Adventure on the 14th Street bus

A 14th Street bus/photo by Patricia Leslie

I told myself repeatedly over the few days before I rode public transportation to GALA Theatre that Friday night, I would not be intimidated by fear or a number.

I will ride and I will not drive, I said firmly.

And so I did.

The getting there was the easy part, on Metro from Tysons and then up 14th Street on Bus #52 from the McPherson Square station.

At GALA I saw a wonderful flamenco performance, and wanted to stay for the Spanish Embassy reception afterwards, but the back of my mind rumbled with the gnawing realization that public transportation awaited me at 10:30 at night in the edgy neighborhood.

I skipped the reception at the end of the show and left the theatre and crossed 14th to wait on a bus. Nearby, lights on a police car blinked.

I was happy to see the police car and thankful for the upcoming DC mayoral election, for, with the uptick in crime, Mayor Bowser just might have instructed the police to have “all hands on deck.” I hoped so.

At the corner only seconds passed before I was joined by another rider, a woman ranting and raving about Taco Bell: “I didn’t get fired!” she exclaimed. “I quit!” Over and over. She walked back and forth in front of me like a caged beast.

OK, I said to myself silently; I understand. But, where is the bus? 

There it was, ambling down the street at last, although only a few moments had passed since I had begun my wait.

We boarded, and I took a seat opposite the rear exit in case a sudden escape became necessary. The woman sat at the front and continued her loud rants.

Another passenger sat across the aisle from her and pulled out a liquor bottle from his jacket pocket and offered her a drink.

“I don’t need that!” she bellowed.

We passed the Taco Bell a few seconds later, and she pointed to it and screeched: “It’s gonna kill someone!”

I tried to look ahead and out the windows, to avoid "engagement" and locking eyes with anyone.

When you ride a bus at night, you expect these outbursts. They are common.

The last three times I went to Mosaic Theater on H Street (pre-covid) the police were always involved in some form or fashion with activities on the free trolley car.

But that was then, and this was now.

14th seemed loaded with police cars every few blocks with red lights blinking on their car tops. I was grateful. Who wants to "defund the police"?

The bus continued its ramble down the street, stopping and starting to let passengers off and on, while the man and the woman continued their exchange which escalated quickly, and he pulled out a cigarette.

Was he going to light up on the bus? What would the driver do? But, behind his hard plastic window and from all I could see, the driver was oblivious to the action behind him, likely used to it all.

When the man called the woman the “n” word (he was black, too), the woman became enraged. Their conversation grew louder, more heated and indignant until she challenged the man to a fight.

On the bus?

They stood in the aisleway, apart, weaving back and forth in time with the bus’s motions and, began to dance the fighter's dance, yelling their words of conflict and hate.

This performance was more than the flamenco, and it was free!

But, at the flamenco, I wasn't afraid, like I was on the bus, sensing danger since I was within arm’s reach of the two fighters who moved in a semi-circle gnarling at each other, like they were in a boxing ring.

Where was McPherson Square?

I decided to get off at the next bus stop wherever it might be, and the woman got off with me, shouting: “This is not my stop!”

In my haste to cross the street and get away, I was too alarmed to look back to see if she re-boarded. Several blocks remained until the Metro station.

I hurried and descended to Metro's catacombs, happy to be safe.

Safe on the Metro?

The train was practically empty when it arrived and Yeeks! I was the only person to board the car.

I will not be afraid or intimidated, I said to myself. I will not; I cannot. But, I was. And still, I cannot stop; I will not.



patricialesli@gmail.com

Civil War art leaves Washington Sunday

George N. Barnard, Ruins In Charleston, South Carolina, 1865, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.  Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc./Michael Lamy

If you know little about the Civil War conflict in the U.S. (1861-1865), a trip to the Smithsonian American Art Museum this weekend will supply a quick education. And if you know a lot about the Civil War, this is a big show commemorating the war’s 150th anniversary you do not want to miss.

It is the presentation of the war’s pain and toll upon art and artists, said Eleanor Jones Harvey, SAAM's senior curator, who directed the show and wrote the catalogue. "What do these artists tell us?" about the way citizens felt after the war, she asked.

Generally excluded among the 57 paintings and 18 photographs are classic battlefield scenes which often come to mind when the War Between the States is mentioned. This exhibition, instead, provides rich detail about the common people and the war's effects upon them, told in mostly chronological order in arresting land and peoplescapes.

Some well-known artists represented are Winslow Homer (13 works in the show), Frederic Church (7), Sanford Gifford (8), Eastman Johnson (6) and Alfred Bierstadt (2).
Lesser known is Martin Johnson Heade whose Approaching Thunder Storm, 1859,  not only foretells the war but the style of Edwin Hopper (1882-1967) whose artistic fame came 75 years later.  

Martin Johnson Heade, Approaching Thunder Storm, 1859, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift of Erving Wolf Foundation and Mr. and Mrs. Erving Wolf, in memory of Diane R. Wolf, 1975

When speaking about slavery, President Abraham Lincoln used the words "coming storm," a term adopted by many abolitionist preachers for their sermons, one of whom bought this work.

