Have your Chipotle burrito at
John Dos Passos' house. Read
Silent Spring in
Silver Spring. You can now take a real or virtual walking tour of literary DC, from
Roald Dahl to
Philip K. Dick to
Zora Neale Hurston with
DCWriters.org. Two DC-area poets have put together a compendium of 123 (and growing) residences in the DC area where novelists, poets, and playwrights plied their trade. The buildings may not all have plaques, but they are still standing: Dan Vera and Kim Roberts
focused on not "documenting what used to be here, but what people could actually go and take a look at."
posted by HonoriaGlossop
on Dec 18, 2011 -
18 comments
"...they essentially published years of comics for the sole purpose of saying 'Fine, that's how you want it? Here you go. Enjoy.' They made a character out of pure sarcasm, and he had his own ongoing series for a hundred issues."
Chris Sims on Azrael.
posted by griphus
on Dec 2, 2011 -
28 comments
Jim Shooter, the
comics writer and former Marvel Editor-in-Chief has weighed in on DC's comic relaunch,
The New 52.
Shooter is no stranger to
controversy regarding his tenure at Marvel and has received his share of
criticism over his handling of female characters. He also claims his analysis is more about the writing and artwork but nevertheless, he has added this comment to the chorus of
complaints about the
handling of DCs
female characters and
female fans:
"But, let it be known, personally, I didn’t like the way the female characters were portrayed. It’s not that I think that there is anything, any situation or any type of character, male or female, that cannot be done if it is done with rare excellence and surpassing skill. The problem is that, too often, comic book writers and artists who belong in creator kindergarten think they’re already Ph.D’s." [more inside]
posted by happyroach
on Oct 7, 2011 -
41 comments
In Issue 391 of the Batman magazine published by Editorial Novaro there is a Flash adventure titled "The Flash Stakes His Life On You." This comic is the most important literary argument of recent months. The Flash vs. Gurdjieff by Alejandro Jodorowsky. bonus craziness: The comics journal talks to
Alejandro Jodorowsky (Sample answer: "This question is too long and annoying for me. I stop to fart.")
posted by Artw
on Oct 6, 2011 -
27 comments
Their universe-wide reboot only weeks away, DC Comics has released
52 new logos for their books; they've been met with some praise and
much griping.
But what makes a good superhero logo? Maybe the design history of
Daredevil (parts
2,
3,
4),
The Hulk (parts
2,
3,
4),
The Atom, (parts
2,
3),
World's Finest (parts
2,
3,
4,
5,
), The Legion of Superheroes (parts
2,
3,
4,
5,
Batman (
previously) or
Superman can shed a clue.
[more inside]
posted by Toby Dammit X
on Aug 25, 2011 -
30 comments
In 1972, Washington, DC
opened the doors to the HD Woodson Senior High School. It was the city's first new school in twelve years, and the first to be constructed after riots
devastated the city in 1968. Like its sister school across town, it had been
built to withstand another riot, and protect its students within its fortress-like walls. For a time, it stood as the pride and joy of the city's school system, featuring a diverse range of academic and vocational programs in a state of the art 8-story building complete with escalators, science labs, and a six-lane pool; a symbol of hope for a downtrodden community.
By 2008, however, things had gone horribly, horribly wrong. The building was literally crumbling, many of its original facilities had closed due to neglect, only 13% of sophomores were proficient in reading or mathematics, and violence was a daily concern. Facing no other choice, the city closed the school in 2008, and
demolished the brutalist structure shortly thereafter.
After a three year
series of delays, next week,
students will begin classes in the
newly reconstructed HD Woodson High School; a 3-story state of the art building complete with elevators, science labs, and an eight-lane pool; a symbol of hope for a downtrodden community -- leading many to question: Will it work this time? The correlation between architecture and academic performance is not well-studied, and
previous efforts have been inconclusive at best.
posted by schmod
on Aug 18, 2011 -
49 comments
Hidden Tunnels, Bugs, and Bigamy: A Strange and True D.C. Story: "Reports indicated that the tunnels were long and extensive – that they may have reached as far as Rock Creek Park. Some electric lighting was discovered inside. For days, wild theories abounded – was it a Confederate soldier hideout? A stop on the Underground Railroad? A liquor depot for bootleggers? A counterfeiter’s lair? Or maybe a secret laboratory for 'Dr. Otto von Golph’s' experiments?
None of the above."
[more inside]
posted by codacorolla
on Jul 8, 2011 -
41 comments
Minor Threats "The punk icon Ian MacKaye always wanted to create a tribe. Now an elder statesman of D.C. hardcore, the musician talks about organized religion, breaking toilets, and making peace with his mother’s death."
A simply fantastic interview with Ian Mackaye from a magazine you wouldn't expect to be covering a hardcore music legend. I know there are some fans here on the blue who may really enjoy this.
posted by punkrockrat
on Jun 29, 2011 -
74 comments
"...authorities would try to find the culprits and would seek to clean up
the monument, but it was unlikely to happen right away."
posted by griphus
on Jun 19, 2011 -
27 comments
The mayor of Washington DC has been arrested, along with 6 of the 12 members of its city council, during a protest today near a US Senate office building, objecting to the city's use as a bargaining chip while negotiating the
7th Continuing Resolution to avoid a government shutdown last Friday. The bill prohibits the District of Columbia from locally funding abortion services, and imposes a locally-unpopular school voucher program. Had the government shutdown taken place, the DC government would have also had to suspend most of its operations including
trash pickup. For those of you keeping track, Vince Gray is the 3rd (of 6) DC mayor to be arrested while in office.
[more inside]
posted by schmod
on Apr 11, 2011 -
93 comments
Less than a year after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States detonated
the fourth and fifth nuclear weapons under the name
Operation Crossroads in July 1946. Beyond testing the capabilities of nuclear bombs,
the Navy said it wanted the Bikini tests treated like "the story of the year, maybe of the decade, and possibly of a lifetime." Only two of the three bombs were detonated, and the project was shut down over the next months. To celebrate the efforts of Operation Crossroads,
a cake in the shape of a mushroom cloud was featured at a publicized event on November 5, 1946. In response to this display, Reverend Arthur Powell Davies, the minister of the Unitarian All Souls Church in Washington, D.C.,
gave a sermon on the "utterly loathsome picture" and the message it sent to other nations. That sermon
set off a flurry of replies and reactions, that extended around the world, including a connection formed between
Reverend Davies' All Souls Unitarian Church and school children in Hiroshima.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Sep 8, 2010 -
62 comments
Frankenstein Defeats Evil Computer. Mysterious Grass-Roots Gal-Revolt Rocks Gotham! Are Hippies Slowing Down Space Progam in Protest? Headlines ripped from the pages of such great newspapers as the Daily Bugle and the Gotham Gazette await you at
Dateline: Silver Age.
posted by gamera
on Apr 30, 2010 -
16 comments
Kevin O'Neil, classic 2000ad artist, co-creator of Marshall Law, frequent colaborator with Alan Moore and the only artist ever to be outright banned by the Comics code Authority ("there’s nothing you can change — the style is unsuitable!”) talks at length in an epic interview at the comics journal:
Part one,
part two,
part three,
part four,
part five.
posted by Artw
on Feb 22, 2010 -
23 comments
Legend has it that Phidippedes ran 26 miles to Athens from Marathon to announce the success of the Athenian army's surprise suicide attack against the far larger Persian army, starting a grand tradition:
Dying during marathons. [more inside]
posted by minimii
on Dec 26, 2009 -
21 comments
