Three good pieces
Kevin Kelley’s 10-year-old list of The Best Magazine Articles Ever has three from The Washington Post that are in the top 25:
- The Peekabo Paradox (2006), about Washington’s preeminent child entertainer, the Great Zucchini, and also about virtue and vice.
- Pearls Before Breakfast (2007), about a master violinist playing a 1713 Stradivari violin incognito in front of L’Enfant Plaza commuters.
- Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime? (2009), about, well, that.
The first two in particular are better than anything that will come out this week in any magazine, least of all in the Post. (↬The Technium)
National Harbor, MD is a cute mixed-use development just south of DC anchored by a casino, a convention center, and a ferris wheel; but it is most certainly not Washington, DC, the 5,000 residents of NH having representation in Congress, 700,000 of those in DC being without. These District turf wars are a tiny bit less parochial than they seem.
The Atlantic has a short (true!) story about DC politics:
“It’s almost like the government’s imposing its will on its residents,” Trayon White, the D.C. council member for Ward 8, said at the council’s June 6 legislative meeting. He wasn’t talking about a proposed highway, a subway station, a power plant, or—perish the thought—an apartment building. He was talking about trees: specifically, three linden trees on Xenia Street planted a few years ago by D.C.’s Urban Forestry Division. To my surprise, the legislative body of a major American city experiencing escalating homelessness and a serious spike in violent crime dedicated a quarter of its time that day to discussing three trees.
To be clear, he wants the linden trees removed! For context: Ward 8 has a single grocery store which may be closed due to increasing costs of security.
Back when I had to commute from Baltimore to Bethesda via DC’s Union Station every day (don’t ask) I would obsess about which train car I should enter so that I exit just in front of the right escalator. Yesterday, a Good Samaritan and fellow commute optimizer posted the layouts of every DC metro station to the Washington DC subreddit. If only I could send this back to my 2014 self!
A tornado warning for DC, and another day of 80mph winds. The one las week was a doozy! What was the micro.blog climate emoji, again? 🧨?
Update: It was fine.
I’ve been down on D.C. recently so I’d like to make one thing clear: it is a great city to live in, work in, and visit, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise (you know who they are).
Northern view from the Washington Monument. Note the distinct lack of swamp.
One of the biggest culture shocks international visitors have when coming to the US — myself from 15 years ago included — is the tipping culture. Sure, I would round up the bill to save myself from carrying coins, or if I was feeling particularly generous leave a small bill or two, but it was neither expected nor required back home. So I cheered when DC voters passed Initiative 82 which would eliminate the “special” minimum wage for tipped workers — a whooping $5.05 per hour — as a step towards one day abolishing tipping altogether. Of course, some people are not happy about the consequences.
Walking through Hillwood yesterday was too much so I had to tone it down.
In a scene right out of The Wire, a man was shot while watching a soccer game in Adams Morgan, right next to our kids' old elementary school. In fact, had we not moved a few months ago, it would have been their current ES — this happened not 500 feet from our old back yard, as the crow files.
So anyway, if you cut the police budget, crime goes up. Who knew? (And yes, this continues to annoy.)
“A fixer-upper in Georgetown is on sale for $50,000. It’s a wall."
The perfect headline for the perfect DC story. Washington real estate, ladies and gentlemen.