Category Archives: The Features

These are our features. They come back either weekly, bi-weekly or monthly.

Special Events, We Love Arts
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2011 All Roads Film Festival at NatGeo

Photo courtesy of
‘National Archives Film Canisters’
courtesy of ‘Mr. T in DC’

Starting tomorrow, the National Geographic Museum hosts the 2011 All Roads Film Festival. The five-day festival showcases nearly 40 films in 24 countries, created to provide an international platform for indigenous and under-represented minority-culture artists to share cultures, stories and perspectives through the power of film and photography. This year’s theme is “Stories That Shape Our World” and National Geographic is giving WeLoveDC readers a chance to win a pair of all-access passes to the festival.

The five-day event also will include a “Global Groove: DJ Dance Party,” hosted by DJ Dave Nada and DJ Underdog, panel discussions by a number of the filmmakers and two photography exhibits. One photography exhibit will feature works from three provocative voices in the photography medium, each at different points in their careers; the second is an exclusive view into two cultures where photography by outsiders has been severely restricted. Several filmmakers will participate in two panel discussions, “Latinos in Modern Media” and “Indigenous Communities, Film and the Environment,” as well as discussions following their film screenings where they will talk about their careers and the continuing innovation of indigenous filmmaking.

If you’d like to win a pair of festival passes, simply drop a comment below (using an email address we can use to contact you). We’ll randomly select a winner at noon tomorrow (Wednesday 9/14). Continue reading →

Featured Photo
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Featured Photo

Doggy in the Window
‘Doggy in the Window’ by Mondmann

In a world where photographers are often more concerned with flashy presentation or outstanding technique, Mondmann reminds us that simplicity is key to capturing a unique moment. The photo makes me think of a 70-year-old man who has lived in the same house for 50 years, sitting to watch the world pass by, yelling at kids to get off of his lawn. The dog just looks like a curmudgeon, although I’m sure if you asked him, the dog would say, “Stop anthropomorphizing me!” Well done, Mondmann.

Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Imagining Madoff

Photo: C. Stanley Photography

If you want to learn about one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history, this show isn’t for you. If you want to learn more about the man that ran off with the savings of individuals, charitable organizations, and others- this show may not be for you.

Try one of the documentaries out there on the topic.

Instead of retelling history, Theater J’s Imagining Madoff focuses on a fictionalized meeting between Bernie Madoff (Rick Foucheux) and Solomon Galkin (Mike Nussbaum), one of his clients/victims. Despite the show’s fictional premise, playwright Deb Margolin creates an engaging narrative that whets our appetite as we collectively wonder who was this notorious criminal and how could he steal so much from so many.

Continue reading →

Sports Fix, The Features
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Redskins defeat Giants 28-14

Photo courtesy of
‘_MG_8031’
courtesy of ‘dbking’

When looking over the Redskins schedule there were games where the Redskins should win, could win, and should struggle. The Giants hadn’t lost to the Redskins since 2007, the Redskins defense was one of the worst in the NFL last season and the Giants feature a strong running and passing attack, and the Redskins entered 2011 as a team surrounded by questions on the offense. The Redskins didn’t just not struggle against the Giants they dominated. The yardage comes out about the same as the Giants passed for 268 and rushed for 75 while the Redskins passed for 305 and rushed for 75, but the Redskins managed to outscore the Giants by the final score of 28-14 due in large part to 21 straight unanswered points. Continue reading →

Weekend Flashback
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Weekend Flashback: 9/9-9/11

Photo courtesy of
‘Giants1’
courtesy of ‘Homer McFanboy’

We got through a trying weekend. Whether it was from the anniversary; potential of something happening on or around the anniversary; the gridlock caused by all the events surrounding the anniversary; or just the regular trials and tribulations of NFL opening weekend (HAIL!), this is a weekend I’m sure we all will like to see recede into memory. But before you start writing off the past few days, take a brief moment to look back and see what memories there are from the weekend. Continue reading →

We Love Weekends
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We Love Weekends – Sep 9-11

Photo courtesy of
‘Rain Delay on HD’
courtesy of ‘wfyurasko’

Well, we made it past the soggies. Mostly. Capital Weather Gang says we’ll still get sprinkles and clouds through the weekend but after about 12 inches of rain this level of sprinkle seems like a cool and sunny breeze.

Okay, not really. But I’m trying here, people. So what do we plan to do with our slightly less damp weekend? Read on…

Rachel: Another weekend, another ballgame. It’s back to Nats Park, where I’ll be on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. For those interested, Saturday night is Danny Espinosa bobblehead night, so get ’em while you still can. Then, in between baseball related activities, I have some friends coming in from out of town so I’m hoping to treat them to something special even if it’s just a walk around the National Mall or a stop in a Smithsonian museum. I still haven’t seen the MLK Memorial in person so I’m thinking a walk-by might be in order.

