Greetings from DC

We had a lovely social Sunday, though we started by sending Adam and Haley off to visit her grandmother in Richmond, then to their home in Ohio. We headed downtown (as did Daniel and Cahaya, though separately) and met Cheryl and Tree at Union Station, from which we walked to the National Gallery of Art to see the excellent Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment, including Monet's Impression, Sunrise, for which the movement is named but which had been missing for several years after being stolen. We ate lunch in the museum's cafeteria. 

Then we walked to the US Botanic Garden, which had its annual display of miniature monuments made from plants amidst poinsettias and model trains in the outdoor garden. We also visited the cacti and rainforest. From there we visited the Folger Shakespeare Library, which we hadn't seen since it reopened and put all its First Folios on display, though the highlight for me was the other first edition exhibit including Joyce's Ulysses and Tolkien's hand-corrected publisher's proofs. We came back to Maryland to have Grand Fusion with Linda and Ira at my parents'. 

Greetings from DC

 I was having a perfectly nice Boxing Day, after eggnog waffles and eggs for brunch, we went downtown to the National Gallery of Art to see the Sargent in Spain exhibit and the holiday poinsettias, we visited the US Botanical Garden which has the annual winter flowers and DC monuments in miniature plus the train display in the outdoor garden, we walked by the US Capitol Christmas tree and the Canadian Embassy Christmas tree, we parked at Union Station which has the 32-foot Norwegian Embassy Christmas tree and a large menorah. 

 

So that was a lovely day and we came home for Impossible burgers and tater tots. Paul thought he heard a hissing noise downstairs, and it turned out that the pipe that leads to the back hose, which I had asked him before the polar vortex if there was a way to shut off, had exploded and water was pouring all over the basement. We managed to get a plumber out to block off the correct pipes so we can have water on in the rest of the house, but the carpet and everything touching it, which includes more than a dozen bookcases, is ruined.

 

Poem for Saturday and National Gallery Art

Lovable Losers
By Rachel M. Simon

The Chicago Cubs 1908–2015

In the hazy birth records
of the Arkansas of Europe
my Bubbie’s birth scrawled in Yiddish,
as eight days past a minor Jewish holiday
and not the week before the Cubs
most recent World Series victory, fall 1908.

Ten years since Bartman cursed his
Cubs right out of their first shot
at the National League pennant
a since-1908 champless existence.

Bartman won’t take your calls,
or any major network news organ.
But the Sun-Times published his every address
to find fans awaiting him lunch hour and bath.

To become unfamous
on Chicago’s north side when you
deflect the ball out of Moises
Alou’s waiting glove is a challenge.

We are assured—Cubs fan
Bartman’s healthy, employed,
still in Chicagoland.

Twenty years before Penicillin’s discovery
and two before the bra’s invention
the Cubs last won the Series. When
the NFL, NBA, and NHL didn’t exist.

My Bubbie a baby
hadn’t heard of America
where she’d later give birth,
or Chicago, place of her brother’s future
suicide—more camp trauma
than Cubs letdown.

Bartman holds no vendetta against Alou
despite his motherfucker hollers aimed to stands.                     

It was never Bartman’s fault, you can’t
make a double play from your seat.
Moises, you can’t tell
a little league coach not to reach for
a major league ball aimed at your heart.

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It rained for most of Friday, though it wasn't very cold and it let up enough in the afternoon for us to take a walk. Otherwise, it wasn't a very exciting day apart from a lot of squirrel activity after I filled the bird feeders; if I'd been keeping score, it was something like Squirrels 15, Birds 5. 

We did watch rerun skating and the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics, which I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to be boycotting or whether I'm supposed to boycott NBC or anything that makes the IOC money or everything from China, which I do anyway whenever I can buy from elsewhere. 

Here are some photos of things I love at the National Gallery of Art from December, including Chardin's The House of Cards, Vernet's Moonlight, Fragonard's Young Girl Reading, Robert's Ponte Salario, Boucher's Madame Bergeret, Oudry's Misse and Luttine, and Sargent's Setting Out to Fish: 

Greetings from the National Gallery

We had snow most of the day on Friday, but nothing stuck till after dark, so we got to take a walk after lunch in thick falling flakes but the ground was clear, even the grass where there were squirrels and lots of birds. We're going to see Paul's parents on Saturday if weather permits, so I scanned the last remaining papers of theirs I had, including some cheesy Swedish jokes and some newspaper articles my father-in-law wrote. 

We watched Tick, Tick... Boom!, which I loved so much more than I expected -- the utter genius of Sunday alone would have made me a fan for life, and the Broadway cameos -- then we watched Encanto to see something more cheerful also by Lin-Manuel Miranda (lots of it reminded me of Moana, whose songs I mostly like better, though I reserve the right to change my mind on subsequent viewings, which it sometimes takes. 

Some photos from last month from the National Gallery of Art's excellent exhibit The New Woman Behind the Camera -- about how women used photography for both artistic and personal expression starting in the 1920s, and changed the profession -- which ends January 30, so people know to go see it before it closes: 

Greetings from Flowering DC

I had a very lovely, long day downtown on Saturday, starting before 10 a.m. because we had tickets for the Future Sketches exhibition at Artechouse, which was amazing as are all their installations -- this one was Zach Lieberman's attempt to approach the question, "What does code feel like?" with graphic art, music, and multimedia. Pokemon Go Community Day started right as we were leaving the exhibit space, so I spent a couple of hours walking through the gardens around the National Mall running into friends, catching Rhydons, and discovering that daffodils, violets, hellebores, witch hazel, redbuds, and crocuses are blooming all over the place!

