Bawdy humor takes over at Tate Britain
Tits ‘n’ ass and toilet jokes aren’t what most visitors to the Tate Museum in Britain to see, but the prestigious museum has dedicated one of its main exhibitions to just that for the rest of this summer. “Rude Britannia: British Comic Art” – 300 years of bawdy humor will be showing at the Tate through early September.
The show, which runs through Sept. 5, certainly isn’t for children, unless you fancy explaining, for instance, a looped video of a lady eating a sausage in the “bawdy” room — not that any of the bemused adults watching the video were able to either, during a recent visit. Other equally baffling items at the show (Millbank; 44-20-7887-8888; www.tate.org.uk/britain) include a stuffed kitten bearing a sign “I’m dead” and a monumentally fat and naked woman with a bag over her head and a chain around her neck.
The Guardian newspaper in London took a long and involved look at this exhibition of satire and numor.
Rude Britannia takes a broadly narrative and historical approach to graphic satire, while allowing for sub-sections to treat of the political, the bawdy and the absurd. Beginning in the mid-16th century, with text-heavy allegorical and emblematic prints, the exhibition canters brusquely through the great ribald explosion of the 1700s – Hogarth, Gillray, Rowlandson et al – on through the expansion of print in the Victorian era, and the concomitant democratisation of satire; then presents such wayward and decadent figures as Beardsley, before shepherding in the celebrated 20th-century cartoonists – Low, Scarfe, Steadman – eventually coming up to date with generous space allocated to such nominally “fine” artists as John Isaacs, Sarah Lucas and David Shrigley.
A return to the golden age of flight?
Recently, some references in Congress to a return to regulation of airlines has ginned up visions of the old days of stewardesses in hot pants and full meals in coach. Let’s not get too excited.
Some in Congress are behind a back-to-the-future legislative move to re-regulate the airline industry. Changes such as policing airline schedules, controlling fees, curbing overbooking and even imposing minimum service standards could help tidy up the current bus-in-the-sky mentality. The Department of Transportation has been writing new rules to protect passengers’ rights.
The past has allure for travelers, of course, but with a common caveat with memories. Truth is, the good old days weren’t all that good, with air travel of the past romanticized and comfort and safety issues glossed over. “The Golden Age has never existed,” said former Virginia Gov. Gerald Baliles, who led a presidential commission in the early 1990s to revitalize the U.S. airline industry and hopes his recommendations may still be enacted. “The cyclical world of aviation travel has always had its challenges, for the carriers as well as the travelers.”
Glacier Express derails in Switzerland
The world-famous train that bills itself as the slowest express train in the world derailed on Friday, killing one and injuring 42 others. The train has run between Zermatt and St. Moritz for 80 years.
Valais authorities said two of the train cars drove off the tracks and a third tipped over, but the cause of the accident wasn’t immediately known. The three cars were at the back of the train and the derailment took place near the town of Fiesch and the mouth of the Aletsch glacier, Europe’s largest icemass.
Rail traffic remained closed near the accident site Friday evening and local police were investigating.
A celebration of Swiss engineering, the Glacier Express offers breathtaking views of mountains, glaciers, viaducts across rushing streams and switchback rail lines that sometimes go in full circles to spiral up or down the steepest slopes.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
