Day 354/365 - Barest Glimmer of Hope

This is the famous Hope Diamond, the largest blue diamond in the world and the subject of a phony curse dreamed up for PR purposes. It used to be set in a necklace along with dozens of smaller white diamonds, but recently it was removed and is now being exhibited in the raw. In another few months, it will placed in a new setting that was selected by the public in an on-line poll. Welcome to the internet age.

The Hope Diamond is the centerpiece of the gems and minerals gallery at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. I dashed over there this morning before it got too terribly crowded to sneak a peek and the newly denuded diamond. It looked pretty cool on its own. Afterward, I wandered around and checked out some of the other exhibits, picked up a book on Henry Stanley the African explorer, and then popped over to the American History Museum to see the maritime gallery and Julia Child's kitchen.

Not a bad Sunday thus far. Now it's time to head over to the sports bar near my apartment to (hopefully) watch the Broncos trounce the hated Raiders. Go Denver!

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 302/365 - Phillips After Five

Although I've been a member of the Phillips Collection for two years and can get into the museum for free, I'd never been to one of their "Phillips After Five" events until tonight. Turns out they are pretty damn cool.

My evening started off with the Mortified performance piece in the museum's auditorium. If you're unfamiliar with Mortified, it essentially involves people getting onstage in front of a room full of strangers and recounting some of the most embarrassing and angst-ridden moments of their adolescence. Tonight's participants read from their high school journals/diaries, recited old love letters, and in one case sang childhood songs they'd written about their neighbors and friends. It was a hilarious, empathetic, touching, and occasionally cringeworthy experience. Evidently they stage events in cities across the country, so if one pops up in your neck of the woods you should go.

After the show ended, I ventured up to the third floor to check out the "Paint Made Flesh" exhibit, which highlights the way that the development of oil paints lead to greater skill and interest in depicting the human form among painters. The exhibit features a wide range of works from a variety of artists, styles, places, and eras. When I'd finished perusing it, I wandered around the permanent collection to visit a few old friends amongst the artworks, although I was bummed to discover that one of my Phillips faves -- Matisse's "Studio, Quai Saint-Michel" -- had been taken down from display. Don't know whether it's being restored or loaned out, but it was MIA.

From there I ambled on down to the music room to catch the tail end of a jazz quartet's performance. There was a cash bar there, but I had no greenbacks on me so I had to make like a teetotaller. Boooo. I then wrapped up the evening with a late supper and a bit of bookbrowsing at Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe. I guess I'd have to say it was a very yuppified night out. Fun, but definitely yuppified.

(Taken with my iPhone)

Day 285/365 - Nerdvana

This is one of the bronze lion statues flanking the entrance to the Corcoran Museum in Washington, DC. Given the look of wide-eyed wonder on his face, he seemed the perfect subject for today's shot. Tonight I attended a rather interesting lecture about Howard Carter, the discoverer of King Tut's Tomb, at the Corcoran. It was delivered by an author who had recently written a biography of Carter tracing his life from his childhood as the poor grandson of a gamekeeper who drew portraits of people's pets for money, to his becoming the most famous archaeologist of all time and a man who charged $10,000 per speaking engagement.

As tonight's outing goes to show, yet another of the innumerable advantages of living/working in the DC area is the fact that, if you were so inclined, you could attend a lecture or presentation every night of the week and twice on Sunday. There are lectures on art, science, history, books, politics, music, and a thousand other things. They are held at museums, galleries, coffee shops, bookstores, offices, and an endless stream of other locales. No subject is too esoteric, no topic too wonkish, and no theory too farfetched. It's like geek heaven (or maybe given that most lectures cost to attend, Disneyland for dorks).

The statement that "DC is like Hollywood for ugly people" gets thrown around ad nauseum, but I think it might be more accurate to say that Hollywood is like DC for dumb people.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 261/365 - Air and Space and Ballet

I've been wanting to visit the annex of the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum at Dulles airport ever since it opened years ago, so when my friend Chris said he was taking the day off today to drive his visiting cousin out there and asked me if I wanted to go along I jumped at the chance. It's the quintessential 'boys and their toys' kind of museum, jampacked with stuff they couldn't fit into the Air and Space Museum on the Mall -- commercial and military aircraft, rockets, and even the Space Shuttle Enterprise. No airships, though. We were kinda disappointed in that. Seems like a perfect spot for a zeppelin or blimp.

