Tuesday, May 24, 2016

a trip worth taking

 I live in a city with great art museums that I mostly don't go to.

Art museums generally exhaust me. There's always so much to see. Usually the space is large and windowless. There's a lot of meandering to get where you are going. And if I don't have a specific something to see, I get overwhelmed.

But there are exceptions.  A trip to the Norman Rockwell Museum with M and our kids in 2003 was great.  In 1998 I saw the Duane Hanson exhibit at the Whitney which I would easily see again if it ever came back.  The same is true of an exhibit I saw on photos by Robert Mapplethorpe. And Alexander McQueen's extraordinary fashion exhibit at the Met's Costume Institute tops my list.

If I'm going to go to a museum, it'll most likely not be one where paintings dominate.

Today Ellen and I go to The Museum of the City of New York. First, I get my free membership for having a NYC ID. Then, we see the thoroughly entertaining exhibit on the works of Roz Chast, a staff cartoonist for The New Yorker.  



She beautifully captures the absurdities of modern living — particularly in New York City — and the complex relationship between parents and kids and parents and parents.

After the exhibit Ellen and I grab a salad at the museum's little snack bar. Ellen was a producer for many years on NBC's Dateline and just recently got a project working for another television network. I'm happy for her; she'd been looking for a while.

While it may often feel like we're battling everything, it's those little victories along the way that make it all worth it.



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