Awake, Asleep, At Home, Abroad

Today was the first day of my seminar, which focuses on the changing views on and perceptions about technology in the modern museum. When I heard about this topic, I was less than thrilled, but I think it will turn out to be very interesting, and also much broader in range than it seems. But more on that later. The class doesn’t begin until 2, which means I have to leave home at 12:45. I slept till 9, ate breakfast, watched TV, and slummed around before heading off to the blissfully empty metro station. The nice thing about the station when it’s not rush hour is that the fare is cheaper and you are guaranteed a seat. The not so nice thing is that the trains take forever to come round. Is it just me, or am I starting to sound like a Brit? I think I’m spending too much time with Symon (yes, that is how he spells it). Today at dinner, I learned that in England sweat pants are called tracky bottoms. I guess that makes sense because if you factor in the fact that pants are underwear, sweat pants take on a new and wholly unpleasant meaning.

Then off I went to my class, which is based out of this huge building on 9^th and H right next to China town. Class was pretty interesting. Every week we will go to a different museum and be lectured to by a different Smithsonian person. Today we were spoken to by the curator of the National Portrait Gallery. He has the biggest nose I have ever seen and I was sitting right next to him so I had a perfect profile view for 2 wonderful hours. It’s not that the whole thing is big; his nostrils were normally sized, but the actual tip of the thing was like a small island in the middle of his face. Between that and the fact that our professor, Dorothy Moss, has absolutely no muscle movement in her forehead, it was preparing to be a very entertaining 2 hours.

He talked about Peale, the first American to really look at the museum as something to better human beings and show the wonders of the natural world to people who might not necessarily get to see them. His was a portrait gallery and natural history museum which occupied the second floor of the third oldest federal building in Philadelphia. He was a fairly progressive man, and allowed women and children to enter his sacred museum space in the late 18 and early 1900s, when such things were not considered common. He was, however, kind of self obsessed (he was an artist himself and created 17 self portraits in his life time) and also of the firm opinion that man was the highest life form and must therefore look down on the rest of creation. His grand plan was to miniaturize the entire world and fit it into his gallery. One cool thing that he did do, was to excavate and display the first 2 Mastodons ever. Yay him.

On the way home, I stopped in China town and got myself some pastries (of course), and then I dashed back for diner. John and Gabby, through some complex web of relationships and friends, have this journalist who comes every few months and does a blurb on their family for the Viennese paper as an example of a typical American family. I find this very amusing, because the Abruzzis are anything but typical. To prove my point, we had some very excellent middle eastern kebabs with flat bread and tsastiki for dinner. The journalist brought his 19 year old daughter Miriam with him this time, and they have been doing a sort of grand tour of America. They’ve covered a very impressive chunk of the US and tomorrow they’re off to NYC. We had a great time, drank a tone of wine, and laughed hysterically. A good night.