INSERT TITLE HERE

Pike Place Market, June 6.

Saturday Abby and I went downtown and finally got to The Frye. We tried to go last summer during Pride and decided that was dumb. We tried to go a couple of more times last summer, but it never happened.The Frye is free. I've been walking past it for over 45 years and weirdo me never bothered to go. I was curious, but younger me didn't bother. Weirdo. 

Given that Abby is entering her third year leading tours at MHCAM (where she just got a promotion!), I was especially excited to go. She could explain to this Philistine art that I may find inaccessible. Mostly, I just sounded like a boomer complaining about lazy millennials as I made fun of the installation. I tried to keep my mouth shut. I didn't take a picture, not because I think you need to go see the art for itself, but because I don't typically take pictures of garbage. I should have, I doubt you'll likely believe that 10 inches of cassette tape mangled and scrunched and put on a canvas, framed and given a label. That was the whole thing. I don't care what your average M.F.A. says, art accessibility is important--hardly a controversial take. There has to be a happy medium between paint by numbers and the yellow pee-reeking pee-covered urinal I once saw hanging on a wall at SAM, a wall not in or attached to a bathroom, instead as part of an installation in public gallery. This may not be true, but I remember that the card under I prefer the crumpled tape to the urinal, only because there is no smell.  Otherwise, garbage is garbage. 

I don't hate modern art as a religion. In fact I am no expert of any sort, nor even a neophyte. I like what I like. But who is going to be moved by crumpled tape? Or brought to tears by the brilliance of making simulcra of a 1980s gas station bathroom in Jersey? But I don't begrudge or hate complexity. I just feel that the more art becomes complex, the more it becomes only the realm of the rich and educated, where only the elite can understand art. the less relevance it has. I swear I love all sorts of risk-takers from Van Gogh to Haring and from Haring to Basquiat. Its no blanket condemnation.  At the Frye, the current installation was fascinating. Tom Lloyd was a true pioneer in the use of electric light as art. 

Tom Lloyd creation.

 It is rudimentary technology, car lights, made into something interesting. As an art pioneer and black arts activist, he deserves accolades. It is at least accessible, isn't it? I could likely recreate the image to the right today using spare balloons left over from a shut down Party City. This is light years better than framed crumpled tape with a clever name. Still, it isn't Jacob Lawrence or Gustav Klimt. Abby's view is that art is open to interpretation, and scoffs at my disdain for putting garbage behind glass and displaying it proudly. If I do that at home, would you call me  a genius or a fool? I do love the standing collection of realist art, much of which is inspired by the Romantic movement. Call me old school, Eurocentric, a curmudgeon. I would deny one of those accusations but would admit that since I began going to art museums--all hail the original SAM at Volunteer Park--I have been bitching about contemporary art. It was a different Seattle in 1990. I went into an abandoned building in Pioneer Square in 1990 to investigate reports it that had been taken over by a Cornish art student. The good-sized floor of the bldg auditorium (it had once been a union hall) had fallen into the old Seattle underground (the building is near the old and defunct Iron Horse Restaurant and Seattle Lighting . The ceiling of the hall was covered in tin cans, literally thousands of them  Dining room chairs hung from the ceiling, and an alter stood on the stage. The whole thing creeped me out, looking like the realized nightmare of a madman. Some would call it art. I call it bullshit. Happy ending, we kicked the artist out. The building, still falling apart, sits empty even to this day. 

Anyway, after taking the train and walking up Cherry to the Frye, the two of us walked over to the Pike Place Market, just in time for the cruise ship rush--made worse because that fickle stranger rain had driven everyone to shelter. We don't really talk about any serious issue when we are out--or even when we are home. Instead, I spend my time thinking up and spewing bad puns or annoying tales, and she comes back with a snark game that would shame Don Rickles and Paul Lynde. 

 

The place was havoc. We passed by Three Girls Bakery. There was next to nothing--really--in their display case. I stopped and talked to the woman behind the counter. To say she was a little dismayed would be less than accurate. We braved the throngs, bought some books at the comic shop, and then headed back to the train. It was a lovely day, all told.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Its all downhill from here. 

I saw two doctors last week. Both were thrilled--I am not exaggerating--at how well I am doing. All my numbers look fabulous--even some that have never responded to drugs. The cardiologist, who swears
a lot--albeit only when talking about Mayor Wilson and taxes (don't ask), was shocked and happy. He asked me to rejoin cardiac rehab, which I left some years ago because of chest pain. Now, with that resolved, I can get 36 weeks of supervised workouts (with nurses as personal trainers). Not a bad gig. My family doctor kept looking at my  in my chart, reading my numbers out loud and commenting on my weight loss. I have been seeing her since Jenny was alive, so she has seen me at my unhealthiest, and apparently now my healthiest. My relief is palpable. 27 lbs. and change have gone missing and even my knees--one of which is still arthritic--feel better.