I love Carol Gold, The Prisoner, and Stinky Cheese

Aaaaahhhhh......

The contented sigh you hear all around you everywhere in the world today is the sound of a perfectly and absolutely relaxing week at the beach. Perfect weather. Perfect food. Perfect wine. Perfect movies - and the entire series (plus bonus footage and interviews, thank you very much) of The Prisoner on the newly purchased DVD's brought along by The Great Husband - a man obsessed with The Prisoner.

The GH, it seems, has committed yet another act of conversion on his hapless wife. I've followed him again, apparently. This campaign of corruption began with Monty Python 25 years ago, and continues to this day. He is determined to enjoy very odd and disorienting cinema, and he is determined to have his enjoyment with company - my company. (His one spectacular failure was the three stooges. See that? I did not even capitalize the title. I cannot like the three stooges.) The Prisoner is such a psychological puzzle and such an of-the-moment commentary that it's impossible to think in enough directions at once for encompassing it all in one go -- and this makes for much thought and conversation -- conversation helped along by good wine and stinky cheese. (Shoulda taken one more seeded baguette, though. We ran out and had to content ourselves with Safeway bread.)

Perfectly happily relaxingly married life. The best possible way to head into Lent this year, and it feels great.

Bronze Coast Gallery had to be a part of my week, of course. I went in and stayed awhile this time -- on our first day -- whilst the GH had his Vacation Headache Coma. It only takes a day, so this time I took the coma day to walk and gallery gaze -- and be stunned at the sheer numbers of people who were at Cannon Beach in February!

Don Dahlke was my first love in the Bronze Coast, but Carol Gold calls me too, and either she keeps getting better and better or I am getting better eyes to see with. It is a little hard to see in these pictures, but Carol Gold forms bronze so amazingly that these very simple lines and this very heavy cast metal radiates such weightlessness and movement and emotion that's almost indescribable. It draws my hand out - I need to touch these sculptures. Need to move them and turn them and run my fingers along their ridges and slopes.

She has some I've never seen before -- and they're far, far out of my reach for now. But I'll buy something of hers one of these days. I'll spend "earned it myself by my writing" money on one. That's suitable, don't you think?

I really liked this couple. They are staying within the bounds of their own eternal circle, and they do not find it confining or constrictive. It's a dance for them. They tango, but independently. They watch each other. They step in synchronized unity, in equal and opposite attraction, and find a fluid counterpoint in this sort of movement. They are the same and different. They do not touch, but they maintain contact. I stood in the gallery and turned this piece around and around and around, gazing and gazing at it. Its name is "Circle."

And then there's the beautiful "Baile." Isn't she wonderful?