Another update: Never use certified mail

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(Latest update:  On September 16, 2018, the U.S.P.S. emailed that it was still searching for my passport which it had delivered to the visa office June 25, 2018.)

(Update: On July 18, 2018, the U.S. P. S. emailed that it was still searching for my passport which it had delivered to the visa office on June 25, 2018.)

The U.S. Postal Service kept my passport for 26 days.
 
I mailed it to the visa office on May 30, 2018.  It was delivered to its destination on June 25, 2018.  The expected delivery date, according to the receipt, was June 1, 2018.

That was for a distance of 3.4 miles on the same street.

The U.S. Postal Service charged me $7.83 to mail my passport via certified mail which included $2.75 for a return receipt which I never received.

Strapped to the shell of a tortoise and ambling up the street, it likely would have reached its destination sooner.


More than one person has suggested that perhaps someone along the way attempted (succeeded?) to steal my identity.


Trying to locate my passport on the long journey up Connecticut Avenue, I made numerous telephone calls and trips to three different post offices, enlisted an aide in my congressman’s office, tweeted twice to the Post Office (no reply), and called the State Department to get a new passport (for an additional $200+). 

At every post office branch I visited, the clerks and managers had the same answer:  They had no more information than what I was able to read online. 

At the Oakton, Virginia post office, a clerk rolled her eyes and said to me:  "You mailed your passport by certified mail in D.C. and you're surprised it's lost?"

It was.  Lost in post office limbo, "in transit" and nothing more beyond June 7, 2018.

Try, just try, getting the phone number of anyone at the U.S. Post Office to help you. 

Here are a couple for you to save: Friendship Heights Distribution Office: 202-842-3332 (May take several phone calls before anyone answers and several minutes on hold if anyone answers) and the
Brentwood Warehouse: 202-636-1259 (May take several phone calls before anyone answers and several minutes on hold if anyone answers). 

“It may be in the cage,” said a postal official at the Washington Square branch where I originally mailed my passport, where I returned, seeking mercy. “Ask them to check the cage.” 
  
But "the cage" was empty (save the ones at the border with actual people) and lacked mercy, too.
 
It only took a maximum 30 minutes of holding, if anyone answered the phone at Friendship Heights or Brentwood, at which time I had to hang up, given my job requirements and other necessary parts of life which demand attention.

Holding at Friendship Heights allows the person who may answer the phone to try and find a supervisor or a clerk for Zone 20008 to "check the cage," and that person, likely as not, does not return to the phone, unless you can hold for double-digit minutes.

At Brentwood, the phone rings about five times before it goes to voice mail where the message is: “You may not leave messages here.”

At various times, Friendship Heights and Brentwood each blamed the other for my lost passport.  

When I called the State Department in desperado mood, a woman there seemed incredulous that the Post Office had lost my passport.  "M'am," I said, "I've got the proof right here, if you want to see that it's on hold somewhere in post office la-la land." 

She scheduled an emergency meeting for me to obtain another passport so I could make my trip.  I gathered up the necessary documents for another passport:  a certified birth certificate, more paperwork, and a bottle of Russian vodka.

Earlier I put a tracer on my envelope which is only good for seven days.

Suddenly, the passport turned up.

When I visited Russia in 2013 I went to the Russian consulate’s office and got my own visa. It took me two or three visits but I got it in a timely manner and did not worry about it. I knew exactly where it was.  (Besides, I liked practicing my new Russian at the consulate's: "Здравствуйте," I said, and she looked at me like I was from another country. I have learned that Russians don't smile much; they think it's a sign of imbecility, and besides, my Russian instructor says:  "They've had a hard life." Oh, yeah?  What's their mail service like?) 

For this trip, the visa fee was built in the tour price, and the tour company, Travel All Russia, told me to use
"a reliable mailing service" (either UPS or Fed Ex, it stipulated) to mail my visa application.  Since UPS and FedEx both leave packages and envelopes at doors and do not collect signatures at my dilapidated complex where mail is frequently stolen, I thought the USPS would be a better option.  
 
To finally retrieve my passport and visa, I took the Metro on Tuesday out to the visa service in northwest D.C. not far from Ohio (IMO) where I had left multiple explicit instructions not to mail my passport since my trip is this year and not next century.  I probably won't live that long anyway.  

Take my words for it: If you live in and around D.C. and plan to visit Russia,  skip hours of worry, phone calls, visits, additional costs, frenzy, and visit the consulate's office yourself (where speaking Russian is not required).
 
As my wise son says: “This is what you get with government and no competition.”

