My grad class is spending the day at the Peabody Essex
Museum. Our mission is to find some works
of art that speak to us creatively, and research and write about one.
I am excited when I realize the Faberge exhibit is going on,
and doubly excited when I find out it's free to me because I am a teacher (and
grad student, but mostly because I'm a teacher). The exhibit itself doesn't inspire me so much
for its extravagance (somewhat disturbing to us penny-pinching yanks), but I am
passingly fascinated by the story of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. Although the place is loaded with treasure,
Faberge simply doesn't create any kind of story for me. It has already been written and made into a
movie, and I still remember the sudden scene change when the soldier rips the
fur and skin off the rabbit. Saw it on
the big screen. Scared the living shit
out of me.
I spend the rest of my class time at the PEM by going from
gallery to gallery, coming back over and over again to a giant glass
paperweight-style work that resembles a crazy-ass version of Earth. I notice the artisan also created a giant
plate that he deems a New Mexico bowl.
It has the coolest striations of blues, starting lighter at the center
and moving toward indigo along the edge, the rim of which is a line of bright
red, along with white speckled throughout the blues to simulate stars and
galaxies. The pieces have been created
by a local artist (and by local, I mean Shelbourne Falls, Massachusetts, which
is like 2-plus hours away, so local by the way the crow flies).
Aha! I think I have
found today's muse. Could it really be
that easy? Most of my classmates have
already found their topics. I should sit
down and start writing, right? No
problem, right?
Oh, ye of so very much faith. Of course it's not going to be that easy, you
silly, silly people.
After about fifteen minutes of taking notes on the pieces
and photographing both the works of art and the artist placards next to each,
we are allowed to break for the day.
Some people head back to class over at the university to work on their
projects. Others leave early to get
working on their writing portfolios. I,
on the other hand, go in search of two pals who are coincidentally viewing the
Faberge exhibit today, too. It's one of
those golden opportunities to combine work and play, pain and pleasure,
seriousness and slapstick.
The three of us convene, and I discover they have tickets to
tour the Chinese house, the Yin Yu Tang house, a self-guided audio tour that
starts in fifteen minutes. I run down
and get a ticket, free again because I'm a teacher (and a grad student, but mostly because I'm a teacher), then we go to the
information booth for our audio "phones," which are more like
walkie-talkies for space aliens. The
lovely older woman with the giant bouffant helps me, except my phone device is
set to Mandarin.
After she fixes it, I say casually, "Oh, Mandarin would
be fine."
"Do you speak Mandarin?" she asks me.
"Oh, no," I reply with a smile, "I just
thought it would be interesting. Do you
have Spanish?" Now, one would think
the museum could set the audio tour to Spanish since half of their brochures
are in Spanish and half the population of Salem is Spanish.
She shakes her head, her massive hairdo sprayed so perfectly
that it moves along with her in one swift motion like the plastic top of a
1960's Barbie head. "No,
sorry. Just English or Mandarin."
I take my now-English audio phone and head into line to
enter the Yin Yu Tang home replica. Just
as I am about to pass through the double glass doors into the tour, this
wonderful, bubble-haired, sweet old woman bounds across the pavilion and hands
me a new audio phone. She has the wriest
grin on her face and her eyes twinkle. I
have an epiphany:
Dear God … This woman
is me in a few decades!
I suddenly love this woman, this incredible museum employee
with as waggish a sense of ironic humor as have I. After a slight hesitation, I trade devices
with her, and I'm off.
My two friends and I represent the full spectrum line of
decorum. Laurie is intent on listening
to everything in her audio tour, moving meticulously from room to room, never
touching the "stop" button, looking and searching and following along
in the exact tour order. Sally is a bit
of both ends, listening half-heartedly to her device, looking around intently,
stopping when she's had enough in one room, and laughing her ass off when I put
the Mandarin up to her other ear.
I am so bad. So, so,
so very bad. I sort of listen to the
Mandarin, occasionally getting phrases that sound an awful lot like "Feng
shui" and "Jolly Rancher."
I don't understand one goddamned thing coming out of the audio
device. My eyes are wide with delight, I
am trying very hard to contain my amusement, and I work at avoiding leaning too
far over the koi pond lest I drop the damn thing in with the giant, carnivorous
goldfish that probably belong on the Discovery channel's Shark Week
(coincidentally the same week as this trip).
In short, I am having the time of my life!
When we're done with the tour (I am done first as I don't
understand the directives and because I have the attention span of a) (hahahahaha), I try to find the woman who
gave me the Mandarin phone, but she is nowhere to be found. I want to thank her and tell her how much I
appreciate her sense of humor. Really
REALLY appreciate it.
Afterward, we wander the museum again. This is my third time through some of the
rooms, and I lead my pals into the Maritime section to show them the seashell
dress and the pearl hat. I point out the
pipe organ that I am probably going to write about instead of the giant
paperweight because I've already lost interest in the glass idea. I mean, who wants to write about squiggly
glass continents or giant cosmos plates?
Not me anymore. I am now
enthralled by a pipe organ (officially an 1827 chamber organ crafted by George
Hook). I take about a dozen pictures of
it, all of its intricacies, its facets.
I have found my muse … again.
Or so I believe.
Until I see the 1840 portrait of Nathaniel Hawthorne painted
by Charles Osgood, coincidentally the exact name of one of my co-workers but he calls himself Chip instead of Charlie or Chaz. Nate and I go way back. We share a birthday (not the same year -
don't be daft), and one of his relatives, Judge John Hathorne (buried just
around the corner from the PEM), is responsible for the demise of at least one
of my relatives during the Salem Witch Trials.
This may be the first oil painting of Hawthorne ever commissioned. He looks young, innocent, completely
un-haired over. (Well, I'm not sure
about the completely part as it's
only a torso/head shot and he has his clothes on). Anyway, it's a young Nathaniel Hawthorne of The Scarlet Letter, an interesting tale
if you bypass most of the prologue. His
short story The Birthmark, a great
horror tale, remains one of my all-time favorites, especially since I have a
facial imperfection (albeit a scar), and the fate of the one in the story is
mega-twisted.
What to do, what to do.
Whatever I decide, chamber organ or good ole Nate, or if I
fall back to the Shelbourne Falls glass maker, I have to make the decision
quickly. The research and writing
portion of my portfolio is due on Friday.
The clock is ticking. Clock ….
Hmmmm … Was there a clock there? Maybe I
could write about the clock. I know I
saw a clock in the maritime section near some figurehead and the giant wooden
eagle plaque. Maybe if I go back and
skim through the museum collection online or take another trip to Salem, I
can--
Like I said. The
attention span of a
