Washington DC Events - Weekend Picks originally appeared on About.com Washington, DC on Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 06:10:24.

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Did You know that the National Building Museum has a long history with veterans? originally appeared on About.com Washington, DC on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 05:45:42.

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A Christmas Carol 2009 in Washington DC originally appeared on About.com Washington, DC on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 12:08:32.

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Mount Vernon Candlelight Tours originally appeared on About.com Washington, DC on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 at 06:23:20.

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Mornin', Washington. Hope you're awake, because Montgomery County needs your help.

The Washington Post reports that MoCo police have released a comically villainous photograph of the mask used in the October 8 shooting of Ashoka Mody, the International Monetary Fund economist who was shot for no apparent reason after pulling into his garage in Bethesda. Police know that a small, dark car was cruising the area (Millwood Road toward Goldsboro Road) at the time: stealth style, lights off. And police found the mask -- which would seem to strongly indicate Oogie Boogie's collusion in the crime -- in the same area. Police say they cannot be sure whether the suspect was a man or a woman, but did not rule out supernaturally animated sackcloth.

Since police have so few clues to build on, a private party has stepped up the incentive for individuals with knowledge of the shooter or the incident to come forward. The reward for intel leading to an arrest has jumped from a note to $36,000. That's some substantial microfunding for your initiative -- in addition to the peace of mind you'd be bringing to the good people of the IMF.

» Is there a Prince of Petworth backlash? In the annals of blogger throwdowns . . . this is about par for the course.

» Apparently there is a company that will print out your email correspondence, online billing, chatlogs, Flickr images, etc., and transport it physically across the world in trucks. I kid you not! As a promotional effort, this "Post Office" is decorating its paper portables with images from the Smithsonian's National Zoo conservation efforts. Included is a stamp that, er, commemorates the scimitar-horned oryx.

» What do you know, cars can drive on the C & O Canal towpath. Except they're not allowed to do that. Cars can drive right smack into the C & O Canal, too, except they can't do that, either.

Olivia (Laura C. Harris) is 15 and rudderless, living with an emotionally distant father (Michael Frederic) and a resentful stepmother. Left alone with her sensitive and expansive mind, Olivia writes obsessively and reads National Geographic, dreaming of the world outside her Philadelphia suburb. When swept away by her impulsive mother, Beatriz (Zabryna Guevara), Olivia finally has an opportunity to explore.

Beatriz and Olivia are unlike in most ways and haven't spent substantial time together in years, so much of their interaction involves simply learning how to be in each others' company. Since both of these characters are fully realized individuals, their dialogue is unexpected and clever, eschewing generic topics like relationship advice. And although the male actors inhabit smaller roles, the characters they play are indispensable. Broadway vet Triney Sandoval is particularly memorable as both a romantic food vendor and an apologetic husband.

As Beatriz, Zabryna Guevara is grounded, with the perfect amount of zest. She nails all of her punchlines without becoming exaggerated or desperate. Laura C. Harris mimics a teenage girl's body language with precision and maintain an air of inquisitiveness throughout, while Frederic competently portrays a man struggling to sort out his life's contentious components.

The only missteps here are within the otherwise delightful script; Olivia's narration by way of her notebook writing isn't particularly coherent. Each episode complements the script, but they don't coalesce around one theme, particularly in the case of the opening hypothetical meditation on pickpockets. One digression illustrated by a mountain climber is intriguing but disjointed, interrupting the brisk pace.

But these small complains don't diminish the considerable strength of the production. Far better than being "heart-warming," 26 Miles is simply honest, and the truth is sometimes painful. Appropriately, no conflict has been truly resolved by the play's end; many family problems never are. Partners betray and parents disappoint, but the impulse to understand one's family endures.

26 Miles runs through Nov. 22 at Round House. Tickets are available online.

Overheard of the Week

Wednesday Night at at Duffy's Irish bar:

Guy 1: "If he were as broke as he said he was, why did he keep buying Segways?"
Guy 2: "He couldn't give up the lifestyle."
(Pause)
Guy 2: "I think he paid for it out of his 401K."

After the jump, more weird stuff, people with priorities, and kids.

Overheard needs you! To send the good stuff in: overheardindc(at)gmail(dot)com

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Priorities

On the Orange Line:

Two women are talking.

Woman: "That bitch is crazy. I mean, I know she's his wife and all but that doesn't give her the right to break into Gmail account. I'm his girlfriend, I should be able to expect some privacy."

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This kid is awesome

At the Alexandria City Hall precinct on Election Day:

8-year-old boy after seeing "Clint Eastwood" on the sample ballot: "Look, mom, like Back to the Future!"

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Behold the miracle of the greasy paper bag!

Outside Five Guys in Chinatown:

A middle aged woman to her companion, while walking out with a bag of food: "This place is like heaven."

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Bloggers: so hot right now

On the bus near Logan Circle:

Guy: "Did I tell you? I think that my man-crush of all man-crushes, Ezra Klein, rides my bus in the morning."
Girl: "Who's that?"
Guy: "Oh, he blogs about healthcare and policy and stuff."
Girl: -silence-

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Passive aggressiveness, ahoy!

In the morning on the Red Line approaching Union Station:

First woman: "Your kids are really beautiful."
Woman with three small children: "Oh, thank you."
(pause)
First woman: "I just hope they grow up to be doctors, like mine did."

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Beer? Video games?

October 30, two girls in their early 20s waiting for a fitness class at the gym:

Girl 1: "I'm trying to figure out how to make my Halloween costume more scandalous."
Girl 2: "Ooh, what are you going as?"
Girl 1: "God's Gift to Men."

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A very good question

Outside a coffee shop near Union Station:

30s female: "Who brings Passion of the Christ on a camping trip?"

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The Virginia LaRouchies would disagree

Two people talking in a Virginia office lobby a couple days before the election:

Woman: "Is Election Day tomorrow? Ugh. I'm having a hard time voting for Creigh Deeds."
Man: "Yeah. But the only thing worse than a Virginia Democrat is a Virginia Republican."

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Maybe this is the guy with the Segways

On Connecticut Avenue around 1:30 p.m.:

20-something male on his cell phone: "Yeah man, I totally forgot to tell you about this hot bar tonight... it's called Tom Tom."

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FRIDAY

ART: Tomorrow is the start of the FotoWeek DC festival, a must-attend six-day photography extravangza. Consult the Arts Agenda for more details on our picks for the fest. Tonight, check out the opening reception at FotoWeek Central in Georgetown (on M Street between 33rd and 34th Streets NW), starting at 6:30 p.m. for $20 at the door, or $15 in advance.

MUSIC: We highlighted Falls Church native Thao Nguyen today, and recommend seeing her tonight with her band, the Get Down Stay Down, along with tourmates the Portland Cello Project at the Black Cat at 9 p.m. Tickets are $15. David Shultz also opens.

Rock bands taking over Eastern Market? And it's for the benefit of Girls Rock! DC and Guitars Not Guns? Where do we sign? Join Tennis System, Shapiro, Memphis 59 and Spring Tigers this Friday at Eastern Market's North Hall from 7 p.m. to midnight to support "the positive impact music education can have on young girls and boys throughout the District area." Tickets are $20 in advance (available here), and includes snacks. There will be a cash bar and a limited number of tickets will be available at the door.

Also tonight, D.C.-based duo Fly Gypsy takes their hip-hop to Liv, where they'll perform new tracks from their soon-to-be released album, Change For A Dollar. $10, 8 p.m.

MOVIES: National Geographic Live! is screening The Music Lesson, a film about ten classically music trained students from Boston who travel with a group of students from Laikipia, Kenya, to share in their own centuries-old tradition of music. The film starts at 7 p.m. and costs $10.

