Times Around Town

Last Sunday I went to a concert with Negin from Wash U.  It was for The Drums at the Black Cat.  The opening band was two guys called True Womanhood, and the lead singer was wearing a Fila sweatshirt and glasses.  It wasn't until he took those two articles off that he looked like a front man.  They were good but nearly impossible to understand.  I then got a ginger beer with actual pieces of ginger in it!  (Have I already told you that in Britain, pulp is sometimes called juicy bits?  Well, I guess these were beer-y bits.)
       We were expecting the performance to be kind of hipster and apathetic, but it was basically the opposite!  The front man for The Drums was swaying and almost like a Paul Anka for the "over it" set.  Maybe he's be better likened to Vince Fontaine in Grease.  You can see his retro TV host swag here.  He opened the concert by saying, "Thank you for coming out tonight.  We know Sunday nights can be very relaxing, so we'd like to make sure that doesn't happen here."  It was a good concert, and they performed nearly all of their songs.  But NOT their first single, which was a huge letdown.  (Sidenote: their lack of interest in that music video explains why we thought they would be bored at their own concert.)  But if you had a huge amount of success (I'm talking on the Indie scale here) with a certain song, would you get tired of performing it?  Senior year of college, I went to a concert with some friends, and the lead singer of the band (fun.) had previously been in a different band called The Format.  People started asking him to sing their "big hit."  He responded by saying, "I'm in a band called fun. now."  But then he sang it anyway.  So, the lesson is, GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT.
       Also, The Drums say:
We only write about two feelings: one is the first day of summer when you and all of your friends are standing on the edge of a cliff watching the sun set and being overcome with all of your hopes and dreams at once. The other is when you're walking alone in the rain and realize you will be alone forever.

Last week, I went on a few walks.  During one, had three lovely discoveries.  One was a front garden art exhibit:

Whimsical whimsy.

Found art?

Takes a lot of balls to do something like this

Walkawalkawalka, I passed Ralph Lauren on the high street, where they were putting up Christmas decorations.  Why do people have no respect for Thanksgiving as a legitimate holiday to be recognized and celebrated?  

       When I got into residential territory, I came upon this GIANT caterpillar.

The leaves are to give a size idea. 

And also to make it look like a butterfly.. 

SO GIANT.

On Friday, I went to The Fashion Centre (they think they're British...  Like me.) at Pentagon City.  It was probably the most terrifying mall I've ever been to.  Just too large.  Like Del Amo in Torrance size.  At Del Amo, they have multiples of the same stores.  Is this true at Fashion Centre?  Don't know because I was too scared to run around and check it out.  Anyway, they're on the Christmas bandwagon as well.

TOO SOON.

Look at the size of that tree.  But, more importantly, look at the size of that mall!  And only with one toilet that was practically outside...  But I digress.  

I also went for a run and saw a thing to memorialize Harry Potter.

Too much.

I also went to a Meetup event on Friday because I need to know more people in this strange and wondrous people.  It was fairly successful.  We'll see who I still know in a few weeks, EH?

          Also, in terms of employment, I started with a temp agency and have a phone interview tomorrow.  But who cares about that?

Not me,

Jess

Jazz Hands

On Monday, I went to a jazz event with Nana and one of her "millionaire friends" (in quotations because that's how Nana described her and not because she's not a millionaire, because she definitely is) Judith Terra.  Naturally I showed up late because I forgot to bring the address with me so I was driving around the general area for about 15 minutes before Nana graciously called me and told me where to get to.  We were going to this event because Nana and Judith's friend, Lee Brian, is in charge of this UDC thing.  Nana and Judith made it very clear to me that they had no interest in going but that they were doing it for Lee Brian.  Judith basically reminds me of an aging 50s film star would be like today, with her giant rectangular emerald (? maybe not but they were green and large and definitely expensive) earrings and her diamond (again, most likely diamond) choker, smoothed back jet black hair, high cheekbones, and the way she talks as though she's been trained.  Almost Judy Garland-like.  Elizabeth Taylor maybe?  Anyway, we showed up and Lee Brian strolled on up to the car and Judith said, "Where do you want me to park, boo?"
       Lee Brian charmed them for a bit with both women laughing uproariously before he parked the car.  We all went inside, and I pick up a cookie because why not? and so many people came up to Nana to say, "There's my favorite mother" and things of that ilk.  I never really realized before that night just how beloved she is here.  I mean, I love her, obviousry, but I didn't know that everyone else does too!  Nana networked for me a bit and then we went into our reserved seats while Judith was at work on something in the lobby.  We were just sitting down when Nana leaned over to me to say, "Lee Brian is always telling me he's in love with me, but that man is gay as a plate."  Gay as a plate?  Never heard of it.  But maybe I misheard.  Then some more people came to sit down and they were elated to see Nana, so Nana had me switch seats with her so that they could sit together.
       When the program started, Judith gave the opening address since she's the Chair for the DC Arts Commission.  She then came to sit down and the music got going.  It was a bit strange to be at this University Jazz concert considering I couldn't conceive of any of the people onstage as being younger than I am.  As the program continued, Nana and Judith grew restless. Nana said even though she used to go to jazz shows with Papa back in the day, she never liked it.  That was until a song came on to which Nana knew the words--that's when she started singing along a bit.  During the next song, though, I guess they'd had enough because Judith said it was time to go, so the three of us in the third row got up.  And I don't know if you know this about 85 year old women, but their getting out of chairs times aren't that fast, so it felt as though we were leaving the row for ages and then crawling up the aisle to the exit.  I don't mean that as a "speed up, granny!" thing.  I mean it in a "we could have at least waited until the end of the song to leave" thing.  Especially since that number ended up being their last one.  Nana insisted that the only reason the performers ended the concert then was because we had gotten up and they were getting carried away as jazz performers are wont to do.

