Washington City Paper (August 16, 2019)

CITYPAPER WASHINGTON

LOOSE LIPS: U.S. ATTORNEY VS. CHARLES ALLEN 4 CONTEST: YOU ARE SO D.C. IF __________________ . 6 SPORTS: NEIGHBORS FROM BELGIUM ON MYSTICS 10

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D.C. is ready to make legal marijuana a boon for big business.

But what about for racial justice? P.12

By Joshua Kaplan Photographs by Darrow Montgomery

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COVER STORY: WEEDED OUT

12 The details you need to know as D.C. moves closer to legalizing recreational marijuana

DISTRICT LINE 4 Loose Lips: The D.C. Council wants to advance a sentencing reform bill. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has launched a public campaign to stop it.

6 You Are So D.C. If ...: Participate in our contest and tell us what makes someone “so D.C.” 7 Mumble Sauce: The ups and downs of maintaining Black hair 8 Wawa Under the Bridge: The convenience store’s presence is growing in D.C. Longtime business owners aren’t thrilled.

11 Scene and Heard

SPORTS 10 Double Team: Two Belgian basketball players find kinship and camaraderie on the Mystics bench.

ARTS 18 Are You Recording?: The 10th archivist of the United States talks going digital and preserving America’s history.

20 Curtain Calls: Randall on Keegan Theatre’s Legally Blonde 21 Sketches: Feldman on America Is... at Touchstone Gallery 22 Speed Reads: Ottenberg on White Elephant by Julie Langsdorf 23 Short Subjects: Zilberman on Blinded by the Light

CITY LIST 25 26 28 28

Music Books Theater Film

DIVERSIONS 29 Savage Love 30 Classifieds 31 Crossword

DARROW MONTGOMERY 1600 BLOCK OF NEWTON STREET NW, AUG. 10

EDITORIAL

EDITOR: ALEXA MILLS MANAGING EDITOR: CAROLINE JONES ARTS EDITOR: KAYLA RANDALL FOOD EDITOR: LAURA HAYES SPORTS EDITOR: KELYN SOONG LOOSE LIPS REPORTER: MITCH RYALS CITY DESK REPORTER: AMANDA MICHELLE GOMEZ CITY LIGHTS EDITOR: EMMA SARAPPO STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER: DARROW MONTGOMERY MULTIMEDIA AND COPY EDITOR: WILL WARREN CREATIVE DIRECTOR: JULIA TERBROCK SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER: ELIZABETH TUTEN INTERNS: ELLA FELDMAN, AYOMI WOLFF CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: MICHON BOSTON, KRISTON CAPPS, CHAD CLARK, MATT COHEN, RACHEL M. COHEN, RILEY CROGHAN, JEFFRY CUDLIN, EDDIE DEAN, CUNEYT DIL, TIM EBNER, CASEY EMBERT, JONATHAN L. FISCHER, NOAH GITTELL, SRIRAM GOPAL, HAMIL R. HARRIS, LAURA IRENE, LOUIS JACOBSON, JOSHUA KAPLAN, CHRIS KELLY, AMAN KIDWAI, STEVE KIVIAT, CHRIS KLIMEK, PRIYA KONINGS, NEVIN MARTELL, KEITH MATHIAS, BRIAN MCENTEE, CANDACE Y.A. MONTAGUE, BRIAN MURPHY, NENET, TRICIA OLSZEWSKI, EVE OTTENBERG, MIKE PAARLBERG, PAT PADUA, JUSTIN PETERS, REBECCA J. RITZEL, ABID SHAH, TOM SHERWOOD, CHRISTINA STURDIVANT SANI, MATT TERL, IAN THAL, SIDNEY THOMAS, HAYWOOD TURNIPSEED JR., JOE WARMINSKY, ALONA WARTOFSKY, JUSTIN WEBER, MICHAEL J. WEST, DIANA MICHELE YAP, ALAN ZILBERMAN

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DISTRICTLINE

Sentence Fragments The U.S. Attorney’s Office is waging a campaign against the D.C. Council’s effort to enact sentencing reform.

When the office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jessie K. Liu, wanted to raise hell about a proposed criminal sentencing reform bill making its way through the D.C. Council, they started with the Washington Post.

On August 3, the Post editorial board published a rebuke of Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen’s bill that would give more people serving long sentences for violent crimes a shot at release. The current law, the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act (IRAA), passed unanimously in 2016 and allows those convicted as juveniles of serious violent crimes, such as rape and murder, to apply for resentencing after serving at least 15 years in prison.

Allen’s bill, the Second Look Amendment Act of 2019, would expand the law to include those who committed their crimes before their 25th birthday. The legislation was co-introduced by seven other councilmembers in February and follows U.S. Supreme Court precedent curtailing harsh sentences for young offenders.

Echoing Liu’s stance, the editorial boardhich works independtly from the Post’s news operation, argued that the Council had pushed too far too quickly. The editorial lists examples, provided by Liu, of individuals who would be eligible for resentencing under Allen’s bill and identified each person by the heinous nature of their crimes. One man was described as “a killer who, having stuffed his victim’s corpse in a trash can, proceeded to execute the victim’s girlfriend for fear she could be a witness.” (The Post also published a reported piece about the bill on the same day. The editorial board did not respond to a request for comment.)

Since the Post’s coverage, the USAO has only ramped up its public opposition to the bill.

“It’s a full on campaign, which includes proactive outreach to the community, to news outlets, and to ANC members,” a spokesperson for the USAO says, adding that the office has reached out to several advisory neighborhood commissioners in wards 7 and 8 and plans for representatives to attend communi-

LOOSE LIPS

BOP for stealing a pack of gum. The law is not ty meetings in those areas.

Last week, Executive Assistant U.S. Attor- about establishing guilt again—because they ney for External Affairs Wendy Pohlhaus are guilty of that crime. Rather, it’s trying to essent an email to the Ward 4 listserv, linking to tablish if this person has successfully rehabilithe two Post items and offering to attend com- tated, is a risk to the public, and whether there munity meetings to “explain the legislation.” is a need to continue having them jailed.”

Allen defends the law and his bill further, In the email, Pohlhaus describes the bill’s effect, saying it would “preclude the court from writing in the email to Palmer that “there’s considering the nature of the original offense, also an inherent racial bias that plays out ‘despite the brutality or cold-bloodied nature here—in our criminal justice system, if a white man and black man commit the same crime, of [the] particular crime.’”

But that characterization is not quite the black man will get a longer and harsher sentence. Creating a sentence review after 15 accurate.

In fact, the “nature of the offense” was explic- years can also help serve as a check on that initly listed as one of several factors a judge must herent bias within the system.”

On Friday, August 9, the USAO issued a consider in resentencing an offender under the IRAA. The Council voted unanimously to re- press release with the title “New Bill Seeks to move that language after prosecutors in Liu’s Make Over 500 Violent Criminals (Including office used it as a basis for opposing each of the Many Rapists and Murderers) Immediately El19 requests for resentencing. All but one request igible for Early Release,” adding that the legislation “re-victimizes victims and ignores pubhas been granted.

The remaining factors still allow the judge lic safety in the District.” to consider the underlying offense through Councilmember Charles Allen reports and recommendations from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, statements from victims, and “any other information the court deems relevant to its decision,” supporters of the law argue.

In an email responding to Ward 4 advisory neighborhood commissioner Erin Palmer, who questioned the USAO’s characterization, Allen writes that “a judge can’t just say ‘because the offense you committed was a horrible one, you’re not eligible for revising the sentence.’ The reality is, anyone applying through IRAA committed a horrible offense.

You don’t go to federal

4 august 16, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

Darrow Montgomery

By Mitch Ryals

The U.S. Attorney, citing Bureau of Prisons data, says that 583 offenders would be eligible to apply for resentencing under the bill and “one in three will reoffend within three years of release.”

Liu’s release asserts that Allen’s bill is “not evidence-based, does little to protect the rights of victims and comes at a time when the homicide rate in the District has increased significantly.” None of the people who’ve been released under the IRAA have been arrested for new crimes.

In response, Allen tells LL via email that he is “disappointed but not surprised, by the factually inaccurate and fear-mongering statement” from the USAO. “Their failure to constructively engage is in line with this administration’s belief that the judicial system is for locking people away rather than rehabilitation and public safety,” he writes.

The Council passed the IRAA in 2016 after multiple U.S. Supreme Court rulings barred juvenile offenders from receiving the death penalty, mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole, and life without parole sentences for non-homicide crimes. The court has relied on the growing amount of research showing that brain development continues until about age 25. Young people, the court has ruled, are less culpable and have greater potential for rehabilitation.

According to data compiled by the Prison Policy Initiative, D.C. has a higher incar-

DISTRICTLINE ceration rate than any U.S. state at 1,153 per 100,000 people. Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Mississippi are the only states with incarceration rates over 1,000.

The United States has the largest prison population in the world, most of which is held in state prisons. Because D.C. no longer has the equivalent of a state prison, D.C. code offenders are housed in federal BOP facilities throughout the country.

Data also show that the largest portion of state prisoners are locked up for violent crimes. To make a dent in mass incarceration in the U.S., advocates argue for refocusing attention on that population. Bureau of Justice Statistics reports show that violent offenders are less likely to recidivate than individuals convicted of drug, property, or public order crimes such as drunk driving and probation violations; they’re also the least likely to be rearrested for the same offense.

Research has shown that longer prison sentences do little to reduce crime. Norway, for example, generally caps prison sentences at 21 years, yet the country has a lower violent crime rate than the U.S. D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine has publicly voiced his support for Allen’s bill. Racine’s office prosecutes juvenile crime in the District, as well as adult misdemeanors. The U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecutes adult felony cases in D.C. In a letter sent to Allen (citing the American Academy of Pediatrics) dated May 10, 2019, Racine writes that “we can no longer think of long, punitive sentences as the sole response to crime. It is time to forge a new path, guided by science and data, towards just sentences that serve the greatest public interest of District residents. Updating our policy to reflect the growing consensus that emerging adults are developmentally distinct from adults and merit more focused rehabilitation efforts would be a critical step forward.”

But the SLAA has stoked division within Mayor Muriel Bowser’s administration. Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Kevin Donahue testified in support of the bill in March.

In an emailed statement, Donahue says “judges should consider both the seriousness of the crimes, as well as the individual’s rehabilitation. Research shows that criminal sentencing should account for a person’s maturation, especially those who, through their action while incarcerated, have demonstrated both remorse and change.” But changes to the law, he says, should be crafted with consideration for victims and their families.

Metropolitan Police Department Chief Peter Newsham has a different take.

“I think the IRAA has already created a very serious public safety concern for the residents of Washington D.C.,” Newsham writes via email.

To illustrate his point, Newsham attached a judicial order in the case of Rodney C. Williams—the same order the USAO is using as an example to support its opposition—writing that the victims in that case have been “defrauded” by the criminal justice system.

“I am not certain that all of the husbands, women and nine year old girls who live in the District are aware of this decision or the public impact of this law,” Newsham writes. “I believe any expansion of this IRAA will have serious public safety consequences, and anyone who would support such an expansion has absolutely no regard for the victims or the families who are impacted by violent crime.”

In 1983, Williams pleaded guilty to rape while armed, sodomy, and armed robbery— crimes he committed as a 17-year-old. Williams, now 54, has served 36 years in prison and applied for resentencing under the IRAA. In June, D.C. Superior Court Judge Michael K. O’Keefe resentenced Williams to make him eligible for parole but did not offer an opinion as to whether he should be released. Nearly all others who’ve applied for resentencing under the IRAA have been given credit for time already served and released.

In his order, the judge summarizes Williams’ crimes, each of which involved breaking into homes with other young men and raping women between August and September of 1982. In one of the incidents, two of Williams’ accomplices accosted a woman at gunpoint while she was taking out the trash. The men forced her into her home on Macomb Street NW, where she lived with her husband and two children, according to court records.

The two men raped the woman while Williams and three others moved through the house taking the family’s belongings, Judge O’Keefe describes in his order. One of the men, Ray McLamore, raped the woman’s 9-year-old daughter. Williams was in the bedroom for at least part of the attack, O’Keefe notes, but did nothing to stop it.

O’Keefe calls Williams’ case “extremely difficult” and writes that his “sociopathic behavior” warrants an extreme sentence.

“People can and do change,” O’Keefe writes. “Can a juvenile sociopath mature into a well-adjusted empathetic adult? For the good of society, let’s hope so.”

For now, Williams awaits a hearing in front of the U.S. Parole Commission. His attorney, Todd Baldwin, has filed a motion for reconsideration.

“They label them as murderers and rapists,” Baldwin says. “These are terrible things that they did, but 17-year-olds should not be punished for the rest of their lives. I can say that the USAO’s office has opposed not just my client’s case, but every single case. Their problem is not with [the proposed amendment], it’s with [the law] itself.”

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DISTRICTLINE

You Are So D.C. If …

A competition to find the most telling phrase to complete that sentence in 2019

By Caroline Jones

live in the neighborhood you grew up in, let alone any other parts of your city.

Two years ago, we asked City Paper readers to participate in a new contest and sum up life in the District by completing a simple sentence: You are so D.C. if _______.

We received about 500 entries, which highlighted everything from gentrification and the changing dynamics of neighborhoods to local flavors, the music of the District, and the one political figure who continues to loom large, years after his death.

Among our favorites from that batch: • You eye roll at movies set in D.C. that have skyscrapers.

• You refuse to go to a museum that requires paid admission, but you’re more than willing to purchase an $18 cocktail.

• You’re a D.C. native and can’t afford to

This year, we’re bringing the contest back and asking readers to once again fill in the blank. What makes someone “so D.C.” in 2019?

You can submit as many entries as you want before the contest closes on Sept. 3. And don’t be afraid to get very specific. (To quote a submission from 2017: “You go to the corner store and buy a pickled egg, sunflower seeds and a big mama hot sausage, put it in a plastic sandwich bag, bite the corner of the bag and eat it out of that small hole.” City Paper’s photographer of 33 years confirms that this is a thing.)

Use the form below to enter the contest. Please include reliable contact information—we might want to get in touch

YOU ARE SO

with you if we pick your submission.

This year, you’ll also be able to enter on social media. We’ll create entry boxes on our Instagram account, @washingtoncitypaper, where you can privately submit your ideas. If you want to tweet your submissions, tag @wcp and use the hashtag #youaresodcif2019. But just to be clear, if you want to be 100 percent sure your answer is an official entry, mail the form below, use the

form at www.washingtoncitypaper.com/ youaresodcif2019, or submit on Instagram.

We can’t promise we’ll catch every tweet.

The contest runs Wednesday, Aug. 14 through Tuesday, Sept. 3. City Paper reporters and editors will read all the submissions to select 10 winners (who will each get a small but fabulous prize), and a whole lot of runners-up, to be printed in mid-September. We can’t wait to read your thoughts.

D.C.

IF ____________________________________

You can write in your answer and mail it to us at the address below. Or just take a photo of your written answer and tweet it to us at @wcp with the hashtag #youaresodcif2019 Washington City Paper 734 15th St. NW, Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 20005 6 august 16, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

DISTRICTLINE Mumble Sauce Sumn ’bout hair

Darrow Montgomery

Nnenna Amuchie’s sacred Black hair

By Jordan N. DeLoach Mumble Sauce is a summer 2019 column about how DMV Black communities uplift healing and creativity in the face of gentrification, displacement, policing, and incarceration. This is installment five of 10.

