(no subject)
Emily and I went on an adventure yesterday. Hampshire sponsored a trip to the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. We left early, watched a pirated copy of the Great Debaters on the way down ('PROPERTY OF THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY') and milled around outside the museum around noon. Our group leader was a tiny ex-New Yorker who had just come back from Puerto Rico or Morocco or some -co country. Emily and I led the way up the steps through the pigeons, she trotted behind us in her blaze orange coat. The rest of the group straggled along in clusters, and the security man at the front door directed us to the K-12 group entrance without realizing we were college students. In true Hampshire fashion, we spent a frustrating amount of time standing around, waiting for someone to figure out what was going on. We were shepherded back and forth before finally backtracking to the main entrance through the museum.
And then we waited.
And waited some more, before we were given pins and turned loose. Emily wanted a hot dog, so we headed back outside. I talked about capturing and taming pigeons, a busker sang 'Hit the Road Jack', Emily inhaled her food. Back inside at bag check, they told us liquids were prohibited, probably to keep people from dousing Works of Great Art and Beauty in phenylalanine and caramel color. She disappeared to chug a 20 oz Coke, I wolfed down a sandwich in the cafeteria, and then we explored.
The Met is really something else. You could spend weeks reading every little information plaque. The exhibits are well-tended and traffic flow in the museum is very good. We never had to crowd around anything or jostle anyone. Patrons are respectful. (They damn well better be, for a twenty buck admission.) I spent an inordinate amount of time in Arms and Armour chirruping at 15th century German greaves and 'exemplary' cinquedeas. Emily found a terrifying four post bed-cave covered in royal blue velvet. We both agreed that the room they keep the Temple of Dendur in is pretty cool. At points, especially passing through the Egyptian exhibit, I wondered about the right of Western society to appropriate significant cultural and archeological artifacts. Most of the Museum's collection came from sponsored digs in the early twentieth century. I get the sense that if a foreign team of archeologists plunked down anywhere in the States and started excavating, claiming anything they found for themselves, there would be a minor uproar. But.. I don't know. Coffins and mummies seem different to me than an oil and canvas painting. I realize Egyptian archaeology has historically been problematic for all parties, and often, such ventures are driven by a genuine desire to preserve the past, rather than plunder it. But then you get people like Howard Carter, who ostensibly discovered Tut's tomb, who write things like, "Incredible as it may seem, the secret [of Tutankhamun's tomb] was kept for six years, and the family, with a banking account of forty or more dead pharoahs to draw upon, grew rich." Capitalist bent, much?
But anyway! We saw some strange paintings, too many cherubs, and wandered through buildings-within-buildings. I tried to put a tiny picture of some hieroglyphs that I found on the ground in the mouth of a Chinese dragon, an alarm shrieked, and we gazelled our way out of the room. There were tiny hedgehog charms, some neat Roman coins hidden in a nook, and many, many, many penises. Too many penises to shake a stick at. We went through the gift shop and there were strange ball-bearing assed chess pieces, an awesome brass spyglass, and many, many, many overpriced things.
We left eventually, and started weaving across the southern end of Central Park. Setting the trend for the rest of the day, we cooed at a lot of dogs. Emily pointed out Belvedere Castle, and we promptly sidetracked ourselves into a visit. It took a false try to get there -- we ended up on a dock by the lake, surrounded by dozens of fat house sparrows. I spent a while coaxing them to eat granola from my hand (successful!) while Emily took pictures.
The Castle is pretty kickin'. It used to be a weather observatory, and meteorological data is still collected there. They've got a cockatrice over their door, and some really steep steps going up the tower. Emily almost broke her sunglasses, I almost broke my neck.
We left Central Park and decided to look around for food. Emily and her mom are master planners when it comes to selecting dining venues in New York. We agreed on Thai for dinner on the bus. We had a general idea of where we should be, so we wandered to the subway. You need a secret decoder ring for the subway maps, seriously. Emily gave up and went to ask the subway guardian where we should be going. His microphone was broken, and he gestured vaguely at the platform. We shrugged, got on the next train, ended up going the wrong way, and leapt off to wander around 96th, barking at squirrels about our disorientation. We caught a cab, and ended up walking a while more to the Thai place.
Thai was delicious and affordable. We ate really excellent vegetable and tofu pad thai in a niche of a restaurant. Emily's iced Thai coffee came in a neat urn of a mug. We talked about staying in New York for the rest of time and walked to a bakery specializing in cupcakes after dinner. Lemon buttercream never tasted so good. We looped around for a while after that, watching people and traffic and store fronts, then started walking back toward Central Park and the Met.