Or head to the Freer Gallery to see Dam Street, part of the Bringing the World Home: The Global Film Initiative series. The film tells the story of an ostracized woman who finds companionship in a fiercely affectionate boy, but is conflicted with her unresolved past when a marriage proposal comes. Starting at 7 p.m., the film is free on a first-come-first-serve basis.

SATURDAY

MOVIES: Lots of film festivals happening this weekend, as we mentioned in our regular Popcorn and Candy feature. The South Asian Literary and Theater Arts Festival and the Found Footage Film Fest both start Saturday, and the 2009 AFI European Union Showacase kicked off last night.

PARKS: The Shaw Dog Park is celebrating its first anniversary with a free party (donations welcome) from 12- 2 p.m. At the party, you'll find treats for yourself and your pet, dog agility demonstrations, and raffled prizes from local vendors. Show your neighborhood pride by buying a new Shaw Dog long sleeve shirt at the party.

DANCE: The Dhoonya Dance Performance Company is one of several area ensembles that creates a colorful blend of South Asian and Western influences. They also recently performed on the Oprah Winfrey Show in an appearance with Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai. Saturday night, they will present the second iteration of Bollyb!end, their annual music and dance extravaganza. The performance takes place at Montgomery College's Takoma Park/Silver Spring Performing Arts Center. 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20.

JAZZ: Twenty seven-year-old pianist Dan Tepfer, who has already already played with cool jazz icon Lee Konitz and drummer Paul Motian, will be backed up by Three Stars alum Brad Linde's quartet at Twins Jazz in 9 and 11 p.m. sets for $15. Read more about our jazz picks for the weekend here.

ART: DCist's own Heather Goss is the brains behind Fixation, a big FotoWeek DC event at the new Industry Gallery on Florida Avenue. Ten Miles Square and the Pink Line Project are teaming up for the second annual event, which will present the work of nine local photographers whose works "create a narrative with a short series of images, differentiating the stereotypical image of our Nation's Capital from the people actually living inside it." Music starts at 6 p.m. with Yoko K, and continues with ayyoko confidential at 7:30 p.m., and Suspicious Package at 9 p.m. $10 suggested donation. Though not part of FotoWeek, Conner Contemporary will also have an opening downstairs with Koen Vanmechelen: Cosmopolitan Chicken Project (DC) (featuring, yes, live chickens).

MUSIC: Tickets are still available for Peter Bjorn & John and El Perro del Mar at the 9:30 Club. 8 p.m., $25.

Local indie stars Le Loup are back home with a new album, Family, tracks from which they'll be performing tonight at the Black Cat. Former Le Louper May Tabol's current project, Pree, will be opening the show. 9 p.m., $12

SUNDAY

MOVIE: Head up to the AFI Silver to catch a screening of Lukas Moodysson's Mammoth, he acclaimed Swedish director's first English language film starring Gael García Bernal and Michelle Williams. The film is part of the AFI's European Union Showcase which started last night and runs through November 24. Mammoth screens at 5 p.m. for $12.

MUSEUMS: Twenty years ago from Sunday, the Berlin Wall came down. The Newseum is celebrating the anniversary with Berlin Wall Family Day, where you can hear how graffiti has been a form of protest, then try it out for yourself on the Newseum's re-created wall, search for clues in a scavenger hunt, and play quiz games from 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. for the standard admission price.

MUSIC: Head to the Black Cat to support Virginia Beach natives Mae, who had their van and all their instruments and equipment stolen the other night in Philly, but will still perform with guitarist Jenny Owen Youngs tonight. $13 in advance, $15 at the door, 8 p.m.

The full terms of the plea agreement are not yet known, but "Acar would pay back more than $200,000 in stolen money, including $69,000 in cash that was seized at his Northwest Washington home at the time of his arrest." Not to mention the $4,500 officers found in his pants.

Technology is amazing; that a simple camera phone can capture such an image. And with jim_darling's keen eye and knack for color and composition, you get one gorgeous photograph.

Where: Adam Express, Mandu

The swine flu appears to be aggressively making its way around town, and it sounds like it's going to hit a lot more people before they are able to get the vaccine. I, too, am riding the snot rocket to hell. But in addition to chicken soup, I recommend kimchee jigae.

Kimchee jigae is a stew made with pork stock, pork, tofu, scallions, onion, and of course kimchee. The result is a warm confluence of rich pork flavor, acidity, and spice. It's certainly a great way to clear up congestion. I know there are some kimchee haters, but this preparation mellows its effects. The intent of the dish was to use up "riper" kimchee, since the addition of heat and stock helps to dilute the really strong flavors. It's also worth noting there is some anecdotal evidence floating that kimchee (as well as sauerkraut) has some effect on the flu virus, due to its wealth of good bacteria.

You can get kimchee jigae at Adam Express or Mandu. At Mandu, they have a vegetarian version, but that's not helping to solve the problem before it's too late. We must get all the pigs before they get us!

Small Bites
I ride, and I ride
The Washington City Paper and Going Out Gurus provide more details about The Passenger, the new bar to be opened soon by Tom and Derek Brown (of The Gibson) inside the Warehouse. Metrocurean says they plan to serve half-smokes, paninis, and stick beef jerky. Partner Paul Ruppert (also of Room 11, and of course, the Warehouse arts complex) tells DCist that the tentative opening date is Nov. 17.

Iron FLOTUS?
In more First Family tracking/stalking, the January 3 episode of Iron Chef America will feature a competition pitting Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse against Bobby Flay and White House Chef Cristeta Comerford. The challenge will center around produce grown in the White House Kitchen Garden.

Chancellor of food?
Did Michelle Rhee get through to Kevin Johnson's heart through his stomach? Not sure if you want to spend $150 to find out, but she will be competing against Top Chef contestant Carla Hall and southern cuisine entrepreneur Delilah Winder in the True Flavors Celebrity Cook-Off on November 12 at Culinaerie. Each chef will have 35 minutes to make a three course meal with a set of secret ingredients. Proceeds go to TrueChild.

Tonight’s Black Cat show will be a homecoming of sorts for Thao Nguyen. The 25-year-old singer-songwriter was born and raised in Falls Church, but by her own admission, she was too busy with college at William & Mary, and maybe "not well connected enough" to get very involved in the D.C. music scene. Now living in San Francisco and signed to prominent indie label Kill Rock Stars, Nguyen doesn’t have to spend a lot of time playing clubs in the Bay Area trying to make it. She says that her band is "always on tour," and when she’s home, "We prefer not to be in a club. It reminds me of work."

To go by Nguyen's songs, this is just the kind of downbeat, self-deprecating remark you’d expect. She sings about disappointment, detachment and, as she puts it, "all kinds of dissatisfied, frenzied feelings" in a remarkably cheery way. She sings in halting, rhythmic bursts that recall the style of Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse or Cameron Bird of Architecture in Helsinki. Her vocals frequently drive the tempo of her songs, creating a kind of electric tension that can explode in a barrage of hand-clapping, or relax into a funky horn part.

Thao is currently touring, along with her band, the Get Down Stay Down, in support of Know Better, Learn Faster, their second full-length album for Kill Rock Stars. The title, Nguyen says, reflects a lot of what you’ll find in her lyrics: a tongue-in-cheek take about how wisdom typically arrives just after it is needed most. "That’s what a lot of it is about," she said. “Urgency, but also this resignation that it is too late.”

