Monday, August 9, 2010

Day Four: The Temple of Democracy











Above you see a portrait I am entitling "Ike and Ike." It was taken in our nation's capitol, the tour of which was stunning in both the knowledge base of the tourgide and the incredibly small fraction of the building we were allowed to see. The statue of Dwight D. Eisenhower in front of which my own Ike is standing can be found in the capitol rotunda, along with sundry other pieces of deeply impressive figurative sculpture strewn about the capitol building. You cannot swing a cat in that place without hitting a marble or bronze life-sized figure of somebody you've heard of if you were paying attention in history class instead of romantically daydreaming about every not-yet-uncloseted gay classmate in your high school. We saw: a movie about Democracy; the CRYPT, where they were originally planning on burying George Washington but did not realize until after constructing his elaborate crypt that he preferred not to be entombed therein; the rotunda itself; and the sculpture hall, where Fighting Bob LaFollette's marble likeness is displayed along with about one hundred other sculptures, making the room look like nothing so much as a yard-ornament showroom.



Also notable was the oddly asymmetrical painting on the dome itself, which depicted George Washington along with thirteen assorted pieces of skirt intended to represent the original thirteen states. I snapped a picture of it - Washington is the guy who looks like he's about to be neutered by the dame with the sword. It just struck me as funny that the father of our great nation is depicted as spending eternity in a thirteen-member menage without his wife. Hee hee. Also notable: Oscar opted for us to take the Metro back to Penn Quarter, without his protective ear coverings. He is depicted above, enduring an air-conditioned train trip rather than schlepping in ninety-degree weather. We are off for a mid-afternoon swim before we go see the Star Wars gear at the Air and Space Museum.

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