Dear Diary:
Getting It Right
You know what they say: if you want something done, ask a busy man. It’s true! I keep asking myself to do things, and I keep doing them.
But enough about me. Too much about me, really, even if this is my diary.
I was terribly fâché at the Museum today. No, this paragraph is not about me. It’s about the imprisonment of the Museum’s American paintings and sculpture, including the Sargents, apparently, until 2011! I’ll bet that they didn’t tell that to Michelle Obama before she spoke at the re-opening of the American wing. If you want to see a lot of pots and side chairs and period upholstery and the world’s most space-wasting diorama, then the American Wing is open. If you’re interested in art, it’s not.
Anyway, I led pour Jean Ruaud on a merry chase through the maze of furniture displays, thwarted wherever a door to the sought-for galleries ought to have been open. Signs announcing the “delay” were posted at several points, but I didn’t read them, or couldn’t accept them, until I’d given up.
We did see the Francis Bacon show, which, for all the gory grimness of the painter’s subject matter, is very beautiful. There is something awfully grand about the triptychs that are framed in serious gold mouldings. Stupidly, I had not realized what a systematic appropriator Bacon was. I’ll be back.
In what was left of the afternoon, I finished the Book Review review that I began in the morning, did all the usual daily stuff for the DB, tidied the place up a bit, and then got dressed and went out to dinner. We were the guests of old friends, a couple of smart lawyers who, in the past, have, quite inadvertently, sometimes made me feel that I’m an underemployed slacker. Well, not anymore! All the reading that I do for the Daily Office means that I am never at a loss for topics of interest to thoughtful people. Even better, I understand (and can follow) almost anything that the thoughtful people want to talk about. (Can you tell that I’ve been reading Lord Chesterfield?) Our friends may still think that I ought to get a real job, but I had a very good time.