Experience Music Project

Originally Posted:
Sunday, June 22, 2008
8:57:00 PM CDT
Feeling Mellow

Or should I say, watch the dancer experience the music project?

After an entire day in bed on Friday thanks to a cough syrup with codeine induced semi-coma, I HAD to get out of the house on Saturday for some fresh air and just to have something to do (No TV, remember?!?!...Can I tell you how bad it is to be sick and NOT have TV?!?!?). This cold really knocked me on my butt, however, I was about to go stir crazy if I didn't get out. I didn't want to do anything that involved too much walking or brain power, so I went to the Seattle Center with the intention of going to the sculpture park and reading a book. When I got there I realized that the Sculpture Park was a bit of a jaunt and my poor hacking lungs were not going to make it, so I wandered around the immediate area for a while. Seattle Center is sort of like Seattle's answer to Coney Island...only the rides and games are from 1952 and the level of hokeyness doesn't even come close to having a hint of carnival coolness.

The best show of the day came from this woman dressed in fishnet stocking(legs and arms!) who performed with a pan flute band. It was such a spectacle! I had to bite my lip at times to stop myself from laughing out loud (as I'm standing there by myself, mind you!). I'd look around and people were so straight faced, almost like they were admiring her "dancing" (convulsive flailing is more accurate), but I just couldn't help but giggle. If I would not have given myself away by going into a coughing fit from laughing so hard, I would have stayed and watched her all day just to see how far she'd go with her "performance." She hugged and grinded the tree, she swooned, she swayed, she went into yoga poses, she did a little Proud Mary a la Tina Turner, you name it, her body did it. She was too much for me!

Without much else to do at the Seattle Center, I went ahead on to EMP (Experience Music Project). I was waiting to go there with someone else, but I was bored, so I thought what the heck. I bought my ticket and found out that not only did I get admission to EMP, but also the Science Fiction Museum. NO KIDDING? THE SCIENCE FICTION MUSEUM? Oh. My. Word. I've officially entered dorkdum. Capital D-O-R-K-D-U-M. Now, I've never been a big sci-fi person. Yes, I've watched my fair share of Star Trek episodes (Hey, it was college and we only got one channel on TV and Star Trek ran in marathons on the weekends. It's a train wreck...I couldn't help but watch!) and yes, I've seen all the Star Wars movies, but in my own defense, those are all mainstream pop culture icons. I wasn't prepared for the Science Fiction Museum. It had comic books and laser guns from the original Lost In Space movie. It had the evolution of women's costumes and women's roles in sci-fi. It had Capt. James T. Kirk's original command chair from the Starship Enterprise complete with PLYWOOD control box. OH MY MY! There were a lot of children in the museum, but most obvious, there were a lot of men in the museum. Men eating this stuff up. Men reading every detail about every special sci-fi space helmet. Men pointing at laser guns made of plastic. Men listening to sound recordings of My Favorite Martian. OH. MY. WORD. This stuff did not interest me one bit. I went because I could, but OH. MY. WORD. It's was, as my mom would say, so SQUARE! (while also making a square in the air with her index fingers).

Enough of that nonsense. I've got bigger fish to fry. Time to go experience music.

EMP is all about interacting with music and musical instruments. Honestly, I was disappointed in it. It's not very large, and it was so crowded that it was difficult to participate and enjoy much of it. There was a special Jimi Hendrix exhibit (Jimi was from Seattle) and another permanent exhibit. The oral history project room provided visitors with the chance to record their own story about how music has influenced their lives, along with sidling up to a computer monitor or iPod to see/listen to a musician's story. Again, not too interesting to me, but many people were engrossed in the story telling. The coolest exhibits were upstairs. The Sound Lab has about 12 sound-proof booths for 1-3 people to fit in and play music for 10 minutes at a time (each booth has a variety of instruments and sound mixer boards). The lines were so long to get a booth that I couldn't see hanging out doing nothing to wait my turn. What was most surprising to me about the whole Experience the Music Project experience was how quiet the museum was. For a music museum, it was extremely silent!

As for the building, the exterior is considerably more interesting than the interior. A very limited area, the main entrance, cafe and gift shop, feature characteristic Gehry curves, the rest of the place is hum-drum drab.

You can see more at www.empsfm.org.