        After shmoozing, we made it back to the car.  Lee Brian hopped in and whispered to me that they wouldn't even notice he was there.  And he was nearly right.  We drove around the corner and then chatted with him for about 15 minutes in the street.  They were all gossiping about some woman who has taken to wearing terrible hats to functions and how it's all caused by her stylist.  Apparently, though, she's a beautiful woman, she just doesn't know how to dress herself.  I guess she wore some dress last year that had this massive flower that she had to keep folding down so that she could speak.
       On the ride back, it was funny to hear Judith and Nana kind of competing over their jazz in speakeasy stories.  I think Nana won out because she's just a bit more forceful and will speak louder, but Judith's tales from Greenwich Village would probably have won over the sheer glamour of it all.  But this is all speculative since we never heard the stories.

On Tuesday, I met up with some Wash U chums to see a friend perform his poetry at a place called Poets and Busboys, a restaurant/bookstore created in homage to Langston Hughes who used to live in DC and was discovered while serving some newspaper hotshot.  When Hughes heard that the man was from a newspaper, he slipped some of his own poetry into the newspaper for the guy.  The rest is what you call history.
       So the last time I decided to drive somewhere, it took me twice as long as Google said it would.  So when Google said that it would take me 20 minutes to get to Busboys and Poets, I thought I was super clever to leave at 6:15.  I'd show the internet, and I'd get there perfectly on time.  Well, except this time Googles was right, and I arrived around 6:30, but wasn't to meet with my friends for dinner until 7.  So I just sat in the car until it was near the hour.  Pathetic, I know, but I didn't realize there was a bookstore inside!  Otherwise, I'd have loitered inside.  So when the time came, I perused the bookstore until Kim and Shana showed up.  Did you know that there is a children's book about Bob Marley?  And there was also a book of conversations with Alice Walker.  It was sad to look in the index and see no mention of her daughter, Rebecca, aka my favorite author.  Not surprising considering she told Rebecca that being mother was "a role she had grown tired of," but still!
      We were seated in the room where the poetry was to be happening, which usually would mean that we'd have to leave our seats to line up outside before the show happened, but our waiter was dabomb and let us stay in our seats.  When the doors did open up to the poetry seekers, it was like a Wash U invasion.  So many people that I didn't even know were in the city were there.  A mini reunion that was unexpected but glorious quand-même.
      The whole thing reminded me of this thing I used to go to at Fairfax High School called Da Poetry Lounge, but more organized and in a nicer space.  Anyway, my friend (Aaron Samuels <-videos!) was the featured artist, so we had to wait until the middle to see him.  The performers there were first timers, weekly appearances, and everything.  Good overall, but Aaron was definitely the best.  And that is possibly my opinion because I have been watching WUSlam perform since my sophomore year, so maybe I've been conditioned.

Yesterday I got off my toosh and went to The Phillips Collection to see a Degas exhibit.  I accidentally got off at Adams Morgan on the metro at first and then, 1/4 of the way up the escalator, realized that I was supposed to get off at Dupont Circle.  Lucky for me, this was one of those obscenely long escalators like at Angel Station in London (which I've never actually been too, but whenever there are public works in tube stations in London, you get to learn facts like that Angel station has the longest escalator in London).  So I got a nice workout going up to come down.

