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Survival of the Fittest


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Survival of the Fittest
The Revolving Art Museum

Bev Jafek


    First, the mechanics of it: I saw the Metropolitan Art Museum begin leaning to the side and then, as though made of some elastic material, form nearly a sphere and revolve 180 degrees; that is, turn upside-down with the revolving doors falling vertically, hence still performing their function. It was odd, but we must always be prepared for rambunctious special effects. It is all to the good: jobs for programmers, architects, engineers, construction workers; money fluidly changing hands; the economy humming like a complacent motor. I intended to see the art, the doors were still revolving, and I walked in; hoping only that the painting and sculpture would be rightside-up, which they were.

    The Renaissance rooms came first and I saw, to my astonishment and pleasure, Donatello’s David rising up gloriously in the middle of the room. How had they gotten it away from the National Museum of Florence? But then, it was just a matter of international finance, bidding over the Internet. Even E-Bay could have propelled the wonderful Donatello to me. Why couldn’t David suddenly appear anywhere on Earth? I reached out to touch the statue, and it was solid, marvelous bronze, no hologram. As I began to walk around him, he was undeniably that glowing, adolescent boy devoid of gross male musculature; the genitals like some poignantly small fruit; all play, insouciant allure from graceful hat to antipasto; the gestures casual, impish, as though ready to break into a dance; the sword an afterthought. The triumph of loveliness, elegance and play over war. He could have seduced Goliath. Yes, he was my Donatello; but not, I was shortly to discover, entirely mine.

    As I continued to walk around the statue, I found, at the rear, a completely naked woman with her short stubby legs twined around the base. She wore heavy make-up over a desperate, fiftyish face with straight, medium-length blond hair. Her eyes and expression were a ruin of lust, despair, awe, fear and desperate hope. “It’s my last chance, “ she said rapidly, her eyes blinking and rolling with a strange energy. “I’ve sent e-mail to everyone on the personals web sites. But I’ve never really wanted anyone but this boy. He’s always in my thoughts, even when I’m in bed with some careless, hairy, brutal man. But then, you must know.”

    “I must?” I asked in astonishment, suddenly noticing that my tie and tweed suit had vanished, and I seemed to be wearing a blue dress. She took me for a female confidante. Apparently, the museum caused observers to appear in revolving genders as well. “Wouldn’t you give a better first impression in clothes” I asked, trying to play the empathetically practical feminine role she had assigned me, noticing as well that my voice had risen into a woman’s range.

    A look of terror gave further distortion to her face. “I want to be ready for him, if he would only look at me.” Her voice ended in a sob, and she rested her cheek on one of David’s calves and then kissed it slowly and languorously. I looked around in alarm for a security guard, but there were none present. This dreadful woman was free to do whatever she wanted with the sculpture, which outraged me.

    “But what about singles bars, book discussion groups, volunteer work, all those other ways to meet a mate?” I asked, anger in my voice. Finally, in consternation (she was passionately kissing David’s leg), I snapped, “What on earth have you done with your clothes?” She was not even carrying a purse.

    “I’ve tried everything! There were a few who liked me, but they were clingy. They wanted e-mail three times a day. You know.”

    “Oh, yes,” I said; now taken by my role. “That would be intolerable.”

    Suddenly, a strange new look came over her face Ð something, cunning, plotting, less chaotic. She rose and began to look at me through David’s legs. Then her mask-like, crafty face appeared by the sword in a grimace of a smile. Then she was around his hips, her lips pursed and devilish. I noticed that my tweed suit and tie had come back, along with my previous gender. “What sort of game is this?” I asked, noting that my voice had again deepened into masculinity.

    “Why not you?” she asked in a husky whisper, coming suddenly around David’s sword and walking with slow deliberation toward me.

    I ran all the way to the end of the Renaissance galleries. I thought (in relief) she can’t follow. She won’t leave David: he’s her last chance. I looked around and found myself in the Baroque galleries in front of Fragonard’s “Bathers,” next to a squat, middle-aged man whose face was grimacing in emotion that revolved between pain, ecstasy, disgust and fury. Seeing me next to him (still in my tweed suit and proper gender) he, too, began to spew out tormented thoughts like outrageous bubbles. “I work in front of a computer trading stocks and cruising the porn sites ten hours a day, nothing to show for it but fat and moolah, then I go home and write worthless lyric poetry no one wants to read. I come here, seeking the meaning of it all and see this.”

