When I was young I liked to make friends play a game with bad clothing catalogs. We'd flip through the catalog together and from all of the awful outfits on each page we'd have to pick the one we would wear (for a full day at school) if forced to do so. A perhaps more grownup version of this game can be played at galleries . . . which one of the artworks on exhibit would you display at home? Picking from things you like is fun, but ideally this should be played with unappealing art.

My husband and I started our visit to Berkeley Art Museum with modernist Hans Hofmann's paintings. He is described as an "influential Abstract Expressionist painter" but I just don't like his stuff. Neither does my husband, so we played the game. We both choose the same 1944 piece, "Effervescence."

Up to the next floor where there are lots of treats starting with a section of Li Jin's 15ft. scroll, "Harvest II", a traditional Chinese ink wash with a cheeky twist. The artist is apparently exploring "the pleasure of meals taken with family" . . . this stretch of the scroll depicts a fetching young woman in the nude, two elderly folk in underclothes (seemingly poised for a soul kiss) and some city slickers awkwardly perched on the edge of their picnic. Pleasure indeed; wish the whole thing was unfurled.

Around the corner are two glass cases of Alexander Calder's 1920s "toys." Charming little things made from wood and metal and fabric that I would like to have on a shelf at home. The forlorn "Blue Velvet Cow" and the "Animal Zoo Puzzle" are particularly desirable. Good thing those purse-size gems are behind glass.

In front of Chiho Aoshima's huge plasma print "Magma Spirit Explodes. Tsunami is Dreadful", my son awoke from his stroller nap with wild eyes. And with good reason, this huge manga-esque vision of a wide-eyed mermaid shooting fire is like a good bad dream. The slick CG image invites close scrutiny for smaller details like nude figures swimming through the waves of ocean blue. Husband and I agree we'd gladly sport this on a wall at home.

On the way out we passed through the temporary "Yosemite in Time" exhibit of Byron Wolfe and Mark Klett's photographic re-creations of historic images of Yosemite. The photographs explore the evolution of this iconic space "while change is evident in the morphing forests and diminishing water of the park, the seemingly immutable granite backdrops provide for strikingly similar images even when taken 130 years apart."

Leaving BAM we battled weekend traffic to our second stop for the day, Cecile Moochnek Gallery. Moochnek herself greeted us and showed us through the cluttered backrooms where more work is on display. Like the gallery collection, Moochnek was bright and cheerful. The overall impression was that the paintings on display make nice postcards and that sometimes the postcards are better than the real thing. Take Yvette Molina's dreamy botanicals; on a diminutive 5x7 card, they are beautiful. In person, the 5ft aluminum panels made me think of the fantasy novels I once enjoyed, a flighty and slightly embarrassing pleasure. Anyway, playing the game once more, Tyler and I again picked the same painting Molina's "Last Light." We seem to be in accord on such things . . . will come in handy when we can finally afford art.