Brad Pitt Has Your Secret Shit: Rolling DC

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2013/09/08/left-with-nothing/

Sad and frustrating

x-post -- and that go-go exhibit in SE DC before it closes in mid-October, and that landscape photo one at a museum

plus this one of D.C. photos:

http://www.popville.com/2013/08/art-exhibit-coming-to-glen-echo-park-from-the-incredible-historical-photo-collection-by-michael-horsley/

Saw the Peter Coffin exhibit--took me some minutes to appreciate it but then I did--there's a dark room with paintings on the walls and then visual projections start randomly appearing from projectors on the ceiling onto the various paintings; accompanied by audio of music and animal sounds. Visuals of flowers bloomings, numbers, German text, all kinds of stuff,

There's also a big giant sitting dog sculpture in another room

and a non-imprssive sculpture outside and other stuff elsewhere in the museum

is everyone ok right now?

Sending u love, DC.

Couldn't get to work today but otherwise everyone I know is OK

Ok here. Up to 13 dead now. Terrible

Back to regular stuff (for most of us)

I wanna try this place to eat:

Sumah’s: 1727 7th St (Shaw)

Run by a Sierra Leonean

Just ate there a few days ago!

The good: The food is AMAZING. the owner asked us if it was our first time eating there, and then offered to bring out a free sampler dish that had 7-8 of the menu items on there. every single one was very good. even just plain old spinach was really good. you can't go wrong. the owner is ridiculously friendly. you get a ton of food. everything is $15-$17, but even just a medium order was enough for a full meals and a full meal for leftovers the next day (at least for me).

the eh: no big deal, but the vibe in the place was very much "these are all close friends of the owner". which is cool, but no one else was eating anything, just sitting around talking, and it felt kinda weird to be sitting there eating dinner. it's the kind of place where little kids are running around and stuff. doesn't really bother me, but it might bother other people.

the bad: good lord, the process of getting and paying for the check took like 45 minutes. not even a joke. the owner had disappeared somewhere in the back, and then two of the hangerouters were hangeroutering at the counter by the register the entire time, so it was kind of hard to just go up to the cash register and get some service. then when we finally flagged him down for the check, it took another 20 minutes or so for it to finally arrive, even though no one else was eating.

verdict: the place advertises itself as a takeout place, so that's what i'll be doing next time (i'll probably show up about 20-30 minutes after they say it'll be ready, based off of the first experience). but there will definitely be a next time. sooooo sooooooo good.

and with that, i have fulfilled my pledge to the owner. when we paid the bill, he leaned in really close to me with a crazy grin and whisper shouted "WRITE ABOUT US ON THE INTERNET!!"

lmao

lol

i got a jury duty summons the other day. i don't have it in front of me right now, but it appears that say that after submitting the questionnaire to the city, i am required to call into a hotline EVERY DAY from late november until December 28 to check to see if i have jury duty? wtf?! in maryland (the only other place i've been summoned), they just told you to show up in court on a certain day.

I have heard of the calling in thing. It saves you from going there every day. But yes doing it for a month is a pain.

In other news:
My fave local blogger (of course)

http://africaindc.wordpress.com/2013/09/28/where-to-get-6-packs-of-ethiopian-beer-friday-night-africa-in-dc/

Also, this is happening tonight Saturday the 28th

music, art, film, food
rsvp at eventbrite (which only allows rsvp for 1 person).

http://www.francedc.org/events/?id=210

Saturday, September 28, 2013 7:00 PM - Sunday, September 29, 2013 3:00 AM

Saturday, September 28
7PM-3AM
Wonderbread Factory // 620 S St, NW
No charge 21+ | RSVP

Re. the jury summons--have you been tapped for grand jury service? I was called for that a couple of years ago. I pleaded poverty (no employer to pay me while serving), whereupon they shifted me to the petty jury pool. I was then promptly selected for a jury, but it was a relatively straightforward hit-and-run case.

Yay, shutdown over!

Decided to eat Laotian food last night at Bangkok Golden in 7 Corners, to celebrate. Yummy

I had eaten there before, but was lured back by seeing the restaurant in Tom Sietsema's top 40 restaurants in the Post magazine last week. No, it did not get 4 stars.

Government shutdown messed up my plans to see certain exhibits at museums. I wish they could have extended the runs

Hey ZS, how did jury duty work out? If you're allowed to say?

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2013/10/17/georgetown-waiter-bought-fanciest-stuff-ever-with-stolen-credit-card-info/

Haven't heard back, but I can't make any travel plans for the holidays because I could have jury duty the day after thanksgiving or for Christmas Eve, and I won't know until the night before!

i suggest you make your plans!

one time in dc i got a summons but lost the notice so i called the hotline to find out when my day was -- the automated switchboard told me that the average hold time was 30 minutes. i hung up, ignored it, was not jailed. fuck that

I finally saw "Cool Disco Dan" movie this weekend. A bunch of it kinda bugged me, but I am still glad I saw it.

http://artforum.com/?pn=picks§ion=us#picks43498

ArtForum crits give love to a Transformer gallery exhibit that closes Saturday and to the Kerry James Marshall exhibit at the National Gallery of Art that is there through December I think

Transformer is such a consistently great gallery.

That article in the Washington Post Style section by the former dcist.com editor (now at Atlantic cities) on how D.C. is the cool city for her, was uncool.

that whole spread in the magazine this weekend about millennials remaking dc was obnoxious, though their descriptions of life at meridian buildings certainly jibed with every party i ever went to at one of those

Haven't read it yet, but thanks for the warning

Derek Rogers, a 23-year-old Meridian resident and an associate at a consulting firm, summed it up like so: “The pool is where you really see the colors of the building. It is a frat party. With less restrictions.”

