Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Back at it

Almost seven hours' sleep last night=a desire to listen to Beethoven's 9th this morning at full volume. Instead, called Julio at 10:15 and woke him--he'd stayed up late looking at life drawings for the course he's teaching at MICA next semester, which is Life Drawing. He told me the Sheik of Qatar is trying to recruit Yo! Adrienne away from her cataloging/preservation/restoration job at the Lib of Congress. The Sheik is like the number one collector in the world of 19th century photos, and he's willing to fly her over and pay for her trip for an obligation-free interview, and will give her one-year contracts with no obligation for ridiculous money to make the position more attractive. Julio sez she wrote him concerned about security and he responded saying it's extremely safe there for Westerners.

Personally, I'd have left yesterday. For the kind of money the Sheik is offering, there's little I wouldn't do. Julio seems of similar mind--despite all the work on their house, he's ready to sell and go; of course, he's never in adulthood lived anywhere for more than a couple years (Rome, Amsterdam, San Fran, New York, Chicago, etc). Plus, as a photo conservator, working with the premier collector in the world in your primary area of interest, even if only for a year or two, would be dawgone rad.

How I envy people with careers.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What about the neighbourhood postman who gets a gold watch for forty years of service?

--Stevie Blunder

Geoff said...

Regardless of position or career or lack of, those of my generation who get to retirement will be lucky to get a gold watch.

Anonymous said...

Pay no mind, just extremely grouchy and cynical feeling in this new year.

The solo Beatles, on the other hand, have been issuing largely mediocre-to-dreadful material for a good thirty years now, far longer than Elvis's lamented movie phase, without the excuse of artistic control issues. Fuckerz.

--Stevie Blunder