Washington City Paper (May 8, 2020)

POLITICS WHO IS JANEESE LEWIS GEORGE? 4 FOOD HOW RESTAURANTS ELIMINATE FOOD WASTE 12 ARTS A PAIR OF PAINTERS COMPLETE WORK TOGETHER 16 THE DISTRICT'S FREE WEEKLY SINCE 1981 VOLUME 40, NO. 18 WASHINGTONCITYPAPER.COM MAY 8 –14, 2020

Season Finale

Local college senior athletes reflect on the season that could’ve been. PAGE 8 By Kelyn Soong

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TABLE OF CONTENTS COVER STORY

8 Season Finale: After the coronavirus pandemic took away their senior seasons, student athletes are finding ways to cope.

NEWS

4 Loose Lips: Ward 4 old timers aren’t impressed with Janeese Lewis George.

FOOD

12 Waste Land: Eliminating food waste will be essential when financially strapped restaurants reopen.

14 Meet Markets: Visit the region’s international grocery stores to stock up on snacks, spices, and everyday items.

ARTS

16 Double Trouble: How has social separation impacted a pair of artists who work together?

18 Arts Club: Randall and Warren on The Water Dancer 18 Liz At Large: “Try” 19 Film: Gittell on Spaceship Earth 19 Books: Sarappo on The Summer Set

CITY LIGHTS

20 City Lights: Make digital art with Pantone’s color of the year or listen to music recorded at a late, great Georgetown club.

DIVERSIONS

15 Crossword 22 Savage Love 23 Classifieds

Cover Photo: Darrow Montgomery; Diego Zarate via Zoom

Darrow Montgomery | 5500 Block of 4th Street NW (Rear), April 28 Editorial

Advertising and Operations

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NEWS LOOSE LIPS

4 Who 4 What The case against Janeese Lewis George, according to her skeptics, critics, and Brandon Todd’s supporters.

Janeese Lewis George couldn’t help herself. In what was an otherwise sedate Ward 4 candidate forum, George seized on Councilmember Brandon Todd’s explanation for his vote to repeal Initiative 77—a ballot measure approved by voters that would have gradually eliminated D.C.’s tipped minimum wage.

Todd said hundreds of tipped workers and small business owners spoke against the measure, worried that paying higher wages would force them to close. “To have small businesses shoulder that burden, I thought was unfair,” he said.

To George, the issue was that a majority of Ward 4 voters approved the measure. “The Council doesn’t just get to take the will of the voters away,” she interjected.

Candace Tiana Nelson, president of the Ward 4 Democrats and the forum’s moderator, cut George off while Todd calmly sipped from a glass of water.

The dynamic was representative of the Ward 4 race between the challenger George, a forceful, energetic speaker, and the incumbent Todd, who takes a more measured tone.

The decision for Ward 4 voters, based on last week’s forum co-hosted by the Ward 4 Dems, the Chevy Chase Citizens Association and ANC 3/4 G, is fairly cut and dry. LL can hardly recall a single issue on which the challenger and the incumbent agreed. Todd uses traditional campaign funding, George uses public financing; Todd keeps a constituent services fund, George would abolish them; Todd would not decriminalize sex work, George would; Todd wouldn’t commit to supporting the tax and regulation of marijuana, George has previously said she’s in favor of decriminalizing all drugs.

Throughout the forum, George punctuated nearly all of her answers with criticism of Todd, who did not give in to the temptation to return the favor. The antagonism rubbed some viewers the wrong way.

Nelson says she got calls from at least two Ward 4 residents after the forum, who described George as angry, as if she had a bone to pick with Todd.

“What I thought was passion, some people said

Darrow Montgomery/File

By Mitch Ryals @MitchRyals

Ward 4 candidate Janeese Lewis George her responses came across like it was personal, like she had a vendetta,” Nelson says. “Both were women, one was African American.”

The criticism is familiar to George, who is well aware of the “angry black woman” stereotype that advisors have cautioned her against.

“I think I have to make the case for what he’s doing,” she says. “Brandon makes a point of taking pictures and making a facade of helping people when he’s not. I do have lots of bones to pick with him.”

With 15 days left until early voting begins on May 22, the Ward 4 Democratic primary has essentially come down to two candidates. A recent poll released by the Baltimore-DC Metro Building Trades Council shows between 40 and 43 percent of voters support Todd, while 27 to 33 percent of voters favor George. The third candidate still in the race, Marlena Edwards, was not included in the poll, and is largely self-funded.

Despite “some stumbles,” Todd recently locked down the Washington Post editorial board’s endorsement, which noted his close ties to Mayor Muriel Bowser as a plus.

“Instead of chasing headlines or pushing programs fashioned by advocates with a national agenda, Mr. Todd has focused on education reform and other issues of fundamental interest to Ward 4 residents,” the board writes.

George has racked up endorsements from several unions and local progressive groups, including DC for Democracy, Jews United for Justice, Black Lives Matter, and the D.C. chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (she identifies as a Democratic Socialist), which she hopes will help propel her into the Ward 4 seat.

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“Ward 4 has been shifting over the years, and different neighborhoods are growing and changing,” Nelson says. “Especially in Petworth and other places, where you’ve had African American seniors who have been selling their homes and you’re seeing more families and younger families of different races. Caucasion, Asian, Ethiopian.

More diversity and younger, so they’re interested in different things.”

But at least one longtime progressive voice is missing from George’s list of supporters. Rev. Graylan Hagler, a longtime activist, reliable Todd critic, and former Council candidate himself, says he hasn’t yet decided who he’ll support.

“It feels like she’s being chosen for me,” he says. “I don’t like that.”

Sometime in the winter of 2018–2019, Hagler attended a meeting on Georgia Avenue NW, where about a dozen people gathered to start plotting Todd’s defeat.

Although his recollection of specific details of the meeting is disputed, Hagler left feeling dismayed by the conversation and by what he believes was a flawed evaluation process.

“It’s sort of like this Young Turk politics, where some folks want to decide that other folks are irrelevant,” Hagler says, recalling the nickname once given to reform-minded pols including former Ward 4 Councilmember and Mayor Adrian Fenty. “And I don’t know what gives them that right.”

Jeremiah Lowery, the chair of the progressive group DC for Democracy, also attended the meeting. He says the group met to discuss Todd’s voting record and how to engage the public during the 2020 primary, but they didn’t

settle on a chosen candidate.

“It was individual Ward 4 advocates ... who were upset with Brandon Todd’s voting record who met to discuss their involvement in the upcoming 2020 election,” Lowery says. “What does the landscape look like? How are we going to talk about ensuring the public is informed about Brandon Todd’s voting record? But it was not like, ‘Hey, let’s select this candidate.’”

Still, Hagler is undecided. He says he doesn’t see any community stalwarts, “the people who’ve been here through thick and thin,” lining up behind George and, perhaps simplistically, describes divides across race, class, and age among the candidates’ support.

“It’s like Brandon is battling to walk with the older part of the Democratic party in Ward 4, and in some ways Janeese is going after the younger forces trying to infiltrate the party in Ward 4,” he says.

Hagler still feels burned by the “so-called progressive” Fenty, who handpicked Bowser to succeed him on the Council. The sitting mayor is a frequent target of Hagler’s criticism.

“I’m very cynical about the politics and easy labels that people carry without the substance to back it up,” he says. “And that’s why I’m saying I’m standoffish.”

George has heard these doubts before, too.

She counters by talking about her working class upbringing in a family who was pushed out of their home when the rent got too high. Her mother is still a postal worker at the Brightwood post office.

“All of my reasons for running for office are personal and come from a very personal experience and growing up here and having the

NEWS leadership of Brandon Todd,” she says.

George’s progressive backing caught Chairman Phil Mendelson’s attention as well, but he doesn’t share Hagler’s skepticism. It’s one reason he’s supporting Todd.

“I think that’s the wrong direction for us to go,” Mendelson says. “I think that she is reflecting the views of a minority that claims to be progressive, but is actually left of that,” he adds, referring to her DSA endorsement.

He lumps George in with a group of three other progressive candidates running for Council seats: Jordan Grossman in Ward 2, Anthony Lorenzo Green in Ward 7, and Ed Lazere, who ran against Mendelson in 2018 and is now running for the at-large seat that Councilmember David Grosso is vacating.

Mendelson specifically worries George will be too much of a tax-and-spend type of councilmember or one who pushes to spend down the reserve funds.

“I look at it this way,” the fiscally conservative chairman says. “When these issues come before the Council, and I’m looking for the votes so we don’t spend down the reserves and can take a reasonable step, Brandon is there almost every time. Fiscally, he’s not someone I have to worry about doing a flack attack on the budget.”

Asked about Mendelson’s support for Todd, George says she looks forward to working with the chairman and respects his push to split up the Department of Consumer and Regulatory

Affairs and reform the DC Housing Authority.

“I won’t hold it against him when I’m the Ward 4 councilmember,” she says.

Another of George’s statements that has Mendelson siding with his colleague is her posture toward police.

“I’m not interested in seeing someone on the Council who says publicly that we need fewer police,” he says.

Last October, George tweeted that she “will absolutely divest from MPD and put that money into violence interruption programs. Full stop.”

In a ward where public safety is a top issue for many voters, and with a significant number of senior residents, George’s statement puts some on edge.

“I don’t agree with that,” says Andre Carley, a former advisory neighborhood commissioner for Single Member District 4B01. “I’m a big proponent of community policing, and one thing that’s very important to us is working with police.

Violence interruption, conflict resolution, they’re great ideas, but they’re just pieces of the puzzle.”

“That’s scary. I don’t know if the police need more money, but they certainly don’t need to operate with less,” adds Charles Gaither, who previously ran for the Ward 4 seat in 2007 and supports Todd’s campaign. “I think that’s turning the clock backwards.”

George also answered “yes” on a DSA questionnaire asking if she supports demilitarizing and disarming the police department.

“We’re told the institution of policing is intended to protect all of us from some suspicious menace, but the fact is that crime is a public health problem, not a battle of military opponents,” her answer says. “The transformation of American police departments, especially the MPD, into military units trained to occupy the very communities promised protection is one of the greatest dangers to the future of urban life.”

George clarifies during an interview with LL that she doesn’t want to completely drain the police department’s budget or take guns from officers. Rather, she says, if MPD shows it’s not using its budget effectively, she supports diverting some of their budget to other areas such as the violence interruption program or to support adding more social workers in schools.

“I was speaking to the demilitarization piece of that,” she says of her response to the DSA questionnaire. “When we talk about police departments, they’re different from the armed forces. Police shouldn’t be coming into communities as if they’re going to war.”

