I was reading through a pictorial today at the New York Times about the (long-overdue) re-opening of the American History Museum here in DC.
One of the slides features this comment about the museum’s redesign:
It is more difficult to see whether any more profound interpretive change is in the offing. I can’t think of another museum where individual objects are so impressive, while the whole is so out of focus.
If you replaced the word “museum” with the word “country”, wouldn’t this be a profoundly apt description of America itself?
Well, yeah, especially if you go through all the slides, because the writer makes the metaphor explicit on slide 11.
I’m hoping to see Andrew Ferguson’s review very soon… and if you have read Land of Lincoln, you’ll know why.
Still, based on the pictures in the pictorial, my expectations for the museum itself are slight-to-nil. It looks like the same jumble the place has always been, but they added a layer of foreboding darkness…
Yeah - I don’t have anything to say, I just wanted to boost my stats in the “Top Commentators” box on the sidebar, lol.
Hey, hey, I only use substantive, well thought out comments to boost my stats on the comments bar, “North of the Border”, if that is your real name.
For instance, I’ll add to my comments above that “focus” is not exactly a good quality in every country. I’d rather we not focus like a laser beam on any one issue, like the economy, war, immigration. I’d rather we focus like a supermarket scanner, flitting about hoping to get the right information at some point through sheer luck.
You
make
excellent
points
!
That is an excellent point.