Today, I Didn't See A Bridge Blow Up

But it was still really exciting. Mom and I went to see the Lake Champlain bridge get imploded in a massive snowstorm. Yay! Surprisingly, it was her idea. We have this odd joint fascination with mildly violent scenes of action like demolition derbies and building implosions. Whatever. I knit, I cook, and I frickin' love a good bridge demolition. We tried to get the neighbors to go but in the end, it was just mom and me driving an hour to Addison county through a blizzard to watch a bridge get blown up. It took us forever to get there because apparently the rest of the state wanted to see it too and we were also stuck behind a salt truck sanding down the roads. We were not disheartened however, as we had plenty of Stuff You Should Know podcasts to listen to (we learned about redheads, cannibalism, habeas corpus, and why grooms traditionally carry their brides over the thresh-hold). We ended up parking (unclear to us at the time) 3 miles from the bridge and trudged jauntily through the snow with hoards of other crazy people. After about 15 minutes, we heard the explosion, but we kept walking until I forcibly turned mom around (the woman does NOT know when to quit). So in the end we didn't get to see anything, but because of the snow, even the guys doing the exploding probably didn't either. But that wasn't the point. I was trying to think what the point was exactly, because on the walk back to the car, I was filled with the greatest sense of joy and accomplishment, like I HAD witnessed something truly amazing. I have concluded (stereotypically and unoriginally) that it is not the goal of the experience that matters, but rather the process and the people whom you experience it with. The joy of this whole excursion was not the boom (although that was very cool) but really hinged on Stuff You Should Know and the cute dirty men in flannel who besides us made up most of the demolition watching crowd. I love my people. They are real and true and all mine. I don't think that anyone could find any better people in the whole world than the ones I saw today trekking three miles to watch a stupid bridge explode. They are troopers and adventurers, but they were not unhappy that they didn't see the spectacle. For them, it was the experience as well, and for me, well, really it was the crowd I came to see, so everyone went home happy. Now if you would like to hear the bridge go boom here's a link. It would be less lame if you could see it, but again, there was sort of a blizzard. Oop. found a  better one.

Phenomenological Approach Anyone?

For any of you non Waldorks out there reading this, the phenomenological approach is one of the teaching methods used by Waldorf schools, and really, is probably used by other forms of education as well. Basically, it is learning by discovery. This does not mean unguided learning like in Montessori (which is stupid), but rather, learning in an environment structured by the teacher to seem as though each student is the first ever to discover whatever is being taught. For example, science experiments are done without the student knowing what the outcome will be. When the experiment is complete, the student has made his or own conclusions about it and thus, had "discovered" something new. What I hate most about my class on museums and technology here in DC, is that museums (and everyone in my class) seem to be under the impression that our population is completely idiotic and incapable of drawing its own conclusions. We are clever people, people! Any idiot can look at a painting and say something like, "Wow, this is clearly about sadness, the painter must have been trying to tell me something about sorrow!" or, "That sky is painted blue!" Seriously, we do not need copious amounts of wall text and computer screens to tell us these things. We have eyes.Anyway, here is my weekly journal entry for my class.

I love material culture (perhaps made clear by my American Studies concentration in it). I think it is amazing what an object can say about a group of people or an individual, and how we can read our past through the study of a solid and touchable thing. I believe that this is the way to teach. I have read Prown multiple times now for several classes, and I think I see why he is so relied upon in the world of artifact study. Not only does he have vividly descriptive language, but he uses those words in reference to specific things. His writing makes the objects he describes tangible. And here in lies my ongoing issue with the modern museum. We have become so reliant on our modern ideas of what is necessary to teach (i.e. technological tools), that we have lost sight of the origins from which we draw our knowledge. I am thinking in particular of the American Indian museum. When I went there last week, I had the expectation that I would experience an artifact-heavy museum, as my perception of Indian culture is based on my memories of objects like arrow heads and corn husk dolls. Instead, I found that I could take a virtual tour, guided by my finger on a touch sensitive computer screen, and see objects not even on display in the museum.

            I learn from examination and close personal study. I want to see an object from all sides, or as is the case of Prown, read about it from all sides. I want to feel the texture of a thing with my eyes and draw conclusions based on my observations. In short, I would rather be presented with an object than bombarded by a screen. I am so excited to see Mt. Vernon, because the house museum is the one place left to the museum world where material culture is regarded with as much respect and space as a work of fine art. In this traditional setting, no curator feels the need to over explain or over digitize. The object is simply waiting to express itself and speak to each viewer in a different way.

Football and Chai: The American Passtimes

I know I already did a blog today, but this is just too good. I just went into the kitchen where my uncle John was making tea. He said (and I quote), "I was so disappointed that the Antique Road show was canceled that I decided to make some chai and watch the football game." He is a man of many interests. As Don and Erve say, if he weren't so clearly happily married, they would wonder.

30-Second-Year-Old Me and the Double Blogger

So every Friday, my Smith class meets at a different museum (not necessarily a Smithsonian) for our course on museums and technology. Each week, a different museum official talks to us about a certain aspect of the modern museum, for which we are required to prepare be reading some short assigned material and writing a journal entry. I'm sorry if I've said all this in a previous post, but I can't be bothered to go back and reread my own drivel. I find that if I read my written down thoughts afterwards, I just judge myself and than feel stupid for writing it and edit it out. Seriously, the me of 30 seconds ago was totally immature. The beginning of this paragraph is probably completely asinine, but if I deleted it, where, dear reader, would be the fun for you? Anyway... what I was whitely going to say, was that you know you've found a chosen field of study when you're assigned the same reading 3 different times by 3 different professors. Also, you should get a tip off when the names for all of your semester's classes begin with Material Culture of... or blank of New England. So basically what I'm trying to say is, I've read this article by Jules David Prown about this pewter coffee pot multiple times. On the up side, after reading it, I get to go on a field trip to Mt. Vernon.
And now it is time for shameless self promotion. Really, I feel absolutely no shame. Ever. (If you don't believe me, please refer to the post where I shameless describe an incident having to do with my side fat). I am a double blogger! My other blog is actually my final project for my Smithsonian internship, and technically, I view it more as a website. It is far more serious than this and has required far more effort and stress than this most wonderful blog where I simply word vomit whatever slips off my fingers onto the keyboard. Because it is serious, I would love it if as many people as possible read it before I allow Smith to see it. I am notoriously bad at spelling, so if anyone would like to read it for minor errors (as well as for their own edification and enjoyment) it would be much appreciated. Also, although it is tempting, I know, please refrain from commenting on the posts unless you are making a change suggestion, as I am trying to make it as professional and website-like as possible. But don't worry, I can delete any comments. It is MY blog after all. It's not yours so you shouldn't get to write on it. Get your own blog. GOD. Here's the link. American Song: Tunes of Protest

Cat Nap

My uncle John looked into the TV room the other day, took one last disgusted look at the decrepit, stained couch and announced that he was going to Ikea to get a new one. I can not begin to describe the golden bubble of joy that in that moment began to fill me at the though of never ever again sitting on that couch. It was dark blue long ago, but has now become a dirty brownish color from the countless throw up stains, mud, food, blood, snot, fart fumes, and other gross things that 3 small boys and generations of cats can do to a couch. The new couch is bright red and squishy, comes with a matching chair, and is, as of this second, grossness free. We'll see how long that lasts. In an attempt to dissuade the cats from clawing the pristine arms of the couch, John bought one of those scratchy cardboard floor pallet things that you sprinkle with cat nip. Pete, the kitten, ate so much of the cat nip that he passed out on top of the scratchy thing in a drug-induced stupor from which he has yet to fully recover.

Sara/h all 'round

I'm in the Falls Church library writing a paper on radical lace and subversive knitting (well clearly, I WAS writing a paper, as I am now procrastinating by doing this), and I just had to stop and write about a conversation I had with my great aunt Sara. Sara is my paternal grandfather Isa's older sister, and today is her 100th birthday. She is an amazing person, as is her ever light hearted and wonderful husband Lou. Neither of them can hear a thing, which makes phone conversations challenging, but they are completely mentally sharp and truly happy to be alive. While the men on both sides of my family tend to die young of strange forms of cancer and various heart conditions, the women seem to go on forever. This gives me great hope for my own longevity, despite my growing fear of becoming senile and decrepit. As a twenty-year old I often fear that I am losing my mind, so what will I be like at the ripe old age of a century? By the way, Mom, Sara remarked to me how shocking it was to be informed that she was a century old. She had never though of it quite like that. My dad was really remarkable about remembering to call people on special occasions, and Sara said how wonderful it was to hear from the two Galper women on a day when she surely would have heard from him. I am feeling very Galper proud today.

My Father Would be Proud

After extensive research into protest music of the United States and leftist ideas of class and labor structure, I have decided that Communism was a pretty darn cool thing and that we should give it another go. If that fails, we can abandon class equality and develop an elite ruling social echelon of grass roots folk singers with the absolute and dictatorial rulership going of course to the almighty Pete Seeger. I mean honestly, who wouldn't want to be dictated to be Pete Seeger? He knows who the land belongs to (you and me; so no more fighting about borders and property lines), he has a hammer (which he hammers in the morning for you early risers), and to top it off, it is rumored that he has in his possession a golden thread and assuming that there's more where that came from, we'll all be rich and flashily dressed. Get out and listen to some Seeger, people! Then this will all seem funnier, I promise.

Fairies and Jesus Make Magic in Falls Church

I just spent the evening a few houses down at the spacious and impeccably decorated home of the beloved Don and Erve, surrogate parents to the Abruzzi children and owners of the Providence Town joint "The Burger Queen" (from which I have a TRUELY great tee-shirt. I ate a ton of amazing Abruzzi pizza and drank a substantial amount of Erve's vegan coffee martinis. Over the course of the evening, I was informed that it was only fair to mistake me for a lesbian because of the ridiculous amount of plaid that I wear and the fact that I drive a green Subaru and also go to Smith. I then had an argument with Erve (really, of all the gayest people to have this argument with) about how it was unfair to classify all lesbians as sporty, mean, and butch. He backed up his argument by telling a story about a woman who refused to eat one of his burgers because he had a penis. I told him that I knew several hundred lesbians thank you very much, and only a handful are as he described them. It was all in good fun, however, and the evening ended in laughter and me wanting to throw up because of all I had consumed. To top it all of, I watched several episodes of Spongebob Squarepants ("He lives in a pineapple under the sea, absorbent and yellow and porous is he!"). On a side note, John came into the TV room the other day to find me guiltily watching Spongebob by myself, unsolicited be any children. Very embarrassing.

Don and Erve are truly wonderful and should be duplicated so as to spread their love in every suburb community. As I learned tonight, they had their first date 20 years ago at a state fair, (they were set up and Erve agreed because Don is a dentist and Erve mistakenly believed that he would be loaded), and then eventually picked up and left the gay DC neighborhood of Dupont Circle (to the horror of their friends) and moved to the burbs. Erve is charismatic and loud, with a flair for the dramatic and a a good child's brand of humor. Don is quiet and massively buff, with a sweet smile and only nice things to say. Watching them together is one of the funniest things on the planet, because Don is literally horrified by everything that comes out of Erve's mouth and Erve is constantly mocking Don as if he weren't in the room. Clearly, there is deep love here. We also spent part of the evening playing with a giant, pink statue of Jesus which doubled as a magic 8 ball, but we had to hide it under the sink when the very sweet and very Catholic neighbor dropped by for dessert. All in all, an excellent Sunday. I almost feel ready for Monday, even if my feet sadly do not.

Margaret, Mother of God (and Gabby)

Well, it's a normal night in the Abruzzi household. Jake is "practicing" his trumpet, Gabby's mother is visiting, and Gus has a shiner on his left eye that would make a pro wrestler cringe. Gabby's mother or "gross mommy" as the kids call her, is the ultimate Swiss female nightmare. She is seemingly pleasant and sweet, but after you spend more than a minute with her, you begin to notice the extreme passive aggressivety. She also has the true European grandma thing down. As you wave off an eighth helping of egg salad (OMG I do NOT eat egg salad) she widens her overly made up eyes and says in horror, "You do not like my cooking?" I mean what are you supposed to say? "No no, I like it really, it's just that if I eat it I might explode and then black out and face plant into the bacon and cheese encrusted chicken which, no, I won't eat because I am a vegetarian." To which she might reply, "What do you mean you are a vegetarian? Have some salami role instead" Then there are her political views, which are narrow at their widest. She doesn't like homosexuality, but Don and Erv who live down the street are fine because they are "nice people." The difference between them and every other gay person in the world? Only Margaret seems to know. Anyway, as usual, I left the dinner table stuffed to bursting and completely drunk on a wine and rum mixture that tastes like sangria but kicks like Riddle punch. (hey mom).
And then there's the black eye. Apparently, Gus was running forward, but looking backward when he was attacked by a vicious and mal-intentioned pole. His eye is literally magenta. I keep thinking he's wearing makeup. This happened while I was in Mass. for Halloween and apparently in my absence, Symon took great pleasure in mocking him. Symon is gone home to England. Bad, because I no longer have a late night TV and beer cohort, good, because I will longer stay up late at night watching TV and drinking beer.
Ah Halloween. I emerged from the fray with only a sprained ankle (obtained whilst cavorting across the Hampshire college lawn at 1 in the morning) and the princess dress on my back. It was a great night and I had a wonderful time in the arms and laps of my fellow Smithies. We danced, we sang, we ate, and we made merry and it was awesome. It was also a little surreal being in Northampton and in my house with all these new people I don't know. It's strange to think that while I have a great sense of entitlement to Lawrence and consider it more mine than it is the first year's, they look at me and wonder who that stranger is in their house. I'll show them when I come back for my senior year of triumph. Oh yes, it shall be epic. And with that, I shall leave you, for I have gotten a grand total of six hours of sleep in the last two days and my eyeballs are beginning to dry out and stick to my eye lids when I blink.

Fun's Over

Maintenance has been fussing with the lights in the archives so that they will turn on when you walk under them. Unfortunately, they now refuse to turn off. No more arm waiving. Sorry folks.

Blonds Have More Fun Because They Never Realize When Bad Shit Happens

I realize that I speak a lot about the restaurant, but very little about my internship, which is why I'm here in the first place. Also, I have yet to describe my lunch crew, who make up an integral and highly pleasurable part of my day.
So I just had a minor academic break down (you know, oh my God what am I doing here, I'm not learning anything, I hate my advisor, I miss school, etc). If you know me well, you will see a pattern of this in my academic life. Academic break down number one was when I decided that everything I had done in school until that point was wrong and that I was going to be an American Studies major. Academic break down number two was when I couldn't find a textile arts program anywhere in the WORLD (literally) that I liked until I discovered the University of Hawaii. And now here we are at academic break down number three. But it's OK, I spoke to my Smith/Smithsonian advisor, and she has helped me put everything to rights. I have tentatively decided on a project for this semester, which I believe will have something to do with women's rights and American labor songs. Original huh? I bet you're thinking, "Wow, Sarah has never done ANY sort of project like THAT before". Anyway, I have a meeting with the head reference librarian of folk collections at the Library of Congress tomorrow morning to discuss my project. Seriously, how cool is that? I have a MEETING at the library of CONGRESS.
So lunch. Every day at precisely 11:54, I get up from my table, remove my white gloves, grab my soup from the kitchen and book it over to the Air and Space museum where two other Smith interns, Jess and Megan work. We meet in the staff eating space on the third floor with Vickie, another non-Smith intern, and an actual paid employee, Ross. We then sit around for an hour and laugh hysterically. Yesterday, Megan's water bottle exploded all over me and I couldn't speak for laughing for at least two minutes. It is an excellent way to break the monotony of the archives. Then Ross puts in his daily pitch for me to mention his name to my boss so he can get an internship in the folkways collection in 2 weeks when his job at Air and Space ends. I find it very hard to take Ross seriously, partially because his name it Ross which reminds me of Friends, and also because he looks like the main character in Dawson's Creek. To be clear, however, where the guy from the TV show looks like a gnome, Ross is actually very attractive and not a complete idiot. Vickie is also absolutely wonderful and thinks everything I say is funny, which in turn makes me laugh every time she laughs at me.
Lastly, I have dyed my hair a reddish blond color, so now ever time I do something stupid (which is often) Symon mocks me for being blond. I guess I should be amazed that he even noticed I dyed it. He is one of those incredibly average boys who notices absolutely nothing. I hope his girlfriend has lost a ton of weight or gotten some sort of body piercing, and that he doesn't notice for weeks after he gets off the plane in England.
I also feel that my very clever blog entry title describes my personality perfectly.

