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COVER STORY: GIVE IT UP, D.C.

10 Decide where to donate your money and time with our annual giving guide, presented in partnership with the Catalogue for Philanthropy—Greater Washington.

DISTRICT LINE 4 Loose Lips: In addition to his ethical violations, could Jack Evans also face federal fraud charges?

6 Care Package: Patients and workers allege mistreatment and incompetence at a publicly funded mental health clinic.

SPORTS 9 Line Change: Hockey podcasts aren’t just for bros anymore.

FOOD 25 Closing Signs: How to tell if your favorite dining destination is preparing to shutter

ARTS 27 Passport Pictures: Highlights from this year’s European Union Film Showcase 29 Curtain Calls: Yap on Studio Theatre’s Keep. and Kaplan on Theater J’s Occupant 30 Liz at Large: A new cartoon series from local artist Liz Montague 30 Speed Reads: Ottenberg on David Kamens’ A New American Creed 31 Short Subjects: Zilberman on Knives Out

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DISTRICTLINE LOOSE LIPS

Knockin’ on Evans’ Door What laws did Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans potentially break?

LL Logged on to Twitter last week, and almost spit out his coffee.

Headlines featuring words like “indictment,” “guilty,” “fraud,” and “public official” flashed on the screen. “Did it happen?” LL thought to himself. “Is today the day Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans gets indicted?”

But it was former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh who was indicted and then promptly pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion charges for a scandal involving her poorly edited, self-published series of Healthy Holly books for children.

Since 2011, Pugh raked in nearly $800,000 through her home-based company, Healthy Holly LLC, by selling her books to business and nonprofit organizations, many of which had or were seeking business with the state of Maryland and the city of Baltimore. LL is using the term “selling” loosely here. According to the indictment, in some cases, Pugh “sold” more books than she actually printed, double sold others, and used the proceeds to fund her mayoral campaign and buy a house.

Since 2014, Evans has raked in more than $400,000 through his now disbanded, formerly home-based company, NSE Consulting LLC, and by working for law firms on behalf of people and entities doing or seeking business with the District government. LL is using the term “working” loosely here. According to the summary of an investigation by the law firm O’Melveny and Myers, “[Evans] received over $400,000 for doing little or no documented work for consulting clients.”

In interviews with O’Melveny lawyers, Evans struggled to explain the specific work he did for his private clients.

“I was available to do what they needed me to do when they contacted me, if they ever did,” Evan told the lawyers.

Pugh’s case and Evans’ ethics catastrophe are not completely analogous, but the similarities lead LL to wonder: Is NSE Consulting really just a criminal conspiracy to funnel money to the Ward 2 councilmember?

Jeffrey Jacobovitz, a criminal defense attorney who deals with white collar crime, says it’s unclear whether Evans will face criminal

Darrow Montgomery/File

By Mitch Ryals

charges. But the federal statute that could get him in trouble, Jacobovitz says, is known as “honest services fraud.”

That law distinguishes Evans’ situation from Pugh’s, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud, with a side of tax evasion. The difference is essentially the victim. Where Pugh defrauded her customers who purchased her books, victims of Evans’ potential “honest services fraud” would be anyone robbed of the “intangible right of honest services,” or in other words, the public.

Evans would be in good company. Honest services fraud has nailed former New York state Senate leader Dean Skelos, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, former California Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham, Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, along with other wealthy parents who paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to get their kids into elite universities.

The honest services statute has been around since the 1980s and was traditionally an effective tool for prosecutors going after corruption among public officials because it did not require any proof that the defendant benefited.

4 november 29, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

But in the 2010 case of former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling, the U.S. Supreme Court narrowed the scope of honest services fraud to bribery and kickback schemes.

Generally, bribery requires a quid pro quo, or an agreement to give something of value in exchange for an official act. A kickback generally involves an employee steering their company’s business to a third party in exchange for a cut of the profits or a referral fee.

In Skilling’s case, the court rejected the government’s argument that honest services fraud should be construed to “extend as well to ‘undisclosed self-dealing by a public official or private employee—i.e., the taking of official action by the employee that furthers his own undisclosed financial interests while purporting to act in the interests of those to whom he owes a fiduciary duty,’” according to a January 2019 Congressional Research Service report.

Jacobovitz says prosecutors generally don’t need to show a specific statement from Evans agreeing to take a specific action in exchange for money, “but it has to be pretty direct, where he receives a favor or money in return for him granting a favor or money to somebody else.”

He adds that generally “if a prosecutor wants to indict somebody, it’s pretty easy to

do with the grand jury.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office issued subpoenas to the Council and the mayor’s office seeking information about Evans’ consulting clients. Federal agents raided his Georgetown home over the summer, but he has not been charged with a crime.

O’Melveny’s report drips with examples of Evans taking official actions that directly benefited his paying clients.

To wit: • In August 2016, Evans had his staff facilitate special late-night access to a Metro station for one of his NSE clients, Don MacCord, the owner of a digital sign company. Evans also circulated emergency legislation that effectively would have given the company a monopoly on the digital sign market, according to O’Melveny’s report. Evans later withdrew the bill when he realized he didn’t have the votes. MacCord cut Evans two checks for a total of $50,000. Evans claims he returned the checks.

• In November and December 2016, Evans twice voted in favor of a bill that “included funds to maintain buildings associated with, or nearby to, the Squash on Fire facility,” while Anthony Lanier, who owns Squash on Fire and EastBanc Inc., was a client of NSE, according to the report. Lanier agreed to pay Evans a total of $40,000 from November 2016 through June 2019, O’Melveny’s report says.

• In March 2017, Evans introduced a bill giving financial incentives for film, TV, and digital media production facilities while his client, Richard Cohen, was developing a proposal for a sound studio through his real estate company, Willco. Cohen agreed to pay Evans a total of $100,000 from December 2016 through November 2018, according to the report.(Evans tried to tell O’Melveny’s investigators that his actions did not rise to an ethics violation because he had previously supported incentivizing filmmakers to come to D.C., but the lawyers weren’t buying it.

“This notion that if you previously support something, it’s not a conflict if you then take financial interest in the issue and

continue to do the same thing, that’s just sort of bizarre,” Steve Bunnell, one of the O’Melveny attorneys who conducted the investigation testified last week. “[It] doesn’t make any sense, and it’s not part of the code.”)

• In May and June 2017, Evans voted on legislation to keep the District’s parking tax static while he had a contractual agreement with Rusty Lindner, the executive chairman of the Forge Company, which operates parking garages. Lindner agreed to pay Evans $75,000 between October 2016 and January 2019, according to the report.

Lindner was the only one of Evans’ clients who agreed to speak with the O’Melveny investigators. The others invoked their 5th Amendment right protecting against self-incrimination.

In describing NSE, Lindner told investigators the firm was a vehicle for Evans to do the same work he did while employed at different times by the firms Patton Boggs and Manatt. With NSE, however, the profits “would run entirely to [Evans]” rather than Evans receiving a cut of Lindner’s fee, he told O’Melveny.

The question of Evans’ criminal exposure is one lawyers at O’Melveny declined to answer in their 100-page report and during a hearing last week before the ad hoc committee, which will recommend discipline for the embattled lawmaker.

But some of Evans’ colleagues certainly weren’t shy about raising the issue.

At-Large Councilmember Elissa Silverman asked the O’Melveny lawyers last week about the federal law that prohibits public officials from taking actions that affect their personal financial interests. The law also closely mimics the section of the Council’s code of conduct that the O’Melveny investigators believe Evans repeatedly trampled.

The difference between the code and the law, Bunnell explained, is whether Evans willfully violated the law, or if he simply misunderstood it.

“Do you think Mr. Evans’ actions were willful or a misunderstanding?” Silverman asked.

“I don’t think I can answer that question in the general,” Bunnell said. “It has to be assessed in each specific context, and frankly that’s, I believe, a question the U.S. Attorney’s Office is looking at.”

At-Large Councilmember David Grosso, who has gone blue in the face yelling for Evans’ ousting for the past several months, was more direct.

“He did all this for his general financial benefit, and his greed knows no bounds,” Grosso said. “This is not only public corruption, but I believe this is a criminal act, and there’s no question in my mind that he should be expelled from this body.”

Asked in a September interview whether he had future plans for outside consulting work, Evans was finally clear with the O’Melveny lawyers. “Never again,” he told them. “Probably the biggest mistake one makes in life sometimes.”

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DISTRICTLINE

so he could see himself, suggesting he looked bad. Ms. J ended up giving Robinson’s friend $20 to help him get his medication.

“She had the nerve to be laughing and telling [my friend], I’m not getting into her car,” he says. Robinson’s friend confirms what happened.

After the incident, Robinson texted his case manager: “You laughed at my misery and shame. then you told my friend to take a picture. thanks, reporting you tomorrow. I need help and people like you are why I never ask or get it. God Bless you.” Robinson showed City Desk the text, which Ms. J did not reply to, and the photos taken of him.

“Kinara has still not gotten my medicine, and this weekend, I thought about suicide,” he says. “All I’m asking for is help.

I don’t know where to find it right now.”

When City Desk spoke with Robinson on Nov. 4, he was jittery throughout the interview. He took breaks several times during the conversation because he noticed himself get irritable.

Kinara management says they were not aware of the aforementioned incident. They declined to make the caseworker available for comment. But when problems do arise, they say, they are quick to address them.

“I feel good about our internal reporting process and the way that we manage something as long as things are brought to our attention,” says Samantha Slater, a clinician at Kinara who handles compliance. “Our internal reporting process is pretty immediate and pretty comprehensive. Our records are DBH’s records.”

Slater says Kinara recently reported its sole housing liaison, Alfonso Padron, to DBH after he, according to multiple accounts, misled a patient into thinking he was a doctor. Padron denies ever telling anyone he was a doctor. When City Desk reached out to DBH for comment on complaints against Padron, and all the complaints City Desk turned up against Kinara, a spokeswoman responded, “As of 11/21/2019, DBH has no record of complaints regarding Kinara Health [and] Home Health Care.”

LaQuida Tate says she first met PadKinara Health and Home Care Services ron at a church in Northwest D.C. while have mental health issues, but I know what’s she was trying to help someone who was wresreal.” So he takes medication to treat his var- tling with addiction get a birth certificate and a ious illnesses: trazodone, quetiapine, sertra- Social Security card. “I told him I needed help line, and valproic acid. myself,” says Tate. She was also struggling When he ran out of his medication on Oct. with addiction, and Padron suggested Kina24, he asked his case manager to help him get ra could help. more. Kinara writes prescriptions and helps “He acted like a doctor,” Tate says of Padpatients pick up their medicine if they can’t do ron. She even called him “Dr. Alfonso,” and it themselves. Robinson called Ms. J because he’d respond. Padron advised Tate to take he couldn’t operate a car in his condition and time off work over the summer so he could didn’t have enough money for Metro fare. get her into a rehab and detox program. She After many failed attempts, he says, she listened. agreed to meet him. When Ms. J arrived, with When she finally visited Kinara’s office ina minor accompanying her, she refused to get person, “raising hell” for failing to put her into out of the car or let Robinson inside. At one treatment and neglecting to fill out paperwork point she instructed Robinson’s friend, who she needed to return to work, Tate learned Pawas there that day with him, to snap photos dron wasn’t a doctor. Kinara staff later apolo-

Care Package

Patients and workers allege mistreatment and incompetence at Kinara Health and Home Care Services, a mental health care clinic that got $1.1 million in public dollars this year.

By Amanda Michelle Gomez Dozens of proviDers in D.C. offer free or reduced-cost mental health care to residents who qualify for Medicaid. It’s also pretty easy to get connected: Prospective patients can visit D.C.’s Department of Behavioral Health in person or call the Access HelpLine to get matched with any one of the 40 city-certified community-based providers, or Core Services Agencies.

One such provider is Kinara Health and Home Care Services, LLC. It’s certified by DBH and received over $1.1 million in public dollars this year to provide care for some of the city’s most vulnerable patients. Kinara reports and bills to both DBH and Medicaid, the insurance program for people who are low-income or disabled.

But in interviews, eight former Kinara patients—all of whom were either experiencing homelessness or struggling with mental health problems—and two former workers describe troubling practices at Kinara:

Darrow Montgomery

• A patient says the housing liaison misled her into thinking he was a doctor.

• Two patients experiencing homelessness say an outreach worker threatened to beat them up for not turning down their music.

• Kinara outreach workers stand outside homeless shelters trying to recruit new patients, a practice seasoned experts in this work found odd. Meanwhile, Kinara’s founder says anyone can perform outreach.

• Patients believed they’d receive money or housing but left disappointed. (Kinara management denies the provider ever promises money or housing.)

• A patient experiencing homelessness says his case manager laughed at him while he was having a manic episode.

Alex Antonio Robinson Sr. regrets asking for help.

Robinson, who is 40, lives in his car and sometimes stays at Catholic Charities on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE. He struggles with mental health problems, and has used services at various local providers, like

Green Door and Holy Health Care Behavioral Services, and was admitted to the Psychiatric Institute of Washington several times for suicidal ideation.

“Kinara has been the worst,” he tells City Desk outside of Catholic Charities on New York Avenue NE. He says it was always hard to reach his case manager, who he refers to as Ms. J. “Because I’m not your only case … I don’t call you when I want something, I call you when I need something.” The last time he saw Ms. J, Robinson says, she laughed at him as he was having a manic episode.

Robinson has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety. “As a man, I don’t want to feel like I

6 november 29, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

DISTRICTLINE Shandy Iyles also left Kinara disappointed. Iyles first learned of Kinara when she was getting help at So Others Might Eat, an organization that serves residents experiencing homelessness and poverty. A woman outside SOME approached Iyles to tell her about a health care provider she works for—Kinara— that gives patients money and helps them with housing.

Desperate for help, Iyles gave it a chance.

She brought along her sister-in-law, Alicia Williams, who is also homeless, when she paid Kinara a visit. After using its services

During their time with Kinara, a person who performed outreach on behalf of Kinara threatened the two women. Williams tells City Desk that this outreach worker said she’d call family members to “beat my ass.” The incident occurred while the two women were in Kinara’s van, playing music. (Kinara drives patients to daily appointments if they cannot get places themselves.) The outreach worker, who brought her grandson to work that day, told them they couldn’t play their music. When they refused to listen, the outreach worker start-

Darrow Montgomery

gized in an emailed letter to Tate.

City Desk reached out to Padron, who says he never explicitly told anyone he was a doctor. But he says patients sometimes assumed he was because of the way he carried himself.

Kinara management says they scheduled a meeting with Padron once they learned of the incident. “He had done some things that were outside of compliance with HIPAA and then we had got word that he had been representing himself to consumers as a doctor,” says Slater. She says Padron quit Kinara; he confirmed this. Padron now works for another CSA called District Healthcare Services in Southeast D.C. “It is still a struggle,” says Tate. “I ended up being worse off than when I started.” Tate’s employer fired her in mid-November, citing scheduling problems. Her employer says she took too much paid time off. She says she’s doing better, but with help she got herself. Based on her own experience, Tate finds herself questioning Kinara’s intentions: “Are you really here to help or are you here to get money?”

The government pays Kinara for providing patients a diagnostic or assessment, medication or somatic treatment, counseling, and community support. Like most doctors’ offices, Kinara bills when patients see medical staff. It also bills for case managers’ work.

Case managers submit basic notes they take on meeting with patients so providers can get paid, as is customary in this type of social work.

Housing is not one of Kinara’s main objectives. “It’s something that we try to serve and speak to because it’s so prevalent across the population that we see,” says Slater. “If consumers come in and say ‘I’m not looking for mental health services, I’m looking for housing,’ we are not going to see them because that’s not our main mission.”

Some patients have gotten a different impression.

Gilbert Morgan, for example, primarily sought Kinara’s help for housing assistance.

Morgan is a retired mechanic who has stayed at Catholic Charities on New York Avenue NE ever since his former girlfriend kicked him out of their home last Christmas. He left a DBHcertified CSA called Abundant Grace Health Services after a man doing outreach for Kinara introduced him to the agency. After a few months with Kinara, Morgan says his case manager was unhelpful, albeit nice. He cites a time when she arranged to have them visit a unit, but when they arrived nothing was actually available to rent.

“They said they would help get me a place but never did. They just wanted me to see a doctor … They wanted to prescribe me medication. I was like ‘Hell nah, you are not going to prescribe me medication,’” says Morgan. “If no one is going to help me get out of here, I’m going to take my [Social Security] check and I’m going to find a place to live.”

“Some of these agencies, they try hard. We are talking about a population that is difficult to keep track of … folks who need help with a lot of different aspects of their lives. But I think a lot of them are getting a lot of money to do stuff they aren’t really doing.” since the beginning of summer and into the fall, Iyles says Kinara ultimately did not help her. “My daughter would just wait around and wait around for them to show. They didn’t show. They just weren’t consistent on what they were supposed to do for her,” says Alicia’s mother, Savannah Williams.

ed threatening them, Iyles and Williams separately tell City Desk.

“They need to shut it down,” says Iyles.

“They are using people with mental health.”

The outreach worker could not be located for comment, and Kinara says this worker was never technically employed there.

Kinara employs roughly 30 people, including four medical doctors, and serves no more than 300 patients. It’s a young agency.

The provider first registered with the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs in June 2017. Kinara has been DBH-certified for the last two years.

“We play by the book here. We have our set of trainings that we do weekly and biweekly,” says Kinara CEO Dr. Eban Ebai. “Most of our consumers are from Southeast … So for someone to drive from Southeast and get services here, you must know the services are good, because there are so many CSAs there in Southeast.” Kinara is located at 7603 Georgia Ave. NW. Minimal information about Kinara is available online. Its website only provides general information—a lot of stock photos but nothing too specific, especially as compared to similar certified CSAs that list employees, specialities, and the populations they serve. Amazing Love Health Services in Northeast, for example, lists the names and titles of clinical staff on its website, along with years of experience. Latin American Youth Center focuses on low-income young people, ages 11 to 24, per its website. And Absolute Healthcare Resources, based in Fairfax, even details what is expected of case managers on its website.

The District government is Kinara’s main client, says Ebai. While the mental health care provider says it doesn’t target the homeless population, this group makes up a significant portion of Kinara’s case load given that people experiencing homelessness disproportionately suffer from severe mental illness. Kinara’s outreach team has recruited consumers at homeless shelters, according to various patients and one former worker.

Kinara management maintains that the company’s outreach workers aren’t employees of Kinara, technically speaking. They say that the worker who was in a Kinara van with Iyles and Williams, for example, did outreach with the promise of getting permanent employment if she proved herself.

“Anyone could be outreach, you could be outreach,” Jacqueline Adoko, Kinara owner and founder, tells City Desk. She described how it works, citing another outreach worker, Fern Collins, as an example: “Everytime that she goes around and does outreach and comes back with consumers, she gives us a list of the people she brings and how much she has spent on gas. And then calculates it and we pay her.”

Kinara management also denies that it ever gave patients money, as Iyles, other patients, and Collins say. “I’ve heard it is common among newer CSAs to do that or give out a travel stipend—that does happen. But that’s not happening here,” says Slater.

Collins actually stopped working at Kinara, citing the way it treated patients during her time there, which lasted between May and

washingtoncitypaper.com november 29, 2019 7

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For more information, call 301-496-8186 or visit clinicaltrials.gov. Refer to 17-AA-0171.

meet

BETTY SUE

Hi, I’m Betty Sue! I’m a sweet and sensitive hound mix who has had a rough start to life. I am so excited to find a forever home who can give me some love and attention.

In my current foster family I live with another dog and we get along great! I love to lounge and get as many belly rubs as possible. I’m a quiet pup and never bark. I am still learning to walk on a leash and understand basic commands, but I am a quick learner and can’t wait to master all the basic pup skills. I do get carsick, so I would do best in a family where I wouldn’t have to be in the car a lot. I am super well-behaved and just love to lounge all day. I am playful when I get outside and even though I can get scared sometimes, I am learning to be more confident every single day. I will be a great addition to any family and I have so much love to give!

