We drove this morning over to Fort Worth to visit the Kimbell Art Museum,where we got to see the great Impressionist exhibition. Contrary to my normal expectation, the accompanying sound device was neither overly pedantic nor overly inane. Even the capacity crowd appropriate to the last weekend of a great exhibit was not unduly irritating, as the crowd had a kind of Red Sea flight from Egypt thing going, clearing from around key paintings if I only waited them out--curiously, Manet as well as Monet's waterlilies excepted. My favorite dialogue was the thirtysomething mother who explained to her blonde toddler that they must move on "because the Manet's are not Mommy's favorite art". My second favorite dialogue was the fellow art patron who recognized the picture of the carnivorous dinosaur arcocanthosaurus on my t-shirt. We are the stuff of which public radio satire is made..
Our part of Texas rarely has a lot of Autumn color, because we rarely have much cold weather when the leaves are changing. This results in individual trees changing without the requisite chorus effect. A cold snap early this week, however, meant that our drive to Fort Worth included entire riparian sections of oak and sycamore trees turned all at once--hardly a New England, but perhaps a new girl of an Autumn. The weather was in the 70s--a lovely day in every respect.
The Kimball and the excellent Modern Art Museum are adjacent, and their parking lots were full. We had to park in the Will Rogers Auditorium, and walk across to the museums. When we returned to the Will Rogers, we found that the National Appaloosa Horse competition was in the equestrian center. We did not go inside, but we did walk by tons of lovely Appaloosa horses. One young woman wore a grim post-show look while walking her horse. Another cowgirl, a bit longer in the tooth, called out to her "if I had a horse like yours, I'd be smilin'"--and as you might reckon, the younger woman smiled. If I had had her horse, I would have smiled, too, even if it finished in last place.
I want to go back to see a horse show in full. I read that the National Paint Horse show is also this month, which may provide an opportunity.
Over in Barn Number 1, a huge flea market was in session. One cowboy walked by, rifle in hand, and I thought "only in Texas" to myself, although actually only in about a dozen states would be a more apt, if less colorful, phrase. We resisted purchasing anything at the flea market and headed back to Allen.
Late this afternoon we went to see the new Mike Leigh film, "Happy Go Lucky". The movie is delightful--it's a pleasure to see a movie about trying to do good presented in a non-treachly way. If its cinematic world was not quite real, it was nonetheless more real than most cable news commentary I watch these days. My wife noted that a patron or two she overhead expressed frustration that the movie lacked direction. Although I am not one to 'call out' directors, I don't really think of Mike Leigh films as the place to go for taut formulaic plotting. I think that Leigh has a gift for bringing out the best in younger actors, and in particularly in actresses. The film was interesting to see because it raised for me the question on my mind lately--doing the little bits of good that are before one to do.
We dined on sushi, and then came home, where I watched Texas Tech upset Texas in a college football game.
All in all, an interesting day. Tomorrow--a visit to King Tut.