A few pics therefrom. No, we didn’t eat the cats.

We’re playing hooky from work Thursday and Friday for Holy Week. We’ll be going to St. Peter’s tonight, but we take most of the day to ride our bikes to Mount Vernon.

It’s really, really windy all day, making the trek something of a death march at times. Actually, with the wind pretty steadily from the northwest all day, the ride down to Mount Vernon, the ride south, is easier. And it’s not really until we’re just getting up to the bridge to cross into the city on the way back that we’re heading straight into the wind.

But at that point we’re about at the end of the forty-mile round trip. We’re tired. It’s hard.

I swear it’s even harder on me than it is on Dawn. She’s such a lithe, little thing. I feel like a big lardass. I feel like I’m almost a damn mainsail in this wind. Plus she’s on her light, new Specialized bike. Even she can pick it up, with one hand. I’m on the sturdy Bianchi commuter bike, which probably weighs twice what hers does. Then I outweigh her by sixty pounds.

A mainsail, I tell you.

Mount Vernon itself is great fun. I take the new camera, but sadly don’t have that many opportunities for pictures. I’m on the bike, pedaling and steering for so much of the trip. Then there’s no photography allowed in the house itself, the tour of which takes about forty-five minutes. But I snap a few pix.

Clearly the lawn has been visited recently by many geese. Goose shit is green, somehow disturbingly green. I of course manage to traipse in some.

Threepennyjane writes about riding Cappi, what with Doc having been semi-retired. The big surprise for me is learning that Cappi isn’t his actual entire name, but that it’s short for Cappuccino (or Cappucino as it’s spelled in the photo from the barn or the tack room or wherever one hangs saddles).

So then I wonder what the heck a cappuccino is, besides being the familiar coffee drink. Does it have anything to do with horses? First off, it sounds like it’s the diminutive form of something, which something I guess is capucin. Although beats me what a capucin is. I think maybe it’s like a chevalier or some other European martial character.

But then again, the cheval- part of chevalier refers to the horse itself. So then maybe the capucin- part is a horse reference in and of itself? It could be simply that the horse himself is the color of cappuccino, and maybe this is another instance where I’ve just gone off the deep end, similar to the Jane Connell/Threepenny Opera fiasco.

It turns out that I’m confused, as usual, in all sorts of ways. A Capuchin is a member of a particular Franciscan order. Monastic, not martial. And the name come from their hooded robes, cappuccio in Italian. I’m still not sure where the coffee comes into play, unless that refers to the color of the robes.

I took the plunge a little earlier this afternoon and bought a digital SLR. Went with the Nikon D40. I thought long and hard about the Canon Digital Rebel, since it’s the bestselling DSLR at Amazon, or the Pentax K100D, since I love my old manual K1000 and have two lenses that theoretically should fit the digital. But in the end I figured that if I’m committing myself to one flavor lens for the next couple decades, if I’m spending this much money, I really should go with the Nikon lenses.

But I didn’t just go for the standard 50mm lens, choosing instead the 18-135mm zoom. I could have gotten an 18-55mm and a 55-200mm set for less money, but I didn’t want to have to swap out lenses. The SLR is going to be bulky enough, especially taking it to Ireland for our bike tour. One lens is enough trouble. Plus it’s a better lens than either of the two. Better optics.

We leave a little before 5:30. Seventeenth to Potomac to Eye to the Southeast-Southwest Freeway to Maine Ave – around the Tidal Basin – onto Independence, turns into Ohio Dr – around the Lincoln Memorial – becomes Rock Creek Parkway, up to the Mass Ave exit, on Mass – past the British Embassy, the Vatican Embassy (the guy holding up the Catholic Priests Molest Boys sign there as per usual), and the Naval Observatory – up to the Cathedral, right on Wisconsin, park on the east side between Macomb and Newark.

We walk up half a block to cross at the light at Newark, and walking down Wisconsin towards us, to cross same time as we are, is Washington Ballet dancer Brianne Bland. I ask her if she’s grabbing something to eat before the show. Between shows, she tells me. They’ve already had a matinée today. I tell her we’re big fans. Dawn relates how she’s had a subscription going back to the Mary Day era. The year Brianne Bland arrived, matter of fact.