The firsT period bell was about to sound off at the middle school I went to in Upper Marlboro. I wanted to be anywhere else. I went to the hair salon the night before to get styled for my uncle’s wedding that was coming up in a couple of days. The results were … well.

I slept with my head propped up to maintain the integrity of the bundles of curls pinned at the top of my cranium. I put on a hoodie as soon as I got to school and snuck from my locker to class. Slinking into a chair next to my friend, I removed the hood, my chin tucked to my chest.

She did her best to encourage me.

“It’s like,” she paused and smiled, “it’s like a

beautiful bird’s nest.”

A relatively common experience for many Black girls is hair salon angst: entering the establishment hoping for a blowout like Phylicia Rashad, and coming out looking a little more like James Brown than anticipated. But I still loved my hairdresser. I found peace when her colorful 2-inch acrylics scratched my scalp with my head tilted back in the sink. Her layered bracelets clinked like windchimes whenever she washed my hair. And afterward, I got to journey through the building’s hallways to get cheesy puffs from the vending machine. I stuffed my face with multiple pieces at a time, tinting my fingers yellow and watching subtitles on The Jamie Foxx Show while sweating underneath the roaring hair dryer.

But I didn’t like the way relaxers burned. I learned early, with a different childhood hairdresser, that some burns went too far. I developed a bald spot the size of a clementine on the back of my head in elementary school—a patch

of scalp as smooth and shiny as a newly waxed gym floor. My mother feverishly rubbed the spot with soap and water at night. But during the day, I climbed to the top of the jungle gym during recess and let the wind blow through my hair, my bald spot gleaming in the sun.

Black hair and the places we go to get it done are so often sacred, sites of both joy and trauma.

Hair salons and barber shops have historically been spaces for Black people to socialize and confide. Small teams of community organizers frequently used barber shops and salons as meeting spaces during the Black freedom struggles of the 1960s and 1970s. And they can be healing spaces, too, with many establishments supporting people with things like blood pressure checks and unofficial therapy.

But along with the sacredness comes the trauma. There are endless streams of information telling us that nappy hair is ugly and “unprofessional,” that the only acceptable textures are slightly curly, wavy, and straight. I begged

my parents for a relaxer when I was 6 years old, embarrassed by the way my braids puffed through their twisties and stuck out on the sides of my head. At the salons I went to, I understood beauty to be pain. So much pain is forced on the shoulders of little Black girls, who are encouraged to suffer in the name of achieving societal standards of beauty that were never meant to be attainable to them in the first place.

Now I wear my nappy hair in a high top fade and go to barber shops. Still, this presents different issues. I avoid getting haircuts for as long as possible. I’ve had too many experiences of overhearing homophobic and transphobic comments, and been on the receiving end of too many suggestive come-ons. When I finally do go to the barber shop, I hope I won’t have to endure conversations about whether I’m single, or about how many piercings I have and whether you can see them all.

Throughout the negative experiences, there’s still the joy. I love seeing Black people do hair and thrive. Doing hair is a source of income and an expression of creativity for many, and a lot of spots in D.C. strive to incorporate a sense of community in their work. Lady Clipper Barber Shop, a Black woman owned-and-run barber shop on U Street NW, showcases work by local artists in the space. Wanda’s on 7th, a salon in Shaw owned by the legendary Wanda Henderson, a Black stylist and cosmetologist who grew up in LeDroit Park, is a landmark in the community and symbolizes Black power in the middle of a gentrified neighborhood.

And there are many talented stylists doing hair out of their homes, hustling to make money and navigating expensive licensing fees that a lot of poor Black stylists struggle to keep up with.

Through it all, when we’re creative with and loving toward Black hair, we exercise agency in a society that tries to take power away from us.

Whether doing hair puts money in your pocket and helps you get by, or you’re experimenting with different wigs to see what kind of vibe you want to present to the world on any given day, hair provides us with an opportunity to sustain, fulfill, and express ourselves.

Hair used to be my enemy, but it isn’t anymore. We started repairing our relationship during my freshman year of college. A silky 18-inch black weave with a blunt bang adorned my head at the beginning of the semester. But a few weeks later, my friends joined me in a dorm room and formed an assembly line to cut all of it off. One friend cut the threads of my tracks, her fingers moving with the dexterity of a spider to remove the string attaching the weave to my cornrows.

Another combed through my braids, unraveling the plaits and exposing the shiny nappy curls at my scalp that contrasted with my hair’s frazzled straight ends. Finally, a different friend shaved my head. My dark curls fell in clumps onto the floor. They looked like fluffy black poodles dancing in circles across the room.

I feel lucky to have hair with a life of its own.

This is hair that can be braided, pressed, twisted, fluffed, loc’ed, coiled. Thick tufts that stick out in different textures no matter how they’re manipulated. Shy, nappy curls that shrink when they’re wet, but still manage to grow in the direction of the sky.

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washingtoncitypaper.com august 16, 2019 7

DISTRICTLINE Wawa Under the Bridge

Darrow Montgomery

Several of D.C.’s six Wawas replaced chain stores.

But two of them replaced less-than-happy small businesses.

Columbia Heights

By Amanda Michelle Gomez The sTandard reacTion to Wawa locations moving into the District has been apathy or tamed excitement—that is, unless you manage a nearby, local shop.

“You couldn’t pay me money to step foot in there,” says Camille Boyette of the Wawa moving in to Adams Morgan. Boyette is the general manager of Madam’s Organ, a decades-old blues bar that now shares the neighborhood with one of the city’s six Wawa stores.

“I will silently protest,” Boyette says.

Lost City Books manager Evan OwensStively loves seeing the red letters and yellow goose on the side of the road when he’s looking for a quality rest stop.

“But I don’t want to see it in our neighborhood,” Owens-Stively says.

Their opposition is many-fold. Adams Morgan has a long and charmed history that could be spoiled with the entry of more chain stores, the thinking goes. This Wawa is also replacing BicycleSPACE, a D.C.-based bike shop with just two other locations now that the Adams Morgan store closed after operating since July 2015.

Owens-Stively—who’s worked at Lost City Books for the last four years, and before that, Amsterdam Falafelshop for two years— says a BicycleSPACE mechanic would come to his store every three days to purchase a science fiction book, usually something by Andre Norton. It was a symbiotic relationship: Owens-Stively is a biker who frequented BicycleSPACE. “It felt like a place that was trying to contrib-

8 august 16, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

ute to the neighborhood as well as be a business,” says Owens-Stively of BicycleSPACE. “But Wawa is fundamentally not that … it’s going to be a drunk place for kids to get food at three in the morning.” (It’s true that the neighborhood has a pretty wild weekend scene.)

It’s not as if BicycleSPACE wanted to shutter its Adams Morgan location.

“We came to the neighborhood and really enjoyed being there,” says BicycleSPACE co-founder Phil Koopman. “The long-term economics weren’t there going forward. Obviously bigger chains could afford to pay more rent—I don’t know what it means for the neighborhood.”

Koopman wouldn’t say how much the rent was, but agreed to this: The rent is too high.

Not every D.C. Wawa has come in with the

reputation of being a gentrifier. In fact, half of the Wawa locations in the District are replacing other larger chain stores. The first Wawa to open in D.C. replaced a City Sports in 2017; the second, located in Georgetown, replaced a Restoration Hardware in July 2018; and the fourth, located in Tenleytown, replaced a Sears home appliance showroom in June 2019.

The Washington Post called the inaugural Wawa a “big deal.” Of the over 800 stores nationwide, this Wawa is one of the company’s largest at more than 9,000 square feet of space. The downtown site at 1111 19th St. NW attracts a lot of office types, providing professionals with a convenient 30-minute lunch break.

“I can tell you it’s always very busy—it’s almost a daily stop for me,” says Gillian Branstetter of the National Center for Transgender Equality, an advocacy organization located a minute away from the Wawa.

Her colleague Jay Wu was super excited when the store first opened, as they self-identify as a Wawa loyalist given that they went to school in the Philadelphia suburbs. “I used to go there a lot,” says Wu. “There are so many sandwiches I can eat in my life. I prefer variety.”

Eateries nearby the 1111 19th St. NW location were concerned at first about what the Wawa meant for business—DC Pizza, which is 144 feet south, certainly was. There’s just one DC Pizza and its home of five years is between L and M streets NW. “Since they moved in, they haven’t affected us negatively,” says DC Pizza owner Bob Daly.

“Once they were here, they started bringing more people to this block so Saturday sales have gone up.”

A two-minute walk north is the 7-Eleven, where sales dropped during the first six months after Wawa moved in. But business is now back to normal, says manager Zubair Ahmed. To stay competitive, 7-Eleven added more options for hot meals and to its beverage bar.

“So far, we are good neighbors,” says Ahmed.

“As a business, I don’t like somebody to take my business, but we work together.”

But in Columbia Heights, the tale of the new Wawa is more similar to that of the Ad-

DISTRICTLINE ams Morgan location.

The third Wawa to move into the city in May 2019 replaced the first-ever Pete’s New Haven Style Apizza, along with Potbelly and Five Guys, in Columbia Heights.

“All three tenants had 10 year leases, with extension options, but they chose not to renew when initial lease terms expired. We then leased the combined space to Wawa,” says Chris Donatelli, the landlord for the property (and the subject of a recent City Paper article on one of his residential properties), in an email. “Some people think we kicked out the tenants to make room for Wawa. That is just not the case,” he added.

That’s true, says Pete’s owner Joel Mehr. But that’s not it.

“They didn’t actually kick us out, they just wouldn’t negotiate a better lease price for us,” says Mehr, “We would have liked to have stayed, we just couldn’t afford to.”

The starting rent was around $10,000 per month. By the time the local pizzeria closed in April 2018 to make room for the 24-hour Wawa, the rent was around $15,000 per month due to annual increases, says Mehr. Pete’s, Potbelly, and Five Guys, were the first tenants in the building. The location was also the inaugural Pete’s outpost. Debuting in 2008, Pete’s opened when Columbia Heights was seeing less foot traffic.

Mehr says the first two years were rough, but by year eight, the pizzeria really took off, so they expanded, opening three more restaurants in Silver Spring, Clarendon, and Tenleytown. (All but the Tenleytown location have subsequently closed.)

By that time, though, other chains like Chipotle had moved into the neighborhood. That’s when rent really started to outpace sales.

“D.C. is not a small business friendly place to be,” says Mehr. He’s ready to leave—when City Desk called he had just returned from Denver to see if he and his family could live there.

“Everyone is looking to sell the building when the right price comes.” says Mehr. “They are more concerned with the value of the property than with the money they take in every month— that’s what I’ve been told by other landlords, not specifically Donatelli.”

Ted Guthrie, an advisory neighborhood commissioner representing Adams Morgan, sees that dynamic manifest in another way: “We have a lot of empty spaces along 18th. That tells you the price is too high,” he says. “I would love to see the landlords of some of these [vacant] buildings that are not getting any rent get cheaper rent and try to engage pop-up spaces.”

For example, says Guthrie, the property at 2406 18th St. NW has been vacant for at least two years after an Ethophian restaurant closed.

Before that it was home to the infamous dance club NY NY Diva. “The problem is the guy wants too much for rent and the building is in terrible condition,” says Guthrie of the landlord, who is based in Florida.

While Guthrie is relatively happy about the

Wawa moving in to Adams Morgan—saying “it’s much better than a nightclub”—Madam’s Organ owner Bill Duggan is far from thrilled.

That said, Duggan doesn’t fault the Wawa.

“I do blame the ANC and the people in this neighborhood that have made it a non-desirable neighborhood for other businesses, other than corporate entities to come into,” says Duggan.

“We have an ANC that is probably best known throughout the city as being the most antagonistic towards restaurants, bars—anything to do with alcohol.”

A while ago, 2424 18th St NW was the original Cities, a restaurant and lounge. Guthrie referred to Cities as a “deadly nightclub” with a restaurant license whereas Duggan thought the place changed the neighborhood for the better. Today, Cities wouldn’t be able to open there thanks to the Adams Morgan Moratorium Zone, which bans nightclub licenses. But both Guthrie and Duggan agree on this: The property was too expensive so it could only be filled with a restaurant that could afford the rent, or something like a Wawa.

“That building where Wawa is going in is in the middle of the block, the largest building in the neighborhood, the anchor of a neighborhood,” says Duggan. “That anchor and that character probably will change the neighborhood just by virtue of where it is, what it is, and how large it is.”

Guthrie, who’s one of Adams Morgan’s longest-serving commissioners, says he didn’t hear of any other businesses trying to move into 2424 18th St NW. In fact, Guthrie learned of Wawa moving in after the deal was made, as there wasn’t any need for ANC input: Wawa wasn’t asking for any sort of license, like an on- or offpremise liquor license; there weren’t any zoning issues; nor was Wawa interfering with the neighborhood’s historic district status. The store is currently under construction and is slated to open in September.

The property is also one of the only storefronts where a larger chain could land.

“A lot of these businesses on 18th Street are rowhomes so they are not ADA accessible,” says Adams Morgan commissioner Japer Bowles, “So bringing in a chain, I am wary, but I’m also looking at it as like there isn’t really a lot of opportunities for chains to move into the neighborhood so for them to be in this one—that’s really it and I feel like it’ll help serve the neighborhood.”

From what Bowles hears, Wawa is a good neighbor. The ANC recently passed a resolution to add a street-level Capital Bikeshare dock in front of Wawa and the company didn’t oppose it.

The newest Wawa, located at One Thomas Circle NW, isn’t stirring as much controversy.

When and where D.C. will see the next Wawa is unclear, as is the strategy behind each previous location—Wawa’s public relations manager didn’t respond to City Desk’s requests for comment.

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Darrow Montgomery/File

SPORTS Double Team

The Mystics’ two Belgian players defied the odds to reach the WNBA.

By Kelyn Soong Kim mestdagh is often the last player off the bench for the Washington Mystics. She averages just 1.9 points in 4.3 minutes per game, and the 5-foot-9 guard has yet to score more than one field goal in each of her nine appearances. But none of that brings her down.

Mestdagh didn’t dream of playing in the WNBA. Growing up in the Belgian municipality of Ypres, playing professional sports in America felt like an impossible reality for international basketball players like her.

“First of all, not everyone makes the step to make it to professional,” she says. “They play until 18 or until they’re a student, or they have to choose to go to work. It’s hard to go the road of professional basketball.”

Even after graduating from Colorado State University in 2012 as the women’s basketball program’s fourth-leading scorer, Mestdagh received little interest from WNBA teams.

She returned to Europe, playing for her father, Philip, on the Belgian national team and for various professional clubs across the continent.

It wasn’t until two years ago that Mestdagh caught the attention of Mystics coach Mike Thibault during the Belgian team’s bronzemedal run at the 2017 European Women Basketball Championship. Now, she’s a 29-yearold rookie and has teamed up with a player, Emma Meesseman, who grew up three streets away from her in Ypres. Though her journey to the WNBA was vastly different, Meesseman can understand Mestdagh better than most.

“For me it’s already very special to actually be playing in the WNBA, to be on the team,” says Mestdagh. “And to have one of the few Europeans—and from the same country— on my team is really good for me. It made the transition a lot smoother. She helped me out with things and showed me things. It’s definitely less intimidating if you have someone from the same country here.”

The now-defunct Cleveland Rockers selected 6-foot-4 center Ann Wauters first overall in the 2000 WNBA Draft, and she was the

Emma Meesseman and Kim Mestdagh

Kelyn Soong

BASKETBALL

only Belgian player to compete in the WNBA throughout Messeman and Mestdagh’s childhoods. After the Chicago Sky waived point guard Hind Ben Abdelkader during training camp this year, Mestdagh and Meesseman remain the only active Belgian nationals in the league.

In the 2012 WNBA Draft, the Mystics selected Meesseman with the 19th overall pick. By that point, the 6-foot-4 forward had already played on the Belgian national team and professionally in Belgium and France. She has become a central figure on the Mystics, averaging 12.3 points per game so far in 2019 after sitting out the WNBA season last year to compete in the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup. Meesseman, whose mother, Sonja Tankrey, was named Belgium’s Player of the

10 august 16, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

Year in 1983, says she didn’t expect her career to take her to the WNBA so quickly, and certainly didn’t foresee playing with another Belgian in the United States.

“Because it seems so far away. I actually stopped expecting,” she says of the WNBA. “I was like, just go with the flow and we’ll see where it goes. I know some of my teammates in Belgium play really, really good the past few championships we’ve had, so they deserve to be here. So does Kim.” Because Mestdagh is a few years older, Meesseman, 26, didn’t get to know her future teammate until Meesseman joined the Belgian national team. Meesseman was closer to Mestdagh’s younger sister, Hanne, who also competes for Belgium.

But having someone from her native country

D.C. bars hope adding sports gambling will bring in more business. washingtoncitypaper.com/sports on the Mystics has helped the introverted Meesseman feel connected in ways she hadn’t before.

On the bench during games, the two sit next to each other, chatting in Dutch rather than English. Meesseman’s younger brother, Thijs, and Mestdagh’s father and sister have visited them in D.C. this season—impromptu reunions that few in either family thought would be possible.

“It’s sometimes still unbelievable,” Meesseman says. “Cause we only lived three streets away. That’s what makes it more special. Our parents really get along well. We played on the national team. We had the same teachers. It’s weird, but it’s cool to be able to share it with someone I know, because I didn’t really have that before. Not in Russia, not in France, not here. So for me, it’s good to have her or somebody else to see what this life is like, to be able to talk in my language. I know we have to be careful with that because we are on a team that speaks English, but we do that. It’s just fun sometimes. You feel more home.”

In return, Meesseman has given Mestdagh guidance on life in the WNBA. Unlike in Europe, professional players in America rarely have team activities during the week. At first Mestdagh felt lost. She would message Meesseman to make sure she was reading the itineraries correctly.

“I was constantly not trying to make mistakes,” says Mestdagh. “I don’t want to interrupt anyone. I don’t want to bother anyone. I want to do everything right. I don’t want to come here and mess everything up. So I was constantly like, OK, what do I need to do now?”

Her Mystics teammates have embraced her.

Some of them met Mestdagh while playing overseas and knew about her reputation as a sharpshooter. Thibault says that during practice, Mestdagh “can make open shots all the time … Every day in practice, you have to guard her or you’ll get embarrassed.”

Mystics forward Myisha Hines-Allen calls both players “super chill.”

“How Emma plays, she’s not your typical post player,” Hines-Allen says. “You can tell she’s from another country … It’s just cool to watch her play. I don’t know really how to explain it. She just brings something different just because she’s able to do a lot of different things on the court and get open with different types of moves. Kim, she’s a great shooter. It’s like, you can’t leave her.”

Both Meesseman and Mestdagh know they can inspire kids in Belgium. Although they took different paths, they ended up in the same place.

“It shows that you don’t have to be ready from 19-years-old or even before that to make it. If still you want to play in the WNBA, just kinda trust the process,” Meesseman says of Mestdagh’s journey. “She kept working hard. She just took her chances and because of that, coach [Thibault] saw her and her chances came.”

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Scene and

Heard Deconstructed, August 2019

Crafty arts & makers festival

ConstruCtion sounds fill D.C. Sometimes the instruments come together in a symphony of development, but this morning, in a residential neighborhood, everyone’s playing a solo.

You can barely hear it from indoors—the pianissimo grumble of a drill separating bricks from the mortar that binds them. To step outside is a crescendo.

A block away, a dump truck with a bright red bed idles next to a torn up sidewalk. A woman walking her dog steps into the street to avoid the mess, its bass drum-like thrum giving her a walking beat, should she choose to listen. A few steps south, the truck fades and gives way to the unmistakable drone of an electric saw.

It fills the air though it’s nowhere to be seen, drowning out the birds and bugs and windchimes that normally serenade this alley.

Another block over, the staccato of a pneumatic tool punctures the morning. Its breathy blasts come from deep within a rowhouse, its operator out of view. A port-a-potty plays an improvised solo as it bounces around in a trailer.

The morning’s vocals come from behind a Pepco truck. The crew—sheltered from view— chatters loudly and unintelligibly.

Often hidden within buildings and machinery, behind barriers and fences, invisible musicians provide an unwitting soundtrack to the city.

—Will Warren Will Warren writes Scene and Heard. If you know of a location worthy of being seen or heard, email him at wwarren@washingtoncitypaper.com.

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As D.C. anticipates marijuana legalization, we offer you this primer on the debate over felony drug charges, the future of small local weed businesses, and the city’s gray market arrests.

By Joshua Kaplan Photographs by Darrow Montgomery

When D.C. legalizeD the possession of marijuana in 2014, it was the product of a movement that, in many ways, was the first of its kind. “The campaign in D.C. was the first in the country that centrally focused on legalization as a racial justice issue,” says Michael Collins, director of national affairs at Drug Policy Alliance, a group that has been intimately involved in shaping the District’s marijuana policy over the years. “It’s not lived up to that promise.”

Collins places the blame for those failures squarely on the shoulders of Republican Representative Andy Harris. Every year since 2014, the Maryland congressman has proposed a rider to the House budget, explicitly blocking D.C. from taxing and regulating recreational cannabis. So while it’s legal to use marijuana in the District, it’s still illegal to sell it, and vendors have resorted to the “gray” market where they might sell a customer an $80 Tshirt and then “gift” them an ounce of marijuana.

But with Democrats back in control of the House, Harris didn’t even try to get his rider passed this time around, and 12 august 16, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

while it remains to be seen what the Senate will do, District politicians are moving full steam ahead. In January, At-Large Councilmember David Grosso introduced a bill to legalize marijuana sales (which he’s done every term since he took office in 2013). Then in April, Mayor Muriel Bowser followed suit with a bill of her own.

Where the bills differ, they differ on policies that could shape the legacy of the War on Drugs in D.C. for years to come: on what will happen to the criminal records of people arrested for marijuana, and whether the people harmed most by the criminalization of drugs will go to the front of the line in the new industry or be actively kept out of it.

Meanwhile, advocates are fiercely debating whether either bill does enough to ensure the new source of wealth will be distributed fairly. There is no easy answer to that question, but the stakes are high if D.C. wants to avoid having people still go to prison for cannabis sales while the well off and well connected profit from them.

So the way the next few months play out could be decisive— not only for which demographics end up benefiting the most from legal cannabis, but for how the District reckons with the lasting harms of mass incarceration. “We have an opportunity on the front end to build an industry reflective of our values, rather than waiting 20 years to start asking questions about equity,” says Queen Adesuyi, policy coordinator for Drug Policy Alliance. “It’s not a huge ask. If anything, it’s an obligation to right the damage that’s already been done.”

One Cartel, Two Cartels, Old Cartels, New Cartels While legal vendors get rich off the cannabis industry, will their underground competition keep going to prison?

Not long after cannabis became kind-of-legal in the District of Columbia, Lisa Scott was in business. “Someone knew I was a chef and asked if I knew how to make edibles. And I didn’t, but I figured it out,” she recalls. “We didn’t know what to do with

them because we couldn’t sell them, so we threw a party… Hundreds of people showed up.” The challenge of running a growing company was exciting (as was the new income stream), but eventually, police started raiding other pop-ups, and she decided it wasn’t worth the risk. Not seeing a clear way to become a legal vendor, she got out.

Now, Scott is the president of the DC Cannabis Business Association, which advocates for small cannabis business owners. “There have been at least 100 vendors—people call them vendors, I call them ganjapreneurs—who have been doing the pop-ups and itching to get into the business legally,” she says.

She believes letting them into the legal industry is a necessary “form of reparations.” Otherwise, she argues, there’ll be “people who have been arrested for possession or selling or whatever, while people with deep pockets are opening their own dispensaries and making money off it. Because the system is rigged for them.”

There’s never truly been anything “gray” about the gray market—it’s illegal, and anyone who operates a gray market business is risking a felony. In recent years, the Metropolitan Police Department started cracking down on the gray market, raiding pop-ups and making dozens of arrests at a time. According to MPD’s data, when marijuana first became legal to possess, the number of arrests for distribution and for possession with intent to distribute plummeted, from 622 in 2014 to 214 in 2015.

But those arrest numbers quickly went right back up. And by 2017 (the last year for which data are available), arrests had surpassed pre-legalization levels by over 7 percent.

If and when recreational marijuana sales become legal in D.C., it looks like those arrests may continue to pile in. Neither Grosso’s nor Bowser’s bill changes the penalty for unlicensed sales of marijuana, and the mayor’s proposal explicitly bans “gifting.”

“The [mayor’s] bill’s a step in the right direction, but they need to legalize what’s already going on,” says Adam Eidinger, the co-founder of DC Marijuana Justice, a group advocating for cannabis users and growers. “It’s going to result in more incarceration. How do you protect the legal market? You crack down on the gray market.”

It’s not as if people selling weed illegally can go legal just because they want to. In the mayor’s proposal, the application fee for a hopeful entrepreneur is $1,000, and the minimum annual fee for a cultivator is 10 grand. Furthermore, the District would have near-complete discretion to deny people licenses and limit the number of cannabis businesses. So even if someone had the money, they might never get approved.

Betsy Cavendish, general counsel for the Executive Office of the Mayor, says the mayor’s office has been limited by a desire to avoid federal scrutiny—marijuana is still illegal at a federal level, and they don’t want the Department of Justice coming into D.C. She also says the mayor’s office is deliberately restricting how easy it is to get a license to balance entrepreneurs’ desire to get into the industry with critics’ concerns about oversaturation in certain areas. “This bill tries to really balance consumer demand for marijuana with neighborhood concerns,” she explains.

“There are neighbors who are concerned about having these establishments in their neighborhood.”

In contrast, Grosso’s proposal would give the government substantially less leeway to deny people licenses whenever it chooses. While the community would still have input on where businesses open up, he tells City Paper that entrepreneurs would essentially have a “right” to get a license if they want one. “I’m not saying we should have a marijuana shop on every corner,” Grosso says. “We do this now with alcohol licenses. It’s not that complicated.” He says this is designed, in part, to open a path for current gray and black market vendors. “My hope here is that as we move forward with tax-and-regulate, we give people every opportunity to engage in the legal market, even people currently in the underground market,” he says.

Until gray and black market vendors transition to the legal market, under both proposals, they’d still risk criminal prosecu-

tion. Jason Ortiz, vice president of the Minority Cannabis Business Association (MCBA), says that there’s been a debate within MCBA about how jurisdictions should treat the underground cannabis market. On the one hand, he says, “we want to protect our people from undue arrests.” But on the other hand, he also wants to help people who are trying to run their business legally. Nevertheless, he thinks that since illegal cannabis businesses harm bottom lines, not human beings, the penalties should be changed accordingly. “When we’re talking about economic crimes, I think the answer is to have economic sanctions, rather than criminal ones,” he says.

“If someone was selling alcohol out of the back of a liquor store, would they get arrested?” he asks. “They’d definitely get a fine.

They’d definitely have to go to court. But they probably wouldn’t

through the application process.”

So she left private practice and became a commissioner for the state’s Cannabis Control Commission, which handles regulation of the marijuana industry in Massachusetts. She says that big businesses and those established in the medical industry have a leg up in the more lucrative recreational market, but that the Commission has “tried to offset that by having a lot of types of licenses,” like microbusinesses and craft cooperatives.

She says the state’s also started a number of programs to ensure people affected by the War on Drugs can easily access the industry. If someone lives in “areas disproportionately affected by criminalization,” has a drug conviction, or has a parent or a spouse with a drug conviction, they can receive technical assistance and fee waivers. Massachusetts also implemented pri-

At-Large Councilmember David Grosso

get jail time. They probably wouldn’t have a SWAT team come in.”

But so long as cannabis remains an industry where a license is the difference between getting rich and getting jail time, Ortiz believes it’s perverse to keep the market closed off. “If you have a limited market and you’re using the criminal justice system to punish everyone else,” he emphasizes, “that’s a cartel.”

“Very Rich, White, and Male” Will small businesses be able to break into the cannabis industry? Will those who have suffered the most under the War on Drugs be able to break in?

When Massachusetts legalized recreational marijuana several years ago, Shaleen Title was working as an attorney for legal cannabis businesses. But she wasn’t happy. “I didn’t like the people I was working for,” she says. “I didn’t like having to often advise small businesses or family-owned businesses that they probably didn’t have enough resources to even make it

ority applications, Title says, where people disproportionately harmed by prohibition “get their applications reviewed first.”

Lastly, they’ve recently approved two types of licenses—for delivery and for social consumption (i.e. a cannabis bar)—that will give a head start to people directly impacted by criminalization.

For the first two years, only those eligible for the priority application programs (and, in the case of cannabis bars, microbusinesses and cooperatives) will be able to run delivery or social consumption operations.

Scott is disappointed that so far, no D.C. proposal has created a way for “small and microbusinesses” to get in the game.

“If they rolled it out and said you can get a micro business license for $420, anyone can afford that,” she says. “There’d be no excuse to be in the black market.” She points to Massachusetts as a model, where there are eleven different tiers of licenses for marijuana cultivators, ranging from tiny businesses to huge operations.

Cavendish says the mayor’s bill doesn’t make room for miwashingtoncitypaper.com august 16, 2019 13

crobusinesses due to concerns about safety—she argues the city doesn’t yet have a regulatory regime ready to monitor scores of small businesses selling their own products. “One of our top concerns is consumer safety,” she says. “It’s very difficult to having a testing regime in place [to detect contaminants in products] for mom and pops.”

“But there will be jobs,” Cavendish says, “if some of those small entrepreneurs want to go work in house at a manufacturer.”

Grosso’s bill similarly doesn’t provide licenses for small businesses that can’t afford the same fees as the big dogs (his fees are somewhat lower than Bowser’s, though). However, it contains several programs and provisions designed to move people affected by the War on Drugs toward the front of the line. Under his bill, “applicants who are AfricanAmerican, long-time District of Columbia residents, formerly incarcerated, or otherwise appropriate for special consideration” would receive priority in the application process.

The proposal would also establish a business incubator and technical assistance programs meant to bring “the benefits of marijuana legalization and regulation to those formerly harmed by criminalization.”

The mayor’s bill includes no such proposals. Cavendish says that when discussing the best way to repair the harms of criminalization, policymakers shouldn’t overly focus on the cannabis industry. “Along the lines of reparations, let’s not just focus on this bill,” she says. “There are loads of programs in the District,” like the READY (Resources to Empower and Develop You) Center, launched in February to help returning citizens find housing and employment.

The mayor has also advanced one major idea for increasing access to the local cannabis industry, which several advocates praised in conversations with City Paper. Under her bill, District residents would need to have at least 60 percent ownership of every new marijuana establishment.

Adesuyi, however, doesn’t think this goes far enough.

“There’s no effort to prioritize things like having been impacted by the War on Drugs,” she says. “The mayor just was not bold on this. This is the most lackluster bill ever… It’s really up to the mayor to be intentional to make sure that D.C. spearheads the effort to end criminalization in a way that’s just and equitable.”

Uneeda Nichols—an activist who teaches women to grow their own (legal) cannabis and the founder of gray market catering company DC’s Sweet Sensations—is frustrated to see who’s been able to profit from the cannabis industry. “I grew up during the War on Drugs. Everybody that came into D.C. is making more money than I am. And I’m from D.C.,” she says.

“People like me aren’t going to stand a chance. I’ll be just like a street hustler. Because I don’t have the resources or people to back me.”

Prior Conviction Will the District try to open doors for people with felony marijuana charges, or shut them out?

Nichols’ catering company isn’t operational anymore. In 2017, the police raided her business. They confiscated her wares, gave her a felony charge, and threw her in jail. “I sat in that jail all weekend,” she says. “With a rat.” After months of court dates, the charges were dropped, but she says she lost everything in that raid—2017 was before gray market raids were status quo, so she didn’t expect it, and she’d invested a ton of money in the business only to have it all taken away.

But compared to those arrested during the peak of the War on Drugs, she got off easy. She’s advocating for the city to do everything it can to repair the harm done by criminalization: “I know so many people who can’t get homes—can’t get apartments—because they got drug charges.”

Under the mayor’s bill, anyone who’s ever had a felony drug conviction would be explicitly prohibited from owning a marijuana establishment.

Cavendish defends that exclusion. “The restrictions on 14 august 16, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

Mayor Muriel Bowser

[cannabis] businesses are very similar to restrictions on who owns bars,” she argues. (People with recent felonies can’t get liquor licenses. Unlike with cannabis, though, they can get licensed if it was at least 10 years ago.)

People with felony convictions would be allowed to work for marijuana businesses—unless the felony happened in the past five years, in which case, cannabis businesses wouldn’t be allowed to hire them.

The Minority Cannabis Business Association has advocated for sweeping change to try to repair the harm done by criminalization, not only including people with felony marijuana charges in the marijuana industry, but also expunging all cannabis-related convictions and making it so those drug charges can’t affect things like housing and credit reports.

“We’re allowing people now to cultivate felony amounts [of marijuana] in the medical industry,” Ortiz says. “Part of this conversation has to be admitting that the War on Drugs was wrong, it was a mistake, and it was racist.”

Grosso was also sharply critical of Bowser’s felony exclusion: “That to me just flies in the face of what we’re trying to do here.”

“If [the final proposal] doesn’t include strong supports for righting the wrongs of the War on Drugs, I won’t vote for it,” he says, and he says he’d encourage his colleagues to do the same.

Grosso’s bill would not let the city discriminate against applicants for prior drug charges, and would also expunge all records related solely to marijuana arrests and convictions. “If we’re going to take the approach to repair the harm done by the War on Drugs, which had a disproportionate impact on African Americans in the District of Columbia,” he says, “then

I think we need to go all the way.”

The mayor’s bill takes some important steps to erase the literal record of mass incarceration, but it would leave people working in the pre-2019 recreational cannabis industry out to dry. Her proposal would seal records for possession of marijuana (although not expunge them, so they’d still be accessible to the courts and law enforcement). However, it wouldn’t affect charges related to distribution or possession with intent to distribute. This means that if and when selling weed becomes legal in D.C., lenders, employers, and landlords alike would all still be able to see someone was arrested for selling it decades ago.

Collins says the mayor’s bill is “a good first draft… I think she’s moving in the direction of racial justice.” But he thinks it’s critical that D.C. legislators stop treating people who sold marijuana, before it was legal, like criminals; let people currently in the underground market into the legal market; and put those who’ve been harmed by racist policing and decades of criminalized weed “in the front of the line for the benefits of legalization.” His colleague Adesuyi, who works closely with Congress on marijuana legislation, thinks D.C. politicians may need to add more of these provisions if they want Democratic members of Congress to go to bat to defend it. “That’s the tune people are dancing to in Congress,” she says.

“There’s so much room to make this a more bold attempt to bringing justice to D.C. In a place where people want it. Where Council is ready to do it,” Adesuyi emphasizes. “D.C. has everything it needs to lead the nation when it comes to legalizing marijuana in a way that includes the people who bore the brunt of criminalization.”

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Important Facts About DOVATO

This is only a brief summary of important information about DOVATO and does not replace talking to your healthcare provider about your condition and treatment.

What is the Most Important Information I Should Know about DOVATO? If you have both human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) and hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, DOVATO can cause serious side effects, including: • Resistant HBV infection. Your healthcare provider will test you for HBV infection before you start treatment with DOVATO. If you have HIV-1 and hepatitis B, the hepatitis B virus can change (mutate) during your treatment with DOVATO and become harder to treat (resistant). It is not known if DOVATO is safe and effective in people who have HIV-1 and HBV infection.

• Worsening of HBV infection. If you have HIV-1 and HBV infection, your HBV may get worse (flare-up) if you stop taking DOVATO. A “flare-up” is when your HBV infection suddenly returns in a worse way than before. Worsening liver disease can be serious and may lead to death. ° Do not run out of DOVATO. Refill your prescription or talk to your healthcare provider before your DOVATO is all gone. ° Do not stop DOVATO without first talking to your healthcare provider. If you stop taking DOVATO, your healthcare provider will need to check your health often and do blood tests regularly for several months to check your liver.

What is DOVATO? DOVATO is a prescription medicine that is used without other antiretroviral medicines to treat HIV-1 infection in adults: who have not received antiretroviral medicines in the past, and without known resistance to the medicines dolutegravir or lamivudine. HIV-1 is the virus that causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). It is not known if DOVATO is safe and effective in children.

Who should not take DOVATO? Do Not Take DOVATO if You: • have ever had an allergic reaction to a medicine that contains dolutegravir or lamivudine.

• take dofetilide.

What should I tell my healthcare provider before using DOVATO? Tell your healthcare provider about all of your medical conditions, including if you: • have or have had liver problems, including hepatitis B or C infection.

• have kidney problems.

• are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. One of the medicines in DOVATO (dolutegravir) may harm your unborn baby. ° You should not take DOVATO if you are planning to become pregnant or during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Your healthcare provider may prescribe a different medicine if you are planning to become pregnant or become pregnant during treatment with DOVATO. ° If you can become pregnant, your healthcare provider will perform a pregnancy test before you start treatment with DOVATO. ° If you can become pregnant, you should consistently use effective birth control (contraception) during treatment with DOVATO. ° Tell your healthcare provider right away if you are planning to become pregnant, you become pregnant, or think you may be pregnant during treatment with DOVATO.

©2019 ViiV Healthcare or licensor.

DLLADVT190007 June 2019 Produced in USA.

Learn more about LáDeia and DOVATO at DOVATO.com

16 august 16, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

Tell your healthcare provider about all of your medical conditions, including if you: (cont’d) • are breastfeeding or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed if you take DOVATO. ° You should not breastfeed if you have HIV-1 because of the risk of passing HIV-1 to your baby. ° One of the medicines in DOVATO (lamivudine) passes into your breastmilk. ° Talk with your healthcare provider about the best way to feed your baby.

Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements.

Some medicines interact with DOVATO. Keep a list of your medicines and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist when you get a new medicine.

• You can ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist for a list of medicines that interact with DOVATO. • Do not start taking a new medicine without telling your healthcare provider.

Your healthcare provider can tell you if it is safe to take DOVATO with other medicines.

What are Possible Side Effects of DOVATO? DOVATO can cause serious side effects, including: • Those in the “What is the Most Important Information I Should Know about DOVATO?” section.

• Allergic reactions. Call your healthcare provider right away if you develop a rash with DOVATO. Stop taking DOVATO and get medical help right away if you develop a rash with any of the following signs or symptoms: fever; generally ill feeling; tiredness; muscle or joint aches; blisters or sores in mouth; blisters or peeling of the skin; redness or swelling of the eyes; swelling of the mouth, face, lips, or tongue; problems breathing.

• Liver problems. People with a history of hepatitis B or C virus may have an increased risk of developing new or worsening changes in certain liver tests during treatment with DOVATO. Liver problems, including liver failure, have also happened in people without a history of liver disease or other risk factors. Your healthcare provider may do blood tests to check your liver.

Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get any of the following signs or symptoms of liver problems: your skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow (jaundice); dark or “tea-colored” urine; light-colored stools (bowel movements); nausea or vomiting; loss of appetite; and/or pain, aching, or tenderness on the right side of your stomach area.

• Too much lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis). Lactic acidosis is a serious medical emergency that can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get any of the following symptoms that could be signs of lactic acidosis: feel very weak or tired; unusual (not normal) muscle pain; trouble breathing; stomach pain with nausea and vomiting; feel cold, especially in your arms and legs; feel dizzy or lightheaded; and/or a fast or irregular heartbeat.

• Lactic acidosis can also lead to severe liver problems, which can lead to death. Your liver may become large (hepatomegaly) and you may develop fat in your liver (steatosis). Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get any of the signs or symptoms of liver problems which are listed above under “Liver problems.” You may be more likely to get lactic acidosis or severe liver problems if you are female or very overweight (obese).

SO MUCH GOES INTO WHO I AM HIV MEDICINE IS ONE PART OF IT. Reasons to ask your doctor about DOVATO: DOVATO can help you reach and then stay undetectable* with just 2 medicines in 1 pill.

That means fewer medicines† in your body while taking DOVATO

You can take it any time of day with or without food (around the same time each day)—giving you flexibility

DOVATO is a once-a-day complete treatment for adults who are new to HIV-1 medicine.

Results may vary. *Undetectable means reducing the HIV in your blood to very low levels (less than 50 copies per mL). † As compared with 3-drug regimens.

LáDeia‡ Living with HIV

What are Possible Side Effects of DOVATO (cont’d)?

• Changes in your immune system (Immune Reconstitution Syndrome) can happen when you start taking HIV-1 medicines. Your immune system may get stronger and begin to fight infections that have been hidden in your body for a long time. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you start having new symptoms after you start taking DOVATO. • The most common side effects of DOVATO include: headache; diarrhea; nausea; trouble sleeping; and tiredness.

These are not all the possible side effects of DOVATO. Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch, or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

Where Can I Find More Information?

• Talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist.

• Go to DOVATO.com or call 1-877-844-8872, where you can also get FDA-approved labeling.

Trademark is owned by or licensed to the ViiV Healthcare group of companies.

Compensated by ViiV Healthcare

‡

Could DOVATO be right for you? Ask your doctor today.

washingtoncitypaper.com august 16, 2019 17

Courtesy of Warner Theatre

CPARTS

Are You Recording?

Courtesy of the National Archives

The 10th archivist of the United States gives his insights on how the National Archives can lead the way in a digital age.

David M. Rubenstein Gallery at the National Archives

By Lia Assimakopoulos The NaTioNal archives and Records Administration serves as the leading agency in preserving our nation’s most important historical documents. From the Declaration of Independence to President Trump’s latest tweet, the agency safeguards the rich history of the United States and makes records readily available for the federal government and the public.

David S. Ferriero, the 10th archivist of the United States, oversees the operations of the Archives. President Obama appointed Ferriero in 2009 after his long career as a librarian at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Duke University, and most recently the director of the New York Public Library.

Though a strict set of laws and schedules guides Ferriero’s work with the Archives, his ongoing responsibility is to make the information accessible to all. Through its National Archives Museum, some of the institution’s greatest keepings are on public display. Founding documents like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are the 18 august 16, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

main attractions, complemented by timely exhibitions featuring a wide variety of important historical records.

In honor of the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote, the Archives now showcases Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote, an exhibition which includes the 19th Amendment, state ratifications of the amendment, protest photographs, petitions to vote, and political pamphlets from the time.

Another new display, which runs to Oct. 9, honors the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Woodstock Music & Art Fair. It features artifacts like the cover of LIFE Magazine’s special Woodstock edition and images of the crowds from the magazine.

These exhibitions give visitors a small taste of the vast history preserved within the Archives, which strives to expand its reach by adopting a digital mindset to become more accessible for the future. It’s always been about the future: By taking a more digital approach, the seemingly distant, decades-old institution aims to cater to the coming generations, so the past is not an enigma, but rather a resource to aid the future. After nearly 10 years of his term, Ferriero

Common shares his love for D.C. and its artists. washingtoncitypaper.com/arts spoke with City Paper about bringing the National Archives into that future.

WCP: How has developing technology impacted the Archives during your term?

Ferriero: I would say that the real revolution has taken place during the rise of social media, and it’s had the greatest impact on the way folks—not only in the government but in the country and the world—are communicating and sharing information. I came into my position in November of 2009. I remember I had a Senate confirmation hearing, and I can remember coming to Washington from New York, reading in the New York Times that the White House had [requested] for help in managing their social media, and I was kind of beside myself because here I was being interviewed for archivist of the United States wondering: Why on earth is the White House going outside the government for help with their social media? That was my introduction to how much work we needed to do to get the Archives in the position where we could be fulfilling our mission, which was to provide guidance and rules, especially to the executive branch, about the records implications of their uses of technology. If we weren’t using those technologies ourselves, how on earth would we be able to do that? As I came into the job, the National Archives wasn’t doing anything in social media, so I quickly got the staff apprised of what we should be doing. It’s safe to say we are a leader in the executive branch in our uses of social media. We are now on 16 different platforms.

WCP: What efforts have you made to go digital?

Ferriero: I have been a huge proponent of digitization activities forever, as soon as I realized the potential, so when I came here, I was pleased to learn that the National Archives had formed several commercial partnerships with places like Ancestry.com so that all of the genealogical material that people are using now, much of it comes from the National Archives. Ships’ passenger lists, census records—all of that is material that Ancestry has digitized and made available. I want to digitize everything in our holdings, and that is like 15 billion pieces of paper and parchment, 43 million photographs, and miles and miles of film and video. I will never live to see it, but I’m convinced that it’s important for us to do that. I’ve worked enough with researchers and college students, both graduate students and undergraduates, to know that they have now become addicted to digital content.

I can still remember this from my days working directly with students. Students will change their topic if they can’t find the information with a good Google search. Librarians in the early days used to fight that and try and convince students that there’s still a paper world. There is still a paper world, and there will be for some time, but we also need to recognize the fact that students and researchers and the general public have raised expectations because we have delivered so much content already. They’re expecting everything to be online.

WCP: Will the increased capacity of digital space cause the Archives to preserve more information for longer?

Ferriero: I think it’ll be the same. There are many kinds of day-to-day business records that have a life expectancy that need to be available for 25 years, but after that there’s no need to keep payroll records forever, for instance. People think because technology storage costs keep coming down,

CPARTS the photographs, where the photographs were taken, that kind of information is another opportunity that Citizen Archivists have. I’m really interested in people providing additional information that they might have about the records that we have in our custody.

it removes the need for that kind of decision making, but the ability to be successful in discovering the good information that you need really is dependent upon careful curating of the content to begin with.

WCP: How has President Trump’s method of communication through Twitter impacted your work?

Ferriero: Actually, it’s an interesting data point. About 90 to 95 percent of the Obama records were born digital—no paper equivalent. Obama was the first president to tweet, so we have all of the Obama tweets, so the fact that this president is tweeting is not anything new for us.

WCP: What goals do you have for the future?

Ferriero: We’re in the process of shifting the entire government off of paper and to all electronic record-keeping. We are playing a major role in helping the agencies get to that point.

Courtesy of the National Archives

WCP: How does the Citizen Archivist program impact the work of the Archives?

Ferriero: When President Obama came into office on his first day, he met with his senior staff and made a point with them that the government doesn’t have all the answers and that we need to be tapping the expertise of the American public to help us do our work to solve our problems. I took that to heart when I got here and started thinking about how we can engage the American public in the work of the National Archives and worked with my staff to create the Citizen Archivist program. We have an interesting dilemma here. Of the 15 billion pieces of paper we have, I would say that more than half, probably 60 or 70 percent of those records, are in cursive. Cursive isn’t being taught in schools anymore, so we have a generation of students who can’t read our records. One of the early wins in the Citizen Archivist program was to mount thousands of records in cursive and ask for volunteers to tran-

WCP: How does the Archives compare to other institutions?

Ferriero: One of the great values of having a nonpartisan, independent agency responsible for the records is we’re preserving the good stuff and the bad stuff. Unlike some other countries where there’s less focus on ensuring that there is a nonpartisan approach, we’re pretty particular about that.

David S. Ferriero

scribe them, so there are good people all over the country who are helping us in transcribing cursive to print so that students will be able to use our records, so there’s one example of engaging the American public in helping us do our work. Millions of photographs, not all of them are carefully catalogued as we would like, so being able to identify people that are in

WCP: What is one thing in the Archives that not many people know about but should?

Ferriero: Four of my favorite things—I have copies hanging outside my office—they are letters to the president. Part of the records under the Presidential Records Act, correspondence with the president becomes permanent record, and those four letters that are hanging outside my office are letters that I wrote as a kid to President Eisenhower, President Kennedy, and President Johnson. Two letters to President Eisenhower, one to President Kennedy, and one to LBJ, congratulating him for signing the Civil Rights Act. CP

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Legally Blonde

Music and lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin Book by Heather Hach Directed by Ricky Drummond At Keegan Theatre to Sept. 8 LegaLLy BLonde bends and snaps its way into your heart, whether you want it to or not.

The musical is as fun and effervescent as the movie on which it’s based.

For a certain sector of viewers, the story is a modern classic: Sorority queen Elle Woods’ California dream comes crashing down when her boyfriend, Warner, dumps her because in his words, he needs a “Jackie,” not a “Marilyn.” With resolve and determination, she follows Warner across the country to Harvard Law School in an attempt to win him back and manages to charm the hell out of everyone she meets in the process.

Elle’s charm is essential for the show to work, and it flows through the entire production. The excellent ensemble cast—right down to the furry, four-legged friends playing Bruiser and Rufus—lights up the stage. Gabriella DeLuca leads the way as Elle, imbuing our heroine with a charisma and warmth that make her easy to root for, and Kaylen Morgan’s Warner is cool, smug, and deliciously loathsome.

The rest of the main cast is filled out nicely, with Noah Israel hitting the right combination of kind and nerdy as Emmett, Elle’s supportive friend and other love interest, and Janine Sunday channelling the bubbliness of Elle’s cosmetologist bestie, Paulette. Greg Watkins is wonderfully slimy as Professor Callahan,

Rachel Barlaam nails uptight Vivienne, and Amanda Kaplan gives bluster to workout superstar Brooke.

This cast combines Legally Blonde’s sunny disposition with killer vocals for its winning formula. From the opening sounds of the early number “Omigod You Guys,” the energy is high and doesn’t let up. Each musical number here is spectacularly staged in the Keegan’s small space, and the cast really sells the stakes. Paulette’s “Ireland” comes to life thanks to Sunday’s bighearted, cheery performance, while Kaplan and the ensemble show off some standout jump roping in “Whipped Into Shape.” (Ashleigh King’s choreography looks particularly strong in that sequence.)

“Gay or European?” strikes courtroom comedy gold, and “Bend and Snap,” an iconic sequence from the 2001 film, is just as joyful here. It’s a sparkling number, and its high spirits and sass are irresistible.

Thanks to the bouncy numbers, the show’s 2 hour and 35 minute runtime breezes by and never drags. Not lost in all the merriment is the empowerment of Legally Blonde’s story—its lessons in womanhood still resonate and uplift. Yes, Elle is wealthy, beautiful, and blonde.

Her life has been easy, and her biggest problem at the start is what dress to wear to what she thought would be her engagement dinner.

But she’s also smart, a good person who is often dismissed as shallow and unserious. By the end of the show, she’s proved that women can care about both pretty dresses and murder trials, and that’s a win for womankind.

There’s a reason the show continues to run on stages worldwide more than 10 years after its Broadway debut: People love it. For those who love all things Legally Blonde, and for those who just want to have a good time, Keegan’s showy, fast-paced production is delightful.

—Kayla Randall 1742 Church St. NW. $20–$63. (202) 265-3767. keegantheatre.org.

GALLERIESSKETCHES

“Ghanaian-American II” by Lloyd Foster, 2019

THIS IS AMERICA America Is…

At Touchstone Gallery to Aug. 29 At first glAnce, Lauren Gohara’s painting at Touchstone Gallery looks almost like a Mondrian: Three rows of rectangles in bright colors fill up a white canvas. A read of the painting’s plaque, however, reveals a deeper meaning. The painting, titled “What the Bottom 40% Really Have,” is actually a representation of data collected by researchers about how people think wealth is distributed between each quintile of the population in the United States. The bottom row represents what participants thought would be a fair distribution. The middle row represents what they thought the actual wealth distribution was. And the top row shows how wealth is actually distributed. With just a brief explanation, Gohara’s pretty painting becomes a startling picture of wealth inequality in this country.

The painting is on display at America Is…,

the new Touchstone exhibition showcasing art that asks and attempts to answer one question: What is America today?

A panel of four jurors selected each of the 51 pieces filling the gallery from more than 2,000 entries. The jurors chose them as the submissions that best contribute to the ever-evolving conversation about our national identity. The number 51 is just a coincidence, not a reference to the number of American states plus the District—gallery director Ksenia Grishkova says the gallery “would never try to meet a specific quota or number for this kind of thing.”

The jurors are each art experts located in different areas of the U.S., which Grishkova says was meant to encourage submissions that capture “viewpoints from each region.”

Even though entries came from across the nation, none of the jurors are from the DMV, and there was no indication of where a particular artist was from during the judging process, Gishkova proudly shares that 20 of the 48 selected artists are from the D.C. area.

One of the most captivating pieces on display is a Robert Arbogast sculpture. Looming almost as tall as the gallery’s ceiling, the piece is a near-replica of a Robert E.

Lee monument with “added context,” as Arbogast puts it. The monument’s body is shrouded in a white confederate flag, which symbolizes the surrender of Lee’s Confederate Army in the Civil War. A rope wrapping around the flag over his body symbolizes the enslavement of millions of African Americans, a practice Lee’s army fought to preserve.

Right next to one of the gallery’s large windows is another sculpture, “Concealed Carryland” by Ann Stoddard. The piece resembles a pillow fort made of children’s blankets, but stitched into them are silhouettes of assault weapons. The title of the piece is a reference to Disneyland—Stoddard’s piece suggests that gun culture, and having guns near children, is just as American as the iconic amusement park.

Walls and stands covered in art of all media surround these and other sculptures.

On one wall hangs “Torn V” by Laura Sussman-Randall, a beautifully detailed charcoal drawing of a tattered American flag which begs to be read as an interpretation of the state of the nation. On a nearby table, “Great! Great!! Great!!!” by Jenny Wu—a video compilation of President Don-

ald Trump saying one of his most defining words—plays repeatedly on a tablet.

For all the pieces in America Is… that imply the country is in absolute disaster, there are others that highlight contrary examples.

D.C.-based photographer Lloyd Foster’s vibrant picture shows the profile of a young man from Ghana, posing in front of a traditional Ghanaian tapestry with an American flag print durag around his head. The image is delightfully colorful, and portrays the blending of Foster’s own background as an American from a Ghanaian family. A few feet away hangs “Woke” by Beryl Jazvic—a nearly life-size painting of a boy eating an apple under a blue sky, with the word “Woke” largely printed on his sweatshirt in the style of the Coke logo.

This is Touchstone Gallery’s third annual national juried show exhibiting political art.

Grishkova says she didn’t pay much attention to art with political messages until after the 2016 presidential election, when her own introspection about the country’s politics led her to notice how others were reacting. “Art is such a universal language,” she says. “Anything visual can reach across faster than language. There’s an immediate reaction.”

The title for this year’s showcase is a question that Grishkova has been asking herself over the past few years. “I was wondering to myself what I want to see,” she says. “And I thought, if I’m curious to ask this question, I’m sure there are other people and artists out there who are curious to answer it.”

One of those people is New York-based artist Seol Park, who says the question of what America is today is something that “seeps into every aspect of our lives, including what goes on in artists’ studios.” The piece she has on display at Touchstone is a four-panel mixed media landscape that juxtaposes famous paintings from American history with headlines about and images of people migrating to the country via the Southern border.

Despite Park’s hunger to explore American identity through her art, not everyone thinks it’s her place as a Korean immigrant, she says. Recently, Park shares, an American collector suggested she try telling her own story—“where you come from, your culture, your people, your past”—rather than continue the work she’s doing now.

“He meant well, but I thought, ‘Woah, I’m seeing racial profiling in action in artistic terms,’” Park says. “In my mind, labeling things ‘their concern,’ ‘my people’s matter,’ ‘your business,’ is counter intuitive because, aren’t we trying to make all of these our shared concerns, unless you’re a Martian? I prefer discussing whether an artist strives to bring to one’s chosen subjects sincerity, empathy, dimensions and artistry, not who’s licensed to tell which story.” —Ella Feldman 901 New York Ave. NW. Free. (202) 347-2787. touchstonegallery.com.

washingtoncitypaper.com august 16, 2019 21

BOOKSSPEED READS

TALK OF THE TOWN White Elephant

September 7–22, 2019 Join us for 16 full days and nights of creativity in action—ALL FREE! The Kennedy Center is celebrating the opening of the REACH, its first-ever expansion.

This brand-new campus of innovative indoor and outdoor spaces puts YOU at the center of the art—where you can chart your own course and connect what moves you to creative experiences beyond imagination.

FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS

With nearly 500 events planned, there’s something for everyone!

Bootsy Collins

Yalitza Aparacio

Renée Fleming

OPENING DAY

Saturday, September 7

The Chuck Brown Band featuring Bootsy Collins SPOTLIGHT ON JAZZ

Sunday, September 8

John Coltrane-Inspired Jazz and Meditation Service SPOTLIGHT ON THEATER

Monday, September 9 The Just and the Blind

THE PEOPLE WE ARE: CELEBRATING FIRST NATIONS CULTURES

Tuesday, September 10

In Conversation with Yalitza Aparacio

Angélique Kidjo

Thievery Corporation

Judah Friedlander

HIP HOP BLOCK PARTY

Saturday, September 14

J.PERIOD presents The Live Mixtape [The Healing Edition] feat. Maimouna Youssef aka Mumu Fresh FAMILY DAY

Family Day is supported by the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates.

Sunday, September 15

Mo Willems hosts MO-a-PALOOZA LIVE!

Thursday, September 19

WNO’s encore broadcast of Show Boat on the Film Wall SPOTLIGHT ON COMEDY

Friday, September 20

SPOTLIGHT ON CLASSICAL AND POPS

District of Comedy Stand-Up Showcases with Judah Friedlander, Rachel Feinstein, and More

Wednesday, September 11

NATIONAL DANCE DAY

National Symphony Orchestra at the REACH is sponsored by Jennifer and David Fischer.

Master classes with Alan Menken, Steven Reineke, and Joseph Kalichstein SPOTLIGHT ON VOICES AND SOUND HEALTH

Thursday, September 12

Renée Fleming with Angélique Kidjo and Jason Moran in Concert SPOTLIGHT ON ELECTRONICA/DJ CULTURE

Friday, September 13 Thievery Corporation with opener The Archives

All events are free; timed-entry passes required for entry. Free passes and a complete day-by-day schedule of events at Kennedy-Center.org/REACH Programs and artists subject to change

National Dance Day is presented as part of the Irene Pollin Audience Development and Community Engagement Initiatives.

Saturday, September 21 Fela! The Concert CLOSING DAY

Sunday, September 22 Salute to the Peace Corps

Plus check out film screenings indoors and out and drop-in spaces for hands-on discovery like the Moonshot Studio, the Virtual Reality Lounge, and Skylight Soundscapes!

Download the REACH Fest app and create your own custom schedule!

David M. Rubenstein Cornerstone of the REACH

22 august 16, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

By Julie Langsdorf HarperCollins, 313 pages Novels about small houses in small towns can feel cramped. But in Julie Langsdorf ’s White Elephant, the locals fight to keep things that way in their property battle with a builder who puts up McMansions. Set in the suburban Maryland town of Willard Park, the story depicts a married couple’s struggle with their defunct sex life, middle school kids and their awkward, back-stabbing drama, a pot-head attorney whose marriage is in trouble, and numerous sketches of other denizens. White Elephant has a long, slow start, but once it gets going, it bolts straight to the end.

Housewife Allison Miller is at the story’s center, though it is her husband, Ted, who tackles the real estate problem. Her bemused perspective sets the novel’s tone. “She imagined what wou ld happen if you could order a house online. It would probably arrive by drone two days later, possibly crushing an evil witch or two when it landed.” She soon sours on her husband’s obs ession with protecting the town’s tiny houses, but allows other friends to distract her. Complications pile up, though this marriage never truly seems endangered. Both partners are too nice for that.

Other characters are not as nice. One husband turns out to be an utter flake and a deadbeat. One middle schooler is so untrustworthy, she’s almost villainous. But despite catastrophes, accidents, and betrayals, the place remains an idyllic suburban town just outside D.C., where everybody seems to be crammed together. And the novelist does not yield to the temptation to throw in a murder. She’s too busy detailing the impact of the real estate market on personal relationships.

White Elephant is a gentrification story which focuses on suburbs and small towns.

This tale will feel familiar to anyone who has

lived in an inner suburb and woken up one morning to the shock of McMansions going up nearby. Suddenly all the talk is of assessments, property values, equity, and second mortgages. The new houses tower over neighbors. Or, if a block of expensive townhouses has been installed, suddenly the local school is too small. It’s not as pernicious as urban gentrification, booting out locals to make way for wealthy hipsters and their $10 latte watering holes, but it’s a menacing cousin. Costly houses and townhouses open the door for luxury apartments, and once those appear, all the old affordable ones raise their rents. A person working full-time on minimum wage can hardly afford a one-bedroom apartment in any American city, and this is the next step, as the blight of gentrification seeps out into formerly cheap suburbs.

Like any small town, Willard Park has families rooted there for generations. “Their father had been an accountant for the IRS, their mother a housewife. Ordinary people could afford Willard Park then—teachers, government workers, hippies… Normal people, who did for themselves and others instead of hiring everything out to strangers.” With humongous abodes just starting to sprout up, this town has time to counterattack. But the locals’ reaction is rather disorganized—they are not fighters, and they lack cohesion and solidarity. Still, their leader won’t drop the issue. Without Ted, the charming little town with its cozy domiciles would be bulldozed away.

The builder, Nick Cox, embodies the gentrifying ethos: “The Coxes were like foreign visitors who had not read up on the local customs.” Indeed, at the novel’s outset, Cox’s aim is to tear down as many of the town’s small houses as possible and replace them with huge ones. He is not interested in Willard Park’s history or its residents’ roots. He’s after a quick buck, and, aside from the stock market or a casino, nowadays that means real estate. The portraits of the Coxes are nuanced, but unsparing. It fits that this novel is set so close to the District, where a former real estate mogul casts a long shadow of evictions and price hikes from his residence in the White House.

—Eve Ottenberg

18 19

FILMSHORT SUBJECTS

DANCING IN THE DARK Blinded by the Light

Directed by Gurinder Chadha Blinded By the light believes in the transformative power of song lyrics. More specifically, it suggests that Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics have the timeless ability to make sense of teenage angst and economic struggle. The trouble is this inner struggle is not cinematic, so we are left with a film that mixes a coming-of-age drama with an awkward, risky jukebox musical.

Director Gurinder Chadha and her collaborators mean well—the earnestness on display here is unusual—although their attempts to celebrate Springsteen are not enough to suspend the required disbelief.

Newcomer Viveik Kalra stars as Javed, an English teenager whose parents emigrated from Pakistan. It is 1987, a period where Thatcherism and the white supremacist National Front still reign supreme. Like all teenagers, Javed is too selfinvolved to see the heartache around him. He wants to escape Luton, the crummy suburb where he lives, and study to become a writer. He’s already written dozens of poems, and some of them are lyrics for his best friend Matt (Dean-Charles Chapman), an aspiring musician. Javed yearns for escape in a general way, at least until another friend Roops (Aaron Phagura) lends him some Springsteen tapes. Suddenly the world makes sense, and Javed’s hungry heart sees The Boss as his answer to everything.

The film’s handling of Javed’s family is what makes it unique. Chadha, along with coscreenwriters Paul Mayeda Berges and Sarfraz Manzoor, create multiple subplots involving Javed’s father, mother, sisters, and the surrounding Pakistani community. Blinded by the Light is based on a true story, drawing from Manzoor’s experiences in Luton, and there is authenticity to everyone’s struggles.

Javed’s father is not merely an adversary, but a proud immigrant who is skeptical of assimilation. His demure sister has a rebellious streak which she carefully hides. Significant stretches of the film are painful: We see Javed’s family endure multiple hate crimes. This com-

mitment to socioeconomic realism is meant to make the musical scenes that much more thrilling. The trouble is that the film fumbles the genuine release Springsteen can provide.

There is a wide spectrum when it comes to movie musicals. On one end, there are realistic musicals where we only hear the songs as they’re being performed by characters on screen, such as in the romantic drama Once and music biopics like Bohemian Rhapsody.

Then, there are musicals of the more traditional sense that avoid realism altogether, in which the music comes from nowhere and characters spontaneously burst into song. Blinded by the Light is somewhere in the middle—sometimes the music comes from Javed’s cassettes, and other times he and his friends burst into song, their dancing deliberately amateurish. This inconsistency ultimately becomes a test on the audience’s patience.

Another issue is the film’s disinterest in Springsteen’s tunes. The most cru cial scene in the film is the one where Javed listens to him for the first time. Chadha uses a thunderstorm as a metaphor for his inner turmoil, and when the music swells and Javed finally understands himself, Chadha illuminates key lyrics across the screen. It’s as if these words, not the accompanying anthemic melodies, are the only thing that stir Javed, and yet Springsteen’s words were never meant to be considered in a vacuum. There are also multiple scenes where Javed earnestly quotes Springsteen lyrics to his friends and family, as if they are a shibboleth they should understand. No one actually speaks like this, so the film’s plausibility further erodes.

The Boss was never too sentimental. There is a hard-earned wisdom to his songs, and Blinded by the Light eschews all that in favor of familiar, contrived coming-of-age theatrics. A romantic subplot is tacked on—Manzoor notes that the character is a fabrication—and the big father-son reconciliation strives for maximum poignancy, only to falter. Everyone involved with Blinded by the Light is trying their best, and you want them to succeed. The film’s portrayal of 1980s England through an immigrant lens is a story worth telling, but as anyone who has written bad high school poetry can attest, good intentions do not always lead to great art. —Alan Zilberman

MAX WEINBERG’S JUKEBOX

LEO KOTTKE

SILK ROAD ENSEMBLE

AOIFE O’DONOVAN

NOV 15 + 16

“SONGS AND STRINGS” MAR 13

JIM BRICKMAN

KARLA BONOFF

LUCY KAPLANSKY

1964: THE TRIBUTE

PAT McGEE BAND

ENTER THE HAGGIS

KYLE DAVIS

JOHN LLOYD YOUNG’S BROADWAY!

NOV 8

APR 1 + 2

APR 24

OCT 10

FEB 20 + 21

ALMOST EVERYTHING

MAR 11

OCT 17 + 18

DAVID FINCKEL, cello WU HAN, piano

MUSIC DIRECTION BY TOMMY FARAGHER MAR 14

FOUNDER’S DAY CELEBRATION CHAMBER MUSIC AT THE BARNS

THE SECOND CITY

OCT 27

LAUGHING FOR ALL THE WRONG REASONS

THE QUEBE SISTERS

MAR 25–27 MAR 28 | 2 SHOWS!

NOV 7

RONNIE SPECTOR & THE RONETTES

“BEST CHRISTMAS PARTY EVER!” DEC 5 + 6

INTERNATIONAL GUITAR NIGHT

20TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW JAN 29 + 30

NOV 9

CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER CHAMBER MUSIC AT THE BARNS

APR 5

AND MANY MORE!

Blinded by the Light opens Friday in theaters everywhere. washingtoncitypaper.com august 16, 2019 23

Merriweather Post Pavilion • Columbia, MD THIS SATURDAY!

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS & NOEL GALLAGHER’S HIGH FLYING BIRDS *

w/ AFI ......................................................................................................SAT AUGUST 17 THIS WEEK’S SHOWS

Sonic Youth: 30 Years of Daydream Nation Screening with panel discussion featuring Steve Shelley, Brendan Canty (Fugazi/The Messthetics), and SY Archivist Aaron Mullan This is a seated show. ......................................................................................F AUG 16

DC Music Rocks Festival feat.

The Eli Lev Collective with special guest Jarreau Williams, More AM Than FM, and more! .........................................................................Sa 17

Beck & Cage the Elephant * w/ Spoon & Sunflower Bean . AUGUST 22 Lauren Daigle w/ AHI ........................................................................ AUGUST 23 Gary Clark Jr. and Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats .................... AUGUST 25 Pentatonix * w/ Rachel Platten ........................................................... AUGUST 26 Vampire Weekend * w/ Christone “Kingfish” Ingram ..................... AUGUST 29 Morrissey w/ Interpol ..............................................................................SEPT 5 O.A.R. w/ Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness & American Authors ..............SEPT 7 AEG PRESENTS

Tyler, the Creator w/ Jaden Smith & GoldLink .......................SEPT 21 AUGUST

SEPTEMBER (cont.)

SURPRISE! AT THE CLUB!

Whitney w/ Hand Habits ............M 23 Ingrid Michaelson ................Tu 24 Pinegrove w/ Boyscott ............Th 26 half•alive w/ Sure Sure Early Show! 6pm Doors. .....................F 27

Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes w/ Thelma and the Sleaze .F 23 & Sa 24 No Scrubs: ‘90s Dance Party

with DJs Will Eastman and Ozker • Visuals by Kylos ........................F 30

SEPTEMBER D NIGHT ADDED!

FIRST NIGHT SOLD OUT! SECON

dodie w/ Adam Melchor ................F 6 Deerhunter + Dirty Projectors .....................Su 8 Wilder Woods (Bear Rinehart of NEEDTOBREATHE) ..................W 11

The Band CAMINO w/ Valley ..F 13 Barns Courtney w/ The Hunna Early Show! 6pm Doors ....................Sa 14

Early Show! 6pm Doors. .....................Sa 21 U STREET MUSIC HALL PRESENTS

The Joe Kay Experience A Special 4 Hour Set Late Show! 10pm Doors ...................Sa 21 Ride w/ The Spirit Of The Beehive ..Su 22

BLISSPOP DISCO FEST feat.

The Black Madonna, Josey Rebelle, Wayne Davis & Lisa Moody (Deep Sugar), Amy Douglas, and more! Late Show! 10pm Doors ...F 27 Chromeo (DJ Set), RAC (DJ Set),

DāM-FunK (DJ Set), and more!

Late Show! 10pm Doors ................Sa 28

Jade Bird w/ Flyte Early Show! 6pm Doors. ....................Sa 28 K.Flay w/ Houses & Your Smith ..Su 29 Dean Lewis w/ Scott Helman ...M 30 OCTOBER

Joseph w/ Deep Sea Diver ...........W 2 Caravan Palace Early Show! 6pm Doors. .....................Th 3 Mt. Joy w/ Susto Late Show! 10pm Doors ......................Th 3

Built to Spill - Keep It Like A Secret 20th Anniversary Tour

w/ Prism Bitch & Love As Laughter .F 4 Luna performing Penthouse w/ Olden Yolk Early Show! 6pm Doors. ....................Sa 5 Bombay Bicycle Club w/ The Greeting Committee

Late Show! 10pm Doors .....................Sa 5

MANY MORE SHOWS ON SALE!

9:30 CUPCAKES

Old Dominion • Michael Ray • Jordan Davis • Lauren Alaina • Dylan Scott • Jimmie Allen • Brandon Lay • Filmore .....................SEPT 29

Ticketmaster • For full lineup & more info, visit merriweathermusic.com • impconcerts.com * Presented by Live Nation

Lincoln Theatre • 1215 U Street, NW Washington, D.C.

BLISSPOP & U ST MUSIC HALL PRESENT

U STREET MUSIC HALL PRESENTS

Marc Rebillet Late Show! 10pm Doors ...................Sa 14 Polo & Pan ..............................Su 15 Band of Skulls w/ Demob Happy ........................Th 19 Grace VanderWaal w/ Patrick Martin .........................F 20 grandson w/ nothing,nowhere.

WPOC SUNDAY IN THE COUNTRY FEATURING

930.com

The best thing you could possibly put in your mouth Cupcakes by BUZZ... your neighborhood bakery in Alexandria, VA. | www.buzzonslaters.com

JUST ANNOUNCED!

THE BENTZEN BALL COMEDY FESTIVAL

AN EVENING WITH

MARIA BAMFORD ....................................................................... OCTOBER 24 THE NEW NEGROES FEAT.

BARON VAUGHN • OPEN MIKE EAGLE • DULCE SLOAN • JABOUKIE YOUNG-WHITE • HAYWOOD TURNIPSEED JR. ............................................ FRI OCTOBER 25 TELL ME EVERYTHING with TIG NOTARO .............. SAT OCTOBER 26 On Sale Friday, August 16 at 10am

Criminal Podcast

POLITICS AND PROSE PRESENTS

- Live Show .................................... SEP 11

Ta-Nehisi Coates -

The Water Dancer

Tinariwen w/ Lonnie Holley ........ SEP 19 Book Tour .................................. SEP 26 AN EVENING WITH

ALL GOOD PRESENTS

The Waterboys ..................... SEP 22 Nahko and Medicine Adam Ant: Friend or Foe for The People w/ Ayla Nereo . SEP 29 w/ Glam Skanks ................................. SEP 23 Emeli Sandé (Acoustic) .............. OCT 3 Cat Power w/ Arsun ................... SEP 25 • thelincolndc.com • U Street (Green/Yellow) stop across the street!

9:30 CLUB PRESENTS AT U STREET MUSIC HALL

Alex Lahey w/ Kingsbury ..... Th AUG 22 Ceremony w/ Choir Boy & Glitterer .Tu 10 Why? w/ Barrie ...........................Su 25 Fontaines D.C. w/ Pottery ............W 11 Benjamin Francis Leftwich w/ Abraham Alexander ...............Th SEP 5 Black Pumas ...........................Th 12 • Buy advance tickets at the 9:30 Club box office • 930.com

TICKETS for 9:30 Club shows are available through TicketFly.com, by phone at 1-877-4FLY-TIX, and at the 9:30 Club box office.

9:30 CLUB BOX OFFICE HOURS are 12-7pm on weekdays & until 11pm on show nights, 6-11pm on Sat, and 6-10:30pm on Sun on show nights.

HAPPY HOUR DRINK PRICES impconcerts.com AFTER THE SHOW AT THE BACK BAR! 24 august 16, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

PARKING: THE OFFICIAL 9:30 parking lot entrance is on 9th Street, directly behind the 9:30 Club. Buy your advance parking tickets at the same time as your concert tickets!

930.com

CITYLIST

3701 Mount Vernon Ave. Alexandria, VA • 703-549-7500

For entire schedule go to Birchmere.com Find us on Facebook/Twitter!

Tix @ Ticketmaster.com Aug

15

16

Music 25 Books 26 Theater 28 Film 28

17

Music FRIDAY BLUES

BOSSA BISTRO 2463 18th St NW. 202-667-0088.

Gayle Harrod. 7:30 p.m. $10. bossadc.com.

THE HAMILTON 600 14th St. NW. (202) 787-1000.

Chubby Carrier and The Bayou Swamp Band. 6:30 p.m. $15–$20. thehamiltondc.com.

FUNK & R&B

BIRCHMERE 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria.

(703) 549-7500. Bloodstone. 7:30 p.m. $55. birchmere.com.

CITY WINERY 1350 Okie St. NE. (202) 250-2531. William “Smooth” Wardlaw. 6:30 p.m. $35–$45. citywinery.com.

WARNER THEATRE 513 13th St. NW. (202) 783-4000.

The O’Jays. 8 p.m. $66–$172.50. warnertheatredc.com.

JAZZ

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART SCULPTURE GARDEN 4th Street and Constitution Avenue NW. (202) 7374215. Dixie Power Trio. 5 p.m. Free. nga.gov.

ROCK

CITY WINERY 1350 Okie St. NE. (202) 250-2531. Danger Bird. 6:30 p.m. $15–$18. citywinery.com.

DC9 1940 9th St. NW. (202) 483-5000. Broke Royals & Mystery Friends. 7 p.m. $10. dcnine.com.

HILL COUNTRY BARBECUE 410 7th St. NW. (202) 556-2050. Giles McConkey & The Orange Constant.

9:30 p.m. $12–$20. hillcountry.com.

HOWARD THEATRE 620 T St. NW. (202) 803-2899.

Beres Hammond. 6:30 p.m. $39.50–$45. thehowardtheatre.com.

SATURDAY BLUES

THE HAMILTON 600 14th St. NW. (202) 787-1000.

Hard Swimmin’ Fish. 10:30 p.m. Free. thehamiltondc.com.

ELECTRONIC

CITY WINERY 1350 Okie St. NE. (202) 250-2531. Black Alley. 7 p.m. $25–$28. citywinery.com.