” D VICE VOTE PET SER19 T 0 “BESST OF DC 2

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PROFESSIONAL IN-HOME PET SITTING

Please contact Rural Dog Rescue www.ruraldogrescue.com to complete an application or visit us at the adoption event this Saturday from 12-2 at Howl To The Chief 733 8th Street SE, DC.

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September. Kinara management say they and Collins parted on bad terms because Collins couldn’t complete all the requirements to be a permanent employee and presented a faulty background check. But Collins, who currently works as a case manager at another DBHcertified CSA called Life Enhancement Services, says Kinara slow-walked the employment process, not her. She also claims Kinara owes her money for work. Collins says she reported Kinara to the Office of Accountability at DBH; this office referred City Desk’s questions to a DBH spokesperson, who says the agency received no complaints about the provider.

Collins was deeply disturbed by what she saw happening at Kinara, including staff reactions to the death of one of its former patients, Eric Carter. Carter fatally shot his brother and was immediately killed by police on Sept. 16. Carter had gone to Kinara roughly one week before the shooting because he was struggling with mental illness that spiraled out of control after he became addicted to pain medication, says his sister Renee Carter. After Kinara staff learned about the incident on the news, staff did not immediately reach out to the family.

“You aren’t going to reach out to the family and send your condolences. Y’all are making enough money off of him, why not?” says Collins. “So I went on my own to visit his mom and his sister. I took her to 801 [East Men’s Shelter] to get her brother’s belongings from there.”

Renee confirms that Kinara staff did not contact her until more than two weeks after the shooting. When they finally did, they gave her a Walmart gift card.

“If Eric was treated, he wouldn’t have shot his brother or got himself killed,” Renee says.

Renee has a lot of questions about what happened—namely, did Eric actually get the care he sought? Eric’s girlfriend thought he was acting funny, so he went to see a therapist at Kinara. Renee says he went in for medication on Sept. 4, but did not receive it because Kinara was going to observe him. Renee has been meeting with a lawyer to see how she can get more answers. When she called Kinara to get access to his medical records after her brother’s death, the receptionist said Eric’s file is no longer in the system.

Kinara management says it immediately contacted DBH when they learned about Eric’s death. Slater says, “we cannot comment on specifics … [but] there’s been no investigation or wrongdoings by our governing body on that.”

Based on conversations she’s had with staff, Collins says Kinara is not sensitive to the populations they serve. But she also says Kinara is “operating in a system that’s designed to fail” because, like other CSAs, it is more concerned about “getting as many consumers as possible.”

Collins references a patient she met while

doing outreach named Reginal Pickett. Pickett, who is homeless, has been with a CSA for the last three years. When City Desk spoke with Pickett, he explained that he does not have a birth certificate or Social Security card.

It’s hard to get a job or housing without proof of identification. Collins says his case manager should have helped him with that because Pickett struggles to read or write.

Generally speakinG, Csas—Case managers in particular—have a lot of autonomy due to the nature of the work. Agencies give case managers a lot of flexibility because the populations they serve demand extraordinary attention.

Ann Marie Staudenmaier, a lawyer for the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, has never heard of Kinara but says the number of bad case managers she’s encountered over the years is countless. Her two cents: “They think they can get away with it because no one is going to report it or no one is going to believe it.” Staudenmaier also says the way CSAs operate largely remains a mystery to her, even though she works with a lot of clients who are experiencing homelessness.

“My jaded view of this after being here for 23 years, there are just scam artists out there who get huge government contracts and they are not really doing what they are paid to do,” says Staudenmaier. “Some of these agencies, they try hard. We are talking about a population that is difficult to keep track of … folks who need help with a lot of different aspects of their lives. But I think a lot of them are getting a lot of money to do stuff they aren’t really doing.”

When City Desk asked if Kinara needed more support—perhaps, case managers are overwhelmed—Ebai was quick to reply: “We are fine.”

There is a learning curve to this type of work, says one case manager who works for an established social service organization that helps the homeless in D.C. That’s why a CSA might, for example, try and recruit patients outside shelters. He found the practice odd— the idea of a CSA sending workers to act as a kind of “sales representative”—but read it as a CSA being newer and less experienced.

“There is definitely a difference between an agency that is up-and-coming … and one that is overly preying on available money and exploitable populations,” he says.

Meanwhile, patients in need feel shortchanged. John Ifeanyi, for one, feels this way.

He is 61 and lost everything after being laid off from his security job, and now also stays at Catholic Charities on New York Avenue NE. Ifeanyi says his case manager at Kinara promised to help him get a job but hasn’t been helpful. “I discovered he was not serious,” says Ifeanyi. “I stopped answering his calls.”

Ifeanyi has lost faith in the government, and finds solace in the church instead.

CP

Courtesy Washington Capitals

SPORTS

From foe to friend, Capitals defenseman Radko Gudas finds a new home in D.C. washingtoncitypaper.com/sports

HOCKEY

Line Change

The four women of the podcast You Can’t Do That buck the hockey narrative typically controlled by men—and have a blast doing so.

Minutes before 7 p.m. on a recent Sunday, Rave Sashayed is busy setting up a large microphone and preparing for her weekly ritual of video chatting with her friends.

Scattered around her thoroughly decorated Logan Circle apartment are nods to a moment she never thought would happen. A copy of the June 8, 2018, front page of the Washington Post sports section hangs from a bookcase.

The full-page image features Alex Ovechkin triumphantly hoisting the Stanley Cup trophy above his head. A variety of bobbleheads of Capitals players sit on Sashayed’s shelves, and a small garden gnome modeled after Nicklas Bäckström is intentionally tucked behind a screen, she says, because it scares her.

Sashayed and her friends are prepping to record the 62nd episode of You Can’t Do That, a podcast about hockey hosted by four self-described “know-it-all women who know a medium amount.”

One of the hosts, Kelly Harris, has to sit out from the episode, but Catie Gordon and Eva Wiehl, the other two hosts, log on, and Sashayed’s eyes light up. She waves to Wiehl’s cat through the webcam. They play a warm up game that involves a lot of clapping and yelling out NHL player names until producers Laura Reineke and Danielle Savoy urge them to begin recording.

Over the next 70 minutes, the conversation will veer in different directions. They discuss the firing of commentator Don Cherry, recap the first hockey game Gordon ever played, compare hockey players to internet-famous, geriatric dogs, and, of course, revisit the Caps’ successes and failures of the previous week.

By the end of the recording, the women are hoarse from laughing and wipe tears from their eyes. It’s a routine they repeat every week.

Gordon, Harris, Sashayed, and Wiehl are in their early 30s, and the four women refer to themselves as part of a coven—a group of witches—who have inserted themselves, an underrepresented demographic, into the sports media world.

When YCDT began, the women lived in different parts of the country. They met on Tumblr a few years ago, then shifted to Twitter. Their

Catie Gordon

By Callie Tansill-Suddath

From left: Eva Weihl, Rave Sashayed, Kelly Harris, and Catie Gordon collective love story with the Caps began as a challenge. In February 2017, Gordon posted a tweet that read, “I want to like everything u guys like because fandom is more fun with friends but I’ll die before I watch a sports game.” In a number of since-deleted replies, her followers challenged the assertion. She and the other would-be hosts became convinced of the merits of hockey fandom, and dove headfirst into the world of sticks and pucks.

Reineke and Savoy took notice, suggested they turn their newfound obsession into something more concrete and listenable, and You Can’t Do That was born.

The friends took the podcast’s name from an iconic call made by NHL referee Mike Leggo during a 2013 game between the Caps and the Dallas Stars. Leggo skated to the middle of the ice, and in a matter-of-fact voice, stated that the player in question can’t do what he just did before skating away. The moment, a shining example of what happens when sports meet contemporary internet humor, is sampled in the intro.

Each episode begins with a segment called “This Week in Caps,” during which the hosts dissect what has taken place on the ice during the previous week. They criticize plays and analyze calls. It is the most straightforward sports aspect of the pod, but only skims the

surface of YCDT. To define You Can’t Do That simply as a sports podcast would be to minimize what makes it so essential. By not only inserting themselves into a community that is often hostile to women, but being fearlessly frank on the platform they have built, the team behind YCDT is challenging a hypermasculine, exclusionary attitude that continues to permeate sports culture, even as other environments attempt to tackle the issue.

Mainstream voices in the industry have a track record of not just overlooking womanidentified fans, but actively making it a dangerous place for them. In 2014, a blogger with Barstool Sports, a sports blog founded by Dave Portnoy that runs misogynistic content, posted a profanity-laced, demeaning article about Sam Ponder, who is now a host of ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown. Earlier this year, the website’s fans cyberbullied Boston Herald hockey reporter Marisa Ingemi when she publicly questioned the Boston Bruins’ promotional partnership with Barstool.

This attitude can also play out with professional hockey players. After Nashville Predators forward Austin Watson was suspended 27 games for a misdemeanor domestic violence charge, the NHL Player’s Association appealed, and the sentence was reduced to 18 games.

The women of YCDT don’t just acknowledge the flaws in the system, they flip the table on them. A weekly segment, “Dreamboat of the Week,” pokes fun at the male gaze, and the stale idea that women only watch sports to look at the athletes. They’re eschewing the typical connotation of the term “dreamboat,” Gordon explains. “Sometimes it’s just a player we all like, sometimes it’s a player that one person has a specific obsession with … It can really be anything that fits the loose definition.”

Examples of past “Dreamboats of the Week” include three-on-three hockey, and former Washington Post Capitals beat reporter Isabelle Khurshudyan, who won the 2018 Red Fisher Award given to the top beat reporter for the year, as voted by her peers. “[She’s] a huge dreamboat, but we weren’t going to be like, ‘Isabelle’s so hot, blah blah,’ because the dynamics and the social hierarchies at play are such that if you talk about a female reporter in that way, it’s harmful, it’s actively harmful to her career,” Sashayed says.

“You got to kind of give the history and why you like it and that kind of thing. It’s not just … this person is hot. The end,” Gordon explains. There is a lot more depth to it, and to the relationship between women and sports teams, in general.

The team is hardly reluctant to comment on the players’ looks, though.

Sashayed says this is another way the YCDT coven is trying to turn the tables on the narrative of desirability and objectivity as it relates to athletes, and the power dynamics at play in these situations.

“If guys want to give money to women’s sports because they’re horny about the players, as long as they’re also respectful about their horniness, I think that would be great,” she says. “Like, have a huge crush on Alex Morgan and go and paint her name on your face like you would do for fucking whoever [male athlete]! I think that’s a less harmful model of sexualizing athletes.”

Wiehl, who is the sole member of YCDT not based in D.C., adds, “We’re a bunch of queer women who both refuse to take the game too seriously and simultaneously also refuse to ignore or gloss over the league’s many, many, many issues with regards to inclusivity. The hockey narrative has been controlled for so long by old straight white men, and it’s awesome to see people outside of that category getting their grubby little hands on it and challenge these insular notions of what it means to be a hockey fan.”

In the initial Twitter thread that planted the seed for what would bloom into the podcast, Gordon wrote, “I’m in this for the intimacy not the sports.” She would end up giving hockey a chance, and now with YCDT, she has the best of both worlds—an intimacy between friends and women who love hockey.

CP

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In a city with some of the nation’s highest rates of HIV infection, cancer mortality, and homelessness, Joseph’s House offers a home and community to those who come through its doors. cfp-dc.org/josephs-house Bright Beginnings In the District, some 2,700 children under the age of six grow up in poverty and experience homelessness, and they often begin school with disadvantages that create a lifelong achievement gap. Bright Beginnings gives them a more secure, positive start, offering a rigorous infant, toddler, and pre-K curriculum along with access to counseling, speech therapy, and early literacy tools. Serving some 350 children annually, its Early Head Start and Head Start programs establish a solid foundation for reading and writing and ensure early intervention for learning disabilities and health problems. Free therapeutic services and dental, vision, and hearing screenings are available on site. A strong family services program sees that parents develop the skills to monitor their children’s development, meet their basic needs, and tap resources to find employment and move toward selfsufficiency. cfp-dc.org/brightbeginnings

On paper, 2019 did not look like a good year in the District of Columbia. Hate crimes and violence against members of the trans community increased. Homicide numbers are up 6 percent from this time a year ago. ICE threatens D.C.’s immigrants, and the city continues to grapple with where and how to house people experiencing homelessness.

Covering these issues on a day-in, day-out basis can feel challenging or even futile for local journalists, so taking a moment to think about the people and groups trying to solve these problems is a welcome reprieve.

Together with our partners at the Catalogue for Philanthropy—Greater Washington, we present this curated list of organizations on a mission to improve the lives of District residents, be it through environmental intervention, education, the arts, or other measures. Staff at CFP ensure that each organization in the guide is in good financial standing, and the Catalogue doesn’t take a cut from any donations, so any money you give will go directly to the causes you choose to support.

You can find more information about each organization on this list and donate directly to them at cfp-dc.org/citypaper2019. Your donations will help these nonprofits continue their good work on Giving Tuesday and in the months and years to come.

Happy Thanksgiving! —Caroline Jones

HOMELESSNESS District Alliance for Safe Housing (DASH) One in three women experiencing homelessness in D.C. cites domestic violence as the cause of her housing instability. DASH offers a continuum of housing services, providing women and their children with safe emergency, transitional, and permanent affordable housing, and the tools to regain their safety and economic independence. Its Housing Resource Center serves as a hub of homelessness prevention, where survivors access one-on-one guidance and support and service providers receive education and training to improve their response to victims.

An emergency fund helps cover expenses (utilities, rent, medical or legal fees) so survivors can maintain their current homes and their freedom from abuse. A lifeline for over 350 survivors fleeing violence each year, DASH believes no one should have to choose between living with abuse and living on the streets. cfp-dc.org/dash Homeless Children’s Playtime Project Every week, at emergency shelters and transitional housing programs across D.C., some 150 volunteers give children a much-needed opportunity: the chance to play. The Playtime Project nurtures healthy child development and reduces the effects of trauma by creating playrooms where kids can be kids—playing

10 november 29, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

games, exploring math, reading, and art, and eating healthy snacks. Meanwhile, parents have time to rest, run errands, and take classes. Monthly field trips introduce children to baseball games, the National Zoo, and the Smithsonian museums, and seasonal parties give families opportunities to socialize and relax. Backpacks filled with games, books, and toys keep children engaged when they are away from the program. All the children are experiencing the trauma of homelessness, and some have also experienced domestic violence. These playtimes help restore comfort, safety, and joy. cfp-dc.org/homeless-childrens-playtimeproject Joseph’s House From streets, shelters, prisons, and hospitals, each year Joseph’s House welcomes approximately 35 individuals, all of whom have AIDS or terminal cancer, to its eight-bed home in Adams Morgan. Serving the homeless and those with unstable housing, it offers physical, emotional, and spiritual nourishment, 24-hour nursing care, medical case management, and addiction recovery support, as well as home-cooked meals and communal activities. Staff and volunteers hold vigils for the dying, providing constant love and care in the final hours. Other residents regain their health and, when they do, Joseph’s House encourages them toward independence while continuing to help with medication management, transportation, and other basic needs.

Hope and a Home We’ve all read about the need: skyrocketing rents, families at risk of losing their homes (or in shelters with no homes to lose), children at risk for low academic performance. Hope and a Home is changing that story. Working with 224 homeless individuals across three programs—transitional housing, independent housing, and higher education—it offers reduced rental rates, moving assistance, financial literacy training, and savings plans, so that families can clear up credit, save money, retain their independent housing (94 percent do), and steadily grow their incomes.

Supported by dedicated volunteer mentors and tutors, the higher education program provides assessment and advocacy services for some 120 children in 62 families in the program. And the results speak for themselves: Last year, every high school senior graduated and continued on to post-secondary education. cfp-dc.org/hope-and-a-home

IMMIGRATION Edu-Futuro Pursuing your dream college is challenging for anyone. Now, imagine being the first in your family to do so, and grappling with financial and language barriers at the same time.

Working with under-resourced Latinx and immigrant families throughout Northern Virginia, Edu-Futuro offers free Spanish-English bilingual programs to inspire a new generation of leaders. Each year, some 440 students work toward graduation through the multi-stage, after-school Emerging Leaders Program: Middle schoolers build STEM skills through hands-on robotics; high schoolers engage in

Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition As the number of immigrants placed in detention grows exponentially, CAIR Coalition is the only legal service provider focused on serving detained women, men, and children held in 12 jails and juvenile centers in Maryland and Virginia. Thousands are asylum seekers fleeing violence, abuse, and human trafficking; hundreds are children who migrated alone or have been forcibly separated from their parents.

CAIR Coalition offers legal orientation, individual consultation, pro bono representation, and “Know Your Rights” trainings, empowering immigrants facing detention and deportation to achieve equal justice. It also trains attorneys working in the immigration and criminal justice arenas, conducts extensive community outreach and education, and passionately advocates for policies that protect immigrant rights.

Consider this: In 2018, CAIR Coalition served more than 850 unaccompanied children—300 more than the year before. cfp-dc.org/capital-area-immigrants-rightscoalition

COLLEGE ACCESS

Bright Beginnings leadership development and mentorships; and rising seniors receive year-long support as they navigate college applications and enrollment.

Parents are empowered, too, through a suite of programs, from workforce development to parenting classes, that help them secure employment, adapt to life in the U.S., and fully advocate for themselves and their children. cfp-dc.org/edu-futuro Ayuda For many foreign-born residents (one of every seven people in D.C.), simply asking for help is a challenge. Without a solid grasp of the language or legal system, they don’t know where to go or whom to trust. Ayuda (which means “help” in Spanish) provides a wide range of immigration and family law assistance, along with social services support, for immigrants from anywhere in the world. Along with representation in family- and humanitarian-based cases, Ayuda offers comprehensive services for immigrant survivors of human trafficking and domestic violence, many of whom fear that the police, courts, and even shelters will not protect them. It also offers desperately needed, specialized advice and representation to abused, neglected, and abandoned immigrant children. Ayuda gives clients the opportunity to feel fully and comfortably at home in their new country. cfp-dc.org/ayuda CARECEN One in 10 Washingtonians is Latinx, and the majority are immigrants. Many have fled violence at home and all are seeking

better opportunities. Whether they have well-established roots in the U.S. or recently arrived, they face a host of challenges, including limited English skills, unstable employment and housing, and low wages.

CARECEN provides a one-stop shop where Latinx immigrants can access the tools and resources they need to lead secure and productive lives. Direct legal services and consultations, offered at low or no cost, allow them to resolve their immigration status, secure work authorization, and gain permanent residency. The next step is citizenship, and CARECEN’s citizenship coursework, including mock interviews and ESL tutoring, voter education, and civic engagement activities prepare Latinx people to fully engage in civil society. Housing counseling promotes safe and stable homes for all through education on tenant rights, foreclosure prevention, and financial literacy. And an after-school youth program prepares the next generation to become the leaders of tomorrow. cfp-dc.org/carecen DC Doors For the women and families who are referred to DC Doors for support, homelessness is just one of many challenges in their lives.

Most face cultural and language barriers (85 percent are Latinx); some are single moms; several have severe mental illnesses.

DC Doors intentionally keeps its caseload modest, offering comprehensive bilingual assistance to more than 80 children and adults each year. Its 18-month transitional housing program does far more than pro-

vide shelter. Life skills lessons, including classes on parenting, relationship-building, children’s education, cooking, and nutrition, strengthen the entire family. Meanwhile, employment assistance and training in money management and financial literacy help adults work toward lives of stability and independence. A new 12-week workforce development program, taught by licensed CPAs, equips clients with the skills to become accounting technicians. Once families move into permanent housing, six months of after-care helps ease the transition. And through it all, emotional support is available 24/7. cfp-dc.org/dc-doors

The Latino Student Fund Latinx students represent only 16 percent of undergraduate students nationwide, a trend that the LSF is working to reverse through its multigenerational education program. Children as young as four join its academic support initiative, engaging in one-on-one Saturday morning tutoring sessions, complete with breakfast, free books, and individualized support in English and math. When they enter high school, a year-round mentoring program, along with after-school and summer college prep programs, help each student prepare for the transition to post-secondary education and a healthy adulthood. ESL and computer literacy classes for parents run concurrently with the tutoring program, providing the entire family with educational opportunities in one location.

LSF serves over 500 individuals each year, and 100 percent of students graduate from high school and enroll in post-secondary education. cfp-dc.org/lsf

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ScholarCHIPS, Inc. Though she searched for financial aid to support her college education, Yasmine Arrington couldn’t find a scholarship program for a student like her, a teen with an incarcerated parent, so she created ScholarCHIPS, which today supports some 30 motivated young people each year. High school guidance counselors help identify applicants and selected scholars receive annual support: renewable $2,500 scholarships and $250 book awards for up to four years if they maintain good academic standing. ScholarCHIPS also provides oneon-one mentoring, professional development workshops, and a support network designed to help scholars persist in school and graduate. At least 90 percent of them do, overcoming the financial barriers and social stigma that so many children of incarcerated parents experience. cfp-dc.org/scholarchips/

Reading Partners

Reading Partners Economically disadvantaged students across D.C. struggle to keep pace with their peers in reading proficiency. In 2017, fewer than 22 percent who were eligible for free or reduced-priced lunch were at grade level for literacy and language arts.

Reading Partners is dedicated to reversing the trend, providing its transformational literacy program to 925 young readers each year at 19 Title I elementary schools across the District. It creates welcoming reading centers stocked with books and trains 40 to 100 volunteers per school to provide, with on-site support from trained AmeriCorps members, one-on-one instruction that follows a research-based curriculum. All children have individualized reading plans, and regular assessments to measure their progress and reveal impressive results. Last year, 88 percent of students met or exceeded their year-end goals for literacy growth. cfp-dc.org/reading-partners

The Abramson Scholarship Foundation As college tuition costs soar, young people living in poverty are increasingly unable to afford higher education, so the Abramson Scholarship Foundation steps in, determined to give motivated public high school graduates in D.C. the opportunity to attend college and the tools to succeed once they get there. Each spring, the foundation selects a new cohort of scholars based on financial need (40 percent are from families earning $30,000 a year or less), academic achievement, and community service; all are recent high school graduates enrolled in four-year colleges. Scholars receive annual, renewable scholarships throughout their college years, along with a comprehensive mentoring program that includes professional development workshops, internship placement, and networking events. While only 40 percent of D.C. students finish college, Abramson Scholars boast a 95 percent graduation rate. cfp-dc.org/abramson-scholarship-foundation College Bound College Bound targets underserved eighth through 12th grade public school students who have the drive and desire to attend college. Students meet weekly with mentors to work on math, SAT prep, and the college admissions process. CB also sponsors career and college fairs, takes students on college tours, and offers over $175,000 annually in scholarships. Its Virtual Mentoring Program (VMP) helps students navigate college life once they’re there. For the last eight years, 100 percent of seniors have graduated high school and been accepted to college. Over the last two years, VMP helped 88 percent of them return to college for their second year, a key indicator of success. With seven locations throughout the city, and 150 additional enrichment opportunities for students during the academic year, College Bound is making college completion a reality for D.C.’s young people. cfp-dc.org/college-bound

placement services help scholars advance to college-preparatory schools. Ninety-five percent of participants graduate from high school on time, compared with 68 percent citywide. cfp-dc.org/higher-achievement

ScholarCHIPS, Inc. BEST Kids Here in D.C., the vast majority of the nearly 1,000 kids in foster care entered the system because of neglect or abuse. So BEST Kids offers them something they desperately need: consistent encouragement and support from a caring adult. BEST Kids provides long-term, one-on-one mentoring and monthly peer group activities to more than 160 children and youth ages 6 to 21 in D.C.’s child welfare system. Reliability is crucial, so mentors undergo extensive training and receive support from a team of staff and experts in psychiatry, education, legal advocacy, and behavior management.

The average mentorship lasts over 18 months, double the national average, and in 2018, 91 percent of youth surveyed said they knew they could count on their mentors for support: They were actively participating in school, avoiding risky behavior, gaining self-esteem, and learning to advocate for themselves. cfp-dc.org/bestkids

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BEST Kids

YOUTH EDUCATION Higher Achievement Dedicated to closing the opportunity gap, Higher Achievement serves more than 500 academically motivated middle-schoolers from under-resourced communities, providing them with rigorous year-round learning, caring role models, and a culture of high expectations. All students participate in the program’s three components, a serious commitment that results in college-bound scholars with the character, confidence, and skills to succeed. At the Afterschool Academy, volunteer mentors offer tutoring and small group instruction three times per week, paired with a hands-on educational elective and a healthy supper. To combat learning loss, a six-week Summer Academy includes core academic classes as well as field trips and college visits. High school

President Lincoln’s Cottage President Lincoln did much of his nationchanging work, including developing the Emancipation Proclamation, at a cottage in Northwest Washington. Since opening to the public on the grounds of the Armed Forces Retirement Home in 2008, the cottage continues its legacy as “a home for brave ideas.” Daily tours, exhibits, educational programs, and events welcome over 30,000 visitors annually, including 5,000 students. Programs are free for D.C. public and charter schools, and for Title I schools in Virginia and Maryland. The award-winning Students Opposing Slavery program brings together youth from around the world to learn about slavery’s history and to develop actionable plans to fight human trafficking today. Using past histories to address present-day challenges, this innovative home redefines what a national monument can be. cfp-dc.org/president-lincoln-cottage LearnServe International Through the power of social entrepreneurship, LearnServe equips D.C.-area middle and high school students with the knowledge and skills to tackle our world’s pressing social challenges. LearnServe Fellows design and launch their own social action projects to benefit their neighborhoods and schools. The most promising ideas receive additional training and compete for seed funding to maximize their impact in the LearnServe Incubator. In-school programming incorporates social entrepreneurship into the everyday classroom, providing teachers with specialized curricula, materials, and volunteers. Summer learning trips

abroad give students global experience as they work alongside local leaders to implement relevant, practical volunteer projects.

Since 2003, more than 4,000 people have participated in these programs, which include 54 new social ventures benefiting D.C. communities. cfp-dc.org/learnserve

The MusicianShip

Sitar Arts Center Since first opening in the basement of a subsidized housing building, Sitar has grown into a world class, multidisciplinary arts center in Adams Morgan serving 950 students annually, 80 percent of whom come from low-income families. Many, quite simply, grow up at Sitar, where they are empowered to unlock their talents and find their voices. Babies and toddlers attend early childhood arts classes; older children come for music, dance, theater, and visual arts, and, in the summer, for a six-week arts camp; teens and young adults hone their skills through classes, internships, and leadership development. All of this is made possible by a 100-person teaching faculty and eight arts partners (including the Washington Ballet and the National Symphony Orchestra), while an innovative collaboration with neighborhood service providers gives Sitar families access to the support they need. cfp-dc.org/sitar

College Tribe College Tribe’s model is as unique as it is critical: black men mentoring black boys and creating STEAM leaders in Wards 7 and 8. Founded in 2007 by four African-American fathers, the mentoring program cultivates strong bonds between boys in grades 3 to 8 and men who look like them, believe in them, and model success, respect, and integrity. Twice a month, mentors and mentees meet in small groups for seminars, tutoring, and field trips. Many also take part in College Tribe’s after-school and summer STEAM programs, which include nine-week courses in computer engineering, solar energy, robotics, video game design, and other subjects, at four local public schools.

Boys learn to think critically and develop skills for promising careers, all in the company of peers and role models. cfp-dc.org/college-tribe Kid Power Every weekday, Kid Power works with Title I public schools in D.C. to provide daily academic and enrichment programming to 425 students, 99 percent of whom qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. But this isn’t your average after-school program.

After Academic Power Hour (mentoring and tutoring with college staff and high school volunteers), a rotating series of enrichment activities focuses on building students’ civic engagement, leadership, and healthy behaviors. Urban gardens are paired with lessons in nutrition, cooking, and environmental science; history and citizenship lessons offer a real-life perspective through Kid Power Congress and service-learning projects; art classes integrate wellness principles like mindfulness and self-expression.

Together with a five-week Summer Leadership Academy and monthly in-school wellness programming, Kid Power reaches 1,000 students each year. cfp-dc.org/kid-power Free Minds Book Club & Writing Workshop Free Minds uses books and creative writing to empower incarcerated youth and adults, awakening them to their own potential. During biweekly workshops at New Beginnings Youth Development Center (for teens) and the DC Jail (for adults), Free Minds members read stories and poetry that reflect their lives, then learn to write and even publish their own.

After sentencing, when members move on to federal prisons across the country, Free Minds sends cards, newsletters, books, and feedback on their poetry. The re-entry program offers a weekly book club and writing workshops, apprenticeships, and job skills training to help

ing, The MusicianShip is the new home for outstanding initiatives like the Washington Youth Choir, the Wammie Awards, and the Funk Parade. This ambitious organization is dedicated to preserving and enhancing D.C.’s cultural and musical heritage with youth leading the charge. cfp-dc.org/the-musicianship

members achieve their goals for a successful homecoming. In 2018, Free Minds served more than 900 individuals and achieved a recidivism rate of just 13 percent, compared to the national average of 75 percent for young adults. cfp-dc.org/free-minds-bookclub-writingworkshop DC Arts and Humanities Education Collaborative Tens of thousands of children from across the globe visit D.C.’s museums and theaters each year, yet budget constraints often prevent local students from taking advantage of their hometown’s resources. The DC Collaborative partners with 115 cultural institutions to help schools gain access to our vibrant arts world.

Offering a wide range of programs to students, and arts and humanities education workshops to teachers, teaching artists, principals, and other educators, the Collaborative also makes registration, tickets, and transportation easy. More than 700,000 children have benefited from these programs since 1998; this year alone, nearly 50,000 students from 160 schools will attend cultural field trips and free in-school performances and workshops.

After all, visiting the Kennedy Center or the Washington Ballet for the first time or having a professional artist right in your classroom can be an unforgettable experience. cfp-dc.org/dc-arts-and-humanities-education-collaborative AppleTree Institute for Education Innovation Low-income children stand to gain the most from high-quality preschool education,

but they are also the least likely to receive it. AppleTree is dedicated to closing the achievement gap for D.C.’s most vulnerable children before they enter kindergarten.

Its instructional model, Every Child Ready, includes a fully developed curriculum, comprehensive training and professional development for teachers, and data-driven tools to monitor progress and tailor instruction to each child’s needs. Teachers, principals, and instructional coaches learn what to teach, how to teach, and how to tell if it’s working and make improvements when it’s not. Nascent learning difficulties are addressed early, reducing the need for special education placement and helping at-risk children excel alongside their more advantaged peers. cfp-dc.org/appletree

THE ARTS The MusicianShip The MusicianShip offers high-quality music education to the kids who need it most: those living in high-poverty areas where access to the arts and out-of-school programming is limited. After school at five public and public charter schools, students receive free daily vocal and instrumental music instruction, ensemble development, and mentoring. Interactive Master Class field trips, taught by world-renowned musicians, reach another 700 students across D.C., and the beat continues throughout the summer, with all-city marching band and choral programs. Having recently acquired a number of music programs at risk of dissolv-

Atlas Performing Arts Center A once-abandoned movie theater complex in Northeast D.C. reopened in 2006 as the Atlas, a multidisciplinary, community-based venue where artists and audiences connect through dance, theater, and music. As the H Street NE corridor’s cultural anchor, the Atlas brings dozens of thought-provoking and affordable performances to its four stages each year. That’s in addition to the 85 collaborative shows, workshops, and classes that take place at its annual INTERSECTIONS Festival. Throughout the year, resident arts partners utilize the venue at discounted rates, allowing them to channel resources toward outstanding arts programming. The Atlas Stagecraft and Apprenticeship Program (ASTAP) trains adults to become professional stagehands, while the City at Peace program helps youth explore social justice and conflict resolution and inspires a new generation of performing artists. This arts mecca draws more than 100,000 patrons each year. cfp-dc.org/atlas-performing-arts-center CapitalBop CapitalBop is dedicated to presenting, promoting, and preserving jazz in the District.

From the start, it has served as both an online resource and presenter of innovative shows. Capitalbop.com lists every upcoming jazz event in the area, complemented by a steady stream of articles (artist interviews, profiles of unsung jazz heroes, reviews) that aim to welcome audiences of all kinds.

Likewise, its monthly DC Jazz Loft concerts,

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educational events, and other shows adopt a diverse and often unorthodox approach, whether presenting in an empty warehouse or art gallery, pairing innovative international artists with D.C.’s finest local musicians, or showcasing young and experimental talent. This year, dozens of shows will reach thousands of audience members, united in appreciation for this historic, dynamic genre. cfpdc.org/capitalbop

That is why Girls on the Run pairs evidencebased character education with running instruction. GOTR-DC coaches nearly 2,200 girls a year across all D.C. wards, equipping them with the skills and encouragement they need to meet life’s challenges, from peer pressure and bullying to body image and healthy relationships. During each 10-week program, trained volunteer coaches mentor teams of 8 to 15 girls in grades 3 through 8, exploring key character education topics while helping the girls set individual goals and prepare for a season-culminating 5K event. Scholarships, provided to nearly 70 percent of participants, ensure that girls of all economic backgrounds—15,000 D.C. girls since 2006—are empowered to believe in themselves, value healthy relationships, encourage their team, and have an impact on the community in which they live. cfp-dc.org/girls-on-the-run-dc

Washington School for Girls

CityDance A community where every child can access the benefits of arts education, and where world-class dance is available to all: Since 1996, CityDance has pursued this vision for D.C., touching thousands of lives each year.

The DREAM Center for Dance offers yearround, tuition-free dance training for students ages 8 to 18, alongside wrap-around services that prepare them for college and career. A professional dance curriculum is paired with on-site homework help, tutoring, college readiness services, and family support, leading to outstanding results.

Last year, 100 percent of seniors graduated from high school and enrolled in higher education. CityDance also delivers free dance programming to 10 public elementary schools, brings world-class professional dance performances to D.C. stages, and runs a conservatory to prepare students for professional dance careers. cfp-dc.org/citydance

WOMEN AND GIRLS Washington School for Girls In D.C.’s Anacostia neighborhood, the high school graduation rate is only 50 percent, while rates for poverty, crime, and teen pregnancy are the highest in the city. WSG is committed to meeting the community’s needs and transforming the lives of the girls in its care. The approach is holistic and personal, with a year-round academic program, small class sizes, after-school tutoring, high-quality enrichment activities, and extra support and counseling for students who are struggling, whether personally, financially, or academically. The Graduate Support Program guides students as they transition to high school, college, and beyond. The only tuition-free, independent, private Catholic school for elementary and middle school girls (92 percent are not Catholic) in D.C., WSG’s students have a 99 percent graduation rate and an 80 percent post-secondary and college enrollment rate. cfp-dc.org/wsg Collective Action for Safe Spaces Dedicated to creating a safer D.C., CASS empowers communities to interrupt and eliminate public, gender-based harassment and assault, including street harassment.

Its work centers on those who are disproportionately affected by street harassment (women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ folks), and particularly on those with multiple marginalized identities. Through bystander

intervention training, participants learn that it’s up to everyone, not just the criminal legal system, to stop the harassment.

The Safe Bar Collective equips bar and restaurant staff to create safer environments, while CASS simultaneously trains LGBTQIA+ people in restaurant skills and connects them to jobs at partner bars. A program with WMATA combines staff training, data collection, and awareness campaigns to address sexual harassment on public transportation, and thanks to CASS-led advocacy, D.C. passed the Street Harassment Prevention Act in 2018. cfp-dc.org/collective-action-for-safe-spaces DAWN The Deaf community experiences sexual and domestic abuse at higher rates than the hearing community and communication barriers frequently prevent Deaf survivors from seeking help. In 1999, five Deaf women founded Deaf Abused Women’s Network to address this critical issue in D.C., home to one of the largest Deaf populations in the U.S. Today, DAWN remains the only local agency providing support in American Sign Language to survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse, and now serves Deaf people of all gender identities. Its support is comprehensive, including safety planning, court, and hospital accompaniment, and case management where Deaf advocates ensure that survivors can access appropriate services for them-

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selves and their children. DAWN also conducts preventive outreach education, working to end abuse in the Deaf community. cfp-dc.org/dawn Young Ladies of Tomorrow The number of girls in D.C.’s juvenile justice system is rising, and national estimates suggest that at least 65 percent have a history of trauma. Working with girls ages 9 to 17 who are court-involved or at risk of involvement, YLOT uses a holistic approach.

Its year-round youth development program offers one-on-one and group mentoring, homework assistance, life skills classes, and health and wellness workshops. Girls build positive relationships with caring adults and with their peers, while also learning to develop coping skills, make good decisions, and improve academically.

A six-week workforce development program, including daily workshops, community service projects, and mini-internships, prepares participants for jobs and careers, and summer retreats use a trauma-informed curriculum to help them understand life’s challenges and process past experiences. cfp-dc.org/young-ladies-of-tomorrow-inc Girls on the Run DC What difference does it make if a girl enters her pivotal adolescent years self-confident and disciplined, with a strong sense of selfworth? For some, it makes all the difference.

Generation Hope With one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation, D.C. is home to thousands of young families living in poverty because the parents lack an education. (Fewer than 2 percent of teen mothers earn a college degree before age 30.) Founded by a former teen mother, Generation Hope surrounds these young parents with the support they need to thrive in college and help their little ones enter kindergarten ready for success.

The Scholar Program provides parents with a mentor, crisis support, and up to $2,400 a year in tuition assistance. The Next Generation Academy offers home visits, parenting support, learning materials, and access to highquality childcare for scholars’ children ages 1 to 5. Next year Generation Hope will support 101 Scholars and 20 children, and provide college-readiness workshops to 300 parenting high schoolers. cfp-dc.org/generation-hope

ANIMALS AND THE ENVIRONMENT Dumbarton Oaks Park Conservancy After decades of neglect, the DOPC was formed in 2010 to restore, promote, and maintain Dumbarton Oaks Park, now and for generations to come. In the heart of the city, the park is a 27-acre wild garden oasis designed in 1921 by Beatrix Farrand, America’s first female landscape architect. Through a public-private partnership with Rock Creek Park, DOPC mobilizes a vast number of volunteers to remove invasive plants, mitigate urban stormwater, and engage the next generation of environmental stewards in the service of restoring Farrand’s masterwork. Its Leave No Child Inside program engages vulnerable and disadvantaged youth in recreation, education, and stewardship that benefits the kids and the park. In all, more than 65,000 volunteer hours have helped restore 12 acres of meadows, waterfalls, woodlands, and historic structures. cfp-dc.org/dumbarton-oaks-park-conservancy

Anacostia Watershed Society The Anacostia River touches countless communities across the D.C. region before flowing into the Chesapeake Bay. Though it has suffered from generations of neglect, the promise of a healthy and clean river is within reach. Dedicated to the restoration of the watershed, AWS mobilizes the community to clean, protect, and reconnect with the river.

Through hands-on service learning, it engages thousands of local students each year in planting wetland vegetation and cleaning up the shores, and it advocates on the river’s behalf, seeking better stormwater controls and smarter green development. AWS also trains adults to become Watershed Stewards and Master Naturalists, empowering them as advocates for their communities’ environmental health. Year-round events engage thousands more volunteers, and regular recreational, environmentally-friendly activities remind residents of the pleasure that clean rivers can bring. cfp-dc.org/aws

from being euthanized for no reason other than lack of space. Working closely with high-kill shelters in rural communities with few resources, CDR rescues at-risk adoptable dogs and cats and finds them loving homes. Once a dog or cat is identified, a vast network of supporters (more than 50,000) raises funds for transportation to D.C. and for top-quality medical care, vaccinations, and spay and neutering procedures. A trained foster care provider offers companionship until a permanent home is found, usually thanks to social media campaigns, dynamic adoption events, or CDR’s popular volunteer dog walking program. cfp-dc.org/city-dogs-rescue-inc

in five states (including Maryland and Virginia) and in D.C., SUN is paving the way to a clean energy future for us all. cfp-dc.org/sun Potomac Riverkeeper Network Six million residents live along the Potomac River watershed, which flows into the Chesapeake Bay, but instead of a clean and healthy river, they find swimming prohibitions and fish consumption advisories lining the banks.

Potomac Riverkeeper is a grassroots, on-thewater organization dedicated to fighting pollution and creating healthy rivers and streams.

