Romanoke tops Image/Project

The Arlington Arts Center is currently featuring an exhibit entitled Image/Project.  According to the exhibition description, it's "a national survey of photography and video."  Guggenheim Fellow Taryn Simon, represented by Gagosian gallery in New York, selected 17 projects from a list of qualified photographic and video art.  The Arlington Arts Center website explains:

The show reflects the ways in which contemporary artists tend to approach photography and video. Many of the artists presented here use photography as either a means for documenting or presenting cross-disciplinary projects, or as a tool for inquiry into the way we perceive and live in the world.

Arlington Arts Center has hosted fantastic exhibitions of original, creative art. Image/Project, unfortunately, seems to me about as insipid as the above description of it.  Fine art like Sun Xun's Shock of Time -- this show has none of it.

But a trip to the Arlington Arts Center some time before Jan. 16, 2010, would be a worthwhile and enjoyable excursion.  First, play awhile on the play ship.  Then check out Image/Project.  You might enjoy it much more than I did.  Go downstairs and see This is My City / Esta Es Mi Ciudad, an exhibition of photographs by students from Arlington and Suchitoto, El Salvador.  These photographs seem to me to provide a more wide-ranging perspective on the world that do the works in Image/Project.  Most rewarding of all, go upstairs and gaze upon Jill Romanoke's luminous charts.

Jill Romanoke's charts conceptually connect ancient Chinese oracle bones to modern bureaucratic artists such as Hanne Darboven.  Romanoke's charts consist of five piece of paper pressed together.  Each piece of paper Romanoke associates with a different place, and each has a different design.  By stacking the papers, Romanoke makes the designs interact virtually, but also accentuates the physicality of the paper.  All the paper she uses is hand-crafted.  She mentioned that some of her paper includes ground clam shells, while other paper was placed in a snow bank for weeks as part of the process of making it.  Beautifully hung and lit in the Arlington Arts Center, the charts radiate oracularly, but they also insistently, materially trace a specific history.

*  *  *  * *
This is My City / Esta Es Mi Ciudad, Image/Project, and works by Evan Reed & Jill Romanoke are on exhibition at the Arlington Arts Center from Nov. 20, 2009 to Jan. 16, 2010.  As always, admission is free.

please conserve water

Repair crews are still working round the clock to repair a Arlington water main that broke on Monday.  Arlington County asks residents to conserve water.  You can do this by taking fewer and shorter showers, not doing laundry, flushing the toilet less, not letting the water run, and minimizing the use of water when washing dishes.   Arlington water remains safe to drink.

James Bea, who has worked for Arlington County for 24 years, died from electrocution while working on the water main repair site this Wednesday morning.   A second Arlington employee was seriously injured.  Please join with their family and friends in recognizing this tragic loss.  We should also be thankful today and every day for the dangerous work that James Bea and others do so that we have water, power, and clean, attractive buildings.



I cycled by the site of the water main break at the corner of Glebe Rd and Old Glebe Rd this morning about 11:30am.  There's still a huge hole in the middle of the road. Traffic on Glebe Rd heading toward Chain Bridge was reduced to one lane.   Use extra caution when driving down Glebe Rd.

Update: Water main back in service. Special request to conserve water no longer applies.  Some traffic restrictions remain to be resolved.

Rosslyn from airplane

Photo taken on Friday, Sept. 25, 2009 at 10:21 am from Delta Air Lines Flight 6339 operated by COMAIR INC (on Canadair Regional Jet), taking off from Reagan National and flying north. A Canadair Region Jet has 50 to 76 seats (depending on model).   Planes flying over Rosslyn create noise.   Encourage people taking flights to take pictures of Rosslyn and send them to the Ode Street Tribune.  A little photo-journalism should help the FAA to enforce its rules.

about those reports of a space ship

The Ode Street Tribune recently sent its crack investigative team to uncover the real story behind persistent reports of a ship, possibly a spaceship, on the ground west of Rosslyn.  Have no fear, we are here to inform you that the ship is a play ship. It's Bonifatius Stirnberg's Spielschiff (Play Ship).  It was installed on the grounds of the Arlington Arts Center in 2007 in conjunction with Planet Arlington.  A plaque at the site explains:

Spielschiff (Play Ship in German) is an interactive play sculpture with parts that can be repositioned, swiveled, peered through, and explored.  Children can imagine they command a magical vessel either from the lower level's revolving hull, or in the crow's nest, equipped with kaleidoscopes and a weathervane.  Stirnberg recast Spielschiff from molds he used in 1979 to create an identical piece for Aachen, Arlington's German sister city.  Here, a medallion on the upper level is cast with the word Arlington on one side, and Oche (Aachen in dialect) on the other, representing the sister-cities relationship.

