Patrick Bringley, ALL THE BEAUTY IN THE WORLD: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me
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[1:03]Patrick Bringly is the author of All the Beauty in the World, The Metropolitan Museum
[1:07]of Art and Me.
[1:09]Patrick worked for 10 years as a guard in the galleries of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
[1:13]Prior to that, he worked in the editorial events office at the New Yorker magazine.
[1:17]He lives with his wife and children in Sunset Park Brooklyn.
[1:20]All The Beauty in the World is his first book.
[1:22]Welcome, Patrick.
[1:23]Thanks so much for coming on mom.
[1:24]Don't have time to read books to discuss All the Beauty in the World, The Metropolitan
[1:28]Museum of Art and Me.
[1:31]Thank you for having me, it's a pleasure.
[1:33]This was so interesting as a lifelong New Yorker to read about what it's like being
[1:37]a guard at the Met and all the backstory of the ins and outs of the museum.
[1:42]So that was totally fascinating.
[1:44]But honestly, the parts that I was most interested in were about the loss of your brother
[1:50]and how you sort of coped with that and how being a guard and your whole trajectory through
[1:56]that whole position was in effect a way for you to reengage with the world, which I found
[2:01]really beautiful in so many levels.
[2:03]Thank you.
[2:04]Thank you very much.
[2:05]So how did this become a book?
[2:08]Tell me about the whole experience, tell listeners how you ended up doing this job.
[2:14]Sure.
[2:15]So, yeah, right out of college, I got what seemed to be an unbelievable job at the New
[2:20]Yorker magazine in their events office.
[2:24]And of course, I was just 21 years old, so I sort of felt like I was at the top of
[2:28]the world.
[2:29]Never mind that, you know, I hadn't written anything and wasn't really capable of writing
[2:33]anything because I hadn't lived any life and thought really any ideas.
[2:37]But when I was there a few years, my brother got ill and he got very ill with what's called
[2:41]a soft tissue sarcoma.
[2:43]And all of a sudden was the case that I was spending less time, you know, at least mentally
[2:48]thinking about the office job and thinking about the sort of glamour of it and more time
[2:53]with him, you know, at his apartment in Queens and at little hospital rooms and spent
[2:58]it all the time inside those hospital rooms where something kind of very momentous and sort
[3:05]of stripped down to the basics of life is happening.
[3:09]It's very painful, but it's also very, very beautiful.
[3:13]And when Tom died, I did not relish the idea of just rushing back to some office job and
[3:20]just kind of putting my nose and some grindstone and worrying about whatever trivial things
[3:25]that you tend to worry about.
[3:27]And I thought, well, wouldn't it be wonderful if I could keep my head up?
[3:30]And I could just be doing something watchful and straightforward and simple and honest
[3:36]in this beautiful place.
[3:38]Wow.
[3:39]I'm so sorry about the loss of your brother.
[3:42]You wrote about him so beautifully and how you were what 17 months apart less than that?
[3:47]12.
[3:48]Yeah, just just under two years.
[3:49]That's under two years apart and that you would always be his little brother.
[3:53]And even in the part where you became older than him, then he would ever be was like so
[4:00]stirring.
[4:01]Yeah.
[4:02]It's funny how that works, right?
[4:03]You know, he died when he was 26 years old, but I find that impossible to believe because
[4:08]now I'm nearly 40, but still in my memories of him, he's oddly older than I am, you know?
[4:15]Yeah.
[4:16]And that partially has to do with I think just, you know, a trick of memory, but it also
[4:20]has to do with who he was, which that he was a person who was very sort of frank and honest
[4:27]and gentle and straightforward and wise beyond his years, not sort of a hustler, not kind
[4:36]of out to be cynical about things.
[4:38]He kind of had his mind directed on the meat of the matter and that really paid off when
[4:46]he was ill and that he was able to handle it with incredible grace, which also was sort
[4:51]of impetus to want to go into the museum and kind of explore the grace of suffering that
[4:58]you see in so many of those old master paintings.
[5:01]Yes.
[5:02]Amazing.
[5:03]I even loved all your relationships with the other guards and the people in the great
[5:08]rooms and all of that.
[5:09]You had this one section about Tom, which can I read it, is that okay?
[5:12]Sure.
[5:13]He said, then night would fall.
[5:15]This is when you're, you know, in the hospital and all that.
[5:18]He said, then night would fall and when Tom was very sick, someone would stay with him,
[5:22]usually Krista.
[5:23]We'd watch television on mute while he slept and the stillness in the room couldn't
[5:26]be believed as nothing about any of it could be believed.
[5:30]There's Tom.
[5:31]There's funny old Tom.
[5:32]There's his body that was once big, bounding like old Tom and is now gentle, graceful
[5:36]like this Tom.
