“Give me a word, give me a sign…”

You may be enriching your knowledge and refining your scholarship, American Blogging Medievalist Community, but one Washington cathedral is having the best weekend ever.

For three nights, Swiss artist Gerry Hofstetter is projecting a colorful slide show onto the western and southern sides of the National Cathedral. Supposedly, the images are devoted to “illustrating [the cathedral’s] mission of reconciliation, spotlighting its role as a spiritual beacon for the nation, and proclaiming hope for all humankind,” but mostly they’re just eye-popping fun.

Thousands of people gathered on the grounds tonight. Traffic slowed; families kept their kids up late; couples huddled in the gardens and on moonlit benches; a group of frat guys cheered like sports fans every time the colors changed; and an older lady told me that the light show was “better than fireworks, because here you have time to think about each one.”

Groovy, baby!

We are stardust, we are golden…

One passerby muttered, “How much artistic skill does it take to project an image onto a building?” There’s an argument to be made from that, but how often do workaholic Washingtonians pause to look up and reflect? Making stressed people patient with lights, shapes, and symbols—that, in itself, is an art.