How I spent my summer stay-cation, Part 1
I don't want to shut off all communication, though, since I value your clicking enormously, I really do. But what to write when I'm not covering performances or reporting newsy things? Well, a lot of people post everything they do, from meals to their squeals, on Facebook, Twitter and what-not, so why can't I bore everybody with a quick recap of things that happen on my days off? Easier said than done, since I am doing so little. But on Monday, thanks to a visit by an old buddy who had not seen all the Baltimore sights (or sites), I had a great excuse to stop by good old Fort McHenry, one of personal favorite places in this area. It was my first time in the new visitors center, which has a lot more to offer than the old one. I was especially glad to see the new film -- so much more interesting than that tired thing they used to show about some (fictional?) doctor who sort of knew Francis Scott Key and sort of knew what happened the night the bombs were bursting in air. One odd thing, though, about Monday. Well, what didn't happen was the odd part. At the old visitors center, the big finish of the film was ... 
These visitors were definitely American -- no mistaking their dress and voices -- so they presumably knew that Americans stand for the Star-Spangled Banner. If you're going to stand anywhere for it, wouldn't it be Fort McHenry? This is one of the great kitsch items of Baltimore, maybe the greatest. It's a wonder, as my visiting buddy remarked upon laying eyes on it for the first time, that John Waters has not given it a big role in a movie. Key is not depicted in the statue, unless he just happened to have resembled a buff Greek mythological dude. Somehow, out of 34 designs submitted in a nationwide competition, the commission went to Charles H. Niehaus, who sought to honor France Scott Key with an image called "Orpheus with the Awkward Foot." What were they thinking? A couple of cool pictures on markers near the statute show the dedication in 1922, attended by President Harding. Quite a contrast between that soon-to-be-roaring-20s crowd and the backward-looking statue hovering over them. I'd like to think that at least a few folks in 1922 saw Orpheus as an instant camp classic, on a par with Horatio Greenough's hilarious depiction of George Washington as a toga-wearing Roman (that 1841 statue has always been one of my faves at the National Museum of American History in DC). At once mighty and absurd, Orpheus with the Awkward Foot (not to mention an awkward pinkie) is a treasure that makes me smile every time I see it. That might not have been what Niehaus intended, but not a bad way to be remembered. PHOTOS COURTESY OF ROBERT LEININGER 
The new film ends with that same flourish, only even more impressively (a higher-tech device replaces the curtains). But those viewers on Monday who were sitting (a lot of us stood through the whole thing) never got off their rear ends when the anthem started and the real, live banner could be seen proudly waving.