Rainbows!!!

This morning, I had this brief thought that I had so much to write about and I would do a blog entry. Now, however, I cannot remember what all of that stuff was, so we'll just go with the flow.
Issue number one that I would like to present, is that of the white shirt fiasco. I don't do white shirts. They do not like me. I do not like them. We are not friends. For a while, it all seems to be going smoothly, but than something always goes wrong and the relationship turns sour. For example (mom, I'm sorry) I got soy sauce all down the front of a shirt and I needed the stain out quickly so I just put bleach on it. Not cool. Not only did I then asphyxiate in my own fumes for the next several hours, but the shirt also turned a lovely shade of brown when I ironed it. Shirt number 2 got a red sock mixed in with the load, and well... clearly, you can guess where I'm going with this. The red sock shirt then also got a glass of wine down one sleeve. I just got 2 new shirts so we'll see how long they last.
Last night at the restaurant, Justin (the philosophy major waiter whom I dearly love) decided it would be fun if we had a coffee contest. If you don't know, a coffee contest has no looser. Everyone wins. It is a great game. By the time I got home, the shakes had stopped, but Symon said that if I didn't calm down, he would kick me off the couch. Then he touched me with his cold and very smelly feet. These were all very compelling reasons for me to go get a beer. Then we watched the Jackass movie until 3 in the mourning. I'll get more sleep after he leaves on the 29th, but I will also have no one to watch crappy TV with at 3 in the morning.
The last thing I can think of is the gay march. There was a massive march in DC today, to which dearest Roshanna came from Smith. I have never see so many rainbows. It was powerful and overwhelming and truly inspiring. I don't understand how anyone can be hateful to such a peace-loving and understanding community.

The Ashes of Atrocity

A vary wise Rabbi once said that "You have to look hard to find the sparks of divinity in the ashes of atrocity."  This morning at the most massive garage sale ever, I looked through the ashes, piles of ashes, but was unable to find anything particularly divine. I found some mildly entertaining things, but nothing descended from Olympus or anything. Oh well. A few of you dear readers have just had the beginnings of your Christmas presents acquired. The rest of the Christmas shopping will happen over Halloween when I go to Northampton, the mecca of holiday purchasing.

I guess you could call the season here Fall, but it's just not the same. Right now, it's like 78 degrees and all the trees are still bright green. No fun at all. Where's the brisk wind, the orange foliage, the smell of dirt, the pumpkins? I have a Vermont fall desk top picture, so every time I open my computer, I feel closer to home.

Also, another thing to make me feel far from home, there are Republicans here. I know, scary right? I mean, there are like 5 at Smith, but they're pretty under the radar, so basically, I've never met one. They walk and talk and it's a little terrifying. I saw someone with a "Friends don't let friends vote Democrat" tee-shirt the other day. I thought the saying went the other way. Also, Nobama is very popular. Who are these people? We should put them in Tartarus (look it up) where all the other ashes belong.

Sarah Galper: Burglar at Large

So last night, I walked home from the restaurant in the pouring rain at midnight. I love taking the metro home in the middle of night (no it's not creepy) and then walking home (even though my feet always hurt from working). I had an umbrella, but I was totally hyper from work and I felt like getting wet, so by the time I got to the house, I was completely soaked. I had had a great night. There was a really fab wedding party who listened to the Grateful Dead in the party room all night, and there was a really sweet couple having their 50th wedding anniversary. It was the night of love. Then I had all these great conversations with my two favorite buss boys, Josue and Edgar. Then to top it all off, I sat at the bar after all the people had left, with Christopher the head chef (the one who swears) and talked about my really hot rain-boots with the skulls and roses.

Also, I thought it was only my high-school friends who liked to poke me and sit on me. Then I thought, oh, you know Smith and Village Harmony, of course they like to do it too. But NO. Apparent it's EVERYONE. Yeves, the french waiter who reminds me of my father but with a snobby french accent, loves to poke me in the side, sneakily on the go in the middle of the dining room floor so I can't say anything. Edgar sat on me half way through the evening and refused to get up. And then, when I was walking to the metro with Josue, Edgar snuck up behind me and bear hugged me around the middle. Needless to say, I screamed, and everyone on the street probably thought I was being molested.

So then, I get home, it's midnight, and I'm VERY wet and a little cold and the door is locked. It is so ridiculous that I have to laugh. Of course, Symon, who is usually up until 1, is apparently asleep and when I call John's cell in an attempt to NOT wake up the entire house, I hear it ring and then see it through the window next to the stove. OK. Now what? I know that there is probably a spare key, but I don't know where. SO. I very ingeniously decide to break in. I simply lifted the screen next to the door, pried open the window, stuck my freakishly long arm through the window, and undid the dead-bolt. Tada! This morning, John showed me the spare key.

