{"quotes":[{"text":"What are the dead, anyway, but waves and energy? Light shining from a dead star?That, by the way, is a phrase of Julian's. I remember it from a lecture of his on the Iliad, when Patroklos appears to Achilles in a dream. There is a very moving passage where Achilles overjoyed at the sight of the apparition – tries to throw his arms around the ghost of his old friend, and it vanishes. The dead appear to us in dreams, said Julian, because that's the only way they can make us see them; what we see is only a projection, beamed from a great distance, light shining at us from a dead star…Which reminds me, by the way, of a dream I had a couple of weeks ago.I found myself in a strange deserted city – an old city, like London – underpopulated by war or disease. It was night; the streets were dark, bombed-out, abandoned. For a long time, I wandered aimlessly – past ruined parks, blasted statuary, vacant lots overgrown with weeds and collapsed apartment houses with rusted girders poking out of their sides like ribs. But here and there, interspersed among the desolate shells of the heavy old public buildings, I began to see new buildings, too, which were connected by futuristic walkways lit from beneath. Long, cool perspectives of modern architecture, rising phosphorescent and eerie from the rubble.I went inside one of these new buildings. It was like a laboratory, maybe, or a museum. My footsteps echoed on the tile floors.There was a cluster of men, all smoking pipes, gathered around an exhibit in a glass case that gleamed in the dim light and lit their faces ghoulishly from below.I drew nearer. In the case was a machine revolving slowly on a turntable, a machine with metal parts that slid in and out and collapsed in upon themselves to form new images. An Inca temple… click click click… the Pyramids… the Parthenon.History passing beneath my very eyes, changing every moment.'I thought I'd find you here,' said a voice at my elbow.It was Henry. His gaze was steady and impassive in the dim light. Above his ear, beneath the wire stem of his spectacles, I could just make out the powder burn and the dark hole in his right temple.I was glad to see him, though not exactly surprised. 'You know,' I said to him, 'everybody is saying that you're dead.'He stared down at the machine. The Colosseum… click click click… the Pantheon. 'I'm not dead,' he said. 'I'm only having a bit of trouble with my passport.''What?'He cleared his throat. 'My movements are restricted,' he said.'I no longer have the ability to travel as freely as I would like.'Hagia Sophia. St. Mark's, in Venice. 'What is this place?' I asked him.'That information is classified, I'm afraid.'1 looked around curiously. It seemed that I was the only visitor.'Is it open to the public?' I said.'Not generally, no.'I looked at him. There was so much I wanted to ask him, so much I wanted to say; but somehow I knew there wasn't time and even if there was, that it was all, somehow, beside the point.'Are you happy here?' I said at last.He considered this for a moment. 'Not particularly,' he said.'But you're not very happy where you are, either.'St. Basil's, in Moscow. Chartres. Salisbury and Amiens. He glanced at his watch.'I hope you'll excuse me,' he said, 'but I'm late for an appointment.'He turned from me and walked away. I watched his back receding down the long, gleaming hall.","author":"Donna Tartt","tags":["architecture","classics","death","dreams","museum","unhappiness"],"id":14572,"author_id":"Donna+Tartt"},{"text":"Pay to go inside Neruda's homeA body lies there with no dome.But right there in the front hallLean a fairy against the icy wall.Oh Endless enigmas had the bard!Nice and large and calm backyardEnds In the middle of a rare roomRare portrait of revelishing gloom.Up climbing at the weird snail stairDoes make you grasp for some air.And there's a room with bric-a-brac:Old and precious books all in a pack.Dare saying what I liked most of all?Enjoyed seeing visitors having a ball!","author":"Ana Claudia Antunes","tags":["acrosti","ancient","art","art-collection","art-collector","bard","guests","house","la-chascona","love","lyrics","museum","neruda","odd","ode","old","old-piece","pablo-neruda","pablo-neruda-ode","pablo-neruda-poetry-populism","people","poem","poet","poetry","preciosity","precious","precious-things","rare","rarity","rhymed","rhymes","tour","tourism","visit","visiting","visitors","walls","women"],"id":20536,"author_id":"Ana+Claudia+Antunes"},{"text":"Art should be created for life, not for the museum.","author":"Jean Nouvel","tags":["life","museum","should "],"id":35013,"author_id":"Jean+Nouvel"},{"text":"From the outset, MoMA followed the Bauhaus's strict prohibition against design that even hinted at the decorative, a prejudice that skewed the pioneering museum's view of Modernism for decades.","author":"Martin Filler","tags":["view","prejudice","museum "],"id":43744,"author_id":"Martin+Filler"},{"text":"I go to the Natural History Museum and look at the cage of stuffed starlings there. But my favourite thing is the big blue whale. The scale of it is unbelievable, and makes you feel how insignificant you are as a human being.","author":"Arthur Darvill","tags":["blue","museum","you "],"id":59592,"author_id":"Arthur+Darvill"},{"text":"There are hundreds of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings around the United States and in other countries, too. Wright lived into his 90s, and one of his most famous buildings, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, was completed just before his death. Wright buildings look like Wright buildings - that is their paradox.","author":"Jane Smiley","tags":["death","new york","museum "],"id":67414,"author_id":"Jane+Smiley"},{"text":"Now you are walking in Paris all alone in the crowdAs herds of bellowing buses drive byLove's anguish tightens your throatAs if you were never to be loved againIf you lived in the old days you would enter a monasteryYou are ashamed when you discover yourself reciting a prayerYou make fun of yourself and like the fire of Hell your laughter cracklesThe sparks of your laugh gild the depths of your lifeIt's a painting hanging in a dark museumAnd sometimes you go and look at it close up.","author":"Guillaume Apollinaire","tags":["anguish","city","crowd","laughing","laughter","love","monastery","museum","painting","paris","prayer","praying"],"id":67707,"author_id":"Guillaume+Apollinaire"},{"text":"People didn't just wear wedding dresses in the past. They also wore plain cotton shifts beneath them. As pretty as the dresses might be, and as lovely as they might look on display, if a museum doesn't hang the shifts beside them or acknowledge that the shifts existed, that exhibit's incomplete.","author":"Susanna Kearsley","tags":["past","people","museum "],"id":74760,"author_id":"Susanna+Kearsley"},{"text":"They ran to the museums for paintings. I ran to the roof for sunsets.","author":"Darnell Lamont Walker","tags":["beauty","museum","painting","sunrise","sunset"],"id":77303,"author_id":"Darnell+Lamont+Walker"},{"text":"If you go to the Air and Space Museum in Washington, you can see the burn patterns on Friendship 7.","author":"John Glenn","tags":["space","museum","you "],"id":81208,"author_id":"John+Glenn"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":45,"pages":5,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}