Agog

Believe me, I know from gorgeous reading rooms.  When I worked at the New York Public Library, I used to nap in its hushed, lamp-shaded Beaux Arts temple during lunch hours after rough nights of youthful dissipation.  But the domed architecture of the reading room in the Library of Congress--195 feet tall--makes the one on 5th Avenue and 42nd Street seem minor league by comparison.

I was in town visiting Christine and encountered my second Neptune fountain in a week.  It greets visitors to the Thomas Jefferson Building, erected during the Gilded Age.

 

After just spending a week in Bavaria, I thought perhaps I had lost the capacity to be agog, but no.  My mouth dropped as soon as I stepped into the main hall, surely one of the most impressive public spaces in our nation's capital.

Signs of the Zodiac, a nice touch, decorate the marble floor.  Christine's a Sagittarius.

The nation's third president is a lot less controversial in this setting than in his home at Monticello where Jefferson's slave ownership is unavoidable.

A separate room contains his personal library.

From floor to ceiling, it's as beautiful as the rest of the building.

But we hadn't come for the architectural dazzle dazzle.  Christine wanted me to see an exhibit drawn from the library's collection of 14 million photographs.

Enormous enlargements of Harriet Tubman and Tina Turner adorned the walls.

You can access the entirety of "Not an Ostrich: & Other Images from America's Library" online.  Here are a few of my favorites.

Stanley Kubrick (1947)

I didn't have to look at the caption to know this photo documented the AIDS crisis.

Nicholas Nixon (1987)

While the library likely has many almost anthropological photos of Native Americans taken by Edward S. Curtis in the early 20th century, the curators chose a more recent portrait of a dancer from the Tarasco First Nation to modernize the viewer's appreciation for indigenous culture.

Will Wilson (2012)

After a delicious take-out lunch at Eastern Market, we boarded the metro to Dupont Circle for a visit to the Phillips Collection. 

"African Modernism in America, 1947-67," exhibits unfamiliar paintings that were the fascinating products of a cultural exchange program sponsored by Fisk University.

"A Fulani Milkwoman" by Bruce Onobrakpeya (1960s)

"Crocodile Eating Fish" by Pilipili Mulongoy (ca 1960)

"Profile" by Gerard Sekoto (1960) 

Head of Imade by Ben Enwonwu (ca 1949)

London's Tate Modern had introduced me to Ibrahim El-Salahi, who achieved an international reputation since painting this work.  His calligraphic style is instantly recognizable.

"Vision of the Tomb" by Ibrahim El-Salahi (1965)

Jacob Lawrence is one of the few American artists included in the show.  His extraordinary work always colorfully straddles the divide between the abstract and the figurative.  

"Victory" (1947)

A photogenic staircase took us down to the permanent collection where we found half of Lawrence's Migration Series exhibited.  MoMA owns the other 30, even-numbered panels. 

"They left because the boll weevil had ravaged the cotton crop."  (1941)

Maurice Utrillo was one of my mother's favorite artists.  Reproduction of his works hung in our French Provincial living room.

"Place du Tertre" (1911)

Duncan and Marjorie Phillips, a painter herself, helped establish modern art in America. Their collection was accessible to the public eight years before the Museum of Modern Art opened in 1929.

"Spring, Rue de Seine" by Janice Biala (1936)

"Still Life" by Giorgio Morandi (1950)

The afternoon kept getting better:  we walked to our next destination through a charming neighborhood where these homeowners have an eye-grabbing method of showing their support for circus animals.

The Whitman Walker Clinic, which provides health services to Washington's LGBT community, is celebrating an important anniversary.

And there's good theater just around the corner, too.  Coming up next:  Fat Ham.

Christine treated me to a five-course meal--pretty and yummy in equal doses, with impeccable service--at Nina May's in DC's Shaw District as part of my belated 70th birthday celebration.

Afterward, she took me to see Jesse Ware, an incredibly talented British chanteuse, seduce a crowd of mostly gay men at the Lincoln Theater.  I thought I had died and gone to heaven when she encored with "Believe" from the balcony, wreathed in a feather boa.  Cher had better look over her shoulder!

 Thanks again, Christine--turning 70 may not be pretty but it sure can be fun!

Monticello Conundrum

For Christmas, Thom gave me a senior pass from the National Park Service good for lifetime free admission, along with the other occupants of any car where I'm seated.  We picked it up at the entrance to the Skyline Drive, a northern extension of the Blue Ridge Parkway.  If we'd continued driving, it would have saved us $35!

 

Instead we drove to Monticello (last two syllables pronounced like the musical instrument), Thomas Jefferson's estate which has appeared on the back of the nickel since 1938.  Talk about branding; Donald Trump eat out your tiny, tiny heart!  He probably would be impressed with Thomas Jefferson's personal gold crest, too. 

It's a fraught moment to be visiting the estate of our third president.  But Monticello pays lip service to the elephant in the room with a video that explicitly mentions Jefferson's unapologetic enslavement of African Americans despite fathering multiple children with Sally Hemings after the death of his wife.

Is there a better illustration of inequity than his living quarters and hers?

Jefferson's bedroom.

Hemings' "studio."

It's hard to reconcile Jefferson's reputation as man of the Enlightenment and co-author of the Declaration of Independence ("all men are created equal") with his personal behavior.  Monticello certainly accentuates the positive.  Like this very cool weathervane.

Which connects to this gadget beneath the portico so you always know which way the wind is blowing.  Especially in this turbulent era!

"Exterminate All The Brutes," Raoul Peck's take-no-prisoners indictment of white supremacy on HBO, probably has influenced my reaction to Monticello, but I was surprised to find a display of Native American artifacts in the foyer.

Not scalps, exactly, but close.

After the scale of the Biltmore, Monticello seemed almost like a dollhouse stuffed with things to keep an educated and curious mind engaged.

Chess anyone?

Skylights and windows flood the place with gorgeous light.

Look at the moulding.

Children's toys seem a little too tossed aside . . . 

and a tray of insulating cotton may unintentionally raise more questions than it answers.

Jefferson dined in this beautifully appointed breakfast room.  

Sally Hemings' brother--she had 12 siblings--cooked for Jefferson.

Here's TJ's equivalent of Thom's Mercedes which has double the capacity.  That's a comparison I never thought I'd make!

It's hard to tell, but it appears as if working conditions at Monticello may have been less oppressive than they were at the Biltmore.

I wish I could track down what Jefferson used this instrument for.

Students on a field trip got their "money shot."  Well, nickel shot, anyway.  Do kids even know what a nickel is anymore?  They're definitely seeing too many money shots.

Lots of flowers were blooming in the backyard.

Monticello's views aren't bad either.

The vegetable garden continues to be productive.

Although someone probably should have harvested the kale before it flowered.  Who knew?

Note the Trump-like sign below, attached to the gates of Jefferson's private graveyard.  The Monticello Association is responsible for the preservation of Jefferson's home. It also decides who gets to be buried here and refuses to admit his many descendants with Sally Hemings.  If I'd known that before visiting, I'm not sure I would have been so eager to go.  It's one thing to use the proper terminology when discussing Monticello's history.  It's quite another to perpetuate segregation ACTIVELY, even in death.

Here lies Jefferson AND a major conundrum of our times:  George Vanderbilt used his inheritance to build America's largest home and to pay his servants.  But who contributed more to America?  Do we celebrate one and cancel the other?