Friday, January 11, 2013

Filling the tanks

A few days ago I finished reading the Harry Potter series. This has been one of those to-do items weighing heavy on my mind for years--ever since I gave up at book 5 because I wanted to wait until all the books were out to finish. And now it's done and I am happy because I don't have to live in fear of spoilers anymore.

Sure, some of the sentences were clunky. Some of the fat could have been trimmed, but overall I thought it was a fantastic story and I admire how J.K. Rowling was able to tie together the plot points into a tidy package, while keeping me so fully immersed in the world and eager to find out what would happen next. Excellent work.

On Wednesday, I went to see "Elles: Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou, Paris," at the Seattle Art Museum. The exhibit only runs two more days, and it's worth a visit.

In addition to the sculpture, paintings, and performance art on video, I was pleased to see prints of work by photographers Diane Arbus, Cindy Sherman, and Margaret Bourke-White.

One of my favorite pieces was a "Museum Highlights" video recorded by performance artist Andrea Fraser who, adopting the persona of docent Jane, took the viewer on a tour of an art museum in Philadelphia. Her commentary was thoughtful and sometimes hilarious, like when she was explaining how donors receive the privilege of naming parts of the museum, and if she had $750,000 she would name the gift shop "Andrea" because that is such a nice name. I also appreciated her deconstruction of the furnishings in the museum cafeteria.

After the museum, I met Jer for dinner and then we saw the Book of Mormon musical at the Paramount. When I bought our tickets months ago, the website would only allow me to purchase two seats if they were not together. So Jer and I sat on opposite sides of the theater. On the plus side, we had pretty good seats.

It's a great show, irreverent, and very funny. I spent the whole night with a grin on my face. As opposed to on my arm. Or my foot.

And now it's Friday. Happy Friday!

3 comments:

Dan said...

I'm going to that show right now!

Folly Blaine said...

Yay! Have fun.

Anonymous said...

Oh cool. A video installation from Elles has been on exhibit at the Henry Art Gallery this fall. I really enjoyed it, but never made it to the SAM for the rest of the exhibition.

I've decided you have your finger on the pulse of Seattle :)