Category Archives: Special Events

History, Scribblings, Special Events, The Features
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Scribblings: Emil Draitser

Photo courtesy of
‘The Leica M9 with the KMZ Jupiter-8 50mm f/2’
courtesy of ‘Ð�лекÑ�андÑ�’

At noon on Thursday Sept 30, Emil Draitser will be discussing his latest book, Stalin’s Romeo Spy, at the International Spy Museum. The discussion and book signing is free.

In the 1930s, Dmitri Bystrolyotov was handsome, fluent in several languages, a sailor, doctor, lawyer, and artist. He was also a spy for Josef Stalin and the Soviet Union. A charmer, he seduced many women in Europe – including a French diplomat, the wife of a British official, and a Gestapo officer – to discover their countries’ secrets for the Soviets. Caught up in Stalin’s purges in 1938, he then spent twenty years in the Gulag and came face-to-face with the true regime for which he had once spied.

Author Emil Draitser was a former journalist in the Soviet Union and now a professor at Hunter College in New York. He shared a little about Bystrolyotov and some of the more fascinating facts of Stalin’s “Romeo Spy.”

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Life in the Capital, Special Events, The District
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Judith and the Wonderful, Remarkable, So Good, Very Great Book

Photo courtesy of
‘Judith Viorst at National Book Festival’
courtesy of ‘tiffany bridge’

Last week was not my best. My car was broken into. I paid the DMV $125, courtesy of a speeding ticket I earned on my way to an ill-fated meeting. I got a fat lip, and the vending machine in my building ran out of frosted Pop-Tarts. It was, by all accounts, a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week.

But all bad days — and weeks — come to an end. Saturday dawned much brighter, and I set off to the National Book Festival to meet children’s author (and personal hero) Judith Viorst. One of Washington’s leading literary figures, Mrs. Viorst immediately made me forget my recent string of bad luck. Chances are, one of her books has helped brighten one or two of your days as well.

After all, Mrs. Viorst authored the iconic children’s book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Published in 1972, it has sold over two million copies, and ranks as one of the most famous and best loved picture books of all time. It has taught generations of children that rotten days happen no matter who you are, or where you live. It also suggests that while Lady Luck can be cruel, the tides of fortune change. The gum you woke up with in your hair can be removed with ice or peanut butter. The hated pajamas you must wear to bed will get dirty; you’ll get to wear your favorite pair tomorrow night. Windshields can be fixed, and vending machines are restocked. With the end of every bad day comes the potential for a great one.

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Adventures, Entertainment, Fun & Games, Night Life, Special Events, The Daily Feed
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Last Minute Plan: Hobo Road Show in Baltimore

Photo courtesy of
‘peace’
courtesy of ‘mac`’

Hey you! The hipster without a clue on about what to do tonight?

Head up I-95 to our northern neighbor Baltimore for The Yard Dogs Road Show at The Ottobar. This hobo themed cabaret combines vaudeville, burlesque dancers and rock and roll with sword swallowing, dolls, poetry and live music by the cartoon heavy band, Yard Dogs. Also stop by the upstairs mustache dance party that starts at 9pm and rages until 2am.

Downtown, Fun & Games, Special Events, The Features
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Geckos: The New Cuteness?

Photo courtesy of
‘DSC_0015’
courtesy of ‘RomeTheWorld’

Opening today and running through the first week of January is a new exhibit at National Geographic. “Geckos: Tails to Toepads” features just over 15 species of live geckos of different colors, stripes, shapes, and sizes. While there are also interactive displays and a kids-oriented area, the main attraction are the self-contained terrarium-style displays with all sorts of geckos.

Some of them are pretty tough to spot, like the Satanic Leaf-tail Gecko. (There are four in the enclosure, of which I found only two.) Some are pretty “obvious” geckos, similar in appearance to the animated one on television shilling insurance. And some are just downright ugly. But all in all, they are fascinating to watch and most (if not all) are pretty darn cute – for a reptile.

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Special Events, The Daily Feed
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Win Free Film Festival Passes!

Photo courtesy of
‘Running Dry #8’
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’

Remember the All Roads Film Festival we featured yesterday? Well, National Geographic has graciously provided WeLoveDC with two free festival passes to give away!

The pass includes admission from Tuesday 9/28 through Sunday 10/3 to all film screenings, the photo exhibits, panels, and Saturday’s Basement Bhangra Dance Party. Want to go? Simply comment below, using your first name and a legit email address. We’ll randomly draw two winners (one pass per winner) tomorrow (Friday) at noon, so tell your friends and sign up!

