With the open studio
now done and ornately dusted, I was ready to embark on a glorious week of
museum meandering. First stop, The Museum of Natural History. Wait. No erase
that, let’s start before the beginning at the World Food Café in the Natural
History Museum. For it’s possible that this place could and should be hermetically sealed as a
diorama for future generations to study. Lets get some plexiglass and silicon
and add it to the museum map. This claustrophobic sloppy beige capsule was heaving
with organic humanesque matter. Packed around each tiny tin table, piled feet
high with white, yellow and orange food stuffs were packs of families in
matching puffer jackets with puffy ketchup smeared cheeks. Loud mouths, loud
clothes and lukewarm food abounded. Some family flocks hunted for a free table,
squawking and waving their sodas at the flocks who had forgotten to gather
their garbage. The menu, devoid of curries, stir fries or burritos and
plentiful in pizza, fries and mac ‘n’ cheese re-enforced the cliché that
American culture has devoured the world resulting in the homogenisation of
everything. And even though a cliché is only the truth we get tired of hearing,
I have a hunch that there is still room for someone to look at this useless eco
system and ask if perhaps its time to make just this one museum cafeteria
extinct. Obviously a large anthropological study would have to be carried out but
my guts (both the intestinal one and my intuitive one) feel that it would not
be a loss if a meteor wiped out this particular location and all who inhabit
it.
Staring at the museum
map, soaked with my neighbours soda and soiled with my own fatty fingerprints, I
longed romantically for the awesome sublime of outer space, the wowing wonder
of science, the mind-blowing marvel of another kind of mankind and I laid all my
hopes in the atrium called ‘The Origin of
the Universe’ (please read with a 1960s echoing sci-fi voice over.) And now in the middle of this paragraph
we are at the beginning. Not the “Once upon a time…” beginning of this story,
but the beginning of, the beginning of the big BANG. Day One, where time and
space begin. Oh, actually, no wait a minute. Firstly I got consumed by a coat
check line half and hour long and 3 people deep. Not the space and time
encounter I was searching for.
A moment of
ungraspable amazement and perplexing wonder, did however emerge when I entered
the ‘Universe’ atrium to look at the beginning of time time-line and saw that
the target audience was 8 year old children. Which, before I continue, I would
like to say I would’ve been super supportive of had even one single child
looked interested in the display. But instead of doing that sponge soaking
thing small brains are supposed to be capable of, they zoomed and skidded
around me like pudgy insects, in groups that multiplied and expanded faster
than the universe itself. Yes they have a right to be here but its hard to hold
foggy big things in your mind, when small snotty masses occupy the perimeter of
your personal space. I looked at them with disdain and wished evolution would
speed up and give me a super power – the burning laser eye trick was what I
wanted. I would’ve zapped them with one evil look. Pazzap! They’d be piles of
ash and smoke and I would walk away wearing black leather. A win all round I
say.
I must confess though
that amidst my superhuman fantasy I had a little moment of longing for the
little people that I do love and with the sentimentality that arose, came a phrase
to berate me “a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met”. I seriously contemplated
the possibility that I would be more tolerant of these kids if I knew them. Hmmmm …. ?? ???? …
Nope. This philosophy cannot be expanded to include the children of strangers.
Evil eyes all around. PZAPP! PZAPP! PZAPP !PZAPP. Poof. Strut strut strut.
Walking away from miniature
earthlings I sought refuge reclining amongst stardust light years away from
earth. In order to reach the Planetarium I had to enter the chattering, oozing,
sweaty, heaving corridors of humanity. Men women, children and waisted intelligent
life forms, pulsed and bumbled lethargically like a sluggish river through the
bowels of the museum. I imagined a graph at the museum entrance pictoralising
the amount of visitors to the museum each day, by equating the number to the
population of small lesser-known nation.
Sunday 17th
February
Number of visitors to
the museum = the population of Van Diemen’s Land.
It was 1:00 NYC time
and the next Planetarium session was at 1:30.I queued to buy a ticket for the
next session. There were 2 people in front of me. 20 mins later, still 2 people
in front of me. I was stuck in a black whole, waiting, waiting, w a a a a
i t i n g. Time s t o p p e d .
It’s fair to say I’m impatient.
I confess this openly as a weakness of my DNA. This will of course eventually
destroy my descendants or if Brittany graduates soon enough and finds a cure it
will assist us in conquering the world! I tried to stand still. In a resting
pose I withdrew my consciousness from the world around me and took it down deep
into my body to rest in a padded cell where it could scream “What’s taking you
so long???”
“Yeeehhhu”
“One student ticket
for the Planetarium, please.”
“Ticket please”
“What?”
“T-I-C-K-E-T
puuuleeeease”
“No I want to buy
one.”
“Do you have your
museum admission ticket”
“Yes, but I didn’t pay
for the planetarium, so I’d like to buy one now”
“Show me”
I show him.
“Where is the receipt
for your admission ticket?”
“I don’t have it”
“Well how did you get this
ticket?”
Note the tone of
accusation
“My husband paid with
his credit card”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.
Somewhere in the museum”
You can see why the
queue took so long.
“You need the
receipt.”
“ For what?”
“To buy a ticket”
“I need a receipt for
a ticket which I have in my hand in order to buy a different ticket?”
I look towards the
queue for moral support but they are stuck in the black hole and look back at
me blankly
“Yes that’s the
system.”
“THAT IS NOT A
SYSTEM!”
Rationality escaped me
entirely now. Poof. Gone with one evil eye stare from the attendant. PZAPP!. It
vaporised, drifted above everyone’s heads, floated over the balcony and swooped
into the Universe atrium where it spied Jon. And then it yelled “JOOOOOOOOON!”
Yes it did. In a big loud voice. “JOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNN. I NEEEEEEEDDDD THE
RECIEPT” Um or maybe that was me. As I exited the planetarium I notice that the
next session time is now 3:30 and I’m told by a women in the supersized line
that she is actually queuing for the 4:00 show. What? Why? THIS PLACE
SUCKS!!!!!
… and then oh oh
oooooohhhhhh the sweet honey of memory. I’m in New York. I have membership to
every major museum in the city and so when push came to shove, rather than
fight, I took flight. Located the exit and ran across Central Park to the
Guggenhiem.
