courtesy of Me

No, that is not, in fact, a tattoo. Quite pretty, though, and there’s more photos where that came from.

The Crystal City business improvement district is running a series of themed events – called “Crystal Coture” – through Feb 28 using a large unoccupied retail space on the corner of 23rd Street and Crystal Drive. Tuesday’s event was “Tat Tuesday,” which really worked out to be a lot more temporary tattoos, henna and skin painting than anything else. That’s okay – the theme’s a pretty general wrapper for them to put around some promotion for the area and associated businesses and it worked out well for the winner of the night’s best tat contest, who was one of the two non-employees attending who had visible permanent skin art.

courtesy of Me

courtesy of Me

Included in the action was what a lot of business like to call a “trunk show” (my darling fiancée and I have done one with our nice mirrors) but what really amounts up to “bring a bunch of your stuff and let interested people poke at it and talk to the people who create it.” I’ll concede “trunk show” rolls off the tongue a little better. I’m not sure the merchants in this case got a lot out of it; some upcoming and past shows have a theme that better ties in with their creations, but there were no tattoo artists or body painters shilling their services here. Sneakers and designer jeans are nice but their connection to tattoos is a little slim.

courtesy of Me

Synetic Theater, on the other hand, got some promotion out of it if my reaction was any kind of judge. They were there providing “living statues” and also doing a few scenes from their dance-heavy production of Dante currently running, and after seeing them I’ve gone from completely disinterested to being a little curious about their show. It’s hard to believe they engage in that level of physicality for several hours, much less the few minutes worth they put on.

The belly dancer went on a little earlier, and despite also being quite good, had less folks there to impress.

courtesy of Me

courtesy of Me

I’m not sure if there weren’t many people willing to head out to a promotional event on a cold Tuesday night or if it was just a matter of the kind of people attracted by this kind of visual-themed event, but I think the composition of the crows went something like

• 10% people paid to be there
• 15% people promoting thing wares
• 25% people attending the event
• 50% photographers

I suspect that’s a condition that’s going to be even more pronounced Saturday at “Sexy Saturday (Lingerie at Night).” If you go – and there are worse ways to spend a few hours than to eat a PR organization’s food and look at attractive people being paid to strut before you – try not to get trampled by the photog trying for a good shot.

2450 Crystal Drive
Crystal City, VA

Don Whiteside

Well I used to say something in my profile about not quite being a “tinker, tailor, soldier, or spy” but Tom stole that for our about us page, so I guess I’ll have to find another way to express that I am a man of many interests.

Hmm, guess I just did.

My tastes run the gamut from sophomoric to Shakespeare and in my “professional” life I’ve sold things, served beer, written software, and carried heavy objects… sometimes at the same place. It’s that range of loves and activities that makes it so easy for me to love DC – we’ve got it all.