My brothers--art aficionados

Last month my parents, my 2 youngest brothers, and our faux brother Christian (my family's foreign exchange student from Denmark) went to New York City.

Let me preface this by bragging about what awesome parents I have. They love to travel, and they love to take their kids to cool places. And when we get to those cool places, we don't just kick back and read a book, we go and do stuff. It's awesome. And my dad totally has a "But we're on vacay!" mentality which means you sit in great seats at plays and occasionally get room service and other little luxuries like that. My mom is more practical. They're a good team like that. They are also awesome because they are willing to do activities on vacation that everyone loves. I've been on several trips with just me and my dad, sometimes with my sister Char, and we go to plays, and art museums, and shopping. On this trip with just the boys, the activities planned were a Mets game, a Yankees game, and a Knicks game. They did other stuff too, but those were the highlights, as far as I can tell.

However, because they are also parents who care about culture and their kids learning about things, they took trips to the Met and the MoMA as well. The boys like art pretty well, actually, but apparently they did not love the MoMA quite as much as the ancient stuff at the Met. Turns out Egypt is more interesting than Abstract Expressionism.

To illustrate this to me, my dad sent me this picture from his phone while they were gone.

Left to Right: Jordan, Rothko, Ben.

It was accompanied with this message: Wish you were here. Love you.

The man knows me well. Rothko is my LOVE. My computer background is this:

The point is, I loved that they thought of me while admiring my favorite artist, and I loved how excited the boys looked to be there.

So I sent them both a text and said: Guys, cheer up. Rothko is a BOSS!

And the following conversations ensued:

Jordan: Dude modern art sucks sooooooo bad.
Me: No, it's awesome. The Giants suck so bad. (notice his sweatshirt.)
Joe: They're not in season right now, so I don't care but it really is so boring.
Me: Whatevs dude. You can handle it for a couple hours! I would be crying with excitement if I were there, just try to enjoy it!

Ben: There are about 50 paintings that are just half of it colored black and half white. I could do this at home.
Me: But you didn't. Look at the years, dawg. These are the peeps that INVENTED modern art. They were fighting against the man!
Ben: Fighting by dumping a paint can on a canvas.
Me: Exactly.
Ben: So touching.
Me: I know! Except I'm serious and you're just making fun of me.


I think we have a couple of art historians in the making, don't you? Oh, those boys. I just can't seem to make them understand that the point of modern art is this.