THE NATIONAL BUILDING MUSEUM expands its scope to examine not just buildings, but also the "world between our buildings" — parks, gardens, sidewalks and so on.
A solar farm in Denmark and geothermal pipelines in Iceland are just two of the locales in this exhibit — other communities featured include Maui; Mendoza, Argentina;
Greensburg, Kan.; and D.C. green initiatives.
» National Building Museum, 401 F St. NW; Oct. 23, 2008-Oct. 25, 2009; 202-272-2448.
Photo courtesy of National Building Museum
WITH IMAGES RANGING from microscopically enhanced microbes to come-hither syphilitics, "An Iconography of Contagion: 20th-Century Health Posters and the Visual Representation of Infectious Disease" may be the sickest show in town. Michael Sappol culled 20-odd graphics from the vast holdings of the National Library of Medicine to tell the story of the communiques that brought medicine to the masses. Before moving to the National Academy of Sciences' C Street NW building in the fall, the exhibition remains on view by appointment for a couple of weeks at the Keck Center.
» EXPRESS: The World War II-era VD posters demonize women. Why?
» SAPPOL: Part of that reflects a kind of larger social misogyny. VD is a difficult disease for people to deal with because it deals with sexuality in a society which doesn't really like to have public discussion of sexuality.
» EXPRESS: What was the target audience in this case?
» SAPPOL: These posters in particular are aimed at men. They're done by male artists, they are intended to mobilize men to take measures to deal with venereal disease, so they're saying, "Men, watch out for women." These posters are not put in places where women are likely to see them. They're put into health clinics for men or military bases.
LEAVE IT TO the Capital Fringe Festival to go out with a quirky bang. In a grandiose show of spinning around poles, the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange will spend Friday evening and Saturday afternoon doing a passionate dance with (drum roll please) ... the National Building Museum!
The show, titled "Mortar and Muscle: Animating Architecture," sets the building in motion as dancers move around columns, under archways and on stage platforms. A tutorial on watching a dance and a scavenger hunt are also part of the fun. Also, unlike so many Cap Fringe events, this baby's free.
» National Building Museum, 401 F St. NW; Fri., July 24, 6:30 p.m. & Sat., July 25, 2 & 4 p.m., free; 202-737-7230. (Judiciary Square)
Photo courtesy of the National Building Museum
THE DETAILS THAT Washington-area Hillary Clinton supporters have been looking for are beginning to filter out: the time and place for that speech on Saturday in which the New York senator is expected to suspend her campaign and endorse fellow Democrat Barack Obama.
It's the National Building Museum. (Map here.) At high noon.
USAToday's OnPolitics blog has the PDF of the statement, which says doors will open at 10 a.m. and that the event is, of course, open to the press.
» "Clinton to end campaign in Washington Saturday" [AP via Google]
» "Clinton's schedule for Saturday: Noon at the National Building Museum" [USAT]
Photo from Clinton's Tuesday night speech by Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
JEAN NOUVEL recently won the Pritzker Prize, the highest honor in architecture. He'll be speaking (presumably about the architecture, not the prize) at the National Building Museum tonight.
The general public will pay $30 per ticket, while museum members pay $20 and students $10.
» National Building Museum, 401 F St. NW; Tues., 7 p.m., $10-$30; 202-272-2448. (Judiciary Square)
Photo courtesy Ateliers Jean Nouvel
WANT TO KNOW why so many Chinese musicians have perfect pitch? Or how self-deception could be an adaptive trait? Or whether your Iron Maiden tattoo needs a numerical edit?
Only one show will take you there.
Now concluding its brief fourth season, the recurring miniseries WNYC's "Radio Lab" is the brainchild of sonic innovator Jad Abumrad. His highly processed storytelling has yielded the first genuinely distinctive public-radio template since "This American Life."
Thursday, he and esteemed science journalist Robert Krulwich will show a Koshland crowd how they make the magic happen.
