Whitney vs Whitney

It's a rainy day and I miss Albert and the old Whitney. We all went to the Armory where we were treated to 7 year old girls giving soliloquies as performance art. Actually it wasn't a soliloquy because periodically the seven year old would ask a strange, unanswerable question. Like:
"what is the relation between a sign and melancholy?"
Not making this up. Then she would stare at one person-in this case, me. Horrible. I wasn't going to offer up a fake attempt at an answer (like some other people), so I went with a sort of pensive far-away look, and a silent prayer (please stop, please stop...)
Then we listened to a piano playing itself under flashing lights while we were on a sort of grandstand that turned around and around.
As you all know, the Wehlen trio never misses this kind of thing-and we gaily ignore my mother mumbling why we can't just go to the Frick. "What's wrong with Rembrandt?"
I think we like it because unlike in California where judging is looked down upon (judgementally non judgemental) here in New York it's open season. Heather says she does this on the subway all the way home: judging other mothers (your child is up too late, she eats too much candy, she is a whiner..) She says its invigorating, and she gets off the train refreshed.  And no where is judging more high art than a contemporary museum. The old Whitney-God rest its soul- was our first stop every year. We looked at blank walls, we stared at blue dots, once we even stood under sacks of flour that were a copy of another show of sacks of flour-but therein apparently lay the art. The copying. It was dazzling.
But the best part was the dynamic of the people around you: people loving or hating it, or loving or hating other people who didn't get it, or people who just wanted a ho ho (they sold a version of them in the cafe). It was a judgement free-free zone. Judge way! look down on other  people!
The new Whitney is stunning: perfectly located downtown in the meat packing or Chelsea or whatever that is, with indoor outdoor flow, and happy light and architecture. It is so happy that it is like you see the exhibits together with your fellow man-as if you are all friends. It's almost boring-so much so that I got an itch to play an old fav game of mine: Flip the Orthodox Jew.
A secret shicksa game where we try to make a little eye contact with them...rattle their cage a bit. Oh don't judge! we country club types have so few opportunities to play the role of femme fatale. (I am wearing white tennis shoes for God's sake.) And lord knows we don't want their mothers to actually die of a heart attack. We just want to see if we can give them something to think about on the way home.
Anyway I like the new Whitney-it's impossible not to. I just wish the old one could have stayed for the days when you want to drink and scoff; the place for a rainy day and a rainy mood.

I tried to get T and F to the transportation museum, so we could see the story of the subway and the bridges, and Thomas actually said that between that idea and the cranberry juices, he was worried about me.
?? Are you kidding? who wouldn't want to do that? I told him Amy would have gone with..and he said: yes I know.
Pray for us bloggers- the crossing begins tomorrow!


xx