Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra Plays Ella

The American Museum of Art recently hosted a special "Ella at 95" concert series, featuring DC's own Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra.

Browse the Archives

It's that time of year when even pictures of the National Archives, normally one of my favorite sights in DC, is spoiled by a giant tour bus. I rarely feel those waves of patriotism that seem to wash over crowds of people at ball games, but there's something about knowing that possibly the most important and influential documents in the modern world are housed in this building, a short walk from my front door. It gets me.

Sadly, it's also that time of the year when full panic mode sets in as exams loom. So feel free to browse my own archives for a few days, and I'll see you next Monday.

Just Pretending

I'm often tempted to find the cheapest flights out of DC and head to Paris. Since this is only a fantasy, I don't even contemplate how expensive those tickets would be. I just concentrate on the romance of jumping on a plane and waking up in the hazy gold and blue of a Parisian morning. Sometimes, I go to PAUL for mille feuille (which the til humorously abbreviates as MILF) or some macarons. This weekend, between rainstorms, I read in the National Gallery of Art's Sculpture Garden, which is almost a mini-Luxembourg. That's where you'll find one of Hector Guimard's original art deco entrances to the Paris Metropolitain, which is much more aesthetically pleasing, if not nearly as clean, as our own DC Metro.

National Geographic Museum

I spend a lot of time just wondering around museums, but I have an annual tradition of going out for a while on my birthday before meeting friends for dinner. It's a great way to recharge and remind me of all the things I really love about DC and life in general, really. This year it was the National Geographic Museum.

National Building Museum

The National Building Museum has a pretty impressive home. It was built in the 1880s as the National Pension Office, serving army veterans from the Civil War, but it was also intended as a space for hosting extravagant events. There have been a few official presidential inaugural balls in the Great Hall, starting with Grover Cleveland in 1885.

Exterior of the Office of the Day

So here's my confession: Sometimes I take long breaks because I don't have much time to take photos. And sometimes I have a whole queue of photos just waiting to be posted. The problem is that I'm a writer. And writers like to write things. It's a compulsive thing. I'm also a big nerdy academic, and I want to go all big nerdy academic on here, without actually having time to write.

My new summer schedule should allow me more time for both. Hurrah!! But no promises... Until then, here's a picture of the outside of my frequent Office of the Day, with a tiny bit of big nerdy thrown in for good measure. Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural ball was held in this building.

Postmodern Daily Photo

This is a daguerreotype camera from around 1840 on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. This is a relatively small model, and the process of producing an image using this camera would have required long exposure times, and a delicate, painstaking process that included copper, silver, mercury--in other words, pretty toxic stuff. I took this with my phone, which I whipped out of my pocket and clicked, before moving on to the next exhibition.

Kryptic Antipodes

This is Jim Sanborn's sculpture "Antipodes" that stands outside the Hirshhorn Museum. The sculpture includes two large, curved metal sheets joined by a petrified log (not visible here). It is based on one of Sanborn's earlier works "Kryptos," which Sanborn did for the CIA Headquarters. One panel has has text from an encoded CIA message, while the other panel is in cyrillic and is an encoded message from the KGB.

Tear Down That Wall! (And then reconstruct it in a museum)

I'm quite a bit late posting today, so I decided to add two pictures instead of just one. Both of these pictures are from the Newseum, which boasts not only an impressive collection of newspapers, but also an even more impressive collection of historic items associated with news events. These pictures are from the largest section of the Berlin Wall assembled in the United States. The picture below shows another "piece" in the exhibit--a so called Death Tower from Checkpoint Charlie. Other notable items from the Newseum include one of one of the large antennas from the top of the World Trade Center and Ted Kaczynski's less than Thoreauian cabin in the woods.

New Toy, Eerie Photo

A repeat of yesterday's location, via Hipstamatic.

I'm more or less in the habit of taking my camera with me everywhere I go. My self-discipline about doing that, however, has been tested by the camera on my iPhone. There's not all that extra weight in my bag, or battery charging, or remembering to put the memory stick back in. And... I've fallen prey to Hipstamatic. The way the app works is that there is a selection of "lenses" that have certain features, "films" that give different effects, and "flashes" that add tints to the shots. Playing around with different combinations makes each photo unique. More than my Facebook app, more than the IM-like texting, more than Angry Birds, which I promptly removed for being the time-suck that it is, Hipstamatic has turned my phone into a toy.

Theme Day: My Favorite Part of Town

It's my first Theme Day! This was really very challenging. How do you pick a favorite part of town in a city you love so much? I thought about including Chinatown, for it's hustle and bustle and cultural diversity, or Dupont, with its bars and restaurants and central fountain that makes the city feel like a neighborhood. For that matter, I could have included my own neighborhood, where I feel at home amongst colorful rowhouses and friendly people that know my name. Georgetown gets my vote for the prettiest part of the city for its traditional architecture and English high-street charm. But when it comes to my favorite part of Town--the place where I'm happiest--it's usually at the Reynolds Center in Chinatown.

The Reynolds Center is a Smithsonian Museum complex made up of the National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum. In the middle lies Kogod Courtyard, a large, covered area that joins the two museums together. One of the perks of being an academic is that this is frequently my office for the afternoon. My best days are spent there with friends, discussing books and ideas over delicious, albeit overpriced, museum cafe coffee and cupcakes.

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

The Well Now It's Old Post Office

At 315 feet, the Old Post Office is one of the tallest buildings in DC. Opened in 1899, it's not really that old, even by DC standards. But it has always been surrounded with local legend and lore. The day the building opened, the Postmaster of the District of Columbia fell to his death down an elevator shaft. After that auspicious start, it didn't serve as a post office for very long. In 1914, the main post office was relocated, and, at only 15 years of age, it was suddenly the Old Post Office. As the building fell to disuse and disrepair, it was scheduled for demolition. At least one good thing came of the Great Depression--Congress didn't have the money to tear it down. It was used for federal offices for a while, then scheduled for demolition again in the early 70s, when a campaign of local citizens managed to save, restore, and get the building listed on the historic registry. And in 1976, when Great Britain gave replicas of the Westminster Bells to Congress to mark the bicentennial, they were installed in the tower. Now you can visit The Old Post Office museum, tour it's tower, and even eat in perhaps the worst food court in DC.

Happy President's Day!

Mercury Rising

It's finally getting warmer in the District! As winters go, this one actually hasn't been so bad for DC. The blizzards that hit us over and over last year headed to New York City instead, I guess. When it's cold outside, though, it's a great time to head indoors to the museums. There aren't as many tourists in the winter, and you have the place pretty much to yourself. The photo above is of Mercury, rising, no less, atop of Wind's breath. This fountain is in the rotunda (to continue with yesterday's theme) of the West Building of the National Gallery of Art.

Click here for a few more shots from the NGA.