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Showing posts from September, 2011

Gray Skies, No Problem: Drinking Coffee at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

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On Labor Day, there was a gray canopy hanging over Washington, D.C. And though the day was utterly devoid of that bright September sun that we all love so much, the steel grey of the sky above was beautiful. Our goal that day was to go to the newly constructed, recently opened MLK Memorial . For some reason, we were giddy with excitement. Perhaps for ourselves, perhaps for our children, perhaps for all of the people who will come from all over the world to see this memorial in the future. For that reason, the gray sky seemed even more beautiful. Even more beautiful was the shades-of-gray contrast between the sky and the monumental grey-stone monument/memorial of Martin Luther King, Jr. rising out of the earth like a gray rocket of hope. We were stunned by the scale. The memorial is the work of Master sculptor, Lei Yixin. It is 28.5 feet tall and positioned between Independence Avenue and West Basin Drive. One enters the memorial through a stone archway aptly named t