Tuesday, April 15, 2008
HeraldTrib Today: April 16, 2008
I am working on a couple bigger stories, including one about grants funding at K.W. Barrett Elementary School. I am hoping to post that one tomorrow.
K.W. Barrett Elementary School PTA held its second annual auction Friday. Organizers have called it a huge success. The official tally has not been counted, but those in know (including PTA President Melanie Wilhelm) put it at over $20,000! That is not a bad haul. A huge shout-out should go to auction chair Karen Hildebrand, who is being treated to a week’s worth of home-cooked dinners for all her work.
With that money, Principal Terry Bratt said that Barrett can buy about seven “smartboards,” interactive projector screens that allow users to operate a connected computer by touching the screen. If you have not seen them, they are cool (I am a tad jealous; we do not have those at Montgomery College as far as I know). I thought the night was a lot of fun. My daughter Hazel gets to have a lunch date with her teacher Julie Schneider, and she’s looking forward to that. I cannot get two things off my mind, however, and I go back and forth over them. I am one of those people who wonders about the fairness of PTA fundraising in general. I mean if we really need the smartboards, we should pay for them through taxes, right? Basically, we are taxing ourselves to pay for something we want. But is that fair? The money should go into a larger pool so that the schools and communities that need the most, get the most. Or, to switch it around, should the people in “really north” Arlington (not us in “just-barely-north” Arlington) who probably make much more than we do in auctions be forced to help us pay for our smartboards? As well, we all have to admit that the auction was a night of English speaking, which is not altogether Barrett. I know the argument there, too, that the purpose of an auction is not for parity in the winning, but to make the most money for the school. That money is then used to help everyone, including children in families who cannot afford to be there, or cannot afford to win a prize. Still, there must be some way to make the auction more inclusive. When my children went to Arlington Unitarian Cooperative Preschool, my wife and I worked on the auction there, so I know what a huge burden this event is, and Ms. Hildebrand did a stand-up job. My comments are not meant to pick at it, and I know my comments have been discussed by people more in-the-know than I. Comments like those, though, should come with a “put-up or shut-up” clause. So I’ll put up. I’ll help work on the auction for next year, and someone else could nitpik.
The opera guild of Northern Virginia has arranged a public discussion of arts in the schools.
Their release says: “Is there an arts education crisis in our own public schools? So far, Guild research has not been able to find one. Is the news all good, or should parents be concerned? What is the County’s vision? Can parents and community members help fill in any gaps? Four speakers will discuss some of the many issues involved.”
Those four speakers include: K.W. Barrett Elementary School music teacher, Ms. Mary Hanna Klontz;.Arlington Public Schools Superintendent Robert Smith; Ms. Carol Erion, APS’s supervisor of arts education; Ms. Cecelia Espenoza, CCPTA in APS.
The event is free, but the Opera Guild is asking that you bring cookies for the intermission, if you can. Contact: Contact Miriam Miller, OGNV, 703-536-7557, mcdm1@verizon.net.
REVIEW
My wife, Cathy, and I took in A View from the Bridge at Arena Stage’s “Crystal Forum.” The venue is a basement office space in Crystal City converted into a temporary theatre while Arena Stage builds a new space over the Potomac (it is set to open 2010).
The space was nice enough, and I doubt there is a really bad seat in the house. This is part of Arena’s Arthur Miller Festival. The play, which had its American debut at Arena back in 1955 according to the playbill, is in rotation with Death of a Salesman through May 18.
Really the worst part of the acting was in the accents. David Agranov as Rodolpho sounded Russian at times. Noble Shropshire (Alfieri) sounded more like a German Jew than the Italian-American lawyer he was playing. I had never read nor seen the play before and thought, until he said he was Italian, that the play was going to have some racial or ethnic strife between the Italian Catholics and the German Jews.
Turns out the play does have ethnic (or cultural) strife, but not because the Catholic Italians were going to the Jewish lawyer. All the ethnic strife revolves around settled Italian-Americans and the influence of Italian illegal immigrants.
Other than some bad accents, the acting was fine.
Delaney Williams does a nice job as Eddie, a man whose care for his niece Catherine (Virginia Kull) borders on, or teeters into, obsessive. Ms. Kull did an excellent job as a girl-turning-woman. Her girlish bopping around the apartment slowly matures into sexual tension that she does not even realize at first. Naomi Jacobson as Eddie’s wife Beatrice does an excellent job as the woman caught in the middle, who orders Catherine to empower herself and “act like a woman” even though Bea has a hard time with her own empowerment.
Before we entered the theatre one of the ushers said that the play would cover contemporary topics, especially of illegal immigration. But what my wife, who knows these things, noticed was the structure of conflict.
Brothers Rodolopho and Marco (Louis Cancelmi), the illegal immigrants who move into Eddie’s small apartment, help show how the petty wants of individuals can become part of international conflicts. The play looks at how conflict boils up between newcomers that “don’t act right” in an established society.
It’s worth the view.
The Week’s Headlines…
As always, you can scroll down to see all the recent stories, or simply click the links below (if the link doesn't work, scroll down to find the story, and email to tell me what's busted: heraldtrib@gmail.com --Steve Thurston).
Today's Headlines:
Headlines from Earlier in the Week:
Labels: art, arthur miller, auction, Barrett, review
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
HeraldTrib Today: Jan. 23, 2008
First of all, the apartment building at 461 N. Thomas St. (just north of N. Henderson Road) will be coming down, to be replaced, most likely, with another, larger apartment building. The story is below.
We have police notes.
Also, I am very happy to report that on our companion site (the H&H Report), we have our first guest bloggers—Cole and Leo (6 and 4, respectively). The H&H Report is a reviews site for kids, by kids. It’s something we set up just a couple weeks ago, and the response so far has been very good.
