A Day Off (5 cents)

I realized that, if I didn’t go to the office today, no one would be surprised, offended, or adversely affected. So I stayed home.

After a sluggish hour at the gym, I read the Washington Post and the Examiner (I didn’t have the energy to turn the seven pages needed before you hit news in the new NYT). I did not learn much from the paper, only that a man on trial for soliciting sex from young boys said that his troubles started when he was a teenager and was raped by Big Foot. I also learned that a quote attributed to former Senator Bill Bradley should have been attributed to another Bill Bradley, the one who works for Pajamas Media. [taking a break from this posting to see what Pajamas Media is. OK, now I know]

Then, I walked to the Metro and went to the National Gallery, which has a wonderful exhibit of mid-19th century English photographs. They include not only landscapes of English country side, but portraits, still lives, industrial scenes, urban scenes, ruined abbeys, and so forth. They all include photos taken other places in Europe (perhaps those of Italy are the most interesting) and an entire room of photos from India. The photos are primarily from the 1850s. They are what was known as calotypes, and were some of the first photographs ever taken. The negatives were the size of the prints, so the cameras tended to be big and boxy. Several are on display.