... and on another note...

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting the current show at The Art Institute of Chicago which features a collection of Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin works displayed, compared and contrasted in a... blah.. blah.. blah... enough "book" report!

[rant]People are not allowed to take photographs during the viewing... the reasons I came up with are: it would be quite bothersome for the *looker to see "flashcubes" going off, the extra light would do wonders to excellerate UV damage, and the damn shutter clicking would drive most crazy. Fine! But, for an extra 5 or 6 bucks you can wander around the place completely oblivious of the people around you (I have a sore toe to prove it) with your rented headphones that not only floods your head with (what I'm sure is) a "judgement free" historical tour of the soap opera that was their lives (complete with *realistic sound track... and don't get me started on "impressionist" music), the headphones are of the open air type (idiots) that really don't isolate the sound to the wearers ear... most of the time I could hear four or five different tours buzzing around and all I can think was "where is my fly swatter". Apparently quite a number of people think pictures are "worth words", how many may be in question, but it is clear that most words aren't actually® talking about the picture![/rant]

Those two artists now have had a lasting impression on me, however, as well. Hi CapK