September 15th

Today is the official halfway point of the project. I have a better knowledge of the museum, a developing sense of time in terms of language, and an appreciation of and disdain for the commute. Hopefully everything but my disdain for the commute will continue to evolve nicely over the next fifteen days. I am keeping notes about the whole process and will start to organize and publish them after the project is over.


I had technical difficulties today, which is to say that I left my notebook at home. I only had a half covered sheet of paper in my purse, but I made do. When I showed the wrinkled page to Jacob afterwords he said "It goes to show you don't need to have a lot to be a writer, as bathroom stalls around the country have proven."

The weather was wonderful today, a perfect New York Fall day, so I wanted a room with a lot of light. The Met, unlike most museums, actually has a lot of rooms that fit that description. It was still early in the morning so I headed to the American Wing. It was wonderfully empty and nice. The problem that I often have with the American Wing is that the cafeteria running along the left hand side is a little incongruous with the rest of the room, and often the source of a lot of noise. However in the mornings it is entirely empty, which makes it the ideal time to visit the American Wing.



The Metropolitan Museum Alone

Central Park invaded,
glass walls such a temptation.
In a windstorm, the first tree
crashed into the European Sculpture
Court, a large Elm.

The floor already cracked, earth
visible. All those tremors running
on the New York fault line.

Elm seedlings with roots in
time split marble on their own.

Trees and statues cohabiting,
branches invading the photo
gallery above, piercing works,
dusty in the Special Exhibition rooms.

Factors
Day of the Week: Wednesday
Occupancy of Museum: Presently empty
Arrived at: 9:45
Departed at: 10:45
Read on Commute: I read and finished Field Notes from A Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert. The book based on a series of articles first printed in The New Yorker. It is an interesting study of climate change, but I had hoped it would give me some apocalyptic inspiration much like The World Without Us had. Unfortunately it did not.