Bull's-Eye!

This morning we awoke to blue skies, which made some of us really want to get out of the house and into the world -- Quick! Before the whole family gets sucked into Disney Pirates Online and sorting out too-small clothes for Goodwill and caulking the kitchen sink...

Homebound inertia is powerful stuff, though -- especially when we've all been fighting that nasty sore throat thing all week long. Given our weakened state, we weren't sure we were up for a walk through Mercer Slough or the Arboretum, so we tossed around a few indoor options. A little online research turned up an exhibit about coffee at the Burke Museum, some naked Germans at the Frye, and the intriguing fact that someone had covered a whole wall of the Henry Art Gallery with dartboards. This last seemed like the sort of thing that ought to get a family out of the house, if anything could.

After some ritual cajoling & negotiation, a few phone calls, and -- yes -- a hasty caulking of the kitchen sink, two adults and two boys ventured forth, leaving two 6th grade girls home alone with a supply of frozen potstickers. On the way the intrepid explorers stopped for gas, where a conversation with the attendant on duty moved quickly from gratitude for the sun's unexpected appearance to a discussion of whether one really does need five minutes of sun per day to metabolize Vitamin D, then on to whether the residents of Alaska may have evolved beyond this wimpy necessity, and finally to a suggestion that we send everyone on the planet to the Arctic for a year as a sort of Darwinian herd-thinning experiment. "Sounds great," our new friend concluded. "All you gotta do is convince everybody that weeding out the weak is smart!"

With this ominous caveat ringing in our ears, we proceeded to the Henry, where we confirmed that one whole wall of the East Gallery was indeed covered with 300 yellow-and-black dartboards, creating a dizzying pattern that made your brain buzz and your eyes wiggle if you stared at it too long. Not only that, but artist Jacob Dahlgren had also provided 1500 red and green darts and a thick black line to stand behind while you threw them.

First we each picked a board and went for the standard bull's-eye. When that got old we tried throwing them four or five at a time, to see if they'd stick (yes, mostly.) We tried high lobs, fast zingers (with & without English), overhand, underhand, sideways slings, and under the leg zaps. After being assured it was okay, we threw red darts on the green side, and green darts on the red side. Then we walked down the line, firing darts at each board in turn. There was something kind of Zen about this exercise -- the more you got your mind out of the way, the more accurate you became.

When the darts ran out a cheerful young woman came and started pulling them all out of the wall (and the floor) and sorting them into their green and red bins. We offered to help, but she said no, it was against the rules. (Can we just pause here to say that we wish other art museums would adopt the Henry's sweet, rueful approach to law enforcement? Somehow everyone there seems to genuinely enjoy your enjoyment of the curious creations they have assembled, and they always find a way to protect the art from poking fingers and spilled coffee without making you feel like a degenerate who should never have been let through the door in the first place. This, incidentally, is why you're looking at a publicity photo of Dahlgren's installation of this piece at the Venice Biennale instead of what I'm sure would have been fabulous video clips of Simon and Arlo flinging darts. I asked if we could take pictures, and they said no so nicely, and thanked me for asking so sincerely, that even later, when no one was watching, I found myself unable to sneak my camera out of my bag.)

So -- while the cheerful young woman collected the darts, we watched a couple of Guy Ben-Nur videos in the next gallery ("Wild Boy" struck a chord for obvious reasons, and the wonderful retelling of Moby Dick included a brief but memorable clip of a man in a tree sawing off the limb he was sitting on) and then went out for pho on the Ave.

You might have thought we'd be ready to head for home at this point -- we had barely managed to drag ourselves out of the house, after all. But after Arlo showed off his noodle-eating technique


and Mikala found a scallion heart at the bottom of her bowl


we discovered that our capacity for dart-throwing had not yet been exhausted.

So we went back to the Henry and threw all 1500 darts again.