{"id":25,"date":"2009-01-18T15:57:27","date_gmt":"2009-01-18T19:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.promiscuousassemblage.com\/?page_id=25"},"modified":"2010-02-07T15:18:18","modified_gmt":"2010-02-07T19:18:18","slug":"lessons-from-the-nursery-a-way-of-life-in-england","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/promiscuousassemblage.com\/index.php\/lessons-from-the-nursery-a-way-of-life-in-england\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from the nursery-a way of life in England"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Ye<\/a><\/dt>\n
And I say that with the greatest admiration!!!!! <\/strong><\/dd>\n<\/div>\n

Recently, in London during Christmas,\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdmy family\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdstayed at the century-plus old Chelsea Arts Club, founded by the artist\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd J.A.M. Whistler for himself and his friends.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdKnocking on the rather insignificant door,\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd identified by a stone plac on a side street between\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdthe two great shopping\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdroads in Chelsea\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd, the Kings Road and the Fulham Road, one is whisked into private world, a communal personal vision, that could only be English. In the drawing room\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdseen in the photo at right\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd the sign posts were all there in force leading with\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdthe red and SHINEY walls,\u00ef\u00bf\u00bda signature English look\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdI’ve always assumed\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdhas been used to \u00ef\u00bf\u00bdreflect\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdwhat ever light can be had and to cheer\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdup the incessant gloomy days.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd Please note the paintings and drawings on the walls, with provenance-or not, and rakish angle of the feathered lampshades (reference to the English love of nature),\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd the comfortably distressed leather sofas, and the lavish and bold striped curtains, arranged by some seemingly careless and perhaps batty hand.\"\"<\/a>\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdAnd feast your eyes on the main room, deorated in pure Mad Hatter style for the holidays.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd An enormous tree is festooned with ridiculous, colossal ornaments in a style that could only be called\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdExtreme Festive.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd It’s the place where we had our breakfast every morning and where you can get a drink at any time.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd A coal fire whispers in the fireplace gate and one can come and go, eat or not, read, or go out for a breath of air under the pergola outside.<\/p>\n

Outside, on the Kings Road, my daughter and I make a pilgramage to World’s End, the site of Vivienne Westwood’s first shop in the Go Go early 80’s (see first photo on top).\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd Note the giant clock with thirteen numbers, and strangely slanted entry steps. To get just a small sense of Westwood’s cock eyed and seditious genius check out this link from the Victoria and Albert museum’s exhibit on her :http:\/\/www.vam.ac.uk\/vastatic\/microsites\/1231_vivienne_westwood\/changing_styles.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You might also want to give some thought to one of her\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdsage sayings ” You have a much better life if you wear impressive clothes”.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd Amen.<\/p>\n

Curiouser and curiouser, we fall for the nursery school charm of English life, where things are not what they seem.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd Overscaled, off-kilter, celebration-prone, we embrace the\u00ef\u00bf\u00bddelight of nursery food on our family Christmas Eve pub crawl with one of the most delicious foods I’ve ever eaten- Toad in the Hole.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd We celebrate Christmas with friends\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdlinking arms to pull\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdChristmas crackers and\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdplay games; everyone is carousing and\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdintimates and strangers are exchanging kisses and drinking lavish amounts of champers and no one seems to even consider networking which I suspect would be considered the height of bad manners<\/p>\n

Then we’re off to Paris, a place where grown-up people live and celebrate in a conciously grown up way. Beautiful, elegant but there’s not much place for fantasy.<\/p>\n

I’m not here to cast aspersions on the English character, or lack of serious purpose. Oh no no NO!\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd Quite the opposite….<\/p>\n

So, what’s it all about?\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd The Chelsea Arts Club may be trying a wee\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdbit too hard to embody the carefree Bohemian days of yore, but what harm that?\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd I’ll happily fall into a rabbit’s hole of dress up, grown up play pens and children’s parties.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd What harm done?\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd It’s the holidays-\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdand frankly\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdherein lies\u00ef\u00bf\u00bda rich form of\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd nourishment that feeds my inner life and creative imagination.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And I say that with the greatest admiration!!!!! Recently, in London during Christmas,\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdmy family\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdstayed at the century-plus old Chelsea Arts Club, founded by the artist\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd J.A.M. Whistler for himself and his friends.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdKnocking on the rather insignificant door,\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd identified by a stone plac on a side street between\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdthe two great shopping\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdroads in Chelsea\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd, the Kings Road […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-25","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/promiscuousassemblage.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/promiscuousassemblage.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/promiscuousassemblage.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/promiscuousassemblage.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/promiscuousassemblage.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/promiscuousassemblage.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31,"href":"https:\/\/promiscuousassemblage.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25\/revisions\/31"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/promiscuousassemblage.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}