My, how the elite's concept of celebrating its triumphs & failures has changed over the years

Balmy, balmy tropical weather, FINALLY! I swear, it got up to 50 Fahrenheit yesterday, so I did my outdoor activity, taking in as much of the western Mall as I could, to wit:

1. Einstein Memorial: Just a statue of the guy; unlike a lot of the bronzes from the 1970's, it doesn't look like a bunch of chewed bubble-gum wads stuck together, but more like a lava flow on the Big Island happened to cool into the form of the great man. Not sure about the pose; he looks lazy. As I was leaving the spot, a short bus discharged a gaggle of priviliged middle-schoolers. "Albert! I've missed you so much!" yelled the most enthusiastic of them as he led the charge.


2. Vietnam Veterans Memorial: the Wall, and it's as profound now as it was when it opened. This seems to have been a major focus of the CPAC crowd this weekend; lots of people in their POW/MIA shirts (guess that fantasy isn't dead yet). And, nearby...


3. The Do-Over Statue I'm old enough to remember the "controversy" when the Wall design was selected: stupid, vicious, and quite openly racist. To mollify the proto-teabaggers, a statue of three soldiers, designed by a runner-up in the competition, was added as an afterthought. Fortunately, it's placed far enough away from the Wall to be ignorable, but it still pisses me off. It only exists because a cadre of angry white men couldn't deal with a Chinese woman winning an important commission, and were too dim to understand the point. The Wall isn't a celebration of sacrifice, it's an apology. This statue, on the other hand, says "Thanks for letting us steal your lives for no reason, men of all races that matter to the ruling power structure as of 1984!" There are few memorials that piss me off quite this much.


4. Vietnam Women's Memorial: Yet more me-too-ism, yet another group statue, this one says "Women are Sad when Men Die." Purports to celebrate Woman's contribution to that war, but comes off (in spite of being female-designed) as a bit sexist. Unnecessary, but understandable.


5. Lincoln Memorial: I don't need to tell you anything about this baby, though I will save you some trouble; if you're looking for clues to Lincoln's sexuality, there's nothing here. NOTHING. Thanks a lot, cowardly memorial designers.


6. Korean War Veterans National Memorial: Me-too-ism strikes again! And again, the design is retrograde, and confusing. Nineteen statues of soldiers are marching... towards... excuse me? This is a memorial for yet another pointless, stupid conflict, and the statues are marching towards a point. A literal POINT. Also, the stainless steel lends a creepy feel to the statues, exacerbated by the Diane Arbus expressions. I'm not sure the heads are the right size for the bodies.


7. Martin Luther King Jr Memorial: Now, this is how you design a memorial! A mountain of stone, with a slice taken out of the middle, forms the entrance; once you're in, you see that the slice has been displaced, and a huge sculpture of MLK is emerging from it. Wings on either side of the "mountain" have some of the guy's best quotes; my only quarrel is those quotes, actually. They're all aphorisms -- splendid ones, yes -- but MLK also wrote great in long-form, and it would be nice to see, say, the entire speech he gave from the Lincoln Memorial. Lincoln & Jefferson got full speeches on their digs, why not King? A nice touch; Martin is looking across the Tidal Basin at the memorial for slave-owning, slave-boinking Thomas. With just a touch of disdain on his face.


8. FDR Memorial: Leaving the MLK Memorial, I was thinking of all the ways that it could have failed, all the design errors they could have made. I didn't need to waste a moment thinking about that, because the FDR Memorial has every possible design error on full display. Cluttered, misshapen and condescending. Worst of all was the statue of Eleanor, which didn't look that much like her and has posture problems.


9. Jefferson Memorial: "You only come here because the Lincoln Memorial is too crowded," pouts Thomas Jefferson in perpetuity. Another classic from an era when the ruling class had no doubts about how these things are done. I never realized there's a basement in the thing! Rest rooms and gift shop. I bought a magnet -- no, I bought 4, because I'd missed all the earlier gift shops.


10. Planned but not visited: the George Mason Memorial, a few steps off my path but just enough extra steps at a time when my legs were giving out. Based on photos, his statue makes him look lazy too, so why should I put the effort in?

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And then back to the hotel to switch from my sweaty tourist garb into my nice shirt, slacks & necktie, for the night's opera! Except the hotel's power was out, and the elevators weren't working. Happily, I had slipped the opera ticket into my jacket, so I didn't need to go upstairs, but I was definitely the worst-dressed person at the opera. These DC people are snazzy dressers, let me tell ya. And snazzy perfume-wearers too. I didn't get a shower but I wasn't the stinkiest person there by a long shot.

The show was Moby Dick, which I'd seen in San Francisco 2 years ago -- I actually liked it better on a second exposure, one of the best post-WW2 operas that I'm familiar with. Alas, what was wrong in SF is still wrong, the completely inadequate staging of the climax -- at least they don't have some guy come out in a whale suit, but the boats and the ship seem to disintegrate for no reason; I've read the book and I still found it confusing.

Today, Ground Zero for the trip -- il Corsaro, the only one of Verdi's 26 original operas I've never seen a performance of. Kick-ass cast too, and for an appetizer, the National Gallery of Art and the Wooly Mammoth Theater Company. I may take the Metro to Maryland just to say I did. Or visit the George Washington Masonic Memorial, which is only steps away from my hotel. Unfortunately, LOTS of steps. Up. Nah, I'll skip that.

When one item is checked off the bucket list, two shall take its place!

Ground Zero. Only three things today, but they were important:

1. National Gallery of Art. I spent many hours here when I lived in the DC area 40 years ago. They have my three favorite paintings in the world, which I will share here without comment
   


2. We Are Proud to Present... Okay, this one wasn't quite as important, but I did want to touch some slightly more edgy theater while I was here. Fascinating playing space, but the play, meh; most of the way a good ride, alternating between dead-on parody of actor's workshop game-playing and an exploration of an under-reported atrocity in Namibia under German rule... and then goes off the rails at the end and turns into a clumsy reenactment of good ol' USA racial atrocity, which doesn't seem to have anything at all to do with what went before. Worse than that, the ending had nothing for the splendid Dawn Ursula, herself reason to sit through the show (at least until she disappears). This baby's not getting produced much, but I'd go see anything with Ms. Ursula in it.


3. ...and then, Ground Zero! Verdi's il Corsaro, the last of the 26 original Verdi operas that I'd never attended a performance of. This one's not getting produced much either, in spite of some magnificent music, because
   
   
   1. if you have the resources to do it, you have the resources to do il Trovatore, which more people will come to, and
   
   
   2. there are two leading ladies; Gulnara (Tamara Wilson today) is by far the meatier part, but the big final trio is all about Medora (here sung by Nicole Cabell), who drank poison only seconds before learning that her boyfriend wasn't dead after all. Cat fight a-brewin'!
   
   
   Tenor Michael Fabiano was great, as were both Wilson and Cabell, but I got the distinct impression that the two ladies weren't speaking to each other. Drama!

Flying out to Tampa tomorrow, with all DC goals accomplished (except impulse-buy goals I thought up while I was here so they don't count). I may have finished the Verdi 26, you're thinking, but what about the Verdi 28? I'm way ahead of you -- that's why I'm flying to Tampa. Enjoy.