Musical Wanderer

Ok, perhaps I should clarify: the local auditorium was the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress .  And the musicians of the Pacifica Quartet were playing a set of Stradivarius string instruments which are part of the Library's collection.  And the Librarian of Congress (director of the Library of Congress), Carla Hayden, introduced the concert, as it featured the Stradivarius instruments. I was interested in the program because I knew some pieces and didn't know others.  A bonus of Library of Congress concerts is the display cases outside of the auditorium which feature items related to the evening's concerts.  Tonight the cases contained pages of the original handwritten scores of the Crumb Black Angels and the Barber Adagio (the quartet and orchestral versions), which are part of the library's collection.  (I wish I'd thought to take a picture of them.  How often do you see stuff like that?)  When wondering what is in the Library's collec...

I am fascinated by the fixation on Alexandrisa Ocasio-Cortez among conservatives.  Usually conservatives fixate on figures who possesses significant power: the president, a governor, the house speaker.  A now two term member of congress does not typically have much influence on the workings of government, but she is a prominent target of the political right. They proclaim her progressive policy initiatives, none of which are likely to be adopted, are socialist.  Conservatives belittle her youth and lack of experience, though the election of Madison Cawthorn, a white, conservative Republican male congressman younger than her without a college degree and very little work experience does not seem to be very much of a problem.  She is derisively considered a media darling because she uses social media adeptly for fundraising and messaging, though Donald Trump's and other conservatives' use of the same is considered freedom of speech.  Because she can finally afford...

A few weeks ago, I watched Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s series "The Black Church."  As with everything Gates creates, he stimulated my thinking about his subject matter.  The challenges the black churches and black community faced in the past and today, their travails and triumphs in American history, and their transformations accompanying changes in society were clearly described and made vivid in his series.  What I wasn't expecting was a realization while watching it was that Trump is more of a preacher than a politician. STEVE!  What does he have to do with the Black Church?  The man is a charlatan!  He is about as religious as a cat turd in my litter box! Well, let me explain.  Gates described how many black American churchgoers in the late twentieth century and early twentieth century have drifted away from traditional denominations to non-affiliated megachurches just as other Americans have left main line churches.  Images of the exteriors and i...

A couple years ago, I heard a DC biologist give a talk at a National Zoo volunteer gathering about the wildlife present in DC.  He had motion camera photos of coyotes, foxes, bobcats, otters, eagles, and assorted other fauna found in DC.  I'm stealing the title of his talk above for this collection of photos of critters we've seen the last month or so wandering around the DC area.  Some places we saw them are in DC proper, some just across or in the middle of the Potomac River.  Ok, the pictures are mostly of birds, but there is a nice surprise at the end. Seagulls photobombed while standing on the frozen Capitol reflecting pool Washington Monument behind willow tree and Canada goose standing in reflection in Constitution Gardens  Canada geese hanging out in Washington Monument reflection in Constitution Gardens Dyke Marsh lies south of DC in Virginia between the Potomac River and George Washington Parkway.  The most visible sections lie along a bike ...