That may not ring any bells among those of you who didn’t go to college with a bunch of radical anarchists who shouted “fuck the police!” and “smash the state!” Frankly, it’s not part of my world anymore either–once I left college, I slowly drifted away from punks and DIYers who created their own zines and would wheat-paste fliers on walls around town after dark.

I’m not sure what an infoshop is technically meant to be, but the one I hung around in Berkeley, CA was a place where you could stay all day, reading books about ending speciesism or acting up against the military-industrial complex, and then have a meal of second-hand brown bread and vegan soup. And where the shelves were packed with homemade zines about folks’ adventures and thoughts. Kinda like paper blogs. No, make that just like paper blogs.

I’m not making fun of these places. It’s the greatest thing when people’s ideals push them to actually do something rather than just talk about it. It’s just such a walk down memory lane for me, though, that I have to laugh.

So DC’s infoshop is exactly like the one in Berkelely, only smaller. And the people are friendlier! And there are signs on the wall urging support for activists who are now in jail. I don’t remember that from my college years.

Technically this infoshop is called the Brian Mackenzie Infoshop, after a local activist who died while trying to make the place a reality.

Go check it out; smile and the folks there will smile back. It’s in the middle of nowhere, 1426 9th st NW (by P, I think) and it’s generally open noon-9pm Weds-Sun. Call at 202-986-0681 if you want to be sure they’re there before you come.

I was walking with my dog when you slipped and fell directly onto the poopy pile that little Sammy just left. lol! I couldn’t believe it, and was too stunned to ask you out. Hit me up after you wash all that poop off your nice white sweater.

I hope it was a holiday sweater, at least, and not one of those Cosby-type get-ups. If Ms. Poopy Dog or Mr. Poopy Sweater reads this, please comment and let us know the outcome and whether it was truly a match made in heaven or simply a crappy encounter, as one might guess from how it started.

Her cheerfully incandescent presence at Go Mama Go, her exquisite taste in art and artifacts, and her unwavering community spirit, will be very much missed. Over the years since she opened the shop, I’ve often browsed through its wonderland of goods to lift my mood. Many times she helped me out of a jam with gift suggestions, always bright.

I’m so sad I don’t know what else to say.

The 14th & U Farmers’ Market opened last weekend and will run every Saturday 10am-2pm outside the Reeves Center until November 17. It’s small, about seven or eight local producers, and it’s going to become my new addiction. Just a five block stroll from my house and all the seasonal bounty I can carry back. Fantastic. I had about $25 in cash in my pocket and picked up apples, mesclun salad, arugula flowers, strawberries, and applewurst. I could easily also have been tempted by the delicate thin asparagus (I HATE thick asparagus with a passion), jugs of apple cider, farm-fresh eggs, and rhubarb (if I had any clue how to make rhubarb pie).

Back home my husband laughed at his city mouse ecstatically eating strawberries and waxing poetical about how adorably sweet they were (”and they’re not all the same size!” I cried, waving my now-red fingers in glee). As a former country boy he knows all about the virtues of farm produce and thinks my naivete pretty hilarious. It is, but that won’t stop me from indulging in my new Saturday ritual next week. Hope to see some of you there. I’ll be the girl buying all the honey she can carry.

Further investigation proved that the sign had been screwed into the tree that straddles the sidewalk in front of both my neighbor’s and my houses. It’s a rather wild tree, always needing pruning, its roots coming up through the sidewalk and into our yards in angry defiance of urbanity. Whatever treebox it may have once had is all hard root and broken brick now. There’s always trash discarded around it – usually the droppings of kids on their way home from school, candy wrappers and crumpled chip bags. Sometimes an empty 40 or two. When I get home I pick up the trash, all part of the routine.

Someone on my block is sick of it, so angry about the waste that they’ve taken the time to construct a sign and screw it into the tree trunk. But will it change the pschology of the people who litter?

