Washington City Paper (November 13, 2020)

Experience holiday shopping in the heart of Downtown

Nov.20 Thru Dec. 23

MEDIA: SPANISH-LANGUAGE PUBS ARE VITAL RESOURCES 4 NEWS: THE NEED FOR QUEER COMMUNITY SPACES 6 ARTS: CRIME FICTION AND D.C. GO HAND IN HAND 32 THE DISTRICT'S FREE WEEKLY SINCE 1981 VOLUME 40, NO. 39 WASHINGTONCITYPAPER.COM NOVEMBER 2020

THE PEOPLE ISSUE Photographs by Darrow Montgomery

Vacuum Leaf Collection Resumes; Paper Bags No Longer Needed How to Prepare for Leaf Vacuum Collection:

• Check the DPW website to confirm your area’s leaf collection dates; • Move vehicles from curb lanes to help ease the leaf vacuum collection process; • Rake leaves to the curbside or tree box at the front of the residence the Sunday before the scheduled leaf collection date; • Remove all cans, bottles, sticks, toys and debris from your piles of leaves--these items can damage equipment and prevent safe and proper collection;

Scan here to view your collection date!

• Download MyDPW app to receive customized alerts about leaf collection in your neighborhood. *** Leaves swept/raked to the curb will be composted, as well as any leaves that residents choose to place in paper bags by the curb.***

For more information, please visit dpw.dc.gov/service/leaf-collection.

2 november 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS COVER STORY 9 The People Issue: Meet 14 of the region’s most interesting characters, all of whom are making their own impact on D.C.

NEWS 4 Plain Language: Spanishlanguage newspapers provide essential information to the area’s Latinx residents amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

6 A Year Without Pride: D.C.’s queer community finds new ways to gather during a public health emergency.

ARTS 3 2 Writing Wrongs: How D.C. has become a center for crime fiction 34 Femme Internationale: Highlights from a virtual version of the Noir City film festival 35 Books: Ottenberg on Christopher Chambers’ Scavenger

CITY LIGHTS 36 City Lights: Let a comedian assure you everything is fine or get in your feels with a radio show from early in the pandemic.

DIVERSIONS 33 Crossword 38 Savage Love 39 Classifieds On the cover: Elizabeth Acevedo Cover photo: Darrow Montgomery Cover design: Maddie Goldstein

Darrow Montgomery | 3100 Block of Mount Pleasant Street NW, Nov. 8 Editorial

Advertising and Operations

Interim Editor CAROLINE JONES Arts Editors KAYLA RANDALL, EMMA SARAPPO Food Editor LAURA HAYES Sports Editor KELYN SOONG City Lights Editor EMMA SARAPPO Multimedia 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 Copy Editor JENNY STARRS Design Assistant MADDIE GOLDSTEIN

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. 39, NOVEMBER 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.

washingtoncitypaper.com november 2020 3

NEWS CITY DESK

Plain Language

Darrow Montgomery

How Spanish-language media is covering the pandemic for the Latinx community

By Ana Lucía Murillo Contributing Writer In April, Milagros Meléndez heard that a friend had come down with COVID19, as had her friend’s 83-year-old mother and the rest of their immediate family.

Within a week, the woman’s mother had died from the virus. The rest of the family experienced little to no symptoms and recovered quickly, but Meléndez’s friend was heartbroken. A long-time journalist for El Tiempo Latino, D.C.’s largest Spanish-language newspaper, Meléndez knew that she had to write about what had happened.

Meléndez interviewed her friend for the story “When COVID-19 Attacks an Entire Family.” “COVID-19 came into our house and I don’t know how it happened,” Alma Choto, Meléndez’s friend, says in the story.

Meléndez was seeing the number of coronavirus cases start to shoot up in the area as she was writing the story. “By the end of April, the cases I was hearing about, they were close,” Meléndez says. She heard of family members contracting the virus, as well as people she knew through her church.

At the same time, she was having to cover more stories about the pandemic’s effect on the Latinx community as a part of her job.

Latinx people have been hit hard by the pandemic, both in the D.C. region and across the U.S. Nationally, they have been more than twice as likely to contract the virus than their white counterparts and more than four times as likely to be hospitalized for complications, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Locally, Latinx people make up less than 12 percent of D.C’s population, but represent 25 percent of the District’s coronavirus cases.

More than six months into the pandemic, D.C.’s Spanish-language newspapers are fully devoting themselves to distributing information about the pandemic, with what in many cases are limited resources.

Nelly Carrión, the director and owner of the Washington Hispanic, estimates that 75 percent of the paper’s coverage is now related to the pandemic.

“Our duty now has transformed into a social responsibility to inform people about this [pandemic],” says Carrión, who founded the paper with her son, Johnny Yataco, in

4 november 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

1994. Washington Hispanic, like El Tiempo Latino, has received an influx of calls from readers asking for help finding assistance during the pandemic.

The inherent difference Carrión sees between her paper and an English-language paper is the Washington Hispanic’s role as one of the few sources of information for immigrants who speak Spanish.

“There are many people who don’t have a facility with English, who either don’t know English or, if they do know it, know very little,” Carrión says. “In that case, the only source they have to find things out, to be able to know [things], is a newspaper like the Washington Hispanic, a Spanish-language outlet.”

Outlets like these have long played a public service role in their communities. Their online editions don’t have a paywall and free print copies are stationed in newspaper boxes around the city, particularly in neighborhoods where more Latinx people live. They focus on communicating directly with their readers and providing answers to basic questions on subjects like voting and the census.

Sharing information is a key part of what they do—and at the start of the pandemic, reliable information was hard to come by.

Early on, the CDC, the World Health Organization, and other health authorities said masks wouldn’t help prevent the spread of COVID-19. They changed their guidance later on, but the onset of the pandemic was an information maelstrom—an amplified danger for communities that already have diminished access to information.

The goal was to get accurate information online as quickly as possible, according to Rafael Ulloa, executive vice president of content for El Tiempo Latino and its parent company, Planeta Media.

“The work tripled, especially during the [initial] spikes of the pandemic in Virginia and Maryland,” Ulloa says.

“It was a huge effort at a local level, also at t he level of general knowledge of the v i r u s . Peo ple were really leaning on our outlet,” he says. Ulloa says w it hin days of D.C.’s public health emergency declaration on March 11, they were getting countless calls asking questions ranging from where to get a COVID-19 test to who they should ask if they needed assistance making their rent payments.

“El Tiempo Latino became, as well as a news outlet, a kind of guide to direct members of the Latino community toward whatever

resources were available in the different cities and places [in our region],” he says.

According to Ulloa, local officials and community organizations have also contacted the outlet during the pandemic to ask them to help get the word out about food pantries and other services.

Aside from acting as key players in disseminating information about pandemic safety and economic aid, El Tiempo Latino and its peers have uplifted the efforts of Latinx people and others during this crisis.

El Pregonero, a local newspaper published by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., has reported on the residents of Langley Park, throughout the pandemic. The health emergency and its economic impact have hit the majority Latinx neighborhood hard. In October, the outlet published a feature about Langley Park residents selling goods from their cars as a way to make ends meet after losing their jobs. Earlier on in the pandemic, they covered the final major free meal distribution in the neighborhood for the foreseeable future.

Many journalists at these papers are veteran regional reporters. With less than 10 journalists on each team, these newsrooms, like many local and hyperlocal outlets, are used to multitasking and maximizing efficiency. But a stagnating economy brought on by the pandemic is forcing them to ramp up their reporting while their resources are shrinking.

Finances at El Pregonero have already been hit by the pandemic. “[It] affected us a lot since they closed the parishes [to comply with] social distancing,” says Rafael Roncal, an editor and reporter at the paper since 1998.

They’ve gone from biweekly to monthly distribution, and their only method for distributing the paper is t hrough newspaper boxes, although they used to distribute them at parishes as well.

“It’s a reality that everyone is going through this and we have to tighten our belts. But here we are. We’re still g o i n g ,” R o n c a l says. “Now, what will happen in the future? I don’t know, just as probably nobody knows exactly. The only thing we know for certain is that nothing will be the same as before.”

Roncal was told El Pregonero’s budget for next year will be cut, although he isn’t sure what changes they will have to make in order to continue reporting

“There are many people who don’t have a facility with English, who either don’t know English or, if they do know it, know very little. In that case, the only source they have to find things out, to be able to know [things], is a newspaper like the Washington Hispanic, a Spanishlanguage outlet.”

NEWS and publishing with diminished funds.

El Tiempo Latino had to lay off two employees at the start of the pandemic, when their ad sales took a serious dip. Their advertising has since recovered to about 75 percent of their pre-pandemic levels, according to Ulloa.

He hopes they will be back to 100 percent soon, since he sees no end in sight for the need for more accurate information about the virus. “I think the newspapers themselves have really responded to provide good information about what are best practices around COVID,” says Abel Nuñez, executive director at the Central American Resource Center.

Print newspapers—especially free ones like El Pregonero, El Tiempo Latino, and the Washington Hispanic—continue to be vital during this time of economic hardship.

“A lot of our community uses the internet primarily through the phone, not a desktop or laptop,” Nuñez says. “But in the pandemic, a lot of members of our community have lost the ability to have even a cellphone. Our community has been hit hard economically.”

While maintaining their print circulation, El Tiempo Latino has begun streaming daily Facebook Live broadcasts where Ulloa or another reporter, Ricardo Sánchez-Silva, interview a local official or doctor or share crucial information. Prior to the pandemic, they did one or two broadcasts per week.

El Tiempo Latino has also published an ongoing series of COVID-19 Hispanic Heroes, recognizing people who are working for the well-being of the Latinx community during the pandemic, regardless of their background. Among those they have recognized are Lupi Quinteros-Grady, president and CEO of the Latin American Youth Center (LAYC), Sasha Ledesma, the community school coordinator at Beacon Heights Elementary School in Riverdale, and John Falcicchio, chief of staff to Mayor Muriel Bowser and D.C.’s deputy mayor for planning and economic development.

“We feel proud of what we did,” says Ulloa.

The local media and print journalism industries have been struggling since well before the pandemic, and those economic threats remain top of mind for these outlets.

Local Spanish-language papers in other cities have been disappearing in recent years, including Hoy in Chicago and Ahora Sí in Austin.

Roncal says his main concern for the future is to keep getting out information about services and opportunities for the younger generations.

“I think our greatest responsibility is to see how we can best guide younger people to a safe harbor. They’re going to need a lot of support, because they have an incredible challenge in front of them, and they’ll have to rebuild everything practically from zero,” he says.

During his reporting about the pandemic, Roncal has been most struck by the resilience and strength of the Latinx community in the D.C. area. “It moves me, and sometimes when I talk about these things, I get emotional,” he says. “Because you can see it, how, darn it, they’ve kept working without complaint.”

CAPITOL HILL AUTO SERVICE 6 1 5 I n d e p e n d e n c e Av e S E | Wa s h i n g t o n , D . C . 2 0 0 0 3 | 2 0 2 - 5 4 3 - 5 1 5 5 | c a p i t o l h i l l a u t o s e r v i c e . c o m

HONEST QUALITY WORK AT AN AFFORDABLE PRICE

Our family is here to take care of your family, safely, during every season!

GO SOLAR. MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

IMPORT & DOMESTIC AUTO REPAIRS | CERTIFIED ASE TECHNICIANS We provide top notch service for import and domestic car repairs.

Servicing brakes, exhaust, tune ups, engine repairs, electrical, and A.C. Systems.

Call or email us today!

2 0 2 - 5 4 3 - 5 1 5 5 | C A P I TO L H I L L AU TO @ G M A I L . C O M M O N DA Y - F R I DA Y, 7 : 0 0 A M - 6 : 0 0 P M CERTIFIED REPAIR SHOP

VOTED BEST PLACE TO GET YOUR CAR SERVICED: 2020

2019

2017

2016

15

YEARS 2004-2019

Proudly serving the Washington, D.C. area for 15 years!

301-355-0031 INFO@ALTENERGYINC.COM

ALTENERGYINC.COM washingtoncitypaper.com november 2020 5

NEWS

A Year Without Pride D.C.’s LGBTQ community is remaining resilient in the midst of a pandemic.

“I feel like I’m forgetting we exist,” Be Steadwell confesses. The last eight months of quarantine have been a strange time for the local performer, coping with the city’s response to the coronavirus pandemic—specifically social distancing and imposed isolation that all but halted community gatherings. “I forgot that we’re beautiful,” Steadwell continues, referring to D.C.’s QTPOC and LGBTQ communities.

The singer-songwriter, whose music puts queer people of color, like themselves, at the story’s center, isn’t alone. As the virus spread across the country this spring, bars and businesses closed. Cities canceled large celebrations, making 2020 a year without Pride, a nationwide annual event meant to honor the 1969 Stonewall Riots and the start of the LGBTQ rights movement in the U.S. But canceling Pride represents something much larger than a kibosh on parades in cities across the country—for queer and trans communities, it symbolizes a year without gathering.

“For queers, we gravitate to [in-person gatherings] because of how much time we spend not feeling all of our energy come back to us,” says Frances Reed, founder of Freed Bodyworks, a trans and queer-centered space offering massage therapy, acupuncture, and energy work. “Having a community that mirrors yourself back to you, it’s generative. It makes us feel better, more whole, more engaged in the world.”

Attending queer parties and Pride events, even being in LGBTQ-led spaces, Reed suggests, allows queer and trans folks to store energy that staves off isolation in non-LGBTQ environments. Offering communal space is a tenet of Freed Bodyworks, which turned nine in August.

“It became a place where people knew they’d be safe,” Reed explains.

Pre-COVID-19, the business was thriving, with a large, predominantly LGBTQ staff and full appointment books. Freed had started offering mental health services, but in light of the pandemic, that program is no longer available, as therapy has switched over to telehealth

Darrow Montgomery

By Sarah Marloff Contributing Writer

A League of Her Own in Adams Morgan platforms. Though the space has reopened at 50 percent capacity, money is tight. After a zeroedout second quarter, Freed waited an extra month after D.C. allowed businesses to reopen, installing additional air flow protocols. Now, the operating hours are shortened to ensure the building airs out, and the team has picked up additional work to help disinfect the space. While they’re seeing a decent return in clients, there’s no waitlist to fill last-minute cancellations. “No small business that I know is set up to run on 50 percent revenue for more than a tiny blip on the screen,” says Reed.

But it’s not just money woes and new office protocols, it’s a change in culture. Reed describes “lobby moments” from the pre-pandemic era, where clients would pass one another in the lobby and start conversations. (A client once called Freed the “queer community center of

6 november 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

D.C.”) Those moments are discouraged now.

Likewise, the last eight months have been difficult for Tagg Magazine, another one of D.C.’s LGBTQ-owned businesses and the only queer, Black woman-owned LGBTQ publication in the country. The pandemic forced Tagg to skip, for the first time in eight years, the publication of a print issue—the Pride Issue. “There was no Pride. We weren’t out at festivals. It just didn’t make sense,” Tagg’s editor-in-chief Eboné Bell says. The coronavirus and its fallout put a hold on “any sort of growth” at the magazine.

“Businesses. We plan for A, B, and C, but we never plan for Z,” Bell says. “Like a lot of companies, we just weren’t prepared for this scenario.

It completely flipped everything upside down.”

Like many publications, Tagg is funded through advertising. With businesses shuttered and in the red, advertising dried up. Bell estimates

Tagg lost about 40 percent of its revenue this year. Writers, most of whom are freelancers (not to mention members of the LGBTQ community), were put on hold. The amount of content dropped. And Bell found herself crunching numbers to figure out which bills needed to be paid first. “It’s a scary feeling to not know if you’re going to make it to the end of the year,” she says.

Bell worries that, if the city loses queer, trans, and QTPOC businesses to the pandemic’s crashed economy, the LGBTQ community will lose visibility and healing spaces. “Time has proven that we need these spaces,” Bell says, clarifying that media creates space just as physical locations do. “We need spaces where we can relate to one another.”

Both Bell and Steadwell remember a weekly Monday happy hour for queer women of color held at Wicked Bloom on North Capitol Street

NEWS and Florida Avenue NW. The event hasn’t happened since the city shut down in March, and the two worry it might not return. “There was something about being in that space as a Black queer woman,” Bell says, “because we share a lot of those same microaggressions or things that happen to us. It’s a place where we can heal.”

Even before the pandemic hit, D.C. was hemorrhaging LGBTQ and QTPOC gathering spaces as bars closed. In 2014, Remington’s closed, as did Delta Elite Social Club and Lace on the Avenue—both catered to D.C.’s Black LGBTQ community. Phase 1, once the longest operating lesbian bar in the U.S., closed in 2016.

And two staples of gay men’s nightlife, Town and Cobalt, closed in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

As Steadwell notes, the loss of these spaces, especially spots for queer people of color, has been “frustrating—we haven’t had a place to go every day of the week for a few years now.”

(XX+, another popular gathering spot, opened in the summer of 2018 and has been closed since January; though uncertain about when it’ll reopen, the bar’s staff says it has not yet closed for good.)

The August 2018 opening of A League of Her Own, a queer/lesbian bar located in the basement of the Adams Morgan gay sports bar Pitchers, has been a bright spot for many.

According to ALOHO’s manager Jo McDaniel, the staff has worked hard to create a loving, safe space. “We hold expectations for people who are visiting our community, and they’re non-negotiable,” McDaniel says.

During the pandemic, ALOHO has “kept the lights on,” McDaniel says. Since the end of May, the bar, along with Pitchers, has been able to partially operate thanks to its restaurant license and kitchen. By the end of June, 18th Street NW was permitted to host streeteries, making room for ALOHO and Pitchers to expand table service into the blocked-off streets. Now, because they can seat some patrons inside, McDaniel says the front area has become a designated space for ALOHO. When she spoke with City Paper in mid-October, the bar was figuring out its plan for the winter.

