{"id":17884,"date":"2023-02-22T20:20:28","date_gmt":"2023-02-23T01:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=17884"},"modified":"2023-02-22T20:20:28","modified_gmt":"2023-02-23T01:20:28","slug":"the-face-of-washington-in-a-time-of-snow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=17884","title":{"rendered":"The face of Washington, in a time of snow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Real Faces of George Washington Based Upon His Life Mask Founding Fathers Presidents\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Y2_yi9Z_E4k?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Today has been quiet<\/strong> for me \u2013 in a sense \u2013 and busy in another sense. I\u2019ve not stirred abroad nor moved from my habitation this day, even to go to the gym. The gym is, in fact, closed, but I didn\u2019t plan to go there anyway. We\u2019re enduring the Great Blizzard of \u201923 \u2013 or so the Chickens Little of the media would have us believe. What it\u2019s been doing, in actual fact, is snowing. The winds haven\u2019t been all that strong in Minneapolis, nor the snow especially heavy (thus far). What this storm is, is long. It started the night before last, and is supposed to drag on till late tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I have enough food to get me through, and I had some work to do, which brightens any day. I wish I could tell you about the latest project, which I just turned in. It contains elements that please me. I can\u2019t say more than that. But it helped to warm the winter in my aged heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Above, a little video about George Washington\u2019s face \u2013 since it\u2019s still Washington\u2019s birthday for a few hours as I write. The near-apotheosis of Washington in our early Republic was probably a political necessity, but it\u2019s regrettable that the reaction to it \u2013 which has become malignant paranoia in recent years \u2013 has turned many people against him. Washington was (according to my reading) in fact a fascinating, complex man who worked hard at appearing one-dimensional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I love historical reconstructions like the ones in the video above. But I happen to know that even this one is glamorized. The real Washington was (like a large percentage of his contemporaries) heavily scarred by smallpox. (Andrew Jackson was the same.) Blemishes as common as that were, I suppose, generally overlooked. Smooth complexions were much admired \u2013 especially in women, who made it a point to stay out of the sun \u2013 but you couldn\u2019t insist on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Washington was also \u2013 or so I\u2019ve read \u2013 very vain about his \u201cfigure.\u201d He (like me, I must confess, though I&#8217;m not nearly as tall) was built rather broad at the hips. But he refused to believe it, despite what his mirror, and his tailor, told him. He insisted that his breeches be cut to the width he believed they ought to be, rather than what they were. Kind of like reverse anorexia. Thus his pants were always tight and uncomfortable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But he had a purpose in concentrating on his appearance, in always being \u201cin character,\u201d in never relaxing in public. He felt he was setting a precedent for his nation. Nobody knew how the elected leader of a republic was supposed to comport himself. Washington had to make it up as he went along. As a schoolteacher makes it a point to be very strict during the first few weeks, to set a tone for the class that he can ease up on later, Washington established precedents for the presidency. Later chief executives, like Lincoln, were able to ease up on the dignity a bit, because Washington had left behind such a weight of reverence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I fear the reverence is about gone now \u2013 it\u2019s not all the fault of the present incumbent, either \u2013 but Washington did a pretty good job in his time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today has been quiet for me \u2013 in a sense \u2013 and busy in another sense. I\u2019ve not stirred abroad nor moved from my habitation this day, even to go to the gym. The gym is, in fact, closed, but I didn\u2019t plan to go there anyway. We\u2019re enduring the Great Blizzard of \u201923 \u2013 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=17884\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The face of Washington, in a time of snow<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[1058,4569,3187],"class_list":["post-17884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-george-washington","tag-the-presidency","tag-translation"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17884"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17887,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17884\/revisions\/17887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}