EDUCATION A LACK OF CONFIDENCE IN GW'S PREZ 4 NEWS CONTRACT NURSES CITE UNFAIR TREATMENT 6 ARTS WHAT COMES NEXT FOR AREA THEATERS? 14 THE DISTRICT'S FREE WEEKLY SINCE 1981 VOLUME 40, NO. 34 WASHINGTONCITYPAPER.COM AUG. 28–SEPT. 3, 2020
The fight to end construction on what may be a historic Black burial site
BURIAL GROUND PAGE 10
By Kristina Gaddy
PhotoGraPhs By darrow MontGoMery
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2 august 28, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS COVER STORY 10 Burial Ground: Development in Bethesda threatens to disturb a historic Black burial site. Neighbors and activists are leading the fight to protect it.
NEWS 4 Loose Lips: George Washington University’s pandemic response prompts faculty and staff to lose confidence in President Thomas LeBlanc. 6 Testing Patience: Nurses contracted to staff D.C.’s COVID-19 testing sites describe difficult working conditions and challenging schedules.
SPORTS 8 Playing the Bounce: While matches are suspended, a local tennis coach perfects his trick shots.
ARTS 14 Dramatic Pause: Local theaters consider how to move forward while in-person performances remain suspended. 16 Galleries: Capps on “We Come in Peace” and “DOUBLE CANDLE” at the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden 17 Film: Gittell on Bill & Ted Face the Music
CITY LIGHTS 18 City Lights: Transcribe some Smithsonian documents or listen to a series of EPs from a local psych-rock act.
DIVERSIONS 9 Savage Love 17 Crossword 19 Classifieds
Darrow Montgomery | 1700 Block of Kilbourne Place NW (Alley), August 20 Editorial
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washingtoncitypaper.com august 28, 2020 3
NEWS LOOSE LIPS
Presidential Fitness Tests George Washington University President Thomas LeBlanc is losing the support of faculty and staff as the university responds to the COVID-19 pandemic. In February 2020, LeBlanc stepped in it again when he was captured on a cell phone video making a racist comment in a conversation with a student. In that discussion about fossil fuel divestment, LeBlanc attempted to make a point about the impracticality of majority rule in some cases by describing a hypothetical scenario where all students voted to “shoot all the black people here.” He later apologized and has resisted calls for his resignation. Touted as a leader for his accomplishments in Miami, LeBlanc has surrounded himself with some familiar faces. As the GW Faculty Association pointed out in March, LeBlanc has hired no less than eight people with ties to his for-
The optics already weren’t great for George Washington University President Thomas LeBlanc. As the university moves forward with its plans to address an anticipated budget shortfall of more than $220 million due to COVID-19, they have only gotten worse. Critics and community members remember his half-million-dollar inauguration in 2017, the secrecy around the cost of a culture audit, the racist comment caught on video, and the announcement this month that LeBlanc intended to hire a woman who allegedly covered up sexual abuse at Michigan State University as GW’s new vice president of communications. During a virtual meeting last week, hundreds of faculty and staff voted in a straw poll in support of pushing for a vote of no confidence in the university’s leadership, including LeBlanc, according to multiple faculty members who participated in the meeting. An open letter signed by 171 professors, adjuncts, and staff members calls for the Faculty Senate Executive Committee to hold a vote of no confidence in LeBlanc. “This is unusual to have such a widespread faculty rebellion,” says Andy Zimmerman, a history professor who signed the letter but does not sit on the Faculty Senate. “I’ve been at GW for 20 years, and I’ve never seen an administration that seems so eager to antagonize faculty and is just uninterested in doing any kind of shared governing.” LeBlanc became GW’s 17th president in August 2017 after stints as an executive vice president, provost, and professor at the University of Miami. His tenure has been rocky from the get-go, as the university welcomed him with a three-day, $500,000 inauguration celebration. The Student Association Senate passed a resolution condemning the half-million-dollar party thrown when academic programs faced budget cuts in recent years, the GW Hatchet reported in 2017. A little more than a year into the job, LeBlanc announced a partnership with the Disney Institute to conduct a survey of the university’s internal culture. The $300,000 price tag, which LeBlanc acknowledged to the Hatchet was “not inexpensive,” ruffled feathers among faculty and students. GW officials announced in February 2019 that they were extending the contract with the Disney Institute, but refused to reveal the cost or even say what services the Disney Institute would provide, the Hatchet reported. GW spokesperson Crystal Nosal refused to release those figures and details to City Paper this week.
Darrow Montgomery/File
By Mitch Ryals @MitchRyals
vice president for communications and marketing. The backlash to that move was swift. As a VP of communications at Michigan State University, Swain allegedly played a role in helping the university cover up its handling of Larry Nasser’s sexual abuse of athletes. In the announcement from GW, which has since been removed from the university’s website, LeBlanc’s statement highlighted the role Swain would play in telling the university’s story and translating “our strengths and aspirations into a comprehensive marketing and communications strategy.” The university and Swain severed ties within days of announcing her hire after backlash from students and faculty. In addition to Swain, GW hired two more highlevel administrators since the hiring freeze went into effect on March 25. Through a spokesperson, LeBlanc declined City Paper’s interview request. Instead, Nosal emailed a statement LeBlanc released on Tuesday about the Swain scandal. “I sincerely apologize for the distress and distraction that this has caused many in our community,” LeBlanc’s statement says in part. “I should have recognized the sensitivities and implications of this hire. It is a mistake I deeply regret.” All of the controversy surrounding LeBlanc,
The George Washington University mer employer in Florida. GWUFA is an independent group that represents about 30 percent of GW faculty members and functions like a union (GW’s full-time faculty are not unionized), whereas the Faculty Senate, whose members are elected by the faculty, plays a role in the university’s governance. Then, in the midst of a pandemic-induced hiring freeze, GW hired Heather Swain as its new
4 august 28, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com
including the short-lived Swain scandal, has been compounded by his administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has included mass layoffs, salary cuts, and suspension of retirement benefits. It all came to a head during the virtual faculty meeting last week. “It’s hard to find one word,” Zimmerman says when asked to describe LeBlanc’s tenure. “But
shocking? Dumbfounding? This goes beyond the normal disagreements that faculty are naturally going to have with the president. It’s a total disconnect about basic values of the university.” The full and precise picture of GW’s budgetslashing strategy is difficult to pin down. LeBlanc announced he would take a 20 percent salary cut starting in July, the Hatchet reported in May. Other members of senior leadership agreed to reductions of 5 percent or more. LeBlanc made about $1.45 million in Fiscal Year 2019, according to the university’s tax records. Five other employees received more than $1 million in total compensation. Since March, GW has announced several steps to address its expected budget shortfall, including salary and hiring freezes and the suspension of retirement matches and capital projects. GWUFA warned of a potential 10 to 15 percent pay cut for faculty, though the administration has yet to officially announce such a move. According to a chart shown during the same virtual meeting where faculty and staff took the straw poll, GW is expecting a total of $224.7 million in lost revenue in FY 2021. Among the expenditure reductions to lessen the gap are $82 million in cuts to non-faculty compensation. That figure represents 26 percent of GW’s original FY 2021 budget for non-faculty pay, according to the chart, which is marked “CONFIDENTIAL.” The Hatchet confirmed last week that GW eliminated at least 70 staff positions in career services, facilities, and the Continuous Improvement and Business Advisory Services office, which was eliminated completely. The same chart shows $27 million in cuts to faculty compensation, an 11 percent reduction from the original FY 2021 budget. Nosal, in an email to City Paper, says layoffs will likely reach the “low hundreds,” and are expected to be completed by the end of August. Physics professor Harald Griesshammer, who serves on the Faculty Senate, says staff who support grant research applications and administration are also being cut, though he could not give a precise number. “Which is amazing,” he says. “I would have thought I would be in a position to actually know this,” as a member of the Faculty Senate. Griesshammer says grant support staff were notified on Friday, July 31, that their jobs were in danger and that they could reapply for a limited number of positions the following Monday. “And because they knew this was the busiest time to submit grants, they scheduled a meeting for Friday afternoon to make sure that among all the chaos, the grants will still be submitted on time,” he says. “That’s how much community spirit those people have. They deserve better than an email without any real explanation, which tells them they are laid off and need to reapply.” Employees who planned and organized events were also laid off, City Paper has learned. One events employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they hope to work for the university again in the future, says events staff were told in late July that GW was whittling down nearly 60 positions to just nine.
NEWS The former employee says they were notified during a video conference call on a Tuesday and told they could reapply for the open positions by the end of the week. “The salaries offered for the positions comparable to the positions where I left were considerably lower,” the former employee says. “One of my thoughts is they were hiring based on salaries, not experience.” The former employee applied for four positions and interviewed for three, but was not hired. While the former employee understands the university is trying to navigate unprecedented circumstances and that events staff are an easy target for layoffs, they worry the strategy may be shortsighted. “There’s nobody there. There’s no work, so I get it,” the former employee says. “However, they are moving forward as if the students are never coming back to campus. That’s a lot of institutional knowledge that is walking out the door and may never come back.” And considering the money the university shelled out for the Disney Institute’s help in evaluating and improving the internal culture, the former events employee sees a bit of irony. “They spent all this money with the Disney Institute trying to change the culture of the university,” the employee says. “They said, ‘We’re going to be people first. That’s our best commodity.’ And one of the first things they do to cut the budget was to start firing people.”