One of the most common arguments against George is typical of many challengers: Who is she?

“I never heard of her before, until she started running,” says Joan Thomas, who served as an advisory neighborhood commissioner starting in 1976. “I don’t know anything about her, so I can’t agree or disagree with her. I’m sure she’s

a nice person. I just don’t know her.”

Several other older residents echo Thomas’ sentiments. They’re satisfied with Todd’s speedy constituent services and his attentiveness to seniors.

“I learned long ago, if you got a good one, you keep them,” saya Loretta Neumann, who has hosted parties for Bowser and Todd in her backyard, including Todd’s re-election campaign kick-off in early March. “It takes a long time to get experience working in office. He chaired the Committee [on Government Operations], he’s done well with that. You don’t get that just walking in the door.”

Without a legislative record or the equivalent of Todd’s five years in office, George’s response to people who ask about her community involvement is to point to a 2006 Washington Post article. At 17, she served as a D.C. youth mayor and spoke during a YMCA youth government legislative session about public housing, gentrification, and school funding. She was also elected to the D.C. Democratic State Committee and worked for four years prosecuting juveniles in Attorney General Karl Racine’s office.

“When people say, ‘I haven’t seen you,’ I say, ‘I’ve been here,’” George says. “Maybe that’s a testament to who you see, and maybe you haven’t seen people like me because working class people are struggling to stay here. Maybe it’s a testament to who you are, and who you’re paying attention to.”

#VoteSafeDC in the Tuesday, June 2, 2020 Primary Election: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the DC Board of Elections is committed to providing a safe environment where every vote is counted. All voters are strongly encouraged to request a mail-in ballot instead of voting in person, unless absolutely necessary. Voting by mail is safe, secure and simple. Ballot request forms are available now at www.dcboe.org. If you must vote in person, 20 Vote Centers will be open throughout the District. Social distancing measures will be enforced, and voters will be required to wear face coverings inside the Vote Centers. Curbside voting will be available.

Only voters affiliated with one of the major parties (Democratic, Republican, DC Statehood Green or Libertarian) will be issued a ballot. Same-day registration will be available at all Vote Centers.

Need to Vote in Person?

If you must vote in person, Vote Centers will open from May 22 through June 1, 2020, from 8:30 am to 7:00 pm. All sites will be closed on Memorial Day, May 25, 2020. Vote Centers will open from 7:00 am to 8:00 pm on June 2, 2020, Primary Election Day. Voters can cast their ballot at any Vote Center regardless of where they live in the District.

You may visit us online at www.dcboe.org or call us at (202) 741-5283 for more information.

washingtoncitypaper.com may 8, 2020 5

What are your key issues for the 2020 local election?

The 2020 D.C. primary is upon us, with Wards 2, 4, 7, and 8 voting for representatives from their wards and the entire city casting ballots for at-large and federal seats. In previous years, City Paper has asked politicians where they stand on the key issues we identify, and shared that information with you. This year, we want to improve our elections coverage by making a voters guide that reflects the issues that matter most to you. So, with the support of the Solutions Journalism Network and Hearken, we’re asking you: What are the issues you want to see local politicians focus on in the coming years? Once we know what you care about, we’ll ask candidates for local office how they plan to address your issues. We hope this approach empowers both you and our reporting by holding politicians accountable to D.C. residents.

You can let us know a few different ways: • Fill out our survey online, at washingtoncitypaper.com/vote2020 • Text us at (202) 851-8870 • Or simply cut this page out, write your response, and mail it to us.

Our address is 734 15th Street NW, Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 20005 Thanks, Washington City Paper P.S. Know someone else who’s passionate about local politics? Please let them know we want to hear from them, and encourage them to participate online, by text, or by mail as well.

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Diego Zarate

Season Finale College seniors were prepared to celebrate a triumphant last year as student athletes. Then the coronavirus pandemic changed everything.

By Kelyn Soong Photographs by Darrow Montgomery via Zoom

The Snapchat memories from last year remind Diego Zarate of what he’s missing this spring. For two days in mid-April, he should’ve been in Knoxville, Tennessee, running the 53rd edition of the Tennessee Relays with his teammates on the Virginia Tech track team. A week later, he should’ve been flying to the Duke Invitational in Durham, North Carolina, the same place he would’ve gone a month later for his final Atlantic Coast Conference outdoor track and field championships.

Instead, Zarate, a fifth-year senior and middle distance runner, has been in Blacksburg, Virginia, living in an off-campus apartment in the increasingly desolate college town nearly 300 miles away from his family in Germantown. All of his outdoor track events have been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“It really hits you how fast time has been going by,” Zarate says. “To me, the quarantine, with everything going on, it's almost like these weeks have been taking so, so long ... But then we're looking at the actual memories from Snapchat and all that, and it seems like these things are flying by like, wow, this season would be pretty much

8 may 8, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

getting close to over by now.”

Like thousands of other college athletes who had their spring seasons abruptly canceled due to the global health crisis, Zarate is now in limbo.

The NCAA voted in late March to allow schools to authorize an additional season of eligibility for spring-sport student athletes, and while Zarate is leaning toward returning to Virginia Tech for a sixth year next spring, he will need to look at how things work out with scholarships—something determined by the school—and decide which graduate school program to attend. To compete in NCAA sports, Division I student athletes must meet the minimum full-time enrollment requirements as specified by the university or college.

Zarate, who earned Maryland’s Gatorade Player of the Year award for cross country as a senior at Northwest High School, planned to use both the NCAA indoor and outdoor track and field championships to run personal bests and elevate his profile before potentially competing in the now postponed U.S. Olympic Team Trials for track and field in June. Afterward, he wanted to run for a professional group, like the D.C.-based District Track Club.

The pandemic has halted those dreams.

“There’s still a lot to figure out,” Zarate says.

After being cut from the University of Maryland baseball team following his freshman season, Elliot Zoellner had one goal: Make it to senior day. Coming into college as one of the highest-ranked pitching prospects in Maryland, Zoellner expected more from himself. He finished his first season with the Terps with only one appearance on the mound.

“I really just wanted to prove it to myself and to my team and to my coaches that I really could do it and was worthwhile in the sport, and then hopefully make it past senior day to play professionally,” Zoellner says.

When Rob Vaughn became the head coach before Zoellner’s sophomore year, the two worked out a deal that allowed Zoellner to return to the team as a walk-on. Zoellner never regained his athletic scholarship, but improved his performance each year he was on the team, from 16 appearances as a sophomore to 18 appearances his junior year.

This year, Zoellner made a team-high seven

appearances out of the bullpen and was only one of three Maryland pitchers to not allow a single run in the shortened spring season. On March 11 in College Park, Zoellner played in what was potentially his last collegiate baseball game, striking out two batters in two innings in Maryland’s 4-2 loss to James Madison University.

The following day, the Big Ten Conference canceled all of its spring sports, just 15 games into the Terps’ baseball season.

“On a personal level, I envisioned this to be the best year,” Zoellner says. “I wanted to leave everything out in the field. I had been snakebit by injuries and illness through my junior year and my sophomore year and it made me miss time ....

This was the year I thought I was gonna put [it] all together. On a team level, I thought this was one [of] the most cohesive teams that we've ever had, or at least while I’ve been there. Everybody loves playing with each other .... I can't speak for how far we would have made it. But I think we had something really special going on this year, and it was unfortunately cut way too short.”

Zoellner and the team had just arrived at their hotel in Fort Worth, Texas, to play Texas Christian University when Vaughn broke the news that the season was over. “It didn’t feel real,” Zoellner says.

Later that day, he and teammate Mike Vasturia, a redshirt junior, decided to take a quick trip to get food. It turned into an hourlong walk.

“We were just kind of going over the good and the bad of our four years there and just kind of reminiscing about what things were like and what things could have been [this] season,” Zoellner recalls. “And that's when it kind of started to become reality for me.”

Zoellner is currently back in Annapolis with his parents and younger brother, Bradley, who plays baseball at Anne Arundel Community College.

He maintains a regimented routine, waking up at 8 a.m. to work out in the basement for an hour before doing schoolwork. Between 3 and 5 p.m., the general time that he would have been practicing in College Park, he throws with his brother at a nearby high school field.

He still dreams of playing professional baseball. The MLB Draft will likely take place sometime next month, but on March 26, teams and the MLB Players’ Association agreed to a deal that will allow the league to cut the draft from 40 rounds to as few as five this year—making his chances of joining a team even slimmer.

Zoellner hasn’t decided if he will use his extra year of eligibility to return to Maryland. (He would pursue an MBA degree if he chooses that route.)

If he doesn’t get drafted or signed as a free agent with an MLB franchise, he also has a management trainee job in D.C. waiting for him. Zoellner knows he’s lucky to have options.

“It was my goal to be drafted eventually after obtaining a college degree, and it's kind of not great seeing it all change because of something like this,” he says. “And it's affected not just me but the lives of millions, which is much more important than what's going on with just me.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that there are more than 1.19 million COVID-19 cases in the United States, leading to more than 70,000 deaths. New York has been hit particularly hard, with more than 173,000 positive cases in New York City alone.

Cole Gittens’ aunt is one of them. After testing positive for COVID-19, she spent several weeks on a ventilator and only started recovering recently.

Gittens’ mother works as a nurse in New York City,

Elliot Zoellner

Cole Gittens and he has another aunt who works in a Brooklyn hospital.

The impact of the pandemic feels more personal to Gittens, a senior on the Howard University men’s tennis team, than many others.

“It’s made it difficult, very difficult, for me to think about doing schoolwork,” says Gittens, who lives in Manhattan with his parents. “A lot of my teachers have been accommodating, giving me a little extra time to turn in assignments. And just

the learning process is so very different when you don't have class ... Also the fact that I don't go outside almost ever, other than for shopping or fresh air every couple days. It is a little saddening, disheartening, and a little depressing.”

At first, Gittens thought he’d be happy to be done with collegiate tennis. After playing the sport competitively since age 6, Gittens looked forward to letting his body rest and heal after the season was canceled.

But it didn’t take long for that initial wave of relief to turn into disappointment. He had worked hard to rehab a right hip injury to make it back to the season. A few people doubted he could even play his senior year. Gittens had competed in all five of Howard’s matches this spring before the season was canceled.

He and his good friend, fellow senior Sagar Raju, had finally received their letterman jackets and were excited to show them off on senior

washingtoncitypaper.com may 8, 2020 9

day—a celebration of senior members on collegiate sports teams that typically takes place during the last home competition. That won’t be happening this year.

