Grey's Journal:
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Do not open this drawer.I was in the Tate, a large museum of modern art on the River Thames. My French friend, Marine, and I were spending the day together. I was examining the only interactive exhibit in the museum: a large, multi-compartmented bureau. It had the look of an object from a more genteel age. It was the kind of thing in which I imagine Charles Darwin kept his innumerable collections of Galapagos insects. But instead of scientific specimens, this bureau contained neatly arranged rusted nails, toothpaste caps, and other useless miscellanea. You were encouraged to open the drawers and shelves to peek inside. I enjoyed this. In art museums, hands are demoted to the status of vestigial organs, banished to jacket pockets or held idly behind backs. But on this particular piece of art, they could be put to mischievous use. I was poking around the bureau when I noticed the above mentioned sign (Do not open this drawer) taped to one of the drawers and I wasn't sure if it was part of the art work or not. This was, after all, a modern art museum. The sign might be the artist's profound statement on the nature of human curiosity. I looked around to see if anyone was watching, then reached out my hand to open the drawer... and hesitated. But, perhaps the sign was real. What if I opened the drawer and it broke off and spilled its contents all over the white floor? I imagined the museum director telling me I owed him one-hundred thousand pounds because this assemblage of junk was the last known work created by Franco de Pompous before he died in the arms of a transsexual prostitute from a drug overdose. So, wanting to know what was inside, but not wanting to risk fines and public embarrassment, I did the natural thing: I waited for someone else to open the drawer. Within a few moments a man did. He proceeded around the bureau opening and closing the drawers in a hurried but practiced fashion, as though he was obsessive-compulsive and this was his daily routine. Not even pausing to read the sign, he opened the drawer in question and it made a loud, rusted squeak. I leaned over his shoulder to peer inside. I had hoped the contents of the drawer would be dramatic, shrunken heads perhaps, but inside was merely a collection of dusty bottle caps. I left the room disappointed. The whole matter of the sign was annoyingly ambiguous. So, instead of continuing to try and puzzle out the sign's legitimacy, I thought about what I would have done if I was the artist. My drawer would have a siren and emergency lights go off as soon as a curious gallery patron laid a hand upon it. Or, better yet, I would have a large, plastic, spring-loaded tarantula jump at at the person's face. That's my idea of what should happen in a modern art museum. I enjoy visiting modern art galleries with Marine because she, like myself, is there mostly to see the weird things, not to take them seriously. We also move at about the same speed, stopping only to read the descriptions on particularly noticeable pieces. I go crazy when attending a modern art gallery with someone who takes the art seriously -- someone who thinks a severed ox head in a box full of flies (this is a real exhibit at the truly bizarre Saatchi Gallery) is important work. Also, her thoughts on some of the pieces of art match mine. When we came upon a sculpture on the floor that to me could be nothing but a big, red shit, Marine looked at the piece, back at me, then paused a moment before saying: 'This looks like a big, red shit.' It's always nice to have one's opinions confirmed by a second party. * * *
After the Tate, Marine and I idly walked about London: down the river, across the bridge, through Covent Garden and ultimately to Leicester Square. As usual, along the way the occasional American tourist's voice could be heard well above the crowd. ``Bloody Yanks,'' Marine commented. ``Hey!'' ``Well, they're everywhere.'' We ended up in the Starbucks at Leicester square. I thought this was hardly the proper place for Marine to pick after criticizing Americans -- like complaining about Orientals, and then going to China Town -- but that's the way it was. Marine held our table while I went to get our drinks. Ahead of me on line was an American couple in their forties. Now, unlike everyone else who lives in London, I don't mind tourists. They bring lots of money to the city and are generally very friendly. I frequently get asked by couples to take their photograph in front of one landmark or another, and I always do. It makes me feel good to have contributed in a tiny way to their memory of the city. But occasionally, tourists do the most idiotic things. This was one of those times. The man ahead of me was video taping his wife ordering at Starbucks. I watched on his little flip-out screen as he zoomed in on the green Starbucks logo, then the menu, his wife's face, the server's face, and finally the transaction of money. All the while he added helpful commentary like ``Well, here we are in Starbucks London!'' and ``My wife's ordering an Americano! Isn't that funny!?'' I wanted to ask him to stop making Americans look like morons, but I didn't want everyone around me to know I came from the same nation as this man. If I just stayed quiet, keeping my American voice at bay, hopefully everyone would think I was European. Plus, I knew that