U Street Girl discovers a garden filled with plastic flowers. Creepy or cool?

Eckington (way better than Spotsylvania) charts a round-trip bike route from his home 'hood to Nationals Park.

The Change I Wish To See finds sadness on the Metro:

"Every single face was its own perfect storm: furrowed brow, droopy eyes, frowned lips.  There was only reclusive color: a sea of grays and blacks and browns; the kinds of colors perfect for blending into shadows. I felt out of place.  But not because I don’t have any reason to fret or fear or fall.  It was because when people are that sad, you feel as if they should be left alone."

The 42 notes that Mount Pleasant just might have a cameo or two in State of Play.

Penn Quarter Living notes that Ford's Theatre is offering discount performances.

D.C. Fire/EMS needs to update its twitter account! We fell for the hype and follow you guys. C'mon!

Vertigo Books has just announced that it is closing. Very sad news as the bookstore had an awesome staff, offered a great selection, and produced interesting readings each month from well-known authors and should-be-well-known authors. They championed African-American literature in particular and had close ties with the DC-area community. They defined the independent bookstore. In an e-mail sent out this afternoon, the shop's owners write:

"Hello-

After seventeen and half years, the time has come. Curtains down and goodbye--in two weeks Vertigo Books will close.

EVERYTHING IN THE STORE IS 20% OFF. If you've been eyeing that special something, come in and grab it now, before someone else does. And our new rules for the next couple weeks: no checks, no returns and no exchanges. Please note: we will be closed Easter Sunday, April 12, our usual hours will resume Monday.

Why are we closing? There are many reasons, but basically, not enough people buy books here.

We have many loyal customers, just not enough of them, and our cloning experiments have not yielded satisfactory results. And way too many people (not you, but someone you know) are buying their books at Amazon. We'll spare you the inside baseball stuff about the near monopolistic force Amazon has become in the industry. You can also skip to the party info at the end if you like."

Vertigo merited a nod in our recent best of issue. We've highlighted their book picks in the past as well. Just sad news. The owners go on to write in their e-mail:

"Connecting the Dots

As we have said before, your shopping dollars help create the community you want to live in. For every $10 you spend at locally-owned businesses, $4.50 stays in our community. The math is simple and compelling:
Vertigo Books $4.50
Barnes & Noble/Borders/Costco $1.30
Amazon $0.00
The money you spend with locally-owned businesses continues to circulate as we pay employees, buy supplies and pay taxes that are used to provide basic services to residents.

Our local economies are key to a successful recovery from the current financial crisis. Amazon and many online retailers contribute nothing financially to our state and local economies, yet suck up an enormous amount of Maryland's shopping dollars and compete heavily with small natural foods stores, hardware stores, bookstores and specialty stores of all kinds.

While Amazon may have made their name selling books, they want you to buy a DVD player, organic foods, power tools and pick up the latest John Grisham title when you visit their site. They actively fight any attempt to force them to collect sales tax--even in those states where they have a physical presence. Maryland Senate Bill 1071 will allow us to join other states, such as New York and Kansas, that are now collecting sales tax for online sales and using the revenue for education and public safety.

Building Community as You Shop
Building community is an ongoing process, the result of small choices made everyday. We know you understand this, but are very busy and shopping online is seductive. We sympathize and have many of the same worries. But independents live in and serve your community and make many intangible contributions. What does Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, do for our community? We are:

• working for quality public schools
• advocating for smart growth and sustainable development
• pushing for comprehensive planning and public transit
• serving on local boards and committees
• supporting your causes
• and operating a business that recycles, reuses and donates.

And, except for that last item, we'll continue to do these things.

Please take a fresh look around your community, temporarily ditch the iPod, stop Facebooking and tweeting for a moment and explore your neighborhood's businesses. Use one of the coupons below to visit new locally-owned businesses that need your support. If you want a small business to offer something else or do something differently, let them know and help them improve. If we want more than chains in the area, we need to start by supporting the local businesses we already have.

Any Excuse for a Party: Join us Saturday, April 18 5 pm-??
One of us grew up Irish Catholic and, under these circumstances, a wake is required. Bring a dish or something to drink and join us for a free form wake and potluck on Saturday, April 18 from 5 pm-?? If you shopped, read or worked here, we want to see you.

We hope Vertigo Books has served as a thoughtful literary and political gathering place, community and author resource, provided challenging, interesting conversation along with some laughter, and generally served, as one customer put it, as "an intellectual oasis on Route 1" (and previously at Dupont Circle).

Please stay in touch by sending us a note at staff@vertigo-books.com. We were never good about photographing and documenting the store's activities. If you have event calendars, photos or memorabilia to share, please send them on. A computer with archived materials was stolen last summer, so your contributions would be much appreciated.

We owe an enormous thank you to the friends and family who made this adventure possible. We thank the many authors who so enriched these years, and our sales reps, publicists, event partners, publishers and our outstanding customers for their friendship and encouragement.

Thanks for your support over the years,
Todd Stewart, Bridget Warren &
The Staff of Vertigo Books"

After the jump: tonight's recommended reading and the sale of the season at Vertigo Books.

TONIGHT: I tend to steer clear of the "thriller" aisle unless I know before entering my local book nook that Lee Child has a new novel out, but Jonathan Maberry, who wrote Jujutsu how-to manuals before he decided to tackle horror fiction, has scored a smart homer with Patient Zero: A Joe Ledger Novel. Maberry's ocean-spanning espionage novel weds zombie gore with post-9/11 angst and notes of Jack Reacher (polygamy!). The plot: Joe Ledger of the Baltimore PD is recruited by a top-secret military agency to fight against Islamic terrorists who have bioengineered a zombie virus, which--as is the case in David Wellington's Monster Nation--is versatile enough to create smart, intentionally malicious zombies as well as dumbshit chaingun fodder. The perspective shifts from chapter to chapter, which can lead to page skipping in sections where one character's narrative is better than the others', but I think this just might be a universal weakness of the thriller/zombie genre. Regardless of which section Maberry reads, it'll probably hold the audience's attention better than the average political expose.  Maberry discusses and signs copies of Patient Zero. Barnes & Noble Bethesda, 4801 Bethesda Ave., Bethesda, Wed., 4/1, at 7 p.m. Free. (301) 986-1851.

In other book news, College Park's Vertigo Books, which Washington City Paper deemed 2nd Best Independent bookstore in all the land, is having a buy 2, get 1 free sale: "Through Sunday, April 5 you can save BIG on everything in the store. Choose from our great selection of full or sale price paperback and hardcover books: children's or adult fiction and nonfiction, mysteries, graphic novels, world literature, plus the best new books." More on the Vertigo's selection at their blog.

Fiction
Sway by Zachary Lazar
Indignation by Philip Roth
World Made by Hand by James Howard Kunstler
Peace by Richard Bausch
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, translated by Richard Pevear
Roseanna, The Man Who Went Up in Smoke and The Man on the Balcony by Maj Sjowall and Per Waloo

Nonfiction
Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt
Like a Rolling Stone: The Strange Life of a Tribute Band by Steven Kurutz
Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@*#! by Art Spiegelman
Washington Burning by Les Standiford
God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215 by David Levering Lewis

For yer buyin' pleasure:

The Trials of Lenny Bruce can be had for $6.99, Langston Hughes' The Dream Keeper (illustrated, no less) for $3.99, and The House at Pooh Corner for $4.99. Vertigo is also selling both American Splendor (starring Paul Giamatti) and Cotton Comes to Harlem on DVD for $6.99. Good deals, all.

Check 'em out at 7346 Baltimore Ave., College Park. 301-779-9300.