Modern art, the Water of Leith, and PSB

Today we walked across across Edinburgh to the Scottish National Gallery Of Modern Art. It was a lovely day for walking and the route we took overlapped a run I used to do, so I was able to show the Minx one of my favourite houses, which is built into the hillside at one end of a bridge over the Water of Leith.

The museum building is lovely, as are its grounds, and I wished we'd brought a picnic with us. The works themselves were the usual mix that you get at a modern art exhibition, ranging from 'I could do that' and 'Why bother?' to works that catch you by surprise: on this occasion a ten-minute film of a bubble floating around a house and a display of 365 shopping lists, which held my attention for much longer than I expected. ('Apple juice for Liv' has stuck in my mind for some reason.)

My favourite piece, though, was Nathan Coley's 'The Lamp Of Sacrifice, 286 Places Of Worship'. For this, he took a list of places of worship in Edinburgh from the 2004 copy of Yellow Pages, and built a cardboard replica of each one. I loved the concept but also the amount of effort that went into it. I guess my Protestant work ethic does still exist (maybe when it's other people doing the work).

We decided to go back via a different route, taking the beautiful footpath along the Water of Leith to Stockbridge where we ate lunch in a small tearoom at the back of a cheesemonger's.

And this evening we went along to Usher Hall with Shelagh to watch the last performance of Public Service Broadcasting's 'Race For Space'. I've written about both the band and album here before, so I'll just say it was excellent and leave it at that!

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