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September 4, 2007
Naked Guys at the Johnson Museum
A couple weeks ago I took my last trip of the summer: I went to Ithaca, NY, to visit dear friends.
Ithaca, in case you didn't know, is in a singularly beautiful part of the world. It's part of the finger lakes region of New York and has both rolling hills and steep valleys. At the Wegman's in Ithaca you can buy t-shirts proclaiming that it's "gorges." It's worth going just to survey the scenery, but there's also stuff to do. There are state parks, for hiking and swimming and boating. It's the home of the Moosewood Restaurant. The downtown is decent for hanging out. There's also the art gallery at Cornell university: the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art.
Admission is free, and the top floor of the museum (which houses a decent collection of Asian art) is a great place to get a panoramic view of the entire city, including Ithaca's own personal lake (the name of which I forget). But what will really stick with me are the statues of two naked guys that are the first piece of art you encounter when you walk in the door.
They're these life-sized bronze figures arranged to illustrate the name of the sculpture, which is "Conflict." To be frank, it's not an especially remarkable piece of art, but for some (OK, well, a fairly obvious) reason it has become the mascot of the museum, and the coffee cart and pastry case in the lobby of the museum have been dignified by the name of "2 Naked Guys Cafe," because they're only feet away from the naked guys.
The museum sells t-shirts for the cafe, and of course I bought one--I owed a birthday present to a gay man, and what gay man wouldn't want to walk around West Hollywood in a t-shirt like this?
Posted by holly at September 4, 2007 9:23 AM
Haha. Is 'Johnson' slang for 'penis' in the States, too? Quite appropriate to have a 2 naked guys cafe, then, eh?