In partnership with pro bono attorneys, it works to correct violations of environmental

Wanda Alston Foundation

Rainbow Families In the early 1990s, two pioneering gay dads started a listserv to connect LGBTQ families to one another. Today, with more than 1,000 members, Rainbow Families is the region’s only nonprofit dedicated solely to supporting LGBTQ families. Here, they find trusted resources and compassionate services, from college scholarships for teenagers to adoption support groups. Maybe Baby, its signature five-week program for prospective LGBTQ parents, provides information and guidance about surrogacy, adoption, and fostering, including racial, financial, and legal considerations. A yearly conference, declared Rainbow Families Day by the mayor’s office, offers workshops and panel discussions, a resource fair, and other activities, and annual events like picnics, dances, and camping weekends provide safe spaces where parents and kids can be around other families like theirs. Membership dues are just $35, with financial aid available, because all are welcome. cfp-dc.org/rainbow-families

Rock Creek Conservancy Rock Creek meanders 33 miles through the D.C. area, across local and state borders, through forested parkland and along busy roads, near hiking trails, businesses, and backyards. But only one organization is solely dedicated to the creek and its parks, an area visited annually by more than two million people. A formal philanthropic partner to Rock Creek Park, the Conservancy protects the park by protecting the watershed, leveraging the park’s popularity and empowering visitors and neighbors alike to explore, enjoy, and become stewards of this national treasure.

Each year, more than 5,000 volunteers pick up trash, remove invasive species, and restore native habitats, while dozens of volunteer Stream Team leaders adopt sections of the creek for neighborhood-based stewardship. cfp-dc.org/rock-creek City Wildlife, Inc. City Wildlife is the only wildlife rehabilitation organization in D.C., welcoming more than 1,800 sick, injured, and orphaned wild animals through its doors each year. Many are delivered by D.C. Animal Care and Control, but over half—birds, turtles, rabbits, possums— are brought in by the kind people who find them and want to help. At its fully equipped wildlife rehabilitation clinic, a licensed wildlife veterinarian oversees the animals’ care, assisted by staff technicians and some 50 volunteers, with the goal of returning the animals to the wild. City Wildlife also serves as a critical resource to anyone hoping to resolve conflicts with wild animals (like squirrels in the attic) humanely, and runs volunteer science projects (Lights Out DC and Duck Watch) to directly assist wildlife in the field. cfp-dc.org/city-wildlife City Dogs Rescue Since 2011, CDR has provided a lifeline to more than 3,700 dogs and 1,500 cats, animals that were just days or hours away

Solar United Neighbors The vision: a future in which energy is clean, local, equitable, affordable, and reliable for everyone. SUN is catalyzing a grassroots clean energy movement, connecting citizens with the tools and resources they need to start renewable energy projects in their communities. At its core are co-ops in which groups of neighbors “go solar” together and get a bulk discount, making solar more affordable and accessible and benefiting the local economy.

SUN also manages the process with the installer, but that’s just the beginning. Co-op members are encouraged to take part in educational programs, volunteer work, and advocacy. The result: a network of empowered citizens who fight for energy rights and achieve significant policy wins. Now working

riencing homelessness. Located in Ward 7, the foundation offers 18 months of shelter with 24-hour care and support. A clinical supervisor and case manager complete a full intake assessment and create individual service plans, which they revisit at weekly meetings with each resident. These youth have experienced trauma, rejection, and discrimination, so the foundation partners with mental and behavioral health specialists to help residents heal and improve their well being. Meanwhile, youth receive daily meals, take part in practical life skills lessons, and get assistance with securing permanent housing, employment, or with continuing their education, whatever they need to chart a new path. Most importantly, they experience acceptance and love. cfp-dc.org/wanda-alston-foundation

law and promote government accountability.

Its network of citizen monitors reports on the health of fish in the rivers, and it uses their input to direct enforcement and advocacy work, using the legal system to force polluters to clean up their act. Knowing that healthy rivers and healthy communities go hand-inhand, Potomac Riverkeeper strives to ensure that all 383 miles of our river stay healthy. cfp-dc.org/potomac-riverkeeper

THE LGBTQIA+ COMMUNITY Wanda Alston Foundation Founded by transgender women of color, the Wanda Alston Foundation is dedicated to serving one of DC’s most vulnerable populations: LGBTQ youth ages 16-24 who are expe-

SMYAL We’ve come a long way in the last few decades, but LGBTQ youth are still at greater risk than their heterosexual peers for physical abuse, homelessness, suicide, HIV infection, and dropping out of school.

Committed to a better world for the next generation, SMYAL builds LGBTQ youth leaders, empowering them to engage their peers in service and advocacy projects.

Teens create and manage Gay-Straight Alliances at their schools, proven to reduce bullying and harassment, youth trained in HIV prevention educate their peers about safer sex, and outstanding young leaders receive academic scholarships in recognition of their courage. Meanwhile, the Youth Center provides a safe, supportive space where teens can openly be themselves. Support groups explore self-esteem, health, sexual activity, drug abuse, and violence protection, and free HIV testing and counseling are offered to all. SMYAL also trains teachers, social workers, and medical professionals to work with LGBTQ youth in an effective and affirming way. cfp-dc.org/smyal CP

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Downtown Holiday Market Event Guide

washingtoncitypaper.com november 29, 2019 17

JULIE KENT, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

THE ORIGINAL WASHINGTON, D.C. HOLIDAY TRADITION

Welcome to the 15th Annual Downtown Holiday Market The Downtown Holiday Market brings all its seasonal cheer back for its 15th year! Whether you’re shopping for friends and/or family or making your own Wish List, the outdoor Market is your one- stop shop for unique gifts.

THE HOLIDAY PERFORMANCE YOU CAN’T MISS NOVEMBER 30 – DECEMBER 29 AT THE WARNER THEATRE

Here’s what you can find: • More than 150 vendors from the region and the world will showcase unique and handmade crafts, clothing, glasswork, jewelry, paintings, photographs, woodworking and so much more.

• Shoppers can support District creatives with their locallymade products at the Made in DC booth presented by the Department of Small and Local Business Development.

• New this year, find the National Building Museum’s popular gift shop at the Market.

• Live music, food and holiday festivities while you shop!

In 2005, the Downtown Business Improvement District (BID) in collaboration with Diverse Markets Management (DMM) created an outdoor holiday shopping marketplace for the Downtown community. Today, Downtown is a retail and tourist destination and this market is at the heart of it all. The Market is committed to environmental sustainability and environmentally friendly initiatives, which are also important to many of the Market exhibitors, some whom offer fair-trade imports and gifts made from recycled and sustainable resources. The Market is conveniently accessible by public transportation including Metrorail, Metrobus and Capital Bikeshare.

For more information on daily performances and vendors, visit downtownholidaymarket.com. Vendors rotate daily, so we look forward to seeing you throughout this holiday season again and again!

Follow us on Twitter @DtwnHolidayMkt, #DowntownHolidayMarket, on Facebook and on Instagram.

TICKETS ON SALE NOW VISIT WASHINGTONBALLET.ORG OR CALL 202.783.4000

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Neil Albert President & CEO DowntownDC Business Improvement District

Downtown Holiday Market Event Guide

Mike Berman Executive Director Diverse Markets Management

EXHIBITORS ANTIQUES AND COLLECTIBLES iconsDC #52 DEC 6(F)–DEC 12(TH) www.iconsDC.com Jentz Prints #7 Nov 22(F)–Dec 23(M) Tom Rall #13/14 Nov 22(F)– Dec 5(Th)

CERAMICS Kerri Henry Pottery #25 Nov 22(F)–Dec 12(Th) www.kerrihenrypottery. com Pawley Studios Ceramics #20 Nov 22(F)-Dec 5(Th) www.pawleystudios.com Printemps Pottery #16 Dec 9(M)-Dec 20(F) www.printempspottery. com Water Woods #16 Dec 21(S)-Dec 23(M) www.waterwoods.com

CLOTHES & ACCESSORIES 3 Million #17 Nov 29(F)-Dec 1(Su) www.3million.co Aria Handmade #32 Nov 22(F)-Dec 23(M) www.ariahandmade.com Art Inca Native #9 Nov 22(F)-Dec 23(M) Black Bear Leather #19 Dec 18(W)-Dec 23(M) www.blackbearleather. com Cho-pi-cha #44 Nov 22(F)-Dec 5(F) Clozs #43 Dec 20(F)-Dec 23(M) www.clozs.com Fuzzy Ink #8 Nov 22(F)-Nov 25(M) www.fuzzy-ink.com Handmade Especially For You #22 Dec 18(W)-Dec 23(M) www.clydelleco,com Hero Heads #19 Nov 22(F)-Dec 10(T) www.heroheads.com

SITE MAP

Indigo Moon #24 Dec 20(F)-Dec 23(M) www.Indigomoonclothing. com Inka Treasure Shop #2 Nov 22(F)-Nov 25(M) www.inkatreasureshop. com Jonathan Wye, LLC #34 Nov 22(F)-Nov 25(M) www.jonwye.com Kora Designs #18 Dec 22(F)- Dec 23(M) Lil’ Fishy #38 Nov 22(F)-Nov 25(M) www.lilfishy.com Little Tibet Boutique #12 Nov 22(F)-Dec 23(M) Mirasa Design #59 Nov 22(F)-Nov 24(Su) #29 Dec 12(Th)-Dec 19(Th) www.miradesign.com Mistura Timepieces #10 Nov 22(F)-Nov 25(M) www.mistura.com

The Downtown Holiday Market is centrally located in the heart of Downtown DC, centered at 8th and F Street, NW. It is easily accessible by foot, bike, and Metro (Gallery Pl-Chinatown).

Downtown Holiday Market Event Guide

washingtoncitypaper.com november 29, 2019 19

Craig Wallace returns as Scrooge!

Now Playing! Through Jan. 1 www.fords.org

by Charles Dickens adapted by Michael Wilson directed by Michael Baron Season Sponsor:

gloria!

Tickets start at just $34

Photo of Craig Wallace and the young cast of A Christmas Carol (2018) by Scott Suchman.

Folger

Consort early music ensemble in residence

A Baroque Italian Christmas

Venice

Folger Consort journeys to Venice with holiday music featuring Vivaldi’s Gloria in D, RV 589, with Baroque orchestra and chorus.

December 13 -18 At St. Mark’s Church on Capitol Hill

Padhma Creation #23 Dec 2(M)-Dec 11(W) www.padhmaknits.com Pook #54 Dec 9(M)-Dec 23(M) www.pook.ca Stitch & Rivet #56 Dec 16(M)-Dec 18(W) www.shopstitchandrivet. com The Buffalo Wool Co. #39 Nov 22(F)-Dec 19(Th) www.thebuffalowoolco.com

COLLAGE Reinventing-Reality #22 Dec 6(F)-Dec 8(Su) www.reinventingreality.com

CORPORATE/ GOVERNMENT DC Lottery #15 Dec13(F)-Dec 19(Th) www.dclottery.com Made In DC #5 Nov 22(F)-Dec 8(Su) www.thisismadeindc.com National Building Museum INFO Nov 22(F)-Dec 23(M) www.nbmshop.org

CRAFT

202.544.7077

folger.edu/consort

20 november 29, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

Analog #23 Nov 29(F)-Dec1(Su) www.shopanalog.com Canimals #46 Nov 22(F)-Nov 29(F) www.getcanimals.com

Downtown Holiday Market Event Guide

Circuit Breaker Labs #23 Nov 22(F)-Nov 27(W) www.CircuitBreakerLabs.com Had Matter #60 Dec 5(Th)-Dec 8(Su) www.hadmatter.com Hope’s Journal #59 Dec 6(F)-Dec 15(Th) Little Shop Of Cute #15 Dec 20(F)-Dec 23(M) www.littleshopofcute.com New York Puzzle Company #33 Nov 22(F)-Dec 5(Th) newyorkpuzzlecompany.com Rebound Designs #55 Dec 9(M)-Dec 23(M) www.rebound-designs.com

FIBER ART Range of Emotion #36, Nov 22(F) - Dec 23(M) rangeofemotion.com Scarvelous #59, Dec 16(M) - Dec 19(Th) facebook.com/Scarvelous Seeing In Fabric #23, Dec 16(M) - Dec 23(M) seeinginfabric.etsy.com

FOOD & DRINK Alexa’s Empanadas #1, Nov 22(F) - Nov 23(M) facebook.com/ alexasempanadas Captain Cookie & The Milkman #61, Nov 22(F) - Nov 27(W) #48, Dec 6 (F) - Dec 8(Su) #24, Dec 13(F) - Dec 15(Su) CaptainCookieDC.com

Migue’s Mini Donuts #47, Nov 22(F) - Dec 23(M) facebook.com/miguesminis The Taste of Germany #62, Nov 22(F) - Nov 23(M) thetasteofgermany.com Vigilante Coffee #48, Dec 9 (M) - Dec 23(M) vigilantecoffee.com

GIFT FOODS Chocotenango #26, Dec 6(F) - Dec 16(M) chocotenango.com Chouquette #26, Dec 17(T) - Dec 23 (M) chouquette.us J. Chocolatier #52, Dec 13(F) - Dec 23 (M) jchocolatier.com Mondepice Spices and Teas #48, #49, Nov 22(F) - Dec 5(Th) mondepice.com Pearl Fine Teas #59, Nov 25 (M) - Dec 5 (Th) pearlfineteas.com #29, Dec 9(M) - Dec 11 (W) Schokolat #15, Nov 22(F) - Nov 12 (Th) schokolat-us.com The Capital Candy Jar #64, Nov 22(F) - Nov 23(M) thecapitalcandyjar.com

GLASS Cecil Art Glass #31, Nov 22(F) - Dec 10 (T) englerglass #43, Dec 6 (F) - Dec 19 (Th) englerglass.com

BEGINS TUESDAY!

a play by

J.M. BARRIE adapted by

LAUREN GUNDERSON directed by

ALAN PAUL

TICKETS START AT $35

ORDER TODAY!

Sponsored by Suzanne and Glenn Youngkin Restaurant Partner: ShakespeareTheatre.org | 202.547.1122

Glitzy Glass #40, Nov 22(F) - Dec 23(M) glitzy-glass.com Homegrown Glass Art #20, Dec 6(F) - Dec 23(M) ryaneicher.etsy.com Joy of Glass #54, Nov 22(F) Nov 24(Su) joyofglass.com #14, Dec 6(F) - Dec 11(W) New World Glass #29, Nov 29(F) - Dec 8(Su) newworldglass.com

IMPORTED CRAFTS Baby Alpaca #45, Nov 22(F) - Dec 23(M) Bijoux Blancs #22, Nov 22(F) - Dec 5(Th) Dorjebajra Tibet Shop #53, Nov 22(F) - Dec 10(T) mytibetshop.com From Egypt With Love #43, Nov 22(F) - Nov 5(Th) fromegyptwithloveepy.com GingerBandar #26, Nov 22(F) - Nov 5(Th) gingerbandar.com Harun’s African Art #25, Dec 13(F) - Dec 23(M)

IndiBlossom by Anuradha Mehra #60, Nov 22(F) - Dec 4(W) indiblossom.com Kiwi Exquisite #59, Dec 20(F) - Dec 23(M) kiwikathy.blogspot.com KVZ Designs by Vida Dulce #14, Dec 12(Th) - Dec 23(M) vidadulceimports.com Marigold Way #42, Nov 22(F) - Dec 8(Su) marigoldway.com Mundo Handmade #28, Nov 22(F) - Dec 15(Su) mundovillage.com Souvenir Arts #61, Dec 9(F) - Dec 23(M) russian-classics.com Toro Mata #6, Nov 22(F) - Dec 23(M) toromata.com Tunisian Touch #63, Nov 22(F) - Nov 23(M) tunisiantouch.com Veroka Distributors #29, Nov 22(F) - Nov 27(W)

JEWELRY American Princess #51 Dec 9(F)-Dec 19(Th)

Andrea Haffner #56 Dec 19(Th)-Dec 23(M) www.andreahaffner.com ARTICLE 22 #55 Nov 22(F)-Dec 5(Th) www.article22.com August Nine Designs #19 Dec 14(S)-Dec 17(T) www.augustninedesigns. com Be You Fashions #61 Nov 29(F)-Dec 8(Su) www.beyoufashions.com Chelsea E. Bird Designs #51 Dec 20(F)-Dec 23(M) www.chelseabird.com D Collections #3 Nov 22(F)-Dec 23(M) Deco Etc. #58 Nov 22(F)-Dec 23(M) www.decoetcjewelry.com Divine Planet Studio #17 Nov 22(F)-Nov 27(W) www.divineplanet.etsy.com Leah Staley Designs #39 Dec 20(F)-Dec 23(M) www.leahstaley.com Leah Sturgis Jewelry Art #44 Dec 6(F)-Dec 23(M) www.leahsturgis.com Mann Made Designs #35 Nov 22(F)-Dec 23(M) www.mannmadedesigns. com

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Downtown Holiday Market Event Guide

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Downtown Holiday Market Event Guide

washingtoncitypaper.com november 29, 2019 23

MUSIC SCHEDULE The Market Stage presents a musical feast of more than 75 shows by some of the area’s best blues, rock, jazz, soul, country, world, and contemporary artists. And of course, it wouldn’t be a “holiday” market without some of your favorite seasonal standards. Check the daily performance schedule below, and find more information about all of the performers in the Musical Entertainment section of DowntownHolidayMarket.com

FRIDAY, NOV. 22

SUNDAY, DEC. 1

11:30 AM KICK OFF Market Opening Ceremony 12:00 PM Clear Harmonies Carolers A Cappella Holiday 2:30 PM Emma G Acoustic Soul 5:00 PM Afro Nuevo Latin Jazz

12:00 PM Hokum Jazz Vintage Blues, Jazz 2:30 PM Djangolaya Gypsy Jazz 5:00 PM The Gayle Harrod Band Blues, Soul, Motown

SATURDAY, NOV. 23 12:00 PM DC Mudd Old School Blues 2:30 PM Split String Soup Bluegrass 5:00 PM The Fuss Ska, Reggae

SUNDAY, NOV. 24 12:00 PM Snarky Sisterz Roots, Americana 2:30 PM Fast Eddie & the Slowpokes Blue-Eyed Soul 5:00 PM Los Caribbeat Caribbean Dance Music

MONDAY, NOV. 25 12:00 PM Maureen Andary Classic Pop 5:00 PM Seth Kibel & Sean Lane Jazz, Klezmer, Holiday

TUESDAY, NOV. 26 12:00 PM Maureen Andary Classic Pop 5:00 PM Moose Jaw Bluegrass, Americana

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 27 12:00 PM Jim Stephanson American Songbook 5:00 PM Cooking With Gas Blues, Swing, Jazz

FRIDAY, NOV. 29 12:00 PM Flo Anito & Seth Kibel Jazzy Holiday, Classics 2:30 PM Music Pilgrim Trio World Music 5:00 PM The Sweater Set Folk Pop

SATURDAY, NOV. 30 12:00 PM Dial 251 Jazz 2:30 PM Sol Roots Trio Rock, Blues, Funk 5:00 PM Kiss and Ride Blues, Jazz, Soul

MONDAY, DEC. 2 12:00 PM All New Genetically Altered Jug Band Jug Band 5:00 PM Runakuna Andean Traditions

TUESDAY, DEC. 3 12:00 PM Jim Stephanson American Songbook 5:00 PM Bill Baker Band Original Roots, Americana

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 4 12:00 PM Matt Kelly & Ian Walters Eclectic Roots 5:00 PM Painted Trillium Celtic, Folk

THURSDAY, DEC. 5 12:00 PM David Ziegele Acoustic Guitar 5:00 PM Kentucky Avenue Modern Americana

MONDAY, DEC. 9

12:00 PM Patty Reese Acoustic Roots 5:00 PM Elsa Riveros Spanish Rock

TUESDAY, DEC. 10

12:00 PM Billy Coulter Duo Acoustic Rock, Americana 5:00 PM Bill Baker Band Original Roots, Americana

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 11

12:00 PM Junior Cline Duo R&B, Soul 5:00 PM The 19th Street Band Folk Rock, Americana

THURSDAY, DEC. 12

12:00 PM Jonny Grave Slide Blues 5:00 PM Conor & the Wild Hunt Americana, Folk Rock

FRIDAY, DEC. 13

12:00 PM Carly Harvey Duo Blues, Jazz 2:30 PM Matt Kelly Swing & Ragtime Guitar 5:00 PM Dave Chappell Band Roots of Blues

SATURDAY, DEC. 14

12:00 PM Emma G Acoustic Soul 2:30 PM Burke Ingraffia Jazz, Folk 5:00 PM Nina Casey Trio Swing, American Songbook

12:00 PM Alpha Dog Acoustic Blues Acoustic Blues 2:30 PM Ruthie & the Wranglers Rockin’ Americana 5:00 PM Stacy Brooks Band Blues, Jazz

SATURDAY, DEC. 7

SUNDAY, DEC. 15

FRIDAY, DEC. 6

12:00 PM Howard University Vocal Jazz Studies Jazz 2:30 PM Karen Collins & Backroads Band Honky Tonk 5:00 PM Stacy Brooks Band Blues, Jazz

SUNDAY, DEC. 8 12:00 PM Ian Walters & Friends Blues, Roots 2:30 PM Capital Hearings A Cappella 5:00 PM 49 Cent Dress Classic Rock

24 november 29, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

Jazz 5:00 PM Janine Wilson & Arch Alcantara Roots, Americana

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 18 12:00 PM Flo Anito Jazzy Pop 5:00 PM DC Highlife Stars African Highlife

THURSDAY, DEC. 19 12:00 PM Smokin’ Lounge Pop, Rock, Jazz 2:30 PM Jonny Grave Slide Blues 5:00 PM Clear Harmonies Carolers A Cappella Holiday

FRIDAY, DEC. 20 12:00 PM Jim Stephanson American Songbook 2:30 PM Project Natale Jazz 5:00 PM Cooking With Gas Blues, Swing, Jazz

SATURDAY, DEC. 21 12:00 PM Big Lunch Americana 1:00PM Jersey Boys National Theater / Broadway 2:30 PM Christylez Bacon Progressive Hip Hop 5:00 PM GrooveQuest

BECOME A MEMBER.

Classic Rock, R&B

SUNDAY, DEC. 22

12:00 PM Blue Panamuse Blues, Swing 2:30 PM King Street Bluegrass Bluegrass, Country 5:00 PM The Lovejoy Group Jazz, Holiday

12:00 PM Miss Tess & the

MONDAY, DEC. 16

MONDAY, DEC. 23

Talkbacks Americana, Blues 2:30 PM Lilt Irish, Step Dancers 5:00 PM Kiss and Ride Blues, Jazz, Soul

12:00 PM Patty Reese Acoustic Roots 5:00 PM GrooveQuest Classic Rock, R&B

12:00 PM Jelly Roll Mortals

TUESDAY, DEC. 17

5:00 PM Ian Walters &

12:00 PM Tritone Jazz Trio

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Eclectic Roots 2:30 PM Dave Chappell Band Roots of Blues Friends Blues, Roots

Downtown Holiday Market Event Guide

washingtoncitypaper.com/membership

Brian Oh

DCFEED

DC9 is reviving the famed Palena burger for the month of December.

Nightclub co-owner Amber Bursik worked at the beloved Cleveland Park restaurant under Chef Frank Ruta and has crafted a close approximation.

YOUNG & HUNGRY

Closing Signs

Illustration by Julia Terbrock

Are you afraid that your favorite local restaurant might be closing?

Here’s how to interpret the signals.

By Laura Hayes RestauRants aRe closing in D.C. Last week alone, Whaley’s, Vinoteca, The Commodore Public House & Kitchen, and Philly Wing Fry announced November swan songs. The decision to cease operating is an emotional one, according to longtime D.C. restaurateurs who have both closed restaurants and operated long-tenured success stories.

“It’s not just a business,” says David Winer of restaurant group EatWell DC. “It’s a business, it’s a creative endeavor, it’s our money, it’s often our family’s money, it’s our lives. We live this, we don’t just punch in.”

He’s operated Grillfish for more than 20 years and Logan Tavern for 16. But he also recently closed Frenchy’s Naturel after The Bird didn’t take flight in the same space. Untamed optimism sometimes clouds a restaurateur’s judgement when it comes time to let go.

“We’re all the Wright brothers believing we can fly,” Winer says. “That’s the truth, or we wouldn’t do it. We don’t see it coming because we’re optimistic, we’re hopeful. We believe the solution is one special away. One good night will trigger another good night. We just fool ourselves into believing that it’s going to get better.”

There are just as many reasons restaurants

close as there are cuisines in the world, but local restaurateurs cite three main ones.

First, many eateries that opened during D.C.’s initial restaurant boom are seeing their five- and 10-year leases come up for renewal.

Some landlords are using the opportunity to ask for double, triple, or quadruple what the restaurants previously paid.

This problem has become pervasive enough that Ward 5 Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie and Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen introduced legislation to support “legacy” and small local businesses by providing financial assistance, incentivizing landlords to enter into or renew leases with longtime businesses, and engineering oth-

er forms of protection. Fifty Washingtonians signed up to testify at a hearing on three bills with similar goals earlier this month—most of them were small businesses worried about their survival.

Next is finding and affording labor. D.C.’s minimum wage will reach $15 an hour in July 2020. The current federal minimum wage is $7.25. If you pay a dishwasher $15 an hour, a cook with more advanced skills isn’t going to work for the same rate.

“We can’t get good labor and the labor we do get is very expensive,” says a restaurateur who asked to remain anonymous. We’ll call them Alex. “I don’t have a line cook here under $17. In 2010 I was starting line cooks at $9 an hour. It’s almost double. And, our population hasn’t grown that much. There’s a density problem at some point.”

Housing in the city is too expensive for many would-be residents, including service industry professionals. A 2019 study by SmartAsset found that the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in D.C. is $3,100 a month, which is $37,200 a year. And because Metro doesn’t run late enough to ferry workers home to the suburbs, the pool of applicants is diminishing.

Finally, some restaurateurs feel there’s an oversaturation of restaurants. “I remember we used to get three turns,” says Passion Food Hospitality co-founder David Wizenberg.

“Now it’s two turns.” A “turn” is a timed wave of diners coming through for a meal, such as at 5:30 p.m., 7:30 p.m., and 9:30 p.m.

Having recently closed Acadiana after 13 years, along with Penn Commons and TenPenh in Tysons Corner, Passion Food Hospitality is consolidating its restaurants to focus on District Commons, PassionFish, and Burger Tap & Shake.

“There’s such saturation,” Wizenberg continues. “If diners can’t get in at the exact time they want, they’ll go somewhere else. People say, ‘Oh, it’s great, the restaurant scene,’ but there’s always a balance. Restaurant sales are overall not increasing, but bills and rent are.”

The recent high concentration of restaurants is more obvious in some neighborhoods than others. “It’s very clear that places like Navy Yard and The Wharf have sucked some of the nightlife and dining density away from other areas,” says another restaurateur who asked to remain anonymous. We’ll call them Charlie. “Both of those developments are good for the city.

Everything is going down towards the water at this point. Look across the globe, that’s where most of the action is.”

Charlie has closed restaurants and bars.

“It’s such an emotional decision to admit that you got it wrong,” they explain. “I think for

washingtoncitypaper.com november 29, 2019 25

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people who have groups behind them, they’ll certainly hang on longer than a mom-and-pop or single independent restaurant. You’ll see the more obvious signs of panic—signs that things are going downhill.”

When a restaurateur opens their books and calculates that sales are slipping and expenses are surpassing revenue, they begin to strategize on how to right the ship.

“If you’re drowning, you do everything you can to stay afloat,” Winer says. “I’m not a desperate kind of person. I try to do things with dignity. I’m not going to pee my pants and cry.

These are hard decisions to be made. And still, I’d say to the last gasping breath of Frenchy’s I wanted to believe I could save the day with something.”

Some of the tells are more obvious than others—such as the signboard that appears on the sidewalk advertising all-night happy hour, seven nights a week. City Paper asked the four aforementioned restaurateurs to run down others: • A restaurant on OpenTable begins offering additional dining points for table times beyond the typical 5 p.m. or 5:30 p.m. seatings. Restaurants can woo diners by promising them 1,000-point reservations on the platform. Points add up to dining credits.

• You no longer see your favorite bartender or server. If their take-home pay is reduced, you can’t blame a server from moving on.

“Loyalty can only go so far when you have to pay the bills,” says one of the restaurateurs.

• Restaurants will eliminate certain positions first. If you walk in and are never greeted by a host, “that’s either poor management or serious cost-cutting,” says another of the restaurateurs.

• You’re ordering off a tighter menu. If the restaurant has cut staff or staff have left on their own volition, the kitchen can no longer execute a long, complex menu.

• Repairs and maintenance become an afterthought. “You go into a restaurant and see dilapidation—typically at that point the cash flow is so seriously gone that the first thing that goes is you just stop fixing shit,” says one restaurateur.

• When restaurants waver from their mission.

“The biggest sign to me has been promoters. Dinner is served until 8 p.m. and then it turns over to some guy who is charging at the door for dancing,” says a restaurateur.

• Chefs shrink their portion sizes, particularly for entrées.

• Services get slashed. Suddenly there’s no Saturday brunch. Then the restaurant is closed Mondays. Then Tuesdays.

Taking some of these measures can have consequences. “The moment the diner smells desperation, the general public knows and moves on because they’re worried about the quality,” Alex explains. “They know they can get better bang for their buck at a place that’s thriving. They don’t want to waste money on a place that’s struggling.”

There’s a lot to weigh. Do you take some of these cost-savings measures or do you try and stay the course without altering quali-

ty? “It’s a chicken and egg thing,” Charlie says. “If you start cutting staff and have the customer be impacted by lesser service or a product that’s not as good, it’s just going to get worse.”

“Some places take the wrong course when things get sticky,” Winer concurs. “They go out and buy cheap products and cut corners to the point where they’re trying to make a living on diminished business. I understand it, but it goes against what we do. If business is suffering, I’m not going to buy cheaper ground beef. It’s not going to work for me. It’s not going to work for guests either.”

Restaurateurs want diners to know that there’s a difference between desperation and reinvestment. Major changes or generous promotions aren’t necessarily signs of imminent death. “There’s so much competition that you can’t make the assumption that just because people are doing halfprice wine or aggressive happy hour specials they’re closing,” Charlie says. “Even places that are thriving should do that to stay ahead of the curve.”

Winer says if he notices a softening in late night or lunch business, for example, he works hard to drive guests to the restaurant during those hours. “It doesn’t mean we’re in trouble,” he says. “If I’m doing a killer brunch business and it dissipates, I’ll try to promote the hell out of it to get it back.”

In fact, Winer says he’s investing more time and money into promotions than ever before to manage steep competition. “When I first opened Logan Tavern [in 2003], we didn’t have to do anything,” he recounts. “My entire pre-opening budget was a sign I hung in the window that said, ‘Now Open.’ From night one, we were on a wait and we were full every night for the next two years.”

A reader contacted City Paper worried that one of his go-to restaurants was on the ropes because his inbox was stuffed with advertising emails pushing one special or another.

“An onslaught of emails could be a reinvigoration,” Alex cautions. “A restaurant will go out and raise money and use that reinvestment.” You have to spend money to make money. “Often one of the first things people tackle is public relations. You know the things that actually cost money. PR, hiring a new chef with a name, or remodeling. That’s reinvestment.” Some restaurants will even close and reopen under a new name.

Alex says it’s up to restaurateurs to make sure that diners remember their restaurants, but can patrons take action if they sense their neighborhood haunt is flailing? “If you want a place to make it, come more often,” Wizenberg urges. “If you feel like, ‘Wow, it’s slow when I’m here,’ tell your friends.”

“It’s not enough to go in and eat,” Winer agrees. “They need to tell their friends. Everything I read still says word-of-mouth referrals from friends is where the lion’s share of restaurant visits are generated … If you want a restaurant to survive then talk it up. Post on Facebook.

There is so much noise in the world that without many voices, without flags being run up the pole all the time, it’s hard out there.”

CP

Meghan Walsh

CPARTS

Four local artists who have work featured in Metro stations share the inspiration behind their pieces. washingtoncitypaper.com/arts

Passport Pictures

Seven of the best titles the European Union Film Showcase has to offer

By Pat Padua

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

One Of the best festivals in a festival-heavy town, the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center’s European Union Film Showcase is now in its 32nd year. Previous editions have featured the local premieres of favorites like Toni Erdmann, Cold War, and Everybody Knows. With 46 films, and something from each of the 28 EU member states, this year’s slate is particularly strong, including such high-profile titles as Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life and Czech director Václav Marhou’s much-anticipated adaptation of Jerzy Kosinski’s novel The Painted Bird. Those are likely to get commercial releases in 2020, continuing the festival’s tradition as a sneak preview for arthouse frontrunners. But the lineup also includes quite a few films that are unlikely to appear on local screens again.

The titles we’ve previewed this year are a selection of what looks to be a terrific festival.

CORPUS CHRISTI

Directed by Jan Komasa Poland Poland’s official submission for Oscar consideration is a faith-based drama that takes the familiar tropes of forgiveness and redemption into more difficult territory. Daniel (Bartosz Bielenia) is a troubled 20-year-old in a juvenile detention center who’d like to become a priest, but no seminary will accept someone with his criminal record. When he’s released, Daniel gets involved with a rural church and ends up passing himself off as ordained when their elderly pastor falls ill.

It gets more complicated: The townspeople are bitter about a widow whose husband they believe caused a car accident that killed six local teens. Bielenia has the striking features of a religious icon, which makes him a perfect match for this story of small-town faith and forgiveness.

Dec. 5 at 7:15 p.m., Dec. 8 at 5:45 p.m., and Dec. 12 at 5 p.m. at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center.

DEERSKIN

Directed by Quentin Dupieux France In this 76-minute thriller, the star gets instructions from a killer jacket. Georges (Jean Dujar-

din) is separated from his wife, and probably his faculties. He buys an expensive deerskin jacket and becomes so obsessed with the garment that he has conversations with it. And the jacket has a dream—it wants Georges to be the only person in the world wearing a jacket. As a means to this quixotic end, Georges pretends to be making a movie, in which he pays locals to hand over their jackets and films them swearing never to wear a jacket ever again. When he runs out of money, Georges convinces a pretty bartender (Adèle Haenel) to fund his crazy scheme.

Georges may seem harmless enough, but a brassy score introduces a tension that suggests all is not whimsical. Director Quentin Dupieux made the 2010 horror movie Rubber, about a killer tire, and his latest is similarly high-concept. What makes Deerskin work so well is Dujardin (star of The Artist, an inferior movie about movie-making), who plays the absurd conceit with a straight face that makes his descent into madness all the more effective.

Dec. 6 at 7:10 p.m., Dec. 7 at 9:20 p.m., and Dec. 11 at 9:40 p.m. at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center.

PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE Directed by Céline Sciamma France

Slated for a commercial run on Valentine’s Day 2020, this austere period drama from director Céline Sciamma has gotten a lot of hot buzz on the festival circuit, but its embers burn slowly. Set in 18th-century Brittany, the temperature rises when Marianne (Noémie Merlant) is hired to paint a portrait of young Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) for a potential suitor. The reluctant subject has sent another artist home packing, having refused to pose, so Marianne is taken on under the guise of a companion, and must capture her subject from memory, sneaking in sketches and brushwork when Héloïse isn’t looking. That secrecy lends itself to a sexual tension that sets the cold environment ablaze, and the leads develop their chemistry in enticing fits and starts. But the drama is undercut by a corny framing device that introduces Marianne as an art teacher whose memory is awakened when one of her students just happens to bring an unusual portrait out of storage.

Dec. 8 at 8:15 p.m. and Dec. 9 at 7:10 p.m. at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center.

THE WHISTLERS

Directed by Corneliu Porumboiu Romania Romania’s new wave is known for deathly dry humor and political commentary, all wrapped up in the bleak visuals of a dreary winter. But one of its prime directors has eschewed that for a slick, Tarantino-esque crime drama that’s gorgeous, grisly, and slyly hilarious. Director Corneliu Porumboiu gets a moderate budget for this jet-setting caper centered on a corrupt cop (Vlad Ivanov) who gets involved in a plot to spring a shady businessman from a prison in the Canary Islands. With lush landscapes, a stylishly photographed sex scene, and a pop soundtrack that includes Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger,” this seems like a far cry from Porumboiu’s usual wheelhouse. But the title conceit plays right into the director’s fascination with language: In order to elude police surveillance, the conspirators communicate using a vocabulary consisting of whistles. The Whistlers is smart and wildly entertain-

washingtoncitypaper.com november 29, 2019 27

CPARTS ing, reveling in its bigger budget as thoroughly as it subverts conventional thriller tropes.

Dec. 13 at 7:30 p.m. and Dec. 17 at 7:15 p.m. at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center.

YOUNG AHMED

Young Ahmed

er in lives that seem so real you could reach out and hug these characters as they search for structure and meaning in their lives.

Dec. 14 at 5:15 p.m. and Dec. 18 at 7:20 p.m. at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center.

Directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne Belgium

THE TRUTH

The latest from the Dardenne brothers (Two Days, One Night) is a timely and loaded story about a Belgian teenager Ahmed (Idir Ben Addi) who, under the influence of an extremist Imam, plots to kill his teacher (Myriem Akheddiou) and ends up in juvenile detention. The directors have experienced some controversy for what some say is portraying Islam in a bad light. But what the film presents, with the directors’ typical sensitivity and compassion, is a wildly divided faith: Everyone at a Muslim teacher’s meeting seems to have a different opinion on how best to worship. Ahmed’s particular struggle is inspired by his brother, who became a suicide bomber, but when he washes his hands after a dog licks them, it becomes clear that the boy’s fervor may be partly neurotic. If this sounds programmatic, it’s not; as always, the Dardennes immerse the view-

In any other festival, the latest from Japanese director Kore-eda (Shoplifters) would be a highlight, so it’s a measure of how strong this year’s lineup is that this solid all-star drama is among the weakest of the titles we previewed. Catherine Deneuve stars as Fabienne, a veteran actress who has just published a tell-all (or tell-most) memoir. To celebrate, her daughter Lumir (Juliette Binoche) has come to visit with her husband Hank (Ethan Hawke, just kinda hanging out), himself a small-time actor. The self-reflexive plot revolves around Fabienne’s latest film, which depicts a tense family dynamic not unlike her own. The Truth is best when Deneuve and Binoche get to have it out with their motherdaughter relationship, but fans of Kore-eda will miss the aching, bittersweet tone that characterizes his best work.

Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda France

Dec. 14 at 8:30 p.m. and Dec. 19 at 7:20 p.m. at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center.

BAIT

Directed by Mark Jenkin UK In one of the most visually striking films of the year, director Mark Jenkin tells a chilling story of gentrification in a Cornish fishing village. Martin (comedian Edward Rowe) and his brother Steven (Giles King) are among the last men working the sea in a town that now caters to tourists. Times are so hard that Martin has sold his boat, and Steven uses his to roam around drunk bachelor party revel-

ers. Worse, the couple that bought their old family home has turned its working-class decor into nautical kitsch. In this remote milieu, tensions between struggling locals and wealthy tourists fuel a mutual resentment before things turn tragic. You can practically taste the salt water on the screen. And if its subject is a dying breed, so is its medium— Jenkins shot Bait on black-and-white 16mm film that he hand-developed. The imperfect grain and exposure provide the perfect canvas for weathered faces caught in a bitter, hopeless dynamic.

Dec. 20 at 5:45 p.m. and Dec. 21 at 5 p.m. at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center.

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28 november 29, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

THEATERCURTAIN CALLS

ART HISTORY Occupant

By Edward Albee Directed by Aaron Posner At Theater J to Dec. 8

HOUSEKEEPING Keep.

Written and performed by Daniel Kitson At Studio Theatre to Dec. 1 English cult comEdian Daniel Kitson’s shows are a one-way communion. He expresses the riveting mundane intricacies of his life through virtuosic torrents of profanity and shimmering insights, but all we know about him is what he tells us on stage. His labyrinthine stories begin with a brochure-ready premise but soon morph into something else.

