Beat the Heat! And Learn Something As You Do

The weather map in our morning paper shows a distinctive bright orange to show the intense heat that covers probably 2/3rds of our fair country.  In short, unless you've booked on an Alaskan cruise, the odds are good you'll have all of the ceiling fans whirring and all the shades pulled down and any a/c units going full tilt boogie.

Ah, you've found a cool-ish spot in your house, but you're tired of reading (is this possible?)

What to do?  What to do?  Watch some documentaries!  You'd be amazed how many of them there are at your library.

Last night we watched "Matisse from MoMA and the Tate Modern"  It concerned itself mainly as a look behind the walls of these two noteworthy art museums where there is a mock-up of the interior on each and the curators meet gravely around it to decide which work goes where, using to-scale paintings and sculpture.  Think of it as a sort of doll's house for art works.  

There are art experts who go over every canvas with a magnifying glass, looking for flaws caused by mishandling or simple old age and repair them.  In Matisse works for example, he used push pins or tacks to mount his biggest paintings which left a mark.  We are treated to a bunch of good-looking young people, shoving around the big wooden cases of the works, uncrating them (white glove work) and shifting the whole mess from place to place to best show it off.

The big hullaballoo is that this will be the biggest showing evah of so many Matisse works in one place (alternatively the Tate and MoMA).

Tonight we will watch "Skyscrapers"  Tidbits from the disc jacket:  In New York - not the Empire State Building, but the "Empty State Building."  A feud between a pair of medieval families brought us some of the world's first skyscrapers.  Gustave Eiffel built bridges before turning his attentions to the sky.  Design flaws in the Citicorp Center, NY, could have led to the biggest skyscraper catastrophe in history!

This documentary is clearly designed for educators; there's a bonus "How to build your own skyscraper using only newspaper, a few books and an electric fan."  I'd watch it for that alone!  Running time is 65 minutes while your brain distracts you by being fascinated at all you didn't know and never dreamed.  For free!.