artistic sandwiches, creative salads
Back from visiting the Marlowes in Phoenix (or more precisely Goodyear, a nebulous area encompassing much of Phoenix's lawless western frontier). The house is large, if still sparsely furnished, and the huge angled purple wall gives it the feel of a gallery. They live directly behind a high hill which has been rechristened Mt. Marlowe. Saturday night we sat in the backyard and watched meteors flash as they fell behind its peak. Sunday took us to the Phoenix Art Museum, which I had never managed to visit during 16 years of living in Arizona; sometimes it takes out-of-towners to precipitate these things. Probably my favorite was Rules for Maintaining Balance by an artist whose name I've already forgotten; shelves with glued-down chalk are mounted onto a blackboard surface covered with scrawls, including a Mickey Mouse whose form, consisting mostly of sketched circles, is so minimalist as to seem anatomical. A camel in a desert landscape is painted directly onto the blackboard in pinkish monochrome. Its front hooves are tied together and it seems to grin as it angles its posterior at the viewer. Somehow this all works. Edward Ruscha's High Speed Gardening, on the other hand, we have decided to use as a metonym for all art that sucks so obviously it needs no comment.
"This fatso Sharon," Mr. Mubarak is reported to have said, referring to the bulky Israeli leader. "I hear he eats an entire lamb for dinner. How can anyone fall asleep after that?"
Mr. Mubarak reportedly went on to say that he had sent a senior general to meet with Mr. Sharon at the latter's farm. While the general had expected a huge meal, he was served only two sausages and a tomato.
"We were so hurt that I could not just overlook the incident," Mr. Mubarak was reported to have told Mr. Peres. "I complained to Sharon, and he said next time the general would get three sausages."
