Kate and I go to an exhibit of forged, copied, and otherwise “fake” art owned by the DIA. The fire alarms sound about ten minutes in, just after I prompt a dialogue on the irony of this exhibit happening at all. Patrons and employees move in slow, loose pirouettes. Intricate defense and disaster procedures lie outlined in thick manuals somewhere, maybe glossy handouts for visitors who ask. But no one knows what to do. Kate said, god, those alarms are enough to make anyone... I said, I wonder how it would be to die in a fire at an art museum.
Later, outside, we overhear museum staff discuss the alarms, set off by steam from a party on the first floor. I see a man point to smoke tufts creeping around the lights and we descend the nearest staircase – the humid failure visible, tactile.
