Washington City Paper (July 3, 2020)

SPORTS WHAT HAPPENS TO NATS’ MINOR LEAGUERS? 3 FOOD FILL UP ON LOCAL FROZEN FOODS AT HOME 12 ARTS TATTOO ARTISTS GET BACK TO WORK 14 THE DISTRICT'S FREE WEEKLY SINCE 1981 VOLUME 40, NO. 26 WASHINGTONCITYPAPER.COM JULY 3–9, 2020

We asked people to write about the meaningful joy—whether abstract or tangible—that they have found in this moment. Page 6 By Kayla Randall

TABLE OF CONTENTS COVER STORY 6 Little Joys: Readers and writers share the small things that are getting them through this period of global strife.

SPORTS 3 Minor Cuts, Major Pain: Baseball might be back, but the future of players in the Nats’ minor league system is uncertain.

NEWS 4 Over Policing: The D.C. Council has advanced legislation that would give DC Public Schools control over school security, but MPD’s School Security Division remains intact.

FOOD 12 Cold Hard Stash: Despite an increased demand for frozen food, bringing a local product to market remains tough.

ARTS 14 Permanent Ink: In the midst of a pandemic, tattoo artists prepare to get back to work.

15 Objects of Affection: The COVID-19 pandemic forces a Smithsonian curator to reconsider her relationship with art.

16 Film: Gittell on The Truth

CITY LIGHTS 16 City Lights: Find a new play to perform during quarantine and listen to a World Series champ discuss his love of photography.

DIVERSIONS 5 Crossword 18 Savage Love 19 Classifieds On the Cover: Watercolor painting by Julia Terbrock

Darrow Montgomery | 2400 Block of 18th Street NW, (Rear) June 30 Editorial

Advertising and Operations

Interim Editor CAROLINE JONES Arts Editor KAYLA RANDALL Food Editor LAURA HAYES Sports Editor KELYN SOONG City Lights Editor EMMA SARAPPO Multimedia and Copy Editor WILL WARREN Loose Lips Reporter MITCH RYALS City Desk Reporter AMANDA MICHELLE GOMEZ Staff Photographer DARROW MONTGOMERY Creative Director JULIA TERBROCK Online Engagement Manager ELIZABETH TUTEN Design Assistant MADDIE GOLDSTEIN Editorial Interns KAYLA BOONE, ELLA FELDMAN

Publisher and Chief Development Officer DUC LUU Associate Publisher ERIC NORWOOD Senior Account Executives MARK KULKOSKY, ALICIA MERRITT Account Executive ATHENA FOLTZ Event Manager KIRSTEN HOLTZ NAIM Sales Operations Manager HEATHER MCANDREWS Advertising Traffic Director JANE MARTINACHE Publisher Emeritus AMY AUSTIN

Leland Investment Corp.

Owner MARK D. EIN

LOCAL ADVERTISING: (832) 878-9567 FAX: (202) 650-6970 ADS@WASHINGTONCITYPAPER.COM FIND A STAFF DIRECTORY WITH CONTACT INFORMATION AT WASHINGTONCITYPAPER.COM VOL. 40, NO. 26 JULY 3–9, 2020 WASHINGTON CITY PAPER IS PUBLISHED EVERY WEEK AND IS LOCATED AT 734 15TH ST. NW, SUITE 400, WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005. CALENDAR SUBMISSIONS ARE WELCOMED; THEY MUST BE RECEIVED 10 DAYS BEFORE PUBLICATION. U.S. SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE AVAILABLE FOR $250 PER YEAR. ISSUE WILL ARRIVE SEVERAL DAYS AFTER PUBLICATION. BACK ISSUES OF THE PAST FIVE WEEKS ARE AVAILABLE AT THE OFFICE FOR $1 ($5 FOR OLDER ISSUES). BACK ISSUES ARE AVAILABLE BY MAIL FOR $5. MAKE CHECKS PAYABLE TO WASHINGTON CITY PAPER OR CALL FOR MORE OPTIONS. © 2020 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE EDITOR.

2 july 3, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

SPORTS BASEBALL

Minor Cuts, Major Pain Now that their season is canceled, minor league baseball players in the Nationals organization must navigate an uncertain path forward.

In a few days, Lucas Knowles will return to his home in Belfair, Washington, a tiny town an hour and a half from Seattle, with a population under 5,000. There, he’ll live with his parents, and have a job waiting for him.

For the past couple of months, the 22-year-old minor league baseball player in the Washington Nationals organization has been staying in Pensacola, Florida, living near his brother and preparing for the possibility of playing organized baseball. This week, Minor League Baseball officially canceled its season. Vacation, Knowles jokes, is now over.

“I think I’ll either wait tables or go back to waking up at 3 a.m. every morning to go mow greens on a golf course,” he says. “So, if those aren’t two beautiful options, I don’t know what else to do.”

While Major League Baseball is set to resume with a 60-game season beginning on July 23, the minor league season has been canceled outright due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some minor league players, like Knowles, are heading back to their hometowns in search of jobs outside the sport, and other players are no longer on rosters at all. In late May, hundreds of minor leaguers across many MLB organizations were cut, including several dozen in the Nationals organization. Even before the pandemic, MLB proposed cutting the minor league from 160 to 140 affiliated teams for next year, a proposal that, if accepted, could lead to radical restructuring of the minor league system.

A career in the minors often means a life of financial precarity and uncertainty, and that has only been exacerbated by the global health crisis that does not appear to be slowing in the United States.

“The mood is kinda like, ‘Man, this sucks,’” says Knowles, a left-handed pitcher who is currently with the Auburn Doubledays, the Class A Short Season affiliate of the Nationals in Auburn, New York. “We have a very finite amount of time to prove how good we are and to make it or we don’t, and for a lot of people, this is a year that could be a make or break year. I just came into professional baseball last year, so I think I have a lot of games moving forward, but for a lot of people, this was their last chance and it’s gone.”

Ryan Williamson was looking forward to competing in the minors this season as a way to show how far he’s come since his injuries. The Nationals drafted Williamson in the 15th round of the 2016 MLB Draft out of North Carolina State knowing he would need Tommy John surgery to replace a torn ligament in his left elbow. This is the best he’s felt

Rick Nelson Photo

By Kelyn Soong @KelynSoong

Lucas Knowles physically in years, he says. In August 2017, while coming back from the Tommy John surgery, Williamson suffered a fracture in the same arm that required surgery.

Last season, the 25-year-old left-handed pitcher played for the Hagerstown Suns, the Class A affiliate of the Nationals based in Hagerstown, Maryland, finishing 4-1 with a 3.84 ERA. On May 29, Williamson was one of 40 players cut from the organization.

“To be honest with you, I was shocked,” he says. “But the thing I said to myself, when I had gotten released, ‘cause I was blindsided by it, I said to myself, there’s a lot of other things going on during these unprecedented times … Other people in the world have it way worse. There’s a lot of other things going on right now that are just really unfortunate … People are struggling to eat three meals a day.”

Williamson emphasizes he “has nothing but respect” toward the Nationals, and says he is thankful for the organization “for taking the chance on me in 2016.” Last month, he signed to play for the Somerset Patriots of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, a team based in Bridgewater Township, New Jersey, that is not affiliated with the MLB. The team has yet to be approved to host baseball games at its ballpark this year.

On Monday, the Nationals revealed a list of 60 players eligible to participate in MLB games in the 2020 season—a feeder system unique to the shortened season—ahead of the modified “spring training” that began this week.

Several minor leaguers saw their names on the list, including pitcher Jackson Rutledge, the team’s first round selection from the 2019 MLB Draft.

Rutledge, 21, knows he’s in a fortunate position.

He’s watched close friends get cut from teams. “[It] just makes me want to work harder to prove that I belong on that list,” he says. “I’m excited to get back into competitive situations and back into the mindset of spending every day getting ready to compete.”

After the league suspended spring training in March, Rutledge returned to St. Louis and kept— or attempted to maintain—a structured routine. When the gyms were closed, he would go to a local high school field hockey field to throw with his dad. “I did smoke him in the shin one time,” Rutledge says. “He still makes fun of me for that.” Rutledge also had to get creative with his workouts. At his parents’ home, he would use buckets of concrete as weights.

When the local pitching gym, Premier Pitching and Performance, reopened, Rutledge got up around 7:30 in the morning to make it out to the gym by 9 a.m.

“I think the hardest thing was just trying to stay ready all the time,” he says. “Because you never really know when things were going to start. We didn’t know if we needed to be ready the next day or if it was gonna be in four months when everything started. [So] this entire time you had to train and compete with the mindset that you have to be ready to go next week, even if that doesn’t end up happening.”

As the 17th overall draft pick last year, Rutledge, who finished the 2019 season with a 2.30 ERA over 27.1 innings with the Hagerstown Suns, had the luxury of receiving a signing bonus of approximately $3.45 million. He’s cognizant that, for that reason, he hasn’t had to worry about picking up another job during the offseason. Some of his friends, Rutledge says, “would work for construction jobs or work in a warehouse or work for Postmates ... just to be able to pay for their training during the month or to be able to pay for whatever food they need.”

The Nationals are providing their minor league players a stipend of $400 a week until September, which is when the season would have concluded. Last month, the team reversed course on a decision to lower the stipend to $300 a week after considerable public backlash. (A weekly pay of $400 is the lowest amount that any minor league player would be paid under a new payment plan the MLB said it would roll out in 2021.)

The $400 weekly stipend is more than what Mason Doolittle, a catching prospect in the organization, had expected to earn this season. His financial advisor had figured he would be making $256 a week. In addition to the stipend, Doolittle also teaches lessons at Line Drive Indoor Baseball in Jupiter, Florida, where he lives.

“So I’m kind of rich right now, actually,” Doolittle says with a laugh. “I’m kidding, but between the $400 a week and lessons, I’ll be all right. Also, it’s nice my girlfriend has a job so every once in a while, she’ll be like, ‘here, here’s a dinner,’ so that’s nice, too.”

Being in Jupiter allows him to be in close proximity to his trainer and other minor league players. His Hagerstown teammates, Doolittle says, have been able to keep in touch via Zoom calls.

He’s heard from someone within the Nationals organization at least once a week.

One of the most challenging parts has been not letting himself feel disappointed that the season has been canceled. Seeing some of his best friends lose their jobs has impacted the way he approaches the game. Doolittle, 21, calls the massive cuts “heartbreaking.”

“I remember the first time I saw a guy get cut in pro ball, it was probably the most eye-opening part because you get drafted ... and you got your jersey with your name on it,” he says. “And you kind of go, ‘all right, here I am. I’m just starting out.’ And then you see a guy packing up his stuff right next to you. And you’re like, ‘oh, shit, that guy’s done.’”

And while he won’t be playing this summer, Doolittle is excited to see MLB’s return. In three or four years, he says, minor league players currently on rosters may look back at this year as one that fueled them to improve even more. He predicts minor league baseball going forward is going to be the “most talented and the most competitive it’s ever been.”

“Everyone’s always hungry in the minor leagues, but with all the cuts, I think everyone’s realizing that anything can happen all the time,” Doolittle says, “so we gotta be grateful for where we’re at now.”

washingtoncitypaper.com july 3, 2020 3

NEWS CITY DESK

Over Policing

Darrow Montgomery

As D.C. moves to cut ties between the Metropolitan Police Department and public schools, advocates want more substantial changes.

A Defund the Police demonstration near Judiciary Square on June 19

By Amanda Michelle Gomez @amanduhgomez Why is the Metropolitan Police Department in charge of security in D.C.’s traditional public schools? As calls to transform policing intensify in the wake of protests against systemic anti-Black racism and police violence, the D.C. Council is considering that question.

Its Committee on Education passed a budget proposal on June 25 that would make DC Public Schools responsible for security guards instead of MPD, in response to activists’ calls for policefree schools.

“The safety of our students is a priority, but our current staffing of schools indicates that we are more interested in policing our students than we are in ensuring their academic success or supporting their mental and behavioral health,” said At-Large Councilmember David Grosso, the education committee chairman, in a statement.

The five-member committee’s vote to have DCPS take over MPD’s $23 million contract— the police department’s largest contract—was unanimous. According to a draft of the proposal, the intent is to have DCPS begin reimagining security that relies more on behavioral health,

as opposed to law enforcement. The draft notes that DCPS has one counselor for every 408 students, one psychologist for every 402 students, and one social worker for every 217 students, while there is one security officer or special police officer for every 129 students.

If the full Council passes the proposal, D.C. would join Minneapolis, Denver, and Portland, Oregon, in severing ties between police and schools. But Council Chairman Phil Mendelson could make his own changes ahead of budget votes next month.

