Category Archives: The Features

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Weekend Flashback
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Weekend Flashback: 7/27-7/29

Photo courtesy of cruffo
Buzzzz
courtesy of cruffo

And then it became August. On the bright side, Congress is about to go on it’s traditional month long recess, so that means a generally lazy month for the city (and the one time of the year when they can’t mess things up). And we have the Olympics for half of the month, right? Still, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I always see summer through the eyes of a kid, and see August as the beginning of the end for summer (because school starts shortly). Well, let’s have fun with the summer we have left, starting with some great photos from the weekend. Enjoy! Continue reading →

Music, Special Events, The Features
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Rally Today for Pussy Riot

Photo courtesy of Person Behind the Scenes

courtesy of Person Behind the Scenes

Despite the threat of inclement weather and permit issues with the DC government, today’s Rally for Pussy Riot will go on. Join the protest from 4:30-6pm outside the Russian Embassy (2650 Wisconsin Avenue NW) with representatives from Amnesty International, Philippa Hughes of the Pink Line Project and Mark Andersen of Positive Force explaining the case’s ramifications for global human rights and the importance of free artistic expression. The event is organized by DC artist and peace activist Andrea Collins, who recently held a month-long action for Pussy Riot at Art-O-Matic.

Unfamiliar with the case? We tend to get protest-weary in Washington, sometimes completely disregarding the issues and believing they don’t affect us, but I urge you to read up on this one. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Ekaterina Samutsevich have been held without bail in a Moscow prison since their March arrest. They are charged with “hooliganism” for allegedly performing a protest song as members of the feminist punk art collective Pussy Riot at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior on February 21. If convicted they could face up to seven years in prison. The New Yorker recently published a chilling blog article on the case, discussing the government’s use of the Russian Orthodox Church to crack down on liberal opposition.

Members of local DC bands were planning on a longer punk concert after the rally, but due to the recent permit push-back will instead go guerrilla with their performances. Keep up to date on the event’s Facebook page. Consultant Mark Yoffe will also be speaking at the event, whose sole goal is to raise international awareness of the situation to help free the three incarcerated women, who also need assistance with their legal fund and to support their children, who they have been separated from since their arrest.

“I think that DC with its venerable punk tradition should lead the American movement to help free Pussy Riot,” Yoffe said.

Agreed. If you don’t think that it could happen here, then one day it will.

We Love Weekends
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We Love Weekends: July 27-29

Photo courtesy of yostinator
Draft beer
courtesy of yostinator

How can we be in the last weekend in July already? Who moved my clock forward? Surely that’s why this feature is showing up on a Friday, not because of heat-addled brain! Oh well. Here’s how we’re going to say goodbye to the 7th month. How about you?

Jenn: So close. This weekend marks the end of weeks of medication for my heart ailment (sounds so Victorian, swoon). The practical side of me will continue to take it easy out of the danger zone, but the virtual side would be out and about like crazy. There’s tons to do and I’ve missed so much already! Fringe wraps up over the next few days, with plenty drama yet to see (I’m hoping to head to The Extermination Machine at DCAC). Of course even with many bartenders out of town for Tales of the Cocktail in NOLA (damn, I wish), there are still drinks to toss back. The lively folks at Drink the District are bringing you over 40 beers in two sessions over on New York Avenue on Saturday ($30 online/$40 at the event/$10 designated driver). It’s geared towards millennials who love great beer but don’t have a lot of cash to get introduced to new brews. Full pours will be available for domestic beer, with tastings for craft beer. Saturday also sees the launch of Season of Discovery at the historic St. Elizabeth’s, with a farmers’ market and all sorts of fun entertainment. Sunday I’d enjoy some of the best local bellydancers in DC Tribal Cafe’s monthly event at Mellow Mushroom in Adams Morgan, before crossing the river to see We Love DC’s own Alexia perform with The Torches at the Galaxy Hut. Whew. Here’s to getting healthy again!

