This video doesn’t make the day any warmer, but at least we can remember what warm sunshine is like. It’s on the way, for sure, but in the meantime, enjoy this video shot at Meridian Hill Park by Giganova. This is the type of thing that makes DC great.
I was fortunate enough this evening to get to go see the Newseum as it nears completion. When I tell you it’s nearing completion, you should read it this way: if you have family working on the Newseum, leave them a note telling them you love them and make some plans to do something together… on April 12th, the day after they’ve opened. Because between now and then they are going to be busy.
While they’ve got lots left to do, the space is beautiful. The picture above is from the front page gallery on the top floor. To the left you can see only a portion of the glass cases that line the wall, containing one newspaper front page from one paper in each state - plus the District of Columbia. Jack Hurley was kind enough to chat with us at length, and we talked at one point about the newspapers. When they first opened in their old space across the river they’d sometimes be short of enough front pages to fill the display cases and would have to run out and buy some to scan and put up.
Now they get 500 on a slow day, typically the weekends. During the week the number can exceed 600.
Not at all visible in my picture is the amazing view from the full-length balcony off to the right. At 555 Pennsylvania, the Newseum is just down and up the mall from the Capitol with a southernly view from the balcony. Immediately right next door is the Canadian Embassy, which my darling girlfriend said used to be the best view in DC. Mr Hurley stated that the Newseum has the best public view now, and he said it in a tone that would brook no argument. Which was completely unnecessary, since neither of us were inclined to disagree.
I’ve got more pictures to upload and share with you tomorrow, but the capsule review is this: it looks beautiful and the exhibits are interesting and well done. The place is spacious and it’s going to need to be: this is a museum that’s going to bring people in and keep them there. Put it on your short list of places to visit.
Anybody who has picked up today’s Washington City Paper has probably seen the ballot for “Best of D.C.: Celebrating the Classics 2008″. They are getting in the game with The Washington Post and The Washingtonian, asking readers to vote on what places, things, and cute bartenders make life in DC special and fun.
This has inspired me to finally launch a new series here that I have been mulling for some time.
Here is how this will work: I will take on the challenge of finding the “best in DC” - one thing at a time. Be it cupcakes, shoe stores, or dj nights, I will solicit recommendations of competitors, do some research, and then go try out those which claim to vie for title of “best”.
In other words - one girl’s highly subjective search to sift through mediocrity and mass-name-recognition (is Potbelly really the best sandwich place in town as it is consistently voted - or just the only one that a majority of the voters have been to?) to bring you what I think are the best bets around.
For this to work, I will need a lot of input from you. I want you to send me on missions that you want to read about. In the comments below, I would love to see suggestions of things you want me to review for you! I also need your suggestions of where to go. Do you think you know about the best beer selection in town? Let me know! Hopefully, other people will have different ideas, and I will try to put them all to the test.
One stipulation: I am not finding out the best fetish club. If you want to know, you will have to wait for the City Paper’s results. (Also, I reserve the right not to be sent on any missions I consider immoral or generally icky. You know.)
Also, we are going to need to think of a name. I thought about calling it “The Decider”, but that seems pretty dated at this point…
photo by erin m on flickr
When the guys at DC Comedy 4 Now invited me out to see their bi-monthly “Top Shelf” show at Solly’s U St. Tavern, I was skeptical. The idea is that all the comedians dress up in suits or dresses to do their bits. Being unable to imagine wanting to do my set in a skirt, I wasn’t sure how it would go. Could Larry Poon be the same without his track suit? Does Hampton even own a suit? (Answer: Yes, and it makes him look even younger, if that’s possible.)
It wasn’t until I actually arrived at Solly’s upstairs room that it all started to make sense- the wobbly tables, the assorted debris against the back wall of the stage, Nick Turner’s insistence on drinking his PBR out of a snifter… Clearly there was more irony here than I had previously been aware of.
I had a great time at the show- Kojo Mante’s diatribe against comparing things to crack had me in tears, and Justin Schlegel’s insistence, yelled out the window to passerby, that driving a Vespa makes you gay (delivered while wearing a cherry-red blazer, no less) is probably my favorite pot-and-kettle joke to date.
You can catch the next Top Shelf at Solly’s on February 19th, and the cover is only $5! So cheap! But if you’re still looking for something to do for your comedy-lovin’ sweetie around Valentine’s Day, the DC Comedy 4 Now crew will be hosting “Romantic Comedy” this Saturday in the DC Improv’s Comedy Lounge. Get your tickets in advance, their last show sold out.
It’s that time of year again, DC. The time when your team isn’t playing in the Super Bowl. Let’s face it, if you’re a Redskins fan (not) like me, it’s been a loooooong time since your team has been anywhere near the Lombardi Trophy. But don’t let that trivial fact spoil your fun because we all know the best part of watching the Super Bowl is the commercials and the halftime wardrobe malfunctions.
