Nourishing Nuclear Mysticism

Everything in matter moves, a series of shifting dots like people in crowds, atoms in gas, stars in the night sky.

Salvador Dali, Galatea of the Spheres (1952) Worldwide rights © Salvador Dalí. Fundación Gala-Salvador Dali (Artists Rights Society) 2011

The legendary Catalan thinker Jorge Wagensberg Lubinski tells us the most important thing about particles is their relationship – and the essence of things is not in matter, but in its shape. Tell that to someone trying to fit size-10 feet into size-6 Manolo Blahnik pumps.

Air and paint, shoes and food … From the palette to the palate, what sacred shapes will we take into our mouths? Darlings, at our dinner parties Dali served fish in satin slippers. Now we take the fish apart and spherify its juice on a bed of scales.

Ingredients transformed, the meal becomes homage to nuclear mysticism.

Chef Paco Perez, another great Catalan, has perfected this art of culinary physics at his restaurant Miramar, in Llançà near my Dali’s homeland. He has a few Michelin stars – two I think, but who is counting. Next month, Perez honors The Dali Museum with an indulgent 16-course meal breaking the boundaries of molecular gastronomy.

I want to taste a cloud of lemon air and beetroot vapor. Let me lift a scented fork to melt frozen lamb custard along my tongue. The Surrealists have reclaimed Catalan cuisine. I welcome Chef Perez into our pantheon.

Youthful critics dissect Dali

Children are delightfully honest creatures. If you want to know if you look fat in that dress, do not ask your husbands, dear ladies, ask your child. They will inspect you closely and inform you with perfect honesty that Botero’s ballerinas may be luscious, but you are undercooked pizza dough.

I never understood procreation until I discovered this brutality in children, and I am enamored! Children, I am now convinced, make the most profound art critics.

I have seen what they call the crème de la crème of children (which as far as I can tell simply means that these particular youth do not feast on their own dried nasal mucus) speak with authority about Dali’s work. I must admit the juvenile words and simplistic readings amuse me. Was Dali painting his own confusion and pain, and yearning for his father’s love in Average Bureaucrat?

Salvador Dali, The Average Bureaucrat (1930) In the USA © Salvador Dali Museum, Inc. St. Petersburg, Florida, 2011 Worldwide rights © Salvador Dalí. Fundación Gala-Salvador Dali (Artists Rights Society) 2011

No! One child insisted, “He has rocks in his head because he has no brains.” How wonderfully astute, dear child! I applaud your unwillingness to muddle your head with such sentimental interpretations as an artist’s yearning.

Mothers, if you have a child who refrains from chewing on their Star Wars toys like a common mongrel, then I insist you bring them to the Dali Museum, where they may cultivate that innate honesty. Call and insist that you want your child to attend Breakfast With Dali, or become a Junior Docent. Tell them that their teachers will benefit, gifted with juvenile culture critics who can still see art with clear heads. Tell them Gala sent you.

Le blog de Gala est arrivé.

I hear you have latched on to something called social media — an opportunity for anyone, be they dull or fascinating, to instantly inform the world concerning their superficial thoughts. I am intrigued by this concept. After all, if anyone has anything interesting to say, I have not yet read it. And so it occurs to me that I must step forward and provide what is so desperately lacking in this medium: depth and wit.

I have arrived, my friends! Le blog de Gala est arrivé. I will update my blog every Tuesday and Thursday. Do not bother to read further if you are faint of heart, my darlings, for I refuse to coddle anyone. You may also follow me on Twitter @galagradivadali.

Is this a shameless attempt to further my own agenda or propaganda? Of course it is! Do not be so naïve as to believe otherwise. I will most certainly educate you on my Dali and his genius. However, as I cannot hope to educate you in all things, I am willing to entertain ideas for future topics. You may send electronic missives to me at gala@thedali.org.