GENETA
Disclaimer: The content below may be the result of blog constipation. I have not been blogging regularly like I should be.
After you and I last met, I went to meet my house parents at the New York Museum of Modern Art for
Free Fridays.
1. The "MoMA" will not allow you inside with, nor will they hold on to ("check"), your guitar. Why? Because who in their right mind brings a guitar to a museum?
This guy, and I am sure a handful of other people, that's who. They told me the huge franchise hotel across the street will hold it for $3. I hustled 'cross the taxi-cab artery because the red high five hand blinked at me violently. The hotel concierge says "Sir, we have never held public items, only those belonging to guests. Sorry, you are not the first that the museum has sent to us." What can I do? I can't hide it anywhere, this is New York City for crying out loud. No one is near enough to my heart to watch it. Wait a minute.. I am wearing a long trench coat. Yess.
2 .I really lucked out, because J and KD were looking for me outside the museum when I walked back. We talked it over, I slung it on my back and under my coat. It stuck out about a a foot behind my knees. I also looked like I was trying to perform mitosis out the back of my jacket. We squeezed in tight with a crowd pushing in past security. They are looking people up and down. I'm not going to make it. I made it. Walk fast, don't look back, don't look suspicious, don't look. I hear the guards say something behind me and my skin turns cold. I turn around. Justin and the guards are talking and it turns out the guard would not let him in because he needs to check his umbrella first. HAHA. I turn around and hustle around the corner. We wait for Justin of course.
2. Now I am in, but still paranoid at each turn because of my illegal device. It actually sparks an angry cell inside of my heart-brain, because something as friendly as a guitar should not be targeted, but of course I see why the rule is a justifiable one. I settled the angered cell with the appropriate neurotransmitter. In fact, I lost my paranoia as well, because I realized I cannot enjoy the museum in fear and also I doubt the inside attendants even know the rules on guitars. Boy was I right. I trotted all over this place, really enjoying myself. It is not like I was trying to play a concert in there or anything (though it did cross my mind).
7. The main reason we are here is to see the temporary Tim Burton exhibit, most of which are drawings by him related to his wonderful films. We are very excited for this. Down the first hall of the museum, we quickly find out that the Tim Burton exhibit is not free and is SOLD OUT. We did find a small collection of Burton's work outside of the exhibit. Demented Polaroids, early sketches of "Nightmare Before Christmas" (Zero!). We were sad, but we moved on with our heads high.
3 . The MoMA is great. To compare art museums of late (though I am not sure how relevant comparisons would be) the MoMA was better than the Chicago Institute of Art, but not as great as the New York Metropolitan Art Museum. Ahhh the colorful
Kandinsky, and to my surprise the few pieces of impressionist (who I bash in a previous post) Claude Monet's "Water Lilly" series rocked my socks off. There was a crazy "performance art" piece going on that involved two ladies staring at each other at a table, which is supposed to go on for 700 hours total. Was disappointed to find no Salvador Dali.
5. The two floors of paintings beat our minds to mush meat, so it was time to leave. On the way out, as J hits the water closet, KD and I stumble upon the entrance to the Tim Burton exhibit. We start walking toward it, but sure enough a lady is stopping everyone and asking for their tickets. So we turn to sing our song of defeat. From behind me the ticket lady says, "Hey! Guitar guy! You made it in." And she smiles. I reply, "yes". She says, "You can come on in, it's cool." I got on my high horse to ride right on in to the exhibit (yeehaw), Katie and Justin following right behind. It was extraordinary! Gives me warm fuzzies to see all of the wonderful drawings and concepts Mr. Burton had put onto paper/canvas/microchips before and during his great movies. There was recognizable material from most of his great films. I was most interested in the "Beetlejuice" stuff.
I would love to stay in, or come back to, New York for "pay what you wish" Fridays at the Whitney and Guggenheim Museums. Very happy to have seen the MoMA.
Since Friday I have pretty much just been boozin' it. I will attempt to excuse myself by saying I have actually been dedicating my small moments of inspiration to even smaller creatures, little poems in my stomach, a drawing or two, and my capacity for smiling. Today Katie graciously let me play with her wood burning tool and it was thought provoking. Perhaps it was the fumes from burning wood, but for the first time in almost 4 and a half years, I found a name for my sidekick, teacher, and the supporting character for almost every single Blahg post, my guitar. I took the tool and burned the name into the back of her head like any true pal/lover/father/daughter/boyfriend would do. Maybe an ode to the birth of concepts, the genesis of
(insert word) , maybe a heightening respect for the breakthroughs in the knowledge of the animal genetic framework, maybe for the band Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel started in, but mainly because I found it to be a pretty name.
