Month: August 2006

An afternoon at the MoMA

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Perhaps I am starting to get comfortable again with museums, perhaps the Museum of Modern Art in New York City is just a really cool place to visit.

There was a big Dada exhibition at the MOMA: Sophie Taeuber, Marcel Duchamp, Jean Arp, Man Ray, Max Ernst, George Grosz and so many others. I wondered if Dada artists refused to take seriously art and power after World War I because they knew that no war or dictatorship is possible if people don’t take themselves and their leaders seriously. Alas, too many people took themselves, their nation, and their leader too seriously and the world was at war again.

The Paris section had a lot of interesting pieces. It made me remember of a high-school mate, whose nickname was Picabia, because he looked like French dadaist Francis Picabia (or was he a relative of Francis Picabia? I don’t remember). We were so cool and intellectual in high-school.

[Dont’ miss the instructions on how to make a fauxtogram]

Magritte at MOMA

There are so many famous paintings at MoMA, one after another; it feels like being on a ring with Cassius Clay, and getting one punch in the face after the other. You want to get closer to each painting and get something more from it; the feeling of the brush strokes, the depth, the smell, whatever essence was left by the painter. You want to know that being in the presence of these paintings is much more than looking at a picture of them.

Pollock, detail at MOMA

Because they don’t check your electronics, I had to walk around the museum with a white plastic bag that contained my iBook, iPod, Palm, and cell phone. The good and unusual thing is that they let you take pictures. Several people were taking pictures with their cell phone, so I started too.

Pollock, detail

This painting made me wonder: is it still art if it hurt your eyes when you look at it?

how long can you look at this painting

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Making peace with the voices in my head

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One of my first blog exchanges was with with Jory Des Jardin discussing how women’s heads (or at least our heads) seemed continuously busy in an inner dialog about what’s going on, what we should or should not do, what’s right and what’s wrong.

Often, these annoying inner voices are talking about us. Like in those embarrassing situations in which a group of people talk in third person about somebody who is in the room, our voices discuss our performance, appearance, or an inappropriate comment we just made. Sometimes it’s just one loud voice, either disappointed with us, angry with somebody else, or sweet talking us out of taking a responsibility or achieving a goal.

It’s not always bad, though. A few years ago, I was going to a doctor appointment by subway. I was worried about the results of a medical test and I was trying to distract myself looking at the few passengers on the train. Suddenly, somebody was with me. Not a real person, but a real presence. She looked at me smiling and she told me not to worry, that everything would be OK. And she was right. It turned out that everything was OK.

At that time I was reading a lot about Kwan Yin, so I felt that she was a Kwan Yin kind of presence, loving and compassionate—she who hears the the cries of the world—who was reassuring me.

Kwan Yin

It was a strange experience. I’m a secular person. I was raised catholic in a country were saints routinely talk to people, but no saint ever talked to me before. I am into Buddhism, which is a non-theistic religion, and rather into the godless Zen version than the god-full tibetan version. Yet, that day somebody sat with me on the train, smiled, and told me that everything would be OK.

Of course the most likely and skeptical interpretation is that it was just me. If it was, it was a very different me than the voices in my head that I usually have to listen to, day in and day out.

Yesterday, I had another unusual aural experience. I was climbing a very steep hill on my bike, a stretch of road that only rarely I can climb without dismounting my bike. And I heard this voice, out of the blue, saying: “You can do it.”

Now, my usual voices would have said something like: “I think this is enough, maybe you want to get off your bike before you fall down or have a heart attack.” But this voice, firm yet supportive, just said “You can do it.” And guess what, I did it.

I feel that I’m still with the after effects of that experience. It’s a sweet supportive feeling that makes me feel good, gives me permission to love myself, and believes that I can do it.

My familiar bickering voices mean well, in their own ways. They are there to act out my fear of failure. Debating forever what’s right and what’s wrong provides me with endless justifications for all my actions. It’s hard for me to deal with the idea that I failed and it was my fault. I’d rather drown any perception of failure with the thousand reasons why I made a certain choice. Perhaps my choice was wrong, but I was right to make it.

Deep inside, I know it would work much better to take a little bit of time to weight the options, consult with others, do what I think it’s best, and learn how to apologize if it turns out that my decision what not the right one. Because in the end, all that debating doesn’t seem to produce better decisions, just better justifications.

But these other voices, the good ones, the loving ones, the supportive ones, the voices who believe I can do it, those I don’t yet recognize as part of myself. They talk to me with a different voice, one that I’ve missed for a long, long time.