It's a very cool museum, although the $15 parking fee is a bit absurd given that it's in the middle of nowhere and parking isn't exactly at a premium out there. I finally tried the freeze dried ice cream they sell in the Museum gift shop. I opted for the ice cream sandwich. It's rather dry and hard, but it does taste like ice cream.

After we got back from Dulles late this afternoon I had to upload my photos of the museum, iron my shirt, change clothes, and head off to the Kennedy Center to catch the Royal Ballet's performance of Manon. I hand't been to the ballet in over a year, and this one turned out to be really good. It stems from the same story that served as the source of the opera Manon Lescaut. The plot involves a young girl forced to choose between two suitors -- one a poor student who loves her deeply and the other a rich nobleman who covets her possessively. Dazzled by the nobleman's gifts (and at her slimy brother's urging), she chooses comfort and security over love and passion and of course everything goes to Hell in a handbasket as a result. This was an excellent production with top notch dancers and the music was wonderful.

Ballerinas always amaze me. They seem to belong more to the air than they do to the earth. I love when they float across the stage with a fluttering of tiny, tiptoed steps. I have no idea what that step is called, but it's very cool. I've wondered for some time if there is a way to write down choreography. Can dancers read ballet the way musicians read music? It seems like there would have to be a way to transcribe the choreographic arrangements. Otherwise no ballet would ever be performed the same and great old ballets would be lost or corrupted over time, only the score would remain the same. That can't be what happens.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 248/365 - At Artomatic

Tonight was "Meet the Artists" night at the Artomatic exhibition in Washington, DC and since I hadn't been yet to check out the show, I figured I'd go. Several of my Flickr contacts had works on display and I wanted to see their walls. Going also gave me a chance to finally meet Stacey (who brought delish pasteles), Ramune (who brought yummy chocolate peanut butter crispy squares), Kerrin (who brought zesty tomato and mozzarella skewers), and Lindsay (who brought Kevin -- who, given that he's a Kevin, is naturally a treat in and of himself). It was great to meet all of them and to meet up again with some of the Flickr folks I hadn't seen in a while.

The show itself was quite enjoyable. It occupies eight floors of an unfinished office building and is essentially an artistic free-for-all. There's something of everything there, and something for everyone. Rather more nakedness than I was anticipating, though. Apparently it's fairly easy to get women to pose nude for you. Based on Artomatic, it seems that all you need do is buy a nice camera, tell a woman the photos are for artistic purposes, and then 'bang!' -- her clothes fall off. Too bad I shoot mostly buildings, places, and objects. Just my luck.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 228/365 - Art and War

I Amtrak'd it up to Philadelphia this morning for a day trip to tour the battleship USS New Jersey and check out the Cezanne exhibit going on at the Museum of Art. It was an interesting juxtaposition of the power of destruction and the power of creation, not to mention the machina and the deus.

When you think about it, creation and destruction aren't opposites as much as they are different points along the same continuum. They're both forms of affected change, ways of altering the world either through addition or subtraction. That being said, art generally doesn't kill or maim anyone -- so the world could do with much more of the former and considerably less of the latter.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 219/365 - Dream House

This is one of my favorite buildings in the world, even though I've never been inside it. It's the Smithsonian Institution's Arts and Industries Building. It was built in the late 1800s after the Smithsonian's collection outgrew the Castle that was its original home. For the next 70 years or so, this building then displayed the entire holdings of the Smithsonian until they started segregating the collection by subject matter.

The Arts and Industries Building has been closed for the past several years. The interior is in poor condition and they haven't yet come up with a plan or the funding for renovating it. It was still open and being used as an occasional exhibition space when I first came to the DC area and I figured there was no hurry about going inside it. I figured I'd have plenty of time later. Wrong answer.

I really love the way this building looks. I love the design and the shape and the colors and the patterns and the materials of it. I don't much care for any buildings that were constructed after the 1940s. They just seem bland and cheap and soul-less. If I was a jillionaire, I'd like to have a home that was a scaled-down version of the Arts and Industries Building. That would be ideal.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 217/365 - Next?

Bad day for DC's sports teams. The Caps got knocked out of the NHL playoffs in a blowout loss to the Penguins and Nationals' third baseman Ryan Zimmerman's 30-game hitting streak came to an end in San Francisco. Oh well, at least the Nats won for a change.

This is one of the statues in the sculpture garden at the Smithsonian Institution's Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art in Washington, DC. I stopped by there today during my lunch time walkabout. This piece is called "After Balzac" and it's by a woman who's name I can't recall.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 122/365 - Museum Peace

Late last year they finally finished up the renovations to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and I hadn't been by to check it out since the makeover, so today I decided to go and pay it a visit. It doesn't look much different than it did before. There's a new atrium entryway, but that's about it.