ECHOSTAGE 2135 Queens Chapel Road NE. (202) 503-2330. Gareth Emery & OpenXClose. 9 p.m. $25. echostage.com.

FUNK & R&B

CITY WINERY 1350 Okie St. NE. (202) 250-2531. Algebra Blessett. 6 p.m. $35–$45. citywinery.com.

GYPSY SALLY’S 3401 K St. NW. (202) 333-7700. The Stooges Brass Band. 7 p.m. $15. gypsysallys.com.

JAZZ

AMP BY STRATHMORE 11810 Grand Park Ave., North Bethesda. (301) 581-5100. Veronica Swift. 5 p.m.; 8:30 p.m. $25–$45. ampbystrathmore.com.

BIRCHMERE 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria.

(703) 549-7500. Kim Waters. 7:30 p.m. $39.50. birchmere.com.

KIM WATERS WATERS

with special guest KAYLA

TAB BENOIT

CITY LIGHTS: FRIDAY

20

MADONNA BIRTHDAY DANCE PARTY

21

West Coast Jam with

22

An Evening with

“Whiskey Bayou Revue” with Eric Johanson

RICHARD ELLIOT, PETER WHITE & DW3 featuring The West Coast Horns

Bitch, she’s Madonna—that should be the only reason you need to celebrate the pop icon’s 61st birthday at Black Cat. But here are a few more, if you need convincing: Music makes the bourgeoisie and the rebel come together, as she told us on “Music” in 2000. And most importantly, Friday’s Madonna Birthday Dance Party is the judgement-free dance zone you didn’t know you needed—precisely the kind of cathartic ’80s flashback where you can channel your inner pop queen. From “Into the Groove” and “Vogue” to 2015’s Rebel Heart, Black Cat will be spinning the hits (and misses) all night long. Get there before 10:30 p.m. for the “Hung Up” happy hour, featuring the Queen of Pop’s cooler vibes and deep cuts before the pop bangers and radio favorites hit later in the night. Already have a ticket? Head to the event’s Facebook page, where organizers are already polling guests for their favorite ’80sera Madonna album and fielding song requests. Go ahead and make sure you’ll be able to express yourself with “Give Me All Your Luvin’.” The event begins at 9 p.m. at Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW. $10–$12. (202) 667-4490. blackcatdc.com.

—Christian Paz

JAMMIN JAVA 227 Maple Ave. East, Vienna. (703) 2551566. The Slambovian Circus of Dreams. 6:30 p.m. $25. jamminjava.com.

WORLD

THE WAIFS WALLIS BIRD "Natural BLOODSTONE High"

RUFUS WAINWRIGHT "O Solo Wainwright" with special guest The Rails

Eric THE MANHATTAN TRANSFER Scott 24 FREDDIE JACKSON 25 CHANTÉ MOORE 29 BRIAN COURTNEY WILSON w/

23

w/ Gene Moore

30

Newmyer Flyer presents

A Tribute To The Everly Brothers & Grin Again

THE FABULOUS HUBCAPS 7 DANNY GATTON BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION! Sept 6

with Dave Chappell, Dave Elliott, Chick Hall, Tommy Lepson, Big Joe Maher,

John Previti, Tom Principato, Pete Raguso, & many more!

8

"Remembering Doc: A TRIBUTE TO DOC WATSON"

with T. Michael Coleman, Jack Lawrence, Wayne Henderson

CITY LIGHTS: SATURDAY

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS

THE MANHATTANS GERALD ALSTON 14 An Evening with MAYSA 13

featuring

Back in 1996, The Simpsons met The Smashing Pumpkins when Homer went on tour as a carnival freak with “Hullabalooza.” That was the band at the peak of their creative powers; just a few years later, a decline would set in. While they still can surprise you, their glory days are firmly in the past, even as The Simpsons is still on Fox. For the Pumpkins, the band’s post-millennium experience has been Mr. Corgan’s Wild Ride, featuring lineup changes and plenty of weird diversions. Frontman Billy Corgan’s busied himself with synthesizer improvisations, pro wrestling promotion, and Infowars appearances. Despite all that, the dream of the ’90s is alive: Last year, founding members James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin rejoined the band (D’arcy Wretzky wasn’t included and says Corgan lied to and misled her). Three-quarters of the original line-up released Shiny and Oh So Bright in November, and—like modern-day Simpsons—there are glimpses of what made the Pumpkins famous, with shades of “1979” on “Silvery Sometimes (Ghosts)” and heavy-metal-machine riffs on “Solara” and “Marchin’ On.” But as the reunion hits the road, expect to hear plenty of the “gloomy music” that made a difference way back when. The Smashing Pumpkins perform at 7 p.m. at Merriweather Post Pavilion, 10475 Little Patuxent Parkway, Columbia. $35–$199.50. (410) 715-5550. merriweathermusic.com.

—Chris Kelly

15

The Trifecta of Folk Tour:

THE KINGSTON TRIO THE BROTHERS FOUR THE LIMELITERS 18 JAKE SHIMABUKURO 19,21 BILLY BRAGG "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back"

presented by

Sat. Sept.14, 8pm Tickets at Ticketmaster.com

washingtoncitypaper.com august 16, 2019 25

BOSSA BISTRO 2463 18th St NW. 202-667-0088.

Sweet Something. 7:30 p.m. $10. bossadc.com.

ROCK

THE ANTHEM 901 Wharf St. SW. (202) 888-0020. The Raconteurs. 8 p.m. $65–$95. theanthemdc.com.

DC9 1940 9th St. NW. (202) 483-5000. Mutual Benefit. 8:30 p.m. $10–$12. dcnine.com.

KENNEDY CENTER CONCERT HALL 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. Squeeze. 8 p.m. $39–$99. kennedy-center.org.

MERRIWEATHER POST PAVILION 10475 Little Patuxent Parkway, Columbia. (410) 715-5550. The Smashing Pumpkins & Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. 5:30 p.m. $35–$199.50. merriweathermusic.com.

WARNER THEATRE 513 13th St. NW. (202) 783-4000.

Bandhouse Gigs Celebrates Woodstock’s 50th Anniversary. 8 p.m. $23–$43. warnertheatredc.com.

SUNDAY FOLK

CITY WINERY 1350 Okie St. NE. (202) 250-2531. Tyler Hilton & Alex2e. 6 p.m. $17–$20. citywinery.com.

FUNK & R&B

CITY WINERY 1350 Okie St. NE. (202) 250-2531. Gloria Gaynor. 4:30 p.m.; 8 p.m. $50–$65. citywinery.com.

ROCK

FOLK

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS THOMAS JEFFERSON BUILDING 101 Independence Ave. SE. (202) 707-5000.

American Folklife Center: Archive Challenge Sampler Concert. noon Free. loc.gov.

STRATHMORE GUDELSKY CONCERT GAZEBO 5301 Tuckerman Ln., Bethesda. (301) 581-5100. UkeFest. 7 p.m. Free. strathmore.org.

JAZZ

BIRCHMERE 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria.

(703) 549-7500. Richard Elliot, Peter White and DW3.

7:30 p.m. $55. birchmere.com.

CITY WINERY 1350 Okie St. NE. (202) 250-2531. Louis Prima, Jr. & The Witnesses. 6 p.m. $15–$22. citywinery.com.

ROCK

DC9 1940 9th St. NW. (202) 483-5000. Death Valley Girls. 7:30 p.m. $12. dcnine.com.

GYPSY SALLY’S 3401 K St. NW. (202) 333-7700.

Moonalice. 7 p.m. $15. gypsysallys.com.

WOLF TRAP FILENE CENTER 1551 Trap Road, Vienna. (703) 255-1900. Lenny Kravitz. 8 p.m. $45–$115. wolftrap.org.

THURSDAY THE HAMILTON 600 14th St. NW. (202) 787-1000. John Mayall. 6:30 p.m. $19.75–$45. thehamiltondc.com.

ROCK & ROLL HOTEL 1353 H St. NE. (202) 388-7625.

Harms Way. 7 p.m. $18. rockandrollhoteldc.com.

SIGNATURE THEATRE 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. (703) 820-9771. The British Invasion $38. sigtheatre.org.

MONDAY

CITY LIGHTS: MONDAY

CLASSICAL

TWILIGHT TOUR: HUMOR AND WHIMSY

PHILLIPS COLLECTION 1600 21st St. NW. (202) 3872151. PostClassical Ensemble: The Spiritual in White America. 6:30 p.m. $5–$45. phillipscollection.org.

FUNK & R&B

JAZZ

JAZZ

POP

POP

BIRCHMERE 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria.

(703) 549-7500. Bob James, David Sanborn and Marcus Miller. 7:30 p.m. $115. birchmere.com.

SONGBYRD MUSIC HOUSE AND RECORD CAFE 2477 18th St. NW. (202) 450-2917. Balún. 8 p.m. $10–$12. songbyrddc.com.

ROCK

COMET PING PONG 5037 Connecticut Ave. NW. (202) 364-0404. The Mob. 9 p.m. $12. cometpingpong.com.

SONGBYRD MUSIC HOUSE AND RECORD CAFE 2477 18th St. NW. (202) 450-2917. The Dales. 8 p.m. Free. songbyrddc.com.

TUESDAY BLUES

BIRCHMERE 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria.

(703) 549-7500. Tab Benoit. 7:30 p.m. $35. birchmere.com.

CABARET

SIGNATURE THEATRE 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. (703) 820-9771. The British Invasion $38. sigtheatre.org.

COUNTRY

THE HAMILTON 600 14th St. NW. (202) 787-1000.

Chatham County Line. 6:30 p.m. $20–$40. thehamiltondc.com.

JAZZ

CITY WINERY 1350 Okie St. NE. (202) 250-2531. Tiffsbass. 6 p.m. $20–$25. citywinery.com.

JAMMIN JAVA 227 Maple Ave. East, Vienna. (703) 2551566. Jazz Is Phish. 6:30 p.m. $15–$30. jamminjava.com.

WEDNESDAY CABARET

SIGNATURE THEATRE 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. (703) 820-9771. The British Invasion $38. sigtheatre.org.

In his gripping new book, The Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier, reporter Ian Urbina profiles the lawless and vast boundaries of the high seas. Thanks to a famous lack of oversight, the rugged seas are today home to extreme criminal activity and exploitation. Traffickers, smugglers, pirates, poachers, and stowaways make up the population of this hidden world—one where seemingly anyone can do anything with nobody watching. In The Outlaw Ocean, Urbina builds upon his New York Times work to introduce readers to the inhabitants and happenings of the unregulated waters. The Pulitzer and Polk Award winner’s work is the culmination of five years spent reporting, often hundreds of miles offshore. His stories reveal a worldwide network of crime that orbits some of the world’s most crucial industries: fishing, oil, and shipping. Ian Urbina speaks at 1 p.m. at Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Free. (202) 364-1919. politics-prose.com.

—Lia Assimakopoulos

CABARET

FOLK

KENNEDY CENTER MILLENNIUM STAGE 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. The Glissandos. 6 p.m. Free. kennedy-center.org.

IAN URBINA

BLUES

COMET PING PONG 5037 Connecticut Ave. NW. (202) 364-0404. Summer Cannibals. 9 p.m. $12. cometpingpong.com.

WOLF TRAP FILENE CENTER 1551 Trap Road, Vienna.

(703) 255-1900. Mark Knopfler. 8 p.m. $45. wolftrap.org.

CITY LIGHTS: SUNDAY

BETHESDA BLUES & JAZZ 7719 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda. (240) 330-4500. Lyfe Jennings. 8 p.m. $59.50–$79.50. bethesdabluesjazz.com.

THE HAMILTON 600 14th St. NW. (202) 787-1000. Ann Hampton Callaway. 6:30 p.m. $20–$45. thehamiltondc.com.

BIRCHMERE 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria.

(703) 549-7500. Rufus Wainwright. 7:30 p.m. $89.50. birchmere.com.

STATE THEATRE 220 N. Washington St., Falls Church.

(703) 237-0300. Miyavi. 7 p.m. $35–$45. thestatetheatre.com.

ROCK

CITY WINERY 1350 Okie St. NE. (202) 250-2531. Bruce Off Broadway. 6:30 p.m. $15–$18. citywinery.com.

This summer, the Washington National Cathedral is hosting a series of after-hours twilight tours centered on Neo-Gothic subjects like gargoyles, angels, monsters, and Game of Thrones. Some of these experiences offer behind-the-scenes access to typically inaccessible features including the high altar and great organ, while others have a more artistic bent, exploring the cruciform church through tours themed around its African American trailblazers or its intricate wrought ironwork. The Humor and Whimsy tour promises to spotlight everything amusing in the austere architecture—and there’s a lot, from the Darth Vader bust on the northwest tower to the tour’s highlights, which include a carriage-versus-stork showdown, a wriggling iron gate, a dentist drilling into a walrus’ tusk, and a Nantucket sleigh ride. The tour begins at 6 p.m. at the Washington National Cathedral, 3101 Wisconsin Ave. NW. $18–$22. (202) 537-6200. cathedral.org.

—Meilan Solly

DC9 1940 9th St. NW. (202) 483-5000. Frass Green.

7:30 p.m. $8. dcnine.com.

JAMMIN JAVA 227 Maple Ave. East, Vienna. (703) 2551566. Roots Of Creation. 7 p.m. $12–-$20. jamminjava.com.

JIFFY LUBE LIVE 7800 Cellar Door Drive, Bristow.

(703) 754-6400. Breaking Benjamin. 5:30 p.m. $22– $524.50. livenation.com.

MERRIWEATHER POST PAVILION 10475 Little Patuxent Parkway, Columbia. (410) 715-5550. Beck & Cage the Elephant. 5 p.m. $29.50–$200.50. merriweathermusic.com.

U STREET MUSIC HALL 1115 U St. NW. (202) 588-1889.

Alex Lahey. 7 p.m. $15. ustreetmusichall.com.

WOLF TRAP FILENE CENTER 1551 Trap Road, Vienna.

(703) 255-1900. Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals and Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue. 7:30 p.m. $35–$60. wolftrap.org.

Books

ELISSA ALTMAN Altman’s memoir Motherland: A Memoir of Love, Loathing, and Longing follows her lifelong struggle with her mother, picking up from her popular Washington Post column “Feeding My Mother.” Politics and Prose. 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Aug. 16 7 p.m. Free. (202) 364-1919.

26 august 16, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

CITY LIGHTS: TUESDAY

JIA TOLENTINO

If you’re a regular New Yorker reader or a person who’s even remotely online, you probably know who Jia Tolentino is. The former Jezebel scribe and chronicler of internet culture is currently touring bookstores nationwide in support of her first essay collection, Trick Mirror, and while reviewers have plentifully praised the book, they’ve also pestered Tolentino with a nagging question: Is she the voice of her generation?

Here’s an answer for that one: Who cares? Tolentino’s writing is, first and foremost, fun. Whether she’s explaining the appeal of the JUUL e-cigarette, contemplating the purpose of athleisure clothing, or explaining the memes that have wormed their way into contemporary conversations, Tolentino always appears to be enjoying herself, which certainly explains her avid following. Expect her visit to Politics and Prose to be lively, informative, and crowded—her Brooklyn launch drew a crowd that extended around the block. Show up early, buy a copy of Trick Mirror, and start reading. Just don’t vape in the stacks, please. Jia Tolentino speaks at 7 p.m. at Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Free. (202) 364-1919. politics-prose.com.