“I wanted to prove that I got back and that I was fully healthy and that I could still do what I've been doing,” Gittens says. “And it's definitely been hard for me to just have everything taken away. Not just my senior matches, but all the perks of being a senior taken away from me—all the fun of it, completely stripped.”

During difficult times, tennis has also given him an escape. When he gets angry over a bad test score or gets into an argument with a friend, tennis allows him to forget about that. All the stress dissolves into the repetitive sound of a racket striking a ball.

“It just allows me to clear my head,” Gitten says.

Now that option is gone. The public courts in New York City are locked, and the nets have been taken down. Gittens is considering returning to Howard next spring, but with only a few credits left before receiving his political science degree, he doesn’t think he will.

Gittens originally planned to apply to law school, but before he does that, he wants to find some “real work experience,” either as a legal assistant or at a real estate firm. Either way, Gittens is likely done with his competitive tennis career, unless he decides to pick up his racket to compete in local U.S. Tennis Association tournaments.

“The old man USTA tournaments,” he laughs.

He doesn’t know when he’ll see his teammates and friends at Howard again. To Gittens, that’s been one of the toughest parts of losing his senior season.

“I was just looking forward to just hanging out with them, because a lot of us, we're going to be very busy in these next few months, and a lot of people are moving to just live in different states,” he says. “And I'm probably never going to get to see most of them again, unless I visit them, or they visit me. I expected at least a few more months with them before it all ended.”

Kaitlin Buff’s teammates have become her second family. They took classes together, lived together, and spent countless hours on the softball field at George Washington University over the past four years.

From the moment the six seniors on the softball team—Buff, Jenna Cone, Jessica Linquist, Priscilla Martinez, Elena Shelepak, and Faith Weber—stepped on to the Northwest Washington campus, they’ve been inseparable. And so when Shelepak brought up the idea of getting a tattoo to commemorate their time together in their group text last summer, Buff, one of the team’s starting pitchers, didn’t hesitate to sign up.

“I’m always down to do whatever, especially when it has to do with my teammates and Elena.

We’re best friends, so we’re always doing weird things together,” Buff says with a laugh.

In November, at a local tattoo shop, both players got matching tattoos of the geographic coordinates of the GW softball field: 38° 55’ 1.20”N 77° 5’ 22.12”W. Buff’s is inked on her left bicep, while Shelepak got hers near her right elbow.

Now Buff is back in her hometown of Lomita, California, 2,700 miles away from where she and her best friends helped the Colonials’ softball team improve each year, from a 28-24 overall record in 2017 to finishing 44-18 last season.

Buff envisioned an even better performance this year.

Kaitlin Buff

“We were dreaming of going to regionals,” she says. “We really thought we could win [the Atlantic 10 Conference championship] this year, especially with the co-championship last year, we were really hungry for that win.”

The March 11 double header against Bucknell University would end up being their last games together. George Washington won the latter contest, 4-3, with Buff pitching five shutout innings of relief to earn the win. All week, their coach, Shane Winkler, told them to play each game like their last.

“And we did,” Buff says. “We took that to heart and we knew the importance of it, because we had been seeing so many seasons being canceled already for other conferences. And luckily, we were able to end on a really strong note together.”

Before the Atlantic 10 canceled the rest of the season, Winkler got the team together for one more team meeting. Later that week, they had a final practice together, and that Saturday, March 14, the seniors went to take impromptu graduation photos at the Lincoln Memorial.

They may not have had an official senior day, but that day proved to be the next best thing. The team decorated the locker room for the seniors, and gave each senior a heart locket that included dirt taken from each player’s position on the field.

Buff and her teammates will never get to know how the season would’ve turned out. And while some of the seniors may return, Buff has decided not to use her extra year of eligibility.

“Ultimately, I decided it's better for me,” she says. “I wasn't really prepared for grad school quite yet. Before all this happened, in my mind I would be going to grad school a few years down the road, and I didn't want to rush it. I had planned to stay in D.C. and work. So I'll still be able to be around my girls and hang out with them when I can.”

She doesn’t want her class and this season to be known solely as the one canceled by a global pandemic. Instead, Buff wants people to remember what they’ve accomplished, and how they did it.

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“It’s unfortunate times for everyone,” Buff says. “There's a lot of things going on in the world right now that we can't control. And fortunately, I have a great group of girls that love each other.

We're a family, and I don't think that's ever going to go away.”

For the first few weeks after the outdoor track season got canceled, Zarate had trouble waking up to go for a morning run. He would hit snooze once, twice, and then two to four more times.

Some days, he woke up at noon or 1 p.m.

“I’m like, what am I doing with my life? Like, I’ve skipped breakfast and lunch already,” he remembers thinking.

Zarate struggled to motivate himself. He had overcome a cruel list of injuries—among them, a broken arm due to a bike accident his sophomore year, a hernia mesh surgery in the summer of 2018, and a stress fracture in his pelvis a year later—to put together the best performances of his college career during the most recent cross country and indoor track seasons.

Before the cross country season, Zarate began to write out his goals on a whiteboard in his apartment. They started out modest: “Run first cross country race.” Then one ambition led to another: “All-ACC.” “All-NCAA region.” “Run in nationals.” At that point, Zarate had not run in five months.

He ended up earning All-ACC and All-NCAA Southeast Region honors for cross country and finished fourth in the mile race at the ACC indoor track and field championships, with a time of 4 minutes and 2.87 seconds. Zarate was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, gearing up for a breakout performance on the national stage at the NCAA indoor championships when the meet got canceled.

The outdoor season was axed shortly after.

“I can’t even describe the feeling. In a sense, it was unreal,” Zarate says. “It was like you were watching some movie, but you were in the movie and there was nothing you could do about it.”

For the outdoor season, Zarate had hoped to run under 3:40 in the 1,500 meters and work toward qualifying for the Olympic Trials. After years of pain, surgeries, and painful platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections in his pelvic region last July, this was supposed to be the year that it would all come together.

While still in New Mexico after the NCAA canceled the indoor championships, Zarate and his teammate, fellow redshirt senior Peter Seufer, took off for a hike to clear their minds. They reached the highest point of the mountain about an hour later. At the top, Zarate could see all of Albuquerque—and a future after the pandemic— in front of them.

“Being up there, it made me realize there’s a lot more to life than seeing who can run the fastest,” he says. “Even though running is so important to us, it's not going to be completely gone. If you’re truly passionate about what you do, this shouldn't be something that's going to hold you back. I can still go out and run, and train, and get better. I can still work on falling in love with running again.”

Back in Blacksburg, he slowly accepted that he would not be racing again this spring and developed a routine. On Thursdays and Fridays, and sometimes Tuesdays, Zarate works as a mechanic at the local bike shop from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

He tries to run twice a day, and recently came across an interview with professional runner and Olympian Shelby Houlihan, where she described workouts not as a chore, but a natural part of her balanced daily schedule—even without upcoming races.

Zarate asked himself why he started running in the first place. He realized the answer was simple, no matter what he chooses to do next year: He didn’t get into running for races, but to feel the pavement under his feet, to get the runner’s high.

“Or just running up to the top of the hill,” Zarate says, “and being like, damn, I just did that.”

All of a sudden, he says, it became easier to wake up. No snooze necessary.

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washingtoncitypaper.com may 8, 2020 11

FOOD YOUNG & HUNGRY

Waste Land Every dollar will count when restaurants reopen. Fighting food waste can make an enormous economic difference.

The Cheesecake Factory’s menu has more than 160 items on it, and that’s before you count the varieties of their eponymous dessert. One section calls out new additions.

“The world’s largest menu just got bigger,” it brags.

Chef Rob Rubba of Oyster Oyster calls these sorts of restaurants the Veruca Salts of the food world, and isn’t sure they’ll be compatible with the “new normal” after the COVID-19 crisis passes. “I want it and I want it now! That’s a bad thing,” he says.

When restaurants are permitted to gradually reopen after being closed to dine-in service, much will have changed. Chefs will have to be more flexible when building their menus as they encounter disrupted supply chains.

Diners, too, will have to temper their expectations that restaurants will bring back all of their favorite dishes immediately.

Having lost almost two months of revenue already, every dollar will count when restaurants start serving customers again, especially because their capacities will, in all likelihood, be diminished. The city may impose restrictions on how many tables restaurants can utilize at once, and diners may be afraid to dine out until a vaccine is available.

Forward-thinking restaurants may try to maximize their profits by focusing on efficiency and eliminating food waste. Instead of accepting food waste as a status quo cost of doing business, chefs may start seeing every dill frond that goes into the garbage as a dollar sign. Local restaurateurs, chefs, and food waste experts shared four strategies for cutting down on food waste that could potentially keep money in the pockets of restaurants fighting to rebound from the pandemic.

Shrink menus.

Founding Farmers’ combined lunch and dinner menu is among the longest in the District with nearly 100 items on offer, from millennial friendly avocado toast and Texas chili dogs to Yankee pot roast and scallops Meunière. But even the co-founder of Farmers Restaurant Group, Dan Simons,

Illustration by Julia Terbrock; Mockup courtesy of Graphic Pear

By Laura Hayes

recognizes he won’t be able to reopen with the same volume of dishes.

“Until we’re in a post-vaccine world, the reality is when you have less diners and less volume, you can’t do the huge menus because you don’t move enough product,” he says. “If you walk into a dealership and there are 75 cars to buy and only five customers a day, what do you need all that variety for?”

One reason for the shift is an unpredictable supply chain. Simons estimates that when COVID-19 arrived in the D.C. area, there was about $50 million in perishable food sitting in warehouses throughout the region with nowhere to go. “We never buy frozen chicken,” Simons says. “But all of a sudden, 14 days into the crisis, our chicken is showing up at our back door and it’s frozen. Our vendors are like, ‘Well, what are we supposed to do? Everyone stopped buying.’”

“As a chef, you’re going to have to live with making sacrifices over what you can get and be able to change more rapidly,” says Rubba.

The former executive chef of Hazel was gearing up to open Oyster Oyster when the city shut down. “Smaller menus allow you to do that.”

Rubba’s a small menu evangelist. His forthcoming plant-based restaurant is sustainability-focused, and part of that ethos is reflected in its pared-down selections. The opening menu was only supposed to have nine dishes on it, including dessert.

“The one thing we’ve always said is nothing goes onto the menu without honestly knowing where every part of an ingredient is

12 may 8, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

going to go,” he says. “To do that successfully, consistently, and in an honest way means a smaller menu.”

Simons disagrees. “People connect the size of a menu to food waste, but for us that’s not true,” he says. He talks about crossutilizing rotisserie chicken in a number of dishes, including pulled chicken salads and chicken pot pie. “There’s a ton of food waste in our industry regardless of menu size. It all depends on if you have excellent systems in place.”

