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Demonic possession, congress and cardio- a typical day in D.C
“Agent Mulder, I'm Dana Scully, I've been assigned to work with you.”
(He shakes her hand)
”Oh, isn't it nice to be suddenly so highly regarded? So, who did you tick off to get stuck with this detail, Scully?”
”Actually, I'm looking forward to working with you. I've heard a lot about you.”
”Oh, really? I was under the impression that you were sent to spy on me.”
And so began the wonderful, weird, sexy, paranormal, frustrated, exuberant, conspiratorial and beautiful relationship of Miss Dana Scully and Fox ‘Spooky’ Mulder. And where did this wonderful pairing meet? (fictionally of course, just don’t want you to think of me as one of those people who can’t tell reality from fiction… ahem…)
Why the J. Edgar Hoover Building (FBI Headquarters, Washington DC)- which is where we currently are!
So apart from indulging my wholehearted and shameless devotion to all things x-phillian, what else have Jian and myself been up to here in surprisingly sunny and immaculately neat Washington?
Well… Like all good stories, the best place to start is with … Adam.
We met Adam Walsh in
Vienna. Jian and he struck it off when a drunk, desperate and horny young woman in our hostel was shamelessly trying to get someone (namely either Jian or Adam) to do the whoopee with her. Jian had news for that sent her off into the night, ‘sorry honey, I’m a flaming homosexual…’ (okay he may not have said that, that may actually be me putting a dramatic flourish on things.) Adam too, was on Jian’s batting team and together they quenched the fire-breathing dragon’s frightful flame and in the ashes of their victory, swapped facebook addresses.
And so began the story of Adam and Jian, which the following day incorportated me. We spent time together in a semi-haunted-former asylum-nee Korean embassy- hostel in Berlin(of which you may recall) and hit the town in style. The last I saw of Adam, he was still technically drunk after getting home extraordinarily late (or rather early) with only an hour or two before having to catch public transport to the airport. Suffice to say buses and trains didn’t happen and this boy, who must have been sweating pure alcohol by that point- caught a cab and got home in one piece. As
evidenced by his invitation to catch up in his hometown, said Washington- grand America’s Capital.
So with Adam as our guide we saw the town in style. Washington, as I mentioned before is a very clean, neat city. Very ‘Canberra’- as you would expect. Adam did tell us though, that there are parts of the city ‘I would never go to. D.C has a higher murder rate than New York’. This was disconcerting, but we stuck to the well lit streets and safe bars and managed to get out of D.C not only in one piece but happy.
Our legs may have asked us to answer for our actions later- but we saw nearly all there was to see. There is nothing more exciting than seeing a city through the eyes of someone who lives there and who is willing to take us to not only all the tourist hot-spots but to little personal locales hidden away from the Kodak hungry, fridge magnet hunting type (ie- people like us). We had dinner at a nice, small Turkish restaurant, went to a couple of cool gay clubs (at which I made the regretful mistake of making friends with a
guy who turned out to be the single most annoying man ever born into this world) and at another shamed myself by dancing with perhaps the most trashiest girl in the room. Oh, the more things change the more they stay the same.
The reflection pool (which needs a top up but I’m sure that’s not a priority of course)
The Lincoln monument (which is a weird trick of the eye- from a distance it looks gigantic, but up close looks rather humbled)
The Congress Building, which provided enough shadow to keep a fair skinned, red haired boy like me happy and safe for quite some time.
The front AND back of The White House. I kept an eye out for Martin Sheen, but apparently he was out on business. I tried to get inside on the basis that I had met Allison Janney (from “The West Wing”) briefly (although I said we were close friends of course). Unfortunately for us, White House security was up to scratch (ie- not falling for my mastermind deception- damn!)
Union station, which looks wonderful as long as you don’t look at the ceiling (looking up is a bit
of a let down). Although it was quite a thrill for me as they shot a large set-piece here and just outside in the film ‘Hannibal’ (remember the sequence when there was an indoor carousel and Starling was on the phone to Hannibal- who in turn was actually on the carousel, reaching out for her- he just brushes her hair and spins away unnoticed- eerie…).
The Senate Building- which is so white it reflects light like water.
The Washington Monument which is a giant phallus to rival the one on the foreshore of Newcastle, Australia.
