I Let My Fists Do The Talkin’

I went down to DC last weekend for my parents’ ‘Welcome Back to DC” open house they threw for themselves. They seemed oddly interested in me coming down for it, despite the fact I was just down 6 weeks before. It’s a medium sized trip, NY-to-DC, and a hefty $200 ticket as well.

They moved back to DC after eight years in Manhattan/Connecticut for work. I grew up in DC but have practically no fond memories of it at all… it’s kind of a non-place. I think someone (Dan Goldstein, Erik Tanouye?) once mentioned he thought about doing a MD-DC-VA regional-prov show (like the Bostonian “Wicked Fuckin’ Queeyah”) since so many NY-based improvisers have roots there but there’s NO REGIONAL CHARACTERISTICS about this area. Even the dirtbags are just generic dirtbags. I think part of that is the majority of the population is from somewhere else or just “passing through” (like political/government workers, military folks, lobbyists). My parents are from California originally.

I’m uncomfortable at parties of my own peers, so my parents’ deal was par for the course. Less pressure, I suppose. At a certain point I just started bussing the dirty dishes and wine glasses to be useful. Most of the people I had met when I was in grade school and still don’t know what their names are. A lot of the men now have mustaches, I was surprised. Three people were now seeing people they met on the internet (one a widower, one a divorcee, and one perrenially single family friend who told my mother, “I bet you thought I was a lesbian all these years.”).

I was happy for them, though, since their complaint in New York is they had no friends to do things with and now they have a new-old social scene. It’s really hard to meet people in NY and doubly hard when all the people they WOULD hang out with are riding the MetroNorth home everyday when they’re staying in Manhattan.

They we’re pretty occupied with their party while I was there so we didn’t do much. We went out to G-Street Fabrics though, which is a surprisingly stocked fabric place for the suburbs… it used to be downtown, and I got some cool printed fabric for some new dresses (probably for next summer). They had a big stock of yukata/kimono-prints from Hawaii, probably meant for quilters.

On Sunday after the party, their friends Vicky and Joel (who live in Rowaton) stayed the night and the next morning we went to the National Gallery and the FDR memorial, which went up after I had left for college.

The trend in monuments seems to be “walk through” and appropriately, the FDR momument is very wheel-chair oriented… long twisty paths. They actually make a pretty huge deal about his Polio. I wonder how FDR would feel about that being touted so heavily in his legacy. The first sculpture is actually probably the best thing about it… it’s a really cartoony… like minimalist New Yorker cartoon… FDR sitting in a wheel chair, lifesize. Then there’s lots of random walls of rough-hewn pinkish granite carved with notable quotables and waterfalls (a TVA reference? or just showing off?). One section as a touchy-feelly wall for blind people… reliefs and things written in braille with no English translation.

The last thing is a super giant FDR in his Lord of the Rings cape with Fala the terrier at his side. Fala’s about 3 feet high and as we got there a kindergartener was doing what every kid of his generation will be doing—getting his picture taken riding Fala. Just like my brother and I both have pictures of us riding the chunky bear statue in the National Zoo and the triceratops in front of the Smithsonian Natural History museum (which is gone now… too many lawsuits? That thing was BIG.). Every monument maker and public sculpter must have that in the back of their mind… what can children ride and have their pictures taken atop.

Fala also is the spitting image of Jeff Koons’ “Puppy”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 21st, 2005 at 1:14 pm and is filed under Progress.