Brianne heads into the Giant while we mosey further down to the other end of the block to Cactus Cantina. Despite being so early in the evening, it’s totally jam packed. Or maybe it’s packed because it’s so early. Lots and lots of kids. Little kids. Then there’s a party of sixteen checking in ahead of us. They’re told to wait. We get seated right away, nimble party of two that we are.

The place thins out a bit as the families with little ones finish up and leave. Still pretty crowded though. Dawn nurses her one frozen margarita throughout dinner; I polish off two on the rocks. We make our way out and up Wisconsin to Porter to the Washington Ballet Studios, for 7×7: Love Duets.

I love seeing the one show annually here at the studios. The performance space is so very small, so intimate. There’s all of like six rows of seating. We find seats in row two, down on the floor before the risers, to the extreme right. We try saving a seat for Becky, but eventually give up. She never does make it.

First up is Desire, music Spiegel Im Spiegel by Arvo Part, choreography by Steven Mills, the artistic director for Ballet Austin. Dancing is Elizabeth Gaither and Chip Coleman. You know I loves me my Elizabeth Gaither. And the music is haunting and lovely, piano and violin. One of my favorites of the night.

Second is Say Hello, Wave Goodbye, music the song of the same name by Soft Cell, choreography by Adam Hougland. Dancing are Jade Payette, Morgan Rose, Jason Hartley, and Tamas Krizsa. It’s an up-tempo leaping around work, with a bit of annoying little waving hello and goodbye literalism in it. The joke is that the guys run off together at the end, leaving the women stunned. It’s mostly forgettable, except that Jade Payette is one of my new favorites, so it’s good to see her. And Morgan Rose works really well in it too. She’s never been much on my radar, but something about her normal Anglo prettiness works really well with the early 80s costume. She just looks so right in the part.

Next is Out of Time, music Piano Concerto in G Major by Ravel, choreography by Edward Liang. Dancing is our new friend Brianne Bland, with Runqiao Du. Again no surprise that it’s one of my favorites. Classical ballet danced to classical music. Duh.

Fourth is a generally awful modern piece to beautiful Handel, from his opera Tolomeo, re d’Egitto (Ptolemy, King of Egypt). Called Aria: 1&2, appropriately enough since the music is two songs, Stille amare and Ch’io parta? It’s a weird abstract piece, with three men and one woman. Isn’t this supposed to be seven love duets?

Back after intermission with 2 Long 2 Love, music by Phillip Glass (in a good mood), choreography by Nejla Y. Yatkin, danced by Laura Urgellés, Luis Torres, and Elizabeth Gaither. The theme works well here, with Luis and Elizabeth dancing together while Laura is clearly the jilted lover, dancing alone. I’m glad the choreography isn’t too animated, given that the floor is carpeted with (fake, paper) rose petals.

Sixth is Falling Away with You, music Ruled by Secrecy and Falling Away with You by Muse, choreography by Washington Ballet’s own Jared Nelson. Dancing are Runqiao Du, Aurora Dickie, Tyler Savoie, and Liza Balough. Best I can say is that the women have nice bright red costumes.

Last is easily my least favorite, Last Night on Earth, insufferable music MB by Apocalyptica, choreography by Mark Dendy. The music is like a string quartet plugged in and with distortion like through a fuzzbox or something. Not especially pleasant. And practically the whole company is dancing. All too much.

We’re out the door pretty quickly. In the car and turned around heading home, we see Jared Nelson walking down Wisconsin Avenue. Then a minute later we notice that we’re waiting at a light next to Luis Torres in his Nissan. Ballet celebrity spotting is so much easier up at the studios. We never see the dancers offstage at the Kennedy Center.

Another Friday ballet, rather than Saturday.

I don’t know if I’ve explained before, but we subscribe to the Washington Ballet, and we’ve got a Kennedy Center ballet subscription as well. And when the Washington Ballet danced in the Eisenhower Theater at the Kennedy Center, all was well. They would never schedule a Washington Ballet event in the Eisenhower Theater at the same time as another ballet program in the Opera House.

But now they’re rehabbing refurbishing remodeling whatever the Ike Theater, so Washington Ballet is dancing elsewhere. And they’re having to coordinate with Shakespeare Theatre productions and whatnot, so they don’t care so much about the Kennedy Center ballet schedule. And so twice this year we’ve got tickets to two different ballets on the same Saturday night. So we opt to swap the Kennedy Center tickets for another night, since we have to coordinate with Becky regarding the Washington Ballet. So that’s why we’re here at the Kennedy Center on a Friday night.

