Bethesda's Shame

Just minutes from now, the beautiful, historic, Art Deco treasure, the Bethesda Theatre, goes on the auction block. Rumors suggest it could be converted to a retail space.

Shame, shame, shame on so many levels.








First of all, look at this building, a living monument to a culture, an age, when design mattered. Art Deco wasn't just about architecture, it was a style that crossed into fashion, home furnishings, film making











Second, there is no need for additional retail space in downtown Bethesda. Look around at the shuttered windows.

And look at the humanity left behind by the neglect of our less-humane interests:













Photographs by C. G. Wagner


Shame. Damn shame.

Save the building, and save the culture and the community it honored. Turn it into an educational and cultural center, a gallery, a ballroom, a bandstand, theater, cinema, reception hall.

Or turn it into a homeless shelter until our town gets back on its feet again.


Love, hosaa
Lifelong Bethesda resident, ashamed

ETA, later that same day... Bought by the lender for $2 million. Apparently only the bank itself wanted to buy the debt. I'm assured that "they know" Bethesda Theatre is a treasure, but it will be some time before it will glow again. It's the economy. Still.

Little karma's Delicate Balance

Once upon a time I found a $20 bill on the sidewalk. That's not something that normally happens to me. I was suspicious of my good fortune. I called out to a lady up the street and asked her if she dropped some money. She said no. Honest lady!

I kept the money but put it aside, in an unused pocket in my pocketbook. Why throw away good fortune? To keep from feeling all entitled and what-not, I sent a check for $20 to a charity, for fortune should always be shared with the less fortunate.

I figured I was $20 up in karma, or good luck, or grace of whatever mysterious forces I choose not to name.

A few months (or even years) later, I had a $10 bill in my pocket, the same pocket in which I was carrying a few letters (bills to pay, probably) to drop off at the post office on my way to work. You guessed it, the mailbox accepted the money without question. Stupid mailbox. A letter to my postmaster requesting the money back probably gave the staff a good laugh.

But I figured I was still a good $10 up in karma. Yay, me. I think about the profits and loss whenever I see money on the ground. Yes, I stoop for pennies (but never if they're tails. That's just bad luck, forget about it).

So it should not surprise me that a bit of good luck Monday would turn into bad luck Tuesday. Monday, for some reason, the IRS sent me a check and a letter explaining that they thought I overpaid. Had to do with some retirement money (which was actually my late mother's retirement money, since I'm not retired). Yay me, I'm up $400!

Then, on Tuesday, my credit card was declined at the grocery store and I came home to a message on my answering machine from the credit card company's fraud squad. When I called back they indicated that someone had been trying to use my credit card to buy $600+ of groceries at stores in Chile and Italy.

WHAT??

The good news is that they declined those purchases, but the bad news is that they declined mine too. I'll be getting a new number, a new start. For a few days, though, I'll have to dig into that unused pocket and retrieve my lucky $20 bill.

love, hosaa
respectful, if not reverent, of mysterious karmic/cosmic forces

Only the Best

Edward Duke
(June 17, 1953 - January 8, 1994)

Happy Birthday, Edward, who would have been 57.

You inspire me. Still.

Love, hosaa,
looking for the silver lining

Signs

Is it really a "sign" if you don't know what it means?

When you see something unusual, something you've never seen before, and it makes you feel sad (or happy, or curious, or anything), it's supposed to mean something, isn't it?

As I walk to work in the morning, I notice the birds - not that I'm an ornithologist, or even an experienced bird watcher. There was a new voice in the neighborhood this morning, a recognizable call I hadn't heard around here in a while.

Then a few steps away, I saw a trio of birds scuffling on the sidewalk at the foot of a tall building. One bird flew off, up onto the ledge overhead; it ducked into what evidently was "home."

The other two birds continued scuffling - or at least one was. As I drew closer, I realized that one was dead. It apparently had either flown into the building or fallen from the ledge. The other bird - father? mother? mate? medic? - was picking delicately at the fallen bird's neck and head, trying to revive it. The saver tried to pull the fallen off the path, closer to home. The struggle was overwhelming. The saver paused in its effort, nuzzled closer to the fallen, and seemed to try to catch its breath.

I did not expect to wake up this morning and share another creature's frustration, despair, and grief.

If it's a sign of anything, maybe it's that the world is always capable of showing me something I'd never seen before, and make me feel something I hadn't felt in just that way before.

love, hosaa
in sorrow

Information Archaeologists and a Futurist's Desk

Today in Twitter land...

WorldFutureSoc Archaeologists should study the desk drawer I'm cleaning out: Rolodex cards, plastic file tabs, Post-It fax notes, lots of dead rubber bands

WorldFutureSoc: ...desiccated crumbs of cranberry muffins, reading glasses Elton John would consider OTT... What's a #futurist w/o longitudinal data?

WorldFutureSoc: ...ooo, a Pantone chip: C=0 Y=65 M=90 K=20 ;-) my favorite color!

WorldFutureSoc: ... two sticks of Beemans! SCORE!!

WorldFutureSoc: Sorry, @paleofuture, I had to throw out the extra floppy disk labels I just found. They were nasty. ;-)

WorldFutureSoc: I have no idea what these little keys go to, but I'm afraid to throw them away.

WorldFutureSoc: Paperclips, re-recycled for years RT @fayfeeney My #bizrelic: Redi-reply memos - triple copies w/ carbon paper. What's yours?

WorldFutureSoc: Found another Pantone chip: C=100 Y=0 M=90 K-40 We love our primary colors here at The Futurist magazine!

WorldFutureSoc: Okay, desk drawer cleaned. (Sort of.) Worst crud: the mess from a bottle of Wite-Out that leaked. Yuck.

WorldFutureSoc: Best finds: two 29-cent Elvis stamps, a loupe, T-square, protractor, compass, and one of those little curvy things for drawing curves.

WorldFutureSoc: So concludes the tweet-story of a #futurist cleaning a desk and finding the history of the Information Age. Thank you, thank-you-very-much!

love, hosaa,
dreading cleaning out the filing cabinets next

Around the World without the Balloon

Danisha Crosby, Round House Theatre

Back from the Round House production of Around the World in 80 Days, which we are urgently warned in the program does not feature a balloon. That was a movie thing. There was no balloon in Jules Verne's book.

What I love about the productions at RH recently has been the musicality of the dramaturgy and the heavy emphasis on dance in the blocking. It isn't a musical, but it's musical. In AW80, actors suggest the motions of trains, boats, and other conveyances through their choreographed leans, shakes, and jolts.

And then of course there is the audience-pleasing coconut-clopping "horses," a nod to Monty Python that brought a smile to my face as I pictured King Arthur and Patsy rather than Passepartout trotting on stage.

Silliness ensues throughout; world cultures are caricatured on an equal opportunity basis, though I do wonder why I should be more uncomfortable with the gross caricatures of Asians than of the Brits and Americans. Because it's acceptable to laugh at ourselves but not at others?

Through the spirited jaunt, Phileas Fogg (performed by Mitchell Hebert) is a stoical pillar of gentlemanly sensibility - mathematical and precise. How does such a man launch himself into such an adventure? It's a mystery; perhaps hubris is a powerful enough force to tempt a man from logic, for along the way he is rewarded with the illogic of falling in love.

Around the World in 80 Days plays at the Round House Theatre, Bethesda, Maryland, through May 30. This concludes the 2009-2010 season for RHT, and it is the first season that I have thoroughly enjoyed every single production (even the one WaPo hated, The Picture of Dorian Gray). I'm not even sure I could pick out my favorite (leaning toward Asher Lev); all were thought-provoking, but AW80 was certainly the most entertaining.

"It's a Wonderful Proof of Life"

copyright 2010 C. G. Wagner

Sometimes I wish we lived in an age where I could commission a poet to describe what I've seen or experienced. (For instance, what about that one songbird that has claimed the uppermost branch of a tree on my street and cheers me every morning? I can't make out what he is, his colors darkened against the morning East.)

But that would be like hiring a stunt double for my soul.

Anyway, I probably don't want anyone, poet or psychoanalyst, peering into the mind behind the visions and the dreams. A screenwriter might be good, though.

The dreams that I remember, though the imagery evaporates quickly into shadows with my morning songbird, are often intensely action-filled, like "24," and strangely magical. It's as though I'd conjured a perfect mashup, with Russell Crowe's character "Terry" in Proof of Life cast as "Clarence" the angel in It's a Wonderful Life.

And my dreams are often populated by strangers. Who was the baby sister that "Terry" and I were trying to protect from the cartel in my dream last night? I don't have a baby sister. Could it have been Angelea from America's Next Top Model or that pill-popping former Miss USA who was on the Oprah show that repeated last night before I finally went to sleep? And could the villainous head of the cartel, operating from a high-tech brothel/carnival funhouse, have been Mr. Trump?

The random visions and ideas we are exposed to during the day try to organize themselves somehow into a narrative at night. It means nothing, really. So I'll just pass the nighttime popcorn and enjoy the "Wonderful Proof of Life."

love, hosaa
dreaming again

Speaking of mashups, for your entertainment... The Right Sh-Stuff: