It was a harbinger of things to come although I didn't realize it at the time. And in retrospect I think I handled it as well as could be expected -- or unexpected, as it was.
On the Saturday afternoon we spent in Edinburgh during the Edinburgh Festival (and Fringe Festival) Yael and I walked along the Royal Mile which was the main center for activity for the festival. There were street performers everywhere surrounded by crowds of varying sizes. Since it was Shabbat we weren't carrying any money to pay for the performers, so we just wandered sporadically from performance to performance.
And that's when we stumbled across the Oriental guy who was tucked into an architectural niche of the Church of Scotland. A very small crowd had gathered to watch whatever he was eventually going to do. In the very immediate short term he seemed to be walking around in a kimono, organizing his painting props. Okay, so we waited.
Finally, he was ready to go. He turned on his music player which issued forth what I can only describe as Japanese elevator musak. No, I have not been to Japan but this is what I think their elevator music must sound like. Next thing we knew, the guy takes off his kimono and tosses it aside -- leaving himself on the streets of Edinburgh in 18 degree Celcius overcast weather in something resembling a mini G-string.
Yael turns to me with a questioning look on her face and I just look back at her as casually as I can under the circumstances. Trust me when I say that there was very little left to the imagination -- even if you are a nine-year-old girl. And it wasn't only Yael and I who were wondering where to look .... the entire mini-crowd almost keeled over in shock in a collective motion.
Of course, everyone was trying to act nonplussed and open minded, so in the spirit of the stiff-upper lipped Brits we just pulled ourselves together to await the "artist's" next move.
Next thing you know, he starts to paint his entire body white and considering his "costume" it wasn't a difficult task if you know what I mean.
I am not really sure how his performance ended up because at that point Yael and I decided to move on. We had had enough naked Oriental men who were painted white for one day thank you.
The naked art thing didn't rear its head again for about another week until we arrived in Paris. Paris is a city of art and apparently most art requires the subject to be naked. My children have seen more marble and oil-painted naked men, women and children in the past few weeks to probably last them a life time. True, it is better than Playboy and its even tackier offspring, but during a 20th century women's art retrospective in Le Centre d'George Pompidou, Zeve finally said: why is everybody naked in this place?
A damn good question. At least he didn't ask, why is it art to be a heavy-set naked woman standing on her tiptoes being videotaped? And fortunately he didn't ask why it is art to photograph one's privates up close and then enlarge that photograph to 10 feet by 10 feet (if I am exaggerating, it is only slightly)?
Those would have also been good questions although I am thankful I didn't have to answer them. In the meantime we are back in a relatively covered-up neighbourhood (no not burka-covered-up, just the regular shorts and t-shirt covered-up) and no one seems scarred for life. Of course, I'll have to enroll Zeve in an art class to know for sure.
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