had I tapped him on the shoulder he would have swung around, still looking at his little screen, and pointed the video camera at me. I would have been immortalized as a grumpy ex-patriot in his vacation video, and I really didn't want to imagine his whole family watching this scene when he returned to the States and asking each other `What was that guy's problem?' I rejoined Marine with our drinks, and we then partook in the delightful pastime of criticizing the outfits and physical appearance of people (mostly women) passing by the window. This was particularly interesting with Marine, because she is much more observant than I, and I got a little insight into how a European views her geographical neighbors. One thing I've learned since coming to Europe is that I'm no good at identifying people and their backgrounds. My numerous mistakes have taught me to simply ask `So, where are you from?' instead of asking some stupidly broad question like `So, what's Africa like?' only to discover that the person is from the Middle East. Unsurprising to me, Marine could pick out the Germans, Dutch, French, English and Americans with far greater facility than I. She gave me small clues with which to try and distinguish the people from one another. The Germans were the funky dressers and dyed their hair more than the rest. The French were smaller and leaner than everyone and, according to Marine, the best dressers. The English women in their thirties and forties all wore long coats, scarves and had nice handbags. ``What about the Americans?'' I asked. She frowned. ``Fat. Jeans and T-shirts. White trainers (sneakers), hats, and backpacks.'' I hadn't noticed, but as soon as she pointed it out I knew it was true. ``No one else wears sneakers?'' ``Well, no...'' she paused. ''The rest of the world wears stylish trainers.'' She indicated her own red pair that matched with the red turtle neck poking out from beneath her black jacket. ``Americans wear those ugly white ones everywhere, not just in the gym where they belong.'' We returned to looking outside. ``That girl is a Limey for sure,'' I said pointing to the girl in question, who had no idea she was now the topic of a stranger's conversation. This was the only demographic I could, with mild confidence, identify. Unlike the American style for teenage girls, which is to wear a short shirt to reveal an inch or two of skin above the jeans, English teenage girls achieve the same effect not by shortening the shirt, but by wearing their jeans impossibly low around their waists. I find it rather strange looking and unflattering. They also tend to wear flip-flops all the time instead of shoes. Not, in my opinion, the most sanitary footwear for a city. ``She's a what?' ``A Limey, that's what us Yanks call the English.'' Marine decided this was a silly name. ``Well, what do you call them?'' I asked. ``Roast beef.'' ``You're joking.'' She shook her head. This, I decided, must be a phrase that doesn't translate. I was sure it would sound more derisive in French, so I asked Marine to repeat it in her native tongue. ``Roast beef,'' she repeated, the only difference being a more guttural `R'. This sounded even less insulting and more foolish than the English version. I gave her a strange look, but decided to let this one pass. ``There's a fashion-victim English girl,'' Marine said as she pointed to a platinum blonde in the mandatory low-slung jeans and a white and pink top several sizes too small. I frowned. ``Why would anyone dye their hair that color?'' ``That's not dyed,'' Marine said. Thereupon, an argument over whether a person could be born with hair as bright yellow as highlighter-fluid ensued. ``No English girl has hair that color. If she was a Swede, perhaps I'd be willing to believe it possible, but not for a Limey,'' I said. Marine defended her position. ``But that's the stereotype of English girls: blonde with big tits.'' My jaw dropped and I made a surprised expression. This was news to me. My stereotype of English women was formed from thousands of hours of Jane Austen miniseries on PBS, so my image -- clever, brunette, wealthy, and inhabiting a mansion in the 19th century -- may be a bit at odds with reality, but `blonde with big tits' was too shocking to deal with. We continued to watch the crowd pass by and, as Marine picked more and more people out, I doubted that as an American I could blend in at all, even when keeping my mouth shut to conceal my accent. My Bulgarian flatmate, Zornitsa, had complained several times that my jeans were cut in the ugly American way, `for fat people,' and I had heard before from someone at a party that the style of my shirts and the way I wore them was very American. I don't wear white sneakers, but I do carry a backpack everyday. My thoughts returned again to the American couple with the video camera. I had hoped to distance myself from them by not revealing my accent, but perhaps it was pointless. Perhaps the Europeans on the line assumed without a second thought that we were traveling together and that the three of us would sit around the TV back in the States, watching home movies and reliving our travels to Starbucks across the globe. Truly a depressing thought. |
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Copyright © 2004 Wellington Grey  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. |
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