here's another fun story:

     my friend and i went over to the west wing of the national gallery to
     kill an afternoon and were wandering slowly through one of the many
     rooms when a great black marble sculpture caught my eye.  we went back
     to take a closer look (but not too close!) when these two women came
     in making quite the entrance and talking rather loudly.  one of them
     came over to the sculpture that we were looking at, grabbed it
     suddenly and proclaimed (while still holding on rather tightly)
     "OHMIGOD!  I LOVE THIS!"  at which point i stared at her in horror,
     and asked her politely to remove her hands from the sculpture.

     then while we were in the main lobby of the east wing, two teenage
     boys were having fun with the sculpture of a nude woman - one with his
     hands on her (you can imagine where) and the other taking a picture.
     i finally grabbed the nearest handy security guard wandering by, and
     he explained that they do the best they can, but were understaffed at
     the time and the lobby is the first place where they cut back.  faith
     was restored when i saw a man touch the canvas of a painting and a
     guard yelled across the room "NO TOUCHING!!!"  boy did that guy jump
     back.

     i think that it's great that we have the chance to view so many great
     works of art and historical artifacts up close and in person, but it
     breaks my heart to see it mistreated.  and people get upset when they
     can't see x or y because it has been removed from exhibition due to
     security, safety, or conservation of the object and wonder why.

     kyra :)
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