Mellon Headzzzz

While we were all seated in the NGA's East Building Auditorium, awaiting the beginning of this afternoon's Mellon Lecture, a perky girl with a clipboard scampered up to gush and fawn over a couple sitting in front of me, assuring the man and woman that they were MOST welcomed and that NATURALLY the seats all around them at the lecture were reserved for their friends. And that OF COURSE they were invited to a Special Reception afterwards, with Dr. Miller. Blah blah blah. The now-thoroughly-brownnosed chickie then scurried off, wreathed in knowing smiles. And then, very shortly after the lecture began, that woman sitting in front of me threw back her head, opened her mouth wide, and commenced to sleep through the entire effing lecture.

At the Special Reception I have no doubt she assured Dr. Miller that she SIMPLY ADORED her lecture and was ABSOLUTELY RIVETED by every word of it. [sigh] And that it was the MOST COMPELLING thing she had ever heard. SHEESH.




Portrait Head of Pakal, from Palenque, Mexico, AD 600-900, Museo National de Anthropologia, Mexico.