I’m in one of those periods at the moment when life seems to be accelerating down some kind of chute, at the end of which I will be launched into space. Several activities which have been held at an unthreatening distance for some time have become suddenly very immediate.
I have been wondering off and on how to rescue my fading knowledge of the Italian language. So I enquired about a series of on-line lessons with a native Italian speaker. This evening I’ve received my first “date”. Suddenly I’m convinced that I know less than I thought I did.
On the subject of the Italian language, I foolishly volunteered to do a talk on the composer Arrigo Boito, to the regional Italian circle. This has seemed to be at a comfortable distance until now, when I realise that I have to deliver it on Saturday. It has been an interesting project, actually, as my talk will be on his opera Mefistofele. It’s all about his rather novel take on the Faust legend, which has interested me for some time. The advantage of selecting an unusual topic, it occurs to me, is that I am pretty well guaranteed to know more about it than anybody else there. I have wondered every now and then whether this might make a good subject for a picture, but nothing has ever crystallised.
Finally, I’ve reached that tipping point with a picture when I realise that I have either to commit myself to abandoning it as a potentially interesting idea which is just not going to come together, or I have to commit myself to the work I have already done, get my head down, and get on with it.
Halloween is supposed to be the occasion on which people get some kind of satisfaction from scaring themselves. Who needs Halloween!