“I think it’s worth considering, but there ought to be an examination first of whatever current problems there are, and how confident we can be that DCPS can correct those problems, and do a better job than MPD,” Mendelson told City Paper the day of the vote.

The chairman also spoke with City Paper on June 22, before Grosso released his budget proposal. Mendelson said then that the best approach would involve hearings on the issue of security in schools, because lawmakers need to better understand the issue before acting too hastily. He pointed to a discrepancy between what Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen said about the ratio of security guards and social

4 july 3, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

workers to students at Eastern High School and what school board members said. Allen said during a recent budget oversight hearing that the school had eight contract security guards and five social workers, but school board members testified to there being more counselors and social workers than guards, the chairman noted.

“Where I’m coming from is that there’s a very legitimate public discourse right now about whether we have in our society resorted too much to too many police. And that’s a fair question,” he continues. “So let’s look at the schools and see whether we simply have found it easier to get more security in a school rather than looking at what is really what we need. There needs to be analysis and discussion rather than jumping to the conclusion.”

Black Swan Academy, a D.C.-based nonprofit focused on empowering Black youth, has been leading the call for police-free schools.

“Cops need to be out of schools because they make kids feel unsafe and sometimes, might even make kids not want to be in school,” says Ifetayo, a third grader and Ward 8 resident who attended an action on June 23 in which activists visited lawmakers’ homes to call for the removal of police from schools.

Black Swan Academy supports Grosso’s proposal to end MPD’s school security contract that employs roughly 320 private guards, but wants even more reform. “It’s not enough. It’s nowhere near enough,” says Samantha Paige Davis, its executive director.

Grosso’s proposal does not address the issue of specially trained MPD officers, called school resource officers, that patrol the outside of campuses. These officers are under the purview of the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, and Allen, who chairs the committee, did not address this issue in his budget.

Black Swan Academy believes there should be no school resource officers or armed school officers, and unarmed security guards under DCPS oversight need to be trained in deescalation, conflict resolution, and anti-racist cultural competency. Davis also says these guards should also be trained to create relationships with students.

Also important to Black Swan Academy is reducing MPD’s overall budget and diverting those funds to violence interruption and health care programs.

Black students are disproportionately targeted by MPD: According to a ACLU DC analysis of stopand-frisk data over a five-month period, 88.6 percent of minors stopped were Black.

MPD and DCPS did not respond to City Paper’s request for comment on Grosso’s proposal.

MPD was not always in charge of security in schools. The police department’s oversight of dozens of school resource officers and hundreds of contractual security guards happened over the last 15 years.

The Council created the “School Safety Division” within MPD in response to the fatal shooting of 17-year-old James Richardson at Ballou Senior High School in February 2004.

Thomas Boykin, who was subjected to taunts and teasing for being from Barry Farm, shot Richardson, a star football player, and pleaded guilty to manslaughter. According to Ballou teachers, students, and the police at the time, security was a “joke” and never addressed the bullying that stemmed from a rivalry between neighborhoods and manifested in the first fatal shooting inside a D.C. school in more than five years.

“This decision acknowledges that, increasingly, violence in schools is a result of problems that begin in District neighborhoods. Giving MPD responsibility of school security will help improve communication about these issues between MPD and DCPS officials,” wrote then-chairperson of the judiciary committee Kathy Patterson in her recommendation of the Metropolitan Police Department School Safety and Security Act to the rest of her colleagues. “The legislation does not authorize or envision only MPD officers policing DCPS hallways,” she added.

Before MPD managed security in schools, DCPS did. In testimony to the judiciary committee in 2004, the Office of the Inspector General cited concerns about security personnel attendance, professionalism, and workforce diversity when DCPS oversaw the contract. The Council ultimately passed the Metropolitan Police Department School Safety and Security Act of 2004, but public testimony was mixed on whether the bill was a good idea.

NEWS DIVERSIONS CROSSWORD There are currently 98 school resource officers who split their time between traditional public schools and public charter schools. MPD is also responsible for the $23 million contract with Security Assurance Management Inc that employs roughly 320 private guards in traditional public schools. A MPD spokesperson says the guards, who are based inside the schools, are not armed, but the school resource officers, who only enter campuses when called upon, are armed and receive firearms training twice a year. DCPS employs 17 additional armed officers who support students traveling to and from schools, as well as respond to incidents at schools.

MPD releases annual reports on its School Safety Division. In its 2019-2020 report, the police department highlights how officers picked up youth for truancy violations more than 1,500 times this past academic year, and how there was a 27 percent reduction in the number of incidents where guards identified students trying to enter a school with a weapon. These reports do not offer breakdowns based on race, but activists have said youth of color are over-policed. Their experiences are borne out in the little publicly available data on race and policing in schools.

This past academic year, 100 percent of school-based arrests involved students of color, according to the 2019 School Report Card. 338 students were arrested; 312 of those arrested were Black and 26 were Latinx. 104 students with disabilities were arrested.

Eduardo Ferrer of the Georgetown Juvenile Justice Initiative understands most arrests have to do with interpersonal disputes, fights, or threats, based on conversations he’s had with his clients. He knows only of a few instances where arrests are related to weapons. “Are we ever going to get to that point where we can be 100 percent sure we’re not going to have another school shooting? Unfortunately, in this day and age when school shootings seem so rampant, probably not,� Ferrer says. “But I think we are going to prevent more harm overall ... if we can shift our approach to prevention and intervention rather than reaction.�

He supports Grosso’s proposal to move the security contract from MPD to DCPS, but also hopes the Council can still eliminate MPD’s School Security Division during this budget cycle. He also thinks DCPS shouldn’t wait for the Council to pass a budget before working with community-based organizations like Black Swan Academy to reimagine safety in schools.

Some of the people advocating for money to be directed from policing to mental health care are the first to defend the security guards or school resource officers in their own schools.

Ronald H. Brown High School teacher Ashley Kearney has good relationships with the security guards in her school. They greet staff and students as they enter the building or during classroom transitions. But she knows her positive experiences with guards are predicated on whether they want to establish a relationship with staff and students. And they aren’t necessarily trained to, she says. Kearney recalls speaking with a first-year security guard about his training in the teacher’s lounge one day. He said he was told not to relate to

students in a certain way. “We are a restorative practice school, so that’s not going to cut it,� Kearney tells City Paper.

Kearney is glad the Council is thinking about what public safety should look like in schools.

She remembers clearly the city’s response to the Ballou shooting in 2004—Richardson was her former neighbor and friend—and doesn’t believe the issue was whether there was enough security in the school at the time, but rather why Richardson wasn’t transferred to another school when Ballou knew Richardson was being threatened. Now the city has a chance to act differently. “The better way to respond is to be proactive,�

Kearney says. “Do I think that schools need the autonomy to be able to support students in a more restorative approach? Yes.�

DCPS Chancellor Dr. Lewis Ferebee said during his department’s budget hearing, where he defended police presence in schools, that he is not aware of any scenario where a traditional or charter school requested the removal of law enforcement. But surveys suggest that both schools and the public would be open to less officers if money was diverted to other supports. According to a preliminary survey from the Washington Teachers’ Union, two-thirds of teachers indicate “our schools can be made safer by diverting funds that have gone to MPD to increase school-based staff that provide social, emotional, and other supports for our students.�

A DC Fiscal Policy Institute poll says a majority of 590 voters support “removing police-contracted personnel from schools and reinvesting these dollars in school-based mental health.�

Anacostia High School teacher Ronald Edmonds appreciates the security guards in his school because they have gone out of their way to create a relationship with his students. He feels the same way about some of the school officers. “They are the eyes and ears that educators don’t always have the time for,� says Edmonds of the security guards in his school. “I believe if you took the uniform off those individuals and put them in plain clothes, they would be just as effective because of their personalities and because they care about the jobs.�

Nathan Luecking, a social worker at Anacostia High School, also thinks these guards should be DCPS employees, so they can continue to do what they do best: create relationships with students and leverage those relationships to create a positive school climate. Luecking, who’s very critical of MPD, has complicated feelings about school resource officers. “The SROs are basically trained in how to engage with a student, so they are little bit better at talking with them or working with them than your average patrol officer, which is good in the short-term, but bad in the long-term, because I think it sends a very confusing message, especially to the younger kids,� says Luecking. “Here you have an officer who is able to work with you and talk with you and mediate and isn’t so quick to arrest you, and then you step outside and you are engaging with another type of police officer who is very combative ... I would be much more comfortable if the SROs were able to use their skill set in a way that isn’t explicitly linked to law enforcement, because we have some very talented SROs.�

Squirm Of An Idea

By Brendan Emmett Quigley

34. Brooklyn cagers 35. Bothered 38. Play with the band 39. In the lead 40. Author Hiaasen 41. Acknowledge the applause 42. Butterfingers 43. What’s needed to break open acorns?

47. Ready to attempt 48. Camelot member, briefly 49. Earthy opening 52. Foul smelling 53. Copy 55. Shell alternative 57. Cleveland’s lake 58. Patrol unit’s heroin?

60. Fashion-forward Christian 61. Cup fraction 62. Sunscreen ingredient 63. Without 64. Wood turner 65. ___ queen Down 1. Big name in printers 2. Chef ’s hat

Across 1. To be, at the Louvre 5. Aluminum company 10. They have small touchscreens 14. Diaper deposit 15. Governor with a brother who’s on CNN 16. Language similar to Hindi 17. Sing “Le Freak� like a mouse?

19. Run like the wind 20. Revealed to the world 21. Head cold doc 22. Place for an elevated performance 23. Once went by 24. National Blood Donor Mo. 26. “Fork over the cash�

27. Arthritic noise heard while working your glutes?

32. It accounts for around a third of global military spending: Abbr.

33. Cat with a curly coat

3. Delivery trucks follow them 4. Sword with a bell 5. “Why’s this happening?�

6. Giving off light 7. ESPN SportsCenter anchor Linda 8. Leave off 9. Bartender-turnedrepresentative, for short 10. Spackle applicator 11. More studly 12. Pitching specialists 13. “Yeah, why not?�

18. Make a few minor changes

22. Pollen holder 25. Jumping org.

26. Bellum’s opposite 28. Seeded players 29. Move at a slow pace 30. Stipe’s group 31. Astron. clock setting 35. Boxes that (unfortunately) get dropped out of windows 36. Burrito seller 37. Eddie Van Halen instrumental off the debut Van Halen record 38. Angels manager Maddon 39. Guy ___ mask (protestor’s covering) 41. “Where’s my hoodie?�

42. “Gimme a break�

44. Drapery holder 45. Speak in church 46. Canadian drugstore chain 50. Powdered chocolate 51. Correctly sung 52. Govt. agents 53. Kind of blue 54. Fourth down play, often 56. Day when Cupid comes, for short 58. Fifth note on a scale 59. Grand finale?

LAST WEEK: DOG CATCHERS

6 : $ % 7 ( 1 ( $ % 1 ( & $ 3 % 2 % 0 0 ( : , 7 + & + $ , 8 0 $ 0 6 2 ' 0 2 2 ' , 1 5 , 1 , % 6 7 ( 6 6

6 ) , 7 2 ' 5 2 , $ 1 ' * ' 2 & 6 7 2 5 $ 0 $ 6 7 $ , & ( 7 , 6 $ ) 5 < , ( 6 7 , 7 2 . ( 5 , 0 (

1 2 / 2 6 ( 1 2 7 $ : 2 5 '

6 0 < 7 2 + + , , 2 0 8 3 $ 1 / , $ 1 $ 6

' ( ) 7

$ 8 5 2 5 & $ 8 6 , 6 + $ 7 7 ( 2 < 5 2 2 8

' 5 $ : 2 1 & $ 6 + ' ( $ /

6 2 1 1 ( 7

: $ ; ' 5 6

washingtoncitypaper.com july 3, 2020 5

THIS MOMENT IN time is weighing upon us.

We must cope with a global pandemic. We must reckon with the racism and violence buried deep in this country’s bones. I wanted to know what people were thinking at this moment, what’s been on their minds lately.

I wanted to know what was getting them through hardships, what joys they were finding. So, I asked locals—some who have contributed to City Paper or been featured in its pages and online, and some who I had never met or worked with—to tell me what little joys they’ve been finding these days, the things we experience that may seem small in the grand scheme of the universe but are, in fact, very meaningful. I imposed no limitations; I wanted total individual expression of what those words meant to them. Some chose to write their joys like stories, scenes playing out. Some chose to list their joys. There is joy with an old dog, and joy with a new puppy. There is joy in the stars, and joy in a frog pond. There is joy in nature, and joy right at home, joy in concepts, in objects, and each other. Whether wistful or wonderful, I felt the joy while reading, and I hope you do, too.

