White Noise

It's the rain, of course, hammering the metal roof. Been going on for hours. Staccato beat like a Jamaican band beating out odd times on steel drums, really odd, 22/24, like that. Something Irish about it. Long phrases and the occasional off-beat splat that makes a point. I can ignore almost anything, given my lair, a soft bed of dust bunnies, but something takes my attention. That beat reminds me of something. Not related. Apparently unrelated, but obviously connected if one thing connects me with another. It's an old Skip James blues number, something about his guitar playing, and a piece of Barnhart's percussion music. The steamboat show is down, the gallery patched, repaired and painted. I love the casualness with which TR and I took the Carter painting off the wall and put it in the vault. An iconic Carter, probably worth $100,000 or more. I was the docent of choice for several art history classes today, and three more next Wednesday, with a focus on the Carters. Might interfere with installing "Birds Of A Feather" but if it's a problem I can always work that Monday to make up for missing a day to docenting, and I do want to do that. Other than Sara, I've become the Carter go-to person. Maybe this winter I'll read Mary's letters, she pretty much ran the Carter operation, and we have thousands of the letters. I like virginizing a gallery, then there's the next show. The space is ready, on close inspection, not really virgin. Virgin-like. Galleries take some hard love, sometimes installing a show is brutal, hammer drills on ladders, lead anchors, lag bolts; but if you have to install a 500 pound butterfly, built from junk (my kind of gal) you have to trust the hanging system a bit more than you might for a painting that weighs five pounds. Five hundred pound gorilla in your driveway. Come on, I can't believe you didn't at least didn't flinch.