Photo courtesy of USDAgov
20120409-OSEC-RBN-4311
courtesy of USDAgov

Marissa: I’ve got not one, but TWO old roommates in town, so my weekend plans will likely turn into catching up over cocktails. Friday after work, I’m hoping to unwind to a little country music at the South on South Capitol concert down at the Fairgrounds. Saturday night I’m heading to the Howard Theatre to catch chef Marcus Samuelsson speak about his new book, Yes, Chef. Come Sunday, it’s time for some R&R before gearing up for another busy week.

Photo courtesy of jsmjr
IMG_4609_10_11_tonemapped
courtesy of jsmjr
Tom: Weekend? Oh God, I get a weekend! This is the weekend I’m finally going to pull the trigger and go get a new a bicycle, so look for me out on the town riding like a fool. You’ll know me by the “wheeeeeeee” you hear as I cycle by. Add in some rug shopping and maybe a trip to Ikea for cheap furni, and you’ve got a pretty solid weekend. Also included will be a first trip to the Brixton.

Photo courtesy of yostinator
Fort Reno
courtesy of yostinator
Alexia: Weekend of rock, weekend of rock! If all goes according to plan I’ll be starting the rock tonight at Fort Reno to see Mobius Strip, More Humans, and Grammar. Friday night I hope to make it over to Comet Ping Pong for Natural Child, The Doozies, and Birdcloud. Saturday hope to make it to an evening of music and poetry featuring the music of Chaim Rubenstein, at The Loft above City Bikes in Adams Morgan. Sunday I’m playing a show with my band The Torches and our labelmates A Lull at one of our very favorite haunts, Galaxy Hut! Come out and party with us!!

Photo courtesy of rpmaxwell
Forum (Re)Acts – Long Exposure
courtesy of rpmaxwell

Fedward: Friday we’re seeing Young Jean Lee’sChurch, produced by Forum Theatre as part of the Over the Line Festival (here’s Patrick’s review). Sunday features brunch at Brixton followed by … brunch at the Passenger, as long as the latter has reopened after the renovations happening during Tales of the Cocktail. In between, we’re spending Saturday afternoon with some friends in Virginia for ribs, and no, you’re not invited to that.

The Features
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A $7B, 20-year makeover for Union Station?

New Union Station animations from Tom Bridge on Vimeo.

video provided by Akridge and Shalom Baranes Associates 

I had hoped to post this yesterday as news of the redesign plan broke at an afternoon press conference. I’m glad I waited to see everything. There was much hue and cry over the redesign of one of DC’s most-beloved façades, and the modern glass and steel framing of the proposed redesign of Union Station was not small.  

Amtrak and Akridge, along side the Mayor, the Department of Transportation’s Deputy Secretary, and a number of other local officials, announced a roadmap for a modernization of Union Station and the creation of 3 million square feet of mixed-used development including 100,000 square feet of retail options, 1.5 million square feet of office space, and a number of residential options in the air-space that currently is immediately above the departure tracks.

The plan that was announced yesterday is just that, a plan for the future of the station, and it has yet to be funded by any entity public or private. Given the cost, it will likely split between several entities, and some of it will be federal in nature, due to the parentage of Amtrak. Plans include a high-speed rail link to New York along the NE Corridor routes, and a major overhaul of the terminal space, which is welcome. If you’ve ever spent more than 5 minutes in the current terminal space, you know just how dingy and awful the space is, and couple that with long queues for trains, and you’ve got pretty much the worst place short of the Metro to spend any kind of waiting time.

The new master plan includes a block long park along the station’s western edge, as well as a glass-enclosed nerve center concourse that looks to be the polar opposite of the existing terminal’s dour taciturn functionality. That would be the first phase of the plan, and would run $300M and be completed in 2017, should it ever be funded. All ideas start somewhere, and to get funding you often have to have the dream well-designed before the checkbooks come out. Union Station’s Columbus Circle façade won’t be changing, but its hideous rear entrance may be getting a makeover, sometime before 2032.

The Features, We Love Arts
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Theater Spotlight: What Mike Daisey Thinks of You

Mike Daisey in The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. Photo credit: Stan Barouh

Mike Daisey, the famous-turned-infamous creator and star of The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, has returned to Woolly Mammoth with his controversial production. The show – a monologue about all things Apple, including geekery, gadgets, and Chinese factories – inspired a national inquiry into Apple’s manufacturing process. It also caused a public outcry as his “work of nonfiction” was later revealed to be partly fiction.

