4 posts tagged “dc”
I got rid of my vehicle nearly five and a half years ago. The day before Thanksgiving 2002, the man from the second charity I called showed up in a flatbed to haul her away. (The first charity wouldn't take her off my hands because she was a piece of junk.) It was a bittersweet day. I was skeptical of moving beyond the highly suburban notion of auto ownership as a necessity of life. But then, only a few months prior I had gone to court to contest a parking ticket and subsequent tow that occurred because it'd been months since I'd had an occasion to move her.
Since that time, I have come to relish the freedom that not owning an automobile affords, and it's increasingly unlikely that I will be re-joining the ranks of vehicle ownership. Yes, my commute sucks ass and yes, sometimes public transit really pisses me off, but it still would take longer if I drove. And what's more, I'd be even less my normal cheerful self once I arrived. Needless to say, very few things frustrate me more than driving.
I have to drive several times a week now, and thanks to Zipcar I am able to be where I need to be. But I don't like it. It has come to my attention that I am an aggressive driver, which I guess I should have known already from my disdain for all those other assholes on the road who don't know how to drive. A recent study confirms my hypothesis that DC drivers are among the worst in the nation. They're in the bottom five, actually. This is most certainly not news.
Also not news is that Minneapolis drivers are among our nation's best. Of course they are. We all know damn well that nothing of any importance happens in Minnesota, so why should anybody be in a hurry to get where they are going? I'd approach my day at a more leisurely pace, too, if the most pressing item on my agenda was the tractor pull or making snow angels.
Astute readers will have noticed a bit of a departure from the norm in the frequency of my posts last week. This was due in no small part to a busier than usual social calendar - highlighted by a visit from the incomparable Vanna, who was in town for a training seminar. We spent Tuesday evening creating a raucous scene at a local Thai fusion restaurant. Wednesday was reserved for another always spirited meet-up of DC area Voxers.
We gathered at the 16th Street flat of the Midwest Gal, who had only recently arrived back in town after three months in the fly-over wasteland of Iowa. A recent recording of the Berlin Philharmonic performing Sibelius' "Aallottaret" played softly in the background as we supped on vegetarian foie gras and broccio demi-affine and sipped Delamain Tres Vénérable. Gradually, the conversation drifted toward the usual topics in the arts and humanities. Vanna had recently finished a biography of Proust, and was eager to discuss the contradiction of his sickly childhood with his service in the army and how both are reflected in the conflict of the protagonist in "The Guermantes Way." Dabysan opined that the past two years of lackluster Iranian films might indicate general uncertainty in a post-global economy rather than the trend toward overt commercialization the rest of us feared. And, as always, my entreaties that adoption of the land-use principles of Le Corbusier's unrealized yet influential Ville Contemporaine have led directly to our current traffic and climate change crises fell upon deaf ears. The discussion got a bit heated at times - as is to be expected whenever Bahman Ghobadi or asthmatic French dilettantes are concerned - but we all recognize that there are more important issues than who might be right or wrong and that, frankly, there aren't any right answers to these sorts of theoretical debates anyway. We are all richer just for having participated.
Fortunately, Emma happened to have her camera on hand and took Thursday off at her day job to spend in the darkroom. She was not just simply developing photographs. Nor even art. She was developing memories.
Every now and again I experience one of those moments that make me glad I still live near Washington, DC. Like this evening, for instance, when Daby and I went to see the Steelers take on the ***skins. Now, if I lived in, say, Philadelphia or Boston - somewhere more, you know, thuggish - I might think twice about wearing my Jerome Bettis jersey to the opposing team's stadium for fear of contracting such maladies as multiple stab wounds. Not so in DC. These sissified fans barely batted an eye. Of course, they probably realized that any number of people would have leapt to my defense even if they had the testicular fortitude to assault me on behalf of the local team - as would surely have happened if I'd attended the game bedecked in black and gold in either of the aforementioned cesspools of humanity. For you see, the crowd was rife with Steeler fans; I saw as much Pittsburgh regalia as Washington, and the Towels were countless. And the roar of the crowd for the Steelers far surpassed that for the "home" team. So yeah, Washington football fans roll over and let the visiting team take over their stadium. I like that in a city. Except, of course, if that city is Pittsburgh.
Oh, and even though it's only the preseason, the Steelers won (natch), so the victory still feels pretty good. Daby may be wrong about lots of things, but he's never been more wrong about anything than he has been about football. And he knows it. That's really the best part.
i was at a community workshop in arlington until ten o'clock this
evening. it had occurred to me on my return home to write about
it. but i can't revisit it just yet; it's too painful. i
wish i hadn't had to suffer through it the first time. so
you're spared. you're welcome.
instead, i downloaded and read this brief PDF,
which came across my desk earlier today. in short, it's a concept
that appears in this months washingtonian magazine for an expansion of
the national mall. you'll see the plan below.
as i mentioned, i first received this as an
email attachment in the midst of another busy day. i didn't have
time to give it much more than a cursory glance, but i have to admit my
first reaction was unfavorable. i won't go so far as to say i
have come around fully, but i'm at least willing to hear the author
out. chief among my objections was a distaste for sculpting the
river's edge, but as is pointed out, we've been doing that for years
already. the lincoln memorial sits on reclaimed land. the
bottom of king street in alexandria is all fill. kansai airport
in osaka and approximately 98% of the netherlands wouldn't exist if
engineers weren't so eager to dump a bunch of dirt in the water so they
can build more stuff.
on the other hand, it's too formal. and the formality of the
mall extension is only heightened (in plan, at least) by the tension of
its proximity to the organic shape of organic hains point. for
better or for worse, we already have something of the monumental statue
indicated by the star at the number "5." it, too, exists at the
tip of hains
point. and who first arrives in DC by boat, anyway? i'm
pretty sure i don't care for either the pedestrian
bridge or the extension of maryland avenue mucking up jefferson's
memorial (my favorite of the big ones). it would be enormously
expensive - perhaps prohibitively so. comparisons of dollars to
the creation of the tidal basin seem disingenuous, as all public works
are considerably more expensive than they were a century ago, even in
adjusted dollars. and there is absolutely no way you are gonna
convince me you can move the existing supreme court building (#6) to this
site for only $30 million. no way. ain't happening.
still, it's interesting to think about. (maybe more so because
the exercise strikes me as purely academic in nature.) some
compelling arguments for more ceremonial and memorial space - the
listed ronald reagan memorial notwithstanding - are made. just
don't let the arlington county site plan review commission have a crack
at it. some guy named ted will attempt to squeeze every last drop
of life out of the plan.
