High Times

We went to High Art Museum in Atlanta yesterday. We saw the Louvre Exhibit, Phase 2 and a jazz concert.

It was interesting to see what new fashions Spring sprung on us. The High Museum is where you will see the latest in fashions. It appears that pedal pushers have made comeback. I heard them called pedal pushers and heard them called calypso pants – it is pants that end near the knees. They looked okay until I saw a middle aged lady wearing them – she looked as if she was trying to keep up with her daughter – well, why not?

This exhibit, phase 2, as I call it, was mostly tapestries, ceramic art, hand made brass objects, hand made tea sets and mostly practical – or not so practical things the elite used on their trips…. You don’t expect them to have their tea in just an ordinary tea cup do you?

The tour ear phones also told of the mood of France was at the time – King Louie the XVI and his lovely bride Marie Antoinette were collecting a huge amounts of luxuries for their own use – they were spending more than they were earning, if you can imagine a King earning his keep.

And then when the masses were starving and Louie were wallowing in more riches and than the country could afford she said of the masses, “So? Let them eat cake!” Cake meaning bread… day old bread. She should have added “with rich icing and ribs and prime ribs!”

Part of the exhibit was still there. The paintings were still there that the gift shop had calendars, books, and note cards…. I can see how the retail selling of these items would be weak, if one hadn’t just looked at the real stuff displayed…. So, maybe it was more of an economic move – or none move.

I took plenty of pictures of the Howard Finster exhibit. This time I got a camera permit to take non-flash pictures of the museum’s permanent items, but even then, I could tell the guard was getting nervous watching me. I’ll probably show some of those pictures after I go through them.

Interesting, one time we sat down in a big open corridor just to rest a minute and I noticed several girls about age 10 or 12 were amazed at a glass exhibit across from we were sitting. They were part of a school tour with other students and teachers near by. Then, several other girls came and looked at the glass exhibit and walked away with smirks on their faces.

Then two boys came and looked.



I couldn’t hold my curiosity back any longer, I got and looked at the details of the glass art. The blue glass object is a nude man. In front of him a glass ball has been tastefully placed… but if you bend your head and look around the glass ball you see the blue man is well endowed.

At 5 o’clock were the Friday jazz concert. The sitting area for listeners of the concert were tables with about 4 chairs and around the edge of the room were cushioned things almost like futons to sit on. We had to get in a long line to wait for them to let down the rope for people to enter the area to get a seat. When they did, we all rushed frantically for a good seat – it reminded me of a Land Rush in the 19th century.

This picture is the seating taken from the top level.


We got to one of the futon things around the edge.

The jazz was good and smooth with a few drum and/or horn tricks from time to time. More than the music it was interesting to watch the people. That is the social place to be, the 5 o’clock Friday Jazz thing was the “in” thing. There were the dignified, the sheik, the sophisticated, all making their fashion statements and to be seen.

The "Land Rush" kind of seating presented a problem. How can you be fashionably late if you have to get on Mark, Set, Go! to set a seat? You don't. You come in fashionably late and stand around in a sophisticated, like you don't mind standing, blocking MY VIEW.

I started watching people close to me. At a table there was a mother and her son who looked to be about ten years old. She seemed to carry on a good rapport with her son and she looked him straight in his face when she communicated and her face was very rubberize, - very expressive. I concluded that she was teaching him by showing how to be very sociable in facial and body language – not unlike a mother bear teaching her cub how to catch a salmon swimming upstream (I have been watching too many nature specials on TV).

A half of a Diet Coke poured into a plastic container cost me $2.00 at the makeshift bar. How sophisticated is that for me to throw away a wad of money like that? I hope I impressed someone.