We are back from a long weekend in the nation's capital, Washington DC. Quick tour of the major memorials and museums. Saturday to the Vietnam and Lincoln Memorials and the Freer Museum of Asian Art. Saw some interesting Japanese painted screens and thangka paintings - one piece in particular where Buddhas would be in a mandala, seed syllables instead. On Sunday morning we started with the International Spy Museum located near Chinatown. The Spy Museum was an interesting experience, a cross between say a Universal Studios tour and a trip to the Museum of Science. We were first "briefed" in a small theater where moments before we were instructed to choose an alternative spy identity based on several different choices. Once in the museum, we were confronted with glass cases of spy gear throughout the ages (objects like eyeglasses with a secret compartment for hiding cyanide tablets and guns embedded in rings), videos, interactive computer kiosks, and crowds and crowds of people. The difficulty with making a museum 100% interactive are the problems that you run into with flow. Learned a bit about Mata Hari, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington who all had interesting ties to spying. From the Spy Museum to dim sum in Chinatown which did not feel like much of a Chinatown at all except for the signage on storefronts and the obligatory and ornate Chinese gate marking the boundary. Over then to the Hirshhorn Collection which is a great place for modern sculpture. The building is circular, similar to the Guggenheim in New York, but no winding path from top to bottom. At the Hirshhorn, a wonderful show of color photography by Gabriel Orozco. I am not usually a fan of color photography and am not really terribly interested in what's being done, but Orozco's images had a poetic quality about them that drew me in and genuinely engaged me. The Hirshhorn has a strong collection of video art which was exciting to see installed in various spaces. "The Way Things Go" by Fischli and Weiss was on view - interesting to see young children sit quietly thru the 20 + minutes footage of chemical reactions and Rube Goldberesque invention. On from the Hirshhorn to a very quick visit to the Air and Science Museum and a quick stopover at the Phillips where exhibitions of Aaron Siskind and August Sander's photography. The Siskind works were very similar to the pieces that were on view at the Boston MFA last year - abstracted close-ups of driftwood, seaweed and paint peeling displayed alongside some of Siskind's contemporaries who influenced his work - Pollock and Kline. The Phillips is touted as the nation's first modern art museum. On Monday, the National Gallery Museum which may well have the finest collection of Rothkos outside of the Menil Collection in Houston. The strength of the National Gallery's contemporary collections definitely seemed to be painting - works by Lewitt, Johns, Pollock, Twombly, Albers, Nauman, Rauschenberg, Richter, and many many others. A decent collection of sculptural works, lots of David Smith. The security guards at the National were the surliest of any I've run into. From the National on to the Sackler where we just missed the closing of a huge show of Buddhas from China excavated from under a soccer field.

Things that I learned this weekend - I do not like French cooking, way too buttery. DC is a great city, clean, open, very European and cosmopolitan in feel. Lots of mixed race couples. All of the subway stops look the same.

One last exhibitions we caught this morning at the Provisions Library in Dupont Circle which is highly recommended - the artwork of Yun-Fei Ji, a Chinese born brush painter working in Brooklyn. This exhibition: "Empty City" - works expressing the horrors of the Three Gorges Dam in the Yangtze Valley. At first glance, Ji's paintings appear very traditional, landscape in ink - but upon closer examination, images blended with very contemporary content - Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution, the villagers displaced by resettlement, pollution..

Highlights of the weekend - visiting my old roommate Natasha Klauss from B.U. days and her miniature doberman pinscher, Doggie. AND running into an old student/docent of mine from the Dallas Museum of Art who we bumped into in Dupont Circle. All signs point to Dallas, indeed. Madeleine left the Museum to be able to pursue her yoga study and practice and she is now a teacher of yoga teachers at the Priya (means "freedom) Yoga Studio in Lakewood. If I haven't already mentioned, the 2 things I plan on pursuing in Dallas are chef school and yoga teacher certification,(and well also maybe a PhD in Aesthetic Studies at UTD, who knows.) Bumping into old friends in foreign parts, too auspicious to dismiss.