I’m new to this Blogging thing. Having tried to keep journals in the past I find that I really don’t sit down and type on a religious basis. We’ll see what happens.
I have to plan to take days off. Being a graduate student I am the guide of my own project. My advisor lets me set my own schedule, a necessity if I am to continue in research. So, being as mad as I am, I can work way too much thus a “Sanity Day” was needed. Damn deadlines. The day was spent at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) and a performance of the Alloy Orchestra.
My sister and I look her youngest son to the MFA. The museum was running several programs, mostly geared to children, to encourage the understanding or art. The program my sister was eyeing was the “Art Interactions” program. Local actors are invited to come to the museum and choose works to interpret. The idea is to “step inside” the work (usually a painting) and act it out to try and extract a meaning. Really the arrangement is hand in glove because a painting is snap shot of a scene, with the added advantage of the open format and flexibility of presentation.
We had two people (man and woman) from the Underground Railroad Theater Company. As the name would imply there main themes are freedom and suffrage for African Americans. Their selection of paintings was reflective of this. The first depicted some Sharecroppers picking blackberries. The actors were wonderful with the children, asking them what they saw in the painting and explaining to them what they were going to be going. Originally they were just going to improvise the scene and the group would watch. Enough of the children were enthusiastic about being parts of the painting so we have some kids be the ground and blackberry hushes in the painting.
In our “play” we attracted the attention of s museum attendant, she was clearly not happy with all the joyful noise. At one point my nephew was leaving against the wall (he as a blackberry bush after all) and the attendant promptly scolded the group, “there is no leaving against the wall.” Now my nephew is four, so in his joy he slipped up a bit and being around 3 feet tall he was no where near to touching an paintings. We finally get he away from the wall, the attendant is satisfied, by scolds again “this is not a playground” as she leaves the room. I offer the suggestion that she should have played the role of the blackberry bush. We continue on our way to some other paintings
After the museum I join a friend for dinner at a Tibetan restaurant just below Theil square in Somerville. She is a bit late due to the fact that her landlord neglected to tell her that we would be fixing the hot water. It all worked out in the end and we have enough time to have an comfortable meal.
The Alloy Orchestra is a local group that writes original sound tracks for silent films. This year was the Boston premier of “The General” by Buster Keaton. Keaton plays an engineer for a Southern railroad. He has two loves in his life, his engine and a woman (I forget all the characters’ names). Fort Sumner is attacked and his girlfriend encourages him to enlist. The army will not take him since they think he is better use to the South as an engineer that as a foot soldier. What follows is the funniest Civil War era comedy that I have seen. You would be amazed how many gags can be done with a train and not have them get old. Keaton is a master of situational comedy (that he has setup).
All an all a good day and certainly more eventful that most of my days.
