Riba Rambles:
MORE Musings of a Mental Magpie

So, we left the house at 7:30 AM -- about a half-hour after I'd hoped to leave, but since our only deadlines were self-imposed, better to leave a little late with everything taken care of than to leave things behind or undone.

AAA worked out a route for us that avoided major metropolitan areas (and thus, rush hour traffic). It took us a half-hour to get from our house to the Mass Pike, but that was the heaviest traffic of the day (aside from a few construction zones).
For anybody else interested in the route, we took the Mass Pike to Rte 84. Around Scranton, PA, we got onto 81 South and took that all the way into Virginia, where we switched to 64 East to Charlottesville. Around the time we entered West Virginia, I noticed a roadsign for "Marlowe" -- never heard of the place, but geek that I am, I wished I could stop and take a photo.

Before we left, I grabbed about a foot of our CD collection, burned some mix tapes, checked out a couple audiobooks from the library, and loaded the car with food that'd be easily accessible to the passenger, so it was really a surprisingly smooth drive. I couldn't find my markers, so my compilation CDs were unlabelled, but that just added a guessing-game component for Ian. [For the record, these were my Insanity mix, a first attempt at a Real Genius soundtrack (still missing Tonio K's "The Tuff Do What?"), and a random grabbag from the MP3s on my hard drive.]

I'll spare you some of the conversations and speculations along the drive. [Well, okay, just one. Cats and lizards have two sets of eyelids. When did this evolve out of the path towards humans and why? Trying to sleep in the car during daylight would've been much easier if we didn't have to cover our face with something to achieve sufficient dark.] We stopped for a nice sit-down lunch and twice for gas/snacks/leg-stretching and arrived at the hotel at 7 pm. Not bad.

We checked in, and discovered a nice goodie bag for the wedding guests, with snacks, a schedule, maps and directions. You've gotta love a set of directions with instructions like:

CONFUSED? there are 2 right turns at this light, take the 2nd one (farthest from you)
STILL CONFUSED? follow the sign toward "Historic Downtown"

I was feeling restless, so we decided to head into Historic Downtown for dinner and some sightseeing.

Historic Downtown Charlottesville:

Oh, wow. The Downtown Mall reminded me of State Street, Madison (Wisconsin), for anybody who has been there. It's a pedestrian mall with seven blocks of stores and restaurants, with street vendors and busking musicians... Impressively few chains as well. Many of the stores closed early, particularly compared with Harvard Square, but there seemed to be lots of people just hanging out in the evening, which showed a nice civic success story. Ian said it reminded him of what Faneuil Hall or Harvard Square used to be, before both became too expensive and priced out the locals in favor of chains you can see anywhere. I wonder if anybody's done a study on how and why places like State Street & the Charlottesville Mall work while others fail...

But I digress. Needless to say, I loved the Downtown Mall. According to the directory, there are something like nine bookstores along the seven blocks, only one of them a new bookstore and that was also locally owned and non-chain. We only got into one of them the first night: Read it again, Sam. I didn't end up buying anything, but have to share descriptions of two items I resisted purchasing:

1. A slipcased hardcover edition of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus with introduction by Charles Nicholl and woodcut engravings. Yes, I know I'm a geek, but the sight of one of Marlowe's authenticated signatures in gold lettering against the red leather -- gorgeous. But I didn't need to spend $30 for a play I already have other copies of, and can get free online. [Were it an actual replica of the original text, it might've been harder to resist, but they did modernize the spellings.] So, I left it on the shelf.
2. The other book was so far over my budget that I never seriously considered buying it. They had a 1638 -- I think it was a sextimodecimo -- of the works of Thomas Overbury. I actually was allowed to hold and flip through it. Sigh. For those unfamiliar with the story, Overbury was a noble and feh poet whose murder was a major scandal during the reign of King James VI & I. The suspect was one of the king's lovers and his wife, and their marriage was already a bit of a sex scandal in itself. Overbury was a rather so-so guy who suddenly became the cats' pyjamas upon his death. What really grabbed me was the date of the edition, which means it was probably reprinted as English Civil War anti-Royalist propaganda. So I was more impressed by what it represented than by the actual contents. But with a price of $500, I just felt honored to be permitted to touch it. Le sigh...

And I didn't buy either. Aren't you impressed with my fortitude?

After we left the bookstore, we wandered a bit more looking for someplace to eat. We saw a woman who (to my eyes) resembled a young Janis Joplin. She said she belonged to an artists commune and had magazines and CDs to sell. It just felt so... charming.

