raves Archives - Page 8 of 36

DC to Leesburg by Bike and Metro: A Multimodal Adventure

Last weekend, I rode to Reston, taking a 50-mile bike ride from DC into the outer suburbs of the nation’s capital.

I wanted to ride the WO&D Trail again but wanted to skip over the parts of the trail that I had already done. I would use Metro for that purpose, since you can take your bike on the train on the weekends. With the new Silver Line running out to Reston, it seemed like the perfect solution, allowing me to leapfrog ahead to where I left off last weekend. Bikes and trains – a perfect multimodal adventure!

But, of course, there was track work on the weekend, as always with Metro. Orange line trains were running only every 20 minutes and the Silver Line was terminating at Ballston rather than running into DC.

I checked wmata.com for the next Orange Line train before leaving home. I hurried to Farragut West and was so proud of myself for making the train!

Unfortunately, I blanked on switching to the Silver Line at Ballston and so just stayed on the train to the end of the line in Vienna. Then I biked through the neighborhoods and back to the WO&D.

It’s a beautiful trail that just gets better the further west you go. Every few miles, there’s another town, with a brewery, bike shop and coffee place. I don’t know how people bike the length of it without stopping multiple times. I biked through Reston, Herndon and Sterling without stopping.

But when I smelled the barbecue at Carolina Brothers in Ashburn, I had to stop. Located right next to the trail, it’s awfully tempting.

I actually went past it, thought about it and then turned around and came back. I’m glad I did. It’s a great spot. Casual, fast and filled with cyclists enjoying a mild Sunday afternoon.

Once you get past Ashburn, the trail really opens up. With its long straightaways and miles between road crossings, it attracts the road biking crowd.

For me, I kept on to Leesburg, where I stopped for coffee, of course! My motto: Always Be Coffeeneuring. I had cappuccino at King Street Coffee along with a new doggie friend. Cute place and excellent coffee.

Purcellville and the end of the trail was another ten miles. I decided to save that for a future trip. I turned around and headed back, passing many tempting trailside breweries.

This time I would catch the Silver Line in Reston. The Wiehle Avenue station is right off the trail, though you have to navigate a bit of construction to find your way into it. The station was really anticlimactic. I was expecting something more glamorous. But it looked just any other Metro station complete with a 1970s-era train waiting at the platform. Got on the train and sat there for a good twenty minutes, along with tourists coming from Dulles. Yup, it’s always this way, I wanted to tell them.

The Silver Line train then slowly chugged its way past Tyson’s Corner then down the middle of I-66 before ending in Ballston. Getting off the train, a crowd of confused passengers waited on the platform. The next train into DC wasn’t for another 20 minutes (at least).

Thank god I had a bike! I abandoned Metro and headed for the Custis Trail, flying downhill into Rosslyn, then over the Memorial Bridge to home.

Lesson Learned: Using Metro to leapfrog ahead on the WO&D would be great if the transit system actually worked. But a bike is more reliable.

Let’s Ride to Reston!

It was one of those perfect Sundays in April that forced you outside. Tulips were blooming, the skies were cloud-free and the temperature was inching toward 60 degrees.

No way was I staying inside. I wanted the WO&D Trail, an old rail route that runs for 45 miles and escapes the DC metro sprawl. The furthest I’ve biked on the trail was Vienna. This time, I would go further.

And with my Specialized Sirrus tuned up by Bike Rack, I had the perfect vehicle to get me there. So I biked and biked and biked – up the long hill in Rosslyn, around the fun corkscrew on the Custis Trail, and then the ascent into Arlington, Falls Church and Vienna. Then I kept on to Reston, where I had lunch in their ersatz town center, and turned around.

Strangely, for me, I hardly took any pictures. I was focused on riding.

On the return leg, I started to flag near Vienna so I stopped for cappuccino at Caffe Amouri. The great thing about the WO&D is that every few miles there are breweries, restaurants, bike shops and coffee places. The caffeine was enough to push me back down the trail, where I got to fly downhill on the Custis Trail and back to DC.

I returned exhausted, a little sunburned and strangely un-hungry. I’m not that much of a Strava fanatic (it’s a fitness-tracking app) but I’m embedding this ride because 50 miles – that’s a record for me!

Next Level Craft at the House of Sweden

InstagramDC recently got a sneak peek at the Next Level Craft exhibit at the House of Sweden in Georgetown. This beautiful embassy along the Potomac played host to an exhibit described as:

A mythical wedding, a demonstration, a carnival, a funeral procession, a fashion show or perhaps a combination of all these? A colorful parade of mysterious creatures wander through a fictitious northern landscape carrying unique crafted objects. Who are they and where are they going?