In Central Park, we speedwalked away from a crazy singing man. I noticed a green-purple dome, and we speculated about it. I thought it might be a temporary planetarium or something of the like. Emily agreed to checking it out, and we were halfway up the steps to it before we got distracted by hoofbeats. We'd agreed earlier to try and grab a carriage ride if we could, so we shot howling after the carriage. Doubtless, we freaked out the people in the carriage. We gave up. Emily assured me there would be more carriages, and we trooped back to the dome.
It had a giant Zyrtec logo on it. Our exchange:
"Zyrtec?"
"Isn't that an anti-depressant? No, Xanex. Uh."
"Anti-allergy? I think it's for allergies."
And lo, it was for allergies. We passed two cops on the way into the dome, and about three people went to point when we shuffled through the door. They descended on us with blinding white smiles and gift bags. "You're just in time for the party!" They shooed us into the dome proper, where more twenty-somethings straight out of PR bootcamp smelled fresh blood and leapt on us. "Good evening, ladies! How are you? Are you here to win the $100,000? Here! No?- well, it's your lucky night! Take our Zyrtec quiz and win a free GIFT! Go this way! Have your picture taken over there! Try and smile for the cameras!" We crowded together and sidled past the carousel and the attendant cameraman, who asked us to try and look natural. Dance music flooded the speakers, and the employees eyed us enterprisingly. We were the only people in there who WEREN'T wearing the Zyrtec logo. The woman who wanted us to take a greenscreen picture with a giant dandelion sympathetically half-listened to us explain how we'd found the dome -- giant glowing orb.. purple, green, clop-clop horse carriage-- can't understand this.. frighteningly personable people.. "Wow, that sounds pretty weird, hah, hah. So you just found this? Wow. Here, try and look surprised. You can pretend to sneeze. Or you can hold the dandelion -- pretend to sneeze." We were ushered onto a stage for a chance to win money, and a small crowd of people affected great despair for us when we did not win. "You might still win a trip to the Bahamas!"
They gave us magnets on the way out, and we bolted, laughing hysterically, from the dome. "No one is going to believe us," Emily said.
We walked back to the Met to wait for the bus. Emily didn't have a pin anymore, so she technically snuck in. Our original intention was to borrow the bathroom then kill time in the lobby. Instead of going back to the lobby, though, I wondered whether there was a separate giftshop for the Arms and Armour exhibit. Emily agreed to investigate, then suggested asking a security guard, rather than wandering endlessly. We were both pretty tired at that point, so I agreed, and approached one of the guards.
Mario is an old black dude in what I'd guess to be his late fifties. He has a snowflake-shaped silver nose piercing, and a serious fanboy crush on Margaret Thatcher. Somehow, the topic turned from the Museum store to Roman gladiators to Spartan women being BAMF to one episode of Cops that he'd seen where a giant white woman used her body weight to trap a black guy who was starting something with a cop (story complete with hopskipping and hip-bumping) to books to all variety of historical figures that he liked. He quoted from history in marvellous English accents, and told us he had more pictures of Margaret Thatcher in his house than he did of his own mother. He dispensed life advice -- "Don't listen to a thing anyone says about men. You brush your teeth and comb your hair, and he won't care -- three teeth, no teeth, doesn't matter.." -- and took his break with us to the Museum store to look for a book about warriors. He advised us at length not to buy anything from the Museum, because we could get gladiator action figures from the Strand for fourteen dollars cheaper than what the Museum sold. He said some hilarious and definitely unexpected things, and escorted us to the main staircase, where he continued to tell us stories, and give advice. Most of it was practical -- do what you love, don't worry about the unhappy, surround yourself with happy people, nothing comes of nothing, work hard and read a lot of books. He disapproved of all of the little old women who come in packs to the Museum, calling them insular and lonely elitists in a manner of speaking. He did screechy impressions of them and mentioned "vibrators fallin' out of purses" at one point.
Other security guards and shop employees knew him and seemed to be on excellent terms with him. They would occasionally investigate to see why Emily and I were laughing so hard, so loud; why Emily kept burying her face in my shoulder. Mario gave us his address and number, encouraged us to call so he could recommend books for us, hugged us goodbye, and kissed the crowns of our heads. We laughed all the way down the stairs and outside.
