Rainy Museum Trip & Prep for Temptation

Saturday, February 23, 2008

• Driving in the Rain - I was going to wake up at 9:30 and drive to Berkeley, maybe with Brian. Instead I couldn't sleep Friday night so I woke up at 11:30, got ready slowly, and headed out without Brian because it had become to late and he couldn't go. Still needed coffee, so I went by the most comfortable Starbucks, Snell & Santa Teresa, to get a bev. That was kindof a bummer because I was trying to call Tony Buccino to come with me to Berkeley, but he was working a shift at the bux. So I hung with him while I ate my lunch there instead of on the road. Then I went and bought black umbrella with a curved handle, and some Skittles (personal favorite) of all three flavors, to smuggle into the museum. I drove my Accord to Berkeley, taking 85 to 17/880 to 580 to University avenue. Julia was eating a sandwich and told me to call her later, and several other people did not answer their phones. Jed picked up and we talked about everything but what we'd been planning on talking about. He actually got on Google maps and navigated me through Berkeley to my destination, the Berkeley Art Museum.



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• The Museum - You can see what time I actually arrived (that is, the 3:11, not the 4:11).
  
  
  Upon entry, I found that they had special pricing. $8 general admission, free for Berkeley students, $50 for registered Republicans, and $5 if you're a total stud. You can see which one I was.
  
  


• The Exhibit - Even though the museum currently has a huge collection of Francisco de Goya's etchings downstairs from Los Caprichos, and I was most interested in that, the exhibition I needed to see was Enrique Chagoya's Borderlandia exhibit, which is primarily comprised of political and social parody pieces copied from other iconic works of historical painters. There had been a field trip with my college class, but I had to work, so I needed to make it up on my own time.
  
   
   
  
  His work is acclaimed for its use of familiar images of French art and particularly American pop art (such as Mickey Mouse and Superman) as symbols of an oppressive American or "white" culture that condescends to and injures Mexican cultural and economic interests. I found this to be a very effective form of art, and I consider him to be very talented. The emotional response was repulsive, however, because while he showed American cultural icons trampling Mexican or native central American cultural icons, his work also mocks the culture of my fond memories, essentially spitting on childhood favorites like Captain America and Superman. I found this to an ineffectual way to rally sympathy for his position, because I did not feel that my culture was trampling his, but rather felt that his high art was derisively trampling my childhood associations. This raises the question, whose culture should be allowed to trample someone else's culture? Should a white person be trampled upon simply because someone thinks white people ought to be?


• Driving in the Rain, Part Deux - Driving back home I had meant to call Jed, but I'd also said I'd call Julia back. She was done with her sandwich, so we talked about a lot of stuff, mostly God and how to witness to Muslims and Hindus. That actually lasted longer than I thought, and I was almost home by the time I called Jed, who didn't pick up.


• Lecture Preparation - I spent some time into the night working on my lecture for the following morning. My church's leadership recruited me to help teach through a Bible study written by the late great Jean Gibson called BCT, or Basic Christian Training, the second in a series after Survey in Basic Christianity (SBC). Mine was a topic based on chapter 7, "Overcoming Temptation." The following are my lecture notes. According to my thinking, the best ways to overcome temptation are to know the sources of that temptation then know what helps you make that decision (and keep making that decision) not to give in.