I didn’t want to bore you with the ugly details, because you’ve heard them already from former staffers at Woolly Mammoth, from NPR’s This American Life (TAL), and from Daisey himself.

Instead, I headed over to Woolly Mammoth last week to see the show for a second time. Then I spoke with Mr. Daisey about coming back to our fair city and what he thinks of our very favorite thing: us.

Continue reading →

Music, The Features, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Iceage, Dirty Beaches and Give @ Black Cat — 7/24/12

Photo courtesy of draugurinn
Iceage @ Iceland Airwaves 2011
courtesy of draugurinn

So I went into last night’s show with some misplaced expectations (therefore you should read the rest of this review with a grain of salt). Punk Danes Iceage played unfortunately predictable hardcore while Taiwanese noise popper Dirty Beaches presented a surprising cowboy score that sounded like machines meeting nature.

I read some press, listened to a few songs, and counted on some familiarity with the catalog at the label What’s Your Rupture? to get me started with Iceage. And so I was anticipating a post-punk band with hardcore overtones but instead I got a straight up hardcore band with a bit of melodic deftness.

Certainly, hardcore kids Iceage are not to blame for my misplaced anticipation. The four young men from Copenhangen thundered through roughly 10 two-minute songs, whipping up a good old-fashioned mosh pit in a sold-out show in the backstage of the Black Cat on Tuesday night.

Continue reading →

Entertainment, Special Events, The Features, We Love Arts
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Fringe 2012: Week Two

Photo courtesy of flipperman75
Capital Fringe Festival
courtesy of flipperman75

This past week, the 2012 Capital Fringe Festival brought us everything from the apocalypse to an actual wedding. Just like the first week, our team watched, wondered, and then of course tweeted.

We write to you from our recovery caves, where we’re attempting to cure our Fringe-related exhaustion by reliving some of the highs of the festival so far.

Fringe runs until July 29, but many productions only have a few performances. Prevent eternal regret from either a) missing a winner or b) checking your watch through a bummer. Check out our thoughts on this past week of shows.

Recapped: The Last Flapper, The City of God, The Every Fringe Show You Want To See in One Fringe Show Fringe Show, McGoddess, Beertown, iConfess, Where In the World? The Untold Story of Camilla San Francisco, Planet Egg, 3rd Annual “Fool for All”: Tales of Marriage and Mozzarella, Apocalypse Picnic, Thomas is Titanic.

Continue reading →

Featured Photo
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Featured Photo

Photo courtesy of ekelly80
sidewalk sun
courtesy of ekelly80

Sometimes you should look down; it can be just as important as looking up. To demonstrate, Erin does a great job of catching this small piece of the sidewalk. We’d probably just pass by the sight, and miss how the petals fill in the sections of the manhole, making the lines very distinct. With the petals fanning out like a solar wind, it really does look like a sidewalk sun. Of course, the filter used gives the picture a nice, pleasant, golden hue. An excellent shot however you look at it.

Music, The Features, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Chromatics @ Rock and Roll Hotel — 7/19/12

Ruth Radelet and Johnny Jewel of the Chromatics

As synthesizers became more widely available in the 1970s, more and more European musicians adopted their use to various effects, sometimes leaving an indelible print upon their national music scene. Nowhere was this more true than with Italo disco, a synthesized extension of disco music to take root in Italy in the late 1970s.

The impact of the genre was significant, ultimately circling back to feed the cradle of the disco genre in New York City and clearing the way for the manifestation of mature new wave music — and especially New Romantic music. (There is not a New Romantic soul that does not absolutely adore the collaborations of Italo disco grandmaster Giorgio Moroder with disco queen Donna Summer.) In hindsight, Italo disco can be seen as building very important bridges across not only these genres but into Europop and Hi-NRG in general.

It is wholly welcome then that the spaced out dance beats found in Italo disco should continue to find acclaim and a home with the assistance of specific labels and projects. Perched atop this Italo disco survival is independent record label Italians Do It Better, out of Bayonne, NJ. One of the key movers and shakers in that label is Johnny Jewel, space synthmaster extraordinaire, who lends his talents to the bands Glass Candy and the Chromatics, among other efforts.