—Kayla Randall

Watercolor painting by Julia Terbrock 6 july 3, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

our daughter the different plants and hearing her repeat their names, always flattened into one or two syllables. Her curiosity compels us to both stop and smell, to compare the shapes of leaves, to wonder at acrobatic squirrels, to appreciate the tireless bees. Our little walks are planting in our toddler a lifelong desire to explore and to cherish the world in its smallest details. And as we slow down and see the beauty cultivated by our fellow humanity, these walks have become our antidote.

—Carlos Carmonamedina and Jordanna Matlon, Petworth

We’re on the rugged side of the creek, the side that’s unpaved and frequented by deer.

My girl, a boxer-pit mix, is lost in her world of smells and sounds I can’t hear, her leash extending ahead of me. Then I pass her as she scrutinizes a particular clump of grass.

Above, the birds are noisy, warning each other of some danger in the woods. It’s not me or my girl. The fuss is for a hawk that cries out high above the trees. I watch it swoop and disappear behind thick leaves. Farther up the trail, stock-still in the middle of the creek, is a heron. Too busy sniffing, my girl ignores the bird. I stand motionless, barely breathing as the heron takes a slow step forward, its eye on a fish, perhaps. My girl moves and I look at her for a moment. When I turn back, the heron is gliding down the waterway, and I marvel at its wingspan. I inhale the cool, early morning air as we wander along, lost in the natural beauty all around. For a time, I’ve escaped the painful and chaotic headlines.

For a time, I’m completely free.

—Melanie Hatter, Silver Spring

Illustration by Carlos Carmonamedina

Kaila Philo

As parents in this time of lockdown and social reckoning, stepping outside the bubble of our home comes with an emotional toll of anxiety and despair. But seen through our toddler’s eyes, this ugly world of grown-ups is transformed into a boundless universe of adventure and awe. We recently moved to a part of D.C. where rowhouse gardens replace Michelin-starred restaurants. Here, the city bursts with colors and a creative energy that emerges from the ground up. From one week to another, we find a new flower in bloom or venture down an undiscovered street to come upon a miniature wonderland on a neighbor’s front lawn. We delight in teaching

“We delight in teaching our daughter the different plants and hearing her repeat their names, always flattened into one or two syllables.”

Kaila Philo

Recently, I returned to my summer job as a gardener at a local cemetery. While my job is well-suited to a socially distant work environment—I spend hours pulling weeds alone, hardly interacting with others— the implications of working at a cemetery during a pandemic are difficult to avoid.

I watched as the first burial plans labeled “COVID Positive” appeared on the bulletin board. But I seldom feel surrounded by death, because the cemetery is bursting with flora and fauna. The roses I helped plant last year are in full bloom, as are the pesky weeds that inevitably materialize around them. Even the mushrooms are sprouting up in vivid color. I’ve seen deer come traipsing through the graveyard to snack on leaves, and I suspect a fox, a frequent cemetery visitor, has been digging up the flowerbeds. Watching a masked funeral service while weeding someone’s grave, it’s hard not to contemplate my own mortality.

But whenever I bump my lawnmower into a cherry blossom tree and get showered with petals, or pick up my spade and find an especially cool-looking slug, I can’t help but feel giddy to be, for the moment, a living instrument in the cacophony of nature.

—Rose Shafer, Arlington

A few weeks ago, I felt so overwhelmed by news about the protests and pandemic that I just stopped looking at it. No news, no social media, nothing. Instead, I turned to plants. Thankfully, it wasn’t a total departure from my regular life. Last year, I joined an urban farm. This year, I started getting more involved with it. And I’d already been buying new plants from a local garden center when my state locked down. Since March, I’ve bought a jasmine sambac, jade pothos, dieffenbachia camille, and a couple of tomato seedlings. It’s been a great way to stay busy, because taking care of them has been a full-time job. I’ve had to read more blogs and magazines about gardening to nurture a green thumb, as well as check in on all the plants on a daily basis. Most of the plants died, but the work still calmed me, and I’ve kept these habits up. I’ve drastically reduced my social media intake and replaced it with time outdoors or tending to my plants.

Nowadays, I feel calmer than I’ve felt in a long time—even before quarantine. Sometimes the simple things are all you need.

—Kaila Philo, Baltimore

Left: Kaila Philo’s cat, Leia, near one of her plants; Right: Philo’s growing tomato plant

At the onset of COVID-19, I quickly surmised that this would be an unusually long hiatus from our usually hyper-engaged everyday existence. As a freelance journalist, I knew that it would be simple to meet the challenge of the moment by staying glued to my computer and writing for 100 days straight. But right now, the fact that once commonplace notions have become incredible feats has inspired me. I decided, on March 13, that by the end of the summer, I’d get myself in shape to run a marathon.

For me, this goal isn’t a fanciful dream that smacks of a couch-to-5K gone wrong: I’ve been running 500 to 1,000 miles a year for the past decade. Running is my tool for mental clarity. Plus, in 2020, safely completing a grueling and humid 10-plus-mile run, amid a lethal global pandemic and uprisings against racism, would be quite the accomplishment.

Running in these trying times is defiance in the face of failure. I can happily report that 16 consecutive triumphant weeks of running have improved my stamina. By September, I’ll be ready for 26.2 miles. When I run, I feel like I’ve conquered the universe.

And conquering the universe is my favorite activity to do before eating dinner.

—Marcus K. Dowling, Spring Valley

washingtoncitypaper.com july 3, 2020 7

of her new home, giddy at every light fixture.

I hadn’t seen her this happy in a long time.

After an 18-year-long unsuccessful marriage, she finally rebuilt her life with someone who loves her. Cooper knew she no longer needed him. The night before I left, we watched Cooper sleep on the living room floor and joked that he was the only loyal man we’ve ever known. I kissed him on the head and thanked him for the 14 years of joy he’s given us. For being my mom’s constant through everything she endured. And for bringing us together when we needed it most.

—Jordan Reabold, Capitol Hill

Jordan Reabold

I recently visited my home in rural Pennsylvania to say goodbye to Cooper, my childhood dog. He was old and time was running out. I never look forward to home, and these circumstances made me all the more apprehensive. It was also the first time I’d see my mom’s new house, which she recently bought with her fiance. I was surprised to find that, rather than counting the sleeps until I returned to D.C., I felt content. My mom and I sat with Cooper on the porch steps, and it felt good to look at the stars with nowhere else to be. I caught my mom smiling to herself. She gave me a tour

“I’ve never been as present as I am currently, and I truly find joy in not living on a timeline.”

Sean Murphy

For all the obvious reasons, I’ll suggest that while there’s never a bad time to get a puppy, some times are better than others: being mostly housebound for an extended— and apparently indefinite—period of social distancing, for instance. My wife and I could not have known, when we decided to add a third dog to our family, that this spring would end up being the ideal time to experience the myriad joys and occasional, inevitable aggravations of training a cheery, indefatigable, sometimes obdurate four-legged friend. For one thing, a furry companion who only knows how to live in the moment is a welcome distraction from the heavy thoughts that accompany a pandemic.

For another, you cannot spend an unhealthy amount of time on the couch or in front of the computer if you’re obliged to chase after a little pup who needs to go outside to pee and poop, steals shoes, and defies the obstacles of a puppy-proofed house like it’s his job.

That kind of joy is irresistible. And laughter really is the best medicine, particularly in times when not enough of us know if we’ll need medicine or if it’ll be available. Having a puppy is a necessary reminder of how imperfect we can be, which is just about the most perfect gift we can give ourselves in times like these. —Sean Murphy, Winchester

Illustration by Tenbeete Solomon aka Trap Bob

Lately, I’ve been reconsidering everything.

Life seemed so set in stone and stagnant, and as much as I live to disrupt the norm, there were some things I just couldn’t imagine would change. I’ve been thinking about how to make real, long-term change, and where to begin. So I’ve started with myself and my mental space. I’ve never been as present as I am currently, and I truly find joy in not living on a timeline. I take walks now, for no reason, just to visit the flowers and get some sun. I’m enjoying the flowers so much that when I get groceries, I bring home a new bouquet and consider them my guests for the week. It’s sort of become a new medium for me. I’ve also found time to experiment with painting, and feel inspired like I did when I first began years ago. I’m even trying to train my cats, and though futile, it’s brought us closer.

It’s been refreshing to find beauty in the everyday, and while I have a lot to be upset about, I’m staying positive and doing what I can to make a difference.

—Tenbeete Solomon, Edgewood

8 july 3, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

Sean Murphy’s puppy, Benson

Jordan Reabold’s childhood dog, Cooper

During quarantine, I’ve learned to try new things and embrace the smaller moments that I usually take for granted. One thing I really enjoy is playing baseball, which I play all year long—for both high school and travel teams. Stuck at home, I was wondering what I could do indoors with limited space. My coaches stressed the importance of simply getting out to throw the baseball with my brother, which is challenging in the city, where it’s easy to damage cars. After walking around the neighborhood, we were able to find a good spot that had just enough space to throw without damaging people’s property.

Being with family is another thing that is helping time pass quicker. Finding new trails to go on walks together has created many memories for us, which makes quarantine much more enjoyable. I also finally tried something a lot of people were suggesting, but I didn’t expect to like: anime. I’ve enjoyed anime so much that I finished watching three whole series: Naruto, Hunter x Hunter, and Fullmetal Alchemist. Quarantine has really forced us to slow down. There’s no competing in favorite sports or going to places like Sky Zone with friends. However, I can now cherish the smaller things: exploring a new genre of TV shows, finding the perfect place to throw a baseball in the neighborhood, and discovering a new appreciation for family time.

—Julian McPherson, Fort Dupont Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, a system of racism and ableism has kept folks like myself, Black and disabled, fighting for liberation and justice. I watched how other Black disabled advocates and allies struggled to practice joy as a form of resistance, as they feared it would be overshadowed and misunderstood. As footage of the protests against racism around the world began to flood my social media feeds, I felt my joy being compromised by the weight of seeing Black disabled bodies discarded. But my 7-year-old autistic son Knox is the definition of unbridled Black autistic joy. His joy is infinite, existing as its own revolution, and he doesn’t need anyone’s permission to show it. His joy becomes my joy, and we have a bond rooted in self advocacy, dance parties, and hugs. Ableist and racist social constructs continue to steal so much joy, and erase our humanity and existence.

I realized that in this time of uprising, my

Illustration by Lindsay Adams

I find joy in being comfortable in my own skin. I don’t have weekend plans. I don’t wear fancy shoes to virtual meetings.

(They’re lucky if I wear fancy pants!) So I am more attuned to the subtle things. I cherish the heart text message sent by a friend on a hard day. And I find joy in knowing that I have friends whose company, just as it is, I truly treasure. I especially value those friendships that have lasted for years and survived moves to faraway places.

We’ve stayed connected even if we’re not physically together, so quarantine hasn’t changed much with those friends. With the world so quiet, it’s easier for me to feel their presence. It’s made me even more grateful that they’ve stuck with me for so long, back when the world was full of life and we could have easily lost each other in the chaos of it all. Someday, when we all re-enter the world with uneven haircuts, I hope that we remember these subtle things. Our weekend plans will come and go. Our fancy shoes will wear out. But the stuff beneath it all—that will stay. —Jennifer Anne Mitchell, Petworth

Julian McPherson exploring local trails with his brothers, Jaylin (front) and Jonah (left)

Jennifer White-Johnson

I don’t know about you, but one thing I’ve missed most while being inside quarantining and social distancing has been my coffee routine at my favorite coffee shops. Whether it was a late morning coffee run to Compass when I was at the office, or an early morning work session at Vigilante, coffee and tea have been, and still are, my love languages.

I’ve been working from home since the third week of March, and my barista skills have improved exponentially with each successive week. I post my morning coffee/tea routine almost every day on Instagram, with a new song or coffee hack I’ve discovered to go along with it. The therapeutic expression of flavor and calm in these routines has made many dull mornings less of a dread.

Between my go-to milk frother from Target and my minimalist teapot and kettle combo from Tealyra, each morning I look forward to a new aroma to start off my day. Living through a pandemic is hard. Dealing with police brutality and systemic racism is even harder, and the days keep getting weirder.

Though my coffee routine doesn’t resolve any of this, it does give me a little boost to tackle my art and work each day. A pour of my coffee from my French press and my freshly steeped tea with frothed milk have been the cups of joy I didn’t know I needed.

