Can you describe the mood of Washington, D.C., as you feel/see it?
SB: Mark Twain in an interview in 1889 said, “My doctor told me that if I wanted my three score and ten, I must go to bed early, keep out of social excitements, and behave myself. You can’t do that in Washington. Nobody does.”
It’s five in the morning as I write this from my one-bedroom apartment in Southwest, which is on the sixth floor of a charming but severe 1960 building designed by I. M. Pei. Through one window, the freeway hums with the earliest of commuter traffic; through another window, the last lights of Nationals Park are dimmed after last night’s loss to the Orioles. If I crane my head, I can see the Capitol. A few blocks from here, the sellers at the fish market are setting up displays of crab and oysters, and a mile away, the Secret Service is setting up checkpoints for the traffic surrounding Pope Francis’s visit.
D.C. is not always partying but it is always awake, always on the cusp of Some Important Thing. Unlike New York City, we’re never quite cool enough to take it in stride.
~from an February 2016 interview, “The City and the Writer,” with Nathalie Handal
Follow the links for more: