Stories from a man who fails to meet media expectations of what it means to be gay:
white, frivolous, over sexed yet sexless, shrill, single, stylish, a clown, unimportant, et al.

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Not falling off mountains, sappy sex shops, and art

The museum was not as inspiring as it�s Argentine counterpart, but it was still a worthwhile stop.� The building it is housed is grand; an old exposition hall with a huge glass-ceiling lobby used to display sculptures and darkened rooms of paintings and other more light sensitive work.�

One of the rooms was devoted to letting children discover art by using all of their senses.� Well, maybe not all of them.� According to a docent, while the paintings and sculptures had been chosen for their visual, tactile, and auditory impact, I don�t recall anything that was particularly smelly.

The displays were all �real� works of art, and tended towards the modern, including a sculpture that was a large, smooth, plastic �U� shape that could function as a sort of a rocking horse.� Children could ride it if they wanted.� The thing about the piece though was that it was a nude woman lying on her back with her legs and arms held up in an odd yoga like position.� While it didn�t appear to be an overly sexual piece, I just can�t picture it showing up in a kid�s space museum in North America.

The basement level of the museum was for temporary exhibits and had a series of works by an artist consisting of images, video, artifacts, and sculptures invoking Antarctica, ice, light, Catholicism, emptiness, and journeys, all in an attempt to examine the idea of a modern pilgrimage, a modern journey of religious discovery.

There were videos of the artist trekking through frozen Antarctic wilds, ice core samples that were also communion wafers, and the now usual displays of notes and documents showing what the artist had intended to do.� It was an intensely personal piece and though what I am describing seems cold and bleak, there was also a sense of brightness to it as well.

The gay/adult store I mentioned briefly when I started these vacation entries all so long ago was a couple of blocks away from the museum and was ultimately not that interesting.� It advertised in a gay Santiago guide that we had picked up in Buenos Aires, and consisted of little more than a small one-room storefront with some clothes and underwear for sale and what appeared to be videos available behind the counter.� The place wasn�t large and with most of the clothes being �exotic� women�s wear (skimpy underwear and a maid�s outfit) it didn�t even seem to be particularly gay either.� I think it took us a whole five minutes to enter, see everything, then leave.

By that time the sky had cleared up and we went to Cerro Santa Lucia signing in at one of the entrances, which was a new experience for me.� I�ve never had to sign into a park before.� It was a cool place, a tall hill in the middle of the city surrounded by tall buildings (offices, apartments), so that from the summit it looks as if you could jump on to the roofs of nearby buildings.� Despite being much shorter than Cerro San Cristobal, the views were much more impressive.

It was also very un-American. Meaning that there was no way in heck this place could exist in the states.� Many of the paths had no handrails, and those that were there were old and loose.� There were also stone steps worn smooth and slick, and numerous spots were someone could fall off the side of the steep hill and injure if not outright kill themselves.� American lawyers would organism at the mere sight of it.

Lunch that day was at a place called R.� It was recommended in several of the guide books and online tour sites I looked at, and as such, tourists outnumbered locals, including two young college aged women who clearly demonstrated why it is that Americans are perceived as a loud people.� A very, very loud people.� Despite the raving reviews, the food was, well the food was food.

It took us a while to find our next stop.� In fact, we walked by it couple of times, only to realize that it was back behind the caf�.� On the map we were looking at, the Museo de Artes Visuals (the Museum of Visual Arts), was in a plaza, and every other plaza we had seen in the city was a large park, while it turned out that this plaza was merely a small plaza.

The museo was the first and last time we saw young, hip, black clothed, and deadlocked college kids during the vacation.� When we described them to Carlos and Beth, they were nearly incredulous that there was such a thing as a deadlocked Chileno, but they also admitted that they weren�t exactly hanging out with cool college kids these days either so they were perhaps not the best to judge.

While the museum occupied a small space, it had a strong and interesting permanent collection.� There was also a show of contemporary German art that dated from eighties, so it wasn�t quite that contemporary anymore.� Which of course, leads to the question if Modern is early to mid-century, and Contemporary is already a couple of decades old, then what exactly is Art from now?

Anyway, the German pieces ranged from static sculptural things to interactive environments.� Meaning that there were tanks of colored water, videos projected on to walls influenced by where visitors stood and walked, a pool table, a large tower of giant linking toys, a tent, and even a DJ set up that I wanted to check out, but I didn�t get an opportunity to �cause those deadlocked boys were so enthralled with it they never left it alone.

The tent was pretty cool, an installation named something like �other peoples vacations� and involved slides, books, and other bits to climb into and interact with.� It was cool.� On the other hand, the pool table was just that, a pool table as art.� Too cool for you boys playing pool as art.� It�s easy to understand why contemporary art doesn�t always get much by way of respect.

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