Ear Plugs

It is a truth universally acknowledged that people save the dumbest things they have to say for a crowded museum exhibition. I found this so appallingly and sonically clear this past Sunday, when I found myself at the MOMA, profoundly hungover, possibly still drunk, on the most crowded day of the year. This locale is at the very bottom of the list of places I expected to find myself that day: Bellevue, yes. A line snaking outside a city block on midtown in driving rain, bumped, jostled, and molested by European tourists? No ma’am.
 
But after sleeping three jolty hours, taking care of my horrible children, and struggling over simple arithmetic at brunch (and not even around paying the bill-- the question was “how many people are in your party?”), when Zoë said “Georgia O’Keefe,” I said, “fuck it, let’s go.” This clarified several things: 1. How much I love Zoë 2. Indeed I was still drunk 3. The fact that when you have small children the way you feel has no bearing at all on what you are able to do. I feel like shit all the time and find myself doing far less appealing things, like feigning enthusiasm at the playground while my kids disregard their bikes and balls in favor of trash and excrement.   
 
The O’Keefe exhibit is small but mighty, full of early career watercolors and pastels. I highly recommend going when the sun has magnetized the visiting hoards to take selfies in the bike lane of the Brooklyn Bridge.  But frankly no matter when you go you will get an earful of nonsense because the unspoken coda to Sarte’s maxim is “Hell is other people (at museums).” The clientele come with their own bespoke flavors of hell:—the Germans with knapsacks full of rain ponchos and guide books and trail mix and an obedience for rules but not for personal space; the first date art critic.

But no one grabs my ire more than elder whites who have confused the sacred gallery halls for their personal kaffeeklatsch. This Sunday I heard one woman in off-brand Eileen Fisher drapery remark to her companion, “Some things grab me and some things don’t.” Peter Schjedahl, move over!
 
I experienced this oratorical stream of boomer consciousness on full display at the Edward Hopper exhibit at the Whitney. I brought in on myself, as I visited at 11 a.m. on a Wednesday in December, along with NJ Transit trains worth of retirees taking in a museum and some holiday shopping. I had been en route to quarterly Botox from my provider who works out of a vaginal rejuvenation office, wears clothing that often reveals the bottom of her breasts, and accepts only cash. I got a phone call from the office manager (her mother) that she was running TWO! HOURS! BEHIND! SCHEDULE! And I had smartly reserved the first appointment of the day, so riddle me that. I was already en route to Manhattan, so I found myself at the Hopper exhibit with $500 cash on my person.
 
The pandemic has not been kind to anyone’s mental health but for our elders it seems to have obliterated the very concept of How We Behave In Private vs. How We Behave In Public. I stepped into a sea of seniors careening into one another, pressing their noses to the canvases, fishing for their readers in the deep recesses of WNYC tote bags, testing their cellphone ringtones, fielding spam robo calls, and I got the particulars of one woman’s trip to the vet with her dog, along with the dog’s current medication regimen. Before getting pushed aside by a geriatric elbow, I’d look into Hopper's stark portraiture of urban loneliness and alienation and think if only.
 
That’s why I recommend: ear plugs.
 
But PLOT TWIST only for sleeping! I am fully addicted to Mack’s Ear Plugs and use them every night—it’s very sexy, ask my husband. Were I tasked with choosing three items bring to a desert island I’d take my earplugs and say I’m good.
 
Ear plugs are a must for slumber, but the agony and ecstasy of going to a museum is for hearing people’s inane blatherings, which, curiously, is almost never about the art itself. A museum provides a very concentrated locale for extracting bits of overheard, decontextualized dialogue. If you're not eavesdropping, why are you even here?! For the "art"? I recommend conceiving of the price of admission as minutes of spying, i.e. the calculus= $25 ticket divided by 90 minutes = ok you know I'm not good at math but a good value???

And granted, hearing anything anyone says out of context almost always sounds stupid. But sometimes it is gold. My friends Sally and Ben once overheard through their bathroom air vent their upstairs neighbors chanting “butt shots!!!” followed by cheering. Inquired one guest: “Do I need to take my socks off?” That bit of dialogue, my friends, is art at its finest.
 
Might I also throw in the Hopper:
 
Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy is an atmospheric addition to my favorite genre: non-scary thriller
 
The O’Keefe exhibit, naturally

The Jest Murder Mystery Players put on an unforgettable performance chez moi on Saturday, a Real Housewives dream come true. As they self-described: “We aren’t the best but we are the funniest.”

Fletcher Huntley’s beautiful award-winning essay
 
And his sister Swan has written an indispensable and hilarious guide on one of my favorite topics: BAD MOODS!!!! Pre-order here. She’s also a great follow on the ‘gram.
 
Supporting the WGA strike!
 
This gem from everyone’s favorite sex idiot

“The Work of Happiness” by May Sarton

My Court TV appearance!
 
 Where are you eavesdropping these days?