Invest in systems and technology.

Like Simons, Chef Johanna Hellrigl believes developing systems that combat food waste is more important than slashing menu items. She served as the executive chef of Doi Moi before moving onto Mercy Me—a “sorta South American” restaurant she’s bringing to West End with her mixologist husband, Micah Wilder, and the couple behind Timber Pizza Co. and Call Your Mother.

“At Doi Moi we had a medium to large menu,” she says. “Food waste was not a thing for us and I’m really proud of that.” She calculated precisely how many quarts of something to make based on how many diners the restaurant typically saw each night of the week, and she trained her staff to carefully balance new purchases from purveyors with what remained in inventory.

Claudia Fabiano sits on the board of the DC Food Recovery Working Group, which was founded in 2015 to make sure excess food

in the region is captured before it goes into a landfill. She thinks restaurants should use technology platforms like Winnow to track their food waste and then determine how menus can be trimmed for greater efficiency.

Winnow uses artificial intelligence to help chefs discover insights like whether they’re constantly throwing out the same ingredient, and claims to reduce restaurants’ food costs by between 2 and 8 percent. “They can then think of a replacement ingredient that they’re already ordering,” Fabiano says.

“Celebrity chefs can bring the demand, but you have to have those systems,” Hellrigl says. “Those systems and processes will keep your restaurant afloat.”

Use every inch of an ingredient.

“The key to using less ingredients on your menu overall is to use each ingredient creatively,” Fabiano says. “You don’t want to use the same part over and over. The customer doesn’t realize the same carrot and mushroom are in four different dishes.”

Take the unconventional way Rubba cooks with pumpkin seeds. He presses them to make a tofu-like product with curds. When he strains the creamy concoction, the liquid left behind is similar to the byproduct from the cheesemaking process. He uses that pumpkin seed “whey” in a vinaigrette.

Other strategies for making the most out of fruits and vegetables include pickling, preserving, frying the not-so-pleasant parts, and forging a better bond between the bar and the

FOOD kitchen. The latter has become trendy lately.

Fabiano is a fan of Trash Tiki—a roving pop-up and blog founded by two bartenders committed to serving drinks that f ight food waste. They make cordials out of watermelon rind and orgeat out of avocado pits and ask their followers to #DRINKLIKEYOUGIVEAFUCK. Newlyweds Hellrigl and Wilder constantly find ways to collaborate. “I was making buffalo milk stracciatella and he was using the whey in the cocktail to make them f luffy,” Hellrigl explains. “That has to happen more.”

Using the entire ingredient also applies to meat. Not every restaurant is positioned to bring in whole animals because they require a chef who knows how to butcher and a kitchen big enough to get the job done. But those who can, like the team at Mercy Me, are at an advantage.

“We’re bringing in whole steers from a farm,” Hellrigl says. “We can make sure our butcher cuts small and medium pieces as well as go-big-or-go-home pieces like a 90-day aged porterhouse. There are options to do what makes sense for you. Affordability and approachability are a big part of it.”

Once the restaurant opens, Hellrigl says t hey pla n to serve steaks alongside whatever vegetables are readily available from local f a r m s . “ I f Ear th n Eats Farm says they have a surplus of these vegetables, we’ll say, ‘OK, those are our sides.’”

Let local farms and the seasons dictate the menu.

is nothing new. It’s how restaurants used to work before there was a robust global supply chain that enabled chefs to get their hands on whatever they wanted whenever they wanted it. After the COVID-19 crisis, the market could necessitate a return to cooking local.

The Mid-Atlantic is rich with agricultural products and counts the Chesapeake Bay as part of its bounty.

Letting local ingredients lead, Hellrigl says, helps her “f lex her chef muscles.”

“Working with farmers and creating your menu locally and seasonally has to happen,” she says. “Look at the Tyson [Foods] plant.

We need to get back to small.” (Nearly 900 workers at a Tyson meat plant in Indiana have tested positive for COVID-19.)

Diners will have to make some adjustments, too. “Value” in the eye of the restaurant customer has historically meant a generous portion size for the price point, impressive variety, or the ability to try luxury products shipped in from all over the world.

It’ll take some effective marketing to communicate that smaller, more efficient menus that let local ingredients shine also have worth.

“People are realizing what it takes to get food from a farm to the table,” Fabiano says. When Wa sh i n g ton i a n s cou ld n’t f i nd t he produce they were looking for at grocer y stores during C OV I D -19, t hey turned to CSAs from local farms, forming fresh bonds with the local food system.

Home cooks learned how to replace an ingredient or leave an ingredient out. “That was good training for all of us. We had to do it, so restaurants might have to do it too, when they open back up.”

“I’m hoping people are really patient with restaurants as they get things back together,” echoes Rachael Jackson, who sits on the DC Food Recovery Working Group board with Fabiano. Jackson runs the RescueDish initiative, which encourages restaurants to share the ways they’re ending food waste, and also authors the blog, “Eat or Toss.”

“We are entitled going into restaurants, expecting them to have everything,” she says. “I think on the part of diners as well as restaurants, there needs to be more comfort in knowing that restaurants might run out of this or that.”

Gjerde worries that if there’s a renewed appreciation for the local food system, it won’t stick. Sourcing from small local farms has its advantages, but is also quite pricey.

“There will be a return to normalcy at some point, where some of these things we’ve learned like being grateful for local sources will [fade],” he says. “I’m not sure when things are back to day-to-day if that isn’t forgotten in the face of low prices and convenience.”

“We are entitled going into restaurants, expecting them to have everything.

I think on the part of diners as well as restaurants, there needs to be more comfort in knowing that restaurants might run out of this or that.”

Some chefs build their dream menus and offer items regardless of whether they make sense seasonally or play well with the planet, like a caprese salad in the dead of winter or ahi tuna flown to D.C. from Hawaii on a daily basis. Such uncompromising tactics are expensive, make a larger carbon footprint, and may not be possible to access immediately when restaurants do reopen.

“There will be a conceptual reset,” predicts Chef Spike Gjerde of A Rake’s Progress in D.C. and Woodberry Kitchen in Baltimore.

“At some point through this whole thing, you’re going to ask yourself what it’s all about, what it’s for. The answer informs what you do when you get your feet back under you.”

Gjerde has always let local ingredients and the seasons guide his menus. “Our approach is, ‘Let’s see what we can do with what we’ve got,’” he says. “I’m only going to have things on the menu that are the clearest and best expression of what this region does and what we as cooks in our kitchen can do extraordinarily well.”

The idea of allowing ingredients to dictate the menu, instead of the other way around,

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FOOD

Meet Markets

Located at Eden Center, Good Fortune Supermarket is a large grocery store with a sprawling produce department. From spiky durian to a variety of root vegetables that are staples of many Asian, Latino, and African dishes, you will leave with plenty of cooking inspiration. If you don’t know what to do with taro, lotus root, or daikon radish, consider picking up a hot pot kit sold near the registers. Take time to consider all of the different varieties of rice, too. If you don’t want to experiment with home cooking, they also have a whole aisle dedicated to instant noodles.

International markets come through for D.C. customers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

H Mart Various locations H Mart is a Korean-owned chain of supermarkets with more than 10 locations in Maryland and Virginia combined. Although H Mart is known for its expertly butchered beef and Korean specialties, most H Marts also have a comprehensive selection of Latino products. If your cooking goals for the week are tacos and a kimchi stew, H Mart is a one-stop shop. The snack aisle is particularly fun: You can stock up on a variety of cookies and crackers you’ve never tried before for $2 or less per bag.

By Jessica van Dop DeJesus Contributing Writer

Panam International 3552 14th St. NW Panam International Grocery store has a Latinx focus. Do not let the small size fool you: The supermarket has an in-house butcher cutting meat in front of shoppers, an extensive selection of Peruvian condiments, and a wide choice of Central American cheeses. Are you experimenting with new cocktails at home?

Panam usually sells five limes for only $1. You can also stock up on Jarritos, the addictive Mexican fruit sodas with tropical flavors such as tamarind, guava, and passion fruit. They make great cocktail mixers.

Hana Market 2000 17th St. NW With its rows of colorful snacks, boxes of instant brown curry, wide array of noodles, and small selection of speciality produce like shiso leaves and lotus root, this tightly packed Japanese market off U Street NW is a favorite of Japanese expats and Japanophiles. During the COVID-19 crisis, they’ve still been setting out onigiri (rice balls) and the occasional bento box if you’re looking for something to eat straight away. Before checking out, peruse the selection of Japanese sweets and fizzy drinks in the refrigerated case closest to the register.

File photos by Darrow Montgomery

Many local residents are using their time at home to experiment in the kitchen, but they also might be missing the diversity of the region’s restaurant scene. International supermarkets can help bridge the gap. If you want to replicate your favorite Korean recipes or experiment with Peruvian cooking, these stores are your best friend.

They even make it possible for some Washingtonians to reconnect with their roots, including Arthur Tanwangco, a restaurant industry veteran and owner of Five Pups Doggy Daycare. “I’m Filipino, so going to international markets gets me closer to home through the ingredients,” he says. “My husband and me, we’re huge foodies, and going to different markets has become our thing. We try to recreate world cuisines as close to authentic as possible.”

Priya Konings, a food writer and immigration lawyer who lives in Maryland, loves checking out the frozen food section at H Mart in Wheaton. “At regular grocery stores, you get frozen pizza,” she says. “At H Mart, I get dumplings, Korean pancakes, steamed buns, spring rolls, tteokbokki, and so many more flavorful items that are great for snacks and meals.”

And while big box and chain retailers in the region have long lines and sparse shelves, most local international supermarkets in the D.C. metro area hardly have any wait and are generally well-stocked. They too must follow the safety measures that D.C., Maryland, and Virginia have put in place to protect shoppers and workers.

Visit Good Fortune Supermarket, an Asian grocer in Eden Center, for example, and you’ll see an employee disinfecting carts and providing plastic gloves for shoppers. At Panam International, a Latin grocery store on 14th Street NW, cashiers are protected behind a full covering of plexiglass.

Some shoppers wonder if the unfortunate and unsubstantiated bias against Asian cultures during the pandemic is leading to better-stocked shelves at Asian supermarkets.

“A friend mentioned how she had gone to an Asian market because she thought they would be stocked with many of the items that mainstream grocery stores had already run out of, like meats, milk, eggs, and toilet tissue,” says Ashlee Tuck, founder of the blog “Will Drink For Travel.” “I found her theory to be true.”

That xenophobia started in the early stages of

Hana Market the pandemic, causing many Chinatowns and Asian-owned food businesses throughout the United States to witness a drop in sales or close.