In June, GW senior Erin Cieraszynski received her financial aid package just like she had each year before. When the university announced in July that it was reducing undergraduate tuition by 10 percent for students who did not return to campus, she says she heard “rumblings” from the financial aid office that the university needed to recalculate students’ aid packages. In mid-August, Cieraszynski received her new financial aid package, and the $16,000 grant she was awarded was cut in half. She later learned through friends that she could fill out a form online and submit additional information to the financial aid office to ask for another recalculation. Cieraszynski’s final package is about $1,000 less per semester than the amount she received in June. She only has one semester of classes left and says she’s able to make up the extra thousand bucks in order to graduate in December. Cieraszynski knows other students who aren’t as fortunate. She is one of dozens of students who posted about their financial aid experience in a public document. Some wrote that the changes to their aid made the tuition cost insurmountable. During a phone conversation on Aug. 21, Cieraszynski told City Paper the university didn’t explain why her financial aid was cut. She says she only received vague emails alerting her that the amount was being recalculated and learned through friends about the extra step of providing information on her housing and income. “A lot of people are still trying to figure out
the forms to submit and how to go about this,” she says. Shortly after the interview, Cieraszynski received an email from Vice Provost of Enrollment and Student Success Jay Goff, one of the administrators hired during the hiring freeze, explaining the recalculations. It was the first official communication from the VP regarding changes to financial aid that Cieraszynski received, she says. “Given GW’s decision to reduce tuition by 10 percent for undergraduate students who do not live on campus, the overall cost of attendance for the fall semester was reduced for many undergraduate students,” Goff writes in the email. “To stay compliant with federal student aid and loan regulations, the university is required to recalculate student aid packages to reflect each student’s actual cost of attendance for the academic year.” The email says GW planned to host virtual forums this week to answer questions about financial aid. Nosal says in an email that GW recalculated 4,700 financial aid packages and believes every student’s new aid package is adjusted so that they’re paying just as much or less than the cost included on their July bills. If that’s not the case, Nosal says students should contact the financial aid office. For Griesshammer, the physics professor, the pushback the faculty is giving
LeBlanc’s administration stems at least in part from the lack of effective communication and collaboration. “We understand layoffs are necessary, but it would be good to have communication from the administration saying , ‘ We need to do this, and this is the rationale,” Griesshammer says. LeBlanc has provided updates throughout the pandemic, Nosal points out. But at the same time, the Faculty Senate has passed several resolutions since February demanding more say in decision-making. Zimmerman, the history professor, adds that the administration seems to have ignored suggested solutions to the budget shortfall that the Faculty Senate proposed in June. The Senate proposed $21.5 million in cuts and $94 million in new revenue sources, including elimination of bonuses for FY 20 and FY 21, an end to special benefits for administrators, and elimination of competitive athletics. Zimmerman and other faculty members have also suggested drawing from GW’s $1.78 billion endowment and using a newly acquired $300 million line of credit. Nosal says the latter two steps are not financially prudent or necessary. “It is important to note that the duration of the pandemic is unknown,” Nosal writes in an email. “We will continue to evaluate all options as the pandemic continues and its effects on the university continues to evolve.”
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7/14/202028, 10:49:03 AM 5 washingtoncitypaper.com august 2020
NEWS CITY DESK
Testing Patience After nurses aired grievances about unfair pay and treatment, a D.C. emergency services manager told nurses they could be “ass wiping” instead.
When D.C. experiences storms or heat waves this summer, the nurses who staff outdoor COVID-19 testing sites risk losing hundreds of dollars in pay. One nurse estimates she lost $1,370 because the Bowser administration closed the government-supported sites twice when she was scheduled to work in late July. For someone who traveled to D.C. just to test its residents and pays $3,900 per month for housing in both the nation's capital and her home state more than 800 miles away, $1,370 is not nothing. Her contract states that a “client may cancel up to 0 shifts for which [the] traveler will not be paid.” Shift cancellations are the least of the traveling nurses’ concerns. Another nurse who lost hundreds of dollars in pay due to weatherrelated cancellations says she missed a critical doctor’s appointment to avoid an unexcused absence. She says the rule of three tardies equalling one absence and three absences resulting in termination is new and not equally enforced. A third nurse who worked at outdoor testing sites says his hours and pay were retroactively cut when management learned he was not working the full shift in order to take hydration breaks. His contract was terminated when he tried to get paid for every hour he was at the testing site, instead of just the time he spent swabbing people’s nasal cavities. A fourth nurse, who travels more than an hour into the city, clocks in at 7 a.m. and out at 8 p.m., with three unpaid hoursa off of work in the afternoon. The schedule does not match what is in her contract, and she says she would have never agreed to the assignment had she known the hours in advance. Interviews with 11 nurses, along with reviews of emails, contracts, and a tape-recorded meeting, paint a picture of a chaotic work environment, where health care workers say they are told to accept unfair rules and shifting schedules even if they do not jive with the contracts they signed through Maxim Healthcare
Darrow Montgomery
By Amanda Michelle Gomez @AmanduhGomez
Services, the staffing company that hired them. Other nurses wanted to share their stories, but declined out of fear of getting fired for speaking out. It’s the kind of workplace where a nurse does not feel comfortable telling a manager her gloves are too small. She does not want to piss anyone off. The nurses are short-term government subcontractors who traveled from states all across the country to help D.C. respond to the coronavirus pandemic. Since starting work at government-supported testing sites this summer, nurses say they saw their hours and pay cut and were made to feel “disrespected” and “dispensable.” After nurses aired some of their grievances, a division chief at the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency told them there are “worse assignments” and they could be “ass wiping” instead, according to a recording of an Aug. 10 meeting obtained by City Paper. The HSEMA division chief is no longer overseeing the Maxim contract. “That employee’s actions during that meeting were not acceptable to us, which is why we removed him from the testing part of our operation,” says Department of Public Works Director Christopher Geldart, who serves as operations chief for D.C.’s response to COVID-19. Geldart says the rest of the nurses’ accusations should be directed to Maxim Healthcare Services, their employer. He says D.C.’s contract with Maxim does not limit scheduled hours, as some of Maxim’s contracts with nurses do, and allows for at least six cancellations without pay. “We don't set the individual nurses’ hours.
6 august 28, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com
We set the hours when we're going to be testing and then Maxim, as our contractor, has to meet those hours,” he tells City Paper. “If that's not satisfying to one of their employees, that's an employee talking to their employer and saying, ‘This is not something I want to do,’” Geldart says. “That’s not really on the District to say whether that person is satisfied with that or not, because that's not our requirement, which is why we contracted this in the first place. Because we knew we were going to have requirements to do certain things like this and we wanted to hire a professional firm that could handle the professionals coming in to do that.” D.C. started contracting with Maxim at the beginning of the public health emergency. The $10-million, labor-hour contract was awarded to Maxim “to provide the full spectrum of temporary healthcare staffing support related to COVID-19 crisis,” according to a copy of the contract. “The services will be provided to and managed by DC Health at several sites throughout the District.” One of those sites was the makeshift hospital at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center that the city has not needed to use. There are few mentions of shifts in the 49-page document, including “all personnel should expect at a maximum to work three twelve-hour shifts per week for the entire engagement.” The contract also specifies that “a dispute between the Contractor and subcontractor relating to the amounts or entitlement of a subcontractor to a payment or a late payment interest penalty under the Quick Payment Act does not constitute a dispute to which the District is a party.”
In an email to City Paper, a Maxim spokesperson says they cannot discuss details of the “partnership,” but declined to explain why. “I can tell you that we are working diligently to meet the scheduling needs of both clients and staff while operating within the parameters set forth in our employment agreements,” says the company spokesperson. “Like many other organizations, we have had to remain flexible and open to making adjustments due to circumstances beyond our control during this challenging time. We deeply value our employee and client relationships and remain committed to doing everything possible to meet—and exceed—the expectations of both.” Some nurses decided to end their contracts early because of the working conditions, while others are counting down the days until their assignments end. Nearly all the nurses interviewed, including four who worked on a contract basis in New York City when it was the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S., say this is one of their worst assignments yet. “There are no consequences for agencies or facilities—zero—for them shortening your contract, shortening your hours,” says a nurse who requested anonymity out of fear of retribution. “They are making us feel expendable. I want to stay here and fulfill the contract, but they are making it really hard.” Roughly 80 travel nurses staff public testing sites like those at Judiciary Square and D.C. firehouses, along with congregate care settings like nursing homes and St. Elizabeths Hospital. They’ve helped D.C. complete more than 260,000 tests. D.C. reached 200,000 tests in early August, and public sites and congregate care settings accounted for more than 71,000, or just over one-third of total tests. According to DC Health’s coronavirus dashboard, D.C.’s positivity rate has been below 5 percent since June 13, right around when officials scaled up public testing sites to include firehouses. Nationwide, only D.C and nine states are doing enough testing to mitigate the spread of the virus. For all the talk of health care workers being essential during the pandemic, nurses in D.C. and across the country have described feeling expendable to the media. Nurses in some D.C. hospitals were not given adequate personal protective equipment or hazard pay during the pandemic, and nurses who typically work in D.C. public schools were told by Children's National Hospital to serve in COVID-19 response efforts or risk being laid off. Dozens of school nurses ended up being temporarily laid off. Unlike the aforementioned nurses, nurses working D.C. testing sites report to an offsite employer headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, and do not have a union to fall back on. Whenever they encountered issues, travel nurses were told to speak with their recruiters, who in turn told nurses they were surprised to learn of contract discrepancies and overall treatment. “The money was not worth it for how they were treating us,” says Rycky Pera, who was contracted to work at government-supported testing sites between June 8 and Aug. 14 for $55 an hour. Pera, who’s worked as a nurse for nine years,
NEWS says the “nonsense” all started with the scheduling. When they first got hired, nurses who worked at outdoor sites say they were told to mark 8 hours of work in their timesheets even if they did not work that many hours. (The contracts for those that spoke with City Paper began between late May and mid-July, and end in late September.) Outdoor sites like the one in Anacostia were only open for four hours in the mornings. Every nurse interviewed says management told them to say they worked eight hours instead of the five they actually worked. Several nurses say a government official gave them these instructions during orientation, and all were told by more senior contractors while on the job. Management included a HSEMA division chief, a HSEMA contractor, and a nurse subcontractor who got promoted to manager. Nurses did as they were told, and their timesheets were accepted. Many rationalized it because their Maxim contract said they’d be working 40 hours per week, and made no mention of working outdoors in the blistering heat. Two nurses say they felt uncomfortable with the arrangement, but logged the hours anyways. On June 15, D.C. expanded free testing to include firehouses, giving nurses the opportunity to work more hours and overtime, but only if they volunteered. Scheduling got rough sometime between mid and late July, when outdoor testing sites modified or closed at least half a dozen times due to bad weather. Pera says she was short the 40 hours guaranteed in her contract for three weeks during her 17-week long contract. Losing hours also interferes with nurses’ weekly stipends for food and lodging; if a nurse does not work a day, then one-seventh of their stipend is deducted. “I am paying $1,600 for a hotel. On top of that, I am paying house bills for Florida,” Pera says. “When you are losing hours, it’s not worth it.” Some nurses complained about the cancellations to management, because their contracts allowed “the client” minimal cancellations without pay. A review of Maxim contracts shows slight variances, ranging from zero to six shift cancellations. The contracts also say “there is no guarantee of payment for hours not worked as a result of an act of God or other natural disasters.” Nurses did not foresee this clause being an issue because they usually work through natural disasters and rarely, if ever, work outside. “I would like to address the cancellation policy of your contracts, I do not control that portion,” wrote the nurse manager who set the schedule in an Aug. 3 mass email obtained by City Paper. “Your recruiter is responsible for explaining any issues you may have regarding this matter. When days are cancelled, they are cancelled. Please refrain from emailing and texting me suggestions on how to create a schedule to accommodate cancellations.” In early August, management also told nurses they could only log the hours they actually worked. This meant nurses could only get 40 hours of work per week if they tested residents at the firehouses in the evenings, between 4 and 8 p.m., effectively forcing them to accept split shifts and mandatory overtime. The new
