Target

The new Target inside DC city limits opened in Columbia Heights a few weeks ago. The two story wonder has an escalator for carts alone. Need to get from floor to floor? Load your cart on the cart escalator wedged between the human ones. Target is my favorite place.

From Follows Function

I meant to write a lot of things about my lone weekend, but as always I lose focus. I have four days of work left. A pending obit on Sophia Loren (she’s not dead yet) and a story idea given to me by the second coolest lady at the bureau (Lisa; Laurie is first). To be honest I just want to go home. Sometimes I don’t know what I could sacrifice for a career. The list is shrinking. I wish Ivan & Marjon were my fellow interns in DC. If that was the case, I think I would have never gone home.

But anyway, this weekend all did was wander down to the national mall both days. There’s an ass ton of museums. Too many to really go through even if you lived here for a year. The first was the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art, and the second was the National Gallery of Art. Both were pretty bad ass, I think, but I like those wacky contemporary museums better. Only because I don’t know enough about art to appreciate the good stuff.


"Criollo" by Edgar Orlaineta. Mexico.
At first I didn't even notice the bicycle attached to the back, but seeing a Breuer homage made me happy. One day I will own a Wassily chair. To be honest, I don't even know that much about Bauhaus, but the little that I do know brings fond memories about my past.


Alexander Calder

This weekend I also fell in love with Alexander Calder. His mobiles were in the Hirshhorn and the National Gallery of Art. The Hirshhorn had a small exhibit, but the latter had giant mobiles on the ground level of the east wing. Even the shadows cast by his mobiles were interesting.



On Saturday when I was sitting on the steps of the gallery, this couple asked me if I would take a photo of them with the capitol building in the background. We got to chit chat, and turns out they're FROM EL PASO!!!! It really made my day. Out of all of the people in the universe that could have walked by the steps of the national gallery of art, at all times, on every weekend, the ones that talk to me are from home. I love it EP. It saves every time I need it to.


EP Friends!

This one is long enough already. The end!

La Oscuridad

So we had a several hour localized blackout last night and it really scared me. I had visions of death, like usual. Not quite violent, just me lying under a pile of rubbish unable to warn my family of my impending death since I couldn't get signal in the building, or call someone I really really love and confess my undying devotion. (I don't know who that phone call would be to yet. With my luck, I'm sure they wouldn't answer).

I only have one window in my apartment which light occasionally seeps into. Since the power around the neighborhood was also down, my room was pitch black. All I had was my cell phone to brighten my way. Anyway, I just went to bed. I am convinced that I have some sort of magnetic energy that disables alarm clocks on cell phones. It didn't ring. It never rings. Unless, I managed to get through pressing snooze six times and I just don't remember. Thankfully, I woke up on my own at 8:30 a.m. --just enough time to continue lying in bed, brush my teeth, and run to work. On another note, I've noticed that I start a lot of my sentences with so.

Last night we also attended a Kalb Report session with Christiane Amanpour.



I guess that was supposed to be the interesting part of the evening, but I lost focus towards the end and was more entertained by the map Jonna was drawing. I think we forgot about Kansas. Maybe. Maybe not. Amanpour was cool, but it made me realize even more that I'm not about the news. I would never put my life in danger, nor my family's life in danger to get a story out. I certainly respect the people who do, but it's just not in me. A noble profession? Meh. I want to write about funny entertaining things. So what if I'm a hedonist? So what! I want sunshine, culture, happiness, travel, music, Mexicans. War?? Leave that to the noblest of journalists to cover, not me.

I had survived a war, but a banal love story almost killed me

I took a mini excursion to the monuments with Jonna today. I was too lazy to walk or wait an hour catching metros to get back home. Damn you, WMATA. Why must you always be sharing tracks on weekends? WMATA has single handedly ruined every weekend since President’s Day. The cab we caught home was the best ever though. EVER.

The driver was Eritrean and he had the most awesome menagerie covering every inch of the rear deck of his car. I went into stealth mode and tried to take a couple snapshots of the zoo in all its glory. I managed to get one.


Then I went down to Open City and bought takeout lunch. I hate not knowing how to cook anything but rice. I miss my mommie’s food. Open city is nice. Though I am a roll solo at shows and movies expert, I still have restaurants to conquer.

After lunch I got depressingly bored, so I went to see Persepolis at E Street Cinema.



I really liked it. The animation was really awesome, the score/soundtrack was great, and the writing was witty. The opening sequence seemed woodcutish to me. My favorite line was “I had survived a war. But a banal love story almost killed me.” I’m a sucker for banal love stories. But I’m sure you can read all about Persepolis somewhere else.




On the way out I could hear the score to There Will Be Blood playing in another theater. I wanted to sneak back in to catch any part of the movie. I should have.

Tomorrow I go back to work. Sigh. Not looking forward to it. Oh well. At least WMATA will stop acting a fool, and I can shop at Target. Oh, Target. You will return my sanity. I know it!

Saturate

[St.] Vincent: I hope your open light is blinking still

Annie Clark has to be one of the most adorable singers I've ever seen. Her giant eyes and curly brown hair made me want to hug her, if not be her. No wonder she had a pack of dirty scene kids in awe of her every move. One dirty scene kid in particular, who pushed his way in front of me to drool a little closer, smelled like weed and licorice wrapped in cellophane. Don't ask, but that's what I smelled. It was not pleasant.



Annie Clark was somewhat reminiscent of Regina Spektor, but less dorky, and less sweet. I was still excited to see them though. I like the intimacy of small shows. And sorry, Jonna, about the front and center and deafness thing! I tend to want to be in the front row to every show I go to. I'm greedy like that.

I didn't get to hear Paris is Burning, which bummed me out a little, but she did play a bad ass cover of Dig A Pony which I have been obsessing over ever since.

Here are some clips. Same warning about the three minute mark applies.

Dig A Pony



Jesus Saves, I Spend

Wet, cold, American internship

Since my party outings are limited – I still haven’t quite gotten comfortable with the idea of going to a bar alone (I envy people who can), I decided to find some shows to go to in our nation’s capital. Though I could have been going to a lot more, fuck you Justice and Wilco for selling out, the three shows I have been to have been well worth it.



The first was Michael Ian Black & Michael Showalter. It was too long ago for me to remember really what happened, but it was at this historic synagogue close to Chinatown with a beautiful blue and gold dome inside.


I think I liked Michael Showalter better than Mr. Black. My recent addiction to Facebook Scrabulous made Showalter’s closing skit on Scrabble funnier than it probably was.

Anyway, it was my second weekend in the city, and it felt good to laugh again. I missed Drew though. I know he would have thought it was just as funny as I did. We both have that ridiculous yet cynical sense of humor, albeit, his is even more disturbing than mine.

Here are three clips that I took:

Michael Ian Black reading from his new book, My Custom Van:



Michael Showalter's Scrabble bit in two pieces:

Michael Showalter Scrabble bit
Uploaded by thaliairai

Michael Showalter Scrabble bit (2)
Uploaded by thaliairai

By the way, at about 3 minutes, my digital camera acts a fool and scrambles the sound on whatever it's recording, and the audio is always out of sync. Sorry. My next investment will be for a better camera. Maybe even a camcorder. Hmmm...