Easter

Yesterday Thom and I had brunch at one of our favorite restaurants, David Greggory, whose Easter buffet has become sort of a tradition for us, three years running. It was a great meal (three kinds of bacon!), and they had the polenta that Thom loves so much. Mimosa? Don’t mind if I do! This is a photo of some of the desserts. Mmm, crème brûlée.

Afterwards we headed towards the National Gallery, and on the short walk from our parking spot, we noticed a building on Indiana Ave. (between 6th and 7th Sts.) that had stonework on three of the façades, but trompe l’oeil on the side that faced an alley. Neat. I did some web searching, and apparently the building was built in 1889, and the trompe l’oeil mural was painted in 1990 for what was at the time a branch of Riggs Bank. (Of course we stopped to take pictures.)

At the National Gallery we took a look at a number of exhibits: “Photographic Discoveries” (early photos from the 1840s to the 1940s), “Cezanne in Provence,” and “Dada.” One of the pieces in the latter exhibit is a re-creation of George Antheil’s eccentric score for the 1924 film Le Ballet mécanique; it calls for several player pianos and other mechanical devices. It has only recently been fully realized thanks to digital technology, which controls all the instruments. A portion of the score is played live twice each weekday, and once on Saturdays and Sundays, through May 9.

I liked a number of pieces in the exhibit. One of the motifs in Dadaism is the use of everyday things, and it makes me want to create some collages, maybe with all the theater and concert ticket stubs I’ve collected over the years or the Express papers I pick up every day.

Before finishing the day at the National Gallery sculpture garden (and Starbucks for a much-needed Frappucino), we stopped outside, in front of Marcel Duchamp’s mustachioed Mona Lisa, L.H.O.O.Q. As noted in the comments, we’re all goateed!

In all, a grand day out. Thom’s and my photos from the day are up on Flickr.