Tom: There is SO much happening this weekend, I don’t even know where to start. Saturday’s got the Virgin Free Festival at Merriweather, and if you’re looking for tickets and a ride, check out what BYT, the 9:30 Club and Pop Chips are doing. You can still get in on the ride if you need just the ride, too. Friday night, I might just trek north to Charm City to see what the Baltimore Alley Aerial Festival is all about, since the idea of an awesome graffiti alley and acrobats doing high altitude work is really intriguing to me. The Nationals are home against Houston this weekend, and it may just happen that we get another Strasmas on Sunday, so I’ll be there, hoopla and all. Whew, I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

Continue reading →

Food and Drink, The Features, We Love Food
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We Love Food: Bourbon Steak’s Cheese Program

Photo courtesy of
‘Cheese wheels at Bourbon Steak’
courtesy of ‘bonappetitfoodie’

I can think of few simple combinations that go together as well as meat and cheese–philly cheesesteaks, charcuterie and cheese boards, chicken parmigiano, heck, even the simple breakfast sandwich combines the super powers of a sausage patty and melted cheese. So it made sense when Brenton Balika, the executive pastry chef at Bourbon Steak, started a cheese program at the meat-centric restaurant in Georgetown.

The cheese program, which was officially launched in May of this year, has opened up a whole menu featuring eight to 10 cheeses at any given time. While the cheeses can take anywhere from a few hours to a few months to complete, depending on the type, the restaurant typically goes through an average of 200 wheels of cheese per week and 169 gallons of milk, according to Balika.

I met with Brent to learn more about Bourbon Steak’s cheese program and to find out what goes into making cheese.

Continue reading →

Sports Fix
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Redskins 2011 Season Preview

Photo courtesy of
‘Young|Veteran’
courtesy of ‘Danilo.Lewis|Fotography’

The story of the 2010 Washington Redskins needs no retelling. If the images of McNabb sulking on the sidelines and Haynesworth rolling on the ground aren’t burned into your memory then you weren’t paying attention. It can be argued that the issues with McNabb were partly his being taken out of comfortable surroundings and then feuding with the Shanahans. What cannot be argued is that McNabb threw a career high in interceptions with 15 and his lowest number of touchdowns since 2003 with 14, and his 77.1 passer rating was his worst since his rookie season in 1999 when he had a passer rating of 60.1. At the age of 34 Donovan McNabb had the worst season of his career, and he found himself benched for Rex Grossman in the final three games.

The main issues with the Redskins in 2010 were the same as they have always been. They continued to try and be the off-season champs with the trade for McNabb and stuck with Albert Haynesworth in the 3-4 defense despite his objections that he was not that type of player. Haynesworth swore that by working out with his personal trainer he would be ready for the 2010 season, but he failed multiple fitness tests and missed time in training camp. This season the Redskins do not have a McNabb, Portis, or Haynesworth, but what they might have is a team. The 2010 Redskins were seen as a disappointment more because of the expectations than the results. The team finished with the record the talent dictated it should.

The Redskins have made it a habit to ignore problems at the bottom and middle of the roster and to try and go for the big splash. The Redskins never wanted to put a team on the field. They wanted a collection of stars they hoped would play well together and cover up shortcomings at non-glory positions like the offensive and defensive line. When the big name signings and trades failed the Redskins ended up left with nothing and struggled through season after season. This off-season the Redskins took a different approach. They traded 35 year old defensive lineman Vonnie Holliday to the Cardinals for 24 year old running back Tim Hightower. In 13 games started for the Cardinals in 2010 Hightower averaged 4.8 yards a carry and 46 yards a game with an average of only 9.6 carries a game. A league average running back average 4.2 yards a carry in 2010. With a normal workload of between 20-25 carries a game Hightower could provide a vast improvement to the Redskins running game.
Continue reading →

We Love Weekends, WTF?!
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We Love Weekends: The Ark Edition

Photo courtesy of
‘Hippo hanging around after lunch’
courtesy of ‘afagen’

Who’s got the saw? And how many feet in a cubit anyway?

Well it looks like the internal domain name the We Love DC team uses to communicate amongst themselves should have been sandbagged – it floated away in the night and our ability to coordinate anything along with it. So instead of our usual Weekends feature here’s a picture of a hippo.

We miss you Happy. For reals. Peace.

Anyway, we’re re-assembling our excretion into a coherent gathering and hopefully will be back on track soon. We haven’t forgotten you!

