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Published: October 27th 2006
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After the debacle that was Wednesday morning I decided to try and get out of the door nice and early today. All polished and shiny I managed to get downtown to the San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art (SFMOMA) at 09:50! Which was particularly brilliant as the museum didn't open until 11:00, woo-hoo! So after all my efforts I had over an hour to kill, I went and got some breakfast, which I'd neglected in my rush to get out that morning, and twiddled my thumbs for a time in the Yerba Buena Gardens opposite the museum where they were setting up some sort of temporary stage for something.
My feelings on modern art, if you don't know, are generally that it is very, very shitty. Very. So I have to say that I was a little surprised that enjoyed the SFMOMA. I got more than a few pieces, the layout allowed for a good mix of sculpture and paintings and the galleries were small enough that you could bypss the ones you evidently weren't interested in immediately. What I particularly like though was the fact that they had on display some of the artwork done for music festivals and
concerts done by some local San Francisco artisits and desingers. It was pretty cool to see this up in a gallery and I liked the fact they were trying to reach out to locals, rather than the pretentious tat MOMAs usually have. Also, it seems Ross is an artist. They had a display of several pieces of mundane everyday stuff made out of other mundane everyday stuff and I have to sya, truly without bias that the Stella Table was hands down better than any single one of them; AND it was actually a practical coffee table, in full working order. Ross, if you still have it, see if you can sell it to some art weirdos for a wad of cash.
I wandered down to the Asian Art Museum, the final ticket in my booklet - barring the Boudin Bakery tour which thanks to SF Muni I would not be taking - just after lunchtime. It's set in the City Hall plaza in amongst some other buildings of note, City Hall to name one, and it's the place Jo would recognise because she and I have been there before, although it was night and we had no idea
where we were then. It's right next to the UN Plaza, which imperiously celebrates the ratification of the United Nations in that place some time in the 40s or 50s by holding a bloody farmer's market three days a week. The Asian Art Museum itself was an interesting enough place, they have a lot of pieces charting the trail of Buddhism throughout Eastern Asia beginning in India and moving through South East Asia, Thailand, China, Korea and Japan. The museum is arranged so that you start at the top in Gallery one on the third floor and work your way chronologically and geographically through till the end going down floors on the way. A large tour group I met on the second floor had obviously not heeded this instruction as I passed them going upwards on the second floor. They were a most unusual bunch to say the least. There was an American woman with savage hair that seemed to form a perfect semi-circle from about her her jawline across the top of her head, and the whitest white hair you ever did see. She was incredibly loud, not in an obnoxious way but just that you could hear every
word she said precisely and distinctly from anywhere in the gallery, floor and probably museum. Then there were a couple of English ladies, and I was surprised to hear the accent so I have to confess that I listened in a bit. They were standing there in front of some centuries old Chinese decorative ornaments, and the thrust of the conversation, in very clearly spoken Richmond accents, was that one had somthing similar in her hallway and the other would like "something like that to go above the mantle". Then, of the others my particular favourite was the Frenchman in his sixties with an oriental woman in her late thirties or early forties conversing in a wonderful hybrid of French and whatever language she originally spoke; like Spanglish but for French and Japanese or something. After that little amusement I decided to call it a day and went to get my bag from the coat check whereupon I was greeted with tail end of a story about the lady behind the desk getting naked, or changed, or something to another woman who shushed the first lady when she saw me approaching , to which the first lady replied to me something like "What ya worrying about? He's got a mother, don't ya hon? You'll have heard this all before." Which was weird. Then, as I was leaving the tour group were trickling their way out - they'd obviously missed a floor or something - and as they were making their way out their coaches I caught a glimpse of the signs for the group they were with. This rag-tag collection of "people" were all members of the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society. I tell you, that's proof if ever there was that there is truly a society or group for whatever fantastical interest group your mind can imagine. I don't even know what a snuff bottle is!?! So after Wednesday's charade, Thursday turned out to be a good recovery.
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