Though McDaniel is optimistic ALOHO and Pitchers will survive the pandemic, t h e y ’r e c u r r e nt l y operating with limited bar options and a much smaller staff— largely McDaniel and her second-in-command, Rachel Pike.

McDaniel says it’s a lot of work, but worth the effort—the bar’s goal has always been to create connections and community, as it did for one 22-year-old who quarantined outside of D.C. with family. According to McDaniel, when the girl returned this summer, “she walked in and embraced her friend, [she] was racked with sobs.

Just actively sobbing to be back in the space and see people,” McDaniel remembers. “It was heavily emotional.”

The relief from being around others in the LGBTQ community is the shared thread keeping so many space-makers and businesses going.

In October, Steadwell decided they’d had enough of isolation. A D.C. native who’s always found comfort in Rock Creek Park, Steadwell threw a QTPOC dance party in the woods, complete with masks and social distancing.

Describing how the gathering came to be, Steadwell says, “As a queer Black woman … I feel hopeless a lot of the time. I love to see our communities coming together in protest in the face of tragedy, but I want some of our gatherings to be motivated by joy.”

Devon Trotter, aka. DJ Dvonne, has been throwing queer parties in D.C. since 2010.

Trotter is part of the DJ collaborative CTRL, whose monthly parties at Trade have been on hold since March. As a longtime maker of queer space, Trotter is optimistic about virtual gatherings after helping organize two fundraisers this summer for local nonprofits. Both raised more money than anticipated. And while there can be a disconnect between computer screens—as a DJ, Trotter feeds off energy from the crowd— Trotter notes that finding a common goal to celebrate, such as coming together to support queer youth, fosters that missing connection.

As Trotter sees it, the need for queer parties is about safety, community, and “for us to feel like we aren’t alone in the world, because for so long, queers have felt alone … We created these spaces because we didn’t have other places to go.

The fact that we don’t have that opportunity right now, it forces us to lean into our resilience, into our creativity.”

The resilience of LGBTQ/QTPOC communities came up a lot in these conversations. Bell noted ways in which people were joining forces and lending time, if not money, to support one another, even in small ways, like buying bar merchandise. McDaniel applauded the community’s continued support of ALOHO’s virtual tip jar. And though times are tough at Freed Bodyworks—they need to raise $100,000 to ensure they make it through next year— Reed has been overwhelmed with support via GoFundMe. Seeing queer clients donate even $10, Reed says, “feels like our community is putting what it can behind us.”

It ties back to what Trotter described as a silver lining of the pandemic. “My friends and I have really honed in on what’s important,” Trotter says. “I think, in doing so, you have to have a reckoning of who you are, who you show up for, and why.”

That’s what Steadwell hopes people take away from this moment too: How important supporting these spaces is. Steadwell also predicts the queer community will create something bigger on the other side. “When we were out in the woods together, I was like, ‘Oh my god, we’re all still here.

We’re amazing. We’re gorgeous. Look at us.’”

“...We created these spaces because we didn’t have other places to go.

The fact that we don’t have that opportunity right now, it forces us to lean into our resilience, into our creativity.”

DO GOOD. FEEL GOOD.

BUY PIES! Buy a Thanksgiving pie from Food & Friends and provide meals for a neighbor in need.

Delicious FLAVORS!

Homemade Apple Pie Apple Crumble Spiced Pumpkin Pie Classic Pumpkin Nutty Pecan Pie Nutty Pecan Oh So Sweet Sweet PotatoPotato Pie Sea Salt Chocolate American Airlines Chess Sky Pie

ORDER BY NOV. 19 | PICK UP NOV. 24 www.foodandfriends.org/pie | Call (202) 269-6826 CFC # 52114

Exclusive Presenting Sponsor

Black Female Owned Local Business S O B E R E S TA U R A N TA N D LO U N G E . C O M

|

(240) 334-2819

1 0 6 2 1 G R E E N B E LT R D # 2 0 1 , G L E N N D A L E , M D 2 0 7 6 9

Restaurant & Lounge

TACO TUESDAY SPECIALS, HAPPY HOUR, BOTTOMLESS BRUNCH washingtoncitypaper.com november 2020 7

WE’LL ALWAYS STRIVE TO BE YOUR ADVOCATE. DAY IN, DAY OUT. Every day can bring changes, challenges and opportunities. Some are big, others small, but all of them can also alter your personal or business financial goals and priorities. What can make it all easier is a true financial partner.

Someone who really listens, understands and then creates solutions with you, from managing your personal finances to running your business.

That’s real banking for real life. And real business.

Call 833.987.REAL or visit sandyspringbank.com/real.

P E R S O N A L

|

B U S I N E S S

|

W E A L T H

|

I N S U R A N C E

|

M O R T G A G E

Member FDIC. Equal Housing Lender. Sandy Spring Bank NMLS # 406382. Wealth and Insurance products are not FDIC insured, not guaranteed, and may lose value. Sandy Spring Bank and the SSB logo are registered trademarks of Sandy Spring Bank. Real banking for real life.SM © 2020 Sandy Spring Bank. All rights reserved.

Brand Print_9.875x11.25_WashCityPaper.indd 1 8 SSB-86 november 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

10/28/2020 3:45:44 PM

Elizabeth Acevedo

In years past, the People Issue has served as an excuse for the staff of Washington City Paper to bring together, on the page and in our offices, the individuals who interest us most. Organizing all the participants and making room for them in our tiny lobby while they waited to have their photos taken was not always easy, but the interactions between subjects and intimate conversations yielded great insight and camaraderie.

How, then, does an issue that depends on human interaction work during a global pandemic, when close contact with other people is discouraged? You get creative and hope for the best.

Interviews have been edited and condensed.

All photos shot outside at St. Vincent, 3212 Georgia Ave. NW. Our abiding thanks to Peyton Sherwood and Fred Uku for their help and hospitality.

Interviews by City Paper staff and contributors Photographs by Darrow Montgomery

Chats that once took place in tiny rooms or across restaurant tables took place over the phone or on Zoom. The downtown office that we left in March was no longer a suitable photography studio, so we ventured into the great outdoors and created an exterior setup in a new wine bar’s backyard. Even steady rains couldn’t stop staff photographer Darrow Montgomery from drawing the best out of his subjects.

Despite the altered circumstances, the people you’ll meet in the following pages — government officials, musicians, artists, and caretakers of all varieties — still offer some humor, wisdom, and insight into this moment. We might not be able to be around one another right now, but we hope these conversations give you the feeling of a little human contact.

—Caroline Jones

THE PEOPLE ISSUE washingtoncitypaper.com november 2020 9

Elizabeth Acevedo The Storyteller Elizabeth Acevedo’s books speak to people. From The Poet X to With the Fire on High to Clap When You Land, the poet and author crafts meaningful stories that feature characters who feel like familiar friends and family, who feel real. And she’s got many more stories to come.

—Kayla Randall What is your process for following a story idea?

Something I’ve been doing recently is keeping a process journal, because I realize that every project requires a different learning system and a different way of understanding. What I do know is that with the books and poetry, there tends to be an initial idea that makes me wonder. I think that all good story ideas have to start with wonder: “What would happen if? What’s their secret? Who loves them? Who do they disappoint?” Asking those kinds of questions, I think, is where the fodder is, it’s what drives me toward the human condition. Right now, I have a bunch of Post-its on a wall where I’m just writing questions and different story ideas and scenarios, and I don’t know if this is going to be a book or just a collection of Post-its.

Do you consciously think about how your books, poetry, and writing can contribute to helping younger readers unlearn harmful things?

I don’t think I imagine unlearning when I’m writing; I’m not like “OK, what’s the thing I’m targeting that I imagine folks are struggling with that maybe we can work through on the page.”

I do think about unlearning in terms of, “I hope this young person hasn’t even learned the thing that I am trying to push back against on the page.” I think I make my characters braver than what I was because of what I’m unlearning now. I’m trying to be preemptive. I think we all have really strong women in our solar systems, but we may not always know how to see ourselves in them. I think reading lets us see those qualities a little bit sharper—like “Oh, I do that” or “I could do that.”

The beautiful thing about books is anyone can pick up a book and appreciate it. But do you feel like your work is for younger readers or anyone in particular when you’re writing?

I think I’m aware of the register that needs to be acceptable to teenagers. Because I’ve been specifically writing young adult, I’m just aware that they have to feel welcome and invited into these pages. There is the sense that adult literature can feel a little bit more difficult for some young people to grasp at the level of joy.

Like, “Maybe we’ll analyze this in class with a teacher helping me, but I’m not going to read it necessarily on my own.” I would say some or most young people aren’t reading adult literature ahead of time. So I am thinking that I need this to be something that a young person can access. I was a former school teacher, I taught in Prince George’s County, I worked with eighth graders, I began writing fiction because I wanted to address the fact that my students weren’t seeing characters like them in their books. But I do know that [when] I write crossover novels that women, men, and non-binary folks of all ages come to these texts. I want to make sure that there are characters there for them too. I want to make sure that there’s enough for a lot of different people to find characters they can map onto. But I am writing young adult, and particularly if it’s a young woman, young Black woman or AfroLatina woman, reading these books, I want there to be hope. For young people, they need images of themselves winning.

I’m working on an adult novel now, and it’s my first time trying to write a narrative that is tackling some more mature themes. I’m really enjoying it, it’s been nice to move in a different direction and bring in some of my more adult experiences. Right now, it’s just like 100 Post-its and 70 pages, but I’m hopeful.

10 november 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

Frank O. Agbro

Frank O. Agbro The Mayor of Mount Pleasant Mount Pleasant residents enjoy music and one another’s company, along with some semblance of normalcy, every Saturday thanks to Frank O. Agbro and his front porch. Agbro invites musicians and other creative types to his porch for what he’s dubbed “6 Feet Aparty.” Artists who would typically perform at any one of the city’s many music venues or bars had it not been for the coronavirus pandemic are now playing on the porch, including Granny and the Boys. Since the pandemic devastated D.C., he has welcomed children and their parents to his street on Saturday mornings for a puppet show, then invited the rest of the neighborhood in the late afternoons for an open mic.

Agbro is a musician, a DJ on WPFW, and the head doorman at the Mayflower Hotel. Originally from Lagos, Nigeria, Agbro has lived with his family at his Mount Pleasant home since 1996.

—Amanda Michelle Gomez Did you start having performances on your front porch because other places weren’t working?

To speak candidly or frankly, there was a time when there used to be a thing called the Mount Pleasant Festival … They had this one promoter that would just bring his roster of people that we didn’t even know into the community. And the music did not reflect the taste of what I thought I knew [the community to be], and I think a lot of people [thought that], too. That’s why they no longer do it … We would do occasional porch things when we felt like it and had nothing to do … But then when the pandemic hit, that’s when we were supposed to do a Monday thing over at Marx Cafe and then we had to cancel that. Then it was like, what are we going to do? Okay, well, we are going to do the front porch thing. Now, that’s when things kind of got a little bit hairy because the first concert, naturally, everybody was panicked. Nobody knew what was going on and everybody was freaked out … I was kind of freaked out because I usually sit on my front porch … and I just sit and listen to music and just kind of watch things. And I see people walking around with their heads down and I see parents or babysitters with strollers just going around the block, nothing to do. And that really spoke to me … Right now, we don’t have anything. The bars are closed. There’s no entertainment anywhere. Everything was like a cemetery and it didn’t feel right. And I was like ...

What can I do?

But now we all have to pay attention to something because we’re all vulnerable.

When does this end?

I like to do things one day at a time. Because I think when the time comes, I’ll know what to do. The only thing I can foresee is the weather conditions and stuff. People are already asking me, “Frank, what are we going to do?” My brother already donated an outdoor heater and we’re gonna see how that works.

Raman Santra The Shot Caller Raman Santra, better known to D.C. residents as “Barred in DC,” entered the blogosphere in March 2013. The blog’s name plays off his day job as a lawyer and his passion for local bar culture. Initially, Santra sought to review the bars he visited, but he found breaking news about restaurant openings by sleuthing government websites more fulfilling. In recent years, he gained traction on Twitter and pivoted to using the platform to conduct clever polls, disseminate information, source recommendations on specific cuisines, and even make policy recommendations to the mayor’s office. He now has close to 15,000 Twitter followers, branded koozies, and a fair share of scoops.

—Laura Hayes If there was no pandemic, where would we find you having a drink?

A bar I’ve never been to before, drinking a beer I’ve never had before.

Why do you love bars?

You can meet people that you’d never meet walking down the street and connect with people who have been here longer or have been in different situations. D.C., even though people who live here try to compare it to New York or Chicago, has an amazing

What needs to happen for bars to see the other side of the pandemic?

I’ve been trying to promote how important bars and restaurants are to D.C. That’s why we live in the city—so we can get to them quickly. The biggest bummer is that they had to close and be restricted to protect us all. The real thing we need is monetary assistance indirectly by backing up landlords or banks, but it does feel hopeless to a lot of people and somewhat to me. D.C. doesn’t have that kind of money. We have to hope that Congress provides some substantial benefits.

Tell me the best drinking neighborhood in D.C. I live off H Street NE right now, so I’m biased. But I did a poll. The 1300 block of H Street NE is the best bar block in D.C. What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned from a poll?

There’s been a debate whether to tip pre- or post-tax. Most people tip post-tax. That’s one of the areas where people’s behavior changes when they see some of these results.

What is the role of blogs like yours in the future of food journalism?

There’s a huge role for it. I think there’s a little bit of unfair coverage in newspapers and magazines. There’s some reliance on public relations. That’s just the nature of the beast. Blog and Instagram account Feed The Malik is a great example of a different perspective on the scene that’s complimentary. It won’t replace print, but it fills in the gaps of smaller spots that are more word-of-mouth and in Black and immigrant communities. [Bloggers] are able to be more nimble.

You like referring to yourself as a fake journalist, but you’ve done real reporting. Has your stance changed?

I still have to ask people what “on the record” and “on background” mean. I try to ask for comment on things, but I’ll just post stuff if I get good information. I’m a citizens’ journalist. I can get there. I do get cited a lot like I’m a real journalist. I’ll take that. I like the fake journalist name.

Has everyone in the community been supportive of this?

Most people in the community, especially on my block. Actually, I want to give a shoutout to my neighbors, the Kilbourne Place neighbors. They are the best. They understood what I was doing and they’ve been very supportive, most of them.

Sarah Gordon The Curator

Have people called the police?

People have called the police. When Granny and the Boys were playing, seven police officers showed up, but they watched.

They enjoyed the music and they left. Because I do know the rules in terms of music, because I was an ANC commissioner.

I was the chair of the ANC of Mount Pleasant. I get comments from police officers saying thank you for what you do. Because they know … People playing music, having a good time, practicing safe distance. Just because one person or two people don’t like it—this is the time where we all have to come together and sacrifice something. I’m sacrificing my time and energy. I’m not making money doing this. But it’s something that we need.

We are sacrificing something for hopefully a better future, and so we can all get through this together. I think this is why we find ourselves where we are right now, because a lot of us weren’t practicing that before—everyone’s going about their own business, having their headphones on, being closed [off].

bar scene. There’s such a diversity of bars, clubs, cocktail bars, dive bars, and neighborhood spots that serve great food. The stereotype about D.C. is people really care about their jobs. But they also have so many great memories of what they do off the clock.

That’s why it’s so important for bars to make it through this crisis.

Since September 2019, Sarah Gordon has been the curator of D.C.’s Art Bank—the District’s collection of nearly 3,000 works from a wide range of local artists. The Art Bank isn’t her only responsibility at the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, though, and it’s not her first time working for a local institution. Over the last 20 years, she’s worked with the National Museum for Women in the Arts, the National Gallery of Art, Dumbarton Oaks, the General Services Administration, the Art Museum of the Americas, Photoworks at Glen Echo Park, and the American University Museum.

—Emma Sarappo Tell me about your current position as curator at the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

Raman Santra

The first project I oversee is the Art Bank, D.C.’s collection of fine art. It started in 1986 and now has almost 3,000 works.

Once we acquire works, they go out on loan to D.C. government washingtoncitypaper.com november 2020 11

buildings. The second bucket has to do with the galleries in our building. In those galleries, we do a few things. One is that we have a curatorial grant, and we give it to D.C.-based curators to install exhibitions in that space. Then we exhibit the Art Bank finalists, and we also exhibit works from the finalists for the Arts and Humanities Fellowship Program, which is another visual art grant that we have. The third bucket is public art projects. These are commissioned or paneled projects, again through a grant process, where we place art installations in public spaces.

Sarah Gordon

months or so. The thing that’s so unique about this collection is that it’s dispersed across the whole city. Even if you did spend a lot of time in municipal buildings, you’d have to go to so many different buildings to get the fullness of the collection. So having that online resource, where you can search by date or you can search by artist or you can just scroll through, it allows you to have a bigger understanding of the fullness of the collection.

What is your relationship with the D.C. arts scene?

I’ve learned such a great amount about the local arts scene in the last year. It has been so wonderful to get to know so many artists who are working here and what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. My academic study was based in the 19th century and based in different places that weren’t where I lived, so it really has been an honor, and I look forward to even more.

Being able to do this work with our local arts community, where we can give funding to artists rather than what I was doing for a long time, applying for funding, it’s an honor to be able to do this work.

