Brad Pitt Has Your Secret Shit: Rolling DC

me and the wife sitting on the sofa with macbook airs in our laps watching homeland on the DVR
this some Washington DC New Yorker cartoon bullshit right here

anyone familiar with Jody Mack and her experimental film/performance artist homage to old college dorm posters like Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon

Sunday, Nov. 2
Let Your Light Shine at National Gallery of Art (http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/calendar/film-programs/aonMack/light-shine.html)

Initially, she planned to shoot some sort of documentary, but the musical stop-motion show she wound up creating is harder to classify. Titled “Dusty Stacks of Mom: The Poster Project” — and featuring Ms. Mack’s mother, Sharon Marney — it’s a kinetic, handmade cornucopia of movie and music stars’ imagery and shots of the poster-filled warehouse. The infectiously obsessive 40-odd minutes are timed to the Pink Floyd album “The Dark Side of the Moon.”

At screenings, Ms. Mack supplies live vocals, accompanied by a soundtrack composed by nine people. Singing over instrumental renditions of the classic album, she enunciates wittily precise lyrics in playful harmonies: “Sometimes there isn’t much to do/about depreciating revenue.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/movies/jody-mack-makes-plays-with-posters-in-dusty-stacks-of-mom.html?_r=0

The experimental filmmaker Jodie Mack grew up around the family business of posters and merch. From a Florida warehouse her parents supplied music retailers and others with the cultural wallpaper that decorated countless bedrooms in the 1990s — from the bands and celebrities du jour to the dorm-room patron saints Belushi, Marley and Guevara.

With the rise of the Internet came a downturn in sales, leaving thousands of Leonardo DiCaprios and Winona Ryders to languish in the cubbyholes of the warehouse. Ms. Mack’s mother, who by then ran the company on her own, talked about closing up shop. But the bust in sales was a bonanza for Ms. Mack, an animator for whom paper materials are both a favored medium and a ripe subject for cultural history.

“There were so many things in there that were available in multiples, so I thought it would be very interesting to go down and shoot and make animations of all of it,” Ms. Mack, 31, recalled by phone while on a trip to Ukraine. “The stuff that I had to work with was the stuff that was left behind, the stuff that didn’t sell out.”

http://dcist.com/2014/10/popcorn_candy_post-apocalyptic_edit.php

more movies

Best Vietnamese Restaurant at the Eden Center? Anybody?

Still trying to figure that out. See upthread links.

Kliman at washingtonian recently said:

If I’m in the Eden Center and jonesing for pho, I’m going to Huong Viet and, if it’s too crowded there, then to Hai Duong.

He also likes a newer upscale looking place there called Rice Paper that Tyler Cowen does not like.

http://www.huong-viet.com/press.html

This is where we ate the last time we were there. It was good but not amazing. They have a real long menu. Maybe I didn't order the right thing

That's where I was going to go.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B1pr370CIAAFN-3.jpg

hahaha

So there are a couple open DC Council seats....

Naturally, lots of contrasting takes everywhere on Marion Barry's passing

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/general/2014/12/05/despite-breaking-ground-kennedy-center-expansion-meets-challenges/

opposition to Kennedy Center's proposed floating pavilion addition

But hours later, the plans for expansion were put in limbo by the National Capital Planning Commission, which oversees and approves all projects that impact the D.C. metro area. The main issue? A floating pavilion in the Potomac River that connects to the Kennedy Center by a pedestrian bridge and, according to the community members who testified before the commission yesterday afternoon, severely impact rowers, recreational boaters, and high school and college athletes who regularly use the river. While most of those testifying politely encouraged the commission to consider an alternative design which would place the pavilion on land, Ann Satterthwaite of Friends of Georgetown Waterfront Park went a bit farther, calling the River Pavilion a work of "architectural hubris." Commission chairman L. Preston Bryant Jr. later echoed this sentiment, saying that he believed placing the pavilion on the river was an act of "architectural novelty and wow factor" and served no real purpose.

http://www.asia.si.edu/events/films.asp#/?i=2

Grr, I keep missing these movies

Had a nice meal last night at Thip Khao, in Columbia Heights, the new sister restaurant to Bangkok Golden, the Falls Church Thai & Laotian restaurant

NEW RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR

Liked Mazagan in Arlington much more than I thought I would.

x-post-- I've alway liked the Laotian food at Bangkok Golden, and they offer the same plus more at Thip Kao.

I like Moroccan but haven't been to Mazagan. Will try it.

I am going to be spending an inordinate amount of time in Merrifield in January, what should I eat.

After Jan I'll be rolling (literally, home hospice social work) in Great Falls and McClean, what should I eat there too.

I know fuck all about Virgina and am mildly terrified that I will be spending an abundance of my life there through August 2015.

hahaha I don't even know how to spell mclean until just now

four sisters, elephant jumps

that is not a weird code it's where you should eat

lol

Yes to Four Sisters Vietnamese. And go to the nearby H Mart Korean Supermarket

Also, Burmese restaurant Myanmar had good food when I ate there many moons back, but I see Yelpsters are complaining about its customer service

Meanwhile in Maryland

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/could-a-new-wave-of-boutique-coffee-beer-and-bao-buns-remake-silver-sprung/2014/12/22/2016291a-8232-11e4-8882-03cf08410beb_story.html

http://www.vulture.com/2014/12/why-is-washington-dc-an-art-desert.html

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/visual-arts/2014/12/29/why-the-d-c-gallery-landscape-isnt-as-barren-as-outsiders-claim/

@DennisThePerrin
It's snowing here in DC, which of course means martial law.

lol

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/going-out-guide/wp/2014/12/31/the-year-in-cheap-eating-the-best-of-the-20-diner/

I haven't gone yet to Tim Carman's #1. Taqueria Habanero .

