RIP Bob Cassilly
In following the NY Times' Steve Jobs obituary I noticed the obit for Bob Cassilly, whose name I didn't know but who was the creative force behind the St. Louis City Museum, among other freewheeling art installations. Cassilly died last week at 61 while doing some solo bulldozing at the cement factory site he'd been developing into another playground.
I'd say in memory that the City Museum is maybe the most fun place I've visited as an adult, or at least the one that legitimately made me feel like a kid. (Nate too, I know.) Reading about Cassilly's death immediately reminded me of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin's freak stingray accident: here's a grown man pursuing this fun childlike wonderment, and tragedy strikes in a way that seems not only terrible but uniquely unfair. But I guess whimsy is like any other worldly quality, and you run the same risks in energetically seeking it out. I think you have to call that admirable, even while it's deflating.
In any case, there's only so much you can realistically leave behind, and if it's the City Museum then you've made a good go at it.
I'd say in memory that the City Museum is maybe the most fun place I've visited as an adult, or at least the one that legitimately made me feel like a kid. (Nate too, I know.) Reading about Cassilly's death immediately reminded me of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin's freak stingray accident: here's a grown man pursuing this fun childlike wonderment, and tragedy strikes in a way that seems not only terrible but uniquely unfair. But I guess whimsy is like any other worldly quality, and you run the same risks in energetically seeking it out. I think you have to call that admirable, even while it's deflating.
In any case, there's only so much you can realistically leave behind, and if it's the City Museum then you've made a good go at it.
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