I have been to so many museum exhibits lately that I start looking for the patterns in the chaos.
Found one today.
*****
It was warmer than I expected it to be today, for rain. The plan was to get up, get ready, have breakfast at Philz (haven't had his coffee in a while...was starting to miss it), and then depart on a southbound train for San Jose to visit the Tech Museum. All over the mass transit systems there are posters for the museum advertising a special exhibit of "Leonardo: 500 Years Into the Future." What's even more interesting is that in November the Legion of Honor here in the City is having a Leo exhibit as well (different exhibit, that is). I rarely have the opportunity to visit San Jose (it's a freakin' two hour ride each way, and then there's the time you spend there), so I took today to cram it in. Besides, there's aspects of San Jose I do like.
I don't miss the ghost-town feel of it, but you have to have unconditional love with this freakin' state sometimes...
So I dressed warm, packed the writing stuff and purse in my California Academy of Sciences tote (MY GOD I AM SUCH A NERD), and made my way to the station via Philz. The coffee didn't stand out anymore, for some reason. Maybe it's because my mind wasn't on it, I was nervous with the travel, or maybe I need a longer break than that from Philz. I'm sort of burned out on coffee in general these days, though--I just want to lose about 40 pounds (maybe I should be left behind by Gary again...that would do it...just kidding) and coffee isn't in that equation. The first couple of sips are fantastic and then I'm stuck with a WHOLE CUP of something that goes from ambrosia to just a freakin' beverage.
The train was lovely, though. I miss Cal-train. It's the most comfortable mode of mass transit in the Bay Area, for my money. (And it ain't cheap, neither...about $15 for a day pass from San Francisco to San Jose, while you can abuse the Muni system in San Francisco for 4 hours for a buck-fifty.) There are two levels to Cal-train in the old cars (three in the bullet trains), and the upper levels are single seats with windows to relish all to yourself. Cal-train is the only mass transit that allows food and drink (including alcohol, except on game nights) onboard. And Cal-train is nearly always on time (unless someone commits suicide on the line). Most lines are slow and tedious if you're making the trip for the full length of the line, but I like the slowness. It's like an adventure all in itself, with or without the museum.
Arriving at San Jose I started the walk downtown, probably my least favorite part. The sidewalks are EMPTY, I tell you. I pass Guadalupe River Park from HP Pavilion (Shark Tank, go Sharks!) and the only people I pass are out-of-work migrant workers and homeless, and that's a grand total of 5 people in about 6 blocks. Arriving to San Pedro Square gives me more people, but I could still navigate the sidewalks blind without a cane. (In San Francisco I couldn't navigate them sighted with a cane.) I turn right at Market and walk about three blocks south to the Tech Museum.
And stare, dumbfounded, at the massive one-story-sized horse in front of it.
What is a freakin' horse doing in front of a technology museum?
California definitely teaches patience in its storylines.
So I walk in, pay admission (the website says $8, it's actually $25--I don't know how that happened, but I was patient...AGAIN), and make my way to the back of the building for the exhibit. They time the exhibits (as though it was the Frida exhibit in SFMoMA), but there was really no need--my ticket read 1:30 pm and I was admitted at 1:15. They scan your ticket at the door and in you go.
To wander through a maze of how pulleys work.
At first.
Keep in mind I was looking forward to daVinci's flying machines. The first room was to set up the atmosphere for daVinci by showing what a bunch of other inventors/scientists/artists were doing in that time. Okay. I could handle that--they were setting the stage. Then there was a room full of gears, made of wood and designed by daVinci. Ooo-kay...then a room full of pulleys. Then a room full of fulcrums...and then I felt myself getting bored, my brain sort of clouding over. I'm a reasonably intelligent girl, but I didn't come 50 miles or pay $25 to see a bunch of physics experiments from the 1500's replicated in wood that I'm not supposed to touch to see how they work, grazie. Some of the mechanisms had little versions of them in plexiglass on pedestals off to the side of the machine that you could turn to see what would move what other part of the machine, but many of these could have used some oil or attention.