—Lindsay Adams, Fort Washington

Julian McPherson

joy could be found by reclaiming the visual narrative, holding space for my art to shift into a practice of restorative justice. Now, my joy has taken up permanent residence, fueling me to create protest art to amplify my Black disability community. Watching the world use my art in solidarity and in protest for five weeks, uplifting the message that we can unite to save Black disabled lives, has shown me that my joy, if I let it, can bring about social change.

—Jennifer White-Johnson, Baltimore

Jennifer White-Johnson’s son, Knox, holding Black Disabled Lives Matter artwork

“...coffee and tea have been, and still are, my love languages.”

washingtoncitypaper.com july 3, 2020 9

Julia Terbrock

I recently finished rewatching Mad Men, and there are striking parallels between that show and our current moment in American life. The 1960s were a period of intense uncertainty and upheaval, but Matthew Weiner’s drama was a reminder that during the protests, uprisings, assassinations, and war, the vast majority of Americans still had to live through it all, experiencing personal and professional triumphs and defeats.

That is how I feel right now: like a witness to history, with an unearned sense that maybe we’ll come out better on the other side. Until then, I find pleasures in the little things.

While staring out the window, I love to watch recently adopted puppies, most of which are French bulldogs, go on walks they can barely handle. I often sit on my front patio and have a drink with my wife. I do my best to recreate the restaurant experience on Friday nights (Italian food makes for some of the best takeout). But more often than not, I am finding pleasure through a genuine sense of community. And community comes from all the joy that we share. —Alan Zilberman, Shaw

Julia Terbrock and her sisters on Animal Crossing: New Horizons island landscapes, and curating items for the museum. Animal Crossing is a break from the stressors of the real world—but I still have bells to pay.

—Julia Terbrock A quick glimpse at my recommendations page on YouTube reveals the joys I’ve been able to find during these troubling times.

There are clips from ESPN’s Michael Jordan documentary The Last Dance. Deleted scenes from The Office also make an appearance. In the past week or so, I’ve subscribed to not one, but three users who upload videos of themselves playing tennis. And when I step away from the screen, I’ve found myself in the real-life version of those videos, playing tennis—hand sanitizer in tow and adhering to the proper safety measures—with those closest to me: my parents and my friends.

—Kelyn Soong

STAFF JOYS

Spring Park frog pond

10 july 3, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

Kelyn Soong

Kayla Randall

When I heard there was an Animal Crossing game released for the Nintendo Switch, I ordered it online immediately. I didn’t even have a Switch, but my boyfriend was kind enough to lend me his. The timing was serendipitous: The game released in March, around the start of quarantine. In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the worry of a global pandemic does not exist. On my thriving island 7 Wonders, I can design and redesign rooms in my pink house all day, meet up with friends and family to take NookPhone photos of our best looks, and harvest the endless natural resources to pay off my extreme debts to in-game capitalist operator Tom Nook. In the game, currency is called bells. With the real world moving at a fast pace, Animal Crossing allows me to explore my creativity at my own leisurely rate; I can collect non-native fruit for fast cash then mindlessly meander to plant more flowers on the island, and rearrange my furniture again and again. As a creative, I get joy out of the many expressive outlets in the game, like coordinating outfits with friends, making

Laura Hayes

I find joy looking at the moon and the stars.

I’ve known people who were afraid of the vastness of space—it’s too big, they said, too unknowable and frightening. But I find solace there. I love looking up at the night sky and seeing celestial bodies that force me to understand my place in the universe. A full moon brings perspective. Twinkling stars make me chuckle with delight at how tiny and impermanent we are compared to them. The stress of this chapter in time haunts me. But one night this spring, on a walk around my neighborhood, I looked up at the night sky and I saw the planet Venus. That night, if just for that moment, stress left me. —Kayla Randall

Kayla Randall’s favorite shirt featuring the NASA meatball logo

Tennis courts at Walter Johnson High School

With gyms closed and calories to burn, I’ve spent the pandemic on foot, exploring the twists and turns of the wooded Takoma Park neighborhood. Amidst the quirky bungalows and colorful Victorian homes is Spring Park.

My moment of zen is checking out the shallow pond within the park where frogs are known to hide between the reeds. Sometimes kids are there to help me find them: “Hey lady, look over here!” A sign instructs passersby not to harm or remove the frogs. I’ve become superstitious about it. If I see a frog, it means better times are ahead.

—Laura Hayes I like to buy cookbooks when I travel. I say they’re souvenirs—ways to remember places—but really I just like the pretty pictures and good food. I could have never guessed how well this habit would serve me this year. Now, when all I want is to be out in the world with other people, I take out my cookbooks and step through them, into the world of memories, recreating a small piece of past journeys in my kitchen. But there’s something else powerful and transportive about cookbooks. A recipe gives you a series of steps to follow and a promised destination.

And if you follow them carefully, you usually arrive. What a rare, beautiful thing.

—Will Warren

SUBSCRIBE. DONATE. ADVERTISE. During times of crisis, crucial information about your community comes from local reporters.

Access to high quality information is essential. Especially local information.

And especially now. What’s happening in our communities?

What’s the impact? How are our local leaders responding? For answers to these questions, we rely on the hard work of our local reporters. As a result, readership of local news outlets has reached record highs.

This message supported by

But due to COVID-19, most local news publications are losing money, fast. Advertising has plummeted during the crisis and readers aren’t subscribing fast enough to fill the void. This has led to thousands of local reporters being laid off. Just as our society faces numerous, urgent challenges.

Millions of people are in danger of losing access to the authoritative

local information they need to stay informed. That’s why the Local Media Association and the Local Media Consortium are working with local news providers to build a strong future for local journalism. And that’s why our long-time partner Google is purchasing ads like this in local publications across the country, as well as providing a Relief Fund to help struggling local news outlets. But those actions alone aren’t enough.

Please consider supporting the local news organizations you rely on. Subscribe to them. Donate to them. And if you have a business that’s able to, advertise with them.

Your support is critical to sustaining the dedicated journalists serving your communities.

Our local news outlets help keep us safer. Let’s help keep them open.

SupportLocalNewsNow.com washingtoncitypaper.com july 3, 2020 11

FOOD YOUNG & HUNGRY

Cold Hard Stash

Susann Shin

Local entrepreneurs weigh whether the extremely competitive frozen food industry is worth entering.

Myles Powell

By Laura Hayes @LauraHayesDC Americans flocked to the frozen aisle so frequently during the COVID-19 pandemic that they needed to buy bigger and better appliances.

According to Nielsen data, freezer sales in April were up 195 percent from the same time period last year. The data company also found that during the first couple months of the pandemic, U.S. consumers spent $15.5 billion on frozen food, a 40.2 percent increase from spring 2019.

Further research reveals promising news for smaller frozen food producers who jockey for freezer space with nationally recognized companies. According to a study the American Frozen Food Institute released in April, 68 percent of shoppers have been trying new brands.

“Our sales have really picked up since the pandemic,” says Z&Z co-founder Danny Dubbaneh. In November 2019, he and his brother Johnny started selling a frozen version of the za’atar-sprinkled Middle Eastern flatbreads they first introduced to D.C. residents at area farmers markets.

The brothers decided to dabble in frozen food because they saw potential to meet the demand

of customers craving fresh, natural foods. Shelfstable products, by comparison, require more additives and preservatives. Z&Z’s za’atar manoushe is vegan, contains six ingredients, and is ready to eat after five minutes in the oven.

Dubbaneh calls his product a “blank canvas” and recommends piling on toppings like cheese, prosciutto, and hot honey.

“In the early days of the pandemic, people were shopping like crazy,” Dubbaneh says. “Grocers were struggling to get stuff on the shelves. We reached out to all of our partners and said, ‘Hey, we’re local! If you’re struggling, we can be there in a day.’ We reached out to Glen’s Garden Market.

That catapulted our growth with them.”

But are recently skyrocketing sales enough of an indicator that frozen food is an easier, less risky entry point into the food world? Dubbaneh says the consumer packaged goods category is generally thought of “as a beast you want to stay away from.” Space is limited in both supermarket freezers and freezers in consumers’ homes, making frozen food extremely competitive.

“These pair just as well with a glass of wine as a juice box,” says Mas Panadas co-founder Margarita Womack. The Colombian-born biologist got her empanadas in grocers’ freezers for

12 july 3, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

the first time in 2018. Her goal was to bring a convenient product to market that parents could feel good eating themselves and feeding their kids.

Like Dubbaneh, she doesn’t use any preservatives or additives. “We’re moving away from frozen meaning bad, bad quality, and bad for you,” she says. “Meat, vegetables, and a starch. Done!”

Chicken and vegetable is her most popular variety.

When she started her business, she sought to get her empanadas in front of as many people as possible and determined the freezer route was the best approach. “With catering or a restaurant, you can only reach so many,” she says.

“The footprint is small. With frozen, you can reach the whole country.”

In D.C., frozen food entrepreneurs typically start out producing and packaging in food incubators like Union Kitchen, Mess Hall, and Tastemakers. Because renting shared space and equipment comes with fewer overhead costs than finding and paying for a private commercial kitchen, incubators give startups leeway for trial and error.

“Your product is likely to evolve until you find the perfect market fit,” Womack says.

Her advice is to “start small and stay small” until you’re satisfied. “Work with a few places

to understand who your customer is and what they’re looking for,” she says.

Once you’ve perfected your frozen product and are ready to scale up, Womack says you come to a fork in the road: Do you shell out for a private kitchen or outsource manufacturing to a co-packing facility? After launching at Union Kitchen, Womack found a 3,000-square-foot kitchen in Rockville in July 2019 that’s all hers.

Swapples founder Rebecca Peress took the opposite path. After operating out of Union Kitchen for two and a half years, she found a co-packer to produce her frozen waffles made from yuca root. The most popular flavor is blueberry, but there are also savory options. Peress recommends the everythingflavored waffle as an alternative base for avocado toast.

Peress agrees with Womack that you need to build in time and money for testing all aspects of the product. For Swapples, packaging was the toughest piece to nail. When Swapples hit freezer aisles in 2016, they came in a bag. “I was trying to be as economical as possible as a boot-strapped owner,” Peress says. Because frozen waffles typically come in a box, “when people saw the bag, they thought it was a mix. We’re now on our fifth generation of packaging.”

The key to creating a successful product is striking a balance between blending in enough for consumers to recognize her product as a waffle while also maintaining a competitive advantage by standing out as something novel. “In the freezer, if you get it in, someone’s getting kicked out,” she explains. “Fighting to stay in there is really hard.”

Her advice is to develop something unique, even though standing out hurt Swapples during COVID-19. Peress says she saw a “huge decline” in retail sales, partially because her product costs $7.99 for a box of four waffles.

“Anyone who is cash-strapped won’t buy them,” she says. “Then think of people who transitioned to online shopping. You have far less visibility there. You’re not walking around and browsing ... You’re going to a search bar and typing in what you normally get.”

Fortunately, direct-to-consumer sales from the Swapples website made up for any retail losses. Fellow frozen food entrepreneur Karen Hoefener of Nomad Dumplings had a similar experience. “E-commerce and email orders increased by 400 percent,” she says. “They weren’t even part of the business plan!”

Hoefener launched her healthy frozen dumpling line out of Mess Hall in 2017 and is still producing there today. She learned the art of dumpling making from chefs and coworkers while living and working in China. She adds her twist by using vegetables and spices to dye the potsticker wrappers, giving each flavor a different hue. “I’d been making and freezing dumplings for more than a decade,” Hoefener says. “I just had to make some alterations to do it more at scale.”

Nomad Dumplings are versatile, and can be prepared in an air-fryer, dropped into soup, or stir-fried in a pan. The red “Hunan Hottie,” filled with bok choy, chili, and two kinds of mushrooms, is vegan and the best-selling variety.

Figuring out her price point has been the biggest challenge. “Do as much research as possible

GET YOUR SMALL BUSINESS UP TO

FOOD to understand the costs associated with this,” locations were closed for dine-in service before Hoefener says. “My least favorite thing about our the District began phased reopening, Brown was brand is our price. I was hoping to be $5. I can’t able to employ some laid off restaurant workers as frozen pizza makers to meet demand. stand being $9.95.”

Frozen mac and cheese company 8 Myles also Price becomes even more make-or-break when you’re bringing a frozen product to market in a caught a break during the pandemic. “We’ve been saturated category like pizza or mac and cheese. a hot commodity,” says founder Myles Powell.