I may start my own visa application service, and I shall not be using the U.S. Postal "Service" for my deliveries.  I'll be using my own wheels.  Write for info.  Dos vedanya.

patricialesli@gmail.com

Epiphany stamp unveiled at St. John's, Lafayette Square

 

The Reverend Dr. Luis Leon, rector at St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C., says a closing prayer at the First-Day-of-Issue Dedication Ceremony for the Christmas Magi Limited Edition Forever Stamp, Nov. 19, 2014/photo by Patricia Leslie

The Three Kings (Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar), whose silhouettes are represented in the new Christmas Magi stamp, bring gold, frankincense, and myrrh for the Christ Child at the First-Day-of-Issue Dedication Ceremony for the Christmas Magi Limited Edition Forever Stamp at St. John's Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C., Nov. 19, 2014.  During their procession, everyone sang We Three Kings of Orient Are/photo by Patricia Leslie

Members of the choir of St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C., acted as the Three Kings at the First-Day-of-Issue Dedication Ceremony for the Christmas Magi Limited Edition Forever Stamp, Nov. 19, 2014/photo by Patricia Leslie

The Reverend Stan W. Fornea, U.S. Navy Captain and Senior Chaplain at the White House Military Office, delivers the opening prayer at the First-Day-of-Issue Dedication Ceremony for the Christmas Magi Limited Edition Forever Stamp at St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C., Nov. 19, 2014/photo by Patricia Leslie

Nancy Mathis, mistress of ceremonies, welcomes guests to the First-Day-of-Issue Dedication for the Christmas Magi Limited Edition Forever Stamp at St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C., Nov. 19, 2014/photo by Patricia Leslie

Louis J. Giuliano, member of the Board of Governors, U.S. Postal Service, tells the Epiphany story at the First-Day-of-Issue Dedication Ceremony for the Christmas Magi Limited Edition Forever Stamp at St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C., Nov. 19, 2014/photo by Patricia Leslie

After they unveiled the new Epiphany stamp at St. John's, the Reverend Dr. Luis Leon, St. John's rector (right) and  Louis J. Giuliano, member of the Board of Governors, U.S. Postal Service, commend the St. John's Choir at the First-Day-of-Issue Dedication Ceremony for the Christmas Magi Limited Edition Forever Stamp, Nov. 19, 2014.  Greg Breeding designed the stamp, and Nancy Stahl was the artist/photo by Patricia Leslie

Dr. Benjamin Hutto leads the choir at St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, in Epiphany Alleluias at the First-Day-of-Issue Dedication Ceremony for the Christmas Magi Limited Edition Forever Stamp, Nov. 19, 2014. The organist was Michael Lodico/photo by Patricia Leslie

Outside St. John's Church under a heated tent, U.S. Postal Service employees sold the new Christmas Magi Limited Edition Forever Stamp on Nov. 19, 2014/photo by Patricia Leslie

This U.S. Postal Service employee carefully stamped First Day cancellations on envelopes outside St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C., site of the First-Day-of-Issue Dedication Ceremony for the Christmas Magi Limited Edition Forever Stamp, Nov. 19, 2014/photo by Patricia Leslie

St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C./photo by Patricia Leslie

patricialesli@gmail.com

Stamp Committee snubs Washington galleries

Gerald Murphy, Razor, 1924, copyright, Honoria Murphy Donnelly/licensed by VAGA and at the Dallas Museum of Art

 

Of the 12 modern works of art that are reproduced as commemorative stamps released this month by the U.S. Postal Service, none are found in Washington's galleries, although ten of the artists are well represented here, and in some cases, by several hundred pieces.

Five of the twelve works come from New York institutions, and copyright for five others belong to New York firms, making New York the site or copyright owner of almost 90 percent of the compositions.

The stamps were issued in conjunction with the centennial celebration of America's first large display of modern art, known as the “Armory Show,” the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art in New York organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors.

Besides New York, other locations where the 2013 featured works hang are Texas (2), Yale University (1), Colorado (1), Ohio (1), New Mexico (1), and Philadelphia (1).

Three of Washington’s galleries with works by the ten have free admission where thousands may view art:  The National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.  The Phillips Collection charges $12.

New York admission prices reach $25 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art. Try getting in the Met without paying the “suggested” price of $25, and see where you land. Try the street.).

Of the remaining locations, only Yale (Joseph Stella) and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Ft. Worth (Aaron Douglas) have free admission.

The Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee which selects and approves stamp designs with the approval of the Postal Service, says: "Stamp selections are made with all postal customers in mind, not just stamp collectors." And yet the Committee promoted galleries that cater to more elite purses than many citizens carry.

