DC9

There aren't many clubs in D.C. that care to book local musicians.  Thank God for The Black Cat, The Velvet Lounge, the Warehouse and DC9.  DC9 is located at 1940 9th Street, N.W., and street parking can be dicey, but done.  Inside, at street level is a dark interior with bar running along the left, and booths on the opposite wall.  Stairs lead to the upper nightclub portion which has a small bar, and there is a bandstand in the corner.   The decor looks like a summation of all of it's previous tenants, but the sound is good, and the booking adventurous.  There is ample room for dancing if the crowd isn't too large which, of course, you hope it is if you are performing there.   Last night, the Monsters From the Surf were at DC9  with The Tail Draggers  and Reverb Galaxy.  Monsters  is one of this area's long running Ramones-fueled garage surf bands.  Lead by Rob Hornung, singer and lead guitarist, some of the more popular songs are National Bohemian , Watusi Underground , and Kamikaze.  The Tail Draggers sing garage punk and Reverb Galaxy is a moody, surf instrumental group.  It's great to know that local acts can find venues to show their stuff.  Now if only Butch Willis or Tex Rubinowitz were still around.  Welcome to the Monsters from the Surf Official Website!

 

                     

 

                                     

Layer Cake & British Crime Films & "X"

I went to see Layer Cake at an area theatre as I am a big fan of the British crime film genre.  It lacked in many areas.  Sexy Beast and The Long, Good  Friday were much more compelling and both showed such a good visual aspect of London the city which Layer Cake did not.  I was surprised to see the theatre sold out on this one, given the nature of the film:  British, small release, accents and criminal slang to work through...  Everyone is matching the film's star, Daniel Craig, to Steve McQueen, but it's not an apt comparison.  McQueen's career exploded even in his early television days, and he had one of those expressive faces that just pop out at you and demand to be watched.  Craig has many similar physicial features, but he's missing that "X" factor which is ironic given the character he plays in the movie is referred to as the anonymous "X." 

"X" is that indefinable thing that some call "aura" and others call "command," and yet others refer to as "an unknown quality."  It isn't any one thing.  In the case of a movie actor, it certain includes being photogenic, but it goes beyond face on film into the hidden powers behind the mask.  I find it hard today to name an actor who has "X" to the point where you just can't take your eyes off of them wherever they are on the screen.  James Dean had "X" and Marlon Brando.  Brad Pitt is handsome, but he lacks "X."  Clive Owen has some "X," but not the full blast of it.  You could say Angelina Jolie has "X," if you remember how she stole Girl Interrupted away from Winona Ryder.  Where are the "X " people?  I'm eXasperated.  We've mutated down into Adam Sandler world, and it's boring.

By the way, Michael Gambon, playing a crime lord long since assimilated into the upper classes in Layer Cake, walks aways with the picture.  You certainly wouldn't call him photogenic, but "X"  in Sam Spades. 

                                                   

 

                                      

                           "X" Squared

                            

What Is A Daybook?

I decided I had better briefly explain what a daybook is, since it's an old-fashioned term.  It literally means a book where day-to-day transactions are recorded.  What those transactions are can encompass many things.  It may also mean a diary or a journal, or in more current times, a blog.  Blog is such a blot of a word.  I prefer to use daybook to define my writing for you.

                         

This is the daybook of Dr. James Carmichael, Fredericksburg, Virginia.  The daybook, a record of credits and debits to his medical practice between 1816 and 1817.   It is housed in the Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Carmichael Letters :: "Patient's Voices in Early 19th Century Virginia"

My Manicurist's Bruised Love Bite

I went for a manicure today, and my manicurist has a bruise on her upper arm that was clearly a circular set of teeth marks.  "I guess there's a story behind that bruise," I said.  If I knew then what I know now, I could have commented further on her Line of Jewels.  Read on.  She had spent last Memorial Day weekend at Ocean City where her group began drinking upon arrival at 2 p.m.  Some time between then and 1 a.m., while at Kirby's Pub (some dive located at 9209 Coastal Highway), she received her bite, whether in the throes of passion or Puka Punch, we'll let Kirby's review tell us more:

11/26/04

local spot
the place is pretty dirty anybody can go back in the kitchen so you don't know who cooks your food

Coming home tonight, I started thinking about bite marks and how forensic criminologists use them in working a homicide.  Forensic Odontology.  The Kama Sutra also has something to say about it, so chew on this: 

The Kama Sutra dictates that if you can kiss it, you can bite it -- with the exception of the upper lip, the inside of the mouth and the eyes. The following is a list of bites described in the book:

the hidden bite

the swollen bite

the point

the line of points

the coral and the jewel

the line of jewels

the broken cloud

the biting of the boar

When you bite your woman with your teeth, but the only thing that you leave behind is a patch of redness rather than bite marks, this is the "hidden bite." When you press the skin down on both sides when you're doing the biting, it's called the "swollen bite."

When you bite on a small part of her skin (or her yours) with two teeth, this is the "point," and when you bite portions of her skin with all of your teeth, of course that's called the "line of points."

When you bite your woman's body, but bring your lips and your front teeth together while doing so, that is the "coral and the jewel." Your lips represent the coral and your teeth the jewel. And when you bite her with all your teeth and your lips, this is the "line of jewels."

