by Jerome du Bois
We were implicitly ejected from the Phoenix Art Museum today, just as we began to survey the Cowboy Art Show, because I would not surrender my stick. This stick. (Photograph by Catherine King.)
I carry the stick for self-defense, and for style. I have good reasons for both. I face the day well-protected, always, to keep Catherine and I safe and flourishing, as we're doing now; and I'll dress to the nines because I respect myself, because every day is unrepeatable, because I want to keep up with my beautiful wife, and because . . . why not style?
We were three paintings into the cowboy exhibition when this pencil-neck kid comes up and says something about his boss wanting to talk to me about the stick --like, did I need it for walking?
My first impulse, of course, which I suppressed, of course, was to say, "No, but you're going to if you try to take it away from me." I'm just too damned well-bred to be so rude.
We don't make scenes; so we turned around, Catherine in the Cosmic Western outfit you see below --pioneer skirt and all, holding a multicolored, embroidered and sequined, Plains Indians-style clutch-- and myself in long black frock coat, black Western jeans, black vest, and black cowboy boots. The Man From Tombstone. The only color was a purple-and-orange shirt and a striped orange necktie. Our long silver-grey hair flying free. We looked like we stepped out of what one of the paintings on the wall wanted to be.
As we made our way down the short hallway to the exit, two well-dressed bruisers with matching maroon uniforms and curlycords coming out their ears were approaching us. They looked like they could throw a Damien Hirst bronze fifty yards. I said, "We're leaving," as we strolled by them. One guy says, "Have a good day, sir."
We'll have plenty of good days. But after thirty years of visiting the Phoenix Art Museum, you've seen the last of us.
UPDATE: Message for the visiting livejournal cretins: crawl back down into your creepy spidey holes; you really look ugly up here in the light.
Posted by Jerome at November 10, 2005 06:30 PM | TrackBack