» EXPRESS: Your narrative style involves a lot of looping, repetition, multiple voices, etc. It can be pretty jarring.
» ABUMRAD: We get a lot of nastygrams on the e-mail from people who don't like the style. They're, like [adopting kvetchy elderly voice], "Why the noises? Stop stuttering! Why do the people repeat themselves?"
Metro Installing Debris Collectors on Its Tracks
Map It:
Gallery Pl-Chinatown Judiciary Square Union Station
IF YOU'RE WAITING for a train at Union Station, Judiciary Square or Gallery Place-Chinatown, you might spot new small yellow contraptions on the track bed, like the one pictured here.
If you see a copy of the Examiner or City Paper — or, perhaps, Express — get pushed under the contraption by the magic forces of train-powered wind, the things are doing their job.
Metro today announced the deployment of debris collectors at select stations as part of a new program to try to reduce the number of track fires, often sparked by newspapers and similar items getting blown into tunnels and other problematic places.
If the program is successful, Metro says it could expand the use of the debris collectors to other parts of the rail system.
Photo courtesy Metro
REMEMBER TRACTOR MAN? He was Dwight Watson, the North Carolina tobacco farmer who crashed his tractor into Constitution Gardens in March 2003, threatened to detonate a number of bombs and caused epic traffic jams during a 47-hour standoff right as the United States was poised to attack Iraq.
And he recently faced the threat of going back to prison for more than three years. Why?
Reports The Post's Carol D. Leonnig:
In an unprecedented case for Washington's federal court, a judge was tasked with revisiting the case of Dwight W. Watson because an appeals court considered his previous sentence inaccurate and probably too lenient. Watson had long finished his 16-month prison term by the time the appeals court agreed late last year with prosecutors who challenged the way his punishment was set.But in the end, Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan said "there was little benefit to the public in returning him to prison," Leonnig writes.
» "No Extra Prison Time For D.C.'s 'Tractor Man'" [WaPo]
Photo by Robert A. Reeder/The Washington Post
WHEN IS A HELLO KITTY NECKLACE a luxury item? When it comes from Neiman Marcus.
In the continuing investigation into the millions of tax dollars allegedly pilfered by two mid-level D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue employees, federal agents have turned up more money and high-end items that investigators say were bought with the stolen cash. A Post analysis has identified at least $34.1 million in suspicious refund checks issued by the tax office since 1999.
Prosecutors say the two D.C. tax office employees, Harriette Walters and Diane Gustus, were aided in the scheme by Walters' niece, Jayrece Turnbull. Turnbull had no known employment, but she did have plenty of expensive shoes and several Hello Kitty necklaces and pendants. If you think Hello Kitty can't be high-end, think again: the $10,300 pendant pictured in the file photo at right is studded with a total of 2.45-carat diamonds and a 45 cm. 18-karat gold chain. It's one of many luxury items emblazoned with the famous cartoon cat.
Continue Reading "More Luxury Items Found in Tax Office Probe" »
AS INVESTIGATORS continue to track exactly how much money was allegedly stolen by two mid-level employees at the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue, an analysis of city records by The Post has found $31.7 million in "questionable property tax refunds dating back seven years."
As The Post's Dan Keating and Carol D. Leonnig report, one fictitious company is named, ironically, Bilkemor LLC:
Federal authorities initially said the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue had lost more than $16 million in a brazen refund scam orchestrated by a mid-level manager. They later upped the figure to $20 million and warned that the damage could be even higher as their investigation continues. Yesterday, law enforcement sources confirmed that taxpayer losses could reach $30 million or more.In court papers, prosecutors said that one of the accused, Harriette Walters, has "confessed" to approving 58 fraudulent checks amounting to $20 million, but refuses to help investigators locate any more of the stolen funds. So far only $6.5 million of the missing money has been located.
» "Scam Could Total $31 Million" [WaPo]
Courtroom sketch by William J Hennessy Jr. for The Washington Post
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