More Smithsonian Museums!

To cap off a very good year, Andrew and I visited two Smithsonian museums that neither of us had visited before: the National Museum of the American Indian and the Postal Museum.

We started at the American Indian museum. It just opened a few months ago, and it’s still very busy. We had to line up to get in, but the line moved fairly quickly. The crowd inside, however, kept growing the entire time we were there. There was a dancing demonstration at about 1PM, when we were leaving, so that might explain the crowds, or it could just be that the museum is so new.

Unfortunately, my impressions of the permanent exhibits was not very positive. Our Lives aimed to show where and how modern Native Americans live, was overcrowded with both people and information. The second I walked in, I felt overhelmed by the number of panels to read, and there was no clear feeling of where to go first. Andrew and I merely made a circle of the exhibit and walked out a few minutes after walking in.

The exhibit I wanted to enjoy was Our Universes, which dealt with the different ways that different tribes describe the universe and their place in it. There were about 10 different viewpoints covered in the exhibit, each with a separate small room, sometimes mimicking the tribe’s meeting place or “religious” house. However, each room was so small that the presence of just three people made it all but impossible to see and read the materials, and made me clausterphobic. We only made it through 4 or 5 of the alcoves before I needed to leave this exhibit as well.

I think the only exhibit we both thoroughly enjoyed was Native Moderism featuring the art of two modern Native American Artists: Allan Houser and George Morrison. That’s one of Houser’s sculptures pictured below.

From the American Indian museum, we trekked up to Union Station for lunch. There was a huge toy train running that we could see from our balcony seat at America (a restaurant featuring dishes from across the US).

The Postal Museum is just across the street from Union Station, so rather than trekking back to the Mall, we made a quick decision to change plans (we were already a bit tired from all the walking). Neither of us was expecting much from the Postal Museum, frankly, but it was rather enjoyable.

The main exhibit starts in the woods of early America. The earliest postmen walked through the woods, notching trees with an axe so that following postmen could follow. The exhibit follows the history of the postal service, from letters delivered to a central post, like a pub or general store, in town, to rural home delivery. At the end of this main exhibit, there was a fun exhibit on direct mail which I had to spend a lot of time at (much to Andrew’s chagrin) — but, hey, I learned that to ship an overcoat in the early days, it was often cut in half and sent in two packages because sending one that was that heave was more expensive. And early mail-order catalogs were used for text books in some rural communities, and as, um, toilet paper sometimes.

The travelling exhibit was on the first postage stamp — if I was a collector, I would probably have quite enjoyed this. However, I’m not a collector, so I found it a bit boring.

This picture is from a collection of fun mail boxes — the Muffler Man:

The Minority Report

And other classic stories by
Philip K. Dick
(With an introduction by James Triptree, Jr.)

I’m not sure what to say about this one. After reading the first five or so stories, I had to set the book aside for a while. I found Dick’s writing to be too impersonal for my tastes. His ideas are provocative, but the characters are generally one dimensional (if that).

However, when I picked the book up after a month, I found the remaining stories to be more enjoyable. I’m pretty sure that this is because I was ready for Dick’s style, rather than being due to the remaining stories being more compelling that the first few that I read.

A few noteworthy stories in the collection:

• “The Minority Report” — this is, of course, one of the stories that the movie with Tom Cruise is based on. It’s different from the movie, with the lead character being older than I pictured, but I could enjoy it.
• “The Unreconstructed M” — this is a fun and unusual “murder mystery”
• “Waterspider” — as story featuring guest appearances by classic sci-fi writers, including a large role by Poul Anderson. In it these sci-fi writers are all precogs, who have sucessfully predicted all of humanities future.

News from the Universe: 12/29/04

A few more quick notes before the New Year:

• The Huygen’s probe is on its way to Titan. The probe was released from the Cassini spacecraft on Christmas day, and will encounter the Titan atmosphere on January 14. Go Huygen!

  Space.com has several articles on Cassini and the Huygens probe: Cassini Releases Huygens Probe and Splash, Thud, or Whimper? Cassini’s Huygens Probe Rendezvous with Titan for a couple.