Two songs on the new album stand out. "When We Swam" gets my vote as the best indie single of the year. It’s a hybrid of psychedelic folk and doo-wop that features a wistful yet sultry Nguyen picking over the remains of a doomed relationship. The closely-observed and catchy "Body" covers basically the same psychic turf, but from a slightly different vantage. Nguyen expresses the song's core ambivalence by alternating between a sexy, growling whisper and angry, plaintive shouts.

The Portland Cello Project are opening for Thao on their first national tour. Their second album (also on Kill Rock Stars) features Nguyen's vocals on four of the 12 tracks, including versions of her compositions "Geography" and "Beat (Health, Life, & Fire)" from her previous album, We Brave Bee Stings And All.

Jokingly called PCP by adoring fans, Portland Cello Project grew organically out of rock and bluegrass jam sessions among the city’s classically trained cellists. Founder Douglas Jenkins organized gigs of as many as 16 cellists on stage at once, playing classical repertoire as well as pop covers, and conceived of the band as a kind of studio-ready backing orchestra for rockers. Jenkins says the ideal number of cellists for harmonic purposes is about eight, but only four band-members are making the trip.

Jenkins talked about the challenges of rolling up to mid-sized rock clubs with four cellos in tow. Not every soundboard operator is up to the task.

"In Portland, everyone knows how to EQ for the cello at this point," he said. “But out here in the Midwest, it’s been hit or miss."

It may not be as arty as Portland, but D.C. is home to more than its share of rock cellists, so expect on the Black Cat to do a more than serviceable job of mixing and amplifying PCP's rich, warm harmonies.

Thao & the Get Down Stay Down perform tonight at the Black Cat, along with openers Portland Cello Project and David Shultz. $15, 9 p.m.

Some of the changes include an earlier closing time of 1 p.m. (instead of 4 p.m.) for this Saturday's clinics, the cancellation of two clinics on Tuesday (at Coolidge High School and McKinley Technology High School) as well as the Nov. 14 clinic at Wilson High School. You can find an updated schedule of the District's clinics at flu.dc.gov.

As more vaccines are shifted to family physicians and community health centers over the next couple of weeks, DOH says residents should call their health care providers to see if they can get the vaccine from them. The date by which the vaccine is expected to arrive at pharmacies has also been pushed back, until after the week of November 23.

"Music is to me is not just a source of entertainment, it is also a source of enlightenment," said Kher, who performs next Tuesday at the Lisner Auditorium. "Music is a form of nature and a form of pure emotion within every soul."

Kher's beliefs and passion are rooted in Sufism, the ancient and mystical form of Islam that gave rise to Rumi, and other poets who believed that artistic expression is a path to enlightenment and salvation. Kher's father was a folk singer, and Kher himself began singing at age 5. While growing up in India, the popular taste became increasingly westernized, but it was traditional Sufi music that inspired Kher.

"I didn't know who M.J. was until 2001," said the 36-year old singer.

That same year, Kher's passion for music led him to Mumbai, where he struggled initially as a musician, unable to fit into the mainstream. As it turns out, his provincial background ended up reaping huge dividends. He credits his "unadulterated and uninfluenced" sound for landing him session work, singing for Bollywood musicals. These songs became hits, and by 2004, Kher was topping the charts in India.

"From the beginning, I have tried to do something that was unique, new and rare," Kher said. "People cannot get bored easily with my style of work."

Kher became well known throughout the subcontinent, but even with that success, he had other ambitions. Always knowing he would form a band, the time came when he encountered brothers Paresh and Naresh Kamath. The trio assembled a group of musicians and formed Kailasa, with Kher acting as the principal lyricist, and the siblings in charge of the music.

On the U.S. leg of this tour, the band is featuring a special guest. Percussionist Karsh Kale has carved out an impressive career by infusing electronica with South Asian influences. He paid a visit to the District last year, and will join Kailasa on Tuesday.

The band is playing in support of Yatra (Nomadic Souls), Kailasa's first international release. The songs are mostly original, with a mix of new compositions and rearrangements of previously recorded material.

"They are romantic songs," said Kher. "The inspiration is that every soul on this planet is on a journey for love in its purest form."

Named for a Himalayan mountain that holds major significance in several South Asian religions, Kailasa's sound is not at all what one expects. While Kher sings lyrics in Urdu or Hindi using classical forms, the ensemble has a very modern feel. The songs have religious connotations, but do not proselytize any one philosophy. Traditional instruments add color, but the music is built on a guitar/bass/drums foundation. Take away the vocals, and Kailasa could pass for a global dance band.

"It's an international sound with traditional poetry," Kher explained. "People believe that religious and spiritural music is for old people, we are trying to break that myth."

The Washington Performing Arts Society presents Kailash Kher and Kailasa at The George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium on Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25-$45 + service charges.

Rhee Gets Engaged: It looks like D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is engaged to her covert West coast boyfriend, Sacramento mayor and former NBA star Kevin Johnson, reports the Post's Reliable Source. (For Johnson it's a slam dunk, for Rhee an A+. Hey-o!) No date has been set for the wedding, and neither seems to be ready to give up their day jobs just yet.

Graham Faces Second Challenger: The Examiner is reporting that Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), already facing questions over his role in the developing taxicab corruption scandal, may now be facing two people in next year's fight for his seat. ANC Commissioner Bryan Weaver announced that he was forming an exploratory committee earlier this week, and now former Board of Education member Jeff Smith has similarly thrown his hat into the ring.

Lanier Becomes Literary Inspiration: D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier may have served as the inspiration for two characters in a recently released fictional crime thriller, writes WTOP. David Baldacci's latest book, "True Blue," features a fictional D.C. Police Chief Beth Perry, who owns a blind dog. Lanier owns five. The similarities also extend to Perry's sister Mason. While writing the book, Baldacci rode along with D.C. police and interviewed Lanier, likely prompting ideas that became his characters.

O'Malley's Popularity Drops: Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley is losing support amongst voters, reports the Examiner, but he'd still beat former Republican Gov. Bob Ehrlich in a head-to-head contest.

Briefly Noted: Same-sex marriage debate may have prompted Georgetown assaults ... Did you hear about that tea party by the Capitol? Yeah, it's really a "tea party" when you're there to see your representatives ... Metro to fight wage increases ... MoCo fixes traffic light glitch.

This Day in DCist: On this day in 2008, we wondered where Sasha and Malia would go to school and how the new Senate would vote on D.C. voting rights. In 2007, the D.C. DMV announced plans to install SmarTrip chips in driver's licenses. By 2008. Yeah, like that ever happened.

• The Associated Press has the best information we've seen coming out of Fort Hood. An officer who's been identified as Army Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan allegedly opened fire at this military base, leaving 12 people dead and 31 wounded. Authorities killed the gunman and apprehended two other soldiers in what appears to be the worst mass shooting ever to occur at a U.S. military base.
• The biological father of one of the adopted daughters of Renee Bowman, the woman accused of murdering the girls and placing them in a freezer, has filed a $75 million wrongful death lawsuit against the District of Columbia.
• Frozen Tropics updates on the Martini Lounge stabbing and subsequent temporary license suspension.
• Bread for the City shares the strange story of how they ended up with 1,000 donated coconuts thanks to some disgruntled Florida residents who wanted to send the U.S. Postal Service a message.
• Greater Greater Washington keeps on the SmartBenefits changes confusion, and finds a basic failure to communicate.
• TPMDC has all the coverage you could possibly want (and then some) on today's tea party protests at the Capitol.

Yet the surfing fun times never surfaced in the San Francisco two-piece's set at the Cat. Instead, Christopher Owens and J.R. White played a perfectly morose set -- a sort of surf-gaze version of their infectiously melodic 2009 full length, Album. Only one single, "Lust for Life," seemed to rise to the tempo set by Girls's recording. Every other number dragged. In part, the cool tempo was a feature, not a bug: The band employed a huge snare drum sound, the kind that would be right at home on a spacey dub record. The spare rhythm-and-bass section served the recording well, but more activity might have moved the live versions along.