And it’s New York City Ballet with a program called Four Voices. (It’s program #2 of the two that they’re doing this visit. Program #1 is called Balanchine and Robbins. As if our program didn’t contain Balanchine or Robbins. It does, but I guess it’s four voices since it adds Wheeldon and Martins.)

Up first is Carousel (A Dance), music composed by Richard Rodgers and arranged by William David Brohn, choreography by Christopher Wheeldon. I like the music, the two songs Carousel Waltz and If I Love You, since I know Carousel Waltz so well from the beginning bit from Dire Straits Tunnel of Love off of Making Movies. (Although if pressed I probably would have said that the borrowed bit was from Richard Strauss. But there I’m probably confusing Richard Strauss with Johann Strauss.)

This particular dance, in any case, is just simply charming as all get out. As noted, the music is an orchestral arrangement of the two songs; it’s not just a simple reading of one after the other. And so the looping thereof back and forth, coming in and out, works quite well of course with the carousel image. The choreography is a bit obvious with the corps forming a big ring and going round. But when the guys lift up their partners, who in turn move the brass poles they’ve been handed up and down, and it all gets so explicitly carousel-like, well, I gotta grin in delight and just go with it.

Next is Zakousky, with music by four dead Russian composers, choreography by Peter Martins, who’s sitting right over there. He’s the artistic director, so no surprise. The dance is just two dancers, Yvonne Bourree and Benjamin Millepied, pas-de-deux-ing and whatnot, all pretty uninspiring. There are a lot of lifts that are kinda half-hearted halfway up lifts, like he’s trying to get her up high but never makes it. They stay with the timing, however, so there’s not like any time where he could have gotten her up there. So it’s all by design. But why? Why these tepid unsatisfying lifts?

Towards the end he shoots her way the hell up there, so clearly he’s able to do it. So it remains a mystery as to why there were those weird lifts. The music runs the whole range, from pure delight from our man Tchaikovsky, and even Prokofiev, to the demonic irritations of Rachmaninoff, and on to Stravinsky sounding like he’s trying to kill us.

There’s one terrifying moment where Yvonne Bourree is doing some solo combination, moving upstage left, and she falls. Just completely wipes out. You know how disappointing it is in figure skating when they fall? It’s a surprise and you’re saddened by it, but you do see it all the time. You don’t see it in ballet, certainly not in the pros anyway. And it’s a ghastly shock.

She just gets up, though, and jumps right back in, somehow able to get back in step with the music. I have enough trouble staying on the beats when everything goes perfectly well. But after a fall? Yikes. So I therefore hold her in so much greater esteem, for falling. Weird, huh?

After the first intermission we come back to Agon, music by Stravinsky again, choreography by Balanchine himself. I expect to enjoy this one the most – hey, it’s Balanchine right? – but again with the Stravinsky madness. At least it’s got the legendary Wendy Whelan, another one of those dancers whom I imagine to be like 9 feet tall. Only she’s really so much smaller in person. Not frail exactly, but … delicate. But muscle-y too. And lovely.

Last up, after another intermission and where we see our very own ballet mistress Miss Jessica out in the lobby, is The Concert (or the Perils of Everybody), music by Chopin, choreography by Jerome Robbins. It’s a totally comedic farce, something you don’t see a lot in ballet.

There’s a lot of business involving the dancers as audience to a piano recital, silliness with chairs and such. The best joke here is when Stirling Hyltin plays this utterly enthusiastic concert-goer, sidling her chair right up to and fairly hugging the piano. And when the musical chairs begins with patrons being in the wrong seat, at one point someone literally pulls the chair out from under her, but she doesn’t even notice, still just sits there clinging to the piano.

Unfortunately there’s also a weird violence-against-women-as-comedy vibe going on too. The other two sort of main characters are a man and woman, I assume a married couple, the husband of which couple chases after Stirling Hyltin a lot. After failing to catch her, he pulls out some bat or stick or something and bashes her over the head with it, able then to drag her offstage. This is apparently supposed to be funny. Later he sneaks up behind his wife, brandishing a knife. He stabs her repeatedly, but alas to no effect. He then tests the knife on himself, of course doing himself grave harm. But, again, beating and stabbing women – funny or not funny?