Adventures, Entertainment, Media, Special Events, The Features, We Love Arts
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NatGeo’s 2010 All Roads Film Festival

Dear Lemon Lima; photo courtesy filmmakers and National Geographic Museum

The National Geographic Society kicks off its All Roads Film Festival on Tuesday, Sept 28, launching a jam-packed fall programming schedule. The six-day event will screen nearly 30 films, an outdoor photography exhibit, a Basement Bhangra Dance Party, and a panel of indigenous filmmakers discussing their art and careers.

All Roads Film Festival Director Francene Blythe is especially excited about this year’s theme, “Inspiring Stories Connecting Cultures.” “Whether the stories are comic or tragic, they will resonate with audiences because they involve characters and stories that are relatable and told with charm, wit and wisdom.” There promises to be something for everyone to enjoy. Continue reading →

History, Interviews, Penn Quarter, Special Events, Technology, The Features
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OXCART: CIA Innovation and a Cool Spy Plane

Photo courtesy of
‘Oxcart Belly’
courtesy of ‘MrGuilt’

In the late 1950s, during the heyday of aviation and the dawning of space flight, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) approached Lockheed to develop a new aircraft that could overfly the Soviet Union. The CIA’s current plane (at the time) was the U-2, which served admirably in its role as a high-flying reconnaissance plane but was still susceptible to being shot down by high-altitude Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAM). Such an incident did occur in 1960, when Gary Powers was shot down while conducting an overflight over the U.S.S.R.

The result was the A-12, code name OXCART, which ended up in a different role as the Vietnam war broke out. The CIA’s spy plane flew several black missions during the war before being phased out and replaced by the U.S. Air Force’s SR-71 Blackbird. On Thursday evening at the International Spy Museum, many aspects of the A-12 Oxcart program will be discussed by several experts, including CIA chief historian David Robarge, J-58 engine inventor Robert B. Abernethy, flight specialist Thornton D. Barnes, CIA officer S. Eugene Poteat, and pilot Kenneth Collins.

For a taste of the discussion, we managed to pin down CIA chief historian David Robarge for a few minutes to discuss the Oxcart and BLACK SHIELD programs. Continue reading →

Adventures, All Politics is Local, Business and Money, Entertainment, Essential DC, History, Life in the Capital, News, People, Special Events, The Daily Feed, The District, We Green DC
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Here Comes The Bag Monster

Photo courtesy of
‘an entity’
courtesy of ‘romana klee’

Andy Keller, known to many as the “Bag Monster” is bringing his 500 – 700 plastic bag suit and plastic bag display to DC today.  If you caught Andy when he visited DC on September 6th, then you already know that Keller’s suit represents the amount of plastic bags the average American uses in a year and the rest of his display, 45,000 plastic bags, a single person’s lifetime consumption of bags. Keller’s goal is to educate communities about the harms of single-use bags, and while DC’s bag tax has helped diminish bag consumption, we’ve still got a ways to go.

If you spot the bag monster, send us a tweet @welovedc with his location.

Adventures, Entertainment, Food and Drink, Fun & Games, Life in the Capital, People, Special Events, The Daily Feed, The District
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10/02: DC Rollergirls 2010 Season Kick Off

Photo courtesy of
‘Roller Girls’
courtesy of ‘Edward Hoover’

On Saturday, October 2nd, the DC Rollergirls kick off their 2010 season with the Cherry Blossom Bombshells taking on the DC Demoncats at 4pm. For those of you who haven’t yet experienced some girl-on-girl rollerderby action, what the heck are you waiting for?!!

There’s campy player names (Miso Knotty, Ridin Dirty, Ovary Action, Marion Barracuda, etc.,) full-contact rules, high levels of athleticism, intense amounts of strategic action, the possibility of being tackled by a rollergirl if you stand near the sidelines and, the kicker, no beer lines (FYI: it’s cash only). Oh, the matches are kid friendly as well, so bring the little tikes with you!

Food and Drink, Special Events
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Where to Break the Fast

Photo courtesy of
‘Food’
courtesy of ‘Pug50’

For Jews, Yom Kippur’s Break-the-Fast meal is the caloric equivalent of Thanksgiving. After 24 hours of penitent fasting, you compensate for a day’s worth of eating in a frenzy of bagels, lox and whitefish salad. I’ve honestly seen entire pans of noodle kugel disappear in under five minutes. Not surprisingly, the holiday generally ends with hours of complaining about how much everyone ate. It isn’t pretty, but it’s tradition.