WAMU reported on Eden Center’s struggles last week, citing xenophobia as a contributing factor.

Getting back into Asian and other immigrantowned supermarkets can help not only ignite the

14 may 8, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

appreciation of international cuisine, but also provide a deeper cultural understanding.

Consider these five international markets in the D.C. area before making your next shopping trip: Good Fortune Supermarket 6751 Wilson Blvd., Falls Church

Aditi Spice Depot 409 Maple Ave. E, Vienna, and 600 Carlisle Drive, Herndon For those who have been holding off on making Indian and Middle Eastern dishes at home because they require spices typically absent from the shelves at Giant, try scoring them at a specialty store. Aditi Spice Depot in Vienna is a small shop packed wall-to-wall with spices. If you don’t want to cook from scratch, the frozen and prepared food section has an array of classic dishes. As an added bonus, they have plenty of flour, including millet flour, should you want to try to make a dosa at home.

DIVERSIONS CROSSWORD

The Supremes

By Brendan Emmett Quigley

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27. Suffer a humiliating and dramatic loss 32. Flowery shrubs 34. Neighbor of Connecticut Avenue and St. Charles Place 35. TV series with numerous lab scenes

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36. Drawn-out battle over Wikipedia 40. Make an effort 41. Short life lines?

43. Baby shower clothes

45. Battle site where the U.S. secured victory in the SpanishAmerican War 49. Model born Melissa Miller 50. Pizza sauce spice 54. Bearded zoo member 57. Feudal estate 59. Van Holten’s rival 60. School room that might have a 3D printer or a laser cutter, and an alternate title for this puzzle 63. Airspeed unit 64. Pinnacles 65. “That’s how it’s done�

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52. More warm 53. Orange colour 54. Pre-B-school exam 55. Wine Country county 56. Twee four stringers 58. They’ve got all the answers 61. No. after 10 nos.

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washingtoncitypaper.com may 8, 2020 15

ARTS

Double Trouble Artistic duo Duly Noted Painters stress the importance of their side-by-side collaboration. Now they’re rethinking how to practice during a pandemic.

By Emma Sarappo @EmmaSarappo Watching a sped-up YouTube video of the Duly Noted Painters work together on a canvas has the same meditative effect as watching a nature documentary where green leaves unfurl or glittering insects swarm. Artists Kurtis Ceppetelli and Matt Malone are clearly comfortable with each other as they riff off the other’s mark making, step back to look from afar, move back in with a stroke of inspiration, or add slight details. In the videos, the pair are always working on top of each other, but never at cross purposes.

There are some well-documented duos in the art world, like Gilbert & George, who they bring up on their blog, or Christo and Jeanne-Claude, whose 2008 exhibition at the Phillips Collection stays with Ceppetelli today. But painters typically work alone, and even when they do collaborate, simultaneous work isn’t the norm. The Duly Noted painters compare their method to jazz: “Jazz music has no starting, no end,” Ceppetelli explains. “No in between; they just follow each other.” Malone concurs, adding, “It’s like the guitar players playing in a jazz band or a jazz song, you know? There might be someone doing something in the background, and then it moves to someone else. He might be doing something at one time; I’m sitting there watching, and then I have the urge to come in and we’ll start working together on the piece, he’ll sit down, or vice versa, and then look at it from a back perspective and come back in.” Their usually large-scale paintings are nailed to a wall while they paint, making it easy to work side-by-side.

Of course, that was before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The duo, who’ve worked together for nearly a decade, haven’t been able to create for weeks. In the age of social and physical distancing, Malone, 40, and Ceppetelli, 42, are now considering new ways to make their art. Previously, they set aside time weekly to work together, navigating Ceppetelli’s bartending schedule and Malone’s job in currency exchange. Now, bars are closed across the city and Ceppetelli hasn’t worked since St. Patrick’s Day. Malone can do his work from home, but they haven’t seen each other

“My Dream Starts with You” by Duly Noted Painters, 2015 in person since mid-March.

Right now seems like the time to try something they’ve been thinking about for a while: collaborating remotely. They envision a system in which one half of the pair creates work and sends it to the other to finish. They’ve done it before, when their schedules were refusing to sync up, and they liked the end result. But it’s a big change. Duly Noted is built around their distinctive pairing. In a March interview, both Ceppetelli and Malone emphasized that their simultaneous collaboration was the key to their work, and that asking “who did what” was misunderstanding the project. “I mean, I could say, ‘Yeah, I drew that line.’ But Matt drew the rest of the line,” Ceppetelli said. “If he wasn’t there, it wouldn’t look like that at all.”

“That was, like, the key thing about our working process,” Malone says now. “And so not doing that made it seem like, ‘Well, we’ve told all these people this the whole time, and now we’re trying this,’ which isn’t a big deal, but in our minds that was like, ‘no, no, no.’”

Since they began working together a decade ago, they’ve made around 200 paintings, Ceppetelli estimates. Many have never been displayed in public. But the duo have had some major exhibitions of their work at home in D.C., where Ceppetelli has lived for the last 20 years and Malone for a bit longer than 10 years. Last year, they had shows at Foundry Gallery and Otis Street Arts Project, and they’ve been in the Watergate Gallery, Busboys & Poets, and the IA&A Hillyer.

In 2016, they showed a series of works done in Cuba at Hillyer; the duo traveled to the country at

16 may 8, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

the same time that Pope Francis visited in 2015 and incorporated its environmental and social world into a series of paintings. And they’re part of this month’s Foundry Gallery members’ show, with two pieces, “Street Pharmacy” and “My Dream Starts With You,” in the virtually available exhibition.

Ceppetelli and Malone first met 12 years ago while working as security guards at the Phillips Collection. At the time, Ceppetelli says, the Phillips essentially only hired artists. And according to Malone, it was a great job for one. “If you’re assigned to one room, you’re really getting an art education just by learning to look, and you spend a lot of time looking at paintings that people would normally just come in and look at for a minute or two, tops, and then leave,” he says. “And there were a lot of other artists there who we met, making work and helping get us shows and doing a bunch of other things. So it was a good community at that time.”

But even that origin story’s got a sour note in the time of coronavirus: The Phillips has canceled all of its programming and faces an uncertain future.

For eight years, they worked in Malone’s place in the Brookland Artspace Lofts, which gave them high ceilings, community support, and a lot of room to hang up the large drop cloth canvases they work on. After Malone moved out two years ago, they alternated working in Ceppetelli’s place downtown and Malone’s basement in Brookland.

A mutual respect for each other’s work and a balance in technique made the collaboration fruitful, they say. “We weren’t scared to do whatever we wanted, and not sort of hurt the other

person’s feelings or feel like we were disrupting each other’s individual work,” Malone says. “It’s like we realized that we were both working how we wanted to work to make a piece that’s not ours individually, but together as one.”

“As an artist, like, I’m always going to be doing stuff on my own because, like, that’s what artists do,” he adds. “I wouldn’t work with Kurtis if all he did was [Duly Noted] because, like, he wouldn’t be an artist if he’s not doing all these other things.”

Although they’ve been focusing their energy into the collaboration, the two have retained separate artistic practices in addition to Duly Noted. That’s serving them well as they stay home—Ceppetelli is experimenting with tattooing and making drawings of the view from his new apartment; Malone’s picking up different materials around his house to shake up his work. Their years of collaboration are showing up in interesting ways. In a recent sketch, “I used a lot of the ideals that Matt uses, how he breaks out space, how he makes the picture plane flatter,” Ceppetelli says. Malone caught himself doing the same: “I feel that sometimes I lack a little bit of clarity, and that detail could help, but I’ve always shied away from it. But now, in my mind, I tend to think of being a little bit more specific or putting in some detail, which Kurtis would always typically add,” he says.

On the subject of their visual influences, Ceppetelli didn’t mention specific artists.

“Ultimately, it’s like all that influence that you’ve ever learned,” he says, making it hard to pick out individual names. “That’s why when you sell a

ARTS

“Street Pharmacy” by Duly Noted Painters, 2014

No matter what pops up, getting care has never been easier

24

CALENDAR

painting for $20,000, that’s your whole life of art,” he says. “Why is it worth that? Because I spent my whole fucking life traveling down this road.”

Malone agrees. “I have artists that I like, but I wouldn’t say that I’m attempting to paint like them in any way. I might be more interested in what their thoughts are on art in general, or, like, what they’re striving for ... I’ve never encountered anyone doing it the same way that we’re doing it.”

That unique way of doing things is on hold, at least for now. Trying to figure out a new system comes with logistical concerns, too.

“I have a fear of going over something he’s done if he’s not there, if that makes sense, because I could put it back, but then there’s all the unknowns of not being with that person at that time, which I guess I’d have to get over it at a certain point,” Malone says.

“Well, that might work itself out as we go through it,” Ceppetelli replies. “Like, you might be less apprehensive to do it if I were to work something out of yours.” Malone nods at the thought of Ceppetelli erasing or going over his work—it’s normal for them to paint over each other or put back marks that have been covered when they’re next to each other.

Through the conversation, the pair seemed to warm up to the idea of working remotely. By the end, it seemed certain. “Having to stay indoors, we’ll definitely do that work where we pass it back and forth. And we’ll call it the pandemic series,” Ceppetelli says.

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Primary Care | Urgent Care | Online Care washingtoncitypaper.com may 8, 2020 17

ARTS LIZ AT LARGE

ARTS ARTS CLUB

“Try”

By Liz Montague @LizAtLarge

The Water Dancer For this week’s edition of City Paper Arts Club, arts editor Kayla Randall and multimedia editor Will Warren read City Paper alum Ta-Nehisi Coates’ deep and dense debut novel, The Water Dancer. It centers on a young enslaved man who finds himself with fantastical abilities and sets out on an unforgettable journey.

Next, we’ll watch Warrior, a 2011 film about fighting battles both physical and emotional.

These Arts Club chat excerpts have been edited and condensed for clarity. For the full chat, subscribe to Washington City Podcast.

Will Warren: So, this is the story of a young man named Hiram, who is enslaved in Virginia, and he has a sort of mystical power in that he can essentially teleport from one place to another. It’s a story about him coming to understand that power and how it ties into his family and his relationships. It’s also about his journey out of enslavement, because he takes up with the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad here is more like a secret spy agency, almost. This is a fantasy, so there’s some sort of mystical aspects to it. It’s about the missions he does, and [later] he returns back to his home in Virginia to rescue some of the people who are most important to him.

Kayla Randall: What did you think of the book?

