Zipping around

Yesterday, we saw loads of drawing-based animation films at the Momentary Momentum exhibition at the Parasol Unit in Old Street. Much of it was too whimsical for my liking, but there were a few I particularly liked: Paul Bush and Lisa Milroy's Geisha Grooming about a Geisha preparing herself for a night out on the town, from powdering her face and cleaning her ears with buds, to tweaking the position of her hair grips and putting on her headphones to listen to music as she heads out; Avish Khebrehzadeh's Backyard - a poetic Persian garden landscape through which children, old men, young lovers and animals move as if in a dream; Christine Rebert's Brand Band News, projected inside a wooden shed, in which two sisters fade away to be replaced by a cowboy, a galloping horse and then a theatre to the backdrop of a country song. My favourite was Jochen Kuhn's eerie Sonntag 1 (picture above), in which a bored middle-aged man strolls through a virtually deserted German city on a Sunday morning upset that nothing captures his imagination or is worth noticing anymore.

We also popped next door to the Victoria Miro for the late Ian Hamilton Finlay's The Sonnet is a Sewing-Machine for the Monostich. The luminous neon wall texts pulsating from the huge blackened upper gallery were particularly atmospheric and drew our attention to the artistic nature of words as images.

At the White Cube in Hoxton we saw Eberhard Havekost's brilliant photographic paintings of random scenes from everyday life, from a lounge chair and the side of a clapboard house, to the close-up of the face of a man in combat taken from the TV news and the spiky fronds of a palm tree.

A quick scoot around the SCP interiors store on Curtain Street and then across the road for a satisfyingly greasy lunch of bacon cheeseburgers, fries, potato skins, colas and vanilla milkshakes at The Diner.

We then walked to Bethnal Green for a couple of boring shows at the Maureen Paley and Herald Street galleries. Much like Old Street, Hoxton and Shoreditch, only pockets of interesting bars, restaurants and shops exist in Bethnal Green - the rest is entirely derelict space devoid of people or personality.

We cabbed it to Chinatown and Soho to stock up on vital provisions for the week ahead:

• Kiehl's scrub soap (for him) and Ren shampoo and conditioner (for me) from Liberty. Truly, my hair has never been in better condition since I started using Ren products.
• Green tea powder to make ice cream from, block tofu and daikon from Arigato.
• Pasta, block parmesan and gooey Gorgonzola from Lina Stores Delicatessen.
• Pak choi, groundnut oil and another lidded tea mug from Loon Fung.
• Indian Mysore coffee beans from the Algerian Coffee Store.
  

Tired out, we zipped back home to dump our purchases and chill out with glasses of iced pomegranate juice and then it was back into town again for an amazing night with the sexy-as-ever Jessica Lange in The Glass Menagerie at the Apollo on Shaftesbury Avenue. It's been a while since we've been to the theatre. The performances from all were enthralling and the stage sets and lighting were suitably dreamlike and atmospheric. The final plaintive gesture of the character Laura blowing out the candles leaving the hall in total darkness brought tears to my eyes.

Today, we're staying local. M's at the gym and the laundry is on full throttle. I've discovered the joy of reading blogs via Google Reader on the mobile phone in bed with my morning coffee. We'll nip out to the local shops for a few more bits and pieces like detergent and stuffed vine leaves. We may make some green tea ice cream. My mother-in-law is in town, so we'll be having either lunch or dinner with her and M's sister later on. The sun is shining again. Another wonderful weekend.