Patrick Bringley's "All the Beauty in the World"

Patrick Bringley worked for ten years as a guard in the galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Prior to that, he worked in the editorial events office at The New Yorker magazine. He lives with his wife and children in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

Bringley applied the "Page 99 Test" to All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me, his first book, and reported the following:

On page 99 I’m talking to one of the most venerable security guards at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an erudite native Oklahoman called Troy. Troy was twice my age, a very dignified man, and at this point in the narrative I’ve just started opening up to my fellow guards, having initially relished my role as a solitary watchman.

“Hey Troy,” I say, “how did you come to have this job?”

“Well, I worked in insurance for twenty years,” he tells me, “and one day my boss assigned us a career aptitude test, supposed to show which job in all the world we’re best suited for (don’t ask me why). Well, I looked at the thing and I thought to myself, You know, the only thing I’ve ever wanted to be is an independently wealthy patron of the arts. This,” he concludes, tugging on his blue suit’s lapels, “comes the closest.”

I think that sums up one element of the book very well: the unique role of the museum guard and the almost proprietary relationship he enjoys with the treasures under his watch. Whereas most people in the modern world are busy — rushing about, engaged in projects — a museum guard is duty-bound not to be busy. She has all the time in the world to look around her, pace about, and commune with great masterpieces over eight- and twelve-hour days. For someone like Troy, this made him feel like a working-class prince, and he carried himself that way.

This is also a critical page because, as I mentioned above, it’s a hinge point in the narrative. I spent my first couple of working years valuing the stillness in the galleries, the silence, the beautiful lonesomeness of the job. I had suffered the loss of my older brother, which left me speechless, and speechless I remained. But on page 99 I’m just beginning to fall back into the rhythm of life, in large part by connecting with people: museumgoers from all over the world, and my talented fellow guards.

The last few lines of the page hint at those talents (though it’s really the tip of the iceberg). It mentions a journal featuring art, prose, and poetry by the guards, and an associated launch party where people took the stage to perform. “Colleagues play jazz together, noise out in a Sonic Youth-like ensemble, belt show tunes, perform stand up, rap under…”

Visit by Patrick Bringley's website.

--Marshal Zeringue