The Dubious Freeness of Free Things
Sep. 4th, 2009 02:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akirluLast week Brown Bear Car Wash had their customer appreciation car wash day, and so I asked Hal to take my car in for a tunnel wash. The car's filthiness was getting epic. Hal went ahead and took his car in as well -- the nearest participating Brown Bear was less than a mile away, after all.
Yeah. So, neither of us had ever used a tunnel/automated car wash before. Seems these things are a bit more violent than I would have supposed. Both cars are appreciably cleaner, which is good. And it turns out that a basic tunnel wash is quite cheap, so we could probably afford to do this again before the next customer appreciation day. On the other hand both cars came home with an assortment of electrical ailments they hadn't previously had. These seem to have mostly self-healed. On the other hand, the weather stripping on my passenger door is hanging loose, now (this was starting before, but it's a lot worse now) and my antenna is just plain gone. Sheared right off at the base. Bother. I bet a new antenna will cost more than a $6 car wash.
Then last night Hal & I met up at the Seattle Art Museum because it was First Thursday, when SAM has free admission for the evening. We hadn't been to SAM since it re-opened from its renovation. The new incarnation is a mixed bag, as far as I can see.
I do like the colorful, multi-referential PoMo tile work on the outside. It looks spiffy. And it was good to see a few old favorite art works back in their rightful places. Other aspects of the visit were not so positive.
For one thing, it seems that some shriveled soul on the Friends board is bent on punishing First Thursday visitors for taking advantage of the waived admission fee. The minute I got in the door I was assaulted by an earsplitting wall of sound: some sort of dribbly, directionless semi-flaccid contempo-jazz, played at several notches above 11. This physically palpable invasion of my sonic space actually got louder and thumpier the closer I got to the ticketing desk. Yes, there was a live jazz combo playing in the two-storey main entrance lobby, with the volume cranked up so that no gallery in the building, however remote, should not be blessed with its share of the, for want of a better word, music. I conclude that this is a regular feature, since one veteran who saw my crossing the lobby with my hands clapped over my ears grinned, pointed to her head, and mouthed the words "ear plugs" -- which I saw she was indeed wearing. Smart woman. Then came the weird trek to find the museum shop which, like everything else on the main entry "level" is a half-flight of stairs up or down from everything else on that "level", and also around a curved corner, so as to be out of direct line-of-sight. Accessibility has got to be nightmarish.
For another, now that the museum supposedly has more space, it appears to be displaying less of the collections. I dunno, maybe they have bunches of stuff that used to be on the 3rd floor up on higher levels, but the galleries I saw seemed to belong to some brand new, baby art museum that hadn't gotten its training wheels off or had time to buy any art. I hadn't realized that the point in having more space was being able to leave larger voids between individual works.
And then there was the Wyeth show, which was very much of the same philosophy as the museum's display space in general. It was a set of perfectly nice Andrew Wyeths, as far as they went, but that wasn't very far. Which is to say that this special exhibit, for which the museum normally charges separate admission, comprised seven canvases. Seven whole canvases. As Hal said, impressive if you're talking Vermeers...
Feh. I want my old SAM back.
Yeah. So, neither of us had ever used a tunnel/automated car wash before. Seems these things are a bit more violent than I would have supposed. Both cars are appreciably cleaner, which is good. And it turns out that a basic tunnel wash is quite cheap, so we could probably afford to do this again before the next customer appreciation day. On the other hand both cars came home with an assortment of electrical ailments they hadn't previously had. These seem to have mostly self-healed. On the other hand, the weather stripping on my passenger door is hanging loose, now (this was starting before, but it's a lot worse now) and my antenna is just plain gone. Sheared right off at the base. Bother. I bet a new antenna will cost more than a $6 car wash.
Then last night Hal & I met up at the Seattle Art Museum because it was First Thursday, when SAM has free admission for the evening. We hadn't been to SAM since it re-opened from its renovation. The new incarnation is a mixed bag, as far as I can see.
I do like the colorful, multi-referential PoMo tile work on the outside. It looks spiffy. And it was good to see a few old favorite art works back in their rightful places. Other aspects of the visit were not so positive.
For one thing, it seems that some shriveled soul on the Friends board is bent on punishing First Thursday visitors for taking advantage of the waived admission fee. The minute I got in the door I was assaulted by an earsplitting wall of sound: some sort of dribbly, directionless semi-flaccid contempo-jazz, played at several notches above 11. This physically palpable invasion of my sonic space actually got louder and thumpier the closer I got to the ticketing desk. Yes, there was a live jazz combo playing in the two-storey main entrance lobby, with the volume cranked up so that no gallery in the building, however remote, should not be blessed with its share of the, for want of a better word, music. I conclude that this is a regular feature, since one veteran who saw my crossing the lobby with my hands clapped over my ears grinned, pointed to her head, and mouthed the words "ear plugs" -- which I saw she was indeed wearing. Smart woman. Then came the weird trek to find the museum shop which, like everything else on the main entry "level" is a half-flight of stairs up or down from everything else on that "level", and also around a curved corner, so as to be out of direct line-of-sight. Accessibility has got to be nightmarish.
For another, now that the museum supposedly has more space, it appears to be displaying less of the collections. I dunno, maybe they have bunches of stuff that used to be on the 3rd floor up on higher levels, but the galleries I saw seemed to belong to some brand new, baby art museum that hadn't gotten its training wheels off or had time to buy any art. I hadn't realized that the point in having more space was being able to leave larger voids between individual works.
And then there was the Wyeth show, which was very much of the same philosophy as the museum's display space in general. It was a set of perfectly nice Andrew Wyeths, as far as they went, but that wasn't very far. Which is to say that this special exhibit, for which the museum normally charges separate admission, comprised seven canvases. Seven whole canvases. As Hal said, impressive if you're talking Vermeers...
Feh. I want my old SAM back.
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