Next Level Craft is not your typical handicraft exhibition – it has its own soundtrack and music video. The renowned young Swedish artist Aia Jüdes has created a playful and different tale of craft, mixing voguing (a modern dance style characterized by perfect, stylized hand and arm movements, acrobatic poses and flamboyant fashion), street art, high fashion, pop culture and electronic music with everything from wool embroidery, weaving and felting to root binding, wood turning and birch bark braiding.

It was a surreal experience, a room filled with bizarre objects and an ever-changing lightshow. Adding to the strangeness was a trippy video of dancing Swedes. So much weirdness for InstagramDC to photograph, as the lights cycled from red to blue.

Best of all, photography was encouraged! It’s a very forward-thinking embassy for hosting this strange exhibit and for reaching out to local photographers to cover it. We had a blast taking pictures of these unique crafts and posing for photos in the weird lighting.

That was cool. But getting up on the roof was even cooler.

There was an amazing view of Rosslyn and the Kennedy Center, from a vantage point that few get to see. It was sleeting but no way was I going to miss this experience.

As a writer, it’s inspiring to see creative work. It’s source material for me. I wrote Murder on U Street, my novel about homicide in DC’s art scene, after having similar experiences. So don’t be surprised if a trippy Swedish art exhibit shows up in a future book 😉

DC Walkabout: Meridian Hill and Millie & Al’s

As mentioned in my previous post, it’s time to walk. Walk hard. I pulled a muscle in my calf so I can’t run for a while. Instead, I’m going to walk around this city – a different direction each time – and blog about the things that I see. This week’s adventure: Meridian Hill and Millie Al’s.

I had to visit Millie & Al’s one last time before they closed. Millie’s is an iconic dive bar that’s been on 18th Street in Adams Morgan for decades.

Leaving my Logan Circle apartment, I set off up 15th Street on Wednesday after work. Musical choice was the excellent new album from Blur, The Magic Whip.

Spring is a funny season in DC. Warm one day, freezing the next. I happened to catch Mother Nature on one of her nice days, mild and overcast.

If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I have Tulipmania. I’m just in love with these splashes of color that blossom all over the city in April. Sometimes, they appear in the most unexpected places, like behind the mysterious Scottish Rite Temple on 16th St. I’m sure the flowers are used in some sort of mysterious ritual. Or maybe they’re just for the neighborhood to enjoy.

I passed the apartment where I used to live, back in the 90s, pre-Whole Foods, when the neighborhood was transitional. At that time, 14th Street was to be avoided, unless you were looking for crack or hookers. Other than the Black Cat, most everything else along the street was boarded up. However, the neighborhood was cheap enough that a recent grad like me could afford to live there.

When I lived at 15th and Swann, I liked to walk up to Meridian Hill Park. Back then it was more commonly referred to Malcolm X Park, but demographic changes have made that moniker seem absurd. People do yoga in that park now. Boot camps drill bridesmaids in the morning. Bros throw frisbees around. Malcolm X Park is no more.

One place that remained from the 90s was Millie & Al’s. I mean literally the same, down to the same Star Trek models hanging from the ceiling and the filthy, cramped bathrooms – part of its charm. It was not a fake dive bar like hipster-friendly Showtime. It was the real thing, a place to sit in a booth and drink pitchers of beer, while you waited for the $1 jello shots sign to turn on.

Millie’s was the first bar I ever went to in Adams Morgan. In the rough and tumble DC of Marion Barry, 18th Street still had a residential character to it – there was a hardware store along the street. The only bars were Millie’s and the even more divey Dan’s. I used to drink with my roommates Bob and Colin after taking the 92/96 bus from our apartment near National Cathedral.

I liked taking people there – it was cheap and had a feel of real DC about it. Broke foreign students particularly liked it. You could go to Adams Morgan on a weekend until around 2003 before you felt like you were entering a riot zone. 18th Street turned into Bourbon Street with brawls and vomit predominant. But I guess must’ve made some impression at Millie’s because I ran into one of the bouncers about five years ago and he remembered me.

Millie & Al’s closed on April 7. This dark drinking hole where beer was sold in plastic pitchers and you had to navigate a stairway to reach a couple of cramped toilets – it fetched a cool $1.8 million. Drinking is big business in DC.

As a lover of dive bars, it would be easy to be melancholy. Gentrification claimed Millie & Al’s. However, this same force revitalized 14th Street and made Meridian Hill Park safe to visit. Progress is a good thing, even when you lose an iconic drinking institution.

