Abandoned

Finishing up with Washington/Northern Virginia with this old house just outside of Middleburg.

Urban poetry

I was amused by this array of traffic lights in Middleburg, Virginia.

It's not really urban, though apparently the town planners disagree, foreseeing a future when there might be multiple lanes of traffic on the main street. Which is not currently the case, and from what I could see, even on a pretty Easter afternoon when the shops and sidewalks were crowded, one light in each direction would have sufficed.

Wednesday mammal blogging

The sun finally came out this week, so I've gone to the park every day to see birds.

I'm grateful to one of the rangers for pointing out this little brown bat sleeping in a tree. It looked like a dead leaf until you got close enough to see the claws.

Astronomy Tuesday

The Cassini probe may be gone, but its legacy of wonderful images from Saturn goes on.

Here the rings are almost edge on, in front of a backlit Titan. And the little moon just below Titan is Enceladus.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, JPL, SSI, Cassini Imaging Team

Spring on Embassy Row

More pictures from Washington.

Sunday bird blogging

As I've often written, unlike most birders I have a real fondness for house sparrows. They're invasive, and common, but I love their pluck, their fearlessness as they navigate city streets.

And just because they're brown and don't have any extravagant markings doesn't mean they aren't beautiful. 

Saturday reflections

Let me tell you about the ones that got away....

I took this picture from the Uber as we rode down New York Avenue on our way to the Passover/Easter dinner. We had passed -- at a distance -- some wonderful reflections, and I said, I have to take a walk down here later this week and take pictures.

Which of course I never did. The skies were either overcast or cloudless blue the rest of the week, and I never saw anything like these magnificent skies -- mounds of clouds just before sunset -- again. You can only get the barest idea from these reflections, sadly; the real splendor was to the west and these windows were facing the wrong direction, but I do like the contrast between the glass towers and the old brick.

Cliches of photography

Obviously I'm not immune. These stairs were at the Women in the Arts museum.

The Emancipation Proclamation

At the Museum of African American History and Culture.

I much preferred the history part of this museum. You take an elevator down three stories below ground and work your way back up along a ramp while going from the roots of slavery in Africa through its establishment in the colonies, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow to the present day. I was completely immersed in the experience -- it was shattering -- and honestly I probably should have just left afterwards.

Instead I took the escalator up to the culture floor. And that's the problem right there -- trying to fit it all on one floor. The music alone needs its own museum, and they try to cover theater, fashion, art, movies and television as well. I'm not sure how you could present all of that material without it feeling like the most glancing overview -- it was simultaneously too much and not enough.

And honestly, the only way to appreciate music is to listen to it, not look at costumes and awards in a glass case.

Random museum sightings

I did take pictures of exhibits at the many museums I visited in Washington last week, but most of them don't really capture the experience of seeing it in person.

Some are still worth sharing -- this statue at the National Museum of Women in the Arts was interesting mostly because it's by Sarah Bernhardt, who in addition to being a legendary actor was also an accomplished sculptor, with at least 50 documented works.

Rodin dismissed her work as old-fashioned tripe, but I've always thought of being able to carve life-size sculptures as a skill akin to magic so I'm pretty impressed by this “tripe.” I can't imagine the kind of brain that can excel in two such disparate creative fields.

More urban poetry

Evening sky in Georgetown.

Urban poetry

A closeup of the fountain in Dupont Circle, taken with a fast shutter speed to catch those water droplets frozen in place.