Ashton! Demi! Tobey!

At Ballou!

That's right---honest-to-god A-listers made their way out to the oft-maligned Congress Heights high school this morning. There, a breakfast was held commemorating today's "day of service" on the occasion of Martin Luther King's birthday.

Also in attendance: Superman star Brandon Rauch, West Winger Richard Schiff, California first lady Maria Shriver, and some dude LL didn't recognize but who's supposedly on CSI. Charlie Rose---buds with Michelle Rhee---was emcee.

The event was put on by an outfit called Service Nation and sponsored by Target (whose logos were all over the place), among others. The Ridgewells-catered quiche breakfast was followed by opportunities for dozens and dozens of volunteers to participate in projects around the city. Many went a block down the hill from Ballou, to Simon Elementary, to help paint classrooms. There, the Ballou band pepped up volunteers, and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty gave brief remarks, as did Rauch. Maguire---who LL nearly knocked over before snapping the above fuzzy cameraphone photo---pitched in with the painting.

LL wasn't able to pick many celeb brains for their thoughts on school reform---to wit, teachers unions, 90-day improvement plans, "red tier/green tier," et al.---because (a) none of them "did media" and (b) LL showed up late.

In any case, LL showed up at Ballou just in time to watch Kutcher and Moore leave the school, in separate black luxury cars. LL did hear one entourage member say, "We need to find a Starbucks."

They were in for a drive.

UPDATE, 12:45 P.M.: Shakira is pitching in at Oyster-Adams. SHAKIRA! Her multilingual-ness should come in handy while visiting the Spanish-English bilingual program.

Every week, City Paper's City List does its best to tell readers about all the authors destined to come through town pushing their work (as well they should, the publishing industry needs more than prayer). This week, City List found only one reading, and chalked up the dearth to the holiday season--boy were we wrong. How do we know? Our very own Mark Athitakis has a really fine literary blog (check out his entertaining comment scuffle with Rick Moody), and on that blog, he has a page for local DC readings. Because Athitakis is such a great guy, he probably won't complain that City List is piggy-backing on his events gathering skills just this once. Without further ado, the author listings City List missed:

Read More "Tom Gjelten, Tim Lewis, and Pamela J. Martin: The Authors City List Missed" »