The National Museum of the American Indian

The NMAI is the swankiest, post-modernest, and uptodatest museum on the National Mall. Janna and I went there yesterday with Ryan, Rebecca, Aubrey, and Aubrey's fiance, Paul. When we arrived in the Potomac room, which we found out was an Indian word--who would've guessed, right--that means gathering of resources, or marketplace. I won't even go into any K-Street rants, Rebecca. The Potomac room is actually completely bare, but is an incredibly impressive rotunda, which also has windows and prisms that can mark out the equinoctes and solstices in rainbows on their austere compass rose.
We decided, that since an orientation tour was going to depart from this point, we would join it. Our tour guide was less than a skilled interpreter of the museum, however, she did possess and admirable enthusiasm for the project of gathering native artifacts from all over the Western Hemisphere into one massive collection. Apparently, however, most of the artifacts are housed in Maryland in a Cultural Resources Center, which is open to the public. The exhibits in the NMAI were very well presented and intruiguing, but the general consensus of the group was that the Museum had very little space actually devoted to exhibitions. This is a museum that you can "see" in the course of an afternoon, not like its other siblings on the mall.
The architecture of the building itself is probably the most intruiging, supposedly inspired by the site of Chaco Canyon. Therefore, it is supposed to be designed like a Southwestern Mesa. Inside and out, the building is very harmoniously designed, and offers many places for a visitor to sit and to have some incredible vantage points over the Mall. However, I still think a major influence of the Potomac room is the Rotunda of the National Gallery of Art, which in itself is part of the Mediterranean tradition passing through TJ, the Italian Renaissance, etc..., and back to the Pantheon in Rome, which should not be confused with the Parthenon in Athens.
Anyways, it is always a pleasure to visit Ryan and Rebecca, whose marriage, much like that of Mary Matlin and James Carville, is a reminder that if Republicans and Democrats can sleep together, maybe they can actually run the country together.
I enjoyed meeting Paul, Aubrey's fiance and a public policy grad student at George Washinton University. Of course, when I met him, I had to make my George Foreman University joke. (You know, there's also George Mason University, Georgetown, etc... Plus, wouldn't it be great if there was a Metro stop that said "GFU.") Anyways, Janna doesn't think that this joke is funny anymore, but that's just because she's heard it several gazillion times. I figure someone upon whom this joke has never been inflicted would find it hilarious. Plus, when I first came up with the idea, Janna thought it was funny.
So, Paul seems like a nice guy, and he has recently converted to Roman Catholicism. I was very impressed to see that both he and Aubrey are embracing the doctrines of transubstantiation, papal authority, and natural family planning. Not that yours truly, the heretic, can really claim to buy into doctrines of unquestioning obedience to church authority. However, it seems there is a trend in this country towards people accepting the authority of church tradition. This can be especially noted in the increasing number of conversion to the Greek or Eastern Orthodox Church, including Phil DeVries.
Anyways, I pray that God blesses Aubrey and Paul as they move towards the sacrament of holy matrimony.