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2 march 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS COVER STORY 14 State of the Arts: Checking in with writers, comedians, artists, and venues one year after the pandemic-prompted suspension of indoor gatherings

NEWS 4 Loose Lips: The executive director of the D.C. Housing Authority accuses his former deputy of planning a coup in a deposition. His claims, his former deputy says, are false.

8 Principal Opposition: Staff members at a Ward 8 middle school push for the removal of their principal, who they charge with creating a toxic work environment.

SPORTS 12 Always On: Russell Westbrook’s stabilizing influence on a wavering Wizards team

FOOD 32 Food Fighters: Four business owners explain how they were able to survive a year that devastated their industry.

CITY LIGHTS 36 City Lights: Let Arena Stage send you love letters in the mail, check out a Smithsonian-sponsored film festival, or add new music from local artists to your rotation.

DIVERSIONS 34 Crossword 38 Savage Love 39 Classifieds On the cover: Illustration by Maddie Goldstein

Darrow Montgomery | Blair Road and Aspen Street NW, March 8 Editorial

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washingtoncitypaper.com march 2021 3

NEWS LOOSE LIPS

Coup? What? Where? When?

Darrow Montgomery/File

In a deposition, DCHA Director Tyrone Garrett says he fired his deputy because she plotted to overthrow him. Chelsea Andrews, the former deputy who is now suing DCHA, says that’s ridiculous.

Tyrone Garrett

By Mitch Ryals @MitchRyals LL has an idea for the cash-strapped D.C. Housing Authority: Bring in some bright lights, mic up the staff, and let the cameras roll. The District’s biggest landlord could certainly use the extra revenue that an unscripted DCHA drama is sure to rake in, considering its derelict properties and waning federal support.

There’s even a frame for the pilot episode: DCHA Director Tyrone Garrett’s sworn deposition in a whistleblower lawsuit his former second in command, Chelsea Andrews, filed last year. Andrews claims she was fired after raising concerns about the procurement and authenticity of masks bought to protect DCHA employees during the pandemic.

Garrett claims he had lost trust in Andrews and that she openly mocked his vision in front of subordinates.

During his six-and-a-half hour testimony, delivered on Jan. 14, Garrett accuses Andrews of “berating” a DCHA board commissioner

into changing a vote, he tussles with Andrews’ attorney, Carla Brown, over Andrews’ efforts to empower women in the agency, and he describes seemingly innocuous interactions with Andrews over office space, tickets to Michelle Obama’s book tour, mistakenly sent selfies from a night out, and his support (or lack thereof, depending on your perspective) for Andrews’ internal leadership initiative.

All of it, in Garrett’s mind, was evidence of a plot by Andrews and two former members of his senior staff, deputy general counsel Ed Kane and chief development officer Darrell Davis, to stage a coup.

In his deposition, Garrett says his human resources director, Natasha Campbell, told him about a conversation where Davis “referenced two teams at the organization: the Chelsea team and the Tyrone Garrett team.”

According to Garrett, Davis told Campbell that he, Kane, and Andrews were “ready and prepared” to take over DCHA. Garrett acknowledges that he never talked with any of them about Campbell’s disclosure. All three deny they plotted to overthrow

4 march 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

Garrett’s reign over public housing in D.C. In a statement to LL, Kane writes that “the appropriate place to address and/or publicly adjudicate the specific, patently false, and frankly absurd claims and mischaracterizations made about me is in the ongoing litigation.” But, he adds, “I categorically deny any knowledge of, or participation in, any purported coup or other attempt to usurp or undermine the executive director’s authority.”

Davis writes in an email to LL that to buy into Garrett’s characterization, “one would have to believe that I would be dumb enough to plan a coup and then go to HR to discuss it.” He writes that anyone familiar with DCHA, “knows that [DCHA Board Chairman] Neil Albert controls the DCHA Board and Tyrone’s fate. The day Chairman Albert gets tired of Tyrone’s antics he will be packing his bags. If I were interested in planning a ‘coup’ I would have been talking to the Chairman, not Chelsea.”

Dav is ack nowledges he spoke w it h Campbell on multiple occasions about dysfunctionality within DCHA and about factions within the agency.

“I told her that for us to accomplish anything, we first had to come together as a team,” he says via email. “We had the talent to accomplish big things but DCHA was a toxic work environment, and no one trusted anyone.”

That his conversations with Campbell were “twisted into some sordid tale about an attempted coup is a perfect example of the toxicity at DCHA,” he adds.

Andrews, for her part, calls Garrett’s accusations defamatory and said in an interview last week that they amount to further retaliation against her.

“I don’t even understand what that means,” Andrews told LL at the time. “I have no idea how you stage a coup or overthrow the executive director who is appointed by a board. It sounds ridiculous. And it goes without saying, but let me say it: It is completely false and without merit and ridiculous.”

In Garrett’s telling, Andrews’ attempts to undermine him and her alleged attempted overthrow started showing about a year into his tenure at DCHA. In November 2018, former first lady Michelle Obama brought the tour for her memoir, Becoming, to Capital One Arena.

Andrews told Garrett ahead of the event that she’d received tickets through a friend and planned to invite DCHA’s female employees. She recalls Garrett suggesting that male agency employees might also want to attend.

Garrett says in his deposition that Andrews believed women in the agency needed to be empowered. “ What’s w rong w it h t hat?” Brow n, Andrews’ attorney, asks in the deposition.

“Nothing, but I believe the whole entire agency needed to be empowered, men and women,” Garrett responds.

“Right, all lives matter?” Brown prompts.

“No ma’am, don’t — no. We are talking about two different things,” Garrett says.

“We’re talking about me running an agency and trying to keep a cohesive team right?

And what was being said and what was being touted was that there was going to be division between men and women within my organization. You cannot function when you have that type of divisiveness.”

Andrews ultimately used the tickets as she intended. She adds that Garrett purchased copies of Becoming for all the attendees and included a handwritten note in each one.

“This was around the #MeToo movement, I’m the No. 2 leader at the agency, and I’m a woman,” Andrews says of her thinking. “And it dawned on me that this was a great opportunity to lift up the women and hear a very inspirational speaker, the first lady.”

Garrett also attended the event. In his deposition, Garrett says he and Larry Williams, senior VP for property management and a main character in Andrews’ lawsuit, bought their own tickets, though he says they did not attend the event together.

Garrett denies Brown’s assertion in the deposition that he does not believe women at DCHA need to be empowered.

washingtoncitypaper.com march 2021 5

NEWS “Did I tell Ms. Andrews she was incorrect for attempting to empower women? No,” he says. “I did not say that, and I would never say that because I don’t believe that. But I do believe when you’re a leader of an organization, you have to empower everyone.”

Another example Garrett gives of Andrews’ alleged attempts to undermine his authority involves office space. Andrews asked to switch offices soon after Garrett named her general counsel in 2019. At first, he denied her request to move her team to a larger space that DCHA’s Office of Administrative Services occupied at the time. In his deposition, Ga r ret t says OA S D i r e c t o r Lorry Bonds complained to him about Andrews’ at tempts “to t a ke over space in another department and move t he depar tment to another area, which was not condoned by me, not supported by me.”

Ga r ret t says he offered to build out Andrews’ office as a compromise, an offer she says she declined.

Garrett says the discussion is an example of how Andrews undermined his authority because “even after I stated that that was not going to take place or should not take place, the discussion continued.”

Andrews says she made the relocation request because the general counsel’s office was not big enough to comfortably accommodate her staff. Brown, Andrew’s attorney, says Bonds, in her own deposition for Andrews’ lawsuit, disputed Garrett’s characterization. According to Brown, Bonds testified that Garrett approached her about Andrews’ relocation request, not the other way around.

Andrews and her staff ultimately stayed put, she says.

Garrett’s third example of A ndrews’ alleged plans to take over DCHA involves photos from September 2019. In his deposition, Garrett says he received selfies from Andrews of her and other DCHA staff members hanging out at a restaurant after work, which were mistakenly sent to him.

Asked in his deposition how the selfies indicated an attempted takeover, Garrett says he just had a feeling.

“Again, it goes back to the creation of division of the organization based on, you know, my experience with various personalities,” he says. “And, again, the concept and idea of passive-aggressive approaches to leadership and styles that I was sent this picture to show that ‘I have the women supporting me in this organization.’ That’s based on my opinion.”

He adds: “I believe it was a form of recruitment, ma’am. To push back against me.”

Andrews says the selfies are from an

evening when several colleagues took her out after she finalized her divorce. She meant to text the photos to the group to thank them for the support, but she accidentally sent it to a group chat that included Garrett. Andrews denies she sent the selfies as a warning that she was gathering support for an alleged coup.

“It wasn’t about him at all,” she says. “It was about me, and the message that I sent literally started with ‘ladies,’ so it was thanking them for the support they were providing to me.”

Garrett acknowledges in his deposition that he has no evidence that the women who appeared in selfies with Andrews were attempting to overthrow him, nor did he speak with Andrews about his concerns, according to his testimony.

In Garrett’s fourth example of Andrews’ alleged takeover, he fa lsely states t hat Andrews “badgered” a DCHA board commissioner to change her vote. A transcript of the meeting does not support Garrett’s characterization.

T he b o a rd n a rrowly ap p rove d a plan in December 2019 to redevelop its headquarters at 1133 North Capitol St. NE. Commissioners then called an emergency meeting in January 2020 to ask more questions and possibly reverse their approval of the plan. In his deposition, Garrett says Andrews tried to strongarm Commissioner Aquarius Vann-Ghasri into changing her vote after voting, which would have killed the redevelopment plan Garrett put forward.

“I don’t want to say she berated her, but she continued to ask her the same question repeatedly,” Garrett claims in his deposition. “After Ms. Vann-Ghasri had already voted, affirmed her vote, Ms. Andrews continued to … I’ll use ‘badgered,’ her to, you know, change her vote, basically push her in a position where she would have changed her vote publicly.”

He also says that another DCHA attorney, Ken Slaughter, told him that Andrews “had a sidebar” with Vann-Ghasri.

Andrews denies having a side conversation or trying to coerce Vann-Ghasri to change her vote. She says her role as general counsel was to ensure the commissioners understood what they were voting on. At one point during the emergency meeting, Garrett asked Andrews to explain the motion before the board voted.

Vann-Ghasri voted against the redevelopment plan in December 2019. But she contradicted herself during the emergency meeting by voting “no” on a motion to rescind the board’s approval of the deal.

“The question that was being asked was a

“Ms. Andrews was … coordinating this whole effort and this program itself where I was put in basically what we would call a bullpen and openly critiqued, where people were given the authority or emboldened to openly critique my leadership of the organization in front of everyone.”

6 march 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

different question,” Andrews says. “Like voting ‘yes’ meant ‘no’ before, so it was kind of confusing. I was informing the board what the outcome of their votes would be, and I did that in a professional manner, and had no stake in the outcome of that vote except to ensure that it was clear so that we would not have to have another special board meeting to clarify if someone knew what they were voting on at the time they were voting.”

The motion to rescind failed, 3-3.

Garrett points to a leadership initiative that Andrews began as a final example of her alleged betrayal. He says Andrews created the program “not for leadership of the organization, but I believe it was to create dissension … within the agency, to create teams, so to speak. Your team, my team, and whatever other team was out there.”

During one of the program’s monthly sessions, Garrett describes how he was made to sit in the middle of a circle while Kane, the former deputy counsel, “berated” and criticized his leadership style. Kane declined to comment beyond his written statement saying Garrett mischaracterized the event.

“Ms. Andrews was … coordinating this whole effort and this program itself where I was put in basically what we would call a bullpen and openly critiqued, where people were given the authority or emboldened to openly critique my leadership of the organization in front of everyone,” Garrett says.

Andrews says she started the program to develop DCHA employees’ leadership skills, not attack Garrett. The program featured various guest speakers that Garrett signed off on, she says. The monthly events included a talk on emotional intelligence, one on how to be a change agent, a tour of public housing properties, and a visit from a former Washington Football Team player. The program required a budget that Garrett had to approve, Andrews says. “He was seemingly suppor t ive o f i t ,” s h e a d d s .

“F i n a n c e d it a n d participated.”

She says she was unaware of Garrett’s feelings about the prog ra m u nt i l h is deposition. According to A ndrews, ever y employee took turns sit t i ng i n t he ci rcle a nd receiv i n g feedback.

“We were all moving toward ‘let’s let bygones be bygones,’” Andrews says. “The facilitator even gave this whole story about how ‘sometimes you just have to get it all out so you can start anew.’ She was really just trying to do what any facilitator who is doing a teambuilding activity would do.”

thing was a miscommunication with Campbell, his HR director.

Garrett claims that he intended to let Andrews’ contract expire at the end of September 2020 and instructed Campbell to give Andrews’ a 60-day non-renewal notice, as her contract required.

Andrews questions that interpretation and points out the 60-day notice wouldn’t have kicked in until July, two months after she was fired. Her contract allows for her to hand off her duties and responsibilities to ensure a seamless transition, she says, and instead, her phone and email were abruptly disconnected and she was escorted out of the building.

She began raising concerns about the sole source procurement and authenticity of masks that DCHA purchased in April.

She describes in her lawsuit how her poking around angered Williams, the senior vice president for property management, and Bandele McQueen, Garrett’s chief of staff. Garrett recruited both men to work for him at DCHA. He says in his deposition that he considers Williams a personal friend, and he attended college at the University of Virginia with McQueen. (He says he and McQueen were not roommates, as LL previously reported.) DCHA procured the masks through an acquaintance McQueen knew from his time working on Capitol Hill, according to Garrett’s deposition.

Andrews believes she was fired because she raised concerns about the masks, to Williams’ and McQueen’s frustration. Garrett claims his issues with Andrews had been percolating for some time before that and that he began looking for a new general counsel in January 2020, months before Andrews was fired in late May. The case is inching toward trial. D.C. Superior Court Judge Hiram Puig-Lugo dismissed three of the five claims in Andrews’ lawsu it, including the count under t he Whist leblower P rotect ion Act, in November.

None of the current DCHA employees ment ioned i n G a r r e t t ’s de p o s i t ion responded to LL’s emails seeking comment. Instead, DCHA spokesperson Tony Robinson sent a n ema i led st atement that notes PuigLugo’s dismissal of A ndrews’ whist leblower cla i m a nd other claims directed against Garrett as an individual.

Andrews filed a motion for reconsideration last month and is waiting on a decision from Puig-Lugo. Garrett has since hired a new general counsel and, in the meantime, is moving forward with his 20-year plan to transform DCHA and its public housing properties.

“We were all moving toward ‘let’s let bygones be bygones. The facilitator even gave this whole story about how ‘sometimes you just have to get it all out so you can start anew.’ She was really just trying to do what any facilitator who is doing a team-building activity would do.”

Ga r r et t nev er intended to f ire Andrews, he says in his deposition. The whole

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2/23/21 2021 7:27 PM7 washingtoncitypaper.com march

NEWS CITY DESK

Principal Opposition Staff members at Johnson Middle School allege the principal has fostered a workplace of frustration and fear, which hurts the students.

By Amanda Michelle Gomez @AmanduhGomez Denied leave requests. Required evening and weekend work. Demoralized educators.

More than 20 staff members at John Hayden Johnson Middle School met with DC Public Schools Chancellor Lewis Ferebee, Cluster IX Instructional Superintendent David Pinder, and Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White on Oct. 9, 2020, to share these grievances about their new principal, Dwan Jordon.

“It’s time for him to go,” a staff member said near the end of the three-hour meeting.

(All staff members mentioned in this story requested anonymity for fear of personal or professional retaliation from Jordon. Some feared they’d be branded as troublemakers.) “Right now, Johnson is not what Johnson used to be, or what Johnson is known to be.”

The employee, who’s worked at Johnson for more than a decade, says she’d never done anything like this. She’d only reached out to her union once before, years ago, but now contacts her representative weekly, if not daily, to voice concerns about her school. Her colleagues at the meeting, whom she described as “a family,” echoed her sentiments.

“I have attempted to talk to [Jordon],” another staff member said. “We are told to

go through other people. It’s almost like it’s beneath him to talk to us.”

