Today I went out for a walk and stumbled upon this mural. I think it’s art, but it could be an advertisement. Is there really any difference? It’s in a strange place - an alley. You can’t really step back to regard it all at one time. I decided to try stitching together a panorama in Photoshop. It came out okay - well, you an judge the results for yourself.
To be more precise, this is the alley that goes behind the Whole Foods on P street. The wall belongs to a hardware store or something.
If this is a work of art, it is a parody of advertising, and I think that’s what attracted me the most. That, or the vivid colors. But, if this really is an advertisement, it engages in stealth - Guerrilla marketing at its most vivid. You should be able to see the logos if you look closely. I’ve seen that logo applied all over town, and I never bothered to figure out why. It could be an energy drink for all I know. The most cynical (yet creative) phase of advertising has bent over backwards to meet the most mocking parody.
Posted in DC-roaming, photos | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:13:00 GMT
I’m wearing my new glasses. Of course, it feels strange. My prescription didn’t change much in all the years since my last exam, but moving to a new prescription always causes a little field distortion. I feel like I’m in a slightly different universe with an even less Euclidian geometry. I had to walk around a bit downtown for a bit before I could really say that I was happy with them.
Before picking up the glasses I went to CVS for some divider tabs to put in a binder. I wound up with a cheap battery powered LED book-light. I have often wanted a book-light, and I think getting light from LEDs is a brilliant idea - since they’re not just red and green the way I always remember them. You can even get replacement light bulbs that contain an array of LEDs and use even less power than a flourescent bulb. In addition, I’ve been wanting a small notebook to keep with the espresso machine for recording ephemera regarding how much coffee I’m using, how much money I’m spending on it, and anecdotal evidence about the quality of the output.
After the glasses, I went around the corner to print some photos at Penn Camera. It wasn’t a spur of the moment decision - I mentioned it earlier today - but, all of the sudden, it seemed like a really good way to road test my glasses, looking at detail on a computer screen, then looking at the same details on a print. The prints came out fast - only 15 minutes - but I still needed to kill some time, so I took a walk around the neighborhood, meandering through the 2-block radius of the store: L St, K St, 19th, Pennsylvania Ave; H to 18th, Eye to Farragut Square, then back around to the photo shop. Along the way, I realized that the real test is to see if I could read while walking. I do that all the time - it’s important that I don’t get a headache or start vomiting while I dart my glance back and forth from the book to my surroundings.
I didn’t fall down, or vomit, or anything, but still… everything on the periphery is a bit wobbly - this makes some sense when you consider that they have to looking straight ahead during the exam. There is obviously going to be some uncertainty about the effects of a prescription away from the line of sight. I know from studying optics that they don’t bother to grind the exact shape because they couldn’t do it cheaply enough. Paraboloid lens grinding is for billion dollar space telescopes. And they mess those up too.
I was daydreaming about some way they could use a temporary lens material to simulate your glasses - something just to verify the prescription before making the real lenses. Can real lens be melted down or something? Probably not, because that would allow them to recycle your old pair.
Posted in DC-roaming, photography | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:42:00 GMT
Posted in DC-roaming, photos | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Tue, 21 Oct 2008 03:47:00 GMT
Yesterday I got up early and took a morning walk. I set out for Columbia Heights, and possibly further up to Petworth - I made it the whole way: I got as far as Grant Circle before backtracking to 13th St., Park Road, 14th St., then back home on Columbia Road. I had a few conscious objectives, a few unconscious objectives, and the completely unexpected. There was a 70 bus turning from Sherman Ave onto Harvard - they don’t usually do that - and then I wondered about the police lights up the hill on Georgia. But that’s a story for later. I’m going to tell you about…
Forensic Analysis
I was walking down 13th Street when I noticed a mysterious skid mark on the sidewalk. Somebody had burned some serious rubber. Was the stone wall supposed to look like that? - The house was only partially painted, so maybe they hadn’t finished working on the front yard, either… I had my camera in my hand, and I wanted to understand what had happened, so there was no doubt that I would wind up taking some pictures.
