I just got another notice fo a show from Dana Ellyn‘s fan list. She is a rather incredible artist whose vision and work is political, social and always meaningful. Her style is interesting in that the details are all meaningful. Nothing is there as decoration or as a purely aesthetic element. The subjects of Ellyn’s paintings are cutting and painful at times, often with a humorous touch, and are always moving. She doesn’t make “pretty” paintings but they are all beautiful in how they convey theirs messages.

Go check her out this evening.

From the email:

THIS Friday, November 30th
Opening reception at
Long View Gallery
5-8pm

Holiday cocktails and a lot of unique art. Sounds like a perfect night to me. Long View Gallery has included several of my smaller affordable paintings in their winter show. I’ll be there in the early part of the evening and I’m looking forward to sharing a toast or two with friends both old and new.

“Didn’t Mean to Stalk You”
Acrylic on canvas

Long View Gallery is at 1302 9th street, NW (at 9th & N) in Washington. their phone number is (202) 232-4788.

Spotted while strolling through the quaint streets of Georgetown a few days ago, this sign gets right to the point.

We hear you.

We feel your pain.

No need to explain any further.

Can we interest you in a copy of The Blade instead?

give yourself a no-prize if you get the reference

WAMU’s excellent Metro Connection show is bidding goodbye to one contributor and hello to a new one, all without a staff change. Peter Fay has done his last broadcast, at least as Peter, and will be on tomorrow’s show at 1pm to talk about his new identity as Colleen Fay. She’ll talk about her new life and the impending changes, which I think is pretty amazingly gutsy and open.

I suppose you have little choice when your job requires you be a public presence, but it’s still pretty impressive.

What’s also amazing is how goddamned hard it is to come up with the correct pronouns to discuss events on either side of a change like this. “He’ll continue to be a part of the show he was a part of creating fifteen years ago” doesn’t work since it won’t be he who continues. She wasn’t a part of creating the show, he was. I can’t say “she’ll continue” either. English is clearly not a language cut out for discussing time travel or gender-switching radio hosts.

To give credit where credit is due, I found this story on FishbowlDC

When I first heard reports of this, I swore I was having a bad nightmare and mishearing the radio news. But, it turns out that it’s quite real. Virginia holds open primaries. You can self-select as Republican or Democrat and vote in the proper primary that you identify with. In fact, courtesy of Wikipedia: the Virginia Open Primary Law states that “[a]ll persons qualified to vote…may vote at the primary. No person shall vote for the candidates of more than one party.

Except that this time, if you choose to vote in Republican Primary, you will forced into signing an oath of fealty to the Republican Party.

I’m going to repeat that because it bears repeating.

If you choose to vote in the Republican Primary, you will be forced into signing an oath that you will vote for the Republican candidate in the Presidential election.

It’s not enforceable by law, but it certainly is odious, and I suppose, something I’ve come to expect from the Republicans in power.

That’s the phrase that came to my mind when I was trolling through Upcoming and found this entry.

THE CURE vs THE SMITHS DANCE PARTY
(The largest Cure/Smiths dance party in the US!)
Friday, November 30, 2007
@The Black Cat 9:30 pm

Look, I love the Smiths and I possibly love the Cure even more. I like the Black Cat, too. I’ve been there on many an occasion, and while I think it’s a perfectly fine sized place… if it’s the location of the largest anything in the US, well, I’d suggest you find some other trait of that event to brag about.

On second though, why brag about it being the largest event no matter where is it? If the Cat could accommodate 2,000 people rather than about 500 would that really make anyone want to go more? Maybe it’s a locale thing – by the time I moved up here I wasn’t out at dance clubs on a weekly basis anymore, but I really like the more intimate venues here vs the places in my hometown. Are those of you who still go out shaking your ass really pining for the megaclub crowds?

From an Arlington Alert email:

Gas leak reported near Monroe Avenue Bridge. Northbound and Southbound Route 1 near bridge is closed to traffic. Significant traffic delays expected for the next 3-4 hours. Seek alternate routes.

If you have to go through the area, prepare for some backed up traffic and rerouting.

I know that most of us here are avid Flickr users, but I don’t know if I’m the only DC metblogger here who uses their geotagging feature or not. I hope not, since I’ve just discovered – through a post on reader Justin Thorpe’s blog – that Flickr has enhanced the way you can see those tagged images by offering Flickr Places.

The DC Flickr Places page has a neat selection of shots, though they are kinda heavy on the touristy and flashy stuff, like this shot of the 4th of July fireworks behind the Washington Monument. It’s fun, though, to click through on those shots and see the “Taken in Washington, District of Columbia” under the Additional Information header on the right, where the link will show you that user’s local shots.

The screen full of DC entries has one minor flaw, in my opinion, in that it’s not immediately obvious how you move to another block of photos. See the screengrab here with the block of shots? Those left and right arrows are only visible once you mouse over them, making it not immediately obvious there’s more than one bunch of shots when you first load the page. Personally I’d have made them always visible, but they got bought for a bazillion dollars by Yahoo whereas I’m sitting in a cube, so what the hell do I know? So just realize – there’s more than those 12 shots to page through.

This is my fave so far.

About a year and a half ago, my wife and I attended a performance of Spamalot, the Eric Idle musical based on the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, at the National Theatre. It returns to Washington in December, but take my advice and don’t bother seeing it.
(more…)

As Don quickly pointed out earlier today, Sean Taylor died early this morning ostensibly from the gunshot wound he sustained in the pre-dawn hours of Monday morning. His femoral artery was severed by the bullet, causing severe blood loss, and resulting eventually, despite 7 hours of surgery designed to repair the artery, in his death.

More troubling, though, is the report that his phone line was cut, preventing his wife from calling out for help: “Taylor’s fiancee tried to call police from the house line, only to discover that the line had been cut. She had to use her cellphone to call 911, which delayed the response time.”

My thoughts are with the Redskins family today, as well as with Taylor’s widow and daughter. This is a horrific occurrence.

170 murdered in DC. In less than 11 months.

While not a record total for DC, it is more than we had all of last year. So far, All-Hands weekends haven’t worked, and apparently gunshot tracking isn’t all that useful either. What solution is there for DC’s police group? How do you better prevent murder? Is it an outreach problem, or is it a police-presence problem? Socio-economic?

We’re still nowhere near the 2005/2004 totals which are just short of 200, so it’s possible last year was just a statistical aberration. Of course, no one really wants to think about that, do they?