It's still a museum in search of a point. There are some interesting exhibits there, but it's a haphazard jumble of random items. Imagine a museum for cool and odd things you bought off eBay, and that would be the Museum of American History. It's the museum for 'stuff we didn't know what else to do with.'

My favorite part of the museum is still the transportation section with its old trains and cars. And the original star-spangled banner of national anthem fame is always neat to see, even if they won't let you take photos of it. After finishing with the Museum of American History, I ambled over to the National Gallery of Art to check out a couple photography exhibits and a cool lighting display in the tunnel connecting the two wings of the gallery that just about everyone on Flickr had been shooting.

It turned out to be a lot of fun to shoot and I went through the tunnel three times just so I could get the shots I wanted. It was a nice relaxing day for me and great way to finish up the first third of my 365 project.

(Taken with my Nikon D80)

Day 86/365 - Break Out

I think my 365 Project has been good for me in a couple of ways. First, it's gotten me to play around with my cameras and try some experimental shots that I might not have considered otherwise. Second, it's motivated me to 'get up, get out and do something' on days when I might otherwise have just been content to stay at home. Like today, for instance.

After getting sucked into the 'Bones' marathon yesterday, I nearly got trapped by the 'I Love Lucy' marathon today. I swear, sometimes I think couches were invented by television manufacturers, broadcasters, and snack food companies in order to snare us into consuming more of their products. Or maybe that's just me. I didn't want to shoot another photo of something laying around my apartment today, though, so I decided to go hit a museum and grab some grub. I did stick around on the couch long enough to laugh myself silly at the 'Vitameatavegamin' episode of Lucy, though. That one is one of my all-time faves.

I was debating between checking out either the Newseum or the National Museum of Crime and Punishment, and I finally decided to go with the cops and robbers. I love old gangster and g-man movies. That was one of the reasons I rented a tommy gun when my brother and I went to a shooting range in Las Vegas last winter. Man, those things are heavy.

It costs $19 to go to the C&P Museum. I think $13-14 would be a more appropriate entry fee, but the place was pretty full so I'm guessing they aren't feeling any pressure to cut their rates. The museum was pretty interesting. It covers the history and tools of crime and punishment from medieval torture implements up to modern computer crime. A lot of the museum's display objects are replicas, but they do also have some nice original artifacts, such as guns used by various members of the James Gang, the State of Tennessee's former electric chair Old Smokey (creepy, btw), and one of John Dillinger's getaway cars.

That's it above, a 1933 Essex Terraplane. It's weird how you used to be able to open up the windshield in order to get a breeze while you drove. I remember once watching a documentary on Depression-era bandits that explained why they were almost always able to outrun pursuing lawmen -- they spent their ill-gotten gains on high-power, high-performance automobiles like this one and most local police departments made do with rattletrap old beaters. Ford Motor Co. even took advantage of Dillinger's use of their vehicles as a sales pitch by stating that the police would only catch him once he stopped driving their V-8s. Maybe they were right, because this Terraplane is one of the last cars he drove.

It's a bit odd that I broke out of the soft prison of my apartment just to go and browse a museum dealing with the penal system, but it wasn't a bad day out. Plus it gave me a chance to swing by Matchbox for a late lunch/early dinner. Yum! That's definitely not prison food.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 45/365 - Pictures at an Exhibition

This afternoon I went over to Georgetown to check out the exhibits at the main FotoWeek DC gallery. There were some really amazing photos there. I saw some stuff that gave me some ideas I wanted to try. They had one cool exhibit that featured massive enlargements of photographer's contact sheets. That exhibit mentioned how, with the advent of digital photography, contact sheets are a bit of an endangered species. I still have some of my old contact sheets from my high school and college photography classes. I had been thinking about pitching them, but now I think maybe I'll hang onto them.

I was walking around the gallery today taking loads of photos of people looking at photos. At one point I think I got 'mistooken' for a working photographer. I was leaning over a railing taking shots of the lower gallery area and some girls that were coming up the stairs heard my camera going 'tchkuh, tchkuh, tchkuh' and got all excited because they thought they were going to end up in some artsy photographer's photo. One of them told the others to play it cool and just keep walking so it wouldn't mess up the picture.

Little did they know they were just going to wind up on my Flickr page rather than in a gallery. It's a sort of sad substitute for fame, but it beats nothing I suppose.

(With apologies to Mussorgsky's ghost for the theft of the title.)

(Taken with my Nikon D80)