Penney For Your Thought I'm one of the 92% of Penney's Web site visitors ("Penney Wise," Sept. 4) that did not place an order.
A wise visitor from outer space who dropped in on Earth a millennium ago might have assumed that the Americas would eventually be colonized not by primitive Europeans but by the more advanced Arab civilization — and that as a result we Americans would all be speaking Arabic today.
A first-time visitor chose a Wise Old Monkey (Old Monk rum, crème de banane, orange bitters) over a Lady Mountbatten (Scotch, Pamplemousse, strawberry gastrique), named for the wife of the last viceroy to India and a rumored lover of Nehru, and asked how the bar got its name.
So the wise visitor hopscotches between the imperial city and the "regular" city, perhaps choosing a White House tour or an hour spent admiring the Capitol's architecture and stunning murals, then leaving the imperial city far behind to sit in a cafe in the rapidly gentrifying U Street neighborhood or to take in a piece of art-house esoterica at the Visions Cinema near Dupont Circle.
But not all visitors are so wise.
Nowadays wise visitors should ensure they also have a map of the city's unlovely outskirts, an inflatable cushion and climbing boots.
Tourists flock to Bourbon Street but wise visitors head to Frenchmen Street, just outside the French Quarter, to hear cutting-edge jazz.
Nights are festive, the restaurants offer international cuisine and the wisest visitors go to bed early to be ready for their treks to discover the geysers and flamingos of the salt flats.
They are so poor that they associate the Three Wise Men with visitors from the welfare department.
To fully understand African art, it would be wise for museum visitors to reorient their thinking away from Western terms.
A visitor would be charitable -- and wise -- to give the big white lug another chance.
