Self Portrait with Little Mermaid, March 2009

My Darlings, life these days is more than just a simple commute from sitting room to study; there's been so much going on.  Amidst all the excitement and changes my downstairs neighbor, a noted photographer, came up last Saturday to do a photo shoot -- for the light, you understand, although I must say he could not have been kinder about my things and their arrangement, and (not surprisingly, given the sheer quantity, they're hard to miss) all the books.  But mostly, it was the light.  Like Paris, he said looking around and though he surely meant the light which can at the right time of day feel fairly Parisian, I like to think he was also alluding to a Louis Seize style chair I have near the window.  Which, come to think of it, is also French -- the window, that is, so perhaps that had something to do with it too. 

In any case I had quite a gathering turn up: a sweet sixteen-year-old girl and her boyfriend and her mother who's a magazine editor and then a charming nineteen-year-old boy from Austria, and the photographer and his two assistants and a stylist.  Oh, and another male model as well, later, who came for the afternoon light, but that's another story.  No, I didn't stay for the whole shoot, but I peeked in from time to time in between errands and of course at the beginning long enough to make sure everyone felt comfortable and at home, and to reassure them they were perfectly free to move things about, and later to make sure they had something to eat and drink, although apparently my neighbor had laid out quite a spread downstairs.  Fortunately, though, I had enough on hand myself so that no one was going to starve or die of thirst, and plus the assistants were very careful and tidy although there's nothing here so valuable it can't be touched or rearranged or put somewhere else, certainly not as if I lived in a museum or with anything so precious it couldn't easily be replaced, and accidents happen, especially when you have young people about.

And I must admit I find there's nothing like a couple of teenagers lounging around in their underwear to make the place feel lived in.  Really they could not have been nicer or more polite, not at all the sullen types you see scowling and pouting in the magazine ads.  The young lady's boyfriend is about to go off on his first trip to Europe I learned as we chatted, and so I was able to offer him a few words of advice and a couple of recommendations which he said he really appreciated, especially the importance of trying to use a few words of French when one is there, even if the Frenchman one is speaking to is fluent in English, since I find everyone is much nicer if one shows a little effort, and perhaps he may even call me as I invited him to, for a quick lesson or two in conversational French before he leaves; at least he said he would try to. 

Then at another point in the day I found our young Austrian fellow in nothing but a pair of long underwear bottoms taking a break between set-ups, settled into my desk chair with my copy of "Howl," which I have to say naturally endeared him to me.  I soon discovered we shared a number of common interests beginning with Jack Kerouac and the Beat Poets, and then quickly extending to backpacking cross-country, Alpine mountain climbing and perhaps much more, for I could tell he was an incredibly insightful and sensitive young man who enjoyed poetry and this in spite of his intimidatingly Blond and chiseled Aryan good looks and very toned and muscular frame, but regrettably our conversation was cut short when they called him back to face the camera once more.

As for the young lady herself, her delicate beauty was almost unearthly, as she moved about ethereally and posed, swathed at one point in a frothy sea of mauve taffeta and tulle, which looked especially nice next to the leopard throw I happened to have on hand.  But I admit, she made me shy.  Sometimes beauty does that.  She seemed to me almost as unreal as the Little Mermaid, when my friends took me the next day to the Happiest Place on Earth (see yesterday's post).   She and the adorable Austrian boy made me think about the relationship of photographer to model; I found myself thinking about the artist's relationship to beauty and light and youth.  I thought, as you might imagine, of Cecil Beaton (1904-1980).  

And then I thought some more about youth and beauty and light.  And all of it -- oh, it all made me quite happy.