I wish otherwise, but I think it more likely that the schoolkids will read that sign and throw more trash on the ground. They may even throw it into my yard, as someone threw the sign, associating my house with it as guilt by proximity. The man drinking 40’s will spit on the sign. Shame does not change behavior anymore. Everyone has an excuse.

Last week I was in the one of the most beautiful places on the face of the earth, Killarney National Park. I was sad (but not entirely shocked) to find litter even there, crumpled water bottles mostly, some beer, which I picked up and threw away properly. It broke my heart that someone could see so much beauty and then casually toss their trash.

The litterers on my block do not see beauty in our neighborhood. And now I will see this sign every day for as long as it stays up, another ugly reminder of that fact.

The Metro Board in April agreed to extend the Yellow Line from Mt. Vernon Sq/7th Street-Convention Center to the Fort Totten Metrorail station during off-peak hours (weekdays, 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., 7 p.m. to closing, and weekends) as part of the 18-month pilot. The District of Columbia will cover the $5.75 million cost of expanding service.

By extending the Yellow Line to Fort Totten, passengers traveling beyond the Mt. Vernon Sq/7th Street-Convention Center Metrorail station to the Shaw-Howard U, U St/African-Amer Civil War Memorial/Cardozo, Columbia Heights and Georgia Ave-Petworth Metrorail stations will have additional off-peak rail service. Weekday off-peak service between these locations, which is every 12 minutes, will operate every six minutes. On week nights after 7 p.m., and on the weekends when trains run every 15 to 20 minutes, trains will operate every 7 ½ to 10 minutes.

In other words, in the early afternoons, late evenings, and weekends, Ben’s Chili Bowl is being served by twice as many trains. Perhaps the Yellow Line will start getting a little more respect now.

Many people may associate Duke Ellington with New York (thanks in part to the classic “Take the ‘A’ Train”) but his roots were firmly planted in DC, and especially in the U Street neighborhood where he grew up and had his musical start, from his birth here in 1899 to his departure for Harlem in 1923. PBS did a brilliant documentary on “Duke Ellington’s Washington” a while back, and its website also gives an overview of Black Broadway and Shaw. The Howard Theater, the Whitelaw Hotel, True Reformers’ Hall, all are landmarks still visible today that featured prominently in his life. DC’s great Ellington School for the Arts bears his name and the spirit of his legacy proudly, and we now even have a jazz festival in his honor.

Thanks to my jazz-loving father, I was exposed to Ellington’s music as a small child (though as Duke once said naughtily, “By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with.”). I find his brilliance undimmed – jazz with the backbone of classical training, complexity of rhythm, and essence of cool unmatched. I especially love his piano improvisations, but I really can’t pick any favorites. I just know that when I walk down U Street and look up at the mural bearing his image, I think of him decked out in that seriously spiffy tuxedo, smiling at the audience, and saying farewell with, “we love you, madly.” Genius.

Tags: Metblogs7Gifts 7Gifts Metroblogging7Gifts

Users can customize their search requirements by zip code, city, county or state, using a variety of variables. A quick Georgetown search turned up not a whole lot, whereas a quick search of my home zip code turned up two rental possibilities.

Looking for a roommate? You apparently can use that feature too, although it turned up zilch for me. This appears to be a great tool for relocation professionals who know naught about the new city they’ll call home. Doing a quick search of cities such as Seattle and Boston turned up a whole lot of useful information.

These three Notre Dame former college roommates moved to the D.C. area and created HotPads in early ‘05, relaunching the site last month. The best thing about HotPads? It’s totally free.

Between HotPads and The D.C. Crime Map newcomers to D.C. can learn much more about prospective neighbours before they even put down a deposit. Say ’sayonara’ to moving in sight unseen, suckers.

