Author Archive for Jule Banville

Recession Wigs 75 Percent Off

After 35 years, Masters Tuxedo and Costumes on Columbia Pike in Annandale is closing shop. Until the end of this month, wigs, costumes, mascots, and other whackiness are going out the door for 75 percent off their original costs.
Although a touch picked over, there are still choice items to be had and tried on until [...]

Explosion at Prince George’s Shopping Center Injures Six

The Associated Press is reporting six people were injured at a shopping-center explosion in Prince George's County today, five of them firefighters. A fire department spokesman says work was being done on a gas line in one of the stores this afternoon. WTOP identifies the location as Penn-Mar Shopping Center in Forestville, which is anchored [...]

“By a Baltimore Sun Staff Writer”

Nice story today in the Baltimore Sun about the U of Maryland's plan to put a parking lot and maintenance sheds where there are now 15 acres of woods. Don't bother calling up the writer to give a compliment. They're on a byline strike today. The one-day protest is against Sun owners the Tribune Co., [...]

Total Bummer: Shakespeare Free For All Moves Inside

An e-mail alert went out yesterday to previous attendees of the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Free For All that it's still on, but it's now on inside and in Penn Quarter at the newish Sidney Harman Hall. That means no more pre-show picnics on the grounds of Carter Barron (the National Building Museum is opening its [...]

Our Morning Roundup: Caps on a Hot Streak Edition

In what the Post this morning says "will likely go down as one of the best playoff games in Capitals franchise history," D.C.'s scrappy hockey team went up 2 games to none in their playoff series against Pittsburgh. That means they've won their last five playoff games, their longest post-season streak to date. It took the Verizon Center staff three minutes to [...]

Safeway Update: New Stores Coming to Southwest Waterfront, Petworth in 2011

In addition to the new Safeway coming to Georgetown, the go-to D.C. grocery chain is planning similar overhauls at the Southwest Waterfront and Petworth.
At the Waterfront, preliminary work is under way for the new store, which will go up behind the current building near the Metro. When completed in 2011, the old store will be [...]

Alts Part of Journalism’s Death Throes, Not Part of Newseum

Pittsburgh City Paper's cover story this week takes a whack at the ink-stained/Twitter divide, asking: "As old media struggles, is a new breed of journalists up to the job of replacing it?"
And unlike the Newseum, which essentially ignores the role of good journalism supported by slutty ads, the PCP includes alternative newsweeklies in the mix. [...]

Our Morning Roundup: Maryland’s Flinty When It Comes to Swine Flu Edition

Is the panic subisiding? Not a chance, but two of the six potential H1N1 infectees in Maryland are schoolchildren (one at Folger-McKenzie Elementary in Ann Arundel County and a teenager at Milfred Mill Academy in Baltimore County) and schools are open today. A lot of parents, of course, watch the TV, where things have been getting [...]

Finding Midnight

Another lost dog, found. Midnight, the pup who ran off during a soccer game and was helped in absentia by a savvy lawyer doubling as a PR director, is safely home. The 2-year-old rottweiler/shepherd mix turned up at a shelter in Prince George's County.
Daphne Levitas, who had created a Web site and press releases about [...]

Occult Worship in Rock Creek Park?

Josh Bowers, the local lawyer who pointed me to the pieces of the U.S. Capitol and the weird, shallow wells dug behind them, writes today that "it was only a matter of time until an occult group theory would surface."
Bowers has been posting this week's CP story to various Listservs and e-mail groups, hoping someone [...]

Drink Up, D.C.

Of 85 unregulated and, in some cases, unknown chemicals found in samples of the Potomac prior to it becoming our drinking water, 35 were still in there after it was "purified" at the aqueduct. This tasty takeaway—plus: hermaphrofrogs!—comes from the latest Frontline on PBS, "Poisoned Waters," which examines both the Chesapeake Watershed and the Puget [...]

Martin Luther King’s Family “Profiteering” in Lead-Up to His Memorial

The Assosciated Press is reporting today that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's Jr.'s family has charged the foundation raising money to build King's memorial on the National Mall $80,000 in licensing fees. The fees were leveled for using King's images and words on fundraising materials—the ones designed to encourage private donations for the "Stone [...]

When Losing a Dog Requires a PR Director

Before Daphne Levitas, some dog owners who lost their charges were reduced to knocking on people's doors, taping a few fliers to trees, maybe posting on Craigslist. With Levitas, a 34-year-old attorney active in dog rescue circles, losing a dog becomes a multimedia experience.
By virtue of my posts about Lucy the Ninja Dog, I received [...]

Our Morning Roundup: Join the Navy Edition

Who needs a reality show when actual news is good enough? Applications to the U.S. Naval Academy are up 50 percent. The academy credits its two-year outreach campaign to minorities and the Post considers if it might be the lure of a free education in lean times. But we're going to jump to conclusions. It's [...]

So Long Beauty Island. Hello CVS.

Adams Morgan's divey Chinese takeout may be a tricked-out out sushi bar now, but Columbia Road still has that certain something, namely its empty stores. But fear not all you lovers of long receipts because exciting development is on its way. Yes, it's true, a CVS is going in—eventually—next to the second-rate Safeway, taking over [...]