Hey, there! Log in / Register
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Well, if the other
Well, if the other photography equipment is banned, that makes sense. I don't care much about the whole "selfie" thing, but I do fine monopods useful for taking pictures in low light museum settings (where permitted).
Sticks
A monopod is unintrusive -- It's pretty much a walking stick with a 1/4" tread top.
Self-sticks have the potential to damage the artwork, inadvertently hit people, and generally disrupt other patrons.
It's a shame such a ban is even needed -- one would hope people would see them as being rude and not take them out to begin with. [grumpy old man] Back in my day we just asked someone if they wouldn't mind taking a picture of us and handed them our camera. If you want to see yourself so badly buy a mirror. [/grump]
Rude behavior in museums
"It's a shame such a ban is even needed -- one would hope people would see them as being rude and not take them out to begin with. "
Are you kidding? Have you seen the way people act in museums now? Selfies are the least of it. Last time I was in the Museum of Fine Arts, I was in one of the rooms of paintings and a woman plopped down on the bench with her screaming kids, took out a bag of Doritos, and all of them started loudly munching on them and leaving crumbs all over the floor. Kind of ruined the meditative mood that art museums evoke. It's all part of this lack of decorum, "no matter where I am I act like I'm in my private living room " behavior that goes on now, like people cutting their toenails and eating big meals on the T.
Eating in MFA Galleries
Surely a museum guard intervened (or did you not notify one of the guards)?
Yeah, are you sure this was in a gallery?
You can eat in the common areas, many of which have artwork in them. You can't eat in the galleries. The security people watch the galleries on cameras and are very very very quick to page a guard over to speak to people for drinking water and for their stupid "no piggyback or shoulder rides" rule that even applies to adults putting babies on their shoulders to save their backs.
In a gallery
It was absolutely in a gallery though I can't remember which one. That's why I was aghast. I didn't stay long enough to see what happened but I hope someone put a stop to it quickly. I can tell you that during the time I was in the room no one did anything. Yeah, I know I should have said something, but I feel like enough of a "get of my lawn" as it is.
Nothing "get off my lawn"....
... in helping a museum you support avoid being trashed by clueless and/or disrepsctful visitors.
second this
Believe me, the museum staff wants to know when any sort of behavior that is attractive to vermin happens in a museum, or in a library with rare/special collections. Not only are orange fingerprints & crumbs messy, they are also, to the right critter, tasty.
Any art of lovely, lightly clad women in the gallery?
Doritos commercials feature babes, so that may have inspired the patronage of both the museum and the Doritos. :-)
Go away
Just go away
Just wait.....
Just wait until you have kids. It's hard. I give the woman credit for taking the time, money, and effort to get her kids to the MFA. For what the MFA charges, they can afford to clean up some Dorito crumbs (or just eat them--they're delicious). Sorry she ruined the mood. That must have been dreadful.
Er...
I think we all get the "it's hard" part. One thing that's hard is understanding and accepting that there are venues where certain behaviors are not appropriate. Eating and drinking is not appropriate in a museum gallery, and if a person (of whatever age) is not capable of momentarily restraining their need to eat and drink until they've exited the gallery, that person should not be there. Yes, we all understand that with kids, restraint and manners are always a work in progress. Sometimes you're going to try to take the kids up to the next level, and sometimes you'll guess wrong and find that they're not yet up to it. The proper response, in this case, is to remove the child to a place where his/her behavior won't be inappropriate.
...and, so as to not particularize this to Doritos in the museum, let's add: eating with one's hands in a proper restaurant; loudly talking in a movie theater; running up and down the aisles in a concert; or having a screaming tantrum anywhere in public. In response to the inevitable come-back that you've seen adults do all those things, I would say that those people are best described as "badly brought up". The proper upbringing of children involves teaching them how to behave appropriately, and as you have said, it's hard. Does anyone expect otherwise? It's work. It means that sometimes the parents don't get to go where they want to go. It means that when a special occasion looms, the parents need to do some prep work to educate the kids in how to behave properly. It means that manners, and the expectation of good manners, are reinforced daily in the home -- otherwise, they don't have a hope in hell of working in public.