Featured Photo
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Featured Photo

Photo courtesy of
‘A Barbie Girl In A Barbie World’
courtesy of ‘[F]oxymoron’

The things you can see, when you’re walking around the city, can be fascinating. You could run into people doing interesting things; you could see the sky change into fascinating colors; you could even see the little details on the street. Yes, living in the city is many things, but lacking fascinating sights is not one of them.

The picture above by [F]oxymoron certainly falls into the little details category. It’s just some random trash littering the street. Yet chance has arranged it in such a way as to make it look as if the street has eyes. Or, better yet, that a person is emerging from the pavement below the photographer’s feet. It’s certainly a perspective that 99% of people will miss, but we were lucky enough to have someone there to see and capture it. And everyone, keep your own eyes open for things like this; be sure to enjoy them as much as I do.

Food and Drink, Foodie Roundup, The Features, We Love Food
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We Love Food: DC Eats for September

Photo courtesy of
‘Autumn of my Life’
courtesy of ‘LaTur’

Summer may be over, but good food goes on. You can eat your sad feelings about colder weather and fewer hours of daylight coming at some of these events happening this month in the city.
Continue reading →

Talkin' Transit
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Talkin’ Transit: Metro’s New Map, and a Survey

Metro Map

Part of Metro’s new Map

Metro’s iconic map is at a turning point. The new Silver Line that’s being constructed out to Dulles Airport presents a challenge for the transit system’s existing map, as it would push outward the boundaries on the system past the edge of the page. As part of the upcoming changes, Metro has released a draft map (that we’ve excerpted from above) and a survey to go with it.

The heart of the changes, for now at least, have to do with changes in the green line (to more correctly display its geography), and the orange and yellow line service extensions that operate during Metro’s rush hours.  The yellow line now shows a dashed line (though a striped line is also proposed in the survey) down to Springfield, and up to Greenbelt, and the orange line has a dashed section out to Largo.  Mysterious and ghostly is how they’ve chosen to draw the Silver Line outward through Tysons to Dulles for now, largely postponing the question of where the map’s new boundaries will be.

Greater Greater Washington’s David Alpert has dissected the map with regard to the site’s mapping contest, and has a series of great recommendations and observations. Definitely give it a look.  Also, Metro’s Barbara Richardson spoke with the Post’s chat group this morning at 10am, and that chat will likely be instructive with regards to what Metro was considering with regard to the map.

Personally, I think the new map is a welcome improvement in a number of ways: it highlights the increased service to Fort Totten on the yellow line and differentiates between the extended yellow line service to Greenbelt in a manner that’s elegant, and also does the same for the orange line out to Largo. It also thickens the orange/blue line between Rosslyn and Stadium-Armory to allow for a silver line when the time comes for it to actually run. This is a ground-work laying map that will hopefully serve us until 2013 when the new map, and new line, debut service out to Tysons.

Special Events, Sports Fix, The Features
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We Love Sports: The Wounded Warrior Amputee Celebrity Softball Game

“Not many people get an opportunity to actually come down on the field,” 21-year-old Josh Wege said after his pre-game warm up at Nationals Park with ball and glove in tote. “Well … they actually get to come on the field but to actually play a game on this field, this is incredible.”

It’s true. More often than not, the people playing ball on a Major League field are professional players employed by Major League Baseball. On Sunday, though, the giant state-of-art sandlot located in Washington’s Navy Yard neighborhood hosted the Wounded Warrior Amputee Softball Team in an exhibition game against a group of D.C. celebrities. Continue reading →

Sports Fix, The Daily Feed
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Nats get to Dodgers’ Kuroda for 5, win 7-2.

Photo courtesy of
‘Lannan delivers’
courtesy of ‘afagen’

The Nationals’ offense exploded for four runs in the first inning on the overcast Labor Day afternoon, all on home runs, to give John Lannan a lead to work with against the Dodgers. While Lannan would at times struggle against their lineup, he still went 5 1/3 IP of 1-run baseball. Lannan would strand 5 trolley-dodgers on the base-paths, strike out four and walk two to earn his 9th win.

The Nats tore through Hiroki Kuroda today, getting to him for 5 runs on 8 hits, with four home runs, but Kuroda also put up a season-best 9 strikeouts against the Nationals today. The Dodgers’ bullpen added three more Ks for an even dozen against the Nats, four by Danny Espinosa, who’s in a bit of a slump of late.

 

Continue reading →

Sports Fix, The Daily Feed
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Milone debuts with a bang, Nats win in the 9th over Mets 8-7

Photo courtesy of
‘home away from home’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’

The Nats added another chapter to the Ryan Zimmerman, “Mr. Walkoff” legend book tonight, as he brought the game back from a deficit in their last at-bat yet again this season. The bloop single off Mets closer Bobby Parnell with the bases loaded in the 9th was his 14th game-winning plate appearance of his six-year career. The Nats have now won 20 games in their last at-bat, and 10 in sudden death situations.