“Fairly frequently, a local product goes into the He’s an engineer by trade and works as a project manager for a conmarket and gets onto struction company the shelf at a price while simultaneously twice the standard of growing his brand. that category,” says “We saw a pretty Eat Pizza founder big uptick in sales, Andy Brown. more media cover“Unlike restaurants, 8 Myles age, and have been in shipping and grocery Balducci’s, Dawson’s Market, Glen’s talks with a big-time, markups are a big facGarden Market, Roland’s of Capitol global retailer. That tor. In order to be an Hill, Streets Market, Union Kitchen discussion wouldn’t accessible $7.99, we Grocery, Whole Foods, Yes! Organic have happened if not have to sell [to stores] Market for COVID.” for almost half that.”

Powell initially Brown started out Eat Pizza launched 8 Myles making pizzas in his Dawson’s Market, Glen’s Garden as a sauce line in Dupont Circle apartMarket, MOM’s Organic Market, Pennsylvania, but ment for friends to Streets Market, Union Kitchen rebra nded w it h try. He stacked a comGrocery, Whole Foods, Yes! Organic Union Kitchen in mercial oven on top of Market D.C. in 2018. Three a speaker. “There was flavors are currently no ventilation and it Mas Panadas ava i lable —t hree definitely was super Dent Place Market, Glen’s Garden cheese homestyle unsafe, but I held Market, MOM’s Organic Market, mac, Buffalo, and pizza nights every Odd Provisions, Streets Market, barbecue—and he’s Monday,” he told City Rodman’s, Takoma Park Coop, Union about to roll out mac Paper in 2017, when Kitchen Grocery, Whole Foods, and cheese bites his frozen pizza line that can be baked launched. Now he Nomad Dumplings in the oven or fried. has three brick-andGood Food Markets, Glen’s Garden Whatever leftovers mortar restaurants in Market, MOM’s Organic Market, are hanging around the region and a few Odd Provisions, Old City Market and in your fridge make pop-ups.

Oven, Washington’s Green Grocer, an ideal topping for “If you thought resWhole Foods (H Street NE) Powell’s product. taurants were hard, “You can put anyfrozen food is even Swapples thing on top of mac harder,” Brown says.

Glen’s Garden Market, MOM’s and cheese and it’ll “The margins are Organic Market, Odd Provisions, be great,” he says. razor thin and everyStreets Market, Union Kitchen The biggest batone you’re competGrocery, Whole Foods, Yes! Organic tle for 8 Myles is ing with is a giant.”

Market brand recognition His frozen pies feain a crowd of mac ture hand-tossed, Z&Z and cheese options, fermented dough Dawson’s Market, Each Peach especially because made by cooks, not Market, Glen’s Garden Market, shoppers tend to machines. “I have Odd Provisions settle into what’s the best cheese, best familiar. “If sometomatoes, and we one comes out with a pick our basil fresh,” new potato chip, it’s unlikely I’ll try it because I he adds. “That’s a hard margin to work on.”

Eat Pizza comes in three flavors: Classic mar- have my favorite brand,” Powell says. “Or, I’ve gherita, three cheese, and wild mushroom. “We used Bounty paper towels my whole life. That’s say it on the box, but the hotter your oven is, the my brand now.”

Finding a way to catch customers’ attention is better your pizza is going to taste,” Brown advises.

“We talk to grocery buyers all the time. They’ll critical. “Know the other players in the market,” say, ‘It was really dry.’ If they cooked it at 325 Powell says. “Look [at] what they’re doing right degrees for 22 minutes, then you made crackers, and wrong and capitalize on it.”

How about promoting that the product is you didn’t make pizza.”

Brown says he’s doing seven times Eat Pizza’s made in D.C.? Washingtonians seemingly live typical sales volume during the pandemic. to buy local—shouldn’t that love expand to the They’ve been shipping a full trailer of frozen freezer aisle? “People get warm and cozy about pies from their production facility in Baltimore buying local once,” Powell says. “If they don’t to stores every 36 hours. While Andy’s Pizza think it’s worth the price, they won’t buy it.”

SPEED! Empire Office Services offers small businesses and entrepreneurs the services they need to be successful: ACCOUNTING

WHERE TO BUY

ADMINISTRATION SERVICES FINANCIAL PLANNING TAX PREP

Keep your local source for COVID-19 updates up and running.

*IN PERSON OR VIRTUAL CONSULTATION AVAILABLE

SPECIAL CITY PAPER OFFER:

ONE MONTH FREE WITH ANNUAL CONTRACT

Call or email us today 202.670.0214 pamelaEfullerton@gmail.com

Become a member.

washingtoncitypaper.com/ membership washingtoncitypaper.com july 3, 2020 13

ARTS

Permanent Ink As Phase Two of reopening begins in D.C., tattoo artists reflect on the pandemic and why their industry is here to stay.

Earlier this year, local tattoo artist Fernando Prudencio heard about a lifechanging opportunity: A nearly 1,000-squarefoot space was vacant, just a few blocks from his apartment. Prudencio could save on rent while gaining access to a former medical office with private appointment rooms and a large, open room he planned to turn into a gallery.

By the time Prudencio put down a deposit, he was already envisioning young artists building avant-garde installations and customers arriving for intricate tattoos. Then, the pandemic hit. “It just knocked me out,” he says.

Prudencio was far from the only tattooer whose plans were derailed by the pandemic.

Unable to work during quarantine, tattoo artists in the D.C. area have spent the past few months reevaluating safety measures and awaiting the go-ahead to schedule appointments again.

Though some locations may remain closed longer, on Monday, June 22, tattoo shops—along with museums, libraries, gyms, and indoor restaurant seating—were able to legally reopen.

Unlike most of their Phase Two peers, tattoo shops are already accustomed to sourcing hospital-grade disinfectants and maintaining a sterile environment. Still, patrons should expect additional safety measures—notably, a temporary end to the buzzy excitement of poring over flash art in a crowded lobby while awaiting a spontaneous walk-in appointment.

Instead, area shops will be sticking to a stricter schedule of spaced-out appointments and eliminating queues or unnecessary guests.

Tattoo Paradise owner Matt Knopp closed his Maryland and D.C. locations in mid-March.

Along with deep cleaning all locations, Knopp purchased touchless thermometers and developed new screening questions for intake forms.

When Knopp and his staff reopened last week, they required customers and tattooers to wear masks at all times.

But Knopp views these changes as an extension of existing safety measures, rather than major disruptions. He’s confident that the industry will recalibrate and endure. “This industry has already had to go through the hepatitis scares and the AIDS epidemic,” Knopp says. “It’s still safe enough to get a tattoo.”

David Cavalcante has been tattooing for nearly 20 years, and typically works at Tattoo Paradise four days per week. He shares Knopp’s sense that other industries are scrambling to meet cleanliness standards that are the tattoo industry’s norm. “What people are trying to do now, we’ve been doing that, and more, for years,” he says. “The only difference is that I’m going to be wearing a mask.”

Darrow Montgomery

By Michelle Delgado Contributing Writer

Still, Knopp does anticipate uneasiness, given the close physical contact tattooing requires. With allergy season in full swing, “a runny nose or a cough or sneeze—it’s gonna be terrifying to people,” he says.

Career tattooers Eric Doyle and his wife, Susan Behney-Doyle, decided not to entertain walk-ins or a crowded lobby long before the pandemic struck. They’d spent more than a decade working in a bustling environment when they visited friends who worked in an appointment-only tattoo shop in Chicago. “It was luxurious,” Doyle recalls.

“It’s like you didn’t realize you had a headache until it went away.”

In 2015, the couple opened Globe Electric in Columbia Heights, where they decided to replicate the model. They typically have a maximum of two customers in the space at any given time. The quiet atmosphere is “an ideal work environment for something with no do-overs,” Doyle says. The pandemic will likely make this type of arrangement the norm: “Now that you’re seeing places reopen in different parts of the world, they’re all kind of being forced to operate the way we operate.”

14 july 3, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

Tattoo Paradise in Adams Morgan Imani K. Brown’s career took a similar path. After more than a decade at U Street’s Pinz and Needlez Tattoo Studio, Brown opened Little INKPLAY Shop, an appointment-only tattoo studio in Ivy City. She wanted to create an intimate experience that promoted collaboration with clients.

“In certain respects, I was already set up for COVID,” she says. “Clients understand that it’s actually better to have less distraction.

Not just for me as the artist—being on skin, it’s permanent—but for them, so they can make their own decisions clearly, [and] know what’s going on with their body.”

Though the pandemic put appointments on pause, Brown sees tattooing as only one part of her role in clients’ lives. “I’m still the bartender with needles, but I’m just not poking you right now,” she jokes. She primarily serves Black clients, and has spent the past few months checking in: “How are you today?

Don’t tell me you’re fine. Tell me, honestly, how you’re doing today.” Often, the conversations are emotional. “The policy for my shop is that it’s a two-way street,” Brown says.

“Everything I ask customers, they’re very free to ask me, and I’m not going to hold back.”

These conversations have helped Brown formulate reopening plans that are sensitive to clients’ anxieties. Once Little INKPLAY Shop reopened, she got permission from a longtime friend to livestream their tattoo appointment, hoping the transparency would soothe clients’ pandemic jitters. She also trusts customers to self-report fevers or other signs of illness, rather than using a touchless thermometer. “I went into the bank, and my first reaction to him putting the monitor to my head was me putting my hands up,” she says. “If I had that reaction and that’s not natural to me, then I’m sure other people would feel some type of way or I could trigger something. I want to be kind.”

Prudencio, Knopp, Cavalcante, and Doyle say they’ve also been in contact with customers throughout the quarantine period. All opted to resume design consultations now that they’re able to arrange appointments again. And along with booking queries and gentle inquiries about reopening, they’ve fielded messages that express a more extreme sense of urgency.

“The craziest ones are like, ‘Oh, can you just come to my house?’” Knopp says. Another customer offered to pay triple if Knopp broke the shutdown order. (He refused.) Doyle has also fielded emails from people who attempted to make appointments during quarantine. “It’s so hard not to say, ‘You have a computer, obviously, have you checked the news lately?’”

Doyle says.

It would be easy to write the messages off as a symptom of an on-demand consumer culture. But for many, tattoos fulfill deeper needs, sometimes serving as a distinctly healing practice. “Tattooing, for me, is more in the health and wellness sector, as opposed to just arts and entertainment,” Brown says.

Similarly, Cavalcante points out that tattoos can serve as a form of self-care. “You remember the time, the day, conversations you had,” he says. “That’s the thing with tattoos—yeah, you don’t need them. But you want them, because it reminds you of an experience.”

Like many of the 45 million workers who have filed for unemployment since the pandemic began, many members of the tattoo industry have felt the financial strain of the past few months.

Knopp continued paying his core staff during the shutdown, but tattooers at Tattoo Paradise and other shops typically work as independent contractors, paying a fee for access to a sterile working environment. Cavalcante operates as an LLC, which helped him qualify for unemployment in D.C., and Doyle secured a grant that helped cover expenses. Prudencio managed to defer rent payments for his apartment and delay the start of his new shop’s lease. Brown, who usually tours the U.S. and tattoos in Japan twice every year, has delayed her travels to focus on clients at home.

“The plan is, take it easy this year, and make sure business is okay,” she says.

And, of course, many tattooers dipped into their savings accounts, hoping they would be able to get back to work before the money ran out.

“We never know when things might get taken away,” Cavalcante says, “and this is a prime example of it.”

ARTS

Objects of Affection A Smithsonian curator talks about her love of artwork and how her own work has changed in response to the pandemic.

“Babur receives a courtier” by Farrukh Beg, ca. 1580–1585; part of the exhibition Writing My Truth: The Mughal Emperor Babur

By Jennifer Anne Mitchell Contributing Writer

WCP: What do you miss about viewing artworks in person?

Debra Diamond’s work involves viewing million-dollar art pieces. The experience, she says, just isn’t the same on a computer screen.

Diamond is a curator at the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, now known as the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art. Like many of us, she has been working from home for the past few months.

She is collaborating with colleagues from around the world on A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur, India and Writing My Truth: The Mughal Emperor Babur, which will be installed at the Sackler Gallery. Exactly what these exhibitions will look like post-pandemic is yet to be determined.

“When we talk about our museum reopening, we’re talking about: Should we re-hang our artwork so they’re further away? How will we move people around in these spaces?” Diamond says. So she has designed multiple options to suit different scenarios.

Diamond is also preparing for the July and August web discussion series “Religion and Spirituality in the Museum,” which will explore how museums can provide space for solace and spiritual reflection, at a time when many in our society crave both.

City Paper spoke with Diamond about her work and got her insights into learning about art and different cultures—and arranging living room furniture—while we stay at home.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Debra Diamond: I work on Indian paintings— they’re on paper and they’re often handheld size and they have opaque watercolor that’s been burnished—so it’s a little bit shiny. And they’ve got areas of pure gold on them. So when you pick up one of those paintings, the light strikes it in a million different ways and the gold will flicker, and it’s an entirely different experience looking at an inert reproduction.

