Summer in the City and Beyond

Stay alert! The temperature is climbing! Nobody could be happier than the prognosticators calling forth the danger ahead. Who else gets full attention when records are apt to be broken? Who knows better how atmospheric pressure affects the human body and has the authority to offer advice?
Whatever the reason, Metro subway riders were hard to find at the near end of the morning rush hours. At 8:15 or so, the car I was in felt empty. It was opportunity to study fellow citizens morning attire, to sneak peeks at skin. A serious looking slim blonde woman carrying a Chanel bag on one shoulder and black work bag on the other was making do with gold flip-flops that could not hide a twisted baby toe. A shortened piggy curled upon the fourth digit. I wanted to give her immediate aid - perhaps a suggestion where she might remedy her plight.  But these days, perhaps, a little piggy is the least of a pretty woman's woes.
We weather things well in the city, to judge by the preponderance of festivals and songfests taking place in all sorts of venues. Free movies everywhere. A vegan feast for the masses. Not that Washington ranks high in quirky innovative celebrations of a kind. A photo of  Paris' Eiffel Tower shown in the free Wash Post handout called Express showed sheep being led past the giant edifice by shepherds from Seine-Saint-Denis. Blithely. More tourists than shepherds I'll wager. Animals are erupting in the strangest places this season. A brown bear went missing in Italy's Alpine forest and scaled a 13-foot barrier.  A 250-pound tortoise was found wandering  along a highway 100 miles north of its Long Angeles home. A human - a barefoot woman from Nebraska - reportedly scaled Mount Rushmore for fun, making it nearly to the top before being arrested.
My method of endurance is finding cultural attractions that don't require physical labor and are ultimately more distracting than the heat.

Monk's Merriment

DC'S National Museum of the American Indian
7/13/19
WHEN A PICTURE DOESN'T DO JUSTICE
The tiny woman standing up front in this tiny photo contains a very large store of energy and emotion, and she does most of it through sound coupled with minimal gestures. Meredith Monk is an innovator in the arts world, active since the 1960s, performing what she sometimes calls 'sound sculptures' and what erudite admirers call "extended vocal technique" coupled with "interdisciplinary performance." The sounds she and her small five-woman troupe make cannot be totally divorced from their motions, minimal as they are. The body is an instrument as much as the voice. The resulting original work  is very nearly indescribable since it is the compilation of so many sensations in what appears to be sacred space for an experience akin to churchgoing.
Not coincidentally, the Hirshhorn Museum  chose to present Monk and her vocal ensemble in a space often interpreted as sacred to Native Americans -  Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. It was a one time event, called "Cellular Songs: Concert Version." Solemn for the most part,  the mood was broken during an encore when the 'chieftain' of the tribe - the formidable 80-some yearly Ms. Monk - broke into a rollicking imitation of an elderly woman happily, joyfully, telling a story. The Hirshhorn  institution has been breaking ground in many ways of late. This time the program was under the direction of the curator of media and performance along with Monk's own House Foundation for the Arts. All the arts. She uses incorporates film as well as visual design.
Curious how merriment can be felt even when performers' tones are solemn, almost dirge-like. Their actions resonate with joy, empathy, compassion. Especially when all are huddled together (yes like a football team) at the end.

Civility, Please!

         A Need for Manners in the Modern Age    

It happens almost daily during morning rush hour. A bicyclist zooms past on the sidewalk, a missing me by inches. “Is there a bell on that bike?” I call out, thinking that he might apologize for failing to warn me. No go. I’m just an obstacle on his way to cross at the green light ahead.

Of course, he has his rights - just like any other citizen hurrying off to work. It’s public space, after all - the same one claimed by electric scooter fans charging along so insouciantly that I wonder if they ever look for any defenseless pedestrians in their path.  Such innocent names: Lime and Bird.  The Washington Post recently nailed the issue on its health page, saying worldwide calls grow for bans.

But  just where is this happening outside New York City, Paris and the United Kingdom, I would like to know. Nashville’s mayor at least gave scooter operators a month to “clean up their act,” the report says. What then?

Likewise, the compulsive smartphone user. Head down, oblivious to everything around and ahead. Never mind that green has turned red. The oft-proclaimed dangers of cell phone usage in public places is well documented, citing how presumably otherwise good citizens insist on their right to communicate no matter what. Has the rate of pedestrian deaths risen dramatically in part because drivers insist on their right to give and receive messages anywhere they please?

Speed is king these days in an urban milieu. Ambling is passe. The rules of the road are unspoken, even when they are - vaguely - written into law. Heaven help the denizens of Washington, DC, and other cities who face an invasion of even more wheeling wonders. The city has apparently given in to pressure from who-knows-where to allow several hundred more of these take-it-and-leave-it -where-you-will mobile devices. 

Yes, they cut down on automobile usage, save  on pollution, provide cheap and convenient transport. But what’s the limit, and why aren’t there more protests about the numbers and the dangers they invite both to themselves and others? Am I in a  minority - a hapless two-footer who prefers to walk even when I can drive or ride?

Don’t even mention how few bikers or scooter users bother with helmets. Maybe in the future it will be up to the pedestrian to arm him or herself with some protection. Grouches like me are caught up in the quaint notion that everyday manners are at stake here. We see a need for new rules of civility in the age of hyper technology that go beyond (or maybe alongside) the current fixation on what constitutes privacy in a digital world. 

Likewise, (a slight digression) consider what are ‘proper’ use of communication methods along the nearly unfathomable internet road. Who is to say what are the rules? To text or not to text versus overwhelm one another with emails that can pile up by the hundreds without blocking devices that may or may not be effective. Does the texting person expect an imminent response  and how should the person on the other end react? Doesn’t this put unreal pressure on people to be constantly monitoring their phone for messages? Surely, many misunderstandings occur with the expectations assumed in the exchange.

Machines can help maketh the man ( literally so for Crisper technology and DNA manipulation or for procreation via In Vitro Fertilization) but they seem equally capable of killing him off. Robots and other AI devices, it’s surmised, promise to make many  human activities (even some body parts) irrelevant.

If only that fast disappearing bicycle guy had thrown a ‘sorry’ in  my direction, I probably would not be writing these words. I might instead be  seeing fresh hope in the ability of a stranger to be sensitive to the needs of another and act accordingly.