Museum Hopping

Recap: Your Dad is a cheapskate. The first Tuesday of every month is a free day at many museums in The City. Yesterday was the first Tuesday of July. We went museum hopping, that is, if you can call visits to only two museums 'museum hopping'.
First, the de Young Museum in its architecturally fabulous new home in Golden Gate Park. The angular building with prominent, twisted tower is covered completely in copper plates that will oxidize to green, allowing the giant structure to blend with the natural surroundings over the years to come. Yesterday, however, it was still a deep bronze color.
Free day didn't give us access to the Tutankhamun special exhibit on display so we had to settle on the permanent collection. This is hardly settling at all as the permanent collection is a wonderful and eclectic mix of artifacts and art pieces that focus on the art and culture of the Pacific ring. The collection spans millenia as 4500 year old South American relics share the space with contemporary paintings and installation pieces. Highlights are the Pacific Islander masks and statuary and the African art.
You took it all in stride even as children at least 30 times your age retreated in fear from sinister and menacing masks made of bone and flesh peering out from eerily lit alcoves in the darkness. It could be that all our faces look like those masks to you right now as you just begin to make sense of this strange world around you, but I'd prefer to stick to my romantic notion that you will grow into a fearless and confident explorer of the world around you.
In the afternoon, we went to SOMA for the MOMA. For non-San Franciscans, that can be translated to 'we went to the South of Market neighborhood to visit the Museum of Modern Art'. Every time we visit the MOMA, it seems to get bigger and better. This time, they had expanded by adding a skybridge and rooftop sculpture garden.
At the MOMA, we often found you wondering the same thing as us. "THIS is art?!" This was especially true when we walked through the gallery housing modern paintings of the 'two color, one stripe' variety. Overall, though, there are hundreds of creative pieces, many of which are interesting and even thought provoking.
It was a real joy to see you so keenly observing many of the more elaborate pieces. Your curiousity reached its crescendo when you observed an installation piece that consisted of hundreds of identical models of black poodles arranged in concentric circles around a pale baby. "Where is my legion of faithful poodle followers?" you wondered.