But for out-of-town transplants, recreating the customary gluttony might be a difficult task. Maybe you don’t have family or friends close by. Or perhaps hosting guests – or even a full-size bed – just isn’t possible in your shoebox of an English basement. But that’s no reason to break the fast at home by yourself. Because let’s face it – that feels a lot like emotional binge eating.

So here are a few options to help make this Saturday’s Yom Kippur celebration merry and bright. They range from the religious to the ridiculous, but all guarantee some belly-busting good times.

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Entertainment, Special Events, The Daily Feed
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Nationals Park Hosts Opera in the Outfield

Photo courtesy of
‘Opera Hits a Home Run’
courtesy of ‘Kevin H.’

Opera — it’s not just for the Kennedy Center.

This Sunday, the Washington Nationals have teamed up with the Washington National Opera to host the third-annual Target Free Opera in the Outfield live from Nationals Park with a simulcast of Verdi’s dramatic opera “A Masked Ball (Un Ballo in Maschera).”

The show begins at 2:00 p.m. and gates open at noon.

Admission is free and free tickets are available pending a reservation made online with the Washington National Opera. All reservations for seating must be received by 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, September 15 for the Sunday event.

Otherwise, guests may show up on the day of the event to enjoy an afternoon at the opera from a seat on the Nationals Park outfield grass.

Adventures, All Politics is Local, Essential DC, History, Life in the Capital, Special Events, The Daily Feed
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Happy Birthday Star Spangled Banner!

Photo courtesy of
‘The Glory That Is Old’
courtesy of ‘ojbyrne’

On this day, 196 years ago, young lawyer Francis Scott Key wrote the poem that would eventually become “The Star Spangled Banner.” Mr. Key who has been sent to negotiate the release of Dr. Beanes, an American taken hostage by the British, witnessed the Battle of Fort McHenry from a British sloop anchored behind the British Navy ships.

As night fell and the over 5,100 rockets, bombs, cannon balls, flares, etc. reined down on the fort, the immense American flag disappeared from sight. Come morning, as the lyrics go “our flag was still there” signaling that the British attempt to take Baltimore had failed.

Once off the British sloop, Key rested at the Indian Queen Tavern, where he recorded his famous poem. 5 days later, the poem had been printed and circulated all over the Baltimore area. Unsurprisingly, considering Baltimore’s “colorful” tavern atmosphere, someone eventually figured out that the poem’s lyrics worked smashingly well with the popular English drinking song “To Anacreon in Heaven” and the rest is, well, the history of our National Anthem.

Entertainment, Music, Special Events, The Daily Feed
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Dismemberment Plan Announce Tour Dates, Vinyl Release of “Emergency & I”

“Emergency & I” sounds like home. Released in 1999 on local label DeSoto, it is the essential album of one of the essential bands of Washington, DC, The Dismemberment Plan and, along with other records by the Plan, would go in my desert island jukebox for the music itself, even if it were not the case that everything that mattered to me in high school happened with these songs as the soundtrack.

In January 2011, “Emergency & I” will see it’s first-ever release on vinyl – indeed a two-LP gatefold fancy thing, completely remastered, and including several rare tracks not previously on the album. As was reported by the WaPo Click Track blog the release, now on Barsurk, will also feature “an oral history of the album.”
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Food and Drink, Special Events, The Daily Feed
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AGAINN’s Cocktail Class

Photo courtesy of
‘JP Explains It All’
courtesy of ‘Samer Farha’

Party season is fast approaching (seriously, when is it not?) and that means it’s time to brush up on your hosting skills! One of my favorite mixologists, the lively JP Caceres, will help guide you through five cocktail recipes at AGAINN this Wednesday, September 15 at an interactive cocktail class.

Starting at 6:30pm, JP will demonstrate how to make such classics as the Old-Fashioned, the Sazerac, and the Daiquiri. If you’ve never tried an original daiquiri, invented around 1900 in Cuba, you are in for a real surprise. In addition, enjoy a welcome punch called the Gun Hill featuring pisco infused pineapple, hibiscus, velvet falernum, and sage. Sounds luscious.

JP is probably the least intimidating bartender I’ve ever met (ask for one of his business cards to see the best self-deprecating quote) and I’m sure will be a wonderful and fun teacher. The session costs $35 and reservations can be made by calling (202) 639-9830. I’ll be there, brushing up on my Sazerac skills, so please say hi!

