© Pedro Meyer 2001

Ben, my wife's godson came tovisit us. He arrived with his little sister Tonya who I have never met before, and who has just come from Denmark were she is living with her mother. I am, and I dare say, all of us, spellbound by her natural beauty. She is only 13 years old.

I start to think about all those other beautiful girls who at this early age are lured into becoming fashion models.

I recall a recent documentary I saw made by CNN on the life of such young models, and the huge difference there is between the hard reality of this line of work, and the illusion there is surrounding that world of glamour.

The majority of the girls who try it fail at becoming the super models they desire to become.

© Pedro Meyer 2001

We all go on the subway to see if we can get a ride on the "London Eye".

When we get there all tickets are sold out, we make reservations to return on Sunday.

I find it fantastic to find this sculpture at the base of the London Eye, based on the painting by the Spanish painter Salvador Dali, called the "Persistence of Memory" painted in 1931.

Dali's arresting vision of the clocks melting over a vast and lonely beach that resembles the sands of time gives us this gelatinous timepiece, with its molasses like plasticity that suggests the possibility of slowing to sludge the flow of the invisible river of time. In the end it is about the relativity of time first posed by Einstein. What more appropriate sculpture could be seen under the London Eye, itself erected to celebrate the arrival of the new millennium, than this surrealistic image which translates the idea of time into a symbol that words would have a hard time surpassing.

© Pedro Meyer 2001

 

 

The temperatures in London are very high. Most people walk around with as little clothing on as possible. Yet there are those that for either cultural, religious or institutional reasons (palace guard) have to deal with being covered from head to toe in spite of the heat. If time is relative as we learn from Dali, I suppose that dealing with heat must also be quite relative.

 

© Pedro Meyer 2001

 

 

Pedro Meyer
July 4, 2001
London, UK.