I Am Your Father

So here I am, peacefully sitting in my room and hemming Jakes soccer uniform, when I hear "Surrender!" and Gus slides on his back through the door of my room. I could only see his head (the rest of him was still  in the hall). He lay there stunned for a second, launched himself up, and ran yelling out again. Also, "surrender" was said in the voice of Darth Vader. The kids got this big Darth Vader helmet at a garage sale this morning, and not only does it say things, heavy breathing and all, but it also transforms your voice so you can say whatever you want. Oh joy.

21!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TANYA!!!
If you know Tanya, wish her a happy 21st birthday today. I just realized I could do some serious damage on this blog. Hmmmm... I wonder who's secrets I should tell next?

Laughter is the Key to... Insanity?

I was in the archives at work a few minutes ago, and I made myself laugh. This was not a little laugh. This was a MONSTER laugh. The lights in the archives are supposedly movement sensitive and are meant to turn on when you walk under them, but that doesn't actually happen. So there I am in the archives, running up and down the pitch dark allies between the acid free boxes and waiving my arms around my head to activate the lights. Obviously this struck me as highly entertaining (you would have to be a stone not to be amused by this) and so I started laughing. Then I was running around in the stacks, waiving my arms around, AND laughing hysterically. I wonder if the archive walls are sound proof? I really hope so.

What Are All These People Doing Here? Why Don't They Just Go Home?

So I've decided that it is time to do a people study. This will be much like a child study. For those of you who are not part of the world of Waldorf, this is simply a very detailed look at a single child in a class. I have met some very interesting people, and you deserve to know them too. Let us start at home. My aunt Gabby is amazing. She can be crabby, but she is allowed because she is super mom. She has three boys who she manages to get out the door every morning, she makes massive quantities of excellent food, and she even has time to work out.  She is insanely skinny and endlessly energetic. She LOVES Project Run way. My uncle John is basically my mother in male form and with a greater appreciation of organized sports and weapons of mass destruction. This is not to say that mom doesn't appreciate team sports, but John takes it to the next level. He looks like my mother, he talks like my mother, and he shares her deep love for antiques and stain removal techniques. He is also a wonderful artist and can build almost anything. His kids have the most amazing halloween costumes. He goes to multiple kid sports every weekend, removes the stains from those sports, makes great food, works a long and dull job, and picks me up at all hours of the night when I'm done work at the restaurant. Basically, he rocks my socks. He also loves Project Runway. Then there are the kids. Jake is the oldest and just started the sixth grade. He is the moody one and the most dedicated to athletics. He hates doing his reading homework and he "plays" the trumpet. Gus is in 4th grade. He is a soccer goalie and every morning, 5 more foods disappear from his diet. The 2 things that he can always be counted upon to eat are pepper and pickles. He is like a rock. This kid falls off things and onto things constantly, and blood or no, he rises with a smile. And then there is Hans. He is the baby and just started first grade. He's like mini John, and he's a total momma's boy. He dances, sings, and laughs constantly and absolutely nothing can bring him down. He will eat any food, try any activity, and make friends with anyone. He loves Spongebob Squarepants and army history. There's a poster in his room (which is my room right now) entitled Armored Vehicles Past to Present. His favorite channel on TV is the military history channel. The best part about the kids is that they all have serious speech impediments, so understanding them is truly an art form. Jake is sick right now and refuses to use actual words, relying instead on a sort of pathetic grunting language, making him exponentially more challenging to comprehend.

And last but not least in the Abruzzi household is Symon, although he isn't actually an Abruzzi. Come to think of it, I have no idea what his last name is. I need to clear some things up about Symon. As I was originally writing this only for my mom and she already knew who he was, I didn't explain him. This has, I'm sure, resulted in many people wondering who this inappropriate young man discussing tits and nobs with Sarah is. This is Symon's second summer in the US teaching soccer to little kids. He's English, but he spends a few months a year traveling the US, teaching soccer, and staying with host families. The Abruzzis are his favorite. Except for Jake who drives him absolutely insane. And sorry all who have dirty minds, but despite the fact that he is young, mildly attractive, and has a cute British accent, we are not secretly and passionately in love.He says "nuffink" instead of "nothing," will not eat tofu, and apparently nowhere in the United States can you find "proper baked beans" whatever those are.

I'm running out of steam, but I'll do a quick Willow restaurant rundown. Kevin is the uptight but very sweet manager. Then there's the boss ladies husband who is massively fat and mean and loves to fire people. There are a plethora of totally pleasant blond waitresses as well as one extremely witchy one. There is a male waiter, Justin, who's in grad school for philosophy and who I help with his German homework. Peter. Peter is something else. He's completely obnoxious and know it all but in that way that you can't help but be amused by. Apparently he also snorts coke in the bathroom which would account for his manic behavior. The Hispanic guys are my favorites. Flafia is very sweet but has terrible English so I'm constantly trying to think up different ways of saying things to her. Richard is wonderful and makes racist jokes. Josue makes fun of me and carries dishes when they're too heavy for me. There are others, all wonderful and sweet and hard-working. None of them understand how it is that I could be a vegetarian as well as not speak ANY Spanish. Oh, I almost forgot Christopher. I think he's the head chef. He is buff and heavily tattooed and you can hear him swearing from all the way out on the patio. This evening, he chest-bumped me so hard the wind got knocked out of my lungs. And of course, the pastry chef, who I want to put in my pocket and take home with me to install in my kitchen.

