Are you real? Well, yes.
Is it raining outside now?
…I’m in a basement.
*
The Dali show, from
seven years ago, I missed.
Can I still go now?
*
Who replaces your
American flags? May I
speak with them? URGENT.
*
We close at five. If
I arrive at five, when would
I need to leave? Five.
*
I found a Miro
in my attic. Can you buy
it? Not at all fake.
*
Picasso found in
gated community yard.
Definitely real.
*
Dental assistant
calls about tooth art that should
be in the museum.
*
I want to bring my
mini horse to the museum.
That should be fine, right?
*
Son in college has
assignment. Needs hand holding.
You should do his work.
*
A show, forty years
ago. Transfer me to the
curator please. Now.
*
Who were the very
first donors? The more recent
ones get their credit.
*
Why are there stairs? I
don’t like that you’re on a hill.
You should be lower.
*
The museum is not
free. This upsets you greatly.
And it’s my fault.
*
The prices are too
high. I’m not buying tickets,
just thought you should know.
*
There was a Rodin
at another museum.
So what was its name?
*
Can you tell me where
the skate park is? What do you
mean, you don’t know? Why?
*
Other museums have
a different parking system,
and this upsets me.
*
Our hours are ten to
five. Every day. No matter
how often you ask.
*
Do you guys have the
dinosaurs? You should, they’re much
better than paintings.
Tags: art, haiku, maia brown-jackson, museums, work
Related Posts
That dentist’s tooth art should be at least as good as these.
At least.
Or:
100% would go to this exhibition if I had to drive two hours or less. That is amazing.
WHERE DO THEY GET THE TEETH
Not too long ago we were cleaning out an old biomedical engineering lab and we found several jars labeled only “human molars.”
This is mostly unrelated, I just wanted to share because it was creepy as fuck.
Well, I for one am glad you did!
My undergrad university has a famous brain collection, some of which are out on public display. I used to enjoy seeing them relaxing in their jars on my way to class.
Brains! Very nice.
These particular jars were just very full of human molars. It was mysterious because WHY, but not in a “but do they really mean TEETH??” kind of way. They definitely meant teeth.
Oh dear, I misread that as “malar” and now I don’t know if I should be relieved or even more freaked out.
An artist of my acquaintance, who likes to make strange and scary art, ordered teeth from a South Asian country (I didn’t know about this until after he had ordered them, otherwise I would have tried to stop him). We were horrified and curious. Teeth dealers exist?! They take internet orders?? You can get human body parts through mail order?!?
But that’s not the creepiest part of this tale. The creepiest part came when he opened the sinister package.
Since exporting body parts is very illegal, the smuggler had arranged the teeth inconspicuously into childish-looking macaroni art… except with teeth. Instead of dried pasta, human teeth glued onto a colourful crayon drawing on cardboard, like a serial killer’s childhood Christmas card.
What could the artist have made that could be better? How could he possibly capture the horror of childhood and bodily decay in a truer way than this? How would he dare tamper with this timeless work of art?
The card was a masterpiece. It struck awe into our minds and fear into our hearts. We cowered before the teeth smuggler’s terrifying artistic skill and vision.
This whole story is crazy. I mean. How was glueing the teeth onto cardboard a way of disguising what they are? Was his defense going to be, these aren’t illegal human teeth, this is art?
Oh, the disguise was pretty good. Teeth look remarkably like pasta, if you don’t stop to look closely. And how often do you do that, when you see a piece of macaroni art? How often have you really looked at the macaroni?
The tooth art is terrifying. On not liking that the museum is on a hill: During Fair St. Louis this summer I tried to go to the art museum (mistake #1, the roads were half blocked off) and ended up walking from Forsyth to the museum. Art Hill at the end almost did me in. So caller who hates hills, I feel you!
This delights me to no end. I was an art museum operator five years ago and these were all as perfectly and utterly true then as now!
Sara, Maia is one of us! Maia, Sara is a former one of us! Ahh, we have all worked at the same museum! Toasties unite!
These are so beautiful and 100% accurate; I particularly love, “We close at five. If / I arrive at five, when would / I need to leave? Five.” Bless.
::clasps hands to heart::: The circle is now complete!
Hey I think I know this museum, too, if it’s one where people are always asking about a skate park.
Oh, this is so amazing. I worked for a couple of years staffing a small gallery. SO PERFECT, TRUE
I am a Museum Toastie! Can we all get bowties or something? Also you should enjoy this: http://whenyouworkatamuseum.com/
Why wouldn’t it be fine to take Lil’ Sebastian to an art museum?? It’s because he would upstage the art, isn’t it?
It wouldn’t be fine because he’s dead
(bye bye lil’ sebastiaaaan)
MISS YOU IN THE SADDEST FASHIOOON
He is resurrected, weren’t you there for the wedding? Didn’t you see him at the Unity Concert?
oh these are perfect.
I am calling from
The line for tickets upstairs.
Make it go faster.
Parking costs too much
We are located downtown.
How inconvenient.
actually I could probably sum up 90% of my former museum job with the following haiku:
I think I can park
Next to the door and for free
At your peak hours.
OK, I feel compelled to share this. The spouse of a former nonprofit employer of mine, very wealthy, recently passed away. To the extent that I knew her, she was exceedingly kind and generous and socially engaged, and I feel very sad for him that she died. BUT her obituary said that she “was born into privilege, which she rarely invoked, except to park whenever and wherever she wanted, regardless of signage and curb colors” and I could not believe that they wrote that. That’s not a cute lighthearted remembrance for an obituary, that’s a classic example of rich people having no clue that their actions impact others!
I am having Lucille Bluth visions.
SO ACCURATE.
Re: “we are located downtown”
You’re near the park
Where the poor people hang out
Is the museum safe???
(related: you mean I have to walk a WHOLE BLOCK to get to the nearest parking garage? and also: why are the parking meters on the block next to City Hall, the Main Library, and the utilities company only 15minutes? can you give me money for it?)
omg, so much this. I had sympathy for the folks from way out of town who rarely come to the city and are surprised, but the [sub]urbanites who were shocked that parking was scarce mid-workday or when there was a sports event going on, not so much. Especially if I mentioned some free parking options and they just got horrified at the notion of taking a bus or walking a few blocks (with KIDS! Have you ever tried to walk a quarter mile with KIDS?!?! Well, not personally, but I remember being said kid / seeing parents without cars doing it all the time).
Like, I get it, distance or cost can be hard for folks & I’m happy to list ways to minimize one or the other, but when grown adults cannot accept that it tends to be a tradeoff between the two…or they describe like 5% of my daily commute as IMPOSSIBLE…man…
YES I so get what you’re saying.
It’s always really frustrating to me because I love my city’s downtown! It’s really pretty and actually for a city we’re pretty suburban/quiet and nothing at all like the downtowns of other major cities like Atlanta or Miami or anything. You don’t even have to move your car when your meter runs out, just refill it. (We get transplants/visitors from up north who are always like “so, i don’t see any marked tires… is that not a thing?” which makes me feel pretty grateful!)
And parking on the street is super cheap. 50 cents for an hour! The nearest garage isn’t bad, either – $3 for the first hour, maxing out at $10 for the day. Street parking is actually free on weekends and holidays! And usually the cops don’t even ticket cars parked illegally on the weekends, as long as you’re not actively blocking an ambulance or hydrant or something.
This is on top of how the museum is located within two blocks of: the Main Library, City Hall, County Courthouse, county utilities company, and tax collector’s office, so parking is in high demand for people who are going in and out to drop off paperwork or whatever.
Basically, compared to other places, my museum is in a fairly convenient location with great parking options, and yet people complain and expect me to fix things that are beyond my control. (And also at least once a week I get one person who is really upset that our building doesn’t connect internally to any of the city offices who share the block with us??? like…why would you even assume that’s possible??? just because city offices fill the rest of the block and we’re just one corner of it?)
I did make a point of parking 4 blocks away and bringing my 7-year-old nephew once a couple years ago, so I could be more authoritative about walking downtown with kids. 😀
“What is there for kids?”
“What are they interested in?”
“Er… everything?” *shrug*
“Oh, you’re free? That’s great!
No, I won’t buy a guidebook
Or donate to you.”
“I’d like tickets for
The Cheapside Hoard, please. WHAT D’YOU
MEAN, TWO YEARS AGO?!”
“Will you bring it back?
And call me personally
So I don’t miss it.”
These are glorious.
The department where I used to teach invited advisors to submit thesis-related haiku about a week before senior theses were due every year. I feel like they would have found an appreciative audience at the Toast.
all of these are deeply and beautifully true. especially the willful disbelief about the firmness of set and stated closing times.
I would read, like, 1 million of these, so if there are any other museum operators who would like to post, please feel free.
I live in Malvern,
can you give me directions
from my home address?
Museum life is real.
This is amazing. Just a handful of syllables for a remarkably thorough picture of what the job was like.
I’m so curious about the college student’s assignment. What entitlement… and what help were they thinking they could get over the phone? That you would dictate a flawless essay for them?
