![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Well Met indeed
Apr. 2nd, 2006 12:23 amAfter all my angsting, the sound system in the bus didn't work, so we didn't watch any videos anyway. Fnoom.
But we did go to the Met, which was rather splendid, if we ignore the lunch-delaying hour of sitting around near the Egyptian temple I'd been given as our meeting place while a certain classics PhD I was to meet for lunch waited near the Egyptian tomb. *ahem* I'd been considering skipping the trip, for reasons of early rising, but the discovery that there would be a special Rauschenberg exhibition lured me down, and indeed I spent most of the morning engaging with a wide collection of his "combines". ( Why I like Rauschenberg, cut for length. )
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
adfamiliares is not a fan of the modern art, so I took my fill (Pollock! Johns! Lichtenstein!) while she was being professorial, and then, after we met for lunch, we focused on things we both enjoy: medieval art, obscure musical instruments (a three-necked lute-guitar, for early heavy metal!), Americana. I was delighted by the many medieval/Renaissance clocks and watches on display, including a tiny cross-shaped pocketwatch of smoky quartz; an elaborate monstrance clock which tracked 23 heavenly bodies, the phases of the moon, the seasons, and a hundred or more holidays and saints' days; and a very early clock from the early 16th century that sat outside its casing, so I could examine the tiny fusée with my very own eyes. Watches got very small very quickly—not quite as quickly as computers did, but in a similar sort of progression. [Edit: The fusée solves the problem of the clockspring putting out diminishing torque as it winds down—as the spring unwinds, the fusée gets narrower, so the torque is kept steady—much like an auto transmission. I mention this because I wanted to mention the excellent non-fusée clock I saw which solves the problem by spacing the numbers farther apart on the clock face. It's a 6-hour clock, and the space between the 5th and 6th hours is about four times the space between the 1st and 2nd, so it still keeps good time as the spring winds down. Genius!]
Atsinsofthedove's recommendation, K. and I ate fried bananas and aloo gobi at a very nice Indian place at 3rd and 83rd, then headed home on the bus, feeling overstuffed and overtired but reasonably well enlightened by the experience. I'm glad I went. If I get to it, and if they came out, I may share my series of photographs of "things that must be art by virtue of having been found on a museum's walls."
This is a good night to spring forward, as it gives me an excuse to go to bed "early".
But we did go to the Met, which was rather splendid, if we ignore the lunch-delaying hour of sitting around near the Egyptian temple I'd been given as our meeting place while a certain classics PhD I was to meet for lunch waited near the Egyptian tomb. *ahem* I'd been considering skipping the trip, for reasons of early rising, but the discovery that there would be a special Rauschenberg exhibition lured me down, and indeed I spent most of the morning engaging with a wide collection of his "combines". ( Why I like Rauschenberg, cut for length. )
adfamiliares is not a fan of the modern art, so I took my fill (Pollock! Johns! Lichtenstein!) while she was being professorial, and then, after we met for lunch, we focused on things we both enjoy: medieval art, obscure musical instruments (a three-necked lute-guitar, for early heavy metal!), Americana. I was delighted by the many medieval/Renaissance clocks and watches on display, including a tiny cross-shaped pocketwatch of smoky quartz; an elaborate monstrance clock which tracked 23 heavenly bodies, the phases of the moon, the seasons, and a hundred or more holidays and saints' days; and a very early clock from the early 16th century that sat outside its casing, so I could examine the tiny fusée with my very own eyes. Watches got very small very quickly—not quite as quickly as computers did, but in a similar sort of progression. [Edit: The fusée solves the problem of the clockspring putting out diminishing torque as it winds down—as the spring unwinds, the fusée gets narrower, so the torque is kept steady—much like an auto transmission. I mention this because I wanted to mention the excellent non-fusée clock I saw which solves the problem by spacing the numbers farther apart on the clock face. It's a 6-hour clock, and the space between the 5th and 6th hours is about four times the space between the 1st and 2nd, so it still keeps good time as the spring winds down. Genius!]At
sinsofthedove's recommendation, K. and I ate fried bananas and aloo gobi at a very nice Indian place at 3rd and 83rd, then headed home on the bus, feeling overstuffed and overtired but reasonably well enlightened by the experience. I'm glad I went. If I get to it, and if they came out, I may share my series of photographs of "things that must be art by virtue of having been found on a museum's walls."This is a good night to spring forward, as it gives me an excuse to go to bed "early".
