Hey, DC has art museams. Who knew?

We went to see the Richard Avedon exhibition at the Corcoran today. The retrospective featured his photographs relating to power - be it political, social or artistic. Very, uh, powerful. Photos spanned from 1964 to 2004, when his brain exploded. The "final" image was a portrait of Obama from the 2004 Democratic convention. *sigh*

That was all good and stuff, but what really piqued my interest when browsing the gallery brochure was an exhibition of satirical cartoons going back three centuries. Cool! Honoré Daumier's hilarious lithographs from the 1800's was the highlight, but the coolest tidbit came from former Washington Post cartoonist, Clifford Berryman. In 1902, he heard a story about Teddy Roosevelt refusing to shoot a bear brought to his hunting grounds in a weakened state to be easy prey. (You know, like how Dick Cheney enjoys shooting tame and injured quail in between blowing the faces off lawyers.) The resulting cartoon made the bear look cute and innocent, to show Teddy's nobility in sportsmanship.



Dude created the teddy bear! I love these little history tidbits! Years later, the teddy model was perfected with the glorious Josh Bear.



(I have no idea if this is *the* Josh Bear or not. It's not like Josh reads this, so he won't complain!)

Anywho, here's a god-awful teddy bear sketch. Honestly, just killing time before dinner here. Woo!