Above: The Navy Yard Car Barn, "The Blue Castle" (It reminds me slightly of Bratislava's Blue Church, but I guess probably just in the color.)

Below: The Latrobe Gate of the Washington Navy Yard, which is just across the street from the Blue Castle.

H Street coffee on a rainy Sunday afternoon. (Above: the coffee roaster who stole the best seats in the place.)

Great place to celebrate a dissertation defense, no? Francisco arranged a lovely evening--complete with champagne and all my favorite songs.

Also, my blog got a shout out during the defense.

Twitter

Stupid hurricane. I know, I know: very selfish of me to whine about it from afar when the homes of others are at risk. But seriously people, who picked New Orleans for APSA in August?

A Random Assortment, Abbreviated Version

(Originally taken as insurance against receiving a parking ticket at a broken meter [hey, it's happened to me before].)


~ Font Stories (For Ilana: The only thing she loves more than fonts is loose change; oh wait, she hates change).

~ The Garden of Books (For Hopkins who loves books and gardens).

~ Classic New York (For Francisco: The only thing he loves better than NYC is London).

(Roosevelt on Roosevelt Island.)

The Clark Brothers

Diana and Gypsy and Stearns: Does this not bring back so many memories? Pretty sure I had a crush on the one in the black turtleneck and the cowboy hat, but maybe he was too old for me?

A Random Assortment

(Picture left over from crabbing: this great lamp is at the end of Whigwam's pier.)

~ This ranking of "Generosity in America's Cities" sort of makes me want to move to the South (or become a Mormon). Although, really, I think I've already done my time there (in the South, not as a Mormon).

~ I knew Leo, the security guard who was shot at the FRC last week. He is a very friendly and funny guy and the CNN report captures that self-deprecating sense of humor. I'm very happy to hear that he's home from the hospital. (Weird that the shooter had 15 Chick-fil-a sandwiches in his backpack.)

~ I find the question of whether certain types of rape decrease the chances of conception to be utterly irrelevant to whether abortion is morally acceptable or not. This description of the way in which pregnancy is prevented in the victims of rape (from a PA representative in 1988) is the most fantastic:

The odds that a woman who is raped will get pregnant are "one in millions and millions and millions," said state Rep. Stephen Freind, R-Delaware County, the Legislature's leading abortion foe.
The reason, Freind said, is that the traumatic experience of rape causes a woman to "secrete a certain secretion" that tends to kill sperm.

(via Coates)

Disability and Work

The Atlantic writes: "The Recycling of Souls is moving documentary portrait of a recycling facility in Warsaw, Poland, that employs people with learning disabilities and mental health issues."

Quote

"From these various excursions, and a good many others, (including one to Manassas,) we gained a pretty lively idea of what was going on; but, after all, if compelled to pass a rainy day in the hall and parlors of Willard's Hotel, it proved about as profitably spent as if we had floundered through miles of Virginia mud, in quest of interesting matter. This hotel, in fact, may be much more justly called the centre of Washington and the Union than either the Capitol, the White House, or the State Department. Everybody may be seen there. It is the meeting-place of the true representatives of the country,—not such as are chosen blindly and amiss by electors who take a folded ballot from the hand of a local politician, and thrust it into the ballot box unread, but men who gravitate or are attracted hither by real business, or a native impulse to breathe the intensest atmosphere of the nation's life, or a genuine anxiety to see how this life-and-death struggle is going to deal with us. Nor these only, but all manner of loafers. Never, in any other spot, was there such a miscellany of people. You exchange nods with governors of sovereign States; you elbow illustrious men, and tread on the toes of generals; you hear statesmen and orators speaking in their familiar tones. You are mixed up with office-seekers, wire-pullers, inventors, artists, poets, prosers, (including editors, army-correspondents, attachés of foreign journals, and long-winded talkers,) clerks, diplomatists, mail contractors, railway-directors, until your own identity is lost among them. Occasionally you talk with a man whom you have never before heard of, and are struck by the brightness of a thought, and fancy that there is more wisdom hidden among the obscure than is anywhere revealed among the famous. You adopt the universal habit of the place, and call for a mint-julep, a whisky-skin, a gin-cocktail, a brandy-smash, or a glass of pure Old Rye; for the conviviality of Washington sets in at an early hour, and, so far as I had an opportunity of observing, never terminates at any hour, and all these drinks are continually in request by almost all these people. A constant atmosphere of cigar-smoke, too, envelopes the motley crowd, and forms a sympathetic medium, in which men meet more closely and talk more frankly than in any other kind of air. If legislators would smoke in sessions, they might speak truer words and fewer of them, and bring about more valuable results."

--Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Chiefly About War Matters"

Most Beautiful City Hall, MO

Sunday on the Severn

In addition to being the site of the worst fall of my life (slipped on the boat ramp/look slightly like I've been beat up and am currently typing without the use of my right thumb; I think it was actually a worse fall when I was little and a very young Papa Leopard thought it would be fun for Stearns and I to sail down our winding driveway in our red wagon), the Severn River was also the site of some fabulous summertime activities: crabbing and sailing.

And this massive, scary spider. Ewww. I need a zoom lens so I don't have to get quite so close to my subjects.

Whigwam and his fiance were delightful hosts--they took us out sailing in their Sunfish, even though there was just a little wind. (I'm really jealous of their apartments, which are both on the Severn River--that's right--this is not a lake!)



And they taught us how to catch crabs off their pier with a chicken leg tied to a piece of twine. (The hard part is catching it in the net before it knows what's happening. Once, we caught three from one piece of chicken! Another time, we left the chicken leg down there too long and all the meat was gone when we pulled it up!)

And then they cooked up the catch. Above: his and hers: crabs and hush puppies. Talk about fresh crabs! I was half afraid they'd start moving again on the plate.

And then we sat at the picnic table by the lake river and feasted until it was too dark to see.

(In Hopkins' words and pictures here.)

Roosevelt Island

#1tomatolover rode his bike from Pittsburgh to DC. After he arrived, he didn't want to want to move around too much, but on the second day, I convinced him to walk around Roosevelt Island with me.

Roosevelt Island is a little bit of peace and quite and green in the middle of sidewalks and tall buildings. But, of course, there's a little bit of politics, too--there's a memorial to Teddy Roosevelt in the middle. Gotta love him: "[T]he history of America is now the central feature of the history of the world; for the world has set its face hopefully toward our democracy."

It was nice to have #1tomatolover there, since he's quite tall and could reach up and get close pictures that I couldn't (several of these are his).

Including this one--of a super gross clump of daddy long legs! (There were several clumps!)

I love this tree--how romantic!

Georgetown, Once Again

I love this mural, but it's incredibly hard to photograph, since it's quite large and not too far away from the neighboring house.

Home, Sweet Home

From #1tomatolover.

Entertaining

Since I lived in a house with 14 other people last year, I haven't done much entertaining for some time. Since I'm back at Little Gidding briefly, I tried to squeeze some in. Here are some pictures from a brunch, just missing the main course.

I was pretty proud of this flower arrangement, made by thinning down a couple of existing (dying) arrangements. I got to welcome some old roommates and their new husbands back to Little Gidding!

It's not quite entertaining, but my summer roommate and I had a goodbye picnic with all our favorite foods: fruit and bread and cheese and meat and green peppers and rose with an accent mark (which we drank out of travel mugs, which lent a slight coffee flavor). You can just see the corner of the Pentagon sliding into the picture on the right.

A Random Assortment

~ Edwardian street style ("The Edwardian Bill Cunningham")

~ A fascinating piece on gender and the Olympics. (How do we tell if a girl is a girl?)

~ "Making Facebook Less Infantile":

a new Web tool called Unbaby.me ... replaces the baby pictures on Facebook feeds with things that people prefer to see, like photos of cats, sunsets and bacon.

~ Oh my goodness! Quick--I need an iPhone so that I can buy the super cute iPhone case that Garance designed!

High Noon

The last time that I watched High Noon, I was struck by the women in the film. On this viewing, I saw it as a Tocquevillian tragedy of isolated individuals who have withdrawn from public life, leaving their self-interest disconnected from the public interest.

Gary Cooper plays Will Kane, marshal of Hadleyville, a Western town that he helped to make safe for women and children. The film begins with his marriage to a Quaker, Amy (Grace Kelly), and with him turning in his badge--he is leaving to tend a store elsewhere at her request. When his old nemesis, troublemaker Frank Miller, returns to town to take revenge on the marshall for sending him to jail, Kane has to decide whether to stay and face him or to run and hide. The film traces his struggle with his conscience--he feels that he must remain to defend himself and his town in spite of being deserted by his friends and in spite of their unanimous recommendation that he leave town.

What is intriguing in this film is how the same townspeople who several years before had helped the marshal put Frank Miller behind bars are no longer interested in helping him fight Miller. The process of cleaning up the town and founding the political order required Kane to work with the townspeople. Maintaining the established order, however, was much less difficult. As a result, there were fewer men deputized, and people had fallen out of the habit of contributing to the governing of their town.