Continue reading →

Weekend Flashback
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Weekend Flashback: 7/20-7/22

Photo courtesy of cruffo
Scavenging for popcorn
courtesy of cruffo

Like the pigeon above, the Nationals, and us Nats fans, balanced on the edge this weekend. Luckily, the series was split and a split series means no one moves up or down. Doubly lucky, even for those who don’t care about baseball, we got a nice cool weekend; we don’t get many of those this time of year. And the Dark Knight Rises kicked major booty (PS: if you haven’t seen, GO SEE IT)! And with that, that’s you’re weekend in brief, with the accompanying photos below. Continue reading →

Downtown, Fun & Games, Special Events, The Features
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NMAI: Living Earth Festival 2012

Photo courtesy of bhrome


Bill Miller and Derek Miller at Living Earth 2010
courtesy of bhrome

Celebrate indigenous contributions to environmental sustainability, knowledge and traditions at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian’s third annual Living Earth Festival, presented from Friday, July 20, through Sunday, July 22. This year’s festival features an organic farmers market, an outdoor cooking competition, music and dance performances, hands-on workshops about gardening, goat cheese and basketry, as well as discussions about the impact of climate change on marine habitats and concerns over genetically modified foods. 

Continue reading →
We Love Weekends
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We Love Weekends: July 20-22

Photo courtesy of MudflapDC
Nats v. Phillies 4-3-1267
courtesy of MudflapDC

It’s the weekend again and this time we may not all feel like we’ve put under the broiler. Sure, it’s hard to wrap your head around the idea that a chance of showers and high of 80 is something to be excited about but that’s what we’ve come to. Gather ye rosebuds when ye may do so without heatstroke, I think that’s how it goes. What does our staff have planned? You’ll be shocked to know it includes some baseball and theater.

Mosley: Friday. Dark Knight Rises. Uptown Theater.  Enough said.  Saturday I’m hoping to get out of the apartment to finally get a day of street photography in; the heat has been keeping me in doors.  I’m use to hot summers around here, but this year is just killing any desire to be outside!  Don’t know where I’ll go but hopefully with a lot of people around.  And then on Sunday I’m going with my family to Nationals game against the Braves; we’re celebrating my dad’s birthday in style on the Club level!

Continue reading →

Entertainment, Special Events, The Features, We Love Arts
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Fringe 2012: Week One

Photo courtesy of M.V. Jantzen
Fringe and Pole
courtesy of M.V. Jantzen

The chaotic collaborative wonder that is the 2012 Capital Fringe Festival is well underway. Joanna, Patrick and Jenn have been busy seeing shows, tweeting micro-reviews, and hanging out at the Gypsy Tent. Miss the primer? No problem, there’s still plenty of time. Despite being drenched by sweat and rain, audiences are enjoying some excellent experimental productions through July 29. The three of us sat down over some fried pickles and rehashed our first week of fringing. We’ll keep the reviews quick and dirty.

Recapped: Colony, Girls Who Think They’re Hot, Hysterical Blindness, The Webcam Play, Bareback Ink, He HEE! Or “What It’s Not Glee?”, The Brontes, My Princess Bride.

Colony
Reviewer: Joanna

Joanna was enthralled by Colony’s dancing duet – dressed in stripes like worker bees, frenetically running and interacting with the audience in an almost body-slam atmosphere of fifty minutes of non-stop tension.

Patrick: “On a scale of 1 to Synetic?”
Joanna: “It was like a NYC basement show, except good.” Continue reading →

Gallery Gab, The Features
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Stocking the Fridge with Dana Ellyn and Matt Sesow

Rapture Draft (Hell No, We Won't Go), acrylic on canvas, 18" x 24"

When I regained power five blazing days after the derecho, I found myself first stocking my fridge and then attending the exhibition Stocking the Fridge.

The show – located of course at The Fridge venue in Eastern Market – includes nearly 100 paintings by DC power couple Dana Ellyn and Matt Sesow. Politically charged, invigorating, and provocative, it was exactly what I needed to kick my newly re-powered life back into gear.