Saranator, the Roller Derby Queen

I have just completed my first 10 minutes on rollerblades, and although not exactly graceful, my short stint did not result in any blood loss or long-lasting emotional damage. I feel that all things considered, the whole process was a success. It was also not made any easier by the fact that Jake was chasing me with a remote control car and that Hans was running around a stabbing me with a wooden sword. It all got better after I got the sword away from Hans and started using it as a sort of crutch to slow down. I now know that the stopper does not actually stop you, it just slows you a bit. Let’s just say that it was a good thing my car was in the way. Going up hill was taxing, but also much less frightening. Gabby did it with me and she was much more talented. If I were a Derby Dame, I would look like this…

I'm Like the Wind

So the one day I decide to read the paper on the train, I find out that Patrick Swayze died. It totally ruined my morning and I teared up right there on the metro. The guy next to me probably thought I was insane. I’ve had She’s Like the Wind stuck in my head all day, and every time it runs through my mind I see him naked in a lake with Jennifer Grey. I also learned that the Iraqi reporter who chucked his shoe at Bush was released from prison and that Eddy Izard ran a marathon with an ice-cream truck accompanying him that played the theme song to Chariots of Fire. Ah the useful things you learn from reading the paper.

Then I spent all day organizing Monitor record covers and putting them in folders with pretty labels. I also got to meet the son and daughter-in-law of Moses Asch, the man who recorded all of the Folkways albums. I then crammed in a fast dinner and a lot of coffee before booking it across the universe to Willow Restaurant where I was trained and thrown onto the dining room floor. My feet hurt. My back hurts. My right ring finger hurts. My brain hurts. I am so tired and I need to finish my homework, take a shower, and make my lunch for tomorrow. Why am I writing this?

While frantically running around with bread rolls and trying to understand the completely nonsensical table numbering system, I met some really nice people. Not the patrons, they pretty much all sucked, especially the men having a business meeting, but the other workers were great. I am the only white busser who doesn’t speak Spanish as a first language, but that’s not going to stop me. I love all the other bussers, who are all Hispanic, especially Richard who took care of me all evening, and the waiters are also great. They’re all young guys with great senses of humor. The best part is seeing the two faces of everyone. There’s the very polite I’m-talking-to-a-customer face, and than when they go back into the kitchen it’s all “Can you believe that fucker wanted to change tables three times?” Highly entertaining. The guys are all very polite to me and ask lots of questions. The first question Peter asked me was if I had a boyfriend. This is going to be great. I can tell.

Those Dirty, Dirty Candymen

I love watching people. The way they walk, the way they stand, what they do with their hands when they talk or sit quietly, how they act in the metro, what they do when they pass me on the sidewalk, it’s all fascinating. Today, I watched a man under the Hirshhorn as he ate his lunch and watched the fountain go up and down. At one point, he took of his leather work shoes and sat wiggling his toes for a minute before getting up. I watched another man walk from the metro. He fully extended each leg before setting it down with no give to his step at all. He looked like he didn’t have knee joints and to top it off, he didn’t swing his arms.

I love men in suits. They all look the same so they’re great fun to make up stories about. The jumping off point is whether or not they’re wearing a ring, then how old they are, etc. Sometimes they have funny, colored socks or an interesting belt buckle, which makes for more of a base for the story, but mostly they all blend together unless you really pay attention. The metro is the best place for people watching. Lots of men in suits.

I did more cataloguing today. More of the same; fixing other people’s mistakes. I’m almost done though, and then I guess I’ll move on to something else. We also had an office meeting with everyone from the Folk Life collection. It really is the most interesting mixture of people. It’s funny. At the Shelburne Museum, people kept telling me that if I thought the bureaucratic shit and the interdepartmental cattiness were bad, I should just wait until I got to a big institution like the Smithsonian. They were SO wrong. I have come to the conclusion that the Shelburne Museum is just fucked, and that any issues they might have are solely their own and are entirely their fault. The Smithsonian is a completely professional environment and everyone seems to genuinely like one another. Each department is interested in the doings of everyone else, and no one back stabs or  belittles. People are kind and inclusive and understand the equal importance of everybody else. In contrast to Shelburne, where each department thinks it’s the most important and the most worthy of attention, the Smithsonian understands its role in society as a whole and the integral part that the cohesiveness of what is essentially a business plays in keeping it all together and working.

Part of the meeting was spent in laughing about “The Desk.” This is not just any desk. This is the American Idol desk. Since Paula Abdul, one of the judges, has resigned from the show, they needed a smaller desk. Hmmm… what to do with the old desk? Aha! The Smithsonian will want it because they like to collect pieces of American culture and stuff! Who knows, maybe someday it will be art. So basically, the desk (which of course nobody wanted) got passed around like a hot potato, and eventually landed in the folk life collection. Because it speaks to the history and struggle of our nation through material culture? So then, the director of the collection had to do a press release stating the reasons why we would want the desk to make it sound like we had a choice in the matter and to save face. Anyway, now the desk is on display in the castle where stupid Americans come and take pictures of it. Oh, it also has a neon sign. Yes it does. Personally, I think the archives should get it. The table we have for processing papers and artwork isn’t big enough and that desk is substantial.