Owens's voice is the standout feature to Girls, and Girls sounds like Buddy Holly on a West Coast vision quest as a result. At the Black Cat, though, Owens sounded more like Lil' Wayne covering Mazzy Star. He didn't disappoint live, exactly, but the slower, dubbier sound left him straining to support notes that had no business being so long.

The set by Girls dragged, but the band's approach to rock – melodies as crisp as Peter Bjorn and John but with fuzzed and frayed edges – still makes for an artful performance. Opening act Real Estate suffered from the same surf slowdown, yet brought with them none of Girls's redeeming features. In fact, Real Estate hardly brought verses. Over several meandering numbers, the song only changed because vocals appeared – and disappeared as abruptly.

Style revivals like surf-punk are easy to pull off... on paper. The surf-gaze angle is more novel, if less invigorating. What it tells is that the carefree summer guitar sound isn't as easy as it's supposed to sound.

Since last week, Brown's office hasn't really seemed sure what the council member wants. In an October 30 press release, Brown requested that the D.C. Inspector General and D.C. Auditor formally investigate the contracts. Not 30 minutes later, he rescinded that request, saying that he was happy with information he was getting at a hearing. Then today, Brown reissued his request that an investigation occur. We're hoping not to get another announcement, this time re-rescinding the original request, because Brown is probably on to something -- an independent investigation of the contracts and how they were awarded is needed.

In related news, Interim Department of Parks and Recreation Director Ximena Hartsock did not appear before the Council today for a hearing on the contracts (the City Paper's Mike DeBonis tweeted most of it), leading Council member Harry Thomas, Jr. (D-Ward 5) to announce he is issuing a subpoena for Hartsock, demanding that she appear on Nov. 16. (Or did he? No, he actually did. No fumbling on this one.) Not that we think it was a wise choice for Hartsock not to show, but given how well things went for her the last time she showed up in front of the council, we kind of understand.

Michelle Williams and Gael García Bernal in Lukas Moodysson's 'Mammoth'.

Tonight is the kickoff of the AFI and the European Commission Delegation's annual European Union Film Showcase. The festival, now in its 22nd year, collects some of the best European film from the previous year's festival circuit, often screening some of the biggest and best foreign films of the year before they get theatrical distribution, which makes it a great opportunity to get a sneak peek at these films before they are released in the U.S. This year's festival is no exception, with 39 films from 24 countries in the lineup.

Some highlights: Lukas Moodysson's Mammoth kicks the festival off tonight with the acclaimed Swedish director's first English language film, a commentary on globalization starring Gael García Bernal and Michelle Williams. In one of the festival's three Centerpiece positions is a documentary by Serge Bromberg about one of the most talked about unfinished films ever made, Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno. Another centerpiece is Niels Arden Oplev's adaptation of Stieg Larsson's novel The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. The last spot is occupied by Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, the film that he was working on with Heath Ledger at the time of Ledger's death. Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell all stepped in to play Ledger's role, after Gilliam rewrote it to accommodate a shape-shifting hero. And, on closing night, it's Jean-Marc Vallée's British royalty period piece in which Emily Blunt plays The Young Victoria

View the trailer for Mammoth, tonight's opening night film.
Opens tonight and runs through November 24 at the AFI. See the full festival schedule for details.

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Found Footage Film Festival

Remember that corporate training video during which you and your coworkers tried desperately not to laugh? The comically bad public access performer you happened upon while flipping channels late one night? Founded in 2004 by a writer for The Onion and a producer on The Late Show with David Letterman, the Found Footage Film Festival celebrates this kind of unintentionally hilarious video, which they discovered can be found in large quantities for low cost at flea markets, garage sales, and thrift stores across America. They've developed their clip collection into a touring show, with themselves as emcees and commentators, that sounds a little like a live version of America's Funniest Home Videos if that show had ever been, you know, funny.

View an example of the kind of footage they'll be screening.
Saturday at 7:15 p.m. at the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. $10.

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Visual Acoustics

Photographer Julius Schulman passed away this past summer at the age of 98. Throughout his lengthy career, he displayed an unmatched talent for shooting buildings to showcase them in their best possible light. His work played a major role in making modernist architecture familiar to and aesthetically accessible for mainstream America. Eric Bricker's film, narrated by Dustin Hoffman, is both a biography and a survey of Schulman's career, and is only playing very briefly here in D.C.

View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow, for one week only, at E Street.

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South Asian Literary and Theater Arts Festival

This festival brings together authors, theater professionals and filmmakers together for a one day celebration of South Asian art. The film component of this year's event includes screenings of two films. Harishchandra's Factory is a new Indian film about the birth of that country's now hugely prolific film industry in the early 20th century. The other, The Forgotten Woman, takes as its inspiration the 2006 film Water, which was a fictionalized look at the practice in India of families abandoning women after their husbands die, cutting all ties with them and even taking away their children. The Forgotten Women is a documentary treatment of the same subject, looking at the stories of real women who have been turned out on the streets of India.

View the trailers for The Forgotten Woman and Harishchandra's Factory.
The festival is this Saturday at the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., with a number of events over the course of the day including screenings of these two films.

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The Men Who Stare at Goats

By early November, Oscar season should normally be in full swing, with 8-9 weeks of prestige releases to get through before the new year. It's odd, then, that this week's wide releases encompass one kiddie Christmas flick, two horror/thrillers (one I've seen — take my advice and stay far away; the advance reviews for the other seem to indicate that Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly's downward spiral has no end), and this oddball comedy. The book on which The Men Who Stare at Goats is based is a non-fiction examination of over three decades of the U.S. Army's dabbling in paranormal phenomena and psychological warfare techniques, right up to the present day. Director Grant Heslov pulls together an all-star cast, including George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, and Kevin Spacey for a comedic take on the story of a reporter (McGregor) who stumbles upon one such psychic power experimentation operation.

View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at a number of theaters throughout the area.

TransportAzumah's sorry looking web site doesn't instill a lot of confidence, but given that cheapo bus giants Bolt and Mega, not to mention DC2NY or Washington Deluxe, seem to think that Washingtonians only want to travel to New York and nowhere else, we're guessing many of our readers will want to give Azumah a shot.

Here's what Azumah says to expect: D.C. to Philly and D.C. to Boston routes will start on Friday, November 20, while D.C. to Wilmington service starts on Tuesday, November 24. On Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, service to Philadelphia will operate hourly, while Boston and Wilmington buses will leave four times a day. TransportAzumah plans to service D.C. at a stop near Union Station.

Most fares will be in the $20 range, which isn't the cheapest option out there, but it's roughly in line with the competition. Azumah also says that promotional fares starting at $2 can also be had by using the booking code "CRAZYFARES".

As for how TransportAzumah's features stack up to the competition (between D.C. and Philly, that's only New Century and Apex), they offer guaranteed seats with advance purchase, but no power outlets or wireless internet, at least at the beginning. Azumah did say that he hopes to have wifi installed sometime in 2010.

There’s a huge star at the center of the Sydney Theatre Company’s much-hyped, Liv Ullman-directed, wholly satisfying new staging of A Streetcar Named Desire, which sold out its Kennedy Center run before the curtain rose on the first preview. I speak, of course, of the dramatist Tennessee Williams.