For dinner, we found the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar, where we managed to get window seats in what I'd call a Japanese style: low table, remove your shoes and sit on cushions. Food was excellent and the place was quite atmospheric. In addition to pots of teas, Ian and I shared a plate of cheeses and nuts and dried fruits and the best hummus I'd ever tasted. We noticed people at another table had a hookah, and asked the counterstaff what that was. Apparently they offer some spiced tobacco blends. [I guess hookahs must prevent the restaurant from smelling of tobacco, because I wasn't aware of any odors.] I was actually disappointed -- not because I expected anything illegal, but because I thought they might have other custom herbal blends -- you know, eucalyptus and echinacea if you're feeling ill or ginseng for alertness or something like that.
I'd really wanted to take my inlaws to this restaurant, because I thought it was just the kind of thing they'd like, but the place was closed on Sunday. Alas.

[For the record, here's Ian's account of the day]

Saturday morning, after breakfast in the hotel with the family, we headed out to Monticello. Ian and I have gone to several historic estates in New England, but Ian had never been to a Southern plantation before. He was impressed. In some respects, Monticello is a small village, with a manor, a small number skilled craftspeople and a lot of farmers and support personnel. Quite different from the close quarters in historic homes around here.

The house tour was a blast. Every room we were in, I sidled over to the bookshelves to try to see what titles he still had. I'm sure there must be a catalog available somewhere, but you can just tell so much about a person from their books, can't you? In the giftshop, I bought a copy of Jefferson's Books, a short fifty-page overview of his bibliophila about a quarter of which details his library classification scheme! I am such a geek.

We also stopped briefly at a garden shop from the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants. Since I know some of you might be into this, they publish articles and post their catalog at Twinleaf.org.

On the way back to the hotel, Ian and I discussed the similarities and differences between Colonial New England and Colonial Virginia, Montezilla and Monticello, and how those differences shaped the political and social and religious climates.

The wedding took place in the afternoon and evening. I'm really not sure how much I can add to Ian's accounts, so if you haven't already, just read what Ian wrote about ceremony and reception.

For Sunday, the wedding couple reserved a downtown movie theater for an exclusive showing of The Princess Bride. Oh, so much fun. We shouted along with our favorite lines; people got on stage to act out scenes -- a really good time was had by all. I wish theaters would try playing other cult films besides Rocky Horror for audience participation.

After the movie, we wandered around downtown Charlottesville to visit the other used bookstores that had been closed Friday night. We discovered that the public library a block away was actually open on Sundays (unlike most cities around here), so Ian got onto a computer to blog. [Now we have demonstrable proof of who's the bigger addict :) ]

After he was finished, we headed over to the University of Virginia campus, which was designed by Thomas Jefferson. Interesting. When Kim & Stacy had heard my compliments for the bookstores of downtown Charlottesville, they told me of their favorite bookstore, Heartwood Books. And it was there that I finally actually bought books (besides the souveinirs at Monticello). They actually had two copies of Tillyard's Elizabethan World Picture: a hardcover from the early 1950s still in the original jacket and a recent paperback edition. Only about $1.50 price difference between them, so I bought... the cheap paperback. Hey, I'm getting this to read so don't want to have to worry about maintaining the condition. I also bought a nonfiction anthology: Staging the Renaissance, also about Elizabethan/Jacobean drama. Though I haven't yet read it, the article that caught my eye was Jean E. Howard's "Women as Spectators, Spectacles, and Paying Customers" since I've been intrigued with that aspect of theatergoing since Dominica Borg's lecture. There's also an article titled "Sodomy and Society: The Case of Christopher Marlowe," but I expect to disagree strongly with it since the author says right off the bat that he's relying on Alan Bray's Homosexuality in Renaissance England, a book that's since been disproven. [Repeated longings for a copy of King James and the History of Homosexuality] They also had remainder copies of a book on the Turk, the 18th century chess playing machine, which looked like Ian's kind of pleasure reading (and I was right).

The two families got along so well that in the evening we added another wedding event: dinner at the couple's favorite BBQ spot, followed by frozen yogurts.

And Ian and I were having so much fun on this vacation that we decided to tack on an extra day to see the sites I wanted to in DC. [Heck, we were close enough, and it's not like either of us had work to rush back to.] Thru the AAA book, I found a cheap nearby motel and made reservations. I was tired, so went to bed around midnight. Ian, his sister and cousins had an all-night gab session. While I do regret the missed chance at socializing, it was probably a good thing that one of us got some sleep that night.

[Ian's account of the day]

While Ian tried to get a little sleep (he didn't get back to the room until after 6 AM), I joined the rest of the family for breakfast. Uncle David handed me a doughnut, and after I took a bite told me it was a "Spudnut" -- made with potato flour. I honestly wasn't sure whether to believe him or if this was one of his jokes until I saw the box. Tasted fine. [I wonder what kind of oil they cook them in; done right, spudnuts could conceivably be kosher l'pesach!]

