Top Stops
What's going on tonight?
Sound Bets
Music with a local flavor
Dine & Dash
D.C. eats in quick bites
Booze Clues
D.C. deals:drink them in
Off the Cuffs
Style and error
Broadcast Muse
Small screen, big ideas
The Reelist
Get a movie on
Baggage Check
Ask Dr. Andrea Bonior
Swengali
Sports talk with attitude
THURSDAY: Jules Feiffer, the man whose eponymous comic strip in the Village Voice defined the '60s ... and '70s ... yeah, and the '80s, fine, has now written a memoir.
The story of his life involves a lot more than sitting behind a desk making visual comments on our national character. You can hear him speak about it tomorrow afternoon at Politics and Prose.
» Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW; Thu., March 18, 4 p.m., free; 202- 364-1919. (Van Ness)
Image courtesy Universal Press Syndicate
SATURDAY: If you're sick of that Hugh Grant-obsessed friend dragging you to every obnoxious romantic comedy that has anything to do with the British Empire, throw her a copy of "Major Pettigrew's Last Stand," a romantic comedy set in the U.K. It's funny and sweet and smart, with all the stiff-upper-lip charm that attracts people to Hugh Grant movies without any of the stupid floppy hair.
The author, Helen Simonson, speaks at Politics and Prose Saturday night.
» Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW; Sat., March 13, 6 p.m., free; 202-364-1919. (Van Ness)
Photo by Nina Subin
THE GREEK GODS are alive and well and living in an alternate universe where they hover over the family of a dying Irish physicist named Adam Godley and his peculiar family. Or at least that's the framework for John Banville's new novel, "The Infinities," which is narrated by Hermes and features a thumb-sucking Zeus.
» EXPRESS: How did you devise Hermes' voice, which seems to inhabit multiple points of view?
» BANVILLE: It's rather confused in an entertaining way, or at least in a way that entertained me. We're never sure who exactly is speaking. Is this voice going on in old Adam's head as he approaches death? Is he the god? Who exactly is speaking? Is it me speaking? Is it Adam Godley? So I kept blending them together and leaving open the possibility that it could be anybody, because in a way the god is anybody.
» EXPRESS: It's a very logistically complex technique. How far in advance do you have to plan your novels?
» BANVILLE: I used to plan very closely when I was young, but I'm just old and confused now. I work a lot by instinct. Of course, I had the framework in Heinrich von Kleist's "Amphitrion," which is where the novel found its first inspiration. I was going to base the novel quite closely on that play, but the novel has its own rules — its own requirements — that led it away from the Kleist structure.
Continue Reading "Playing With the Gods: John Banville, 'The Infinities'" »
THURSDAY: Follow the adventures of the fictional family behind a candy-manufacturing empire in Katharine Weber's delicious novel "True Confections." She reads from and discusses the book on Thursday night.
» Politics & Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW; Thu., Feb. 18, 7 p.m., free; 202-364-1919. (Van Ness-UDC)
SATURDAY: Although our diaries and letters are now online and go by different names, we're no less committed as a society to expressing our daily lives through words than we were 200 years ago. And social networking makes it all too clear that the only thing we love more than keeping diaries and writing letters is reading those that belong to other people.
Snooping? Maybe. We like to think of it as "searching for a window into someone else's soul," but you can be mean about it if you want to.
In "Yours Ever: People and Their Letters," Thomas Mallon has compiled a fascinating and detailed look into the private correspondence of notable historical figures, such as Sacco and Vanzetti, Madame de Sevigne and F. Scott Fitzgerald. He'll be speaking this weekend at Politics and Prose.
» Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW; Sat., Nov. 21, 1 p.m, free; 202-364-1919. (Van Ness)
Written by Express' Anne Polsky
Photo courtesy Pantheon
SATURDAY: Although D.C. rappers have struggled over the past few decades to leave a mark on American hip-hop (well played, Wale) our hardcore scene has been consistently fertile. Blame it on our socially conservative city, our relatively stable economy or ... who knows what?
One thing's for sure, our leafy suburbs have produced some serious musical rage.
This weekend, Mark Jenkins and Mark Andersen, the authors of "Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation's Capital" will discuss the updated edition of their book. The re-release features deeper research into the scene's origins and highlights local heroes Dischord Records, Positive Force, Henry Rollins, Minor Threat and Fugazi.
» Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW; Sat., Nov. 14, 3 p.m, free; 202-364-1919. (Van Ness)
Written by Express' Anne Polsky
Photo courtesy Soft Skull Press
THURSDAY: America may revere its leaders and traditions, but we like to maintain a healthy disrespect. As long as we've had venerable institutions, cheeky artists have been around to make fun of them. Thus: the political cartoonist.
One of the finest was The Washington Post's cartoonist Herbert Block, better known as Herblock. The ardent liberal and four-time Pulitzer Prize-winner delighted in using his poison pen to skewer D.C.'s elite. None other than Katharine Graham wrote of him, "Since he arrived at The Post, five editors and five publishers have learned a cardinal rule: Don't mess with Herb."
Former colleague and friend Haynes Johnson will discuss Herblock's more than 70-year body of work and the biography he co-authored, "Herblock: The Life and Works of the Great Political Cartoonist" at Politics and Prose. The book includes a DVD containing more than 18,000 cartoons.
» Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW; Thu., Nov. 12, 7 p.m, free; 202-364-1919. (Van Ness)
Written by Express' Anne Polsky
Photo courtesy W.W. Norton & Co.
IN THE INTRODUCTION to his new book, "¡Obámanos! The Birth of a New Political Era," Hendrik Hertzberg explains that he has followed 15 elections during his lifetime, beginning in 1952 when Adlai Stevenson ran against Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was only a fourth grader at the time, but his mother was an avid Stevenson campaigner and recruited her son to help pass out buttons and stuff envelopes. Hertzberg grew up to be a similarly staunch Democrat, who served as a speechwriter for Jimmy Carter and now covers politics for The New Yorker.
In many ways, the 2008 election was very different from anything he had previously witnessed. It was certainly one of the longest and most expensive races in American history, and perhaps one of the most crucial. For Hertzberg, it was one of the few where he had a heavy investment in the outcome: After reading "Dreams From My Father" and watching its author speak at the 2004 Democratic Convention, Hertzberg says he "jumped on Obama express." He saw in the junior U.S. senator from Illinois not just a corrective to eight years of conservatives in power, but a candidate of remarkable principle and temperament.
In his columns and blog posts for The New Yorker, where he is a staff writer and editor, Hertzberg covered that arduous election, offering incisively analytical and exactingly penned commentary on what he saw as the failures of the Bush administration, the shortcomings of the Clinton and McCain campaigns, and the steady ship of Obama's candidacy.
Nearly a year after election night, Hertzberg is recounting those crucial two years in American history in "¡Obámanos!" which gathers his columns into a report from the front lines, a firsthand account of a strange and unprecedented presidential race.
Express spoke to Hertzberg about organizing the book, his own impressions of the candidates, and what the election of Barack Obama means for America.
WEDNESDAY: Dear Mary Karr: When you title your memoir "Lit," we're going to expect it to be about literature, rather than alcoholism. Luckily, your book is so good that you're off the hook for your poor communication skills. It's a story of addiction and redemption, told with uncommon humor. Karr will be speaking and reading at Politics and Prose tonight.
» Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW; Wed., Nov. 4, 7 p.m, free; 202-364-1919. (Van Ness)
Photo by Marion Ettlinger
THURSDAY: Nick Hornby became justifiably famous upon the publication of "High Fidelity," a gentle expose of the psyche of a certain species of adult who never really grew up.
The book was made into an equally popular and almost as excellent film, and Hornby continued to explore the concept of emotional arrested development in his subsequent books, the latest being "Juliet, Naked." Explore with him at Politics & Prose tonight.
» Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW; Thu., Oct. 1, 7 p.m., free; 202-364-1919. (Van Ness)
Photo by Gerald Martineau/The Washington Post
Addison Road