    He gestured with a plump, hairy fist. “All those voluptuous curves radiating throughout the universe! Fruit-like curves of fleshy sex! Those girls are nearly making love to each other. Beautiful women are really lesbians, don’t you think?” He looked at me askance in icy curiosity, the sparse hair on his head bent crazily at an angle. He waited for no reply. “There’s the central figure falling so exquisitely on her back. They’re all falling on their backs. What else are they good for? And yet, I always take that horrible, soft plunge into them, grab those irresistibly round fleshy fruits. You just can’t live without it!” Now he looked enraged, which somehow made him seem even fatter. “Why, look at those trees, clouds! They’re reaching for those women, too!” His eyes and mouth were now wide, pink and wet; his neck thick and taut with anger, making him look like a furious bulldog. “They’re all clutching, copulating! Even the plants and sky can’t stop! The whole cosmos copulating Ð in pink yet, their color.”

    Now he began swinging hairy fists before the painting, as though he would attack it. I looked around in alarm for a security guard, but again there was no one to be seen. “We make so much of love,” he said, looking painfully meditative and placing his hand below his chest, as though his outburst had given him gas. “Whether we get it, whether we lose it, and what is it but that fatal frothy plunge. What do you do,” he shouted, “how do you live when everything in the world copulates, copulates!” I looked around to see if other observers noted the disturbance; but incredibly, it was as though they were dead, lost in contemplation of great art.

    The man turned toward me in an enraged, aggressive posture. “Copulation! Nothing else!” he shouted, waving his plump, round arms, his rotund stomach quivering in fury. Looking back at the painting, his face suddenly had a look of horror. “Oh, my god!” he shouted and clutched his genitals. Then he ran madly through two galleries to the nearest restroom, yelling all the way. At last, there was silence, then a thunderous cry. Thank god we were done with him! Saved by copulation and not a minute too soon, I thought.

    I straightened my tie and smoothed my tweed jacket. No one had noticed a thing. I could breathe again. I thought museums always had security guards to stop this sort of madness, but there was clearly no security in a revolving museum. Not even your gender was safe. I would continue walking through the collection, but avoid anyone in a state of passion.

    The Mannerist galleries abutted the Renaissance rooms, and I walked quickly toward them. In a moment, I was astonished to find Cellini’s elegantly delightful golden saltcellar made for a king. Again, I wondered how the museum had stolen such a treasure away from Vienna’s Museum of Art History, yet obviously all whims and desires were unveiled in this revolving museum.

    Mesmerized I beheld: With rich, golden light and color molding the casual nude forms of Neptune and Earth, each lounging and gazing playfully at one another, the Cellini was a moment of exquisite sensuality. Neptune’s hand lightly held his trident and Earth responded by caressing her own breast and raising an inviting foot to touch Neptune’s leg. It was a lover’s game, all the while they held their condiments, salt and pepper, as they did their enticing genders, a dialectical eroticism that resolved itself into the perfect concentric spheres of their base, each covered with male and female nudes in dalliance. This deliciously erotic work of functional art could only bring a smile to my lips. The world of gods, it said, is simply too wonderful for us.

    Then I noticed that a dark-haired woman her thirties was standing on the other side of the sculpture, smiling as I was, but with a strangely sly, impish look. I raised my eyebrows at her, noticing in relief that I was still in my tweeds. Her peculiar smile only hardened, and her eyes became crafty and snide. I looked again at the sculpture and saw what was clearly her own face replacing that of Earth and my face on Neptune! I looked up at her again in alarm. How dare she change this perfect treasure to reflect her own desires? As I looked back in anger and consternation, I saw that she had now reversed the faces so that mine appeared on Earth and hers on Neptune! This was outrageous, and I uttered an involuntary snarl at her silly, smiling face.

    When I looked back at the sculpture, my face was also upon the horse beneath Neptune as well as the fish lying in a swath at his feet! I gasped. I could not stop myself from looking up at her again and saw that her eyes were even wilder. But I only gasped again: the figure of Earth was now moving, her hands stroking both breasts, her head subsiding in ecstasy.