Finally woke Ian up so I could pack up the room and check out. We had already worked out our plans for our extra day so went directly to Michie Tavern, a 1784 inn that's still serving food (for tourists, at least) and offering tours. Again, we'd eaten historic New England fare, but classic Southern dining was a new one for Ian. [I wasn't terribly hungry, having actually eaten breakfast.]

Over the meal, Ian and I discussed historic recreation sites such as this place, Monticello and Montezilla, Old Sturbridge Village and Colonial Williamsburg. Does a travel book exist listing all these living history sites? If not, I see a need, though I'm not really in a position to write one. We also talked about how I'd do really well as a reenactment Elizabethan bookseller. I know the material, and have the passion that I could communicate with tourists. [Items to sell would include a couple Shakespeare quartos, but not Hamlet, Greene's books on conmen still entertain; some ballad sheets... Shakespeare & Co. are planning on a period village with printshop; if it comes to pass, I wonder what I'd have to do to qualify...

After touring the grounds, we finally left Charlottesville for DC. The route Ian chose was somewhat the slow roads, but we passed the Manassas battleground, which was an education for Ian. [I went to high school in the South (well, Florida), where history class covered all the Civil War battles in great detail.]

We got caught in some rush hour traffic around DC, which I hadn't been expecting considering it was a holiday. But by the time we got to the hotel, we were both pretty tired, so just went to bed early to make an early start the next morning.

Washington DC!!!

Yay! We made it!

We initially planned on taking the Metro into the city, but couldn't find any parking at the station so just drove into downtown. Mind you, we weren't trying to get into DC by 9am, so it may have been slightly after rush hour, but traffic wasn't overly bad. We went to the same parking garage we used last summer, and walked to the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court:

It was shortly after 9 AM, and a line had already formed in front of the building. We joined and waited. Eventually, the line split and we got into the queue for five minutes in the chamber (as opposed to sitting through the entire case).

We finally got into the chamber at about 10:25. The case in question was Leocal vs. Ashcroft: whether DUI counted as a crime of violence that would force the deportation of an immigrant. Astonishingly enough, I couldn't find any stories on the oral arguments at SCOTUSBlog nor Yahoo! Full Coverage.

First of all, for anybody taking the five minute tour, they've got maybe a dozen seats in three rows in the back right corner of the courtroom. Largely obscured by a curtain. I took the corner seat in the back row and, if I craned my neck and scooted up a bit, I could see most of the Justices, though next time I'm going to bring a set of opera glasses. From my notes, the seating order appeared to be:

Ginsberg

Breyer

Scalia

?

Rehnquist

O'Connor

?

Thomas

?

Of course, that all depends on whether I could accurately identify the Justices on sight, so that may not be correct. The Justices all have these huge leather chairs that swivel and recline and bounce. Look comfy and fun.

In the segment of the case we saw, the government lawyers were talking. They were arguing about the rule of lenity and 18 USC Section 16.

According to the arguments, 16(a) needs intent, so they were claiming this was a crime of violence solely under 16(b). Scalia pointed out that they had argued 16A in lower courts. The lawyer acknowledged that, but said they weren't doing so here. Scalia then got the laugh line by saying "but you don't actually believe that." [Okay. It's one week later; I didn't write it down and I'm telling it badly -- trust me, it was funny and quite cogently demolished that bit of the lawyer's case -- do Justices' jokes from the bench hold any precedent?]

Ian and I really enjoyed hearing the Court at work; though we may not have grasped all the technical details, but we could follow it and it was quite entertaining. [Catching Nina Totenberg's summary on the morning radio helped.] And it was with some sense of reluctance that we left after the five minutes are up. I can't wait for the transcript to become available so I can read the rest of the case...

Recalling that Rehnquist is a Gilbert & Sullivan fan, Ian wished he'd brought something from Iolanthe. He wondered whether Rehnquist ever sang the Lord Chancellor's song to himself in the shower: ["The Law is the true embodiment Of everything that's excellent. It has no kind of fault or flaw, And I, my Lords, embody the Law."] Given Rehnquist redesigned his robes based upon The Mikado, doesn't that seem like something he'd be likely to do?

After that, we could've gone to the other more touristy parts of the USSC, but really, we had seen what I came for. So, we went on to the Library of Congress.

