We really do need to get out of the museum more. Tonight was the long-anticipated grad student outing to see the local Single A minor league baseball team, the Wilmington Blue Rocks. No, their mascot is not a boulder. It's actually a moose named Rocky Bluewinkle. BUT there is also a supplementary mascot named....wait for it .....Mr. Celery.
That's right, a guy in a celery costume comes out and dances when the Blue Rocks score. The 2nd year class first told me of this phenomenon over a year ago, and it did not disappoint.
Add Mr. Celery to cotton candy, $2 hotdogs, fireworks, and a bizarre Village People tribute involving a man connected to 4 marionnette mannequins, and you have a fun evening out where museum objects were only mentioned twice.
On Sunday I spent a rainy afternoon watching Amadeus for the first time. On Monday I attended a brown bag lunch where a museum director spoke quite candidly about strategies in difficult financial times. He mentioned a theme that we'd heard about the week before - dealing with boards of trustees. It's true; rich people run museums and make them possible. If you want to keep the doors open and the climate control running and the curators fed, you need wealthy people to make generous donations and a few of them to serve on the board of directors/trustees. The same is true for universities.
So really, the patronage system is not dead. Like Mozart and Salieri, museums depend on the upper classes to fund our creative endeavors. We schmooze with them, and in return they give us staging equipment, rent money, and maybe a little fame. If you are lucky you find some forward thinking trustees who will permit crazy stuff like comic operas in German or scrapping tired school tours for something new. Otherwise you are stuck pawning gold snuff boxes. Oh wait, you can't de-accession artifacts for quick cash. Maybe I should switch to composing.
When I am driving, I can be a bit directionally challenged. Even if I have directions and a map printed out, I will probably get disoriented in my new surroundings and miss a turn or two. Sometimes I even make the same mistake twice. Studying Google maps and focusing on cardinal directions can help, but sometimes it just takes a lot of practice.
Case in point: leaving the downtown area here. Unlike a lot of my classmates, I don't live in the city limits, so I am not so familiar with the maze of one way streets. The past four times, I have ended up taking some roundabout route back home involving detours to I-95 or Little Italy.
That's why I am proud to announce that this weekend I not only managed to take the most direct route home from 8th and King Streets, I also made the 2 hour drive to see my beau without directions this time! After 9 months in Delaware I am finally learning.
Even the Colonial Revival, which I have recently learned can involve crazy people, especially the ones in early 20th Century New England. Growing up in Virginia, I was content just to crush on George Washington, blissfully unaware that spinning wheels, statues of Puritans, and needlepoint were such a big deal. Hey Colonial Dames, can I interest you in some home-woven handicrafts?
I'm still recovering a little from our joint class trip to Pittsburgh. There we encountered fine art, Victorian mansions, modernist masterpieces, Gilded-Age industrial intrigue, romantically tragic suicides, waterfalls, bedazzled wallpaper, and ketchup. Plus dinosaur bones and life-size blue whale hearts, which made me want to be a scientist just a little bit.
One of my St. Louis housemates was a Pittsburgh native, so I had heard a lot about how awesome the city was. She was not exaggerating. Just driving around I was impressed by how much history and character the city had. There is definitely an "up-and-coming" vibe, and everyone we met talked about how much they enjoyed living there. I especially enjoyed how the museums we visited are making the most of some random stuff and playing up their unique strengths. It seems pretty practical - when you pair art with natural history, or sports history with glass manufacture and colonial wars, you will get a diverse range of guests and thus sell more tickets.
Did you know Mr. Rogers and Heinz both started in Pittsburgh? Neither did I.
I just got back from a rare outing to the "downtown" area of this city, hearing a reading/stand up routine by the fabulous comedian David Sedaris. Our faces are sore from laughing and my heart is still a little flushed with the thrill of being in the same room with a famous person.
It's hard to describe David Sedaris to the uninitiated, except that he's the funniest thing ever. He's quite a unique person - in his fifties, but with the face of a 30 year old man and the voice of a 12 year old girl. He mocks the mundane like Dave Barry and revels in the grotesque like Flannery O'Connor. He's down-to-earth, despite the fact that he lives in France and London when he's not on tour.
Tonight we heard stories about flight attendants, lab rats, French doctors, weird labels in British supermarkets, the marital problems of dogs, and the "aggressively beautiful" receptionists in a dermatologist's office. . I thought the animal fables from his upcoming book would be boring, but they were fantastic. We laughed, gasped, and pondered our own humanity. Are we as self-centered and idiosyncratic as the characters in these vignettes? Of course we are.
At times, Sedaris' satire can veer into the sacriligious, since he draws on his Greek Orthodox upbringing for material. One bit tonight rode the line of taste, but ended up making a good point. Why is the Jesus on roadside French crucifixes really toned? he wondered. Why doesn't someone make a cross with an obese Jesus, who broke the wood the first time the Romans tried? Why don't we ever see a Jesus with a bulbous nose, shoulder acne, and hairy back? Where's comb-over Jesus?
I have to agree about the dubious nature of doe-eyed blond Jesus pictures where he lacks any body hair or calluses. But I seriously doubt an itinerant preacher with little money had time to get fat. In the end, though, comb-over Jesus makes a profound point. Those ugly or even repulsive people are Christ. They deserve as much respect as a man who looks good in a loincloth.
In that spirit, here's a classic Sedaris story, in which he attempts to explain Easter in broken French.
I just got back from a weekend trip home to Virginia, where I got to spend the Easter Triduum with my family for the first time in three years. We went to every church service possible, and the whole thing was a like a mini-retreat. The culmination was of course the Easter Vigil, aka the Catholic Super Bowl/the longest and coolest liturgy you will ever experience.
My favorite part is the beginning, at the blessing of the fire that will light the new paschal candle. While the pyrotechnics are going on, the entire church is dark. Then the priests and company process in with the candle, chanting "Christ Our Light". Clutching as yet unlit candles, we respond, "Thanks be to God!"
Then, the altar boys light their candles from the large one, and begin passing the flame along the pews. Slowly the light travels until the entire nave is filled with radiance. What I noticed this year was how my view of the congregation changed. In the darkness, the pews were full of just dark blobs. As the light spread, I could see people's faces.
I could see their faces. In the light of Christ, their personhood was revealed, each with value and individuality. Isn't that how charity is supposed to work? I think St. Vincent de Paul would agree.
