Chromed merchant with dead bunny

At the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C.

Mars Attacks!

These lamps frame the entrance to a cafe outside the National Gallery.

In the lobby at the National Gallery

This Calder sculpture swings and bobs in the updrafts.

On the lawn at the National Gallery

I'm pretty sure this is a spaceship masquerading as sculpture. Pretty clever camoflague, really.

Gen. George Meade gets some help with his coat

Join the army, work your way up to general, slaughter thousands of your opponents' troops and thereafter naked nymphs will attend to your every need.

I've heard about something like this ...

Death gets a nose job

Standing at the back of Gen. Meade's memorial, Death's impact is lessened somewhat by appearing to have a drunkard's nose.

Seen on the Streets of D.C.

This is the bicycle (tricycle?) I want for Christmas!

...and speaking of tricycles

This is the first time I've ever seen one on a bike rack.

The Old Post Office, Washington D.C.

Once the city's main post office, it was saved from demolition and is now a popular tourist attraction. Where they once sorted tons of mail on the main floor, there's now an open atrium surrounded by shops and restaurants. Worth a look, if you don't mind having your bags x-rayed on the way in (because, you know, this place has got to be high on the target list of terrorists the world over).

Views from the Old Post Office

The clock tower, now a tourist attraction, helpfully fitted with an elevator to the belfry. Quite a view of the city from the top.

Views from the Old Post Office

The clockworks — not at all what they usually show you in the movies, is it?

Views from The Old Post Office

Pennsylvania Avenue leading to the national capital.

Rainy Day, Chicago

I was laid over in Chicago for several hours on my way to Washington D.C. and took the opportunity to stroll through the Chicago loop. It was pretty crappy weather for shooting photos but I tried anyway.

Fisher Building, Chicago

The terra cotta entrance arch to this building was almost completely obscured by the iron trusses supporting an el train.

A Wise Old Owl in Chicago

These gargoyles look down from each corner of the public library. They're as big as helicopters and appear almost as suddenly when you round a corner and find them glowering down at you.

Chicago Public Library on a rainy day

Chicago's got a library that makes me want to live there. In Chicago, not the library, although there appeared to be a few people living in there, come to that; Madison's not the only place where hobos sleep in the carrels.

Scenes from the Ancestral Manse VII: Home-Grown Art

My brother, the artist. He fired the famous Frank & Beans wall hanging at my mother's window, and he penned this gorgeous India-ink rendering of a heavily-veined leaf.

What does he draw these days, I wonder?

Scenes from the Ancestral Manse VI: Vinegar Man

I don't think it was just me. I think the leering eyes and psychotic grin of this guy would frequent the nightmares of any little kid who saw them.

Scenes from the Ancestral Manse V: Mom's Window

Mom has turned the window over the kitchen sink into a sort of altar with knick-knacks commemorating places she's been and people she knows.

Everyone who stops by enters the house through the breezeway, so they have to pass through the kitchen, and they all seem to stop at the altar to view the knick-knacks, trying to spot the new additions, or guess if any have gone or been demoted to another part of the house.

When a new knick-knack appears, visitors point and comment, try to guess what it is, or pick it up and marvel at it if they already know.

I don't think she'll mind too much if we take a closer look:

One of my distant relatives on my mother's side was a cobbler, and the little wooden form that looks like a shoe is one of the tools he used in his shop.

Our immediate family once owned a small-town newspaper and, when we bought it, we came into posession of a staggering amount of type. Most of it was the tiny lead type used in setting newsprint, but we also ended up with a few boxes of very large type cut from wood. Mom saved a few pieces and spelled her name.

I have no idea where the chicken or the rose came from or what they're about.



Say hello to Vinegar Man. Both he and the tiny wash tub both belonged to my mother's mother at one time. I think. I'm sure Vinegar Man did because his bug eyes and psycho smile scared the bejeezus out of me when I was little and made quite an impression on me. He usually sat on grandma's countertop, or maybe on her windowsill.

If my memory's not playing tricks on me and the little wash basket was grandma's too, I think it sat on the edge of the sink and she used it to hold brillo pads or soap bars or something like that. It also gave me the willies because it's got a bunch of eye-like things that stared down at me.

Grandma used to scare me all the time with eyes, now that I think about it. For my birthday she gave me one of those clocks with eyes that flicked back and forth as it went tick-tock. The damn thing gave me nightmares after just one or two days hanging over my bed, and had to be returned.

I still don't like to look at the wash basket, but Vinegar Man's like an old friend.

Scenes from the Ancestral Manse IV: Grandma Lana's Dresser

Many moons ago, my mother dragged this dresser into the front entrance of the apartment we rented in Marquette. She slapped gallons of gelatinous "Zip-Strip" on it, peeling away layer after layer of paint and varnish, until she found this: A hand-carved pattern that she hadn't even been aware of. After cleaning it up the rest of the piece, she re-varnished it and it's been in the front room of our house ever since.

I've long assumed that this chest was just something she picked up at a garage sale, but I found out during our visit that it belonged to her grandmother Lana.