DC Walkabout: Sunsets, Tulips and Barbies

I have a calf strain, a sharp twinge that occurred when I was playing soccer about a week ago. It’s prevented me from running. I can only go about a mile before the twinge forces me to stop and walk. The only remedy for this pain is time. Instead of running after work, I had to come up with a new activity.

I decided to do evening walkabouts, ambulatory strolls around downtown Washington. I started last night, just as the rain was tapering off.

My destination: the White House. There I discovered tulips, their petals closed up and sparkling with rain drops.

After taking some tulip pics, I headed for Farragut Square. The rain had stopped and the clouds had cleared in the west. Suddenly, the streets were suffused with a warm, golden light.

And then, in the sky over the office buildings, a rainbow appeared – a good luck sign, blessing the idea of evening walkabouts.

I continued my way up Connecticut Avenue to Dupont Circle. It’s a destination that I’m drawn to again and again. Not only is it a pretty spot, but it represents something to me – it’s where I first got a taste of urban life after coming to DC for college. It was where we went to eat Greek food at Zorba’s (still there) and drink in local bars (most of which are gone or changed names). The sun was just beginning to set as I arrived.

Listening to the Pixies, I headed east on Q St. There was one more destination I wanted to check out: the Barbie Pond Garden. This is a local institution that I have somehow missed. The owners of this house at 15th and Q decorate their garden with naked Barbies. This month’s theme was Easter.

It’s going to be a while before I can run again. The only remedy for pain is time. Instead of running, I’m going to walk in different directions – north, south, east, west – and write and take photos of what I discover in DC.

Here’s to Jon Gann

Jon and me – I’m on the right and a little drunk.

Here’s to Jon Gann, who recently left the DC Shorts Film Festival after thirteen years at its helm. In 2015, the festival showed 125 films from 26 countries in 17 unique showcases over 11 days to audiences of more than 9,000 people. DC Shorts was ranked as Moviemaker Magazine’s Coolest Short Film Festival for a reason – Jon created a festival that was for filmmakers, putting them at the center of the action.

I’m glad that I got to be a part of this unique event that brought so much joy to audiences and filmmakers. Meeting Jon literally changed my life – he’s one of the “superconnectors” who knows everybody and everything in the city. Need an event space for a 1000 people? Want the gossip on a local councilmember? Where can you find the best bagels in DC? Ask Jon and he’ll know.

I met Jon through a screenwriting group. When DC Shorts created a screenwriting competition, he asked me to help. I’ve done so every year since. The great thing about Jon is once he has confidence in you, he thinks you can do everything. I went from reading screenplays to managing the competition, a responsibility that put me on stage before hundreds of people – something I never imagined myself doing.

I loved being part of DC Shorts. I met actors, filmmakers and other creative types. It was inspiring to see scripts go from the printed page to life on screen. While I was never part of theater, putting on the live screenplay readings was like doing a staged play – it’s an exhilarating experience seeing the whole production come off.

Joel David Santner and Jon Gann — Jon awarding a $2000 check to Joel David Santner, winner of the DC Shorts Screenwriting Competition.

Once Jon discovers you are useful, you get lots more to do. I also managed event photography one year, supervising a couple dozen photographers as we covered the festival. An exhausting experience that taught me that I never wanted to be an event photographer! Having your picture snapped at a red-carpet event is glamorous. But for the photog, it means hours on your feet and lots of photos to edit.

Mary Kay Cook, Rocco Cataldo and Kati Mahalic — Sexy event photography

I’m not going to say that working with Jon was easy – anyone who knows him would know that’s not true.

Every year, I saw him go through a roller coaster of emotions during DC Shorts. On the opening night of the festival, he’d be convinced that everything was going to be failure. Where’s the food? What happened to the volunteers? Will we get press? He’d reach a fever pitch of anxiety (one I steered clear of) on the second night before collapsing into acceptance on the third night. Then he’d disappear and go drink bourbon with Kelley Baker.

Jon Gann and Kelley Baker — Jon and Kelley

By the time Sunday rolled around, he’d be content and verklempt, tearing up as he told the story of why he created the festival, before an audience of filmmakers who adored him.

I’m surprised he lasted thirteen years!

But, after a while, everything has to end. In just a few short years, Jon took DC Shorts from an idea in his head to one of the largest short film festivals on the East Coast. Now he’s on to something new.

I volunteered for DC Shorts year after year because it was about helping filmmakers. Under Jon’s tenure, DC Shorts also had a commitment to quality, from the films selected to the drinks at the party. As a volunteer, you want to feel that your work has meaning – and I did, getting to select scripts and take photos.

