Someone has glued this model of the White House to the south railing at Scott Circle. In the distance, you can kinda see the real White House. Not sure what the X on the top means. Aliens land here? The location of the national treasure? Someone should tell the NSA.

Big event next Monday in D.C. The authority that operates the Washington Convention Center is holding an event to rename the place in honor of Walter E. Washington.

Here is the critical line from a press release on the topic: “The Washington Convention Center Authority (WCCA) announced today plans to host an official dedication ceremony to rename the building the Walter E. Washington Convention Center after the District of Columbia’s first elected mayor.”

Grand idea, in all. Washington was a jolly old fellow. Something of a go-along-to-get-along type, but hey, his heart was in the right place. So no objections to naming the place after Walter E. Washington.

My objection is to the name itself: Take a close look. Right now, the place is called the Washington Convention Center. The guy they’re hoping to honor is Walter E. Washington. The new name, if I read the press release right, is “Walter E. Washington Convention Center.”

That’s bullshit. It should be “Walter E. Washington Washington Convention Center.” This is like calling our landing strip across the river the “Ronald Washington National Airport.” Or calling our low-cost landing strip the “Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Airport.”

How dare the authority dishonor our great first mayor by excluding his last name–his dignity!–from our grand convention center.

Attention downtown lobbyists, political consultants, and journalists: tonight, as you sip cocktails at your political book parties, or prepare for your MSNBC appearances, or do whatever you do in that world, add a little verve to your old routine. Hollywood’s watching. (Sort of like they were when Thank You For Smoking came out, but I guess they’re back at it again.)

Variety broke the news yesterday that Warner Bros. is developing a film version of the yet-to-be-debuted political play Farragut North, written by Beau Willimon, who worked for Howard Dean’s presidential campaign.

According to Variety, the script’s protagonist will be “a young communications director who works for a fast-rising presidential candidate.” During the campaign, “the idealistic young man falls prey to the backstabbing and other dirty trickery of seasoned rival politicos.” Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company Appian Way and George Clooney’s company Smoke House are making the film, with DiCaprio himself “attached” to star. George Clooney is “eyeing the project as director.”

Apparently, the story’s sort of “old news” anyway, according to Willimon’s agent, Chris Till of Paradigm Talent and Literary Agency. The deals with Warner Bros. have been in place since February or March of this year, he says.

“But such as it is sometimes, we’re able to develop under wraps, and other times, we’re developing under the microscope.” He says he’s surprised the story didn’t run a long time ago.

New York’s Second Stage Theatre announced the play version would open in its 2007–2008 season. Then, over the summer, it was taken off the schedule. According to reports in the New York Post, Jake Gyllenhaal was rumored to star, and Mike Nichols (The Graduate, Closer) was reportedly set to direct.

But at least one of those tidbits isn’t true. “Mike Nichols is not directing this play,” says Till.

The Scene: Third Floor of the new Harman Center for the Arts, the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s new glass-and-steel box directly across from the Verizon Center

The Occasion: Saturday night party for two people proclaiming their love, the first wedding held at what is destined to be one of the District’s great spaces for that sort of thing

Parties Involved: Myself, 12-year-old niece of the bride, excited Caps fan entering a cab after his team wiped the ice with the Carolina Hurricanes

The Incident: Caps fan drops trou and gives the full moon in full view of 12-year-old niece, who then waves at him

Money Quote from 12-Year-Old: “I think he smiled at me.”

Last week, Arthur Delaney wrote about Billi, a gentleman who had been living in between lanes of I-395 for weeks. Yesterday, the city evicted Billi & Co. from their spot under the 9th Street SW overpass.

Channel 9 was there with cameras.

Delle & Campbell’s Halal Luncheonette has quickly become the darling of downtown for being the first post-moratorium food cart to break the frankfurter stranglehold on street eats. Good for the two young owners who, not so modestly, boast that they’re the “vanguards of peace, love and deliciousness.” I’ll spot ‘em the first two but take exception with the last category, if their shawarma is any indication of their skills.

I ordered the $7 chicken shawarma and unfurled the pita to investigate its contents. I discovered strips of white and dark meat that looked (and tasted) as if they had been marinated in a red-pepper sauce, not the more traditional cardamom-and-allspice-infused vinegar marinade (which may or may not include yogurt, too). The chicken also had some strange bedfellows inside the pita: a trio of spicy lamb sausages that looked like Jimmy Dean breakfast links.

I sat on a bench in the leafy, shaded courtyard of the Church of the Epiphany and tried to be at peace with the idea that shawarma, like crab cakes, has few hard rules about ingredients. Some shawarma-makers stick pickles in their pita, others tomatoes. Some even dump french fries in there, for crying out loud. No matter how strange I found the Delle & Campbell chicken shawarma, I figured it couldn’t be stranger than the scene unfolding in front of me in the church’s courtyard.

A homeless man was sitting a few feet from me, spitting, repeatedly and often, into the flower bed in front of us. He then got up, walked to the water hose, and did something that I couldn’t see. He returned to the wooden bench to curled up for an afternoon nap. Since I wasn’t digging my shawarma, I thought about giving him my leftovers, but somehow the idea struck me as abhorrent, like feeding scraps to a dog. But I did have a bag of potato chips that I had only picked at. Maybe it wouldn’t be as insulting to give him the rest of the bag?

As I was leaving, I walked over and asked him if he wanted my chips. With startling quickness and ferocity, he lunged for the chips and started saying, quite loudly, “Food! This will save my life! This will save my life! This will save my life!” I slunk away quietly, not sure whether he was mocking me for such a paltry offering.

While the country is on the topic of bathroom trysts, it may want to peer into the archives of Washington City Paper. This piece, by yours truly, provides a deep look at the scene at the MLK Jr. library circa 1997. Give it a read.