78. Don't Fall for Their Traps

Some type of school break ended today in Germany. The end of break means everyone traveling back home. By train. With reservations. I wasn't aware of this break, so we did not spend extra money on reservations. This means we could still get on any regional train with our Eurail passes, but had no guarantee of an open seat. So I have nicknamed this ride "the musical chairs train ride" at every stop we crossed our fingers that no one had reserved the seats we were sitting in, and at most every stop, someone ended up relocating. 5 hours of this was pretty annoying, and Scarlet made sure that I was aware of this. Finally Mom, Dad, and Brody gave up and headed up to take advantage of their first class tickets where they got free candy, and peace. They left Arden, Scarlet and I in the back with the baby who kept crawling around harassing strangers, and a man with a hook for a hand.

What's really been on my mind lately, though, is the videos that are played in art museums. Bottom line: They are a trap. After being away from Netflix binging and late night movies in the Theta basement, it's easy to be attracted to any type of movement on a screen. If you ever go to an art museum and see a video playing, DON'T FALL FOR IT! They start out interesting and make you want to watch to the end, but here's the thing: there is no end. They are all psychotic, and will leave you feeling not inspired, or thoughtful, but deeply disturbed, and empty. I want to describe to you three examples.

1. I walk into a small pitch black room with a projector playing a movie to your right. It is an avatar that looks very close to human sitting in a big rolly chair in front of an all grey wall. She is talking - in English! - about something I must have missed. It kind of seems like she's talking to a therapist about her problems, but I can only hear her side of the conversation. Soon she fades to black and on the left wall she pops up again. Same story, only this time, it seems like she is in  the roll of the psychologist, and I can only hear her side. Soon I try to remember what girl one was talking about to see if the conversations match up. They don't. I swear I spent so much time watching the screens go back and fourth staying on each avatar for minutes at a time. I couldn't find any patterns and decided that I had just been tricked into listening to gibberish for the last 20 minutes.

2. A man sits next to a bed on which he is making a giant salad that covers up the entire middle. He isn't just throwing lettuce onto a bed, there is an art to it, and he is placing each piece of the salad in a precise place. After about 5 minutes of watching this guy make a salad, he stands up and covers it up with a blanket. The scene changes to this guy going on a date. He brings the girl back to the creepy salad bed room, uncovers the masterpiece and convinces her to lay on it. At this point I'm ready to haul out of there, but then he announces that he forgot the crackers. The veiwer is then forced to watch a painfully long take of the guy walking to the grocery store, buying crackers, and then going back to what we think is the room. It ends up being an entirely different room that is decorated lavishly. He then layes down in his bed and eats the crackers. End scene.

3. This is the most disturbing by far. Here is my take on the back story of this compilation. The "artist" finds an abandoned museum. He/She then fills each room with creepy things:strobe lights, broken art pieces, a nonsensical video on loop, etc... Then he gets about 20 people, puts them on acid, lets them loose in the museum, and records their behavior. He even lets them get into a costume box, but some just go for their birthday suit. Not sure what the point of this experiment was, but I shouldn't have watched it as long as I did to find out. Mostly because there NEVER is a point to these things.

On the other hand, if you like feeling disturbed and creeped out, I think art museum videos could be your thing.