The National Library, which has its own security screening process. Here you get to get a glimpse of Guttenberg’s first printed Bible, which is a stunning work of art. Just looking at those pages, you get a taste of a history so large and important your mind almost explodes at the thought of it.
The Vietnam War Memorial that is a stunning, simple monument made of one ink black wall with printed names along its long, reflective flank. Of note, is its architect; a 21 year old student named Maya Lin who should be proud of its concise, oddly fateful composition.
It looks like a timeline of life and death, the midnight black a symbol of all those who died and the intricate gold names the carved scars upon our memories, which keep them alive. Powerful…
It must be said that Washington has the most well kept and clean transit system we have ever seen, though the stations are so dim-lit it’s almost dangerous. If you are coming into the station from a well lit room, the time it takes for your eyes to adjust to the dark you may have already stumbled out in front of a train. It was on one of these murky stations we boarded the silver bullet that took us to Virginia- without even knowing it. We stepped on in Washington and five minutes were in a new state. From here we walked back into the capitol, entering Georgetown at my request.
Why?
Yep, you guessed it. For filmic reasons and also because I wanted to see a place so reputed for its affluence, tree lined streets and over priced restaurants. The film, you may ask is actually a triple feature, two of which are fantastic- The Exoricist 1-3 (the fourth for those
keeping count actually exists in two different features by different directors but both set in Africa) (and ps- the two of the three set in Georgetown that were actually good was the original, of course, and the terrifying part three- one of the most unsettling and unseen horror movies ever made). Here we walked the famous, creepy ‘Exorcist Steps’, which are located at the end of M Street, across from Key Bridge (also featured in the film and an impressive bridge in and of itself, though a total and utter wind vacuum, walking across it is a gamble as you have to literally grip the balustrade for fear of falling over the edge AND you’re shot at by a litany of thousand small dust particles and rock shards from passing trucks). The steps themselves are a local attraction and gave people nightmares in the seventies. Above them is the window from which Father Damien leapt, came crashing down the fateful flight which were padded with one inch grey rubber (which I imagine is not much padding at all when you’re falling down those steps- they were … kinda hard, you know!). They are an iconic imagery from cinema history and
walking up them felt a little like walking through the vaults of some vast, unknowable film lot where you are the star.
At the top of the stairs at 3600 Prospect St, is the famous ‘Exorcist House’, which was used for the exteriors for the film, including the famous shot of Father Merrin stepping out of his taxi, bag in hand, ready to perform the final exorcism (google it kids, or better yet see the film again- it’s a chilling image). However, between the three of us there was not half a sense of direction and it took us close to an hour and a half to find the house at the top of the stairs. I’m not entirely sure who was to blame for our disorientation- so for lack of criminal prosecution lets blame it on the boogie, agreed?
Later, we went into Georgetown’s centre and had our last meal with Adam, who is still reminding himself that he is not a traveller anymore and does not have to regard every salt sachet or sauce bottle as a possible thievery in the name of survival (something any traveller can testify to doing I think, and I imagine
it’s a hard habit to break). We went to a small, decently priced Turkish place off the main road and got a couple of seriously small dishes and reflected on our times together over (my first) hookah. Who for those that don’t know is a Turkish tradition involving you smoking herbal or flavoured fruits and tobacco through extravagant hookah pipes. It’s gained a kind of kitsch notoriety in the US (and I’m sure in Australia as well), but people have been doing it forever in Turkey but for some reason we never got around to it. It was surprisingly refreshing.
So we managed to do catch-up, congress and demonic possession all in one day. We under-ate, over walked and smoked Turkish traditions in a silver spoon society. We said goodbye, shared a hug and a taxi (bugger walking) and stayed in our ultra comfortable, air conditioned and padded beds (oh the luxury!). Amid all this I managed to get lost in a thunder storm on my way out to get lunch the day before and had to catch a taxi back to our hotel because I was so disorientated (but I directed them to the wrong hotel- oh my
god the confusion!) and Jian got his first decent sleep in nights. After this it’s back to hostel life in New York; the city that never sleeps- including the tourists unfortunately.
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Elise
non-member comment
Love ur hair aaron...very spunky indeed!! xXx