Sunday, February 17, 2008

Museum Etiquette

Yoruba BowlI went on a first date on Saturday afternoon. We ended up at a very typical DC first date place: a museum, to be specific, the National Museum of African Art. Now, I like museums, but as a first date activity they have their downsides, namely that you're wandering around looking at art and reading descriptions and not getting to know each other. Yes, sometimes conversations spring up around the art, but unless you were both art history majors, conversations tend to go something like "Person 1: I like the hat on that sculpture. Person 2: Yeah, that's cool."

To remedy this flaw in the museum first date, I've taken to discussing where in a hypothetical house I would put the piece of art we're looking at and posing the same question to my date. Maybe my approach is flip and disrespectful to the process of appreciating the art, but at least it gets you talking to each other and getting to know each other, which is after all the point of a first date. I don't know what this says about me, but I envisioned a lot of the African sculptures I saw on Saturday in gardens and greenhouses. The woman in/of this bowl has such attitude on her; I'm not messing with her. Anyway, while the date in question seemed to find my line of thinking amusing at first, I think he ended up being annoyed. Oh well. Suffice it to say, my date didn't end in hickeys. By the by, "an ode to hickeys"?

Now here's some art I like for its own sake: latte art.

This was a fantastic exhibit last year. I have to make it there this year.

On the scheduling front, I realized a few days ago that my tickets for Justice are the same night that I'm arriving in Austin for South by Southwest. Damn. There are still tickets for the Baltimore show at Sonar so I'm not without hope that I'll find someone who wants to go and also has a car. Besides, I'm going to be in Austin, so I can't complain that much.

Though I'm a Scrabulous devotee, I got my ass handed to me earlier this week by Jean in an FMC office Scrabble game. Rematch is in the offing.

I had an insanely long week at work. I was going loopy from financial reports by Friday night. The week ended serendipitously with drinks at Marx and a late night breakfast at The Diner. It was exactly what I needed. Thanks, Rick!

2 comments:

Casey said...

I get my ass handed to me in Scrabble no matter who I play. On the bright side, I see myself as providing an important public service -- making people feel better about their word skills.

Museums and dates seem fine, as long as its not the Holocaust Museum. That's kind of a joykill.

Mike Janssen said...

I feel super-dissed that I was left out of the FMC Scrabble tournament. We freelancers who miss deadlines get no love. Next time?

I admit I went to the Holocaust Museum on a date once ... well, it was sort of a date ... I dunno. In any case, the relationship didn't last long.