Independence Day Wednesday

To celebrate the 4th of July, I pretended I was in Paris and visited the Girodet exhibit at the Met with my mother. According to the Met:

This is the first American retrospective devoted to A. L. Girodet-Trioson (1767-1824), a favored but rebellious pupil of Jacques-Louis David. Girodet's idiosyncratic style fuses Davi's Neoclassical ideal with his own prescient Romantic vision. A selection of approximately 100 paintings and works on paper reflects his originality and the diversity of his works, from mythological subjects to portraits and representations of Napoleon's military triumphs.

I don't know much about Girodet, but this exhibition was amazing and was much better than the Anglomania exhibit which brought me uptown in the first place. My favorite painting was The Sleep of Endymion, 1791. There was also a HUGE portrait of Napoleon which was fascinating. While other mothers and daughters sat quietly sketching the paintings, my mother asked me loud questions and disturbed the other patrons exclaiming,"I really don't know much about this kind of art." I told her to enjoy the air conditioning but she wanted to leave to go outside to smoke a cigarette. I wanted to go inside and visit the Susan Sontag tribute, but my mother preferred to sit on the steps and listen to the hysterical sermon of The Reverend Basiru A. Gbadamosi who was proselytizing in the 100 degree heat.
My mother found the Reverend much more entrancing than any exhibit at the Met and summarized his screaming sermon stating that she believes in a benevolent God and if God loves you, God really doesn't expect you to stand in front of the Met on a sweltering hot day wearing a three piece black suit while shouting the gospel at the top of your lungs to a bunch of foreign tourists. I agreed and took the Reverend's card which she asked me to give to her so that she could visit this dude's Web site because that would give her "something to do" when she got home. At first I thought this was sad, but since I'm blogging about the Reverend, I guess I can't make too much fun of her for this. After the Met, we had lunch at Viand and shared a turkey sandwich. My mother insists on sharing entrees because my sister always shares entrees with her to save money. This normally annoys me, but I'm trying to lose 10lbs. so I didn't argue with her this time. (When, however, I am over the age of 60 and start complaining about the size of restaurant entrees, please remind me that I am worth my own sandwich.) On the way home, as we were about to get on the subway, the turnstyle was broken and said "Go," but instead of just going, my mother switched turnstyles exclaiming it was broken. She swiped her card on another turnstyle rather than just walking through for the free trip. My God believes in that if the MTA is offering you a free trip, you should take it rather than spend the $2.00 on another entry. Don't get me wrong. I love my mother and she supports me in everything I do, but I have to say, sometimes it takes celebrating the 4th with your mom to appreciate the freedom you have after she goes home.