orichalcum

Well, we just had our first official moving estimate, from the reliable people, the ones who were supposed to give us a straightforward quote and mean that we could cross this item off our list before going on vacation for two weeks.

And, well, the quote they gave us was for 5K.

Northwestern will reimburse the first $1000.

Frantically calling other moving companies...

In other news, particularly for retsuko, how precisely does one approximately correctly tie an obi?

Much as I am impressed by Google, I find that its ability to tailor its text ads to content is somewhat haphazard. Take, for instance, the Molly Ivins politically oriented column I was reading today. It had some ads next to it which made perfect sense: "BushWorld Book Summary, by Maureen Dowd"- and "Anti-Bush Shirts and Gear."

But the juxtaposition of "Sexy Iraqi Guys and Girls - Looking for a Hot Date, Romance, or Just a Friend" and "See the Video: Torture and forced confessions alleged at Guatanamo" was somewhat unfortunate.

In other news, I went to MOMA today, and got myself two nice matted prints - Henri Rousseau's Sleeping Gypsy, since he's one of my favorite artists of all time, and Matisse's Dance, which has the naked women in a dancing circle, very appropriate for my office. There were also some lovely Brancusis, one of my favorite sculptors, on display, as well as the more famous works like Les Demoiselles D'Avignon. Overall, though, I'm unimpressed with the new restoration - while the vertical atrium is cool, the thin glass fences separating you from a hundred-foot-drop to an impalement on a giant bronze lipstick were rather unnerving. Also, Il Laboratorio di Gelato, which sells ice cream in the sculpture garden, has nothing on Cones, or even Mary's Dairy. Very disappointing.

Who's your favorite modern artist, and why? For the sake of this question, I define "modern" as 1880-1970 and "art" as "visual media including painting and sculpture and collage."