Library of Congress:

Spent a little time walking along the halls craning our necks to admire the artwork and read the names in the ceiling. Haven't found Marlowe yet, but I'm sure he's up there somewhere. :)

But we were primarily there for the Haven to Home exhibit on Jewish history. I learned a lot, particularly in the section on early America. I hadn't heard of Abigail Franks or Mordecai Manuel Noah or the "Jew Bill." Never really thought about it, but much of America's religious liberty is owed to the Jews, as the first major religious minority in this country to seek equal participation in political and civic life.

It was quite a varied display. For locals, here's a 1899 drawing of Boston's Jewish Quarter. Confederate soldier Isaac Levy's letter describes suddenly realizing it was Passover, so going to Charleston for provisions, including matzah "sufficient to last us for the week." Given the prominence in America of Eastern European Jews, they had quite a lot of works in Yiddish, and I was both surprised and impressed that my rudimentary study of the language a few years back was sufficient for me to understand somewhat.

I really wish that more of the books were open that I could've looked inside, particularly the 1946 U.S. Army Haggadah supplement for Holocaust survivors and the special V-E service from Goldsboro, NC (this image shows the scroll unravelled more than it was on display). And if I'd known Truman's telegram officially recognizing Israel wasn't online, I would've taken better notes -- because comparing the original text with his handwritten revisions was quite illuminating. [Wait, there it is, from the Truman Library: note the change from calling it "the Jewish state" to "the State of Israel."]

They had some audio and video archives as well. Ian and I listened to a snippet of Father Coughlin, which they followed up with a very nice diss by Rabbi Wise.

The start of the exhibition was about Jews as immigrants and outsiders (haven); the middle was about challenges of antisemitism. But the end was how Jews have made America a home. A great display case of political memorabilia, both old and current. The exhibit concluded with a clip reel of Jews in modern culture (mostly comedy): Frisco Kid, Sammy Davis Jr. meeting Archie Bunker, Krusty saying a brucha on The Simpsons, an SNL gag about circumcision, Bridget loves Bernie and others. All in all, it was worth seeing, though we spent so much time there that we had no time for the rest of the library. Another visit, I suppose (oh, the hardship)

About halfway through the exhibit, a large tourgroup of elderly Jewish ladies came through, and I fell back to listen to their guide. After several of her mentions to what "we" did to secure items for the exhibit, I checked her badge and compared it to the program. Cheryl Regan, Exhibition Director. I was almost tempted to go up afterwards with my program to ask for her autograph, but I didn't.

We were both ravenous after leaving the library. I briefly thought about the nearest eatery: the Supreme Court cafeteria, on the slim chance we might see a Justice. But I decided that wasn't likely and that wasn't sufficient excuse to eat cafeteria food. We picked a direction on the map which looked like it would have some restaurants and came upon Cafe Berlin. German food with outdoor seating. Service was slow (apparently, two large parties arrived unannounced shortly before we did), but the food was marvelous.

My third choice tourist attraction had been the Folger Shakespeare Library, for their current exhibit on tolerance, but by the time we finished lunch (2:30) it was already later than we had wanted to leave the city, so mild regrets.

Driving home:

And then we got back on the road for the drive home.

From the library, I checked out Six Easy Pieces, the audiotapes of Richard Feynman's first six classes of Intro to Physics. [According to the intro, the university not only taped the lectures, but had photographers capture all his slides and chalkboard writings; if they've got audio and visuals, somebody ought to put them together as a DVD slideshow.] The first cassette was just too staticky for me to listen, but Ian enjoyed it and worked his way through the tapes while he was behind the wheel. [Generally, we believe that authority over what's playing on the stereo rests with the driver.]

During the drive home, while Ian was playing Lecture 3 on the relation of physics to other sciences, I was reading Tillyard's The Elizabethan World Picture, which tries to explain how the mindset of that period differs from today's. [Has anybody else read this who'd care to discuss it?] And with Feynman explaining how physics is the center of everything and Tillyard describing the Elizabethan Great Chain, I started wondering about our own contemporary world picture.

People today don't perceive things using the same hierarchy as the Elizabethans, but a hierarchy is there. We believe everything can be broken down to fundamental microscopic bits of matter, whether we're talking about atoms or DNA. So, down at our roots, we are all (humans, living creatures and inanimate matter) basically the same -- an extremely democratic notion, when you get down to it. [And face it, fundamentalists may disagree with the historic origins of humans, but they don't seem to disagree over the periodic table as the building blocks.]

Furthermore, if we can understand those, figure out the basic laws that govern them, we believe we can then rationalize and predict everything else that's going on. And that quest for knowledge about the world seems very familiar in both Elizabethan times and our own. I'd love to explore that further, maybe in another post (where it won't be buried in the trip reminisces) to spark some discussion.

[Here's Ian's account of the day.]