Picture: the last Saturday in August. The midafternoon sun is pulling “now you see me, now you don’t” tricks, ducking in and out of clouds. Post-grad paraphernalia is scattered about: cardboard boxes of Bud Light and Corona Light, red Solo cups, brown paper bags from Trader Joe’s. Tattoos peek out from neon bikinis and bro tanks in all the predictable places – wrapped around upper arms, perched on shoulder blades, high on the hipbones and insides of ankles – and music is blasting. It’s Avicii’s “Levels,” sampling Etta James’s “Something’s Got a Hold on Me”: Ooooh, sometimes, I get a good feeling. I get a feeling that I never, never, never, never had before.

it gets worse from there

the Post sees it as an advertiser package but I see it as an exposé

From the Style section millenial piece this morning

But as we look at the increase in restaurants, bike lanes, night-life options and other hallmarks of modern urban cool, there is also that admittedly less important, more ethereal question: Is it possible, after all this time, that D.C. is getting — whisper it with me now — awfully hip?

How predictable

huh
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/style/2013/10/18/march-of-the-millennials/

Once-dead streets are bustling, even after dark. High-rises are replacing aged structures and overgrown lots. Restaurants pop up overnight, like dandelions.

i feel like i have read a lot of writing where all the work that goes into all this passive/magical replacement process of making new buildings and restaurants appear is glossed over. not interesting

also re: some people they saw on 14th street, isn't 'transvestite' a derogatory term? where are the editors??

thx for reminder about transformer. d'oh. i was just at 14th and p this evening and didn't realize it closed so soon, will have to see it tomorrow

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/homespun-dc-places-lost-to-condos-and-burger-chains/2013/10/17/f065ac16-1a42-11e3-82ef-a059e54c49d0_story.html

At least one piece touched on what used to be here.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/keep-your-cool-new-york-and-la-the-millennials-flocking-to-dc-redefine-hip/2013/10/23/5988d83c-3b2f-11e3-b7ba-503fb5822c3e_story.html

S. Mathis hung out with the wrong people if all she can say re her time in LA and NYC is that LA is so superficial and NYC is so expensive. Not particularly insightful. And then she acknowledges that DC had Duke Ellington, go-go and punk but its really only becoming hip and cool now (because she has lots of friends who are policy wonks and such)

i'm friends with a bunch of said policy wonks (as are at least a couple people in this thread, i'm sure) - i gotta be careful here because i've met s0mmer and i have no problem with her, and i like her/my mutual friends a whole lot, but there's something weirdly depressing about hanging out with that whole cohort, even if they are super idealistic about remaking dc from the inside out

part of it is the fact that their world is completely foreign to me, but there's something more - there's something about a lot of young dc people's altruistic impulses that feels extremely insincere and self-serving to me.

that said they do serve really good beer at their parties though

I met her once and contributed on ocassion to dcist.com when she was there (but did not really work with her). I don't know her policy wonk friends and have nothing against them, I just hate that she's defining all of D.C. with just this one group, and with a cliched idea of coolness and hipness. Is that all she can offer: L.A.= superficial, N.Y. =expensive, D.C.= policy wonks. And the earlier quote: But as we look at the increase in restaurants, bike lanes, night-life options and other hallmarks of modern urban cool, there is also that admittedly less important, more ethereal question: Is it possible, after all this time, that D.C. is getting — whisper it with me now — awfully hip?

Groan. Its just lazy journalism.

Plus it's insulting to everyone else here.

what it comes down to is just that it's always really embarrassing for people to try to write about the idea of what's cool

pretty much

http://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/the-20-diner-panda-gourmet-dazzles-with-genuine-sichuan-and-shaanxi-cooking-at-a-days-inn/2013/08/28/cef3a876-0b9c-11e3-b87c-476db8ac34cd_story.html

Panda Gourmet on NY Avenue

Wonder if its as good as the 4 Corners Sichuan restaurant in a strip mall near Eden Center and Home Depot

http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/shotspotter-detection-system-documents-39000-shooting-incidents-in-the-district/2013/11/02/055f8e9c-2ab1-11e3-8ade-a1f23cda135e_story.html?hpid=z2

http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/calendar/film-programs.html#film-programs.html?category=Film%20Programs&pageNumber=1&_suid=138445983889007557851583022691

Which of the Pasolini films at the National Gallery do you recommend?

Film nerds come back and school me, please

Alright, I guess I will use ilxor search engine and google

Pier Paolo fucking Pasolini: Search (I don't want to hear your destroy choices cause they're of no fucking interest to me)

i've only ever seen medea and salo unfortunately. medea is really good (the marxism-for-dummies comment in that thread is way otm though). salo is obviously not in this series lest it inspire any "Taxpayers Fund Obscene Homosexual Christmas at Smithsonian"-style headlines again

Missed the this Sunday Pasolini movie but did finally see the interesting Kerry James Marshall exhibit in the East wing; and in the West wing the Charles Marville photos of Paris from the late 1800s; and the "Yes,No, Maybe" exhibit of printmaking with Chuck Close and John Cage and others.

According to Walmart spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg, the company is hiring about 300 associates for each store and has received more than 23,000 applications for D.C. Walmart jobs.

A 550-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment rents for about $2,700 a month. City Market has already rented 75, sight unseen.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/o-street-market-symbol-of-violence-becomes-a-marker-for-dcs-resurgence/2013/11/19/52012d2c-4ca9-11e3-9890-a1e0997fb0c0_story.html?hpid=z2

Are these folks who are renting likely lobbyists and lawyers?

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/45074/the-people-issue-2013/

spam department. Ilxor Some Dude and I each wrote one of these q & a's of interesting D.C. people for this week's City Paper cover story