Interpretive Art: Dirty pictures or dirty minds? You be the judge

 "Do you want to drive into Manhattan and go to the Met today," Savannah asked. Oh my goodness. Would I EVER just get to curl up on her cramped couch and watch television! Yesterday she made me walk two miles and appreciate nature. Today, she wants to immerse me in art. I sighed as I slowly unfurled myself from her teeny-tiny love-seat. "We're going?" Sydney muttered, her head still buried in her pillow. "It's either the Met or Savannah's submarine museum," I whispered at her to which she frantically scrambled to her feet, stumbled down two flights of stairs, dove into the backseat of her sister's car, and immediately fell asleep for the two hour drive into the city.

Savannah carefully mapped out our abbreviated route of the Metropolitan Museum of Art because I tend to get a tad overwhelmed in there. We got lost in Asian art on our way to George Washington Crossing the Delaware. "You're oddly quiet," Savannah observed as I have a talent for locating a phallic rendering in practically every piece of art created. For some reason, I felt that making fun of Asian art was racist so I held my tongue until we entered early European art and then let fly. Political correctness is a b!t*$. I should be able to make fun of all cultures on an equal basis.

We found George and I was done. Ten years of teaching a lesson on this painting should have prepared me but I was wonder-struck by its size. The details drew me closer. I couldn't shut up. My classroom reproduction did not reveal the presence of a black soldier in the boat. I snapped a picture. And then another one. "Why did you take two pictures," Savannah asked, peering over my shoulder. "I accidentally zoomed in on Washington's junk," I explained. "That would be for an entirely different kind of lesson," Savannah agreed, nodding.

We lost Sydney for a bit. "Where are you?" she texted. "By the Penis and Medusa," I texted back. We love Greek and Roman art."Look at the size of that snake," I said, admiring the statue. A man sketching the sculpture glanced up as he put the finishing details on the gorgon's head. Savannah pulled me away before I could comment on the juxtaposition of the two heads. She hates it when I look smart.

We found Sydney in the armor gallery snapping a photograph of a young man who apparently didn't know how to take a selfie. We watched as he thanked her profusely, touched her arm, and then walked away. Oops. Wait. He's back. Can you believe it? He had "accidentally" deleted the first picture. Oh Sydney.

From there, we walked a few blocks over to the Neue Gallery to see the painting Woman in Gold featured in the film of the same name. We did not receive the warmest of welcomes as security apparently categorizes guests into either legitimate art apprecianto or posers who have seen the movie and just want a picture with the painting. Photography was not permitted and one guard, with no justification whatsoever, pegged me as a potential rule-breaker and wouldn't budge from his sentinel position by the painting. He would have saved me a whole lot of time, effort, and ten dollars if he had just told me that a reproduction was positioned by the potties for those so shallow that they HAD to have a picture. 

Since we had spent ten dollars anyway, we pretended to enjoy the art. Well...Sydney and I pretended. Savannah just pretended that she didn't know us. I entered a small gallery room with a herd of tiny Jewish grandmothers. We walked along a wall decorated with tastefully sketched nudes of the female form. Slowly the sketches began to evolve. "She's very nimble," I commented to my companions who had less and less to say as we walked the line between art and eroticism. "This must have been before the era of the disposable razor," I added helpfully. "Maybe she has eczema," I offered, trying to explain why a naked woman would scratch herself so enthusiastically. When the figure's hand disappeared altogether, I decided it was time to go look at a nice still-life of fruit. Unfortunately, I was so worked up by this time that I read too much into the placement of the banana and pears.

"Are you ready to go," Savannah asked. She had somehow skipped the scandalous room and wasn't feeling as traumatized as me. "Let's walk through Central Park and see Balto," I suggested. The memorial to the team of sled dogs delivering diphtheria medicine to Nome, Alaska would clear my mind and re-capture my child-like innocence. "That's one hung husky," I said, posing happily in front of the statue. "Great," grumbled Savannah, "we managed to take inappropriate pictures of Washington AND Balto in one day." "Inappropriate?" I said, "Why, we haven't even begun to scratch the surface."