Physical presence
Had a most interesting day yesterday at the Grammy Museum in downtown LA. My sister is in town, and my brother decided that this would make a nice excursion. I'm not usually a relic-viewer, and the Grammy Museum is a solid block of hype, which always makes me twitchy.
Still, I was fascinated - unexpectedly - by the costumes on display, because they gave a sense of physical presence: size, shape, bulk. John Lennon was very medium, almost slight compared to someone like Neil Diamond, whose costumes look like he's well over 6 feet tall. Jimi Hendrix was tall, though he didn't give the impression of size that I got from Diamond's outfits. (The one Elvis-suit there was so glammed up it was sort of hard to tell anything about the man's size or presence, only his taste - if you can call it taste - in clothing (if you can call it clothing).) In the Lennon exhibit also I had the weirdly exhilerating experience of actually reading a word in Japanese and knowing what it meant - there was a Japanese video about the song "Imagine," with Japanese subtitles on the interview, and I actually recognized - read - the word "shiroi" - "white." (Appropriately enough, given Lennon's aesthetics at the time he recorded the song).
The costumes reminded me of my favorite exhibit at Mount Vernon - the Houdon bust of Washington (done when he was 56 or 57), which is mounted on a plinth to put it at the level you'd see it if you were actually standing next to him. The effect of this is stunning - Washington was a TALL man, and by all accounts had enormous physical presence, false teeth notwithstanding. (And they were NOT, and never were, wood - which would have swelled out of shape after a few hours inside a mouth - though Paul Revere did make him a set of silver choppers, which must have been pretty startling when he smiled). I don't think he could have eaten wearing any of his several sets of false teeth.
On the subject of eating, our excursion unfortunately concluded in a Rapid Food Emporium near the Museum, where we had a very nice lunch... And where I can only assume that the kitchen staff did not exercise Due Diligence with cleaning prep surfaces after they'd prepped shrimp on them. I started getting sick within half an hour of reaching home, and spent a poor-quality night.
Still, I was fascinated - unexpectedly - by the costumes on display, because they gave a sense of physical presence: size, shape, bulk. John Lennon was very medium, almost slight compared to someone like Neil Diamond, whose costumes look like he's well over 6 feet tall. Jimi Hendrix was tall, though he didn't give the impression of size that I got from Diamond's outfits. (The one Elvis-suit there was so glammed up it was sort of hard to tell anything about the man's size or presence, only his taste - if you can call it taste - in clothing (if you can call it clothing).) In the Lennon exhibit also I had the weirdly exhilerating experience of actually reading a word in Japanese and knowing what it meant - there was a Japanese video about the song "Imagine," with Japanese subtitles on the interview, and I actually recognized - read - the word "shiroi" - "white." (Appropriately enough, given Lennon's aesthetics at the time he recorded the song).
The costumes reminded me of my favorite exhibit at Mount Vernon - the Houdon bust of Washington (done when he was 56 or 57), which is mounted on a plinth to put it at the level you'd see it if you were actually standing next to him. The effect of this is stunning - Washington was a TALL man, and by all accounts had enormous physical presence, false teeth notwithstanding. (And they were NOT, and never were, wood - which would have swelled out of shape after a few hours inside a mouth - though Paul Revere did make him a set of silver choppers, which must have been pretty startling when he smiled). I don't think he could have eaten wearing any of his several sets of false teeth.
On the subject of eating, our excursion unfortunately concluded in a Rapid Food Emporium near the Museum, where we had a very nice lunch... And where I can only assume that the kitchen staff did not exercise Due Diligence with cleaning prep surfaces after they'd prepped shrimp on them. I started getting sick within half an hour of reaching home, and spent a poor-quality night.
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