WW: Ultimately, I really liked it. There were parts that were a little hard to get into, but I

thought it was a really compelling story and it had a lot of powerful things to say about the ways in which slavery was so violent and cruel.

It doesn’t seem like something that you need someone to tell you, but also it’s something that we should be told and think about all the time, because it was this foundational crime of our country and of the world. And also [it had] powerful things to say about love and relationships, because that’s ultimately what’s at the center of Hiram’s journey both away from home and then back.

KR: I agree ... There’s just so many stories, right? We can never know all the stories of the atrocities that have occurred in this country.

WW: And that’s kind of what that opening quote from Frederick Douglass is about, right?

KR: Yes! It goes: “My part has been to tell the story of the slave. The story of the master never wanted for narrators.” —Frederick Douglass. I wish I could rattle off poignant statements like that—just such truths. A lot of the narratives we consume, if not most of the narratives we consume, are the narratives of the “master.”

There’s a great moment where Hiram is mentioning that really all his captors, all his oppressors want is to be lazy: “The masters could not bring water to boil, harness a horse, nor strap their own drawers without us. We were better than them—we had to be. Sloth was literal death for us, while for them it was the whole ambition of their lives.” And I was just like, “Damn!”

WW: [Laughs] That’s a good line.

KR: And it’s true.

18 may 8, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

ARTS FILM REVIEW

ARTS BOOK REVIEW

Midsummer Nights The Summer Set

By Aimee Agresti Graydon House, 369 pages

Bio Shock Spaceship Earth Directed by Matt Wolf Hulu sure knows how to pick its spots.

With people all over the world, especially here in the U.S., sheltering at home, the streaming giant releases Spaceship Earth, a documentary about eight people who volunteered to live in Biosphere 2, a virtually enclosed system of plants and animals, for two years. The participants eventually suffer from personal conflicts, malnutrition, and physical injury, but they committed to staying inside for the good of society.

The real subject of Spaceship Earth is not what happens to the brave souls who risked health and sanity inside that massive structure, but the way their mission was distorted from the outside. It was originally the brainchild of a San Francisco theater troupe who expanded their vision beyond Haight-Ashbury. In 1969, they moved to New Mexico and started a sustainable farm. Once that got running, they built a ship and sailed around the world. None were experts, but they believed in themselves.

They built a hotel in Timbuktu and started an art gallery in London, all of which were funded by their lone patron, a Texas millionaire with a countercultural streak.

Their decision to build Biosphere 2 was a natural extension of their prior work, an ecological experiment that, through the lens of today’s hyper-focused climate activism, feels strangely vague, at once an effort to learn how

to live sustainably on this planet and to prepare us for starting an indoor ecosystem on another.

Within the group, any uncertainty was overpowered by John P. Allen, the group’s visionary leader, who they trusted unfailingly. After all, he had never steered them wrong before.

Through modern-day interviews and intimate footage from the era, the filmmakers tap into the appeal of the era’s counterculture. The troupe’s brew of idealism and action is intoxicating, and the early sequences, in which they conquer one massive project after another with a breezy, “what can go wrong” attitude, are among the film’s most enjoyable. You may find yourself so swayed by their collective charisma that you are undeterred by how slyly their anarchic ethos is swallowed up by capitalism.

The Biosphere project was budgeted at $200 million, a PR firm was hired to promote the project, and group members soon were working in offices and wearing business attire. “It was quite corporate,” says one. “I even wore nail polish.”

It’s a satisfying story for cynical times, but one we have heard many times before. At the onset, the troupe’s joyful collectivism is a balm for our current day isolation. When it all goes wrong, as the project is sabotaged by a sensationalist media and the irresistible charms of capitalism, it feels like the truth is kicking in.

Watching ’60s idealism get quashed by latecentury commercialism is a national pastime, and while Spaceship Earth offers some shiny new details, its reluctance to uncover anything new in its themes holds it back from greatness.

If only the filmmakers were as bold as their —Noah Gittell subjects.

Spaceship Earth begins streaming May 8 on Hulu.

It’s not Aimee Agresti’s fault that her newest novel, which revolves around a summer theater’s season producing three Shakespeare plays, is being released into a world where a pandemic is shuttering live theater venues across the globe. But it’s impossible to read her new novel, The Summer Set, without thinking about all the productions we’ll be missing in the coming months—like, say, at Olney Theatre Center, where Agresti volunteered in high school. Because of its subject, The Summer Set revolves around crowds, backstage whispers, kisses snuck behind closed doors, hand holding, touching, and, of course, t he collect ive experience of live theater. It’s both an escapist read t h at i m mer s es us in a world that now feels absolutely unrealistic, and a painful one that reminds us of what exactly we’re missing out on. Whether you have fun might depend on your temperament, or how well you’re able to embrace a character very d i f ferent f rom yourself.

In The Summer Set, actress Charlie Savoy— almost 40, exiled from the theater and film worlds where she once garnered great acclaim, and directionless—is mandated by a court order to do community service at a theater in the Berkshires where, because this is the kind of novel that would have been a beach read during a different summer, her ex Nicholas Blunt is the creative director. (How this is service to the community of Boston, where she drove into the harbor and was sent to court, is not explained. Accepting that it does not matter is key to embracing the book for what it is.) Obviously, their creative and romantic spark is still there. And love is in the air at the Chamberlain Summer Theater for nearly everyone, including the dozens of apprentices who have been selected from the nation’s top drama schools to help run the Chamberlain’s

productions of Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Tempest. But even though the Chamberlain is playing the hits, it’s in dire straits financially; hijinks ensue as the gang attempts to save it. Disaster strikes in a few different ways. The ghost light goes out. Mild fraud is committed (and unacknowledged) in service of a happy ending.

The Summer Set is dizzying, fun, and funny.

Some turns of phrase are unique enough to make you pause, and, if you decide to go with the book’s tone, make you laugh out loud, like “Her mind whipped through her highlight/lowlight reel in flashes like one of those photo montages your phone automatically makes.” The apprentices travel to New York City to see “the next Hamilton,” a musical about Abigail Adams called—wait for it—Abby’s Road. There seems to be a snipe at Charlize Theron’s Oscar for Monster all these years later (a character says of Savoy’s rival’s acclaimed movie: “It’s fine to make a pretty girl ugly if the story is a good one, but there was nothin’ else going on. An empty ploy to get awards”).

At the end, a cast of Shakespearean luminaries, including Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, Idris Elba, and Hugh Grant show up to the Chamberlain as a favor to Charlie’s famous mother, because why not?

Th e S u m m e r Set isn’t a replacement for an inventive, invigorating live stag i ng of Shakespeare. It is, however, an interesting, amusing quarantine read, if you can manage not to think too hard about references to “antidepressant abuse” or get caught up pondering a world where you could call an ambulance for a cheek gash without worrying about infection, using precious medical resources, or the bill. The book has a lovely amount of unforced diversity: The race of the film heartthrob, whose name has tickets flying out of the box office, is indicated when we learn, off handedly, that he made his film debut as Denzel Washington’s son; Charlie’s friend Marlena is trans, and gets a happy ending along with everyone else; so many characters are gay that there are many gay best friends, but no one is reduced to the trope. Most importantly, the main romance is tense and compelling. The Summer Set might be able to transport you out of your home for a while. As is the cliche of the moment, we need that now more than ever. —Emma Sarappo

washingtoncitypaper.com may 8, 2020 19

CITY LIGHTS

The section that (temporarily) shows you how to enjoy staying home.

City Lights

Exploration of Blue Does social distancing have you feeling a bit blue? Maybe even … Pantone 19-4052 Classic Blue, Pantone’s 2020 color of the year? If so, ARTECHOUSE has the perfect way for you to express your quarantine emotions.

Inspired by in-person New York City installation Submerge, which opened in February 2020, you can try your hand at creating digital art with Exploration of Blue. This virtual art project embraces color psychology—the idea that different colors trigger different feelings. Blue, especially a classic shade like the Pantone color, is thought to evoke peace and tranquility. And that’s exactly what the creators of Exploration of Blue hope to achieve. So, how can you start creating?

Launch the Exploration of Blue web application (it won’t work on mobile) and make sure your webcam is turned on. Your camera will capture your movement, translating it into captivating ripples of soothing blue. To personalize your art project, adjust the flow speed, spawn rate, and intensity of the blue particles in the app’s menu. Here’s a pro tip: ARTECHOUSE recommends using mouse clicks to create higher-density spots of blue. While the virtual universe you create won’t exactly compare to the phys ical space’s ambiance, music from Mexicobased Paperworks, a.k.a. Eduardo Montero, lends gallery-worthy audio to the visual experience. Launch the web application at artechouse.com/exploration-of-blue. Free.

—Sarah Smith

City Lights

City Lights

Sarah Gordon lectures on Robert Frank “D.C. Women Artists” Photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank is best known for his ingenious and seminal documentary work from 1958: the book The Americans. But Frank’s career was long, stretching from the late 1930s (with some works in a style that seem even older) to the early 2000s (with deeply personal, sometimes chaotic assemblages made at his adopted home in remote Nova Scotia), only ending with his death in September 2019. On May 6, D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities curator Sarah Gordon will give an online lecture sponsored by Photoworks in Glen Echo, focusing on Frank’s career and specifically the National Gallery of Art’s online collection of his work, which bills itself as the largest repository of his art. The NGA’s collection includes not only still images by Frank but also contact prints of negatives that shed light on his artistic process, including projects documenting Switzerland, New York, Peru, and Nova Scotia, as well as the crosscountry Guggenheim fellowship that produced The Americans. Of special note in the collection are images from Black White and Things, a 1952 collection of images of which only three books were made, and From the Bus, a follow-up to The Americans that consists solely of photographs Frank made from a window seat in a moving New York City bus. Gordon’s lecture is the first in a series of three talks for Photoworks. The lecture will be held at 7 p.m. on May 6. Registration is available at eventbrite.com. $39.

—Louis Jacobson 20 may 8, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

The National Museum for Women in the Arts’ online “D.C. Women Artists” card collection spotlights five artists who shared a city but had vastly different perspectives. The printable cards provide background information on each artist, along with a series of insightful questions that prompt you to reflect on the works more closely: Notice the way Elizabeth Catlett played with light to reveal unspoken emotion in “Two Generations.” Georgia Mills Jessup played with light in “Rainy Night, Downtown,” too, but with more color and geometry; the result is an energetic portrait of the old 14th Street NW Trans-Lux Theatre—though you may feel a pang as the card assumes you’re in the museum and says its location was “about a block from where you are standing.” Even more abstract is Alma Woodsey Thomas’ “Iris, Tulips, Jonquils, and Crocuses.” Individual petals may be difficult to make out, but her spontaneous brushstrokes and vibrant colors evoke flowers in movement. She isn’t the only artist to reflect what she called her “communion with nature.” Anne Truitt’s “Summer Dryad” gets its name from the female forest spirit of Greek mythology, and Loïs Mailou Jones painted the valleys of France that sheltered her from some of the racial discrimination she faced in 1930s America. Scatter the cards around the room for an impromptu exhibit or assemble them on a wall to form a collage. However you display them, the cards offer a skylight into each woman’s Washington that notes the effects of their time, socio-economic status, race, and gender. The cards are available online at nmwa.org. Free.

