You waited until the last minute to try to buy tickets for Saturday’s “Hip-Hop Honors” concert, only to discover it sold out. Fear not, because D.C. will be having a number of other noteworthy shows over the next week. First up is Eric Roberson’s Friday night set at the Black Cat. Who’s Eric Roberson? New Jersey native Roberson began his professional singing and songwriting career while a student in Howard University’s Musical Theatre program in…
As we mentioned briefly yesterday, the second fire in two years at Capitol Lounge has been found to have resulted from the same reason as the first: a cigarette, which was left burning in a trash can behind the building. Last week’s fire caused about $100,000 of damage to the Lounge as well as the Trover Gift Shop next door. Now The Examiner reports that D.C. Fire Chief Dennis Rubin is calling for a new…
By DCist contributor W Jacarl Melton At the time when Jaguar Wright’s 2002 album, Denials, Delusions and Decisions, was released, the industry term du jour, “neo-soul,” was used to describe any singer who presented themselves as part of the vanguard who shunned the trappings of mainstream urban music. But the Philadelphia-based Wright resisted this categorization, and wound up standing out from those who were being viewed as artistic oddballs. Tonight she’ll be supported by the…
Congratulations, everybody: Wired says that we’re one of the nation’s top ten tech towns, putting us in the company of undeniably geek-friendly cities like San Francisco, Austin and Seattle. But to be honest, Wired’s methodology seems a little bit suspect. Other cities made the list on the basis of a high number of comic book stores per capita, the ubiquity of free wifi, or the popularity of the local Dorkbot chapter. Our qualifications? We’re desperately…
Eric Schlosser is quick to point out that 2006 represents an important, but mostly overlooked, centennial. In his first opportunity to speak following the D.C. premiere of the movie based on his book, Fast Food Nation, Schlosser reminds the audience that it was in 1906 that Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, the classic muckraker that exposed the horrific practices of the meatpacking industry and helped prompt a major overhaul in the way they conducted their…
If Hitler had been a gangster, what color tie would he have worn? To some, that inquisitive trajectory is irrelevant and even downright disrespectful. Hitler was not only obsessed by power and violence, but a monster to whom, most would say, we should never extend the benefit of a psycho-history. To Bertolt Brecht, however, the value of an inquiry into Hitler the gangster outweighed the dangers. Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (pictured), now…
Anthony Bourdain defines “food porn” as “the glorification of food as a substitute for sex.” As with food porn, wine porn — to paraphrase Bourdain — describes certain mind-blowingly hedonistic and expensive wines for an audience that has little intention of actually drinking them. If Wine Spectator and Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate are the respective Penthouse and Hustler of wine publications, then the 7th Annual Heart’s Delight Wine Tasting and Auction — running from Thursday,…
Looking to put an imprimatur on your burgeoning wine-swilling habit? On Monday, January 16, the Washington Wine Academy will hold its first class in the WSET’s five-week Intermediate level course at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Crystal City. What is the WSET? Although you’re not wrong if you answered that the WSET is ABC’s Lynchburg, Va. affiliate (or, for that matter, the Western Society of Electrodiagnostic Technologists), you’re more correct for our purposes if you…
In a development that will force Washington area residents to trek out to BWI for our cheap flights, we bid farewell this week to budget carrier Independence Air. For an airline that started as an underdog in a tough industry, Independence’s problems included leasing small regional jets that didn’t turn as much of a profit as the larger aircraft of Jet Blue or Southwest, rising fuel costs, and a unique business model that many in…
On Sundays, DCist publishes opinion pieces about life in D.C. The views expressed below are solely those of the author. It wasn’t until I started working in the city that I really knew anything about the city. I’ve lived in the suburbs of D.C. for a considerable chunk of my life and had always seen D.C. recreationally. My daily life happened in the god forsaken outer corners of Tyson’s Corner, McLean, Reston and Herndon. Fun…
