Yearly Archives: 2009

We Love Arts
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Workbook at Flashpoint

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Flashpoint is having an amazing year so far in terms of the exhibits they’ve chosen.  First there was Cory Oberndorfer’s Flavor of the Month show featuring his deliciously fun paintings of Roller Derby girls (not to mention the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and gummy bears – also delicious).  Next was DCist Exposed, a photography show focused on highlighting some of DC’s best up and coming photographers.  Now, in what is sure to be some beautifully creative eye fodder is Workbook, a collaboration by Kate McGraw and Ann Tarantino.

From Flashpoint’s website:

Workbook is a video that documents the ten days artists Kate McGraw and Ann Tarantino will spend creating a mammoth work stretching across the walls of the Gallery at Flashpoint. The installation will be on view beginning March 19, 2009 and the film will be projected at the exhibition entrance beginning March 28, 2009.

Financial support for the production of the video will be provided by the sale of prints hand-marked by the artists. Each 7½” x 7½” print will be hand-marked and embellished by Kate and Ann and hand-stamped with a signature seal created by the artists. Each unique piece will be printed on 300 gsm, 100% cotton Crane Museo Portfolio Rag paper.

This strikes me as an amazing idea, selling individual pieces outside of the exhibit to fund a video that captures the creation of the exhibit itself?  How very “out of the box” this is as well as a great opportunity to support the local art community and add to your collection.  All patrons who purchase the $50 prints (supported by The Pink Line Project) by March 24, 2009 will be listed in the video.  To get your own custom print, visit the Workbook site and click on the “Buy a Print” link.  I can’t wait to see how mine turns out!

Kate McGraw & Ann Tarantino: Workbook
March 19 – April 17, 2009
Opening reception: Thursday, March 19, 6 – 8 p.m.

Downtown, Essential DC, Food and Drink, We Love Food
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We Love Food: Georgia Brown’s

Photo courtesy of
‘Smothered Fried Chicken’
courtesy of ‘Sabine01’

I’m a southern girl, I think I’ve made that abundantly clear on this blog. (Also, while we’re at it, let me just say, UNC is going to PWN you during March Madness, everyone. But I digress…) So what southern girl can’t love some Georgia Brown’s? A few friends and I headed there during my favorite week of the year, restaurant week, and were treated to some down-home food. I’ve been raised on southern cooking like Crook’s Corner and Mert’s Heart and Soul, so I was dying to find out if Georgia Brown’s lives up to it’s famous truly southern brethren.

I’m all about bread, I think I’ve also made that clear on this blog. If you start me off with some crappy bread, I’m going to be sad. It’s like a warm up jog before the workout, I need the bread starter to shine for me, gear me up for the meal to come. And boy, did Georgia Browns give me a run for my money. They sent out biscuts and corn bread and I’m not just warming up, I’m basically working out. They dished up biscuts with peach butter and corn bread – fresh, with actual corn in it. (Insert heavenly angelic aaaaah noise here!) Now that’s a way to start a meal. So I was sold right then and there, in my mind, there’s little you can do wrong after some biscuts and sweet butter… or is there? Continue reading →

Technology, The Daily Feed, The Hill
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Hacking The Government (For Good, Not Evil)

Photo courtesy of
‘Open Government Data Session Tack-on Free For All’
courtesy of ‘illustir’

The hackers and do-gooders at Sunlight Labs are coordinating their first ever Open Government hackathon from March 29th to March 31st. Although the event takes place in Chicago (at PyCon2009 at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O’Hare hotel) there will also be an online presence, so those of you interested in making that rather large DC employer known as the federal government more open and accessible can still take part.

The nature of the sprint will be fairly freeform, two Sunlight Labs members will be on hand guiding users that want to contribute to opening up the government. Users can come to the sprint without any background and we would help coordinate them and place them on a project where there skills would be useful (there is always a ton of scraping that needs to be done, building mini-web apps to showcase gov’t data, etc.)

24 in DC
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24 in DC: Episode 12 (9:00 to 10:00)

Photo courtesy of tiffany bridge
Jack Bauer stares down a threatening-looking bug.
courtesy of tiffany bridge

9:02

Jack’s running out to his car which is supposed to be at Kennedy Memorial Hospital. He breaks into a sweet old ride with a nice laptop inside, not to mention some easily spottable Sprint gear.

9:04

That’s a really derelict looking hospital that Jack just “escaped” from. More Warehouse than Hospital, I think.

Aaaaand Freckles with the ID of The Real Killer in the photo! Good job, Freckles! And not just the ID, but exposition too! Hey wait a minute… is she after Bill’s job? God, the body’s not even cold yet…

9:07

Hodges and his lackey are talking in what looks like a very nice K Street office. It actually looks a lot like one of the floors at the Columbia Square building on E Street, but I’m not 100% sure.