That same day, 30 staff members—a combination of teachers and support staff—signed and sent Pinder and White a petition requesting Jordon’s immediate removal. Johnson’s total staff, including custodians, security staff, and cafeteria workers, numbers around 70. “The staff feels discouraged and worried that the constant pressure and intimidation will affect staff performance and Johnson Middle School students,” the petition says.

Five months later, the conflict has only intensified. Jordon, who has worked in education for more than 20 years and started at Johnson in July, is still leading the middle school, located on Bruce Place SE. Meanwhile, at least five employees have left and even more requested transfers to other schools within DCPS, according to multiple staff members.

“I know almost the entire seventh and eighth grade class. I know everybody by name,” says one employee who started at Johnson in 2017 but quit in the middle of the year due to his conflict with Jordon. “I really feared that [once] I resigned, the kids would think it was because of them … It hurt a lot to resign.”

The situation at Johnson can be seen as a byproduct of new leadership during an extraordinarily challenging time. But those calling for

Jordon’s removal argue his leadership style has turned their school into a toxic work environment.

It’s the kind of workplace where staff members say they receive text messages at 4:37 a.m. from the principal asking who’s responsible for posting on the school’s Facebook, and where people are allegedly shown their own job descriptions when they raise concerns. “I can’t believe I am now a Dean [of Students],” Jordon said in one text exchange, expressing his disappointment to the worker serving in that role. There’s little trust and grace afforded despite the circumstances, according to multiple staff, and the principal likes to test his employees through assignments—allegedly telling one employee “I wanted to see what you were going to do as a man.”

When City Paper listed the allegations against him and requested an interview, Jordon stated he is “unable to speak to specific personnel matters.”

“In my first year as principal at Johnson Middle School I have been impressed with the overall work ethic and commitment of our staff to our students and families and I know that they share my commitment to moving us from a 2-star (designated by [the Office of the State Superintendent of Education] metrics) school to a 5-star school,” his statement continues. He ultimately declined an interview.

City Paper interviewed 10 current and former Johnson staff members and reviewed dozens

of email and text message exchanges between staff and Jordon, along with video of the Oct. 9 meeting between staff and officials. Workers allege Jordon violated the Washington Teachers’ Union contract when he changed school hours without buy-in from staff. They also took issue with his leadership style, describing him as a bully. Even though their jobs changed dramatically due to the pandemic, they say they are discouraged from asking questions, albeit not explicitly. Among the more serious allegations teachers report is a fear of failing students who are not meeting benchmarks because they worry how the principal might respond. Most recently, staff have accused Jordon of retaliating against multiple people in their teacher evaluations after learning they reported him to his superiors.

“About seven teachers that I’ve talked to—just in casual conversation when it comes to grading—they will, they’d much rather change points or something so that students can get a D rather than an F, so that they don’t have to deal with any backlash or questioning about how many students are failing their class,” one teacher says.

Two teachers corroborated this sentiment, but no teachers who reportedly admitted to changing grades would speak with City Paper.

“We’re already in a pandemic, which is a stressful environment, and he’s just adding to it,” a fourth staff member tells City Paper.

“What are you doing? Are you online? Are you with a kid? Are you in a meeting? And who are you meeting with?” she says, modeling Jordon’s questions. “And if you send an email, ‘Why are you sending this email? Who are you sending the email to? Did I approve the email? If I don’t approve the email, don’t send the email’—and it’s just a lot of micromanaging.”

When staff members ask questions or

Darrow Montgomery

John Hayden Johnson Middle School

8 march 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

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NEWS disagree with Jordon, one-on-one or in group meetings, they say they are met with criticism.

“You’re cocky, you’re headstrong, you’re combative,” says a fifth staff member, again modelingg the principal.

Jordon initially agreed to be interviewed to discuss his leadership style but then declined.

According to profiles on the DCPS website and LinkedIn, Jordon is a DCPS graduate and has worked in regional schools since 1999. He’s been a principal at traditional public and public charter schools in the District since 2008, where his stints lasted between two and three years. He’s also been a member of the DCPS Chancellor’s Cabinet, Mayor Vince Gray’s Education Transition Team, and the State Board of Education’s High School Graduation Requirements Task Force.

“Our students and their families deserve a 5-star school and in order for us to advance this work and provide our community an excellent school, we have made some shifts to our current systems and models, which can cause discomfort—especially in a virtual space,” Jordon wrote in a March 5 email. “However, I continue to work with our staff through our school chapter advisory committee to find multiple avenues to support their needs as we make these changes on behalf of our students.”

According to the District’s five-star school rating system—which is partly based on standardized testing, attendance, and graduation rates—Johnson is a two-star school, as are many schools in D.C’s less affluent wards. The school also receives Title I funding, federal money designated for schools where at least 40 percent of students come from low-income households.

Johnson’s student population is 98 percent Black and 1 percent Latinx. The only thing the principal and disgruntled staff seem to agree on is that the school needs to change.

Students struggled before the pandemic.

This year only proved more difficult as most kids continue virtual learning. The school also lost a student this year—Jamarid Robinson, 15, was shot and killed steps away from Johnson in late January. Staff believe the rift between them and the principal comes at the detriment of students. It’s unclear if Johnson families are aware of any personnel problems. Ward 8 SBOE representative Carlene Reid, a member of the school’s parent organization, has not heard directly from families about any recent issues.

The fraught working relationship between staff and the lead administrator has resulted in some staff hesitating to fail students even if they do not show up for class, according to five staff members City Paper spoke with. After weeks of personnel problems, which began when school started in late August, and about a week and a half after the meeting with Ferebee, Pinder, and White, Jordon sent some teachers a vague document because they had classes with failing rates over 30 percent. He required teachers to agree on an “action plan” to raise the passing rate and sign the document to affirm their agreement. Teachers were also told to assign mandatory office hours for students who had Ds or Fs and notify their parents.

“In my head I was like, ‘am I being written up?’” says one teacher who received the email.

“It just started a lot of chatter because people were thrown off. … We had just had a meeting and there was nothing mentioned in the meeting about it.” Jordon rescinded the document after the Washington Teachers’ Union argued it was an uncommunicated change in working conditions.

Confusion among staff around attendance and grading, in conjunction with DCPS policy changes throughout the pandemic, complicate the situation. According to teachers at Johnson and elsewhere within DCPS, they understand students are to receive at least 50 percent or a “waiting for submission’’ designation when they do not submit an assignment and at least 63 precent on any assignment they do submit.

DCPS seems to count students as present so long as they log in once a day. (DCPS deputy press secretary Deborah Isaac would not confirm the policies, writing March 8 that she would “be in touch” with more information.)

According to multiple Johnson staff members, Jordon proclaimed the school had an attendance record over 90 percent. This didn’t match with what they were seeing in their own classes, so they began to question him and vice versa.

Communication, particularly about attendance and grading, has broken down, staff members say.

DCPS leadership is aware of the problems at Johnson, as are D.C. councilmembers including Trayon White, Chairman Phil Mendelson, and Robert White (At-Large). The Washington Teachers’ Union and Council of School Officers, the unions who represent the staff, are also aware and WTU filed grievances with the Instructional Superintendent and copied DCPS’ Office of Labor Management and Employee Relations.

“We take allegations of grade tampering and staff misconduct seriously,” a DCPS spokesperson stated in an email after declining an interview. “While we do not comment on personnel matters per our Labor and Employee Relations (LMER) standards and policies, teachers, staff, and students have multiple avenues to share their concerns with us. DCPS thoroughly investigates all concerns raised by community members and determines the best course of action.”

Staff calling for Jordon’s removal have the support of Trayon White, their ward-level councilmember. “I don’t feel comfortable with this principal in Ward 8,” he said during the Oct. 9 meeting. His office questioned why DCPS would rehire Jordon after similar issues with staff were reported when he was the principal of Sousa Middle School between 2008 and 2011. Jordon was credited in a July 2010 Post article with raising test scores at the school after driving out dozens of staff members. City Paper later reported in August 2010 that Sousa still failed to achieve “adequate yearly progress,” leading former teachers to question the effectiveness of Jordon’s approach when it came at the cost of their mental health.

Jordon has the support of the Rev. Ernest D. Lyles, the founder of New Life Ministries DC, a church about a mile from Johnson. Lyles graduated from Johnson, and his great-nephew currently attends the school. He believes Jordon has not had a chance to prove himself as an effective leader and DCPS should not remove him.

“I would like to have time to evaluate his performance while students are in school,” says Lyles.

10 march 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

He described the Johnson staff he’s worked with as “very good” and doesn’t believe it’s his place to get involved in “personnel matters.” His interest is in the success of students.

“I’m concerned about the deplorable condition of Johnson’s building. I walked through the doors at Johnson School in 1969 as a student. And now 52 years later ... 95 percent of the building is the same as it was then, except it is deteriorating. I am concerned about that.

I am concerned about our students who are getting murdered,” says Lyles. “And I’m concerned about the fact that these issues, these key issues, are not getting public attention but there is a complaint against the principal that is getting much more attention than these needs that are hurting our students.”

While personnel problems have captured the attention of DCPS officials, what they intend to do about it remains unclear. “I don’t have the power to dismiss someone just because a large group of people was called,” Pinder told staff at the Oct. 9 meeting. “That doesn’t mean the concerns here aren’t real.”

“We only get to success when the people in the building are feeling empowered,” Pinder continued. “I believe that the people are—certainly in my experience with Johnson staff—high quality, hard working staff. And if what is happening here is diminishing their ability, I want to do what’s in my scope of power to support you.”

The process of holding Jordon accountable has been painfully slow for staff who want him gone. City Paper spoke to two staff members who quit when the situation did not change fast enough for their liking. “I felt like I couldn’t breathe,” one of them says. The employee sometimes worked until 10 p.m. over the summer because he was responsible for distributing technology to families for virtual learning. When other staff members offered to help, he says Jordon wouldn’t allow it because it wasn’t their job. (Those who offered to help confirm this.)

When the employee asked for more time to complete this task and others, he says he was accused of disobeying orders and received more assignments. One of those assignments was helping the principal and assistant principals investigate an employee who accused school leadership of taking his leave and reducing his paycheck. (An email City Paper reviewed confirms this.)

The employee who was asked to help investigate says his leave requests were denied because of “high traffic for technology distribution” and the school had no one to cover him. “I have a Doctor’s appointment that is extremely urgent and cannot be rescheduled,” he wrote in an email. In response, Jordon wrote, “You have not expressed any pressing health conditions to me up to this point. … Because the time of the year that you are requesting leave and the importance of your role, it is extremely important that we have a discussion today or tomorrow so that I can have a better understanding of what is going on with you.” In return, the employee said he was uncomfortable sharing his medical conditions, adding “I would appreciate a little bit more understanding.” He says his paid sick leave was not approved.

Others voiced issues requesting leave. In September, one person emailed an assistant principal to take some “use or lose” leave.

Jordon, who was cc-ed, responded: “Please focus on dean, culture and climate responsibilities while at work.” The employee has since resigned over repeated issues with Jordon and his assistant principals.

Some staff who butted heads with Jordon started to question their own work. “You can expect greatness from someone without degrading [them],” said one worker, who was removed from the leadership team after reporting Jordon for the way he critiqued her. “Unfortunately, the trust has been broken,” he texted her. “I apologize for trying to groom you for an [Assistant Principal] role. Lol. But I learned through it all.”

Now, multiple staff members say they have been docked in their first teacher evaluations this school year. They describe losing points for attendance and respect, but when they requested evidence, they say Jordon revised their evaluations and added points. While they now “meet standard,” comments are included in their evaluations. A screenshot of one evaluation asks the individual to “please interact with all stakeholders in a respectful/nonaccusatory manner.” The comment referred to the teacher, who is a Black woman, accusing leadership of discrimination after they had emailed her and not the White male teacher about nonattendance at a study block they both oversaw.

“Fifteen years as a teacher, three different school systems, six different principals—never cited. I don’t understand,” says one teacher. A comment on his evaluation says he “should continue to assume positive intentions and research policies, procedures, and protocols before accusing others of serious allegations.” The educators accusing Jordon of retaliation believe he should not be responsible for their evaluations.

“He was using the performance evaluation process as a tool to punish the teachers,” says WTU President Elizabeth Davis. Jordon’s actions are, she says, a “testament as to how this performance evaluation process can be manipulated.” (The union has continuously questioned the teacher evaluation system.)

WTU field representative Charles Moore says he’s spent more time mediating issues at Johnson than at the 22 other schools he’s responsible for combined. “It’s very autocratic,” he says of Jordon’s leadership style. Moore was the field representative for Sousa staff when Jordon worked there a decade ago, and he says the complaints against his leadership style back then sound similar to today’s.

Richard Jackson, president of the Council of School Officers, which represents administrators, including Jordon, and business managers and other non-teachers, says his union is not seeing an unusual number of grievances at Johnson compared to other schools. His union, he says, is responsible for enforcing the contract and investigates no matter who is accused of the violations.

He wouldn’t comment on specific allegations.

Despite no clear resolution to the conflict between Jordon and the staff, the school year continues at Johnson. Students have returned to the building a few days a week and the staff pushes ahead with in-person and virtual instruction.

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washingtoncitypaper.com march 2021 11

SPORTS BASKETBALL

Always On Russell Westbrook’s relentless energy and intensity have stabilized the Wizards’ season.

Ned Dishman (NBA Photos)

Russell Westbrook

By Kelyn Soong @KelynSoong In December, the Washington Wizards gathered on the court for a 10 a.m. shootaround before a 7 p.m. preseason game when NBA veteran Russell Westbrook, the team’s newly acquired point guard, asked his teammates a rhetorical question.

What time, Westbrook wanted to know, did the game start?

One of the players, head coach Scott Brooks remembers, shouted, “7 o’clock!”

Wrong answer. “No, no, no, no,” Brooks recalls Westbrook saying. “The game starts now.”

Underneath his mask, the coach was grinning from ear to ear.

“That was my line,” Brooks says. “I wanted to say to Russell, ‘If you’re gonna to use my line, at least put my name on it.’”

In a tumultuous, pandemic-shortened season in which the Wizards opened the 2020-21 campaign with a five-game losing streak, had six games postponed due to the NBA’s health and safety protocols in January, and lost starting center Thomas Bryant to a torn ACL,

the team appeared hopeless and has hovered near the bottom of the league’s standings.

But it closed out February by winning seven of nine games, including an overtime victory over the defending NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers, and remains within reach of

reputation may precede him, but Wizards players say his leadership and relentless intensity have been invaluable.

“Don’t tell him I said this, but he has the heart of a lion,” forward-center Moe Wagner said after the Wizards beat the Los Angeles

“...I know that leadership is something I’ve always been able to do, every team that I’ve been on, and I’m going to continue to do that.” the playoffs with slightly more than half of the 72-game season remaining.

Brooks and several Wizards players credit the 32-year-old Westbrook, a former NBA MVP, nine-time all-star, and vocal leader who started his career with the Brooks-led Oklahoma City Thunder more than a decade ago, for keeping the team focused even as the losses piled up. Westbrook’s polarizing

12 march 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

Clippers, 119-117, on March 4. “He’s unbelievable, and I’m very privileged and happy to be his teammate.”

Wi z a r d s gua r d -f orwa r d T roy Brown Jr. doesn’t mind when Westbrook yells at him. Actually, he says, he appreciates it. There are times when Brown, playing in his third NBA season, tries to hold himself to the

same level of accountability that Westbrook expects of his teammates, but it quickly becomes draining.

Westbrook, on the other hand, never appears to let his energy level drop.

“Regardless of the situation, regardless of how many points Russ has, or anything like that, he’s gonna be talking, whether you like it or not,” Brown says. “It’s just very intense, and some people don’t like it as much, but I really think it’s very cool that he does that.

Because at the end of the day it’s like you always know he’s locked in ... A lot of guys half-ass the game, like don’t give 110 [percent], so to see him give 110, he is the most paid athlete on this court right now. I feel like that’s really dope: that he holds everybody to a level of accountability, and he raises the play of everybody else.”