Rochelle Ford The District’s Moral Compass Rochelle Ford is the Office of Government Ethics’ third director. The self-described ethics nerd lives and gardens in Truxton Circle with her husband and kids. In her previous jobs, she advised senators and U.S. attorneys general on ethics rules.

She loves to read short stories and hopes, maybe one day, to write a novel.

—Mitch Ryals The Office of Government Ethics is a relatively new agency in D.C. and has faced criticism in the past for lacking real teeth. How do you address those concerns?

Rochelle Ford

What’s your strategy for adding to the Art Bank?

Generally, we try to acquire work that is from the artist’s current practice, that’s sort of a snapshot of what artists are doing in this region at a particular moment. There is room also for acquiring work that is historically significant to the story of D.C. art, so occasionally we’ll do that. We really do want it to be representative of the city. We collect from all eight wards as well as the Maryland and Virginia suburbs. We have work from native Washingtonians, we have work from artists who are international and have lived here for a short time, we have work in all different media, all different styles. There are certain threads you can see through the collection. We have an area of the e-museum that’s images of Washington. I think you can see the influence of some major movements like the Washington Color School, which artists in this region continue to respond to. I’ve had conversations with artists recently about the relationship between D.C. and the Harlem Renaissance, and that’s something interesting to pull out from the collection.

What is the e-museum’s role, especially during the pandemic?

We are trying to bring more attention to it, to the artists, to how you can access it. We have actually seen the number of visits to the e-museum rise pretty drastically in the last six 12 november 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

To the degree the public lacks trust in the conduct or impartiality or integrity of public officials and employees of the District of Columbia, it’s our job to improve that image.

This agency has not had a chance to have a robust educational program. We should be partnering with every one of the District’s agencies to know what their risks are. That’s how you cultivate an ethical culture. Make sure, from bottom to top, we’re on the same page with agency directors and make sure the managers are able to assess and identify things before they occur.

What ethics reforms are necessary in the District?

I think there needs to be some clarifying with respect to outside employment for all employees, as to what the limits are.

[And] our lobbyist laws are confusing. We get tons of complaints and feedback every year from lobbyists, and they’re completely valid. Our penalties for lobbying are sort of a joke. Lobbyists tend to get fined for administrative violations.

Investigations into former Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans lingered for years. He’s now agreed to settlements in two cases. Are you satisfied with the outcomes?

I am satisfied overall. I didn’t negotiate the first settlement that I think sort of gives a problematic precedent. I’m going to have to go forward and fix that. He used what’s known in the criminal world as an Alford plea, where he says, “I neither admit nor deny that I sent these emails, but if I did, it was wrong,” and that’s antithetical to the point of agreeing to a negotiated disposition.

I wanted to be able to assure the District residents that, yes, his behavior was completely unethical. I think [the second settlement] was the largest fine levied by the agency. And hopefully we can move on. I learned a lot, especially watching Mr. Evans and his response to [the settlement].

What do you mean?

I always think about policy and about work and not about spin.

And so that’s just a lesson in spin for me. But District residents can look at that conduct and make their own decision.

Talk about your previous experience. You worked for the law firm WilmerHale for nine years and left to work for the Senate Select Committee on Ethics and then the Department of Justice.

I started at WilmerHale, where I did white collar work, the other side of the table from what I do now, which helps in identifying why there’s misconduct or a lack of controls and how to fix it.

At the Senate ethics committee, which was nonpartisan, we worked across the spectrum of people who you might not agree with politically, but seeing common purpose is helpful in terms of being objective.

You hear the jokes about “government ethics, huh huh huh, you must be busy,” but most people want to do the right thing.

The rules are not always clear to people. That’s the takeaway from that job. Others don’t want to do the right thing, and in that case, leadership matters.

At the DOJ, I advised [former] Attorneys General [Jeff] Sessions and Loretta Lynch, and that’s where I learned how important it is to understand how government operates. It helps identify where there might be problems, foresees issues before they come up, and helps train employees. I left because I had concerns about partisan impact, political impact on the department. I could not sleep at night working for DOJ the way things are now.

I hope my mark [in the District] will be a culture in which employees feel they can come to us, that incentivizes good behavior, it provides incentives for employees to be proactively informed.

Fast Internet FREE Month† FREE Install†

39

$ UP TO

+

$100

^ 99

AwardWinning Internet

on select offers††

/mo for 12 mos plus equipment

500 Mbps Internet* Includes FREE standard WiFi *Experienced speeds may vary

Add FREE TV^^

with SHOWTIME® & THE MOVIE CHANNEL™ included for 12 mos+ with RCN equipment rental

✓

Say it. See it.

Watch it with your TiVo® Voice Remote.

✓

Record as many shows as you want at the same time.

(Up to 75 hours DVR storage included.)

✓

#1 recommended Internet in D.C. Restrictions apply. Internet connection is required to access and receive streaming content.

Streaming apps may not be vailable on all equipment types.

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

Online exclusive offer 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 11/30/20. RCN’s promotional offer extends defined, set pricing for the period of 12 months after installation. ^^FREE Basic TV refers to Limited Basic TV package only. Minimum speed of 100 Mbps is required. +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., a ViacomCBS Company. You must be a subscriber of SHOWTIME to get SHOWTIME ANYTIME. All sales subject to credit check, applicable surcharges, equipment taxes, activation fees, installation, franchise fees, government imposed charges and fees. †FREE Month 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, DC100, 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. After following the instructions, the gift card will arrive in 4-6 weeks. ^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. Price does not include Network Access Maintenance Fee of $4.37 per month and is subject to change. This fee is neither government-mandated nor a tax, fee or surcharge imposed by the government. Network Access and Maintenance Fee helps to defray costs associated with building and maintaining RCN’S fiber rich broadband network, as well as the costs of expanding network capacity to support the continued increase in customers’ average broadband consumption. 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. © 2020 Ziff Davis, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ©2020 Starpower Communications, LLC. All rights reserved.

NOV12PA1120

washingtoncitypaper.com november 2020 13

Kenilworth Katrina The Rhymer Kenilworth Katrina is a rapper, performer, and community organizer. She creates socially conscious music that you can dance to, and she possesses a magnetic personality that makes everyone— even strangers—comfortable in her presence. Katrina is also an accomplished music producer, and through her production company KK On The Beat, she has crafted tracks for other artists and movie soundtracks.

—Sidney Thomas You’ve spearheaded several anti-violence projects. Why is this cause so important to you?

Over the years, I have lost count of all the friends I’ve lost due to violence. I’ve always wanted to do something about it. I wanted to bring rappers from all over the city together for a positive movement.

How have you adjusted professionally to the pandemic?

I’m still busy. I’m still recording and still shooting videos. I just performed at a live show a few weeks ago with hip-hop star Rah Digga. I learned how to read music. I’m also hosting and producing a game show called “See How Much U Know,” which is a music trivia competition similar to Family Feud. The city has lost numerous performances because of the pandemic, so I’m working with other local musicians to find alternate venues or find other ways to showcase our talent.

You shot the video for your song “Nobody Knows” at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, even sitting on the altar at one point. How did you get a permit to film there?

We didn’t have a permit. I knew they probably wouldn’t give me one, so I just went in there and took a risk. I’m a creative person.

Once I get the idea and visualize the concept for a video, I always figure out a way to make it happen.

What female artists motivated you to become a musician?

Lauryn Hill is the absolute GOAT! Roxanne Shante is another great, and she was in my video “Shante.” Nonchalant, one of the first female D.C. rappers, was also very influential. There are so many incredible women in the industry, Lalah Hathaway, Joss Stone, Conya Doss, Joan Jett, Sampa the Great, I can go on all day.

In the 40-year history of hip-hop, there are almost no instances of a major label committing any significant marketing or promotional push to an openly LGBTQ artist. Why do you think hip-hop is so behind other genres in terms of accepting gay artists?

I used to feel LGBTQ artists were not accepted in hip-hop. But the culture has evolved drastically. Young M.A. came out as openly gay. Billy Porter is not a rapper, but he has made a significant impact on the entertainment industry. As a lesbian, I feel accepted and that people are listening to the music first before focusing on my sexual orientation. Artists like us are breaking down barriers.

“She Said” is a really personal song.

It was inspired by my mother, which is why I had her and my sister April in the video. The song was inspired by my family. My mother and sister have encouraged and supported me from day one. Whenever I get discouraged in my career, I listen to “She Said,” and it reminds me that dreams still come true and to keep going like my mother said. Everyone loves that song.

14 november 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

Kenilworth Katrina

Seema Gajwani

Seema Gajwani

The Mediator Seema Gajwani is the special counsel for juvenile justice reform and chief of the restorative justice section in D.C.’s Office of the Attorney General. In some cases, instead of charging juveniles with a crime, the OAG will use restorative justice, a program where facilitators moderate a discussion between young people accused of crimes and their victims. The goal is give both sides a better understanding of each other, find a resolution, and keep it from happening again. The program offers juveniles an opportunity to avoid a criminal record.

—Mitch Ryals Explain the restorative justice model—where it comes from and how it’s working in D.C. Restorative justice is kind of an ancient practice that was developed by indiginous cultures in Africa and Native American tribes and in New Zealand, by the Maori people.

Restorative justice offers young people charged with crimes an opportunity to take responsibility. The young person has to be willing to look at the person they hurt and tell them what they did and then answer their questions and hear how badly they were impacted by that.

It gives victims of crime the chance to have a say in what happens to the person who committed the crime. Really, we’re looking to have children learn from their mistakes and give victims of crime an opportunity to gain healing and closure. And then come up with things they can do to make it right.

The restorative justice program is victim driven, meaning victims of crime must agree to participate. Otherwise, it’s not an option. Are you concerned about potential inequities in allowing the victim to make such an important determination in how a criminal charge is adjudicated?

It’s a difficult part of this model. We do have situations where we allow a victim to have a surrogate, their family or somebody else, to sit in for them. But the purpose of restorative justice is in part to have young people build empathy and consequential thinking, so the dialogue with the person they hurt is really important. It’s not something we can do without victims’ willingness to participate.

You are now about three years into the restorative justice program. What has surprised you in that time, and how has the program evolved?

I think what surprised me is that we can do it. We’ve now facilitated 150 to 160 conferences that have gone well. Of those, only seven or eight have had to be returned to a prosecutor because they broke down or the young person was not compliant with what they needed to do. [In] early internal data, we’re seeing a reduction in recidivism.

How do you anticipate the program evolving?

I think the next frontier is really testing out if restorative justice can be applied for more serious offenses. So we’re going to be partnering with some outside researchers to do a rigorous evaluation of restorative justice and its use on more serious violent crime—cases where persons have been burglarized or stabbed.

We’ve now taken some firearm offenses, [which is new].

You’ve worked on both sides of the courtroom, as a public defender and now in a prosecutor’s office, though in a nontraditional role. Can you give some insights into the system?

The more I do this work, the more I’m convinced that our adversarial justice system is really badly suited for most cases. Where a young person or a defendant is willing to take responsibility, the adversarial system is actually really bad at helping that person change their behavior.

I remember having clients [as a public defender] who from washingtoncitypaper.com november 2020 15

Evolving small business support could save more American jobs

By Steve Troutner, Head of Small Business, Wells Fargo

L

ike millions of small business owners, Army veteran Heriberto Santiago - the co-founder of a health and wellness business helping the elderly - experienced unprecedented headwinds in 2020. He’s navigated financial challenges, pivoted his business model, and worried as customer volumes declined due to COVID-19.

But thanks to an evolving ecosystem of small business support, his family business is still open.

More than ever, banks are working hand-in-hand with nonprofit lenders and community groups to help small businesses of all sizes adapt and evolve to overcome threats to their viability.

As Head of Small Business at Wells Fargo, I believe it’s critical to more effectively meld corporate and nonprofit capabilities to complement efforts by federal, state and local governments. This includes everything from engaging nonprofits that can help small business owners reimagine their business models, to funding nonprofit lenders so they can extend financing to entrepreneurs who often struggle to qualify for conventional credit programs. It means offering deeper technical expertise to small businesses and building multiple ways for them to access both needed financial capital and technical knowledge.

In that spirit, I’m proud to say Wells Fargo is transforming how it supports small businesses and the jobs they provide.

This year, the bank helped approximately 194,000 small businesses receive Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funding, totaling $10.5 billion, with 84% of the loans going to businesses with fewer than 10 employees, and an average loan size of $54,000.

More than 2 in 5 of the loans we originated went to small businesses located in low-to-moderate income or majority-minority census tracts.

In order to amplify the work we did through PPP, this summer Wells Fargo launched an industryleading Open for Business Fund, committing approximately $400 million for grants to nonprofits focused on supporting small businesses, with an emphasis on organizations that work with diverse small business owners.

The Open for Business Fund (OBF) is a unique approach in that it has three areas of focus: providing capital for loans and payment relief via nonprofit financial institutions, enabling nonprofits to provide technical assistance and training, and capitalizing longer-term resiliency programs designed for small businesses.

As of October, the 14 initial nonprofit grantees

16 november 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

awarded funds under the OBF are expecting to sustain an estimated 10,000 small business jobs nationwide, including in the Washington, DC area.

One of the first round grantees is Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), a nonprofit lender known as a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that provides grants and other flexible financial products and services to small business owners.

Heriberto Santiago is one of the thousands of small business owners who has been supported by LISC and its network of partners. He serves as a reminder of the critical role CDFIs are playing in supporting small businesses, as well as the multiplier effect that large financial institutions can have on the scale and scope of CDFIs.

Steve Troutner While the OBF is a positive step, it can’t be the only step. More corporations and foundations need to follow suit and invest differently in nonprofits.

That way, capital flows to organizations that extend capital to small businesses, as well as to those that provide sorely needed technical assistance, training, and resiliency programs that help small businesses evolve in response to major disruptions.

Heriberto’s story of reinventing his business in the wake of the pandemic reminds me of so many of our customers who are having to rapidly reimagine their business models – and who are counting on the financial services industry to help them stay resilient. This is the time to seize the opportunity to surround small businesses with a stronger ecosystem of support.

E

V

E

N

T

G

U

I

D

E

Experience outdoor holiday shopping in the heart of Downtown F Street between 7th & 9th Streets NW

Nov. 20 Thru Dec. 23, 2020

12 p.m. to 8 p.m.

( Closed Thanksgiving Day, Mondays Nov 30, Dec 7 and 14 )

6nual

an downtownholidaymarket.com

@DtwnHolidayMkt

DowntownHolidayMarket

get ere to Scan h fo on your in all the device e il b o m

#DowntownHolidayMarket

2020 DOWNTOWN HOLIDAY MARKET | Nov. 20 thru Dec. 23 : 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. DAILY | DowntownHolidayMarket.com

D.C.’s Outdoor Shopping Village Unveils Expanded, SociallyDistanced Retail Experience November 20 – December 23 | 12PM-8PM F Street between 7th & 9th (Gallery Place Metro Station) Closed Thanksgiving Day, and Mondays Nov. 30, Dec. 7 and Dec. 14

PLAY ALL FOUR HOLIDAY TICKETS FOR A CHANCE TO WIN CASH AND OVER $50,000 IN SECOND CHANCE CASH PRIZES!

Note: The market will operate daily, regardless of rain or snow.

The DowntownDC Holiday Market returns for its 16th year, in a more spacious outdoor setting, perfect for safe, socially-distanced holiday shopping! Operated by the DowntownDC Business Improvement District (BID) and Diverse Markets Management, this year’s market will move from its previous sidewalk location into the street, taking over two entire blocks of F Street NW, from 7th to 9th Streets NW. The increased footprint will allow for wider aisles on the street and guests can shop confidently with social distance in accordance with current COVID-19 guidance. Whether you’re shopping for friends, family or yourself, the Downtown Holiday Market is your one stop shop for unique gifts.

Here’s what you can find: • More than 70 vendors from the region will showcase unique and handmade crafts, clothing, glasswork, jewelry, paintings, photographs, woodworking and so much more at the market.

• Shoppers can support District creatives including Blackowned and minority-owned businesses with their locally-made products at the Made in DC booth presented by the Department of Small and Local Business Development (DSLBD).

• Food, festivities and entertainment while you shop, including a fist-of-its-kind Mixed Reality Activation by ARTECHOUSE DC! • New this year, find this season’s trending styles at the DowntownDC BID’s District of Fashion booth.

ENTER NON-WINNING HOLIDAY TICKETS AT DCLOTTERY.COM TO play.

PROMO PERIOD: 11/4/20 – 1/13/21

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

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

Follow us on Twitter @DtwnHolidayMkt and on Facebook and Instagram @DowntownHolidayMarket (#DowntownDCHolidayMarket).

dclottery.com Fast Play tickets cannot be cancelled. DC Scratcher games may continue to be sold even when all the top prizes have been claimed.

Washington City Paper | 1/2 pg | 4.8542” x 11.25” | 4c | New | Holiday Scratcher

Neil Albert President & CEO DowntownDC Business Improvement District

Mike Berman Executive Director Diverse Markets Management

2020 DOWNTOWN HOLIDAY MARKET | Nov. 20 thru Dec. 23 : 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. DAILY | DowntownHolidayMarket.com

EXHIBITORS Find unique and wonderful items offered by over 70 exhibitors.

Please note, exhibitors are scheduled for either the First Half of the show (Friday, November 20 - Sunday, December 6), the Second Half of the show (Tuesday, December 8 - Wednesday, December 23) or For the Entire show.

Scan here to get all the info on your mobile device at

See the Exhibitor Categories for the participant list, booth numbers, and days of participation.

See the SITE MAP for booth locations.

Downtown HolidayMarket.com

View detailed description of exhibitors and a link to their business at DowntownHolidayMarket.com.

CERAMICS

instagram.com/ littletibetboutique

Kerri Henry Pottery #49 Second Half kerrihenrypottery.com

Maskerade by Kiwi #35 Second Half maskeradebykiwi.com

CLOTHES & ACCESSORIES

Indigo Moon #58 First Half Indigomoonclothing.com

SITE MAP

Canimals

Chocoparadise #43 First Half chocoparadise.net

getcanimals.com

Chouquette Chocolates #4 Entire Show chouquette.us

Chopstick Art #37 Second Half chopstickart.com

H3O Farms #38 Entire Show

Circuit Breaker Labs

COLLECTIBLES

District of Fashion #32 Entire Show facebook.com/ districtoffashion

GIFT FOODS

#49 First Half

SLANT #16 First Half slantevolution.com

Art Inca Native #9, 10 Entire Show

CRAFT

#54 Entire Show

FarEast Antiques #44, 45 Entire Show

CircuitBreakerLabs.com

iconsDC #28 First Half iconsDC.com

#37 First Half

Hope’s Journals Made in DC / Black Owned

Keche #51 First Half kechewool.com

Jentz Prints #20, 21 Entire Show instagram.com/jentz_prints

Little Tibet Boutique #24, 25 Entire Show

Tom Rall #29, 30 Entire Show

#39, 40 Entire Show thedcpopup.com New York Puzzle Company #47 Entire Show newyorkpuzzlecompany.com

Mondepice Spices and Teas #33, 34 Entire Show mondepice.com RAKO Coffee Roasters #1 Entire Show rakocoffee.com The Baking District #42 First Half thebakingdistrict.com The Capital Candy Jar #F5 Entire Show thecapitalcandyjar.com

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

Smithsonian American Art Museum & National Portrait Gallery

F ST 5

6

7

9 10 11

12 13 14 15

23 24 25 26

8

27 28 29 30

8TH ST

4

19 20 21 22

Shake Shack 800 F St NW

6

31 32 33 34

35 36 37 38

39 40 41 42

43 44 45

46 47 48 49

50 51 52 53

54 55 56 57

58 59 60

Hotel Monaco 700 F St NW

l

annua

2020 DOWNTOWN HOLIDAY MARKET | Nov. 20 thru Dec. 23 : 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. DAILY | DowntownHolidayMarket.com

Food 6

3

Food 4/5

2

Food 2/3

1

16 17 18

7TH ST NW

Gallery Place/ Chinatown Metro

Food 1

9TH ST NW

801 F St NW

GIFT FOODS (cont.)

The Taste of Germany #F2 Entire Show thetasteofgermany.com

GLASS Cecil Art Glass #46 Entire Show facebook.com/cecilartglass Joy of Glass #27 First Half joyofglass.com New World Glass #19 Entire Show newworldglass.com

IMPORTED CRAFTS

Souvenir Arts #15 Entire Show russian-classics.com The Choksey Group #23 Entire Show facebook.com/ thechokseygoup Toro Mata #7 Entire Show toromata.com Tunisian Touch #59 Entire Show tunisiantouch.com Verokamoda #52 First Half

JEWELRY

Baby Alpaca #60 Entire Show

ARTICLE22 #35 First Half article22.com

From Egypt With Love #53 Entire Show fromegyptwithlove-epy.com

Deco Etc. #22 Entire Show deco-jewelry.com

Journeys Spirited Gifts #56 Second Half journeysgifts.com

Lost & Forged #41 Entire Show lostandforged.com

KVZ Designs #8 Entire Show kvzdesigns.com

Southwest Expressions #26 Entire Show nativecraftsworld.com

Mundo Handmade #11 Entire Show mundohandmade.com

Stio Designs #17 Entire Show ancientcoindesigns.com

Silk Road Traders #12 Entire Show silkroadtraders.net

Turtles Webb #5 First Half turtleswebb.com

PAINTING Art by Zachary Sasim #18 First Half zacharysasim.com Cherry Blossom Creative #48 Entire Show cherryblossomcreative.com Jonathan Blum #27 Second Half Jonathanblumportraits.com Marcella Kriebel Art & Illustration #55 Entire Show marcellakriebel.com P.A.I.N.T.S. Institute #31 Second Half paintsinstitute.org Painted Palettes

PRINTMAKING

#58 Second Half

Female Power Project

paintedpalettes.com

#3 Entire Show

Rayhart

ledablack.com

#16 Second Half

Pyramid Atlantic Art Center

rayhart.com

#18 Second Half

The EWBA Store

pyramidatlanticartcenter.com

#51, 52 Second Half ewbastore.com

SOAPS & CANDLES

Tsolmon-Art

Banner Bee Co

#2 Entire Show

#31 First Half

tsolmonart.com

bannerbees.com

Coastal HoBo #13, 14 Entire Show coastalhobo.com

The Neighborgoods #5 Second Half theneighborgoods.com

Freres Branchiaux Candle Company #50 Entire Show freresbranchiaux.com

WOOD

Joyful Bath Co. #36 Entire Show joyfulbathco.com

TEXTILES

Godet Woodworking #58 Second Half godetfurniture.com Mistura Timepieces #6 Entire Show woodcoholics.com

Naked Decor #28 Second Half nakeddecor.com

CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

CMS Front Row: National David Shifrin, clarinet Sunday, November 22 at 7 p.m.

A CHANTICLEER CHRISTMAS

Saturday, Nov. 28 at 8 p.m.

online performances, artist conversations, and more cfa.gmu.edu/MAAH HyltonCenter.org At Home with Natalie MacMaster & Donnell Leahy

A CELTIC FAMILY CHRISTMAS

Sunday, Dec. 13 at 7 p.m.

Mason Artist-in-Residence

STEP AFRIKA!

Magical Musical Holiday Step Show

Wednesday, Dec. 16 at 7:30 p.m.

2020 DOWNTOWN HOLIDAY MARKET | Nov. 20 thru Dec. 23 : 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. DAILY | DowntownHolidayMarket.com

MUSIC SCHEDULE CAPITOL HILL AUTO SERVICE The Market Screen presents a musical feast of more than 40 performers by some of the area’s best blues, rock, jazz, soul, country, world, and contemporary artists. And of course, it wouldn’t be a “holiday” market without some of your favorite seasonal standards. Check the performer list below, and find more information about all of the performers in the Musical Entertainment section of DowntownHolidayMarket.com.

Alpha Dog Blues Ensemble Acoustic Blues

Lost Baggage American Songbook

Andres Garcia Acoustic Blues

Low Water Bridge Band Folk, Roots, Americana

Bob Sheppard Roots, Rock, Americana

Moose Jaw Bluegrass, Americana

Cecily Bumbray Jazz, R &B

More Kibel!

Bluegrass, Americana

Conor & the Wild Hunt Americana, Folk Rock

Music Pilgrim Trio Jazz, Traditional Folk, Holiday

Djangolaya Gypsy Jazz

Nina Casey Trio Swing, American Songbook

Erin HarpeCountry Blues Duo Blues

Painted Trillium Celtic, Folk

Flo Anito Singer Songwriter

Sara Curtin Folk, Roots, Americana, Holiday

Howard University Vocal Jazz Studies featuring Afro Blue, SaaSy and HU Jazz Singers Jazz, A Capella

Split String Soup Bluegrass, Americana

Jazz Trotters Jazz

The 19th Street Band Folk Rock, Americana

Jelly Roll Mortals with special guest Janine Wilson Folk, Roots, Americana

The All New Genetically Altered Jug Band Folk, Roots, Americana

Karen Collins & The Backroads Band Folk, Roots, Americana

The Archives Reggae

6 1 5 I n d e p e n d e n c e Av e S E | Wa s h i n g t o n , D . C . 2 0 0 0 3 | 2 0 2 - 5 4 3 - 5 1 5 5 | c a p i t o l h i l l a u t o s e r v i c e . c o m

HONEST QUALITY WORK AT AN AFFORDABLE PRICE

Our family is here to take care of your family, safely, during every season!

IMPORT & DOMESTIC AUTO REPAIRS | CERTIFIED ASE TECHNICIANS We provide top notch service for import and domestic car repairs.

Servicing brakes, exhaust, tune ups, engine repairs, electrical, and A.C. Systems.

Surf Jaguars Surf Rock

The Honey Larks Soul

Kentucky Avenue Modern Americana

The Lovejoy Group Jazz, Holiday

King Street Bluegrass Bluegrass, Americana

Call or email us today!

2 0 2 - 5 4 3 - 5 1 5 5 | C A P I TO L H I L L AU TO @ G M A I L . C O M M O N DA Y - F R I DA Y, 7 : 0 0 A M - 6 : 0 0 P M

The Sweater Set Folk Pop

Kiss and Ride Blues, Jazz, Soul Lilt with dancers from the Culkin Live Dance Company Irish, Step Dancers

CERTIFIED REPAIR SHOP

Tritone Jazz Trio Jazz Washington Youth Choir A Cappella

VOTED BEST PLACE TO GET YOUR CAR SERVICED: 20 20

2 019

2017

2020 DOWNTOWN HOLIDAY MARKET | Nov. 20 thru Dec. 23 : 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. DAILY | DowntownHolidayMarket.com

2016

FOOD & DRINK

Find freshly prepared food, coffee, hot chocolate, and more tasty treats for the entire show from these local businesses.

Alexa’s Empanadas

Old Blue BBQ

#F1 Entire Show

#F4 Entire Show

facebook.com/alexasempanadas

oldbluebbq.com

BindaasxRasika

The Capital Candy Jar

#F3 Entire Show

#F5 Entire Show

bindaasdc.com

thecapitalcandyjar.com

Migue’s Mini Donuts

The Taste of Germany

#F6 Entire Show

#F2 Entire Show

facebook.com/miguesminis

thetasteofgermany.com

Give the gift of local journalism.

washingtoncitypaper.com/membership

2020 DOWNTOWN HOLIDAY MARKET | Nov. 20 thru Dec. 23 : 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. DAILY | DowntownHolidayMarket.com

HEY 2030, SEE YOU AT COLLEGE. dccollegesavings.com

2020 DOWNTOWN HOLIDAY MARKET | Nov. 20 thru Dec. 23 : 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. DAILY | DowntownHolidayMarket.com

SPECIAL PROGRAMS ARTECHOUSE DC XR Installation

Schedule: Onsite the Entire Market In collaboration with ARTECHOUSE, Washington, DC’s award-winning digital art gallery, a first-of-its-kind Mixed Reality Installation will be placed throughout the Downtown Holiday Market! Visitors can engage with these seasonally-themed installations by downloading the Artechouse App on their smartphones.

The interactive installations promote the innovative and cutting-edge digital experiences on display at ARTECHOUSE DC. Their newest exhibition, Crystalline, has turned their entire gallery space into an intensely interactive homage to the wonders of the Classic Blue color (Open to the public all Fall/Winter).

The Holiday Market Screen

Virtual Musical Performances Schedule: (2pm and 6pm each day) Virtual performances will showcase local musicians and bands daily on our LED Market Screen. With live performances unavailable this holiday season, we have gathered both new and favorite market performers to present more than 30 different performances welcoming visitors to the festive surroundings! From holiday classics to inspired originals, the music will be featured “live” on screen, heard throughout the market, as well as re-broadcasted on the market’s Youtube channel!

Holiday Movie Screenings Schedule: Friday, Saturday, Sunday at 4pm.

Visitors will be pleasantly surprised to catch their favorite family-friendly holiday films on weekend evenings at the market. Movies like How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Polar Express, A Christmas Story, The Muppet Christmas Carol, and more will be aired for families visiting the market.

Saturday Morning Theater Shorts from the National Theater Schedule: Saturday at 12:30pm The National Theater has been actively producing virtual theater performances to accommodate for the difficult challenges faced with the COVID-19 pandemic. Their Saturday Morning Theater Shorts series will be aired every Saturday at the market (12:30pm). The videos showcase the talented actors and actresses that grace the National Theater stage throughout their live seasons.

Messaging from Downtown DC Business Support, Holiday Greetings, and Animations Schedule: Daily Between scheduled musical and entertainment content, the Market Screen at the Downtown Holiday Market will be used to promote many of the impacted businesses and cultural organizations in Downtown DC. Holiday Greetings and special messaging will be interspersed throughout daily market hours to remind visitors of the exciting attractions and destinations in Downtown DC. An interactive ticker featuring social media posts from #DowntownHolidayMarket will also share photos and twitter mentions in real time across the live screen!

2020 DOWNTOWN HOLIDAY MARKET | Nov. 20 thru Dec. 23 : 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. DAILY | DowntownHolidayMarket.com

the very beginning are like, “I’m so sorry, I totally shouldn’t have done this.” But there’s no place for them to say that in court except three months later when a judge or prosecutor reads out the offense from the police report and the judge turns to a young person and says, “Did you do this?” And the lawyer whispers in the kid’s ear and says, “Say yes,” and they say “Yes.” That doesn’t feel like accountability, and it certainly doesn’t feel like justice to the victim. The system is not well suited to the things in real life and human behavior that promote behavior change, although it is very well suited for those who want to go to trial and test the evidence.

stress of the job—dealing with some of the things we see on a dayto-day basis—can not only affect your mental health, but your physical health too.

Andrew T. Trueblood

Why did you start Food on the Stove?

My father worked for D.C. Fire and EMS for 32 years and retired as the deputy fire chief. The life expectancy for a firefighter is 10 to 15 years less than any other employee in America. My father died nine years after he retired. He had multiple heart attacks, but ended up passing away from cancer. When I saw that, I thought, “I want to do something about it.” Food on the Stove is a double entendre. It’s also the number one way that structure fires start. It’s a phrase firefighters hear all the time. I said, “Let’s take that phrase and get firefighters to pay more attention to the food on their stove, which is what’s really killing people.”

Andrew T. Trueblood The Man with a Plan

How does Food on the Stove seek to solve that problem?

To complete his master’s degree in city planning from MIT, Andrew Trueblood wrote his thesis in 2009 about the District’s unique, historic Height Act. “I never thought I ever would be in a place to think about it in reality,” he says. Now, between long bike rides on the Blue Ridge Parkway and endless platters of nachos in his Southeast neighborhood, the 37-year-old stands at the crossroads of D.C.’s physical future. As the director of D.C.’s Office of Planning, he is the point person on the politically sensitive effort to update the citywide Comprehensive Plan that’s currently before the D.C. Council.

—Tom Sherwood So many millennial guys have beards. When did you grow your beard?

I grew my beard in the winter of 2012. It’s funny you ask. I would not feel comfortable saying this two years ago, but I will say it now. When I came to [the] D.C. [government], I was 30, exactly 30. And I felt completely too young. Someone made a joke, “Just grow a beard.” That’s what I tried. And I kept it.

How did you go from a Las Vegas suburban high school to Princeton and your first job with the DC Housing Authority?

My dad’s an architect. My mom [ran] the Boys and Girls Club of Henderson. In some way, my career is a melding of the two, the built environment but also social purpose. I wanted to go to college on the East Coast. I took a public interest fellowship job straight from Princeton with the DC Housing Authority.

You also worked for the U.S. Treasury and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau before joining the office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning & Economic Development in 2013. Mayor Bowser named you head of planning two years ago. The Comp Plan update is a defining moment in your career.

I love my job. I get to think about the big picture, a chance to step back from everyday problems—is the trash picked up?—to think about what will happen in a few years, a generation. It’s incumbent upon us to update [the Comp Plan] for racial equity, for resilience, housing certainly.

Is there a thought about what you might do next?

I don’t know.

You’re looking ahead for the city, but not for yourself?

I’m not going to lie. It would be disingenuous to say I’m not thinking about what that could be. It’s just not like I have explicit or clear plans.

A friend of yours says, “When he works, he works,” but the mild-mannered public person at hundreds of community meetings has a “real personality.” Plus, you’re a nachos freak and coffee snob.

That’s one of the nice things about cycling, it allows me to eat as many nachos as I want. I love Las Placitas. It has some of my favorite nachos. I love a pot of Folgers as much as I do a single origin, pour over coffee from Guatemala. So I don’t know that I am a coffee snob.

On a casual boat outing in September, you wound up in the midst of that ‘Trumptilla’ of boats in the Washington Channel. A friend says every word from you was a cuss word.

Heard of Blue Apron? We started a free meal delivery service specifically for the fire service called Farm to Firehouse. We get locally sourced, healthy food for firefighters, and we package it at Union Market and deliver it to five or six firehouses every Friday.

My board member, Fiona Lewis, uses District Fishwife to box our meals up. She doesn’t charge a lot, but we pay her to make the sauces and marinades. She’s been a big help to Food on the Stove.

[The end of October was] our 26th week doing it. Our first recipe was Peruvian chicken with roasted sweet potatoes and coleslaw. It’s a 640-calorie meal. We give them the recipe and firefighters make it. Through donations, we’ve fed over 2,000 firefighters so far. We’re serving those who serve us. We also do nutrition classes, cooking classes, and cooking demos, but they’ve slowed down due to COVID. What are your future plans for Food on the Stove?

Our big goal is to purchase an old, vacant firehouse at 1338 Park Road NW. My father would work in that firehouse during the MLK riots. We’d like to purchase it to create a commercial kitchen and food pantry.

Jonathan Tate

There may have been a lot of anxiety. Being surrounded in the water by a bunch of Trumptillas, you know, wasn’t the most comfortable. If I go out on the water, I want peace, serenity.

Jonathan Tate The Heart of the Firehouse Jonathan Tate followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the District’s fire service eight years ago. Recognizing that heart disease is the leading cause of death among firefighters, the D.C. firefighter and EMT launched Food on the Stove, a nonprofit that helps his colleagues live longer, healthier lives. Through Food on the Stove, Tate enlists experts to coach firefighters on improving their diet and exercise routines and supplies them with healthy meal kits on Friday nights. He runs the three-year-old organization with help from his brother, wife, and board members.

