Words

When in DC, we went to what I kept calling the Word Museum. 

My friends kept asking if we were doing the Excel Museum after that. I laughed, but honestly, it took me like three more days and another telling of that joke to get it. 

It was the Airplane "flying this plane is something different altogether" joke all over again.  

But the place is actually called Planet Word. 

It's a great place if you're a pedophile, since everyone there is on a grade school field trip. 

Even when you included the chaperons and the docents, we were the oldest ones there. 

The building, a renovated schoolhouse, is amazingly well done. The contents have a lot of potential, but for the population they have, it is probably just right. They play with words and different parts of language and speech, and not just from the U.S. 

This wall was interactive, where you could call out a word and they'd tell you about its origins. 

Here, you got to go to other countries and learn about their language. We went to Iceland, where there are only 350k folks there, and their language is insular and protective. They do not use any words from outside of Iceland - they'd make one up, if needed. 

But I got learn how names come about and what I'd be called in that country:  my first name, as is. My last name would be my father's first name + son (as I am his son). 

I thought the elevator alone was worth it. 

It was interesting, I just felt it was missing something. But then I'm not on a 1st grade field trip. 

Go ahead:  guess. 

Song by: the Monkees

Back to Black

If you have not yet been to the the National Museum of African American History & Culture you should. 

It has been open for a few years, but we've never made the time to go - though to be fair, we usually let crowds die down a bit, and then, well........Covid 19 - then Delta, the Omnicron and now AB5.  

This trip, we were able to snag timed tickets (they're free, just timed). 

Honestly, we did not make a dent in this visit. Museum Fatigue is a legitimate medical condition. And at the 90 minute mark (and it wasn't even our first museum of the day!), we kind of hit a wall......and we weren't even 25% done with expanse of the newest (?) Smithsonian. 

The plan was to start at the top floor (4) and work our way down. But 4 was so packed with so much, one floor took over 90 minutes. Even if we had the energy, there wasn't enough time to do the other three in the time the museum was open. 

I won't lie - it was weird being there. Great, but weird. 

We felt like interlopers. I think we were interlopers. We were. For sure. 

I doesn't mean we didn't get something out of the experience. I didn't mean our liberalism made us feel comfortable being there - quite the contrary. There is a white guilt that is invoked here - and rightfully so. How would it not? 

Granted, I don't think any MAGA folk are coming to visit this museum unless it were to painfully point out their prejudices and for hate mongering. You gotta figure there are the few who'd walk through the doors to posture their faux-superior status. At least we didn't have to encounter that. 

We are all informed on a daily basis the injustices the Black community faces. It's painful when you can seemingly do so little to affect change. It's painful to see it in front of you in room after room after room. 

Of course we did not see a lot, but one of the more interesting things, to me, of what we did see, was a film loop of Black Americans talking about their skin tone and the prejudices or bias they get from it - not just from the White community, but in and amongst their own race.  710 and I talked about it over dinner later that night and both brought up the same part of it, and one fraction of that part. It both hit us separately and together.  Just unknowingly at the time. 

I'm actually looking forward to our return to DC - whenever that may be - so we have the opportunity to visit another floor. 

This one will take time. 

Song by: Amy Winehouse

Train of Thought

I know you're all dying to axe what we did on vacation. 

I'll get to that at some point, but we did take a few days to get to our final destination. 

I'm apologizing to Cookie, I'd say in advance, but really in retrospect. We came through - and stayed ! - in Baltimore one night. It's been ages since I've been to anything but BWI. 

I didn't even give Cookie an opportunity to turn me down to meet up for a drink. I wasn't thinking - so, I am sorry for not at least trying. 

But 710 is a Maryland boy, so you can take him out of it, but can't take it out of the boy. Yes, something about that line is very very dirty. I get it. 

710 is also a railroad boy. 

He loves me almost as much as he loves trains. His maternal grandfather (his namesake), who died well well before 710 was born, worked on the railroad.......all his live-long day. 710's license plate is the demarkation of the caboose where 710 Sr worked. 

There are tales of the depression, when 710 Sr. would throw coal off the train to the poor families who would come to the track, during winter, so they could keep warm. 

