From the Mountains of the Moon to Memories of Yoknapatawpha

Pop artists Andy Warhol gets in the space picture

It was a DC double-down today: a free art exhibit on space exploration for my wife, a free lecture on American author William Faulkner for me.

First, we headed to the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum for the exhibition NASA Art: 50 Years of Exploration which features famous and not so famous artists' renditions of the history of space travel from the early 60s to the latest and last voyages of the space shuttles.

The exhibit pieces, about 50 or so in number, ranged from the realism of Rockwell to the wildness of Nam June Paik. There was collage (Rauschenberg), photography (Liebowitz) and even music with video (The Kronos Quartet). Artists blended mythological soarers like Icarus and Daedalus with real life high flyers like Neil Armstrong to capture their view of mankind's continuing attempt to reach for the stars and beyond.

The exhibit was impressive, but easily manageable. We both liked it so much we went through a second time.

Our Best of Show - Martin Huffman's"Sunrise Suitup"

Our Creativity Counts Prize - Clayton Pond's "Strange Encounter for the First Time" where the space shuttle Enterprise meets the noted Starship Enterprise from the Star Trek series.

Returning to earth, we headed to the James Madison Building of The Library of Congress for a noon-time lecture entitled William Faulkner and the Ledgers of History.

For about an hour in the standing room only Mary Pickford Theater (and yes, we did stand) Emory University Professor Sally Woolf used details from her recent book to present a compelling case that Faulkner used a real-life antebellum Leek diary from the then owners of the McCarroll Place homestead in Holly Springs, Mississippi as a basis for many of the details in his novels and short stories.

After establishing that that Faulkner had visited the McCarroll home for years to hear old stories and take notes from the diary, Woolf says she is convinced that he appropriated much of what he found there for his fictional creations.

"The diary entries and the family stories that he found there definitely made their way into his novels," Woolf said. "Of course, when you're an artist, it's hard to say what parts come from experience and what parts come from imagination."

Woolf says that when she presents her Faulkner diary lectures to her students, they inevitably ask if the Nobel Prize winning author was a plagiarist. No, she  quickly answers. "Faulkner did draw some details, names, characters, and situations, but he made them something completely new," Woolf  said.

Travelers' Tip:
In this post 9/11 world make sure you allot arrival time for any government-sponsored event.  We were almost late for the Faulkner talk because we got hung up in the screening line for the library.