When I returned from London, it seemed like the right time to finally watch Antonioni’s 1966 masterpiece—Blow Up. Shot in London during the swinging sixties, the film’s main character played by David Hemmings, is a London fashion photographer discontent with a life of superficial success. He covertly shoots a couple cavorting in a park and later pieces together his prints only to discover what appears to be a murder.
Jumping back to my recent trip, in London’s West End, just off Regent Street, there lies the isolated little Heddon Street. It was here in a remote corner where David Bowie was photographed in a red phone booth for his Ziggy Stardust album by Brian Ward. Naturally, it’s a bit of rock-trivia attraction. Also here, are two touristy-slick but worth-a-look dining and bar spots. Momo is a chic North African restaurant which was recommended by a Karma Kabs driver named Sasha. Downstairs is a guest-list only music performance space called Kemia. Sasha arranged both a dinner reservation and invite to Kemia. The food at Momo was fine; Kemia was much too crowded with people sitting on the floor listening to a run-of-the-mill female singer songwriter. And the drinks were weak.
Adjacent to Momo is the Below Zero Bar featuring the Ice Bar, aided and abetted by Absolut. Definitely gimmicky, but only for the possibility of making a decent image or two, I agreed to go in. Mary Beth and her friend Charlotte donned the silver eskimo coats with attached gloves. The gloves were too thick to use with a camera (plus they stank) so I did without. Inside it was 23 degrees fahrenheit but without any wind or humidity it felt just like a refreshing jump into a walk-in freezer. Drinks—the citrusy vodka kind—were poured out into glasses carved out of ice atop a sleekly crafted bar of what else…ice. The lighting and flooring were drab and disappointing. The novelty quickly grew thin as my hands began to freeze. Out we went.
More than halfway into Blow Up, the David Hemmings character walks along Regent Street at night looking for the woman from the park who has deftly evaded him. He takes a quick peek down a long narrow street with a red phone booth at the far end, barely in focus. This familiarity, if you will, was apparently still in my head, and without prior knowledge of Blow Up trivia, I paused the DVD player:
“That’s got to be Heddon Street,” I thought. “That’s the phone booth.”
I grabbed two frames from the film and looked at it closely. The word Heddon House appears on one building to the right. Sure enough, a google search revealed the facts. As I stared longer at the screen grab from the film, it was curious to look at something, an ordinary street with an ordinary phone booth, knowing at that time in 1966, it had no significance at all. David Bowie was unknown. North African food? Wouldn’t have a standing chance. A bar made of ice sponsored by Absolut? Ridiculous.
A screen grab from Blow Up.
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