The End Of An Era

Nearly four months ago when I started my volunteer work @ The AGO I felt quite certain that I wouldn't make it to the end. Well, this is the end, my friends. Or rather, Friday was the end [and honestly I knew that unless I had gainful full-time employment, I would push myself through this experience because I really, really want to work in culture and volunteering is the main way I can prove this to potential employers - because no one cares about my fine arts degree]. At some point over the past few months I mellowed on my AGO volunteering. I got to know some cool fellow volunteers and AGO employees [the folks with the enviable blue lanyards], we developed a few insider jokes and remarks, the chairs became more comfortable and the environment as a whole relaxed ever so slightly. Fridays became easier somehow. I didn't even mind missing my Friday dose of DOOL.

So much so that I even bought souvenirs during my final shift to remember all of the Surreal Things. For Joseph I bought a sketchbook with Dali's Aphrodisiac Telephone on the front and a Dada t-shirt from the Gruppe Stupide [it is our anniversary today and I thought he would appreciate the gifts, but also the tremendous discount I am entitled to @ The AGO]. For myself I bought a collection of Magritte note cards as I'm terribly fond of mailing friends and family classy notes featuring art that I like. I also bought this magical surrealist bank that makes your money disappear. Once I get some money, it's totally going in there.

Another neat thing that happened was one of my fellow volunteers wrote a poem for the momentous occasion of our last Friday together. While I'm not really a fan of poetry, I do believe that this marks the first time that I've been shouted out to in a poem [unless I've got some poetic secret admirers]. With that little ego boost in place, I would like to share the poem with my dear readers, providing anonymity for the esteemed poet [by the poet's request]. Enjoy...though it's filled the all of our aforementioned inside jokes/references.

Deliciously Inconsequential

The end of Friday afternoons at the AGO
The end of
Silly toe sucking
A sobbing playwright
Five lovely daughters
A town in Bruce County
- That you wouldn't have heard of -
A spiffy Northerner

Beeping is wrong
Enough of that snuff
How to pronounce Schaperelli?
How to explain membership level?
What to wear?

The end of something
Deliciously
Inconsequential

I come from a wealthy Frisian family
Of art collectors
Especially
Surreal thing.

- LC