Hanging out at the stone lions’ place

• I’m was in Chicago for the day yes­ter­day, and Greg-the-husband had given me a won­drous gift of time. And so I found myself at 10 am on a rainy, cold morn­ing hud­dled in the door­way of what I think is the best art museum I’ve ever seen — the Art Insti­tute in Chicago.

  When Greg let me out of the car, we didn’t know that it didn’t open till 10:30. Who would have thought a per­son would have to wait so long to get an eye­ful of pure cul­ture? I’m sure the gallery pow­ers know best, but it did mean that I was holed up in the big stone door­way with other hap­less souls, look­ing at the back of one of the mag­nif­i­cent stone lions that look out over the Michi­gan Avenue traf­fic. I’m a real afi­cionado of stone lions, and these two are some of my favorites. (This post­card from the gift shop shows one get­ting a wash.) Still, the view left some­thing to be desired, and …
  
  … along with other art-lovers, I was hop­ing that the piti­less peo­ple inside would cut us a break. Those of us stand­ing in the door­way came to a pact that we would tell them that if they let us in, we wouldn’t look at any­thing for fif­teen minutes.

  “Even bet­ter,” said the grandma who brought her three-year-old grand­son, “They should just open the gift shop at 9:30, and open the gallery at 10:30.”

  All of us — the rainy, sod­den souls of the north-most door­way — solemnly agreed that that was a stroke of mar­ket­ing genius that they would’ve been well-advised to consider.

  But it was the actions of the three-year-old press­ing his face against the glass that finally melted their cold hearts and made the guards open the door for us four min­utes ahead of time. We filed in and hon­or­ably abstained from look­ing for four min­utes. Or at least I did — I’m not my brother’s keeper after all.

  It was just a won­der­ful day. If I can find some time, I hope to write about it as an arti­cle, because it’ll take too much space for an entry. At the end of the day, back out in the rain and wait­ing at the curb­side for Greg, I was able to get a bet­ter view of the lion and do it a lit­tle more jus­tice. I’m sure I looked like a doof stand­ing out in the rain star­ing up at the lion’s face (though appar­ently I had a magic abil­ity to sum­mon cabs by so doing, because quite a few pulled over for me at that time). But it’s the clos­est I’ll prob­a­bly ever come to suf­fer­ing for art, so I’m really get­ting off pretty lightly.

  
  

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  April 23rd, 2005 | Grace | 1752No Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fthis-side-of-glory.com%2Flife%2Fjust-a-slice-of-heaven%2Fhanging-out-at-the-stone-lions-place%2FHanging+out+at+the+stone+lions%26%23039%3B+place2005-04-23+15%3A55%3A18Gracehttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.this-side-of-glory.com%2Farchives%2F2005%2F04%2F23%2Fhanging-out-at-the-stone-lions-place%2F |

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