DAVID REES was perhaps the first popular Web cartoonist to realize that you don't need to be able to draw to be a popular Web cartoonist.
While some Web artists resort to stick figures, Rees turns instead to clip art to accompany his political satire. His strip is so popular that it's been made into a play — and Rees will be speaking about his contribution to political discourse at the new Busboys and Poets space on Sunday.
» Busboys and Poets, 1025 5th St. NW; Sun., Nov. 23, 6 p.m., free; 202-789-2227. (Mt. Vernon Square)
Photo courtesy Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
PROMISE YOURSELF some downtime during the sure-to-be-exhausting D.C. International Arts Expo this weekend. May we suggest Saturday night's "The After Hours Xperience"?
88 DC throws a benefit for the Washington Project for the Arts with body painting, artists, projections, photographers and the live experimental electronica — from Aligning Minds, right, among others — for which 88 is known and revered.
» Convention Center, 801 Mount Vernon Place NW; Fri.-Sun., $10-$50; "After Hours" Sat., 10 p.m., $15. (Mt Vernon Square)
"THE WORLD'S BECOME completely unpredictable on a large scale," says writer Bernard Welt.
He says that pollutants and man-made alterations have rendered our rock-steady notions of Earth as stable algorithm totally obsolete, and while he would love for this to be manifested as "a rain of frogs," we'll just have to settle for ice caps melting, winters becoming intemperately warm and other subtle indications of irreconcilable climate change.
He says all of these things when summarizing the message of a seminal piece of environmental literature: Bill McKibben's 1989 book "End of Nature," which helped plant the idea of global warming into the lives of everyday Americans.
Welt, along with fellow writers Judith McCombs and Nan Fry, will be tackling McKibben's ideas in a poetry reading on April 19 at the Warehouse Gallery, in conjunction with the art exhibition "The End of Nature."
Continue Reading "Natural Poetry: Bernard Welt, Judith McCombs & Nan Fry" »
ONE DAY IN 1933, two French sisters who had been working as maids in an affluent household for seven years abruptly murdered their employer and her daughter, gouging their eyes out while they were alive and then using a hammer, knife and pewter jug to finish the job.
While the two sisters working as maids in Jean Genet's "The Maids," inspired by those events, don't necessarily want to be that vicious, they've certainly determined life would be better off without Madame around anymore.
THE WAFFLE SHOP on 10th Street NW sits abandoned. It served its last meal in its well-worn Art Moderne space across from Ford's Theatre in September. But maverick developer Douglas Jemal, pictured at right, has plans for the place. He says he's going to deconstruct it piece by piece, move it to a new location and open it back up under an agreement reached with D.C. officials and preservationists.
Reports The Post's Paul Schwartzman:
Although it is not unprecedented for developers to transplant old homes and facades, District officials cannot recall anyone moving an entire restaurant. Jemal promotes his agreement with the preservationists as a unique moment of compromise between forces often in cranky opposition.Although a destination has not been settled on, there's a good chance the Waffle Shop will end up on 7th Street NW on land Jemal owns across from the Washington Convention Center. But Jemal admits it will be difficult to re-create the atmosphere of the original Waffle Shop, as many of the regulars have moved down 10th Street to the Lincoln House, whose counters were rebuilt to make "the Waffle Shop faithful feel at home," Schwartzman writes.
» "Diner's Neon Might Glow Again" [WaPo]
» EARLIER: "On 10th St. NW, New Icons Arrive, Another Leaves" [Free Ride/Express]
Photos by Lois Raimondo/The Washington Post
METRO GENERAL MANAGER JOHN CATOE is vowing that his agency will have the "safest rail system in the county." That statement comes the same day that members of the National Transportation Safety Board said that Metro's "[f]ailure to keep up with basic maintenance and refusal to take safety steps recommended for years by internal and external reviews were the likely causes" of a January derailment of a Green Line train near the Mount Vernon Square station, The Post's Lena H. Sun reports this morning.
The accident, which resulted in a number of minor injuries, predates Catoe coming on board as Metro's chief. Catoe launched a five-year safety program soon after he started as general manager earlier this year.
The NTSB said that if Metro had installed a $150,000 guardrail at the curved section of track where the train derailed, the accident would have been prevented. Sun reports:
Officials said they had not done so earlier because similarly configured locations had equipment that was more worn-out than Mount Vernon Square's and needed to be replaced sooner. The transit agency has 100 other spots that still need safeguards because of curved track. Metro officials have installed guardrails at 83 trouble spots.But one NTSB board member, Kitty Higgins, said that there were internal warnings on the danger three years ago: "I just want someone to be responsible for fixing it."