That’s no slight on Cate Blanchett, who fronts, fights, twirls and finally, crawls her way through a towering, plaintive gut-punch of a performance as Blanche DuBois, the cracked Southern belle at the center of Williams's oft-revived 1947 Pulitzer-winning war of wills. (She’s also Sydney Theatre’s co-artistic director, with her husband.) Though famous for film roles from Queen Elizabeth to Katherine Hepburn to Bob Dylan, the 40-year-old Blanchett’s almost-as-eclectic stage résumé reaches back to the early 1990s. Here she proves again that the authority and vulnerability she intimates onscreen is no camera trick. You'd hike for 10 hours of screen time through a hostile landscape of orcs and dragons to toss a magical ring into a volcano if she told you to.

Still, though: The play's the thing.

Streetcar is part of the cultural atmosphere. People who never see theater can quote it. The portrayal of Blanche most remembered is either Vivien Leigh's, from the 1951 movie, or Marge Simpson's. Chiseling out a fully committed, persuasive version of a character and a play as referenced and parodied as this can't be easy. It's an irritating distraction when the house applauds Blanchett's mere arrival on stage, but she doesn't take long to earn the approbation she's advanced.

Nor is it faint praise to say that even the lesser aspects of this production simply work. Joel Edgerton is almost eerily Marlon Brando-like as Stanley Kowalski, the virile, volatile husband of Blanche's sister, Stellaaaaaaaaaaaaa! He's never unconvincing, though this is a role where the director might have pushed for something farther afield of Brando's iconic take in the original Broadway production and film, both directed by McCarthy-era name-namer Elia Kazan.

Indeed, recruiting Ullman — the Norwegian star of nine of Ingmar Bergman's psychodramas before she became a filmmaker herself — to steer this ship would seem to portend a cooler, more self-aware, more European reading of this most American of dramas. For most of the evening, it doesn't. Despite some audacious tinkering at the end, when those sober-faced strangers arrive to show Blanche a final kindness, this is the Streetcar you remember — even if you've never seen it before. That turns out to be a glorious thing.

Robin McLeavy deserves singling out for her sturdy, sensitive performance as Stella. Less flashy a role than that of Blanche or Stanley, it's equally critical to Williams's tragic design. It could be a thankless part, but McLeavy is strong and memorable.

Blanche, in Williams's most elegant expression of her tragedy, won't let Stanley's pal Harold (Tim Richards), who's fallen hard for her, see her in the light. She's afraid he'll see she's been fibbing about her age, and that's not the half of it. But Blanchett shows us something remarkable when the lights go down, instantly casting off Blanche's weary posture to glide through the scene changes with a dancer's grace. In those brief moments of shadow, we see Blanche as she wants desperately to see herself: Young and innocent, free of pain or a past or the humbling appetites of her tired body.

A Streetcar Named Desire (about three hours, including one intermission) is at the Kennedy Center's Eisenhower Theater through Nov. 21. The run is sold out, but maybe you know a guy who knows a guy.

MUSIC: Kurt Vile will be at the Black Cat's Backstage tonight with his full band, The Violators. D.C.'s own Benjy Ferree opens. 8:30 p.m., $10 in advance, $12 day of show.

Or head to Asylum for the return their free "Cakes & Kisses" hip-hop open mic night, featuring The Five One, Green Tea, Madam Madon, Laelo Hood and DJ Jav, with free cake and Hershey's kisses for all. 9 p.m.

TALK: The Marian Koshland Science Museum hosts Dan Goods, the "Visual Strategist" at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Kevin Finneran, Editor-in-Chief of Issues in Science and Technology, tonight to discuss the interface between data and art. A pre-discussion happy hour runs from 6 - 7 p.m. with a $5 cover, with the talk starting at 6:45 p.m. for an additional $5.

JAZZ: Nicholas Payton, a veteran trumpeter in the tradition of Bolden, Armstrong, and Marsalis, performs at Blues Alley tonight. Tickets to the 8 and 10 p.m. sets are $30 + $12.50 minimum/surcharge.

Openers the Heartless Bastards are influenced by a similar era of rock music, but theirs is more southern garage rock. None of their songs are quite as bold as Wolfmother's, or as complicated. The pace is slow with very few tracks topping a hundred beats per minute. Chord changes come at a premium. The result is a set of slow and forlorn trudgers like "The Mountain," which is the best of the bunch. Singer Erika Wennerstrom delivers her low throaty vocals with pomp and irreverence at the same time. She looked the part of a chick rocker last night in her blue tank top that accentuated her cut arms, blonde bangs shielding her eyes. Through their set the crowd grew; a full club became a packed club.

A roadie placed a lei on frontman Andrew Stockdale's mic as the house lights grew dim and then died to rising cheers from the crowd. Everything was orange and red and yellow as Wolfmother, at least two massive 'fros among them, took the stage. They launched in to "Dimension," the first track off their eponymous 2005 debut. A few fists with pointer and pinkie extended shot up from the crowd in approval. A small mosh pit area began to form about five feet from the stage--though the movement in the pit was more like friendly jostling than moshing. They finished the song and Stockdale moved the lei to a drum mic stand with no explanation. He has a powerful Ozzy-like voice which he cakes with reverb. The sound was big but not as loud as I expected it to be. "Woman," another cut from their debut, was a crowd-pleaser. They finished with a blazing version of "Joker and The Thief." In general, the crowd seemed much more enthralled with the older material than the new; which is to be expected since their new album is a little more than a week old.

At one point last night, huddled with the sold out crowd at 930 Club, I was positive Wolfmother were covering "Start Me Up," by The Stones. But no, it was a track off their new album Cosmic Egg called "White Feather." It wasn't a bad song at all, just extremely derivative. No listener wants a concert experience to confound and tease them to ask, "What the hell other song does this sound like?" for a full hour. But limitations of the source material aside, it was a good (not great) rock 'n' rock show.

This is a show where the audience relocates from separate rooms to a central location, from the complex lobby to the main theater. All the movement helps contribute to the chaos in which the show is set – in East Germany, just after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. It's also, frankly, a lot of fun to move from space to space, wondering what setting Shannon Scrofano has in store for us next (a tightrope bridge suspended across an abyss? A catwalk apartment?). The variety is key in a 2.5+ hour play with moments of pretentious meandering.

Full Circle is most focused on what's going to happen to the baby of ousted political leader Erich Honecker (a wheezing, sputtering, committed performance from Sarah Marshall) and his mistress (Kate Eastwood Norris, dizzy but enraged) when it ends up in the hands of a self-absorbed socialite and a young would-be revolutionary. The journey puts the pair at the center of the action, and the two performers are fine company – Naomi Jacobson is poised, regal and airy as high-society Pamela, while Jessica Frances Dukes is heartbreaking with a side of crazy as her instant "au pair," Dulle Griet.

The two encounter some strange roadblocks and saviors along the way, including the show's most comical couple, Dulle Griet's white trash brother and his wife (Marshall and Norris again). Marshall takes great relish in her drag roles, and is particularly winning as the gruff brother, while Norris gets the chance to have some frenetic fun with her star-struck character, making the most of entertaining guests in the bizarrely suspended apartment (she laments how they really should get some clips for those chairs – for the guests!).

But even as the show delights with these little vignettes (a raucous wedding, a goofy chef-sung parody of "Puttin on the Ritz"), there's still the sinking suspicion that it isn't adding up to something cohesive. The play's closing scene, in a Brecht-inspired Chalk Circle (everyone's Brechtian around town lately), does little to ease these suspicions. A theater artistic director's (Woolly's own Howard Shalwitz, meta-cast) self-justifying and self-condeming monologue drags, and randomly thrown-in plot twists (look! a proposal!) don't contribute to any great understanding of what writer Charles L. Mee hopes to accomplish. Still, at least we had the chance to wander – much of what the audience stumbles on is worth a look.

