Week 4, part one, outdoor movies and bright yellow schoolbuses

The "Screen on the Green"

Earlier in the week me and two other interns went to the National Mall, in order to watch an outdoor screening of E.T. This was a completely new, yet great experience. There's just so much atmosphere with outdoor performances, you can hear people talking, sirens, and all of the usual activity of the Capitol. You can have the cinema-sized screen without the cramped seats. The right temperature, without the noise of air conditioning or heating. The best thing was that during particularly dramatic/happy/sad moments people would cheer and clap together. At one point, during the credits, people from the back began spontaneously dancing, and this spread in a Mexican-wave type movement until everyone was up & moving!

I finally got a picture of one! (Georgia!) This is the culmination of every American highschool film that I have ever seen. Even in the summer, most kids seem to attend some kind of summer school or camp, to either catch up or get ahead.

Today, there was a power cut at work, and we got to leave after lunch! I should add that I do actually really enjoy my work, at the moment I'm just doing the initial reading to create a homeschool curriculum based on the WW2 Homefront. However, having a power cut meant that we got to eat cake, make shadow puppets with our hands and torches, and then head to the pub (where I had a coke, on account of being 19...) to say goodbye to one of the interns who has been at the museum for months now. I think it's fair to say that we're all going to miss his renditions of Disney songs and epic movie conversations in the lunchroom!

We've been very spoilt at work recently, considering our supervisor brought in Dunkin' Donuts the day the Royal baby was born, and on thursday there was a 21st birthday in our department, so, courtesy of the girl's "mom", we had a "birthday buffet"! It's been a good week!

Week 3, part two

WW2 memorial

We decided to tour the memorials by night, when the temperature was cooler and the crowds smaller. Despite the influx of biting insects, seeing the Washington monuments by night was a great way to see the city lit up, and in a more tranquil setting than during the day.

WW2 memorial/ Washington monument

The WW2 monument is incredible, it has a pool, fountains, a pillar for every U.S State and territory. Two sides completed with columns and wreaths, representing the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. One the floor, symbols like the American eagle, the Latin, E pluribus unum ("Out of many, one") decorate the tiled floor.

WW1 monument

Lincoln memorial exterior



Lincoln memorial interior

The monuments that struck me the most were either World War Two, or the Lincoln Memorial, which conjured up odd memories of both Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech, and Forrest Gump, in equal measure. To me American history genuinely appears as a combination of moments which determined the course of the modern world, and famous parodies mocking such moments which are almost as famous. As someone here reminded me, the entertainment industry is America’s biggest export, and so they make a point of doing it well.

We also visited the Korean, Vietnam, WW1, and Albert Einstein memorials.

Vocabulary learnt;

Panhandling - begging

Week 2, part four

I've visited some amazing places over the last couple of days. Me and the other interns at the Navy musuem are lucky in the fact that we are genuinely finished by 4pm everyday and so can spend the evenings in town, enjoying the weather (which has improved dramatically in the last few days, and today hit 100 F/ 38 degrees Celsius.) In addition, the British interns spend Mondays doing fieldtrips around D.C, organised by the museum. Quite a few of the American interns also come with us, because they don't necessarily live near D.C, and to be honest, even if I was at home, and in London, there's always something to be seen!

One of my favourite parts of the American National history museum was the exhibitions on the Civil Right movement, from the Emancipation Proclaimation (1863) until the Civil Rights Act (1964). I studied the U.S Civil Rights movement at school (from the 1950s) and so it's great to be able to come here and see some phyiscal items of Martin Luther King Jr.'s, e.g a pocket watch he had engraved for a friend, frozen in time.  There are also highly sensitive items too, like shards of stained glass from the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church (Birmingham, Alabama, 1963) which killed four African American girls whilst they were in Sunday school.

On a more light-hearted note, there was also a cabinet full of contemporary objects, titled The Making of Modern America which contained items such as Elphaba's costume (2003) from the Broadway musical Wicked. I know my sister at least will appreciate this!

The exhibit on "The First Lady" was also interesting, because the concept of the First Lady/ Family etc. is not hereditary, nor is it an official position, yet it still has an incredible impact on the American mindset. A dress of Michelle Obama's was on display in the centre of the exhibit alongside 18th C. Chinaware belonging to Abigail Adams (wife of the 2nd President), it's like a celebrity cult, continuing to the modern day. Before the title "First Lady" was settled on, the juxtaposition "republican queen" was considered!

