I woke up early today and went for a brisk walk on the streets of DC. I just followed the Obelisk's needle. I have some pictures to show you but alas, I can't upload them because I couldn't find the freaking cable to connect the camera to the computer. So it'll have to wait.
Still, I saw the White House, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial in the distance, the Jefferson Memorial, the lines of tourists waiting in the heat to get inside the obelisk, the tacky souvenir stands and the homeless.
I also saw the very imposing Department of the Treasury, which is the temple at which we all worship in this country, the Department of Commerce, with a quaint inscription from Benjamin Franklin, (either the most naive man in the world or the most cynical), saying something to the effect that commerce between the US and the rest of the nations has to be just and fair, and the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, which at first I mistook for an art museum but then learned they are the guys who actually print the money. The Benjamins, so to speak.
All this accompanied by the very American and appropriate sounds of Louis Armstrong and the Hot Five. Washington has a southern feeling, after all, and Louie is the best American musician ever, so his art made a fine, beautiful counterpoint to all these monuments to grandiosity.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment