The Apple Powerbook is art - it's official

What is art? An eternal question that I came to closer to answering the other day when I visited the SF Museum of Modern Art.

I visited SFMOMA for lack of something better to do on a sunny Sunday afternoon. The last time I was there, I was sorely disappointed mainly because I had just spent two afternoons roaming the glorious Metropolitan Museum of NY city. SFMOMA was a country-fair rock garden in comparison. That was a bit unfair as this time around, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. SFMOMA is a respectable museum with a reasonable number of the usual suspects: a couple of Picasso's, some Monets and a Mondrian or two.

So I wonder around and finally get to the section called the Art of Design and Architecture. Arranged in a sombre room are exemplary articles from the last few decades of American manufacturing. These are objects that have exceptionally beautiful design, and some of them are. Others are just bad acid trips from the 60's. And there, in the halcoyn holy shrine of Modern Art sits an Apple Powerbook, sealed by a thick clear plastic box, clearly to protect it from the ravages of Age. An unkind friend suggested that as Apple is a company based just outside San Francisco, an indecent donation to the SFMOMA may have helped the curators see the art in the Powerbook.I, on the other hand, believe in the purity of the Ideals of Art.

I fully expect to see an iPod enshrined, the next time I visit SFMOMA.OMA.