THE SCENE : Diebenkorn, You Say?

In the bottom drawer of my desk, on top of the last three years’ weekly planners and a Ziploc bag of Cheerios are a pair of black flats. They are not for earthquake preparedness, theyare for museums. Because recently I discovered two things: one, several of our local museums offer free admission on certain weeknights, and two, the pumps I usually wear to work, when brought into direct contact with museum floors, make a noise somewhere between the tap, tap, tap, of little Rhoda Penmark’s murderous shoes and the Blitzkrieg . As you can imagine, this makes me less than popular with my fellow art patrons.

And popularity with the patrons is what drew me to museum happy hours in the first place. Well, actually, it was my girlfriend who drew me, by the sleeve in fact, to MOCA on a Thursday night. She said it would be a great place to meet “people.” I said, sure, if you believe you can find happiness with a man who thinks an ironing board made out of Legos is art. She said well, better that than someone whose idea of perfection is peeling off the Bud label with out tearing it.

Of course, by the time I had clomped into the first room, my friend recognized me for the albatross that I was and slipped quickly away, leaving me alone with my underdeveloped art sense (they pretty much lost me after Cubism) and my stupid shoes. There were no Legos in evidence and I liked lots of what I saw, especially the people. Although deep in the left ventricle of the commerical district, the museum was predominantly suit-free, with only a few requisite members of the vamp-accented set, whose blade thin, Lycra-wrapped bodies cut figures against the white, white walls that would make Matisse proud. But mostly the crowd was young, a bit scruffy, a bit slouchy--I expected to see a hacky-sack session erupt at any time. No wandering art divas or pedagogues orating in clarion whispers about a particular mood or line or turn of the screw. Free nights for the masses.

Since I am a card-carrying member of the masses, weeks later I dropped by the Temporary, just a few short blocks and light years awayfrom MOCA. It’s also free on Thursday night. and the crowd is also young, but it’s much more Soho, late ‘80s that is. Spiky hair dyed in shades of Kool-Aid, deconstructed jackets, silk pants, skinny ties, short skirts with Doc Martens...You know the look. Lots of Legos and other unlikely substances d’art (Note to curators--way too many slide shows going on. It has been scientifically proven that the sound of a slide projector has a soporific effect on you average American brainpan.) the installations, and the space, are ever changing, and people talk a lot more--my friend spent almost half an hour explaining why someone would copy “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by hand onto canvas panels and hang only some of themon the wall. Although I tried to look illuminated, I knew , and he knew, I was faking it. Of course, I was wearing those damm pumps again, but I tried to make it look international. Cacophony as art.