Contemporary art is fun, fun, fun, scary, fun

At LACMA today I reintroduced Miriam to Richard Serra's Sequence, which we had seen when we were in LA in May. As before, the enormous room in which this enormous sculpture resides was entirely empty, so I parked the umbrella stroller and diaper bag on the side and tried to get her to scamper through among the curves. I had the idea that contemporary art, at least installation art, could be fun, and that massive, architectural-scale sculptures could be fun even for babies. We could run around and through it and play with the echoes and lie down on the floor next to it and see the world from another angle entirely.

She didn't like it. So much so that as we approached she grabbed on to me and hid her head in my leg and whimpered until I picked her up. Still, we walked through, into the two circle rooms and through the S passage and as before I loved it and wanted to touch it and take that texture home with me and wondered why all the architectural spaces of my life are rectilinear and even the Gehry or Saarinen buildings haven't swooped and taken my breath away the way this double curve of angled rusted steel has and does and hopefully will forever more. I'll keep trying it on Miriam as she grows.

Yesterday's run destination: Montana Branch Library

Yesterday's menu:
breakfast: terrible pancakes
lunch: Jim's birthday supper, pork chops and mashed potatoes
dinner: lentil soup