But the car that did this must be long gone… I traced the markings back to the pavement to find a blue car parked just so. My memory brought up a similar instance where there were skid marks and the car was displaced - a possible hit and run - The pavement also had tell-tale street cleaner brush marks - Case closed - So, I took a walk around the car to check for more evidence. Was this the car that skidded on the sidewalk, then backed out, perhaps in haste? Did she jump, or was she pushed?…
In this case, there was no major damage around the other side, but on closer inspection, the front corner there was dinged up a bit. I started to imagine a bit of a smack when that front bumper hid the stone wall - and new evidence started fitting in - practically flatten that stairway railing. Should the airbag have deployed, I wondered? Well, I was too shy to record the interior of the car, since I was already acting suspicious enough, but I can say for certain that said airbag did deploy, only to be stuffed carefully back into the steering wheel, plastic breakaway panels clearly not fitting together like new.
What can the story be here? Everything was so carefully placed back into plausible position. Stones were piled sweetly back onto the wall and debris was cleanly swept away. The car was impeccably parallel parked at the curbside… And, that funky looking steering wheel. Why did people go to so much trouble to straighten up when they could have simply parked the car somewhere else? Does airbag deployment disable the car, making it impossible to drive it around the block in search of a ‘better’ parking spot? In any case, if you left your car there, why go to too much trouble to make things look placid on the surface?
It would be ironic if the person who crashed their car into the wall lived right there in that house. Maybe that is what happened.
Posted in DC-roaming, photos | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Sun, 19 Oct 2008 18:55:00 GMT
Today I met up with my friend Leah, who used to work with me at Olsson’s, but left a while back to work for Politics & Prose. I ran a little late because I forgot to account for how long buses actually take. I browsed the bookstore for a while until Leah came down from her office up the street, then we went over to Comet for pizza and ping pong. Or table tennis. Whichever you prefer.
There was some trouble with private parties: Comet had one until 5. P&P had one at 5. This kept us on the move. We looked at art book remainders in the basement, then I had an espresso in their cafe. I took the opportunity to look at a book on French modern art, so I could see some more images related to what I read in “Old Masters & Young Geniuses” and the chapter on Paris in “Cities in Civilization”.
Comet is a restaurant on the same block as P&P. I got the impression that it serves as a major after work hangout for the bookstore. They have a wood-burning pizza oven - That explained why some guys were loading in firewood when we got there. I actually knew somebody working there: somebody who used to work at Asylum. We ate a small pizza, talked about any number of subjects, then got on with the table tennis.
The last time I really played ping pong intensely was probably 7th grade. It was a unit in PE class, and I never liked PE. (I was not as athletic back then.) It’s fun. Really. I enjoyed it back then, so I don’t know why I don’t play more often. It boils down to a general lack of partners. I play more pool these days - it’s easier to find partners, and if I get desperate, it’s possible to practice alone.
Posted in DC-roaming | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Sat, 18 Oct 2008 02:53:00 GMT
The day I went to Arlington to fix the DSL, I stopped off at the Iwo Jima memorial. Marina was talking about how she needed good photos of the monuments for her elementary school. I rarely make it over to Arlington these days, and I wanted a good photo of the Iwo Jima to send her. I don’t know if I got it. I blame the wind. The flag was really limp - I’ll have to go back on a windy day if I want the flag to cooperate. Maybe that will also fix the problem of people standing around in front of the monument.
If you know the geometry of DC, the Iwo Jima monument falls close to the east-west axis of the National Mall. I’m sure that there is a place to see all four at once: The Capitol, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Iwo Jima. But standing there in the park, it was clear that I would have to stand somewhere else.
