Friday, June 28, 2013

M was for Metropolitan

From the Metropolitan Museum of Art website: “The current button design features the Museum’s distinctive letter M logo, adapted from the 1509 book De divina proportione by Luca Pacioli (Italian, d. ca. 1514), the first known publication to treat the construction of the alphabet and to discuss the shapes and proportions of classical Roman letters.”

On Monday, July 1, the Met ends the use of metal admission buttons.

[I am happy to have two such buttons that I can account for.]

comments: 4

JuliaR said...

I'd have to go hunting, but I may have one too, from our visit in 2000. If I find it, I'll make sure it find a place of honour, somewhere.

Nothing lasts forever, not even Mesopotamia. (From the movie "Michael", paraphrased.)

Michael Leddy said...

What a great line. I will have to use it the next time I teach the Gilgamesh story.

JuliaR said...

I recommend you find a copy of "Michael" (with John Travolta as the angel) and enjoy the whole thing, even if you've seen it before. You'll get closer to the actual line, if that's important. They were talking about visiting famous ancient sites and someone said, "that doesn't exist any more" - I think it was about an old cannonball. Michael mused that he had had a great time centuries before in Mesopotamia, and someone said "Mesopotamia doesn't exist any more either." My husband and I have taken to using our paraphrase as our shorthand way of referring to the movie we love, as well as the impermanence of things. You don't have to give us credit, or the movie either! :-)

Ciaran said...

Surly it is anough of an icon to start selling as a button instead of a ticket? They would have a pretty decent markup with reletively little storage space.