Etete, a tiny Ethiopian restaurant at 1942 Ninth Street, is named for its chef-owner Etete Tesfaye (Etete means Mama). It opened back in October of 2004, and is part of the string of Ethiopian eateries fast remaking Ninth Street into a culinary destination, a development which gave rise to the “Little Ethiopia” controversy last year.

I’ve only had Ethiopian a handful of times, a shocking shame in a city that could very well say it’s the foremost ethnic cuisine here. But I wasn’t too thrilled with my first experiences, back in my Adams Morgan days. Happily, Friday’s night rainy sojourn convinced me otherwise.

Laughing breathlessly from our losing battle with the winds, we entered another world from the storm. Warm inviting colors of pumpkin spice graced the walls. Etete is very small, and you are seated quite close to other diners, but that’s part of its intimate charm. It’s truly convivial, not corporately contrived.

We decided to order a bottle of the housemade Tej, Ethiopian honey wine. It came in a recycled Red Label bottle, sweet cloudy mead with a touch of hops. Delicious and dangerous, it sent us straight into a happy place.

Our soothing waitress brought out a platter covered with injera, flat and chewy sourdough bread that serves as eating utensil (you also get a basket of extra injera). I hadn’t cared for it before, but Etete’s is very good – soft yet resilient with just a touch of sour. She then scooped out from little pots the three selections we’d decided on, making a colorful array. Yebeg Wat, lamb cooked with berbere and spices, was like a curry stew and especially delicious – pure comfort food. Yefem Tibs is a specialty of the house and probably a good choice if you’re intimidated by eating gooey stews with bread. It’s charcoal-broiled beef marinated in white wine and rosemary, garlic, black pepper, really good. And finally Yemisir Wat, red lentils stewed in red pepper and onion – more comfort food, the color a beautiful orange. There was violent red sauce for fire on the side, salad, and greens. We dug in, devouring the entire basket of injera and half that lined the platter. There’s something truly decadent and relaxing about eating with your hands. Everything was satisfying and the honey wine was a perfect complement to the spices.

Ninth Street is undergoing rapid development, but unlike the corporate dominance of chains that seems to be in danger of overtaking U Street, it seems to be developing with a real eye for independent business. A friend forwarded me Alex Padro’s letter to the August 2006 InTowner which details a long list of new independent business coming to the strip. It’s exciting to see a former major artery of the city develop this way. Not to mention, promising more food options in the future!

Being the skeptic that I am, I was a little surprised that art won over pool cues, and more than a little, ah, skeptical over the potential for success, especially given the legacy of debts and accusations of mismanagement that have dogged the Source, a once successful and nationally known small theater that was the proving ground for several Washington theater professionals.

But it’s still an exciting idea to me, adding an arts venue to one of the more interesting blocks in town. As I’ve said before, I want it all for my 14th Street – shops, bars, restaurants, art galleries, theaters, concert halls – more more
more! One only has to look at Studio’s impact on Logan Circle’s revitalization to see what a successful “art fuels development” plan can do.

I’m also buoyed by the news that CuDC is behind the deal, buying the building and creating a performing arts venue. Considering their impressive list of accomplishments – Tivoli, Atlas, Mather, to name just a few - they certainly seem the most likely to effectively transform the sad black hole that Source became over the past years. A key factor is their providing operations management separate from artistic production, which may save the new space from the old company’s fate.

Theaterboy has posted CuDC’s summary of the plan, and it does look promising. Their aim is to renovate the building into a performing arts venue that will accommodate both resident companies and external small- to medium- sized arts groups with space for offices, rehearsals, and performances. As affordable rehearsal and performance space continues to be a concern and a need in DC for performing arts, this is good news. It also mentions reviving the much-loved Washington Theater Festival, though we’ll have to see how this will co-exist with the continuation of the Fringe Festival.

With this news following the Fringe’s ending on a successful note, I’m feeling confident about DC’s future as a viable arts destination and thriving cultural scene. CuDC aims for a Summer 2007 opening. I’ll watch the renovations with great interest.