So you miss all that. Plus I also [look at artwork] for pleasure, like when I get anxious. Or when there’s too many meetings or some crap bureaucracy is happening. If you work at the Freer and Sackler, you can go into the galleries or into the garden. It’s quite special to work in a museum. Maybe all museum people say that whether they’re curators or not. All of my colleagues, every time I’ve spoken [with them] over the years, there’s something about museums that’s really attracted them. That feeling of calm and space, or excitement, or visitors, but everyone has some pretty intense connection to objects.

WCP: Has being away from art during the pandemic increased your appreciation for it?

DD: No, I already drank that Kool-Aid a long, long time ago. But it might have increased my appreciation for museums. The really nice thing about D.C.: You can so easily dip in because they’re free, most of them, so you can dip in

and look at one thing, like when I walk home.

Maybe that I miss.

WCP: What’s the first thing you’ll do when museums are open again?

DD: That requires me to think about a time when we don’t have COVID germs floating around. So let me try to project myself to a space I haven’t been in in a long time. I think I might just want to go to the permanent gallery in the National Gallery [of Art], really, and look at a Vermeer again. I might just want to go walk around all of the museums.

I didn’t realize ’til you asked me that question how much I haven’t thought about a postCOVID world. I have an exhibition coming up, well, it was going to be in October, and now it might be moved further to February, and I’ve designed it already for two different galleries. I designed it for virtual, for real, for this gallery, for that gallery, if we need to keep the paintings this far apart. These tedious details are maybe creating all these sorts of alternatives.

What will I do [when things reopen]? I’ll just do it all. I’ll walk through all of our galleries for sure.

I’ll visit my Tibetan shrine again. I’ll stop somewhere and have a great cup of coffee.

WCP: What will returning to the museum mean for your work?

DD: You can put two artworks together—what do they say, a painting is worth a thousand words?

Well, you can put two paintings together and they can be worth a hundred thousand words, like they can sing when you put them together.

Or they can be inert. Or they can actually fight with one another, too. So I want to make sure our combinations sing. I haven’t seen all of our combinations—we didn’t put them all together yet. So I want to look at those and I want to think about that. Should they be 2 feet apart or 2.5 feet apart. It’s not only a question of COVID and how far apart they should be. It’s like what’s the distance between two works where there’s magic and it sings.

On the day when you’re actually installing, there may be eight or nine people there.

You don’t have a lot of time. You can’t take a million-dollar object and have people move it around too often. It wouldn’t be good for the artwork. When I get in there, I’ll have a better chance of figuring out these sorts of magic distances and ratios when I can make objects sing.

Actually, everybody I think knows it from their own houses: When you arrange living room furniture, you get the angle just right and then it kind of pops into place. I don’t want to say I’m decorating when I create exhibitions because it’s far more profound—we’re telling stories that are really quite deep—but if you hang them in a way that’s quite eloquent, they’re all the more powerful.

WCP: What tips would you give to people who are exploring art digitally during this time?

DD: This is an amazing time for learning. I think this is a really great time to hear curators and museum directors talk about works in their collection. So if you do it from TED Talks or museum websites or YouTube or a university site, after, when you go to the gallery, you’ll have this background, you’ll have all this knowledge, and it will be really great. And you’ll appreciate it even more.

In the evenings, now we’re called upon to sort of examine how we perpetuate injustice. So the websites I’ve been going to have shifted. All of the new learning I’ve been doing is about race and justice and equity. It’s not only about art, though, it’s also to learn about different cultures.

WCP: What are some benefits you’ve experienced in this time?

DD: We can meet with people who are on the other side of the world. So one thing is that we have more collaboration, in some ways, than we did before. I’ve been running all of these webinars [and] workshops that are about art and religion. And our speakers now can come from all over the world.

We received a grant last year that would enable us to think about how we can present Asian religions in more profound ways through the visual arts. We designed these small workshops with a few invited speakers and a couple of selected staff, because we always have to think about money, right. Maybe we would have had a maximum of 20 people before at a workshop on religion and spirituality and the visual arts. All of a sudden, we had 60 people. So I am learning together with my colleagues. We have this opportunity to learn together, which for me is great fun. That’s a new and better thing, I think, for our museum.

WCP: Do you think virtual offerings like these webinars will continue post COVID-19?

DD: I think so. One thing is I think most of us are hungry for real experiences. We all really miss that and we want that back. But the other thing is there’s so many virtues to virtual meetings. There’s things we can do in virtual meetings that we could never do before. We can bring together scholars from different parts of the world. Everybody is always limited by money and visa issues and now we can create these conversations with our colleagues across the world.

WCP: What are you learning from these times?

DD: Aside from the fact that it’s terrifying. For us, for the museum, this is an opportunity to examine our practice. One is in terms of racial justice and equity and more inclusiveness. And people are quite serious about trying to see if we can change. We have this little space where we can reflect and maybe we can make some real adjustments. I’m not even an optimist and I think that.

washingtoncitypaper.com july 3, 2020 15

ARTS FILM REVIEW

Family Reunion The Truth Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche might be the most beloved living actresses from France, which says a lot: That’s a country that really loves its leading ladies. But until now, they had never worked together. All it took was an offer from acclaimed Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters) to star in his first Western-language film. In his piercing family drama The Truth, Kore-eda scripted for Deneuve and Binoche the kind of roles no actor can turn down—a mother and daughter with lingering issues and a hereditary gift for cruelty. The actors respond in kind, elevating his thoughtful script with powerful, lived-in performances.

Like almost all of Kore-eda’s Japanese films, The Truth is a portrait of a family at a turning point. Fabienne (Deneuve) is a former ingenue approaching old age with bitterness. She just published a memoir that pissed off all her friends and family members, and is preparing for a new film, in which she was cast in a decidedly minor role opposite a hot, young starlet (Manon Clavel). Fabienne’s daughter Lumir (Binoche), a Hollywood screenwriter, has come to visit, with her actor husband (Ethan Hawke) and their young daughter (Clémentine Grenier) in tow. Lumir has reached that age when she feels she has outgrown their dysfunctional parent-child dynamic, but as she re-enters the property for the first time since childhood, she spots an old tortoise in the same spot where she used to play with it. The message is clear: Some things never die.

City Lights

Corn, Beans, and Squash: What the Three Sisters Tell Us

Using a short story by sci-fi fantasy writer Ken Liu as a jumping-off point, Kore-eda smashes his characters’ personal and professional lives together like toy trains, fixing his eye on the falling debris. Fabienne’s new film, based on the Liu story, awakens new truths in her. It’s a sci-fi movie in which she plays a daughter who, due to the vagaries of time travel, is now older than her mother and regrets having lost so much time together. As Lumir stands off-camera watching her mother speak the words of love she has yearned to hear from her, The Truth reveals itself to be a fascinating exploration of the benefits and limits of confronting emotional truths through art.

That these characters are played by Deneuve and Binoche, whose careers represent different eras of French filmmaking, adds another delightful lens through which to view the film.

As Fabienne bemoans the talents of her younger, hipper co-stars, it’s easy to imagine her having once felt the same way about Binoche, who rockteted her way to international stardom in the ’80s and ’90s. If leaned on too heavily, this meta-textual angle would overwhelm the drama, but the two actors stay firmly committed to the moment. Each withering glance produces a visible wound, and every moment of real vulnerability feels like a light in a great darkness.

The high drama and post-modern intrigue are beautifully counter-balanced by Kore-eda’s easy naturalism. His methodical staging and realistic lighting might seem at first a keener fit for his Japanese films, in which emotions are revealed more carefully. Here, as Binoche and Deneuve open old wounds and expose their most raw emotions, his measured style has a beguiling effect. It’s okay to smile, even laugh, at their struggles, because all of this drama is just a natural part of life.

—Noah Gittell The Truth is available Friday on VOD.

16 july 3, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

For Indigenous communities across the Americas, the Three Sisters—corn, beans, and squash— have been at the heart of agricultural practice for centuries. Like three idyllic sisters, the crops are different, yet compatible and supportive. When planted strategically in the same plot, the crops stabilize each other’s growth, enrich the soil, and protect one another from predators. When harvested and prepared, they compliment each other nutritionally. On July 2, associates from the National Museum of the American Indian will be facilitating a conversation about the Three Sisters, their role in both Indigenous folklore and agricultural practices, and their application to the contemporary issue of food sovereignty. They will also share a nutritious recipe incorporating the Three Sisters. This virtual event is part of the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival. After more than 50 years of celebration on the National Mall, the 2020 Folklife Festival is adapting to bring the same conversations about cultural heritage and tradition to online spaces with a series of daily virtual events until July 5. The talk takes place at noon on July 2 on Facebook. Free.

—Ryley Graham

City Lights

Mary Kelly in conversation with Shelley Langdale When artist Mary Kelly’s installation “Post-Partum Document” was unveiled in late ’70s London, the tabloids called it scandalous. What caused the outrage? Dirty diapers, Kelly’s medium of choice.

In an upcoming National Gallery of Art lecture, the American artist will discuss her life as a writer, educator, and activist, as well as her notoriously challenging works. As seen in “Post-Partum,” the true provocative element wasn’t the soiled diaper liners, but the content. “Post-Partum” documented Kelly’s own mundane, anxious, exhausting, and curious journey through motherhood with her son in a series of conceptual works, complete with crayon scribbles and scrapped children’s vests. The collection complicated and upended how viewers encounter maternity in art. Goodbye to the serene, heavenly, stress-free “Madonna and Child” with not a dirty diaper in sight. Kelly made a name for herself exploring feminism, identity, and sexuality, and, in more recent years, the themes of war and memory, which she investigates using compressed lint inscribed with text. The National Gallery of Art owns one 2008 example, “My James,” which is part of a series of fictional letters written to civil rights activists murdered by the Ku Klux Klan. She’ll be in conversation with the NGA’s curator of modern prints and drawings, Shelley Langdale. The talk will be held on July 9 at 7 p.m. Details can be found at nga.gov. Free.

—Emma Francois

City Lights

Woolly Mammoth presents Play at Home Though COVID-19 has halted live stage experiences, theater makers have adapted to keep the show going, from canceled productions moving to Zoom to Hamilton’s early release on Disney+. Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company has partnered with a coalition of regional theaters for Play at Home, a series that shares 10-minute plays for people to perform at home with family and friends. The Play at Home website features all the scripts for free, written during quarantine by more than 100 playwrights. Woolly’s micro-commissions include works from Michael R. Jackson, who recently won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for his metafiction musical A Strange Loop, which is slated for a run at Woolly next year before its Broadway premiere. His Play at Home contribution Trees on Broadway samples A Strange Loop’s comedic flavor by following a young oak tree who runs away from home

CITY LIGHTS for a career in show business. Any little ones in your life might enjoy starring in Performance Review

by Mike Lew, which centers on the now too-familiar experience of a child interrupting their parent’s work-from-home setup with ulterior motives. Woolly had planned to stage Lew’s Teenage Dick, a contemporary take on Shakespeare’s Richard III set in high school, this month. Over the last few months, projects like Play at Home have stretched the boundaries of what can be considered theater and challenged the notion it can only exist in a shared physical space. If you shimmy in a homemade tree costume or bazooka your kid with a water gun, can you still call it theater? Why not! The plays are available at playathome.org. Free.

—Mercedes Hesselroth

City Lights

Browse Frank DiPerna’s website

City Lights

Teen Poetry Workshop Words Beats & Life Inc. is a D.C.-based nonprofit dedicated to making a positive impact on local communities through hip-hop culture by providing after-school programs for teenagers in arts, music, public speaking, and more. In-person programs are suspended for the time being, but in collaboration with the DC Public Library, WB&L is hosting an upcoming poetry workshop for teens via Facebook Live. The first phase of the workshop, held on July 7, will be instructional—aspiring poets (or seasoned writers looking to polish their skills) will be guided through the basics. The second phase, held on July 14, will be more collaborative, and writers can expect to receive constructive feedback on their work. The theme of the workshop is “I Am,” and instruction will focus on poetry that explores personal identity. Those who also include themes related to social issues in their work can enter their poem into the Know Your Power contest sponsored by PEPCO. The winner of the writing contest gets a free laptop, and there are also contests for photography, illustration, and music. You or your teen could also skip the workshop and just enter the contest, but I don’t recommend it. I spent two hours of a perfectly good Saturday trying to write this out as a limerick, and, man, what a disaster. The workshop takes place at 5 p.m. on July 7 on Facebook Live. Free. —Will Lennon

City Lights

Field of Dreams with Howard Kendrick

Frank DiPerna, a major figure in D.C. photography, died on June 26, following a battle with colon cancer. He was 73. Since 1974, DiPerna had been a professor at the Corcoran College of Art and Design and later at its successor under the umbrella of George Washington University, shaping several generations of photography students. (He was City Paper staff photographer Darrow Montgomery’s professor.) DiPerna’s own works could be experimental and at times groundbreaking, as seen in his 2018 retrospective at the American University Museum. In the 1970s, DiPerna produced pleasantly airy blackand-white images, showing a knack for detecting and recording visual oddities. Then, by the latter part of the decade, he transitioned—earlier than many of his peers—to color, including the small-format Polaroid SX-70. DiPerna’s creative peak may have come with the largescale landscapes he produced into the early 1990s—elemental, slightly washed-out collages of beiges, cocoas, blues, and wispy whites.