• Recent results from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) have found some nearby, massive, and young galaxies.

  Why is this news? Since these galaxies are relatively nearby, that means that they have just recently (in cosmic-terms) formed. Current theory of galactic formation predicts that formation of such massive galaxies would have tapered off by now, and only smaller galaxies should be forming now. As the Universe ages, it expands, pulling material further and further apart. This would indicate that as the Universe ages, it would be more and more difficult for large pockets of material to be available for galaxy formation.

  Galaxy formation is certainly still occuring, but the only young galaxies observed nearby prior to these results were small. This is an exciting step for researchers in galaxy formation and evolution!

• Perhaps this is old news by now, but Sean O’Keefe is leaving NASA. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not — on the one hand, he did help wrangle NASA’s out-of-control budget problems; on the other hand, he was ready to just abandon the Hubble Space Telescope and trot happily along after Bush’s assinine Moon/Mars exploration plan. Of course, Bush is still in office, so whoever they replace O’Keefe with will certainly have a short leash from Presidential Policy. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what comes next.

Skinless Weiners for Valentine’s Dinner?

Clicked through to a new blog, Swapatorium, a collection of oddities found at estate sales, flea markets and thrift shops. Check out the archives — I paged through December, and had a hard time picking my favorite, but finally decided on the Skinless Weiners ads, especially the romantic Valentine’s dish. Go check it out — I know you don’t have anything better to do.

Slave Trade

by Susan Wright

Rose Rico was a wild child of a highly-placed government official. However, there was nothing even her mother could do when she is abducted by aliens and sold as a pleasure slave. The practice of using humans as pleasure slaves is well-established, because humans are always “in season”; whereas, many star-faring races have complicated mating cycles that rarely overlap with others of their species on the same ship.

Typically Earth-born slaves have a very short livetime. Ash, a hermaphrodite “creche”-born slave, has always believed that this was due to some kind of flaw in the Earthling’s constitution. However, he finds out differently when Rose concocts a plan to hijack the alien ship transporting them. He sees that Earth-born slaves know what true freedom is, and that they can’t bear to live without it.

Wright weaves this story on many different levels. Based on the cover art and title, I was expecting some cheesy erotic novel, and was pleasantly surprised when I got a well-crafted, textured story. I’ll definately be looking up the second book in this series.

Cinemania

3.5/5 stars

This documentary digs into the lives of five cinephiliacs — people obsessed with movies. The people in this group average at least two movies per day (probably more for the ones that don’t have regular jobs). They schedule their films meticulously, factoring in subway times, etc., to maximize the number of films they can see in one day. These are not films at multiplexes, for the most part — these are the older films that film societies and restored movie-houses show, though the occasional trip to a multiplex is not out of the question.

This was not nearly as depressing as American Movie, though I came out wondering what kind of life these people have. I suppose that if this is something that gives them joy, that’s their business, but on the other hand, it seems that they are missing out on so much more in life (like girlfriends/boyfriends, for one thing).

Strangers on a Train

3.5/5 stars

Something like Hitchcock-light. Not quite so shocking/gripping/Hitchcockian as other of his films, but good just the same.

The basic story is that two strangers meet on a train, Bruno has a problem with his father, Guy has a problem with his wife who won’t give him a divorce. Bruno proposes that they could trade murders, then neither murderer would have a motive, thus making it hard to solve. Guy half-heartedly agrees, more to get rid of Bruno than because he takes him seriously. A short while later, Guy’s wife has been murdered, and Bruno starts to push him to take care of his father.

One of my problems with the film was not Hitchcock’s fault. I kept picturing Danny Devito in Throw Mamma from the Train saying “criss cross”. Sigh. Never see a comedic re-make before you see the original.

State Trees and African Art Museum

I had today off, so Andrew took it off as well, and we trekked downtown.

