handiwork, and determination of human beings instill me with a sense of 
awe and wonder. 
	Fundamentally, these show-cases are interesting to look at.  In an 
entirely enclosed space, physically small, the entrance easy walking 
distance from the exit, hundreds upon thousands of creations display 
themselves for view.  Right at my finger-tips reside the tangible 
culmination of somebody's total life efforts.  Each piece has a different 
background, a different purpose, a different meaning.  To see such a 
plethora, such a melange of things, each jam-packed, saturated with 
significance, is quite the enriching experience.  A neat experience it is.  
Ah, the aesthetic beauty of a French impressionist painting.  The force and 
majesty of marble sculpture.  The reminiscence of an history exhibit, in 
the far wing of the second floor, laden with old manuscripts, peculiar 
inventions, yellowing photographs.  The richness of our creations!  
Museums allow us to survey them; as we relive an adventure in a story 
book, we relive our past heritage and culture in our buildings - museums - 
protectors of the annals of our history.
	Whereas aquariums and zoos and natural science exhibits sample 
the entirety of the ecological Earth (which I also enjoy, though not as 
much as either an anthropologically-centered site or a self-guided stroll in 
the wilderness), museums sample the aggregate world of human 
imagination.  Besides becoming or living with an artist, what greater way 
is there to achieve appreciation of the arts, than to behold a treasury of 
them?
	A particularly interesting genera of museums I've found interest in 
more recently are the so-called "Museums of Modern Art".  In La Jolla, 
near where I presently live, there is a fine one, a modern (architecturally, 
and otherwise) building by the sea.  It is filled with photographs, 
paintings, sculptures, and other crafts intended to cross boundaries 
between all previous attempts at formulating boxes into which to place the 
various mediums.  I find contemplating chalk-boards with eraser marks 
and water fountains adorning the face, or large photographs of bright 
green walls, or three-hundred twenty-seven paintings of the same half-full 
glass of water immensely satisfying.  It is a very curious situation: the art's 

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16 Renford Road (three)
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