Visiting DC

This past weekend I went to Crystal City, just outside of Washington DC. I went for a DnD convention and to see friends from Chicago, but while I was there I also took a few hours to see some of the sights in downtown DC. Here are my thoughts.

The metro was efficient, clean, curvy and ... concrete. Every station (of the ~10 I saw) looked alike and quickly became monotonous. There was no art, no creativity. At the Pentagon stop, there was a poster advertising "Unrestricted Warfare Symposium: Be a Part of the Solution." This worried me until I looked it up and discovered that it was actually anti-war (at least, anti-unrestricted war). However, the reason I assumed it was pro-war was that in every station there were posters advertising the US military and war-related jobs. Even the adverts for skin-care had war-related themes. The entire area was tainted with war. I was appalled.

Emerging from the subway I made my way across several of the sites, seeing the capitol building (from a distance), the Washington Monument, the White House (from a distance), the WWII memorial, the Vietnam (SE Asia) memorial and the Lincoln memorial. Out of these, the Vietnam memorial was the odd one out. All the others stood up, reaching for the sky. The Washington Monument was the epitome of this, being an enormous phallus that reached Babel-like into the heavens - I am hoping that someone will one day carve it into a shape that more closely resembles a penis so the blatant (white) male power-trip will be shown more obviously for what it symbolises.

The WWII memorial was a glorification of war. It was a celebration of victory, an excuse to 'show-them' that we won. It again reached up into the sky, although its shape also made it slightly less Babelesque and slightly more receptive to the heavens. There were quotations from several famous people carved into it, all of them glorifying war. I threw a snowball at one of them that made me mad. There was one that was trying to acknowledge women's contribution to the war, although this was carved in an unsymmetrical place, which made it appear to be an afterthought and less important. I was pleased it was there though.

The Lincoln memorial, or rather, Lincoln 'Temple' (as it calls itself) was, as I had been warned, repulsive. Although Lincoln himself said (and as was carved on the side of the temple), God doesn't take sides. However, clearly the American people who planned and built this 'temple' believed otherwise, as they built an enormous idol who clearly was there to be worshiped. The temple tried to impress you with its size, although it reminded me of Lord Farquaad - compensating.

The Vietnam Memorial was a completely different story. This did not stand up, reaching for the heavens - it was a scar, cut down into the landscape. This did not gleam with white marble, bathing in the light of the gods - it absorbed light into its black granite. This did not glorify war, it lamented the loss of the people whose names were carved into it. This was a wonder. It brought forth tears, rather than attempting to inspire awe. It rang of humility, of pain, of mistakes. It was beautiful in its simplicity. It is the only memorial I know of that tries to remember the dead, rather than trying to glorify the war.