We know D.C. Get our free newsletter to stay in the know.
It’s still us, we just look better now. And who knows, you may even be handed a copy of the beautifully redesigned City Paper by one of our staffers (like Erin Petty, who was here on Wednesday) as you board Metrorail today. Petty, by the way, has this week’s Arts Desk feature on Katie Balloons, a trio of balloon-weaving artists who recently finished the first season of a reality show on TLC.
WaPo Style splashes Philip Kennicott‘s tale of how the Chinese government nearly derailed an exhibit at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology when it withdrew a mummy, the Beauty of Xiaohe, from the collection. Yes, it’s a Philadelphia story, but a cipher of antiquity and diplomacy. Kennicott writes that the exhibit, “Secrets of the Silk Road,” is “one of the hottest events on the East Coast.” The Xiaohe mummy and others have to go back to China on March 15 and other artifacts on March 28, but the exhibit will remain open through June 5. Is this worth the Acela?
More dispatches from the craziest celebrity saga of the year: Yes, it’s more news about James Levine. (Who were you expecting?) After blowing off the Kennedy Center earlier this week, Anne Midgette reports Levine is quitting the Boston Symphony Orchestra altogether effective Sept. 1 to spend more time with his other family—the Metropolitan Opera.
Some theater shows can be moved to tweak, rejigger, and overhaul themselves after bad reviews. Not the Forum Theatre’s production of One Flea Spare, Maura Judkis writes. Even though DCist hated it, Peter Marks hated it, and Trey Graham hated it, Forum’s artistic director Michael Dove told Judkis the show is “critic-proof” and the theater doesn’t mind staging a money-loser if it’s staged the way they want. (Is there an implied lesson for Spidey here? Damn the critics and go forth, even if you kill your cast and audience, perhaps?)
The film adaptation of Ayn Rand‘s Atlas Shrugged played at Landmark’s E Street Cinema, Ryan Kearney reports. The objectivist manifesto, adored by generations of conservatives, features a cast of TV has-beens tussling over railroad—wait a sec. It’s about trains? I thought Republicans hated trains!
Reba McEntire has been selected for the Country Music Hall of Fame. Will Kenan Thompson show up to the induction ceremony?
We Love DC we-loves Jessica Brodkin, a 29-year-old comedian who does standup and also appears as Ludmilla, a washed-out Russian burlesque star.
If you missed Nate and Noble Jolley‘s set at Strathmore last night, don’t worry. They’ll be here all month as the artists-in-residence, Michael J. West writes.
Was I supposed to include something about tigerblood? Pass. Get to the Metro! Grab a hot new City Paper! Ride the tiger!