When Kane goes to see the judge and ask him for help, the judge is packing up. He realizes that without the marshal the town will return to its previous disorder. However, he is not as deeply committed to the town as the marshal is, so he's happy to move on rather than stay and fight. He knows human nature, that people are the most changeable thing: he tells Kane a story of people in Athens who banished their tyrant and eight years later welcomed him back and watched him execute those who led the opposition. The Judge has learned his lesson from history and warns Kane that he, too, should move on, that his friends in the town won't help him fight Frank Miller.

The Judge says that this is just all too fast--that people need time to work themselves up to do good. The theme of time is present throughout the film. High Noon is set in real time: the suspense builds slowly; there are frequent shots of clocks to remind you exactly how little time has passed.

While Kane is admirably committed to his town, he has, sadly, dropped the ball in terms of involving the people in the process of governing themselves. The townspeople argue that they shouldn't have to help him defend their town against Frank Miller, because that's what they pay him to do. They want to see government as something other than themselves. They need the force of the marshal to create a place for women and children to live safely; however, they want the person who uses that force to be separate from them. They want the government to be other--they want to hire someone to do their dirty work. What they don't realize is that they themselves are the town.

At the end of the day, it's a little community that saves him: his wife, Amy, finally (holy goodness, it takes a ridiculously long time) comes to her senses and returns to support him.

The Polish Solidarity movement picked up Gary Cooper in High Noon as a symbol of Solidarity, which is interesting because solidarity is exactly what's missing in the film.

This Is Not a Car

 

More Georgetown

Healy Hall.

I don't think there's anyone who denies that this is the ugliest building on campus (although the new science building is giving it a run for its money), but it is striking.

Georgetown, Again

Old North. The ugly blue sign in the bottom left says that it's in the Georgian style.

Healy Hall. I have always had a problem doing anything on a straight line (you should have seen my scissor-work as a little girl). I know there's a "straighten" feature on Picasa, but it always leaves my photos blurrier than they were before. 

I love steps like this. I thought that they were called flying steps, but google doesn't agree.

Twitter

How to get a job as a professor: A) donate 20 million dollars to the school; B) be an actor/governor. It's not looking good for me.

Georgetown

The Jesuit graveyard. 

The old chapel, which I have to say, I like far more than Dahlgren, the new chapel. 

One of my favorite things is noticing what you can see through the windows--I love these chandeliers peeking through. 

The elevator. I was sugar-deprived at that point.

Quote

Mama Leopard (on the phone with me): "I need to go. I need to google what to do if a mountain lion or bear attacks you."

(For #1tomatolover, who is leaving tomorrow for Pittsburgh, which is his starting point for a bike ride to DC. Let's just be clear: We haven't even convinced him that he has to wear a helmet on the bike ride, but Mama Leopard is worried about the mountain lions and bears."

Twitter

Vending machine dinner tonight. #notevenkidding #newlows

A Random Assortment

~ A six-year-old guesses what classic novels are about, based on the cover. Hilarious.

For instance, The Color Purple:

“This book has to be about the color purple. I think it’s a baby book. It looks like it would be very short. I think there must be a blob of purple that lives in that house. And the purple blob just stays in its home and is lazy. I think it looks like a very boring book.”

(via Myrrh)

~ London mayor Boris Johnson on McDonalds at the Olympics:

"This is all just bourgeois snobbery about McDonald’s,” Johnson told foreign reporters Thursday when asked about the heavy hand of Olympic sponsors, not always associated with healthy living, including the American hamburger giant.
“It’s classic liberal hysteria about very nutritious, delicious, food — extremely good for you I’m told — not that I eat a lot of it myself,” he said.
“Apparently this stuff is absolutely bursting with nutrients,” he added.

This is gold. I don't know if this guy is serious or not, and I think it's ironic that McDonalds is such a big Olympic sponsor. But seriously, this is gold. (via Francisco)

~ Penn scientists are trying to make human organs using a 3D printer. Amazing.

~ The Amish might be taking over! (Okay, that's a slight exaggeration.)

Georgetown and Clarendon

 

Lately I've been tired of the massive building that's going on in Clarendon--all the one or two story buildings are being pulled down and replaced by much taller, brand-new buildings. There's nothing wrong with tall, brand-new buildings. It's just that the tall ones in Clarendon all look more or less the same, and the old quirks are the things that are getting squeezed out--like the little gravestone store that used to be down the road from my apartment. So this is in memory of disappearing Clarendon.

Here's a renovated church: they built an apartment building on top of it! Okay, so, this new, tall building is unique.