National museum of the American Indian

Another fanatastic museum is that of the American Indian. I think part of the reason I enjoyed it so much was because I knew so little to begin with, shamefully my knowledge of Native Americans was formerly limited to information gleamed from Disney's Pocahontas. Now however I feel much better informed having read about initial interaction between English colonists and Native Americans in Jamestown (Virginia) 1607, all the way up to the present-day customs of American Indians, like the "Day of the Dead"(1st-2nd November) which became All Saints'/ Souls' day under Christianity.

3 things that stood out to me from this museum;

1. The museum itself was established in a 1989 Act of Congress, to promote awareness of the history of American Indians, and their place in modern American society
2. Everything in the Quecha (an American Indian tribe) is divided into Paña and Iloq'e. Paña is dark, masculine and present, where as Iloq'e is light, feminine and associated with the things of the past. Neither concept much concerns the future, as time was seen very differently (see below).
3. From the Maidu Creation story, notice the blurring and continuity between the past and present which makes their perception of their own history so intriguing;

"Turtle dove down, was gone for;
 four days,
four years,
four hundred years.
Time isn't that important."

// "over-time chaos returned,
Returns.
And the lessons proved true,
Are true."

Week 2, part two

 

So after work one day I decided to go straight into town to see some art galleries that were supposed to be especially interesting, or at least, they seemed that way to me. Something I'm really liking about working in D.C is that as soon as work ends I can get to the Metro and be on the other side of town in a matter of minutes.

 

After spending most of the day inside there is nothing better than coming across a garden like this;

 

 

 

This was a courtyard in the middle of the Freer Gallery, and it impressed me as much as the art itself.

That being said, the art was well worth seeing, especially as entry is free (another amazing thing about D.C!) because the Freer Gallery (like the Sackler and National Gallery of African art) is part of the Smithsonian institution.

 

It's fantastic to be able to go from staring at paperwork in an office, to staring at an 8th century tomb-guardian statue (Chinese, Tang dynasty) in less than an hour. I also discovered that several Buddha statues were found to have originally had haloes, which were later removed. Interesting.

 

There was also contemporary Oriental art, like Xu Bing's Phoenix exhibit, linking Chinese folklore with modern socio-political issues (according to the description...) but I'm always more inclined to appreciate ancient manuscripts over contemporary art of any kind. I wonder if people throughout history have always preferred historic art to that of the present? Or if the majority of people have always liked older styles, and only a small minority looked beyond this to initiate some kind of artistic change.

 

I like looking at art that depicts something I already know the context of. The African art gallery had a great painting of the Battle of Adwa (in which the native Ethiopians defended themselves against the Italians, 1896) painted by an African artist. The great thing about that painting was the sense of nationalism - ironically a European idea exported via the colonies - that whilst the Italian soldiers all had the same faces and expressions, the Africans were portrayed as individuals. However, after writing this I think that perhaps as a European it might just be my own world-view (Weber's weltanschauung) that made me see the painting like that.

 

Smithsonian Castle Building (the main information centre for the museums & galleries)

Front garden

African National Gallery skylight
 

 Art is kind of like a visual display of history (among other things). One of my favourite things that I learnt from these galleries was the influence of the Graeco-Roman world on ancient Oriental art. Buddhist art was particularly influenced by Western style, depictions of the Buddha develop symmetrical features (a Western ideal, apparently), the robes of monks start to look more naturalistic and flowing, and even the portrayal of hair becomes more textured!

National sculpture garden (archives in background), note the shiny silver tree!

There was a room in one of the galleries called the Peacock Room. It was a display of a collection of Oriental objects, deliberately set up as it had been in Victorian London. The collection included a painting of a Western, English-looking woman in Oriental clothing, a kimono perhaps. The juxtaposition of East vs. West in that one painting, and the whole collection, mirrored the fact that the entire ensemble of objects had been translocated from London to Washington D.C. It reminded me of myself, and of this blog, and of my blog compared to my sister's.

I like this clock tower, looks European. I wonder if that's why I like it. Incongruous in central D.C.

 After walking around the galleries for a bit I went along the National Mall. What suprised me was the number of ordinary people doing ordinary things there. People walking dogs, families playing catch (with American-style baseball gloves) and whole teams training for various sports. It's weird to think of life going on as normal with the historic backdrop of the Capitol.

Chinatown entrance

 

Another part of the courtyard in the Freer gallery.

Vocabulary learnt;

"aluminum" - tinfoil. Learnt this after someone in the house came knocking to our kitchen, and unfortunately I answered the door, leading to 5 minutes of gesturing, confusion and eventual realisation. Didn't help that the person had a really deep, Southern accent (they're from Arkansas, I asked them).