Ellyn and Sesow are extremely prolific (perhaps you’ve heard about their “31 Days in July” project, in which they produce a painting inspired by the news every day for one month); and this exhibition shows off just how much they can do.

With both incredible artists in one place and paintings lining the walls from top to bottom, it would be impossible to cover everything in one article, or even one visit.

Here are a few standouts to give you some idea of why you should run to see this show before it closes later in the month.

Continue reading →

Food and Drink, The Features
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Boloco Opens Today in Bethesda with Free Burritos

Photo courtesy of bonappetitfoodie
Boloco Bethesda
courtesy of bonappetitfoodie

On a recent trip to Boston, an old high school friend and I were walking through town when we came across the burrito joint. “It’s Boloco! You’ve never heard of Boloco? They’re all over Boston!” he said. I felt like I was missing out on something with our burrito chains in DC. So the only reply I could muster was, “Dude, I don’t live in Boston.” A few months later the name (which stands for BOston LOcal COmpany) rang a bell when I saw they were opening in Bethesda, and I remembered the fervor with which my Bostonian friend talked about their burritos.

Before you read any further, here’s your free food alert: Boloco in Bethesda is giving out free burritos today from 11 AM to 8 PM. The small, mini burritos and bowls are free, and the original-sized burritos are just $1. Boloco is located at 4930 Elm Street, Bethesda, DC.
Continue reading →

Entertainment, Interviews, Music, Night Life, People, The Features, We Love Music
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Q&A with Dan Scheuerman of Deleted Scenes

 

photos courtesy of Deleted Scenes

Deleted Scenes is an indie-rock quartet based in DC. Their debut album Birdseed Shirt was released in 2009 to much critical acclaim. (They are beloved by Pitchfork and NPR alike.) I arrived late to this party, but I’m happy to have made it. I met singer/guitarist Dan Scheuerman by chance a few weeks ago after seeing his brother Vince play a show at The Hamilton. (Vince is also a super-talented musician- he fronted the DC power-pop-rock group Army of Me, and alt-Americana leaning River James. Coincidentally, I interviewed Vince recently, and you can check that out here!)

Deleted Scenes just released their sophomore album, Young People’s Church of the Air last week on Park the Van Records, once again to great acclaim. It is a work of complexity and beauty, dancy yet reflective, light and dark. I sang its praises last week on WLDC, and you can read that here. Deleted Scenes is currently on tour in support of their new album, and will be making a hometown stop this Saturday, July 21st at Red Palace. I got the chance to chat with Dan recently*, and here’s what he had to say!

Alexia: You come from a musical family, how did you first start playing music? 

Dan: My Mom and Dad both played guitar in church and sang, and we’d have these big family sing-alongs on Saturdays, and we all sang. Well I have five brothers, so it was actually very Von Trapp- we’d all sit in the living room and play, like, religious songs and sing in these huge harmonies. That was very natural.

Alexia: Oh, that’s really cool! Was your brother Vince an influence on you at all when you started playing music?

Dan: Yeah! Well I used to go see his band all the time- they were called Linus and they were called Cactus Patch, and then they were called Army of Me. But in the Cactus Patch days I used to go to all their shows. Yeah, it was inspiring and he kind of showed me how to do it myself, you know? I was in I guess grade school and he was older so he would teach me to make CDs in the family CDR drive, and printing CD labels, and flyering shows, and just kinda, like, showing me how to get started. That was definitely a big influence. And I used to go see his ska band all the time. I was a big fan!

Alexia: How did Deleted Scenes come together as a band?