Full Circle runs through Nov. 29 at Woolly Mammoth Theatre. Tickets are available online.

Cycle the Ghost Round's photo of what appears to be a 1949 Chevy Fleetline is a fall classic. A quiet Georgetown street, leaves blanketing the car, and a crisp autumn day with blue skies and fluffy clouds; just idyllic.

But in some photography circles, this picture is controversial. No, it's not the subject or the composition, but the use of a technique called high dynamic range (HDR) imagery. Most cameras don't have the ability to see as well as the human eye, and where we can look at a brightly lit scene and still make out details in the shadows, most cameras can only capture one side or the other of this extreme. Photographers can compensate for this by taking three or more exposures that capture the full range of luminance in a scene and combining them to produce a photo that more closely mimics what we can see in the real world.

There is no getting around the fact that HDR is often used in a ham-fisted, amateur way. But so are other, much less controversial, photo techniques and tools. A quick wander around our favorite photo sharing site will show the myriad misuses of flash, dodging, burning, saturation, and exposure control, to name but a few. The bias against new "electronic darkroom" techniques doesn't help HDR's case in the face of misuse by so many.

Today's photo, though, makes you look twice when you notice it's an HDR image. The tone mapping and dynamic range are natural, not amped up to the point where your eyes start begging you for relief. The typical hard edges between dark and light areas are no where to be seen, thankfully. This is the sort of image that serious HDR users should be striving to create, and photographers should be teaching themselves this technique to add to the skills in their digital tool box. (EXIF)

Newark's Mayor Cory Booker, who is often compared to Fenty, has done his share too, having busted up not one, but two crimes since coming to office. And who could forget former D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams' post-mayoral package-stealing bandit foiling?

Enough with the crime bills and controversial police initiatives, Mayor Fenty. Get on your bike and do something about crime -- with your own two hands!

Author Tania James is one of the young artists taking part in this year's SALTAF, where she will discuss her debut novel, Atlas of Unknowns. Born in Chicago and raised in Louisville, her studies include a degree from Harvard, where James, then an aspiring filmmaker, majored in Visual and Environmental Studies. But having caught the writing bug, she went on to earn an M.F.A. in fiction from Columbia University in 2006. After spending a couple more years writing in the Big Apple, where her work appeared in The New York Times, One Story magazine, and other publications, James relocated to the District.

Atlas of Unknowns tells the parallel story of two sisters who, after the death of their mother, are raised by their father in Kerala, the southern Indian state where the author's family roots lie. One sister, Anju, wins a scholarship to study in America, where she finds herself in elite and deceptive company. The other sister, Linno, remains in India, and uses her artistic talents to forge her own path. When Anju disappears, Linno goes in search of her sister. How they reconnect is a tale woven with themes of sisterhood, family, and self-discovery.

James took some time to sit down with DCist to discuss her craft and her new book.

What were you trying to achieve, artistically, when you set out writing Atlas of the Unknowns?

When I started I didn't really have in mind a longer work. I had only written short stories. I kind of approached it the way I approached short stories, which is that I was just writing about characters that somehow interested me. And then as I got into it, 20 pages in or so, it just seemed to open up in a way that felt like it had a broad scope. It felt like it had a family at its heart, and certain family dynamics were coming to light. It actually took me a long time to admit it was a novel. It was "the thing" on my computer for a long time just because it seemed like an intimidating thing to think of it as a long work.

So if it didn't start out as a novel, what was the process like? Did you just have the characters in mind and they took you on their journey?

I think that what you just said is really true. At some point, when the book is working is when the characters are sort of leading you in unexpected directions. But on the other hand, the process of writing for me is that I never go through and do a whole draft at once and then go back and revise the thing as a whole. I have a process of gradual digging, and so I'll write 20 pages and I'll go back over those 20 pages over and over. Each time I'm revising, I'm understanding the characters a bit more. I don't feel that I know my characters inside and out at any point in the writing process. Even now, when people ask me what happens at the end, after the book ends, I have no idea.

You've said in past interviews that there's no one-to-one correlation between your biography and the biography of these characters, but then where did the characters come from? Did you have experiences that you wanted to relate and you built characters around them?

The easy answer is that plot-wise, things that happened to them never happened to me. But people I know read the book all the time and are like,"I remember this thing," and "I said this thing." You know, there are so many drafts that I just didn't even remember where I actually stole things from. I don't know, I think character is a combination of things you have in mind, and then you put them through certain conflicts and experiences. That's how a character grows and becomes a more rounded entity than the handful of traits you thought they had from the beginning.

So why this book, and why now? What was it about your background and where you are at this point in your life that made it possible to write this book?

That's a good question. When I started writing the book, I was towards the end of a really long editing job on a documentary. I'm sure the timing of that had something to do with the second half of my novel, certainly, because it becomes a story of "who has the right to tell your story" and taking control of your life. It's hard to look back and try to psychoanalyze the self I was then, but I think that certain things came up when I was working on this documentary. I was a lot about how do you tell someone else's story, and how much right do they have, what are the ethics of these things. Then on sort of a larger, maybe less film oriented way, I was thinking about people taking control of their lives, and people who don't feel that they have a lot of control over their lives in the beginning, but they might be taking some agency in their lives later on.

So is their anything I've missed, anything that might guide a reader to your book?

Well, I have to say that the cover is rather attractive, and whoever said, "don't judge a book by its cover," was probably an author with a crappy cover. But I can't take credit for that, so all I can say is that I wrote this book, primarily, to entertain myself. I began with an image, a small story told to me by my father, and it never let me go until I wrote it down in the first five pages. Of course, that image led to others and others until what I had was a sprawling saga with a life of its own, moving across characters, countries, and decades. What else might persuade a potential reader? It's an excellent book. Just ask an unbiased source, i.e. my mom.

So what do you think of D.C.?

I just moved here actually, and I feel like it works for me right now. Book publicity never ends, it feels like, but I just started writing my second book, and it feels really nice to be in a new place where I actually don't really know that many people. It's nice to be writing in a place that's not entirely familiar.

Can you tell us anything about the next book?

Well, the next book is a collection of stories. I don't know when it'll come out, but they're kind of all over the map, literally.

The South Asian Literary and Theater Arts Festival takes place on Saturday, Nov. 7, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Baird Auditorium at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, located at 10th Street and Constitution Ave. NW.

Today we've finally received confirmation that D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, himself an avid cyclist, has indeed been involved in courting the Giro to come to D.C.

"It's my understanding that there have been talks, but nothing is final," Fenty spokesperson Mafara Hobson told us today.

The devil is surely in the details, and talks don't mean that we'll definitely be seeing the Giro on the District's streets. But that Fenty wants it and the race organizers seem interested is exciting news for anyone who can't afford to jet over to Europe to watch the pros race.

The first months of 2009 saw a flurry of activity as the First Family took to getting to know the place they would call home for the next four years. Before even being inaugurated, President Obama joined Mayor Adrian Fenty for a chili dog at D.C. mainstay Ben's Chili Bowl and played basketball at the Marie Reed Community Learning Center in Adams Morgan. Along with First Lady Michelle Obama, they visited a local church as they sought a place of worship (which, as far as we know, they still haven't found) and debated what school their daughters would attend.

After the inauguration, the Obamas' outreach to the District continued. A number of residents sat with the First Lady during his first address to Congress, and the Obamas surprised second graders with a visit to their charter school. Michelle Obama planted an organic vegetable garden at the White House with the aid of students from Mt. Pleasant's Bancroft Elementary, and the White House created an internship program for D.C. high school students. President Obama even tried to have a normal guy night out at a Wizards game and continued to sample local fare with a visit to Ray's Hell Burger and Five Guys.