—Caroline Jones

washingtoncitypaper.com august 16, 2019 27

CITY LIGHTS: WEDNESDAY

CITY LIGHTS: THURSDAY

SUMMER SELECTIONS

BECK AND CAGE THE ELEPHANT

Addison/Ripley Fine Art’s summer exhibit is expansive—some three dozen works by two dozen artists—but commonalities are evident. It includes a wide selection of abstract and figurative prints, from silkscreens to woodcuts to lithographs to etchings, by such artists as Sam Gilliam, Wolf Kahn, and Lou Stovall. There are so many prints, in fact, that it’s the other types of works that tend to stand out—the mixed-media Matisse homage by the artist Maser; a nearly 6’x6’ photograph from Frank Hallam Day’s series on weathered ship hulls; and E. Brady Robinson’s moody morning images from an urban bedroom. Craig McAllister offers the perfect bridge: A pair of colorful boat-hull photographs so abstract they could easily pass for geometric prints.

The show runs to Aug. 23 at Addison/Ripley Fine Art, 1670 Wisconsin Ave. NW. Free. (202) 338-5180. addisonripleyfineart.com.

—Louis Jacobson

Beck and Cage the Elephant make odd (yet fitting) tour-mates. While Cage’s bread and butter are FM radio-ready pop songs, their deep catalogue is admirably warped and weird. (Social Cues, their latest album, introduces a new mutation of the Kentucky band’s latex-clad, psychedelic sleaze.)

Similarly, Beck spent over a decade as the “Loser” guy before winning a Grammy for album of the year. More importantly, he has his name on a library of some of the most successful experiments ever conducted in rock and roll, including Mellow Gold (1994), Guero (2005), and Modern Guilt (2008). Beck’s earliest music was made of weird, stream-of-consciousness riffs on old blues songs, recorded on cassette. Since, he’s gone from claiming that MTV makes him “want to smoke crack” in (1993’s “MTV Makes Me Want to Smoke Crack”) to gleefully riffing on The Police (“No Distraction”) and banging out party anthems (“Dreams,” “Up All Night”) on his latest album, Colors. His shows, like his albums, are an eclectic celebrations of post-genre music. The show begins at 6 p.m. at Merriweather Post Pavilion, 10475 Little Patuxent Parkway, Columbia. $29.50–$200.50.

(410) 715-5550. merriweathermusic.com.

—Will Lennon

IAN URBINA Urbina, a Pulitzer-winning journalist, presents his book The Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier, about the world on the high seas and pirates, traffickers, and poachers. Politics and Prose. 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Aug. 18 1 p.m. Free. (202) 364-1919.

IBRAM X. KENDI Kendi, in conversation with journalist at The Atlantic Vann R. Newkirk, discusses his new book How to Be an Antiracist. Sidwell Friends School.

3825 Wisconsin Ave. NW. Aug. 16 7 p.m. $10–$35.

(202) 537-8100.

JIA TOLENTINO New Yorker staff writer Jia Tolentino’s essay collection Trick Mirror: Reflections on SelfDelusion follows the author through evangelical Houston and to a reality show in Puerto Rico to effectively describe and diagnose our current era. Politics and Prose. 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Aug. 20 7 p.m.

Free. (202) 364-1919.

KARL MARLANTES Marlantes’ new book Deep River follows Finnish immigrants along the forests of the Columbia River in the early 20th century. Politics and Prose. 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Aug. 22 7 p.m. Free.

(202) 364-1919.

LATOYA COUNCIL Council, one of three co-authors on Intersectionalities: We Make Room for All, discusses solidarity and allyship for children ages 6-12. Politics and Prose. 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Aug. 22 7 p.m. Free. (202) 364-1919.

RICK MOODY Moody’s book The Long Accomplishment: A Memoir of Hope and Struggle in Matrimony follows his life through his failed first marriage and his thriving second one. Politics and Prose. 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Aug. 19 7 p.m. Free. (202) 364-1919.

Theater

ASSASSINS Assassins is a musical based on John Weidman’s book with music by Stephen Sondheim. It is the dark comedy story of nine attempted and successful presidential assassinations and their assailants. Signature Theatre. 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. To Sep. 29 $55–$93. (703) 820-9771. sigtheatre.org.

SHEAR MADNESS Shear Madness is an audienceinteractive crime comedy set in Georgetown about the murder of a pianist who lives in a hair salon. Each show delivers a unique performance based on the audience’s sleuthing. Kennedy Center Theater Lab. 2700 F St. NW. To Sep. 28 $56. 202-467-4600. kennedy-center.org.

BOOTLEG SHAKESPEARE: RICHARD III In Bootleg Shakespeare, actors come to the performance with only their lines prepared—no rehearsals, no direction.

Back for a second year, the Taffety Punk Bootleggers present Richard III. Folger Shakespeare Library. 201 E. Capitol St. SE. To Jan. 1 Free. (202) 544-7077. folger.edu.

TREASURE ISLAND Jane Hawkins is an orphan who gets swept up in the world of pirates, as she learns about her past and who she is. This play is based on the 1883 adventure novel of the same name by Robert Louis Stevenson. Synetic Theater at Crystal City.

1800 South Bell St. , Arlington. To Aug. 18 $10–$65.

(866) 811-4111. synetictheater.org.

THE CAT IN THE HAT Based on the beloved children’s classic by Dr. Seuss, this adaptation of The Cat in the Hat, directed by Adam Immerwhar, features the use of puppets. Louis Davis stars in the title role and takes the stage among the puppeteers, who purposefully remain visible to the audience. Adventure Theatre MTC. 7300 MacArthur Blvd., Glen Echo. To Aug. 18 $20. (301) 634-2270. adventuretheatre-mtc.org.

THE WAR BOYS Three boys, best friends since childhood, spend their time patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border, learning lessons of belonging and who gets to be “American.” Joe’s Movement Emporium. 3309 Bunker Hill Road, Mount Rainier. To Aug. 31 $15–$25. (301) 699-1819. joesmovement.org.

THE COUNTRY WIFE William Wycherley originally wrote The Country Wife in 1675 as a Restoration comedy known for its sexual themes. This rendition directed by Alan Duda is set in 1955 New York City.

Greenbelt Arts Center. 123 Centerway, Greenbelt. To Aug. 18 $12–$22. (301) 441-8770. greenbeltartscenter.org.

DEAR EVAN HANSEN Dear Evan Hansen is the winner of six Tony Awards and a Grammy. It is directed

by Michael Greif and stars Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.

Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater. 2700 F St. NW. To Sep. 8 $79–$175. (202) 467-4600. kennedy-center.org.

DISNEY’S ALADDIN From the same producer as Broadway’s The Lion King, the new production of Disney’s Aladdin comes to the stage at the Kennedy Center with Clinton Greenspan as Aladdin and Kaena Kekoa as Jasmine. Kennedy Center Opera House.

2700 F St. NW. To Sep. 7 $39–$179. (202) 467-4600. kennedy-center.org.

28 august 16, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

Film

DAVID CROSBY: REMEMBER MY NAME This documentary follows David Crosby—of The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, & Nash—in his post-fame old age.

Directed by A.J. Eaton. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK A group of teenagers have to fight frightening, supernatural creatures. Starring Dean Norris, Zoe Margaret Colletti, and Michael Garza. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) DORA AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD The beloved children’s television character sets out on an adventure to save her parents and solve a grand mystery.

Starring Isabela Moner, Eva Longoria, and Benicio Del

Toro. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN A racecar driver learns lessons about life—and racing—from his dog.

Starring Milo Ventimiglia, Kevin Costner, and Amanda Seyfried. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE 2 Furious red birds and green pigs—the ones from the popular iOS game— feud further. Starring Jason Sudeikis, Leslie Jones, and Bill Hader. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) THE KITCHEN A group of mobsters’ wives continue their rackets while their husbands are locked up in 1970s New York. Starring Elisabeth Moss, Melissa McCarthy, and Tiffany Haddish. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) ONE CHILD NATION This documentary follows the social and personal ramifications of China’s one-child policy. Directed by Nanfu Wang and Lynn Zhang. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE A woman, tired of sacrificing herself for her family, takes off to reconnect with her creative side—and her daughter tries to find her. Starring Cate Blanchett, Kristen Wiig, and Judy Greer. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) FAST & FURIOUS PRESENTS: HOBBS & SHAW Two archenemies team up to take down a bad guy bigger than either of them. Starring Dwayne Johnson, Idris Elba, and Jason Statham. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) GOOD BOYS Three sixth-grade boys ditch school and try to make their way to a highly-anticipated party.

Starring Jacob Tremblay, Will Forte, and Retta. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information)

SAVAGELOVE M DOOGALS THE FAMOUS

C

I’m an otherwise healthy male of 54. When I was a teen, my cock measured about six-and-ahalf inches. Not small, not huge, pretty average.

I never kept track of the situation down south, but suddenly I find my junk reports in just over four inches. WTF? Is this normal? Do men lose size/girth as they age? I’m only 54! How much more do I have to lose before 60? And beyond?

I’m single now and suddenly I’m afraid to be intimate with women I formerly would have embraced without a second thought out of embarrassment. My confidence is at an all-time low.

I’m actually afraid to ask anyone out for fear of “exposing” the evidence. I assume there are no pills for this, but please tell me there are options.

—Shrinking In Seattle “We have to make a distinction between observed penile length and actual penile length,” said Dr. Ashley Winter, a board-certified urologist in Portland, Oregon. “Penis length changes in real time based on a number of factors, factors that include level of arousal, stress, and ambient temperature. For this reason, researchers like to limit variability by measuring the ‘stretched flaccid length’ in a warm room.”

Needless to say, most men aren’t observing—much less measuring—their dicks when they’re soft.

“We know that almost ZERO home dick measurements are done in the flaccid state,” said Dr. Winter. “But unless SIS jotted down the room temp or precise level of arousal when he measured his teenage penis, it’s unlikely he’s comparing apples to apples. Another issue—and a far less appreciated one—is that the penis is anchored to the undersurface of your pelvic bones, so nearly one-half of the average penis length is ‘hidden’ along the undersurface of the pelvis.”

There’s a very special tendon—the suspensory ligament—that runs from the base of your penis to your pelvis. In addition to providing you with some degree of control when you’re erect, SIS, the suspensory ligament also holds some of your dick up and inside the body.

Men who want their cocks to look larger when they’re soft and who don’t mind if their hard cocks are harder to control or flop around during intercourse will sometimes have this suspensory ligament cut, which causes the penis to “drop.” Their cocks aren’t as useful for sex, it’s true, but there’s more “observable” cock for other men to admire in locker rooms and at urinals.

“The most dramatic cause of lost ‘observed’ penile length with aging is weight gain,” said Dr. Winter. “As the average guy gains weight, more of his fixed penile length gets hidden, as the crucial sit-bone-to-skin distance gets longer.”

So your dick may not be any smaller than it was in your teens, SIS; it’s just that more of it may

I am 66 years old and a gay man. After a very promiscuous youth, I have settled down a lot as far as sex and mostly just masturbate, with a trip to the baths every few months. I have a question about orgasms. I have noted, since I’ve gotten older, that my orgasm from masturbation is very intense and seems to last about five minutes after I ejaculate, during which I feel orgasmic feelings in my penis, legs, and sometimes my whole body. I’ve never had this before. Is this normal?

—Mr. Sixty Fucking Six

it’s pejorative and irrelevant,” said Dr. Winter. “As a physician, the relevant question here is: ‘Does MSFS find this distressing or harmful?’ It doesn’t sound like five-minute total-body masturbation-induced orgasms are painful for MSFS, nor are they interfering with his day-to-day quality of life. So by definition they are ‘nothing to worry about.’

Furthermore, they are not the harbinger of any dangerous medical condition. As you like to say, Dan, this is more of a ‘Yahztzee!!’ than a problem.”

Anecdotal evidence—my own, a huge pile of it, gathered over the years—indicates that you’re something of an outlier, MSFS; most of the older men I hear from with questions about their orgasms are concerned about their slow and steady deterioration, MSFS, not their sudden improvement. (Erections are harder to get, their orgasms are less intense, and their jizz is less abundant.)

But even if this isn’t a problem—even if this is a “Yahtzee!”—what might be going on?

“That’s the far more interesting question: Why is this happening?” said Dr. Winter. “I don’t have a lot of quotable studies on that one, but I have a few thoughts. First off, this may have nothing to do with age and everything to do with his position. Contraction of the muscles in the pelvis, thighs (even calves!), and the muscles at the base of the penis (or clitoris) can contribute to strength of erection and intensity of orgasm, and certain positions may allow more effective muscle ‘recruitment.’ So differences in position or stance during partnered versus masturbatory activities may hold clues for MSFS.” Another possible explanation—and another definite “Yahtzee!”—is that you’re ever so suddenly multi-orgasmic.

“While it is more common for women to be multi-orgasmic, there are men who can do this too,” said Dr. Winter. “Longer duration of arousal—common with porn watching— and certain medications that prevent prolactin surge in the brain and strong Kegels (those muscles again!) may lead to the ‘condensed multi-orgasm,’ a phenomenon that may fit the description MSFS is providing.”

But finally and again, MSFS, so long as those powerful, long-lasting, all-body orgasms aren’t diminishing your quality of life, they’re nothing to worry about. Enjoy!

Follow Dr. Ashley Winter on Twitter @AshleyGWinter. Dr. Winter cohosts The Full Release (thefullreleasepod.com), a terrific, funny, and informative sex-and-relationship advice podcast, with comedian Mo Mandel.

—Dan Savage

“The question of normalcy in sexual function is hammered into us from the start—but

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

be hidden inside your now-middle-aged body thanks to weight gain and that damn ligament.

But hey, let’s say you’re no thicker today than you were in your teens and that your arousal levels are constant and that you’ve kept your apartment at a constant temperature over the decades. Could something be causing your cock to actually shrink?

“The main causes of actual penis shrinkage are having your prostate removed, Peyronie’s disease (plaque development that narrows or bends the penis), or the scarring of erectile tissue, something called corporal fibrosis. SIS would know if he’d had prostate surgery, and he would have a noticeable ‘lump’ or change in erection shape if he had Peyronie’s.

So the main concern here is corporal fibrosis.

It can be insidious and is usually associated with conditions that make blood vessels unhealthy—like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes. SIS says he’s healthy, but the penis is often the first body part to manifest signs of the above conditions because it is so dynamic. Which means the penis, wonderfully and tragically, is often the ‘canary in the coal mine’ for cardiovascular health.”

Let’s say your canary is shrinking, SIS. What can you do about it?

“First and foremost, he should realize that far less women would care about his penis length than he does,” said Winter. “Studies including 52,000 individuals showed that 85 percent of women were satisfied with their partners’ penile length, while only 55 percent of men were satisfied with their own length.”

And unlike you, SIS, the women you sleep with today aren’t going to be comparing the dick you’ve got now with the dick you had (or thought you had) then.

“But if SIS wants to maximize his ‘observed’ penile length, he should shed extra weight— if he’s overweight—and should also check in with his doc for a test of his cholesterol, blood pressure, and a diabetes screen,” said Dr. Winter. “Regular erections do help keep the penis healthy, so if he has some ED, a Viagra (or similar med) can preserve length.” —Dan Savage

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