Joan Didion says that the Getty’s collection of antiquities says more about the 18th and 19th century craze for antiquities than it does about the periods from which the pieces emanate. (Didion, 1979/2009 p. 75).
Reminds me that I once saw Bethany and Rufus in Boulder Creek, followed them to LA, and ended up having dinner at The Daily Grill with 10 people most of whom met while working for Eugene McCarthy in 1968. Eugene was the Bernie Sanders of his day. Peter Yarrow – Peter Paul and Mary – sang at a rally and that’s how Bethany’s parents, Mary Beth McCarthy and Peter Yarrow met. A guy there said he was dating Mary Beth – the senator’s niece – but knew he had lost her to the singer.
I recall visiting the old Getty with Brian Moore; and I gifted my Red Sox cap to a visitor from Italy — maybe that’s part of the exchange. Maybe I still have the snap shot, beyond the mind’s eye.
I had seen the new Getty when it opened. And then that concert, Bethany and Rufus. They were on the same label as then-recent former client John Ellis (whose brother is the visual artist Dave Ellis, sometimes also known as SQWRM).