Posted in DC-roaming, photos | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 23:25:00 GMT
I had planned to go to the Takoma Park Street Festival yesterday. I knew about it at least a week in advance - which can be a long time for my planning apparatus. Too long, even. I was getting ready to go over there when I had a writing idea. “This should only take a minute.” Ha. It was 3:30 when I was satisfied with my rough drafts. Much of the work went into the extended rant on Wall Street. For some reason those ideas were in my head Saturday night during the movie, but I couldn’t express myself. Part of the problem is an issue I’ve talked about before: Commercials can be a boon. WETA has no commercial breaks at all during movies. And “Wall Street” was two hours long. So I can’t run to the kitchen for a snack without missing something, or reflect on what I’ve watched. After not producing anything the night of the movie, I was predictably unsatisfied - So, when the ideas did start to flow, I wasn’t going to stop for anything. And I was too late to catch much of the street festival.
But that’s all right… Because it was on to the next thing. Yet another get-together with the brokenhearted of Olsson’s. This time it was very Alexandria-centric - they held it at the Union Street Pub, across the street from the old “Book Annex”, or as I sometimes liked to call it: “Store 4” - Or - the one voted most likely to flood.
I took advantage of the new Yellow line Metro service. The trains that used to turn around at Mt. Vernon Square (don’t you just love telling tourists that the Mount Vernon they’re looking for is twenty miles due south of where they’re standing?) now turn around at Fort Totten. Although, I think that’s only true during non-rush hour. With that new service, I can ride non-stop from Columbia Heights to Alexandria - which helps me rest up for the long walk from the train station to the waterfront.
I was running a little early, so I stopped in at Hard Times Cafe for a bowl of chili. Dry Texas with chopped tomato and onion on top. The service was crappy and the food was excellent. Actually, the cornbread could have been fresher, but since it took so long to get it - deja-vu! - I included it in the service category. I’m easy to please, so screwing it up is an impressive feat.
King Street in Alexandria is a template of memory. I never hung out there much, but most of that was more than ten years ago. The place haunts me - just to walk down that street today is an exercise, physical and mental: Many businesses have been replaced over the years, but I never pinned down where everything was anyway. More than once, I thought something was gone when I got to the corner I remembered it on, only to discover it still there, further on. It is just not a route that I can play back in my imagination and get right. One segment near the courthouse is clogged with the chains - Starbucks and Gap and Austin Grill to name a few. Starbucks is starting to feel old to me, though. One year around ‘93 or ‘94 we had Liz Phair play at the store, and when they ran late arriving from Philadelphia, I remember going up to Starbucks for a cafe mocha with orange colored whipped cream on top. It must’ve been a Halloween theme. Since then, another outlet has opened at Union, so there would be no need to walk all that way.
I took a minute to look in the window of Olsson’s - a place I haven’t been since who knows when… Was it an overnight inventory four years ago? The PC screen-saver was still going on the ticket sales computer. It looked ready to open in the morning. Part of me was hoping to be seen by a stranger, looking forlornly into the closed store for unknown reasons. And if they were a thoughtful stranger, they might wonder at the nature of my relationship with that place - the worlds of unknowing in a chance encounter.
A big group had assembled by the time I got there, but I think I arrived at the half way point. (I suppose in any normal distribution or arrival times, most people would appear to have arrived “in the middle”, though). There were book sales reps, the long silent former employees, friends who hadn’t drifted too far away, the veterans and the recently hired. People who seem like surrogate parents to me, and people who were only names on my computer. The drinks were flowing, and I didn’t have to pay.
Posted in DC-roaming, ontology, olssons, writing-craft | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:46:00 GMT
There was a guy waiting for the bus last night, flouting the rules on audio devices. The mini-speakers attached to his bag were pumping out soul music, and it didn’t stop when we were on the bus. His taste in music was relatively inoffensive - not my choice for tunes, but it didn’t distract me from reading… What distracted me was the conversation he started having with another guy - who, coincidentally, was also trying to read. Soul Music looked over at the aging, light-skinned hipster and said “Now, I know you listened to the debate.” Hipster had a thousand times more class than the youngsters who normally interrupt my bus-time reading. He was reluctantly drawn into a conversation with Soul Music, just as I eventually was, one pithy reply at a time. Soul Music drove the conversation with his folksy indignation. This is Obama country around here, and these are Obama people - liberal to the core, no matter their skin color - people who grumble over the “stolen” elections of the past, and wonder at the sense of giving in to the needs of the merely greedy. At one point the African man sitting between the two was examining the contents of his worn Walgreens shopping bag, and I swear I saw him crying over receipts of some sort. No, he was definitely trying to hide his sorrow over something printed on those slips - grocery bills? lotto tickets? For a moment there, I thought it was our fault - I was worried that the conversation was too depressing for him.