I don’t know what’s next for Jon, but I predict it will embody the values of DC Shorts – helping, quality and meaning. Here’s to the next big thing!

Photos Beyond the Monuments: Ten Years of Exposed

Congrats to Exposed DC, which recently marked ten years of celebrating photography in Washington, DC. They do so with an annual photo contest that highlights a city that most tourists never get to see – the DC beyond the monuments.

I was fortunate to be in the very first show back in 2006 with my photo “Rose Runs.” It’s the daughter of a friend of mine, captured as she was walking past a graffiti-covered wall in Stead Park near Dupont Circle. The park has since been cleaned up but I liked the contrast between the innocence of youth and the grit of the city.

The advent of digital cameras had drawn me into photography. I took “Rose Runs” with a Canon Digital Rebel, the first of its kind, costing more than $1000. Little did I know how much photography would change in the coming years.

That first show was in a series of rooms above The Passenger, near the Convention Center. The whole building would eventually be redeveloped but, at the time, it lingered on as a bit of old, rough DC. I missed opening night but came by later with some friends – including Rose herself!

What was great about Exposed (then known as DCist Exposed, and tied to the DCist blog) is that it introduced me to a community of digital photogs like myself, including Samer Farha, Jim Darling, Heather Goss, Jen Wade, James Calder, Pablo Raw and other great folks. I never thought photography could be social – until Exposed.

I love good beer. I love photography. I love meeting creative types. So every year, I went to Exposed, even if I wasn’t in the contest. The show moved around the corner and for several years was at Long View Gallery, where it attracted crowds that snaked down the block. And I began taking iPhone photos, with my iPhone 4.

In 2012, my photo of the Washington Monument being inspected for earthquake damage made the show. I had moved up to a Canon Rebel T2i, a faster and more capable camera than the original Rebel.

I had developed a fondness for black and white. And perhaps a tendency to get carried away with filters in Snapseed. For my interest in DSLRs was being overtaken by mobile photography, like most people. The iPhone had made photography easy, fast and social. Also, I won the Fotoweek Mobile Photography Competition in 2011, which opened my eyes to the value of iPhoneography.

The Exposed parties continued, drawing a huge crowd with delicious beers and treats in 2013, including DC-themed cookies. Exposed became a wonderful blur of drinking and talking photography.

In 2016, Exposed was at the historic Carnegie Library in DC, one of my favorite buildings in the city. I was glad to know so many people in the show, including Angela Napili, Holly Garner, Keith Lane, Noe Todorovich, Bridget Murray Law and Victoria Pickering. I didn’t even bring my Canon Rebel but instead just pocketed my iPhone 6 – it’s good enough. The triumph of mobile photography is almost complete.

Exposed DC has demonstrated that Washington is more than just monuments, revealing the real place beyond the iconic landmarks, as well as building a community of photographers. So, here’s to ten years of Exposed – and ten years more!

Cherry Blossom Madness

The pink petals of Japanese trees bring a mania to this city. It’s called Cherry Blossom Madness.

It leads you to do totally insane things, like run down to the Tidal Basin at dawn to get a glimpse of these trees in the warm morning light. And I am not a morning person at all. Yet, I left my apartment and ran through the purple pre-dawn light to the Mall.

As I reached the Lincoln Memorial, the eastern sky exploded in red, bathing the city in a scarlet glow. I haven’t seen a day that beautiful since the blizzard. The range of red and pink tones in the sky was jaw-dropping, proof that nature can come up with a better palette than any artist.

There were already crowds at the Tidal Basin, every photographer hoping for the perfect picture of the Jefferson Memorial, cherry blossoms and dawn. I snapped a few photos with my iPhone 6. I think there was some futz on the lens because they look a little blurry, like a Monet painting. The only editing I did was in the Photos app and that was pretty minor.

Then, after about five minutes, I headed home, leaving this transcendent scene for the mundane world of work. Here’s to next year and another round of Cherry Blossom Madness.

H Street Life: Photos at Sidamo

I’ve lived in DC for more than twenty years but until around 2008, I only had vague idea of what H St NE looked like. I knew it primarily as the “bad part” of Capitol Hill, a blighted corridor of check-cashing joints and wig stores. There was no reason to go there (unless you were looking for crack) so I never went.

The first time I visited H St was for a show at the Rock n’ Roll Hotel at 13th and H NE. The cabbie asked me skeptically, “Where are we going?” I told him that there was supposed to be a club on H as we passed block after block of boarded-up buildings.

