Saturday 10 May 2008

J Evans Pritchard PhD Spotted in Leicester Square

Sally took this photo with her phone in the Photographers’ Gallery yesterday afternoon.



It’s a man enjoying an exhibition of 2,700 passport-size photos of Maria Elvira Escallon, taken over a period of ten years. It sounds cool. I wish I’d thought of that. Eleven years ago preferably.

The man in the picture was a visiting Turk. His name is Melik. I know this because he told Sally when he tried to pick her up, and Sally told me. His opener was, ‘Do you know how many photos?’

Not a PUA.

Sally pulled a befuddled face.

‘How many there are,’ he said. ‘You guess.’

Sally guessed.

‘Higher,’ said Melik. ‘Higher.’

2,700.

He knew because he'd counted them. He'd counted down the side, then he'd counted along the bottom. Then he did the math.

It seems to me a rather strange response to a piece of visual art. I suspect Melik probably works in a bank.

Oh, and when I think of Sally getting chatted up in a gallery... I grow below. Is that wrong?



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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Agreed - it might have been an odd response to the art, but still, you've got to admire Melik - that guy can do big sums in his head (unless he had a calculator to hand).

It looks as though there are 15 rows of pictures. If Melik counted 180 along the bottom, he would have calculated 180 x 15 = 2700. That kind of mental arithmetic is enough to impress any silver eyed fox, I reckon.

And yes, I am rather bored at the moment...

Actually, now that I come to think of it, maybe it's not such a tough sum after all. 180 x 10 = 1800. Obviously. So 180 x 5 = 900. 1800 + 900 = 2700.

So, yeh, Melik can cock right off. Sniffing round here trying to impress us all with his simple sum ability. Who the hecking blazes does he think he is!

Anonymous said...

Not such an odd response to visual art. It's something I would have done (count them, that is) and I am visually arty like. There is art in maths and symmetry. Beautiful art in maths and symmetry, actually.

Barb McMahon and Alan Mailloux said...

Um... so how many people have done the survey so far? Speaking of numbers....

Ginny said...

There's a lot of things that are wrong about you, my lovely, but I love you for them.

Luka said...

As a general rule of thumb, anything that feels good usually is wrong.

La Bête said...

Anonymous, you're funny.

Hen, yeah, I guess I’m just not a counter by nature. In fact, I think I’ve always been a little afraid of numbers. I don’t speak their language.

Barb, at time of writing, 271, but I reckon maybe 50 are spoiled.

Ginny! You wound me!

Luka, in the words of Oliver Reed, ‘I think you’re true’.