We’re all adolescents at heart.<\/p>\n
Although I’d been planning to visit the British Museum, since Harry and Richard kept raving about the slides in the Tate Modern, I followed their instruction.\u00c2\u00a0 Crossing over to the Jubilee line, which is SO far underground you figure you’re immune to warfare.\u00c2\u00a0 Assuming, of course, the whole thing doesn’t collapse.\u00c2\u00a0 In the modern style, you can see all the INFRASTRUCTURE!\u00c2\u00a0 All the beams, all the concrete and metal holding the escalators and holes UP!\u00c2\u00a0 The visuals are a museum unto themselves.<\/p>\n
Emerging into daylight, and what cold daylight it was, under fifty degrees, I followed the sign with no museum in sight.\u00c2\u00a0 But, just when I became totally confused I noticed orange lampposts, shepherding me in the right direction.<\/p>\n
The Tate Modern is an old power station converted into an art space.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s HUGE!\u00c2\u00a0 With a central hall seemingly large enough for a 747.\u00c2\u00a0 And upon entering this space, via the miniscule glass doors, I was confronted with them, the tubes.<\/p>\n
\nThe Tate Modern – The Unilever Series: Carsten H\u00c3\u00b6ller<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Now I’m the guy who got frightened driving bumper cars when nobody else was on the grid.\u00c2\u00a0 After a bad experience in my single digits, I didn’t get back on a roller coaster until my twenties.\u00c2\u00a0 But I LOVED the slide.\u00c2\u00a0 You remember, those towering silver edifices on the school playground?\u00c2\u00a0 The ones upon which you placed waxed paper so you’d go down faster?\u00c2\u00a0 The ones you used to descend upon head first, ON YOUR BACK?!!<\/p>\n
Yes, I still can’t fathom how I survived.\u00c2\u00a0 For at the end of the slide was a drop.\u00c2\u00a0 Right into the dirt.\u00c2\u00a0 Have they banned slides yet?\u00c2\u00a0 Do parents let their kids utilize them?\u00c2\u00a0 Seesaws?\u00c2\u00a0 Jungle gyms?<\/p>\n
Anyway, upon getting to the front of the line, for the free tickets, I was informed that I couldn’t ride until five.\u00c2\u00a0 Three and a half HOURS from now.\u00c2\u00a0 But if I had the urge, I could ascend to the second floor and partake on one of the two lower slides.<\/p>\n
I figured they were for wimps.\u00c2\u00a0 Little kids.<\/p>\n
But right in front of me in line were a pair of punks.\u00c2\u00a0 With tattoos and piercings.\u00c2\u00a0 And motorcycle boots.<\/p>\n
And there were a couple of septuagenarians too.<\/p>\n
And when my fifteen minute wait was up, I inserted my feet into the pocket of the burlap sack, laid down, crossed my arms and scooted myself forward like a bug until…I TOOK OFF!<\/p>\n
I mean they weren’t gonna let you go down if you could get hurt, RIGHT?\u00c2\u00a0 I mean this is a fucking MUSEUM!\u00c2\u00a0 It’s SAFE, right?<\/p>\n
But the very first turn, to the left, it threw my shoulder out of whack.\u00c2\u00a0 And then I was sliding round and round, down the rabbit hole, thrilled, yet scared.\u00c2\u00a0 And when I got to the bottom I determined that I had to do it again.\u00c2\u00a0 But HIGHER!<\/p>\n
I went over to the ticket booth.\u00c2\u00a0 And retrieved a ducat for the slide from the third floor at five.\u00c2\u00a0 The upper slides, from floors four and five, being sold out.<\/p>\n
And I figured I’d never partake.\u00c2\u00a0 Since it was hours away.\u00c2\u00a0 But I got caught up in these exhibits.\u00c2\u00a0 One of David Smith’s sculpture.\u00c2\u00a0 It was fascinating to see his development from inception to the stainless steel structures he welded just before he was killed in a car crash.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nThe Tate Modern – David Smith: A Centennial<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
And then on to the Fischli & Weiss exhibition.\u00c2\u00a0 Where the art was conceptual in a way that seems to be passe, but rang so true.\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be art was about making people THINK!\u00c2\u00a0 In music too.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not just about what you see, what you hear, but where the artist is COMING FROM!\u00c2\u00a0 How his work fits into the world.<\/p>\n
The absolute funniest room, the one that had me cracking up, was number three, with all its clay sculptures.\u00c2\u00a0 There was one of two musicians strolling down the avenue, captioned "Mick Jagger and Brian Jones going home satisfied after composing ‘I can’t get no satisfaction’".\u00c2\u00a0 You can see it.\u00c2\u00a0 Just go to: <\/p>\n
\nThe Tate Modern – Fischli & Weiss: Flowers & Questions. A Retrospective<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
and click on the picture on the upper left to enlarge it.\u00c2\u00a0 (Yes, "Satisfaction" was written by Jagger and Keith Richards, but was this a mistake or part of the joke?)<\/p>\n
And there was another sculpture of a truck with effluent coming out the back entitled "The Spreading of The Manure", or something like that.<\/p>\n
And then it was five.\u00c2\u00a0 And I got scared.<\/p>\n
You see I’d visited the entry points for the upper slides.\u00c2\u00a0 And if you started on level four, or five, you were required to wear a hard hat.\u00c2\u00a0 And elbow pads.\u00c2\u00a0 And the tubes seemed to go straight down, scarier than any DOUBLE DIAMOND SLOPE!<\/p>\n
But I was only alighting from the third floor.\u00c2\u00a0 Could I handle it?<\/p>\n
As the line shortened and I got closer to my assignation with death, or mortal injury, I wanted to chicken out.\u00c2\u00a0 But a guy older than me descended.\u00c2\u00a0 And there were all these CHILDREN!<\/p>\n
Well, not tots.\u00c2\u00a0 And kids have more pliable bodies.\u00c2\u00a0 And, if I passed, even though there was nobody there I knew, I’d feel the opposite of macho, I’d feel like a wimp.<\/p>\n
They had elbow guards, but no one was wearing them.<\/p>\n
I tried them on, but they wouldn’t go over my sweatshirt.\u00c2\u00a0 I figured my sweatshirt would protect me.\u00c2\u00a0 But how about my sunglasses, would they fly off?<\/p>\n
And would I run into someone else on their way down?\u00c2\u00a0 The guard on the second floor checked the monitor, to make sure the previous rider had descended.\u00c2\u00a0 This woman on the third floor was checked out.\u00c2\u00a0 Not fully asleep like the guard at the Fischli & Weiss show, but she was thinking about her boyfriend, or dinner, she wasn’t paying ATTENTION!<\/p>\n
Finally it was my turn.\u00c2\u00a0 I put down the burlap sack.\u00c2\u00a0 I inserted my feet.\u00c2\u00a0 I laid down.\u00c2\u00a0 And then one of the kids behind PUSHED ME!\u00c2\u00a0 I was flowing down the tube not fully prepared.\u00c2\u00a0 I hadn’t tightened up my body.\u00c2\u00a0 This was gonna be TROUBLE!<\/p>\n
But the first turn was not as severe as that in the tube from the floor below.<\/p>\n
And I’m going round and round and round.\u00c2\u00a0 Then suddenly, I’m at the bottom.\u00c2\u00a0 Safe.\u00c2\u00a0 I survived.<\/p>\n
And I looked back up into space.\u00c2\u00a0 At the descents from the fourth and fifth floors.\u00c2\u00a0 Part of me wanted to go, another piece of me was happy the museum was closing.<\/p>\n
As stated above, go to this link and have a look: <\/p>\n
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