lighting to unite

a couple of weekends ago i read that this light show thing (i will post the article below if you are interested. was happening in the washington post and decided that we had to go. we had made plans for a girls night with sarah and kimber and mimo. mimo ditched us for other friends, sarah ditched us to babysit. but we got kimber and that was awesome.

dianna and i, having been to oyamel too many times for their guacamole took notes one time and started replicating it. one day i got the idea to roast poblano peppers and put refried beans and the guac in them. so we had that and limonada for dinner...

guac:
4 avocados
1 C queso fresco
cilantro to taste
1/2 of medium sized red onion chopped very thin and small
4 chopped green onions
serrano peppers to taste
1/2 a lime squeeze juiced
salt to taste
mix together like they do for guac. it is good!

limonada
juice of 4 limes
ice
to taste sugar
4 T sweetened condensed milk
water
put in blender
i like the ice kinda shaken not blended. but do what you want.

here we are enjoying the deliciousness

this tasted way better than this photo would make you believe


then we left for the cathedral.
this is what greeted us

i forgot my tripod. i was sore upset
(its like sore afraid only upset)

this is what the lights looked like hitting the trees on the way to the cathedral

kimber, lindsay, and dianna

me and kimber in the glow

Going With The Glow
By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 9, 2008

A Swiss "illumination artist" lit up the sides of Washington National Cathedral last night with giant multicolored images. There were projections of stars, human faces and an abstract thing that looked like an exploded tomato. At one point a 50-foot-tall woman in a kimono materialized.

Reactions ranged from awed to puzzled.

The lights were a test run for an art project called "Lighting to Unite," which the cathedral describes as "a call for national and global unity."

The lighting is the work of Gerry Hofstetter, a 45-year-old artist from Zurich who has been projecting images on large surfaces since 1999. Hofstetter doesn't do small: He's shone British-flag emblems on the white cliffs of Dover, hieroglyphics on the Great Pyramid, and a polar bear on an Antarctic iceberg. His next project will involve Mount Kilimanjaro. He is to lighting what Christo is to fabric.

Last night, Hofstetter ran a series of glass plates through a 6,000-volt projector and said artisty things like "Light is hope, fire is energy. These colors mean hope and energy."

The images projected on the cathedral "speak of unity and reconciliation . . . and human oneness," said the Rev. Sam Lloyd, the cathedral's dean.

In truth, the sight of the neo-Gothic cathedral swaddled in a phantasm of psychedelic lights was a little jarring, the way the Mona Lisa would look with a rainbow 'fro wig. The whole concept seemed vaguely overwhelming, like those midnight planetarium laser shows of yore, only without the Pink Floyd soundtrack and all the reefer.

Viewers and passersby generally applauded, though some were a little unclear on the underlying artistic theme.

Muriel Farley Dominguez of Arlington declared: "I love it. It's just lovely. It gives a different perspective on the cathedral." But Diane Pirkey of Rehoboth Beach, Del., was stumped by the unity message. "I don't get that out of this."

Jon Utley of Georgetown stopped his car on Wisconsin Avenue NW to view the show. A former marketing man, he wondered if the projection technology could be adapted for sales purposes. "It's really astounding," he said. On the other hand, he added, "it's not quite dignified to project colorful abstractions on the cathedral."

Hofstetter's work will be on display tonight through Sunday from sunset to midnight. The south-side projections are visible from various vantage points around town.

In the morning, the cathedral goes back to being lighted the old-fashioned way.