Brown likens Westbrook’s intensity to what he’s seen from the Miami Heat’s Jimmy Butler and from Michael Jordan in the documentary The Last Dance. Brooks sees a lot of similarities between Westbrook and two Hall of Famers he encountered during his playing days.

“It’s definitely a combination of Charles Barkley, who I played with, he brought the intensity and the determination to the team,” Brooks says. “And the approach that we do this every night and we get paid lots of money to do this every night. If you need an off day, take it during the summer type of mentality. So I’d say Charles Barkley had that same mentality that Russell has, and also Jason Kidd. Jason Kidd had this real desire to want to get better and want to play with a high IQ on the f loor and to help his teammates play with that level of IQ.” But how much Westbrook’s style of play benefits his teammates has been up for debate. In early December, before the season began, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported Westbrook was “very bothered” by the suggestion that he isn’t a good teammate following his trade from the Houston Rockets.

When asked how his leadership style has evolved over the years, after the team’s 112110 win over the Denver Nuggets on Feb. 25, Westbrook responded that it’s always been the same.

“I think it’s just now, it’s really up to y’all in the media to determine if I’m a good leader or not, to be honest,” he said. “But I’ve been leading the same way since I’ve been in the league. I think now I hear it from other teammates and other teams and shit like that, that allows you guys to be like, ‘Oh, Russ, you’re leading now,’ which it doesn’t mean nothing to me, ’cause I know that leadership is something I’ve always been able to do, every team that I’ve been on, and I’m going to continue to do that.”

For Westbrook, leadership goes beyond ju s t t a l k i n g or w h at p eo ple s ee; it ’s revealed when a person is able to stay the same regardless of how things are going.

Throughout the season, Westbrook has found ways to connect with his teammates

SPORTS and be a voice in the locker room that players respect. Bradley Beal, the league’s leading scorer, said earlier this season that he feeds off of Westbrook’s “straight, business-like approach.”

I n m id-Febr u a r y, Westbrook asked Brooks if he could address his teammates directly. He wanted each player to specifically describe their roles on the team in front of their teammates. During that discussion, Rui Hachimura declared he could guard any position on the court. The Wizards would go on to win their next five games, and Hachimura has become one of the team’s defensive stalwarts.

Just because Westbrook yells, Brown says, does not mean he’s not approachable.

During the Nuggets game, cameras caught Westbrook and Brown talking on the sidelines. Brown explains that before he checked into the game, he wanted to ask Westbrook about defensive schemes. After the win, the Wizards tweeted out the clip with the caption “Leadership.” Brown later quote-tweeted it: “Real one.”

“If I’m playing with a former MVP, like, I don’t care how much he’s yelling at me. I’m going to ask him questions because obviously he knows something I don’t,” Brown says. “He knows a lot, like seen a lot. So at the end of the day, like I’m going to do whatever I need to do in order to be the best me.

… He definitely does a good job of making that environment.”

Ea r ly on in Brooks’ head coach i ng career with the Oklahoma City Thunder, his friends would reach out to him and ask: “How do you coach Russell? He seems so hard to coach.”

“I’m like, ‘Obviously you don’t know me well enough then,’” Brooks says. “He’s the

Russell, you need to pick it up in the games.’

And to me, that’s the sign of a leader.”

This season, Westbrook is averaging 20.3 points, 9.7 rebounds, and 9.8 assists per game, but he also has 4.8 turnovers per game, and is only shooting 29.4 percent from beyond the arc and a career-low 58.3 percent from the free-throw line. Westbrook also missed selection for the All-Star Game for the first time since 2014.

“Don’t tell him I said this, but he has the heart of a lion... He’s unbelievable, and I’m very privileged and happy to be his teammate.” easiest guy to coach. I love guys that play hard. I love guys that leave everything, every ounce of energy after 48 minutes on the floor.

And the only players I’ve had trouble with, there’s probably been a handful, are the ones that don’t compete. If you’re not self-motivated, you don’t have enough Knute Rockne speeches to give a player, and Russell is selfmotivated. ... Never, not one time, I’ve had to say, ‘Russell, you need to pick it up at practice.

Despite the struggles, he has continued to lean into his leadership role.

“When things are going wrong, I like to put the pressure on my shoulders to make sure I can try to find ways to make my teammates better, help my coaches out, help out the organization out to make sure we are moving in the direction that we need to be,” Westbrook says. “And especially this past month, I’ve just tried to find ways to lead in different ways,

communicate and try to get through to my teammates in different ways and I believe some of those ways have worked. Everything is still a work in progress.”

Asked if he’d ever consider getting into coaching, Westbrook laughs. He’s been too busy: Westbrook recently launched the Russell Westbrook Why Not? Academy, a middle and high school in his hometown of Los Angeles.

“I work on so much every day,” Westbrook says. “I’m trying to change our communities and trying to help my people out and help our underserved communities, whether it’s financial literacy, whether it’s education, whether it’s creating jobs, whether it is whatever, that’s been my focus, and I’m pretty sure my hands will be tied with that when I’m done playing and making sure that’s moving in the right direction and closing those gaps, but coaching, I haven’t really thought about at all.”

But if Westbrook ever decides to get into the coaching game, he’ll have the strong endorsement of his longtime coach, who believes he’ll be a “great coach if he wanted to be.”

“He’s more than basketball,” Brooks says.

“And he’s obviously more than a player in my eyes, and all the things that I’ve been through with him. I mean, I said, ‘Russ, you’ve taken about seven years off my life, but you made my life more enjoyable coaching you.’”

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12:47:43 PM washingtoncitypaper.com 1/6/2021 march 2021 13

ARTS One year ago this week, D.C. shut down. At first it was voluntary; within the space of days, it was mandatory. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. In the minds of most people, coronavirus went from being an ambient threat to a clear and present danger. Music venues, museums, movie theaters, and performing arts spaces shut down for the safety of the public. While we hoped closures would only last a matter of weeks, or maybe months, there were no guarantees that the organizations that had to cancel their in-person events could survive the financial hit.

Some didn’t. There are legitimate reasons to be optimistic about 2021, tempered by the fact that emotionally, physically, and financially, we’ve got a long road back to “normal.” We’ll keep reporting on that road.

Our State of the Arts guides, published in the spring and fall, usually list film, music, comedy, museum, books, dance, and performance events scheduled for that season, with a host of recommendations from our critics to help you plan your outings.

Our last one was published in February 2020, and almost nothing included in it came to pass. Though many organizations are now offering a slate of robust programming, both virtually and in person, and we’re building our online events calendar back out, a typical guide isn’t possible right now.

Instead, we’ve taken a different approach. The six stories in our cover package all check in on a specific segment of D.C.’s art scene, one year after the first lockdown. Inside, you’ll learn how comedy shows popped up in alleys and backyards, how an all-volunteer small press published—and sold—an anthology remotely, and how a performance artist is adapting his practice now that he can’t capture the attention of a crowd. We also check in on an unconventional music venue and arts space, how local theaters are engaging filmgoers, and how one group took art installations mobile and outdoors. Together, they speak to how the industry as a whole has handled the pandemic, and to how it’s recovering.

—Emma Sarappo

By City Paper Contributors · Illustration by Maddie Goldstein

14 march 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

STATE OF THE ARTS MUSIC

Staying Rooted

Darrow Montgomery

The Takoma arts venue and DIY space Rhizome DC has managed to host workshops, art exhibitions, and even concerts over the last year.

Rhizome DC

By Dora Segall Contributing Writer It’s Jan. 14, 2021, and Rhizome DC is hosting a virtual event called “Mindful Listening in Isolated Times.” Molly Jones, a Chicagobased improviser and composer, has been practicing sound-based meditation for the past 11 months and wants to share the experience with others.

“Unlike a lot of Zoom meetings, I would invite you, if you’re comfortable, to turn on your microphone,” Jones says. “We’re trying to perceive the electronic space we’re in together as an extension of our physical space.” She leads a listening-focused meditation, and speaker view flicks to various screens as the clanking of dishes or a smattering of conversation cuts through the silence.

Jones’ workshop, from her effort to foster a sense of community online to her lack of previous experience as a mindful listening facilitator, encapsulates the work Rhizome DC, a nonprofit community arts space in Takoma, has been doing this past year. Before March 2020, Rhizome was largely a music venue that hosted several shows per week. But since the pandemic’s start, music venues around D.C., from Black Cat to The Anthem, have hosted few, if any, events because of social distancing mandates. Some, including U Street Music Hall, have closed permanently. Throughout this devastation, Rhizome has remained active by hosting regular virtual

workshops, ranging from a “puppet lab” to a “dream cafe,” as well as some outdoor concerts and a few socially distanced visual exhibitions. Layne Garrett, Rhizome’s program director, attributes the organization’s success relative to traditional music venues, in part, to its diverse programming pre-pandemic.

“Workshops and other educational programs have happened all along, but they have made up a bigger share of our online programming,” he says. “It’s a more natural fit online than trying to re-create the experience of live music or other types of performance. … It seemed like the most fertile ground to focus on.”

Since opening in 2016, Rhizome has presented visual art exhibitions, music-making workshops, and pretty much any other arts-related activity imaginable in addition to live performances.

The organization’s mission helps to explain its eclectic programming. According to its website, Rhizome is “exploring new approaches to grassroots community education which seek to blur the lines between amateur and professional, teacher and student, and which free learning from rigid models of instruction and explication.”

Rhizome schedules and runs its events through volunteer-based leadership—the organization is run by seven board members, and Garrett is the only one receiving pay. The organization covers its rent, event costs, and Garrett’s salary with donations and occasional grants. Despite the limitations of a non-professional staff,

not having a slew of employees on payroll has allowed Rhizome to remain active during the pandemic.

The organization’s focus on grassroots and non-hierarchical education shines through its current programming, perhaps even more so than it did when Rhizome focused on live music. In addition to online workshops, the space has offered modified visual art exhibitions. In October, art educator and curator Paula Martinez put on a show called Água Parada (Portuguese for stagnant water) on Rhizome’s top floor.

“I [originally] had an idea for a show … called Água Viva … about this feeling that I have, that usually comes in like January or February, [of missing] the feeling of being sweaty in the summer,” Martinez says. When the pandemic reached D.C., she “thought it needed to be tweaked a little bit. I couldn’t make a show as if this summer was just the same as all the other summers I’ve had.”

The pandemic’s impact on her interactions with gallery visitors resonated with Martinez: Rhizome allowed only one group into the building at a time, so she ended up giving each one a personal tour of the exhibition.

“I thought that was a really positive experience, where I built a show and then was able to learn more about the show as I talked to people about how they perceived it,” she says.“If I wasn’t doing this exhibition during COVID, I wouldn’t have been able to get that kind of experience.”

Despite its temporary shift away from music, Rhizome has managed to host more concerts than most local venues this past year: In the fall, it hosted a number of outdoor concerts on the building’s lawn. Luke Stewart, a board member since 2020 and a nationally renowned bassist, even performed at two concerts in September and October.

“I think performing outdoors is always a fun experience, and I think we’re kind of normalized at this point to people wearing masks and being socially distanced,” he says. “If anything, it felt special because I could feel the need for it. People were really excited, on a level that hasn’t been experienced ... to witness live music, so the connection with [the audience was] that much deeper, perhaps.”

ColinWhite,aRiggsParkresident,agreed.OnNov.21,hewentto aconcertfeaturinglocalbandsRosieCima&WhatSheDreamed and Lightmare, his first since the pandemic reached D.C. “To be able to just appreciate and enjoy music in that kind of communal setting with other people, where you take it for granted for your entire life and then it’s gone, it was really, really impactful,” he says. He added that he was impressed by Rhizome’s social distancing measures. “It was just a really well put-on event,” he says. “You made the reservations ahead of time, everything was very much social-distanced, everybody was masked up, [and] it was outside, so I felt really safe.”

Though Rhizome stopped putting on outdoor shows as it got colder, the board plans to begin offering them once more as the weather warms up.

“I’m looking forward to picking [it] back up again in the spring, assuming that COVID numbers drop again,” Garrett says. “They have to drop sometime, right?”

And though the pandemic did not deal as harsh a blow to Rhizome as it did other arts spaces, Rhizome continues to worry about its future—the board learned in August of a proposal to develop affordable housing that may displace it.

“We definitely have months to be there, but exactly how many months is up in the air,” Garrett says. The board is actively looking for a new space and hopes to find one that will allow them to stay in Takoma and continue putting on outdoor events.

If Rhizome’s ability to adapt during the pandemic is any indication, a move is unlikely to prevent the organization from continuing to find a home for nontraditional arts programming in D.C. “We have a couple hundred monthly supporters who have stuck with us. Artists haven’t disappeared. People’s need for community and for connection and for higher-level interactions with ideas and experiences outside the realm of the mundane day to day—it’s all still there,” Garrett says. “We’re just doing our small bit to make things happen, to provide those opportunities.” washingtoncitypaper.com march 2021 15

STATE OF THE ARTS PERFORMANCE

Mapping a Course

Fernando Castro of Vantage Productions

Maps Glover is a performance artist who wasn’t able to perform because of the coronavirus. Here’s what he did instead.

Maps Glover at Save the Seed

By Michael Loria Contributing Writer “The rush of performing is pretty unmatched,”Maps Glover says. “That vibration of you and the audience connecting on that unspoken level is an unmatched feeling, and I miss it tremendously.”

Glover, a performance and conceptual artist originally from Charles County, Maryland, has a slight build and an easy smile.

Before the pandemic, he was one of D.C.’s leading emerging artists, known mostly for his performance work around police brutality, which became a dominant theme in his practice in 2017.

This time last year, he even had plans to work in Asia. He’s reluctant to go into detail, but the pandemic put that, and most other arts events, on hold. Museums closed, galleries closed, and artists working in different media were forced to rethink their practices. The lockdown cut into Glover’s work, and he slowed down.

But in isolation, he returned home and discovered new layers in his artistic practice, even if he still misses the in-person connections of performing.

Over the last five years, Glover built his work around in-person encounters. His last exhibition and public performance, Maps Glover: Save the Seed, took place in the fall of 2019 at Culture House DC in Southwest. Along with a performance piece, “Jump for the Life,” he showed paintings and made the space his own by painting the walls and suspending works from the ceiling. Seeds are a trope in Glover’s work; they refer to development of community, of intention, or of Black artists like himself. “The future of the art world is Black,” reads a T-shirt on his website.

16 march 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

“Maps was one of the more established emerging artists,” says Save the Seed curator and art adviser Andrew Jacobson.

Jacobson describes it as “more of an experiential show,” he says, “as opposed to a typical gallery setting, which is dry, you have an opening, and passed food and wine and white walls.”

For Save the Seed, Glover re-created “Jump for the Life,” a work he developed in collaboration with photographer Timoteo Murphy. In the original performance, Glover spent 24 hours visiting and jumping at sites throughout D.C. chosen by Murphy based on their significance in his own life. Glover jumped in honor of victims of police brutality in the U.S., and Murphy documented each leap. In “Jump 31,” Glover is well off the ground with toes pointed down and his neck arched back. In another, his legs are bent, his knees nearly touching his chest, as his arms splay out to each side. Physical stress often plays a role in Glover’s practice.

“You give a day, they gave their life,” Glover says.

In a 2019 interview with the Washington Informer, Glover described choosing to jump as a celebration of the victim’s presence. “I wanted to create an image that felt as if their souls were being released out the body right before they passed,” he said at the time. At Save the Seed, Glover jumped 655 times—the total number of people killed that year by police when he first conceived of the artwork in August 2019. By the end of 2019, there were over 1,000 victims, according to the Mapping Police Violence database.

Glover became known in the D.C. arts community for works like “Jump for the Life,” but he only incorporated performance into his practice in 2016, when he had a residency at Latela Curatorial in Brookland. The work was called “Maps in a Box,”

and he performed by necessity more than anything. “I didn’t have access to any of the resources that I typically use to make art,” he says, “and all I had was my body.” Glover created a “tattered box” from canvas, plastic, and tape. Passersby looked in and saw Glover seated inside. This was after the nonprofit arts space Union Arts closed, and Glover saw how artists around him had no space to show work or even work in. “Knowing I had nothing to offer in terms of space or money,” he says, “I offered my body as an example of creating regardless of space, just standing up for art.”