Later, DiPerna made close-ups of such objects as fake birds and insects, and he photographed surfaces in Italy that mixed Renaissance art with advertising imagery. Check out images from each chapter of DiPerna’s professional life at his website. The images are available at frankdiperna.com. Free.

—Louis Jacobson

City Lights

#930History Not only is Howie Kendrick a world champion Washington Nationals player, he’s also a pretty damn good photographer. His Instagram feed is flush with images ranging from color portraits of teammates to moody black-and-whites of D.C.’s monumental core to chiaroscuro-heavy images of the New York City subway. “It’s just something good to get me out of the room and get me to see different things, to experience the places we are,” he told ESPN in 2012. The event page describes how, on the road with his team, Kendrick “has committed himself to documenting his unique experiences.” Hear Kendrick share more about his artistic avocation as part of the #StayHomewithLeica discussion series. The talk begins at 4 p.m. on July 2. Registration is available at eventbrite.com. Free.

—Louis Jacobson

It’s time to hop into a time machine, or at least dive through a Twitter hashtag. While inperson celebrations are out of the question, the District’s beloved 9:30 Club is using the social media platform to commemorate turning 40 years old. First advertised in 1980 as “the first non-disco niteclub to open in downtown D.C. in thirteen years,” a lot has changed since then. The club has moved locations and greatly expanded its capacity. But it’s still a

local icon, and #930History is a great way to learn about—or brush up on—its past. The digital journey starts on May 31, 1980, when the club first opened its doors to the public.

D.C.-based Tiny Desk Unit opened the show for Lounge Lizards, a popular new wave band, and the cover fee was just $5. Then, jump forward to June 13, 1998, for a scene seemingly straight from People magazine. After lightning strikes cut short the Tibetan Freedom Concert at RFK Stadium, Radiohead booked a last-minute show at the 9:30 Club. Nearly two decades later, on June 16, 2017, Lizzo headlined her first 9:30 Club concert after opening at the venue for artists like Sleater-Kinney. Since then, she’s sold out a handful of 9:30 Club shows. Explore #930History on Twitter @930Club. Free.

—Sarah Smith

City Lights

Virtually tour Blackistone Island Lighthouse

There has never been a better time to dream about squirreling yourself away in a remote lighthouse on an uninhabited island. Sure, like many a wickie before ye, you might go mad with loneliness—but let’s be honest, after months of de facto home confinement, you probably already are, and at least if you were in a lighthouse, you’d have a nice view of the water.

Fuel your fantasies of nautical hermitry with this immersive virtual 3D tour of Maryland’s Blackistone Island Lighthouse, located on St. Clements Island, about an hour and a half southeast of D.C. First built in 1851 and razed a century later after a devastating fire, the current lighthouse is a meticulous replica of the original structure. High-resolution photos allow you to convincingly simulate an in-person trip, starting from the approach across the island toward the lighthouse. After stopping on the front porch for a relaxing sit on a nice Adirondack chair, browse the living quarters and make your way up the spiral staircase to the lantern room that tops the tower. From there, you can enjoy a 360-degree view of the Potomac as you fantasize about clipper ships, lamp light, and a tiny island safe haven where you needn’t worry about droplet transmission. The tour is available at my.matterport.com. Free.

—Justin Peters

washingtoncitypaper.com july 3, 2020 17

DIVERSIONS SAVAGE LOVE

ABUSE, SEX AND DRUGS A Novel by Taylor

THE LIFE OF TEENAGERS ON THE STREETS OF AMERICA The story of friends forced by circumstance to find a better life for themselves on the streets.

But the streets are hard, and the world is unforgiving. And unfortunately, not everyone is strong enough to make it.

AVAILABLE NOW ON AMAZON IN PAPERBACK AND FOR KINDLE

CITYPAPER WASHINGTON

Stay tuned with local news.

Follow City Paper on social media. @washingtoncitypaper @wcp @washingtoncitypaper

I have a question. I’m a gay man in a relationship and we’ve both been really happy since we met a year ago. We’re “open” in the sense that he wants the option to be intimate with someone else if a connection happens, and in turn, he said he would be supportive of me being involved in my kinks. But I haven’t done anything yet out of fear. I’m not afraid of my kinks. I’m worried that if I ask to go do something kinky it will ruin our relationship. I don’t think he was bluffing when he said it was okay for me to explore my kinks with other guys but it worries me. I tend to repress the kink part of my sexuality and I’m worried that him knowing I want to act on it will cause issues. My boyfriend and I are so balanced, but in the kink aspects of my life I’m a submissive and need to engage in power exchange with someone. I miss being able to express these things and it feels like there’s a void in my life. That might sound silly, but it’s true.

I think repressing them is actually taking a toll on my mental health. Any advice?

—Guy’s Abandoned Yearnings Subtly Undermining Bond If your boyfriend is bluffing, GAYSUB, you want to know that sooner rather than later.

Your still-relatively-new-ish boyfriend gave you permission to act on your kinks at the same time he asked your permission to fuck someone else. You gave him your OK and I assume you meant it, GAYSUB. You meant it when you told him he could, if and when “a connection happens,” go ahead and fuck the dude. Seeing as he took your “yes” for an answer where his “connections” are concerned, GAYSUB, I think you should take his “yes” for an answer where your kinks are concerned. So go find some hot Dom you wanna submit to and let your boyfriend know you’re gonna get your kink on. If it turns out your boyfriend was lying to you—if he’s one of those people who wants to be free to play with others (which is why he got your OK), but doesn’t want his partner playing with others (and the OK he gave you was insincere)—it’s better to find that out 12 short months into this relationship than to find it out 10 years, a mortgage, one kid, and two dogs into this relationship.

And what you describe about the void you feel is understandable to anyone with kinks, GAYSUB. Even vanilla people can understand, if they think about it for even a moment. (That vanilla stuff you enjoy, vanilla people? Imagine never being able to do any of it. See?) Your kinks are an intrinsic aspect of your sexuality and repressing them—not having any way to explore or express them— does take an emotional toll. It can also breed resentment if your partner is the reason you can’t explore or express them, which means if your boyfriend wants you to be happy and wants you to be a good boyfriend to him, then you need to have the freedom to be who you are. For some kinky people, porn is enough of an outlet, GAYSUB, but most kinky people want actual experiences.

Often a vanilla partner is willing and able to meet a kinky partner’s needs and that’s great.

18 july 3, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

But sometimes a vanilla partner can’t do it or is incapable of faking it or does it poorly on purpose so they won’t be asked to do it again.

And for some kinksters, the awareness you’re being indulged makes it impossible for you to get into the right subby headspace. If either is the case, you’ll have to outsource these desires to fill that void.

If your boyfriend gives you the OK and has a little breakdown after you get home—if it dredges up some unexpected feelings (and you should expect that it will dredge up some unexpected feelings, so expect those

“...it’s better to find that out 12 short months into this relationship than to find it out 10 years, a mortgage, one kid, and two dogs into this relationship.”

humiliation. While he usually meets and dates guys off kinky dating sites we met “the old fashioned way” a fe w months before COVID-19 slammed us here in Chicago: at a potluck dinner party thrown by a mutual straight lady f riend. Your name came up during the conversation about his interests: He told me he was taking your advice and “ laying his kink cards on the table” before I had made too much of an emotional commitment. What’s interesting to me, Dan, is how often this happens. My boyfriend is easily the fourth guy I’ve dated in the last few years who laid down the exact same kink cards: wants to be tied up, wants to be called names, wants to be hurt. I’m learning to tie knots and getting better at calling him names when we have sex and I actually really enjoy spanking him. But I was talking with a friend—our straight lady mutual (with the boyfriend’s okay!)—and she told me she’s never had a straight guy open up to her about wanting to be tied up or abused.

Are gay guys just kinkier?

—Talking Over Perversions

unexpected feelings)—and needs some reassurance, that’s fine. Answer any questions he has and let him know you’re not going anywhere. The fact that you don’t have to choose between him and your kinks makes you far less likely to end this relationship.

(Sometimes people who weren’t even in the dungeon during the scene need a little aftercare, too.) But if you’re careful not to neglect your boyfriend sexually or emotionally and your kinky dates are just an occasional thing and your boyfriend keeps having great, big, dramatic meltdowns, GAYSUB, then that’s a bad sign. If he punishes you with drama ever y time he gives you his OK to play with someone else, then he’s hoping you’ll decide to stop seeking these experiences out because the emotional price is too great. You won’t be able to remain in this relationship if that’s what winds up happening, GAYSUB, so you’re going to wanna act on your kinks at least a half a dozen times before you get a dog or a mortgage.

—Dan Savage

I have a theory …

When we’re boys, before we’re ready to come out, we’re suddenly attracted to other boys. And that’s something we usually feel pretty panicked about. It would be nice if that first same-sex crush was something a boy could experience without feelings of dread or terror, TOP, but that’s not how it works for most of us. We’re keenly aware that should the object of our desire realize it—if the boy we’re attracted to realizes what we’re feeling, if we give ourselves away with a stray look— the odds of that boy reacting badly or even violently are high. Even if you think the boy might not react violently, even if you suspect the boy you’re crushing on might be gay himself, the stakes are too high to risk making any sort of move. So we stew with feelings of lust and fear.

Sexual desire can make anyone feel fearful and powerless—we’re literally powerless to control these feelings, though we can and must control how we act on these feelings— but desire and fear are stirred together for us gay boys to a much greater degree than they are for straight boys. We fear being found out, we fear being called names, we fear being outed, we fear being physically hurt. And the person we fear most is the person we have a crush on. A significant number of gay guys wind up imprinting on that heady and very confusing mix of desire and fear. The erotic imaginations of guys like your boyfriend seize on those fears and eroticize them. And then, in adulthood, your boyfriend wants to re-experience those feelings, that heady mix of desire and fear, with a loving partner he trusts. The gay boy who feared being hurt by the person he was attracted to becomes the gay man who wants to be hurt—in a limited, controlled, consensual, and safe way—by the man he’s with.

—DS

My new boyfriend just opened up to me about his kinks. Nothing crazy: just bondage and

Email your Savage Love questions to mail@savagelove.net

CLASSIFIEDS Legal NOTICE OF REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS CREATIVE MINDS INTERNATIONAL PCS seeks providers of Active Whiteboards. Full RFP available at creativemindspcs.org/requestsfor-proposals or via email.

Bids due to heather.hesslink@creativemindspcs. org by 12:00 pm on July 22, 2020.

SPECIAL CAUSE AND NOTICE OF PROTEST; PROTESTED AND NO TRESPASS; Thurston County Records, No. 3843008 recorded on 6/26/06 AD Washington, declares jeffrey mark of mcmeel’s peaceful, non combatant status in re: TRADING WITH THE ENEMY ACT of 1917-40 Stat. 411.

Jeffrey mark remains at peace with men and the most high God. Jurisdiction over my person or assets by state and federal governments are recognized by treaty and ecclesiastical as an enrolled tribal member of ft. belnap for the cause of justice established since the reserved rights doctrine emerged. Powers of attorney are issued by the principal, jeffrey mark, establishing government agent duties to this contributing beneficiary. Trespass on my appellation protested.

NOTICE OF REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS CREATIVE MINDS INTERNATIONAL PCS seeks providers of Chrome tablets. Full RFP available at creativemindspcs.org/requests-for-proposals or via email. Bids due to heather.hesslink@ creativemindspcs.org by 12:00 pm on July 22, 2020.

NOTICE OF REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS CREATIVE MINDS INTERNATIONAL PCS seeks providers of Apple computers. Full RFP available at creativemindspcs.org/requests-for-proposals or via email. Bids due to heather.hesslink@ creativemindspcs.org by 12:00 pm on July 22, 2020.

