Monday Night

My DC social calendar is determined by who is on tour. After all the weekend hubbub, pals Oxford Collapse were in town at the Black Cat. And they'll be back in August!

Around Town

Hanging with the cuz.

Cure for Homesickness

Busy busy busy busiest weekend yet. An incomplete sentence recap will have to suffice for now. I'm tired. Photos to come.

Family and the boy in town, plus my cousin who lives a couple of hours away.
Red Rocks Pizza.
Learned the hard way that absolutely nothing is open downtown on weekends. Not even Saturdays.
94 degrees.
NASA @ Folklife Festival. Held a shuttle tile. Signed a shuttle wheel that will be in the Smithsonian.

Water.
Monuments.

Gatorade.
Martin Puryear exhibition at National Gallery. Formalism is refreshing. More time next time.
Hot.
Chinatown.
Hotel rest stop.
Dinner @ Jaleo. Delicious. I ate a mussel. Everything tastes good in butter. Didn't care so much for the scallop. (Not in butter.)
Early night. See "Hot".
Second trip to zoo in the AM. Pandas still asleep.
Lions and tigers eat lunch.
Hot.
Hot dog vending machine. Are we in Japan?
>
Race to brunch at Tabard Inn. Also delicious. Mmmmm, donuts.
Walked around Georgetown.
Hot. Crowded. Blisters.
Family go home. (Aww.)
Nap.
Boy and I go meet friends for eats and drinks.
Mmmmmojito.
Slowest food service ever.
Drinks @ Wonderland Ballroom.
Sleep.
Early Monday.
Boy go home. (Aww.)

"Dumber than this, our country shall not get."

Today I attended the 164th Meeting of the National Council on the Arts, the NEA's advisory council. The tri-annual meetings are open to the public, and if I lived in DC year-round, I would go to all of them. The Council is composed of artists, arts execs, and general patrons of the arts. The NEA sometimes seems like this nebulous, remote agency, but the meeting put a face on the federal body that brings art to the people. It's chaired by the chairman of the NEA, Dana Gioia.

After talking shop, a presentation on the NEA's latest and largest project, The Big Read, began. Putting aside the somewhat ironic fact that the National Endowment for the Arts is sponsoring a literacy program, while the National Endowment for the Humanities is concurrently sponsoring a visual arts program, it was an inspiring presentation about the potential of this country to better itself — precisely what both of these agencies exist for.

(I suppose this makes me an elitist. I think we should all aspire to read more, do more, be more. We can always find ways to improve ourselves. I want a president who thinks so, too.)

The talk started out on an abysmal note: Less than 50% of Americans read for 'fun'. This isn't all that surprising, since I'm one of those folks who should actually read more. Don't get me wrong — I love books, but I'm a painfully slow reader, which often discourages me. Add the mountain of reading for grad school, and the last thing I want to do is read more on my 'free time'. But, I'm trying. I've read half a collection of short stories since I've arrived, and just started a novel. Commuting is great for reading.

Anyway, I digress.

The Big Read aims to make sure that that percentage does not get any lower. As Mr. Gioia stated, with The Big Read, we can draw a line and say [the title of this post].

I won't regurgitate the whole presentation here, but I'll share what I found most interesting. Assuming you all followed that convenient link, you know what the Big Read project is all about. One of the communities participating is Norman, Oklahoma. Over the course of two years of Big Read-ing, public library patronage (the # of adults checking out books) has increased by 23% overall. The citizens of Norman voted to voluntarily raise their taxes to increase library funding by 50%. Their program also featured the most hilarious promotional tie-in for Bless Me, Ultima.

Another element of the project which instantly caught my eye, cultural diplomat that I am, was the international component: Big Read Russia, Big Read Mexico, and the most extensive, Big Read Egypt/US. One criticism leveraged against the program was its emphasis on American authors to the exclusion of many many fantastic non-American authors. In this program, participating organizations in the US read Naguib Mahfouz's The Thief and the Dogs, while the Egyptian orgs read Fahrenheit 451, To Kill a Mockingbird, or The Grapes of Wrath. While book selection is always going to be debated, I think this is a really interesting approach since literature is such an excellent entry into gaining some perspective about another culture.