The major league debut of Tom Milone on a comfortable September night in Washington was something of a preview for Nats fans. Milone, whose 12-6 year at Syracuse came with 155 strikeouts and just 16 walks, is a fearless medium-velocity pitcher with pinpoint command. What the fans will be talking about, though, isn’t how he wasn’t afraid to come in on the hands of the righties, it’s about what he did with his bat.

Milone jacked the first pitch he saw in the 2nd inning into the Nationals’ bullpen for a 3-run homer. This wasn’t a barely-clears-the-fence job, either, it was a bona fide legitimate home run that had all of Nats Park standing up. Soon as he made contact, that ball was clearly out. He became the 27th player in MLB history to hit the first pitch he faced for a home run, and the 8th pitcher. The last pitcher to do it was the Cardinals’ Adam Wainwright in May of 2006.

Continue reading →

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed, We Love Drinks
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Friday Happy Hour: Long Drinks for a Long Weekend

Photo courtesy of
‘01497-07Crop’
courtesy of ‘furcafe’
A long drink, a term with which you might not be familiar, is a bartender’s term for a cocktail which is longer on non-alcoholic mixer than it is on base spirit. You may already know some long drinks as highballs, a slightly younger name which refers to a long drink made with just a single base spirit and a single mixer, often with a fruit garnish. A gin and tonic is a highball, but a Tom Collins (containing not only gin and soda but sugar and lemon juice) is a long drink. The Tom Collins, by the way, gave its name to the archetypical tall glass in which these drinks are served. A highball glass is usually synonymous with a Collins glass (and vice versa).

Cocktails follow formulas, and the combination of a single base spirit and a particular mixer often lends its name to some other concoction made with the same mixer and a different base spirit. The Tom Collins, for instance, begat the Vodka Collins. You could ask a bartender for a Whiskey Collins, and while he or she might look at you funny they’d know exactly what you mean without having to stop to think. Some names have lost popularity over time (Mamie Taylor, anyone?), but others are still current and show up in all sorts of interesting combinations. The Mojito, by the way, is also a long drink; replace the rum with gin and it becomes a Southside; add lemon to that and it turns into a Major Bailey. Formulas! They’re magic!
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Entertainment, Interviews, Music, Night Life, People, The Features, We Love Music
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Q&A with Volta Bureau

 
 
 

Photo by Josh Sisk

Volta Bureau is the new electro/house/dance collaboration of DC’s movers & shakers of the electronic music scene Will Eastman, Micah Vellian (Miguel Lacsamana) and Outputmessage (Bernard Farley). I have known Will and Miguel for several years, initially through my old band Soft Complex. Miguel (then under the moniker Person) did a remix for our 2006 EP, and we had the pleasure of performing a live set at Will’s Bliss Pop dance party at the 930 club in 2007. I was super excited to hear they had come together to form this new group, along with Bernard Farley- they all have talent, drive and style in spades. I have a feeling this trinity is one to watch!

This week I had a chance to chat with Miguel, aka Micah Vellian, and ask him a few questions about Volta Bureau. Continue reading →

Sports Fix
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Homestand Preview: The last long one

Photo courtesy of
‘crazy eyes’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’

The dog days of August are done, and we’re into the last month of baseball season. The Nationals, while still better than previous years, are a long way from the playoff hunt. That does not mean, however that you can’t see some good things at Nationals Park. This homestand brings with it the return of Stephen Strasburg, the debut of a new rookie in the starting rotation, a free concert, and the start of Fan Appreciation Month.

There are a lot of reasons to find yourself down at Nationals Park for an early Fall game, and there just aren’t that many left to go before we head into the dark of winter. Capture the light while it’s still present, folks, and see the Nationals play some solid baseball in the meantime.

Continue reading →

We Love Weekends
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We Love Weekends: September 2nd – 5th

Photo courtesy of
‘Four Friends’
courtesy of ‘MudflapDC’

Fedward: The social chair returns tonight from a week at the beach (they left DC Sunday night after the storm had passed), and goes straight into the Page to Stage Festival at the Kennedy Center. I’ll use my spare time on Saturday to drop off a couple more decommissioned computers at the District’s monthly Household Hazardous Waste collection (if you can’t go Saturday, there’s also a special preview day today). Saturday night we’re planning a visit to our friends at Eventide Restaurant for some cocktails, dinner, and pretzels (seriously, have you had those pretzels?). Sunday night you’ll be able to find us at the hangover brunch at the Passenger. As usual.

Continue reading →