       Eventually, I arrived.  The woman/girl at the desk said I could get a discount if I was a student.  When I showed her my King's ID (expired since December 2008) she gave me the side eye, but said "okay" anyway.  The Phillips Collection is kind of like the Barnes Museum in Philadelphia except not as great only because at the Barnes, they have furniture and stuff that echoes themes in the paintings.  The Phillips Collection is just in a house.  That is the only real similarity.  But The Phillips Collection does have an app that you can download on your phone, which is kind of awesome because you don't have to pay for an audio guide or anything.  So I downloaded it and was then disappointed to discover that there were only 5 stops on the special exhibit tour.  And the stops didn't really offer any analysis of the paintings.  Could have done better on that end, but I still thought it was an innovative use of technology.  It was a lovely exhibit, even though it was about 5 rooms.  It really drew the connection between Degas's methodology and that of a dancer's in terms of repetition and study.
       After, I wandered about the rest of the museum.  Lucky for me there was a Rothko room.  So, apparently Rothko wanted his paintings to be shown in a normal sized room so that you'd really be taken away by what was happening in the images.  Duncan Phillips loved the guy's work, so he was the first person to dedicate a public space to Rothko's works--one on each of the four walls.  (Not surprisingly, Rothko claimed The Phillips Collection was his favorite museum.)  So I sat in the room for a while trying to figure it out, and I think I might have made some headway.  Also, this room was kind of intense considering walkthroughs are prohibited.  Legitimately.  There's a sign.
      My favorite part, though, was in the original home in the music room where Vincent Tack took over.  He made a bunch of panels for the room, and the setting is gorgeous as well.  I couldn't tell what the photography policy was, so I didn't take any.  (And, when I got back to Madeleine's and saw my camera sitting by the door, I was glad I hadn't decided to take any.)  But here's a photo from this website that kind of walks you through the space.

After the music room, I really enjoyed The Migration Series and response photography.  The Migration Series is a series of paintings by Jacob Lawrence about the migration of Blacks north in the 1930s with short text bits acting as narration.  He painted all 60 panels at once, using the same paint mixture at each point so that the colors would be the same.  Does that make sense?  Like, say he was going to use indigo in 27 of the paintings; he'd paint the indigo parts at the same moment in time so that it would be the exact same color in all 27.  The response photographs are from recent times and taken all over the world by Allen DeSouza called The World Series.  The photos could be read as a single journey, since it starts at an airport and ends at a train station.  It was definitely a series that has to be read all at once to get the full meaning.  Come visit me and see!

It's supposed to snow tonight.

Ice box where my feet used to be,
Jess

Other Not New News

Apparently sidewalks are optional around these parts.  Sometimes I'll be walking along, and suddenly, this house decides that there's no need to have a sidewalk here.  Let's let nature take its course up to the road.  There might be some merit to this idea, but I'd imagine that grass isn't what would grow naturally here.  So I don't know what to make of it.

I knew that this no sidewalk craze was possible in France, but that's France.  Their roads are so small, sometimes it would be frightening to have a person and a car on the path at the same time.  (Please reference forthcoming post on Marseille.)

I don't know if it's because I'm living next to a park that is WAY more giant than the park I lived next to at home (even though the park--Rock Creek Park--was put into place so that black folk wouldn't be able to live so close to the white folk back in the day.  True Story.), but it's super green here.  It's easy to forget how green the rest of the country is compared to California/Los Angeles.  And for those of you who think it's the pollution thing, it's not!  We can't grow so much green in a desert climate.  Think about it.

I went on a walk for the favorite Halloween decoration:

Spooky Scary Skeletons,
Jess

News that Isn't New

Running in Washington, D.C. is waaay harder than running around my beloved L.A.
a. HILLS.  Every time I map a run online, I try to figure out how to best avoid hills.  Maybe I'm a pathetic runner who only likes flat surfaces.  Maybe I'm lazy.  Maybe I really care about my body and don't want to hurt my knees and things--actual effects of running up and down hills!  Maybe it's all three.
b. HUMIDITY.  It basically rained every single day last week.  And when it wasn't raining, the air was oozing with moisture that made me so sweaty that when I laid down to do some sit ups, my eyes stung from the amount of sweat that was rolling into them.  This blog has become much more graphic than the one in France.  A reflection of American vs. French culture?  Discuss.

I had this lovely idea of taking and posting a picture every day that I went for a run.  But then I updated my iPhone and the picture from the first one was lost.  Aaand I made a dog friend on my first run, but when I got back to photograph him (a golden!), his owner came and brought him inside.  As flattered as I would have been if someone had asked for a picture of my dogs, I would have been equally creeped out.  So I decided to just surreptitiously sneak a photo some other time.  Not creepy?  On verras.  (We'll see.)