    Enraged, I forced myself to look away, both from the sculpture and this perverse woman. If she intended to change the artwork in this annoying way, then I would do so as well. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate. This created, as I opened my eyes, a facsimile of her head dangling from Neptune’s trident, still with its madly impish grin, as though the god had casually decapitated her and then speared her head as a trophy. I smiled slyly back at her (I am, at least, the more violent gender), but my eyes were instantly caught by the movement of Earth, still bearing the woman’s silly face. The figure reached over and sensually kissed the head on Neptune’s trident, which was, of course, her own.

    This was completely unacceptable! A cherished work of art was becoming an obscenity, solely to satisfy this woman’s bizarre whims. With intense concentration, I moved her foolish impaled head into the golden salt bowl that stood in front of me (as Neptune). She merely put my own head into the bowl as well and made its furious features whirl about in circles, as though I were helplessly shouting curses in all directions. Then, of all things, I saw that she had placed my reclining body Ð skinny, awkward and tweedy Ð on top of the monument that held the pepper! She was clearly better at this kind of thing than I. She probably spent all her time playing video games.

    I gave her my most severe, reproving glance and walked away. I could hear soft cascades of sly laughter all the while I retreated. Some absurd compulsion made me turn and take a last look: The sculpture was whirling in circles, and her silly smile had become a triumphant leer. I continued walking out of the Mannerist galleries and decided that, if one wished to view art in a revolving museum, one had to observe each work alone, away from all the confused, absurd altercations of others, visual or verbal; real, imagined, or what-have-you.

    Well, now that was settled! I walked with grim determination into the next room, which turned out to be the Renaissance galleries again. I was quietly admiring Da Vinci’s “Adoration of the Magi” when I distinctly heard agonized, furious words: “No adoration! Blunt shapes, chaos and bald death looking over his shoulder at you!” As I glanced behind me, I saw a fierce, wiry little man with a sweating bush of black hair. I decided to abandon my art appreciation and find the nearest exit to this awful revolving museum, looking down quickly to make certain I would be leaving in my tie and tweeds.

    As I passed the “Mona Lisa,” I saw a frail old man yelling, “Lies! Lies, all lies! She holds, contains nothing but old greenish-black paint!”

    I quickened my pace but encountered a middle-aged woman who was looking at Michaelangelo’s two sculptures of writhing slaves and crying, “Destroy! Revile! Liberate! Only then, can Love come!”

    In the next room, I found another middle-aged woman who vaguely resembled a librarian, peering at Corregio’s “Jupiter and Io.” She instantly addressed me with passion: “I share a secret with this painting. Such hugely black, hairy paws grabbing such tender, nude flesh leaning, oh! backwards so seductively. His touch was rough. Just a little bit rough. That’s what she wanted. Do you know what my secret is?” Her smile was immense, wet, wildly uninhibited; she glowed with sexual renunciation. I knew better than to answer.

    Now, I was beginning to gasp with the effort of getting out of there as fast as I could. I checked the overhead signs, and there was a marked exit at the rear galleries, which displayed modern art. In the next room, a middle-aged man — coifed, oiled and dressed as expensively as an investment banker Ð was laughing uproariously in front of Grunewald’s “The Resurrection.” “Oh, the foolishness of the Spirit!” He gasped through laughter. “It looks like Mighty Mouse!”

    I got past him as fast as I could, but suddenly the fierce, bushy-haired little man was again before me, looking at Fuselli’s “The Nightmare.” In the same furiously inspired whisper, he said, “I laugh with the demon, but for my awe of his curvingly pointed ears. I would caress them if I could. I will enter this painting one-day when I have achieved its wisdom. The wild white horse of eternity will bear me away to the Arctic!”

    As I looked around, I saw that my haste was indeed starting to bring me into the modern galleries where, presumably, I could find an exit somewhere. But here before me was the same insanely angry stockbroker who had railed at Fragonard. The fat little man was now viewing Goya’s “Bobabilicon” and shouting, “My life is this hideous dancer!”