Adventures, Business and Money, Entertainment, Essential DC, Fun & Games, Life in the Capital, Special Events, The Daily Feed
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Today’s Fashion Crawl with Stacy London

Photo courtesy of
‘delicious meatpies selling next door’
courtesy of ‘LaTur’

Today from 11am-5:30pm, Stacy London of TLC’s “What Not To Wear” fame is hosting a fashion crawl around DC to promote the launch of  Style For Hire (SFH). SFH recruits London-esque stylists who can help us everyday folk edit, add to and transform our wardrobes into expressions of our personal and unique sense of style.

The fashion crawl will be happening all over DC, so check the schedule to see when SFH and Stacy London will be headed near you.  Also, bring an orphan garment that needs a little embellishment, and SFH will help you give it a whole new life.

Downtown, Entertainment, Media, Penn Quarter, Special Events, The District, We Love Arts
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September at SAAM

Photo courtesy of
‘Kogod Courtyard’
courtesy of ‘BrianMKA’

So now that the tourists are (mostly) gone, time to get out and hit our various museums and their great programs and exhibitions! There’s a lot going on this month at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) and we’re going to run down the list for you. Programs are free and open to the public unless otherwise indicated; the SAAM is located in Penn Quarter at 8th and G Streets, NW. Note that some programs are at the Renwick Gallery at 17th and Pennsylvania and are noted accordingly.

Intersections/Intersecciones (Sept. 10, 6:30 p.m.)
Artists Kathy Vargas, María Martínez-Cañas, and Martina López discuss the intersection of Latino culture and gender identity in their work. Moderated by Muriel Hasbun, associate professor of fine art photography at the Corcoran College of Art + Design. No tickets required; seating available in McEvoy Auditorium on a first-come, first-served basis.

Art à la Cart (Sept. 12, Noon – 3 p.m.)
Travel throughout the galleries to find interactive carts where kids can handle brushes, palettes, bison hide, bottle caps, and quilt squares. Ages 7-12. Pick up your Art à la Cart map and passport at information desks located in the F Street and G Street lobbies.

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Special Events, The Daily Feed
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Yards Park’s Grand Opening

Photo courtesy of
‘SW Waterfront’
courtesy of ‘Peter Gene’

A new waterfront plaza called Yards Park is celebrating its Grand Opening this weekend with events for all ages. Yards Park is a 5.5 acre park that features a quarter-mile boardwalk, extensive lawn place, bridges, waterfalls, and pedestrian walkways.

There are events all weekend starting Friday at 3:30 p.m. including a dog run Saturday at 10 a.m., live music, a trapeze act, and a beer garden by Cap City.

For a full listing of events, visit the Yard’s Park website.

Yards Park is located at 10 Water St.

Adventures, Entertainment, Fun & Games, News, People, Special Events, The Daily Feed
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HamBieber Born At Maryland State Fair

Photo courtesy of
‘DSC06201’
courtesy of ‘rebeccaejohnson’

This past Sunday at the Maryland State Fair in Timonium, fair goers witnessed the miracle of birth, when a cow gave birth to a calf. The little fella was named “Justin” in honor of Justin Bieber, who was performing at the fair later on that day. Not surprisingly, the audience (consisting of screaming 11 year olds) chose the name.

Food and Drink, Special Events
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Labor Day in All Its Edible Glory

Photo courtesy of
”
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’
Labor Day in Washington is not for the faint of heart. The heat index/humidity matrix hits critical mass, the tourists descend and all your friends flee the mean streets of D.C. for greener pastures. Things may look dire now, but there is a way to deal with it all – food. I really never thought of Labor Day much as an eating holiday. Yes, it’s a classic barbecue weekend but it doesn’t have that hopeful three-months-until-school-starts feeling like Memorial Day. I’m apparently in the minority though since there are plenty of foodie events around town this weekend to get you ready for the cooler (hopefully) season to come.

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Adventures, Business and Money, Entertainment, Life in the Capital, Special Events, The Daily Feed
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A Flip Camera Liaison

Photo courtesy of
‘Flip-Mo’
courtesy of ‘agent_shir’

The Liasion, an Affinia Hotel located on Capitol Hill, currently has a very intriguing and knowing DC hotels, potentially scandalous, end of summer offer.  Book a minimum two night stay for $229/night and they’ll gift you a Flip Video Camcorder. Hmmm…I wonder what possible uses, aside from capturing our beautiful city, this video recorder could have at a hotel called The Liaison. Marion Barry better watch out.