Inside the box, Glover realized the physicality of performing connected him to the work. “How can you be more focused on an issue you’re talking about than creating the issue and putting it on your body?” he says. Viewers also engaged with him differently. “It goes from people saying with the painting ‘That’s really nice, those colors are really beautiful,’ to ‘I just sat there and I watched you for 30 minutes and I was brought to tears.’”

The live component made it more compelling. “People can see themselves in the performance quicker than they can see themselves in a painting,” he says.

“Maps in a Box” was a protest, according to Glover. “It was me feeling so compelled to do something to be aligned with the community,” he says, “to show my support.” It led to work like “Jump,” and social solidarity became central in his practice.

But in lockdown, as the Black Lives Matter movement gained national attention after the killing of George Floyd and people grappled with his work around police brutality, he also reconsidered the work. “Conceptually and intentionally, it sends a purpose, but I was asking myself what I could actually do to say something, to express how I was feeling,” he says.

When the world shut down, Glover returned to Charles County and pivoted again. He did video work for Transformer, a gallery he’s worked with before, he contributed to the Arlington Arts Center virtual exhibition By Proxy, and he painted. “You can’t compare a global pandemic to any other [thing],” he says, “but the artist life in D.C., it prepares you for hard times, and for having to figure it out. You’re always just trying to figure it out.”

Blair Murphy, AAC’s acting executive director, recruited Glover for By Proxy. She knew his work from a performance on 14th Street NW a few years before. She followed him on Instagram and found his presence there to be a performance, too. “For a lot of artists, social media is about promotion, but for Maps, [it] is the medium he’s using,” she says, referring both to his posts and his live sessions during which he paints and chats with viewers. The dexterity of his work and his online presence, Murphy thought, would work well in a digital exhibition. “The fact that [performance] is about a person moving in space, it lends itself to online presentation, or can be videotaped, it can live in that space in a way that other artwork can’t. With painting, the difference between showing a painting in a gallery and showing a painting as a JPEG on a computer, there’s sort of no upside to having it on a monitor,” she says.

But she also says Glover’s performance has always relied on the power of in-person interaction. “He works in a way that’s somehow trying to connect with the audience or get a response from the audience,” she says, “which is not always how artists approach performance … with [his] performance there’s a sense of facing outward or reaching outward into the world.”

Murphy categorizes the work as “social practice,” “where artists create situations for people to be involved in,” she says, “as opposed to creating an object or as opposed to performance being some sort of physical action that people witness.” For By Proxy, Glover returned to the idea of the seed. He had participants communicate the impact they wanted to have on their communities and grew rosemary, sage, and a little mint with that intention, which could later be consumed as a tea.

Tad Sare, chair of animation at Delaware College of Art and Design, where Glover studied photography, always expected his former student to meet 2020’s challenges. He knows how dynamic Glover is. “He engages with new media, no problem,”

STATE OF THE ARTS PERFORMANCE Glover says, “and what’s happening on my body you might not hear.” The two go back and forth. The incarcerated figure quickly calls to mind Glover’s social justice-driven performances, but he stresses the metaphorical terms of the work. “It’s hard to put words to something that is an isolating experience,” Glover says, “where I don’t know what I’m thinking or why I’m thinking, but it’s happening, dammit.” Illustrating what he can’t describe has been an impulse for Glover since childhood, when he remembers imagining screaming so loud his voice box would run out and drawing a picture of what that felt like.

Sare finds “Aquarius fly trap” more sophisticated than Glover’s past work. “His performances are fantastic,” Sare says. “He can go big and grand, he’s captivating, you want to watch him.” But the narrative of the portals is stronger. “Some of the performances,” Sare says, “are so site-specific [that] even looking at the documentation on YouTube afterwards you think ‘This is great, but I don’t get it.’”

But the subject matter surprised Sare because he had never seen Glover down while at DCAD. “When he came into the room,” Sare says, “the whirlwind followed him.” He saw the spiritualism in Glover’s work, the connection to art history, contemporary culture, and being a Black artist; but he hadn’t seen Glover’s work look inward like this. Sare sees Glover in this work. “It’s more about his biography than any references outside himself,” he says. “It’s all internal, these things he wants to talk about.”

Glover puts what’s different about “Aquarius fly trap” into the context of his wider work. “When I was younger, the most

important thing for my artwork was for people to just like it,” he says, “to just say that’s good, that was the goal.” He sees that early work as less honest. “What I was doing before was being afraid that my concept might be too obscure or too abstract,” he says, “so I would try to dumb it down to get people to connect to it, but that’s not me.”

He laughs as he says this. “I’m just getting more comfortable in my skin,” he says. “I’m becoming more fearless in terms of what I think is important to express, which is the juxtaposition between depression and salvation, both of those things existing in a person, in an experience.”

For the time being, in-person performances are still out the window, but Glover’s taken it well. Lately, he’s been developing a new series of paintings that he’s posting on Instagram. They’re portraits constructed from collages of figurative paintings and abstract paintings. Like the future traveler from “Aquarius fly trap,” they depict figures from other realities. Many feature Glover’s signature “matter” patterns, which look like pulsing neural networks. For Glover, these patterns signify potential.

“Everything is made up of matter,” he says, “and before it gets to the point of being something, it could be anything.”

Each painting comes with a brief description in the caption.

One reads: “A face anybody could love. Name: hey love, Planet of origin: heart center, Mission: to love.” A figure’s eyes droop like they’re going to slide off the canvas. “I’m just rearranging the pieces of life,” Glover says, “and trying to paint them and make them beautiful before they disappear into nothing, return to matter.”

Fernando Castro of Vantage Productions

says Sare, “digital, traditional, oh, he’s all about it, it doesn’t matter for him; he can create images, tell stories however.” That’s why he expected Glover to be a good fit for Awesomesauce, a pandemic-accessible DCAD show he was organizing. The show highlights the work of former students who have shifted their practice away from traditional fine arts. “He’s able to see, ‘If this isn’t working for me, I’ll go this way,’” Sare says.

“You can see that in his artwork too, that’s why he has such a range of stuff.”

Awesomesauce opened in early February. Glover’s piece, “Aquarius fly trap,” is on view from the street outside the gallery. The work consists of three dioramas or portals, which passersby look inside to view videos in which Glover is performing.

Viewers under 6 feet tall have to stand on their toes to see inside.

“We’ve both been giggling about that,” says Sare, “that idea of people having to physically stretch in order to witness his work.”

The portals are called “Salvation,” “Solar Plexus Chakra,” and “Depression,” and Glover says the work is about the tension between how feelings of liberation and salvation can exist in the same person experiencing depression and imprisonment.

Glover also refers to “Solar Plexus Chakra” as the “home” box.

Inside the “home” box, you can see the two characters who Glover builds “Aquarius fly trap” around: One is a traveler from the future, and the other is an incarcerated person. The “Depression” portal features a split-screen black-and-white video, and the incarcerated figure stands on both sides of the screen. One yells while the other is ashen-faced. “What’s coming out of my mouth might not always show up on my body,”

washingtoncitypaper.com march 2021 17

STATE OF THE ARTS BOOKS

We Hear America Writing Washington Writers’ Publishing House managed to launch an anthology in a year with no physical events or in-person editorial meetings.

By Hannah Grieco Contributing Writer The pandemic forced writers and publishers (and everyone else, for that matter) to reconsider their daily actions. Canceled in-person events meant no book tours. Readers couldn’t meander through bookstores, or pick featured books off curated tables.

Friends couldn’t linger at The Royal or The Coffee Bar chatting 18 march 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

about books and couldn’t swing by a Tuesday night reading at Politics and Prose.

An abundance of well-known writers live in the D.C. area, and the city has an active small press scene, with many publishing houses collaborating and adding to the literary community.

Beginning last March, these publishing houses, in concert with independent bookstores and literary organizations across the city, developed a thriving virtual literary scene. But since small

presses lack the budgets and social networks of larger publishers, they rely on the local literary community and word of mouth to sell books. And all of the D.C. area presses faced a similar struggle: How could they get books into readers’ hands without inperson events?

Washington Writers’ Publishing House, a small press that utilizes a cooperative, volunteer-based model to publish area authors, had to consider the reality of pandemic-year sales when it proceeded with publishing the new anthology This Is What America Looks Like. In a typical year, WWPH chooses two winning manuscripts from local writers to publish, and those writers later volunteer with the press to help publish others’ books.

In early 2020, before the pandemic reached D.C., it temporarily shifted to an anthology format in order to highlight a wide variety of authors and poets. The coincidental nature of the timing whispers of fate. The call for submissions came in February, just a few weeks before the first lockdown. A few weeks later, the world seemed to explode and shut down simultaneously, and books weren’t on most of our minds. But writers process through the written word, and so editors decided to move forward.

“This Is What America Looks Like was a repeated chant at the 2017 Women’s March—an acknowledgement of the diversity, size and peaceful passion of the crowd on that cold January day.

Every work of art, no matter the subject, is a portrait of its time.

This theme, this title, declaims that truth self-consciously,” says Kathleen Wheaton, president of WWPH. “That writing keeps happening, even, and maybe especially, in times of crisis.”

But getting the word out has been tricky, and as is the case for many publishers right now, sales have been lower than usual.

WWPH prints on-demand, which allows some flexibility when compared to ordering large numbers of books to sell at a time.

It still has to sell at least 500 books to break even, however, and that’s incredibly difficult right now.

“For a small literary press, in-person readings and events are vital—it’s like a Tupperware party. You invite everyone you know, show them a good time, and hopefully they’ll buy something before they leave,” says Wheaton. “So COVID is really devastating for us—you can’t make the audience laugh or teary in the same way over Zoom. You can’t write personalized dedications in the books.”

Word of mouth is even more of a lifeline for small presses and authors now. One listener might hear a poet read at a Zoom event, such as The Inner Loop or The Literary Cypher, and then purchase their book through a link to the press itself or a local bookstore. From there, it’s all about the reader sharing their enthusiasm via social media. Without in-person book launches, tours, or even casual dinners with friends, readers aren’t able to connect over what we love in the same way. After much discussion, the team at WWPH made the decision to push ahead, hoping they wouldn’t regret it.

More than 500 writers submitted stories and poems, to the delight of volunteer editors Caroline Bock and Jona Colson, both of whom have published books with WWPH. They opened the submission window to the entire D.C. region, including writers who had lived, worked, or grew up here, and looked for a mix of new and established voices to create a spectrum of pieces from raw and edgy to reflective, sorrowful, and more.

“We were overwhelmed with submissions,” Wheaton says.

“Writers were writing through this, channeling their grief, their worry, their rage. And the work was amazing. We finally settled on including 100 writers and poets, and the pieces are not only individually stunning but they reflect and build beautifully on each other.”

From start to finish, the entire process was done virtually—a new approach for the editors. The team met for regular Zoom meetings and sent hundreds of emails and texts as they navigated the difficulties of pandemic publishing.

“We worked through unexpected production delays due to the pandemic. Most notably, details that were ‘easy’ before the pandemic, such as registering copyright with the Library of

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Important Facts About DOVATO

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• Worsening of HBV infection. If you have HIV-1 and HBV infection, your HBV • Allergic reactions. Call your healthcare provider right away if you may get worse (flare-up) if you stop taking DOVATO. A “flare-up” is when your develop a rash with DOVATO. Stop taking DOVATO and get medical HBV infection suddenly returns in a worse way than before. Worsening liver help right away if you develop a rash with any of the following signs or disease can be serious and may lead to death. symptoms: fever; generally ill feeling; tiredness; muscle or joint aches; blisters ° Do not run out of DOVATO. Refill your prescription or talk to your healthcare or sores in mouth; blisters or peeling of the skin; redness or swelling of the eyes; provider before your DOVATO is all gone. swelling of the mouth, face, lips, or tongue; problems breathing. ° Do not stop DOVATO without first talking to your healthcare provider.

• Liver problems. People with a history of hepatitis B or C virus may have an If you stop taking DOVATO, your healthcare provider will need to check your increased risk of developing new or worsening changes in certain liver tests health often and do blood tests regularly for several months to check your liver. during treatment with DOVATO. Liver problems, including liver failure, have also What is DOVATO? happened in people without a history of liver disease or other risk factors. Your DOVATO is a prescription medicine that is used without other HIV-1 medicines to healthcare provider may do blood tests to check your liver. treat human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) infection in adults: who have not Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get any of the following received HIV-1 medicines in the past, or to replace their current HIV-1 medicines signs or symptoms of liver problems: your skin or the white part of your when their healthcare provider determines that they meet certain requirements. HIV-1 eyes turns yellow (jaundice); dark or “tea-colored” urine; light-colored stools is the virus that causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). It is not (bowel movements); nausea or vomiting; loss of appetite; and/or pain, aching, or known if DOVATO is safe and effective in children. tenderness on the right side of your stomach area.

• Too much lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis). Lactic acidosis is Who should not take DOVATO? a serious medical emergency that can lead to death. Tell your healthcare Do not take DOVATO if you: provider right away if you get any of the following symptoms that could • have ever had an allergic reaction to a medicine that contains dolutegravir be signs of lactic acidosis: feel very weak or tired; unusual (not normal) or lamivudine. muscle pain; trouble breathing; stomach pain with nausea and vomiting; feel • take dofetilide. cold, especially in your arms and legs; feel dizzy or lightheaded; and/or a fast or What should I tell my healthcare provider before using DOVATO? irregular heartbeat.

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©2020 ViiV Healthcare or licensor.

DLLADVT200006 August 2020 Produced in USA.

20 march 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

SO MUCH GOES INTO WHO I AM HIV MEDICINE IS ONE PART OF IT. Why could DOVATO be right for you? DOVATO is proven to help control HIV with just 2 medicines in 1 pill. That means fewer medicines* in your body while taking DOVATO. It’s proven as effective as an HIV treatment with 3 or 4 medicines.

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T:11”

You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch, or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

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Ask your doctor about DOVATO. washingtoncitypaper.com march 2021 21

STATE OF THE ARTS BOOKS Congress, were delayed weeks,” Bock says. “We went right down to the wire with our February publication date. Maybe all books are made this way, but I think we felt the weight of 100 writers on us.”

This Is What America Looks Like is wildly diverse, with short stories exploring D.C.’s streets and landscapes and poetry speaking to relationships and experiences that redefine what identity means. In “Myrna,” the opening short story, author Mary Kay Zuravleff (a former City Paper contributor) dives into the immigrant experience and takes readers back to 1934 as a precocious girl faces her father’s declining health due to black lung.

From there the anthology twists and turns—reminding us what America can, should, and shouldn’t be.

In “Trail Walk” by Robert J. Williams, two students discuss friendship and racism along the Metropolitan Branch Trail.

When a woman jogs by, LaShawn tells his white friend, “Wasn’t but one of three things was going to happen for me, two of them bad. One of them really bad. Me, I got to stay paranoid like. Let’s see what happens to you with the next one.”

In “American Progress,” poet Venus Thrash compares photographs of Emmett Till and Tamir Rice: “Staring at the photos side by side / they could be brothers.”

In “Invisible Woman,” poet Mary Ann Larkin writes about growing older as a woman. “I am vanishing from men’s dreams, from their poems,” she tells us. “No one’s hot breath whispers: wait.” And in “Emergency Vehicles Coming Through,” Robert Hershbach cuts through the noise of this past year with: “Our roads are sized for catastrophe, /the cul-de-sacs like asphalt skating rinks, /built for firetrucks to turn in, / the layout in general a banner campaign /with a message for us all: look, look /someday you too.”

This Is What America Looks Like offers what Wheaton describes as “a refracted and kaleidoscopic picture of contemporary D.C.” Even in its hardest places, readers connect with the stories and poems it contains. This is our home, and we see its ugly truths side-by-side with its beautiful moments.

Tara Campbell, a D.C. writer whose prose poem “Lamentations for the Dead in a Barbaric Land” appears in the anthology, also launched her own book this past summer, Political AF: A Rage Collection. Her book’s press, Unlikely Books, faced the same challenges that WWPH faces now.

“I posted invitations on social media for authors with books launching in March and April [of 2020] to come do their belated launch events with me, thinking surely everything would be back to normal by the end of the summer. Now we’re all on Zoom, and author copies are gathering dust on the shelf,” Campbell says.

One bonus of continued virtual events: The literary community itself has become more inclusive. With more bookstores hosting book launches, panels, and readings, more people can hear their favorite authors read from new books. Those who cannot attend in-person events are hoping that some events stay virtual and that all events continue to have the option of attending via Zoom or another online platform.

Advocates hope that continuing to offer virtual or hybrid events could increase book sales for everyone, despite sales being low this past year. But it might take some creative thinking on the part of booksellers offering incentives or personalized virtual author experiences, to make this happen. The real benefit is an expanding, inclusive community, which they hope, over time, supports everyone’s writing. Small presses exist at the heart of the literary community, offering publishing options for writers in all genres—focusing as much on art as on sales.

“Community is essential,” Wheaton says. “Most small presses function on tiny budgets, with staff that are in it for the love of literature rather than the money.”

More than 120 people attended the virtual release of This Is What America Looks Like, which WWPH co-hosted with The Writer’s Center on Feb. 5. That’s an enormous turnout in a Zoom weary world and proof that readers still care deeply about connecting with the writers they love.

22 march 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

STATE OF THE ARTS COMEDY

Laughing Matter A crowded comedy club is the coronavirus’ dream, so comics took their shows outdoors. Those impromptu shows might end up changing comedy’s status quo.

By Chelsea Cirruzzo Contributing Writer Comedians agree their art is best performed where a contagious virus might thrive: small basements with low ceilings packed to the brim with people. That’s the kind of place where a comic will know immediately whether or not a joke has landed, either from the laughter bouncing around the room or the immediate silence. The proximity means they can take the temperature of the room and adjust their jokes to the crowd.

That’s what John Hedrick used to do. The 23-year-old has been performing stand-up comedy since 2018, and he’s always preferred these kinds of small, intimate spaces. On March 11, 2020, he was doing back-to-back shows in D.C. venues, first at Hook Hall on Georgia Avenue NW, then at Exiles on U Street NW. But as the night wore on, the crowd thinned, because by March 11 it had become clear a novel, flu-like virus was spreading throughout the U.S., and no one knew what to expect or how to behave.

“I remember looking around and thinking I probably shouldn’t be here. None of us should be here,” Hedrick recalls.

A few days later, D.C. would completely shut down, and Hedrick’s prospects of performing for a packed bar would evaporate for the next year. Like many performers, he tried to organize his own virtual shows. While some comics have found success this way (including local comic Jenny Cavallero, whose Instagram shows only feature sober comedians), Hedrick’s attempts at performing to a row of grainy, muted squares were “awful.”

It wasn’t until the warmer months that things started to change. Hedrick was finally invited to a comedy show held outdoors and hosted by local comic Mike Kurtz, founder of CryBaby DC. There, he found people, masked and scattered throughout the yard, awaiting a comedy show.

Many local comedians headed outdoors in 2020, subverting the idea of how comedy is typically performed and giving comics the chance to not only perform, but produce stand-up comedy. Hedrick says the inspiration to launch his own outdoor shows came from Kurtz, who began bringing comics outside in June.

Kurtz, a 31-year-old from Prince George’s County, started producing his own shows as part of CryBaby DC two years ago. In June, as the region slowly began to reopen during a drop in COVID-19 cases, Kurtz got a friend in Northern Virginia to lend his backyard for an outdoor comedy show.

During that first show, comedians performed from a wooden board in the middle of a garden to roughly 15 people sitting in camp chairs.

It was amazing. “It felt like real comedy experiences because of the intimacy of a backyard,” Kurtz says, comparing the shows to other outdoor shows he’d done in New York City pre-pandemic. They were larger and often interrupted by people walking dogs or running through the show. In the Virginia backyard, Kurtz says he found a relaxed audience that was “willing to laugh.”

“It just felt normal in a situation that was not at all normal,” he says.

From there, he began to run shows every week through mid-November, stopping only when it got too cold to continue. His shows took place in Cheverly, as well as backyards in Columbia Heights and Brightwood Park.

“I started having a great turnout, and all I had to do was post on Instagram and people would be there,” he says.

By mid-summer, his shows were spilling out of his friend’s backyard and into an alley near Wonderland Ballroom on Kenyon Street NW. With a 50-person gathering limit, Kurtz began to require people to RSVP in order to receive the address. They also had to compete with low-flying helicopters and sirens (thanks to their proximity to Medstar Washington Hospital Center), as well as the occasional visit from cops asking them to keep the noise down.

But Kurtz says the shows were “an outlet for comedians but also for audience members to have something to do that was positive and safe.”

“Being able to get onstage was big for a lot of people’s mental health, a lot of comedians’ mental health,” Kurtz says. “I had somebody tell me that if it weren’t for my show ... they probably would have killed themselves. It sounds like an exaggeration but they’re not somebody who would tell me that, you know, jokingly.”

Kurtz’s outdoor shows inspired others to try their own.

That included Hedrick, who teamed up with fellow comics Alex Asifo, 23, and Kaleb Stewart, 24, to create Shows We Put On. They all agreed: They needed to perform again.

Asifo had recently returned from New York, where he had been performing in March 2020, and Stewart had a bunch of shows lined up in D.C. after performing in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. “Everyone was bogged down in the house. We all know that people have to live,” Asifo says, meaning people needed entertainment—and so did he: “I’m a comic. I can’t be on Zoom forever.”

They started in late July, putting on shows in Hedrick’s backyard in Columbia, Maryland, using a stage made out of a wooden bed frame. They managed to get roughly 40 people to their shows, which included both comedy and live music, by the end of the summer.

“No one has seen live music in a very long time. So that was another thing to get people to come,” Hedrick says. They also invited a lineup of comics they knew well to perform.

The introduction of more outdoor shows, however, didn’t mean all comics managed to eke out some success during the pandemic. Newer comics still might find themselves struggling; the comics behind the outdoor shows say they often booked people they already knew. The trio behind Shows We Put On explain it this way: Comedy is a tiered system. The top-tier comics are the ones who were getting booked at comedy clubs all the time. Now, they’re the first picks for outdoor shows because producers behind the shows know they’ll be good. Meanwhile, lower-tier comics, the ones who had been trying to get their names and talent out there via open mics, are a bit out of luck.

“Especially in the pandemic, if you want to be on a comedy show, you already have to know people,” Stewart says. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t try to help newcomers a little.

Girls’ nights IN are gonna take COVID-19 OUT.

We don’t get enough laughs these days. But, wherever they are, our friends are as close as a click. Vaccines are here. But until enough of us are vaccinated, we still need to slow the spread. We can watch our distance, and not let COVID-19 keep us apart.

Learn more about vaccines and slowing the spread at cdc.gov/coronavirus Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

washingtoncitypaper.com march 2021 23

CryBaby DC

STATE OF THE ARTS COMEDY

A backyard comedy show put on by CryBaby DC in Columbia Heights in August 2020

24 march 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

Stewart says he would sometimes book newer comics because he wanted to give them the same chances he once got.

“Everything is getting more and more complicated and confusing,” Stewart says. “So just to give [them] a chance to show your talent.” Asifo says they also tried to mix up their lineups, bringing on more women, for example, or just ensuring various comedy styles in a given show.

But beyond a few extra dollars and a wooden stage to perform, the renaissance of outdoor comedy shows in D.C. also might’ve given local comics something else: booking power.

And that could mean big things for the future.

“People aren’t going into comedy clubs. You have the same booking power as any of these higher comedy clubs. The power’s in your hands,” Asifo says. It worked for him. Before the pandemic, he was getting booked a lot in D.C. He was on the up-and-up. Now, “I don’t really care if this club is not booking me. I book myself,” he says.

Like Kurtz, the trio promoted their shows on Instagram.

Tickets originally started at $7, but they eventually bumped the price up to $15 to pay both comics and musicians. It wasn’t a ton of money, Stewart says, but “it was worth it because we were keeping comedy alive.”

Being outdoors wasn’t a perfect replacement for comedy clubs, though, and there’s a reason why: It can be hard to appeal to an outdoor, masked crowd. Jokes might take forever to travel around the backyard, and comics may not be able to tell if a joke landed.

“As we do a comedy show in somebody’s yard, the laughs literally evaporate into the atmosphere,” Stewart says. Hedrick describes it like talking to an ex: You’re familiar, yet distant.

But as the summer went on, more outdoor shows began to crop up. Jenny Questell, 28, and Caitlin McDevitt, 26, got started in September, resurrecting their brand Living Room Shows—which they started at the beginning of 2020—after performing at outdoor shows done by CryBaby DC and Shows We Put On. But they added their own personal flair: Living Room Shows were originally meant to be intimate house shows. Now, they had to do them outside where, rather than cozy and close in living rooms, participants were masked and scattered around a yard, and laughter and reaction were much harder to gauge. Still, Questell and McDevitt threw themselves into trying to instill that same level of intimacy through decoration.

“We think about a lot of little details,” McDevitt says. “We were building an aesthetic.”

That included decorations, hand sanitizer, fairy lights, and cupcakes. When the temperature dropped, they passed out blankets and hot cider until it finally was too cold to continue in November.

Unlike the others, Questell and McDevitt enforced a paywhat-you-can model by putting a Venmo handle onto a sign at the show, which Questell says worked better than charging $10 a ticket; some people ended up paying $20 or $30 after enjoying a show.

Questell agrees bringing about outdoor shows has given more comics power in the scene. “We’ve all sort of figured out how to run these outdoor shows,” she says. “If hopefully we get out of this and get to move back inside … some different key players are kind of on the scene, as far as producing goes.”

But Kurtz, who played a big role in starting these outdoor shows, adds that many comics still lost time in furthering their careers. Many comedy venues have also closed. But that means the community has become closer, he argues, and Kurtz says that will bring many of them back to the stage, either via more outdoor shows or eventually getting back into crowded bars.

“I think it’s impossible now to take comedy for granted, with everything that’s going on, with having lost it for so long,” Kurtz says. “It’ll be the comedians who will cherish the ability to get onstage so much more.”

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www.woollyreset.net from March 4 - 31, 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com march 2021 25

STATE OF THE ARTS FILM

At the Movies?

Darrow Montgomery/File

Some theaters bring the movies to you; others let you bring your own to their screens. One thing they can’t do: host normal screenings with a theater packed full of people.

Suns Cinema

By Alan Zilberman Contributing Writer The postponement of wide releases in movie theaters, along with their widespread closing, all seemed to happen so suddenly. As the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the world, major studios pulled their blockbusters from theatrical release. The superhero film Black Widow has been delayed indefinitely, while the release date for the James Bond film No Time to Die was postponed three times. Left with few major titles to show, theaters across the country closed.

A year later, studios are experimenting with how they’ll release their films to the public: Warner Bros. unveiled a hybrid streaming-screening model for its major films, while 26 march 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

others will head directly to Video on Demand platforms.

Along similar lines, cinemas big and small are finding new ways to survive. In the D.C. region, guidelines for opening theaters vary by locality, so there was never a one-size-fitsall solution. In order to survive, owners of three independent cinemas in the area had to figure out precisely what their community wanted.

Cinema Arts is a small, independently owned theater in Fairfax, nestled in a corner of Fair City Shopping Mall.

Stepping into the mall is a bit like time traveling into the 1990s. It looks abandoned, a vestige of a shopping experience long past its prime. As for the theater, whose lobby is adjacent to a Korean BBQ joint, the picture and sound system are perfectly immersive, although the auditoriums themselves

lack the polish of a state-of-the-art multiplex. For theater owner and manager Mark O’Meara, who also owns the University Mall Theatres on Braddock Road, Cinema Arts’ first and most immediate post-pandemic program was curbside popcorn. Theaters were completely closed in the middle of March 2020, and this was one way he could keep his employees working. O’Meara was surprised by the outreach and enthusiasm. “We just had someone come into the theater, pay for a candy bar with a $20 bill, and say ‘Keep the change,’” he says.

Once Virginia theaters reopened under phase three of Gov. Ralph Northam’s COVID plan on July 1, there were few movies actually available to play, so O’Meara took an idea from University Mall and applied it to Cinema Arts.

“You know, we were [renting out] theaters for kids’ birthday parties at University Mall. Why don’t we do something here?” That’s how he came up with Gather Round, a program where someone can rent out an entire auditorium for a private screening, with a maximum of 10 people per showing in accordance with the guidelines. For two hours and a price starting at $100 (increasing with the number of guests in your party), you can watch a new release or whatever DVD or Bluray disc you have. According to O’Meara, what people bring is all over the place, although Frozen and The Goonies remain popular. “Every time I ask [my customers] how they liked it, and they always say, ‘You know, I forgot how great it was on the big screen.’”

There is something to that repeated refrain. In the fall, for my birthday, my wife booked a double feature Gather Round just for the two of us. We watched Phoenix, a German World War II drama from 2014, and the Gene Hackman thriller The French Connection. The experience is a lot different than watching something at home, to the point that I was moved by how much I missed it. The experience washed over me, affirming the gorgeous unreality that only movies can provide. The sound is a huge factor, since I had forgotten just how loud music, gunfire, and explosions can be with massive theater speakers—my wife visibly jumped in her seat when the aggressive music kicked into gear. Even though we were all alone, things almost felt like they were normal. The program has proven to be extremely popular, and O’Meara books around 180 Gather Rounds a month. He has felt “humbled” by the number of families and friends who’ve tried Gather Round for themselves.

Other jurisdictions aren’t able to offer the same program as Cinema Arts. Since they closed last March, movie theaters in the District have not been allowed to reopen. But even if theaters opened in the District tomorrow, David Cabrera is not certain he would want pre-pandemic crowds. Cabrera is co-owner of Suns Cinema, a boutique movie theater in Mount Pleasant that is equal parts theater and lounge. Since the public health emergency began, Cabrera’s philosophy has been “Let’s not pretend that this does not suck.” Suns is too small to accommodate safe social distancing—anyone who has been there knows the rows are practically on top of one another.

His intermediate business plan, therefore, is twofold: He offers curbside cocktails along with a virtual program. Suns partnered with Kino Marquee, a virtual streaming partnership that links VOD art films directly with individual independent theaters. Cabrera says some titles have been more successful than others—there was a lot of enthusiasm for the Brazilian Western Bacurau and the economics documentary Capital in the Twenty-First Century—but he sees a bigger opportunity with Eventive, another streaming platform. He plans to use the platform to partner with the American Genre Film Archive and its back catalog of cult favorites. Patrons of Suns are more about Fitzcarraldo than Frozen, so the idea has potential.

Eventive isn’t just popular for hole-in-the-wall theaters like Suns. In Maryland, where openings vary by county, Silver

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Jacques Demy, France, 1970, 90 minutes, Color French (English Subtitles)

Desmond Davis, United Kingdom, 1964, 91 minutes, B/W English/French (English Subtitles)

IVAN THE TERRIBLE: PART 1 | March 22, 2021

THE SEVENTH SEAL | April 26, 202 Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 1957, 96 minutes, B/W

Sergi Eisenstein, Soviet Union, 1944, 103 minutes, B/W Russian (English Subtitles)

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IVAN THE TERRIBLE: PART 2 | March 23, 2021

HARLAN COUNTY USA | May 3, 2021

Sergi Eisenstein, Soviet Union, 1958, 88 minutes, B/W & Color Russian (English Subtitles)

Barbara Kopple, United States, 1976, 103 minutes, Color

POLICE STORY | May 10, 2021 Jackie Chan, Hong Kong, 1985, 100 minutes, Color

THE 47 RONIN: PART 1 | March 29, 2021 Kenji Mizoguchi, Japan, 1941, 112 minutes, B/W Japanese (English Subtitles)

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THE 47 RONIN: PART 2 | March 30, 2021

DANTON | May 17, 2021

Kenji Mizoguchi, Japan, 1941, 111 minutes, B/W Japanese (English Subtitles)

Andrzej Wajda, France, 1983, 136 minutes, Color French (English Subtitles)

TOBY DAMMIT | April 5, 2021

A SLIGHTLY PREGNANT MAN | May 24, 2021

Federico Fellini, Italy, 1968, 44 minutes, Color Italian (English Subtitles)

Jacques Demy, France, 1973, 96 minutes, Color French (English Subtitles)

ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS | April 12, 2021

LOVES OF A BLONDE | May 31, 2021

Louis Malle, France, 1958, 92 minutes, B/W French (English Subtitles)

Milos Forman, Czechoslovakia, 1965, 82 minutes, B/W Czech (English Subtitles)

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washingtoncitypaper.com march 2021 27

STATE OF THE ARTS MUSEUMS

STATE OF THE ARTS FILM

28 march 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

Moving Pictures Through a tumultuous year, CulturalDC managed to put on timely programming. Now, they may even be able to bring back canceled exhibitions from last spring.

