Saturday the 17th

The Seminar—The last "organized" event of the week was a Saturday morning trip to the Newseum, which is a new museum focused on the media. An amazing place. I met my group there—most of them, at least—and spent a couple of hours walking around. I saw maybe 10% of what the Newseum has to offer, if that much.

I spent a long time in the area where they have on display the Pulitzer Prize-winning photos from all the years that the Pulitzer has been given for photography. The shots were intense, often horrifying, and for the entire time I was on the verge of tears. I'll not put any of the recognizable but brutal shots here. This one won the year of my birth—1958.

I then went to the 4-D film: "I-Witness: A 4-D Time Travel Adventure." You're all aware of the capabilities of 3-D film. Well, the fourth dimension involved here is the physical. The chairs vibrate and move with the action, which was kind of cool. My favorite part of the 4-D experience, however, was more subtle. In one scene shown at the beginning of the video below, two men from colonial Boston are on a dock at night. When this is playing in the Newseum's theater, a slight breeze is blowing in the face of the audience, making it easier for the viewer to place himself in the scene.

I made one more stop at the "G-men and Journalists" exhibit. Again, very cool.

http://www.newseum.org/news/newseum_videos/video.aspx?item=nv_IWIT080721&style=f

http://www.newseum.org/exhibits_th/fbi/video.aspx?item=fbi_exhibit&style=f

Personal time—I let the students wander off in whatever direction they chose, and I slipped past the "Arrest Bush" demonstration outside the Newseum and went to meet Linda (and Tino) and Lynne for a late lunch in Baltimore. Linda and Lynne are friends from the student tour I took through Europe in the summer of 1979.

Linda and her husband Tino picked me up at the Rockville station on the Red Line. We then drove to Lynne's place and got her. Lunch was at the Grill Art Café in the Hampden village. The food was good. I had a rather silly-looking version of huevos rancheros, but it tasted good. The company was great, and we told stories and laughed until they ran us out of the place. I'm glad that I've been able to share life with these friends for 30 years now. And I'm glad that Tino has become part of our group.

The evening was largely taken up with grading student journals and essays. I was excited about the concert at the Lincoln Memorial the next day and, of course, the Inauguration coming up on Tuesday. But by this time I'd been away from my family for a full week, and I ached to be home.