Yesterday I brought a group of people to the Musem of Modern Art in New York City. Due to minor mishaps I had two extra tickets.

This is not a huge deal and I immediately considered just writing them both off as donations, it's a worthy cause after all. But we did decide to try offering them to folks in the ticket line, for something less than original price. Waste not, want not. Habits of a lifetime.

Nobody was interested. As someone in our group pointed out, this could be because they didn't know if I was honest, and that's a good point, although it's also easily solved: come with me when I go through the entrance; see if you get in or not; pay me then.

But what stopped me from even suggesting that was the looks people gave me. They weren't doubting looks. They were incredulous, snooty, dismissive looks.

You speak of MONEY, sir? You disturb the AESTHETIC of this LOBBY? How GAUCHE! This is an ART MUSEUM!

These are the same people who probably wrote poignant tweets when they encountered the Minimum Wage Machine, a performance piece in which anyone can turn a crank to produce a trickle of coins, which is exciting until you realize they are being disbursed at the rate of $8 per hour and gradually become depressed by the knowledge of how little that is.

Screw those people and their faux concern for the truly poor and their open disdain for the middle class. I'm glad I made them see me and my Target clothes and my perfectly good extra tickets.

(Yes, I'm sure I'm misjudging somebody in that line, but they'll live. Very well.)


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5/24 '15 11 Comments
Is MOMA even an "Art Museum," though? I'm not an art snob, I swear (I really dig MOMA), but I feel like it's become just a checkmark on a tourist's guide of THINGS TO DO IN NEW YORK. At my most cynical, I fear it's a big stack of paintings on top of an overpriced gift shop.
Wow, I wish I'd been there for this. You just had your own Occupy MOMA performance art exhibit and nobody juried it.
Seriously, I should have made a poster or something. Right now the sixth floor is showing a Yoko Ono retrospective. In 1971 she announced a show at MOMA, then when no one could find her work or any official acknowledgement of it, she explained she'd released flies in the lobby. Give it 44 years and that turns into a curated show of all your shitty hair-locket poems.
I could come back and do this with a cameraperson.
But then it would be planned. It's still tempting, though.
Jeez, you'd think any New Yorkers in line (or on line, as they say) would have taken you up on it just for the time saving factor, never mind the money.
That's an excellent point. It is quite possible that my read of their reactions was accurate, but none of them were from NYC.
WATCH YOUR STEP IN NEW YORK, MARABEL - THE WHOLE PLACE IS FULL OF HUCKSTERS AND CRIMINALS WHO WILL TAKE YOU FOR EV'RY HARD EARNED DOLLAR YOU HAVE IF YOU LET 'EM! WATCH OUT ESPECIALLY FOR ANYONE WHO TRIES TO SELL YOU ANYTHING ON THE STREET OR IN A MUSEUM LOBBY.
Point. I probably looked even shadier than I realize.
You weren't wearing that hat in your profile picture, were you? :-)