We saw a movie filming and had lunch in the cafeteria at the National Gallery of Art (a good place for quick veggie burgers and also for catching Pokemon), then went to see True to Nature: Open-Air Painting in Europe, 1780–1870, which was gorgeous and made me want to travel, and Raphael and His Circle, which thrilled me less but was still well done in a very small space. We stopped in the Smithsonian Castle on the way back to the car so I could get this year's cherry blossom festival pin and I chased a Trubbish that I couldn't catch to the Air & Space Museum. Then we stopped at home briefly to feed the cats before going back out to Giant for this week's groceries.

















Paul made peanut soup for dinner for Washington's birthday, which we ate with sharp cheddar and crackers followed by vegan chocolate ice cream. We caught up on the Graham Norton episode we missed Friday (Timberlake and Kendrick not that funny) before watching Judy, in which Renee Zellwegger is actually as good as everyone said, something I really doubted was possible, though it's such a sad biopic (L.B. Mayer almost a cartoon villain, Mickey Deans written as a predictable asshole, Sid Luft sadly sympathetic since we only hear about his bad marital behavior in the past tense, Judy's friendship with Rosalyn the only bright moments).

Poem for Thursday and Berruguete Sculpture

Amoretti LXXV: One Day I Wrote her Name
By Edmund Spenser

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
"Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay,
A mortal thing so to immortalize;
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wiped out likewise."
"Not so," (quod I) "let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name:
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew."

--------

I'm just going to keep things short this week because I am very boring. I talked to Daniel twice about things I can't talk about in public (good things, just complicating his life), I did a bunch of computer work while watching squirrels fight over birdseed on the deck, I went to the park because it was nice out.

We finally saw this week's Doctor Who, which delighted me (I know there has been screaming about whether it violates canon but I didn't know why and frankly I don't care)! And we saw The New Pope, which is, well, completely insane. From the National Gallery's Alonso Berruguete: First Sculptor of Renaissance Spain:

Poem for Monday and Museum Afternoon

The Gallery
By Andrew Marvell

Clora, come view my soul, and tell  
Whether I have contrived it well.  
Now all its several lodgings lie  
Composed into one gallery;
And the great arras-hangings, made  
Of various faces, by are laid;  
That, for all furniture, you’ll find  
Only your picture in my mind.

Here thou are painted in the dress
Of an inhuman murderess;  
Examining upon our hearts  
Thy fertile shop of cruel arts:  
Engines more keen than ever yet  
Adorned a tyrant’s cabinet;
Of which the most tormenting are
Black eyes, red lips, and curlèd hair.

But, on the other side, th’art drawn  
Like to Aurora in the dawn;
When in the East she slumbering lies,  
And stretches out her milky thighs;  
While all the morning choir does sing,  
And manna falls, and roses spring;  
And, at thy feet, the wooing doves  
Sit pérfecting their harmless loves.

Like an enchantress here thou show’st,  
Vexing thy restless lover’s ghost;  
And, by a light obscure, dost rave  
Over his entrails, in the cave;  
Divining thence, with horrid care,  
How long thou shalt continue fair;
And (when informed) them throw’st away,
To be the greedy vulture’s prey.

But, against that, thou sit’st afloat  
Like Venus in her pearly boat.
The halcyons, calming all that’s nigh,  
Betwixt the air and water fly;  
Or, if some rolling wave appears,  
A mass of ambergris it bears.
Nor blows more wind than what may well  
Convoy the perfume to the smell.

These pictures and a thousand more
Of thee my gallery do store
In all the forms thou canst invent  
Either to please me, or torment:  
For thou alone to people me,  
Art grown a numerous colony;  
And a collection choicer far
Than or Whitehall’s or Mantua’s were.

But, of these pictures and the rest,
That at the entrance likes me best:  
Where the same posture, and the look  
Remains, with which I first was took:  
A tender shepherdess, whose hair
Hangs loosely playing in the air,  
Transplanting flowers from the green hill,  
To crown her head, and bosom fill.

--------

We went downtown Sunday morning so we could be there when Pokemon Community Day started, because Piplup was the chosen Pokemon this month and Piplup is a penguin and therefore one of the ones I remember Adam talking about from long before I cared about Pokemon at all. We parked near the Botanical Garden and walked around the National Mall in a big loop before going to the National Gallery of Art, where we ate lunch before the Community Day event ended. Then we went to the exhibits on pastels and on Alonso Berruguete's sculpture.

















We came home while it still looked like the Titans could beat the Chiefs, before the Chiefs started blowing them out and made it clear they deserved to be in the Super Bowl. Then we watched the start of the Packers-49ers game, but it was obvious by the start of Supergirl that San Francisco would be joining Kansas City, so we switched to superheroes while we had dessert, following it up with Marvel's Runaways (which is finally treating Leslie as a fellow victim who was groomed by a child abuser, not a schemer with PRIDE).