The New York Times profiled Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory yesterday, and in the piece Gregory offers this observation about My Dinner with Andre

A running theme in ‘My Dinner with André’ is that the habitual is putting Americans to sleep, and that there’s a danger in this, Mr. Gregory said. It’s a very entertaining film, so many people don’t notice that theme, but it’s there, very strongly.

“Mindfulness meditation is essentially cognitive fitness with a humanist face.” http://t.co/KTBkc4hhSY

— Explore (@Explorer) July 8, 2013

Finally paid a visit to Congressional Cemetery on the edge of Capitol Hill today. Though we were unable to locate any of the notable graves, it's the resting place of J. Edgar Hoover, Matthew Brady, and John Philip Sousa. John Quincy Adams, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Abigail Adams, and Dolley Madison were all interred here briefly. There are also memorial stones to many—among them John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, Hale Boggs, and Tip O'Neill. It's a remarkably peaceful and quiet place, and a good place to contemplate our history. Next time out, I'll go armed with a map and cell phone to trace the cell phone tour.

When I got home and started doing what should have preparatory research, I learned that David Herold, one of the Lincoln assassination conspirators is buried here. By chance, I discovered that today is the anniversary of his hanging.

Here Lincoln conspirators George Atzerodt & David Herold are prepared for their hanging, this day 1865: pic.twitter.com/ttjeSrBJ6j

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) July 7, 2013

I read this passage by Bartunde Thurston

“I am here” day is a time to “set aside our technology and to-do lists, choose a quarter of the city we wanted to know better, and explore it for a full day… . [It is] a kind of antimodern communal experiment: giving our gadgets a secular Sabbath; reveling in friendship and conversation of a kind that Facebook doesn’t do; being thickly in one place, not thinly everywhere.”

about an hour before I stumbled across this in the Epilog to War and Peace.

...but here I am. Here I am. And there was nothing more to reply. I was true...The blood rushed to Natasha's face and her feet made an involuntary movement, but she could not jump up and run. The baby opened his eyes again and looked. "You're here," he seemed to say and again lazily smacked his lips.

Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2007.Kindle edition, location 26955