Museums (or, I write to keep myself from weeping, for I am greatly missful of England)

Oh, England, I miss you. And your cider and blacks and your day travel passes and oh my God, your trains and my young person's travel card and your theatres and your libraries where I HAD READING CARDS and looked at manuscripts (well, one), and your museums. Oh. I miss England.

Sorry about that. I was planning on writing about museums. I just got distracted when I wrote that about England in the title line, because it reminded me of all England's manifold charms and how vastly, vastly, vastly I miss it. I really miss trains. Thinking about trains right now is making me cry, especially because I remember that last train trip I made from Cambridge to Ely to Colchester, and it was the best train trip I have ever had and it seemed like it went on for ever and ever, and every time I was on a train I just never wanted to get off again. (And I stuck my tongue out at Ely because of John Rubbish Morton.)

Ahem.

Yes. Museums.

I was reading this book the other day called Faking It, which is all about how people feel like they're faking things, and the guy was talking about museums and how it's hard when you're in a museum because you know what the things are that you're supposed to want to look at, and you're never sure if you're looking at them long enough and how can you leave without feeling like you're totally turning your back on the Grand Work Of Art. And whatnot.

This got me thinking about my own experience of museums, and I was trying to remember if this is how I respond to museums too. I don't think it is. Maybe partly because I don't know anything about art and have no pretensions to knowing anything about art, so I don't feel like I have anything to prove? Although I'd like to know more about art, in a casual way so I would still not have anything to prove. Of course, on the down side, if I knew all about art, there would be fewer surprises for me in art museums, and I love surprises.

(Real ones that nobody warns you about ahead of time.)

And in a nutshell, that is why I love museums with all my being. They are full of surprising things. I'm often unimpressed by the things I know are coming, but then there will be something that I never anticipated in the slightest and it is miraculous.

Here is a perfect example. The Tate Modern. I always go to the Tate Modern with the intention of seeing the super-duper famous things. Jackson Pollock and Monet, you know. Those guys. I am filled with good intentions about improving my mind. But seriously, the Water Lilies? Hugest letdown ever.

This is how it went down: I got lost.

I know. Shocking. But see, basically, I had a little map, and I had invented a path for myself to follow that would lead me to the Water Lilies, which would be very improving for me, as I have never seen a real live Monet painting. And because I had marked the path out in my mind, and organized my thoughts by each room I would have to walk through, I didn't bother going back for it when I realized I had left my map at the top of the escalator after setting it down to put on some Blistex. I figured I was pretty safe. There would be a lobster phone, then some other stuff, then Monet. Plan.

(P.S. I wanted more Dali. I know the Saatchi Art Gallery is right close by and they are hogging all the Dali paintings, but grrr, stupid Tate Modern. You are Modern! Be Modern! More Dali paintings!)

Not very surprising I got lost, all mapless in a massive museum like the Tate Modern. And I eventually did find the Water Lilies, but by that time I was still going Wow. WOW. about Cy Twombly, whose four seasons paintings are humongous and greatly impressive; so I did not care much about Monet and his Water Lilies and indeed I found it a great big letdown and liked the painting across from it much better. Which gave rise to my generally good policy about museums; i.e., have things in mind that you want to see but then get lost. And something profound about the journey being an end in itself.

I except the National Portrait Gallery from this policy, by the way, on account of how I can just see no reason not to look at every individual object in the National Portrait Gallery (apart from some of the bronze busts maybe). The National Portrait Gallery and me are tight. We're like this (I am crossing my forefinger and middle finger very tightly, which is impairing my typing more than just eliminating the use of those two fingers would). The National Portrait Gallery loves me and sometimes gives me little surprises like that sexy-ass portrait of John Donne, or that fabulous vast one of Lady Colin Campbell in all her fabulousness.

I miss London.

You know what I discovered yesterday that filled me with sadness? This summer, the Globe Theatre is doing (Timon of Athens, The Merry Wives of Windsor,) A Midsummer Night's Dream, and King Lear. Now I plainly don't care about the parenthetical two, although I would go see Merry Wives in a hot second if I happened to be in England (I don't know if I mentioned this, but groundling tickets, they are five pounds). But when I discovered they were doing Dream and Lear, there was a brief moment in which I contemplated blowing all my savings and probably losing my job by taking vacation time to which I am not entitled, all so that I could fly to England and see these two plays at the Globe.

Seriously though.

Because I have seen several productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream (one touring one that came through my high school, one college play, and one by the Royal Shakespeare Company when we were in Stratford), and I have always felt terribly let-down by them. The Globe, however, has never let me down, and I have high high hopes for their production of Dream, and even though it's probably perfect and brilliant beyond the dreams of men, I can't see it. Rrrr.

And King Lear? King Lear, man. King Lear is one of those plays like Merchant of Venice that I have always been greatly disinclined to read. I know that this disinclination is causing me to miss cultural references left and right, and still I continue to not read it. In order to make myself feel like less of a Philistine, I have been telling myself that this is because I demand to see it performed. Because King Lear is reportedly such a magnificent masterpiece, I have made the decision to experience it only as it was intended to be experienced, as a play. And although this is only partly true, it is definitely partly true, and I would love, love, love, love to see it at the Globe.

Okay. This is the most depressing blog post I've ever written, except for that one on my birthday last year when I maybe drove a cute little toad to suicide. I feel really sad now and I keep picturing the concourse at London Liverpool Street and remembering all the times I hunted for the Norwich trains that went through Colchester and I am just so very, very sad.