Like most forms of fun, playing on the Spielschiff involves some danger.  A child who fell from the top level through the ladder hole could be seriously hurt.  If you bring kids to enjoy this great art, take appropriate care for their safety.

Below is full video coverage of our investigation into the ship reports.

helping the homeless and the hungry

This month's meeting of our neighborhood civic association RAFOM featured Kathleen Sibert of the Arlington Street People's Assistance Network and Fred Jones of the Arlington Food Assistance Center.

The Arlington Street People's Assistance Network (A-SPAN) has outreach worker Terrence Toussaint (TToussaint@A-SPAN.org 703-663-0247) working in the Rosslyn area. He gets to know homeless persons in the area and seeks to find ways to help them. A-SPAN's bagged meal program hands out meals every night at 6:30 pm at Gateway Park in Rosslyn. On S. Nelson Street, just off Four Mile Run Dr in South Arlington, A-SPAN runs a facility that offers homeless people a mailing address, phone, showers, and laundry facilities.  You can help homeless people with acknowledgment of their presence, with friendly conversation, by buying them some food if they want some, and by contacting A-SPAN to let them know about a person's need.  A-SPAN number for calling to request assistance for a homeless person is 703 820-HELP (4357).

With the nation-wide economic downturn, A-SPAN's corporate and foundation support has declined, but its individual contributions have increased.  You can help A-SPAN with your donations of money, volunteer time, and clothes, blankets, toiletries, and food.  See the A-SPAN website for more information about these opportunities.  The Help the Homeless Walkathon is this Saturday morning starting at 9am.  You can register online for a minimum donation of $25.  For a $100 donation, you can attend A-SPAN's Help the Homeless Holiday Gala at the Top of the Town on Thursday, Dec. 10th, 6:30-9pm.

The Arlington Food Assistance Center (AFAC) distributes groceries to people living in Arlington who cannot afford enough food for their basic needs. AFAC distributes food Monday through Saturday from its warehouse in S. Nelson St, next to the A-SPAN facility.  It also distributes food at the Clarendon United Methodist Church every Saturday, 9:30 am to 10:30am.  Of the food AFAC distributes, 65% is donated by individuals and local businesses, and 35% is purchased.  Fred Jones spoke passionately about AFAC's concern to respect the dignity of the persons it serves and to provide them with nutritious, healthful food.  One program that helps AFAC to provide persons with fresh vegetables is its Plant A Row for the Hungry Program. It enlists gardeners in producing fresh vegetables for AFAC.   That senior citizen who was going on about gardening might have been worth listening to after all.

AFAC serves clients through referrals from Arlington County government agencies, churches, schools, and other social service agencies.  Two-thirds of AFAC referrals are through Arlington's Department of Human Services.  This past week AFAC served 1,283 families, up from 759 two years ago.  Within these hungry families, 39% of the persons served were children. You can help AFAC with donations of money, food, and volunteer time. 

Other items discussed at the RAFOM meeting:

• A 12-story apartment building with 100-110 housing units has been proposed to be built in the parking lot of the Wakefield Manor Apartments, just off Rt. 50, in the Courthouse Rd., 13th St., N. Troy St. block.  Site plan may be submitted to the County this spring, with construction possibly starting in 2011.  Meeting attendees discussed concerns about parking availability and stress on water and power infrastructure.
• The neighbor sign design depicting Iwo Jima won the neighbor sign voting with 60% of the votes.  RAFOM will now work with the County to determine sites for the signs, which will be placed on both sides of Rt. 50.
• RAFOM's annual holdiay party for low-income families in the RAFOM neighbor will take place on Dec. 11.  The holiday party will feature music, food, Santa and elves, and toys for children.  Local restaurants are generously donating food to this event.  To help with this happy, fun event, contact Stan Karson at RAFOM.

The next RAFOM meeting will be in February.

your chores are easy

Don't let household chores get you down. It could be much, much worse. The best way to begin doing housework is by first surfing the web for inspiration. As always, the Ode Street Tribune is here to serve you.

art scene in Rosslyn

As part of fotoweek DC,  the future site of Central Place in the middle of Rosslyn became a screen for photographic and video art every night from Nov. 6 to Nov. 10.  This was a spectacular event.  The curators made brilliant use of the Rosslyn built scenery.  That's right, the beautiful built scenery of downtown Rosslyn.  So stop wondering when the construction of Central Place will begin again, and start hoping that Rosslyn BID, in collaboration with the JBG Companies (the developer of Central Place) and Arlington Cultural Affairs, will stage more shows like this.

about 5 min wait to vote in Rosslyn

At 8am on this sunny fall day, I waited in line about 5 minutes to vote in the Wilson Precinct. The situation in the Rosslyn Precinct next door in the firehouse looked similar. A campaign worker told me that turn out had been very light, but was picking up.

you can feel it

Signs of time passing. Winter's coming.