Monthly Archives: July 2012

The Daily Feed
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Union Market’s Summer Picnic this weekend

Union Market in NoMa

photo by Tom Bridge

The Union Market building on 6th street across from Gallaudet University in NoMa is just about ready to kick things off, and this weekend’s Union Market Picnic is shaping up to be a real nice kickoff for the newly renovated market space.  Running from 12 to 6 on Sunday, there will be some incredible food by local places like Hill Country and Jeff Black (of recent RAMMY fame) and Red Apron and Pitango Gelato. In addition, Christylez Bacon and DJ Tariq will be keeping the tunes flowing at the new space.

Tickets in advance (until tomorrow at noon) are just $5. After that, tickets are $7.

The building will open this fall for good, with anchor tenants including Peregrine Espresso, Red Apron Butchery, Dolcezza, Lyon Bakery and Tricking Springs Creamery, plus the site is the final resting place for the Avoca railcar restaurant that was Capital City Diner. 

The Daily Feed
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Game Show this weekend at Artisphere

Photo courtesy of bradleyolin
Big Bucks no Whammies!
courtesy of bradleyolin

I remember, as a wee little tyke, sneaking out from my bedroom when I was supposed to be napping to watch game shows in the living room. Classics like Password, and Price is Right, and more glitzy glammy ones like Press Your Luck and Hollywood Squares. The games were often just macguffins to put a lot of smart funny people in situations where they could be smart and funny. I didn’t appreciate this at four, but I do now, almost thirty years later.

This Saturday, local podcaster Brandon Wetherbee is putting together a game show with prizes for both contestants and audience members at the Artisphere, with some really smart and funny people, like local comedians Jenn Tisdale and Adam Friedland, and congressional candidate Bruce Majors, as well as a few other local favorites of the You Me Them Everybody podcast crowd.

Tickets are $10, and there’s a solid chance, says Wetherbee, that you’ll walk out with some sweet swag from their sponsors. When we asked Wetherbee why folks should come, he said: “Each guest is talented, charming and probably single. If you’re not single, they’re also not single and in loving relationships. Let’s all be friends. This is how to meet people and turn them into friends. Game shows.”

Thanks for that one, Brandon.

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 →

The Daily Feed
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Zimmermann Stays Steady, Nats Beat Mets 4-3

Photo courtesy of afagen
Nats pitcher Jordan Zimmerman
courtesy of afagen

If you’re looking for consistency then look no further than RHP Jordan Zimmermann. The Nationals’ third starter in the rotation secured his seventh victory of the season Wednesday night with a 4-3 Washington win against New York, pushing him to a winning record of 7-6 thus far. This is the first time Zimmermann’s had a winning record since his 2009 rookie season.

His biggest struggle of the season is one that’s been out of his hands though. Run support behind his pitching is bellow average when compared to the rest of the rotation. The Nats average 3.95 runs with Zimmermann on the mound and 4.16 runs a game.  Zimmermann was 2-2 with a 3.56 ERA against the Mets in nine career starting appearances before last night and has worked at least 6.0 innings in all 19 starts this season. 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 →

Food and Drink, The Features
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H &pizza Arrives on H Street NE

Photo courtesy of bonappetitfoodie
H &pizza Boxes
courtesy of bonappetitfoodie

Pizza and politics–two controversial things in this town. Like asking what someone thought of the latest congressional vote, if you inquire about their pizza preferences when it comes to crust thickness, toppings or cheese to sauce ratio, you’ll get an earful. Not to mention there’s that group of people who cop out completely by throwing their hands in the air and exclaiming, “THERE IS NO GOOD PIZZA IN DC!” Well, my fussy friends, there’s a new place on H street that might do the trick for you: H &pizza.

Photo courtesy of bonappetitfoodie
H &pizza Jenny Pizza
courtesy of bonappetitfoodie
Continue reading →

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Chipotle Fundraiser for Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food & Agriculture

Photo courtesy of BrianMKA
138/365
courtesy of BrianMKA

Looking for a reason to ingest a giant burrito today? Here’s a good one: 59 Chipotles in the metro area are hosting a fundraiser for Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food & Agriculture today from 5 to 8 PM.

If you mention the fundraiser with your order, Chipotle will donate 50 percent of each sale (up to $15,000) to Arcadia. The program will use a portion of the proceeds to create eight scholarships for kids to attend their first Farm Camp.

Arcadia is a non-profit farming and food initiative dedicated to creating a sustainable food system and culture in the DC area. They run an educational farm, a mobile market, a farm to school network and other programs.

Food and Drink, The Features, Ward 6
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Atlas Arcade: 8-bit Fun on H Street

IMG 4820

It’s a Thursday night and the line at Toki Underground spills out onto H Street. It’s two hours until you can have delicious ramen, so what are you going to do? You can sit down at the Pug or Church and State and pound beers or cocktails, or you can walk up to H Street Country Club at hope to get in for mini golf, or, you can cool your heels and wait. While waiting, you can also play online casino at 666 Casino and use your spare time winning big real money through online casinos.

Starting this week, Atlas Arcade gives you another option. You can now play rainbow riches online with your phone and get your big starting bonus now. This game is surely to give you the best entertainment you are looking for in an online casino.

The space, formerly Eric Holzherr’s Fruit Bat, is now Atlas Arcade, with eight classic 8-bit video games, a claw machine, and a couple video game consoles built into TVs at the bar.

When I was about 12, my friend Paul and I tagged along as his parents went to gamble at the casino just over the state line in Nevada from Lake Tahoe. It was the best day ever, despite the car trouble getting up into the mountains, and the hot weather, because when we got there, Paul’s Dad handed us each a roll of quarters fresh from the bank, and told us we could play as long as we wanted.

Now, granted, I grew up with an NES, and later a Genesis, but arcades had games that none of those systems could touch. Spy Hunter. Galaga. Rampage. Defender. Ms Pacman on those little bar tables like you found at Pizza Hut.

Continue reading →

Food and Drink, The Features
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First Look: The Bistro at Pound The Hill

Photo courtesy of bonappetitfoodie
Back Patio at Pound The Hill
courtesy of bonappetitfoodie

Walking out into the back patio at Pound The Hill, it hits you: this is the slice of the outdoors that every Washingtonian wishes they had in their backyard. Even better than having it in your own backyard, is the fact that The Bistro at Pound has plenty of good food and wine to serve you, so you don’t have to be in charge of cooking for yourself. They launched the concept (coffee shop becomes bistro for dinner service) earlier this year and now that’s it’s off the ground running, I headed to Eastern Market to check out it out for the first time and see what they have to offer on their new summer menu, launching today.

The Bistro was born out of the owners’ desire to feature a menu that pulled from the group’s international inspirations. You’ll see dishes with a French influence, due to executive chef Jon Taub’s background, but also some Latin and Asian influences highlighted in the menu as well. Taub was previously the sous-chef at Station 4 and Art & Soul. While you’ll only find The Bistro in Eastern Market for now, owner Karl Johnson hints at future expansion, saying that they branded themselves with the father concept of “Pound [insert neighborhood]” on purpose.

Photo courtesy of bonappetitfoodie
Duck confit at Pound The Hill
courtesy of bonappetitfoodie

Continue reading →