She took this photograph of the tiger yawning.

I wanted to see the Pandas. We were lucky to catch them while they were active (eating). This guy looked a little like he was smoking a cigar.

When I went to the Bronx Zoo years ago, one of my best photographs was of a non-zoo duck poking his head out of the foliage that looked like he was about to say AFLAC (or perhaps making insensitive jokes about disaster victims). This butterfly is a non-zoo butterfly that I just happened to see between zoo animals.

This Kingfisher is extinct in the wild according to the sign on its display in the bird house. It reminded me of the less colorful Kookaburra back home.

...and a few more:

I turned out to be right on both counts, and she even got a “watch the entire interview on www.thedailyshow.com” thingie on Monday in which gave a meandering anecdote about the last Queen of Hawai'i and Saddam Hussein. She was also scheduled to give a reading at a bookstore in northwest DC on Saturday according to her agent's website. So yesterday I took the train into DC to look at the flowers which I don't think have reached their peak, and then continued on to the bookstore. Pictured is the Washington Monument obscured by flowers. That structure has always been my least favourite big thing in Washington, and I think the flowers covering it up are an improvement.

There was also this weird sandbagging going on on the mall, which I couldn't quite understand the reason for. Maybe there is going to be a really tiny flood? Or maybe it is terrorism related. Everything has to be painted with that brush now, especially in Washington.

Anyway, I got to the bookstore about three hours early, in part because I didn't know how long it would take me to get there, and in part because I wasn't sure how crowded it would be. As it turned out it was very crowded, and I was happy to get a seat in the third row, once they brought the seating out, as many people had to stand, but even then I think I was about an hour and a half early.

The bookstore itself was a Liberal Group Think Book and Coffee Hut and reminded me of that episode of South Park in which the greenies all buy buy Priuses (what is the correct plural for that?) and start liking the smell of their own farts. Forgive me if the summary is not quite right, it has been a while since I've seen it. Just for the record, I own and drive a hybrid vehicle and I love it, but people who have a strong political view and express it in your face can be a turn off.

The other day I was listening to the radio and they played a clip of a politician saying that she wanted to defund NPR so that tax payers wouldn't be forced to pay for opinions that they don't agree with. Can I please get a refund for all the cruise missiles I have payed for please? Actually, my income is small enough that all of the money that I will ever pay in taxes will probably not even amount to enough to pay for one of those cruise missiles that accidentally hit Turkey during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Anyway I try to stop myself from diatribing on the Internet about my politics because I believe I can learn more by listening than by shouting, but this politicians flawed logic angered me enough to tweet:

A poli says she wants to defund NPR so voters don't have to pay for opinions they disagree with. When do they defund stuff I disagree with?

I didn't invent this quip, by any stretch of the imagination, but it got re-tweeted several times, and a number of my friends “liked” it on The Facebook. So I felt vindicated. My understanding is that NPR doesn't get most of its funding from the government anyway, so this whole thing is sort of a faux issue. My point is that I do have strong political opinions, but I don't like to shout them, or hang out only with people who agree with me, and I was uncomfortable in this bookstore, in which I had to wait for three hours!

I did find a humorous book in the travel section titled 101 Places NOT to See Before You Die in which Australia's big things got a whole two page chapter. Hey, at least we don't have a huge phallus in our capital dedicated to our first Prime Minister! Actually the only Big Thing that I have ever seen is the Big Marino, and only because it is on the drive between Sydney and Canberra, which I have done about a million times. The book recommends re-evaluating your priorities if you ever feel like going on a mission to see every one of the Big Things in Australia.

I don't need to see any more Big Things, but it got me to thinking. A couple of weeks ago I walked past the following presidential memorials in DC: Nixon, Lincoln, Jefferson and Washington. Okay, there is no Nixon Memorial, but I did walk past The Watergate. Presidents spend much of their time in the District, so there must be places and things associated with each president here, and it could be an interesting challenge to research and visit said places for each president. Okay interesting if you don't easily get bored with historical tourism, or don't suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder.

After all of those digressions, I was once again sitting in the third row, and Sarah Vowell finally came out and it occurred to me when I recognized her that in real life she looks like an ordinary person. Actually even on TV she looks like an ordinary person, but for some reason this thought crept into my mind at this point.

Vowell read from the first chapter of her book and then she took questions. What struck me, particularly about the Q&A session was just how unsure of herself she was. Almost all her answers took the form of a meandering stream of consciousness as she worked through the question in her head and finished up with an apologetic “did that answer your question?” It's funny because the people she writes about are so definite and sure about themselves, and she is both attracted to and afraid of those sort of people. It is also the exact opposite of the vibe that I got from the bookstore itself. I overheard a guy with a slightly louder than normal voice behind me talking before Vowell got there who seemed to know everything about anything, and yet expressed surprised that Vowell lived in NYC. How can you really have read all those books an not know that?

One of the questions was: elaborate on how you feel about these two subjects: the Tea Party and electronic books. Her answer was “Um. I think civic engagement is good?” followed by a hearty laugh from the audience when they realized that was all she would say, and a much longer and more meandering answer to how she felt about ebooks. I don't think I have ever read or heard her talk about the Tea Party, but she has talked a lot about Reagan and Bush and one can probably extrapolate from that how she feels about the Tea Party's politics, but it takes a mature mind not to inflate a probably temporary movement into an unstoppable boogeyman.

This what I think I love about Sarah Vowell. As the descendant of both American Indians forced out of their homes and onto the Trail of Tears, and also as the descendant of Germans and Swedes who shared their beer and cheese with each other on the way to America (this was, yes, an anecdote she used), she sees the good and evil of the US. She is often against or ambivalent about its policies, but at the same time she loves the ideals for which this country stands and for which it even sometimes lives up to.

Another question took the form of “If I am against colonialism, and empire and the military industrial complex, then what should I do to stop that sort of thing?” This is, of course, a tall order. She answered “Write your congressman?” Until she realized that in the District they have no congressman, but an ineffectual non-voting delegate. So then she advocated getting a congressman so that they could then write their congressman, and then made a digression about embarrassing scandal infused senators. By the way, I live in Maryland, so I do have a congress person and two senators, and even when I lived in Sydney I got to keep my congress person and two senators from New York, so it is just an embarrassment that residents of the District don't.

As she was talking about the same anecdote about the last Queen of Hawai'i and Saddam Hussein that she used in the extended interview with Jon Stewart, it struck me that about 90% of the things that I heard Vowell (and Fforde the week before) say were things that I had already heard or read them say before. I think people like Vowell and Fforde sound eloquent in part because they are, but also a little bit because they are repeating the same things over and over, and at this point you must have gotten good at saying them.

The bookstore handling Fforde's appearance was much better organized. When you bought a book they gave you a ticket with a letter on it, and people would line up to get their books signed by bordering group, a la Southwest (by the way did I mention that on Southwest bags fly free and that there are no change fees?). Here a massed throng of people push their way into a line which eventually snaked around the edge of the bookstore.

When it was my turn I told her that we had seen Assassins when I was still living in Sydney. Actually I did say that but I was less coherent than that. She told me that used to be her favourite musical until The Book of Mormon, which she has already seen twice.

I walked back to the metro station, stopping at a Burger King for dinner, which looked like it was trying to look like it was an old movie theatre with various movie related memorabilia. Pictured is, yes, ET flying in a bicycle into the jaws of a dinosaur. Understandable only if you realize he is being chased by Jaws (not pictured). Downstairs was Rock and Roll themed instead of movie themed. I didn't go down there, but I could see two electronic guitars.