[5:38]How beautiful.
[5:39]Later, I'll roll him on his side, dig my fists into his muscles, rub circles on
[5:43]his aching back and he'll moan and say, thank you quietly.
[5:46]And the stillness will return and I'll watch him breathe.
[5:49]It was a moment like this one, actually, the early dawn when I sat with my mother at
[5:52]the bedside and watched her take everything in as over the last time.
[5:56]She looked at her sleeping son, looked at me, saw the light and the body and the horror
[6:01]and the grace.
[6:02]Look at us.
[6:03]She told me, look, we're a fucking old master painting.
[6:07]Yes.
[6:08]I mean, many moments like that are sort of, you know, vividly present with me.
[6:15]They're easy to sort of remember.
[6:17]And you know, what I'm referring to there is I think, especially in the older old master
[6:21]paintings, you know, in the 14th century or something, they're so often painting these scenes
[6:26]of the passion, which is just an old word that means suffering.
[6:31]And clearly they're just thinking about life and death and they're thinking about loss
[6:36]and they're thinking about the fact that when you sit at a bedside like that in that scene,
[6:42]clearly something horrible and regrettable and lamentable is happening.
[6:49]And at the same time, your heart is breaking, but it's also sort of brimming over because
[6:55]you feel adoration, which is another type of painting that you see all the time.
[7:00]You feel adoration at the same time as you feel lamentation because of this person you
[7:04]love because of, I don't know, the poignancy of the human drama in general, but, you know,
[7:10]sort of exists in that space and it can be overwhelming.
[7:14]And I think that sort of speechless spellbound response that we have to such moments is
[7:20]often what is captured in those great paintings.
[7:23]It's a beautiful way to say that, my goodness.
[7:26]You also hold on, there was another section that I underlined like crazy, so many sections
[7:33]that were just so beautiful.
[7:34]Oh, this was great.
[7:35]When you ended up having kids later in the book, I loved your section on being a dad
[7:40]and parent in general and how humbling it is.
[7:42]I have four kids myself, he said, two years after all of her, Louise arrives, a blonde
[7:48]hair thing like me, and we call Weezy, Weezy, Girl, Little Miss, Weezy, and The Weezy.
[7:53]She is easy going compared to her brother who has become a toddler, Captain Ahab,
[7:57]and a year's obsessive and indomitable, Louise is sunny, funny, and oblivious.
[8:02]It turns out that a child's temperament is a dice roll and much of what we had taken to
[8:06]be human nature was, in fact, all over nature.
[8:10]So true.
[8:11]You do not realize this until you have any, a second kid or more or whatever, but you said,
[8:19]I bet a thousand in my new life I see, I will struggle like Helen and process called
[8:23]Garos, which of course referred to the job, but of course, it's also referring to
[8:27]fatherhood and parenthood and all that.
[8:29]Oh, yeah.
[8:30]Yes, one thing I, I mean, it was quite an education having kids because I had had this
[8:35]job, I mentioned batting the thousand, it's just the sense you go to that job and everything
[8:40]is clean, everything you're in, but pristine gallery, some things go wrong, but you can
[8:44]handle it, nothing's getting stolen under your watch.
[8:47]You know, everything is orderly in a sense and you can be sort of passive and watchful,
[8:52]which is a beautiful way to be, but there's another whole way to exist in the world.
[8:57]And that is to build stuff and building the human life is one of those things and building
[9:02]your own household and trying and all of that is so much work.
[9:07]And it's work with the same sort of trivial details that I escaped from.
[9:14]And I sort of came to realize that there's value in that, but there's also value in packing
[9:20]and unpacking those diaper bags and because that fortunately or not, that is life.
[9:26]And that is what we need to do to live meaningful life's week lives.
[9:30]We also have to engage with that sort of level of rhymey detail and it made me even have
[9:37]a sort of different feeling toward the art and then that when I when I was sort of knee
[9:41]deep in parenting, because you know, you look at a painting or a statue and you look
[9:46]in at its surface that is perfect and is still in calm and clean in that same way.
[9:54]But of course, the artist who made that thing was likely showing up their paintbrush with
[10:00]aggravation while they made it and they went through 10 other copies of it and they had a whole
[10:05]struggling years and years when they couldn't paint and wear the dam and all of a sudden and
[10:10]you know that process, that sort of tumult behind the art also began to interest me more.
[10:16]Yes. It's an illustration of the complete lack of control that
[10:22]is demixed to both children and of course, loss and all of it. It's sort of intricately
[10:29]linked from all of your time in the halls of the museum and spending all the time, observing
[10:35]people and art and all of that. What are some of the things that now that you're not doing that?
[10:40]You've sort of taken away and I know a lot of them are in the book but some of the things that
[10:45]you feel like you've learned the most from or that were the most memorable to you.
[10:52]Yeah, sure. I mean, I feel like I took away from the guards a sort of full or appreciation
[11:00]both of New York City and kind of humanity. I mean, it's very lucky to have a job where all diverse
[11:08]kinds of not only backgrounds but also just minds and sort of ways of being are in the job because
[11:14]usually you have a job during a content or something and everyone has a similar kind of education
[11:19]and they have, you know, that's why they wound up accountants. But if you're a museum guard,
[11:24]you just get to know New York basically. I mean, 40% of New York City's foreign boring
[11:30]probably the same of the guards or maybe a little bit more and you just are wearing the same
[11:35]clothes as these men and women. So you are talking with them because they're on the next post
[11:40]and you just that my sort of sense of what humanity is really expanded and now out on the street,
[11:47]I feel, I don't know, I feel the same way. I sort of learned a cadence of dealing with the people
[11:52]around me that's beautiful. I hope. But then also, you know, from the art itself, I mean, you know,
[11:59]what the Met is is it's so expansive. It's so, you know, it reminds you that whatever is going on
[12:07]in your head right now, whatever near a little thought or whatever is going on on Twitter and,
[12:11]you know, the common conversation that seems to be going on about whatever topic is so
[12:17]hopelessly small compared to the world that we live in, all of its color, all of its life,
[12:23]all of its fullness, its great age, it's all these different ways of conceiving what this
[12:29]mysterious existence that we are living in is. And it's a struggle to keep that to keep to remember
[12:36]that. It's a struggle to sort of take our narrow thoughts and pry them outward. And I continually
[12:42]have to return to museums or returns or artworks or returns to books like anyone would
[12:47]to sort of re-inflate your head in a way, you know, to get yourself thinking on more than one
[12:53]level. But I hope that that some of that lesson bleeds into my life, even when I'm not out in the
[12:59]gallery. And tell me what it was like writing this book. Oh, it's hard, right?
[13:06]It's not a writing book on my Lord. No, I mean, it was wonderful. In the sense that, you know,
[13:13]it was a real challenge. I have a wonderful editor. My agent was very helpful in, you know,
[13:18]in the early goings of the project. And yeah, I had to write it with Zoom school going on.
[13:24]So that was hard. I got the contracts like right at the stage. I was meeting editors when I was at
[13:30]at the stage. Like, should we be shaking hands? Oh, haha. It was like before COVID, we really knew
[13:36]what was going on. And then I had to write the whole book through all that madness. But I did
[13:40]my best. And I think any any first book, especially the sub implied subtitle is like I did my best.
[13:50]Here it is. Here it is. We should do that. We all first time authors. We should make that
[13:55]like a shared hashtag, you know, like instead of saying debut author, you know, it would just
[14:00]be like a secret cut, you know. Exactly. Yeah. That's really funny. Did you know when you started it
[14:07]that it would be sort of partially your own journey mixed in? Like, did you think it would be more
[14:12]met? Or did you think it would be more Tom? Or was the balance? Is that what you had in mind all along?
[14:19]Yeah. So I maybe about like seven years into the job or something like that.
[14:25]I had the idea to write a book. And at first I thought that it was going to be like a guide,
[14:30]like a guard's guide to the Met. And I thought it would just be met and it would be, you know,
[14:35]bopping from object to object wing to wing or whatever. But then I started writing that. It didn't
[14:40]really have any sort of center to it. It didn't really, it wasn't coherent at all. And I realized
[14:45]that the thing that people don't write about art very often is the subjective experience of
[14:51]being around this stuff. And I thought well to write about the subjective experience I got
[14:55]to write about me. So this has got to be a story. And I had that idea of making it a memoir and kind
[15:03]of having this central figure of the guard. But that balance of, you know, museum and family stuff
[15:09]and all of that both my agent and editor are helpful with because they are helpful with,
[15:16]it's a hard balance to get, of course, because you don't want. I mean, the book is 85% museum,
[15:22]but you want it colored by the rest of the stuff, but not sort of dried down by it. And yeah,
[15:26]I think we just, I just kept right and you just keep right and right until it feels,
[15:32]until it feels right, until it feels like it has the right shape and tone.
[15:37]If you had to pick another museum or cultural institution to guard, what would it be?
[15:43]Oh, that's good. That's a very good. I haven't passed that. That's a very good question.
[15:47]I think I would, I would like to do something in an entirely different culture,
[15:51]you know, when that'd be cool. Like the museum of anthropology in Mexico City is just incredible.
[15:57]So I'm going to choose that. That museum bold me over. But I'm sure there are lots of museums
[16:02]that I've never visited before too. And then I'd like to change it up and do natural history
[16:06]museum. That'd be cool. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know. I like to wander. So we'll see.
