The Udvar-Hazy Center

Last weekend we were back in the DC metro area for a family visit and a side trip out to Dulles, VA, to the Smithsonian's Air & Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center. This hangar-like building houses many of the large planes, helicopters, and spacecraft that the Smithsonian can't fit in the main museum on the National Mall. In particular I was excited to see the Space Shuttle Discovery, as I've been an astronomy and space exploration geek since I was a kid.

What struck me about the Shuttle is that it's big, but not that big. It looks enormous on TV and in photos. It's about the size of a medium-size passenger jet, like a commuter plane. It dominates the room in which it's housed, but it's small enough that I wondered at how NASA had crammed all of the electronics and mission equipment into the spacecraft. Even without seeing the interior, I could tell that astronauts really didn't have much room to maneuver inside it.

The other remarkable thing about the orbiter was its exterior. While the underside was covered with ceramic heat shield tiles, the upper parts of the shuttle looked like a patchwork of white quilts. For some reason I'd assumed that the ship was metallic. I hadn't realized that its upper surfaces are covered with heat-resistant fabric instead of metal. Of course, a spaceship doesn't have to be completely metallic. As long as it's airtight, you can cover the outside with fabric. Space is a vacuum.

As I walked through the museum and looked at the history of human flight, I marveled at the engineering feats it took to get us from the Wright brothers' plane to spaceflight in less than 60 years. There's a display of different aircraft engines from before WWI through the end of WWII. I hadn't considered what early mechanics and engineers had accomplished with what were little more than automobile engines adapted for airplanes.

In addition to the many photos I took of Discovery, I took far too many photos of some of my favorite planes, like the SR-71, the F-105 Thunderchief, the Concorde, and the "Enola Gay." They didn't have a Messerschmitt Me-262, one of my favorite early jet fighters, but they did have the Me-163 Komet, as well as the F-86 and MiG-15, two planes I remember well from days spent playing "Chuck Yeager's Air Combat Simulator." And I couldn't help thinking about the pointlessness of the inclusion of the X-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a plane that has yet to enter service. It's been in development for 20 years and if drone technology continues to evolve, it might never be finished. It's already a museum piece.

Stradiwho-vius?

On my visit to the Smithsonian's American History museum last Friday, I saw their small (compared to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art) collection of musical instruments.  What the collection lacked in size it made up in content.  They had an entire Stradivarius quartet of instrument, including the only Stradivarius viola that I can recall seeing in person.  In fact, I wasn't entirely aware that Stradivari made any violas.  It seemed a shame to have the instruments locked away in display cases, but from the audio clips playing in the gallery I assume they see an occasional performance.

I also got to see the World War II memorial for the first time.  I was against the construction of this memorial when it was proposed back when I still lived in Washington, DC.  I'm still not convinced that the veterans of WWII deserve a more majestic memorial than the veterans of the Korean or Vietnam wars.  But the WWII memorial pays tribute to our country's role in that war while fitting into the expanse of the National Mall.  Walking around the fountains and reading the names of the major battles of the Atlantic and Pacific theaters, I remembered the scope of that conflict and the sheer effort the entire country devoted to it.  If we're going to have a monument to our role in that war, I think that memorial was the best we could do.

Saturday afternoon at the rock show

If you ride the NYC subway, you've probably seen the ads for the "Who Shot Rock & Roll" exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum.  It's a collection of photographs of rock musicians from 1955 to the present day.  I live about 15 minutes from the Brooklyn Museum, and the show has been running since October, but it took me until this afternoon to go see it.

I got to the museum around 3 PM to find a huge line snaking through the lobby.  The line moved quickly and I was on my way up to the fifth floor and the exhibit by 3:20.  That's where I ran into the second line for the show itself.  So it's a popular destination right now.  Also, it closes next weekend, so I'm sure the urgency brought out a larger crowd.

The exhibit is arranged by topic: performers before they were famous, private moments, concert photographs, album covers, and videos, to name a few.  Some of my favorite photos were of Jimmy Page with the Yardbirds in 1966, with short hair and a waist-length double-breasted jacket.  Compare that photo to the one around the corner of Page in 1975 on stage with Led Zeppelin, with long flowing hair and his shirt open to the waist.  There's a great photo of Johnny Cash at San Quentin prison, responding to the photographer's request to "take one for the warden!"  I really enjoyed the pictures of the Beatles and Rolling Stones before they were famous, lounging at pubs and backstage.  You can see Jimi Hendrix playing with Wilson Pickett in 1966, then with his own band a year later.  I won't spoil the contrast here but it's striking, almost jarring.  In between the two halls of the exhibit, there's a 15-minute slide show of other rock musicians from the 1960s and 1970s.  There's a photo index on the wall, but if you're of a certain generation it might be more fun to play "name that person."  I can tell you that David Crosby was never a good-looking man. 

There's also a Grace Jones video playing in one of the rooms.  Seeing Grace Jones always reminds me of her turn as a Bond girl in A View To A Kill in 1985.  I have the image of her in bed with an aging Roger Moore burned into my brain.  That movie should have come with a warning.  No twelve-year-old boy needs to see that.

The show runs through next weekend and is absolutely worth the shlep out to Brooklyn.  I didn't have to shlep, but those of you who live in Manhattan should make the trip.  Be prepared for crowds, and for tourists who don't know who Patti Smith or the Sex Pistols are.