oh and look, a new toy to play with on my trip. peace out 7-year-old dell.
extra pickles
other vices: busch light, dance floors
tomorrow begins my extended thanksgiving break. oh the spoils of unemployment! philly for four days, boston for seven, then back to DC on december 1. i’m a little peeved that my train ticket from philly to boston cost more than my plane ticket from boston to DC—why is amtrak always so damn expensive?
brad lives in philly these days. funny, isn’t it, that he, obinger and i are on a little rotation with the cities we live in—it used to be brad in NYC and adam in DC and me in philly, and now it’s adam in NYC and me in DC and brad in philly. jason will be joining us on the east coast—the four of us haven’t gotten together in a while, and it’ll presumably be as ridiculous a weekend as ever. i can already taste the primo.
my brother moved to boston about six months ago. his fiancee is originally from there, so he’s more or less assured to be in bean town the rest of his life. my parents flew out there today, and i’ll join them on tuesday. i haven’t been to boston since maybe middle school, so that should also be fun. i’ve got a mixed bag of friends in boston and perhaps i’ll try to meet up with some of them, too.
it all begins on a shoddy chinatown bus tomorrow afternoon. wish me luck…
speaking of japanese (i think my last post referenced japanese and not chinese, right?), the song and video for capsule’s “jumper” is mesmerizing. really, really weird. but also mesmerizing. thanks (again) ryan.
i suggest ignoring the lyrics, as their nonsensical nature sort of ruins everything else:
ankles strapped and secrets they watch
break you, wake up, feels just like you’re
leaving nothing, freely speed up
landing, stepping, jumping, jumper
but the tune is pretty awesome. this fan art interpretation is sort of cool, too.
and as i type this, adam and staples are en route to japan! by plane, not kayak (see steps #33 and #49).
nph is on twitter. and he’s pretty funny. and i bet he doesn’t have friends who complain about his long tweets…
the national gallery’s rotunda is especially impressive when the fountain is surrounded by seasonal plants.
i went there this past friday to (gasp) see a movie. i say “(gasp)” because my college and post-college friends think i have a disdain for movies. sure, usually i don’t want to spend my weekend evenings or $10.75 seeing one, but i don’t hate them. the national gallery has a free afternoon film program, so this past friday i saw a movie from 1950 called “seven days to noon.” it was about a nuclear scientist threatening to blow up london by noon on sunday unless britain agrees to stop all atomic weapons research. it won an oscar for its writing and i also thought it was good.
as if seeing one movie this weekend wasn’t surprising enough, i saw three movies on sunday. “empire records,” “2012,” and “death becomes her.” three.
so take that, friends—i do enjoy movies.
and really, check out the national gallery’s rotunda. it’s aesthetically stunning.
i’m not too versed in either of them, but thanks to the internet i’ve discovered that alphabeat has some cool songs and frankmusik also has some cool songs. so obviously this frankmusik remix of alphabeat’s “fascination” will rock your weekend.
(thanks ryan.)
there’s a club in DC called ziegfeld’s/secrets. i’ve never been (hard to believe, right?) but my understanding is that the ziegfeld’s side is more about drag queens and the secrets side is more about strippers.
i never understood the name ziegfeld’s until i took a stroll through the national portrait gallery and happened upon a bust of a fellow named florenz ziegfeld. its plaque reads:
“Master showman Florenz Ziegfeld brought a razzle-dazzle to live performance that signaled a new era in mass entertainment at the turn of the twentieth century—the production of grand-scale extravaganzas glittering with spectacle and opulence that ‘glorified the American girl.’ … For the first three decades of the twentieth century, Ziegfeld’s Follies characterized American popular culture at its glitziest.”
who knew strip clubs could be so witty?
and what’s more, who knew museums could also have a sense of humor? viewed from the right angle, behind ziegfeld’s bust appears a scantily clothed sculpture of raquel welch.
what’s this? a new tumblr feature? the ability to “say” mini comments on posts?
i wish everyone would integrate full-blown disqus comments into their tumblrs. but, knowing full well that tumblr staff isn’t too keen on that idea, i think i’d appreciate and be half-satisfied if this new “say” feature were rolled out to the masses.
something i didn’t know before getting laid off was that unemployment benefits vary a ton from state to state. there was an article in forbes a few months ago about it. DC, where the maximum weekly benefit is $359, ranked as the 5th worst city. philly, where i previously lived, came in as the 6th best.
thankfully for me, your weekly benefit determination takes into account your past 18 months of earnings, and since i worked in philly for 6 of those 18 months, i was able to file in PA.
the whole concept is a bit amusing (and obviously also really nice), that every two weeks i “make” some money by logging into a website and taking two five-item questionnaires. unemployment still sucks, though—make no mistake about that.
as i had mentioned, dragonette came to DC9 this past friday. they were pretty awesome. i can’t find any pictures yet from the show, but here are some recent ones from LA. the lead singer is gorgeous (aside from her hairy pits) and cutely coy and can really sing—even their silly “big sunglasses” song was good. and they had these cool vertical lights on stage that added a fun effect.
so why, then, am i posting “remedy” by little boots? because DC9 was playing the video before dragonette came on and i had never heard it before (even though a quick tumblr search reveals that it’s been previously posted by several people i follow [whoops]). and it’s great. if you’re as behind the times as me (i didn’t know she was a singer past that sweet youtube video where she covers hot chip on her tenori-on), put this one on repeat for the day.
oh right, halloween was last saturday. time to get rid of this goofy-turned-rotten thing.
i went to the prince of petworth’s 3-year anniversary party last night, partially because it’s a great blog and partially because i can never resist an invitation to wonderland. amelia made the observation that (to use everyone’s favorite ambiguous adjective) it’s interesting that so many people would come together to celebrate that they simply read the same web page every day. oh the power of community blogging!
and the power of a can of pbr and a shot of jim. the combination may have made philly great (bob & barbara’s, anyone?), but it’s also making this morning afternoon miserable. (wonderland serves bottles of pbr, though. DC is so soft.)
the national gallery’s sculpture garden is a great DC spot. next to its “jazz in the park” series during the summer (a largely misnomered event), my favorite thing about it is roy lichtenstein’s illusionary house I. from the front it looks either flat or as if the midpoint (where the two sides and the roof meet) sticks out towards you. but actually, the whole thing is concave and that midpoint is the farthest thing away. it’s also cool to view it from angles where certain sides completely disappear.
i took a long DC stroll on tuesday, snapped some shots of the house, and made this animated gif. hopefully it displays properly for you—tumblr was being fussy.