When you use your mouth in its entirety to bite your woman's breasts -- causing the mark of an uneven circle -- it's called a "broken cloud." And finally, when you constantly bite her in areas near each other, causing what looks like rows of marks on the breasts and shoulders, this is the "biting of the boar." These last two bites usually occur in moments of intense passion.

Funny the Kama Sutra should mention "biting of the boar."  I just finished reading Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior  by Temple Grandin, Ph.D.  Temple Grandin's Web Page   Dr. Grandin suffers from autism herself, and she is currently an Associate Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University.  While reading the book, I learned that when female pigs mate, they stand still. Pig breeders have termed this behavior "standing for the man." Sometimes, when engaged in artificial insemination, the pig breeder must either sit on top of the female pig, to simulate the weight of the male pig, or place a weight on their back. Also, male pigs, like many human males, develop fetishes while engaged in the sex act in terms of how they like to be handled or stimulated.  I would provide you with some examples, but I'd prefer to let your imaginations loose at this point.

The Hep Cat Cocktail

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Smithsonian Institution

I made arrangements to pick up my friend today at Sibley Hospital, following her surgery.  I hadn't been there in a while, and I was impressed with the staff and ambiance.  Money will do that, won't it?  We talked on our drive home about how much we missed the literary lectures at the Woodrow Wilson Institute for International Scholars which used to be conducted by Dr. James Morris in the 1990's.  At that time, the Institute was housed in the Castle at the Smithsonian Institution, and a visiting writer would be provided a stipend to come and present a paper on an agreed upon subject.  It was a wonderful physical space to inhabit.  The library where the lectures were held had a small cathedral-like rose window, circular stairs and walkways to the stacks, a bronze bust of Woodrow Wilson and Gothic arched, leaded windows.  The outer reception room was oval and covered in a William Morris wallpaper with bookcases and wicker furniture. Very  Virginia Wolff; not that Virginia and William were of the same aesthetic, but the overall feel of the place.  The elevator that takes you to the upper levels is probably the original: old and wobbly and has a brass cross-hatched gate that slides in front of you--a highly atmospheric setting to sit in and contemplate literature.  William Morris Society

When I was a student, and working during the summer for the Smithsonian (thinking I would be a paleontologist) in the National Museum of Natural History I would try to escape the tourists on my lunch hour, and I discovered most of them never set foot in the older Freer Art Gallery.  Once tourists came up to me and asked if it was a post office.  I loved being in the Freer because it was quiet and cool and the courtyard was a lovely wisteria covered atrium.  My favorite rooms were where the Japanese screens were displayed, but especially the Whistler Peacock Room.  The Peacock Room  The guards became used to seeing me sit in there, and one day one of the guards asked  if I knew that the room had a secret window (usually covered by the painted shutters.)  He took me over to the corner where the window is housed, and he pulled the shutters back, and I was allowed a rare viewing of the Peacock Room in daylight.  Days like that are gifts to be savored and treasured over time.

   I was given fairly free reign to wander around the museum before opening hours, but the one place I was always restricted to enter was the Gem Hall where the Hope Diamond is displayed.  I was always poking around back stairwells in the museum, and one day it backfired on me.  I went through a walkway to cut into another area, and I entered a fire door which slammed behind me and remained locked.  I was high up in the museum and facing an interior wall, never seen by the public, and very dirty windows going into these depths that spiked my adrenaline.  Everything was out of scale and huge.  I knew I was in serious trouble when I glanced down and saw that each stair tread was coated in a thick layer of dust...and not one footprint.  The lack of footprints held me there frozen.  The first thought that popped into my mind was "I could die back here."  It was obvious the stairs were not in good condition and equally obvious that no one had been in this area of the museum for a long time.  My point of entry, before I went through the door, was isolated, and I spent a  few seconds berating myself for being so stupid. If I pounded on the door for help, I would certainly be hauled before some authority, so there I was, the wall behind me pressing me into this narrow space between itself and the window and nothing but unstable wooden stairs winding all the way down to ground level.   I was grateful I wasn't afraid of heights, but the visual space I was confined in was unnerving, given it's height and the window and this sense of being held by a thread over a big drop.  At each level I would stop and test the next door (always locked) all the way to the bottom.  When I got to the bottom I could hear the bouncing voices of the tourists on the other wall, I tested the door and came walking out right next to an exhibit.  People were so  startled to see me, as I was them, that we all jumped.

The  Smithsonian had brought over a Gutenberg Press from Germany that summer, and I befriended the two printers sent to operate it.  One day, one of them presented me with a piece of linen, and he let me print a page of the Gutenberg Bible on to it.  I now have that framed in my living room.  When you are visiting the Natural History Museum, you never really think what is going on behind it's walls, but I was so lucky to be allowed to roam (pre-9/11) and see the drawers full of skeletons or butterflies or ferns.  It's the treasures and study behind the walls that are what the tourists should really be seeing.  I was always grateful for my time spent there in learning and, quite frankly, snooping. 

                                                        

                                   Johannes Gutenberg - Inventor of Modern Printing

                                                                     

                        

                      A Gutenberg Bible, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

                    

                            ...and now we have the internet....and blogs