—Emma Francois

City Lights

Recordings from The Cellar Door’s golden era In mid-December 1970, local concertgoers had lots of choices for a night’s entertainment: Beryl Middleton, born in Leeds, England, but relocated to the D.C. area, was performing her smoky lounge stylings at Ray Walter’s The Stables on P Street NW in Dupont Circle. The Cardinalaires, a vocal group made up of Catholic University students and grads, sang Christmas songs at the Shoreham Hotel. But the adventurous explorer headed further west to 34th and M Streets NW. Today it’s a Starbucks—what else would it be?—but from 1965 to 1981, this was the site of The Cellar Door, a 163-seat club that hosted some of the most famous performers of an era that, as hard as it may be to imagine at this date, made Georgetown a hotbed of counterculture. On December 16, 1970, Miles Davis, riding on the March release of his explosive Bitches Brew, set up shop for a six-night stand at the intimate venue, in an engagement that led to the two-album release LiveEvil and the six-disc set The Cellar Door Sessions 1970. But that’s not the only music you can hear from The Cellar Door’s golden era. In 2013, Neil Young released an album culled from his own six-night engagement, which had ended just a few weeks before Davis’ sets. And artists from singer-songwriter Richie Havens to Bethesda bluegrass favorites The Seldom Scene recorded live albums at the club. We don’t know when the region’s music venues will reopen, but we can spend hours steeped in the documents recorded at one of the city’s most fabled stages, not far from the Exorcist steps in a neighborhood that’s now nationally known for overrated cupcakes.

Additionally, the club marked a very different milestone just a few weeks after Davis packed up.

The group Fat City opened up for a rising folk star who helped members Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert finish a song they’d been working on. That newcomer was John Denver, and the song was “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” Live albums from the period are available to stream on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube. Free.

—Pat Padua

Government Issue and Burning Airlines on drums. In 2019, the group, Foxhall Stacks, released their first recordings, a two-song cassette followed later by an album. Not hardcore, twee pop, or post-punk, the four-piece instead mixes ’70s power-pop and hard rock with Oasis at their most arena rock. Now, they’re back with the four-song The Half Stack EP, and they’re donating 50 percent of the proceeds to We Are Family DC, an organization that delivers groceries and other supplies to senior citizens. The group sounds best at their most tuneful—think songs you can harmonize along to on your couch in quarantine while playing air guitar. Opening cut “Danish Movies” has a Cheap-Trick-meets-Big-Star-meets-Sloan melodic chorus and great “woo-hoo” backing harmonies. Alas, it also has some formulaic guitar leads. “Surround” recalls Fountains of Wayne with its hummable vocal melody and straightforward guitar lines. Instrumental “Flanger on the Hi-Hat” calls to mind early ’80s Van Halen at their most pop-metal, while closer “#1 Sounds” brings up memories of the cover of Big Star’s “In the Street” that serves as the That ’70s Show theme song. The Half Stack EP is available on Bandcamp. $4.

—Steve Kiviat

City Lights

Perfect Teeth

City Lights

The Dog Doc It’s hard to get good health care for humans, but what about for our four-legged friends?

With The Dog Doc, director Cindy Meehl offers a feature-length defense of integrative medicine, which combines the best of conventional medicine with alternative treatments (disclosure: I’ve taken one of my dogs to a holistic vet, and I’d do it again). The poster child for this approach is New York veterinarian Marty Goldstein, whose flashy canine-patterned shirts are a beacon for furry patients that other vets have written off, like Scooby, a dog diagnosed with bone cancer in his jaw with just months to live. For tumors, Goldstein uses a radical procedure: He freezes the tumor, which doesn’t cure it but allows the animal to heal. But Goldstein’s real target is the immune system. He believes that by changing an animal’s diet and introducing supplements, including doses of vitamin C administered intravenously, he can add years to dogs’ lives. Conventional vets call Goldstein a quack. One doctor met with Goldstein intending to debunk his claims, but when he saw how much one of his treatments transformed a dog that could barely walk, he became a convert. For dogs, Goldstein and his peers just might give hope to the hopeless—if they can afford it. The film was scheduled for the canceled Environmental Film Festival in March, an early casualty of the pandemic, but it’s available now through AFI Silver’s virtual programming. The film is available to stream at dogdoc.vhx.tv. $12.

—Pat Padua

City Lights

The Half Stack EP In 2015, Jim Spellman, best known as a drummer with ’90s indie-pop band Velocity Girl, put together a part-time band made up of fellow veterans from the D.C. punk scene. This local supergroup includes Spellman on guitar and backing vocals, Bill Barbot from Jawbox on lead vocals and guitar, Brian Baker from Minor Threat and Bad Religion on bass, and Pete Moffett from

Beginning in the 1980s, singer/guitarist Mark Robinson of Arlington band Unrest always made his affection for the artsy album cover designs and post-punk sound of British music labels 4AD and Factory clear. In 1993, Robinson’s band released what would turn out to be their final studio album, Perfect Teeth, as a collaboration between his own TeenBeat label and 4AD. Robinson, drummer Phil Krauth, and bassist Bridget Cross, however, were into more than just the gloomy soundscapes those UK labels were known for releasing. On Perfect Teeth, the trio’s sonic spectrum includes fast-tempoed strumming and galloping percussion as well as harmonic pop choruses, dashes of motorik beats, and gentler rhythms. Recorded in five days at Minnesota’s Pachyderm Studio, where Nirvana recorded In Utero, some Teeth songs showcased idiosyncratic lyrics with obscure pop culture references and bits of humor largely penned by Robinson. The album featureds a photo of British music-journalist-turned-pop-singer Cath Carroll on the cover and a speedy song named for her. The album also showcases a producer credit by pop band Duran Duran singer Simon Le Bon, although it’s mostly a joke; when he did visit, he only hung out in the studio. But this is no “you had to be there” relic. The yearning melodies of “Soon It Is Going to Rain” and “Make Out Club” convey romantic desire in a timeless manner. While some critics prefer Unrest’s more minimal prior album, Imperial f.f.r.r. (number eight on Spin’s 1992 albums of the year list), Perfect Teeth arguably meshes catchy tunefulness and out there sonic inventiveness in a more distinctive way. Perfect Teeth is available to stream on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music. Free.

—Steve Kiviat washingtoncitypaper.com may 8, 2020 21

City Lights

Mikel Jollett on Hollywood Park

“We were never young. We were just too afraid of ourselves,” Mikel Jollett writes in his upcoming memoir, Hollywood Park, which promises to explore his childhood in the Church of Synanon, one of the most infamous cults in the United States. As promos for Hollywood Park tease, Jollett’s story is full of heartbreak. He spent his earliest years kept away from his parents in Synanon’s “school.”

In the years after his family escaped, Jollett encountered poverty, emotional abuse, and addiction. But this memoir, due for release May 26, also promises to tell a story of love and loyalty. Jollett is set to take Politics and Prose’s virtual stage to read excerpts from Hollywood Park, participate in a live question-and-answer session, and discuss his remarkable life. But expect more than just a cult narrative: Jollett first became famous as the singer and guitarist for The Airborne Toxic Event, a Los Angeles-based indie rock band. His earlier writing has also been published in McSweeney’s, and he’s worked with the Los Angeles Times, Men’s Health, and Filter.

The event begins at 8 p.m. on May 6. Tickets are available at eventbrite.com. $27.99.

—Sarah Smith

DIVERSIONS SAVAGE LOVE I’ve been with the same amazing man a dozen years. We’ve had our ups and our downs, same as any other couple, but these days life is better than it ever has been for us. Except in the bedroom. A few years ago he started having fantasies about sucking dick. Specifically, he wanted to suck a small one because his is very big and he wanted to “service” a guy who’s less hung than he is, which is fine except it’s now the only thing that gets him off. We seldom have sex now because his obsession with sucking off a guy with a small dick makes me feel unattractive and to be honest I don’t share the fantasy. I even let him suck a dude off in front of me once and I didn’t enjoy it at all. He tells me he still finds me attractive but when we’re having sex the talk always goes to how he wants to take “warm and salty loads” down his throat. I’ve told him I’m not into it but he enjoys talking about it so much he can’t help himself. I thought allowing him to live out his fantasy would help him "get over it," so to speak, but that didn’t happen. So now we just don’t have sex except once every few months.

I’m not sure how to make him see that it’s just not my thing and to get the focus back on just the two of us. —Loves Obsessing About Dick Sucking If you can look at your husband and think, “Things are better than ever!” despite the dismal state of your sex life, LOADS, I hate to think what life with him used to be like.

There’s not an easy fix here. If you’ve already told your husband the “warm and salty load” talk is a turn-off and made it clear it’s the reason your sex life has pretty much collapsed and nevertheless he persists with the “warm and salty load” talk, well, then your husband is telling you he would rather not have sex than have sex without talking about warm and salty loads.

Now, I’m assuming that you actually told him how you feel in clear and unambiguous terms, LOADS, and that you said what you needed to say emphatically. And by “emphatically,” LOADS, I mean, “repeatedly and at the top of your lungs.” If not—if you’re doing that thing women are socialized to do, i.e., if you’re downplaying the severity of your displeasure in a misguided effort to spare your husband’s feelings—then you need to get emphatic.

Sometimes it’s not enough to tell, LOADS. Sometimes you have to yell.

You’re obviously GGG—you’re good, giving, and game—but your husband has taken you for granted and been almost unbelievably inconsiderate. Because even if he needs to think about sucking dick to get off, LOADS, he doesn’t need to verbalize that fantasy each and every time you fuck. Even if you were into it, which you’re not, it would get tedious. And it wasn’t just selfish of him to ignore how you felt, LOADS, it was shortsighted. Because women who are willing to let their husbands talk about wanting to suck a dick—much less actually suck a dick—aren’t exactly easy to come by.

