Washington schlepped here : walking in the nation's capital

Washington schlepped here : walking in the nation's capital

Christopher Buckley

Language: English

Pages: 0

ISBN: 0736695435

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

paintings (1842) on the theme of “The Voyage of Life” have their own room, as well they should. They depict the trip as experienced by a man in a boat going down a river: Childhood, Youth, Manhood, Old Age—three stages less than Shakespeare enumerated in Act I, Scene 7 of As You Like It. Today Cole would have to add two other stages: “Viagra Falls” and “Assisted Living.” Now we come to the inner temple of aesthetic Americana: the Gilbert Stuarts. Stuart—this you already knew—did not get along

actual vice president of the United States, not that this terribly impressed the two-year-olds onstage. After this, we were turned loose on the museum, which had been transformed into a “patriotic picnic” featuring hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza, fried chicken, popcorn, ice cream, along with booths where you could learn to fold the U.S. flag into a tight triangle, sign your own copy of the Declaration of Independence with a quill pen, or make a Lincoln stovepipe hat, all to the accompaniment of an

Wallenberg Place. This gives you an idea where we’re headed. Wallenberg was the Swedish diplomat who during World War II saved thousands of Budapest Jews, only to be executed, it now appears, by the Soviets after the war in the Lubyanka, the KGB prison in Moscow. Over the entrance to his inferno, Dante hung a sign saying, “Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here.” The Nazis put up signs over the gates to theirs that said, Arbeit Macht Frei, “Work Will Make You Free.” UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST

bell, claiming to have brought medication from the apothecary. Seward’s son Frederick sensed that something was not right here and challenged him. Paine’s revolver jammed. He pistol-whipped the younger Seward and then made his way upstairs and began carving up the old man with a Bowie knife. Servants intervened, getting themselves stabbed and knocked senseless. The carnage was appalling. It was a miracle that either Seward survived. The son wore a cap for the rest of his life to conceal his

fact that the sculptor of this vast and haunting memorial, Henry Merwin Shrady, who worked on it for 20 years, died of exhaustion two weeks before it was unveiled. Shrady’s father was the doctor who attended to the general in his last great battle, with the cancer, so much is owed to both Shradys. NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART—EAST BUILDING Now that we’ve contemplated heroic sculpture of the Beaux Arts era, let’s wander over to the East Building of the National Gallery of Art to admire the latest

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