My heart goes out to the people calling for a piece of art barely remembered, though–it’s like when you’d hear a song on the radio in the days before Shazam & try desperately to place it later on, only harder because it’s visual and often unreproducible. Not that they should put a poor phone operator on the spot, but I understand the emotion there.
Well I would hope the person on the other end would at least TRY there… Maybe? As long as there was more information than “there was a Rodin at some other museum.”
This is incredible. And so much more accurate than anyone who has not answered the phone at an art museum will ever, ever know.
One woman called me at an NYC museum job asking what I could tell her about “those trees in Central Park,” because they are, “SO big! They’re big, right?”
No, ma’am- we, an arts institution, do not have much to say about those very big trees.
Also, NO you cannot leave your 6 suitcases here and then go to the museum next door.
What age for child price?
What if my husband ACTS twelve?
An original joke.
“But I’m someone’s child.”
“I’m sorry ma’am. No.”
*family of fully grown adults*
“Can we have a family ticket?”
“No, I’m sorry – a family ticket is for a combined group of adults and children between the ages of seven and seventeen.”
“but we’re a family!”
“No.”
I actually brought my parents to a recent Family Day event at the art museum, and the desk staffer, bless their heart, was good enough to let us all three of in for the family rate. It only shaved about two bucks off the rate but I thought it was very good-humoured.
MY LIFE. Also the ever popular; “Well, I’m a student of life.”
To which the only appropriate answer is, “and does that come with a student ID?”
haha that’s my response, too!
but then they try to show me their driver’s licenses and i’m like “okay, no, cheapskate”
The other one I get is visibly older people who say “senior ticket, please!” and then get annoyed when I don’t ask for their id. It’s like… lady. c’mon. most people don’t ask for the senior ticket if they’re not qualified for it. if you want to save a measly $2, i’ll just give it to you. do you see me asking the teens for proof that they’re under 18?
(i hate trying to look at ids. no matter how often i do it i always have to search to find the birthdate, i don’t know if it’s the Florida ID design or what. also the type is really tiny so it takes forever and slows down the line)
Library questions aren’t quite this bad, but I do get an awful lot of people (in academic/law libraries, where people can be reasonably expected to have used a library before) who apparently don’t know how to look things up on an online catalogue.
(Also, hi, picture of Buffy from Becoming! My favourite.)
I cannot sell you
alcohol. It’s a state park.
Here’s a candy bar.
The platform is three
hundred yards away. You may
not drive. No road. Walk.
Cash only. We do
not take credit cards. We do
not take credit cards.
Elevator? No.
This is a trail for hiking.
Your car will not fit.
You don’t want to see
a bear. I promise. You will
lose your shit. It’s big.
(I worked at a state park.)
Horrifyingly accurate, although as I was front desk staff, I got many of these in person.
“Can I use my member
ship from unrelated
museum here? No.”
(It was always like “I should get a member’s price for this membership to the Detroit Space Museum!” (I live in Australia, and I worked at an art gallery.)
“This is the last week
You will have to queue up here
Yes, it’s crowded”
These are terrible haikus.
I also got plenty of people very upset that they didn’t get to go on a free guided tour, because they didn’t turn up in time to obtain a place and there were limited numbers.
“Why is it crowded?
The reason that you came here
Times fifteen hundred.”
Everyone ALWAYS left it to the last minute to go and see the temporary/touring exhibitions. My two main things I learned from working at a gallery, that I tell to anyone who wants to go to a gallery or museum, is a) if you want to see a temporary episode and it’s possible to go early, GO EARLY when it’s just opened up. No one comes in the first week except a couple of old ladies, some art university students and maybe a mother and her baby. And b) if you go to a gallery or museum, don’t ever try and see everything (unless it’s a little private gallery.) Because you will die. Pick one area or one exhibition and have a look at it thoroughly. Even if you have the whole day, you’ll end up exhausting yourself and you won’t enjoy it. My practice is to always go to the temporary exhibition, if it looks interesting, because it won’t still be there when I come back. I went to the west wing of the smithsonian and I saw the Andrew Wyeth temporary exhibition, a little bit of American art and that was probably about it.
What problem is it
this call, I wonder, is it
a personal one?
But I have renewed
But you sent a reminder
But I have renewed
Thank you for this, Maia! I am thoroughly and completely in the employ of a Museum and this is all so real. I interviewed today for a promotion for a position where I won’t just be “the live human”- ::shudder::
we received a note recently accusing us of forcing visitors onto welfare by charging for tickets… no one has the time for me to respond to that accusation.
I work in a museum basement. This year, they added a camera with a semi-live feed of the outdoors. It’s nice.