In addition to Douglas, The Prodigal Son (1927;) and Stella, Brooklyn Bridge (1919-20), the other featured artists and their works are: Stuart Davis, House and Street (1931), Whitney Museum of American Art; Charles Demuth, I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold (1928), the Met; Arthur Dove, Fog Horns (1929), Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center; Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912), Philadelphia Museum of Art; Marsden Hartley, Painting, Number 5 (1914-15), the Whitney; John Marin, Sunset, Maine Coast (1919), Columbus Museum of Art; Gerald Murphy, Razor (1924), Dallas Museum of Art; Georgia O'Keeffe, Black Mesa Landscape, New Mexico/Out Back of Marie’s II (1930), Georgia O'Keeffe Museum; Man Ray, Noire et Blanche (1926), the Met; and Charles Sheeler, American Landscape (1930), Museum of Modern Art.

At the unveiling of the stamps in New York (where else?) Richard Uluski, U.S. Postal Service vice president, Northeast Area Operations said: “We understand the power in these miniature works of art to celebrate American heritage history and culture." The stamps, he said, are "a lasting tribute to 12 amazingly talented artists."

The "most consistent supporter" of Arthur Dove was Duncan Phillips, the founder of the Phillips Collection in Washington which has 185 or the majority of Dove's works, according to Wikipedia, and yet, the Committee chose to go to Colorado Springs and its Fine Arts Center for its single Dove painting, Fog Horns, for which a New York firm holds the copyright.

Michael Howell is the collections manager and registrar for the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and was unaware the commemorative stamp of Fog Horns had been released until I contacted him.

The two artists missing from the collections of the four Washington institutions I checked are Aaron Douglas and Gerald Murphy. 

Douglas (1899-1979) was "a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance," and sometimes called the father of African American art. He founded the art department at Fisk University where he taught for 27 years. Wikipedia says Douglas was encouraged by his mother to pursue his passion and inspired by the black painter, Henry O. Tanner. Douglas ”refused to compromise and see blacks as anything less than a proud and majestic people."

But who is Gerald Murphy? (Howell didn't know, either.)

Not that Gerald Murphy? The husband of Sara Murphy? The good friends of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald who played a prominent role in Tender is the Night? That Gerald Murphy? He painted, too?

Well, he painted some, for eight years between 1921 and 1929, before he died in 1964. The Murphys suffered the deaths of their two sons and endured financial problems which may have been factors in Murphy's conclusion of his art output. 

Whatever the case, only 14 of his works are known to have survived, "owing largely to his [Murphy's] own indifference," wrote Peter Schjeldahl in the New Yorker about a Murphy show at Williams College Museum of Art in 2007. Now, only seven or eight are extant.

"At any rate, it’s unlikely that Gerald, had he continued, would have improved" for whatever he had, he had in the beginning, because "he was a man who wasn't really an artist," Schjeldahl wrote. Murphy and his wife collected folk art.

When the Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts announced in 1960 it would host a show of Murphy's works, the artist said, according to Schjeldahl:  "I've been discovered.  What does one wear?"

Gerald Murphy was "amazingly talented"?

Who chose Gerald Murphy's work for the one of the 12 modern art stamps?  And why?

If the Stamp Select Committee were truly honoring “amazingly talented” artists like the postal official said, why didn’t it consider more of the 120 artists from the 1913 Armory show, many who are familiar names, but, rather than art appreciation or recognition, perhaps the Committee meant to educate the people.

The Committee might have chosen, too, more than a single token woman artist (O'Keeffe), like Marguerite Zorach, Marie Laurencin, Ethel Myers, Mary Cassatt, Mary Foote, Grace M. Johnson, Gwen John, Margaret Hoard, Bessie Marsh Brewer, Aileen King Dresser, Edith Dimock, May Wilson Preston, Frances Simpson Steven, Louise Pope, Hilda Ward, Edith Woodman Burroughs, Anne Goldthwaite, Edith Haworth, Florence Dreyfous, and Sherry E. Frye, some of the women who exhibited at the 1913 launch.

Or how about the Murphys' friend, Zelda Fitzgerald? She painted, too. But she was from the South. Two strikes! And where is her copyright?  Three strikes!

A Postal Service website, the USA Philatelic, calls the artists "significant American modernists all of whom were at the forefront of embracing new modes of expression that began in Europe and developed into uniquely American perspectives."

Rather than the "Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee," why not call it what it is: the "Select Stamp Committee."

patricialesli@gmail.com