In which Things happened

[jazzfish]

On Thursday I drove out to Winchester in my mother's ugly yet comfortable Saturn, since it has a cellphone and I don't. Found E & Z & the Mazda dealership without too much trouble, and picked them up and we headed out. (Dealer said the truck would be ready by Satyrday morning definitely.) Went to the Game Parlor in Chantilly and looked at a bunch of stuff, went to a new used bookstore in the Game Parlor's stripmall and found a quantity of cool books (including half of N's christmas present, for which he will no doubt curse my name after he attempts to read it). Then to dinner with my parents who were in a pretty good mood, then to Wunderland.earth to play games. Played some Lightspeed (which Q describes as "like Icehouse, only fun" which is a pretty apt description, although I'm not a fan of the 'ninety seconds of playtime, ten minutes of scoring'), some new RAMbots (solves some but not all of the problems I've had with RAMbots), Kory's train game (looking forward to seeing this one published), and probably some other stuff as well. Right, Criminals, which is Kory's attempt to fix some problems in Werewolf, at which sort of succeeds while introducing several new problems. Spoke to a plethora of cool people, including but not limited to chaosnymph, sirleebutler, and the_radix.

Friday the three of us met the lovely pictsy at the Springfield metro station, and waited around for the_radix and anyone else who might show up, and then gave up and headed in to DC. Air & Space was neat, in a 'this is some cool stuff' way. Aircraft carriers are marvels of engineering on all levels, and the Apollo exhibit was rather cool as well. They need to update their signage, though, especially the one saying "The technology will not exist to make such jets until the year 2000." The food court is scary and overpriced, as expected.

The National Gallery was very cool. The pre-twentieth century stuff was all very pretty and very nicely framed and such; I don't really have the background to appreciate it much beyond that, I guess. (Except for the obviously symbolic stuff like "Journey of Life," to which I said "How cute" and moved on.) Marble sculpture impresses me more than just about anything else-- the detail found in some of those pieces was unbelievable.

The modern & contemporary stuff in the East Building was more my speed. A piece called "Harbor" with boats and water and motion and light and yeah, nonrepresentational but still representing. Some Jasper Johns works (I'm not really a fan of his, but a few were good). A couple of Picassos. I've never really had a handle on Picasso in general; some of it I really really like (Madame Picasso) and some of it I can't stand (like the nude that pictsy mentioned). No Magrittes, at least not that I saw. A quite good self-portrait of Andy Warhol. Excellent.

Then to Silver Diner for dinner, then home to crash. Report on the next few days forthcoming.

Comments

[idoru.livejournal.com]

nat'l gallery west: i <3 the impressionists, degas in particular. [also <3 van gogh.] titian has some prettiness, too. and the medieval/renaissance stuff is at least interesting. and luminist paintings, cos certain ways of painting light are breathtaking.

however, oh my god, 16th century dutch portraits, STAB ME IN THE EYE. impressive and all, but SO BORING. also, half the landscapes with boring lighting. >_<

stephmatt&i were lucky enough to catch a Dali exhibit at the Hirshhorn several years ago. that rocked.

[jazzfish]

We only did about half the NGW, since we were running out of time. So we got the Dutch portraits, and the Dutch landscapes, and the Goya (good stuff) and the Monet (way more impressive in person than as prints) and some other misc. Some American, reinforcing my belief that American culture produced very little of value until the twentieth century. Next time we are /so/ doing the other half of the building.

NGEast

[(Anonymous)]

NGEast rocks. Plus a certain someone fundamentally altered the way I saw the world with her off-handedly brilliant comment about a piece called, "Five Plates, Two Poles."

Jonathan

Re: NGEast

[jazzfish]

Very true. On all counts.
The piece itself is also pretty cool. It looks like it's only standing up because it hasn't decided which way it wants to fall yet.