Song: “I Feel the Earth Move”

When: While walking through MoMA, specifically this exhibit, on objects and products designed to keep us safer from crime, disease, accidents or natural disasters. I was reading about a temporary shelter made almost entirely out of cardboard tubing, when the opening notes started.

It’s possible that this is funny only to me, and that it’s the result of spending most of last night and today in complete silence, my iPod the one talking in my ear.

Nobody ever wants to stay at a museum as long as I do. Dan, the self-proclaimed “enemy to art,” has this glazed-eye silence whenever I even mentioned the word. Example:

[scripty]
Pam
Dan, I was thinking about going to the art museum tomorrow. That’ll be fun, right?

Dan
…

Pam
I’m only talking about me going to the museum. Is it because I said the word “art”? What if I was talking about Art Carney?

Dan
I don’t like him either. Or Art Garfunkel.

Pam
What about Arthur?

Dan
[after a brief moment of stunned silence]
The Dudley Moore movie?

Pam
[proudly]
Yes.

Dan
Are you pronouncing it Art…tur?

Pam
No, but his nickname would have been “Art.”

Dan
That is the dumbest thing you’ve ever said.

Pam
I know.
[/scripty]

I spent the day slowly wandering though all six floors of the museum, taking pictures, notes, and listening to music. When I’m between projects, when I’m looking for an idea for a story or a script, it’s always the best time for me to wander through a gallery. Part of my brain is looking constantly for inspiration, and… okay, here’s a secret about me that you might only know if you’re one of the three people I’ve dragged to museums with me (I make sure it’s someone who loves me a lot, because we aren’t leaving anytime soon and I need someone who loves me so much that patience isn’t even coming into question). The secret is: I love standing in front of a Rothko for a very long time. Ooh, that sounded pretentious.

The worst idea I’ve ever had, though, was thinking my mother and sister would enjoy accompanying me to the Rothko Chapel the last time I was in Houston. I had no idea the panels would be completely black. I knew it’d be a meditation room, and I knew people would be in prayer. If I had known the paintings were going to be in all black, I would have left them outside, so they didn’t interrupt the meditating people with their snorts and laughter.

I’d talk some more but ANDI TERAN JUST WALKED INTO THE LOBBY AND I MISSED HER.