Alan Sonneman, The Last Washington Painting (Premonitions of the Corporate Wars), 1980. Oil on canvas, 54 x 102 inches. Courtesy of the artist. Collection of Tim Egert.

It’s common for people to move to DC, make their mark, then ride off into the sunset.  For many people this town is merely a stepping stone for their education or their career, a place to put a notch on their belt.  If you’ve lived here for less than a decade then you may not be hip to DC’s rich history, what made it the city that it is today.

As one would expect, the local art world looks nothing today as it did ten years ago, which looked nothing like it did twenty years ago.  Art galleries have moved from Georgetown to Dupont Circle to 14th Street to H Street, while others have disappeared from the map completely.  Artists of yesterday have moved to New York, stopped producing art, or passed on to artist’s heaven.  However one entity has been a common thread throughout, the Washington Project for the Arts, which is celebrating its 35th birthday with Catalyst.

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‘Sgt. Leonard Matlovich’
courtesy of ‘dbking’

For members of the Arlington Gay & Lesbian Alliance, Veterans Day came a little early. Yesterday, the group honored LGBT veterans at Congressional Cemetery, where they held a small service at the grave of Sgt. Leonard Matlovich. After serving three tours of duty in Vietnam, Sgt. Matlovich made waves in the 1970s as one of the first openly gay service members, which led to his discharge in 1975. His grave is inscribed with the words “When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.”

According to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, 14,000 veterans have been discharged for their sexual orientation since the institution of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and an estimated 60,000 active members of the military are gay.

‘Alien Discovers Gallery Place – Chinatown Metro Stop’
courtesy of ‘[F]oxymoron’

Mapnificent is possibly the coolest thing I’ve seen in a week. Using Google Maps and transit data, it highlights all the places you can get to from a given position in a specified number of minutes, and then lets you search the highlighted area with Google. So, you’re at your office and you want organize an office happy hour: drop the pin on your location, and move the slider to the maximum amount of time you’re willing to travel for alcohol. Then search for “bar” or “drinks” or “pizza” or whatever it is you need and watch the application plot them on a map, complete with (somewhat unreliable) links to Google Maps directions. If you have a friend in another part of town you want to invite, you can add a second origin point for that person and see where the overlap is.

Go play with it. But not, you know, for TOO long. You have to work before you get to have happy hour, after all.

Tom’s mention of Bones and Anacostia reminded me of an odd thing I noticed in AT&T’s “Rollercoaster” spot over the weekend.

In the very first vignette in the ad, a rollercoaster pulls into a subway station and all the suits board it. The sign on the wall of the subway station reads “Gallery Place-Chinatown Station-DC.” But the station they’re all standing in is manifestly NOT a Metro station. Continue reading →

‘Dangerously Delicious Pies Food Truck’
courtesy of ‘justgrimes’
Food trucks, it’s what’s for lunch.

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‘Friends’
courtesy of ‘kimberlyfaye’

Well, it’s Monday. That sucks. But here’s some happy news to help you make it through the work week: the Sculpture Garden Ice Rink opens this Saturday. All your wintry date planning worries have been solved! If you make it out on the ice this Saturday or Sunday, you’ll also receive free hot chocolate. Pretty wintertastic if you ask me.

The rink is open from 10 a.m. – 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, 11 a.m. – 9 p.m. on Sundays, and 10 a.m. – 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday. Admission is $7 for adults and $6 for seniors, students and children 12 and under. Skate rentals are $3, and locker rentals are a whopping 50 cents.

‘dino-snow’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’

NBC Washington got caught up on the Anacostia misrepresentation on last week’s Bones and highlighted some of the delightfully laughable problems with their characterization of the neighborhood as prostitution-heavy, gang-violence-heavy and “seedy”:

“It’s also a historic neighborhood that is in the midst of a renaissance, with new businesses opening and new housing coming in, but that wouldn’t be as dramatic.”

Well, since when have the facts ever stopped Fox from deeply and terribly misappropriating DC’s geography for shits and giggles? I mean, 24 did a whole season of screwed up things here, so I have to ask: why is it that we expect Hollywood to do anything decent in this area?

‘Chick-Fil-A – St. Augustine, FL’
courtesy of ‘adamjackson1984’
It may be over a week away, but folks are already buzzing about the November 17th grand opening of the Arlington location of Chick-fil-A (2200 Crystal Drive). Not only for their so-bad-it’s-good, not open on Sundays, weird cow spokesman ways, but because they are welcoming themselves to town with a lot of free stuff.

For the truly dedicated, the fast food chain will give out a year’s supply of free Chick-fil-A meals to the first 100 adults in line at 6am on November 17th. (No word on whether you’ll be able to sign up for a year’s supply of angioplasties too.) For those of you that are thinking, “pshaw, who is going to line up in the middle of the night for $260 worth of chicken?” look no further than Denver, where the city’s Chick-fil-A opening inspired 200 people to line up the DAY BEFORE the same promotion.

If you can’t make that serious of a commitment, Chick-fil-A will be giving away 10,000 free sandwiches during the lunch hour on November 15th and November 16th. Go forth and “Eat Mor Chikin.”