Vacation, all I ever wanted; Vacation, had to get
away!
Waterbury, Connecticut, is
not a place I would put high on my list of vacation destinations. I end up there for the final road trip of my
sports-mom career. I like to do weird
stuff when I go places, so I drive down early and head to the Mattatuck Art
Museum.
If you’re a regular reader
of this blog, you already know that I am ironically surrounded by a busload of third
grade students while I am at the museum, but there’s so much more to tell. So very, very much more, because these are
the tales of the truly awful things that I endure simply on account of being
none other than me.
First of all, I am worried
that I won’t find any place to park in Waterbury. This turns out to be an unrealized fear
because there are parking spaces and parking lots all over the damn place,
which is surprising since I am right smack between district and superior courts
in a rather … (shall I just say shady?) … eclectic
area. I park in a lot that the map
claims is near the museum, directly behind the YMCA on a side street. The lot is free!
So far, so good.
I try to follow a guy out
of the lot who appears to be carrying an art portfolio. His apparel is kind of folksy with a
combination of artsy and fartsy, so I figure he must be going to the
Mattatuck. I get sidetracked making sure
my windows are up and the car is locked.
When I look up again, Creative Guy has disappeared, but I swear I see
his scarf trailing to the left around a building. Figuring I’m good to go, I also head left
through the side alley along the YMCA.
I immediately encounter a
beautiful building with intricate Corinthian columns, huge ornate doors, and
stained glass. It’s beautiful, it’s
majestic, it’s stunningly artistic. I
excitedly climb the granite stairs out front, enter the palatial foyer, and
read the giant sign:
CONFESSIONS.
Confessions? Holy shit, I’ve walked smack into a
church. Not just any church, mind
you. No, I’ve entered the holy mother of all churches: The
Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. Crap,
crap, crap! I’ve got to get out of here
before someone holy sees me and tries to get me to confess, and then I’ll be
responsible for the building falling down and the bleeding of holy ears from my
litany of ill repute. Right now the only
thing I want to confess is that I’m lost.
I hustle out of the
Basilica just as the bells start chiming the hour, furthering scary the
buhjeezus out of me. I now wonder if the
artsy-looking guy I saw earlier might be a priest or something. Maybe he’s the devil because he has simply
vaporized. I hurriedly head back the way
I came, head to the right this time, and spot a rather modern looking brick
building with the giant, colorful sign “Mattatuck” hanging from its front. Apparently, actually reading signs is too
obvious for someone like me.
I enter the Mattatuck
(right before the busload of children arrives) and try to pay the gentleman at
the desk. Instead, he starts telling me
all about the two special exhibits they have going on in addition to their
regular museum. This is all wonderful,
except that I am having a major hot flash right there standing across the desk
from him. He doesn’t seem to notice my
red face nor the sweat beading up and cascading down my face, and he just …
keeps … on … talking. Finally, I buy an
admission ticket, get a word in, and ask if it’s okay to take pictures of the
artwork with my cell phone if I keep the flash off.
“No,” he explains, “because
we don’t own these pictures. They’re on
loan.” Oh. Okay.
You own the rest of the museum, all the historical artifacts. I mean, seriously, don’t be a dick about
it. Suddenly he adds, “Do you smell
FISH?”
Oh my god. I’m having a hot flash, but I showered this
morning before I left the house. Did I
forget deodorant? Am I emitting some
sulfurous stench? Have I turned into the
old lady in the nursing home who always smells like peepee? I am momentarily flustered and stammer, “Um …
no …”
Actually, now that he
mentions it, the museum reeks.
“Someone cooked fish
earlier, and my coworker says it still smells in here, but I can’t smell
anything. Do you smell FISH?” he
repeats.
It’s not me! Thank you, Yardley English Lavender; I don’t
smell like old ladies nor fish, at least, not of which I am aware. “Er, maybe a little bit,” I lie, then add, “but
it’s really not noticeable.”
Before entering the
regular part of the museum, I tour the two small galleries of on-loan
works. The first room has photographs in
monster size by Avery Danziger, whose exhibit is entirely on The Gate to Hell, which is a 230-feet
wide fire-breathing crater in the midst of the Karakum Desert in northern Turkmenistan. I’ll be honest with you, I can’t keep up with
the changing countries in Eurasia anymore; I don’t even know where Turkmenistan
is. I look this information up and
discover it used to be Turkmenia, which doesn’t even begin to frigging help
me.
According to the pamphlet,
Russian oil workers and geologists were
working a site dig when they hit some pressurized water and then massive
quantities of natural gas, which they ignited, assuming it would burn off eventually. Well, forty-three years later, the damn thing
is still on fire because only a dumb-ass would believe that throwing a match
into a huge-ass crater full of gas is a sound and intelligent maneuver.
Anyway, this guy Danziger
has taken over fifteen-hundred images of the place, and a handful are on
display here in beckoning old Waterbury, Connecticut. These images are fascinating and eerie and
somewhat catastrophic. The place has
been called Door to Hell as well as
the name given to the artist’s show, The
Gate to Hell. Either way, I feel a
little bit like I might be there between the hot flash, the fishy stench, and
the sudden arrival of the forty or so elementary students who pour out of the
bus and into the gallery to avoid the rain outside and to be the first one
through the doorway, because we all know how important it is to eight year olds
to be first, first, first!
Really, I don’t mind
sharing the space with them as long as I don’t hear a single one of those
little shits whisper, “Did you get a sniff of that strange lady over
there? She stinks … like FISH!”
(More Waterbury museum
tales to come; tomorrow, the second gallery.
Don’t hold your breath, though … unless you smell that disgusting fish,
then you should totally hold your breath.)