—Laura Hayes Why does heart disease account for 44 percent of firefighter deaths?

When you sign up to be a firefighter, you can’t control sleep deprivation. Last year, we had 230,000 calls and we work 24-hour shifts. There are always calls coming in. That can affect your health. You sign up to go into burning buildings, climb flights of stairs, and adrenaline runs through you when you’re awakened from sleep very quickly. Your heart is always racing.

We cook all three meals while at work. It’s a lot of good meals, but not good for you. We haven’t been health conscious. And the washingtoncitypaper.com november 2020 25

Justin “Yaddiya” Johnson The Creator During most of 2018, bounce beat promoter and sometimes rapper Justin “Yaddiya” Johnson emceed nightly Kremlin Annex anti-Trump protests outside the White House. He went on to found the Long Live GoGo movement, dedicated to cultural sustainability and mobilization. Since then, the Silver Spring native has organized multiple marches and rallies under his Moechella brand, taking on various social justice issues including statehood, gun violence, police brutality, and the school-to-prison pipeline.

—Alona Wartofsky How do you connect the dots between promoting bounce beat and political activism?

Organizing in go-go and politics have a lot in common: A lot of PR, a lot of dealing with people and understanding how they work, and always finding the middle ground, that compromise that will make everyone happy and comfortable enough to move forward.

But also, everything is politics. You have to understand who works with who, who doesn’t work with each other, and their priorities—what really grinds their gears and gets them going. You need to understand that to be able to navigate through the different personnel you have to work with to get these rallies done.

What have you achieved in the past couple of years for the community?

I think that we have successfully given people the hope that their voice will be heard and that they can be the change in their own communities. I think our work has also inspired new activists to lift their voices as well. We have also started to change the stigma of the go-go community from people perceiving the go-go [shows] as a place that is potentially violent. Now people look at go-go as a place of unity, a place of true culture and community.

With everything you have achieved so far, what is your proudest moment?

Definitely the birth of Moechella last year, especially after the third Moechella that Backyard [Band] played at in May outside the Reeves Center. I felt like that was very significant because it made people realize that it isn’t a moment, it is a movement.

Also, being invited to be a part of the Kennedy Center’s Culture Caucus, that means people have been paying attention. And go-go becoming the official music of the city, that showed that people were giving it the respect that it had always deserved.

Them allotting the $3 million for the budget for go-go definitely shows they are looking to give go-go a chance within policy.

What was your favorite moment from White House Kremlin Annex protests?

The night that the attorney general Rod Rosenstein stepped down.

That was the first time I realized how powerful music was to the protest. The electricity of that night, the amount of people that were out there and how receptive they were to the musical component of the messaging, that was the inspiration for what we’re doing now, using go-go music to do the same in my community.

What are your favorite snacks?

Caesar Snapea Crisps, mango kombucha, and pepperoncini Kettle Chips. And the palak chaat at Rasika? I’m telling you ...

Are you still running for mayor? Do you have political aspirations?

We’ll see. Nothing is impossible. But still, me for mayor 2022, for sure.

26 november 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

Justin “Yaddiya” Johnson

John Falcicchio

John Falcicchio The Mayor’s Right Hand John Falcicchio is Mayor Muriel Bower’s chief of staff and her appointed Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. Originally from Jersey City, New Jersey, he started his career in District politics raising money for Mayor Adrian Fenty’s campaign. He lives in Mount Vernon Triangle.

—Mitch Ryals You rose through the ranks from Fenty’s campaign and then to Bowser’s administration. What have you learned and how has your thinking or approach to your job changed?

This is something I talk to young people about who are starting in politics or District government: Always make yourself indispensable. Do whatever is needed in order to get the job done. I like to throw myself into the work, so I work hard, and I work long, and I think that effort is something they both realized, and have given me more and more responsibilities.

You left D.C. for a while after Fenty lost to Vince Gray. Why did you come back to work for Bowser?

In August 2010, one of my former roommates was murdered in D.C. His name is Neil Godleski, [and he was] killed by [a teenager], who was in the care of our Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services. Neil happened to be passing by on his bicycle heading home from work, and the young man pulled out the gun and shot him.

This is also somebody who was in the care of the District who had such a disregard for life. I didn’t have the chance to continue to work in D.C. because Mayor Fenty lost the election, but it was always something [I wanted] to [do], come back and work on all the issues that we worked on to improve the lives and outcomes for young people.

Why do they call you Johnny Business?

This is actually terrible. It’s a nickname I gave myself. When I was working for Fenty, he had endorsed [former Democratic presidential candidate] Howard Dean, and before the Iowa primaries, I asked him if I could take some time to go to Iowa to help organize for the caucus. I remember some colleagues were going out to grab a drink on a Saturday evening or something, and they said, “C’mon let’s go out,” and I told them, “No, I’m all business.”

And they were teasing me a little about it, and they’re like “Oh, you’re all business? Alright, Mr. Business.” And I was like “Yeah, just call me Johnny Business.”

You’re Bowser’s chief of staff and a deputy mayor. Chief of staff is an inherently political role, and a deputy mayor should be making decisions independent of politics, right? How do you balance those things?

The deputy mayor role, to your point, does look a little bit more internal, and the chief of staff role is a little more external looking. It’s different in those ways, but overall, the benefit of having someone do both roles is for DMPED, a lot of the decisions come down to “What would the mayor want to do?” And this removes a layer in that decision-making and helps them be more efficient.

What is your greatest accomplishment during your career in D.C.?

One of the things I’m most proud of is that we were able to pass the $15 minimum wage. D.C. was one of the first jurisdictions in the country [to do so], and we did it by engaging a lot of stakeholders. At the end of the day, not everybody will be happy with the outcome, but it does help people and it does help families across the District. washingtoncitypaper.com november 2020 27

You’ve been in District government for many years. What will you do after life in politics?

I haven’t thought that far. What is also a question to be answered is how much longer the mayor would like to serve. After we get through this election, I think the mayor has to make a big decision about whether she runs again.

I don’t know what’s next, but I’d like to continue to serve as long as the mayor would like me to. I know I’d be in D.C., but I haven’t planned that far because I’ve been so focused on the work at hand.

Brittany Leavitt The Outdoors Activist Brittany Leavitt tries not to put labels on the things she does, but if she had to, she would call herself a “community dreamer.” By day, the Hyattsville resident is an educator for the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center. When she’s not teaching 2- and 3-yearolds, Leavitt, 31, focuses on making climbing and the outdoors a more diverse and inclusive space for the BIPOC community.

She is an outdoor instructor, the regional director of Brown Girls Climb, and the D.C. leader of Outdoor Afro, and she recently joined the board of directors for the American Mountain Guide Association.

—Kelyn Soong What motivates you to do so much in this community?

It’s funny, no one’s ever asked me this question before. But the amount of work that I do is a lot of work, but it brings me joy, because not only am I supporting folks who are trying to get in this space … I’m also still trying to fight for my voice to be heard as well. Being able to watch folks ask or find ways to support their own communities and their own areas across the country is really awesome and meaningful. I learn so much from everyone else, too. I don’t have all the answers, but I always go and learn from the different folks in my own community space and do a lot of unlearning as well. So what keeps me going is just being able to see the joy that everyone is bringing together and the sport that we create with each other in this space.

You’ve faced racism and microaggressions in these spaces. Has that improved over time?

It depends on where I’m talking or who I’m talking with. Yes and no. I think right now, everyone is kind of scrambling to try to support our community. But over time, it’s still an ongoing battle and conversation. Even though I’m in this space and people know my name, I still have to list out all the credentials in order to be seen as like, OK, she does have a voice in this spot, or OK, she does have a position in this space. So sometimes it’s a great thing and then imposter syndrome hits, because I get questioned or tested to see if I’m even supposed to be in this space. So it’s very wishy-washy. Especially being a Black woman, and being a Black woman climber, that’s kind of like being in space where it’s very heavily male-dominated when it comes to like boardrooms and behind the scenes stuff. I have to have my website out and ready sometimes to be like, “Yep, this is what I do,” in order to be seen.

What do you feel you’re fighting or advocating for? What are your main missions?

My main mission is to continue to not only share our stories and take up space, but also share the joys that we cultivate in these spaces. Oftentimes, folks want to hear about the hardships and the traumas that we’ve gone through connecting to the outdoors, but I really want folks to understand that we also have joys and we’ve also created defeats, and we also have redefined what outdoorsy means. And it doesn’t just fit in one little box. Like when you say outdoors, oftentimes folks think you wear plaid and khaki, and you have a backpack, and things like that. And some folks don’t even have that. They wear their Jordans or their sandals and [they’re] kind of reshaping the idea that it doesn’t fit a mold.

28 november 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

Brittany Leavitt

youneed need mortgage mortgage assistance DoDoyou assistance due to the effects of COVID-19? due to the effects of COVID-19?

DC MAP (Mortgage Assistance Program) COVID-19 is here to help District homeowners stay in their homes during this pandemic.

DC MAP (Mortgage Assistance Program) COVID-19 is here to help

District homeowners stay in their homes during this pandemic.

DC MAP COVID-19 provides zero- interest monthly assistance loans up to $5,000 for up to six months for qualified homeowners.

DC MAP COVID-19 provides zero- interest monthly assistance loans up to $5,000 for up to six months for qualified homeowners.

Borrower Qualifications:

• Must be borrower’s primary residence and must be located in the District of Columbia Borrower • MustQualifications: have been current as of the March 1st payment (prior to being affected by COVID-19) • Must be borrower’s primary residence and must be located in • Must be able to document income affected due to COVID-19 the District of Columbia • Borrower must be the borrower on the home loan, not just a • Must have been current as of the March 1st payment (prior to member of the household being affected by COVID-19) • Must show proof that the borrower is not eligible for • Must be able to document income affected to COVID-19 forbearance or other types of relief offereddue through the servicer Hit Funds • Borrower mustand/or be theHardest borrower on the home loan, not just a • If borrower is still affected after the CARES Act ends, then member of the household relief may be offered at that time (See additional terms)

• Must show proof that the borrower is not eligible for forbearance or other types of relief offered through the servicer and/or For Hardest Hitlist Funds a full of borrower qualifications and loan terms, visit • If borrower is still affected after the CARES Act ends, then relief may be offered at that time (See additional terms)

www.dchfa.org/homeownership

For a full list of borrower qualifications and loan terms, visit

www.dchfa.org/homeownership

DC MAP COVID-19 financial assistance will be granted on a first come, first served basis until the program allocation has been exhausted. Homeowners seeking assistance through DC MAP COVID-19 should call 1-833-429-0537 to begin the process of applying. Questions regarding DC MAP COVID-19 may also be emailed to DCMAP@dchfa.org.

washingtoncitypaper.com november 2020 29

Maria Gomez The Giver Maria Gomez is the founder, president, and CEO of Mary’s Center, a community health center with several locations around the city that welcome everyone and anyone. In just over 30 years, Gomez has turned Mary’s Center from a freestanding clinic that served 200 people with an operating budget of $250,000 to a health care system that serves nearly 50,000 people with an operating budget of $61 million. The mayor recently invited Gomez to be on her ReOpen DC taskforce and chair its health committee.

—Amanda Michelle Gomez How did you get involved in this line of work? Was your emphasis on serving the immigrant community because you are an immigrant yourself?

The health catastrophe in the mid-’80s, with immigrants fleeing the civil war [in El Salvador], was devastating. I had a great job in a hospital. I had great hours. But I couldn’t sit back and watch our community go through all the suffering … People couldn’t find health care. They couldn’t find somebody who spoke Spanish. Their children were being born at home because they couldn’t find a provider. I thought, “God, I had a great fortune of getting to this country myself as a teen.” My mom was able to flee Colombia. We were poor and there was no way that I was going to get a decent education in Colombia. It’s hard to go beyond a certain grade in school if you are not connected, at least back when I was growing up over there … I know this sounds really hokey, because it’s been used a million times, but I really needed to pay it forward … I was in the last class that graduated as Western High School [now Duke Ellington School of the Arts] … I had the great fortune of attending Georgetown Nursing School … Not even in one generation to go from having literally Maria Gomez

nothing and going to bed hungry many times in Colombia to having this extraordinary education. I couldn’t sit back and just watch the community unfold and go through the same thing I went through when I first got here. So I really envisioned a program that was literally an oasis for pregnant women and their children. That was really what I wanted to do—to have a comprehensive program where pregnant women found joy in carrying that pregnancy.

Why is it called Mary’s Center?

We got the initial funding from the city. This was under [former mayor] Marion Barry, who, in many ways, was an extraordinary doer. He got things done. He has his reputation, but we owe him [for] the opening of our doors. It was the ’80s, and it was a different time. And he said, “Look, we’ll give you the initial funding, but we don’t want you to name anything ethnic or anything religious.” This is a time when there were so many needs in the city, and giving $250,000 dollars to an immigrant group was not going to be the most popular thing. But he stuck his neck out and just said don’t be so obvious … We started with pregnant women, but the only hospital that would deliver our patients was Providence Hospital, which no longer exists. The hospital at that time was run by a nun. And the nun said “We will help you, but you have to name the center something religious.” … We were torn between the hospital who wanted something religious as a name and the city who said nothing religious … And I was like, OK, what do we do? We have people who are in need and we’re not going to be established just because we can’t come to a consensus about a name. I was very upset about that … and then, by some divine intervention, I don’t really know ...

I just said, look, why don’t we name it Mary? For the hospital, it can be Mary, mother of God, and for the city, it can be just Mary, whoever.

Where do you find your strength?

It is hard. We have an extraordinary, extraordinary group of staff members. One is better than the next. They just work so hard.

They work relentlessly. They care about what they do. They stick around even when times are hard. They know how to help me think differently, and think creatively, and think sustainably …

And my office is downstairs from where patients are seen and I see those families. It’s just—my life is great compared to theirs.

That’s where I get my strength. Lastly, I have an extraordinary family that is very supportive and allows me to spend the time to do this, because it is 24/7.

Natacia Knapper The Community Advocate Natacia Knapper always seems to be organizing. In a year when D.C. reckoned with anti-Black racism and police brutality, it comes as no surprise. Knapper works with a lot of organizations, including Stop Police Terror Project DC and the Ward 1 Mutual Aid Network. In each advocacy space, she learns more about organizing people and makes connections between the causes she’s fighting for.

—Amanda Michelle Gomez How did you get involved in the mutual aid network when your work is typically in police accountability? Why did you gravitate to that?

To me, you can’t really separate police accountability and reenvisioning safety. Like those have to be the same … In my personal capacity, I have more of an abolitionist theory around policing, but regardless of whether you’re there or not, in terms of abolition, the truth of the matter is police cannot be equipped to really address every area of safety. And if we’re telling people to not engage in that system, we have to have an alternative to that.

30 november 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

Natacia Knapper

Mutual aid to me feels like such a natural, real step in showing community that there is a way to to support each other and take care of each other without necessarily needing to really engage and be reliant on the state. And like we have a duty to each other honestly, to keep each other safe and to take care of each other as a community. That’s what it means to be in community. So for me, mutual aid is just such a natural step in that direction, because the whole premise and philosophy around mutual aid is taking care of each other, checking in with each other, pulling our collective resources.

What has activism this year taught you about yourself?

About people?

It’s been interesting. I think that in a lot of ways I have felt more energized around organizing than I have maybe ever felt before, because people are more engaged than I’ve ever seen them, for this sustained amount of time. And it doesn’t feel like it’s dying down … On a personal level, it’s also kind of taught me [to give] each other and yourself grace. I think that’s actually been sort of like the hugest take away I’ve actually had this year. Because we are living through something that we have never had to live through before, or at least many of us ... I think that the reason why the uprising happened in the way that it did, I think is an extension of a lot of people’s eyes being open through this pandemic and understanding the ways—to be frank—our government has been ill-suited at managing and really taking care of people. My point in saying all of that is we are going through a very unique point in time, even though none of these issues are new. I think the way in which we have been confronted with them is new. And we’re all sort of figuring out what it looks like to really start investing in building this new world.

And that is going to come with making some mistakes and not necessarily always knowing what the next step is and just being really OK with that. And not being afraid of making those mistakes and learning from them and not letting those things paralyze us into not making the changes we know we need.

Dionne McDonald PCHW/Photographer at Mamatoto Village

VIRTUAL CONVERSATION

BIRTHING AND CHILD HEALTH FORUM WEDNESDAY, NOV. 18 1:30 PM–3:00 PM

From a viral pandemic to the high profile trauma of antiBlackness, this spring and summer have been challenging for people across this country and across the globe. As part of City Paper ’s Maternal Health Project, created by former arts editor Kayla Randall, The WCP Birthing and Child Health Forum is a way to celebrate, support, and reframe narratives about Black mothers.

To register for the event, please visit: washingtoncitypaper.com /maternalhealth

In partnership with perinatal support organization Mamatoto Village, which serves Black women and families primarily in Wards 7 and 8, and District Motherhued, a group that brings together and empowers area mothers of color this event is designed to help birthing people in need in D.C., open up a dialogue about their experiences, and assist, uplift, and honor them—now and always. Join us in centering Black maternal health to help foster healthy families and communities, and supporting the more than 400 women Mamatoto Village serves annually. Visit mamatotovillage.org to learn more and make a special gift. washingtoncitypaper.com november 2020 31

ARTS

Writing Wrongs This region’s crime fiction writers share a unique bond, despite writing about terrible things (and people).

On June 8, 2020, the nominees for the Anthony Awards, one of the biggest international awards for crime fiction, were announced. Approximately a quarter of the nominated writers were based in the District, Maryland, or Virginia, including this author.

That’s not an anomaly. Every major award in crime fiction this year, and most years, features multiple nominees and winners from our region.

Crime fiction and the D.C. region have a curious relationship. Within writing and publishing circles, New York is still considered the center of crime fiction (and every other genre) and Los Angeles has enjoyed a Chandler-inspired reputation for noir, but, starting with the heady days of the Cold War, the D.C. region has consistently asserted its own place as an important hub for the genre. Writers like Laura Lippman and George Pelecanos have represented this area well, and their work paved the way for exciting newcomers like Angie Kim, David Swinson, Tara Laskowski, Art Taylor, and Nik Korpon. The area has some of the best creative writing programs in the country, as well as active writing conferences and supportive professional organizations. Plenty of thrillers take inspiration from the country’s political elite and a robust number of hardscrabble noir novels chronicle their lives outside of those marble halls.

It’s understandable that, for many readers, D.C. is conflated with politics, and that conflation has tied into the region’s writing. Writers have done well imagining various crimes in the Capitol dome. Ward Just, David Baldacci, Julie Hyzy, Tom Clancy, Neely Tucker, and Matthew Quirk are just some of the many writers who have set captivating stories on the Hill.

But writing about D.C.’s political elite comes with complications. More often than not, good writing is accompanied by extensive research, enough to create an intimate knowledge of the character a writer is describing. But most of the famous personalities—legislators, presidents, and the like—are guarded and only presented through the approving eyes of communications staffers, which doesn’t make it easy for a writer hoping to examine their psyche. One tried and true workaround has been for writers

Illustration by Julia Terbrock

By E.A. Aymar Contributing Writer

to use ancillary characters as their protagonists.

The people behind the politicos are more accessible, relatable, and often less buttoned-up than the people they work for. Colleen Shogan, author of the “Washington Whodunit” series and senior vice president of the White House Historical Association, explains that “everyone who has worked on the Hill or lobbied the Hill knows that congressional staffers make the place tick. I genuinely believe that most people who come to work in Washington, D.C., want to make the country a better place. I want to tell their story.”

James Grady, legendary author of Six Days of the Condor, agrees, but is firm in his belief that stories from the region should extend beyond the summit of the Hill. “One of the great things George Pelecanos and other crime authors have done is reclaim this city from the clichés. They tell stories about characters who are people, not government ID badges.”

And only writing about the Hill presents a misconception of the city, one Grady finds particularly worrisome. “When I rolled into town in December ‘73, ‘Washington novels’ were all like Advise and Consent and Seven Days in May [two Cold War political dramas]. Part of that was because the city and politics on this level was so small compared to now, partly because the big money didn’t arrive until Reagan, and importantly, because of racism. I could not believe how the cultural arbitrators of publishing and everything else thought of D.C. as a half-moon looping up from about 3rd Street NE to Connecticut, 16th, Wisconsin, and up to

32 november 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

the Maryland line. Blew me away.”

Publishing, like every other American industry, is now openly grappling with that racism, thanks in part to the Black Lives Matter protests of this past summer. That includes acknowledging that the crime fiction set on Capitol Hill has largely not represented the diverse population of the area, much like Capitol Hill itself. Just under half of D.C.’s residents are Black, but its crime fiction hasn’t always shown it. This phenomenon isn’t unique to D.C.—it’s a problem the publishing industry has recently made efforts to correct, and an issue that local crime fiction writers of color and LGBTQ writers, such as Alma Katsu, Austin S. Camacho, Sujata Massey, Christopher Chambers, Cheryl A. Head, John Copenhaver, and myself, are eager to change.

“When I moved to D.C. from Detroit in the early ’90s,” says Head, who writes the awardwinning “Charlie Mack Motown Mystery” series, “the diversity of cultures and worldviews was one of the jewels of the region for me. That’s such a bonus to people who are curious about the world.”

And our writing community is marked by its diversity of voices. I’m a mixed-race military brat who moved around a lot growing up. Often, I was the only mixed-race kid in my classes—if not the only one, then definitely a rarity. A lovely benefit to living here, writing here, and raising my son here is that I no longer have to make up characters simply to find others like me. And, hopefully, my son will never experience that same isolation.

That benefit has also affected my fiction.

When I’m trying to capture the area in my work, I have the luxury of writing about my own experiences, knowing there are residents here who will relate. My protagonists have always been characters of color, because that’s representative of this area. My latest novel, They’re Gone (written under my pseudonym E.A. Barres), features two protagonists who are both women of color and live in the region.

Saying that these voices belong on the page and in the public consciousness, and that they have stories and experiences worth sharing, is also an inherently political statement. Anjili Babbar, who teaches at the Community College of Baltimore County and is president of the local Dashiell Hammett Society, a group for fans of hardboiled crime, agrees. “I hope that we help students think about justice from angles they hadn’t considered before,” she says, “and to understand their voices are important in discourses about justice.”

The social upheaval of 2020—especially the protests after the murder of George Floyd and wider acceptance of the Black Lives Matter movement—underscores this point. Crime fiction plays a role in shaping the public consciousness in regard to topics like law and order and morality, even across enormous political divides. Yet it’s important to note that, within the D.C. region’s crime fiction, that divide is narrow, in part because of the strength of the local writing community. Our intimacy shrinks the gap that politics tends to widen. And this is despite the competitiveness that publishing

ARTS presents—the fight for readers, the limited calendar space at venues, the harsh push for publicity.

Award-winning writer Shawn Reilly Simmons helps organize the Bethesda-based Malice Domestic conference, which gives out the Agatha Awards, one of crime fiction’s preeminent prizes. Simmons notes the strength of the community’s support in the face of competition. “Writing tends to be a solitary endeavor,�

Simmons says, “and Malice is a chance for authors to gather together and find camaraderie and community, as well as introduce their work to new fans and readers.�

Kristopher Zgorski, who runs the popular and influential crime fiction blog BOLO Books and is based in Maryland, tries hard to keep his community ties strong. “I am very active in the crime fiction community, I do have many friends around here, so I am always conscious of not giving any priority or preference to those individuals,� he says. “In the end, my goal is to point readers toward stories I love in the hopes that they too will enjoy those works. My loyalty lies with readers and the writing community respects that by and large—both locally and beyond.�

And since 2015, I’ve run a rowdy regional reading series called D.C.’s Noir at the Bar, a gathering of crime fiction writers at Columbia Heights’ Wonderland Ballroom, where drinks are downed and short stories are shared. After the March shutdown, I took the weekly series online. Given its effects on businesses, I dedicated the readings to support local independent bookstores, and I only featured writers from the D.C. region. Over the rushed course of seven weeks, I was able to bring nearly 70 writers on screen to read their work to an enthusiastic audience that always numbered in the hundreds. Their warmth transferred over from the in-person events we used to have prior to the pandemic. “At the store, we comment on that support every time we host an event featuring a local mystery author—they come out for each other,� says Eileen McGervey, the owner of Arlington’s One More Page Books. “They share the joy of fellow writers’ new books, articles, and other successes. In listening in on Sisters in Crime Chesapeake Chapter meetings when we first opened, I admired how writers helped and learned from each other—[from] what’s the impact on a body from a gunshot from a certain caliber weapon to advice on pitching agents.�

It’s a unique, somewhat surprising thing, the enthusiasm crime writers here have for each other. But perhaps the reason this region has produced such good work is because its writers—placed squarely in the city that’s an avatar for national political conflict, but given the tools to dismantle it—are keenly aware of this attitude, and we’ve (consciously or not) chosen to write against it. The coldness and aloofness of emotional, physical, and social cruelty has made its way into our fiction, but not into our character. Like the great crime writers that came before us, we’re still scrutinizing society.

And we’re hoping, somehow, to find a better version of it.

DIVERSIONS CROSSWORD

Catch Cow

By Brendan Emmett Quigley

25. Route 27. They’re produced by the moon 29. [I drank too fast!]

30. It might cover a lot of space 31. Newswire letters

32. Pointer in the kitchen, maybe

33. GOTV ad maker 35. Daredevil’s action

36. ___-J (“Breezeblocks� band)

Across 1. Element #18 6. Salty approval 9. Creatures created from Medusa’s blood 13. Little dog 15. Meditation practice 16. Sign of Jesus 17. Harmonize?

19. Element #10 20. Dome-covered room 21. Signals to act 22. Five lines on sheet music 23. Govt. group that is collecting emails 24. Time frame that Louis Armstrong can perform in?

26. Shaving application 28. “That happened so long ___�

29. Dog in a rabbit’s coop?

34. Light rail car 38. “If you want my opinion ...�

39. Veggie in mattar paneer 40. Toy collector 41. Downton Abbey mother 42. Crone leans?

washingtoncitypaper.com/ membership

Give the gift of local news.

37. ECG requesters

40. Energy bar with a rock climber on its packaging

42. [I didn’t get my way!]

44. Student Success Grants org.

46. Slopping cry 47. Evidence that a post-surgery support works?

53. Letter closer: Abbr.

56. Statistical bit 57. Speaking engagement?

58. What might be on a filthy screen 59. Barely squeezed (by) 60. Style of speaking like Chevy Chase’s detective?

62. Only just 63. Jumping org.

64. Good place?

65. “Regardless of problems�

66. The Misery Index channel 67. Rip (from) Down 1. “C’mon, dude!�

2. Chops crops 3. Scolds 4. Never to be repeated 5. Big source of COVID news 6. Early resident of the Valley of Mexico

7. “Ai-yi-yi-yi�

8. Anne’s twins?

9. “No big�

10. Golfer nicknamed “The Slammer�

11. Brigham Young University city 12. Muscular quality 14. Put up tents 18. Fast asleep 22. John Hancock, briefly 24. Comic who said, “I’ve arranged with my executor to be buried in Chicago.

Because when I die, I want to still remain active politically.�

43. Bathtub gin, e.g.

45. Thinking-green prefix 47. Latte ingredient 48. Fall guys use them 49. Ultrasound targets 50. Room for people who speak in code?

51. Large flightless birds 52. Muffin grain 54. Mystical characters 55. Aortic insert 58. Take top billing 60. Roly-poly 61. Hack with an axe

LAST CROSSWORD: DEARLY

6 & 2 / ' ( '

$ / % ( 5 7 $

* 2 ( 6 < $ 5 '

, & ( ' $ 0

1 2 1 8 6 (

7 5 ( 1 7 $

6 = 7 < < ' / , ( ( 5 & . 2 7 , ( 6 $ 7 $ 5 $ < $ / , . . , 1 , ( : '

, 3 % < 0 + $ 6 2 2 5 ( ( 5 8 3 6 1 $ $ % 5 $ 9 2 ) 0 $ ; , $ 9 , $ ' ( 1 0 ( , : 2 5 ' $ 5 1 6 5 ( 6 7

2 5 $ / 3 ( 5 , $ 7 ( 5 6 1 % , 7 6 7 2 9 ( : 2 . ( 1 ( 6 5 & + $ < ( 6 / 6 0 8 $ 7 7 ( 5 0 + ( 5 ( ( 5 , & 5 , 7 $ 0 & $ 1

washingtoncitypaper.com november 2020 33

ARTS

Femme Internationale

The Housemaid

This year, the Noir City film festival curates a worldwide slate of noir films, and 19 are available to stream through the AFI Silver Theatre.

What does film noir mean to you? Worldweary gumshoes? Colorful gangland argot?

Tough, no-nonsense dames? Killer cakes? This year, curator Eddie Muller and the Film Noir Foundation take viewers around the world to see how this distinctly American subgenre left its mark on global cinema with Noir City: International, available online from Nov. 13 to 29 through the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center. The series offers 19 titles available for streaming to viewers across the U.S. and U.S. territories. The cross-cultural crime results are fascinating, and, more often than not, fueled by a jazz soundtrack. While die-hard moviegoers will miss the annual opportunity to see gorgeous black-and-white photography in 35mm prints, there’s always next year. Meanwhile, this year’s anxieties may resonate with at least one genre-defining mood: alienation. Here’s a short guide to its hardboiled offerings.

Detour (1945) Before exploring how other film industries adapted noir to their needs, revisit this definitive B-noir directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, now celebrating its 75th anniversary with a new digital restoration. Tom Neal stars as a down-on-his luck hitchhiker trying to get from New York to his jazz-singing girlfriend in Los Angeles. Along the way, he meets the volcanic femme fatale Vera (Ann Savage). With its acidic dialogue and

archetypally lost characters, Detour is the platonic ideal of noir. For years, it was only available in scratchy transfers that seemed perfectly suited to its broken souls, but in this new restoration, you can see Savage’s expressions that much clearer.

Rusty Knife (1958) The Nikkatsu film studio is the oldest in Japan, going back to the silent era and producing a steady supply of samurai pictures and historical dramas for decades. But in the late ‘50s, the studio got into the youth market with a series of gritty crime dramas depicting wild youth and loose mores. This taut thriller, directed

by Toshio Masuda, is set in the underworld of Udaka, a city whose postwar struggles left it terrorized by gangsters. Yūjirō Ishihara stars as an ex-con who vows to avenge the death of his girlfriend at the hands of a local crime boss.

The bodies pile up, one of them laid to waste by a most unlikely weapon: a box of donuts.

Any Number Can Win (1963) Director Henri Verneuil’s French heist film rings home the alienation of a degraded moral landscape through an overwhelming physical metaphor: the introduction of Brutalist architecture into old France. Jean Gabin of The Grand Illusion stars as an aging thief who’s fresh out of jail and appalled at what’s happened to his old neighborhood, where once elegant houses have been replaced by soulless high-rise apartment buildings. It doesn’t bode well for his ambition: one last heist, for which he recruits young and dashing, but inexperienced, Alain

Detour

Courtesy of Janus Films

By Pat Padua Contributing Writer

Delon. This meeting of two acting legends is backed up by a catchy jazz score from Michel Magne, whose title theme was a U.S. chart hit thanks to organist Jimmy Smith.

Pale Flower (1964) This haunting crime drama, directed by Masahiro Shinoda, shifts one of the key leitmotifs of film noir—bad luck—to a distinctly Japanese setting. Muraki (Ryō Ikebe) is a middle-aged yakuza who’s been released from prison for a murder sentence, and he has no remorse … for killing, at least. Back on the scene, he frequents high-stakes gambling dens, where he meets the beautiful, hard-living Saeko (Mariko Kaga).

The pair have a simmering chemistry, and the black-and-white cinematography paints Tokyo in a seedy, neon-drenched light. But the film’s most startling element may be Toru Takemitsu’s fantastic score, which uses traditional Japanese instruments in an unsettling din that seems to give voice to the inner demons bubbling under these seemingly emotionless figures. Shinoda went on to direct Silence, based on the same source that inspired Martin Scorsese’s 2016 film, as well as the gorgeous 1975 horror movie Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees, and that track record proved he could do anything.

Courtesy of Janus Films

…And the Fifth Horseman is Fear (1965) The absurdism of the Czech new wave brings film noir to the land of Kafka in director Zbyněk Brynych’s dazzling drama set during the Holocaust, the embodiment of existential doom. Miroslav Machácek stars as Dr. Braun, a Jewish doctor forbidden to practice in Nazi-occupied Prague. When an injured resistance fighter comes for help, Braun, in search of morphine, is forced to navigate a nightmarish city of brothels, gambling houses, and mental institutions as he tries to evade German officers. This political crime drama plays off the anxious noir mood to create a horrific invading bureaucracy that resonated in Czechoslovakia’s mid-’60s Communist dictatorship. With an 34 november 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

unsettling, neurotic rhythm, driven in part by Jiří Sternwald’s nervous jazz score, noir’s blackand-white visuals become even more disorienting and the meticulously arranged geometric compositions are pregnant with meaning, like a wall full of clocks confiscated from Jews, representing their lost life and times. This is the dark tale of a man and a people consumed by fear of reprisals and threatened by their very government.

The Housemaid (1960) The alienation central to film noir can be an almost spiritual malaise, as ex-cons and lawabiding citizens alike barrel down the road to vice, unable to find any refuge of goodness in a world gone wrong. This masterpiece of domestic horror was one of Bong Joon-ho’s inspirations for his Oscar-winning Parasite, and depicts a dark world where even a seemingly respectable middle-class milieu becomes a hotbed of death and derangement. On the surface, the Kims seem like a happy, prosperous family. Mr. Kim (Kim Jinkyu) teaches piano to factory workers and his wife (Ju Jeung-nyeo) works as a seamstress at home.

They’ve just moved into a new and bigger house with their two children, and the dynamic at work and home begins to go haywire after a factory girl sends Mr. Kim a love letter, which in a complex, fateful sequence of events leads him to hire Myung-sook (Lee Eun-shim) as a live-in maid.

Delirious and unpredictable, The Housemaid unfolds on dark and stormy nights under the specter of a household dramatic device that we could call Chekhov’s rat poison. The more time we spend with the Kims, the more we see their cruelty to each other, like Kim’s son regularly mocking his sister with polio as she struggles to walk. Director Kim Ki-young, who went on to direct the even more unhinged 1972 film The Insect Woman, extracts a dark entertainment out of his increasingly demonic characters, who plummet into a seemingly unending horror. It’s perhaps the least ostensibly noir-like film in the festival, but seen among more conventional noir plots, it seems to give birth to its own delicious sub-genre.

