Catching Up on September: Part 1

I have fallen a bit behind this last month. Over the next few days I'll post a few "catch up with my recent adventures" articles.

Chapter One: Early September

Judy Collins Concert
Thursday 08 Sep 2011

I went to northern Virginia to attend a Judy Collins concert. The public transportation available to the surrounding DC areas is quite fantastic. Collins, if you’re not familiar, is a signer with an expansive career that started with the folk movement in the 60s. So she’s famous for singing songs written by Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. The woman’s voice, after so many years, is just still so fantastic. I have tried thinking about how to explain it or articulate why it touches my core so deeply; and honestly I don’t know that I’ve arrived at anything better than my initial response to hearing her voice: her voice is a river of silver that passes through your heart and into your soul. Seriously when I hear her sing it just sounds like silver somehow—but liquid silver. But then I tend to describe Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” as having a “purple quality” to it. But for Beethoven’s piece it is the aspect of the color, while Judy Collins’s voice is more like the metal silver at a liquid state or possibly mercury. Suffice it to say, I had a fabulous time.

The day of the concert, there was not an hour that it didn’t rain. The venue was a partially opened theatre. The Wolf Trap was mostly enclosed—it had a roof and some open sides. This made some seats (plastic) damp; however, that was fixed by ushers drying the seats with towels. The awesome thing about the circumstances of the evening and the performances was that occasionally between songs you could hear crickets. It was quite organic. Furthermore, every so often, the audience would have the chance to catch a flash of lightning in their peripheral vision; but the storm was also far enough away that we couldn’t hear the thunder. In short, everything sensorially contributed to a magnificent experience. I loved when she sang a song about her mother and when she told the story of the night she was with Bob Dylan when he wrote “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Then she started singing Mr. Dylan’s classic and on the chorus invited us to join in with her. It was a lot of fun. Definitely worth the travel time and money. If you’re not familiar with the work of Judy Collins, I obviously recommend you give her a chance.

She has aged really well. And her voice is still fantastic. I'm not kidding: look her up.

A Day in DC
Saturday 10 Sep 2011

I wish to tell you about my Saturday adventure in DC. One of my homework assignments was to go to the library and obtain a card—oh, and by “library,” I mean “library of Congress.” So in the morning, after breakfast, I jumped on the bus to go to the metro station in Greenbelt. After that I rode the metro into DC and there was a stop right next to the administration building for the Library of Congress. It was across the street from the main library. And now I have a card. I’m looking forward to going there. Dear Goodness! Best library ever—at least in the US . . . well, you know, sorta.

I didn’t go into the Library proper. Saturday was my day of fun so I took pictures outside of it and then continued on, taking pictures of the capitol Building. I spent some time at the Botanical Gardens. It’s the kind of building that would have bored me as a child. Who would ever want to see plants? Please?! Now. I love that stuff. It reminded me of Kew Gardens outside of London—but oh so not as wonderful as Kew Gardens. It was soothing and fantastic. Yay, Plants and flowers!

And for you, I have made a video of pictures I took that day. At the time I was listening to my Ipod. I turned on some Yo-Yo Ma covers of Ennio Morricone songs. Awesome orchestration of personal experience and life. It wouldn't load onto the Blogger so I made a video on Youtube. Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFQG2p6_7zs

After the Botanical Gardens, I headed west to look at some exhibits at the Smithsonian’s American History Museum. They had Phyllis Diller (a 20^th Century comedienne) displays with her cabinet of jokes, wigs, gloves, shoes, etc. I also checked out Julia Child’s kitchen, a history of science form the late 19^th century to the late 20^th century, and a collection examining the visualality of race in the 1950s to 1970s—the use of visual images in the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements to combat centuries of visual and media images that denigrated or whited out blackness. It only lasted a couple of hours, but I had a really good time. I wish I could have seen more, but it was nice to go as a visitor and not a tourist. I didn’t feel like I needed to see everything because it would be years before I’d come back. I could take my time and pace myself how I wanted. And then I went to the cafeteria to get some lunch.

The afternoon was set apart for an activity set up by the Graduate Studies Group or Society for Graduate Studies (Graduate Student Government). I bought a ticket to take a workshop with other UMD students at the Washington Improv Theatre (WIT). It was basically 2 hours of theatre games so it was nice but not anything I wasn’t familiar with. What was really fun was that on my way I needed to head from the Washington Mall to the metro station near the National Archives and on the way needed to cross Pennsylvania Ave. I tried crossing the street (b/c the cross walk said I could) but a police officer indicated that I needed to head back. After a few minutes a number of police officers on motorcycles came down the road in front of a motorcade of black vans heading towards the White House. There was no limo, so I don’t know if any of those vans contained President Obama if they were other important guests; but yeah, it was kinda cool.