Ann Powers, music museum curator (3) - By Ann Powers

HOME / diary: A weeklong electronic journal.

diary:
entries

Entry 3

Posted Wednesday, April 24, 2002, at 11:58 AM ET

Ann Powers is a senior curator at the Experience Music Project in Seattle. She is the author of Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America.

"I think I found the Moon and the Spoon," Jim confided by cell phone, setting a mood of delirious hope for the start of my day. That hope would shortly be tarnished, but such is the life of a rock museum curator—part scavenger hunt that leads to both mythical beauty and what's generally thought of as trash.

RSS

The Moon and the Spoon is the sign that blessed the interior of Studio 54 in its 1970s heyday. A giant smiling crescent with a drug utensil at its nose, this prop defines the disco era's blithe decadence. Jim Fricke, manager of my department, had tracked it down through a kind source to a storage room in a Las Vegas hotel. Or so he thought—a few phone calls revealed that it's actually on display now and might be harder than anticipated to acquire as a loan for our disco show.

Jim gives Nick the scoopWe'll keep trying, though, because that's what curators do. We sniff out, pester, schmooze, and simply listen to the wild characters that make up our little slice of history, seeking objects that resonate with a power like that of the music we love itself. It's not always easy to predict what artifacts will spark the imagination. I spent a little time with the collection today, accompanying Jim and Nick Spitzer of the wonderfully inventive Public Radio International program American Routes. Nick was documenting EMP for a future show on "sound museums," and Jim, who's been at the museum virtually longer than anyone, was sharing his insights. I tagged along, mostly to learn.

Some curves within the museumFirst we stopped at the monumental piece in the lobby created by the sculptor Trimpin. It consists of a mass of instruments, mostly stringed, erupting in a skyward stream. "I think of it as the remains of every failed band, ever," joked Jim. And the thing actually plays.

What's the difference between Trimpin's pile of guitars and the treasured shards of axes in the Jimi Hendrix gallery? I pondered this as Jim showed Nick "the shard," the piece of the guitar Jimi smashed and burned at Monterey Pop. "People have offered us other pieces of it, but we haven't pursued them," Jim said. "I kinda think, one is enough." Another strange thing about a museum collection is the artifacts' aura increases when they're isolated, even when they're mass-produced. Certainly the Jimi shard boasts the power of its context (plus, he custom-illustrated it). But in other cases throughout EMP, such as the vintage radios we have in our early rock history exhibit or the cans of spray paint in the hip-hop wing, these items become more special because of how they're displayed, encouraging people to notice the chronicles recorded in what might have been their trash.

Glamorous caseworkI dragged Nick into the temporary gallery for a minute to look at the cases for "Uncommon Objects," our summer show being assembled. As a newborn museum geek, I'm really excited about the finishes on the casework and how vitrine shapes and graphics influence how this stuff will be interpreted. I don't think it thrilled Nick; like a real museum visitor, he wanted to see "real stuff." For me, though, it's like learning grammar and syntax all over again. As a writer, the smallest decision—like where to place dashes—steers your work toward its meanings. At EMP, the syntax is not what we choose to display, but how it's lighted, what audio accompanies it, the mount upon which it sits.

Charles D’Ambrosio shares insight Charles D'Ambrosio shares insightAfter the tour, my day devolved into meetings where such issues turned my head into knots. We're trying to give shape to stories that we love precisely because they defy neat packaging. Hours of discussing whether disco's rise should be told through a song time line or biographies of DJs sent me running for a relaxing evening activity. I got that courtesy of my dear friends Emily White and Rich Jensen, who dragged me out for a lecture by the shaggily brilliant writer Charles D'Ambrosio.

Emily and Rich cheer me upEmily is the writer-in-residence at Seattle's literary haven, the Richard Hugo House. She'd invited Charles to speak, and he offered a deep, close reading of a Hugo poem that has inspired him to actually move to the small Montana town mentioned in its title. The talk veered all around, encompassing Ovid, Sept. 11, Joseph Brodsky, black-box recorders, kissing, tickling, and potatoes. One of Charles's tossed-off comments stuck with me: "One of the simple ways to generate meaning is this: When you need something, you go out and find it." Plain and useful advice for someone running after moons and spoons.