… runs the Washington Post headline. I walked there last week, laboring through big heat and uphills from the Reflecting Pool (an old Garrett Park neighbor is accused of having damaged it).

I took this picture of the tarp covering the absence of DT’s name and then headed inside the massive building.

The place, says the Post, is “eerie,” and “has the air of a ghost ship” foundering on the thin river off its balcony.

When I entered, a gray haired woman, moored at the information booth, looked rather embarrassed — aware of her absurdity.

‘A runner stopped in, briefly, to cool off in the air conditioning and headed back outside. A video of the National Symphony Orchestra played to a theater of vacant seats.’

A theater of vacant seats is nice.

”Welcome to the Kennedy Center” a staffer said to me when I got to the second level. No one else was there.

The halls were alive with the sound of nothing. UD tried filling it with a memory of her last time there, which featured the impossibly high soprano of Erin Morley – but even Morley’s voice couldn’t stand up to the present pianississimo.

Certes, the KC has never been a warm burbling human scale sort of place, and UD should know cuz she’s been attending performances there since 1971; but its lobbies have always hummed with perfumed theater-goers, and its performance spaces with passion. It was impossible to miss the caesura, the jarring way everything was suddenly set at pause.

***********

UD thanks Bill, a reader, for correcting her on the date when she began going to the KC.

Wotta world.

… all Saturdays, are the dates of UD’s lecture series on the essay, at the Georgetown Public Library. 1:00 – 3:00.

The Essence of the Essay begins by looking closely at Tatiana Schlossberg’s much-read essay about her impending death, and asking why it was so powerful. It moves on to define the genre, talk about its main categories, and try to account for why it represents arguably the clearest and deepest expression of the singular human voice.

Here are some of the essays we’ll read:

“A Battle with my Blood,” Tatiana Schlossberg

”Aes Triplex,” Robert Louis Stevenson

”On the Assassins’ Trail,” Gore Vidal

”How the Poor Die,” George Orwell

”Return to Tipasa,” Albert Camus

This December 13, in the afternoon (don’t yet know exact time), I’m giving a talk on Jane Austen (it’s the 250th anniversary of her birth) at the Georgetown Public Library. This will be my fifth library lecture – I’ve talked about poetry and James Baldwin there. Please join us!

https://www.dclibrary.org/plan-visit/georgetown-library

UPDATE: The talk (Jane Austen: The Enigma of Her Endurance) will be at 2:00.

Today’s walk was the
new SW Waterfront:
AKA The Wharf.

Today’s walk was through the
National Zoo, where sprays of
cool water helped – a little.

Two sights yesterday, on a walk
before tea at the Henley Park Hotel.

A sculpture on a side
door to the Henley Park.

Massed sky on Mass Ave.

**********************

Our tea table, Henley Park.

On her way to her Uber, UD spied
a turtle in her pachysandra.

At Potomac Park, she bought tea
and coffee at this new Italian cafe,
stuffed her backpack with grapes,
Cheerios, toothpaste and dog treats
from Harris Teeter, walked briskly
around residential Potomac Park,
and then Ubered home.

*************

UPDATE: UD‘s rather – uh –
informal garden turns out to be
a perfect spot for turtles.

Today I was on campus to have lunch
with a Canadian student getting ready
to start law school at Osgoode Hall;
to pick up a student’s final exam from
Disability Support Services; and to
check out a third student’s photography exhibit.

Here the photographer talks about her project:

An image from the show.

On my way back to the Foggy Bottom metro,
purple irises bloomed between buildings.

In a new series, UD will acquaint you with her world, Washington, DC.

Here’s a representative denizen, a fellow Metro passenger this afternoon.

Let me start with what you can’t see: His lapel boasts a large circular button identifying his membership in some political organization – NRA maybe. He doesn’t look like an ACLU type.

****************

Actually, to UD’s majorly practiced eye, he doesn’t look like a DC resident. He looks like a heartlander in town for a conference (note the luggage).

You also can’t see that his tie is a big splash of red white and blue.

He is young yet portly.

******************

Now to electronics.

Note that his headset phone’s red circle is all lit up cuz he’s just received a call. The bright circle of red goes around and around and around until he starts talking. Let’s listen in.

Hi yeah. Can’t do it until end of next week after the membership meeting. Now? I’m on the Washington metro to the airport. … Did you get a chance to read that report? Can you believe that stuff? We need to draft a response. Get Betty on it.

He is texting while talking.