The wife part of the couple we at first take to be Likolani Brown, next to whose parents we used to sit before they moved their seats over to the other side of the opera house. They’re trying to be make their way closer to the middle. We haven’t seen them in a while, nor do we see them tonight since they’re Saturday night folks. Like we usually are. But this probably can’t be Likolani Brown, since it’s somewhat of a featured role in this piece, and she’s listed in the corps.

The one truly hysterical section of this act comes when six ballerinas dance a more traditional piece, as if part of an actual corps de ballet or something. It’s totally real and funny when one of them is always off or behind or doing the reverse of what she’s supposed to be doing. Having myself been in a ballet recital or two where I have only a dim idea of what I’m supposed to be doing, and I end up just looking at Dawn or someone else for cues as to what the next likely movement is going to be, I can certainly relate. I am howling and crying with laughter.

I only get 14 out of 24 and thus lose the office pool, after winning two years in a row. I can usually count on getting three out of the four acting awards, but manage only two this year. Even worse, I screw the pooch completely on foreign language and documentary and shorts. Big fat zero on all five.

Mike Kelly wins with 15. Damn, I was counting on that forty bucks.

I’m otherwise thrilled, however, that Marion Cotillard and Tilda Swinton both win, since I utterly adore them both, Ms. Swinton for Orlando & Mlle. Cotillard for Un long dimanche de fiançailles and Jeux d’enfants.

I probably shouldn’t have gone with the grand dame legends in both actress categories. But, to be perfectly honest, going with that thinking would probably have led me to pick Cate Blanchett for supporting, given that she was up for leading as well. Or I would have gone with Saorise Ronan on the theory that the youngest or oldest wins the supporting actress category, and if I wasn’t going to go with Ruby Dee as oldest then I’d go with Ms. Ronan as youngest. Ms. Swinton would have been just about my last pick, despite being easily my favorite among the group.

And I wish I had gone with Taxi to the Dark Side instead of No End in Sight, after hearing Bill Moyers’s piece on it from his Journal show. I listened to it by way of podcast, while I was picking up trash off the street on Sunday. I hadn’t realized Taxi was made by Alex Gibney, director of the excellent Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. But, then again, Gibney was also executive producer of No End in Sight, so who knows what I would have done with this information if I’d had it on Friday, when I filled out my office ballot.

And all of this is very much despite the fact that La Vie en Rose and Eastern Promises were the only movies among all of the nominees that I actually saw, of course. I try not to let complete ignorance get in the way of these things.

The most striking thing in this gallery of amazing Rodin’s isn’t a Rodin at all; it’s an enormous painting of St. Joan of Arc by Jules Bastien-Lepage. It’s the kind of thing that totally stops you dead in your tracks. I’m standing there dumbfounded for a minute, then I realize that this is yet another object that Helena had suggested seeing. So totally major points for her for this, and for the caryatid tips as well.

I spend almost forty minutes with St. Joan, sitting directly across from her. Like I said, it’s a gigantic work. No size is listed on the identification plaque, but I’ll estimate eight feet by eight feet square. (In fact it’s 8’4″ by 9’2″.) St. Joan is to the right, looking off-screen further to the right, and up. She’s evidently been spinning and has been interrupted. Her stool at the wheel behind her is lying knocked over. Behind her in the garden, between her spinning and the house, are the three saints, hovering in the air.

St. Joan is so real, standing there. She’s painted in an almost hyper-real style compared to the saints. They almost blend into the house behind them, St. Michael’s head right at the apex of the gable and his armor nearly the same color as the bricks. St. Margaret is to his right, somewhat below him, the angle from his head to hers exactly matching the pitch of the roof. St. Catherine is very hard to make out at all, behind the spinning wheel and some trees, and it’s hard to make out her face at all. Perhaps her face is buried in her hands. It’s hard to say. She could be a martyr holding her own decapitated head, for all I can tell. Maybe depends on which St. Catherine she is.