The bus ride back was loud. I tried to read while Dave Chapelle shrilled nasally on the DVD players. Eventually, he was traded for some terribly dubbed Spanish drama involving the clergy and drug lords. Emily talked on the phone, I jostled in and out of sleep. We checked the mail room (locked) and hobbled back to our rooms in the cold.
An excellent day.
And then we waited.
And waited some more, before we were given pins and turned loose. Emily wanted a hot dog, so we headed back outside. I talked about capturing and taming pigeons, a busker sang 'Hit the Road Jack', Emily inhaled her food. Back inside at bag check, they told us liquids were prohibited, probably to keep people from dousing Works of Great Art and Beauty in phenylalanine and caramel color. She disappeared to chug a 20 oz Coke, I wolfed down a sandwich in the cafeteria, and then we explored.
The Met is really something else. You could spend weeks reading every little information plaque. The exhibits are well-tended and traffic flow in the museum is very good. We never had to crowd around anything or jostle anyone. Patrons are respectful. (They damn well better be, for a twenty buck admission.) I spent an inordinate amount of time in Arms and Armour chirruping at 15th century German greaves and 'exemplary' cinquedeas. Emily found a terrifying four post bed-cave covered in royal blue velvet. We both agreed that the room they keep the Temple of Dendur in is pretty cool. At points, especially passing through the Egyptian exhibit, I wondered about the right of Western society to appropriate significant cultural and archeological artifacts. Most of the Museum's collection came from sponsored digs in the early twentieth century. I get the sense that if a foreign team of archeologists plunked down anywhere in the States and started excavating, claiming anything they found for themselves, there would be a minor uproar. But.. I don't know. Coffins and mummies seem different to me than an oil and canvas painting. I realize Egyptian archaeology has historically been problematic for all parties, and often, such ventures are driven by a genuine desire to preserve the past, rather than plunder it. But then you get people like Howard Carter, who ostensibly discovered Tut's tomb, who write things like, "Incredible as it may seem, the secret [of Tutankhamun's tomb] was kept for six years, and the family, with a banking account of forty or more dead pharoahs to draw upon, grew rich." Capitalist bent, much?
But anyway! We saw some strange paintings, too many cherubs, and wandered through buildings-within-buildings. I tried to put a tiny picture of some hieroglyphs that I found on the ground in the mouth of a Chinese dragon, an alarm shrieked, and we gazelled our way out of the room. There were tiny hedgehog charms, some neat Roman coins hidden in a nook, and many, many, many penises. Too many penises to shake a stick at. We went through the gift shop and there were strange ball-bearing assed chess pieces, an awesome brass spyglass, and many, many, many overpriced things.
We left eventually, and started weaving across the southern end of Central Park. Setting the trend for the rest of the day, we cooed at a lot of dogs. Emily pointed out Belvedere Castle, and we promptly sidetracked ourselves into a visit. It took a false try to get there -- we ended up on a dock by the lake, surrounded by dozens of fat house sparrows. I spent a while coaxing them to eat granola from my hand (successful!) while Emily took pictures.
The Castle is pretty kickin'. It used to be a weather observatory, and meteorological data is still collected there. They've got a cockatrice over their door, and some really steep steps going up the tower. Emily almost broke her sunglasses, I almost broke my neck.
We left Central Park and decided to look around for food. Emily and her mom are master planners when it comes to selecting dining venues in New York. We agreed on Thai for dinner on the bus. We had a general idea of where we should be, so we wandered to the subway. You need a secret decoder ring for the subway maps, seriously. Emily gave up and went to ask the subway guardian where we should be going. His microphone was broken, and he gestured vaguely at the platform. We shrugged, got on the next train, ended up going the wrong way, and leapt off to wander around 96th, barking at squirrels about our disorientation. We caught a cab, and ended up walking a while more to the Thai place.
Thai was delicious and affordable. We ate really excellent vegetable and tofu pad thai in a niche of a restaurant. Emily's iced Thai coffee came in a neat urn of a mug. We talked about staying in New York for the rest of time and walked to a bakery specializing in cupcakes after dinner. Lemon buttercream never tasted so good. We looped around for a while after that, watching people and traffic and store fronts, then started walking back toward Central Park and the Met.
