Philistine

There is no doubt if I am my moms daughter. I resemble her both in terms of appearance and in terms of character. One of the most significant similarities, I am proud of, is that we both are extremely curious, sympathetic to others and like to write.

There is one big difference between my mom and I. I refer myself as a  philistine, cause I don’t read lots of books, I am not as interested in music, arts nor politics, compared to her. Visiting New York for my mom means spending as much time as possible on arti, musical and historical stuff. For her it’s unthinkable to ‘waist’ precious time while being in this big cultural city.

I am the opposite. During my holidays I do not like to be on a tide schedule and I rather blend in with the locals by having a nice conversation over a coffee than seeing all the high lights. I like to know what their life is all about and how they coop with curtain issues. For me to interact with locals makes my holiday so much more interesting instead of hanging around other tourist.
For example. The other day I did go to the MoMa. In a way, even though I am a grown up, I did not wanted to disappoint my mom. I have to admit I did like, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, the almost 700 snapshot-like portraits of Nan Goldin taken herself elsewhere in the late 1970s, 1980s, and beyond. I also liked ‘the mapping journey’ of Bouchra Khalili. A series of videos that details the stories of eight individuals who have been forced by political and economic circumstances to travel illegally.

But… most of my time I was fully distracted by the hordes of tourists taking their selfies in all kind of posses, probably to post on social media. Completely absorbed in their activity they had to be warned several times not to molest the art. As specially in the pop art section they were hard to ignore.

I wonder how many of these annoying tourist went just like me to the MoMa just because they were guided by their imposed values instead of doing what they really like.

Maybe I am not a  philistine after all, just like my mom. We both share our cultural interest, only each in our own way.