SFMOMA Is Great, But it Could Be Better

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Michael O’Hare is delighted with the new San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, but he does have a couple of complaints:

What’s not so great, so far: while it’s free for anyone under 19, standard admission is $25. This is very bad, and a big deal: if you spend that much to get in, you are under pressure to try to see too much and stay too long.

….There is only one open evening a week, otherwise it’s 10-5, which is as silly as a theater programming nothing but matinees. Museums have a disagreeable tradition of being for tourists and the unemployed wives of wealthy businessmen. A museum is the ideal place for a first date, and even to meet new people (no pressure, and lots of stuff to talk about); why make it so difficult to go there after work?

On the second point, this is a good example of my habit of being wary of obvious complaints. I’m certain that every art museum executive in the country is aware of this issue, so it’s pretty unlikely it’s happening out of ignorance or malice. There’s probably a very good reason for it. We’d just have to ask. At a guess, that reason is that it’s been tried by lots of museums before and it’s a steady money loser because nobody comes. I’ll also guess that oldsters like Mike and me might be wrong about kids thinking that SFMOMA would make a dandy first date. Just saying.

The first point is a little different. Sure, high admission prices are also an obvious problem, but I’m surprised museums don’t try a theme park solution that was pioneered by, of all companies, Blockbuster. (Well, that’s the first place I encountered it, anyway.) Keep the price at $25, but make every ticket automatically good for three days. My guess is that this would have a minimal effect on revenue, but for those few who’d like to wander back in a day or two instead of conducting a one-day death march, it would be great. There might be issues with people giving away or selling their tickets after visiting for a day, but I’ll bet there’s a tech solution for that. Silicon Valley is only a few miles away, guys. Maybe every ticket includes a photo. If you don’t want your photo taken, then it reverts to a one-day ticket. This might well be worth giving some more thought to.

And if you’ve made it this far, here’s your reward: San Jose Teen’s Glasses Prank at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Goes Viral. Really, you need to click on this. It’s hilarious. A Sokal hoax for the modern art biz.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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