Before Biscuit Miller and The Mix set up the stage, a bunch of kids were already high. Three young men circled around a gray haired one talking. A short, white beard guy in a black hat sat at the bar drinking alone. The band began with a strong beat. Almost instantly as music started, stepped in the dancers! They threw coats off and set themselves in motion. So vigorous and wild that I found myself completely at loss with words, mesmerized by their body movements and bright faces. They seemed to have forgotten about themselves, but it was only about themselves and being themselves. I didn’t notice when the white beard slipped onto the dance floor; the old man turned out to be a great dancer too!

In a neighboring club, the piano and the cello looked dimmed.

We can find it anywhere, if we keep our eyes open. The prettiest color is actually found in the city, unexpectedly.

It is blooming again, and Tidal Basin is turning into a wild bird refugee.

Rock Creek

Along the Potomac

Overall Run Falls and Beech Ridge

Little Devils Stairs and Compton Peak

After all, some do persist and have survived the rain. It looks even brighter.

Autumn at the window (in Georgetown)

Blossoming high up by the riverside (at Turkey Run Park)

Clopper Lake

Lake Thoreau

It does not matter which trail you take, nor you go this or that way. If you followed nature’s calling, you would come to some place where you’d be rewarded with splendid gifts. It could be along a creek in the woods, over a summit, or on a small country road. You may need scramble rocks, hike up or down a narrow path, walk across patches of wild ferns or bushes… It’s all worth it. Go and claim yours…

Annapolis Rock

Catoctin Mountain

Crowds are gone; the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool looks like a thick mirror in the evening. It is a rare quiet moment for reflection. Indeed, the city has been hustling and bustling; it is flooded with bits, from smart phones, artificially intelligent apps, unreal faces, and buzzing tweets. At every human gathering, diverse interests and agendas, personal or public, meet, converge, or clash, further adding bits to confuse. They are all entangled with egos and strangely sexed to feed entropy, who is secretly laughing. A small digression: when my dentist said everyone in the city chews teeth, I thought he was just trying to sell teeth braces. But who can be sure that all those bits do not visit us through some quantum mechanisms to disturb our night?

Let’s consider, even if it is for a brief moment, the grand scheme of evolution: every human being is merely a random experiment of nature; even Einstein is pure happenstance, a product from millions of years’ billowing and mixing of genes. Put it another way: without the ordinary, there would not be the smart; without women, no men; without the common people, no elites. All are part of the great evolution; each got his/her share of luck. Nobody can claim “I am.”

The Blue Ridge has begun to change color. The best color is, however, not found on the mountaintop; it is on full display at the foot of the mountains in the village of Sperryville: Blondee, Braeburn, Cameo, Jonagold, Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, Red Empire, and orange pumpkins. The wife’s smile and humor of the husband at a farm store are as natural as the mountain air. Travelers from the city pick apples greedily into baskets and bring home on their backseats pumpkins with solid autumn, sun’s warm caress, and apple growers’ ease.

It rained. The water in the river rose, shimmering darkly at night. So quickly was the waterfront deserted; a couple of scooters were left behind in the cold. Just yesterday on my way to see Joker, I saw people still partying on private yachts, eating seafood outdoors at Tony and Joe’s, drinking on Sequoia’s stairs, and limousines in front of Fiola Mare. Police have been active, though. In the past few days, I noticed an increased number of police cars on the streets. Could it be because of Joker which has a violent riot scene? The movie was indeed dark, so dark that I got a headache. (I rarely have had headaches in my life.) The twenty five minute movie previews were also full of violence and horrors. Has the world really become so crazy? Joker asked, so did I.

The REACH was empty too. With neither stage lighting nor the glamour of visitors, it suddenly revealed its plainness. I wondered if it was deliberately designed this way to reach a wider public. By the way, I like Pink Martini: its performances at times hilarious (spiced up by the post-post-modern diva Meow Meow) inspire good feelings in people.

Pink Martini at the Kennedy Center on October 13, 2019. Jimmie Herrod and Edna Vazquez sang to your soul. The appearance of Ari Shapiro, the co-host of NPR’s All Things Considered, was a bonus.