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Guy YedwabWriting the EssayChildren and
2001
(Ex 7)Kids love things that are shiny. In truth, we adults probably enjoy shiny things aswell—the success of the “summer blockbuster” movies is evidence of that—but thegenuine wonder and curiosity of a child looking at a shiny object is one that is onlymatched by the wonder a dog has when its master is throwing a Frisbee.Kids love animals. My little sister is about to turn ten, and she wants to be a biologist. It’s a love of animals that has never worn off, really. She likes dogs, she likescats, and she likes hamsters. Kids enjoy playing, and pets tend to play with kids onexactly the same level as kids enjoy playing. Kids enjoy seeing big animals, strangeanimals—they enjoy a taste of the exotic, and at their age, strange animals are the besttaste of the exotic they can understand.Kids will frequently badger their parents to take them to the zoo. Maybe not all of them, but some of them will. The movie
Madagascar 
, about animals who escaped fromthe small but kid-friendly Central Park Zoo, probably made zoos a little more popular— Central Park in particular. So kids will badger their parents, and get taken to the CentralPark Zoo.When the kids emerge from the W 60
th
subway exit and walk towards the CentralPark Zoo, their love of animals will be derailed, for a moment, by their love of shinythings. There is an object in the entrance to Central Park which is very shiny. You can seethe sky in it, you can see yourself. It looks different from different angles. Kids love
 
things that hold their interest—and for a time, this shiny sphere-cube will hold their interest. They’ll turn to mommy or daddy or the teacher and say, “What’s that?”Mommy, daddy, or the teacher probably won’t know. A little sign nearby will saythat it’s name is
2001
, and it’s by a girl named Liz Larner. It’s here because of somethingcalled the Public Art Fund (which will interest mommy or daddy or the teacher, but notthe kid). But it won’t tell them what it is, or what it means. Mommy or daddy or theteacher will say it’s a sculpture, and they’ll explain what a sculpture is. But you’ll get theimpression that mommy or daddy or the teacher doesn’t entirely get it. Maybe the kidwill see the same look of curiosity (albeit subdued) on the face of mommy or daddy or the teacher. It will stick in their mind. It is a mystery.Kids love mysteries. After a while, it leaves them, because by now they’ve foundanimals and their love of animals will displace their love of mystery, and they’ll spend alittle time looking up at the tigers or the polar bears or the river otters. But it will stick intheir mind. When they leave, they’ll pass it again. Scientists say you remember things better if you forget them and then see them again a second time. The kid will remember the mystery, and will go home with it. And then they’ll forget it again while playingGameboy Advance or Nintendo Wii or their Pokemon card games.Adults remember their childhood sometimes in strange ways. Maybe one day anadult, passing through the Doris Freedman Plaza with kids of their own, will suddenlyremember that there used to be a sculpture. It will be gone, though. Childhood ends. Butthey’ll remember the mystery. Maybe now they’ll have an answer. Sometimes mysteriesend. Sometimes they don’t.
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