third week in DC

on sunday i went with my edmontonian friend mary to her friend lydia's apartment near U street. we had a really fantastic conversation about native studies (lydia did her master's on aboriginal incarcerations in canada, and mary's mom is a prof in native studies), with a pretty great view of the city from lydia's balcony. i had to leave early, though, so i could meet some of the other interns at the eastern market. from there i walked to the air and space museum to see if any good imax shows were playing (since interns get in free), but none were, so i took the metro back to union station where i bought a strawberry smoothie. i came home and napped before tutoring cree and going to an all-house meeting with all the girls and managers at my residence. hot topics included internet connections, flushing etiquette, and hand sanitizing procedures for when flu season starts. yeesh.

on monday at work brian jungen gave my department a tour of his new exhibit. neat. in the evening i met another edmonton intern at ben's chili bowl for a brief hangout before she went back to canada.

on tuesday the interns had a tour of african art museum & the smithsonian castle, led by the man who does the mounts for artifacts. it was pretty adorable how passionately he talked about displaying things in the best way and least invasive way possible. i skipped out on the rest of the afternoon and went to the natural history museum, where i watched an IMAX called wild oceans. it wasn't as good as the dinosaurs one i saw a few weeks before.

on thursday i ran over to the hirshhorn right after work and waited in line for an hour (passing the time by eating my ham sandwich and banana supper) to get tickets to the talk tim gunn was going to be moderating on anne truitt's work. i was surprised when i got in (the line in front of me was pretty long), and even more surprised that my coworker/co-interns (who had all left work before me) did not get tickets. oh well. i basked in tim gunn's glory for the hour and a half that the talk lasted, although even he could not convince me that truitt's work was "genius" or "all about life" or even worth giving a second thought to. i get pretty irritated when art world people insist that "the art should speak for itself." that works fine for people who know the whole history of art and movements and theory and stuff, and who therefore understand where a piece fits into that chronology and how it works with or against other pieces. but for the rest of us, we need a little bit of context to understand why anyone in their right mind would think painted rectangular columns are "genius." all of the panelists at the talk refused to talk about the meaning or processes or inspiration behind the art. they offered some anecdotes from truitt's life, but as far as making the art accessible to the general museum-going public, they did a pretty shitty job.

on saturday i went to dupont circle at 10:30 for cupcakes with one of my letter-writing friends, but she didn't show up. boo. the place IS hard to find because its signage is virtually non-existent, and she was running way later that day than she intended, so... no hangout. i came back to the neighbourhood later in the day with another letter-writing friend, and we walked around and went for italian food for lunch. i spent the evening with a third letter-writing friend: we got ice cream on E street, walked around, & watched "capitalism: a love story.