{"id":2534,"date":"2007-11-29T15:10:59","date_gmt":"2007-11-29T19:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=2534"},"modified":"2007-11-29T20:16:20","modified_gmt":"2007-11-30T00:16:20","slug":"without-representation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/29\/without-representation\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington DC: Without Representation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/\/linguafresca.com\/spacing\/dcmetro.JPG\" alt=\"Eastern Market Station\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>WASHINGTON, DC<\/strong> &#8212; It is still fall right now in Washington, DC. Leaves cling to trees and only occasionally scatter in a yellow pile. This is my first trip here that doesn&#8217;t have to do with my father or eighth grade or some other strangely structured reason; as such I wandered out of DC Union Station past caterers setting up 2,000 champagne flutes and right onto the National Mall. Within half an hour of being here I found a pocket-sized copy of the US Constitution on the ground. So American, this place.<\/p>\n<p>Within another ten minutes I had found a tourist map, also on the ground &#8212; this was good as I wanted to check something in this maze of silly alphabet names. I strolled the secure-yet-abandoned perimeter of the Capitol building, then through streets of rowhouses and sidewalks full of rustling leaves, sometimes raked into piles, sometimes raked by my feet. DC is full of familiar Victorian rowhouses: but without the gables of Toronto. It is a little deja vu and a little nicer than I remember it being here.<\/p>\n<p>I am compelled most by the subway: the <a href=\"http:\/\/chnm.gmu.edu\/metro\/\">Metro<\/a> is the strangest mixture of modern and arcane. Farecards &#8212; currently decorated with the <a href=\"http:\/\/animal.discovery.com\/cams\/pandavidr.html\">giant pandas<\/a> of the National Zoo &#8212; are obtained through a machine that lets you pay down-to-the-nickel per distance. The machines will tell you not only the zone and price, but the travel time &#8212; and yet it seems so strange to me that one wouldn&#8217;t just want to pay a flat rate for what seems like a small area (even if it spans two states and a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/District_of_Columbia_voting_rights\">taxed-without-being-represented<\/a> diamond-shape.)<\/p>\n<p>Metro stations themselves are glorious 70s arched futurism: from the footlights that call out the arrival of your train to the spacious ceilings and layered stations (at <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/L'Enfant_Plaza_(Washington_Metro)\">L&#8217;Enfant Plaza<\/a> the transfers are easy and if you stand in the right place you can see crisscrossing train lines from above and below). The trains themselves, and their passengers, baffle. Carpeting. Seats way too far away from doors. And passengers &#8212; they all work for the government, their EPA and Department of Commerce laminates and military fatigues creating a kind of visual-political static &#8212; who use trains differently than we do in other cities. They do not take seats. They stand, poking us with their impractical hardback books. I have seen at least three people reading hardbacks on the Metro. This would never happen in New York or Toronto, right?<\/p>\n<p>I tend to think all capital cities suffer from a necessary lack of personality &#8212; there&#8217;s sort of a sterile-white-paint quality to these places, shaded only by the spectre of weird governmental oppressiveness. DC remains a well-manicured enigma to me: but from the reflecting pools to the loosening brick sidewalks to the guy screaming and jogging backwards on H street, I feel slowly like I have unlocked a little bit more of the oblique mystery here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON, DC &#8212; It is still fall right now in Washington, DC. Leaves cling to trees and only occasionally scatter in a yellow pile. This is my first trip here that doesn&#8217;t have to do with my father or eighth grade or some other strangely structured reason; as such I wandered out of DC Union<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/29\/without-representation\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Washington DC: Without Representation&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4026,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7482,7478,7479,7484,6204,7485,7481,7480,469,21,7483,19,3371,575,574],"class_list":["post-2534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transit","tag-capitol-building","tag-dc","tag-dc-union-station","tag-department-of-commerce","tag-environmental-protection-agency","tag-lenfant","tag-national-mall","tag-national-zoo","tag-new-york","tag-other-cities","tag-sterile-white-paint-quality","tag-toronto","tag-travel-time","tag-washington","tag-washington-dc"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Washington DC: Without Representation - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/29\/without-representation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Washington DC: Without Representation - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"WASHINGTON, DC &#8212; It is still fall right now in Washington, DC. Leaves cling to trees and only occasionally scatter in a yellow pile. 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