I also must say that the NEA employs the nicest people on the planet. I was talking with one of my new colleagues, and an NEA rep came over to introduce himself because he'd never seen us at any other NEA events. Then I met their director for research, also amazingly friendly and chill (and he gave me his card). Then yet another lady came over to introduce herself, and to complement my shoes. NEA is good people.

So, this overly drawn out post is just another way of saying, I'm really loving my internship because I get to do things like this.

Two Weeks

I am one-fifth through my time here in DC. When you fractionalize it like that, time seems much smaller than it is. I'm more homesick than I planned (because, of course, you can plan for these things), but at the same time, I'm embracing life here. Living in a new city, I've sort of adopted a new lifestyle. I'm a notorious homebody, but I've yet to turn down an invitation to go out here (not like there have been many...), and I'm making a concerted attempt to get in shape, girl.

Thus far, at the two-week mark I've...
- Visited the zoo and the Hirshhorn
- Made new friends and reconnected with old, old, old ones
- Attended two Senate markup meetings (Specter, Leahy, Byrd, Inouye, Feinstein... but no Durbin. Boo.)
- Watched (and waited, impatiently) Dick Cheney's motorcade roll by
- Met the president of a cultural NGO from Mexico
- Not quite mastered the Metro, but getting there
- Been to Virginia three times, Maryland once
- Learned that a travel tube of toothpaste lasts at least two weeks

Certainly much more will be added to that list this weekend, because I have my first visitors!!

The Love Affair Is Over

It's going to be 92 today. I'm already sweating.

Oh Yes I Did

...and totally got caught doing it.

Saturday

I took a four-hour walk.










yes, that is an elephant sprinkler, and yes, i want one


after four hours, i deserved some love

Friday

Work was pretty slow on Friday, as most everyone was off at our annual convention. It was a lovely day, so I took a long walk at lunch.


McPherson Square, my new lunch spot




Tourists ride around on segways. I'm sorry, unless you're Job Bluth, it looks ridiculous and gets in my way



After work, I went out to the aforementioned Jazz in the Sculpture Garden and then to After Hours at the Hirshhorn Gallery. So much fun!

Jazz was PACKED. It's very much a picnic outing, and every square scrap of green lawn was occupied. Heavy on the young professional crowd. Met up with housemates Zach and Anthony and Zach's girlfriend, Maria. We both commented on how weird it is to say our name out loud, being the only Marias in our respective social circles. Anthony's friends Mike and Ryan also came out—yep, that Ryan (see previous post). After some snacks, some laughs, a pitcher of sangria, and barely audible jazz, we headed across the Mall to the Hirshhorn. (Which I keep wanting to spell with a C.)



Within five minutes of walking into the party, I run into the only other person I kinda sorta know in DC: Jesse's friend Jason who I met at a wedding last summer. Is DC really this small?? And to top it off, he lives in my neighborhood! So pumped.



The new exhibit at the Hirshhorn, the Cinema Effect, Part II (I missed Part I) had some really, really interesting work, and some kind of boring work. I will definitely be checking it out again, so I'll save my review for when 1) it's not packed with drunk people and 2) I'm not drunk. But I particularly enjoyed the pieces by Runa Islam and Francesco Vizzoli.

All in all, it was a night of seeing some sights, meeting awesome new people (between Anthony's friends and Jason's), and getting to know my housemates some more.

Meet My New Bike!!

A beat-up little beauty of a Schwinn, on loan for the summer from my new pal Ryan. My first bike in Chicago was a Schwinn Caliente, although that one was pink. Let's just hope this one doesn't get stolen.

So, what have I been up to besides eating cupcakes and getting free bikes from strange boys? I believe a weekend recap is in order.