Was underwhelmed by Honorable mention pick Elephant Jumps.

Some D.C. Food critics--Tom S., Tim C., Tyler C., Todd K. Today's suggestions are brought to you by the letter 't'

are any other old fucks going to the Cracker/Camper Van show on Wednesday?

Think I am gonna skip it. Toying with going to the Vaselines instead (Scottish pop-punkers that Kurt Cobain loved). Mostly likely not going to either. Although may go to see old DC soul band Eddie Jones & the Young Bucks at Westminster Church Sw from 6 to 9pm tonight, and a Wizards game tomorrow.

x-post -- Went to Taqueria Habanero yesterday. Yummy shrimp taco, and other tacos we had were ok (did not try beef tongue or all veggie). Chorizo huarache was good too--tortilla covered in beans, strips of pepper, avocado (& choice of meat & maybe sauted cactus!)

damn i gotta get in on that

3710 14th St. NW, outskirts of Columbia Hts

tortillas made to order, pretty rare in/around DC

^^^ which strikes me as so fucking weird. I mean even in the middle of fucking nowhere village I lived in Baja there was a tortillaria. No gas station, but fresh tortillas every day from early in the morning until ~2 p.m.

Spouse and I were joking that I should just team up with a nice Mexican lady and we can sell artisinal tortillas (i.e. regular old fresh tortillas) in my cleveland park kitchen and sell them in the alley for like a buck a piece and GET RICH.

I ate at Elephant Walks today. It is super close to my temporary office, so I figure I'll just show up daily and run the "chef's choice" menu. Cheaper than four sisters (whose menu is intimidating) and much easier to park.

hahahaha Elephant Jumps, not Elephant Walks.

Sounds like a good approach.

Non-foodie street team pr for my buddy:

We start off 2015 with two screenings of Led Zeppelin Played Here to celebrate the 46th anniversary of when Led Zeppelin did/did not play the gymnasium of the Wheaton Youth Center in Wheaton, MD, in front of 50 confused teenagers on January 20, 1969, the night of President Nixon's first inauguration.

First screening is Wednesday, January 14 at the Avalon Theater in Washington, DC, on Conn Ave right near Chevy Chase Circle (8PM)
http://www.theavalon.org/films/led-zeppelin-played/

And second, an exact 46th anniversary screening on the night the concert did/did not occur.
This will be on Tuesday, January 20 at the Black Cat on 14th Street in DC (doors at 8, screenings usually start 8:30)
http://www.blackcatdc.com/shows/film-screening-2.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/take-the-20-diners-international-breakfast-tour-of-washington/2015/01/22/f907611a-9ab2-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html

No surprise that some of these interest me

Didn't make it to any of them this weekend, alas.

Washingtonian q and a--Kliman loves Wheaton Thai restaurants (I haven't been)...and makes that clear in his response re the new internationally owned Thai place Mango Tree, whose first US location is in DC

Hi Todd,

Have you had a chance to visit Mango Tree yet?

I'm wondering how it compares to the other restaurants in town that tout authentic Thai cuisine. We certainly do have some great options for that in DC already.

Todd Kliman:
My first impression is — eh.

I mean, the space is stunning. If you were to ask yourself what the interior of an upmarket Thai restaurant ought to look like, this is pretty much exactly what you would come up with. The colors, the movement, the lights, the tables and chairs. Stunning.

The food? Not stunning. Granted, I only tried three dishes, but nothing made me want to return to try more. A grilled pork neck salad was unbalanced, and not in an interesting way. A crab fried rice was, thankfully, not greasy, but it wasn’t particularly flavorful or distinctive either.

If you were to put Thai Taste by Kob in that location, there would be a line around the block every night.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/going-out-guide/wp/2015/02/05/this-sandwich-by-dirty-south-deli-and-taylor-gourmet-contains-multitudes/

They've started with Taylor's breaded chicken cutlets -- which are doused in Crystal, the Southern hot sauce with a cult following -- and topped them with sliced cucumber, kale and cabbage slaw, red onion, gorgonzola and a pepper and Parmesan buttermilk dressing.
Available through Feb. 28.
Small: $7.49. Large: $10.49.

Not cheap but kinda looks tempting...

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2015/02/13/how-city-paper-remembers-david-carr/

http://dcist.com/2015/02/popcorn_candy_166.php

At AFI tonight--Frankenstein with live music from former guitarist for Captain Beefheart and others

holy fuck

went to the opening of the Ben Tolman show at Flashpoint tonight. I'm mostly out of the gallery scene these days but this show is pretty amazing - overwhelmingly detailed pen drawings.

http://www.culturaldc.org/events/2015/01/ben-tolman-civilized/

Oh, that does look good.

I ended up going to the Mingering Mike panel discussion at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. It was pretty interesting (and not as awkward as I thought it might be for Mike). Mike did "outsider" art-- soul and funk album covers and some reel to reel tapes and cassettes of his own music from 1966 to 1977 I think. Mike was dressed as a surgeon in gown and mask as he wants to keep his identity secret. The panel included the guy who found Mike's work at a flea market;plus an outsider art author; an old-school WOL AM DC soul dj; and the museum curator. Images of Mike's artwork were projected behind them. They then had free wine, beer, cheese, and dip afterwards as dj Harry Hotter spun soul and funk vinyl in the enclosed courtyard there. But the exhibit itself had closed for the evening so I will have to go back. I had seen a smaller showing of Mike's work at the Hemphill Gallery awhile ago.