On Saturday, J and I
Posted by: Liz | From: September 02, 2003
On Saturday, J and I made our way upstate to visit the much-anticipated Dia:Beacon museum with my aunt and uncle. It started out really exciting with these huge installation pieces by Michael Heizer. If you take a look at this link, you will see that they appear to be flat geometric shapes on the ground. Well, you are wrong: they are cavernous holes in the ground of various shapes and depths, invoking amazing feelings of awe and vertigo upon looking down in them (which is what we got to do, being on this tour). The shapes are supposed to represent the US in the 1800’s and are named North, South, East, and West in correspondence with geographic areas. South is the circle, which spirals down into a huge, very deep funnel that represents slavery. So deep, in fact, that I assumed it stopped as a shallow bowl, so it literally made me gasp with surprised fright as I approached the edge and saw the bottom. Me: “Whew! That one really scared me.” Aunt: “Well, it should. That’s slavery down there!”Then there were some pieces I thought were just awful. Really awful. Like the kind of stuff that makes you hate modern art and go, “That’s art?” even though you know better. Like a bunch of plywood boxes. Or a bunch of white canvases. Or a bunch of stupid metal circles and triangles lying on the ground. But then, there were things like this , giant metal sculptures you meandered through, that were fucking incredible.
So Saturday was busy, and given that we had to get up so early, it felt like Friday, making Sunday feel like Saturday, which was okay, because we still had a Monday off to sub for a Sunday (??). Sunday we hauled the Weber up to the roof had an impromptu bbq in the fleeting sun. Planned-on-the-spot activities are always fun because you have no expectations built up for them, so everyone drank beers and ate grilled corn and surveyed the ruins of the neighbors’ back yards. You would think that in a place like New York, where any personal outdoor area attached to your property is coveted and yearned for by all, people would do nice things with their little patches of earth. One neighbor has a little forest of beautiful trees and flowers and a lovely deck. The others, regardless of whether a swimming pool is taking up half the area, are despairing pits of crap storage. Apparently the answer to Where Do I Put My Old Guitar and Piles of Shit I’m Not Throwing Away For Some Neurotic Reason is: in my backyard! After the sun went down, it got very chilly and everyone wrapped themselves up in thin summer jackets and began huddling around the glowing coals of the tiny Weber grill. This all seemed very nice and natural until Kelly pointed out that if anyone from Alaska—land of giant beach bon fires—were to see this scene, we would not only be the laughing stock of the town, but would be burned into the collective memory as an urban legend of the most pitiful showing of party, fire, and landscape imaginable.
Hey, we do what we can.
Monday as Sunday was pretty relaxed. We saw Thirteen, which was good and disturbing and makes you disturbingly long for a good long pair of long, skinny legs. Even if they’re attached to a depressed, drug-addled, alcoholic, anxiety-ridden, social climber failing seventh grade.
Aaaa! It’s real!
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