Jennifer Anne Mitchell

Spring’s AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center also opts for the service. Director of programming Todd Hitchcock isn’t annoyed that his Montgomery County theater remained closed while theaters in adjacent Howard and Anne Arundel counties could open in recent months. “We are more focused on opening for real,” he says, but he realizes that his audience “is desperate for something to engage with at home.”

To that end, he has found success with a series of virtual festivals: The Latin American Film Festival, the European Union Film Showcase, and Noir City performed better than expected (the first two festivals have been mainstays at AFI for more than 30 years). Hitchcock figures that a festival, unlike Netflix’s latest new release, creates a sense of connection because there is a shared purpose. Virtual audiences are more together when they appreciate a particular genre or part of the world.

Still, Hitchcock acknowledges that the virtual festival space has its limits. “We only have a fraction of the viewership we once had,” he admits. On the other hand, he recognizes the nature of virtual viewing means he can engage with cinephiles who may not have initially traveled a long distance to watch a movie. By reaching folks who are not traditional festival-goers, he might convert them into committed, f lesh-and-blood fans once theaters reopen. Both Cabrera and Hitchcock think it may be possible that they finally open their doors in the spring or summer. It’s still a long way off, and as Cabrera half-joked, “We don’t want to kill anyone.”

Now that people are getting vaccinated and experts see the proverbial light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, there are renewed questions about what is and is not safe.

Actually, we shouldn’t say “safe,” according to Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University. “[Safe] is a four letter word … What we are talking about is risk reduction because ‘safe’ has the aura of completeness. We cannot be completely safe in our current environment.” If he and his wife—both of whom are vaccinated—went to the movies, they would wear masks and adhere to proper social distancing, whether in line or in the auditorium.

When I told Schaffner about Gather Round and my birthday gift, he laughed and said, “I hadn’t thought of anybody doing anything so elaborate and extraordinary. After you interact with the theater manager … in effect [the auditorium] is like being at home watching television.” Adding people to Gather Round would increase risk, of course, but Schaffner figures that this reevaluation of deliberate risk reduction will become increasingly important as the vaccines roll out and the landscape of the pandemic changes.

Whether we are talking about a virtual festival or curbside popcorn, there is one thing that these risk reduction techniques cannot replicate. “You currently cannot have the experience of being [in the theater] with a lot of other people,” Schaffner says. More jurisdictions are opening their cinemas—New York City reopened cinemas to limitedcapacity this week—so these concerns and risk management techniques will become more urgent.

In a recent presentation about virtual film festivals from the Film Festival Alliance, 32 different festivals gave their audience awards to 32 films—there was zero overlap. That is a revealing statistic: Unless we are with other people, there is little chance to feed off each other, to share all the thrilling emotions of a communal viewing experience. That kind of energy, one that is unique and ephemeral, is part of why I feel so at home at the movies in the first place. There is a sense of validation or belonging when everyone collectively experiences the same film, whether it’s funny, thrilling, tragic, or something in between. We cannot have that yet, but these theaters—in their own way—are trying to preserve the memories.

Subversions

By Jennifer Anne Mitchell Contributing Writer Last March, a 22,000-pound, 320 sq. ft. shipping container sat outside Union Market. The portable art space is CulturalDC’s Mobile Art Gallery, used since 2019, which typically hosts three to five exhibitions per year at locations throughout the city.

Then COVID-19 happened. CulturalDC had to pause the Mobile Art Gallery’s installation Rendition, which was supposed to be on view from Feb. 8 to March 29, 2020. Rendition was a commentary on the type of consumerism prevalent in Union Market and how cultural identities—in particular, African and African American identities—are used to sell things. One side of the installation featured life-size replicas of a Cameroonian statue painted in shades of black and blue. The other displayed brightly colored masks of different shapes and sizes, painted with fluorescent acrylic paint to abstract them from their original form.

“It is about the way that Blackness and Africanness is used commercially and it’s turned into a commodity,” artist Zoë Charlton, an associate professor of art at American University, told City Paper in March 2020. “It’s transactional.”

Rendition’s commentary on how the Black community has been mistreated would become especially relevant in the wake of the racial justice movement that gained momentum after George Floyd’s killing. Just before the pandemic hit D.C., Charlton emphasized that she didn’t think conversations about

how Black identities are used to sell products should be limited to a certain time and place.

CulturalDC provided a platform for these conversations.

Rendition spoke to issues that would become essential elements of a vital national conversation. Even the method of making art accessible through nontraditional means, like the Mobile Art Gallery, illustrates that CulturalDC was thinking of these issues well before the pandemic made them urgent.

In 2020, CulturalDC scrapped plans and scrambled to reinvent itself in the rapidly changing arts landscape. It paused and rescheduled indoor exhibitions, then set up a virtual happy hour series with artists, “Shaken Not Stirred.” The group sold work by local artists in the online CulturalDC Art Shop (including a benefit sale of a $2,000 screenprint to support local artist Yar Koporulin, who died from lung cancer in late October). To bring art to the people, CulturalDC blasted projections from a twopart video installation, Subversions, on 14th Street NW. And the growth seems to just be getting started: The organization will soon announce its new Capital Artists Residency, an Amazonsponsored residency program for artists of color.

“Our job always is to try to find artists and platforms, and provide artists with platforms,” explains executive director Kristi Maiselman. That ethos proved to be especially valuable when artists lost many of their traditional opportunities.

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washingtoncitypaper.com march 2021 29

STATE OF THE ARTS MUSEUMS

30 march 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

Baltimore, targeting vulnerable individuals with records who they thought wouldn’t file a complaint.

Henderson and Soderberg remixed this footage for “As An Enemy,” the second part of Subversions. (The first part, “United in Democracy,” ran from Oct. 30 to Nov. 30, 2020.) The Current Space installation utilized tube televisions, so they burned the footage onto DVDs to project onto Source. Henderson says though these are images of Baltimore, the art installation is a commentary on the racist legacy of policing all over the country.

The racial justice movement and the pandemic have not only influenced CulturalDC’s current programming and plans for the future; they’ve also given new perspective to earlier CulturalDC shows. And as vaccination rates rise, CulturalDC is beginning to plan to show art in a world that’s something more like normal.

Up next, CulturalDC is reviving a Mobile Art Gallery art installation by Washington area artist Andy Yoder. Yoder’s installation piece, Overboard, connects to consumer culture, showcasing more than 100 shoes Yoder made from mostly recycled materials. The show was originally scheduled to open in the Mobile Art Gallery in April 2020; it’s now rescheduled for spring 2021.

After learning about the Mobile Art Gallery, Yoder was inspired to create an installation that directly connected to the gallery’s shipping container space. Research led him to a story about a shipping container that fell off its freighter during a tropical storm in 1990 and spilled tens of thousands of Nike sneakers into the Pacific Ocean. The shoes are based off the Air Jordan 5, and some are made with reclaimed materials found in recycling bins like Wheaties, 7 Up, Kool-Aid, and Coca-Cola packages.

Overboard is partly a commentary on consumerism and how sneakers have been gentrified, Yoder says. Another part is environmental.

Jennifer Anne Mitchell

to the times, like Ivanka Vacuuming by American conceptual artist Jennifer Rubell in February 2019, which featured an Ivanka Trump look-alike vacuuming a pink carpet in the former Flashpoint Gallery space—and invited the public to throw crumbs on the carpet and watch the vacuuming. (CulturalDC owned Flashpoint from 2003 to 2017 and ran the Mead Theatre Lab Program in the space from 2005 to 2017.)

CulturalDC then pivoted to its Mobile Art Gallery in 2019 so the organization could engage with more communities by bringing art directly to them. The Barbershop Project, for example, explored Black masculinity and vulnerability through the art of hair. It was housed in the portable art space from May to August 2019 at THEARC on Mississippi Avenue SE, then from September to October 2019 at T and 14th Streets NW. Local musician Kokayi, a Grammy-nominated D.C. native, sees the Mobile Art Gallery as an outlet for artists and viewers among “a plethora of galleries that necessarily don’t serve a particular public.” When he spoke with City Paper in March 2020, Kokayi pointed out the space benefits the community—by exposing them to artists they might not otherwise come across—and gives artists a chance to make the money they need to continue their artistic practice.

The group’s mission is to “provide unconventional space for relevant and challenging work that is essential to nurturing vibrant urban communities.” When a pandemic and a historic movement against anti-Black racism upended daily life in America in 2020, relevant and challenging work was especially called for, and CulturalDC responded with a creative approach.

Digital exhibitions weren’t part of its pandemic programming; instead, gripping public art was the focus.

“We shifted in the fall to how we could utilize Source Theatre as a way to show work,” Maiselman says. “As we realized that this was going to go on longer that we anticipated, we wanted to find a way.”

Teri Henderson, a Black, Baltimore-based curator and staff writer for BmoreArt, had produced video installations in Baltimore. After Maiselman saw them, she reached out to bring something similar to Source. The result was Subversions, a powerful example of art responding to current events. The two-part video installation was projected onto Source’s exterior so people could see it when they were walking by or riding on a bus, Henderson says, without having to step inside a museum or gallery—a strategic decision during the pandemic. Bringing art to the community made it more accessible, Henderson notes, since viewers didn’t need a computer or internet access.

Henderson says producing Subversions during the public health crisis meant “everything is just about being in flux and making adjustments.” She had to figure out technology hiccups, traveled from Baltimore by MARC or Uber to get to the District and, once the projections were up, recalled how happy passersby said they were to see art on the street. According to CulturalDC, there were limited opportunities to photograph the installation, but they had to make do.

Henderson says the original idea to tackle race and representation in the second part of Subversions felt especially pertinent after the insurrection at the Capitol; the video installation, “As An Enemy,” was on view from Jan. 29 to Feb. 28. “I knew that I wanted it to be about race, absolutely,” she explains, “but I didn’t just want it to be so simple, like, ‘Here’s a show about race.’”

In November, she started planning to build on a project she created in the summer of 2020: The People United, a window exhibition at Current Space in Baltimore Henderson developed with Brandon Soderberg, the former editor in chief of Baltimore City Paper. It featured the work of seven Black photographers who documented the protests after George Floyd’s killing and a video installation Soderberg created that included a collection of footage relevant to his book, I Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall of American’s Most Corrupt Police Squad, co-written with Baynard Woods. The video includes bodycam and surveillance footage of the Gun Trace Task Force, a group of police officers indicted on federal racketeering charges in 2017. The squad broke into homes, stole drugs, and horrifically mistreated Black people in

“I would like to give people pause, make them ponder what happens when you go online and you order something from China,” Yoder said when he spoke with City Paper about his exhibition in 2020. “An idea of our footprint, I guess, if you want to make a bad pun, on the planet’s environment.”

This motivation predates the COVID era, when ordering essentials online became commonplace to mitigate the virus’s spread. Reflecting on the countless shipping containers that have made our lives safer throughout 2020 puts a new lens on Yoder’s installation, too.

The topsy-turvy year resulted in another huge development for CulturalDC, which will soon announce its Capital Artists Residency. The inaugural resident will be Los Angeles-based artist Umar Rashid, also known as Frohawk Two Feathers, who produces colorful paintings informed by cultural references like Egyptian hieroglyphs, Native American hide paintings, Persian miniature paintings, and illustrated Spanish colonial manuscripts. His work will be shown in a September Mobile Art Gallery installation.

Maiselman says the Capital Artists Residency grew out of 2020’s emphasis on equity and racial justice. “We’ve had a pretty broad view of artists’ perspectives that we want to include,” Maiselman notes. “And I think the events of 2020 have reinforced that.” She hopes this residency will keep the momentum going.

The resident artists can stay for one to three months and receive housing, studio space and a stipend. Maiselman says partnering with big-time funders like Amazon won’t change CulturalDC’s local focus, and the intention is to bring artists and curators from outside of the District into contact with the community.

Henderson hopes conversations about race and class continue long after 2020. “It can’t just be because we have so much time at home and the world is different. It has to be an actual shift that stays,” she says. “I shouldn’t be the last Black curator to do something on 14th Street.”

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washingtoncitypaper.com march 2021 31

FOOD YOUNG & HUNGRY

Food Fighters How four D.C. businesses owners fought their way through year one of the COVID-19 pandemic

“It was supposed to be 14 days to flatten the curve,” Stable co-owner Silvan Kraemer says, reflecting on March 2020. “We were hopeful that after two weeks, we could go back to normal.” Two weeks became two months, then two months became 12. It’s been nearly a year since Mayor Muriel Bowser closed restaurants to on-premise dining on March 16 to limit the spread of COVID-19.

As predicted, not all restaurants and bars made the numbers work. Some landlords still demanded rent, insurers largely didn’t honor business interruption insurance, takeout couldn’t cover labor costs, and the federal government didn’t pass restaurant-specific aid until this month. The Post Pub made it to June.

Bistro Bohem hung on until July, and Capitol Lounge until September. Johnny’s Half Shell called it quits in October.

Even as temperatures warm in D.C. and vaccine availability increases, diners who think their favorite restaurants are safe could be mistaken, according to hospitality attorney Scott Rome. Because a commercial eviction moratorium has been in place in the District, some restaurants have avoided paying full rent by working out payment plans with their landlords.

“If they made it this far, it doesn’t mean that they’ve weathered the worst of the storm because that could still come when the bills come due,” Rome says. “When the eviction ban is lifted, there will still be months, if not years, of legal wrangling before people go under, but how much that’s going to be we don’t know yet.”

Some resilient restaurants have persevered.

City Paper had to know how they did it.

Breakfast on the Brink Less than a month after Bowser closed restaurants, Tyoka Jackson feared the worst.

The former NFL player, who owns two IHOP franchises in D.C., told City Paper he didn’t think he could hang on for four more weeks.

Sales were down 65 percent. “I don’t like to predict our own demise, but I’m scared to be doing

Darrow Montgomery/File

By Laura Hayes @LauraHayesDC

Sunyatta Amen this beyond one month from now,” Jackson said in April 2020.

“I was telling you we have about four weeks left,” Jackson now recalls. “It ended up being shorter than that. It was pretty dark.” Running payroll put this business in the red. “I had to reach into my own pocket and put in. That was a low point for us as a business,” he says.

Nearly a year later, the pancake houses in Congress Heights and Columbia Heights are still in business, serving as affordable gathering spots for community members. Jackson says he’s even in a position to hire and has partnered with the United Planning Organization to reach Washingtonians in need of employment.

He attributes his viability to the aid he secured. Shortly after Jackson’s morale sunk, his franchises obtained Paycheck Protection Program loans. Some restaurateurs felt the first round of PPP, which incentivized businesses to keep employees on payroll, wasn’t a good fit for the hospitality sector because only 25 percent of the money could be used on expenses like rent for the loan to be treated like a grant. The second round of PPP allowed for greater spending flexibility and increased the coverage period.

