National Building Museum Exhibit Features Mount Pleasant

Mt P investigators congratulated at exhibition opening

Last Friday I attended the opening reception for Investigating Where We Live, an exhibition at the National Building Museum. Investigating Where We Live is a yearly summer program at the museum for middle and high school students. The students pick three DC neighborhoods and investigate with digital cameras and microphones in tow. Then they curate an exhibition in order to showcase their work. Much of the exhibit is photography, but it really is multi-media with written work, videos of interviews, QR codes, and audio players throughout the exhibit.

The team investigating Mount Pleasant pretty much nailed it. The photos are great! They have a flickr page with photos from all the neighborhoods, too (including Bloomingdale and H Street NE). I was interviewed by the group on a site visit and gave a brief history of Mount Pleasant and talked about why I love living here (including having access to the 42 bus!). The students subtitled the Mount Pleasant part of the exhibit "Mount Pleasant: D.C.'s Small Diverse Town." Sounds about right to me. The H Street NE and Bloomingdale teams did a tremendous job as well.

The Investigating Where We Live exhibition is open through May 28, 2012. The National Building Museum is located in Judiciary Square at 401 F Street NW. $8 admission.

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National Building Museum Again Hosts Christmas in Washington

This is the last Christmas in Washington event for outgoing President George W. Bush and his wife Laura. This Christmas-themed, performance heavy, family entertainment show doubles as a benefit the Children's National Medical Center. I believe this is the 27th year of the annual show. Its held at the National Building Museum in Judiciary Square. Years ago it aired on NBC, but has been on the cable channel TNT recently.

The show is invitation only--sorry. You'll have to miss out on Dr. Phil as host, again. Actually co-hosting with his wife Robin. And, sadly you'll have to miss two performers who peaked in the mid-90s, Darius Rucker (Hootie and the Blowfish) and Raphael Saadiq (Tony! Toni! Toné!). I don't mean to say that they aren't great performers now, just that they peaked in popularity about a decade ago. You will also miss Counting Crows! Wait, no, sorry. That's Casting Crowns, the popular Christian group. Got excited there for a split second. The "headliner" if you will is actor and singer Kristin Chenoweth. You may know her from Pushing Daisies, The West Wing or a bunch of Broadway shows. Not sure if she's better or worse than last year's headliner, Ne-Yo.

Christmas in Washington airs on Wednesday, December 17 at 8:00pm on TNT.

Before Clinton

The 42 is not endorsing any candidate (or ex-candidate), but we jumped at the chance to see a Presidential contender in person in PQ; well, Judiciary Square actually. Hillary Clinton gave her concession speech for the Democratic Party Prez candidate race last Saturday at the National Building Museum. Of course she was late and we had to get to a birthday brunch at Asylum so we missed the actual address. Oh well, thank goodness for cable TV replays. There were probably about 6,000 people there, give or take? The event was quite managed an we were told to stand in a certain place on the second floor, but we wanted to roam around and did. Anyway, here are a few photos from before the actual address. If you really want to see photos of the address, check out any major news outlet.

In Like Flint: Screening at the National Building Museum

As part of their "Bachelor's, Secretaries, and Spies" film series, the National Building Museum will be showing the classic, spy-spoof film, In Like Flint. The showing will be held this Wednesday, February 20. In this James Coburn flick from the late 1960s, Flint tries to stop a rogue group --bent on, what else, world domination-- from brainwashing the women of the world and replacing the President of the United States with one of their own. The movie plays like a pre-Austin Powers and spoofs many features of the James Bond series.

The "Bachelors, Secretaries, and Spies" series was put on by the National Building Museum to examine the portrayal of modernism in mid-century American film. In Like Flint is the last in the series. The other two films were The Best of Everything and The Moon is Blue. The event starts at 6:30pm and will feature an introduction by Ann Hornaday from the Washington Post with other guests. Unlike going out to see most movies, you're encouraged to bring your own seating, blanket and food to this film. Cost: $10.00