Update: The City in Summer

Some advantages to note:
Metro - Washington's subway - is less crowded. Tourists often are the crowd, especially Europeans whose August traditionally is their travel time. Locals can feel superior when they see strangers puzzling over iPhones, looking for directions that are not always clear. One very buttoned up man with briefcase took time from his stride to counsel such a group alighting recently at Pentagon City mall and looking stranded on the platform. He stopped voluntarily when he saw their dilemma and asked to help.
The huge glass Mall hub above them hummed with activity - an obvious place to hide from hot air and sun.
Festivals are everywhere, and free entertainment of a high and low sort flourishes. Author readings continue nonstop at bookstores are  since most authors these days must rely on personal appearances to spread the word. They offer the best antidote to warmed over TV shows, often still in repeat mode until September. Among the best of these lately was Ocean Vuong, a slender young man, sitting in conversation with poet Jenny Chang at Solid State on H St. NE. It was the last of these on his current schedule another standing room only audience drawn to his novel and its remarkable title: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous.  He was 'gorgeous' in manner and mind.
 First, by praising the audience before he had even said a word about his book, pointing out their attendance as solid value to the community, of which the store is a vital part. That produced a round of clapping from his admirers who, not surprisingly,  included a great variety of so-called minority faces. They rushed to hug him at the end, grateful to be acknowledged and impressed by his theme: survivorship may mean hardship but is at the same time "an incredibly creative act." Immigrants such as himself  - the son of an illiterate Vietnamese mother - often grow up in harrowing circumstances and still learn to fashion themselves in original ways. For him, language was the tool; his early  public school teachers  showing him how to use it. 

Summer in the City and Beyond

Stay alert! The temperature is climbing! Nobody could be happier than the prognosticators calling forth the danger ahead. Who else gets full attention when records are apt to be broken? Who knows better how atmospheric pressure affects the human body and has the authority to offer advice?
Whatever the reason, Metro subway riders were hard to find at the near end of the morning rush hours. At 8:15 or so, the car I was in felt empty. It was opportunity to study fellow citizens morning attire, to sneak peeks at skin. A serious looking slim blonde woman carrying a Chanel bag on one shoulder and black work bag on the other was making do with gold flip-flops that could not hide a twisted baby toe. A shortened piggy curled upon the fourth digit. I wanted to give her immediate aid - perhaps a suggestion where she might remedy her plight.  But these days, perhaps, a little piggy is the least of a pretty woman's woes.
We weather things well in the city, to judge by the preponderance of festivals and songfests taking place in all sorts of venues. Free movies everywhere. A vegan feast for the masses. Not that Washington ranks high in quirky innovative celebrations of a kind. A photo of  Paris' Eiffel Tower shown in the free Wash Post handout called Express showed sheep being led past the giant edifice by shepherds from Seine-Saint-Denis. Blithely. More tourists than shepherds I'll wager. Animals are erupting in the strangest places this season. A brown bear went missing in Italy's Alpine forest and scaled a 13-foot barrier.  A 250-pound tortoise was found wandering  along a highway 100 miles north of its Long Angeles home. A human - a barefoot woman from Nebraska - reportedly scaled Mount Rushmore for fun, making it nearly to the top before being arrested.
My method of endurance is finding cultural attractions that don't require physical labor and are ultimately more distracting than the heat.

Monk's Merriment

DC'S National Museum of the American Indian
7/13/19
WHEN A PICTURE DOESN'T DO JUSTICE
The tiny woman standing up front in this tiny photo contains a very large store of energy and emotion, and she does most of it through sound coupled with minimal gestures. Meredith Monk is an innovator in the arts world, active since the 1960s, performing what she sometimes calls 'sound sculptures' and what erudite admirers call "extended vocal technique" coupled with "interdisciplinary performance." The sounds she and her small five-woman troupe make cannot be totally divorced from their motions, minimal as they are. The body is an instrument as much as the voice. The resulting original work  is very nearly indescribable since it is the compilation of so many sensations in what appears to be sacred space for an experience akin to churchgoing.
Not coincidentally, the Hirshhorn Museum  chose to present Monk and her vocal ensemble in a space often interpreted as sacred to Native Americans -  Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. It was a one time event, called "Cellular Songs: Concert Version." Solemn for the most part,  the mood was broken during an encore when the 'chieftain' of the tribe - the formidable 80-some yearly Ms. Monk - broke into a rollicking imitation of an elderly woman happily, joyfully, telling a story. The Hirshhorn  institution has been breaking ground in many ways of late. This time the program was under the direction of the curator of media and performance along with Monk's own House Foundation for the Arts. All the arts. She uses incorporates film as well as visual design.
Curious how merriment can be felt even when performers' tones are solemn, almost dirge-like. Their actions resonate with joy, empathy, compassion. Especially when all are huddled together (yes like a football team) at the end.

Civility, Please!

         A Need for Manners in the Modern Age    

It happens almost daily during morning rush hour. A bicyclist zooms past on the sidewalk, a missing me by inches. “Is there a bell on that bike?” I call out, thinking that he might apologize for failing to warn me. No go. I’m just an obstacle on his way to cross at the green light ahead.

Of course, he has his rights - just like any other citizen hurrying off to work. It’s public space, after all - the same one claimed by electric scooter fans charging along so insouciantly that I wonder if they ever look for any defenseless pedestrians in their path.  Such innocent names: Lime and Bird.  The Washington Post recently nailed the issue on its health page, saying worldwide calls grow for bans.