Also, in reference to my very clever title, I had a conversation with Jeff Place, my temporary and very cool advisor who knows everything about every song ever, about all of the different versions of Candyman. Apparently there are actually two completely different Candyman songs and each of them in turn has been covered zillions of times. Don’t stand close to the candyman, he’ll leave a stick of candy in your hand, he’s the candyman… that sick of candy don’t melt away, it just gets better so the ladies say, say, he’s the candyman…

My Body is Their Wonderland

I have just been permanently crippled by an army man with a bayonet. I didn’t even see him coming. They’re very sneaky and like to hide in the pattern of the carpet. Fucking army men. I bet Hans could tell me what kind of bayonet it was too. I also found one in my bed the other day. WHY WAS THERE AN ARMY MAN IN MY BED? My bed is clearly not the sacred space I thought it was.

After I finished writing last night, the party went on and on. Symon and I were watching Malcolm in the Middle at 1 in the morning and during the commercials he was switching to this really stupid British talk show on BBC America. The guy was interviewing this chef who Gabby loves and Symon hates. Symon called him a knob, so I asked him what a knob was. It is a penis. We then had a superbly immature conversation about the cultural differences in human anatomical slang. He says tit, I say boob; knob, penis, und so weiter, und so fort.

I slept in a little today, but was awoken at 9 by Jake practicing the theme to the Pink Panther on his trumpet and the sounds of war between Hans’s tanks and the neighbor kid’s armored motor boats. I tried to go back to sleep, but unsurprisingly was not successful. I had breakfast and did a pile of mending for Gabby (the first of many such piles I’m sure), before heading off to Arlington for a lunch date with the Smithsonian and government Smith interns. I love being with Smithies. When it’s just the 9 of us Smithsonian people, the Smith vibe doesn’t really come out and I find myself almost forgetting that we all go to the same school. But when there are 20 or so of us, it’s a different story. I was trying earlier to put a finger on exactly what it is that makes a group of Smith women so different. I mean, there are the obvious reasons like that we’re all fairly intelligent, liberal, and mostly interested in the same things. Then there’s the fact that a good portion of the interns are gay, but I don’t think that’s it either. We have a certain crassness, rudeness almost, but also an affectionate sort of self deprecation. We’re the kind of group that I would be scared to approach if I weren’t already a part of it.

Anyway, I have skipped the most interesting part of my day. I don’t know what it is, but I feel like a piece of meat here. I get leered at, followed, groped, or in some way hit on, on what is becoming a regular basis. Either I have obtained some new qualities that I am hitherto unaware of, or DC men are of a different breed. Or maybe it’s because I’ve spent the majority of my life in Vermont (the nicest, safest place on earth) and at a women’s college. Incident number one was on rout 95 on the way to Virginia, when this guy in a black SUV stalked me for almost 2 hours. He would pull up to one side of me and wave his fingers at me to role my window down and at one point I think he actually wanted me to pull over. At any rate, after about 10 minutes, I completely ignored him and eventually he went away. In retrospect, I really wish I’d given him the finger or called 911. Not only was he harassing me, but he was also compromising not only my driving safety, but his as well.

Incident number 2 was the Indian guy in his mid 20s who sat down next to me in a virtually empty metro car on my first ever trip into DC. He proceeded to grill me on how old I was, what I was doing in DC, and other not-his-business types of things. I was careful not to give him any specific information like where I live or anything, but I continually dread that I’ll meet him on the metro again. The best part of this encounter was when he reached over and grabbed my side fat. MY SIDE FAT! I mean, that is MY side fat. NOT his side fat, and definitely not his side fat to GRAB. I understand that there were some major cultural differences in this exchange, and that he was actually trying to compliment me when he told me that I would be much prettier if I was just a little bit fatter. HA. Then he said that I shouldn’t wear jeans and that women should wear very short skirts (he demonstrated how short by grabbing (again with the grabbing) my thigh). Then I said that I was not in the habit of dressing like a slut and that, no, he was not allowed to touch my thigh or any other part of my body. He gave me a lovely hug before he got off the metro.

And then there was Brendan. Ah, Brendan. To validate that this keeps happening to me, my friend Jess (unbeknownst to me) was standing across the street at the time and witnessed the entire exchange. I was walking innocently through Arlington on my way to my lunch thing when I heard yelling. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from and figured it wasn’t directed at me so I kept walking. A minute later, this 30 something year old guy wearing no shoes comes running across the parking lot to my left and from maybe 30 feet away says that he was the one who had yelled before and that I must not have heard him. Apparently, he had seen the grungy paint covered cut offs I was wearing and had given a shout out because he was a painter too. Yay for him. I mean really, what does one say to this. His friend had said why not go talk to this girl so off he went. What’s your name, how can I contact you, can I see you again, what’s your number, my name is Brendan, etc. I was off to see Smithies. I was sick of being hit on. I was not very nice. He was parked in a no parking zone. The end.

Awake, Asleep, At Home, Abroad

Today was the first day of my seminar, which focuses on the changing views on and perceptions about technology in the modern museum. When I heard about this topic, I was less than thrilled, but I think it will turn out to be very interesting, and also much broader in range than it seems. But more on that later. The class doesn’t begin until 2, which means I have to leave home at 12:45. I slept till 9, ate breakfast, watched TV, and slummed around before heading off to the blissfully empty metro station. The nice thing about the station when it’s not rush hour is that the fare is cheaper and you are guaranteed a seat. The not so nice thing is that the trains take forever to come round. Is it just me, or am I starting to sound like a Brit? I think I’m spending too much time with Symon (yes, that is how he spells it). Today at dinner, I learned that in England sweat pants are called tracky bottoms. I guess that makes sense because if you factor in the fact that pants are underwear, sweat pants take on a new and wholly unpleasant meaning.