Oh man, I’m afraid I’ve been one of those callers. (I’m so sorry).
What do you mean the policy has changed?
Teachers used to get in free.
No, I don’t want to buy a membership.
UPDATE: I GOT THE PROMOTION AND THIS ARTICLE WAS ACTUAL MAGIC!
CONGRATS! Enjoy your new role!
THANK YOU!
Yay for you!!!
THANK YOU!
!!!!! Way to go!
HUZZAH!!
The one about dinosaurs is correct, though, c’mon now.
Light bulb! Combine dinosaurs and tooth art. T Rex scrimshaw.
This is 5000% accurate and it’s the worst and the number of times a week I get people wanting to show me their amateur pencil drawings to hang on the walls or verify that some giclee print is a masterpiece original uggggghhhh
(also the people who try to google us and get really confused when they visit and we’re not one of a dozen museums with a similar acronym, or are not showing the same exhibition as one of those. what do you mean all the Museums of Modern Art and Museums of Fine Art and so on aren’t the same thing??? they have the same name!!! just like McDonald’s and Barnes & Noble etc.)
THAT SAID I love my job at the front desk and wouldn’t give it up for the world. (okay, maybe it’s just THIS PARTICULAR museum that i love so much, but i actually had an opportunity recently to move to a different position with better pay, etc. but ultimately declined to pursue it because most of the things I love about my job are tied to being the primary guest relations person.)
I answer phones at a book publisher. I want to play!
Do you have the book
I saw yesterday at school?
The blue one? It’s blue.
Where are you? Can I
come visit? Because I want
to buy books. Why not?
Who operates your
press machine thing? What
do you mean, no one?
I sent a book back
to you twenty years ago.
Give it back now, please.
I am important.
I wrote a book. No, not a
published one! Free stuff?
Free stuff? Free stuff? Free
stuff? Free stuff? Free stuff? Free stuff?
Free stuff? Free stuff? Free
I don’t understand
why you sell books on the web.
Why don’t you hate cash?
I am a student.
Help me write my essay, please.
No, I got it used.
It’s blue. I think it’s
about birds? Maybe? Oh, you’re
not Oxford? Who’s this?
I saw this art here
thirty years ago; it is
not where it was. Where is it?
Where are your bathrooms?
They are hard to find, and there
Are no signs pointing the way.
Impressionism is
The only art anyone
Ever asks to see.
I saw this art here
thirty years ago; it is
not where it was. Where is it?
Where are your bathrooms?
They are hard to find, and there
Are no signs pointing the way.
Impressionism is
The only art anyone
Ever asks to see.
I missed the tour of
impressionism. Will they
hang them back up soon?
Sign: Free After 6
It is 11 a.m.
Do I HAVE to pay?
Please direct me to
local art studios. What?
No Drop-in visits?!
(implied: “They should be grateful that I want to see their work” and “the artists should be available at ALL times”)
It’s your lucky day!
I have some art to donate
if you pay for it
I keep stumbling across more and more things today that mostly just make me roll my eyes and patiently explain, again, that no, things don’t quite work that way… (pretty glad I the good interactions outweigh the repetitious or annoying ones!)
Ooof. I feel ya! We redid our website and I had to start a "Healthcare.gov Comparison" tally.
oh daaang. ours is going to be redone next year, i'm going to have to remember to keep a chart of responses to laugh about at the monthly staff cocktail time
Ahhh, curator here, and I FEEL you. Our switchboard regularly routes things through to the wrong extension – and the volunteers working the entrance desk often get pressured by visitors into calling a curator to pose a question or insist on having their artwork (which they just happen to have on their person) appraised.
Sample call from earlier this week:
“Can I make an appointment to see the Bayeux Tapestry?”
“No, sir, the Bayeux Tapestry is not in this museum.” (IT IS IN FRANCE).
“A label in gallery X says that you have the Bayeux Tapestry.”
*I think for a bit and suddenly realise what he’s talking about*
“Sir, the label refers to a 19th century photographic copy of the tapestry.”
“Well why isn’t it on display?”
“Because it doesn’t fit with our current gallery plans or the stories we are trying to tell in them.”
“You should have it on display. It’s really important. It’s HISTORY.”
“It is also too fragile to display and would disintegrate under light.”
“Oh. Thank you for your time.”
all of these are deeply and beautifully true. especially the willful disbelief about the firmness of set and stated closing times..To Know More Visit Us Joy Card BD
all of these are deeply and beautifully true. especially the willful disbelief about the firmness of set and stated closing times..To Know More Visit Us Joy Card BD