I had my economic theories at the ready, and I tried to inject some balance. I said that everything both the politicians had said was meaningless, to some general agreement, and I said that they have no choice but to be meaningless if they want to win. But what I did not say was this, not sure if it would even help: “Hey, look, I program computers, and so when they say they’re going to decrease our dependence on foreign oil by investing in alternative energy, or that they are going to end wars and bring the troops home… I need to see the code for how they intend to accomplish that, otherwise it’s all just hot air”.
But, these are not the men who will know the details - it’s about teamwork and leadership, and so maybe it’s not such a bad thing that we elect them “Miss Congeniality” (which apparently Obama has lost repeatedly in the senate). They need to impress the other men in suits to do their bidding. I’ve been saying that the job of president has become progressively less important as time goes by. They must inspire the actions of others, and so it isn’t so weird to elect the cheerleader Bush over the technocrats Gore or Kerry. And that’s just charisma.
Posted in politics, DC-roaming, ontology | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Tue, 30 Sep 2008 10:35:00 GMT
Today is the last day of the Greek Festival, and I am afraid I just don’t have any mad money to spend this weekend. I pass by the Greek Orthodox church every day on my way back and forth to work. It seems like every time some fun comes along, I’ve just blown my budget on something else. I guess the secret is that there are always opportunities to spend too much money and wake up the next day with renewed vigor to stick to a budget. The same thing happens every year with Adams Morgan Day, and in a week or two there is the Takoma Park festival - that’s not such a budget-buster since I know a guy who will let me hang out on his balcony overlooking the street, and he’s always got plenty of beer.
I might stop by the Greek Festival this afternoon anyhow, and take a spin through the market, but it’s going to be annoying not being able to afford a big lunch under the tents - I’ve got food at home, but it’s just not the same. Perhaps I’ll scrape together enough for an assortment of bakalava.
I did stop by, if only for a minute. I absorbed the atmosphere of the dining tent, then went to the bazaar. Men with beards nearly knocked me over when I tried to enter - they were lunging at each other to give one of those kiss-on-both-cheeks greetings and I nearly got caught in the middle. I didn’t get my baklava - it was so crowded, and I didn’t have the money to feel confident throwing my weight around. Everything was down on the table, so my height was no advantage - and I didn’t want to clobber anyone with my swinging computer bag.
I went out the door and up the steps back to 16th Street. Regarding the street, deciding between bus stops, I noticed some people emerging from the front of the church. I’ve never seen the inside of the Greek Orthodox church, so why not?… A sign said “please use the center doors”, and when I got to the top of the stairs to pull the door handle, it wouldn’t budge.
Someone called out from sidewalk level… “You can get in through the side!”.
“Yes”, I stifled my anger, “I just came from there. But now, I’m here.”
I took a moment to let the irony subside. And, tried to let go of my anger… “Screw this.”
It was one of the best decisions I made all day… I walked to the stop, caught the next bus, got on and found an old friend: Lo and behold it was Richard Goines. He used to work with me at the record store years ago, and he still lives just up the way from me, so it’s not too strange to see him. He had a little entourage along for the ride - his niece and her little daughter. The daughter seemed very well dressed - in a dark Chinese silk dress - and there was a good reason: They were all just returning from Walter Reed Hospital where the little one had been singing to entertain wounded soldiers. I was impressed. I can probably see the Greek Orthodox church any time I want, but running into friends on a bus is a rare treat.
Posted in DC-roaming, gourmand | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Sun, 21 Sep 2008 12:34:00 GMT
