Floating World

One of the funny things about new technology is that often there's far more to do with a gadget than its "purpose". Take the cell phone for instance. I suppose we could argue that the phone component constitutes the essence of the, uh, phone, but think of all the other things we've got cell phones doing now, like taking pictures.

I discovered this feature on my new phone while at this Royal Ontario Museum exhibition during the summer. So I was snapping away, when, unsurprisingly, I was informed I could not take pictures in this gallery, it being the Garfield Weston gallery, and therefore, like most spaces in the ROM, off limits to photography.

However, what's unusual about this encounter is that I was not asked to smash the phone with a hammer, or delete the photos. So here they are, at least until William Thorsell or some ROM staffer asks me to take them down.

I should also mention that this ROM post is an appetizer to my food review of their new high-end restaurant, C5, an amouse-bouche of my growing ambivalence to what is, and will remain, a wonderful museum. However, I have to do a few things before that review appears, like stop calling myself Otto van Karajanstein, because I just don't think it's fair to knock people down when they can't see you.