Speaking of celebrity sightings and ill-advised public art, the building in which I'm working today has a weirdly pointless exhibition in the lobby/mall area along those same lines. It's called "Celebrity Specs", and it's being sponsored by the Prevention of Blindness Society as part of their ongoing mission to raise awareness of blindness and blindness-related issues (e.g. "going blind would be bad"; "perhaps we should spend money to prevent people from going blind"; "Ray Charles was a pretty cool dude"; etc).

The installation consists of a bunch of cubicle-wall-style panels holding autographed celebrity headshots with sunglasses attached. I guess we're supposed to assume the sunglasses at one point belonged to their associated celebrities. Among the luminaries featured: Scott Biao (sic); Artie "Thank God Farley Died" Lange; and third understudy for the position of America's Sweetheart, Tea Leoni.

I don't mean to make fun of the blind (my behavior during viewings of America's Next Top Model notwithstanding). But I'm having a hard time understanding this exhibit. I guess they're going to auction off the sunglasses, but come on -- do we really think an important celebrity like, uh... let's see... Dick Vitale! Do we really think Dick Vitale is going to give up his famous signature shades, which I have never seen him wearing? Of course not. He probably just got some intern to go drop ten bucks at Rite Aid, throw the purchase in an envelope with a headshot from the stack, and email ESPN's accounting department about a $500 charitable donation.

The dividers are obnoxiously in my way when I want to leave the building to get some lunch, though. I hate celebrities; I also hate things that keep me from having lunch. So maybe the exhibit is really a highly conceptual statement on celebrities' inevitable lack of awareness -- blindness, if you will -- toward the negative effects their existence has on society, despite their best intentions. Maybe.

But I still think I'm missing something. Isn't one of the hallmarks of great art its ability to inspire an emotional response? If it is, then I don't truly understand the piece. Because a few hundred feet below me, more likely than not, exists a trace amount of Judge Judy's DNA. And that thought terrifies me for reasons I can't even begin to fathom.