» "Safety Board Accuses Metro of Neglect in Jan. Derailment" [WaPo]
BESIDES VARIATIONS in the interior color schemes and layouts, it's pretty hard to tell the difference between the different kinds of Metrorail train cars. Unlike New York City, which has distinctive series of rolling stock, Metro's cars look pretty much the same, despite coming from different manufacturers over the transit agency's three decades in service. If you look closely, you'll see labeling for Breda Costruzioni Ferroviarie, Alstom and CAF.
And it's those CAF-manufactured cars that have been involved in 13 of 20 derailments since 2001, when the CAF-produced 5,000 Series was introduced to the Metrorail system. That includes January's frightening derailment of a Green Line train near the Mount Vernon Square-7th St.-Convention Center station.
As The Post's Lena H. Sun reports, the National Transportation Safety Board is scheduled to hold a hearing today on the Jan. 7 accident, which sent a number of passengers to local hospitals with minor injuries:
Since the Mount Vernon accident, Metro has taken steps to improve the performance of the CAF cars, officials said. Metro managers have met with the manufacturer to demand modifications, at CAF's expense, to the cars' suspension and weight distribution, officials said.Most of the derailments in question have happened at slow speeds as trains have been changing tracks or in rail yards when no passengers have been on board. As Sun reports, Metro is not required to notify the NTSB of derailments in the rail system unless they result in passenger injuries or damages of at least $150,000.
» "Derailment Hearing Is Today" [WaPo]
» EARLIER: "Federal Investigators Question Metro's Safety" [WaPo]
Photo by Linda Davidson/The Washington Post
LAST WEEK, we sketched out a slate of ideas, albeit unrealistic ones, about how new life could be injected into the Washington Convention Center. The city's largest building hasn't been living up to expectations and is sitting in a neighborhood marked by underdevelopment, making it a relatively isolated behemoth just north of downtown. A long planned-for convention center headquarters hotel has been mired in dragged-out negotiations and that's left larger development plans for the area surrounding Mount Vernon Square up in the air.
Now, as The Post's Alejandro Lazo reports, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty "is scheduled today to outline an agreement to get the project back on track after many years of delay." On Friday, Marriott International came to an agreement with Fenty and the convention center authority to build a 1,150-room hotel adjacent to the convention center on 9th Street NW. The D.C. government would put $134 million in subsidies toward the hotel.
Continue Reading "Are Convention Center Hotel Plans Back on Track?" »
WHILE IT'S NOT EVEN COMPLETE yet, Milt Peterson's National Harbor mega development in Prince George's County, pictured at left, has District business interests quivering in fear.
When completed and open for business, National Harbor is poised to drain a lot of convention business — and the revenue that comes with it — away from the nation's capital. The mammoth Washington Convention Center, the building pictured above, which dominates Mount Vernon Square and Shaw, is already a structure that hasn't lived up to expectations. And while bookings are up for 2008, there are concerns that the convention center's prospects will dim once Peterson's place downriver is up and running. There's some optimism, too — but not much.
Last week came word that all hope is pretty much lost on a deal to construct a convention center "headquarters" hotel, a notion near and dear to the convention industry. In his column, The Post's Steven Pearlstein lambasted the failure of the District government, private developer Kingdon Gould and the convention center authority to make the hotel deal happen.
Can the convention center be saved from turning into a white elephant? Could parts of the city's largest building be put to better use?
If the various public and private convention center interests can't move forward with a plan to increase the Washington Convention Center's competitiveness, perhaps it might be time to look at other options. Perhaps it's time to host one of those buzzworthy design charettes, where the public and local officials meet with architects and design firms, like Torti Gallas and EDAW, to gin up some innovative ideas.
In the meantime, we present a few ideas of our own, most of which we'll readily admit aren't that feasible. But some crazy visionary is bound to run with at least one of two of them. Maybe.
Continue Reading "Ideas to Save D.C.'s New Convention Center" »
THAT'S THE SIGHT of cool relief pictured above. A couple hundred people were sprayed down Sunday on M Street NW near 6th Street, in front of the United House of Prayer for All People. The historic church, which has its national headquarters in Shaw, conducted its 81st annual fire hose baptism, and while Sunday's weather was milder than Saturday's oppressive heat, it must have been nice to take part in a ceremony that also offered a pleasant cool-down.
A commenter at the Life in Mount Vernon Square blog praised the church for its efficiency: "[I] mean, who has time to submerge 500 individuals in a pool ... why not just spray 'em with a mist?"
It's certainly better than being dunked in the Potomac River, where, as The Post's Jacqueline L. Salmon reports, the church used to hold its mass baptisms.
Speaking of the weather, this week should be really nice.
» "For Crowd Of Believers, A Baptism By Fire Hose" [WaPo]
» PHOTOS: "A Mass Baptism in D.C." [WaPo]
Photo by Katherine Frey/The Washington Post
Addison Road