But  just where is this happening outside New York City, Paris and the United Kingdom, I would like to know. Nashville’s mayor at least gave scooter operators a month to “clean up their act,” the report says. What then?

Likewise, the compulsive smartphone user. Head down, oblivious to everything around and ahead. Never mind that green has turned red. The oft-proclaimed dangers of cell phone usage in public places is well documented, citing how presumably otherwise good citizens insist on their right to communicate no matter what. Has the rate of pedestrian deaths risen dramatically in part because drivers insist on their right to give and receive messages anywhere they please?

Speed is king these days in an urban milieu. Ambling is passe. The rules of the road are unspoken, even when they are - vaguely - written into law. Heaven help the denizens of Washington, DC, and other cities who face an invasion of even more wheeling wonders. The city has apparently given in to pressure from who-knows-where to allow several hundred more of these take-it-and-leave-it -where-you-will mobile devices. 

Yes, they cut down on automobile usage, save  on pollution, provide cheap and convenient transport. But what’s the limit, and why aren’t there more protests about the numbers and the dangers they invite both to themselves and others? Am I in a  minority - a hapless two-footer who prefers to walk even when I can drive or ride?

Don’t even mention how few bikers or scooter users bother with helmets. Maybe in the future it will be up to the pedestrian to arm him or herself with some protection. Grouches like me are caught up in the quaint notion that everyday manners are at stake here. We see a need for new rules of civility in the age of hyper technology that go beyond (or maybe alongside) the current fixation on what constitutes privacy in a digital world. 

Likewise, (a slight digression) consider what are ‘proper’ use of communication methods along the nearly unfathomable internet road. Who is to say what are the rules? To text or not to text versus overwhelm one another with emails that can pile up by the hundreds without blocking devices that may or may not be effective. Does the texting person expect an imminent response  and how should the person on the other end react? Doesn’t this put unreal pressure on people to be constantly monitoring their phone for messages? Surely, many misunderstandings occur with the expectations assumed in the exchange.

Machines can help maketh the man ( literally so for Crisper technology and DNA manipulation or for procreation via In Vitro Fertilization) but they seem equally capable of killing him off. Robots and other AI devices, it’s surmised, promise to make many  human activities (even some body parts) irrelevant.

If only that fast disappearing bicycle guy had thrown a ‘sorry’ in  my direction, I probably would not be writing these words. I might instead be  seeing fresh hope in the ability of a stranger to be sensitive to the needs of another and act accordingly. 

Under or Over, the Book Is Good

    Hardly a single word has been raised to counter the critical praise for writer Robert Macfarlane's latest book -  "Underland: A Deep Time Journey." It's long at 488 pages, and deep (literally) from both a physical and philosophical perspective.  The British writer goes subterranean, on a mission that he calls "the subculture of urban exploration," which he defines as "adventurous trespass in the built environment."
   Among requirements for participation he cites "claustrophobia, lack of vertigo, a taste for decay, a fascination with infrastructure, a readiness to climb fences and lift manhole covers and a familiarity with the varying laws of access across different jurisdictions."
No limits, in other words.
   This is obviously not your everyday travel book. W.W. Norton & Company. $27.95. Should keep you engrossed when it doesn't 'gross' you out, so vivid are his encounters with some terrifying terrains.

CUSP What?

 The letters CUSP are short for New York University's Center for Urban Science and Progress so a person is inclined to write - they are on the 'cusp' of a mission. But what would that be, exactly?
  To see from their statement online, the Center is an 'interdisciplinary research center dedicated to the application of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in the service of urban communities across the globe."
Whoa - no small ambition. No single program is listed, beyond the fact that a Master of Science in Applied Urban Science is offered by the institution. That invites another question: just what is such a science, beyond development of even more digital tools to apply to the vastly increasing numbers of city dwellers (i.e. more than half the world's population now lives in urban areas)?  And then - what is 'urban'? What improvements to their lives do most urban dwellers want?
  CUSP considers itself a 'laboratory' so perhaps some answers will be forthcoming. Eventually. Mayor Bloomberg and his money has a lot to say about it, apparently. He announced the institute's launch way back in April 2012.
  Stay tuned.
  But be watchful. According to  May 26, 2019, article in the Washington Post , "any attempt to make a clean break between urban and rural will look arbitrary" -- due to ongoing absorption into greater metropolitan areas of previously so-called rural areas. The character of a place doesn't necessarily change with a new designation, the reporter notes.  Is urban a 50,000 or more resident mark? he writes. He sites many useful and important statistics, many due to changing definitions and who or what organization decides them.
  Always try to read past the headlines and the first few paragraphs of any material in print form. But please keep reading print.

Love's Labor Never Lost

DC citizens, unite. If not, you have nothing to lose but your sense of humor - the most valuable armor you possess these days.
The current production of Shakespeare's early comedy on the intimate Folger Shakespeare Library stage is beguiling enough to shake off - temporarily anyway - any gloom caused by ongoing political hijinks in the capitol. Vivienne Benesch, making her directorial debut, has  produced a thoroughly engaging show (running through June 9). Her initial impulse - to use as the setting a model of the august building's  much -vaunted reading room. Wherein  a play takes place within the play -- and a lot of fast paced repartee between characters sumptuously dressed in 1930s attire.  The Folger was built during the Great Depression, hence the director's inspiration to 'copy' a serious interior space.
No labor was spared in setting forth an entertaining spectacle, in vaudevillian style. Send your angst-ridden teenage children to get them out of their navel gazing. Turn their sights onto these articulate and agile actors in peak form. Nothing lost, everything gained in the process.