Beignet Bound...

We arrived today in the Big Easy after a two-day road trip, and are staying at my brother in-law's home while he enjoys an academic sabbatical in Europe. We have planned to soak up the flavor of New Orleans (or what is left...post-Katrina) for a week or so before heading back home to DC.
(2130 hrs, local time) As I type, there is a live New Orleans Jazz band...singing accompanied by those unmistakable trumpets and banjos...nearby, somewhere down the street in this "Uptown" neighborhood. Tomorrow morning...the French Quarter.

Here are some impressions from our interstate journey today. (Click on the moving images to view the slide show at your own speed.)

Asymmetry and Adolescence...

Her choice of socks is playful...and girlish.

Her eyes when accidentally framed, seem to belong to someone much older...

This weekend, I appreciated her preteen form much how she displayed it...with great flexibility.

Pyrrhic Pyre, or Pyric Prolixity...

(A Haiku in Flames)

Promethean yen
emerges at night. Wax log
is Greek tragedy....

Washington D.C. at dusk...

As I prepared to head home this evening, I glanced at the sky and knew it would be a spectacular sunset. So I placed my camera on the empty passenger's seat. I'm glad I did so.

At a red light by the Tidal Basin, I saw a lone figure contemplating....
The light turned green, and I continued with my commute.

Veterans and Verisimilitude...

A few days ago at dusk, I walked along the Fußgängerzone on the northern boundary of the White House and saw him standing. This man, holding a simple wooden cane in his left hand and dressed in dark earth-tones, stood at attention. As I walked towards him, he lifted his right arm in one fluid motion, frozen in military salute...facing the presidential estate. He was a Veteran for sure...his gray hair was long, but not un-kept...his glasses unfashionable and thick. Without a word, he withdrew his tribute. Lowering his right arm, he right-faced and began walking West. His gate was steady, but the cadence punctuated by presumptive injuries...a kinesic memoir written upon battle-hardened cartilage, sinew and bone. I wondered who he was...where he had served...and why he returned to this place....

This face without a name made me think of other names that I had photographed a few days ago. These other cognomina seemed incognito, at first. Then I realized the brilliant interplay, which occurs at this monument...noms de guerre, given a face...with each visitor's reflection. I then looked around and wondered where they would build the next monument, in which direction would it face...the monument for the soldiers that died in Iraq and Afghanistan. I sighed, and snapped the picture.