Everybody wants to see 'em

Went to the Blanton Saturday afternoon with a friend, my first time there in a year despite now being a UT employee which a) puts the museum within a five-minute walk of my office and b) provides free admission.  The limiting factor is not time, location or money, but really that I’m not by habit much of a museum sort.  When I go in one I always feel like I’m missing something, like a sense of appreciation for starters; I’m nuts about music, books and movies, not so much about painting and sculpture.

Also I get overwhelmed by all the visuals within an hour and a half, max.  So I guess I’m actually lucky to have a museum – especially one that is not only new and shiny but also quite classy – so close by.  As always, it’s just a matter of getting oneself to go.

We spent most of our time in the modern section on the second floor, giving short shrift to the “Century of Grace” exhibit on the first (can’t take pictures there anyway).  Some of the modern exhibits are still crap, some are new crap, and some are still good and getting better.  The bones-and-pennies room remains one of my absolute favorites.  Elaine and I riffed awhile on whether the interns snuck in after hours to fornicate on the pennies, to be later given away by the imprints on their skin.

We were simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by the big brick of plastic in the in-progress room.  I couldn’t explain my own fascination except that maybe I’ve seen Aliens once too often.  ("Yeah - but secreted from what?")

There was also a piece on falling stars that is probably the single hugest canvass I’ve ever seen outside the Gettysburg cyclorama.  A sign indicated that the exhibit was fragile and mustn’t be touched.  A too-literal type would interpret this to mean any that didn’t have such a sign could be.  We didn’t push it far enough to get kicked out, though.

Mostly what we did was hang out and talk.  In the e-lounge, we talked about work; on the big bench near the picture of John the Baptist’s head, we talked about riding the bus.  I don’t know if this is what you’re supposed to do in a museum, treat it like a coffeehouse, but sometimes Austin feels like one big coffeehouse everywhere you go.