    Early modern, Goya was, and I was on the right track, I reassured myself and kept up the pace. But here again was the investment banker, now in front of Daumier’s “Third-Class Carriage.” He turned to me as though I had spoken to him and said, “With what terrible knowledge and patient cynicism will I enter this painting one day?” I saw in alarm that he had grabbed my arm for support. As I tried to loose myself, I saw his face contort into furious despair and then slowly recompose itself into a benign smile. Then he pressed his card into my hand. At the top, it said, “For Investment Advice.”

    I didn’t dare drop it until the next room. Here there were several Renoirs, which meant I was getting further into the modern rooms! As I rushed along, I nearly collided with a young man who had high, ruffled hair and was looking at “Le Moulin de la Galette.” As I apologized, he eyed the painting and drowned me out with a loud cry: “Completely satisfying, no? You rubbed up against all those people. Such a delightful parade of genitals beneath brightly colored cloth! You clung to anyone at all! You stroked them all in their private parts! You were...” (his voice fell to a whisper) “...even that radiant, white light.” His face contorted into a smirk. “That’s the secret I share with this painting.” His pink mouth was suddenly open and childish, looking at me in wonder, as though I had made this absurd speech.

    I tore myself away and then, in my haste, nearly collided with another young man babbling in front of “Whistler’s Mother.” Again, my arm was grabbed before I could retreat, and I heard him ask, “A secret here, a secret there?” He looked at me for corroboration while I tried to get loose.

    In exasperation, I answered, “You were there, I know.”

    “Under her skirts, of course!” he said. “So obvious, such a clichÉ. But do you know what I found? There’s so much room down there and oh, so black and warm. Smelling of warm skin like baked bread. And I have disappeared,” he said in sudden joy. “Many times! Oh, the relief when you aren’t there anymore!”

    Somehow, I got loose from him and tried to walk on as rapidly and carefully as possible. Thank god, we were up to Gaugin! The exit should be coming up any minute. I passed a very bald minister in a black habit. I thought he might remain respectfully silent, but then I saw his eyes glinting beneath their bushy brows and the passionate conviction of his sternly clenched jaws. He was looking at “Vision after the Sermon” and almost shouted, “That’s what I always wanted to know! What comes after the sermon? I’d like to see an angel wrestling a devil, watched by a cow! And all of them watched by a troop of village women, their hats flying in the wind like the tentacles of sea creatures! But that man knew something! After the sermon Ð remember that, would you?”

    Oh, how I hoped I would forget this awful revolving museum! But then, a colorful flash of Rousseau passed by me. A wistful young man was standing in front of “The Dream,” giving me sly glances. “I share a secret with this painting,” he said in a cunning voice, holding out his arm to prevent me from passing.

    I decided I could get away him sooner by answering. “You were there. I know all about it.”

    “Yes, of course,” he said. “But that’s not the secret. I was that robin in the middle of the painting, watching it all. The Jungle? The Human Comedy? Those lions who stare like ferociously avenging angels, coming toward that naked woman...do you know what they did to her?” In spite of my struggle to leave, he had time to smile obscenely, run his tongue slowly over his lips, and say, “They sucked her toes! And then their eyes got bigger and bigger!” He convulsed into laughter, which allowed me to get away.

    I pitched myself toward the next room, tried to avoid two other people, swung loose of another babbler and then, of all things, found myself in total confusion beside the Rousseau painting again! Now a young woman was in front of it, smiling ardently. Before I could stop her, she nestled into my arms, gave me a look of deep commiseration, then whispered, “We know what happened to her, don’t we?” I looked down miserably and saw that damned blue dress again! In a passionate whisper, she continued, “The lions made love to her. Oh, yes. Both of them. That’s why her hand is reaching out to them in invitation. And why not? I think the lions were wonderful lovers to her. There’s just so much of a woman’s body that is erotically sensitive. It takes two lions! One licked her everywhere; one did the rest. Exquisite! But you know, don’t you?”

    I shook myself loose as powerfully as a woman in a tight blue dress and heels could and ran for the exit. Unspeakable relief overwhelmed me as I approached it. Now there was only a couple of silver-haired, dignified old women holding hands as they viewed Matisse’s “Harmony in Red.” “This painting makes me feel as though I’ve eaten an utterly perfect fruit,” one ancient woman said, smiling radiantly.

    “Perhaps a plum,” her partner answered, smiling with a soft glow. I nodded to them in acknowledgement. They made more sense than anything else I had heard in this revolving museum. And best of all, my tie and tweeds were back as I rushed out the door!

