Thoughts of a Labor Day Weekend (12 cents)

Friday evening: delicious halibut dinner at home.

Saturday: the Paul Klee exhibit at the Phillips. The exhibit is quite extensive, and is titled "Klee in America". That's because it concentrates on the 100 or more Klee paintings in the United States. The signage unfortunately concentrated more on provenance (how that particular painting got from there to here: Klee was never in America), rather than what it was supposed to signify. How to describe the intricate, mainly line drawings? One of his American angels described it best: caricature, mysticism, and a wonderful sense of color. My wife read that, as a young man, he was a househusband. Perhaps this explains much of the childlike nature of much of his work. A few of the works are in the Phillips collection: One called "Arab Song" and one "Young Moe"; they may be the two best known works in the show. The show is about to end; the gift shop has sold out of soft cover catalogs.

Next to the Klee exhibit, there is an exhibit of children's art (American and Japanese) and a couple of works done by Klee and by Picasso when they were children. Some of this work, by very young children, is exceptional. My own artistic ability, I am happy to say, is about on a par with the five year old Klee.

We then wandered the remainder of the museum, which is extremely nice, and comfortable, as they do not overload the walls with works of art, but give each one a little breathing room. Mainly impressionist and later, we should go back more often. (But, of course, it costs)

Saturday evening: Baseball. We saw the Nats beat the Diamondbacks 5-3 in the second game of a day-night double header. The afternoon game had been postponed from a rained out Friday. The crowd was fairly spare. We liked our new center fielder, Nook Logan, who snagged a fly ball from nowhere (he did the same thing, but even more spectacularly on Sunday)

Sunday: We drove to Baltimore to see the Baltimore Antiques Show. Over 500 exhibitors. It only lasts three days. Everything for sale is of the highest quality, and priced more than accordingly. Can it be worth it to all these vendors to pack up, come, unpack, and leave for just three days? We are talking about some people with furniture; others with large amounts of crystal, glassware, china, and so forth? We bought nothing. What could we possibly need? But it was very interesting to walk around.

Sunday evening: Dinner in Little Italyin Baltimore. La Tavola. We each had opa, a Hawaiian fish, and a salad. It was not cheap, but quite good. The restaurant is very nice: dressy casual. The restaurant is dressy; the customers are casual.

We then drove a bit around Fells Point and beyond, and then Federal Hill, remarking on the differences between Baltimore and Washington, and thinking we need more driving time.

Monday: it is page to stage time at the Kennedy Center, the free readings of plays to be performed over the course of the year by theaters all over town. The Theater J play is Either/Or by Thomas Keneally of Schindler's List fame. It deals with a theological student who opposes the Nazis but joins the SS to be a "witness" after he learns that his sister in law has been murdered as being a defective. He becomes not only a witness, but a reticent participant. And then the war is open. Is he guilty of anything, or was he trying to do whatever he could? It is not being performed until the spring, but I think will be good.

Monday evening: dinner at Logan Tavern. A salad salmon for me. The salad better than the salmon, but I don't think that they got fresh salmon on Labor Day.