Continue reading →

Downtown, The Daily Feed
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Free Irish Books Tomorrow!

Photo courtesy of
‘Day 93 – Reading, For Once’
courtesy of ‘gotplaid?’

If you happen to be around one of a handful of popular metro spots in town tomorrow beginning at 7 a.m., you may see some of the lovely individuals of Solas Nua, the only organization dedicated to contemporary Irish arts, handing out books. For free! For the 4th year running, Solas Nua will pass out contemporary Irish tomes to passers-by in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day.

It’s sort of a first-come first-serve, in that, when the books run out, that’s all folks. So keep an eye out if you happen to be around Metro Center, Tenleytown, the U St. Corridor, Dupont (north exit), Chinatown (7th street) or Archives/Navy Memorial.  Volunteers will be taking a wee break (see what I did there?) around 10 a.m., if you don’t see anyone out around that time. 

Books and St. Paddy’s day – what could be better?? Well… maybe some Irish whisky…

The Daily Feed
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Sweeper Cam!

Photo courtesy of
‘Budapest parking tickets’
courtesy of ‘bartvanpoll’

Just when you thought there was no way you could possibly get more parking tickets in DC, along comes the “sweeper cam.” It’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like: street sweepers now have cameras mounted on them that take a picture of every car that is in the way during scheduled street cleanings.

You have some time to get your act together, though: street sweeping rules go back in effect March 23, with a one week warning period. Then come the $30 tickets, starting March 30.

The Daily Feed, The District
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Books Set in DC

Photo courtesy of
”
courtesy of ‘erin m’

So… I read chick lit. It’s true, the sparkly pink kind, with high heels and cocktails on the front. The kinds of books my mother would call a brain snack, and I’m not afraid to admit it. As I’ve been devouring popular chick lit books lately, I’ve run across more and more set in DC – I just picked up Mindy Klasky’s Sorcery and the Single Girl and opened up the first page to find the story being set in a bakery in Georgetown.

I gobbled up both of Kristin Gore’s Sammy series books, Sammy’s Hill and Sammy’s House.  Since Kristin Gore is Al Gore’s daughter, I bought her realistic viewpoint of both DC and Capitol Hill. Rebecca Flower’s Nice To Come Home To was a fun read since I was able to imagine exactly what her shop would look like set on upper Connecticut Ave. I’ve heard interesting things about Washingtonienne, and am looking for others – thoughts, dear readers?

What book set in DC has recently tickled your fancy? When you read them, do you find them mostly accurate or is it more a loosly-based 24 In DC translation of our city?

Sports Fix, The Features
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Sports Fix: Monday Morning Edition

Photo courtesy of
‘Crash the net’
courtesy of ‘brianmka’

Capitals
Record: 43-21-6
Last Two Weeks: 3-3
Place: 1st in the Southeast, 3rd in the East

The first half of March wasn’t very kind to the Caps. Four straight losses (to Florida, Carolina, Toronto and Pittsburgh) put the hurt on the Caps record pretty fierce. But, the Caps rallied on their short road trip, beating Nashville and the Flyers, and followed it up with a shoot-out win over the Hurricanes.

There are just 12 games left for the Caps, and they’re about to start a 5-game road trip. Joining them from Hershey will by Brian Pothier and Simeon Varlamov. Pothier is returning to the Caps after a 14-month absence after a severe concussion last January, which left him with blurry vision. He just completed a four-game tune-up with the Hershey Bears.

Continue reading →

The Daily Feed, We Green DC
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Ice Sheets, Ice Cubes


‘Broken ice sheet’, courtesy of ‘another sergio’

This Wednesday, while the Environmental Film Festival has DC thinking green, the French Embassy will hold a talk on Polar Deserts and their Secrets.

They’ll discuss research being done in Antarctica on climate change, biodiversity, and human adaptation. In fine French form, they’ll follow the 6 p.m. lecture with cocktails. (RSVP to deputy-cnrs@ambafrance-us.org)

That’s the spirit! Let’s hear more bad news about the planet, then steady our nerves with a drink.

The Daily Feed, WTF?!
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Editor’s Note

I pulled a post here this evening, the first ever on We Love DC for content reasons. You might have seen it, it talked about the AIDS rate in the District of Columbia, news and media coverage of that rate, and it made some comments that I considered deeply harmful, ill-advised, and unacceptable to the level of quality that we try to hold ourselves to here at We Love DC.

If you were offended, either by the original piece, or by its disappearance, I apologize. If you want to talk about it, either here in the comments, or via email, I am absolutely glad to discuss it. My email is tom at we love dc dot com.