In Keep., now running at Studio Theatre, that something else is the two-hour accretion of a strange, thorny beauty unlike anything you could imagine existing, in this world, without first seeing this writer-performer’s art for yourself.

“That’s just how it comes out,” Kitson says of his blistering, bliss-inducing gifts during his second solo play to appear in D.C. Here’s the premise of Keep.: The austere set comprises a chair, a small square table, and a large, tall cabinet in back with 50 long drawers, rather like a library card catalog, with a lamp on top of the cabinet. The drawers contain varying lengths of pastel-colored index cards. Kitson, foul-mouthed with jittery tics and a stammer, claims that, on every index card, he has painstakingly named one of the 20,000 objects in his house. He claims that this play will consist of his reading aloud from each index card to list the entire contents of the house.

Then the play changes shape, a metaphor, to me, for how we experience our existence unpredictably unfolding, from the mass-produced hope of baby blankets and dorm room posters to the sad specific majesty of a lucky adult life. Metaphors abound in Keep. The things in his house are the things in his head, and the things he keeps have meaning.

To say here literally what happens next would spoil the story, though his meticulous-

ly constructed stories are not, to me, why a Kitson show matters. You go to see the singularity of his sensibility in person.

He tells the audience that Keep. took him six and a half months to write.

“I feel lonely because—anyone? I’m alive.”

He says there are different types of loneliness: the type that a spot of tea and a chat will help and existential isolation. He advises that “you can fall in love with essentially anyone” if two conditions are met: They’re not a jerk, and regular low-stakes proximity. “Sadness is important,” he says. It’s like “salt in the soup. You miss it when it’s not there.”

Before the show, while I was sitting near the box office, Kitson walked by, a complexly perceptive and self-aware glint in his eye. Somewhere well into Keep.’s two hours, he paused and looked up. Across the nearly black air, I mysteriously felt his glint reach my eyes, but I assumed it was an accident of live theater, and impossible at that. A few beats later, he said in an offhandedly dehumanizing way: “There’s press here. If you’re reviewing: Don’t.”

This was, of course, part of his media-shy legend. I wouldn’t even mention this, as I don’t wish to take the bait by amplifying his throwaway moment of crowd work. But he also pointed out an audience member’s hearing aid, so that she had to interact about it, and repeated his perspective that women in his bedroom should “pop your clothes off, then.” His art very occasionally punches down.

Maybe I’m not achieving what I hoped for in this review. I set out mainly to explain why one goes to a Daniel Kitson show. I haven’t even mentioned the section of Keep. where he speaks at a meta level about making his art.

“It’s impossible for me to tell you the truth,” he says. Then he explains that a slice of pizza is 100 percent pizza—but a slice of pizza is not 100 percent of the pizza. As his audience puzzles out that you can never really know all of anyone, I see him smile.

—Diana Michele Yap 1501 14th St. NW. $20–$25. (202) 332-3300. studiotheatre.org

Edward albEE’s Occupant unfolds through a series of rude questions. A scrawny man—an unnamed, professorial-type (Jonathan David Martin)—does the asking. Louise Nevelson—a notable real-life eccentric and one of the 20th century’s great sculptors (Susan Rome)—provides the answers. It’s a Q&A of sorts, indistinguishable from a particularly hostile book talk at Politics and Prose, except for the fact that when the play starts, Nevelson’s been dead for many years.

The man starts off with Nevelson’s childhood, and slowly works his way up until the moment of her death. He’s a deliberate dud of a character. He presses her for gossip about her failed marriage and her sex life (much of which she declines to answer), and whenever her storytelling waxes into hyperbole, he jumps in to get her facts straight. At the end of the first act, he asks her if she’s ever considered suicide. “Yes, of course,” she replies, so he asks her what kept her from doing it. She responds with a non-sequitur, giving a strange, beautiful speech about growing up around horses in rural Maine. Then, visibly confused, he cuts her off, ending the most moving moment in a bone-dry first act, and calling for an intermission.

With Occupant, now on stage at Theater J, fans of Edward Albee might not get what they were expecting. The great playwright of alcohol and intramarital cruelty, Albee made his name in the ’60s and ’70s with a series of living room dramas that combined acid dialogue with an avant-garde refusal to adhere to the conventions of character development. (The most famous of these is Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.) His best-known protagonists always remain enigmatic and bewildering; in some of his first plays, they didn’t even names . And while these iconic dramas were certainly exposés of the fictions and failures of heterosexual romance, they were also always more than that. They were stories of how people manage to make lives out of those fictions, however troubled those lives may be.

Occupant, one of his final plays, is in many ways the opposite of all that. With all the family drama happening off-stage, there’s none of the vicious fighting that made his earlier work so damn fun. (The play lacks some energy because of it.) And while in much of his oeuvre Albee refused to give his characters backstories, this piece is nothing but: Nevelson was a real, live person, and the play walks us through her entire biography.

So why the change-up? Well, Nevelson— who was a close friend of Albee’s—accomplished something remarkable. An artist, an

immigrant, a woman, a Jew, Nevelson faced repulsive misogyny in the mid-century art world, coupled with anti-Semitism of the literal Nazi variety. Nevertheless, she lived a life in no way defined by her demographic descriptors. She certainly wasn’t immune to the stultifying social norms that Albee spent much of his career preoccupied with, but by the end of her life, she’d moved beyond them.

The play echoes this. The man repeatedly brings up Nevelson’s reputation as a horrendous mother, but she doesn’t say much about it. It’s a principled stance: When discussing a visionary artist, the usual sexist fixations are the wrong questions to ask.

Playing the famous sculptress, Rome is magnetic. With the verve of a natural-born storyteller, she tells anecdotes that you'll remember word for word. Martin’s unfortunate job is to spoil the fun—he often butts in with an impertinent question just when everything’s starting to take flight. The play works by throwing a veil over the drama and then slowly peeling it back, making us wish we were hearing more from Nevelson and then, finally, letting us. Only toward the end of the play, and of her increasingly liberated life, does the man finally shut up and let Nevelson talk about her art. The result is powerful, and deliciously idiosyncratic. She looks free.

Of course, we shouldn’t forget the drama’s surreal backdrop: This whole time, Nevelson is dead. That fact is made clear early on, although never explained. However, in a play sparse with emotion, this is what gives the drama its quiet pathos. One imagines Albee watching biographers and obituary writers revel in the juicy details of Nevelson’s life, and deciding to write his friend a love letter. That lends a gentle sadness to everything happening on the stage, and supplies the play’s central theme. The most obvious method for Albee to capture her as she was— telling her life story—is inevitably going to fail.

—Joshua Kaplan 1529 16th St. NW. $29–$69. (202) 777-3210. theaterj.org.

washingtoncitypaper.com november 29, 2019 29

LIZ AT LARGE

BOOKSSPEED READS

DISMAYED IN AMERICA A New American Creed

By David Kamens Stanford University Press, 306 pages

“Looking” by Liz Montague Liz Montague is a D.C.-based cartoonist and cat mom. You can find her work in The New Yorker and City Paper.

30 november 29, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

For anyone worried that the U.S. under Trump could morph into populist authoritarianism like Hungary or Poland, sociologist David Kamens’ new book, A New American Creed, will not calm those fears. Kamens trains his social scientific expertise on U.S. politics and economics from the 1930s to the present. He recounts how a collectivist response to the Great Depression created national solidarity and social programs like Social Security. World War II continued that collectivism and solidarity and surprisingly, so did the Cold War. But then, in the 1960s, the business counterattack against government regulation and high taxes began.

The narrative of polarization gained ground. Social solidarity declined. Today, he writes, populism has “weakened the idea that society could act collectively to solve social problems,” while politics have polarized around “government regulation of the economy and regulation of public morality” (abortion, LGBTQ rights, the death penalty).

Meanwhile, “the mantra of no tax increases and no government borrowing cripples economic policy.” Kamens argues that the U.S. fiscal crisis “derives from the inability of society to support the taxation levels needed to run a modern state and society.”

With the media as “purveyors of conflict,” all elites—in higher education, medicine, government, politics, science, and media— have become suspect and political parties and traditional citizenship duties, like voting and voluntary associations, have declined, replaced by radical individualism and right-wing populism. Attacks on university and scientific elites lower social mobility, Kamens argues, and push Republican state governments to cut funding for higher education. Similarly, scientists warning about climate change become targets. Kamens writes: “Business may be the one institution immune to this challenge. Ameri-

can civil religion has long defined business as a meritocracy and a major source of progress.” So business elites remain exempt from the abuse heaped on all other elites. The most telling example of this was when “the public blamed government, not financial institutions, for the depression of 2008.”

“Americanism is a highly individualistic and populist religion,” Kamens writes. “While the United States was founded as a religious enterprise, it was also a business venture. Frontier capitalism became a part of the creed.”

That creed has fault lines—the media hypes it so much that the country is widely considered to be in permanent conflict. Add to this common discourse about a “culture war” and presto: polarization. Indeed, Kamens argues that current partisan prejudice is the worst it’s been since the Civil War. The fault lines Kamens describes are economic libertarianism and cultural libertarianism. He argues that “there is deregulation of the economy as well as deregulation of morality,” and asks, “should the nation deregulate morality … to advance civil liberties for all?”

And, “should the government regulate the economy to reduce inequality and promote growth and innovation?”

Unfortunately, the rise of civil libertarianism has not engendered support for economic equality. That’s partly due to post-1960s neoliberalism, embraced by both major parties and seriously eroding the Democrats’ working-class base.

Kamens is more sympathetic to the left-wing populism of Occupy, Black Lives Matter, and the Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns. He also calls out the irrationality of the Tea Party belief that anyone who wants to work can find a job and thus Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid should be reserved solely for people with long work histories. He criticizes the widespread notion that no special training is needed to run government and warns that expertise is in decline: “This is the era of the rational public and the wisdom of crowds.” Public opinion has displaced knowledge. The results of right-wing populism have weakened collective action to solve social problems. But Kamens does not dispute that left-wing populism could have different outcomes. So there may be hope for populism yet.

—Eve Ottenberg

FILMSHORT SUBJECTS

Maya Beiser, Wendy Whelan, Lucinda Childs & David Lang

The Day Knives Out

Directed by Rian Johnson Modern criMe fiction has an existential streak to it, often featuring murders that cause detectives to question their faith in humanity. But in this film, when a detective solves a murder most foul, it’s more like a parlor trick than the result of exhaustive procedural detail.

Knives Out, the new whodunit from writerdirector Rian Johnson, is about such a murder.

He riffs on the genre popularized by Agatha Christie, but adds a modern sensibility so the film is also subversive, even political. Thanks to a phenomenal acting ensemble, this is one of the most satisfying pieces of entertainment in years.

It all begins with the discovery of a body.

Mystery novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is found in the attic of his massive mansion with his throat slashed. He died on the night of his 85th birthday party, and all of his guests are suspects. They all have a motive, too: His son and publisher Walt (Michael Shannon) wants complete control of his father’s publishing empire, while his daughterin-law Joni (Toni Colette) is cut off from his money. Two cops (Noah Segan and Lakeith Stanfield) are on the case, with an assist from Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), a private detective with an outrageous Kentucky accent.

There are many flashbacks, and Rian Johnson carefully reveals one detail after another. He knows the journey is more fun than the destination, so he lets the characters spar with one another when they should be focusing on the investigation at hand. In between all this squabbling—including Chris Evans as Ransom, the family’s black sheep—Harlan’s nurse Marta (Ana de Armas) emerges as the key figure in the case. Johnson shrewdly shifts to her

point of view, and through her our entire notion of the case turns on its head.

By shifting focus away from the Thrombey children to Marta, Johnson is able to create his political subtext: Marta immigrated to the United States legally, and there is a running gag about the Thrombey family continuing to reference her country of origin incorrectly. Knives Out is brazen in how it skewers rich right-wingers, right down to a minor character who is called a “Nazi” by his family.

While Knives Out does solve the case, what makes it fun is its celebration of eccentricity.

All the characters have personality quirks or compulsions, and Johnson shrewdly puts them in situations where they have no choice but to perform them. Marta has an unusual physical reaction whenever she tells a lie, so all the characters find a way to use this to their advantage. Jamie Lee Curtis plays Linda, Harlan’s oldest child, and she is her own worst enemy thanks to her seething, brittle nature.

Still, no one in this film is more eccentric than Daniel Craig. Craig’s accent is comically ridiculous here, and he draws out lines to an absurd degree. At one point, Ransom calls him “CSI KFC.” This self-awareness is key to the movie’s appeal. Johnson’s film is not a parody of classic murder mysteries but a devoted remix of them. As the dysfunctional family members lash out at each other, Craig’s exaggerated manner conceals a keen sense of observation. In a reference to Agatha Christie’s fictional detective Hercule Poirot, Benoit uses his quirks as misdirection.

There is a long, tense stretch in Knives Out in which the case becomes so complex that it is unclear whether the film can even arrive at a solution. But Johnson is a stylist specializing in characters who are smarter than the genres in which they appear, and Knives Out is a slyly ambitious film. Yet, both he and the cast make it all look so easy.

—Alan Zilberman Knives Out opens Wednesday at Landmark Atlantic Plumbing Cinema.

—The New York Times

Photo by Hayim Heron. Courtesy of Jacobs Pillow

DIAGNOSIS: MURDER

“A gut punch... nothing short of life itself: by turns hopeful, funny, surprising, and tragic”

December 6 & 7 | Eisenhower Theater Kennedy-Center.org (202) 467-4600

Groups call (202) 416-8400

For all other ticket-related customer service inquiries, call the Advance Sales Box Office at (202) 416-8540

The presentation of The Day is made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Additional support for Dance at the Kennedy Center is provided by Susanne L. Niedland.

washingtoncitypaper.com november 29, 2019 31

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

THIS WEEK’S SHOWS

BenDeLaCreme & Jinkx Monsoon:

Miami Horror w/ Argonaut & Wasp • Ozker ..........................................F NOV 29 Alice Smith................................................................................................... Sa 30

Robert Earl Keen -

U STREET MUSIC HALL PRESENTS

ALL GOOD PRESENTS

Collie Buddz w/ Keznamdi..................................................................... Su DEC 1 DECEMBER

DECEMBER (cont.)

ALL GOOD PRESENTS

Pigeons Playing Ping Pong w/ lespecial Must purchase 2-Day Pass with 12/7 PPPP @ The Anthem to attend. .....F 6

The Pietasters

w/ The Fuss • Oison • Creachies .Sa 28

Omar Apollo

w/ Alexander 23 & Silver Sphere Early Show! 6pm Doors .....................F 13

Cautious Clay w/ Remi Wolf

Late Show! 10pm Doors ......................F 13

Samantha Fish

w/ Nicholas David .......................Tu 17

Daughters and HEALTH

w/ Show Me The Body .................W 18

Turnover & Men I Trust

w/ Renata Zeiguer ......................Th 19

Hot in Herre Holiday Spectacular: 2000s Dance Party with DJs Will Eastman and Ozker • Visuals by Kylos ........................F 20

FIRST NIGHT SOLD OUT! SECOND

& FINAL NIGHT ADDED!

Thievery Corporation

w/ The Archives ..........................Su 22

GWAR

w/ Unearth & Savage Master .......F 27

Countdown to Christmas w/ Shinyribs........................................DEC 6

NIGHT FIRST TWO SHOWS SOLD OUT! THIRD STORY DISTRICT’S AN EVENING WITH Top Shelf ................................... JAN 25

Julius Dein ................................ FEB 23 thelincolndc.com • impconcerts.com •

ADDED!

They Might Be Giants -

Flood 30th Anniversary ........APR 8

U Street (Green/Yellow) stop across the street!

Clutch w/ The Steel Woods

& Damon Johnson .......................Su 29

Devendra Banhart

w/ Black Belt Eagle Scout Early Show! 6pm Doors .....................Sa 7

All I Want for Christmas is Attention .NOV 29

Jonathan Richman & Bonnie “Prince” Billy ........ MAR 7 Whindersson Nunes .......... MAR 16 Welcome to Night Vale .......APR 2 Walk Off The Earth ................APR 5

9:30 CLUB PRESENTS AT U STREET MUSIC HALL

JANUARY (cont.)

No Scrubs: ‘90s Dance Party

with DJs Will Eastman & Ozker • Visuals by Kylos ..........................F 3

Yola w/ Amythyst Kiah.................F 10 BASS NATION PRESENTS

Svdden Death w/ Phiso .........Sa 11 Hiss Golden Messenger w/ Lilly Hiatt ................................W 15

American Authors and MAGIC GIANT w/ Public ........Th 16 STEEZ PROMO PRESENTS

Great Good Fine OK w/ Aaron Taos ...............................F 31 Ezra Collective.................. Tu DEC 3 Palace .................................M FEB 3 Poppy ........................................Sa 8 Thurston Moore Group w/ Devin Brahja Waldman..................Sa 7 Anna of the North ...................Th 13

9:30 CLUB AND TRILLECTRO PRESENT Berhana w/ Pomo.............. Sa NOV 30

9:30 CLUB & ALL GOOD PRESENT

9:30 CLUB & ALL GOOD PRESENT

Jojo Mayer / NERVE ................W 11 Moon Hooch ...........................Sa 22 The Slackers w/ Mephiskapheles...Th 19 Sango w/ Anik Khan & Savon............W 26 Temples w/ Art d’Ecco 070Shake All 11/8 9:30 Club tickets honored. . M JAN 20 All 10/10 tickets honored. ..........Sa MAR 7 • 930.com/u-hall • impconcerts.com • Buy advance tickets at the 9:30 Club box office. •

Sullivan King w/ Eliminate.....F 17 Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven

Early Show! 6pm Doors ....................Sa 18

The Budos Band

w/ Paul and The Tall Trees Late Show! 10pm Doors....................Sa 18

Ripe w/ The New Respects ........Th 23 The Glorious Sons w/ Des Rocs ..................................F 24

MANY MORE SHOWS ON SALE! 930.com impconcerts.com

9:30 CUPCAKES

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

TICKETS for all shows are available at IMPconcerts.com, and at the 9:30 Club, Lincoln Theatre, The Anthem, and Merriweather Post Pavilion box offices. Check venue websites for box office hours.

HAPPY HOUR DRINK PRICES impconcerts.com AFTER THE SHOW AT THE BACK BAR! 32 november 29, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

PARKING: THE OFFICIAL 9:30 parking lot entrance is on

9th Street, directly behind the 9:30 Club. Buy your advance parking tickets at the same time as your concert tickets!

930.com

CITYLIST

!

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

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

Tix @ Ticketmaster.com

THE SELDOM SCENE & DRY BRANCH FIRE SQUAD 30 MARY PRANKSTER Nov 29

Music 33 Books 35 Dance 35 Theater 36 Film 36

"PRANKSGIVING 2019" w/Val Yumm

THE FIXX

Dec 3

CITY LIGHTS: FRIDAY

4

Royston Langdon

A PETER WHITE CHRISTMAS

with Peter White, Euge Groove, Vincent Ingala, & Lindsey Webster "Winter JUDY COLLINS Stories"

6&7 feat. JONAS

F JELD and Special Guests CHATHAM COUNTY LINE

12

NORMAN BROWN'S JOYOUS CHRISTMAS

w/Bobby Caldwell & Marion Meadows

OHIO PLAYERS 14 SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY 13

& The Asbury Jukes

15

A Honky Tonk Holiday!

BILL KIRCHEN & TOO MUCH FUN and JUNIOR BROWN 18 A JOHN WATERS CHRISTMAS Filthier & Merrier "It'll Stuff Your Turkey"

CARBON LEAF 21 A Very MAYSA Christmas

19

feat. Her Jazz Funk Soul Orchestra with CHRIS "BIG DOG" DAVIS

Music FRIDAY BLUES

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

Jonny Grave. 10:30 p.m. Free. thehamiltondc.com.

CABARET

NATIONAL THEATRE 1321 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. (202) 628-6161. Mandy Patinkin. 8 p.m. $65–$125. nationaltheatre.org.

COUNTRY

PEARL STREET WAREHOUSE 33 Pearl Street SW. (202) 380-9620. Wil Gravatt Band. 8 p.m. Free. pearlstreetwarehouse.com.

FUNK & R&B

CITY WINERY 1350 Okie St. NE. (202) 250-2531. Dave Hollister. 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. $38–$52. citywinery.com.

ELECTRONIC

EL GRAN COMBO DE PUERTO RICO

El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico have changed members a lot since forming in 1962, but their methodology has not—this large ensemble wants the audience dancing to its horns and rhythmsection-led salsa sound. Guided by their former pianist, 93-year-old Rafael Ithier, these veteran entertainers know how to put on a show. They feature three vocalists who do choreographed Motown-like arm motions and foot slides while singing together or alternating in the lead singer role. The instrumentalists skillfully play together, propelling couples around the dance floor.

This island institution has never needed digital beats, as the ping of the timbales, the slapped congas, the low-end bass, and the booming brass are enough for them to establish a groove.

While Combo members will occasionally show off their chops, they never do so in a dragged out, self-indulgent manner, and their tuneful melodies are warm but not sappy. Reggaeton may be the dominant commercial Latinx style now, but salsa, especially from pros like these folks, remains timeless. El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico perform at 8 p.m. at The Howard Theatre, 620 T St. NW. $59.50–$65. (202) 803-2899. thehowardtheatre.com.

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

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

Frankie Bones. 10 p.m. $10–$15.

Kadlecik and Bumper Jacksons. 9 p.m. $25–$30.

ustreetmusichall.com.

gypsysallys.com.

ROCK

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

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

NRBQ

26

Taylor CHARLES ESTEN Noele 28 PIECES OF A DREAM

27

29

23rd Annual

31

New Year's Eve with

Hank Williams Tribute Show

THE SELDOM SCENE Old Town Flood & Circa Blue

8pm

LAST TRAIN HOME 4 SCHOONER FARE BUSKIN & BATTEAU 5 Charles Ross' Jan 3

The Joy Formidable. 8:30 p.m. $25–$30. rockandroll-

9:30 CLUB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Miami Horror. 10 p.m. $25. 930.com.

7:30 p.m. $15. dcnine.com.

hoteldc.com.

THE ANTHEM 901 Wharf St. SW. (202) 888-0020. deadmau5. 8 p.m. $44–$500. theanthemdc.com.

FILLMORE SILVER SPRING 8656 Colesville Road, Sil-

WORLD

ver Spring. (301) 960-9999. As I Lay Dying. 7:30 p.m.

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

$27.50. fillmoresilverspring.com.

2899. El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico. 8 p.m. $59.50–

FLASH 645 Florida Ave. NW. (202) 827-8791. Eli Verveine. 10 p.m. $8–$15. flashdc.com.

LUTHER RE-LIVES

22 Holiday Show feat. William ‘Smooth’ Wardlaw

$65. thehowardtheatre.com.

9

AVERY*SUNSHINE

washingtoncitypaper.com november 29, 2019 33

CITY LIGHTS: SATURDAY

SATURDAY COUNTRY

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

Keller Williams’ Thanksforgrassgiving ft. Keller & The Keels. 8 p.m. $29–$35. thehamiltondc.com.

FOLK

BARNS AT WOLF TRAP 1635 Trap Road, Vienna. (703) 255-1900. Newmyer Flyer perform Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. 8 p.m. $27–$31. wolftrap.org.

FUNK & R&B

BETHESDA BLUES & JAZZ 7719 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda. (240) 330-4500. Maze. 8 p.m. $195–$295. bethesdabluesjazz.com.

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

Berhana. 7 p.m. $20. ustreetmusichall.com.

HOLIDAY

MUSIC CENTER AT STRATHMORE 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda. (301) 581-5100. Holidays in Harmony. 4 p.m. $29–$59. strathmore.org.

POP

PEARL STREET WAREHOUSE 33 Pearl Street SW. (202) 380-9620. HüsBand. 7:30 p.m. $12–$20. pearlstreetwarehouse.com.

SONGBYRD MUSIC HOUSE AND RECORD CAFE 2477 18th St. NW. (202) 450-2917. Role Model. 8 p.m. $13– $47. songbyrddc.com.

ROCK

9:30 CLUB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Alice Smith.

8 p.m. $35. 930.com.

FILLMORE SILVER SPRING 8656 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. (301) 960-9999. Fobia. 8 p.m. $39.50. fillmoresilverspring.com.

SUNDAY CLASSICAL

BARNS AT WOLF TRAP 1635 Trap Road, Vienna. (703) 255-1900. Jeffrey Kahane. 3 p.m. $42. wolftrap.org.

COUNTRY

BIRCHMERE 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria.

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

FUNK & R&B

BETHESDA BLUES & JAZZ 7719 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda. (240) 330-4500. Maze. 7 p.m. $195–$295. bethesdabluesjazz.com.

NAPPY NAPPA

Nappy Nappa reps Southeast D.C. hard—you don’t describe yourself as the “Young Mumbo Sauce Prince” if you’re not a Washingtonian—but his music seems to have a higher plane of existence in mind. The 23-year-old is a prolific talent who has been releasing cosmic rap transmissions from the fringes of D.C.’s underground rap scene since his teens. Take two of his 2019 projects as an example of his range. At the top of the year, he dropped I Can’t Een Hold You: The Mixtape, his syllables tumbling forth over skittering drums and breezy woodwind samples in a way that recalled early decade cloud rap. Then, he returned with Autonomous, exploring the metaphysical aspects of everyday concerns. Early on, a voice sets the table by intoning “truth, peace, freedom, justice, beauty.” This purity of mind is contrasted by a noisy, industrial edge that soundtracks his free verse missives. “None of this fabricated, we cut from a different fabric, baby,” he raps. “It’s like magic, baby: actions, intentions, and symbols.” It may be challenging to follow Nappy Nappa’s signs, but it’s rewarding if you do. Nappy Nappa performs at 8 p.m. at The Pocket, 1506 North Capitol St. NW. $10. (202) 643-7424. songbyrddc.com. —Chris Kelly

JAZZ

THE HAMILTON 600 14th St. NW. (202) 787-1000. A Charlie Brown Christmas with The Eric Byrd Trio. 3 p.m. $14.75–$34.75. thehamiltondc.com.

WORLD

JAZZ

POP

9:30 CLUB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Collie Buddz. 8 p.m. $28. 930.com.

MUSIC CENTER AT STRATHMORE 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda. (301) 581-5100. Béla Fleck & The Flecktones. 8 p.m. $35–$75. strathmore.org.

AMP BY STRATHMORE 11810 Grand Park Ave., North Bethesda. (301) 581-5100. AMP Pajama Jam: Lucy Kalantari & The Jazz Cats. 5:30 p.m. $12–$15. ampbystrathmore.com.

ROCK

FILLMORE SILVER SPRING 8656 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. (301) 960-9999. Manchester Orchestra.

7:30 p.m. $27. fillmoresilverspring.com.

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MONDAY HIP-HOP FILLMORE SILVER SPRING 8656 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. (301) 960-9999. Xavier Omar. 8 p.m. $22. fillmoresilverspring.com.

TUESDAY CABARET

SIGNATURE THEATRE 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. (703) 820-9771. A Motown Christmas. 7:30 p.m. $38. sigtheatre.org.

CITY LIGHTS: SUNDAY

CITY LIGHTS: TUESDAY

THE ERIC BYRD TRIO

DARK WORLD: PHOTOGRAPHS

BY FRANK HALLAM DAY

It’s as beloved and as perennial as any Yuletide staple, yet the music of A Charlie Brown Christmas doesn’t get the same kind of seasonal revival and reinterpretation that we expect from, say, The Nutcracker or A Christmas Carol. At least, it didn’t before the Eric Byrd Trio brought it out. The DMV jazz ensemble (pianist Byrd, bassist Bhagwan Khalsa, drummer Alphonso Young Jr.) took note of this strange void and decided to do something about it. They made their own recording of Vince Guaraldi’s 1965 selections, and each year have breathed new life into the piano-jazz music that even avowed jazz haters love. But the nature of the music is that these aren’t slavish, verbatim restatements of the classic album: Byrd et al. inject it with zesty, surprisingly funky grooves—and seem to throw in a new twist with each performance. The Eric Byrd Trio perform at 3 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. at The Hamilton, 600 14th St. NW. $14.75– $34.75. (202) 787-1000. thehamiltondc.com.

—Michael J. West

CITY LIGHTS: MONDAY

MARCEL DUCHAMP: THE BARBARA AND AARON LEVINE COLLECTION

Every once in a while, a museum pulls in a treasure trove that requires multiple shows to give it context. A promised donation of some 50 modern and contemporary artworks to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is one of those shows, since nearly three dozen of the works are by the mercurial maestro Marcel Duchamp. The gift from D.C. collectors Barbara and Aaron Levine places the Hirshhorn near the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art as preeminent American museums where Duchamp’s work can be found. “L.H.O.O.Q.” alone would be worth an exhibition: It’s a found object, a picture postcard of da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” which Duchamp made his own by giving her a mustache and punny title—read out loud, “L.H.O.O.Q.” sounds like “she has a hot ass” in French. This masterpiece is just one among many that will debut in Marcel Duchamp; a springtime sequel will showcase an extended universe of artists who point to his influence and importance. The exhibition runs to Oct. 15, 2020 at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 7th Street and Independence Avenue SW. Free. (202) 633-4674. hirshhorn.si.edu.

—Kriston Capps

CLASSICAL

COUNTRY

KENNEDY CENTER TERRACE THEATER 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. Randall Goosby. 7:30 p.m. $20– $45. kennedy-center.org.

FILLMORE SILVER SPRING 8656 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. (301) 960-9999. Aaron Lewis. 8 p.m. $40– $165. fillmoresilverspring.com.

FUNK & R&B

HOLIDAY

9:30 CLUB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Mac Ayres.

7 p.m. $25. 930.com.

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

Ezra Collective. 7 p.m. $20. ustreetmusichall.com.

ROCK

FILLMORE SILVER SPRING 8656 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. (301) 960-9999. Chon and Between the Buried and Me. 7 p.m. $27.50. fillmoresilverspring.com.

WEDNESDAY CABARET

SIGNATURE THEATRE 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. (703) 820-9771. A Motown Christmas. 7:30 p.m. $38. sigtheatre.org.

CLASSICAL

KENNEDY CENTER TERRACE THEATER 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. Fortas Chamber Music Concerts: Pamela Frank and Peter Serkin. 7:30 p.m. $45. kennedy-center.org.

CREATIVE ALLIANCE 3134 Eastern Ave., Baltimore.

(410) 276-1651. Irish Christmas in America. 7:30 p.m. $24–$32. creativealliance.org.

ROCK

BLACK CAT 1811 14th St. NW. (202) 667-4490. The Menzingers. 7 p.m. $25. blackcatdc.com.

THURSDAY CABARET

SIGNATURE THEATRE 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. (703) 820-9771. A Motown Christmas. 8 p.m. $38. sigtheatre.org.

CLASSICAL

KENNEDY CENTER CONCERT HALL 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. National Symphony Orchestra: Celebrating Slatkin at 75 / Kern plays Rachmaninoff. 7 p.m. $15–$99. kennedy-center.org.

MANSION AT STRATHMORE 10701 Rockville Pike, North Bethesda. (301) 581-5100. Bridget Kibbey. 7:30 p.m. $30. strathmore.org.

Dark World: Photographs by Frank Hallam Day collects images from several of the D.C.-based photographer’s ongoing nocturnal series— Bangkok phone booths gone to seed, recreational vehicles in the Florida gloom, monumental character balloons being prepared for the Macy’s Parade, and nighttime street scenes in Berlin and Manhattan. While many of these projects have been excerpted over the past decade-plus at Addison/Ripley Fine Art, the American University Museum’s retrospective for this self-styled “benign voyeur” harnesses its larger spaces and curved walls to impressive—if sometimes also depressive—effect. The larger-than-life prints heighten both the original gaudy greens and yellows of the telephone booths as well as their subsequent defacement, while the curved walls allow Day’s multi-part works—sometimes six images wide—to swallow the viewer whole. The rounded walls also effectively show off Day’s irregularly sized patchwork of nighttime street scenes. Ultimately, though, Day’s images of the Florida RVs stand out, thanks to his delicate portrayal of the surrounding vegetation, the simplicity of the vehicles’ slipstream surfaces, and the hearth-like glow of the RVs’ interior lights, which end up being the warmest, most welcoming elements of Day’s dark world. The exhibition runs to Dec. 15 at the American University Museum, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Free. (202) 885-1300. american.edu.

—Louis Jacobson

ELECTRONIC

9:30 CLUB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Madeon. 6 p.m. $30. 930.com.

FUNK & R&B

SONGBYRD MUSIC HOUSE AND RECORD CAFE 2477 18th St. NW. (202) 450-2917. Madison McFerrin. 8 p.m. $15. songbyrddc.com.

POP

BARNS AT WOLF TRAP 1635 Trap Road, Vienna. (703) 255-1900. Ronnie Spector & the Ronettes. 6:30 p.m. $52–$62. wolftrap.org.

CITY WINERY 1350 Okie St. NE. (202) 250-2531.

O-Town. 8 p.m. $28–$38. citywinery.com.

ROCK

DC9 1940 9th St. NW. (202) 483-5000. Chris Renzema. 8 p.m. $12–$15. dcnine.com.

PIE SHOP DC 1339 H St. NE. (202) 398-7437. Another Sky. 8 p.m. $12. pieshopdc.com.

toric Synagogue. 600 I St. NW. Dec. 2. 7 p.m. $25–$55.

(202) 408-3100. sixthandi.org.

RUTH MARCUS Marcus will discuss her book Supreme Ambition: Brett Kavanaugh and the Conservative Takeover. Politics and Prose. 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Dec. 3. 7 p.m. Free. (202) 364-1919. politics-prose.com.

SARAH SULLIVAN Sullivan will read from her children's book A Day for Skating with hot cocoa and skating after the event across the street. Loyalty Bookstores. 823 Ellsworth Drive, Silver Spring. Dec. 1.

11 a.m. Free. (301) 448-1830. loyaltybookstores.com.

SUSAN RICE Rice will participate in a meet-and-greet and discussion of her book Tough Love. Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe. 1517 Connecticut Ave. NW. Dec. 2.

6:30 p.m. $30. (202) 387-1400. kramers.

Dance

Books

DEBBIE HARRY Harry, an iconic rock and roll figure known for her time as an actress, a fashion icon, and the frontwoman of Blondie, discusses her new memoir Face It. Sixth & I Historic Synagogue. 600 I St. NW. Dec. 4. 7 p.m. $40–$55. (202) 408-3100. sixthandi.org.

DEBBIE LEVY Levy will be discussing her book Becoming RBG: Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Journey to Justice, a book about the challenges Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg faced on her journey to to the highest court in he land. Politics and Prose.

5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Dec. 3. 7 p.m. Free. (202) 364-1919. politics-prose.com.

PAUL RICHTER Richter will discuss his book The Ambassadors: American’s Diplomats on the Front Lines with Rear Admiral John Kirby. Politics and Prose.

5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Dec. 2. 7 p.m. Free. (202) 364-1919. politics-prose.com.

RACHAEL RAY WITH CARLA HALL In Rachael Ray 50: Memories and Meals from a Sweet and Savory Life, the self-taught cook shares 125 new recipes and the memories that made her laugh out loud or cry through 25 thoughtful, personal essays. Sixth & I His-

ATLANTA BALLET: THE NUTCRACKER Atlanta Ballet’s new production of the holiday classic travels to D.C. Kennedy Center Opera House. 2700 F St. NW. Nov. 29; Nov. 30; Dec. 1. $49–$179. (202) 467-4600. kennedy-center.org.

JUSTE DEBOUT Words Beats & Life will host the aweinspiring return of Juste Debout to the United States, bringing a day of high intensity pre selection dance battles to our nation's capital. Following rapid rounds of dance duos competing for a panel of renowned judges, four teams of two will earn the chance to compete at the Juste Debout world finals in March.

Culture House. 700 Delaware Ave. SW. Dec. 1. $15– $30. culturehousedc.org.

THE WASHINGTON BALLET: THE NUTCRACKER The Washington Ballet brings the classic holiday ballet to life with dancers from the Washington School of Ballet, celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. Warner Theatre. 513 13th St. NW. Nov. 30; Dec. 1; Dec. 2; Dec. 3; Dec. 4; Dec. 5. $67–$180. (202) 783-4000. warnertheatredc.com.

washingtoncitypaper.com november 29, 2019 35

Theater

AIRNESS Nina thinks winning an air guitar competition will be easy—until the lovable nerds she’s competing against prove her wrong. 1st Stage. 1524 Spring Hill Road, McLean. To Dec. 29. $15–$42. (703) 854-1856. 1ststagetysons.org.

AMADEUS This play dramatizes Mozart’s ascent from child prodigy to favored composer—and the palace intrigue going on between the title character and his foe and rival Salieri. Folger Elizabethan Theatre. 201 E. Capitol St. SE. To Dec. 22. $27–$85. (202) 544-7077. folger.edu.

A CHORUS LINE Signature stages one of the most classic American musicals, A Chorus Line—the story of hopeful dancers in an audition room hoping for a spot in the chorus of a new Broadway show. Signature Theatre. 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. To Jan. 5. $40–$110. (703) 820-9771. sigtheatre.org.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL In this classic Dickens tale, a miser learns the true meaning of Christmas—with some help from some ghostly apparitions. Ford’s Theatre. 511 10th St. NW. To Jan. 1. $32–$124. (202) 347-4833. fords.org.

DEAR JACK, DEAR LOUISE Two strangers meet by letter during World War II and hope to meet in person, but the war keeps pushing them apart. Arena Stage.

1101 6th St. SW. To Dec. 29. $56–$72. (202) 488-3300. arenastage.org.

DEFYING GRAVITY: A STAGED THEATRICAL READING This story of the 1986 Challenger disaster places teacher Christa McAuliffe, who died with six others as they hurtled into space, at the center of an exploration of our need to reach beyond ourselves. This staged reading features actress Nancy Robinette.

National Academy of Sciences. 2101 Constitution Ave. NW. Dec. 2, 7:30 p.m. Free. nasonline.org.

DON’T LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS! This musical follows the misadventures of a precocious pigeon who’s always getting into the next big thing. Kennedy Center Family Theater. 2700 F St. NW. To Jan. 5. $20.

(202) 467-4600. kennedy-center.org.

HARD TIMES Charles Dickens’ tale of the circus, set in Industrial Revolution England, features four actors playing dozens of characters. Washington Stage Guild at Undercroft Theatre. 900 Massachusetts Ave. NW. To Dec. 8. $25–$50. (240) 582-0050. stageguild.org.

KEEP. Keep. is a new one-man show about the past, the present, holding on to the former, and starting over in the latter, written and performed by Daniel Kitson. Studio Theatre. 1501 14th St. NW. To Dec. 1. $20–$25. (202) 332-3300. studiotheatre.org.

LOVE, FACTUALLY The Second City’s fast-paced retelling of Love, Actually is an original take on the movie—back by popular demand. Kennedy Center Theater Lab. 2700 F St. NW. To Dec. 29. $29–$59. 202467-4600. kennedy-center.org.

NEWSIES Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst are no match for the striking newsboys of New York City in the sultry summer of 1899. Local favorites Nova Y. Payton and Edward Gero star in this musical based on the beloved Disney film. Arena Stage. 1101 6th St. SW. To Dec. 22. $86–$105. (202) 488-3300. arenastage.org.

OCCUPANT A little Jewish girl from Russia immigrated to the US and became the renowned sculptor Louise Nevelson. In Occupant, she’s been invited to participate in an interview—from beyond the grave.

Through her ups and downs, her contradictions and evasions, we witness the deep inner turmoil and intrepid triumphs of one of the 20th century’s greatest artistic minds. Theater J. 1529 16th St. NW. To Nov. 30. $34–$64. (202) 777-3210. theaterj.org.

PETER PAN Lauren Gunderson’s adaption of J.M. Barrie’s story of a boy who refuses to grow up puts Wendy, a budding scientist, at the center of the play.

Sidney Harman Hall. 610 F St. NW. To Jan. 12. $35– $120. (202) 547-1122. shakespearetheatre.org.