process was not clearly communicated, so some nurses went at least one week without 40 hours. The new schedule became a problem for nurses who live more than an hour away in Maryland and Virginia suburbs. They’d have to report to, say, Judiciary Square by 7 a.m. to set up, and then swab dozens, if not hundreds, of residents until 12:30 p.m. Then they’d have to kill time for three hours in D.C., where nearly everything is shut down, and report to a firehouse at 4 p.m., where they would work until 8 p.m. In nursing, split shifts are not uncommon, but employees would generally be paid for the time between shifts. This isn’t the case for nurses working D.C. government-supported sites. The nurse manager offered little to no accommodations, according to the majority of nurses City Paper spoke with. Some requested they be scheduled in nursing homes, where nurses get the full eight hours without working split shifts, evenings, or weekends, and get respite from the heat and humidity. An Aug. 3 email from the HSEMA division chief suggests that enough nurses had problems with schedules, policies, and processes for him to address personnel concerns in a lengthy message. He also chided nurses with “behavior issues,” writing, “Moving forward, before you make a call or send a text/email, I need you to ask yourself if you are being a professional team player or if you are being selfish. Are you making things better or are you causing drama?” It is unclear what those “behavior issues” were. “You are also being paid very well for the job that you have been asked to do because we know that the environmental conditions are not ideal,” he continued. “You have also previously been paid for hours that you may not have actually worked. As we refine our practices you have been asked to document your hours AS worked to ensure we are as fiscally responsible with our spending as possible. This translates into filling out your timesheets with honesty.” Some nurses took offense to the email for its “condescending” tone. “We have been doing this for months. How did they not know this? Now, they are coming at us like we are trying to cheat the system,” says a nurse who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. Geldart says Maxim manages billing for its employees. He says Maxim has not overcharged D.C. “We checked the overarching hours to make sure that we're not being overcharged by a contractor,” he tells City Paper. “We’ve done good accounting—good program management, let's put it that way—from [the] District’s perspective.” The new schedule was a problem for employees like Pera, who only took the assignment because she could plan around her two daughters. Pera could not see her kids during an assignment between March and May at a New York City hospital, and planned to fly her kids out to D.C. at least three times based on a contract that said she’d work 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The schedule was also a problem for Elaina Evans, who took the assignment because the contract said she’d only be working during the day. She could only work Monday and Tuesday evenings
because her son needed the car the other days for work. “I’m not a nurse 24 hours. I’m a mom. I’m a friend. I’m someone’s lover. I have other responsibilities,” Evans says. “I’m a person too.” “This contract has been one of the worst contracts,” she adds. Evans has been a nurse for more than 30 years, five of which have been as a travel nurse. The job demanded a lot of flexibility on the part of nurses, which many said they were willing to deal with until management made them feel undervalued. Nurses had to travel all across the city in their own vehicles to test residents after management failed to provide them with government vehicles as promised during orientation. The nurse manager sent assignments for the upcoming week on Sunday evenings, giving nurses little opportunity to swap shifts. Sometimes schedules changed the same day. Nurses learned to check their inbox multiple times a day for last-minute changes. Evans says she quit once management changed scheduling, while Pera says her contract was terminated after she missed shifts on three different occasions because she felt sick and visited urgent care. In an Aug. 23 email, the nurse manager wrote “DC [H]ealth does not provide sick time or paid time off. All sick pay concerns will be address[ed] by MAXIM.” Favoritism could be the difference between getting fired and staying on. Several nurses say they know of colleagues who missed at least three days of work and have yet to be terminated. Anthony Koch’s contract was terminated after he told management he was not letting them cut his pay for taking water breaks while he was working at outdoor testing sites supported by the disaster relief organization CORE. According to Koch, management caught wind of the fact that nurses at CORE sites were not testing residents every minute of the full eight hours. He says the nurses alternated every hour because the sun was beating down on them. July saw the most 90-plus degree days of any month on record, with temperatures feeling even higher some days due to high humidity, and nurses were working outside in full PPE. After interviewing a few nurses at CORE sites including Koch, management had Koch log three and a half hours of work instead of eight for four days he was on site, according to Koch. He says he was shorted 18 hours. “I need this money to be able to make it through school,” Koch tells City Paper. He also needed the money for housing; his rent in D.C. was $1,500 per month. A nurse who works at the outdoor sites tells City Paper that what Koch did is typical. “We call it ‘cooling time’ or ‘hydration time,’” she says. Another nurse tells City Paper it is impossible to take a quick water break because nurses have to go to a designated area to take off all their PPE. That nurse says he got kidney stones because he didn’t hydrate enough. He’s since quit. Koch submitted his two weeks’ notice on Aug. 18, after management refused to fully compensate him for his time. They ended his contract that same day. He is now back in Ohio.
“I refuse to work for an employer who threatens, intimidates, and steals wages from front line healthcare workers with accusations of ‘fraud,’” he wrote in an email dated Aug. 18. “I have submitted my time card in good faith, without misrepresenting my hours work[ed], my availability to work, or the work I conducted within the policies, expectations, and guidance provided to me on site by my supervisor,” he continued. An audio recording of an Aug. 10 meeting shared with City Paper verifies that D.C. management was fully aware of personnel complaints, but that they viewed it as a problem between the nurses and their recruiters at Maxim. The HSEMA division chief told the dozens of nurses in attendance that the D.C. government contract with Maxim specified no hourly minimum or window of work, but said they’d try to schedule the nurses for as many hours as they could in order to reach 40 hours per week. During the meeting, the HSEMA division chief also stressed that it is illegal for Maxim to bill the D.C. government for hours nurses did not actually work and such actions could jeopardize the contract altogether. The nurse manager also said during the meeting that some nurses were being disrespectful to her when they aired grievances to her individually. “What we want you guys to know is what you are doing for us is important. We do recognize that it is hot out there,” the HSEMA division chief told nurses at the start of the meeting. “We also recognize that there are worse assignments that you can have right now. You could be working places where you have to do charting, where you have to do extensive bedside care or ass wiping for a lack of a better word. So I want to make sure you understand that while you may have concerns about what you are doing right now, it could be worse. The situation could be worse. The environment could be worse.” Some nurses were not afraid to express their frustration at what was said. One could not understand how the D.C. government’s contract could say one thing and the Maxim contract could say another. “If you are signing such a big contract,” she said, “take care of your nurses.” The meeting further crushed morale, according to the nurses interviewed. Many were left to feel like they should just leave if they were unhappy with the assignment, and D.C. and Maxim would hire another nurse to replace them. One nurse in the room had multiple colleagues test positive for COVID-19 when she was working another contract during the pandemic. Contracting COVID-19 is a risk she is acutely aware of when she swabs hundreds of D.C. residents each week, and when the HSEMA division chief told nurses they could be “ass wiping” instead. “It’s easy to make these statements when you are not facing it everyday,” the nurse tells City Paper. “How can you be passionate about a mission if people treat you like your life doesn’t matter?”
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Playing the Bounce When the pandemic canceled the spring sports season, local high school tennis coach Logan West turned to creating viral trick shot videos. By Kelyn Soong @KelynSoong In a video clip recently aired on Tennis Channel, Logan West balances a tennis ball on the butt cap of his racket. West then drops his racket, and as it makes contact with the court, the ball ricochets straight up. While the ball is in the air, West catches his racket and serves the ball into the diagonally opposite service box for what would’ve likely been an ace. The hosts of the show react in awe. “This is impressive stuff,” Chanda Rubin, a former professional tennis player who was ranked top ten in the world, tells her fellow virtual panelists. “[West] has just been on fire.” Former world No. 1 doubles player Mark Knowles echoes Rubin, calling the trick shot “super impressive.” This is the life of a high school tennis coach during a global pandemic. When the spring sports season was canceled and tennis courts in D.C. were locked for several months, West, the head tennis coach at Sidwell Friends School, started teaching himself new tricks. Literally. On his Instagram account, in between photos of his family, West, 37, has posted several tennis videos and dived into the niche world of trick tennis shots with increased regularity during the pandemic. He filmed the shot featured on Tennis Channel five years ago, but only recently sent the video in as part of the network’s “Tennis At Home” series. One repost of the shot on his Instagram account has nearly 40,000 views. “It’s been kind of a fun hobby that I’ve picked up over the summer,” West says. Trick shots have been a part of the sport’s culture for decades, but the prevalence of them being used in professional matches and the growth of trick shot artists on social media are both relatively new. Videos of the shots have likely been amplified by the fact that matches were postponed or canceled due to the pandemic, and tennis players, from pros to amateurs, have had to find creative ways to entertain themselves. Without actual competition, this has been as good a time as any to try something new, but it wasn’t long ago that trick shots only made an
appearance in the rarest of occasions. In 2010, the Atlantic published an article about Roger Federer’s tweener—a shot hit between the legs while running away from the net—at that year’s U.S. Open. At the time, players rarely treated fans to that shot; tennis coaches have long considered tweeners a low percentage and unnecessarily flashy shot, and cautioned against it. West, who grew up in Georgetown and now lives in Southeast D.C., started attempting tweeners long before the emergence of social media as a varsity tennis player at Sidwell Friends, and later on at Dartmouth College. There weren’t dozens of online fans urging him on. He still remembers his college coach’s resistance to them. “He said, ‘If you go for it, you better make it and win the point,’” West says. “He said also, ‘It better be in the right position. Don’t be a hotdog. Don’t be a showboat.’” But over the years, tennis fans have come to expect the tweener, with pro players like Federer, Nick Kyrgios, Gael Monfils, Dustin Brown, Benoit Paire, and Daria Kasatkina pulling off winners with the shot at an increased rate. Kyrgios often hits multiple between the leg shots during a match, and Kasatkina set a Guinness World Record last year for hitting the most successful tennis tweener shots in one minute (18). In a recent training session—against this reporter— West successfully executed the shot about once every three tries, hitting the winners with pace and accuracy. Locally, West has garnered attention for shots that most tennis players would not even consider attempting. The rise of trick shot social media influencers has increased the level of technical difficulty—both attempted and achieved—in tennis trick shots. “I remember people would talk about, ‘Oh my God, did you see that tweener?’ and it would be like a once a year scenario. Now, it almost comes out once a match,” says Pablo Schurig, the head professional instructor at Lafayette Tennis Club in Northern California and the founder of TrickShotTennis.com. Schurig started his YouTube account Trick Shot Tennis in 2012, and has since racked up more than 14,000 subscribers and nearly 5 million views. He has almost 30,000 followers on his @trickshottennis Instagram account, which is far more than even some professional tennis players ranked top 100 in the world. Another tennis trick shot artist, Stefan Bojic of Serbia, who refers to himself as a “freestyle tennis pioneer,” has more than 145,000 followers on Instagram. Schurig, 46, was a Virginia boys tennis doubles states champion for Blacksburg High School and competed at Virginia Tech. He says his college coach would yell at him if he attempted a tweener during a match. While living in California, he’s played in competitive local matches against some of the top amateur players in the state. “People knew that when they played me, there’s going to be some sort of highlight reel, or highlight reel of something they hadn’t seen before,” Schurig says. “I started to be identified as this really tricky, clever guy that was probably going to pull out some things in a match that people have never seen before.” Friends urged him to start recording his shots.
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SPORTS TENNIS
Logan West So he did, and uploaded them to YouTube. One day, a fellow teaching pro texted him and said that her friend in Romania saw his video. Then he started receiving calls from Japan to be on a television show, followed by appearances on EuroSport. In 2016, the U.S. Open invited Schurig to perform a live act in front of an audience—an experience that he says made him realize that trick shot tennis translates better on video than in front of a live audience. “I think I figured somewhere along the line that if I can’t be the best, that I will be the most entertaining,” he says. “While other people were trying to get better, I was just trying to get better at being entertaining and creating a different kind of game that wasn’t necessarily built on power or whatever; it was built on uniqueness and creativity.” West noticed what Schurig was doing from afar, and in 2018, he reached out to him to learn about his story. The two have since shared each other’s trick shots on their Instagram stories and have bonded over their similar journeys. Both at one point had dreams of playing professional tennis before becoming coaches. “Logan is definitely an incredibly talented tennis player and he has the same mindset that I do,” Schurig says. “He’s drawn to the world of the bizarre, of what’s possible in tennis.” For West, trick shot tennis brings him back to the simple joy of being out on court; it’s about realizing how much fun tennis can be. In all, he says, he was off the courts for six to eight weeks, and instead of watching pros preparing for and competing at Grand Slams, the
tennis ecosystem was filled with clips of recreational players finding creative ways to stay connected to the sport. “Because there was zero professional tennis going on and the sort of the reopen and the exhibition matches hadn’t started up yet, you looked at Tennis Channel Live each day and it was literally just a stream of social media like pros hitting trick shots, people sending in their ‘Tennis At Home’ submissions,” West says. “And so I just figured, you know what ... I’ve got some content, let me send something in.” Not all of the trick shots are legal in an official tennis match, and most of West’s videos have been inspired by other players. He says he takes about an hour or two to perfect a shot before asking someone to get it on video. There are shots that require only a few takes, but some, like the one he recently posted where he hits a ball tossed in the air at the net with another ball hit with his racket, “took probably 25 tries.” West has more planned, including one he calls a “Logan original.” “I think it ups the ante from what I’ve been doing so far,” he says, before going into detail about the shot: West dribbles the ball off the side of his racket frame five times, lets it drop, hits the ball down into the court to shoot up in the air with the other side of the frame, flips his racket, and then “like a hook shot in basketball,” whips the racket around his arm and hits a serve with the handle of the racket. In times of uncertainty and anxiety, West hopes that these videos can make other tennis fans smile and provide a small respite from the world—one trick shot at a time.
DIVERSIONS SAVAGE LOVE I’m a cis male in my late 20s. I’ve recently become consumed by a specific fantasy I fear is unattainable, a fear that has been made worse by several failed attempts to research it. A little background: Except for a couple dates and make-out sessions with other men, my sex life has always been exclusively with women. I’ve had male crushes and often thought I might be bi or pan, despite never masturbating to thoughts of men or gay porn. (Don’t worry, Dan: I’m not going to ask if I’m gay. I promise.) In general, I’ve led a privileged sex life. I’ve never been broken up with and it’s rare for me to experience any form of rejection. But in early 2020, my libido vanished. I stopped masturbating and only orgasmed once or twice a month when my now ex-girlfriend would insist we have sex. But then a couple of weeks ago I began imagining being one half of a loving gay couple that replaced all MM penetrative sex with MMF sex—my sex life with my male partner would revolve around the two of us going out and finding submissive women for kinky threesomes. Since then, I’ve been masturbating to this fantasy daily and I’m excited at the possibility of finding a new lifestyle that brings me a lot of joy. However, I’ve grown concerned that nothing else seems to turn me on at all. Equally as concerning, even minor adjustments to this fantasy ruins the whole thing. And to fulfill it I’d need a man who’s at least all of the following: 1. Sensitive, giving, easy-going, and an all-around good guy. 2. Very physically attractive. 3. Into cuddling and general affection, some makeout sessions, and occasional hand jobs and blow jobs—but absolutely no penetrative sex or anal play. 4. Into picking up submissive women for MMF threesomes. 5. Into penetrative sex with said women. 6. Into using roleplay and D/s to take out our kinks on said women. 7. Into giving me the more dominant role. Now for my questions: Does anyone like this actually exist? Is there a name for the fetish I’m describing? Does it have a community? Is it similar to any more accessible fetishes out there? Does my loss of libido and this specific fantasy say something about me that I’m too close to see? —Can Anyone Tell Me Anything Now First and most importantly, CATMAN, kinks aren’t things you “take out” on other people. They’re things you share and enjoy with other people. Perhaps that “take out on” was a slip of the tongue or a little premature dirty talk. Lots of people into D/s get off on talking about their kinks—BB or TT or CBT—as if they’re things a sadistic Dom gets off on doing to a helpless sub. That’s the fantasy, CATMAN, but in reality, the Dom and sub discuss their desires in advance, identify areas of overlap, and set limits. (Not just bottoms; tops have limits too.) However brutal things may look to someone who wasn’t a part of those negotiations, however degrading things might sound, kink play is consensual and mutually pleasurable, and if it’s not consensual and mutually pleasurable, CATMAN, then it’s not kink play. It’s sexual assault.
Again, maybe it was a slip of the tongue and I’m being a dick; you did mention a desire to find submissive women, CATMAN, which most likely means you were planning to seek out women who wanna be “used and abused” by two hot bi guys in love. And you’re in luck: There are definitely women out there who would be into this scenario—some readers probably went all WAP reading your question—but you’re unlikely to meet those women on a night out. Meaning, you shouldn’t be thinking about casually picking women up, CATMAN, but rather cultivating connections online or at kink events with submissive women who would get into subbing for you and your imaginary boyfriend. Finding a guy who meets your long list of particulars is a taller order. It frankly doesn’t sound like you’re looking for a partner, i.e., someone whose needs you want to meet, but rather a guy
“Kink play is consensual and mutually pleasurable, and if it’s not consensual and mutually pleasurable, CATMAN, then it’s not kink play. It’s sexual assault.” you can plug into your masturbatory fantasies. He’s gotta be bi but not into butt stuff, a good guy, a hot guy, a sub where you’re concerned, a Dom where women are concerned … and any deviation from that long list disqualifies him from consideration for your life partner-in-crime, making each and every item on that long list a deal breaker. R elat ionsh ips requ ire comprom ise, CATMAN. No one gets everything they want, and a long list of deal breakers makes for even longer odds. If you can’t budge on any of the items on your list … well, then you might wanna think about getting yourself a sex doll or two. You also might wanna give some thought not just to your long and rigid list of deal breakers, but to why that list is so long and rigid that you’re unlikely, as you suspect, to ever find someone. Zooming out … You say your libido tanked in early 2020, CATMAN, and studies show you’re not alone. The twin pandemics—the COVID-19 pandemic
and the stupidity pandemic—have tanked a lot of people’s libidos. So, if this fantasy is working for you right now, I think you should lean into it. It may be a tall order, it may be so unrealistic as to be unachievable, but indulging in this very specific fantasy has cracked your libido open, and continuing to beat off about this fantasy might blow your libido wide open. I don’t like to pathologize people’s kinks or attach meaning to what are usually arbitrary, random, and inexplicable sexual interests. But the taller the order, the less likely it can be filled, CATMAN, and it’s possible you may not want it filled at all—at least subconsciously, at least right now. Sometimes when sex is scary, we obsess about fantasies that are impossible to realize or partners who’re impossible to find because it allows us to avoid partnered sex. I know at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic I was obsessed with a guy I couldn’t have because it got me off the hook. My list of deal breakers at that time was ironically pretty short: He had to be Tommy. If he wasn’t Tommy, I wasn’t interested. Tommy was amazing—totally obsession-worthy—and I did love him. But I know now that I threw myself into my obsession with Tommy to protect myself from a terrifying epidemic. Maybe you’re doing something similar, CATMAN. But if I’m wrong—if this is what you want—there are cities out there with kink communities large enough for two partnered bi guys to find a steady stream of submissive women who wanna sub for them. But your list of deal breakers is going to have to shrink if you ever hope to find a guy who’s close to what you want. And that’s all any of us ever gets, CATMAN. Something close. —Dan Savage I’m a 39-year-old gay man living in Chicago. Recently a good friend of mine got engaged to a wonderful man from Gambia in West Africa. She’s planning a ceremony there next summer and has invited me to attend. After doing a little research I found out that being LGBT is a crime in that country and the punishment is execution. Should I go to the wedding and stay in the closet the whole time? In general, what do you think about gays traveling to countries that murder our LGBT brothers and sisters? —Intensely Nervous Venturing Into This Event I wouldn’t go, INVITE, and if I were a straight girl, I wouldn’t expect my gay friends to risk their lives in order to attend my wedding. While a quick search didn’t bring up news about any gay westerners being executed in Gambia in recent history, gay tourists have been arrested, imprisoned, and fined. So instead of attending your friend’s wedding next summer—which may not even happen, due to the pandemic—make a donation in her name to Initiative Sankofa D’Afrique de l’Ouest, an organization working to improve the lives and legal position of LGBT people in Gambia and other West African nations, at ISDAO.org. —DS
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Email your Savage Love questions to mail@savagelove.net washingtoncitypaper.com august 28, 2020 9
