Wednesday, June 13, 2007 B

"Balancing Activity with Rest"
6:45am


ART
IS A
BALANCING ACT!

The dude above was drawn earlier this morning. It's inspired no doubt by my readings about Calder - wearing his famous red shirt and baggy pants.

"His wind-driven mobiles in many sizes, shapes and colours made him world-famous. Metal discs attached to moving wires are set in motion by no more than a breath of air, unfolding complex, endlessly fascinating kinetic sequences. With their delicately balanced system of equivalent elements, the mobiles seem to defy gravity. For Calder, the biomorphic shapes of his scultures symbolized the universal movement of the solar system and life, "The basis of everything I do is the universe," he said.(from Calder, by Jacob Baal-Teshuva, page 5)

One definition of the Egyptian concept Ma'at is 'cosmic equilibrium', as well as 'balance'.

On to today's plans, I know the NGA has some Calders, but we will not be returning there today, for I must choose less strenuous activities.

While we were at the Natural History Museum yesterday, I spied a pamphlet for the Old Post Office building on the floor in the restroom stall I occupied.

I picked it up and we read it. Julia, who's been there, says it's quite magnificent and that the chance discovery of the pamphlet was 'a sign'.

Skeptics may debate that, but this building might well be worth a visit. I'll report on this later...

Wednesday, June 13, 2007 C
4:06pm

I'd went back to bed after the last entry, and had a dream. In it, Julia and I visited the Old Post Office and somehow we could see skeletal ghost postal workers pushing huge carts of mail around. (Perhaps we had special red framed glasses to enable us to see this!)

When I awoke, I told Julia the dream and she said we'd visited the United States Ghost Office!

After that, we had to go.


The Old Post Office is so big I could not frame it all in one photo!


If there were any ghosts there, we could not see them for the huge throngs of people milling the food courts. One group of young people had matching yellow T shirts and another set of young people all had red T shirts. The noise all their chatter made! I shared my vegetable biranyi and curried potatoes with Julia. Oh, that curry was spicy!

Before eating, we did take the glass walled elevator upwards. It glided slowly and smoothly so we could observe the building's many levels. That let out on the ninth floor, where we got a smaller elevator that took us to the tower. And yes, we did have good views from there. We could see all the way up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capital building:


In the opposite direction, we could see the Washington Monument...

Afterwards, we took the steep narrow steps downward so we could see the bells:

"The bells range in weight from 581 to 2,953 pounds and total nearly six tons," according to the pamphlet.

From there, we got in the glass elevator and descended gracefully to the ground floor.

It was a nice, little outing for a day on which I needed to take it easy. Tomorrow is our last day, and I hope to be rested enough to tackle some big walks.

Julia, who is ameniable with what ever I decide, is content with what ever destination. So perhaps the zoo will be our destination, weather permitting. (There's been some storms tonight.)

Spontaneous drawing...

I think my spontaneous drawing was inspired by the radio announcement that they will play Die Fledermaus opera this Saturday. (Fledermaus = flying mouse = bat!) We of course, will be home by then. (I hope!)

Wednesday, June 13, 2007 C
5:24pm


Gold patterned wall, moss green and gold striped quilted bedspeads, quilted with diagonal stitches...

That is drawn from looking into the large mirrors facing the hotel beds. (I'm using a pillow as a sketchbook rest.)

Wednesday, June 13, 2007 D
10:30pm

Poised crosslegged on the bed as I drew, was pretty much how I was poised all night, watching TV. We watched while it stormed outside. The rain fell fairly heavily for a while, with some thunder and lightning. It seems to have eased now. But the room is still chilly.

The weather here has a great deal more variability than in Yuma. In June, in Yuma, you know what you're going to get, heat straight from the bowels of hell. (Okay , maybe the earth's core?) But hot, almost blister your fingers hot if you touch anything metal that's been in the sun. There's a slow bake and a more rapid bake, but you can depend on baking if it's daylight.

Here, I can never tell. I watched the news, trying to get an idea: tomorrow, chilly, but clear; Friday, clear. Well it's most important it be clear Friday...

I'm flexible on tomorrow...

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