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
ARLINGTON RESIDENT DEBBIE KAPLAN is thrilled that her oldest daughter is happy with her decision to attend Tufts University. The school suits her daughter's talents and interests as well as they hoped. But finding the perfect college match came at a cost — $3,000 to hire a private college counselor. As Kaplan gears up to navigate the college admissions process yet again with her youngest daughter, she plans to explore alternative options.
A new company headquartered in Alexandria helps students find the right fit via a medium today's youth are intimately familiar with: the Internet. Prospective students fill out an exhaustive profile, including a 238-question personality test, data on academic standing, extracurricular activities and preferences (such as location and price range). Parents can register and input details, too, but they can't override the answers to their teenager's personality test. Then, with the click of a mouse, the site generates a list of 32 best-fit matches, categorized by reach schools (long-shot chance of admission), target schools (pretty good chance of admission) and safety schools (almost certain chance of admission). The compatibility analysis is the result of a two-and-a-half-year effort from a group of psychologists and psychometricians. "It's like eHarmony, except for colleges instead of dating partners," said Ben Britt, the company's senior director of finance.
Wisechoice.com isn't the only online resource where students can explore options. Sites such as Unigo.com and Collegeprowler.com allow candidates to branch out beyond traditional means and use high-tech tools that use interactive social media — for free.
"A big mistake high school students make is looking at U.S. News & World Repor and deciding on a school simply because of its rank," said Jordan Goldman, Unigo.com's founder and CEO. "NYU might be ranked highly, but if students can't deal with Northeast winters, they'll transfer." Or worse, the students will "swirl" — a term that describes attending several schools before graduating. According to the National Survey of Student Engagement, nearly 50 percent of college students have taken classes at multiple institutions. Swirling is a phenomenon these sites are hoping to stop.
Continue Reading "Online Matchmakers: Finding the Right College" »
BOB DYLAN'S NEW album, "Christmas in the Heart," is one of the weirdest major-label releases this year — and certainly the strangest holiday album since Bing Crosby dueted with glam-era David Bowie.
It's an archivists' sleigh ride through several decades of cool Yule tunes, some well known ("Do You Hear What I Hear?") and some fairly obscure ("Christmas Island"), with little time for the sanctimonies of typical holiday fare.
On the other hand, "Christmas in the Heart" is a concept album that measures the considerable discrepancy between the sentimental music and the aggressively unsentimental instrument. Hearing Dylan croak out a particularly phlegmatic "Little Drummer Boy" won't get the kids in the holiday spirit. (However, all proceeds from the album will be donated to Feeding America and its international counterparts.)
Part sincere celebration and part outright goof, the album ultimately is a thoughtfully wrapped package disguised as a lump of coal. In other words, it's typical Dylan, who throughout his nearly five-decade career has zigged left when conventional wisdom says to zag right.
So, to celebrate his mind-boggling stocking stuffer, we came up with his top five WTF moments.
Continue Reading "What About Bob? Dylan's Top Five WTF Moments" »
SATURDAY: Mastodon makes epic prog-metal concept records such as "Crack the Skye" with straight faces, many riffs and killer musicianship. The same descriptors apply to Dethklok, the extreme animated band from Adult Swim's "Metalocalypse" show, spearheaded by co-creator and guitar virtuoso Brendon Small. Sure, it's all cartoonish — and totally killer.
Click on the links above to access our previous stories on Mastodon and Dethklok, plus there are several videos after the jump, including the latter's "Bloodlines" clip from its new CD, "Dethalbum II."
» Patriot Center, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, Va.; with High on Fire and Converge, Sat., Oct. 31, 6:30 p.m., $35; 703-993-3000.
SUNDAY: SQUEEEEEE!
Sorry. We didn't mean to do that. Every time the New Kids on the Block come to town, all the hormones of junior high come flooding back. You probably had a poster of at least one of these proto-Jonas Brothers hanging up in your seventh-grade locker. They sold more than 80 million albums in the '80s and early '90s. Take that Joe, Nick and Kevin.
Just off of their New Kids on the Block Cruise that embarked last month, everyone's favorite man band (40 is the new 30, right?) will be back in town with old hits like, "Hangin' Tough" and "Step By Step." You'll be able to hear new music like, "2 In The Morning" and "Single" from their latest album, "The Block."
Go on and indulge your inner 13-year-old. We won't judge.
» Patriot Center, 4500 Patriot Circle, Fairfax; with Jabbawockeez, Sun., June 7, 7 p.m., $13-$78; 202-397-7328.
Written by Express' Nicole Ocran
Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images
THIS WEEKEND: Eat your heart out, Cirque du Soleil. There's a new cast of awe-inspiring air tumblers on the scene and we don't have to go to Vegas to see them. The National Acrobats of China put on a dazzling display of juggling, illusions and otherfeats that is guaranteed to make you wish you hadn't given up gymnastics when you were 8.
The group has won numerous awards and has toured extensively around the world. Hey, and it solves the age-old question: what do those 14-year-old Chinese gymnasts do after puberty hits?
Center for the Arts at George Mason University, Route 123 and Braddock Road; Fri. and Sat., April 17 and 18, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., $23-$46; 703-993-8888.
Written by Express' Brian Austin
Photo courtesy IAI Presentations Inc.
IT'S NOT THAT Carlos Robles Arenas dislikes rock music. He just thinks this globalizing world needs something fresher, that reflects its unique issues and intersections. Something like the stuff he's putting out with his Nantes, France-based electronic music outfit, Orange Blossom.
The group's sound is the product of the backgrounds, training and travel experiences of its members: Mexico native Robles Arenas, who programs, arranges and produces; French-raised, African-influenced percussionist Mathias Vaguenez; classically trained, contemporary-minded French violinist PJ Chabot; and singer Nawel Ben Kraiem, who claims Tunisian roots.
Orange Blossom's latest disc, 2005's "Everything Must Change," gives listeners an idea of what happens when these musical minds meet. Songs feature cultural collisions between driving electronic beats, serpentine Arabic vocals, West African drum rhythms, body-rocking funk, tweaky strings, the occasional accordion line, dub, opera and whatever else the group felt like experimenting with.
Continue Reading "Electro- Potluck: Orange Blossom Brings Variety" »
SOMETIMES WE ALL need a little encouragement to recycle. Storyteller, musician and poet David Gonzalez is working on a multimedia piece, "Wounded Splendor," for the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center about the way people treat the world. The piece, which will include work-in-progress showings this weekend, includes monologues, poems, video and imagery, which Gonzalez and his collaborators will "sculpt into a suite." Composer-jazz pianist Daniel Kelly created the music.
Gonzalez said the idea for "Wounded Splendor" came from "years of visiting places of natural beauty and visiting places of tremendous man-made disasters."
"I've climbed to the top of Kilimanjaro," says Gonzalez. "I've been to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and I've seen the horrible things we've done to the planet. When you see something beautiful being hurt, it's a call to arms."
IT'S NO SECRET that the jazz business is in critical condition. Last year signaled the end of the Herald International Association of Jazz Educators Conference, while this year, thanks in huge part to the economic meltdown, record distribution continues to dwindle.
So, what does a successful jazz saxophonist such as Steve Wilson tell a music student with big hopes of becoming a jazz star? "Think of yourself more than as a jazz musician," he says. "The exceptions to the rule are very few in terms of those who are able to go exclusively into jazz and become financially successful."
Wilson, a dynamic improviser, who's played with jazz luminaries including Chick Corea, Dave Holland and Joe Henderson — and has recorded a string of captivating solo discs — conducted workshops on music business, improvisation, jazz history and ethnomusicology,earlier this week at the University of Maryland's Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. "From the business aspect, one has to be versatile and skilled not just as an improviser but as a musician who can perform in a variety of settings," he says.
Continue Reading "Finances, and All That Jazz: Steve Wilson" »
THIS WEEKEND: Shakespeare meets Sesame Street when the University of Maryland Department of Theatre presents "The Winter's Tale" using puppetry as well as live-action. This tough-to-stage classic gets a new look as a puppet King Leontes encounters tragedy and triumph.
» Clarice Smith Center, University Blvd. & Stadium Drive, opens Thurs., March 5, $25; 301-405-2787. (College Park-U of Md.)
Written by Express' Nathan Martin
SATURDAY: Maybe you've seen "Ratatouille." Y'know, that sweet rat-turned-chef movie that won an Academy Award? No? Well, you must have caught an episode of "Seinfeld," "King of Queens" or "Reno 911" then, right?
Actor and comedian, Patton Oswalt, who's appeared on all those shows and starred as the voice of Remy the rat in Pixar's smash hit, will be at Lisner Auditorium spewing out some not-so-sweet comedy. Apparently this Virginia native is a fan of not-so-family-friendly topics, such as booze, pot and porn — so maybe you should leave the kids at home.
So, get a babysitter if you have to, but just make you go because we hear Oswalt is planning on recording his third comedy album at the Lisner.
» George Washington University, Lisner Auditorium, 730 21st St. NW; Sat., Feb. 26, 7 p.m. and 10 p.m., $20; 202-397-7328. (Foggy Bottom-GWU)
Written by Express contributor Nicole Ocran
Photo by Matt Carr/Getty Images
Addison Road