November 18, 2024
Greetings from the patron,
Recently I visited a museum. That simple sentence will surprise most people who know me, and probably the rest of you who don’t, but just automatically assume I am an unsophisticated buffoon. Perhaps based on my choice of words here. Or my punctuation. Or incomplete sentences.
I have several sophisticated friends who I am trying to impress, (no pressure, it’s not you) and so I have to be a little careful how I describe my experience. I suppose I could have stopped at my first sentence, (It was: “Recently I visited a museum.” in case you forgot, or don’t know where to look) but then this essay would be shorter than usual, which would probably be a relief for all participants.
I am not what you would call a typical museum visitor. I will admit I like looking at beautiful paintings, elegant statues, well preserved artifacts from dead civilizations, but every time I enter a museum I feel like an imposter. Also sometimes when I look around, I think I am surrounded by imposters. You can’t always tell with imposters, which you would know if you read your dictionary. Or if you were an imposter.
I was looking at various things abducted from other cultures and hoarded by smart people and eventually I realized that it was too hard. One display said: “This fork, found in the ancient city of Ur, was created in approximately 90 BCE, as evidenced by the rake of the bowl and the narrowing of the tines.”
First, let’s all admit we don’t know what BCE is. Or tines. Or Ur. (I have been waiting for the moment when I could write an incomplete sentence that only featured three letters.) Well, that’s what docents are for. These are the rather standoffish people in museums who are there to explain the complex histories of the various abducted things, but in fact mostly tell people where the bathrooms are.
No offense to docents, (which is a phrase you MUST say out loud right now), I know they serve an important purpose, which in a way is to replace Alta Vista. But it is awkward for me to ask a perfect stranger for help understanding something that I only care about so that I can bring it up at a dinner party later with people I don’t really like that much. (I usually don’t say all that when I ask docents a question, although often they respond, “I don’t work here” so maybe they suspect.)
Museums, I am told, are repositories of cultural heritage, meant to expand the mind, to educate, to inform the visitors about different histories, made real by the collections from various historical venues. (This paragraph is what I should have started with if I wanted to impress sophisticated people, but I sense that ship has sailed.) So, I have the greatest respect for museums, in fact, I’ve visited museums all over the world, including some pretty fancy ones in Italy, where I learned a great deal, including the phrase, “Dov'è il bagno?”
After my recent museum visit, my mind felt so expanded I began to see things differently. (I’ll confess at first I thought it was a magnesium deficiency, or perhaps the shimmer from a parallel dimension) What I realized was that I was now aware of museums everywhere.
Libraries are museums of books. Malls are museums of skinny jeans and candles and something called ‘eyebrow threading’. Schools are museums of knowledge. Automobile dealerships are museums of envy. And debt. If you think about it, any collection of things has the potential to be a museum, especially if you don’t think about it too long.
A few years ago, I was in someone’s home which was disguised as an ordinary house, probably for zoning reasons, but inside it was a museum. The walls were lined with shelves, rows and rows of shelves, extending from the living room into the family room, all filled with hundreds and hundreds of ceramic creamers shaped like cows. And, according to the docent, no two were alike. I think about that museum almost every time I put cream in my coffee. Or I see a cow. Or I waste my money.
Museums are everywhere. You could be living in one right now. Sure, the collections are a little scattered, the exhibitions are not always interesting, and maybe you wouldn’t buy anything in the gift shop, but that’s probably true with most museums. One caution, if you are married to the docent, don’t keep asking her where things are, it can create tension. Anyway at least at your house the parking is probably reasonable, and if the coffee is no good in the café, whose fault is that?
I just realized that my original intention, (see second paragraph) may have been aiming a little high. It’s not realistic to try impress my sophisticated friends with my museum experience, in large part because I don’t have any sophisticated friends, so if you were thinking it was you, (see also, second paragraph) it wasn’t. I like you.
Hope this finds you growing a culture,
David
Copyright © 2024 David Smith
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