I was starting to get tired and hungry, only partially paying attention.
Then I walked in the flying machine room.
The reason the Tech Museum spends three to four rooms showing you how daVinci thought through mechanics is that EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM IS IN THE FLYING MACHINE SUSPENDED FROM THE CEILING. There are pulleys. There are fulcrums. There are levers. There are screws. You look up and gasp. Not only does he use all the letters in the Scrabble game for quadruple word score, but the wings are made of rope, and he had this big love of rope as its own mechanism, and the rope grid wings are attached to the frame by sealing wax (like you might have sealed a letter with in that time period), and leather straps hold the passenger in, and it looks like a green version of a Piper Cub, except it WAS BUILT 500 YEARS AGO. NOW I'm interested. Now I'm awake. And there are other machines for flying, those that show the force of pounds lifted by each arm and each leg, and the thing looks like a teacup, but according to math it has to fly, dammit! I'm sold. daVinci is the day's evangelist of motion and today I am his disciple.
Oh, did I mention he's got a take on the Last Supper that blows the mind? No, not with Tom Hanks in it...there's another reason to look at the Last Supper more than a Last time...
But I'm getting ahead of myself. There's a reason that the flying machines are in the middle. You've seen the pulleys and the levers, etc all compiled in the flying machines, folks. But what about the wonder of the human body as a machine in itself?
Hey, yeah, what about that?
And then we're back to pulleys and levers and such posing as muscles and nerves and joints, and then we're watching the movement of those pulleys and levers and such in the form of a person, or animals in their motion, and...DO...YOU...SEE...WHERE....THE...HORSE...ARRIVES?
God bless these people. They are master storytellers.
Nope, wait, there's more.
So we study the people in motion, as objects in motion, and but they aren't just subjects, you know. They have minds and souls and SPIRITS...
Enter the Holiest of Spirits.
So then we see how daVinci interprets the Last Supper. He takes the emotion or prime characteristic of each disciple, what characteristic they are most known for (imagine what Judas's is), and creates a "motion" to reflect their characteristic. But, you say, it's a freakin' PAINTING, Jo! It's standing still!
No.
Every last man in that painting is caught in the midst of movement, and the lovely people who put this exhibit together create a moving graphic to show you how this happened, from daVinci's notes. The painting is a capturing of Jesus's announcement that SOMEONE will betray him. So imagine you and a group of your friends are sitting down to dinner and you blurt out something shocking about someone in the room who can't be identified. "Someone in this room will kill Colonel Mustard, in the kitchen, with the candlestick," you say. What would your friends do? What would they say? How would they act?
So you see Judas move from sitting upright to shrinking back from his place close to Christ. You see Peter, who is on Judas's right, lean behind Judas to John (who is on Christ's right) for comfort in such a shocking announcement (daVinci interpreted Peter as rash and John as calm). It's a wonderful graphic, and suddenly that painting MAKES PERFECT SENSE. The painting goes from being a frickin' painting of something religious to a MOVIE about the disciples. Yeah, yeah, Christ is in the center. BUT HE ISN'T MOVING. daVinci painted him to look STILL, the fulcrum, if you will, while all around him the room is a-buzz in a mass of emotion.
BRILLIANT, HUH?
I walk out of there in a glow. From there I go downstairs to two other paintings of daVinci on display, but because they are separated they don't talk to me like the Horse or the Last Supper. I go to the cafe. I have a cookie. My blood sugar is all knocked off balance and my breathing is labored, 'CAUSE I GOT IT. I UNDERSTOOD THE POINT.
After the cookie I rest a bit and watch the sidewalk traffic for about a half hour (two people), and then walk to North Market to the Chicken Coop for lunch. I'm still buzzing when I get on the train an hour later...in quiet spiritual retrospect.
*****
Traditional, among the Celts, All Hallow's Eve was a holiday for telling fortunes of the year to come. After seeing this exhibit today, I felt as if I saw someone just predict the future, 500 years ago.
daVinci and his crystal ball.
Thanks, Leo.
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