O.K., here’s the truth: I went to Washington, D.C., sans laptop, following the advice of a famous film cop and doing as little as possible. I didn’t see any plays and didn’t go to any concerts. (In fact, I didn’t listen to any music at all for four straight days, which may be a New World Record.) Instead, I had breakfast with Mr. Modern Art Notes and took in a bunch of paintings. Specifically:
• I finally, finally saw “Discovering Milton Avery” at the Phillips Collection. More later, but I found it fabulous. Check it out, soonest.
• I also went for the first time to the Freer Gallery, where I consumed a lot of Whistlers, none of which caused me to change my mind about the old boy’s work (elegant but etiolated), and began what I suspect will be a lengthy process of getting a solid grip on Asian art (which I like very much but about which I know as yet only slightly more than nothing)
• I spent most of Saturday visiting Monticello, which I’d never before seen. Again, more later, but I’ll say now that the house, fascinating though it was, didn’t exactly make me warm to Thomas Jefferson as a man….
• I went to bed early each night and read myself to sleep. Among the titles on my nightstand were Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye (still his best book, though The Little Sister comes damned close), Meryle Secrest’s Frank Lloyd Wright
(which I hadn’t reread since I reviewed it in 1992), and Jack McLaughlin’s Jefferson and Monticello: The Biography of a Builder (a superior piece of scholarship, guaranteed 100% readable).
(Incidentally, I returned to find in my mailbox the bound galleys of the Library of America’s forthcoming three-volume set of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s short stories, about which you can expect to hear at regular intervals in the months ahead.)
• Now playing on iTunes: nothing. I’m headed for bed momentarily. The coming week doesn’t look too terribly oppressive, so brace yourself for bloggery–my right arm is tanned and I’m rested and ready.