    Outside at last, I began to descend the steps at a leisurely pace, overjoyed at the sudden calm of air, sun, and solitude. That was the end of it! I looked back and saw that the museum was still revolving away, ready to devour all hapless patrons who entered and then found themselves trapped in a madhouse. As the artworks passed through my mind, I was struck by their resplendence: unified, harmonious, complete, transcendent, immutable. Every one soared above the despicable creatures who paraded their private obsessions in front of them.

    As I reached the street, I saw an immense, fiery glow rising up behind buildings in the southern part of the city. It seemed to be moving rapidly and engulfing more and more of the skyline. Eerily, it was beautiful; the colors Ð orange, gray, pink, and black Ð revolved in a mesmerizing, turbulent brew. Whenever I have tried to see a film about the earth’s destruction, I have always arrived a few minutes late. Hopelessly unpunctual, I’ve therefore never seen a complete apocalypse from beginning to end, so I watched this radiant eruption with fascination, obviously one of the most colossal special effects.

    As an American, of course, I knew I could anticipate finding my way to my cozy little nook and watching it all out the window or on TV, possibly drinking a few glasses of wine to toast the apparition. After all, here was more work for engineers and programmers, further humming and bubbling of the economy.

    I had just crossed Fifth Avenue when my eyes were drawn to another brilliant gleam. To my utter astonishment and joy, I saw one of the most beautiful artworks following me down the stairs leading away from the museum! Cellini’s Earth, glowing in gold but now life-sized, was obviously walking toward me, her eyes riveted upon mine in an exquisite scrutiny both erotic and cosmic and even, beyond my wildest hopes, caressing her breast as she did so!

    What can I say of such a wonder? She was glorious, erotic, perfectly proportioned and unified, yet best of all, apparently she was mine! I opened my arms and stood very still, almost forgetting to breathe. With a single gleaming finger, she commanded a green light and then slowly, oh how sensuously! did she begin walking toward me. Even her steps had their own unique harmony, even the lovely undulations of her moving body were a perfect unity of beauty, Eros, novelty, eternity. A goddess was crossing Fifth Avenue! I was breathless again.

    No one looked at her Ð no one passing on the street, no one driving a car. They all looked at me; my arms still spread wide, unspeakable delight on my face. But of course, they could not see her. She was my own private obsession, a gift from that dreadful revolving museum! Now I had the same faculty as the mad who babbled their passions before their favorite artworks. I had received an embodiment of my unique, personal vision: irrefutable, oblivious to all else, beholden to no one and nothing, invisible as the imagination, perpetual as the mind. How could I resist such beautiful madness? At last, I had been invited to the party!

    The perfect lines of her golden face had a questioning look as she approached me. I knew, of course, what I wanted. I wanted to make love to a goddess and damn the apocalypse! I’ve missed it too many times anyway. How could I manage it? My apartment was only three blocks away. I gave her my most commandingly loving look and motioned toward a path that would quickly lead us to my apartment. As I began to walk, I looked back to make certain she understood. She continued to follow me with that undulant, harmonious motion.

    When I reached my apartment house, I knew all the measures I would take. I would arrive first to prepare the scene. I looked back again as I walked up the stairs of my apartment house and saw the most intensely seductive look on her golden face with its swimming curls. Remember to breathe, I thought for the hundredth time and entered my apartment. I rushed about and found libations, a bottle of wine and two wineglasses. I found a stick of incense and candles, which I lit. What else for a goddess? But of course, a goddess must be greeted NAKED! I stripped off my clothes as though they were an offense, kicked them under the bed, and inspected myself in the floor length mirror. As usual, my body was skinny, pale, awkward and hairy, no handsome, well-muscled Neptune. But then, what did it matter if it was my fantasy?

    Remember to breathe, I thought as I rested against my bed and waited. The apocalypse seemed to be in full swing out the window; orange and black mushroom clouds blocked any other view. I could only smile: we would watch it together, she and I. My heart thudding in my chest, I waited beside the bed.

    Are those the soft sounds of delicate, golden footsteps moving across my living room floor? I wait, as does anyone on any night of a life, for what can only revolve between love, joy, pain, fear and death.



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