travel day five. part 2.

thursday november 20. day five. (mid-evening).

rye told me i could get into san francisco's moma for free because her friend jose works there. he works at the coat check counter, just go over to him and ask for a free admit, k? k. i wasn't terribly excited about the art museum. i had never done one on my own and figured it would be boring and slow by myself. it was a five block walk from downtown and the sun had already set somewhere miles away on the horizon. city sunsets never impress me. jose got me in and we politely talked about rye for a few minutes. he highly recommended the video tour and shuffled back to the coat checkdesk.

so i asked the smiling girl behind the desk about it. "i've never done a video tour. can you explain it to me?" turns out, it's nothing like an audio tour, which takes you through the museum, piece by piece, explaining facts or professional opinions about the artwork. usually cooed by a smooth famous voice. susan sarandon. isabella rosellini. meryl streep. but video tours! completely different! an artist named janet cardiff, was the creator, writer and voice. the smiling girl told me to tie the video camera onto my wrist. "go sit at the bench facing the gift shop. sit in the middle of it and put the headphones on. it will show you." mysterious directions. i felt my forehead sweating like how you get when you're the only one not welcome. i sat down.

the headphones were bulky. the kind that shut out all outside sounds. and the video camera was heavy. heavy like a cabbage. heavy for one hand. i pressed play and it showed me the wall right in front of me. she started talking. about the type of person who walks around museums. children. haunted men. wooden walking. walking dreams. ghosts. about what she experienced as a child. what she experienced waking up and walking to the museum. "point the video camera in front of you and follow where i'm going within the museum." she said. the scene in the video got up and walked up the central staircase. so i got up and followed.

along the way she told you a story about a man who had followed her into the museum. we were running away from him. blending into the crowd at times. taking secret staircases! backing into the dark corners of small rooms. her voice told me to go into one room with two statues and seven paintings. "you know it's in here. look at it." i looked around eyed this painting.

it was the one she was talking about! she showed a scene of herself dressed as this woman. we saw her posing in a bedroom. uncomfortable. smiling. this would be the only artwork she would point out and talk about. she would ask me to look over the staircase railings. to point the camera at the security guard on the floor below. would he grow suspicious? the haunting sound of footsteps started following me. softly. slowly at first. run into the staircase marked 'STAFF ONLY!' don't look back. go ahead! go!

the footsteps echoed behind me. my heart raced. my fingers got weak. no! no! don't come closer!

i physically took off the headphones and looked behind me. no one was there. the audio was amazing. she pointed the camera toward the door and walked up the spiral staircase in the center of the museum. i followed it and stopped when it stopped. a black women was singing an old sad song on the bridge at the top of the museum. it echoed and reverberated in a way to make your eyes well up.

the video took me through the rest of its story and i followed. i took the elevator down and returned the equipment.

my description of this experience unfortunately is poor. i left my body. i scratched my way out and slid smoothly into janet cardiff's. it was amazing. and i felt changed afterward. i am changed.

i had another two hours to kill so i stepped into the exhibits.

i felt more attached to this piece than any other. previously, m and i saw it at the georgia o'keefe museum in santa fe. and here we both were, do it yourself flowers and me. traveling here and there and meeting up under the lights in san francisco. cool.

a reproduction of john cage's 4'33''!!! do you grumble at the thought of it? is this art? or was he trying to stretch the boundaries of performance for the sake of being the first?

can you see? here's the close-up:

is this a watercolor?

the wood. sculptural pieces consisting of old and new wood. bent. leaning. wool strings. organic forms. i tended to notice the shadows that each piece cast.

yea, i was alone in this museum. but it woke me up. coaxed me out. i was meant to be here. it would shape me.