On at least one major local issue, though, President Obama has fallen short -- D.C. voting rights. When Mayor Fenty first endorsed Obama, the then-candidate all but promised statehood for the District. But since he's been in office, not only has Obama not said much of anything about the D.C. House Voting Rights Act, he hasn't even gotten around to putting "Taxation Without Representation" license plates on the presidential limo. In a mid-summer briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs again stressed that Obama favored statehood for the District, but gave no indication of how or when the president would address that. Of course, there is only so much President Obama can do for our cause, but even a nod, a wink and a supportive statement would be helpful.

All told, the relationship between the First Family and the District over the last year has been a positive one, certainly at least compared to their predecessors, who rarely left the White House. (To be fair, Laura Bush was a supporter of D.C. public libraries, but that was pretty much it.) Though we can't expect them to dine out in a local restaurant every week, it has been a refreshing change to have a First Family that recognizes that a city exists beyond the federal government that occupies it.

"Fado is about expressing emotions and the deepest feelings of the human being," Mariza told DCist through a translator. "Each person does have [their] own sensibility, of course, but music does have the power to join people."

Known for its haunting melodies and melodrama, fado expresses emotions in a way that transcends language and explores shared human experience.

"It crosses boundaries," said Mariza. "I have been experiencing this, as a lot of the audiences of my shows don't speak Portuguese but are able to understand the love or the pain of a poem."

The music is all the more powerful when delivered by a singer like Mariza, whose rich voice and emotive delivery capture the nuance of every phrase and lyric. Add her striking appearance, a long slender frame, draped in black, with her trademark short blonde hair, she leaves a strong impression.

Mariza is appearing this weekend in support of her 2008 release, Terra, on a tour that extends through 2010. The album is very much in keeping with the conventions of fado, but is also a clear attempt to increase Mariza's commercial appeal. Featuring guest appearances by Chucho Valdez, Ivan Lins, and others, Terra subtly tries to bridge the gap between fado, Latin jazz, and traditional jazz. The album's last track is even an interpretation of the standard "Smile," on which Mariza sings in English.

"This record is the result of eight years of performing all over the world," Mariza explained. "Naturally playing in different countries and experiencing different cultures have led me to new perspectives of feeling and experimenting [with] music."

Sunday's concert will reflect this expanded palette, as piano, trumpet, and drumkit will augment the traditional Portuguese instrumentation of portuguese guitar, acoustic guitar, and bass. But while Mariza has performed with the likes of Sting and Lenny Kravitz, she remains true to her style, and has no plans to move beyond it.

"The audience will experience a perspective of a different culture," said Mariza. "Fado can be a good portrait of the culture I come from."

Mariza will perform at the George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium on Sunday, Nov. 8, at 7 p.m. Tickets are $25-$50/$15 for students and alumni.

Just brutally sad.

Metro Faces Large Bill to Prevent More Outages: WMATA managed to get the rest of its electronic services back up and running before the evening rush hour on Wednesday, but what needs to be done to prevent something like this from happening again? Lena Sun follows up on this question in the Post, finding that Metro will need $14 million to replace two aging power units, one of which was responsible for yesterday's outage and cannot be repaired. The second unit in question is just as old and is responsible for supplying power to the computers that operate the rail system. Here's the real talk: 'An interim fix is in place, but "there is anxiety" about it, Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said. "There are no other options at this moment."'

Does McDonnell Have a Mandate? Virginia Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell (R) won Tuesday's election by a whopping 17 points over opponent Creigh Deeds, along with helping to usher in a Republican sweep of the state's highest offices. So does that mean he's planning on operating as though he's been handed a mandate? Pretending for a moment that Virginia's single-term governor has much power to begin with, that question is receiving some mixed coverage. The Washington Post and the Associated Press attend the same press conference and reach opposite conclusions: the Post describes McDonnell as pledging to steer toward the center, while the AP (via the WashTimes) writes that McDonnell will be relying on a perceived mandate to transform his campaign proposals into law.

Briefly Noted: Pedestrian struck by car in Southwest ... Wanted D.C. man arrested after standoff with police in Northeast ... Montgomery County police officer fatally strikes a pedestrian ... Two tractor trailers collide on 1-495 ... Man fatally burned in Md. gas station fire ... NFL player gives $2 million to the University of Md. ... Plane landing at Dulles damages wing, scaring passengers.

This Day in DCist: Last year, District residents were partying in the streets until the wee hours of the morning after Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States.

Devils 3, Capitals 2: Two power play goals from New Jersey's Niclas Bergfors was enough to bury the Ovechkin-less Capitals, who had a late rally fall short on the road in Newark. Tomas Fleischmann supplied hope with time running low, scoring on a quick shot with 1:37 left in the game -- but Washington's lack of discipline (four third period penalties compared to none for New Jersey) came at too high of a price. Not surprisingly, Alexander Semin was offender number one, with six minutes in the box himself for three different sins. (With Ovechkin gone, Semin's well-known tendencies to take needless trips to the box really needs to disappear.) On the bright side, Tyler Sloan -- who made the move from defense to forward in Ovechkin's absence -- scored the game's opening goal, his first of the season.

• If you're commuting by car to Montgomery County this evening, you might want to come up with some other plan, or wait until much later. The county's traffic lights still aren't timed right after a malfunction this morning.
• Area corporate executive denied first class seating on United Airlines because he was wearing a track suit. WTTG/FOX5 investigates!
• Jean Cryor, commissioner of the Montgomery County Planning Board, has died at the age of 70, AP reports.
• The latest on the H1N1 epidemic: yes, your pets can get it too, reminds WaPo's The Checkup blog.
• The Hill is Home sits down with Ward 6's Tommy Wells to talk youth crime.
• Why.i.hate.dc scolds Jim Graham for being clueless on the 15th Street contraflow bike lane project.
• Roll Call reports that Capitol Police temporarily shut down Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) office Wednesday due to a suspicious letter that turned out to have been written by former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop.

Travis are in a reflective mood, too, but they're taking a different route. Founded in Glasgow in the early 1990s, they were one of the better U.K. trad-rock outfits to arise in Oasis’s mid-90s wake. They’re hardly commercial rivals (or contemporaries) of classic-album-revivalists Bruce Springsteen or The Pixies, but they've more hummable, singalong-enabled tunes to their credit than you probably remember, if you remember them at all.

At a sold-out Jammin' Java last night, the group’s melodic half — that’d be frontman/songwriter Fran Healy and guitarist Andy Dunlop — day-tripped chronologically through a decade-and-a-half of their catalog, beginning with “20” — the oldest song Healy will own to having written — and working up to "Holiday" from this year. There isn't a lot of variety in the Travis matrix, but their sparkly mid-tempo balladry remains as ideally suited to unvarnished arrangements in small rooms as it was to mixtapes for would-be girlfriends in the years just before cassettes disappeared.

The charismatic Healy explicated at length on the origin of each song, sometimes with visual aids courtesy of iPhoto. If a slide of the nuclear power station outside the window of the room where he wrote “All I Wanna Do Is Rock” in the summer of '95 doesn't really illuminate the tune, it's still a novel variation on the chatty, intimate acoustic tours that Springsteen and ElvisCostello, among others, have staged at various points in their long careers.