Dan:Me and Dominic, the guitar player, and Brian, the drummer, and Matt, the bass player, we all grew up playing in bands together in high school and grade school. Then we all went off to college, and when we came back it was just natural to play with each other again. I think we’re all pretty shy dudes, so we kinda gravitated back towards one another. It was kind of like a family, I guess, since we’d started playing together so young, but it was basically a totally different band than it would have been back then. We played in like, crappy alt-bands. Me and Matt and Dominic and Brian played in a band that sounded like Incubus, back in high school. Continue reading →

Sports Fix, The Daily Feed
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Cardiac Nats Continue to Amaze

Photo courtesy of D Rob
Bryce Harper
courtesy of D Rob

“Remember 2005!” came the comments after my half-season piece on the Nationals hit the front page of the site, a reference to the meteoric rise and ignominious fall of the debut squad of the Washington Nationals, who made for an exciting spring and early summer and a devastating early autumn. The team that lead the NL East by 5 games in early July that year would fall to the cellar by October, 9 games out of contention, with an even 81-81 record.

The calls to temperance amid the assembly of the bandwagon are certainly sober reminders for the fan base, but last night’s game against the Mets showed that these Nationals are not those Nationals of 2005, and rather their own different animal. Until the 9th inning last night, the game was a complete pitchers’ duel. Jonathan Niese of the Mets and Ross Detwiler of the Nats were head to head and each were throwing fire and junk that had the other side baffled.  Each went 7 innings, and likely could’ve gone longer. Niese gave up just 3 hits, Detwiler just 5, and the Nationals lead only on the strength of Tyler Moore’s laser-like home run that just barely cleared the fence. An insurance run – a phenomenon so rare this season that one beat writer had to remind everyone what it was called – in the 8th, gave the Nats a 2-0 lead late in the game.

Continue reading →

Food and Drink, The Features, We Love Drinks
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Drinks, Interrupted

Photo courtesy of Jenn Larsen
Drinks, Interrupted
courtesy of Jenn Larsen

Imagine your heart breaks. No, I’m not talking about love. Imagine it actually stops working properly. In a matter of days what started out as an innocent fluke turns deadly serious as it just slows down, and then stops. Everything in your life suffers too, all thanks to a tiny electrical glitch. Luckily there are cyborg solutions, and you aren’t completely broken. But gosh, a stiff drink would help during exhausting weeks of treatment, right?

Not so. YOU CAN’T DRINK. During Rickey Month. Now it’s really mayday!

In the scheme of everything else I’ve been through in the past three months, not drinking alcohol while being medically grounded is really not the end of the world. But it certainly does feel like injurious insult. Over the next few weeks, I’m exploring methods of crafting beautiful non-alcoholic cocktails with some of our finest local bartenders. It’s for all you fellow medically grounded folks out there for whom YOU CAN’T DRINK was yet another slap in the face. And frankly, it’s a nice distraction from feeling like I’ve reached the bottom of the glass.

Let’s start at one of my favorite bars, with an old colonial method of preservation that helps add complexity in place of the missing (and much missed) alcohol. Continue reading →

Featured Photo
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Featured Photo

Photo courtesy of Noe Todorovich
Color Block Bus Stop
courtesy of Noe Todorovich

Bright colors and straight lines can make simple, but fascinating, photo. Take Noe’s picture above. The framing lines of the windows, the plywood wall, the bus stop, even the traffic lines in the street, all make your eye go from side to side, and up and down, to explore the picture. And while your eye wonders, it is delighted with fascinating hues of purple, yellow, and maroon, to just name three (there are more). And then, as an added bonus, the people are there to give the scene scale; what at first looks like a small building/block becomes much larger once you notice the people. Truly a great shot!

Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Church

I wouldn’t call myself a very religious person. Much like 72% of us millennials, I do consider myself spiritual. While I don’t attend temple every week, I consider myself a Buddhist. Outside of weddings and funerals I usually don’t find myself inside a house of worship.

However I strangely found myself in church this past weekend when I sat down for Forum Theatre’s production of “Church.”

Up and coming Korean-American playwright Young Jean Lee penned the piece after being raised by Evangelical Christians, eventually becoming an atheist later in life. Church is Lee’s attempt to break through to today’s secular population (herself included.) In an interview with the Village Voice Lee explains, “Their attitude toward Christians seemed very ill-informed . . . it was like Christians are evil morons who are ruining our country.”

As a result Lee presents a piece that challenges but doesn’t convert and celebrates rather than parodies. Church is a take on religion unlike any other, with the entire performance done within the confines of a 65 minute church service.

Continue reading →