ARTS BOOK REVIEW

Noir-Do-Well Scavenger

By Christopher Chambers Three Rooms Press, 344 pages Novels written from the perspective of homeless substance users don’t come along every day. When they do, it’s a good idea to pay attention, since they offer a window into the casual cruelty of our social economy, which much fiction eschews. Christopher Chambers’ new mystery Scavenger offers just such a window. It features homeless survivor-turned-sleuth Dickie Cornish in rapidly gentrifying Washington, D.C. Dickie was originally middle-class, but he’s trapped in a death spiral of downward mobility: He’s a scavenger who occasionally works with jump crews, which throw evicted tenants’ possessions onto the street, then pick them over. The novel is focused front and center on the real estate war against the city’s mostly Black and Latinx poor—a war to clear out this population and pave the way for luxury domiciles, it says. Scavenger delineates its more recent carnage in the nation’s capital.

As one shelter worker tells Dickie: “See, you are society’s canary in the mine. The survivors, the scavengers … and if you perish, the rest of us aren’t far behind. That’s why I do this, honey. Self-preservation.” And the canaries aren’t doing too well; homeless people deteriorate and die on the street, while low-income families everywhere cede ground to affluent hipsters or wealthy Trump admirers. Much of this book focuses on the Trump administration’s presence in Washington: the corruption, the brutality from the Department of Homeland Security in its persecution of the undocumented, and the glitzy, crooked hangers-on. “That’s how it works in Rome … Sodom … Berlin on the Potomac,” thinks Dickie.

Scavenger’s roots reach into the noir detective novels of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. The darkness of omnipresent social evil blankets a landscape with little hope for ordinary people of average decency and belowaverage incomes. They are all slated for homeless shelters or deportation. “Uncle Sam won’t help the city hire more housing inspectors. No inspections means projects rehabbing these ratchet brick barracks into hipster palaces or chain-store anchors …” The sleuth, of course, wages his own personal war against this systemic dispossession, while tracing out the Chandleresque convolutions of a complicated plot that produces lots of corpses. Figuring out what is going on or why Dickie works for the rich thug who hires him is not always easy—but it becomes rewardingly clear in the end.

Wandering around D.C., Dickie remembers old neighborhoods, ordinary people who used to inhabit them, and the small businesses that flourished before big box stores, pricey restaurants, and swanky condos took over. Chambers knows this terrain like the back of his hand.

He can describe Washington districts as they were 20 or 30 years ago, down to the smallest details. He also captures the soulless emptiness of the museum district, traversed by sleek, well-paid officials in their SUVs, where Dickie lives in winter, under a tarp. Like Hammett with San Francisco or Chandler with Los Angeles, Chambers’ mystery is as much about Washington as it is about the amoral monsters who prey on ordinary people and the lone gumshoe who takes them on.

At one of Dickie’s main haunts, a shelter that provides multiple services, he encounters a boy who is homeless because his grandmother’s “apartment building was condemned by the city when the landlord couldn’t be bothered to fix it up. Hear they have a spin studio and a gym, a French mussels and frites-themed bar already wanting leases.” The tsunami of dispossession that Chambers portrays started flooding Washington decades ago. It might not stop until the entire city is, as happened in Manhattan, a playground for the rich. The financial incentives—thousands of dollars per month in rent for units that previously went for under one thousand—are simply irresistible to landlords and real estate developers, the novel argues.

Where do the evicted go? Shelters, doubling up with relatives, the street—regardless, their destinations are always several steps down.

When the reader meets Dickie at the novel’s start, he has hit bottom. But the mystery he unravels gives him new purpose. Damaged as he is, he nonetheless has abilities peculiarly suited to piecing together this life-anddeath puzzle. He also has “platoons of you bums … better than Facebook.” The homeless have lots of skills, something those who despise and fleece them would just as soon the rest of us forget. In Scavenger, they don’t have the housing and income they need, but that doesn’t stop them, because unlike their adversaries, they still have a moral compass and what that engenders: solidarity.

—Eve Ottenberg washingtoncitypaper.com november 2020 35

CITY LIGHTS surprise track “Instant Night” builds, Miller’s jarring words blend into Nelson’s plea for some empathy. Not only was the new release a welltimed message, it perfectly aligns with Beauty Pill’s identity as a band “born in the mouth of the 21st century.” Chad Clark, the D.C. rock band’s frontman, says “Instant Night” was a plea for listeners to have empathy for one another, to understand the seriousness of the crises at hand, and to vote Trump out of office.

The official music video features former band member and artist Ryan Nelson painting satirized portraits of Trump and other political figures. Beauty Pill members also navigated pandemic restrictions by recording the song on a rooftop while adhering to social distancing guidelines. In the wake of a drawn-out, bitter presidential election, the message of “Instant Night” continues to resonate. The track is available to stream or purchase through Bandcamp. $1.

—Sarah Smith

City Lights

Yi Yi

City Lights

Sarah Cooper: Everything’s Fine Comedian Sarah Cooper captured lightning in a bottle with her lip-syncing TikToks poking fun at President Trump. By swapping the podiums and press conferences that offer him a veneer of dignity for a roster of wigs and homemade props, Cooper unveiled a new shade of absurdity in Trump’s erratic soundbites. But Cooper’s apparent overnight success has been years in the making. As a way to escape the stifling corporate atmosphere of jobs at Yahoo and Google, the Montgomery County-raised Cooper started a humor blog that went viral for satirizing productivity culture and “girlboss” feminism. After striking comedy gold again with her Trump bits, Cooper landed a mid-pandemic Netflix deal for her debut special Sarah Cooper: Everything’s Fine. The special places the dumpster fire of 2020 in a blender, adds a wild mix of guest stars like Jon Hamm, Megan Thee Stallion, and Maya Rudolph, then stuffs it all into the format of a morning news show.

Everything’s Fine contains staples of sketch comedy like bizarre infomercials and fake movie trailers while offering original bits and a new song from Fred Armisen. But the

highlight of the show is a delirious peek inside the infamous Access Hollywood bus starring Helen Mirren as Billy Bush. The special also serves as a fine showcase for director Natasha Lyonne. Between directing Everything’s Fine, staffing an all-female writer’s room for her series Russian Doll, and producing Jacqueline Novak’s off-Broadway show Get On Your Knees, Lyonne has positioned herself as the salmon cannon that shoots female comics upstream. With Cooper as Lyonne’s latest protégé, the future of women-led comedy is bright—we just have to get through 2020 first.

The special is available to stream on Netf lix.

Free with subscription. —Mercedes Hesselroth

City Lights

Dash & Lily There are some classic signs that Christmas is right around the corner: Carols play on the radio, snow settles on the ground, and a deluge of holiday romance plots hit the screen. Dash & Lily is Netflix’s latest entry into this annual TV tradition, adapted from the YA novel Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares by Silver Spring-born author Rachel Cohn and her writing partner, David Levithan. In search of a special someone with whom to share the holidays, the sentimental Lily hides a notebook in the J. D. Salinger section of the Strand Bookstore. The misanthropic

36 november 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

Dash discovers her message, and an anonymous correspondence between the two begins. There’s just one catch: Lily loves Christmas, while Dash’s skepticism toward yuletide cheer makes him a bit of a Scrooge. To overcome this dealbreaker, the two bookish teens spend the holiday season sending each other on a series of dares throughout New York City, coming out of their shells along the way. But when the time comes to meet face-to-face, the pair must decide whether they’re meant to be or if they just got swept away in the holiday magic. Given that Dash & Lily was filmed in 2019, the series may well be one of television’s last portrayals of Christmastime in preCOVID New York. The series’ festive crowds, concerts, and parties serve up a dose of sweet winter escapism needed at the end of a long year.

Dash & Lily is available to stream on Netflix. Free with subscription.

—Mercedes Hesselroth

City Lights

“Instant Night” How do you make the perfect single for Election Day? Start by warping a February 2017 speech from White House senior adviser Stephen Miller that declares the powers of President Donald Trump are “very substantial” and “will not be questioned.” Then, weave in the hauntingly smooth sound of Beauty Pill vocalist Erin Nelson. As the

The late Taiwanese director Edward Yang only managed to make eight features before he died of colon cancer in 2007 at the age of 59. But his work includes some of the most celebrated—and most moving—arthouse films of the era. His final feature, the 2000 drama Yi Yi, is the epic story of a middle-class Taipei family. Beginning with a wedding and ending with a funeral, the film documents a year with the Jians, whose heartbreaks and triumphs span three generations. The emotional action focuses on two male figures: NJ (Wu Nien-jen) is the middle-aged father who is unsatisfied with his corporate job and tempted to stray from his stagnant marriage with an old girlfriend. His young son YangYang (Jonathan Chang) is navigating the anxiety of childhood, teased by classmates but curious about the world. Throughout the course of the film, the boy takes up photography, capturing elusive images of mosquitoes and the backs of people’s heads as he tries to make sense of the world. Meanwhile, the director, with the help of cinematographer Wei-han Yang, captures exquisitely composed images of adult strife, domestic arguments carefully framed in windows through which his characters become overwhelmed by reflections of the big city. For three hours, the film observes its sprawling family with a quiet tenderness. Yi Yi is part of the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center’s virtual “Taiwanese Cinema Rediscovered” series, which includes 10 films that can be viewed throughout the U.S. and U.S. territories. The film is available to stream from Nov. 7 to 29. Tickets are available at newfilmstaiwan.eventive.org. $12. —Pat Padua

City Lights

Jurassic Quest Drive-Thru Experience Election hysteria, violence, vanishing environmental protections, endless doomscrolling: Some days, you wish you could tell the fish who walked out of the primordial soup to turn around and head back in. Instead, try making time to unplug and embrace tradition with a throwback to the Mesozoic era. Pile some friends and family members into a motor vehicle and head to RFK Stadium for a fun-filled prehistoric dissociative episode. Adapted from their enormous, precisely designed touring show, Jurassic Quest Drive-Thru features more than 70 animatronic dinosaurs and an audio tour, all accessible from the inside of your car. Enhance your tickets with bundled addons including dinosaur “surprises” and takehome crafts perfect for keeping your pointed rejection of modernity going into the evening.

If you’re hankering for more gear, the FAQ section of the JQ website reassures explorers that “limited quantities of additional Dino-rrific souvenirs” will be available for purchase. I can almost hear John Williams’ gentle crescendo in the distance. The drive-thru runs until Nov. 15 on the RFK Stadium Festival Grounds, 2408 Independence Ave. SE. Tickets are available at jurassicquest.com. $49.

—Amy Guay

City Lights

Ifaan

In 2014, a group of D.C. musicians played together for the first time at a musician’s potluck organized by saxophonist Regan Carver. Those instrumentalists and singers soon formed the group Kino Musica. (“Kino” is the nickname of

a band member’s cousin, and became part of the group’s moniker when the members could not agree on another name.) They began performing Ethiopian-rooted sounds with tinges of other African and American styles at various D.C. clubs. Now, six years later, the outfit has released its debut EP Ifaan, which means “the light of the sun” in Oromo. While the band’s membership has changed over time, the EP includes contributions from former members, including Carver, and original members Kumera Zekarias on guitar and vocals and Besufekad Tadesse on saxophone, both of whom are multi-ethnic Ethiopians of Oromo and Amhara heritage. Zekarias, who arranges or writes most of their songs, was born and raised in Texas, where he started playing blues and rock, in addition to listening to both historic and contemporary Ethiopian music alongside American rap. Ifaan starts with the Kino Musica take on Wegayehu Degenetu’s love song “Arke Yehuma,” with Zekarias’ melancholy voice drifting over instrumentation featuring classic Ethiopian horn lines and clever guitar chords that organically combine Ethiopian scales and North African desert rock. The band’s video for the song conveys the lyrics, with Zekarias ceremoniously tossing flowers in a pond and a café owner wooing a customer. D.C. has the largest population of Ethiopians in the U.S., and Zekarias proudly describes his band’s effort as a community project that carries on the legacy of 1980s D.C. Ethiopian diaspora musical offerings, like Admas’ recently reissued album Sons of Ethiopia. The EP is available on Spotify and Bandcamp. Free–$4.

—Steve Kiviat

City Lights

Songbyrd Radio In March, Joe Lapan and Alisha Edmonson recorded what, until an early November set, looked like their last two episodes for Songbyrd Radio. Together, the pair runs Songbyrd Record Cafe and Music House, and Songbyrd Radio was a weekly radio show Lapan hosted Sundays at the

Line Hotel, just blocks away in Adams Morgan.

The last two episodes capture the awful uncertainty of the early spring. But musically, they’re palliative, joyful, and apt for the moment. As lockdown measures return across the world and cases rise locally, they’re worth revisiting. Episode 94 was actually recorded on the eve of lockdown in D.C., March 15, and Lapan takes nearly 20 minutes to talk about the mood in Washington that night before playing any music. His words are off the cuff, but his shaky tone is familiar from conversations with friends and family—you remember how quickly things changed. When the music starts, the mood calms down. The set is a mix of tracks off of The Avalanches’ Since I Left You and then a few of the original samples, from soul to thematic music.

By episode 95, Lapan is recording from home, and Edmonson joins him. The set this time is deliberately therapeutic, and they waste no time getting to it, starting off with Bob Marley’s “Positive Vibration” and other classics. The second half of the set moves into hip-hop, featuring A Tribe Called Quest and then a standout track that samples Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime.” Lapan closes with the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.” It’s about what we need right now, and as a sign of the times getting a little better, episode 96 just dropped. The episodes are available at songbyrddc.com/radio. Free.

—Michael Loria

City Lights

Residue

D.C. remains one of the “most rapidly gentrified cities” in the country, so Residue couldn’t be more timely. Merawi Gerima, son of legendary filmmaker and Sankofa Video, Books & Cafe co-founder Haile Gerima, makes his directorial debut with a semi-autobiographical take on a disappearing D.C.: When the film’s protagonist, Jay (Obinna Nwachukwu), returns home to the District after attending school at USC, he finds that the neighborhood he knew has quickly gentrified. The film goes on to explore both the

racial hostilities and sense of loss that arise from gentrification. “I spent a whole year away and I came back to D.C. with all these emotions kind of swirling,” Gerima told Slamdance of his own time away at USC. “Then I saw that the city that I had not really appreciated, you appreciate it more when it’s leaving you.” The film took a year to write, but it was released in the wake of an uprising—an echo of his father’s renowned film Bush Mama, which partially arose as a response to the Watts Rebellion over a decade prior. The film is now streaming on Netflix. Free with subscription.

—Kaila Philo

City Lights

Art in Isolation In one of Rania Matar’s images, friends Minty, Kayla, Leyah and Layla pose within the frame of a large window. The Beirut-born, Bostonbased photographer took this shielded shot during a socially distanced visit. The photo is also part of Art in Isolation: Creativity in the Time of COVID-19, a new exhibit from the Middle East Institute. Art in Isolation speaks for itself. Around the world, artists turned to their creations to navigate days, weeks, or months of lockdown.

Many turned to new mediums, unable to access traditional studios or materials. Recognizing this reality, MEI put out a call for art made by Middle Eastern artists in response to the pandemic. After receiving more than 200 submissions, local curator and arts professional Laila Abdul-Hadi Jadallah selected 54 works from 39 artists, all in different stages of their careers.

Matar’s socially distanced photos are on display alongside various other photographs, paintings, and video diaries; sculptor Athar Jaber contributed “A Mask for Life,” a marble sculpture of a gas mask. Together, these artists represent 15 countries of the Middle East, including Algeria, Palestine, Sudan and Yemen. The exhibition also captures the various ways creatives experienced the challenges of COVID-19. The online exhibition is available at mei.edu/art-gallery through Jan. 29. Free.

—Sarah Smith

washingtoncitypaper.com november 2020 37

DIVERSIONS SAVAGE LOVE

Just a fraction of people reading this are paying members of City Paper.

They make all our reporting free for everyone.

Will you join over 1,000 of your fellow readers?

Become a member.

washingtoncitypaper.com/membership

Why are threesomes much more accepted in the popular imagination than foursomes? I was just Googling “finding foursomes” and the first result is an article about threesomes that takes for granted that people are looking for MFF. That is a form of heteronormativity, right? I am not judging threesomes, of course, but asking why foursomes are perceived as more taboo. Would be interested in knowing more about what you think about this or if you have any resource to recommend, as I am approaching this now with my partner for the first time.

—Willing To Foursome P.S.: Love what you do with your work.

even straight guys—who seek to realize their sexual fantasies with other consenting adults.

And finally, WTF, there is one place where foursomes are far less taboo and could even described as standard: the organized and mostly straight and often supremely heteronormative swingers’ scene. If you and your partner are of the opposite sex and are interested in or willing to settle for strictly heterosexual sex where men are concerned, you might find more luck arranging foursomes at swingers’ parties, once those parties are possible again, than on dating apps.

—Dan Savage

I don’t think the popular imagination has conspired against foursomes or that foursomes are really that much more taboo than threesomes, WTF. Rather, I think threesomes are easier to arrange than foursomes and the popular imagination reflects that fact. Think about it: Finding two people who wanna fuck each other is hard.

Finding three people who all wanna fuck each other—Person A wants to fuck Person B and Person C, Person B wants to fuck Person A and Person C, Person C wants to fuck Person A and Person B—is harder still. Adding a Person D to the mix makes the wannafuck math infinitely more complicated. Which is not to say everybody fucks everybody during a threesome, of course, but at the very least everyone involved has to at least be OK with fucking in very close proximity to everyone else involved.

And while complicated to arrange and often emotionally tricky, WTF, threesomes aren’t really that taboo. According to research into sexual fantasies done by Dr. Justin Lehmiller, it’s the single most common sexual fantasy.

More than 90 percent of men and nearly 90 percent of women fantasize about having a threesome, according to Dr. Lehmiller’s research.