This summer, on an industrial and com- nations from the community, even though mercial section of River Road near the Capi- they already paid for public schools through tal Crescent Trail in Bethesda, you can regu- taxes. At The Sugar Bowl, the local tavern, larly find area musician Brian Farrow in the men who worked as caddies at the nearby roadway playing “Potter’s Hornpipe,” a song Whites-only golf courses could have a drink written by Black composer Francis Johnson after work. The neighborhood had homes, a in 1816 in honor of a destroyed African Ameri- church, and a burial ground. Jeremiah Botts’ 1912 burial is the first recan cemetery. Nearby, protestors hold signs that say “Black Ancestors Matter” and “Black corded in Moses Cemetery, although oral hisLives Matter from Cradle to Grave,” while tories say that burials took place on the land Marsha Coleman-Adebayo of the Bethesda before the cemetery was officially established. African Cemetery Coalition and Macedonia At his time of death, Botts was living with his Baptist Church leads chants of “Save Moses wife Cora in the Reno subdivision of NorthCemetery!” Amid the national and local calls west D.C., in what is today Tenleytown. In 1911, a Black benevolent association, of “Black Lives Matter,” these activists gather to insist that the Black lives in their final rest- White’s Tabernacle No. 39, bought two paring place at River Road Moses Cemetery not cels of land on River Road that would become the cemetery. Developed in the same only matter, but continue to be honored. In April, Bethesda Self-Storage Partners vein as mutual-aid organizations across the LLC began construction on land adjacent African diaspora in the Americas, White’s to the historic African American cemetery Tabernacle promoted Black empowerment. At a time when Jim on River Road. No one Crow segregation limknows exactly where ited where Black people the boundaries of the could be born, go to cemetery are, how school, eat a meal, and many people are bureven be buried, orgaied in the cemetery, or nizations like White’s where those once inTabernacle defrayed terred there now lie. burial costs or provided Because of this, the a place for members BACC feels this conto be buried, providstruction “risks the desed assistance to sick ecration of these burial members, and put on grounds,” according to celebrations like Emana statement from Revcipation Day parades. erend Segun Adebayo A similar organization, of Macedonia Baptist Morningstar TaberChurch, and must be nacle No. 88 in Gibson stopped immediately. Grove, near Cabin John, The Montgomery Counhosted dances, dinners, ty Planning Departand meetings with liment, which is part of turgical readings. the Maryland-National By K ristina Gaddy One reason White’s Capital Park and PlanPhotoGraPhs By Tabernacle specifically ning Commission, and wanted to establish BSSP disagree, howdarrow MontGoMery a cemetery on River ever, and see no need to Road was because the stop construction. Contention regarding the delineation of first Moses Cemetery in D.C. was under the cemetery, questions about what parcels of threat of development. Its leaders wanted to land people are actually buried in, and ram- transfer those buried in that cemetery to the pant development that either didn’t recog- new plot of land they bought on River Road. nize or disregarded the cemetery’s existence Historian David Rotenstein, who compiled have persisted for years after the centuries of a report on the history of Moses Cemetery, enslavement, oppression, and segregation in writes, “there were no subsequent reports on Montgomery County. The request to stop con- whether the graves in the Tenleytown cemstruction arises from what the BACC feels is etery were actually excavated and the markmorally right and its mistrust of the develop- ers and bodies relocated,” meaning people ers, the County Council, County Executive could still be buried under what is today Marc Elrich, and Montgomery Planning’s Chevy Chase Parkway NW. Although death notices in the Washingintent to “do the right thing,” says Joshua Odton Star note Jeremiah and Cora’s place of intz, the pro-bono lawyer for the BACC. burial as Moses Cemetery, their gravesites This stretch of River Road two miles and those of the others buried there would northwest of D.C. was once home to a tight- be impossible to find without substantial arknit Black community that turned to each cheology, including ground-penetrating raother for support in the face of segregation. dar and digging test trenches, according to a In 1869, just five years after Maryland abol- 2017 report by The Ottery Group. Today, Macedonia Baptist Church is ished slavery, African Americans began buying and renting property on River Road, shadowed by a massive, 19-floor residential some living in cabins where they had for- building called The Kenwood. When Colemerly lived while enslaved. The River Road man-Adebayo first saw Macedonia, she reSchool was one of 15 segregated schools in calls, “to me, it just looked like a little Black Montgomery County funded by philanthro- church.” She knows that it may look out of pist Julius Rosenwald, the county, and do- place next to the larger buildings that domi-
BURIAL GROUND In Bethesda, people are protesting construction that they say risks the desecration of a historic Black burial site.
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Left Page Brian Farrow, local musician This Page Upper: Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, leader of the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition, conducts multiple weekly protests with participants of all ages. Lower: Karen Wilson-Ama’Echefu has written songs in honor of the cemetery.
nate this part of Bethesda. But now that she knows the history of the area, she says, “The question should be, ‘What are these businesses doing here?’” Harvey Matthews, who grew up on River Road where a Whole Foods stands today, has shared his experiences with the community’s displacement by development and regularly speaks during the Moses Cemetery protests, which now take place multiple times a week. He remembers when the bulldozers came to start construction on the Westwood Tower Apartments in the 1960s. In 1958, White’s Tabernacle sold the cemetery property. The full terms of the sale are not known, Rotenstein notes in his report, so whether the graves were supposed to be moved is also unknown. When developer Laszlo Tauber built Westwood Shopping Center and Westwood Tower, Rotenstein tells City Paper, “the presence of graves or a cemetery was not an issue” for Montgomery County or the developers. Community members knew it was an issue. Witnesses say dirt was moved from the cemetery to other parcels of land and that whistles on the construction site blew as human remains were found. Matthews remembers the construction of the parking lot that now covers part of the cemetery and recalls seeing gravemarkers pushed underground. He says predatory real estate agreements and developers “beating the people out of their homes” led to the destruction of the community. Coleman-Adebayo sees it as illegal land theft. As the Black community in this part of Montgomery County shrunk, development grew.
Montgomery Planning’s current vision for lower River Road would bring more businesses and development to the neighborhood. In 2014, they began working on the Westbard Sector Plan with a vision to create a “vibrant village center” with more stores, offices, restaurants, housing, and green space. Gwen Wright, director of the Montgomery County Planning Department, says Sterling King, the former pastor of Macedonia Baptist Church, “came to a number of the meetings. He came to the planning board work sessions on the master plan, testified at the county council public hearing, and spoke to our staff on a number of occasions.” As the Westbard Sector Plan moved forward, King left Macedonia Baptist Church and Coleman-Adebayo, a member of the church, became concerned that Montgomery Planning was not properly taking the area’s historic Black community into account. She attended a planning meeting and says, “they started talking about the sector plan, and that there were ‘rumors’ [of a cemetery], that it was an ‘alleged’ cemetery.” She spoke with community and church members about the history of the area, and found the idea that the cemetery was no longer there impossible to believe. She talked to Matthews and what he told her brought her to tears. “I kept asking, ‘You mean they put a parking lot on top of our community?’” she says. In 2015, Montgomery Planning Senior Planner for Historic Preservation Sandra Youla’s research confirmed that two parcels of land, designated as numbers 175 and 177,
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had been owned by White’s Tabernacle and used as a graveyard, and that Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission’s sewer construction in 1930 and the 1960s and the construction of the Westwood Tower and parking lot all disturbed the area to such an extent that burials may have shifted from the original cemetery land onto adjacent parcels. Early in the development planning stages, Montgomery Planning seemed unwilling to admit this. Emails from a 2017 public information request revealed that during a 2015 tour of the Westbard Sector Plan area, employees of Montgomery Planning wanted to avoid bringing up the cemetery, even though they were aware of Youla’s research showing the cemetery’s historic location and the possibility that there may have been graves on adjacent land. The approved Westbard Sector Plan and Appendix have conflicting statements about the existence and location of the cemetery. While the Sector Plan states, “the cemetery is no longer extant, the land having been sold in 1958,” Montgomery Planning acknowledges in the Appendix that the land was sold, but the cemetery could very much still be in existence, writing “there is potential for human remains to be located within the proposed project area” and that the Parks Department “recommends that a cemetery delineation be conducted.” It goes on to state that the Maryland Historic Trust’s best practices recommend “these surveys take place as early as possible in the planning process.” After compiling his report, Rotenstein also believes that the massive amount of ground moving in the area disturbed the burials. “It’s not improper to think there are burials outside of the cemetery proper,” he says. He also points out that “the cemeteries of the people of African descent are perceived and interacted with in different ways.” “The dirt and the associated space is sacred space,” he says. By February 2017, as part of the Westbard Sector Plan development, the Montgomery Planning Board was willing to compel developer Regency Centers to complete a “cemetery delineation and archeology assessment.” The assessment was supposed to include ground-penetrating radar, an archeologist or team experienced in “African American burial practices to investigate potential unmarked grave locations,” and engagement with the BACC. This would have only been on parcel 175, however, since the other part had been sold. If remains were found, “further archeological assessments will be required.” Macedonia Baptist Church and the BACC wanted an expert archeologist to monitor the work. They contacted Michael Blakey, the National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of Anthropology and American Studies at the College of William & Mary, who worked as the scientific director at the New York African Burial Ground Project, and Rachel Watkins, an associate professor of anthropology at American University. Blakey says they would have been there to make sure that the ethical standards of the field would be met. However, in June 2018, Regency Centers dropped the cemetery land from their development plans, which meant they would not have to conduct the archeology assessment. Even though multiple reports and ex-
pert opinions made it clear that Regency’s development on adjacent lots could uncover remains or funerary objects, a cemetery delineation was no longer going to happen. “We understand historic cemeteries sometimes didn’t have perfect boundaries,” Wright says, but “we, as the government, cannot go onto private land and do archeological work at our discretion.” At the same time, she admits the planning office could have conceivably asked the private property owners for permission to do the delineation. “What we were trying to do was to actually make that investigation a requirement of their ability to get any kind of development on the property,” she says. During this debate in 2017, BSSP submitted an application for the development of a storage unit. Located behind a McDonald’s and between the Capital Crescent Trail and the Willett Branch, the land included parcel 177, part of the land originally owned by White’s Tabernacle, and adjacent plots, where the BACC believes burials have taken place or where burials could have shifted during the construction of Westwood Towers. When the planning department and community members brought up in public hearings and statements that parcel 177 was a known part of the cemetery, BSSP decided to deed that land to Montgomery Parks and agreed that if any human remains were found, they would stop construction, per Maryland law. In 2019, after they deeded the land, Montgomery Planning determined
that BSSP needed to hire an archeologist to monitor drilling on the piece of land closest to the cemetery, but did not require cemetery delineation or ground-penetrating radar. The lack of cemetery delineation means that the stakeholders cannot agree on a basic fact of the case. The BACC points to oral histories stating that graves were present on the east side of the Willet Branch, where construction is happening. Furthermore, internal and external reports, including from Rotenstein and Youla, state that the area had been disturbed, the current state of the cemetery is undetermined, and “burials may extend beyond the formal lot lines of these four parcels,” according to Montgomery Parks’ Dominic Quattrocchi in a 2017
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Planning document. The four parcels refer to the two parcels owned by White’s Tabernacle and two parcels that include Westwood Towers, a parking lot, and a wooded area. While the BSSP knew about the history of the area and the cemetery, “the research, the digs that we’ve done in partnership with the planning commission suggest that we are not on the Moses Cemetery,” says Jarvis Stewart, a spokesperson hired by BSSP. Alexandra Jones, an archeologist whose doctoral dissertation focused on the African American community in Gibson Grove and who was hired by BSSP for archaeological oversight, agrees that the current construction is not on a burial site. She says part of the
cemetery next to the Willet Branch was sold in 1930 for the construction of a sewer line. “You’re not going to sell land where your brothers and sisters are buried,” and allow for that desecration, she says. For that reason, she thinks that there wouldn’t be any burials to the east of the Willet Branch. She does believe that two parcels adjacent to the cemetery, numbered 238 and 240, “need to have extensive archeological work.” Those parcels are now paved over. The descendants of Morningstar Tabernacle No. 88, whom Jones has worked with for 10 years, also feel that the narrative put forth by the BACC about Moses Cemetery is not accurate. In a letter published on Aug. 10 of this year, they write that the BACC “provided no documentation to support their narrative or their denouncements of current research on the River Road site.” The BACC disputes this, and Coleman-Adebayo responded in a letter, writing that Moses Cemetery “contains the souls of esteemed and beloved members of Macedonia Baptist Church including the Burley, Rivers, Brown,
present on-site starting on April 27, and have been providing weekly reports on their archeological findings. On July 18, Stewart provided an archeology report that mentioned bones to City Paper. While it clearly states that, “no funerary items, human remains, or evidence of a grave feature were observed during excavation or screening” on any day of construction,
Left Page Left: Harvey Matthews, who regularly speaks at the Moses Cemetery protests Center: Macedonia Baptist Church This Page Segun Adebayo, pastor of Macedonia Baptist Church
Jackson, Thomas and Clipper families.” On July 29, volunteers with the BACC took photos of large slabs of rock, which they felt could be memorials indicative of a cemetery. The official archeology report from Wetlands Studies and Solutions Inc., the company hired by BSSP to conduct archeological work onsite, states, “the curbs are rough-cut weathered rock, like granite and local bedrock. No markings or inscriptions are present on the stones.” Jones says slabs like these are not the types of headstones found in African American cemeteries in Montgomery County. Another issue the BACC has brought up throughout the course of development in the area is the lack of transparency from Montgomery Planning, Montgomery County, and BSSP. They call the 2015 emails about the project obtained through a public information request a “cover up” and believe vital information about what is happening on the land is being kept from them. On the same day the stones were photographed, Tammy Hilburn, an archeologist working with the BACC, captured photos of
workers looking at glass bottles. Elizabeth Crocker, a cultural anthropologist and volunteer for the BACC, says, “glass bottles like that are incredibly common funerary objects in African diaspora burials in places like America, South America, and the Caribbean.” These bottles were not included in the archeology report, which Crocker says is, “highly suspicious and unprofessional.” When asked about this omission, Stewart told City Paper that Jones and Boyd Sipe, the archeologist from WSSI, said the bottles were “found alongside other objects, including mid-20thcentury beer cans and mixed fill deposits associated with prior 20th-century demolition and construction.” They felt that these bottles alone were not indicative of a burial site. When the BACC held an interfaith press conference at the construction site on July 6, Odintz, the lawyer working with the BACC, said they didn’t know if archeologists were present on-site or whether any of the soil was being sifted for human remains or funerary objects. According to Stewart, the archeologists were
it reports that on July 2, two bone fragments were discovered. After examination by skeletal biologist Dana Kollman, they were “confirmed to be a non-human faunal remain.” By July 20, the BACC said that report had still not been shared with them. “They should theoretically send the report to us, but we have not seen it,” Odintz said at the time. “They have decided not to send reports to stakeholders in the community.” He added, “just looking at the bones is insufficient. Further testing has to be done in a laboratory.” During a heated Montgomery Planning Board meeting on July 23, when BSSP needed approval to amend their construction plan, many community members submitted oral and written statements demanding that construction cease immediately. Elrich, the county executive, submitted a written statement suggesting that BSSP “allow an archeologist chosen by the descendant community to have an opportunity to review the process of excavation” and that a small number of people “be allowed to be present on site so that they can observe the soil as it’s being removed.” (Elrich did not respond to multiple requests for comment.) At the end of the hearing, the board did not vote to stop construction, but said that BSSP “must provide to an archeologist chosen by the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition, for review and comment, all archeological reports and documentation … as well as reasonable access to physical artifacts discovered” on the property, at the discretion of the WSSI archeologists.
Although this was not what the BACC wanted, it seemed like a step in the right direction. But, as the archeologist selected by the BACC, Blakey says he has not been able to comment on the reports or the artifacts. “I have not been given access to the site except under unacceptable conditions such as that the Coalition gives up its First Amendment right to protest and that I come only at a limited pre-agreed time every other week,” he says. The planning board’s decision further escalated tensions among community members, the developer, and the government. On July 26, someone entered the construction site and “used rocks or a hammer to damage construction equipment and spray-paint obscenities on heavy-duty machinery, dumpsters, trailer doors, and the retaining wall,” according to BSSP. BSSP then increased private security on-site, and police presence has become more regular. During a press conference at Macedonia Baptist Church on Aug. 12, at least one Montgomery County police officer was present at the site while no protestors were present. In response, the BACC asked National Lawyers Guild Legal Observers to monitor the police for unconstitutional behavior. “We have compelled [BSSP] to dedicate a large portion of [the land] to the public so that it will be in public ownership forever after and we can appropriately study and commemorate the history of that piece of land,” Wright says. Stewart says BSSP has “not only met the requirements of the County and the Planning commission, we’ve exceeded them in many ways.” They are not legally required to stop construction, he says, and instead, they want to have their archeologists meet with Blakey and be “fully transparent.” “We’re not doing it for any optics, we’re doing it because it’s the right thing to do,” he says. “The developers want to do the right thing, and honor this admirable site.” But a meeting with community stakeholders, the archeologists, and property owner has not yet been scheduled, and the members of the BACC continue to feel that BSSP, Montgomery County, and Montgomery Planning are not doing the right thing. “It is unethical to make a community that cares about its cemetery stand on the other side of a construction fence in a McDonald’s parking lot, becoming more and more upset that they are not even being informed about whether or not their ancestral remains are being disturbed, and whether or not what they are looking at is the desecration of their sacred sites,” Blakey says. As construction continues, the protests have been growing in size. “Time and time again, our communities are decentralized and dislocated, and forgotten about, and cities and city officials want to improve everything but don’t know the history of the land, and people’s histories get dug up and tossed aside,” says Farrow, who doesn’t want to see yet another Black cemetery paved over. Coleman-Adebayo believes that a moral accounting has to take place. “The land should be returned back to Macedonia Baptist Church,” she says. “It was stolen from the community. It should be returned back to the community.”
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ARTS
Dramatic Pause
Darrow Montgomery
Adjusting to a new reality, theaters ponder their futures in the pandemic era.
The Keegan Theatre By James Jarvis Contributing Writer Taffety Punk Theatre Company’s spring production of In The Belly of The Whale closed before it could open. The coronavirus pandemic forced the show to shut down, just as it has caused theaters in D.C. and around the world to suspend in-person performances indefinitely. Now, the company’s artistic director, Marcus Kyd, wonders what’s next. “How long are we going to ride this through?” he asks. Since March, theaters in the District have been consumed with questions of when and how they should reopen. But recently, many theater administrators have started asking if they should reopen at all. With public health still a concern and with no vaccine currently available, it could be another six months to a year before theaters resume live performances. And a recent poll conducted by Shugoll Research shows a majority of theatergoers would be hesitant to return. It was early March and Kyd was 1,000 miles away rehearsing for a show in Little Rock, Arkansas, when he heard Taffety Punk was considering suspending its operations and rushed back to D.C. Two days later, it did. “I just remember the crazy difference that two days made as real data started coming in about how quickly it was spreading,” Kyd says. “I feel like we’ve been in that loop ever since.” Kyd, like many theater administrators around the country, expected Taffety Punk would probably resume rehearsals and show openings after just a few weeks. But most theater stages remain dark. “The key thing here is that there is no date for reopening,” says Serge Seiden, the managing director and producer at Mosaic Theater
Company. “There is only the safety of all the people involved.” Several theater companies, including Mosaic, Studio Theatre, and Keegan Theatre, say they won’t consider putting on live performances until 2021 because of the risk to public safety. Even if they could reopen sooner, there is no guarantee that audiences will return. “There will still be people for whom coming to the theater is not a good idea,” Seiden says. “For their own health, for the health of others, it’s going to be better for them to not do it. It’s too dangerous.” Mark Shugoll, the CEO of Shugoll Research in Bethesda, has served on the boards of multiple area theaters. He conducted an online survey in July to gauge the willingness of theatergoers to attend live performances in the D.C. area. “This is a large sample survey of theatergoers that are conclusively saying, for the most part, I’m not ready,” Shugoll says. The survey sampled 743 theatergoers of all ages in the D.C. area, and 16 percent of theatergoers said they would attend shows right away if theaters were to reopen immediately. But more than 50 percent of theatergoers say they are likely to wait until May or June 2021 to attend in-person performances, and that group increased to 73 percent for performances in September 2021 or later. Alexandria resident Barbara Bear, 78, estimates she has seen more than 5,000 performances in the D.C. area since the early 1960s, according to DC Theatre Scene. She says she would go to see live performances if theaters reopen, but only if they take the proper precautions, like requiring masks or taking people’s temperature at the door. “I am anxious to go back,” Bear says. “But I would like to know how it’s going to be set up. I
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would like to know how they’re going to organize their seats.” Melanie Adams, 30, lives in Dupont Circle and used to see live performances in D.C. once or twice a month before the pandemic. She says she feels uncomfortable with the idea of watching live theater again, even with safety precautions in place. “If we were talking about like next week or a month from now, my concern would be how much space is between me and my other theatergoers,” Adams says. Local theater leaders say they are creating safety protocols so that they will be ready to reopen when the time comes. Apart from health concerns, however, some theater administrators worry that it may not be economically viable to reopen, even with protocols in place. “Theater, unfortunately, the way it is paid for is very front heavy,” says Beth Amann, the cofounder and managing director at Monumental Theatre Company. “You’re putting in money to supplies, materials, and artists before you see any revenue back.” Amann says Monumental rents venues for their performances and puts on shows with contract employees. Variable overhead makes them more flexible. Theaters that own their own venues and have full-time staff are in a more precarious position. “We don’t make money by producing theater, right?” says Rebecca Ende Lichtenberg, the managing director at Studio Theatre. “If we did, we wouldn’t be nonprofits. So we’re already essentially operating at a loss from an earned income.” Studio Theatre owns its venue, and between the danger the virus poses and the production costs, Lichtenberg says the company doesn’t anticipate beginning live performances until the city institutes Phase Three of its reopening plan, when audiences may be more willing to see live performances. “We’re really lucky: We own our housing and our main facility outright,” Lichtenberg says. “We’re not having to pay down debt on top of navigating operating costs, which, I think, in this moment, is an advantage to sort of financially trying to weather this.” But Studio has still had to furlough much of its staff, including Lichtenberg, through July, and several do not have a recall date yet. “For example, our audience services team, we expect them to be recalled six weeks before we’re able to start producing theater again,” Lichtenberg says. ”It’ll take sort of six weeks for them to prep to welcome audiences back. Monumental, Studio, Mosaic, Keegan, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre each have plans to generate online content to mitigate some of their financial troubles and keep their staff working. The Keegan Theatre, for example, has been offering online educational arts programs for children of all ages since March, and recently started livestreaming performances in an effort to bring work to people in the industry and raise money for outside arts organizations. “As this drags on and as we see theaters across the country having to scale down, the artists’ community is definitely one that we need to make sure we are helping and taking care of in any way that
we can,” says Alexis Hartwick, Keegan’s director of education and administration. Lichtenberg says Studio is hoping to make virtual content, such as audio-plays and streaming theater productions, available to both subscribers and wider audiences if people don’t feel comfortable attending physically. According to Shugoll Research’s survey, roughly 66 percent of theatergoers have watched online performances during the pandemic, but only 25 percent said they would be likely to pay for that content in the future. Nonetheless, both Keegan and Studio leaders say they are confident they will survive the pandemic because they have the financial resources— savings and generous donors—to remain afloat in the near term. Shugoll sees the results of this latest survey as bad news for theaters hoping to begin generating much-needed revenue as soon as possible. “I have no doubt that some theaters aren’t going to make it,” he says, “and that makes me very sad, but that’s just the fact of the matter.” Anacostia Playhouse, a venue in Southeast D.C., is in danger of closing down because it lacks the resources that more established theaters possess. “I mean, you want to talk about the disparity east and west of the river?” says Adele Robey, its executive director. “Don’t get me started.” Robey does not own the Anacostia Playhouse’s building, and its primary source of income was theater companies booking the venue. But during the last five months, she has relied on donations and grants from the city to pay rent, utilities, and insurance. “I’m constantly in a state of unrest because I don’t have any idea right now what my future is,” she says. Because Anacostia Playhouse will remain closed until at least January 2021, Robey is looking into streaming online performances, but she remains unsure if the theater will survive the pandemic. “We’ll just pray that we make it through,” Robey writes in an email. “There’s no guarantee.” There are consequences, however, if theater companies don’t reopen and start hiring back artists and creative personnel soon. “There’s going to be a point very soon that I can’t wait to see whether or not I’m going to work again,” says Kyd, who is also a working actor and musician. “Like, I might have to find something outside of the theater to try and support me and my family.” Right now, there appears to be broad consensus that theaters should remain closed to protect the public. “We’re gonna get sick,” Kyd says. “I don’t want to be responsible for that, you know?” Aaron Posner, a playwright, theater director, and full-time faculty member at American University’s Department of the Performing Arts, says he and his wife, a full-time actress, lost almost all their work because of the pandemic. Yet he supports theater administrators making tough decisions to keep the industry alive. “If the artistic directors, managing directors, and the leadership of the theaters don’t keep working and if they don’t make themselves their priority, then there will not be a theater to come back to when things are ready,” Posner says.
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Tex Andrews
ARTS GALLERY REVIEW
Tex Andrews
Above: “DOUBLE CANDLE” by Sterling Ruby, 2018 Left: “We Come in Peace” by Huma Bhabha, 2018
Bhabha’s Yaga “We Come in Peace” and “DOUBLE CANDLE” At the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden A creature has arisen from the lower worlds. A witchy figure with twisted features and five furious faces. A swamp thing that looks like it crawled out of the muck, pushed a statue off its pedestal, and took up residence as the new big bad in town. Huma Bhabha’s “We Come in Peace” (2018) is an unmissable, unmistakable new addition at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. The statue by the Pakistan-born artist now greets visitors as they descend into the well of the museum’s submerged outdoor park, which reopened to the public on Aug. 17. Where for years people once filed past a modernist equestrian bronze (by Marino Marini), they will now be confronted by Bhabha’s otherworldly emissary. The experience may be unsettling. “We Come in Peace” promises a pact, as if an outlandish extraterrestrial had just emerged from the saucer-shaped Hirshhorn building,
olive branch in hand. Yet the sculpture embodies contradictory ideas about safety and stability. Bhabha’s grotesque figure isn’t threatening, exactly. With its long arms pinned to its side, the sculpture appears to be docile—as if this misunderstood monster is surrendering to public display. Bhabha’s piece is crude, yet captivating. Divided into three horizontal bands of color, the statue has a magenta head, a teal torso, and a lower body the tone of sludge. “We Come in Peace” has the same ramshackle quality as an exquisite corpse drawing. The sculpture was cast in solid bronze but first carved from fugitive materials—cork for the lower third, styrofoam for the upper sections—to emphasize its antithetical nature. Its closest kin anywhere in the city might be Louise Bourgeois’ looming “Spider” (1996–97) at the National Gallery of Art’s sculpture garden, another sculpture that conveys danger and fragility. At nearly 14 feet tall, “We Come in Peace” is monumental in its scope. Yet its arrival is a direct challenge to the whole notion of monumentality. Standing in pride of place on the National Mall, Bhabha’s sculpture dovetails with national conversations about statues and how we, as a people, choose to express identity. With its scarred breasts, gaping navel, and paint-dashed toenails, the figure
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suggests femininity without embracing any essentialist notions about gender. A splotch of paint over the crotch is a gestural dab, while the dots on its buttocks are precise. New ideas about representation—about art—are dangerous. Despite the titular pledge of assurance, “We Come in Peace” is here to overthrow dusty ideas about the figure. With the new piece by Bhabha, the Hirshhorn is making good on a promise to rethink its longoverlooked sculpture garden. “We Come in Peace” is joined by another new work, Sterling Ruby’s “DOUBLE CANDLE” (2018), a sly image of the Twin Towers as they burned on Sept. 11. The additions by Bhabha and Ruby, artists who are at the forefront of contemporary practice, are a sign that the Hirshhorn is not content to merely make do with old bronzes. Both of these pieces come at a time when artists are re-engaging with practices that were declared dead only a few years ago. Abstract painting rocked the art market in the era before the coronavirus pandemic made art fairs impossible; a backlash against so-called “zombie formalism” has taken the form of figurative painting and traditional sculpture. Neither Bhabha nor Ruby’s works are revanchist, by any means, but they do embrace time-honored practices in artmaking. Bhabha’s nightmare may look like a cartoonish Batman villain, but it’s a splendid piece of craft.
Sculpture gardens too often read like graveyards for artworks, static sites where vital pieces by Auguste Rodin or Henry Moore can’t shine and new ideas by the likes of Bhabha or Ruby never show up. With a planned renovation by photographer and designer Hiroshi Sugimoto, the Hirshhorn hopes to make its sculpture garden a place for performance, installation, and changing exhibitions. In recent years, the museum has delivered on new possibilities— through a 1992 Chrysler Spirit crushed by a volcanic boulder (Jimmie Durham’s 2007 “Still Life with Spirit and Xitle”) and an enormous polkadotted gourd (Yayoi Kusama’s 2016 “Pumpkin”). Rarely do visitors come away from a sculpture park feeling belly laughs, but here, it happens. With Bhabha’s piece—which is it? Are we supposed to laugh or are we supposed to cry? The thing that keeps coming to me is how the piece signifies trauma, the kind of unspoken terrors that lurk behind children’s fairy tales. Things that go bump in the night aren’t supposed to be seen by day. “We Come in Peace” speaks to the anxiety that adults are feeling, too, as the country falters, as its economy collapses, as its people die needless deaths. Bhabha’s contribution to the National Mall is jarring—playful, sinister, and disorienting, as if it’s been there all along, but we’ve only just now let ourselves see it. —Kriston Capps
ARTS FILM REVIEW
DIVERSIONS CROSSWORD
Musical Parts By Brendan Emmett Quigley
Even in an era stuffed with sequels that no one asked for and franchises that cannot be stopped, it’s a marvel that Bill & Ted Face the Music exists. Yes, the stars of the franchise— which include 1989’s Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and 1991’s Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey—have been talking it up for years, but it always seemed more like a pipe dream than a plan. No one needed another movie about two endearing SoCal metalheads with a knack for traveling through time and various dimensions, but in an era bereft of creative boldness, nostalgia for niche products qualifies as originality. So here we are. The film meets back up with Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) in the throes of a mutual mid-life crisis, with their marriages to the princesses (in case you forgot, they picked them up in the Middle Ages) falling apart, along with their dreams of rock stardom. After rising to the heights of fame with their band Wyld Stallyns, the aging airheads are now reduced to couples counseling and playing local bars. They’re considering giving up music for good, when a visitor from the future (Kristen Schaal) arrives with news: For reasons mercifully unexplained, Bill and Ted have just a few hours to write a song that will save the world, and if they don’t, time and space will collapse onto itself. Split between a sequel and a reboot, the script follows parallel plots. Daunted by the challenge, Bill and Ted travel to various futures to try to steal the song they will eventually write from their older selves. In these scenes, Reeves and
Bill & Ted Face the Music is available Friday on VOD.
