Photo Slop DC: I took an all too brief weekend down in DC to visit missus Kate and Anna. Stayed up in Dupont Circle for the first time (usually I stay down by the mall) and I wouldn't hesitate to stay up there again.

I have to give my highest recommendation to the Hotel Palomar. It's one of the Kimpton group of hotels that are my absolute favorites -- free wine and snack happy hour every day; eclectic, irreverently styled with animal print bathrobes, just for kicks. A hip, happenin', groovy-cool place.

I had the best pizza I have ever had in a little spot called Pizza Paradiso. Sweetest tomato sauce ever, reminiscent of the sauce at Pizzeria Uno but without the heavy-handed crust or mozzarella (I had feta). Truly spectacular. It goes on the must-do list for future visits.

My celebrity story is that I was in the Corcoran visiting an exhibit on the history of modernism, which was a mixed bag, when who do I spot out the corner of my eye but none other than Mr. Ben Stein -- you know: "Beullar? Beullar? Anyone?"; Win Ben Stein's Money; Clear Eyes, etc. Ben is political journalist and something of a bigwig economist in his spare time so I can only guess it was for professional reasons he was in town.

He was enthusiastically watching an old video about the 1939 New York World's Fair called "The World of Tomorrow" which was an extended old black-and-white promotional film for the Fair. I'm pretty sure Ben, like me and everyone else watching, stood in awe of the total lack of irony, cynicism, or negativity. How very different things are today. Could anyone born after 1960 even imagine such a sincere narrative tone?

By the way, in real life Ben doesn't look nearly as nerdy as they make him look on TV. He was dressed in a perfectly conservative dark blue suit like a proper DC insider, although he finished his ensemble with a pair of brown suede Pumas. Dude has his own style.

Meanwhile, trolling around the city, I brought my camera...



• No idea what this building is, but it's in Dupont Circle

• Lion in front of the Corocoran

• Another beautiful building I can't identify from memory -- DC is an architectural treasure trove

• The Eisenhower Building (I remembered this one)

• A shot of the metro, highly stylized in Photoshop

• Pigeons in motion

• Kids, don't be hippies or this is your fate

• The White House from Layfayette Park -- I love how this one flows from the girls on the lawn to the protester to the tourists to the White House to the Washington Monument

• I love the detail in this tree blossom

• A very tall tree in the National Zoo

• More flowers, enhanced slightly in Photoshop

• A shot of the Smithsonian Castle that I mangled in Photoshop while trying to make it look more gothic (I have a lot to learn)

• Through the WW2 memorial, past the reflecting pool to the Jefferson Memorial

• A huge panorama of the WW2 memorial - you'll have to expand it to real size in IE to get the full effect (I need to remember to take the camera off Auto before I get all creative)

• This would have been a great street scene if it was in focus

• Another street shot -- the confluence of signs cracks me up

• A Dupont Circle panorama - be sure to expand

• The young girls next to me on the lawn posed absolutely perfect with knowing it

• Older girls this time, also posing perfectly (also perfectly self-referential, isn't it?)


I took a ton more pics than that, I may link up some more next month. I 've been taking photos at such a rate I can't keep up. One day, maybe I'll be good.