Though necessarily less kinetic than gigs featuring a rhythm section, these sorts of evenings offer both artist and audience a chance to give the songbook a closer inspection, and perhaps to a embrace a tune that never connected in a more formal arrangement. And while a great song never requires explanation, it can't be reduced by one, either. After all, ask someone to buy a second album from you, and you're effectively selling your biography. That Travis's "Sing" was at first called -- wait for it -- "Swing" is less a cocktail story, maybe, than the old saw that Paul Fucking McCartney (as Healy captioned the ex-Beatle in his slideshow) sang "Ham and Eggs" to the melody of "Yesterday" before he hit upon the lyric we all know. But it's still fun to hear an artist of Healy's skill so eager to share how the sausage is made.

By the time the pair wrapped up their set with a trio of audience requests, they’d been on for more than two-and-a-half hours. Afterward, you could pick up the tour's "Official Bootleg" CD for $10, capturing key songs and anecdotes from earlier dates on the itinerary. Nostalgia, it turns out, is also sometimes a bargain.

The festival organizers have focused a lot of the main events in seven locations, including five in Georgetown (FotoWeek Central) as well the 1515 14th Street NW building and Pepco's Edison Place Gallery in Chinatown. In addition to these featured events, most of the city's galleries will be holding FotoWeek exhibits and lectures as well, including Honfleur, Hamiltonian, Studio, Zenith, the Corcoran, and pretty much every other gallery in town. Be sure to register online for quick entry to events and exhibits.

>> The FotoWeek opening reception and launch party is Friday beginning at 6:30 p.m. It costs just $15 online and $20 at the door, and will feature light food and cocktails, as well as this year's award winners and a number of Pulitzer Prize winning and other heavyweight photographers. Entrance will include the four featured exhibit spaces in Georgetown from 3306 to 3338 M Street NW. Check in first at 3338 M Street NW. Register here to get on the guest list.

>> While you're at the opening, or if you check out the Georgetown spaces any other night this weekend, you'll notice Night Gallery DC displayed on the side of 3338 M Street, where digital video of FotoWeek finalists will be projected. A similar event will take place in Crystal City (at 2250 Crystal Drive) from 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. Sunday through Tuesday.

>> Another option for Friday is U Street. Hamiltonian exhibits work from fellows Anne Chan and Michael Dax Iacovone from 7 to 9 p.m., and the Smith Farm Center for the Healing Arts shows Dulce Pinzón photography in The Real Story of the Superheroes from 6 to 8 p.m. The opening begins with an artist talk which will discuss how Pinzón's work "introduces the Mexican immigrant in New York in a satirical documentary style featuring ordinary men and women in their work environment donning superhero garb."

>> Saturday, start out in Dupont Circle or Adams Morgan in the afternoon, hitting up the Skynear store from 2 to 5 p.m. where two D.C. area photographers are featured in Zenith Gallery's Lenscape 2, or head to Studio Gallery from 4 to 6 p.m. for an opening with four photographers from New York and three from the District.

>> Then, head over to Northeast for Fixation at the new Industry Gallery on Florida Avenue. Ten Miles Square and the Pink Line Project are teaming up for their second annual event, which will present the work of nine local photographers whose works "create a narrative with a short series of images, differentiating the stereotypical image of our Nation's Capital from the people actually living inside it." Music starts at 6 p.m. with Yoko K, and continues with ayyoko confidential at 7:30 p.m., and Suspicious Package at 9 p.m. $10 suggested donation. Though not part of FotoWeek, Conner Contemporary will also have an opening downstairs with Koen Vanmechelen: Cosmopolitan Chicken Project (DC) (featuring, oh yes, live chickens).

>> Or, make your way to Fight Club from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. for an event by Broken Square Media. Magnum Photographer and Burn Magazine curator David Alan Harvey presents his picks for "freshest new talent" and exhibits some of his own works from National Geographic and Magnum.

>> On Sunday, stop by the Corcoran for the 1 p.m. lecture with Tim B. Wride titled The Sky is Falling? What’s up in Photo Land and why it’s Time to be Optimistic about Image making.

>> Or, plan to go to the Museum of American History from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. for their symposium, Experiments in 19th-Century Color Photography.

>> If you're looking for something a little less intense, the 14th Street Busboys is hosting a free program from 6 to 8 p.m. with eight local photographers, including Darrow Montgomery and Frank Day.

With so many events going on through the next week for FotoWeekDC, it's impossible to list them all here. For an exhaustive list, please visit the FotoWeek website, and see the blog for reviews and recommendations.

Oh yea, and the Berlin Wall fell twenty years ago ...
>> The world is also celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, and the Goethe Institute kicks off their events tonight, with the opening of Iconoclash! - Political Imagery from the Berlin Wall to German Unification, which runs through January 8 and documents the changing physical and emotional landscape of Berlin from the 1980s to today. The reception begins tonight at 6:30 p.m. with a panel discussion with Markus Meckel (Former Minister of Foreign Affairs for the GDR and current German Bundestag member), Richard Barkley (US GDR Ambassador in the late eighties) and Pia Bungarten of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. The evening continues with an exhibit tour and reception at 8 p.m. RSVP to 202-289-1200 ext. 169 or rsvp [at] washington.goethe.org.

>> The American University's Katzen Arts Center is featuring a related event with Life with the Berlin Wall: Virtual Reality Experience, on display through December 20.

Another sad death to report at the Smithsonian's National Zoo. Merlin, the Zoo's oldest male sloth bear, died this morning after a 48-hour illness, according to a news release. He was 28 years old.

On Monday morning, Nov. 2, he underwent a routine physical examination. Although the examination went well, his anesthetic recovery was prolonged, and he had not returned to normal by the afternoon. While under observation, veterinarians noticed that he had vomited some blood-tinged fluid.

Due to concerns with this prolonged recovery, the vomiting and his previous medical history of a gastric volvulus (“twisted stomach”) in 1994, he underwent additional evaluation and diagnostics at the National Zoo’s hospital later the same day. Based on the results of his blood work, ultrasound and radiographs, the animal care team determined he required surgery, during which they corrected a partially twisted spleen. Following the procedure, Merlin showed signs of increased wakefulness, but never fully recovered. Sequential blood work analysis suggested additional metabolic compromise, including possible circulatory shock and renal failure.

The bear was attended by staff who remained on 24-hour watch and provided intensive care continuously for two days, until he passed away this morning. A necropsy will be performed later today, but results will not be available for several weeks.

Merlin was born at the National Zoo in 1981, and sired a total of seven cubs during his life. The Zoo has two female sloth bears currently on exhibit, Hana and Khali.

Late last week, the Zoo announced the deaths of two rare scimitar-horned oryx, both of whom died shortly after having been anesthetized for separate, routine medical exams.

According to quotes allegedly made by race Director Angelo Zomegnan to Italian sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport, Mayor Adrian Fenty, himself an avid cyclist, has pushed the idea. "For some time we have had the idea of holding the Giro's start in America. But now there exists a concrete interest from the city of Washington," Zomegnan told the Gazzetta, according to CyclingNews.com.

The three grand tours – the Giro, the Tour de France and the Vuelta a Espana – often start in other countries. This year's Tour de France, for example, started in Monaco, while next year's Giro is slated to kick off in Amsterdam. The proposal for bringing Italy's biggest race to the District would likely come in 2011, and also include stages in New York and Philadelphia.

Like I said, I'm both ecstatic and skeptical. For fans of cycling, seeing a stage of a grand tour is like getting tickets to the Super Bowl – for free. But the Gazzetta article everyone is quoting is nowhere to be found online, and I'm doubtful that race organizers would want to deal with the grousing of close to 200 riders and their support staff over the eight-hour flight and six-hour time difference they'd all have to endure in the midst of one of the most physically taxing things a human can do to their body. And when we ran this by Mayor Fenty's office for confirmation, they responded, "First we've heard of it." They said they'd continue looking into it.

Once we get more solid confirmation from Fenty's office, we'll update.