We’re serious about the AIDS epidemic, both here and abroad, and we’re serious about media criticism in a way that helps media grow and be held accountable for their writings. This post was serious about neither, and frankly represented some poor choices. That’s why I pulled it.

News, The Daily Feed, WMATA
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A second Metro fatality

Photo courtesy of
‘A silver train on the blue line’
courtesy of ‘karthikkito’

NBC Washington reports that a second man has been struck and killed by a Metro train this week, this time early Sunday morning.

NBC Washington: “The accident happened on the Orange Line at 1:54 a.m.  The train was going to New Carrollton; Metro was single tracking from Vienna to East Falls Church at the time.”

The death earlier this week occurred at McPherson Square.

The Daily Feed
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Baby Giant Cuteness

Photo courtesy of
‘Giant Anteater @ London Zoo 2’
courtesy of ‘afcone’

ZOOMG. I’m a tad late to the party, but the National Zoo announced a new baby giant anteater. (Note as I’m typing that… Baby giant? isn’t that a bit oxymoronic?) Perusing the National Zoo’s pictures, I’m currently dying of cuteness, and fully expect FU Penguin to come to my rescue asap. (That FU Penguin link? SO NSFW, be warned.)

The National Zoo reports, “Anteaters also have sticky tongues that can extend up to two feet long and help collect insects—they can eat up to 30,000 ants a day!” And also, thanks to typing anteater a bunch of times in this post, I’ve got Nelly Furtado’s Man Eater in my head.

Sigh, I’m so happy it’s Saturday morning…

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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New Sweetgreen!

Photo courtesy of
‘Sweetgreen Georgetown’
courtesy of ‘shawnblog’

I just got word that come April, DC will have a second sweetgreen location, which will open April 1. The new digs are  at 1512 Connecticut Avenue, NW in Dupont.

The new location will focus on organic cuisine and sustainable practices, from non-processed ingredients on the menu to ‘green’ interior design elements and earth-friendly food containers – including ‘to go’ menus that are embedded with wildflowers for planting in the garden. Isn’t that just fancy?

And you know me, and how much I like free/cheap things (especially food!) so I’m happy to share that in celebration of the opening, sweetgreen be offering $1 food on Wednesday, April 1st from noon to 4 PM. You’ll get your choice of a featured salad, wrap or Sweetflow yogurt at a discounted price of just $1 each. HOLLER. Between the new Java Green and the new sweetgreen, Dupont’s going organic faster than uh… I have no end to that metaphor, but you get my point.

All Politics is Local, Entertainment, The Daily Feed, The District, The Features, WMATA
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McPherson Square station closed

McPherson Square Station, by arvidbr (Creative Commons)

McPherson Square Station, by arvidbr (Creative Commons)

Update: Metro reports that the blue and orange lines are back to normal.  Just in time for the best part of rush hour.  Perhaps today isn’t so unlucky after all!

Dr. Gridlock, from the Washington Post, reported a few minutes ago that McPherson Square Metro Station is closed.  It is reported that a Blue Line train hit someone on the tracks at that station.

This means that all Blue and Orange line trains are turning around at this station.  There is “bus service” between Farragut West and Federal Triangle, but it might just be faster to walk.  No word yet on when the station will be reopened.

Adventures, Entertainment, Getaways, Night Life, The Features
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Getaways – At the Drive-In

Photo courtesy of
‘Templeton Drive-in Theatre – Movie’, courtesy of ‘ciao-chow’

When someone mentions “drive-in” to you, do you think of fast food, or gargantuan screens in front of rows of parked cars, playing B-grade horror or sci-fi flicks?

The relics of a bygone era, the drive-in theater still exists, just not in abundance anymore. Any drive down backwater rural roads these days may reveal the abandoned hulks of these once-great date destinations, their towering screens ripped and dark, the listening posts a mute testimony to the heyday of ‘courting’ and hanging out. (And if you don’t get what I mean, just watch Happy Days on TVLand and you’ll get it.)

The drive-ins that survive today do so out of a mix of nostalgia and determination. And the fact that these days, ‘retro’ is the new style. But even so, drive-in theaters are disappearing. Continue reading →

The Daily Feed, We Green DC
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Be on TV…Tomorrow!


‘Cool water’, courtesy of ‘mawel’

Haven’t you always wanted to show up on TV as part of a giant human water glass?

Well, tomorrow morning at RFK Stadium you can do just that. UNICEF and Tap DC are shooting a commercial for DC’s Tap Project, which works to bring clean water to children worldwide, and World Water Week.

The ad will hit the airwaves within 48 hours of filming. Here’s your chance to be a star!