May 7, 2020
The thing I love most about England is that they still put
ugly people on television.
It has been a great week to learn some shit and my mother and
I stuffed our heads with beautiful art knowledge and thanks to the
BBC, we took a quest around the world for humankind's greatest
achievements.
First we talk about this past week in captivity as I undertook
the task of sorting out and categorizing my boxes full of old paper
photographs.
For the longest time I had wanted to categorize my photos
separately in travel, comedy and family sections. Along with
this labor came the joy of bagging up ex girlfriends and
put them in a box and stuff that box in the deepest corner of
my darkest closet. My mom said "Its like cleaning out the cobwebs
from the corners of your life." I want to be clear that this
doesn't include Ashna, because our whole history in photos is all
digital, because she was my wife and because her and I are still
friends. Also, Ashna still edits and produces this podcast and
there were no dark corners in our relationship, it was
most always bright sunshine.
The one thing that this Corona virus Covid 19 lockdown
has taught me is that I'm going to make someone a really good wife
one day. I've been cooking all of our meals and washing the clothes
and the dishes. My mom has the bathroom and the floors. Aside from
keeping our one bedroom pirate ship clean we have been feeding our
brains with the choicest slices of knowledge.
In the episode we talk about the last two books my mom read
here in the Rhodes library:
The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes
Goya, A Life by Evan S. Connell
After this we talk about the last episodes we watched of
The Great Artists by Tim Marlow
which cover the artistic lives of Bruegel, Caravaggio,
Rembrandt, Goya, David, Turner, Vermeer, Stubbs, Constable,
Delacroix, Whistler, Van Gogh, Schiele.
From there our learning documentary trail led us to the BBC's
'Around The World In 80 Treasures With Dan Cruikshank' which is a
quest around the world for humankind's greatest achievements.
Considering that the human race is now currently down on its knees
it is a good time to be reminded of some of our greatest
achievements and some of the fun and beauty we created back in the
good old days when we were allowed to spend time together. The
thing that I love most about England is that they still put ugly
people on television. I told my mother that there isn't a single
person in the world I would rather be spending this lockdown with
other than her and that is because we both talk the easiest with
each other and because we are both interested in the same things.
After 40 treasures faulty Dvds didn't allow us to see the last 40
that Dan Cruikshank wanted us to see so we took a trip with
National Geographic on a show called 'Time Scanners' where the scan
with a mobile laser scanner Petra, St. Paul's Cathedral, The
Pyramids, The Coliseum, Ancient Jerusalem and Machu Pichu.
This brought our conversation to Peru and the train journey I
took once there going from Cusco bound for Puno. This episode ends
at Machu Pichu as it should being that this concludes our week
of learning here at Corona University.
I hope you enjoy listening to this conversation with my mom as
much as I enjoyed doing it. I hope this serves up as a good
reminder for you to do something nice for your mother this coming
Sunday May 10 because it is Mother's Day. Hooray for humanity and
hooray for moms!
Why wait until Mother's Day to spoil your mother