So where’s the best sports bar to watch the Big Game in DC?
Photo by fanaticssportscentral
If you missed last year’s Exposed show, then now’s the time to get planning! DCist today announced their plans for Exposed 2008, which will take place March 7th-15th at Civilian Art Projects in Penn Quarter. With a friendly $5 entry fee, and a request of only 25% of final sale profits, Exposed is a great way to get your photos seen without having to come up with a bundle in jury fees.
Check out their new Flickr Group for Entries, and make sure to fill out the entry form.
And remember: unless you can capture it on fire, the Washington Monument is a bad subject.
Are you excited about a “$100 laptop” for children? Have you heard about One Laptop Per Child? Might you even be a Give One Get One participant?
Then you’ll be excited to learn that Wednesday night you’ll have the chance to play with a XO-1 laptop at the much-anticipated:
OLPC News Washington DC Meetup
at RFD in Chinatown (map)
Wednesday, November 14, 2007 @ 6pm
Jonathan Blocksom and I are organizing a geek-out with BTest-1 and BTest-4 OLPC XO laptops.
If you have your own OLPC XO, Classmate PC, Asus Eee PC, or other low-cost computing option, bring it out. We can have a full on laptop shoot-out.
But don’t think One Laptop Per Child’s clock-stopping hot technology will be upstaged. As the many G1G1 XO laptop buyers will confirm, when it comes to educational computing for children, there is no equal to OLPC.
photo: whitehouse.gov
With the beginning of November comes the inevitable start of the Festive Winter Holiday Season onslaught. In today’s commercialized world, so many of us cynically mark it with the dangling of twinkle-lights dangling from the ceiling at Whole Foods and arrival of Santa Claus dog costumes in the shops.
Perhaps, however, this is the year to greet Festive Time in a more wholesome, ceremonial way: By waiting in a line staffed by government bureaucrats to get tickets so that, a month later, you can huddle with the masses trying to get a glimpse of the various VIP’s on hand to flip a switch and turn on thousands of tiny lights on a generally underwhelming Christmas tree. (Seriously, why is the National Christmas Tree always so small and unimpressive? It is the National Tree. Why is it not remotely as good as the NBC/General Electric Rockefeller Center Holiday Tree™?) Also, country music will be performed.
Tickets for the tree lighting become available Saturday November 3, at 8:00 am. Allegedly, one will need to arrive well in advance to hope of getting tickets, but having never done it I cannot say it is not just hype. They are distributed from the White House Visitors Center at 15th and E. All the information is available from The National Park Service.
Personally, I file the National Tree Lighting Ceremony under “things my parents did with me as a child that everybody should probably do once” rather than “traditions that I look forward to each year,” but that may just be me…
On a Scale of Zero to Sucktacular, I would put Kz’s House of Talent near the top of that scale. Their “comedy contest” tonight at Floyd’s (the best description of Floyd’s is that it’s a TGI Fridays that’s had its soul sucked out) was the single biggest entertainment lie I’ve been told since they tried to pass off Baltimore as DC in this summer’s Die Hard. I was expecting a great slate of comedians. I didn’t make it past the Emcee.
For my $10, I got the world’s worst DJ, a sound system that didn’t work, strobe lights that made me wonder if we were in a bad rave, and two R&B “acts” that could only charitably told to find day jobs and keep them. I felt really bad for the “opener” on the night, Mike Blejer, who was really quite funny, when the crowd could hear him. Sadly, the guys running the sound system were either deaf or unable to notice that the entire crowd at Floyd’s was asking them to turn it up. The representative for KZ’s House of “Talent” foisted her acts on us without warning, despite the event being advertised as a comedy night. They were so bad, I thought about going to the bathroom to hang myself, or using my fork to put holes in my eardrums.
Putting Blejer, who won the Improv’s Comedy Showcase in September, on in front of a dead crowd who couldn’t hear him was the first strike. The second strike was the really shitty R&B acts. I came to see comedy, not bad music in entertaining LED-blinking glasses. The third was the emcee. I understand that comedy is about laughs. I understand that not everything a comedian says on stage is true and actually fact. But that’s no reason to get up there and bag on your girlfriend for a good solid ten minutes. You don’t have to go right for the “my girlfriend so fat…” jokes.
That’s when I found out that my friend who was performing hadn’t been given a performance order, and had to pay part of the cover charge, that’s when we bailed. Don’t go to Kz’s events. You’ll just be annoyed that you spent money for nothing.
Well, it’s really got to suck to be Roy Pearson. First, your pants gets lost, and you have to file a ridiculously wrong $54 million suit. Second, you go to trial, and lose, over that very same suit. Third, you may be out of a job entirely before long, thanks in now small part to your suit.
Never mind all the resources Pearson wasted in that trial, and all the man-hours of local media outfits associated with it, what about the guy’s job?
Should Pearson stay on the bench, or should he get run out of town on a rail?
