[I don't think this ever got published, so...]
Art: The Met Gala will be on the first Friday of May. Our invitation (which, to be honest, has yet to arrive) specifies a dress code for guests “to express their own relationship to fashion as an embodied art form and celebrate the countless depictions of the dressed body throughout art history.” As soon as we find a famous painting of someone in jeans, tee shirt, and flannel over-shirt (and our invitation finally arrives) we’ll be ready to RSVP as a “You Betcha.”
To tell you the truth, the ensuing spring fashion exhibition looks interesting: “Costume Art” pairing a couple of hundred artworks with items from the Costume Institute. A while ago there was an exhibit at the Met pairing famous paintings with the actual clothes in the painting, including the Manet portrait of Morisot below. More of this? I’m game. It makes things you thought of as ethereal as quite tangible. See that dress? It’s the real thing. That very same thing. Presumably the exhibition will be in the new fashion gallery on the main floor, the one that has thrust the gift shop into the third stall from the left of the men’s room.
Music (audit division): Speaking of high fashion, those doyens of haute couture The Grateful Dead came up in my audit cue with “Anthem of the Sun,” their second album. Most of it is noodling with occasional stop-offs at recognizable songs. At the time it introduced the uniqueness of the Dead for those of us who didn’t live in San Francisco. It was enjoyable despite its occasional sidestepping into dissonant noise (deliberately, I’ll point out). It was also hard to tell where one song ended and the next one began, except when you had to get up and turn the record over. It’s still enjoyable, albeit as much for its nostalgic value as anything else. It was certainly a step up from their wishy-washy first, eponymous album, but it wouldn’t be until their third album, “Axomoxoa,” where they learned to put together tracks that were both intact songs and Dead music. It’s been said that when all is said and done, the Dead were for live consumption only. Sadly, the one time I saw them, they sorta sucked, which is always a possibility with a troupe of ad-libbers. Sometimes musicians are on, sometimes they’re off. At least a record captures them theoretically at their editable, let’s do another take, best. The joys of live music far outweigh the negatives, though, as most big name live performers are polished pros, and we still do live concerts half a dozen times or so a year: not a record-breaking amount, but enough that, every now and then, you’re in the room when somebody gets off a good one.
TV: I finished season 2 of “Fallout,” which has to be one of the nuttiest shows on television. Gory, funny, thought-provoking, well-acted, gorgeously produced—what more could you ask for, if you like dystopian SF? I await season 3 with bated breath.
Gaming: For the record, I probably got through about two thirds of “Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.” It’s a good game, don’t get me wrong, but after a while, as with most games, I got sort of tired of it. There’s only so much originality a game can offer before it starts being more of the same. I don’t finish most games I’ve started, with a few exceptions. I finished both Kal Kestis Star Wars games, for instance. The narratives kept pulling me through. And there have been others. But I don’t regret not finishing anything I’ve spent many dozens of enjoyable hours with, such as “Great Circle.” I’m far from an avid gamer, but I consider that the hours I spend / With a controller in my hand are golden / Help you cultivate horse sense / And a cool hеad and a keen eye…
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