In the Wild, Wild West
What I like best about the Denver Art Museum is the horrible people who go there. Don't get me wrong. "The Western: An Epic in Art and Film" is worthy of praise, full of Remington sculptures and master landscapes and movie clips from as far back as 1929 with dialog that makes me giddy.
I've been twice in under a week, because on my first visit, as I gazed at a poster for "Blazing Saddles" behind glass, a man walked up and loudly badmouthed the film. He couldn't just say he hadn't liked it; he wondered viciously about the poor taste of anyone who ever had. I wish I'd confronted him. "That fart scene 'round the campfire? Pure genius!" But I never come up with this stuff until days later.
I couldn't ditch him and his silent (perhaps hearing impaired?) companion. At the final, big-screen montage, as a brief clip from Brokeback Mountain rolled, Mr. Vociferous claimed Jake Gyllenhaal had been a terrible choice, he'd played it way too over-the-top gay. "And I can say that, because I'm gay," he pronounced, as if daring any of us to a verbal gunfight.
Later, in a separate exhibit called Mi Tierra, I looked at "Destinies Manifest" by John Jota Leaños. It was an animated film cast upon a large, asymmetrical screen, a political statement illustrating over time how manifest destiny was an abysmal failure for Native Americans.
As I left the viewing room, three tall blondes with iron straight hair and fancy clothes and high heels headed in. One of them mentioned casually, "There's an Indian in here, I could do him. I mean, he's a cartoon Indian, but he's so hot, I could just..." she sighed. "It must be my hormones."
Lastly, there were the Texans. Upon entering the Western American Art Gallery, they spread out and began shouting at each other. The young one stomped from room to room, whistling a tune like a cowpoke on the prairie. "This looks like a chameleon on a rock! It's not though!" He was yelling about Gary Kondo's painting "Half Dome, Yosemite." The father stormed through, blaring, "Oh, I don't like that. I don't like that at all."
What happened to treating museums like libraries, meant to be enjoyed in silence or whispers? I thought this was common knowledge, like chewing with your mouth closed and holding in your farts. 'Scuse me while I whip this out... that Half Dome painting? It did not look like a chameleon. I refrained from hollering "It looks like a taco! A taco!" and suggested to Wendy we find a place to eat lunch.
"You know they were Texans, right?" she murmured as we left. Don't even get me started on Wendy and her prejudices.
