Voices
from Boulder, Colo., joined the discussion. Farida Sharan, as her students know her, loves rain. “The
other day, I left the Guggenheim,
and it was showering,” she told us,
smiling broadly. “It was so lovely. I
walked all the way back.”
The rest of us weren’t quite on
board. Mid-summer in New York
tends to be wet, but this year
has been particularly soggy. The
mother of two explained that she
brought a family-sized umbrella
just in case. She wondered if she’d
made a good parental decision,
bringing her kids to an adult party. Beyond the initial choice, there
were tricky calculations: whether
to wake them up earlier in hopes
of a shorter wait, or let them sleep
and suffer the consequences. “The
only other thing they’ve done like
this was Disney World,” she said.
“And that was a shorter line.”
We inched forward. Matt told
us about showing up the weekend
before, naively thinking he might
get in. It was 9 a.m. on a Saturday.
He was told by a guard to expect to
wait all day, though he’s a member.
Apparently, where we were standing, by an egg sculpture, represents
four hours to go. The mother became alarmed. I volunteered to suss
out the numbers ahead.
MALLIKA
RAO
In the promise land up front, I
discovered a white rapper from Virginia. His management suggested
he film a stealth music video in the
Rain Room, which is why he was
there, complete with a camera man,
and stiff-billed hat. He was staying
in Long Island; he’d woken up at 3
a.m. When I told him the 10-minute
viewing time was just a suggestion,
that rAndom International actually
flew to New York to impress upon
the MoMa that visitors should linger as long as they like (10 visitors
at a time), he broke into relieved
grins. “This video gon’ happen,” he
told me. “Check out my YouTube
page. I got two million views.”
I decided not to tell my mom
friend back in line that I’d just
upped our wait time.
Further back, two teachers on
summer vacation told me they’d
been offered triple the price of
their member guest passes from
people hoping to skip the general admission line. I pointed out
the booth up front where anyone
could spring for a membership
on the spot. At $85 for a single
person, that was a stiff fee just to
see the Rain Room, but could be
worth it if you’d buy the membership anyway. Plus you’d join the
shorter line. The revelation an-
HUFFINGTON
08.04.13