Brand New Phone

Greetings friends. I'm currently writing to you from the center of my own personal glass prison, the BLOCK MUSEUM. If you've ever visited the block museum (and trust me, you haven't) you'd recognize it immediately as the large prismic structure adjacent to Northwestern's student center (norris) and the concert hall (chuck norris). It is the largest glass structure on campus, making it the only building at Northwestern capable of housing Magneto. Right now I'm strolling the gallery, tapping away at my new Palm Treo, ignoring the guests as they meander their way through our current exhibit, the Exquisite Snake. Some would call this irresponsible, as I'm supposed to be guarding the artwork, but if anyone asks, I'm using my Oxygenator to test the air for carbon monoxide (thanks Tim).

The Exquisite Snake is composed of a bajillion 8x11 paper panels each painted upon by a different Chicago artist. The whole thing was done for a guy named Sid Block on his 80th birthday. Sid's a guy who's helped artists in the area for years, so I guess he deserves it. Some of the paintings are of Sid. Some of them are of snakes. Others are just plain bad. I guess that's what happens when you send a lot of random artists a blank piece of paper and tell them to make a birthday present. They're artists. Half of them are so tormented they probably never had birthdays.

The artists didn't know what anyone else was drawing. It was all a shot in the dark. That's why people spend so long looking, I think. They want to see who understood the snake before it had scales. Everyone hates the painting with asymmetric pink dots. I love the painting with asymmetric pink dots. The dots are jarring and loud and everyone hates them.

Sometimes the artists come in and I say "Hello, and which one is yours." I try to feign excitement in the bad ones. My favorite artists are the ones who hate their work. "I wish I'd knew what everyone else was doing," they'd say, and walk out slowly. "At least you get to leave," I'd think.