SHE THE PEOPLE: THE RESISTANCE CONTINUES! The Second City returns with a follow-up to their allfemale revue She the People that continues to satirize being a woman in America and in the world.

Woolly Mammoth Theatre. 641 D St. NW. To Jan. 5. $20–$70. (202) 393-3939. woollymammoth.net.

SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN This classic American musical—featuring songs like “Good Mornin’” and “Make ‘em Laugh”—follows Hollywood’s transition from the silent era to the talkies. Olney Theatre Center. 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney. To Jan. 5. $37–$69.

(301) 924-3400. olneytheatre.org.

THE SNOW QUEEN Synetic presents a family-friendly version of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, where a little girl crosses the Snow Kingdom to save her best friend. Synetic Theater at Crystal City. 1800 South Bell St. , Arlington. To Dec. 29. $60–$195 for a season subscription. (866) 811-4111. synetictheater.org.

WHITE PEARL This comedy about whiteness and the beauty industry follows the fallout of a skin whitening cream ad’s leak—and someone’s definitely getting fired. Studio Theatre. 1501 14th St. NW. To Dec. 15. $20–$80. (202) 332-3300. studiotheatre.org.

Film

21 BRIDGES An NYPD detective hunts for a pair of people who killed a fellow cop—and unravels a massive conspiracy in the process. Starring Chadwick Boseman, J.K. Simmons, and Taylor Kitsch. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) BEST IN SHOW One of Guest’s most beloved mockumentaries, Best in Show, takes an affectionate look at a certain breed of dog owner, the kind who raise their prized pets to compete in dog shows. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) CHARLIE’S ANGELS Three high-powered female spies—Charlie’s Angels—must protect a whistleblower who exposes a dangerous technology. Starring Elizabeth Banks, Naomi Scott, and Kristen Stewart. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) DARK WATERS An attorney sues a powerful chemical company for its lengthy history of pollution. Starring Mark Ruffalo, Anne Hathaway, and Tim Robbins. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information)

CITY LIGHTS: WEDNESDAY

THE MENZINGERS

Scranton, Pennsylvania’s The Menzingers were a pretty downthe-middle punk band when A Lesson in the Abuse of Information Technology dropped in 2007. They were angry, loud, fast, and at home among contemporaries like Against Me! and Propagandhi. In the years since, they have slowed down and matured. In fact, it’s hard to think of a band dealing with their own encroaching middle age through their music more explicitly than The Menzingers. Recent songs like “Bad Catholics” and “Midwestern States” that describe the purgatory between one’s experimental 20s and angst-ridden 30s hit like a gut punch for anyone who was actually listening to bands like The Menzingers in their teens. Their 2017 album After the Party is soaked with nostalgia for the good old days of The Gaslight Anthem and Anti-Flag, a feeling tainted with a sense of disbelief that those days could possibly be so old already—or that they could have possibly been as good as we remember. The Menzingers perform at 7 p.m. at Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW. $25. (202) 667-4490. blackcatdc.com.

—Will Lennon

CITY LIGHTS: THURSDAY

THE GOOD LIAR A well-to-do widow is picked up by a con man looking to score, but things get complicated quickly. Starring Helen Mirren, Ian McKellen, and Russell Tovey. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) FORD V FERRARI Two Americans attempt to push the laws of engineering and physics and create a Ford that can compete against a Ferrari at a 1966 race. Starring Christian Bale, Matt Damon, and Caitriona Balfe. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) FROZEN 2 Anna, Elsa, and Kristoff leave Arendelle to try and find the source of Elsa’s powers—and hopefully save the kingdom. Starring Kristen Bell, Jason Ritter, and Evan Rachel Wood. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) HONEY BOY Shia LaBeouf plays a father in story based on his own childhood and family relationships.

Starring Shia LaBeouf, Lucas Hedges, and FKA Twigs.

(See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) KNIVES OUT The head of a bickering, eccentric family dies, and a detective is sent to investigate. Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, and Chris Evans. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) NSO POPS: HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX IN CONCERT NSO plays the score live as the film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is projected on a massive screen. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) QUEEN & SLIM A police officer pulls over a couple on a first date—and what happens next bonds them and sends them on the run. Starring Daniel Kaluuya, Indya Moore, and Chloe Sevigny. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) THE REPORT A Senate staffer uncovers dramatic secrets when he investigates the CIA’s post-9/11 activities. Starring Adam Driver, Jon Hamm, and Annette Bening. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) WAVES A family navigates love, forgiveness, and togetherness in the aftermath of loss. Starring Taylor Russell, Kelvin Harrison Jr., and Alexa Demie. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information)

36 november 29, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

SHE & HIM

A Christmas Story notwithstanding, non-cringe-worthy holiday entertainment can be hard to come by. Most of it is corny or maudlin, while attempts at novelty often result in unbearable Portlandia-esque quirk or the Star Wars Holiday Special levels of absurdity. Thank goodness then for She & Him, the eminently sophisticated duo of Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward. The Trans-Siberian Orchestra, they are not. For the better part of the past decade, the two have brought elegance and style to well worn holiday standards; the duo manage to make “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” close to bearable. Though technically not just a tinsel-related twosome, She & Him have two Christmas albums under their belt, belying knowledge of how to give the people what they want. Bespectacled onlookers can anticipate having their hearts warmed—even in the cavernous Anthem—and indulge in a new holiday tradition just as satisfying as finally receiving a Red Ryder BB gun. She & Him perform at 8 p.m. at The Anthem, 901 Wharf St. SW. $46– $76. (202) 888-0020. theanthemdc.com.

—Matt Siblo

SAVAGELOVE I’m a heterosexual cis woman in a monogamous marriage. My husband and I have always struggled to connect sexually, mostly because he has extreme anxiety that makes doing anything new or different difficult. He’s been in therapy since before I met him, but it doesn’t seem to be helping much. His anxiety has caused him to shut down every sexual ask I’ve ever made because he’s afraid he won’t “do it right.” He’s a PIVand-nothing-more kind of guy, but I’m not asking for varsity-level stuff, just boring things like talking about fantasies, a little role-play, staying in bed on a Sunday just to have sex, etc. All of it is off the table. I understand he has a right to veto sex acts, but isn’t this all pretty basic, run-of-themill stuff? He’ll still get his PIV; I just want there to be other elements before the PIV starts. It’s still a no. Talking to him about this sends him into a depressive episode where I then have to spend hours telling him he’s not a bad person, so I’ve stopped bringing it up. I’ve tried to talk to therapists about navigating this issue, but most change the subject. One actually told me that it was good that we don’t have good sex, because if we did, we wouldn’t have good communication in other areas. (I never went back to that one.) This has gone on for so long that I’ve lost all interest in sex. My libido, which used to be very high, has vanished.

Whenever he wants sex, I do it—but I dread it.

Do you have any ideas on how I can navigate this topic with my husband so he doesn’t shut down?

How can I make him understand that it’s okay to experiment sexually and it will be okay if it’s not perfect?

—Lost And So Sad You’re going to have to call your husband’s bluff, LASS, and power through the predictable meltdown. That means raising, again, your unhappiness with your sex life, explaining your need for some pre-PIV intimacy and play, informing him this is no longer a desperate request but a non-negotiable demand, and then refusing to shift into caregiver mode when his depressive episode starts.

I’m not suggesting your husband’s anxiety and depression are an act, LASS, or that being made aware of your unhappiness isn’t a trigger. But if depressive episodes get your husband out of conversations he’d rather avoid, and if they allow him to dictate the terms of your sex life and treat your pussy like a Fleshlight, then his subconscious could be weaponizing those depressive episodes. And if you shift to caregiver mode every single time—so long as you’re willing to spend hours reassuring him that he’s not a bad person—then your grievances will never be addressed, much less resolved. So even if it means spending an extremely unpleasant evening, weekend, or few weeks with him, you’re going to have to raise the issue and refuse to reassure your husband. Line up whatever support you think he

might need before you make your stand—you could also make your stand during a couples counseling session—and give him maybe one “You’re not a bad person, really!” and then refuse to back down.

And when he shuts down, LASS, it will be his therapist’s job to pry him back open, not yours.

And the sex you’re currently having? The sex you dread and don’t enjoy? The sooner you stop having it, LASS, the sooner your husband will come to understand that he’s going to have to give a little (so very little!) if he wants to have sex at all. If and when he does, then you can borrow a page from the varsity-level kinkster handbook: Take baby steps. In the same way people who are turned on by, say, more intense bondage scenes (suspension, immobilization, etc.) start with lighter bondage scenes (hands behind the back, spread-eagled on the bed, etc.), you can start with something small and easy for him to get right, like 20 minutes of cuddling in bed together on a Sunday morning before progressing to PIV sex. —Dan Savage

Your comment about not wanting to see her after she was with a client could reasonably be interpreted as whorephobic.

I’m a bisexual trans woman living in Europe.

A couple of months ago, I began an amazing relationship with a woman who works as an escort.

For a while, everything was as good as it gets, until I said something inconsiderate about her job and she took offense. We were having a conversation about “what we were” (girlfriends? lovers? partners?) and any rules we’d like the other to observe, and I said I’d rather not see her after she’d been with a client, I’d rather wait until the next day. She took this as me thinking her job was “dirty,” which was absolutely not my intention.

I explained that I’d spent 10 years in open relationships and it was just a habit I was used to.

(If you sleep with someone else, go home, take a shower, sleep off the emotions, see you tomorrow.)

She said that her clients were not lovers, it’s completely different, and it would make seeing her complicated, as we work different hours. I immediately realized how she was right and said so. She was aloof for a few days afterward, and she eventually told me that she didn’t feel like she could be with someone who understood so little about her job. I pleaded with her to give me

a second chance and told her that I’d never even met a sex worker before, so there was a learning curve for me, and she agreed that we could carry on seeing each other. But she remained distant, canceling plans and not replying, until she eventually told me that she was just too scared of getting hurt, because it’s happened so many times before. I was absolutely shattered. I spent the next few days drinking in bed and licking my wounds. I was falling in love with this woman, and I ruined it with my big mouth. After a couple of days, I started going about my life again.

And soon enough, she started texting me, asking me how my day was, casual stuff, and it’s just really painful. I don’t know how to reply to her.

If she has changed her mind, then I’ll date her again in a heartbeat, given how freaking amazing she is. But if she’s just kind of inconsiderately making conversation, then I can see myself getting my heart broken all over again. I’m torn between asking her to stop texting me and carrying on with the casual texting to see if anything comes of it. Any advice?

—Tearful Escort’s Ex Getting Really Lonely If you two couldn’t handle a simple misunderstanding, TEEGRL, how are you going to resolve a serious conflict? Or forgive a profound betrayal? You know, the kind of shit people in LTRs do?

Actually, I’m being unfair: You seem perfectly capable of handling this misunderstanding, TEEGRL, it was your ex-whatever-she-was (girlfriend? lover? partner?) who wasn’t able to handle it. But in fairness to her—I need to be fair to everybody—sex workers are often shamed by romantic partners who pretended, at the outset of the relationship, to be fine with their jobs. Your comment about not wanting to see her after she was with a client could reasonably be interpreted as whorephobic. But your explanation—it was a rule in all your past open relationships—was reasonable, and your exwhatever-she-was, if she were a reasonable person, should have been able to see that.

And perhaps she is reasonable, TEEGRL. Maybe she started texting you about casual stuff because she feels bad about pulling away and sees now that she overreacted. To determine whether that’s the case—and to determine whether she’s still open to dating you—you’ll have to risk asking the dreaded direct question: “Hey, it’s great to hear from you! I’d love to pick up where we left off, if you’re still interested. Are you? Please let me know!”

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

Scene and

Heard Photo Shoot November, 2019 Two boys are trying to take a picture or video of a squirrel. It’s not one of the black squirrels that call D.C. home. It’s not an albino, which would be unique in any locale. The reason why they want to capture this creature in this moment is not entirely clear, but the motivations of humans are often hard to decipher.

One of the boys crouches low like a professional photographer as the rodent dances closer to him. It rests for a moment before scurrying away to a tree, threatening to run up it. But it doesn’t. They coax it back using methods that are as clear as their motives.

But they work. A small crowd of squirrels begins to congregate, one coming tantalizingly close—almost close enough to touch—to the other boy, who does not have his phone out. He gets his friend’s attention, who turns to the nearest squirrel, scattering the congregants away. The phoneless boy extends his hand to the squirrel, but it doesn’t take the bait.

It goes on like this, the one trying to record the scene with his phone, the other trying to make contact with another species. Eventually the photographer turns his phone down, either satisfied or completely discouraged, and buries his nose in it, tapping away. In this moment the other boy strikes gold. One of the squirrels carefully extends its nose to his outstretched fist. He doesn’t yelp with joy or the thrill of victory or alert his partner. He gets up as his friend finishes with his phone, and they turn and walk away, now in possession of whatever they were looking for.

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

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washingtoncitypaper.com november 29, 2019 37

BY PLAINTIFF (Lo Esta Demandando El Demandate): JOHN A. CARR, Adult . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Notice to Defendant an individual (Aviso Al DemanNOTICE! Auto/Wheels/Boat . . . . You . . . have . . . .been 42 dado): sued. The court may deBuy, Sell, Trade . . cide . . . against . . . . . .you . . without . . . . .

Rufina W. Johnson, a deceased individual; Marketplace . . . . your . . . .being . . . .heard . . . .unless . 42 Rufina W. Johnson, you respond within 30 Deceased; Lisa A. OverCommunity . . . . . days. . . . . Read . . . .the . . .informa . . 42 ton, as Administrator tion below. You have . . CALENDAR . . . . . . . .DAYS . . . 42 of theEmployment Estate of Rufina . . . . 30 W. Johnson, deceased; after this summons and Health/Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Rufina Johnson, as Heir legal papers are served of Rufina W. Johnson, Body & Spirit . . . . on . . you . . . to . .file . . a . .written . . 42 deceased; James response at this court Housing/Rentals . . . have . . . .a .copy . . . .served . 42 Johnson, Heir of Rufina and W. Johnson, deceased; on the plaintiff. A letter Legal Notices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Harold Johnson, as Heir or phone call will not of Rufina W. Johnson, Row . protect Music/Music . . . . you. . . . . . . . . 42 deceased; Testate and Your written response Pets . . of . . Rufina . . . . . . . must . . . .be . . in . .proper . . . . .legal 42 Intestate Heirs W. Johnson, deceased form if you want the Real Estate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Es posible que haya un DC SCHOLARS PCS REQUEST formulario que usted FOR PROPOSALS – Modupueda usar para su lar Contractor Services - DC respuesta.

Scholars Public Charter School Puede encontrar solicits proposals for estos a modular formularios de la corte contractor to provide professional y más información en el management and construction services to modular Centro deconstruct Ayuda ade building to house four classrooms las Cortes de California and one faculty offi ce suite. The (www.sucorte.ca.gov), Request for Proposals (RFP) en la biblioteca de leyes specifi cations can be obtained on de su condado o en and after Monday, November 27, la corte quede 2017 from que Emily le Stone via commás cerca. Si no puede munityschools@dcscholars.org. pagar la cuota de preAll questions should be sent in sentación, pida writing by e-mail.

No al phone calls regarding thisde RFP be acsecretario la will corte cepted. be received by que leBids dé must un formulario 5:00 PM on Thursday, December de exención de pago de 14, 2017 atSiDC Public cuotas. noScholars presenta Charter School, ATTN: Sharonda su respuesta a tiempo, Mann, 5601 E. Capitol St. SE, puede perder el caso Washington, DC 20019.

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STATE OF NORTH Miscellaneous CAROLINA IN THE GENERAL COURT OF NEW COOPERATIVE SHOP! JUSTICE DISTRICT COURT DIVITHINGS SION FROM EGPYT AND BEYOND COUNTY OF ORANGE 240-725-6025 FILE NO. 19-SP-201 www.thingsfromegypt.com thingsfromegypt@yahoo.com LONZO PERRY and SONIA MAKLE,BAZAAR SOUTH AFRICAN Craft Cooperative Petitioners, 202-341-0209 www.southafricanbazaarcraftcoo NOTICE OF SERVICE OF perative.com v. PROCESS BY PUBLIsouthafricanba z a ar @hotmail.

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You are required to make defense to such pleading not later than the 24th day of December, 2019, said date being forty (40) days from the first publication of this notice. Upon your failure to do so, the Get Witseeking It Productions: Profesparty service sional sound lighting against youand will applyavailto able for club, corporate, private, the court for the relief wedding receptions, holiday sought. events and much more. Insured, This the 14th day(866) of 531competitive rates. Call November, 2019.

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William W Crocker Events Decedent NOTICE TO UNChristmas inHEIRS Silver Spring KNOWN Saturday, December 2017 Rosemary Tate,2,whose Veteran’s Plaza address is 761 Quebec 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Place, N.W., WashingCome celebrate Christmas in ton, D.C. is the the heart of 20010, Silver Spring at our personal representative Vendor Village on Veteran’s Plaof William za. the Thereestate will be of shopping, arts W. Crocker whopictures died with and crafts for kids, Santa, music2002 and entertainment April 15, without a to spread cheer and more. will andholiday will serve Proceeds market will without from courtthesuperviprovide a “wish” toy for heirs children sion. All unknown in need. Join us at your one stop and whose whereabouts shop for everything Christmas. are unknown.

Claims For more information, contact against Futsum, the decedent shall be presented to or info@leadersinstitutemd.org the301-655-9679 undersigned on or call before 12/26/2019 or General forever be barred.

Persons believed to be heirs Looking to Rent yardwho space for to the decedent hunting Alexandria/Arlingdo notdogs. receive a copy ton, VA area only. Medium sized of this notice by mail dogs will be well-maintained in within 25 controled days ofdog its houstemperature publication shallanimal so care es. I have advanced inform the experience andRegister dogs will of be rid Wills, including name, free of feces, flies, urine and oder.

Dogs will be and in a ventilated kennel address, relationso they will not be exposed to winship. ter and of harsh weather etc. Space Date first publication: will be needed as soon as possi10/3/2019 ble.

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1 Shirt and tie, e.g.

5 Makes a decision (to) 9 "I'm through with this IM," briefly 13 Lake that's becomes another common crossword answer with either an A or an E in its front 14 Bathtub toy 15 Macy's rival 16 Beret holder 17 Tomato's home 18 Supercomputer that's partially in the Smithsonian 19 Acela full of teddy insides?

22 "Got it!"

23 Rowing machine muscle 24 Opening band's allotment 27 Candidate who receives 0% of the vote?

31 Carry a mortgage, say 32 Champ's sign 33 Type 34 Laser printer maker

37 Last letter to The Guardian 38 Burn myrrh, e.g.

40 Thug's piece 41 Christmas decoration 42 Grp. with a lot of rim shots?

43 Extra money embedded among a haystack?

50 Trudie ___ (movie producer who's married to Sting) 51 Giant Mel 52 In the manner of 53 Is in doubt ... or screws up a November holiday, no thanks to you!

57 Well rounded?

59 Share the load 60 Calendar opening 61 Prime Minister Johnson 62 1847 travel novel whose title means "wanderer" 63 Passed-down stories 64 Something to build on 65 Ad Astra star 66 Shorn females

1 Scores roughly 85% 2 Franklin of soul 3 Baptism or bris 4 Intra-posse fight 5 Anticipate and prevent an unnecessary action 6 End of many theoretical trips 7 Zesty flavor 8 "Forget this correction" 9 More aristocratic 10 Trait of the easily offended

11 Perennial swing st.

12 Presidential advisory grp.

15 2016 Key & Peele comedy 20 Traveled by plane 21 Without thinking 25 Aquarium residents in dark tanks 26 Little one 28 Portsmouth pisser 29 Out and out 30 Put a line through 34 Pie-maker's ingredients 35 Hair line?

36 "Don't move" 37 White wine, for short 38 "Bull" network 39 Gobble (gobble!)

41 Company 42 Nasal cavity cleaning contraption 44 Big name in pickles 45 Approving words 46 Spot for slopping 47 Was in need for recharging 48 Politician who organized the "24 Hours of Reality" 49 Doesn't use every piece, say 54 Waffle House rival 55 Postseason game 56 Key in the water 57 Delivery specialists, for short 58 Hit on the head

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