Thursday, August 28, 2008

big-league plumbing


Starting at 10 pm yesterday, a team of Arlington County and William Hazel Co. workers installed a new section for a water pipe at the corner of N. Ode St. and Ft. Myer. Water doesn't just appear out of your faucets by magic. A complicated system and a lot of expertise gets you water. The work crew clearly know what they were doing and put on a brilliant display of plumbing prowess. Public water working is a much more useful sport than anything in the Olympics.

Friday, August 22, 2008

the future of rock

The future of rock and roll is right here in Arlington. At Whitlow's on Wilson, every Tuesday night, starting at 9 pm, Flip hosts an X-Box Rock Band festival. Dead rock stars are re-incarnated and new rock stars are born. Don't miss this opportunity to realize your dream. All you need is imagination. Flip supplies the X-Box and some fine guitars.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

re-paving Rt. 50 reaches Rosslyn


Crews, working at night, have pushed four new lanes of pavement on Rt. 50 to the western edge of Rosslyn. Two more lanes and about a half-mile to go.

Update: Tacitly acknowledging the superiority of Rosslyn asphalt, re-paving stopped at the edge of Rosslyn.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Westmoreland's beans win first prize


The Arlington County Fair, which concluded today at the Thomas Jefferson Community Center, featured exciting and highly competitive produce and baked goods competitions. I am delighted to report that Kathleen K. Westmoreland won a first-premium prize with her French beans. Ms. Westmoreland's okra also won a first-premium prize. These prizes are more jewels in the crown of Westmoreland Terrace Condominiums.

Additional Fair coverage:

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

write a limerick, win a diamond pendant

Check out Mervis Diamonds' limerick-writing contest. Some details:
The best limerick wins a $500 diamond pendant! The winning entry will be funny, clever, romantic and include the flavor of DC. And additionally, we’ll print our favorite few submissions in our weekly ads in The ONION: each week, a different diamond limerick. What I’d like to do, and the details are yet to be worked out, is host a little happy hour for the winning writers and Ronnie Mervis will do a reading of his favorite pieces. That should be fun!

My favorite entry thus far is this one by Tom Bridge:
There once was a fella named Mervis
Who hocks the stones most imperv’ous
He sold me a rock
and a ring from his stock
and now we’re engag’d and pretty nervous!

I asked a disheveled, impecunious poet who lives in a garret up the street what he thought of this limerick. This is what he said:
Hhhhh. "There once was a fella": conventional, possibly classic. Emmm, early-modern feel with the first rhyme, "imperv'ous". Ah, ah, wonderful, a muscular couplet with stout, single-syllable cadence, that then collapses into a jittery concluding line! [then unintelligible feverish mutterings]

Whatever. Tom, who writes for the excellent We Love DC blog, will surely become bigger than Shakespeare even if he doesn't win the Mervis diamond.

Westmoreland Condo BBQ/get-together

Westmoreland Terrace Condos' 4'th annual BBQ/get-together is this Friday, starting at 6pm at the condo office, 1314 Ft. Myer Dr. Bring your own wine, beer, steak, etc. All residents are invited. Friendly neighbors bringing beer probably would have no problem sneaking in.

Update: Nice crowd, fun event.


Saturday, August 2, 2008

cosmic event in Rosslyn

Forget about Stonehenge. This past Friday morning, August 1, the place to be for cosmic alignment was Rosslyn.

According to official government documents, on August 1, 1860, William Henry Ross purchased the land that became Rosslyn. Ross apparently lost his land after the Civil War. Rosslyn then became a place "known primarily for its gambling halls, pawnshops, saloons, brothels and unsavory inhabitants."

That all means nothing in the grand span of cosmic time.

Every August 1, at 9:32am, at the indescribable intersection of Fairfax Dr., Fort Myer Dr., N. Lynn St., and N. Meade St., the shadows cast by the world-famous Dark Star Park land-art installation align with metal forms in the ground.

I didn't see it because I had to get to work. Would Arlington County please dig up Dark Star Park and re-align it for some more convenient time, say 7:30am?

The deep truth is imageless. A man from Alexandria, who appeared for the cosmic event, told me the deep significance of August 1 and Dark Star Park. I promised not to reveal the secret. You can always rely on the Ode Street Tribune, your best local news source.


Correction: Judith B., who is William Henry Ross's great great granddaughter, has written in from Australia to tell me that the William Henry Ross who purchased the land that is Rosslyn isn't W H H Ross from Delaware. It's another William Henry Ross, a Scot who worked in London and Liverpool and who owned a shipping line. He fled Rosslyn during the Civil War and returned to England. The land that became Rosslyn was deeded to Caroline Ross, William Henry Ross's wife. She inherited the land from her father, John Lambden, who owned a sugar plantation in Cuba.