[16:13]I love that. Do you take your kids now back and show them around?
[16:18]Oh, yeah. I did the other day. My son was like, was what, he's nine and he was like
[16:25]singing. So other people could over here in the bookstore. Like, oh, my dad wrote this book.
[16:31]They had me sign the copies in the bookstore and he thought that was so cool.
[16:35]But no, I love, I love taking just one kid to a museum. I find when I take my two kids,
[16:41]I don't know. They're just sort of like, I don't know what the energy off of each other.
[16:45]They're just worried about trying rush from place to place. But if I bring just one kid and it's one
[16:50]kid and me, then they, they really slow down and we can just let them, let them lead me and,
[16:56]and figure out what they're interested in. I have to say, I once brought, I have my,
[17:01]I have four kids, my older kids are twins and they're almost 16. But the son of that pair
[17:06]was always like running somewhere. Had so much energy. Now he plays three sports. He has like an
[17:11]outlet for it. You know, but back then he did not. So I took the two of them to the met when they
[17:15]were probably five. And I was like, this is great. They could just like run around here. Look how big it is.
[17:21]So I took them to the met one rainy day. And every place that they ran a guard was like,
[17:27]please, no running, please stop running. And I was like, okay, we're not going to come back here
[17:32]for this first ever again. Yes. Yes. Yes. No, that's true. It's a little like the natural history
[17:37]museum is sort of kid proofed. Not so kid proofed. Yeah. So you do have to. And of course,
[17:44]one thing I say in the book is that you get these poor parents who are out of towners and they come
[17:48]up to you and they're with their kids and they come up to you and they're like, are there dinosaurs
[17:52]here? Are there, are there like like an interactive laser display or is there like a and you're like,
[17:59]no, I'm sorry. This is the art museum. Like they don't realize that that the met isn't like
[18:04]the New York museum, you know. Yeah. But I tell him, you know, hey, we've got mummies and we've got
[18:10]arms and armor and you should we can still show your kids a good time. That's true. Yes, we did
[18:16]end of spinning quite quite a lot of time with the museum and natural history. But good good good
[18:20]for me to replace. That's ridiculous. That's for sure. What types of books do you like to read?
[18:27]Oh, I like to read all kinds of books. I like to read old books. It's funny when I was researching
[18:33]art history books for, you know, for the book that I'm writing. I oftentimes like some book
[18:39]written by a German in the 20s about Greek art is so fascinating to me because they sort of
[18:47]of write in this kind of big way. They take big swings. They're like really, I don't know.
[18:53]They have grand feces about the art. I think books that are written about art these days
[18:58]are oftentimes very academic. So they're very sort of careful and they're very heavily
[19:02]footnoted and things like that. But let's see. I just read one. If you're on a Davis' book or
[19:06]one about about the Frick, yeah, I don't know. I'm just starting a Dickens novel or rereading
[19:14]David Copperfield because I'm going to London. The book's coming out in the UK next month.
[19:20]Oh, that's exciting. My kids again, I don't know why I keep talking with them today. But
[19:25]you know how like kids now, they say like, you know, Frick is sort of like a stand in word for
[19:31]so literally my son who was like, is it true? There's really a museum called Frick.
[19:38]We've got to go. That sounds like a hoot.
[19:43]That was so funny. But yeah, that's a two cents on art. Would you ever write another book?
[19:49]Like, are you excited to? Would you and what would it be about you have any idea?
[19:53]Good question. I mean, yes, I think I will write another book. I would say that I think to be
[19:59]extent that this
[20:00]book succeeds. It's because it marinated quite a while. So I don't think I'm going to rush
[20:05]to write that next book. I do feel like I might have another art book in me and a somewhat
[20:11]different vein. But I need to explore exactly what that is. And I also have a sort of long-term
[20:17]creative project that I want to chew on for a long while that would be totally different and
[20:21]would be fiction. But short answer, yes, long answer. I don't know exactly what my next chapter
[20:28]will be. We'll see how this book continues to do. We'll see what doors open. Amazing. Wow,
[20:33]well, congratulations. It's really beautiful and unique. The intersection of family and
[20:39]and sort of shared fortunes of the art world is great and immersive and I feel like we've
[20:46]all like kind of gone on this journey with you at the end and to come back to
[20:51]baseline, if you will, back ready to live instead of watch. So good. I always make the joke,
[20:58]you know, when you go to the museum, carry something out with you, but not literally.
[21:02]Yes. Thanks. So that was me for sure. All right. Well, it was really nice to meet you. Thanks so
[21:08]good. Nice to meet you. Thanks so much for having me. Okay, my pleasure. All right, take care. Bye-bye.
[21:14]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to
[21:18]follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Also, sign up for
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[21:29]every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan. In fact, texture sound for the sound editing.
[21:33]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.