The right side of the house almost divides the picture exactly in half, separating the saints from St. Joan. And she’s only hearing them, not seeing them, as they are behind her and she’s gazing so intently up and away from them. She so obviously moved, overwhelmed even. She’s grabbing a branch in front of her, maybe even leaning on the tree behind her for support. She dressed very plainly, simple cotton and wool, skirt and blouse and what-do-you-call-it over the blouse, like a cardigan that laces instead of buttons, or an unboned bodice with sleeves.

The picture is an interesting companion for today for the Botticelli, although St. Joan is so much bigger than St. Jerome, which I suppose one can be if you’re oil on canvas versus tempera on wood. Both saints are depicted at important milestones in their lives, although St. Joan is at a beginning and St. Jerome is at an end. Not entirely the end for him, mind you, since he’s got the glorious afterlife awaiting him. And despite this moving beginning moment, St. Joan’s battles against England aren’t going to end well, at least not for her personally.

Joan of Arc, 1879, Jules Bastien-Lepage (French, 1848–1884), Oil on canvas; 100 x 110 in. (254 x 279.4 cm), Gift of Erwin Davis, 1889 (89.21.1)

I find the gallery with Rodin sculptures. Helena had suggested checking out the fallen caryatid. I’m eager to do so, especially because I’m not sure what a caryatid is exactly. Caryatid makes me think of katydid. I’m guessing though that it’s not really some kind of insect, but what would it mean to be a fallen katydid? What precisely would one have to do wrong to be a fallen katydid?

Along the way I spot Rodin’s Cupid and Psyche. It seems to depict Cupid trying to fly away and Psyche trying to hold him down. Perhaps it’s when Cupid bails on Psyche after her sisters have convinced her to shine the lamp on him while he’s sleeping, and a drop of hot oil on his shoulder wakes him up. Here’s how William Adlington translated the scene, in 1566, from The Golden Asse by Lucius Apuleius:

The god beeing burned in this sort, and perceiving that promise and faith was broken, hee fled away without utterance of any word, from the eyes and hands of his most unhappy wife. But Psyche fortuned to catch him as hee was rising by the right thigh, and held him fast as hee flew above in the aire, until such time as constrained by wearinesse shee let goe and fell downe upon the ground.

That’s not quite how it’s unfolding here.

It’s a marble sculpture, maybe 1/3 scale, or maybe Greeks and/or gods were smaller back then. They’re on a rough base, just like a rock really, except there’s also this prong coming up out to the right, on which Cupid casually kind of rests his left hand & wrist. Seems like maybe it’s a necessary structural element for the sculpture. One can see how otherwise his whole arm might snap off in a stiff wind.

The immediate effect is that he’s fleeing and she’s clinging tightly, trying to keep him from getting away. At least that’s the impression given by their relative positions to one another. But they’re not at all tensed up and fighting. Rather, they’re fairly relaxed. As mentioned, his left hand is rather casual on the prong. He’s also hiding his face under his right arm. Her face is hidden too, buried into him, under him, right up to his face. Her left arm is thrown around his torso, but her hand around his back is rather limp. And her right arm is bent double, the back of her hand resting protectively between her breasts. She’s both pulling herself toward him and defending herself from him.

And it’s his face that’s tormented. Hers is fairly serene. She seems like she’s trying to kiss him ever so delicately.

The plaque says that the sculpture is particularly “illustrating the moment of Psyche’s abandonment by Cupid owing to the machinations of Venus.” I’m not sure what moment that would be. Psyche’s whole reason for being there in the first place I suppose stems from Venus’ machinations. But this moment, when he’s fleeing? Wouldn’t that be the sisters’ machinations?

Down at the west end of the gallery I find the fallen caryatid. Two actually, bronze casts. One carrying a stone, the other an urn. Turns out a caryatid is “a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head.” Not an insect at all! I’m in no way disappointed.

They’re not anymore serving as architectural supports, Rodin having extracted them from The Gates of Hell. But once a caryatid, always a caryatid, I suppose. The one under the stone seems a whole lot more burdened than the one with the urn. Much more tormented. And her big toe is rubbed bright, as if people sense her greater anguish and feel a need to touch her, to comfort her.

Very confusingly, the plaques for both caryatids say that they were first modeled about 1881 but that these bronze casts are from 1981. Nineteen eighty-one? A hundred years later, long after Rodin’s death? Are they still Rodins?