Tuesday, March 26, 2013

The Sublime to the Ridiculous




I am much better at planning ahead than seizing the day, a lot of time can drift emptily by while I make detailed itineraries for the future.  After a typical post weekend Monday slump yesterday, consisting of too much desultory Facebook monitoring and NPR,  I hit on a new way to counteract it: instead of the bucket list approach, which I find can trigger a little demotivating depression,  I decided to designate one day a week as a vacation day..... what would I do today if I'd gone to a lot of trouble and expense to be here?

My number one choice would have been to see the Durer exhibition at the National Gallery but DC was a zoo because the Supreme Court was debating same sex marriage and thousands of people were demonstrating for and against. That in itself could have been interesting, but we live in (officially now) the worst area in the country for traffic and I just was not up for that.

So, a mixture of reliving last week's light show and homesickness for England led me to the Cathedral.




 Shades of home! But this "neogothic" cathedral, the sixth largest in the world, was only completed in 1990.




This is the mandala "Rose window", (seen from the front on the exterior shot). On a sunny day it projects its image beautifully onto the nearby wall.





One of my favorites, although it's modern design is out of synch with the rest of them, this is the Space Window.  It incorporates a piece of lunar rock from the Sea Of Tranquillity donated to the Cathedral by NASA in 1974. The rock, in the center of the top circle, is enclosed between 2 pieces of tempered glass and sealed with stainless steel in a nitrogen environment to prevent deterioration. Well, that's what Wikipedia says anyway.




There's nothing particularly special about this window except it's position. The sun catches it and sets it on fire. The colors on the left are the reflection on a stone column.




I am always intrigued by the beautiful reflected light patterns on the stone architecture and marble flooring tiles.









These lovely reflections from the top level of windows are on a massive net. It's been strung right across the ceiling of the Cathedral because there's repair work in progress after earthquake damage in 2011.


Scaffolding and "hard hat" areas all around as repair work commences after much fund raising


Some of the pieces that fell off in the earthquake



Outside there are designated parking spaces for Cathedral officials. Next to the Bishop of Washington (awol, but, to be fair, it was lunchtime) I found this interesting job description.....




On behalf of the Ordinary, I would like to thank him for showing up today in his nice silver Lexus :)

Then onwards to the gift shop, full of what my parents used to call "knasty knick knacks". They would not have been disappointed!



Gargoyles and angels are in charge of t shirt sales and taking it very seriously....




....... in with the bibles I found some apocryphal gospels....... 




....... a design competition is to be thanked for the Star Wars inspired gargoyle and it is featured very prominently.....






There was a lot more tackiness but I began to feel a little too jaded to record it and it was a relief to step back outside again. In the Bishop's garden I found these very appropriate Lenten roses




To get my shot of the full frontage of the Cathedral I had to keep moving backwards over the lawn until I reached the far fence, whereupon I stumbled upon a most suspicious looking package in the undergrowth. It turned out to be reassuringly labeled on the duct tape. Well, it's not going to say "explosives" is it? 







12 comments:

  1. I love the idea of a vacation day each week, and I have really enjoyed joining you on this one. The gorgeously bent light shining through the stained glass windows looks wonderful...reminded me of seeing the northern lights. I have to say, the canon to the ordinary needs nearly as much explanation to me as the fox news phone lines....mmmm, the mind boggles. Thanks Jill, really enjoyed this. Jx

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    1. Thanks for walking round with me, Janice! You are lucky to have seen the Northern lights, that is definitely on the bucket list I will write one day.

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  2. Love the photos, especially the columns and tiled floor. spectacular colours! Any son to go with the lumiere? xxx

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    1. Gosh, had no idea what you meant by that, had to do a quick search! No, very hushed tours going on, but later in the day the grand organ was going to belt out a tune :)

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  3. Now I feel as though I have been on a short vacation. The colours in the cathedral photographs are magnificent - it is like liquid fire seeping through the windows.

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    1. Glad you liked the photographs, and thanks so much for joining!

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  4. I love the colourful light effects you captured!

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    1. Thanks for stopping by Pete. They're even better in real life of course!

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  5. I hadn't realised that the earthquake that you had in 2011 caused so much damage. Church buildings in Christchurch NZ were particularly hard hit in the earthquakes we have had over the last couple of years.

    The effects of light in the Cathedral interior are beautiful and somewhat reminiscent of (but much nicer than) paintings of Penticost and "tongues of fire". The Space Window is superb.

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    1. Yes.... tongues of fire, how appropriate!

      It's estimated stonemasons will take 10 years to repair the cathedral and it will cost $20 million. The Washington Monument was also badly cracked and scaffolding has only just gone up for repairs. Not a good time to be trying to raise that kind of money.

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  6. With the Fox News faux pas today, your picture of the Fox News phone lines is oh so appropriate... :)

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    1. True! As there were no other media-ready packages to be seen lurking in the undergrowth I did feel it smacked of a lack of decorum in the rush for a story :)

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