silence?

I visited Annie Leibovitz's "American Music" exhibit at the DIA yesterday.*

Sure, they were great photos. Sure, she has nice cameras. Sure, she can hang w/ celebrities. But what does all of that mean other than she's well connected? I was disappointed in the descriptions of the images that I heard on the handy-dandy audio thing that they provide. She talked about how she wanted to find a road b/c some country singer sang about a road in one of her songs (or something like that). And there wasn't any music anywhere in the exhibit. When I asked the curator about the music--much to the embarrassment of my patient exhibit-mate--she fed me some info. about licensing. Hmpf.

So why is this bothersome? Well, I've been working on a fellowship application for the last little while. I'm supposed to prove that I'm the best candidate for the award based on the research that I do. If Annie Leibovitz can just "phone-in" her photos, why can't I just phone-in this application and say, "I'm the best applicant just because I am" and have them cut me a cheque/check? Wouldn't that be more fair?

It's like the photography gods provided an application and said, "If you are a good photographer and deserve to be exhibited in the DIA, check here." And Annie did.

I think the fellowship gods should provide an application where they say, "If you are a good scholar and deserve this fellowship, check here." Then I would. Simple, no?

(And don't even get me started on that Rothko painting we saw in another room!) ;>

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*The whole experience was a lot of fun not only b/c I could criticize the exhibit and photographer but b/c my judgmental comrade was amenable to the ridicule. (Thanks, J).