the museum kid

(As told by Sarah)

This afternoon we went to the new Modernism show at the Corcoran. Hyper-major, as they say.

Simon was quite taken with many things in the exhibition, especially the films--excerpts from Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times" for example. Wandering around in one of the galleries, he notes that the paintings and sculpture (all depicting gears and machines) resembled the gears in the film. Apparently the curators are doing their jobs, since he got at least one of their "take-home messages." (Modernists liked machines).

An older, well-dressed woman perusing the gallery at length with her friend, takes note of Simon and smiles, but only slightly.

We move into the next gallery. Simon notes the dates on the different chairs.

Simon: this chair is from 1928. This chair is from 1927.
Me: Which one is older?
Simon: this one. It's also the cooler one, because it's in a circle, and it's red.

Simon moves on to look at the dates on the other things in the room.

The well-dressed woman from the previous gallery comes up to me, looks over at Simon, asks how old he is.
I tell her, she nods her head very seriously and looks me right in the eyes.

"You are doing your work," she says.