The Week

Last week I managed to:

- drink beer with friends at Opal Devine's South

- watch Star Wars with my son (who was seeing it for the first time)

- sip some wine in my backyard at night while listening to Elliot Smith and basking in the glow of my new garden lights

- visit the new Blanton Museum of Art, which needs some improvements to become a world-class art museum, but has some really nice pieces (mostly the abstract art in the America:Americas exhibit). Some suggestions for improvement:
(1) get rid of the reproduction sculptures, statues, and busts, which are everywhere; either get some originals or don't put them so prominently on display.
(2) edit down the size of the European collection (which is mostly second-rate religious paintings) and use that extra space for more contemporary American art.
(3) unlike some others, I actually like the large, open atrium entrance of the museum, but it would be more dramatic if there weren't the cheap-looking arches on the first floor or the reproduction busts and friezes strewn about.
(4) it's too late now, but it's really a shame that the original, more daring proposal for the building's exterior architecture was rejected in favor of more stone and stucco and orange terra cotta. I think an art museum should look more provocative and less like the campus Economics Department building.