DIGITAL PIONEERS ACADEMY REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS Digital Pioneers Academy PCS is seeking qualified bidders for Strategic Communications. Proposals are due no later than July 10, 2020. For the full RFP, please email operations@ digitalpioneersacademy.org

INSPIRED TEACHING DEMONSTRATION PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS: ABA Special Education Services The Inspired Teaching Demonstration School requests proposals for ABA services. The vendor will provide services to students from preschool (age 3) through 8 th grade.

Additional information regarding the Inspired Teaching School and specification of services are outlined in the Request for Proposals (RFP) and may be obtained by contacting kate.keplinger@ inspiredteachingschool. org.

Proposals will be accepted until 5:00 pm, July 15, 2020. Proposals should be submitted as PDF or Microsoft Word documents to Kate Keplinger, COO at kate.keplinger@ inspiredteachingschool. org with ABA SERVICES RFP in the subject line.

E.L. HAYNES PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS FENCE NETTING I NSTALLATION E.L. Haynes Public Charter School (“ELH”) is seeking proposals from qualified vendors furnish and install 400 LF of 20-foot-high netting at the existing fence (netting posts independent to fence) on the west side of our soccer field.

Proposals are due via email to Kristin Yochum no later than 5:00 PM on Monday, July 7, 2020.

We will notify the final vendor of selection and schedule work to be completed. The RFP with bidding requirements can be obtained by contacting: Kristin Yochum E.L. Haynes Public Charter School Phone: 202.667-4446 ext 3504 Email: kyochum@ elhaynes.org SUPERIOR COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PROBATE DIVISION 2019 ADM 000197 Name of Decedent, Ione M. Lockhart (aka Ione Mary Lockhart). Name and Adress of Attorney, John M. Bryan, Esq, 2311 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 500, Arlington, VA 22901.

Notice of Appointment, Notice to Creditors and Notice to Unknown Heirs, Thomas S. Goldbaum,

whose address is 5012 Baltan Road, Bethesda, MD 20816, was appointed Personal Representative of the estate of Ione M. Lockhart (aka Ione Mary Lockhart) who died on January 30, 2019, with a Will and will serve without Court Supervision. All unknown heirs and heirs whose whereabouts are unknown shall enter their appearance in this proceeding. Objections to such appointment shall be filed with the Register of Wills, D.C., 515 5th Street, N.W., Building A, 3rd Floor, Washington, D.C. 20001, on or before 12/18/2020.

Claims against the decedent shall be presented to the undersigned with a copy to the Register of Wills or to the Register of Wills with a copy to the undersigned, on or before 12/18/2020, or be forever barred. Persons believed to be heirs or legatees of the decedent who do not receive a copy of this notice by mail within 25 days of its publication shall so inform the Register of Wills, including name, address and relationship.

Date of first publication: 6/18/2020 Name of Newspaper and/or periodical: Washington City Paper/ Daily Washington Law Reporter. Name of Personal Representative:Thomas S. Goldbaum TRUE TEST copy Nicole Stevens Acting Register of Wills Pub Dates: June 18, 25, July 2.

Housing FREE LIVE-IN-TRADE OFF OPPORTUNITY IN SANDY SPRING/OLNEY AREA Live in the home for free, includes free cable, internet, phone, while trading off for minimal duties.

Perfect for a retired female, couple or someone with limited income.

Serious inquiries only. Call Mary 252-563-6725 or 301774-3040 anytime for a detailed conversation and interview.

NEWLY RENOVATED 1, 2, 3 AND 4 BEDROOMS in NE and SE. W/D, CAC and W/W starting at $1200/ Mo. Section 8 welcome!

Call Kyle 202-856-6428 CAPITOL HILL LIVINGFURNISHED ROOM FOR RENT- Utilities, WiFi, W/D included- short or long-term lease available1-block from metro bus and trolley- $1,000/ month Call Eddie @202744-9811

NEED A ROOMMATE? Roommates.com will help you find your Perfect Match™ today!

Employment SHEET METAL MECHANICS NEEDED Del Metro Inc. Send Resumes to adam@delmetroinc.com PRECISION WALL TECH is an established Painting Contractor based in DC. We are seeking DC qualified Commercial/Industrial Journeyman who will meet our standard for the company’s FIRST SOURCE PROJECTS. Brush & Roll & Spray Experience Required + Minimum of 3 years working on large commercial jobs. Must have own trans, pass Security clearance and drug test. $18-26/hr DOE plus benefits. EOE. Send resume to careers@ precisionwall.com Now Hiring for the following projects: * 555 E Street * Residences @ St Elizabeth East * MLK Memorial Library * Stanton Square * Providence Place * Takoma Place Apts *Eliot Hines FLYER DISTRIBUTORS NEEDED MONDAY-FRIDAY AND WEEKENDS. We drop you off to distribute the flyers. NW, Bethesda, Silver Spring, Wheaton.

240-715-7874 HIRING EXPERIENCED HAIRSTYLISTS AT MOXEE SALON in NW, WDC (202) 975-1109 CLEANING LADY NEEDED NE DC FOR CLEAN HOUSE. Close to Metro. Spanish Speaking a plus.

301-383-4504

Services

was inappropriately touched by a Scout leader deserves justice and financial compensation! Victims may be eligible for a significant cash settlement. Time to file is limited. Call Now! 844-8968216 TRAIN ONLINE TO DO MEDICAL BILLING! Become a Medical Office Professional online at CTI! Get Trained, Certified & ready to work in months! Call 866-243-5931. M-F 8am6pm ET LOOKING FOR FULL TIME ELDERLY CARE JOB, FLEXIBLE HOURS. I have experience, good references, CPR/first aide certified.

Ask about including light housekeeping, laundry and meal prep. Have own car. Please call and leave a message, call 240-2711011.

COMPUTER ISSUES? GEEKS ON SITE provides FREE diagnosis REMOTELY 24/7 SERVICE DURING COVID19.

No home visit necessary. $40 OFF with coupon 86407! Restrictions apply.

866-939-0093 BECOME A PUBLISHED AUTHOR! We edit, print and distribute your work internationally. We do the work… You reap the Rewards! Call for a FREE Author’s Submission Kit: 844-511-1836.

AUTO INSURANCE STARTING AT $49/ MONTH! Call for your fee rate comparison to see how much you can save! Call: 855-5691909.

SAVE BIG ON HOME INSURANCE! Compare 20 A-rated insurances companies.

Get a quote within minutes. Average savings of $444/year! Call 844-7126153! (M-F 8am-8pm Central)

HOME IMPROVEMENT SERVICES NEEDED. Renovations of bathrooms, kitchens and basements. Hard wood floors, painting, carpentry, windows, plumbing, electrical, concrete and hauling.

Please call 301-383-4504 for job details.

NEED HELP WITH FAMILY LAW? Can't Afford a $5000 Retainer?

Low Cost Legal ServicesPay As You GoAs low as $750-$1500- Get Legal Help Now! Call 1-844-821-8249 MonFri 7am to 4pm PCT. https://www.familycourtdirect.com/?network=1

BOY SCOUT COMPENSATION FUND - Anyone that

DISH TV $59.99 FOR 190 CHANNELS + $14.95 High

Speed Internet. Free Installation, Smart HD DVR Included, Free Voice Remote. Some restrictions apply. 1-855380-2501.

STRUGGLING WITH YOUR PRIVATE STUDENT LOAN PAYMENT? New relief programs can reduce your payments.

Learn your options. Good credit not necessary.

Call the Helpline 888-670-5631

Buy Sell Trade CASH FOR CAR ! We buy all cars! Junk, high-end, totaled – it doesn’t matter! Get free towing and same day cash! NEWER MODELS too! Call 866535-9689

Community GAY BLACK MEN Looking for quality gay masculine Black men for dating for monogamous relationship only. Looking for guys age 45-63. Body types are not as important as common interests and personality. My own style is conservative and traditional/private and reserved. I am not in gay culture or politics. My hobbies include antique collecting and historical manuscript collecting. I enjoy old classical film and book collecting. I am age 56, totally masculine and am 6' 235 lbs". I am open to certain sporting events.

I am trying to slim down.

I am very handsome in the face. Thick greyishblack hair/brown eyes/ smooth build. I did some modeling work when I was younger and was an extra in two Hollywood films.

I am a recent Federal retiree. I am pleasant/ kind/sensitive. An actual meeting will have to wait until the COVID 19 crisis is resolved. I live in DC. I also love dogs. Stevenstvn9@aol.com

Health & Wellness ONE-STOP-SHOP FOR ALL YOUR CATHETER NEEDS. We Accept Medicaid, Medicare, & Insurance.

Try Before You Buy. Quick and Easy. Give Us A Call 866-282-2506

Classified Ads Print & Web Classified Packages may be placed on our website, mail, or phone.

734 15th Street NW, Suite 400 Washington, D.C. 20005 Commercial Ads rates start at $25 for up to 6 lines in print and online; additional print lines start at $2.50/ line [vary by section]. Your print ad placement plus up to 10 photos online.

Premium options available for both print and web may vary.

Print Deadline The deadline for submission and payment of classified ads for print is each Monday at 5 p.m.

To contact the classifieds rep, send an email to classifieds@washingtoncitypaper.com or call (202)-650-6941.

For more information please visit washingtoncitypaper.com.

VIAGRA & CIALIS! 60 pills for $99. 100 pills for $150.

FREE shipping. Money back guaranteed! Call Today 1-844-879-5238

washingtoncitypaper.com july 3, 2020 19

Fast Internet

Endless Possibilities $100

FREE Month & Install† + $100 Gift Card††

25

$ UP TO

AwardWinning Internet

63^ /mo for 12 mos plus equipment

250 Mbps Internet* & Basic TV^^ *Experienced speeds may vary

Includes: FREE standard WiFi and

&

®+

PPE Safe Next Day Installation** | No Contracts | No Early Termination Fees

FREE Month & Install† + $100 Visa Gift Card exclusively at rcn.com *Internet download speeds may vary and are not guaranteed. Observed speeds may vary based on device, connection, & other factors outside of RCN’s control. Gig Internet offers speeds up to 940 Mbps. See rcn.com/yourspeed for why speeds may vary. Certain equipment may be required to receive Gigabit speeds up to 940 Mbps. RCN substantiates that the cable modem equipment provided, and the configuration of such cable modem, meets the broadband speeds advertised when attached to a wired connection based on SamKnows testing procedures. All speeds not available in all areas. Offer valid for new residential customers or customers with accounts in good standing who have not had RCN service within the last 60 days. Offer expires 7/31/20. RCN’s promotional offer extends defined, set pricing for the period of 12 months after installation. ^^Basic TV refers to Limited Basic TV package only. +SHOWTIME® and THE MOVIE CHANNEL™ are included as an add-on promotional offer and valid for 12 months from installation date; thereafter, price increases to $7.95 in months 13-24, regular rates apply thereafter. SHOWTIME, THE MOVIE CHANNEL and related marks are trademarks of Showtime Networks Inc. Individual programs, devices and marks are the property of their respective owners. You must be a subscriber of SHOWTIME to get SHOWTIME ANYTIME. All rights reserved. All sales subject to credit check, applicable surcharges, equipment taxes, activation fees, installation, franchise fees, government imposed charges and fees. †FREE Month on the second month of service, on applicable offers and excludes taxes, surcharges and applicable fees. FREE install is a $49.95 value and will be applied to the order when the coupon code, DCFREE, is entered online. ††Prepaid VISA® gift cards available on select offers with 250M Internet speeds or higher and are subject to terms and conditions outlined by VISA. Additionally, a customer must be in good standing for 90 days before the VISA gift card is issued. After 90 days, customers will receive an email with instructions on how to redeem the gift card online. ^Additional services, such as equipment, premium channels and other tiers of service are subject to an additional charge and regular increases and not included as part of the package. No contract is required to take advantage of the promotional pricing and savings. No early termination fees apply in the event service is terminated in advance of the 12-month duration. Customer is responsible for any accrued service charges in the event service is canceled. **Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): RCN technicians practice social distancing guidelines and are local government and CDC compliant.**Next day installation is not guaranteed. Availability varies by market and is limited to availability of appointments during normal business hours Monday-Saturday. Other restrictions may apply. Not all services available in all areas. All names, logos, images and service marks are property of their respective owners. Visit www.rcn.com/hub/about-rcn/policies-and-disclaimers for additional terms and conditions. ~A trademark of Ziff Davis, LLC. Used under license; Where Available. Reprinted with permission. © 2019 Ziff Davis, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ©2020 Starpower Communications, LLC. All rights reserved.

JUNEPA0620