It panned out for Jackson. “That took a lot of pressure off of us to be able to take care of folks who had hung in there,” he says. Local support helped too: “The D.C. government stepped up with microgrants and dedicated restaurant grants. Those were invaluable infusions of much needed liquidity. I tip my cap to the mayor and her administration for stepping up. I don’t say this a lot, but I’m proud of our politicians for

32 march 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

listening to the people screaming the most.”

Due to their locations, outdoor dining was never an option for Jackson’s restaurants.

They’ve allowed diners inside whenever the city permitted it, but 90 percent of sales have come from takeout. Losing weekend business hurt the most; many customers visited for a latenight stack of pancakes after a night out.

But Jackson isn’t wallowing. “I refuse to complain when so many people are doing worse than me and have businesses doing worse than ours,” he says. “There are businesses closing that won’t ever reopen. Everyone is suffering the mental anguish of not being able to bring people back who are looking for jobs.”

While he doesn’t name names, Jackson thinks some hardship could have been avoided by better messaging from federal officials.

“Leaders have to decide what’s best not for themselves, but for the people they’re leading,” he says. “I don’t believe that was always the driving force for the decisions being made as it relates to this pandemic.”

The Tea House That Needs a New Home When Sunyatta Amen opened Calabash Tea & Tonic in 2015, she envisioned it as a modern-day apothecary. “People come in telling us something about their existence,” she says. If a visitor relays they have headaches on Mondays, Amen or her long-tenured staff try to find the root cause before recommending products.

She misses the rhythm of regular guests seeking less stress or better sleep.

Consultations have moved to social media as neither location of Amen’s business have

allowed customers to cross the threshold since last March. Her Shaw shop has been closed since March 15, 2020, and Brookland is pickup only. That means no more prepared foods, either. Calabash typically sells Jamaican patties, coconut curry chickpea soup, and granola bowls to go with its teas.

The pandemic decimated Calabash’s revenue, but the business survived thanks to a PPP loan, a shift to e-commerce, and teaming up with other local businesses—including Little Red Fox—to sell goods. Calabash also offers delivery to D.C. residents through NEAR Delivery, a Black-owned local alternative to third-party delivery giants.

Closing Shaw was an easy call for Amen because the shop is tight and the windows don’t open. “I was concerned about my staff and their families,” she says. “Many live in multigenerational households. We don’t want to kill grandma trying to catch a dollar.”

Her landlord didn’t see it that way. In January, Amen learned Calabash would be in default of its lease if it didn’t open immediately because her landlord wants “bustling, frontfacing spaces.” Negotiations spurred an aha moment. “I realized how much power we small businesses give away to developers by not owning our properties,” Amen says. She’s in the process of moving the Shaw location to a building where she will have an ownership stake.

While Amen’s spirits are down because she can’t interface with patrons in person, she says the first time she had hope was “when I got the vaccination myself and survived it.” As a believer in natural remedies, Amen had doubts

How one D.C. organization is addressing the racial achievement gap Capital One partners with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs on racial equity

BY SARAH MARLOFF When active-duty military officer and mom, Simone Jenkins, launched the Brookland Middle School’s Parent-Teacher-Scholar Organization (PTSO), she had a mission to ensure all parents voices and concerns were heard to collectively enforce change for the school community. The issues ranged from online bullying to equity in the classroom.

“We wanted to move away from your traditional PTA meetings,” said Jenkins, who is also the mother of a Brookland Middle Schooler.

The PTSO’s role as a conduit between students, parents and the school became even more pertinent when D.C. students were unexpectedly sent home for virtual learning. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed and underscored the effects of decades of failures to invest in neighborhood schools: many families did not have access to computers or the internet, which became essential for accessing their education.

Thanks to support from the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs’ Parent Empowerment Program (PEP), parents were able to combat the digital divide and bring effective change to their community. For over 50 years, the D.C.-based legal organization has fought for racial equity through litigation and advocacy. Education is a tenet of the Committee, along with criminal legal system reform, housing, employment, disability and immigration justice.

Parents have long been the center of the struggle for race equity in D.C. A group of Black parents convened in 1941 near Ketchem Elementary School, which is now a current member of PEP, to begin advocating to integrate D.C.’s public schools. That organization led to the landmark case of Bolling v. Sharpe which was decided with Brown v. Board of Education and declared segregated schools inherently unequal.

“The work of those parents remains unfinished today as students of color still do not have an equal opportunity for a high-quality education,” said Kaitlin Banner, deputy legal director at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.

“In the rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods of Anacostia and Brookland, parent voices are being ignored in favor of newer residents, resulting in unequal parent power in public education. Ultimately, this widens the racial wealth and opportunity gap.”

PEP is currently established in six D.C. PTSOs to empower these marginalized families. Through PEP, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs is working to advance equity in

education by ensuring that parents and community members know they have power to create a brighter future for youth and the broader society.

an equal opportunity to prosper through advocating for an inclusive society, building thriving communities and creating financial tools that enrich lives.

“One thing we’ve learned over many years of doing civil rights and racial justice work is that the courts are important but are not the only answer to making change,” said Banner. “There needs to be sustained advocacy and organizing efforts.”

“Capital One is passionate about the success of our community and that is why we are so proud to partner with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, an organization that is fostering a more equitable future for D.C. through their intentional efforts addressing systemic racism and inequities in our school system,” said Mark Mathewson, SVP, Technology, Capital One.

The Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs’ advocacy efforts include testifying before the D.C. Council, working with community groups to combat discrimination and overseeing PEP. During the D.C. Council’s budget deliberations in May, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs supported digital equity in D.C. and other coalition partners to successfully advocate for the inclusion of $6.9 million in the District of Columbia Public Schools’ (DCPS) budget to address digital inequity. DCPS has since committed to providing computers and internet access to every student without access and is promising $27 million in educator and student technology in the fiscal year 2022 budget.

Recognizing equal access to education plays a central role in creating a more equitable society for all, Capital One partnered with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs to invest strategic grant funds as part of its Capital One Impact Initiative.

Capital One supports PEP as well as the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs’ additional education initiatives: Public policy advocacy with District officials Support to the School Partnership Program, which recruits law firms and businesses to partner with D.C. Public Schools to provide enrichment programs for lowincome students Advocating for equitable school funding, school-based mental health support, digital equity and other efforts “Capital One, amidst everything that’s been happening in our society, made a real decision to invest in D.C. and racial equity,” Banner said. “We are incredibly appreciative of their investment.”

Launched in October 2020, the Capital One Impact Initiative seeks to create a world where everyone has

SPONSORED STORY FROM CAPITAL ONE

washingtoncitypaper.com march 2021 33

FOOD

DIVERSIONS CROSSWORD

about getting the vaccine. Ultimately she did so to protect the aunt she lives with, who is older and a cancer survivor: “You know what I do for a living, but it would be foolish not to take advantage of protecting the people around you.”

The Neighborhood Bar That Neighbors Discovered The timing of D.C.’s initial restaurant shutdown was terrible for an Adams Morgan bar that matches sports with Filipino sisig. “The biggest bunker for us was right before March Madness,” says The Game DC owner Jo-Jo Valenzuela. “For a sports bar, we were really looking forward to that. All those months that it was dead, we really counted on that to give us some money to pad the bank.”

Prior to the pandemic, Valenzuela says passersby overlooked his businesses that opened in February 2019. On top of the sports pub sits a tropical oasis called Tiki on 18th. “COVID-19 was indeed a blessing for us because beforehand, we were merely an industry place,” Va l e n z u e l a s ay s .

Bartenders and chefs occupied most of the stools. “We were also a destination place.

People from New York and New Jersey came for our [Filipino] food.”

Once outdoor dining was allowed in late spring, Valenzuela set out tables and the foot traffic he was hankering for finally materialized.

“When it was beautiful outside, we were always busy,” he says. “That kind of gave us hope. We’re pulling this off. … We have better numbers now than before COVID.” But that doesn’t mean the bars didn’t have to overcome obstacles. To cut back on labor costs, Valenzuela says he was both the cook and the dishwasher for a number of months. While he’s worked in kitchens before and briefly ran a takeout place in the Philippines, Valenzuela is a bartender by trade. “Bartending is still harder,” he jokes. “You have to deal with personalities.”

Valenzuela and several of his family members also contracted the virus. “Mine started with a throat thing and body aches,” he says.

His sense of taste was impacted. Staff members at the bars got it, too. “We had to shut down again and wait for all of us to be cleared.”

Operating in the rigorous conditions of a pandemic has given Valenzuela a fresh perspective. “What this did for the whole industry is made everybody work more efficiently,” he says. “What I have done differently and will do differently moving forward is not be too ambitious. I’ve always been an overachiever. I like to do things more complicated than what they should be. Now it’s more about efficiency. You’re giving up a lot of passion to survive nowadays.”

restaurant here than in Switzerland. Takeout hasn’t been a lifeline there because it isn’t entrenched in their food culture, according to Kraemer. Stable had never experimented with to-go food, fearing that staple dishes wouldn’t travel well. The cozy restaurant is at its best in the winter when diners huddle around bubbling fondue pots.

But after adjusting its menu in March 2020, the H Street NE restaurant gave takeout a try.

The staff had to because it’s all the city allowed.

Stable’s entry into to-go food was the start of the restaurant’s yearlong experimentation with employing new strategies to stay afloat.

Summer is Stable’s slowest season, and Kraemer wasn’t sure if it was worthwhile to try to secure a streatery for outdoor dining.

Then a neighboring business—Gallery O on H—approached the restaurant to see if Stable wanted to commandeer the patio. Fritsche and Kraemer got to work building a seafood shack serving crabs and oysters. Pier 1354 opened in August.

“It gave us the opportunity to do something totally different without sacrificing the brand,” Kraemer says. “It was good from a PR standpoint and it allowed us to bring everyone back who wanted to come back [on staff ].” (In the early months of the pandemic, the owners ran the business by themselves like many restaurants in the region.) “It wasn’t a money-maker, but it was good for everyone’s sanity.”

When fall weather blew in, the owners regrouped again. “Silvan and myself were like ‘Fuck, I don’t know what to do,’” Fritsche says.

“We sat at the bar, pounded beers, and brainstormed. Why don’t we build chalets? That’s what Switzerland is all about!”

The indoor chalets were ready for business in November and booked up immediately. “It was so good to see people in the restaurant again,” Fritsche says. “Hearing the pots and pans, broken glass, cutlery. It was kind of normal again.”

But then the District instituted a new indoor dining ban in anticipation of a holiday spike in COVID-19 cases. It lasted from Dec. 23 through Jan. 22. Kraemer called the move “a big slap in the face” because they had to cancel diners’ Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve reservations. Employees were looking forward to making money. Stable also built a streatery, but the holidays were rainy.

Stable received a PPP loan and a microgrant from the city, but Fritsche says they’re positioned to cross the finish line because of their willingness to adapt. “I always tell people if you survived this pandemic and you didn’t learn something, you did something wrong,” Fritsche says. “You really rip your numbers apart and go down to the bare bones to figure out where you can save.”

“I was concerned about my staff and their families. Many live in multigenerational households. We don’t want to kill grandma trying to catch a dollar.”

The Center of Swiss Innovation Stable owners David Fritsche and Silvan Kraemer, say they’re better off running a

34 march 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

No And In Sight

By Brendan Emmett Quigley

Across 1. Job for a nearly retired Ranger, maybe 6. Ninny 10. Pulls back 14. Land ruled by Pontius Pilate 15. Creole veggie 16. “Minari” star ___ S. Kim 17. Very tiny candy?

19. Large Asian desert 20. Stinky 21. Easy-to-swallow pill 23. Hurt boxer’s cry?

26. Ex follower 27. Like many a charitable race 28. Butcher’s tool 30. Turkish tender 31. Third number in the Fibonacci sequence 34. “Boy howdy!”

35. Scrunch up a necklace?

37. Crime scene investigators: Abbr.

38. “Hot Buttered Soul” soul man 39. Imperfections airbrushed from yearbook photos

40. Noise that ensures a vault is secure?

42. “___ Don’t Lose That Number” 43. Hilton Hotels subsidiary 44. Programmer’s creation 45. Sprang (up), as tears 46. Brings home, as some cash crops 48. Launch, as a softball question 49. It might be named after a political happening 50. Handouts at some 27-Acrosses 52. Place to debate 54. Saint Exupéry Airport city 55. Do some polling on candidates least likely to win?

60. Masterwork 61. A pop 62. Show advertiser 63. Left on the map 64. Some breads 65. Like dive bars Down 1. Record players 2. “What’s that?”

3. [Points to self, raises hand] “Me!”

4. Foam toy company 5. ___ drug 6. “Station to Station” singer 7. Approved 8. It’s mined, all mined 9. Young women who pick things up around home?

10. USA symbol 11. NFL lineman’s job?

12. Cake with rum and currants 13. Make delicate cuts 18. It borders Hades 22. Med mission 23. Surrounded by

24. You might get one with embarrassment or from a sunburn 25. Skip meals and have a bad attitude about it?

27. Sent in, as one’s taxes 29. Zap in defense 30. Actress KiKi of “Coming 2 America” 32. Flirt 33. Upstate New York people 35. Modem units 36. Hard rain 38. Baller 41. “Leave me alone!”

42. Snubs 45. Toil at it 47. Young’s accounting partner 48. Scottish bodies of water 50. Taking one’s time 51. PR goal 52. Look directly at 53. Fitbit measurement 56. Light beam 57. Here’s looking at you, kid 58. Did a tour?

59. Towel off

LAST CROSSWORD: IT WAS NOTHING

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Diversity and inclusion, which are the real grounds for creativity, must remain at the center of what we do.

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CITY LIGHTS City Lights

“Thumbs”

During Lucy Dacus’ last show at 9:30 Club on Dec. 7, 2019, she started the encore with a new song. She’d played it live at other solo tour stops that year, and at shows for her supergroup boygenius. When she came out from backstage, she asked the crowd to be quiet and not to record, then mentioned that she hadn’t yet released the track, but that she was looking into it. Then she launched into “Thumbs,” a haunting ballad with an undercurrent of rage. Dacus says the song is autobiographical: It describes how a loved one gets a call from her absent father, and Dacus takes her to see him because “for whatever reason you can’t tell him no,” she sings.

Dacus watches the two at a bar, bile rising as her companion’s nails dig into her knee, and then the song moves into quiet, understated anger: “I would kill him / If you’ll let me,” Dacus sings breezily. “I would kill him / Quick and easy.” “Thumbs” (and its gory central image—thumbs pressing on eyes until they pop) was an instant fan favorite among aficionados of the Richmond-raised artist.

They posted about it on Reddit, while over on Twitter an account called @releasethumbs periodically checked in on the song’s release.

Today, @releasethumbs gets to report the happy news: “Thumbs” is out in the world for all to hear. Though the song revolves around pain, it’s about love, especially at its conclusion. “I wanna take your face between my hands and say / You two are connected by pure coincidence,” she sings. And in the end: “You don’t owe him shit, even if he said you did.” The song is available on Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, and other streaming services. Free—$1.29.

—Emma Sarappo

City Lights

Ken Ludwig’s Dear Jack, Dear Louise: Love Letter Experience “My brother and I knew that our parents met by letter because their parents wanted to set them up,” explains playwright Ken Ludwig. Their correspondence began during World War II, while Army Capt. Jacob Ludwig was serving as a doctor on bases in Oregon and Texas before finding himself on the front lines in the European theater, and Louise Rabiner was working as an actor, dancer, and singer in touring companies of popular Broadway shows. It took them three years to finally meet during V-E Day celebrations in Times Square. Their playwright son, an avid reader of the personal letters of historical figures (he describes the form as “intimate like something whispered in bed”), wrote Dear Jack, Dear Louise, an epistolary two-hander with letters written from scratch—to replace the lost originals—which premiered at Arena Stage in December 2019. Then COVID-19 closed theaters. But Arena’s artistic director Molly Smith called Ludwig with an idea.

Casting director and line producer Teresa Sapien wanted to let audiences experience the play in a new way: via letters. “I was thrilled by the idea, but my role was mostly as a consultant and giving my blessing,” Ludwig says. For the audience at home, nine letters from Jack and Louise will be mailed out over the course of April, reproducing period details of envelopes, stationary, stamps, and cancelation markings researched by Arena’s props department led by properties director Jenn Sheetz. “They’re the experts,” says Ludwig.