Then off I went to my class, which is based out of this huge building on 9^th and H right next to China town. Class was pretty interesting. Every week we will go to a different museum and be lectured to by a different Smithsonian person. Today we were spoken to by the curator of the National Portrait Gallery. He has the biggest nose I have ever seen and I was sitting right next to him so I had a perfect profile view for 2 wonderful hours. It’s not that the whole thing is big; his nostrils were normally sized, but the actual tip of the thing was like a small island in the middle of his face. Between that and the fact that our professor, Dorothy Moss, has absolutely no muscle movement in her forehead, it was preparing to be a very entertaining 2 hours.

He talked about Peale, the first American to really look at the museum as something to better human beings and show the wonders of the natural world to people who might not necessarily get to see them. His was a portrait gallery and natural history museum which occupied the second floor of the third oldest federal building in Philadelphia. He was a fairly progressive man, and allowed women and children to enter his sacred museum space in the late 18 and early 1900s, when such things were not considered common. He was, however, kind of self obsessed (he was an artist himself and created 17 self portraits in his life time) and also of the firm opinion that man was the highest life form and must therefore look down on the rest of creation. His grand plan was to miniaturize the entire world and fit it into his gallery. One cool thing that he did do, was to excavate and display the first 2 Mastodons ever. Yay him.

On the way home, I stopped in China town and got myself some pastries (of course), and then I dashed back for diner. John and Gabby, through some complex web of relationships and friends, have this journalist who comes every few months and does a blurb on their family for the Viennese paper as an example of a typical American family. I find this very amusing, because the Abruzzis are anything but typical. To prove my point, we had some very excellent middle eastern kebabs with flat bread and tsastiki for dinner. The journalist brought his 19 year old daughter Miriam with him this time, and they have been doing a sort of grand tour of America. They’ve covered a very impressive chunk of the US and tomorrow they’re off to NYC. We had a great time, drank a tone of wine, and laughed hysterically. A good night.

Office Days: The Beginning of the End

Day one was overwhelming and packed with information. Everyone introduced themselves and I feel like I may have met the entirety of the Smithsonian Institution’s staff. The Folk Life collection is an entire floor of a massive office building and appears to contain every artifact from the collection that there is no room to display in a museum. Apparently, our office is known as “the black hole.” Things from all over the world are piled in the hallways and on every available surface, the walls are hung with colorful tapestries and row after row of CDs, and the people who walk the halls wear bright clothes and hail from all over the world. Then, the doors to the archives. You enter and silence falls. This is not a dead silence, but rather a quiet filled with the possibility of a staticy Leadbelly or Pete Seeger recording. The walls are covered with shelving, which are in turn filled with books about every kind of music imaginable, and LPs; oh, the LPs. They cover everything from American Jazz and Scandinavian folk songs, to the sound of the human voice after the uvula has been removed. 

Moses Ash, known through the office due to a very repetitive documentary as “a stubborn man,” thought that any sound created by any means was worth recording and saving. Also, as stipulated in his will and implemented during his lifetime, everyone of the two-thousand-one-hundred-something albums he recorded remain in circulation and available to the public. Yes, this includes the sound of the human voice after the uvula has been removed. He continued to record the sounds of the world until his death in 1985. (?)

So what, you may ask, have I been doing in this paradise of paper and vinyl? Well… The album covers and all of the paper work that go along with them are in these awful brown and definitely NOT acid free envelopes called “Job Bags,” which are stacked haphazardly in shelving in the archives. Not all of them are even there, however. A good portion of them are in storage in Maryland, and hopefully will not be brought over in my stint as an intern. I’m stressed out with the ones we already have, so I think the others might push me over the edge. I would be the shortest lived intern in all Smithsonian Institution intern history.

So Moses Ash was an extremely organized man, and he gave each of his albums a number. They are distinguished by which thousand they’re in. For example, I’ve been going through a box of slicks (the prints of the covers that get glued to the album covers), which are all from the 2000s. Because of the common numbers, they are all relatively similar; Pete Seeger, Leadbelly, Ginny Hawker, etc. Who knows what the 3000s will hold. The slicks were in random order in (thank GOD) an acid free box, so I spent hours going through them and putting them into numerical order while also creating a spread sheet with all of their numbers so that when I was done I would know what was in the box. The reason I needed these in order is because I will now be finding their corresponding Job Bags with all the original artwork, reuniting them, and then putting the whole shebang in a nice acid free box, giving it a lovely label, and putting it on a pristine shelf where it will then be available for anyone to find. The numbers on the boxes will say which thousand the box contains, the number of the box within that thousand, and then the numbers of the Job Bags in the box. For example: 2000-2 2513-2842.

Not all of my life will be spent in the archives, however. Today I went to a symposium on film and proper archival procedures. I learned about video and sound recording history and how to conserve it so that it will be available for generations to come. One of the speakers, George Blood, was showing us the difference between shellac and vinyl. As a demo, he snapped the shellac record over his knee and the whole crowd (all of them conservators and archivists) gasped and jerked back in their seats. Best moment ever.