According to other research, roughly one-infive people have actually participated in at least one threesome. (Full disclosure/cumblebrag: I lost my virginity in a MMF threesome.)

Threesomes are heteronormative by design, e.g. they were arranged to fulfill a straight man’s standard-issue MFF fantasy, but judging from my mail, just as many MFF threesomes are arranged to fulfill the same-sex desires of often-but-not-alwaysnewly-out bisexual women who already have husbands or boyfriends—less heteronormative and more bisupportive/biexplorative.

(My mail isn’t scientific evidence, I realize, but it’s what I’ve got.) And for the record, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a heteronormative threesome. Straight guys should be allowed to have and be allowed to realize their sexual fantasies without being shamed, just like everyone else, so long as they’re realizing them with consenting adult partners. And while straight guys have historically done most of the judging and shaming of non-straight/non-guys over the entire course of human history, the corrective isn’t to heap shame on straight guys with off-therack sexual fantasies. It’s to demand that no one should be shamed for their sexual fantasies, and we demonstrate our commitment to that principle by not shaming anyone—not

Where do I go from here? My parents voted for Trump in 2016 and again in 2020. I’m a lesbian. My partner and I have been together for nearly 20 years. My parents have always been supportive, and we have a great relationship. But I can’t reconcile their vote for this piece of trash. They’re not even pro-life or religious. I genuinely don’t understand.

—What The Fuck Do I Do Now?

38 november 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

“The parents who disappointed you and endangered our democracy in this election are more likely to come around before the next election if you demand answers from them now.”

My dad voted for George W. Bush in 2004.

Bush’s campaign was pushing anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives across the country in the hopes that bigots would turn out in huge numbers and put his incompetent ass back in the White House. The fact that the then-president of the United States—the worst one we thought we’d see in our lifetimes—was waging a demagogic campaign against one of his own children didn’t stop my dad from voting for him. For a second time.

I didn’t stop talking to my father.

While I believe we have to confront family members about their bigotries and that there have to be social consequences when people vote for racism and fascism and oligarchy and corruption and disease and death, WTFDIDN, I don’t think cutting off contact with non-toxic/ non-QAnon parents or family members is the answer. Where there’s evidence of cognitive dissonance—and a family member voting for someone seeking to harm people they love is certainly evidence of cognitive dissonance— there’s also an opportunity. So I would urge you

to express your displeasure to your parents and demand better from them and to keep bringing it up. While text messages from strangers and robocalls often fail to move people, appeals to conscience—sometimes angry ones—from family members often work. I’ve heard from a lot of people over the last few months whose parents voted for Trump in 2016 but voted for Biden this year. I wish I could say my dad was one of them. Maybe next time.

There are elections coming up in 2022 and there’s a high likelihood we will see a Trump on the ballot in 2024. (There are two special elections in Georgia in January that will determine who controls the U.S. Senate!) The parents who disappointed you and endangered our democracy in this election are more likely to come around before the next election if you demand answers from them now.

—DS I’d like to think I am pretty open and understanding to a lot of things. I met a hot guy at my job who says he has a fetish for ass. In a sexting session, I learned he was not only obsessed with my ass, but with me playing with his too. He later revealed there was only one other woman with whom he felt comfortable sharing his gay fantasies. Everything involved ass play, sucking dildos or DP. (Eyebrow raised.) I asked him if he was curious about gay sex and he said no.

In no way does he want a man, he said, and everything he wanted done to him he wanted a woman to do. We’ve had several sexting sessions and it always shifts to me dominating him or a gay sex fantasy. I really want to be open but he is making this very hard.

—Questioning Unusual Exceptionally Erotic Relationship This would be easier if you were clear—clear with yourself—about what you want and what’s possible. If you want a long-term relationship that doesn’t revolve around ass play and you couldn’t possibly enjoy a casual sexual adventure with a hot guy who isn’t a good potential long-term partner, then you should stop sexting with him. But if you’re up for a crazy, ass-centered sexual adventure with a hot guy that won’t lead to anything serious or long-term, then get yourself a strap-on dildo and order this not-gay guy to get on his not-gay knees and suck your not-gay dick.

I suspect you feel tense after sexting with this guy because you’re left thinking, “My God, what am I signing up for here?” The animating assumption being that “going there” means getting stuck there. But if you told yourself you were only signing up for a crazy night or a crazy weekend with this ass-obsessed dude and not a lifetime with him, you would most likely feel a lot less nervous about this connection. In other words, QUEER, being open to playing with this guy doesn’t mean you have to be open to dating him, much less marrying him. But, again, if having a sexual adventure with someone who isn’t a potential long-term partner isn’t something you could see yourself doing and enjoying, QUEER, stop responding to this guy’s sext messages.

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

CLASSIFIEDS Legal Notices IN THE SUPERIOR COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (Civil Division) CHENITA PITTMANHOLT 4053 Chimney Swift Court Waldorf, Maryland 20603 Plaintiff, vs. Case #: 2020 CA 003430 B Next Event: Initial Conf.

01.15.20 Judge Fern Flanagan Saddler HILLWOOD CONDOMINIUM ASSOCIATION Serve Registered Agent: Samuel Powell 1725 Gainseville Street, SE Suite 201 Washington, DC 20020 Defendant.

POSTING NOTICE This is to give notice that on the 5th day of August, 2020, a Complaint for an Accounting, Conversion, and Damages in the above- captioned matter was filed in the Superior Court for the District of Columbia.

The Complaint states in pertinent part that the Plaintiff is the owner of the property located at 1707 Gainesville St reet, SE, Unit 101, Washington, DC. The Defendant is a nonprofit condominium association duly organized and existing under the laws of the District of Columbia. The property located at 1707 Gainesville Street, SE, Unit 101, Washington, DC is part of the Defendant Association thus it is subject to its Articles of Incorporation, By-Laws, and Declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions. Inasmuch as the property located at 1707 Gainesville Street, SE, Unit 101, Washington, DC is part of the Defendant Association the Plaintiff is required to pay monthly assessments, inter alia, to the Defendant Association for her proportionate share of common area and other expenses associated with maintaining the Defendant Association.

The Plaintiff was notified by letter dated January 8, 2019 that the past due amount on her account at that time was $11,912.48.

The ledger attached thereto contained several charges that were improperly accessed, inexplicable and/or, excessive. Thereafter on February 14, 2019 the Plaintiff was given a Notice of Foreclosure Sale of Condominium Unit for Assessments Due that indicated the past due amount on her account at that time was $17,919.17.

The Plaintiff paid the Defendant approximately 15,032.62 to avoid having the property located 1707 Gainesville Street, SE,

Unit 101, Washington, DC foreclosed. Prior to the commencement of this action, Plaintiff, by her attorney demanded of the Defendant that they render an accounting of charges were improperly accessed, inexplicable and/or, excessive in the Plaintiff ’s estimation as per the Condominium ByLaws of the Defendant Association; specifically Section 7.6 Statement of Unpaid Assessments.

The Defendant failed to render an accounting of the amount(s) allegedly due and owing from the Plaintiff as requested without, justification, cause or excuse within the time frame required by the By-Laws.

WHEREUPON, IT WAS ORDERED, by the Superior Court for District of Columbia on 3rd day of November, 2020, that the Plaintiff shall publish notice of this proceeding in at least one legal newspaper or periodical of daily circulation having general circulation in the District of Columbia, once a week in each for three (3) consecutive week Respectfully Submitted, /s/ Scott L. Little Scott L. Little Bar 463440 The Law Offices of Scott L. Little, L.L.C. P.O. Box 1057 Upper Marlboro, MD 20773 301. 535.9606 Attorney for the Plaintiff November 12,19,26, 2020 THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA HOUSING AUTHORITY REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS (RFP) SOLICITATION NO.: 0030-2020 OWNERS REPRESENTATIVE/CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT SERVICES The District of Columbia Housing Authority (DCHA) requires qualified Owners Representative/Construction Management Services for various upcoming development projects.

SOLICITATION DOCUMENTS will be available beginning Monday, October 19, 2020 on DCHA’s website at www.dchousing.org under “Business” and “Solicitation.”

SEALED PROPOSAL RESPONSES ARE DUE ON OR BEFORE Thursday, November 19, 2020 at 11:00 AM. Email Lolita Washington, Contract Specialist at lwashing@dchousing.org with copy to business@dchousing.org for additional information.

DC INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL INVITATION FOR BID COMPENSATION DESIGN CONSULTANT RFP for Compensation

Design Consultant: DC International School is seeking competitive bids consultants who can evaluate current salaries, do a comparison with local markets, and work with us to develop a compensation philosophy and salary bands for our nonteaching employees, with equity as a primary driver.

Proposals will need to include relevant experience, qualifications, estimated timeline, and estimated fees. Please send proposals to RFP@ dcinternationalschool. org. Proposals must be received no later than the close of business on Friday, November 20, 2020.

NOVEMBER MEETING AGENDA BOARD OF TRUSTEES DC SCHOLARS PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL (DCSPCS) Wednesday, November 18, 2020, 4:30-630pm via Zoom https://dcscholars-org. zoom.us/j/92806868940 Welcome and Agenda Review Approve Meeting Minutes * September 23, 2020 Annual Meeting Minutes * September 23, 2020 Meeting Minutes * September 30, 2020 Meeting Minutes Interim Head of School Introduction and Report DC Public Charter School Board Meetings Update Dr. Michelle Walker-Davis (ED of DC PCSB), Bob Weinberg, and Jennifer Leonard meeting DC PCSB Board and Staff Meeting with DC Scholars Board and Leadership Team Committee Reports Finance Committee i. Approval of Contracts ii. Approval of Audited Financials iii. Approval of September Financials Head of School Committee i. IHOS Review Process Governance Committee i. Board needs an additional Board of Trustee Academics Committee i. Dashboard Update Development Committee i. Giving Updates Executive Session - In accordance with DC Law 23-148, Section 2-575(b) (10), this portion of the agenda will be closed to discuss and to take a vote on minutes regarding personnel matters of DC Scholars Public Charter School Closing This meeting is governed

by the Open Meetings Act. Please address any questions or complaints arising under this meeting to the Office of Open Government at opengovoffice@dc.gov.

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PROBATE DIVISION 2020 ADM 000191 Name of Decedent, Sandylee Maccoby aka Sandy .

Name and Address of Attorney Abigail Scott, Esq Regan Associates, Chtd, 1003 K Street, NW, Third Floor, Washington, DC 20001. Notice of Appointment, Notice to Creditors and Notice to Unknown Heirs, Mervat Mahgoub, whose address is 1906 Jackson Street, NE, Washington, DC 20018, was appointed Personal Representative of the estate of Alaaeldin Abdelmegid Saleh who died on December 28, 2019, without 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 10/9/2020.

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 10/9/2020, 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: 4/9/2020 Name of Newspaper and/or periodical: Washington City Paper/ Daily Washington Law Reporter. Name of Personal Representative: Mervat Mahgoub TRUE TEST copy Nicole Stevens Acting Register of Wills Pub Dates: April 9, 16, 23.

TWO RIVERS PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL INTENT TO AWARD A SOLE SOURCE CONTRACT Trane BACnet EMS Two Rivers Public Charter School intends to enter into a sole-source contract with W.L. Gary and Trane to upgrade the previous generation Tracer Summit controls system to the latest technology Trane web-based BACnet open protocol system for two of its HVAC systems. The cost of this contract will be approximately $57,363.

The decision to sole

source was made because Trane’s BACnet EMS is proprietary and designed to manage the facilities HVAC units.

Please contact Gail Williams with any questions at procurement@tworiverspcs.org.

TWO RIVERS PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS RTU Replacement Two Rivers PCS is soliciting price quotes from certified Trane vendors to install two RTU replacements. To request a copy of the RFP, email Gail Williams at procurement@ tworiverspcs.org. Proposals are due by December 11, 2020.

TWO RIVERS PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS Bipolar Ionization Two Rivers PCS is soliciting price quotes from a licensed vendor to install bipolar ionization in three buildings totaling 104K Sq. Ft. To request a copy of the RFP, email Gail Williams at procurement@tworiverspcs.org. Proposals are due by December 11, 2020.

ACADEMY OF HOPE ADULT PCS has issued a RFP for Executive Search Services.

Please visit www.aohdc. org for more information.

DC INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL INVITATION FOR BID COVID 19 Testing RFP for Compensation Design Consultant: DC International School is seeking competitive bids for COVID 19 testing for our staff and students. We are looking for regularly scheduled testing of our students and staff, to be done on our campus at 1400 Main Drive NW, with results delivered in a timely fashion. Proposals will need to include relevant experience, qualifications, and estimated fees.

Please send proposals to RFP@dcinternationalschool.org. Proposals must be received no later than the close of business on Friday, November 27, 2020.

NOTICE TO CREDITORS TO THE ESTATE OF ANTHONY BISHOP, decreased of Forestville, Maryland who died on January 20, 2020.

All persons having claims upon the estate must file a claim with the named Personal Representative, Pamela Bishop at 9201 Edgeworth Drive Unit 5050, Capitol Heights, MD 20791.

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

Employment 3 STRONG PEOPLE to move heavy boxes.

Call 301-383-4504 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 MCDOOGALS NIGHTCLUB SEEKING FEMALE DANCERS Want to have fun while earning Big $$$ Text 443-540-6119

Services ATTENTION ACTIVE DUTY & MILITARY VETERANS! Begin a new career and earn your Degree at CTI! Online Computer & Medical training available for Veterans & Families! To learn more, call 855-541-6634 OVER $10K IN DEBT? Be debt free in 24-48 months.

Pay a fraction of what you owe. A+ BBB rated. Call National Debt Relief 877-590-1202 GUARANTEED LIFE INSURANCE! (Ages 50 to 80). No medical exam. Affordable premiums never increase.

Benefits never decrease.

Policy will only be cancelled for non-payment.

HOURS: M-F 9a-10p & Sat 11a-2p EST 1-888-386-0113 SAVE YOUR HOME! Are you behind paying your MORTGAGE? Denied a Loan Modification? Is the bank threatening foreclosure?

CALL Homeowners Relief Line NOW for Help 1-855439-5853 Mon-Fri : 8:00 am to 8:00 pm Sat: 8:00 am to 1:00 pm

4G LTE HOME INTERNET NOW AVAILABLE! Get GotW3 with lightning fast speeds plus take your service with you when you travel! As low as $109.99/ mo! 1-888-519-0171 HUGHESNET SATELLITE INTERNET – Finally, no hard data limits! Call Today for speeds up to 25mbps as low as $59.99/ mo! $75 gift card, terms apply. 1-844-416-7147 HEARING AIDS!! Buy one/ get one FREE! High-quality rechargeable Nano hearing aids priced 90% less than competitors.

Nearly invisible! 45-day money back guarantee!

1-833-585-1117 IF YOU ARE LOOKING TO LEARN A NEW SKILL SET that can help you earn money from home using your cell phone contact Vanessa @ 301-541-8407 BOY SCOUT COMPENSATION FUND - Anyone that 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! 844-896-8216 PERSONAL INJURY LAWYER. Car accidents. Dog bites.

Slip and Falls. Free Consultation. Please call Lena Yahchouchi at 818-636-2861 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: 855-569-1909.

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

Get a quote within minutes. Average savings of $444/year!

Call 844-712-6153!

(M-F 8am-8pm Central)

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

Learn your options. Good credit not necessary.

Call the Helpline 888670-5631

Music PANDEMIC BLUES? Learn to play blues guitar and bass from brian Gross, award winning guitar instructor/blues guitarist/ band leader of BG and the Mojo Hands. Free lesson first month. Bgmojo.com 301-332-4242

Buy Sell Trade DONATE YOUR CAR TO CHARITY. Receive maximum value of write off for your taxes. Running or not! All conditions accepted. Free pickup. Call for details. 855-978-0215 CASH FOR CARS! We buy all cars! Junk, high-end, totaled – it doesn’t matter!

Get free towing and same day cash! NEWER MODELS too! Call 866-535-9689

Community GANGSTER CLUB USING AUDIO BOOKS and print publications, we are looking for individuals interested in gangsters for biweekly discussions over the phone. Contact Steven stvn9@aol.com if interested.

WORLD WARS: WORLD WAR I AND WORLD WAR II Looking for someone to discuss the world wars including the decade immediately before and after such wars. Please contact Steven at Stevenstvn9@aol.com LITERARY SCIENCE FICTION: I am interested in meeting other men to read science fiction in the fall/winter.

I have ordered several science fiction books from Easton Press. Contact Steven - stvn9@aol.com if interested. I am a particular fan of Star Trek TOS. VIAGRA & CIALIS! 60 pills for $99. 100 pills for $150.

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

CITYPAPER WASHINGTON

Stay tuned with local news.

Follow City Paper on social media.

washingtoncitypaper.com november 2020 39

Pride is seeing yourself on screen.

Representation is everything. That’s why Xfinity is proud to have the largest collection of LGBTQ shows and movies on Xfinity X1. Just say, “LGBTQ,” into your Xfinity Voice Remote to quickly find all the entertainment you love. Plus, you can easily access your favorite streaming apps right on your TV, and all without switching inputs. It’s Pride all year, only with Xfinity.

Visit xfinity.com/LGBTQ

Restrictions apply. Not available in all areas. Xfinity TV with X1 required. Programming subject to change. Subscriptions required to access HBO,® Netflix and Hulu. © 2020 Comcast. All rights reserved. Individual programs and marks are property of their respective owners. NPA233359-0002 NED Q4 LGBTQ SCRN V6

138876_NPA233359-0002 Pride ad 9.875x11.25 V6.indd 1

10/19/20 6:50 PM