Things look considerably different today. H St is now the hottest neighborhood in the city, sprouting apartments and condos while suburban kids flock to the street’s nightclubs and bars. Why there’s even a streetcar running down the street. While it’s more of a curiosity than working transportation, the promise of the streetcar helped fuel redevelopment, signaling that H St was safe to visit.

Gritty DC, as represented by streets like H, is rapidly disappearing. There’s very little of that city left anymore. It’s better, of course, but I do miss the run-down charm of the place some times.

Bridget Murray Law captures the changing city in H STREET LIFE, an exhibit of her photography at Sidamo. If you like black and white street photography go check it out.

I’ve been a fan of Bridget for years. She has a romantic vision of the city, capturing the quiet moments that happen between people in this busy metropolis. It’s not a side of Washington that you see much. Romance is not something you think of when you think of DC. Aren’t they too busy for that? Bridget demonstrates that even Washingtonians have time for love.

I was glad to attend the H STREET LIFE opening on March 18 at Sidamo Coffee. Below are photos from the event – in black and white, of course.

Snowzilla Turns DC into a Pedestrian Paradise

Finally, it was here – Snowzilla!

Flakes began falling Friday night. Metro closed. Businesses sent their workers home early as snow began piling up on city streets. By dawn on Saturday, the city was covered in a foot of the white stuff – and it was still snowing, coming down in endless sheets.

The wind howled. The windows of my Logan Circle apartment were covered in ice. I was still going out. I pulled on boots, fleece pants, two jackets, two pairs of gloves and a hat. No way was I going to miss this photo opportunity.

On the street, a wonderful quiet had descended upon the city. Something was missing – cars. The roads were too bad for the beasts, rendering their four wheels useless.

To get anywhere, you had to walk. Since the sidewalks were impassable, everyone took to the streets.

I walked north, into the blizzard. I am not alone in my insanity. Everywhere, people were out – walking, skiing, even biking. The few cars that were out rolled along slowly and carefully. They were the interlopers. People had reclaimed the streets.

While it’s not unusual to find men in heels on P Street, seeing one during a blizzard is bizarre. He seemed a little underdressed for the conditions but brunch must go on. I’m not sure he had enough layers.

Commissary and Stoney’s were open, doing a brisk business to anyone willing to brave the snowy streets. And judging from the noise, there were a lot them.

A block up, I encountered a cheerful woman jogging down 15th St, lightly hopping over mounds of snow. No weather will stop the runners of this city.

The silence of the city was almost total, the only sounds being the crunch of snow underfoot and the sounds of distant people.

I heard the laughter a couple blocks from Meridian Hill, a happy roar coming from the park. People were sledding and even snowboarding down the steps. One offered me the chance to tube down the stairs but, being older and wiser, I declined. Getting injured when the city was paralyzed by snow seemed like a really bad idea.

The blizzard picked up, blowing hard, snow pouring into the park. I walked back home down 16th St, the wind at my back. The day was coming to an end. Visibility had declined to less than a block.

It was an amazing opportunity to get photos of a city transformed by white. This was my favorite photo from the day.

We’re looking south on 16th St. On the left is the Church of the Holy City, a Gothic-style church built in 1896.

16th Street is normally a commuter corridor, designed to get Marylanders into the city. If I stood in the middle of the street on an ordinary day, I’d be run over.

Thousands pass this church every day, in noisy cars and busses, without a second glance. The value of a car-free city is the chance to appreciate buildings like the Church of the Holy City. When you’re not keeping your eyes out for cars, you have the opportunity to engage with the environment.

That’s what I like best about blizzards. Snow turns DC into a pedestrian paradise – as it was designed to be. L’Enfant didn’t create DC for automobiles. He planned it for people. The city should be returned to them.

It was all over by Monday.

Many of the sidewalks were still impassable but enough roads had been plowed to prompt the return of the internal combustion beasts. Pedestrians were nosed off the streets by cars.

Mayor Muriel Bowser said we had to get off the pavement – we had to take our chances climbing over snow piles and fording icy streams. Better be nimble, to be a pedestrian in DC. And if you’re old or disabled? You’ll never make it in Muriel Bowser’s DC.

Of course, the DC government didn’t bother to shovel its own sidewalks. Neither did the feds, the worst offender being the National Park Service.

A pocket park owned by NPS near me was not only unshoveled, but snow plows had covered the sidewalk in six feet of snow. I had to walk in the street. As I did so, a car brushed my hip, splattering me in slush. The blizzard times were over. DC had been returned to the drivers.