People around here really seem to love Halloween.  Or, at the very least, autumn.  There are decorations up all over the place.  It's so different from home, especially since there are actual leaves and ambiance that make the place feel all Hocus Pocus-y.  I'll have to try to get a photo of my favorite spooky decorations so far.  I think everyone will enjoy it.

Also, guess who got an offer on only her second interview (Friday) and is meant to start Monday.  That girl also accepted it, but is having second thoughts, so she'll be making some decisions soon?

Madrid post is in the works!
Zaaaaaachary!  Zachary Binx!
Jess

Yup. This is Happening.

So I decided to plug some life back into this blog.  It may remain breathing, or it may die when I get a job.  Which will likely never happen, so we don't have to worry about that.  Since I know you're all pining for me to finish my European diary here, I will.  But it will also be intermingled with new tales of my DC life!  You should be able to tell the difference between the two...

So here's another awesome video of my digz.  Sadly, I'm less awkward in this video.  I think so, anyway.

For those of you who don't know, Lew and I left LA on Saturday at 5 am for the cross country trek.  He's a peach and did most of the driving.  On the first day, here are things that happened:

• Relieved ourselves on the side of the road near a sketchy Texas motel because everything else was closed.  (This is a FULL DISCLOSURE blog.  Love it or leave it.)
• Around midnight, I started driving in Oklahoma, which is also when it started pouring.  When passing trucks, they'd splash up the road water, and the cars coming in the other direction would shine their headlights so it was like I was driving into a white void with flecks of black where the rain continued to fall.
• Got a speeding ticket in Oklahoma just after the rain stopped.  Miguel Cruz claims I was going 92 mph.  That seems unlikely since I was pretty sure I was staying around 80-85 the whole time.  But around 2am, you lose your ability to fight back.  I did say that I was on my way to a memorial and I was so physically shaken up that I couldn't give him the right paperwork.  First moving violation, y'all!  By the way, he asked for license and insurance NOT license and registration.  I feel cheated by the media.  In the end, he gave me a ticket that won't show up on my insurance.  So I got off for the low low cost of $188.50.  I wish I had cried... 1) because I felt like I needed to and 2) because maybe he would have taken pity on me.
• Got into St. Louis at 9am.  A full 5 hours after we had anticipated arriving.

We made it into DC around 6pm on Monday.  Pops and I sat around listening to the end of a very old This American Life until everyone (Nana, Madeleine, Tony, Diane, and Demetrius/Madeleine's boyf) arrived.  We had Chinese food and hit the hay.

Next morning, Daddy left at 5:30 for his flight back to LA.  After he left, I went back to bed for a bit before getting up for my 8:30 interview.  I scrounged up a breakfast of whole milk and shredded wheat.  I felt very guilty about opening Madeleine's milk.  Also, I didn't know anyone drank whole milk.  (The last time I had it was in eighth grade when the literature teacher (Mrs. Berry) was shocked no one in the class had ever had fruit cake as it's a Christmas staple.  So she brought in 36 tiny fruit cakes and gave us each a cup of whole milk, since she said that that's how it was meant to be had.)  Later, Nana called as I was in the toilet to tell me that she was coming to fetch me.  It was an unexpected act of kindness.  Not that Nana's not kind.  She's the kindest!  But I was expecting to hop up out the bed and put my metro swag on.  Interview was whatevs.  I got a homework assignment.  I just think those are the worst.  It's an unpaid internship!  How much free labor do you want from me!?  Oh well.  I'll obviously do it.  It's just the principle of the thing.  After the meeting, I hopped on the red line to Friendship Heights.  I then walked about a mile back to Madeleine's.  (For the unaware, Madeleine is my dad's mentor's wife who has graciously and generously offered me her attic free of charge!  I'm staying here until I have what you call "income.")  Big mistake to wear brand new heels and walk a mile mostly uphill in them.  Oh well.  Rocked it.  Grown up style.

Passed out when I got home.  Woke up and grazed until I realized that I needed to get some real food for myself and went to the market for supplies.  I was behind a woman in line who was chatting with the checker, Tenea (ten-ay-uh).  When the woman asked what her name was, the clerk responded.  The old woman responded, "That's a bad name."  But it was kind of under her breath, so it was okay.  Then she told Tenea to stay in school and that she was going to forget her name.  People are so lovely in America!

Came back to talk policies with Madeleine before moving all my junk to the upstairs room, reorganizing as minimally as possible, and then lounging for about 3 hours until it was too late to go for a run and unpacking 1/2 a bag.

Here I am,
Jess!