If you are striving to raise a well-mannered child, you have my admiration and my support. If you simply want to reduce every public venue into a place where your child may act on his/her every impulse, which you will gratify without restraint, then you have my sympathy with your frustration, but also my firm resistance to your agenda.
I have three kids (now in their 20s)...
... and we took them to museums when they were still quite young. We taught them museum etiquette -- and never considered having a picnic in the middle of a gallery. The MFA has plenty of places where one is allowed to eat. No excuse for snacking where it is not permitted.
I don't buy it
"Just wait until you have kids. It's hard. I give the woman credit for taking the time, money, and effort to get her kids to the MFA. For what the MFA charges, they can afford to clean up some Dorito crumbs (or just eat them--they're delicious)."
It is precisely this type of attitude that has enabled the type of society we have today where people do whatever they want wherever they want, i.e. cutting toenails on the T. It is this type of attitude that raises children who think they are entitled to do what they want and that the world owes them a living.
The Museum of Fine Arts has a large new cafeteria where children are welcome to eat to their heart's content. There are other common spaces where eating is permitted as well. Just not in the galleries. Sorry, the woman with the Doritos and the children was still wrong.
Never had a problem with it
As I had a lot of reduced price admission benefits through my employer when my kids were young, I made good use of them to take the kids to a lot of different museums when they were, say, 2-6 years old. There are enough places where it is appropriate to hold snack time that it was never an issue.
Then again, I considered that my options were to 1) raise my kids to understand that they need to wait sometimes and 2) move to an area where snack time is acceptable.
I don't quite get the "immediately produce food" thing, and never did. I also made them wait for us to get to a stop light rather than try to forage for an errant toy while driving. There are times and places for things, and we use them.
1. You can take your children
1. You can take your children to the MFA for free- http://www.mfa.org/visit/plan-your-visit/visiting-kids. For yourself, you can check out a free pass at the BPL https://www.bpl.org/general/circulation/museum_passes.php .
2. As mentioned above, insects & rodents can catastrophically damage artwork. This is library/archive specific, but the same applies to museums- https://www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/librarypreservation/mee/man... . As you see, they recommend not even allowing food in the same building as the collections.
3. If a child has special health needs or impulse control problems that prevent them from being able to get to the appropriate location to eat, use the restroom, or any other normal function, please talk to the museum staff. Most museums are happy to arrange special accommodations or tours.
Witnessed a woman at Isabella
Witnessed a woman at Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum leaning against the tapestries while yapping on her phone. A security guard asked her to please not touch them and that there was no mobile phone use in the museum. As soon as the guard walked away she resumed her call and leaning. I mean, come on... these tapestries are hundreds of years old! No respect.
Another reason why the FCC's ban on
cell phone jammers is ludicrous.
My tolerance for selfie
My tolerance for selfie sticks went out the window when I saw people using them at the 9/11 Memorial in NYC.
welp
today i learned theres something called a selfie stick
sounds like something that should be done in the privacy of ones own bedroom
But will the Swedish health care system pay for them?
I first heard the term "selfie stick" when my husband had visitors from Singapore in his office who bestowed one on each group.
My kids call them "The Wand of Narcissus".
They are very obnoxious in crowds, and, as always, people forget about that "no flash" part in museums.
I did have a great time putting my phone on the one in my husband's office, sitting in a desk chair in an open area, setting the camera to panorama mode, and aiming it at myself as I spun.
hence the name
SwirlyGirl!
(No subject)
.
Holy crap, that guy's
Holy crap, that guy's persistent. He's been trying to dunk that cookie over & over for at least an hour by now.
I need one of those with a
I need one of those with a book attachment on the end so that I can read without my reading glasses.
Isn't this pretty much a no
Isn't this pretty much a no-brainer? Don't swing a stick around a museum with priceless, fragile and irreplaceable works of art. If you want a pic of yourself and your pals and your arm isn't long enough, ask someone else to take it for you. Problem solved.