 |
| Frank Gehry |
|
Daddy, do you know Frank Gehry?
T: Daddy, do you know Frank Gehry?
Dad: Sure!
T: You know him in person?
Dad: No! I know who Frank Gehry is; I never met him in person.
T: Do you ever want to meet him?
Dad: Not really!
T: Is he important?
Dad: Yes! He is important. Where did you hear about him?
T: On Arthur
(Arthur, the PBS Kids popular cartoon show)
Dad: We have a DVD about him. It’s called: “Sketches of Frank Gehry.” We can watch it together if you want.
T: I want to meet him.
Dad: We can not meet every celebrity that ever lived.
T: He is a celebrity?
Dad: He is a celebrity architect.
T: What is a celebrity? He is like Hannah Montana?
Dad: A celebrity – is a person who is very popular. He is popular like Hannah Montana – yes!
T: Dad, Have you met any celebrity architects?
Dad: Yes I have. I worked for one of them – a long time ago – 15 or 16 years ago.
T: You did? So exciting!
Dad: It was Okay! We’d hardly ever see him. I liked his work. I still do. We visited one of his buildings during construction. Do remember in Winchester – the library in a historic park?
T: No I don’t.
Dad: You don’t! Remember the tour guide said you have to have a hard hat & I put your bike helmet on your head?
T: No I don’t.
Dad: Do you remember walking in the park where there was a small pond near a neat garden with women in 19th century costumes?
T: No dad I don’t remember. How old was I?
Dad: Three years…and maybe 2 or 3 months old!
T: I am a child – I have short attention span!
Dad: Says who?
T: You! Says you!
Dad: There is another building of him in DC that I worked on; we can go visit that building.
T: Can we go this weekend?
Dad: I guess!
T: Dad why is Gehry important?
Dad: He makes beautiful architecture that people like to visit. He makes unique architecture.
T: Why you don’t want to meet him?
Dad: I said I did not - didn’t I? Well, Gehry, the person is not important to me. It’s his work that matters. I don’t care about Frank Gehry as a person. We’re not friends, we’re not related. I don’t know what kind of books he reads, I don’t know anything about him. But I know he is very creative in creating architecture that is beautiful and very innovative. So I think he is important.
T: Like Hannah Montana!
Dad: Like Hannah Montana? How?
T: Remember I told you that Hannah Montana was mean to Asian people and stereotyped Asians?
Dad: Yes I do remember our conversation. You wanted to boycott her; I told you that you have to decide if what she has done was so severe that in your opinion she is not worth listening to anymore or something like that…
T: Exactly, dad. That’s what you said.
Dad: What did you decide? Did we ever talk about it again?
T: I was disappointed in her – very disappointed!
Dad: And?
T: I haven’t watched her shows for a while now.
Dad: For that reason? You grounded her; huh?
T: That’s not funny! And, I’m just too busy!
Dad: Busy is good; being busy keeps you interested. Let me tell you something about Hannah Montana; She is a singer – a dancer – an actress. Her personal feelings should not matter to us. If she were your sister, we had a lot of work ahead of us. But Hannah Montana – is that even her name?
T: Good point dad!
Dad: Look, honey; I admire you for objecting to racial profiling _ you know what that means?
Interrupts…
T: Yes I do!
Dad: But, you should make that decision on your own.
T: I did!
Dad: Okay. First you have to hear that yourself. Don’t let anyone tell you how you should feel. Did you hear her making that comment about Asians?
T: No!
Dad: Well, looks like you have some research to do.
T: Dada?
Dad: Yes, dada?
T: Can we meet Frank Gehry?
Dad: Did you just change the subject?
T: Dada?
Dad: Yes you did! Well, he teaches at Yale; and Columbia. We can arrange an impromptu visit to New York or Connecticut and Meet him. Maybe I can ask him to interview with “The Noble Architect” Newsletter…
T: Can we really do that?
Dad: Let me work on that.
T: Dad, what is the name of the other celebrity architect you met?
Dad: Michael Graves. He is a well respected, well established modernist. You should know that Gehry has a lot of critics.
T: What are critics?
Dad: People who don’t understand something and don’t understand that they don’t understand it.
T: Dad? Was that a riddle?
|