In Central Park, we speedwalked away from a crazy singing man. I noticed a green-purple dome, and we speculated about it. I thought it might be a temporary planetarium or something of the like. Emily agreed to checking it out, and we were halfway up the steps to it before we got distracted by hoofbeats. We'd agreed earlier to try and grab a carriage ride if we could, so we shot howling after the carriage. Doubtless, we freaked out the people in the carriage. We gave up. Emily assured me there would be more carriages, and we trooped back to the dome.
It had a giant Zyrtec logo on it. Our exchange:
"Zyrtec?"
"Isn't that an anti-depressant? No, Xanex. Uh."
"Anti-allergy? I think it's for allergies."
And lo, it was for allergies. We passed two cops on the way into the dome, and about three people went to point when we shuffled through the door. They descended on us with blinding white smiles and gift bags. "You're just in time for the party!" They shooed us into the dome proper, where more twenty-somethings straight out of PR bootcamp smelled fresh blood and leapt on us. "Good evening, ladies! How are you? Are you here to win the $100,000? Here! No?- well, it's your lucky night! Take our Zyrtec quiz and win a free GIFT! Go this way! Have your picture taken over there! Try and smile for the cameras!" We crowded together and sidled past the carousel and the attendant cameraman, who asked us to try and look natural. Dance music flooded the speakers, and the employees eyed us enterprisingly. We were the only people in there who WEREN'T wearing the Zyrtec logo. The woman who wanted us to take a greenscreen picture with a giant dandelion sympathetically half-listened to us explain how we'd found the dome -- giant glowing orb.. purple, green, clop-clop horse carriage-- can't understand this.. frighteningly personable people.. "Wow, that sounds pretty weird, hah, hah. So you just found this? Wow. Here, try and look surprised. You can pretend to sneeze. Or you can hold the dandelion -- pretend to sneeze." We were ushered onto a stage for a chance to win money, and a small crowd of people affected great despair for us when we did not win. "You might still win a trip to the Bahamas!"
They gave us magnets on the way out, and we bolted, laughing hysterically, from the dome. "No one is going to believe us," Emily said.
We walked back to the Met to wait for the bus. Emily didn't have a pin anymore, so she technically snuck in. Our original intention was to borrow the bathroom then kill time in the lobby. Instead of going back to the lobby, though, I wondered whether there was a separate giftshop for the Arms and Armour exhibit. Emily agreed to investigate, then suggested asking a security guard, rather than wandering endlessly. We were both pretty tired at that point, so I agreed, and approached one of the guards.
Mario is an old black dude in what I'd guess to be his late fifties. He has a snowflake-shaped silver nose piercing, and a serious fanboy crush on Margaret Thatcher. Somehow, the topic turned from the Museum store to Roman gladiators to Spartan women being BAMF to one episode of Cops that he'd seen where a giant white woman used her body weight to trap a black guy who was starting something with a cop (story complete with hopskipping and hip-bumping) to books to all variety of historical figures that he liked. He quoted from history in marvellous English accents, and told us he had more pictures of Margaret Thatcher in his house than he did of his own mother. He dispensed life advice -- "Don't listen to a thing anyone says about men. You brush your teeth and comb your hair, and he won't care -- three teeth, no teeth, doesn't matter.." -- and took his break with us to the Museum store to look for a book about warriors. He advised us at length not to buy anything from the Museum, because we could get gladiator action figures from the Strand for fourteen dollars cheaper than what the Museum sold. He said some hilarious and definitely unexpected things, and escorted us to the main staircase, where he continued to tell us stories, and give advice. Most of it was practical -- do what you love, don't worry about the unhappy, surround yourself with happy people, nothing comes of nothing, work hard and read a lot of books. He disapproved of all of the little old women who come in packs to the Museum, calling them insular and lonely elitists in a manner of speaking. He did screechy impressions of them and mentioned "vibrators fallin' out of purses" at one point.
Other security guards and shop employees knew him and seemed to be on excellent terms with him. They would occasionally investigate to see why Emily and I were laughing so hard, so loud; why Emily kept burying her face in my shoulder. Mario gave us his address and number, encouraged us to call so he could recommend books for us, hugged us goodbye, and kissed the crowns of our heads. We laughed all the way down the stairs and outside.
The bus ride back was loud. I tried to read while Dave Chapelle shrilled nasally on the DVD players. Eventually, he was traded for some terribly dubbed Spanish drama involving the clergy and drug lords. Emily talked on the phone, I jostled in and out of sleep. We checked the mail room (locked) and hobbled back to our rooms in the cold.
An excellent day.