Viewers will also find Uncle Tom and Little Eva, 1853, by Robert S. Duncanson, known as the first African-American artist to enjoy international acclaim and whose Still Live with Fruit and Nuts, 1848, was added last year at the National Gallery of Art.

While at the SAAM exhibition, leave several minutes to study Eastman Johnson's Negro Life at the South, 1859, which depicts blacks with various skin tones, alluding to mixed races.  See the white cat entering slave quarters.

Consider the significance of Julian Scott's Surrender of a Confederate Soldier, 1873.  The war had ended when Mr. Scott, a member of the Union army, painted a sympathetic portrait of his opponent to perhaps signify the unification of the country. 

 

Photographs by George Barnard show the "Hell Hole," at New Hope Church, Georgia in 1866, destruction in Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina at war's end, and the scene of General James B. McPherson's death July 22, 1864 near Bald Hill outside Atlanta.

Six photographs made of the aftermath of the Battle of Sharpsburg/Antietam  by Alexander Gardner are included.  The bloodiest single-day battle in American history only 70 miles from Washington, Sharpsburg claimed the lives of 22,717 men on September 17, 1862.  The pictures show bodies of Confederates upon the ground. Two weeks later President Lincoln visited the battlefield.

Alexander Gardner, President Abraham Lincoln with General George B. McClellan and officers, Antietam, October 3, 1862/Library of Congress, Wikimedia Commons

 

The exhibition ends with giant land and icescapes which, at first glance, a viewer may think belong to another collection, another time, but they show the turmoil experienced by Frederic Church, among others, during and after the war, in works which capture "defiance, fear, despair, and hope."

Frederic Edwin Church, Cotopaxi, 1862, Detroit Institute of the Arts, Founders Society Purchase.  The Bridgeman Art Library

The collection moves to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York where it will open Memorial Day, May 27, 2013.

Elizabeth Broun, SAAM's director, called the Civil War exhibition "one of the most important shows we've offered in a long time," and the "brainchild" of Ms. Harvey.

To obtain the art for the show took "elaborate negotiations" and persuading lenders to loan their works for the research-based presentation, said Ms. Harvey.

What:  "The Civil War and American Art"

When:  11:30 a.m.  - 7 p.m., through Sunday, April 28, 2013

Where:  The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Eighth and F streets, N.W., Washington, D.C.

How much:  Free admission

Metro station:  Gallery Place-Chinatown or walk from Metro Center

For more information:  202-633-7970 or 202-633-1000

patricialesli@gmail.com

The Book: "The Professor and the Madman" by Simon Winchester

Finally, I get around to reading this book. Ten years after its publication..


What has this got to do with Washington, D.C.? A little about St. Elizabeths Hospital is told.

The subtitle is: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Alas! Midway through I discovered it was not documented! Horrors. What have I been wasting my time on? Is the word "Tale" in the subtitle a clue?

Oh sure, there are mentions at the rear of the book about conversations Mr. Winchester had, and the hospital records he read, and the places he visited, and the people he knew, and his Internet searches, and "further readings," but what's to keep a writer from creating fiction from an unusual story and claiming it's non-fiction? I don't know. Seems like a great way to craft a novel and claim it is real. Like that guy on Oprah a couple of years ago.

Mr. Winchester found assistance from the good folks at the National Park Service and the National Archives, etc. etc. But nowhere is found one footnote, one link, one date, one specific reference to any of the information Mr. Winchester used to tell his story. There is no index.

Despite several attempts, the author was not successful trying to pry hospital records from St Elizabeths Hospital about a key character in the book, the "madman," Dr. William C. Minor. Mr. Winchester gloats that he was able to get the files another way via the Internet and says: "It was more than gratifying to be able to telephone St. Elizabeths the next day and tell the unhelpful officials (he had found the records)...They were not best pleased" (sic; he is British). St. Elizabeths is no longer a federal institution but under the jurisdiction of the District of Columbia "a government that has experienced some well-publicized troubles in recent years," he writes.

Makes one wonder about the privacy act, your own medical records, and how they can become public property. Perhaps records of prisoners are not safeguarded as well as those of others .

Mr. Winchester was able to obtain Dr. Minor's records from other medical facilities with no attribution, other than general attribution, made about any of the records (dates, persons, descriptions). Nor are conversations with archivists, historians, a family member of Dr. Minor's, or sources Mr. Winchester used listed, dated or described in detail.

Quite a few pages are taken up with Mr. Winchester's acquaintances and friendships which enabled him to write the story.

The book is so short I thought it must be an abridged edition, but no.

Where are the pictures of the key players and places? Mr. Winchester mentions pictures and papers revealed to him by Dr. Minor's great-great-nephew, but none are included, and there are no citations of the papers used, if they were.

The line drawings which are included are nice and suggestive, reminding me of Nancy Drew mysteries I read long ago. The name of the artist who made the drawings for this book is not included anywhere that I could find.

Am I the first one to raise these questions about lack of documentation and citations? This is hard to believe since many years have passed since it was published.

This book is definitely not worth the time. With more embellishment, what a movie it could be!

Mr. Winchester is a prolific author: Since the publication of The Professor, he's brought out about a book a year, and many more before that.