Across 1. Software release that’s full of bugs 5. “Drop whatever project you’re working on� 9. Banana-like fruit 14. Free from fat 15. Real dunce 16. Banish from the country 17. Landed after gliding 18. Going both ways 19. Very little change 20. Drop off the kid at day care? (I hear you got an organ that creates bile) 23. Ones who work at the Post office?: Abbr. 24. Strange 25. Canoeing need 26. Kitchen spray 29. Some Sony laptops 31. Basketball announcer with the catchphrase “This is awesome, baby!� 33. Big name in veggie burgers 36. With 42-Across, Aladdin production with only the wish granter? (I hear you got a patella)
21. Intl. news broadcaster 22. Avatar race 26. Mapleworth Murders star Pell 27. Make a few changes 28. Union general at Gettysburg 29. Bona fide 30. One’s place 32. Sporty Ford 33. His number 26 was retired by the Red Sox 34. It ain’t over until the fat lady sings 35. Venice feature 37. Ray Liotta’s Goodfellas role 39. Permeate 43. 1982 cult scifi movie set in a computer 44. Mesh behind a keeper 48. Mike’s candy partner 51. Section in LSAT 53. Case reviewer 54. Hamburger topping 55. Hit the half-pipe 56. Spa treatment 57. Java lines 58. Disconcert 59. Place for flatscreen shoppers 60. Nat. that negotiated a peace deal with Israel in August 2020 61. Long intro?
Directed by Dean Parisot
Bill & Ted Face the Music
Unchanged Melody
Winter don heavy prosthetics and ludicrous wigs, but only one of them is up to the task. Often a mesmerizing film presence, Reeves has never excelled at modulation, and he feels well out of his depth in what amounts to a series of broad comic sketches. Winter fares better, disappearing under the make-up and wig work, and attacking his characterization with comic glee. Meanwhile, their daughters, Billy (Samara Weaving) and Thea (Brigette Lundy-Paine), embark on a half-hearted retread of the first film, traveling to the past to collect legendary musicians that will form a supergroup and help their fathers fulfill their destiny. Much as the first film seemed designed as a hip history lesson for children, Bill & Ted Face the Music does the same for music history. The girls meet Jimi Hendrix, who turns them onto Miles Davis, who leads them to Mozart. It’s a neat idea, but the film fails to uncover any potential for comedy in it. It’s a problem that runs through the film. There isn’t much of a story here, and, outside of a welcome return by the Grim Reaper (William Sadler), there are even fewer laughs. Instead, it mostly relies on our delight at simply seeing these characters together again, unchanged after all these years. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t work on me. Despite its many flaws, Bill & Ted Face the Music miraculously recaptures the spirit of innocence that is key to the whole thing. Just like its protagonists, it’s sweet, stupid, and imbued with an earnest belief that music can save the world. You can’t help but root for this film’s success. Consider its only major star: Reeves, currently enjoying a career renaissance with the John Wick franchise, has no business starring in a low-budget experiment like this one, but he clearly loves these characters, and love, as another rock legend once explained, is all you need. —Noah Gittell
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washingtoncitypaper.com august 28, 2020 17
CITY LIGHTS City Lights
Black Journal
City Lights
More Than a Word After a summer of uprising against systemic racism, specifically anti-Black racism, and decades of pressure from Native activists, the Washington NFL team reluctantly agreed to (eventually) change its infamous name. As of publication, they are officially the “Washington Football Team,” new name pending. That it took so long is a testament to how ingrained white supremacy is in America—and still, callous defenders claim the slur is “just a word.” But it’s not, and it never was, argues More Than a Word, a 2017 documentary by two enrolled members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, brothers John and Kenn Little. The documentary dives into the history of the slur, its derogatory use, and the broader landscape of sports mascots and corporate logos that use caricatures of Native people. It’s a good companion to the National Museum of the American Indian’s long-running exhibition Americans, which “highlights the ways in which American Indians have been part of the nation’s identity since before the country began” in pop culture, art, and history. Fittingly, the NMAI will host a virtual screening of More Than a Word followed by a streamed conversation with Kevin Gover, the museum’s director and a citizen of the Pawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, and Diné activist Amanda Blackhorse, a plaintiff in the 2014 lawsuit Blackhorse v. Pro Football, Inc. who is featured in the film. The film streams at 7 p.m. on Aug. 28 and 3 p.m. on Aug. 29 at americanindian.si.edu. Free. —Emma Sarappo
City Lights
Transcribe for the Smithsonian Transcription Center In this week’s New Yorker, staff writer Doreen St. Félix writes about the experience of watching the news show Black Journal, which launched in 1968, in 2020. It resonates across the decades: The premiere episode, St. Félix says, is “decidedly of its time, which was, like ours, one of transformation, violent and hopeful by turns.” Episodes are now available online via the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (a collaboration between the Library of Congress and WGBH in Boston), and segments can also be found in the online collection of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. On Black Journal, viewers could see Alice Coltrane interviewed about music, spirituality, and her family three years after the death of her husband John—a rare clip, according to a description for a screening earlier this week that was introduced by Rhea Combs, the museum’s curator for photography in film. They could also watch a frank, nearly hourlong segment where Black soldiers and ranked officers talk about the racism they experience in the military during the Vietnam War. What makes Black Journal so fascinating, St. Félix says, is how it highlighted “the complexities of Black fame,” and its political project—it “was tracking a revolution.” Segments are available at nmaahc.si.edu and americanarchive.org. Free. —Emma Sarappo
City Lights
Waiting for Salvation At the beginning of the summer, D.C. bassist and singer Rob “Kalani” Tifford wrangled his quarantine energy into Wabi Sabi: Songs for the Moon, a bare-bones psych-rock EP labeled as art of “impermanence and imperfection,” in tune with the Japanese concept at the front of the title. The plan was that Tifford’s band, Thunderpaw, would “just keep going until we are able to get together as a band again,” he says, and maybe do three EPs total. The process obviously unlocked something, though, because Thunderpaw has now released four EPs in three months, with another coming in September. Tifford’s confidence only seems to be expanding. The latest set of songs, Waiting for Salvation, is an all-too-brief tour of Thunderpaw’s sure-handed garage rock and hallucinogen-infused post-punk (check out “The Ballad of Mary Jane’’ in particular). Tifford, who previously led the D.C. trio Sunwolf, says he’s been recording bass, vocals, drum loops, and guitar sketches, then sending those to guitarist Kenny Pirog for his input. (Drummer Andrew Labens hasn’t been able to contribute while “living the good life” in Montana, Tifford says.) Bonus cut: a compelling cover of “Sons And Daughters,” the 2006 a cappella solo track by Fugazi’s Joe Lally. Thunderpaw’s discography is available at thunderpaw.bandcamp.com. Prices vary. —Joe Warminsky 18 august 28, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com
A lot has happened this year: Outside of the global pandemic and protests against racial injustice, we’re also preparing for a historic presidential election. As a result, many people are looking to become civically engaged, whether by joining a march or tutoring kids who can’t go to school. If you’re looking to learn more about the past in the process, you could help the Smithsonian bring scanned documents from significant periods in American history into their online databases. The Smithsonian Transcription Center offers virtual projects where volunteers—branded as #volunpeers—type out the documents at their leisure. Got a free hour on Saturday morning? You could transcribe the diary of a 1920s farmer or official records from 18th-century bureaucracies. Recently, a group of volunteers helped transcribe more than 100,000 pages from the Freedmen’s Bureau for the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Be a part of history by making it more accessible. The Smithsonian Transcription Center is available at transcription.si.edu. Free. —Kaila Philo
City Lights
DC Writers’ Homes From Zora Neale Hurston to Elizabeth Bishop, an online database of more than 300 writers and their D.C. homes offers a glittering who’s who of Washington literary history. Finesse your explorations using mysterious and glamorous search terms like “genre: romance,” “showbiz,” “society hostesses,” and even “spies & their families” (where you’ll find Julia Child and her lemon meringue-colored Georgetown home). There’s an admirable category for “hosts of literary salons,” where generous intelligentsia like Hilary Tham will invite you into their homes. Tham immigrated from Malaysia to Virginia in 1971 at the age of 25, and was the poetry editor of the Potomac Review while living in her Arlington nook. Under “architecturally significant” homes, you’ll find iconic Logan Circle outposts like the home of Gil Scott-Heron. (The house, incidentally, was built by a former White House tenant and son of a president). Three miles up Connecticut Avenue is the country hometurned-Georgian mansion of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, the first woman to hold a cabinet position in India. She gathered materials for her memoir from her Cleveland Park residence while serving as ambassador to America in 1949. Then there’s the 12th Street YMCA, as it was known, a Renaissance Revival fortress designed by William Sidney Pittman, a trailblazing Black architect (and son-in-law of Booker T. Washington), where Langston Hughes wrote immortal lines. Explore the collection at dcwritershomes.wdchumanities.org. —Emma Francois
CLASSIFIEDS Legal D.C. PREPARATORY ACADEMY REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS OWNER’S REPRESENTATIVE SERVICES D.C. Preparatory Academy Public Charter School in the District of Columbia is seeking competitive proposals from qualified vendors for Owner’s Representative Services for the renovation of a public charter school facility. A copy of the RFP and related materials can be obtained by contacting denglender@dcprep.org. All proposals must be submitted by 5:00 PM on September 9, 2020. NOTICE OF REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS Thurgood Marshall Academy charter school seeks vendor for copiers. For full RFP visit thurgoodmarshallacademy. org/about/employmentopportunities/ or email dschlossman@tmapchs.org Bid review begins Sept. 10, 2020. D.C. BILINGUAL PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL NOTICE: FOR REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL D.C. Bilingual Public Charter School in accordance with section 2204(c) of the District of Columbia School Reform Act of 1995 solicits proposals for vendors to provide the following services for SY20.21: * Soil Removal and Replacement Services Proposal Submission A Portable Document Format (pdf ) election version of your proposal must be received by the school no later than 4:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday, September 8, 2020. Proposals and full RFP request should be emailed to bids@dcbilingual.org No phone call submission or late responses please. Interviews, samples, demonstrations will be scheduled at our request after the review of the proposals only. I DREAM PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL -Notice of Intent to Enter a Sole Source Contract- EL Education Curriculum training and planning services. Please email inquiries to mwhitnall@idreampcs.org by 5:00 PM on 9/4/2020. STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA IN THE FAMILY COURT NINTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT COUNTY OF CHARLESTON
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