“The research and details are mind-boggling.”

Registration is available at arenastage.org through March 23. $35–$55.

—Ian Thal

City Lights

The DC Teacher Art Show: Distance Learning Plenty of artists have used pain as inspiration for their work—think Pablo Picasso’s Blue Period, for example. And 2020 provided plenty of fodder for pain-based work. But a new show fuses pain with joy by letting teachers reflect on the last year’s hardships and how they stayed connected with the communities and children they serve. Made possible by a DC Commission on the Arts and

36 march 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

Humanities grant, the DC Teacher Art Show Distance Learning seeks to share some of their works. Curator Zsudayka Nzinga Terrell gathered pieces from 21 art teachers in the D.C. area that explore isolation and mental health during the pandemic and social unrest of the past year.

The online gallery includes portraiture, sculpture, print, digital and abstract art, and spoken word pieces. Some of the artists featured have an established presence, like Reshada PullenJireh, whose painting of three laughing children, “Hey Sis,” headlines the exhibit. “I choose to paint Black people living their everyday lives as an urgent need to tell the stories of our humanity,” she writes on her website. For other teacherartists, this is their first exhibit. The work can be seen in a 3D virtual walkthrough or as a carousel of images that portray everything from somber vigils to childhood joy. The exhibition is available at dcteacherartshow.com through March 16. Free.

—Mary Scott Manning

City Lights

Mother Tongue Film Festival The Smithsonian’s sixth annual Mother Tongue Film Festival—a space for celebrating global cinema with a special emphasis on language—opened on Feb. 21, International Mother Language Day, with Waikiki, Hawaii’s first Native-helmed feature. Directed by Christopher Kahunahana, the film is a surreal portrait of Kea, a teacher, hula dancer, and bar hostess who, after striking a man with her van while escaping from an abusive ex, brings that individual into her life. If you weren’t able to snag one of Waikiki’s 400 first-come, first-serve tickets, don’t fret: The all-online, free festival is rolling out a healthy schedule of screenings—45 of them in 39 languages—through May. Teko Haxy (Being Imperfect), a short experimental documentary directed by Brazilian anthropologist Sophia Pinheiro and Keretxu filmmaker Patrícia Ferreira, is available to view now for free. Be sure to scroll through Mother Tongue’s huge collection of short films, many of which are already available, and remember to register for director and filmmaker talkbacks to round out your festival experience. The films are available to view at mothertongue.si.edu. Free.

—Amy Guay

City Lights

In Memorium Before the pandemic, you could find a lion onstage at spots around town like DC9, the Dew Drop Inn, and Boundary Stone. This was

Tuff Lover, an “electronic pop/deep house quintet” from Nikhil Rao, also the frontman for local surf rock band Bottled Up. Rao says the lion got involved when he went to perform at Boundary Stone and found a lion mask in his bag; it joined him onstage from then on. Rao started the project in 2018 as a distraction from his other projects and as a way of experimenting with the lo-fi he had been listening to. It took off among his friends—that’s how Freddy Leighton got into it. When Leighton told Rao how much he liked the music, Rao had him join in on vocals at the start of 2019; Leighton sang in the band until he died in October 2019. Rao reminisces about the way he used to “trick” Leighton into playing live shows. Rao would never hold band practice beforehand; he’d instead throw Leighton into a song live because he liked Leighton’s improvisations. “Lyrics and melodies that came straight from the heart,” he says, “didn’t want to get rid of that.” The only new music on Tuff Lover’s Bandcamp since Leighton’s death is In Memorium, a live recording from February 2020 released one calendar year ago. Rao calls it “time we were all able to get together and celebrate that moment.” The recording is available on Bandcamp. Free—$7.

—Michael Loria

City Lights

“Nightwalker” “Nightwalker,” the new song by Washington D.C.’s Morphine Smile, is about mourning. When he wrote it, singer-songwriter Jim Smalley, who’s previously played with bands like Honest Haloway, was thinking about walking down 14th Street NW, past the shell of what was once Black Cat’s Red Room.

Though the beloved D.C. bar still technically lives on in another floor of the same building, the iconic incarnation that existed from 200118 is gone—and COVID’s nixed gatherings for the barflies, often affiliated with the city’s independent music scenes, who called it home.

Smalley uses the story of this small but impactful loss to lend the song intimacy. Whether or not you ever set foot in that iteration of the Red Room, the themes of “Nightwalker” are resonant, especially in a city battered by destructive change. It might seem trite to mourn a bar in the midst of so much human suffering, but there is real pain in the loss of a place where you once felt safe and fulfilled. Smalley’s song deals with that pain by doing the hard work of passing through darkness, one step at a time.

“Nightwalker” is one of six songs on Morphine Smile’s new EP, Heirloom. The track was mastered by TJ Lipple, who has also worked on music with Priests, Snail Mail, and Bikini Kill.

The song’s lyric video is available on YouTube.

Free.

—Will Lennon

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In this Back to Business session, experts in storytelling, design, and branding will discuss how to engage your audience in a changing digital world.

Panelists will share case studies and quick tips for reaching your intended audience.

Thursday, March 25th 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm REGISTER washingtoncitypaper.com/backtobusiness

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washingtoncitypaper.com march 2021 37

DIVERSIONS SAVAGE LOVE

What’s your #City Paper Story?

Visit washington citypaper.com/ wcp40 or use the #CityPaperStory hashtag on social media to submit your story!

I’m having a problem advising a friend. She’s been through a divorce and, now, the breaking off of an engagement. To put it simply, both relationships ended because she was cheated on and she has a zero-tolerance policy around infidelity. To complicate matters, in each relationship we—her friends—have witnessed her being very cutting to the point of being downright insulting to her former partners. She has a tendency to tease her partners about their deepest insecurities in public and to express her extreme disdain for their family members openly. I had a chance to speak to each of her former partners after the breakup, and they expressed to me that they felt emasculated by her and that their self-esteem was shot and they had essentially “had enough.” However, neither has given her this feedback directly.

My friends and I have hinted to her about this pattern in the hopes of helping her see what her role might be in these breakups. But she takes extreme offense to any criticism and insists she’s the victim.

I’m sympathetic to her plight but her unwillingness to accept any responsibility makes it difficult to offer her any useful advice. I’ve been there for her, calling her daily, and stopping by when I could in a COVID-safe way. But every conversation turns into a three-hour-long rehashing of these relationships with all blame assigned to her exes. I’ve let a few weeks go by without reaching out because I don’t want to have another one of these conversations. I’m curious what you would do here. Our entire friend group is now debating whether we should share our actual opinions with her at the risk of her being angry with us. The other option is to leave it alone and hope she comes to her own conclusions. I wish her exes had the courage to tell her their true feelings.

—No Brainpower For Clever Signoff Your friend must be one scary asshole—I mean, that would explain why her former romantic partners won’t tell her she’s an asshole and why her friends won’t tell her that her assholery has consequences. Like getting dumped. And while her exes should’ve broken up with her before cheating on her, NBFCS, it sounds like both opted to slam their hands down on the selfdestruct button instead. And who can blame them? Maybe they thought cheating would help them masc back up after enduring your friend’s emasculating abuse—and that would be pretty fucked up if they thought that—or maybe they wanted to punish your asshole friend by engineering breakups every bit as painful for her as these relationships had been for them.

But why they cheated isn’t the question.

You’re wondering what, if anything, you should say to your friend about this pattern, i.e., that she’s an asshole who emotionally abuses her romantic partners and it makes you and the rest of her friends uncomfortable.

If you want your friend to know she’s an asshole and needs help, NBFCS, you’re going to have to say something. Assholes rarely have epiphanies.

If you can’t bring yourself to say what you need to say to her asshole face, put it in a letter, ask your mutual friends to cosign, and email it to her. You might never hear from her again, NBFCS, but would that really be so terrible? Do you want to be friends with someone who expects you to sit

38 march 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

there silently while she verbally abuses her romantic partners and then expects you to sit and listen while she complains about her exes for hours? We both know the answer to that question, NBFCS, and it’s fuck no. You’ve already started to cut this woman out of your life—you’re in the process of breaking up with your friend—because her good qualities, whatever they might be, don’t compensate for her assholery. You’ve got nothing to lose by leveling with this woman except for her company, which you do not enjoy. You can’t condemn her exes for not having the courage to share their true feelings with her if you don’t have the courage to do the same.

—Dan Savage How do I know if a guy is a player or if he has feelings for me? This guy goes to my university and we have had our eyes on each other for more than a year. I made a move and sent him a friend request on Facebook and we started spending a lot of time with each other. The problem is, I am constantly finding him with other girls. He got to know my

“...You’re going to have to say something.

Assholes rarely have epiphanies. If you can’t bring yourself to say what you need to say to her asshole face, put it in a letter, ask your mutual friends to cosign, and email it to her.” female friends and started talking them up too and he says the same things to them he says to me.

This made me really upset and I told him I wanted some space and asked him to stop contacting me, but I couldn’t tell him the real reason. Instead I told him he was suffocating me with his attention (partly true) but he kept reaching out to tell me how much he misses me. He even told me he has feelings for me but he isn’t sure what they are, and so can’t put a label on them, and says I’m special to him, and he gets insanely jealous whenever he sees me with other guys. Feel free to ask for more details about our story if you’re interested. —Parsing Love And Yearning No more details. Please. While I’m sure every last detail is fascinating, PLAY, what you need to do here is obvious—it’s so obvious you’ve already tried to do it.

Zooming out for a second: “He’s a player” is just another way of saying “He’s a liar.” A player is a guy who tells someone what he thinks she wants to hear (“you’re so special to me”) to get into her pants. If a little play is all a person wants—if some sexual attention and whole bunch of compliments you know to be bullshit are what you want—then it doesn’t matter if the guy is a player. His lies can go

in one ear and out the other at the same time his dick goes in and out of you. But if you want something serious with this guy and you know you’re being played, that’s going to be painful. And if you want something serious with someone and you’re hanging around with or fucking a player, that’s a waste of your time.

So, PLAY, do that thing again, that thing you already did, but stick to it this time. Tell this guy to stop contacting you, unfollow him on Facebook, block his number, and encourage your friends to do the same.

—DS Heterosexual 30-something female here. For all of my sexual life, until recently, I really enjoyed having my nipples played with by my partners—during sex, as part of foreplay, fingers, clamps, lips, tongue, just about anything touching of my nipples was a turn on and an orgasm enhancer. But something changed after witnessing my boyfriend’s sister breastfeeding her child. Something about seeing nipples being used for, well, what they’re meant to be used for has really squicked me out. Now, when my boyfriend touches my nipples in the slightest way, I find it irritating, a little gross, and a huge turn off. I think maybe this was the first time I’d seen breastfeeding in person? Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that it was my boyfriend’s sister? I don’t know!

I don’t know why, but for whatever reason, seeing nipples in a different light has left me repulsed by the idea of using mine in a sexual way. If I’m close to orgasm, I can stand a little bit of nipple attention but nowhere near the amount I used to like. I want to enjoy nipple play again, Dan! Any advice for getting my nipples back? It’s been months!

—Breasts Out Of Business Suddenly P.S. I don’t mean any offense whatsoever to those who breastfeed. It’s not the breastfeeding that I find squicky. It’s the idea of using my own breasts in a sexual way that has me suddenly feeling all conflicted and weirded out.

I don’t want to ruin dick for you, BOOBS, but you do know men don’t just ejaculate out of those things, right? Dicks serve more than one purpose. Dicks and nipples both have specific nonsexual purposes (peeing and breastfeeding) as well as specific sexual functions (ejaculating and, um, erogenous zoning). There are a lot of sensitive nerve endings and erectile tissues in and around our nipples, both the male and female varieties, and our nipples—like our assholes and our throats—don’t just have a sexual use, they have a sexual purpose. Considering that we have more sex than we do children, BOOBS, you could argue their sexual use is their highest and best use. Which means you aren’t misusing your nipples when you derive pleasure from having them licked, sucked, clamped, etc., BOOBS, you are enjoying your nipples just as nature— natural selection and spontaneous mutation— intended them to be enjoyed.

And if thinking about breastfeeding squicks you out, don’t think about it—just like you don’t think about piss when you suck your boyfriend’s dick and I don’t think about shit when I eat my boyfriend’s ass.

—DS Email your Savage Love to mail@savagelove.net.

CLASSIFIEDS Legal FRIENDSHIP PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL NOTICE OF REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Friendship Public Charter School is soliciting proposals from qualified vendors for: * Criminal background check service and/or virtual I9 and E-Verify services * Recruitment service partners to assist with the recruitment and selection of staff specializing in clinical services for student The competitive Request for Proposal can be found on FPCS website at http://www.friendshipschools.org/procurement.

Proposals are due no later than 4:00 P.M., EST, Friday, March 26, 2021. No proposal will be accepted after the deadline. Questions can be addressed to: ProcurementInquiry@ friendshipschools.org FRIENDSHIP PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL NOTICE OF REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Friendship Public Charter School is soliciting proposals from qualified vendors for: * Groceries Suppliers to provide grocery items to support the USDA National School Breakfast and Lunch Program, Supper program under the CACFP Program and any other related programs at Friendship Public Charter School Food and Nutrition Services, during school year 2021-2022 The competitive Request for Proposal can be found on FPCS website at http://www.friendshipschools.org/procurement . Proposals are due no later than 4:00 P.M., EST, Friday, April 16, 2021. No proposal will be accepted after the deadline. Questions can be addressed to: ProcurementInquiry@ friendshipschools.org

D.C. BILINGUAL PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL IN ACCORDANCE WITH SECTION 2204(C) of the District of Columbia School Reform Act of 1995 solicits proposals for vendors to provide the following services for SY20.21: * Prevention, Monitoring and Management Services Proposal Submission A Portable Document Format (pdf ) election version of your proposal must be received by the school no later than 4:00 p.m.

EST on Monday, March 22, 2021. Proposals and full RFP request should be emailed to bids@dcbilingual.org No phone call submission or late responses please.

Interviews, samples, demonstrations will be scheduled at our request after the review of the proposals only.

NOTICE OF REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS Thurgood Marshall Academy charter school seeks professional development related to Advanced Placement. For full RFP visit https://thurgoodmarshallacademy.org/about/ employmentopportunities/ or email dschlossman@tmapchs. org . Bid review begins March 23, 2021.

MUNDO VERDE PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS BAS Maintenance and Sustainability Dashboard Mundo Verde PCS seeks bids for building automation system (BAS) annual maintenance and the integration of a sustainability dashboard. The RFP with bidding requirements and supporting documentation can be obtained by contacting Rocio Yoc at ryoc@mundoverdepcs.org or calling 202-750-7060.

All bids not addressing all areas as outlined in the RFP will not be considered.

The deadline for application submission is 3 pm on Wednesday, March 31, 2021.

For further information regarding this notice contact Rocio Yoc at ryoc@ mundoverdepcs.org.

PAUL PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL REQUESTS FOR PROPOSALS Technology and Facilities Paul Public Charter School is currently seeking bids for: Technology: * Chromebooks (min qty: 100) * Windows PC Licenses (min qty:100) Facilities: * Cupola Repairs – painting and reconditioning * Fence – around entire building More information about technology bid is available by request by emailing business-office@ paulcharter.org. To set up an appointment to meet with Facilities Manager to view items for bid, please email business-office@ paulcharter.org. All submissions are due by Friday April 9, 2021 at 12 noon.

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3 STRONG PEOPLE to move heavy boxes. Call 301-3834504 PRECISION WALL TECH, INC. is an established Painting Contractor based in DC. We are seeking DC qualified Commercial/ Industrial Journeyman Painters, Union Carpenters and Union Laborers who will meet our standard for the company’s FIRST SOURCE PROJECTS. Brush & Roll & Spray Experience Required + Minimum of 3 years working on large commercial jobs. Must have own transportation, pass Security clearance and drug test. $18-26/hr DOE plus benefits. EOE. Send resume to careers@ precisionwall.com

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