisure with which she raises them way to her lips.

After the lecture is the first time I see groups together talking, ... and eating, couples reaching into a bag that is placed between them. They sit on round benches, the backs of which or beautifully crafted into a long bow that takes the shape of the long curve of the alcove they are sitting in.

I am looking at my contemporaries: the ones who love what I love. Tomorrow I am going to take on a new regime. I am going to use that little bit of pre-noon hunger to work for me, the hunger that staves off an afternoon nap in the middle of a lecture today.

Wyona took Zoe to Jersey Boys for the afternoon matinee. I met them there. We had seats three rows from the front. When Moiya and Dave come next week we have seats mid-centre. The difference in the perspective of the different viewing places is amazing, since we are stating to have tried them all.

Today we were close enough to see the mechanical details that make the performance work. For example, there is a loud knock on the three separate doors which are slammed in his face, when Frankie Valli is trying to find producers for the group’s newest songs. I thought ouch, that must have killed the performer’s hand. He is going to die an early death of arthritis of the knuckles.

Wyona had seen this as well, but noticed hat he took a device out of his pocket and had it hidden in the palm of his hand, probably a microphone, so that when he knocked the sound was heard to the top of the third balcony. When the knock was over, he slipped the unit back into the pocket from which it had come in his trousers.

We saw where the microphones are attached to the wigs, how the costuming changes from jeans and a T-shirt to immaculate suits with silver bracelets on men’s wrists, exquisite silk lapels on tuxedos. We laughed at the capsule of fake blood in a cheek, ready to bite so it looks like the holder of it has been shot in the head.

Jersey Boys, an old show always new one to us.

A toasted cheese sandwich roasted in a Teflon pan for meal for Zoe – that was the full extent of our cooking when we got home. Later Zoe was invited into the front room with us to practise the dance steps we had seen at the matinee. Though she loves to dance when she is with her peers, she resisted, first shrugging her shoulders and then quitting long before Wyona and I could stop our feet from dancing.

Sometimes she just mutters and whispers to herself, “Seniors”.

When Greg came home from work our feet were still going. He sat down tired from work, to watch us and was soon interested in how that dip of a back step is made by using the first and third beat of an eight bar measure as the strong beats and not first and fifth. He was a good dancer in the old days as well. I can see his feet moving to the music but his body is not out of the chair, ... yet.

Am using dangling participles and half sentences today.

Too much fun here to write with real English.

Or to even tell all.

Love,

Arta