The D.C. Public Library is always trying to get more people to take advantage of its sparkling new facilities. It’s latest promotion involves teaming up with Madame Tussaud’s to bring some of the wax museum’s figures to draw people into the doors. The contest kicked off earlier this month — the idea is to get people to come to the museum, answer a few simple questions about what various celebrity wax figures were doing while “hanging out enjoying all the library has to offer,” then win prizes and the such.

If you’re lucky enough to have the day off today, make the most of it by cashing in on distant relations or poking fun at our illustrious leaders. For all you male readers (sorry, ladies!), the Grooming Lounge, the upscale barbershop on L Street NW is offering local men who share a last name with our current president or any of the 42 previous leaders a discount on products purchased in the store or online….

The Washington Post Magazine piece this weekend on the Moscow subway got DCist thinking. Where is all the public art in WMATA’s metrorail system? In Moscow, the system has chandeliers, mosaics, stained glass and marble-clad platforms. Of course many of these pieces glorify the height of Soviet communism, but if Stalin could have created such an artistic system, couldn’t Lyndon Johnson have mandated some sort of artistic glorification of American democracy in “America’s Subway?” So…

The group behind the effort to build a massive video slots and entertainment complex on New York Avenue in Northeast D.C. is making a slight retreat as it has withdrawn about 10% of the 3,800-some petitions submitted to get a measure approving D.C. gambling on the Nov. 2 ballot. The Post reports that the group’s lawyer, John Ray, listed 389 petitions that the initiative’s pushers “would like to withdraw.” Three petition circulators told the D.C….