A few years ago Mushi and Jeff had stopped for a day on their way up to New York to see his family for the holidays, and we went down to see the White House Christmas tree. None of us had known about the “state trees”, though. These are smaller evergreen trees decorated with ornaments sent in by representatives of each state. I have pictures of the trees on Flickr. The pictures are roughly in alphabetical order by state, but I changed around some of the pictures to make the lay-out work better (some trees have two pictures, while others have just one — I wanted the trees with two pics to be side-by-side rather than on different lines).

The most interesting trees had ornaments that were hand-made. Some were obviously done by children, others by adults, but these were infinitely more interesting than obvious store-bought ornaments. States that submit ornaments that contain little scenes, or that are paper/ornaments arranged inside the big plastic holders should glue the scenes/papers in place — these ornaments are on the trees in the cold for a long time, and get jostled around. On some trees it was hard to imagine what the ornaments started out as. Also, to the parties submitting ornaments, I found that the trees that had bows added to the big plastic balls protecting the ornaments looked prettier. Those big plastic balls are kind of ugly and distracting, but by adding bows, they looked more like part of the tree instead of a necessary evil.

After warming up by the old Yule Log, we walked to the American History Museum for lunch, and the went quickly through the Castle, where there was a replica of the Arts & Industries Building made out of gingerbread.

Then we made our way to the African Art Museum. Neither of us had been there before, so we wanted to finally visit. They were between travelling exhibits, so we only got to see the permanent collections, but those were impressive. I quite liked the masks and the Art of the Personal Object. The architecture of the building itself was impressive. It is built into the ground, rather than upwards, so you descend to view the collections. There is a lovely fountain at the bottom in an atrium that is open all the way to the roof, with a sky light. We’ll likely visit again when they bring in new exhibits.

A Christmas Carol

Another show at the Millenium Stage at the Kennedy Center caught my eye — Charles Williams narrating A Christmas Carol accompanied by Hesperus. Andrew introduced me to Hesperus shortly after we started dating, and I quite enjoy their music, so we decided to go.

The show was quite enjoyable. The story, of course, was abridged to fit into a one-hour time slot, but the abridgement was well done. I did notice that Marley’s speech about his onerous chain had been cut, and Andrew mentioned it later, as it’s his favorite speech in the story. But that didn’t take away from the story much. The music was, as usual, a pleasure to listen to. Occasionally I found that the volume of the music competed with the text a bit too much, but it generally didn’t last very long.

You can check out the performance yourself, since nearly all of the Millenium Stage shows are simulcast on the web and archived.

Christmas Tumbleweed!

I was looking through my old photo albums this afternoon, and stumbled across a picture of the original Christmas Tumbleweed©.

If you’re thinking, Hey, that’s a cool idea, then chances are you are either from the midwest, east or some country other than the US where you don’t regularly see tumbleweeds. Or, you could be a child from a Southwestern state. Melissa and I are midwesterners.

If you’re thinking, Hey, I had one of those when I was a kid, then you are probably from the Southwest, and dragged a tumbleweed into the house and decorated it while your parents protested.

Of course, you might think, What an idiotic thing to do, in which case you are probably a grown-up. Screw you.

Melissa and searched long and hard for this tumbleweed. There were two problems: first, tumbleweeds are really a Spring thing (we didn’t know this), becasue that’s when the wind really picks up and blows them around; second, we needed a small one to fit in the room. We were so proud when we found this one. As we were walking back, we made up a song. (Sorry Mush, hope you’re not embarrased)

O Tumbleweed
(to the tune of O Christmas Tree)

O tumbleweed, O tumbleweed,
How rounded are your banches.
O tumbleweed, O tumbleweed,
We looked so hard to find you.

We searched all day,
We searched all night,
We’ll put on you
Some blinking lights.

O tumbleweed, O tumbleweed,
How rounded are your branches.

The next two years that I was in New Mexico, we were able to get a larger tumbleweed, because we were renting rooms from the very understanding, very easy-going Bob.

Here’s the 1996 Christmas Tumbleweed (from which you can see that Ares started his obsession with lying under Christmas foliage at a very young age):

And the 1997 Christmas Tumbleweed (the only time we had a non-homemade ornament on the ‘weed):

Summer 1998 I moved across the country to Maryland, where I had to settle for a Chrstmastree.