Wednesday was spent mostly at the Uffizi.  No, that’s a lie, but we spent a lot of time there.  Including waiting in a long, slow line.  Apparently you really should take everyone’s advice and book early to cut down on waits.  We did not. We waited in a line.  But there was good company, so spending an hour chatting wasn’t so bad.

The museum is huge.  And awesome.  And totally full of people taking snapshots of famous works of art, myself being one of them.  We just think art is best experienced via blurry, low resolution photos on Facebook.  We are entitled to our opinions.

In accordance with the rights given to us to express our opinions w/r/t the appropriate way to experience art, there are plenty of blurry photos of famous works of art included below.   The most fun to see was easily the Birth of Venus, not only because it is awesome, and not only because there is a high relief sculpture of the painting designed to allow blind folks to experience it, and not only because of the giant crowd of people holding cell phones above their head trying to capture its beauty above the heads of other, similarly photographically innovative tourists, but also because I have a bit of personal history with the painting that just makes it a more meaningful experience for me than for probably anyone else.  The Birth of Venus got me in trouble in fifth grade.

 Okay, that’s definitely not really what happened.  What really happened is that I wore one of my brother’s t-shirts to school when I was in fifth grade.  On this shirt was a collage of images, artfully designed to express a visual aesthetic complementary to the music written and performed by the famous Texas rock band Sprawl.  One of these images was Venus in a half shell (Turtle Power!).  I can no longer remember the other components of the design, other than the band’s name across a corner of the image, but I do remember that the collage, with its whimsical mix of high-brow and low-brow images, dutifully reflected the various influences and styles that the band displayed in its music.  The inclusion of the famous image of Venus told the public that the band had studied- they knew their art and its role in the history of civilization.  Indeed, the Goddess of Love is an apt symbol for a band with an album named “The Deflorist.”  But they were not merely respectful students of the past- the off-kilter angle and the inclusion of other images showed how they took a variety of influences and points of view to create a unique approach to aural art.  By wearing the shirt, I aligned myself with the band and their vision, thereby standing in opposition to the mainstream.  That’s what it meant to me.

To my fifth-grade teacher, I was just wearing a shirt with a naked woman on it, and I could wear it inside out or cover it with masking tape.  Because Texas.

Here are some pictures, masking-tape free.