Breeder at Art Museum (Sunday Globe)
IleneB
The Boston Globe apparently hires a lot of suburbo freelance travel
"writers" who usually write about how they used to travel when young
and single (blah blah) but now with little Apokolips, it's so
different. The articles are usually overwritten and precious. This past
Sunday no exception, and I will quote at length.
Moo drives three hours west of Boston to the Massachusetts Museum of
Contemporary Art- a very intelligent use of a former factory in the
fading western part of the state, in the Berkshires. Museum has done
very well.
"I know nothing about art... So the idea of subjecting my toddler and
her cousins to a three-hour ride... Before I became a parent, the Mass.
MoCA's open spaces struck me as complex, overwhelming. Yet I suspected
the same spaces were the perfect backdrop for pint-sized viewers.
Wouldn't the museum's funky installations beckon to the imagination? At
18 months, my daughter Nell is a child for whom the everyday activity
of eating is a full-body experience. So I think she has a deep
appreciation of the importance of using all her senses in any
endeavor."
(Moo proceeds to add two cousins, age 5 and 8, and another adult.)
(The first work they spot is by the info desk. It's some sort of beds
built on flotation devices) "which the children found irresistable. J's
enthusiastic leap onto the bed brings her head in direct contact with
the rebar the forms the bed frame."
On to the cavernous ground-floor gallery. "The girls eyeball the
paintings thoughtfully. Then they run. The gallery's space begs to be
experienced in a physical sense. Free from her stroller, Nell runs,
arms akimbo. Colleen grabs the empty stroller and pushes it with Indy
500 intensity. The gallery's space may beg for play, but the museum's
staff don't. They look on, fretting. I get the message. We move along."
A staffer suggest the kids will enjoy an installation called "Maya."
The artist assembled a pyramid temple like in India, only adorned with
action figures and other cultural crap. Of course the kids love it
because they recognize some of the McDonald's figures.
On to an abstract installation of the 14 stations of the cross. Moo and
kids like this because "with its Shaker-like village, dramatic lighting
and sound effects, it had the appeal of an eerie theme park."
And with the moo "writer" being freelance, I have no email address to
complain to. The Globe loves this kind of swill.
Ilene B
Lee Ann
>On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 10:23:17 -0400, IleneB <ile...@shore.net>
>wrote:
>
>
>> Colleen grabs the empty stroller and pushes it with Indy
>>500 intensity.
>
>Oh dear. I AM hoping my name does not become the new Caitlunn.
>
>Cawlean
Well, given that Colleen is the Anglization (sp?) of Caitlin... I
suppose it already is. :-) (My best understanding of the
pronuciation is Ky-leen, not Kate-lynn.)
Lee Ann
sfw
> > suppose it already is. :-) (My best understanding of the
> > pronuciation is Ky-leen, not Kate-lynn.)
> >
> > Lee Ann
>
>
> Sarah
So I've been told by Gaelic speakers.
Other Sarah
Sue Kurzman
> From: IleneB <ile...@shore.net>
> Subject: Breeder at Art Museum (Sunday Globe)
(Ilene B. quotes a Globe article;)
> Before I became a parent, the Mass.
> MoCA's open spaces struck me as complex, overwhelming.
Whew! <Waving away the fumes of Bad Writing. I mean hers, not mine.>
Someone who finds empty space "complex, overwhelming," shouldn't be helping
to fill up what little we have left by dropping a sample of their genetic
ugliness on the planet.
-Sue K.
Sharon
"Gavin."
Two of my personal Gaelic naming peeves right there ... because people
inevitably pronounce them as they look.
Sharon in San Jose
Anthony J. Bryant
>
> Well, given that Colleen is the Anglization (sp?) of Caitlin... I
> suppose it already is. :-)
It's not. Colleen is Irish for "girl."
Caitlin is Irish for Kathleen, and is pronounced "Katchleen"
Tony
Anthony J. Bryant
> Caitlin is actually pronounced "Kathleen." And Gawain is actually pronounced
> "Gavin."
Only in Wales. <G>
I like the French: "goVAHN" <G>
Tony
circusgirl
It isn't.
"Colleen" is an anglicisation of "Caili(acute)n" which means "girl".
Caitlin is pronounced Kathleen and also has an acute accent on the 2nd i.
circusgirl (native speaker)
Pat
news:190920021023178490%ile...@shore.net:
>Yet I suspected
> the same spaces were the perfect backdrop for pint-sized viewers.
Yes, museums are mere "backdrops" for your spotlighted, center-stage
darlings.
> Wouldn't the museum's funky installations beckon to the imagination? At
> 18 months, my daughter Nell is a child for whom the everyday activity
> of eating is a full-body experience. So I think she has a deep
> appreciation of the importance of using all her senses in any
> endeavor."
She slops her food everywhere? Maybe she's a 'tard, not an aesthete.
>
> (Moo proceeds to add two cousins, age 5 and 8, and another adult.)
> (The first work they spot is by the info desk. It's some sort of beds
> built on flotation devices) "which the children found irresistable. J's
> enthusiastic leap onto the bed brings her head in direct contact with
> the rebar the forms the bed frame."
<nelson>Ha ha!</nelson>
>
> On to the cavernous ground-floor gallery. "The girls eyeball the
> paintings thoughtfully. Then they run. The gallery's space begs to be
> experienced in a physical sense. Free from her stroller, Nell runs,
> arms akimbo. Colleen grabs the empty stroller and pushes it with Indy
> 500 intensity. The gallery's space may beg for play, but the museum's
> staff don't. They look on, fretting. I get the message. We move along."
No, if you'd "gotten the message," you'd've gotten the hell out altogether.
>
> A staffer suggest the kids will enjoy an installation called "Maya."
> The artist assembled a pyramid temple like in India, only adorned with
> action figures and other cultural crap. Of course the kids love it
> because they recognize some of the McDonald's figures.
How cute! Such patrons of the arts!
>
>
> And with the moo "writer" being freelance, I have no email address to
> complain to. The Globe loves this kind of swill.
I have a theory about this: some things, done badly, are spectacular
failures. The failure is conspicuous and unmistakable to the person
performing the action. Examples are programming and flying planes. On the
other hand, other ventures are failures, but the person having done them
can kid themselves they did a great job. Sadly, writing newspaper columns
is in the latter category.
--
"I don't have low self-esteem; I have low esteem for everyone else."
-Daria Morgendorffer