I guess what I’m trying to say, LOADS, is that your husband really blew it. If he hadn’t allowed this obsession to completely dominate your sex life—if he’d made some small effort to control himself—you might’ve been willing to let him act on his fantasy more than once. But as things stand now, it’s hard to see how you come back

22 may 8, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

from this, LOADS, because even if he can manage to STFU about warm and salty loads long enough to fuck you, you’re going to know he’s thinking about warm and salty loads. So the most plausible solution here—assuming that you want to stay married to this guy—would be for him to go suck little dicks (once circumstances allow) while you get some decent sex elsewhere (ditto).

Finally, a lot of vanilla people think—erroneously—that acting on a kink will somehow get it out of a kinky person’s system. That’s not the way kinks work. Kinks are hard-wired, and kinky people wanna act on their kinks again and again for the exact same reason vanilla people wanna do vanilla things again and again: because it turns them on. —Dan Savage

with a decreased sexual drive. Because of all my (and our) obligations, I find myself alternating between a state of tiredness, anxiousness, or distraction, none of which get me “in the mood.”

We’ve talked about the situation, and he is absolutely respectful when we do so, but he has made it clear he’s very frustrated. I think once a week is more than enough and he could go multiple times a day. It’s to the point where he feels he’s begging just to fit some “us” time into our lives, which he says makes him feel undesirable and humiliated.

There isn’t anything wrong with him that leaves me not wanting to engage in physical intimacy, we just seem to have different physical intimacy schedules, and it’s putting a serious strain on our relationship. How can we work to find a comfortable middle ground, or at the absolute least, help me explain to him why I’m not as randy as he is?

—Completely Lost In Tacoma

“If you’re doing that thing women are socialized to do, i.e., if you’re downplaying the severity of your displeasure in a misguided effort to spare your husband’s feelings—then you need to get emphatic.

Sometimes it’s not enough to tell, LOADS, Sometimes you have to yell.”

I have what most people would consider an amazing life. I have two healthy kids, financial security, a stable career, and a husband who is the exact partner I could ever want. I really couldn’t ask for more. I just have one issue: my husband wants to be intimate more often than I do. We are both nearing 40, and his libido has not slowed down. I, on the other hand, due to a combination of being busy with work and us both taking care of the kids (especially during the lockdown), find myself

You don’t need to craft an elaborate explanation, CLIT, as what’s going on here is pretty simple: Your husband has a high libido and you have a low one.

What you need is a reasonable accommodation. Opening up your marriage obviously isn’t an option right now, CLIT, and it might not be an option you would’ve considered even if it were possible for your husband to find an outlet (or inlet) elsewhere. But there is something you can do.

Your husband is doubtless jacking off a lot to relieve the pressure. If there’s something he enjoys that you don’t find physically taxing and if he promises not to pressure you to upgrade to intercourse in the moment, then you could enhance his masturbatory routine.

Does he like it when you sit on his face? Then sit on his face—you can even keep your clothes on—while he rubs one out. Does he love your tits? Let him look at them while he beats off.

Is he a little kinky? It doesn’t take that long to piss on someone in the tub and it wouldn’t mean adding something to your already packed schedule, CLIT, as you have to find time to piss anyway.

It would be unreasonable of your husband to expect sex three times a day—that would be an irrational expectation even if you were childless and independently wealthy—but your husband isn’t asking you to fuck him three times a day. He wants a little more sexual activity, some erotic affirmation, and more couple time.

Giving him an assist while he masturbates ticks all those boxes. That said, this will only work if your husband solemnly vows never to initiate intercourse during an assisted masturbation session. If you catch a groove and start feeling horny and wanna upgrade to intercourse, you should. But he needs to let you lead, because if he starts pressuring you for sex when you’re just there to assist, then you’re going to be reluctant to help him out.

If he can follow that one rule, CLIT, you’ll feel more connected and you’ll probably wind up having more PIV/PIB/PIM sex—maybe twice a week instead of once a week—but it will be sex you both want.

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

CLASSIFIEDS Legal DC SCHOLARS PCS INTENT TO ENTER SOLE SOURCE CONTRACT – DC Scholars Public Charter School intends to enter a sole source contract with Laura Ressler for Special Education consulting and coaching services in SY 2020-21. A contract will be awarded at close of business on May 21, 2020.

If you have questions, contact Emily Stone at estone@dcscholars.org no later than 5:00 pm on May 18, 2020.

WASHINGTON LATIN PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS Issued: 04/24/2020 The Washington Latin Public Charter School solicits expressions of interest in the form of proposals with references from a qualified vendor for: * Tutoring Servicesoffered for some or all the following during and/or after school hours: general instructional support in all subjects for grades 5-12, test prep and classwork review. This would be for approximately 30 students with individualized educational plans. Tutoring could be one-on-one or in small groups. * Faculty Staffing Services- identify qualified teachers/administrators for hire * HVAC Services- provide routine HVAC maintenance and repairs as needed. * Curriculum Consultants- provide expertise in building strong math and literacy curriculum * International Educational Travel Servicesexpertise in student travel to Rome or Morocco * School Payment Portallooking for software to streamline processing/ recording all student billing needs.

Questions and proposals may be e-mailed to eabdurrahman@latinpcs. org with the type of service in the subject line. Deadline for submissions is COB May 8, 2020. No phone calls please.

Due to current school closure, e-mail is the only method for responding with proposal and supporting documentation NOTICE OF PROTEST PROTESTED PROTESTED Notice published in Thurston County Records, State of Washington, No. 3843008 on 6/26/06 AD finds the following government agents trespass-

ing on Jeffrey McMeel’s, status as a peaceful, non combatant in relation to TRADING WITH THE ENEMY ACT of 1917-40 Stat. 411. McMeel is neither a private nor a public enemy of governments.

Trespassers: Thurston county court No. 13DV0310,10-M00941, UHS15167, 7Z1085643, 17-206110-34, 17-2-03433-34, 13-2-30176-5, 17-4-0009134. Pierce county court No. 9Z625080A. Western Washington District court No. 3:12- cv-06067, 2:16-po-00278-MAT, 2:20-cv-00079-MJP. Western Washington Bankruptcy court No. 16-11767-CMA. US court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit No. 16-1145, 20-1003, 14-35813.

TWO RIVERS PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS Coach Bus Transportation Two Rivers PCS is seeking a company to provide coach bus transportation for field trips for students preschool to 8th grade. To request a copy of the RFP or additional information, email procurement@ tworiverspcs.org.

WASHINGTON LEADERSHIP ACADEMY PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS School Furniture Washington Leadership Academy Public Charter School, an approved 501(c)3 organization, requests proposals for the following furniture: Item HON SmartLink Seating 18’ 4L Chair without Wheels Quantity 80 Item HON Student Desk Top/SecurEdge Adj Leg Assembled-set (Triangle) Quantity 50 Item White, locking, classroom storage options, preferably on wheels (roughly 30W x 60H) Quantity 10 Freight and installation Installation should occur no later than August 1, 2020 Please email proposals to Mandy Leiter at mleiter@ wlapcs.org.

We request proposals by May 12, 2020.

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PROBATE DIVISION 2020 ADM 000277 Name of Decedent, Deborah D. Hollingsworth-Edmonds.

Notice of Appointment, Notice to Creditors and Notice to Unknown Heirs, Paul D. Edmonds Jr., Vincent C. Hollingsworth,

whose addresses are 1018 Southern Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20032, was appointed Personal Representative of the estate of Deborah D. Hollingsworth-Edmonds who died on 8/9/18, with a Will and will serve without Court Supervision.

All unknown heirs and heirs whose whereabouts are unknown shall enter their appearance in this proceeding. Objections to such appointment shall be filed with the Register of Wills, D.C., 515 5th Street, N.W., Building A, 3rd Floor, Washington, D.C. 20001, on or before October 23, 2020. Claims against the decedent shall be presented to the undersigned with a copy to the Register of Wills or to the Register of Wills with a copy to the undersigned, on or before October 23, 2020, or be forever barred. Persons believed to be heirs or legatees of the decedent who do not receive a copy of this notice by mail within 25 days of its publication shall so inform the Register of Wills, including name, address and relationship.

Date of first publication: 4/9/2020 Name of Newspaper and/or periodical: Washington City Paper/ Daily Washington Law Reporter. Name of Personal Representative: Paul D. Edmonds Jr., Vincent C. Hollingsworth TRUE TEST copy Nicole Stevens Acting Register of Wills Pub Dates: April 23, 30, May 7.

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washingtoncitypaper.com may 8, 2020 23

Dear City Paper Readers, At the beginning of February in what feels like an entirely different era we launched the voting for Best of D.C. and you responded in force to tell us your favorites for everything, from outdoor concert venues to local restaurants: More than 100,000 ballots were cast in a record-breaking year.

We would have shared the results and started the festivities this week. However, with all of D.C. stuck indoors for the foreseeable future, we don’t think it’s an appropriate time to celebrate. Our team wants to produce the best possible guide to our city, but that’s just not possible with so many of our favorite neighborhood spots currently closed.

So, we are delaying the Best of D.C. until a more appropriate time when we can all unite again in honor of the places and people that energize our city and make it feel like home.

Once we have clear guidelines about when local businesses can reopen and it’s safe to re-emerge, we plan to announce the results widely and loudly in celebration of the winners and our city.

In the meantime, we will continue to bring you to-the-minute updates on what’s happening in our city and the best virtual activities to keep from going stir crazy while quarantined.

If You’re Interested in Supporting Us Know that we need you—we really need you. Best of D.C. is our most important source of income each year. With the current delay and an unclear outlook for the future, we have lost a lot of money from canceled events and lost ad sales.

Please help us remain a resource for EVERYONE in our community by becoming a member. Not only does it feel great to support your local paper, but you’ll get some fun City Paper swag, too. You can become a member at washingtoncitypaper.com/membership.

We know we’re in the same financial boat as many other industries right now, but we can’t just shut our doors or stop the presses. We want to keep our readers informed, and feel a responsibility to keep printing our paper for the 25 percent of Washingtonians who lack broadband access, and the 17 percent who lack access to a computer. They deserve the same access to information, connection, and distraction as everyone else.

If You’re a Small Business Owner Washington City Paper has established a $100,000 Advertising Match Program to assist locally owned small businesses. A local newspaper can’t thrive without a thriving small business community. We have stepped forward to support the community that has supported us for nearly 40 years.

Washington City Paper will provide $100,000 in matched advertising this May and June. Every dollar spent on advertising will be matched with a dollar of free advertising. Matches are available for a minimum of $200 and a maximum of $5,000 of matching funds each month, for a maximum of $10,000 in matching funds.

If you’re a Best of D.C. finalist—or any other small business owner—who is interested in learning more, please contact Ads@washingtoncitypaper.com.

Duc Luu, Publisher

washingtoncitypaper.com/membership