A number of you have tried to post comments, but could not because you do not have gmail accounts. That has been fixed. Now, anyone can post. I will be looking at those comments, though, and pulling anything that I deem inappropriate.
We have three reviews up there now. The two latest are “Alvin and the Chipmunks” and “The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep.” Last week’s post included “The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything” (which has a new comment).
Make sure you check out the posts, and then get your kids to write something for it—reviews of movies, plays, DVDs, books, events, whatever. Email me what you have.
I have to point out the comment to this post about streetlights that ran last week. I had written that lights were out at the corner of N. Henderson and N. Glebe roads. The commenter ("Neil") gave a link to a county site, appropriately named "The Street Lights Report Form," that lets you tell them where lights are out. Excellent, and thanks, Neil.
One last thing. Check out the site later this week as I will have a survey for you to take—it will ask about the retail space at the intersection of N. Pershing Drive and N. Glebe Road. Look for it, it will be fun.
The Week’s Headlines…
As always, you can scroll down to see all the recent stories, or simply click the links below (if the link doesn't work, scroll down to find the story, and email to tell me what's busted: heraldtrib@gmail.com--Steve Thurston).
Today's Headlines:
Headline's from Earlier in the Week:
Links to Our Companion Site, The H&H Report, a blog for kids, by kids:
Labels: redevelopment, review
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Letter: Good Review, Hazel
Hazel,
This is a wonderful movie review of Veggie Tales. I am so proud of you for writing such an excellent report. I am sure you have convinced many people to see this new movie. Maybe you have discovered a new career -- a movie reviewer.
Ms. Schneider
The writer is referring to the Hazel Thurston's review of "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" on our companion site,
The H&H Report, a blog of reviews for kids, by kids. The writer is Hazel's second grade teacher at K.W. Barrett Elementary School. --STSaturday, January 12, 2008
H&H Report: A New Feature at the HeraldTrib
Today's post is about the movie "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything," now playing at the Ballston Commons Regal 12 and elsewhere in the area. Our reviewers, Harry, 5, and Hazel, 7, loved it, just loved it. See the full review, with picutures and links to the movie's site on their page.
Related site…
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Review: Bums Write What Achievers Read
I’m a Lebowski, You’re a Lebowski, Life, "The Big Lebowski," and What Have You. Great thing about being sick over the past week was the chance to catch up on some reading. While The Emergence of a Free Press was a little too dense for my spinning head, I’m a Lebowski, You’re a Lebowski, Life, The Big Lebowski, and What Have You was just the thing. If “Mark it 8, Dude” does not make you immediately scream, “Over the line!” If the mention of the word pornography or the sight of anything vaguely pornographic, does not make you say, “The story is ridiculous,” and if by now you are not thinking, “I could go for a caucasian,” then this review, and most likely the book, is not for you. (A warning to tender readers—the language may become R-rated.)
This is a book for Achievers. Those of us who celebrate the life of El Duderino, if you’re not into that whole brevity thing, love this sort of book.
The bums who wrote it, Bill Green, Ben Peskoe, Will Russell, and Scott Shuffitt, interviewed actors from The Dude in all his Dudeness, Jeff Bridges, to Walter Sobchak’s John Goodman. They interviewed The Jesus of John Tuturo and even interviewed Jack Kehler, who plays Marty the Dancing Landlord as well as musician Jimmie Dale Gilmore who plays Smokey. No Coens and no Steve Buescemi were interviewed to make this book.
They don’t end the interviews there; it’s these bums' lot in life to interview people who inspired the movie—this really ties the book together. They spoke to Jeff “The Dude” Dowd, Peter Exline (whose rug really tied the room together), to “Big” Lew Abernathy, all who tell the stories—including the stolen car and homework in a plastic bag—that made the movie what it is.
I had a little trouble with some of the interviews as often the bums went back to the same two or three questions for every person—that works great in focus groups and job interviews (you don’t look for a job like that, do you?), but seemed too formulaic in the book when I wanted more follow-up questions to what the actors and others had said.
Still, they do a very nice job explaining how they think the movie became a cult classic (with references!), and especially giving us Chapter 7’s Reference Materials including the Parlance of Our Times and scouting the locations. Achievers will love reading (i.e. recalling from memory) the best lines of the flick, or arguing with the writers for missing the best.
Where the plane flies into the goddamn mountain for this book is in photo reproduction. There’s a lot of ins, a lot of outs, a lot of what have yous, to making even black and white photos look good in print, and these, too often, look mushy and washed-out. Can I be frank with you Dude? It looks like they paused the DVD, shot a photo of their TV screen with a digital camera and then pasted a copy-paper print onto their book.
Chapter 1, a nice introduction to the idea of Lebowski worship, did little for me, but that might be the very un-Dude academic in me that just wants the information about how to interpret or understand the Dude in a greater cultural context. The interviews and other background material do that rather nicely, even giving the titles to papers that have been presented at Lebowski Fest.
[Along those lines, I was surprised that none dealt with the idea that “The Dude Abides” is a very Taoist statement, not Zen. Everyone brings up Zen, but I'm telling you Dude, Zen is not the issue. The issue is Taoism. That’s the topic of the paper I’ll be presenting at my first Lebowski Fest.]
Add this book to the holiday list of the Achiever you love most. Now, Shut the fuck up, Donny.
I’m a Lebowski, You’re a Lebowski, Life, The Big Lebowski, and What Have You
Bloomsbury
Paper, $16.95, 239 pages
By: Bill Green, Ben Peskoe, Will Russell, and Scott Shuffitt
Forward by: Jeff Bridges (yeah, the Dude can really write, man—well, him and six other guys)