And in Baltimore - unsurprisingly enough - is the B&O Railroad Museum.  And since he loves me, almost as much as he loves trains, I agreed (not even begrudgingly) to go.  There is also that connection of Baltimore (he) and Ohio (me). 

Naturally, we got there an hour before it was supposed to close. Bother.  AND it was like $20 per person!

That all said, the museum is a beautifully restored roundhouse.  It might be sad to say, but after three and one half decades together, I know what a roundhouse is.  In that B&O roundhouse are some beautifully restored trains. 

There was actually cool stuff.............and if need be, historical stuff. 

So I got husband points (which can be redeemed for absolutely nothing!) for going. 

After that, we went to our Fells Point boutique hotel, which turned out to be - ta da - the old B&O tobacco warehouse. I got zero points for that, because he picked the hotel, though he didn't know the history of the building. 

B&O was nice, but according to a woman in the lobby, it is not near as nice as the railroad museum in Strasberg, PA.  I'd say I'd have to see it for myself to judge, but...............you know...........

Song by: a-ha

Museum

Well, since we talked about "the towers" yesterday, I suppose I could make it a two-fer.

Last month - was it only a month or so ago? - when we were in NYC, we took the time to go to the 9/11 Museum. We had been to the Memorial back in 2014, but the Museum was not yet open.

A month after our visit, and I am still not sure how I feel about the experience.

The museum is still new(er), so the lines are like amusement park long to get in. We got tickets electronically, which is fine for purchase, but good luck getting their wifi to connect to bring them up when needed. We were taken out that line, to another LONG line only to have someone print them out manually.

You'd think that being a museum of such a tragedy that the line workers would be.....oh, I don't know....not scowl-y, short and rude...........but they were all of those things. Getting in wasn't horribly welcoming.

I suppose I sound callous if I don't say it was sorrowful.........but it wasn't.

I get that we are desensitized to some of this. I get that 374 9/11 specials that run on cable from August 1 to September 12 every single year since 2002 has told the story 4,862 times. I've seen a number of the artifacts in one form or another over the last decade and a half. I have heard the phone calls from loved ones and flight crews.

But now I get to pay $24 to see it.......again. But close up.

Don't get me wrong, some things are just striking. Compelling, even. Some, well, there are only so many damaged emergency vehicles or parts of the antenna one wants to see. Of course, I'm speaking for myself.

I like the above tridents.

I liked the intact slurry wall. It was not all intact, so they ended up building a simulation next to it to continue the entire wall. That I didn't like.

I found the Survivor Stairs to be great. After the North Tower collapsed they remained pretty much intact allowing people to escape. Oddly the damage to them was not from the tower collapse, but from the cleaning and moving them. Crews were ready to destroy them while clearing the site. Preservationists had to fight to not have them demolished. 

It is hard to see, but each of those squares were the supports for the building. A building. I think my biggest take away was that you walked around the parameter of each of the towers and the bases of the above fountains came a few stories down, just as the towers had.

For some reason I think this was the highlight of the visit:

Spencer Finch's "Trying to Remember the Color of the Sky on that September Morning"

9/11 had a crystal blue sky. Not a cloud in it - though I'm sure you're all visualizing that morning, and the film clips you saw as, or before, the planes struck.

There are 2,983 panels. One for each of the victims - including 1993.

Finch has the only commissioned artwork on site. And I think it was spectacular.


Oddly, we missed one wall - and I'm not sure how, but it had images of each and every victim. I'm sure that could have made things more sorrowful. I'm not sure if I'm glad we missed that part at all.

As it was, we were inside the museum for over two hours and moving at a good clip. And as it turns out we didn't see everything. Yet it doesn't seem like we missed out on much. One could easily spend many many more hours there - if they so desired.

I kept a look out for all the EXIT signs. The designers built in easily accessible ones for people who would be too distraught at the exhibits and had to make a hasty retreat. I saw the exits, but never saw a person who even remotely needed to use them.

I suppose I'm glad we did this, but I don't see the need to ever return. Once in a lifetime was enough.

...and I'm sure there will be 23 new specials on TV regarding the museum next August.




Song by:  Donovan