The video above contains four short video clips I recorded from my Canon SD750 on February 6th, 2010 in & around Dupont Circle in Washington, DC. The video clips show the what the snowball fight looked like when I arrived, a dance party, a fallen tree on New Hampshire Avenue, and an SUV pulling a snowboarder. The camera is rather beat up and there is a noticeable dark spot on camera lens– sorry!

---

This is my favorite video of the snowball fight. It was filmed from a building overlooking Dupont Cirlce:

---

At least there were no guns.

Over the holidays I’ve had friend’s come and visit me. When they drive to Washington, DC, I always go to the police station to get my guests temporary parking permits. Two weeks ago I noticed this display on the opposite side of the station and decided to snap a couple photos. I don’t know who designed the display, but think the juxtaposition of the photographs on the map was interesting. What this map does lack, interestingly, is a little red dot that says you are here. The photograph and the map has no geovisual correlation because the map makes no reference to the location of the Third District Police Station. Is it possible that the layout was generic and the detail photograph was inserted for each of the different police departments? I have not been to any other stations, so I don’t know if the police in 2D are as lucky as 3D. I like the display, I just wish there was a better geographic connection embodied within it. I could add one. Maybe I should. A bonus would be the map of where Zone 1 and Zone 2 parking permits are allowed. I’ve asked officers present if they had one they could show me and they’ve never had one. This important boundary map helps ensure all citizens are given the appropriate Zone to park in. Thankfully I live in a permeable boundary that allows both Zones, but what if you live in an area that is one Zone only and you happen to get the wrong one and your guest gets a $100 ticket? Not fun.

I spent much of Friday’s opening in the office near my artwork so I could explain the map to people. Near the end of the evening someone got out a plastic cube from underneath a desk that contained an ice-breaking game called Chit Chat. The card above was pulled randomly from the deck and kinda made me a little sad, so I took this photo to document the moment. Although dropdown boxes on the internet might list the District of Columbia as a state, its not. Let’s ChitChat about that shall we?

I took these two pictures of Park La Brea Quilt #3 Friday night at the opening of FRIEND REQUEST. The map measures 60 inches by 40 inches and was printed on Epson enhanced matte paper. It is hung using Poster Hangers and is located in the meeting room on the first floor. You can actually see some of the map from outside on the sidewalk in front of 1606 17th Street, NW. It will be on display until January 29th, 2010.

When I first came across the photograph in 2006, I knew it would probably be stored somewhere in the photographic databases of Getty Images. After last month’s publication of the photograph in the Washington Post, it looks like the photograph was also republished on the website of Life Magazine. According to wikipedia, Getty Images and Life Magazine joined forces in March of 2009 and now jointly share some of their combined photo collections on Life.com.

This short video documents my temporary photo installation called “Welcome to my room.” for FotoweekDC 2009. The installation consists of about 24 random photographs that I had doubles of in my archives. They were stapled to the temporary wooden walkway on the west side of 14th Street near the intersection of T Street, NW, Washington, DC. The building for which the temporary walkway was constructed will become the chain department store called Room & Board. So welcome to my Room, I hope you are not Bored. Please add your own photos to the walkway and make the room ours. Send me photos of your additions.

---

UPDATE – I’m pleased to say that in the week since I installed the photographs, they’ve all been removed. Every other day I walked by the exhibit to see how many were remaining, which were mixing with the leaves on the sidewalk, and by yesterday they were all in the urban ether. The installation was never meant to be permanent nor really even a serious photographic exhibit, just an experiment, and since the photographs were all duplicate photos from 1992-2002, their sacrifice totally was worth it!

On October 13th, 2009, I was invited to document this demonstration at the DEA Headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. You can spot me in the YouTube video above in the beginning. I am wearing a black jacket and hat with a rose on it.

---

This story starts back in 2007 when farmers Wayne Hauge and David C. Monson attempted to obtain permits from the Drug Enforcement Administration to grow industrial hemp [well actually the story goes back further!]. Their respective state governments had granted the farmers licenses to grow the plant, but since the DEA still considers the non-psychoactive industrial hemp plant to be marijuana, they have refused to grant the farmers permits. Faced with no other legal option, they decided it was time to stage a direct action on the grounds of the DEA Headquarters to help push public opinion towards changing the outdated laws. A week later the Department of Justice officially clarified it’s stance on medical marijuana, but has not yet addressed industrial hemp farming. Below are two articles about the demonstration with photographs that I took that eventful morning:

On Sunday I snapped this photograph of a vendor’s rack of soccer jerseys at FiestaDC. As a Latin American street festival, FiestaDC is not only about the sharing of culture, its also about taking pride in one’s own cultural heritage. Many people wore their country’s traditional clothing and brandished flags of their home country, and when I spotted these jerseys, I began thinking about the relationship between sports and cultural identity. I like soccer and all, but I don’t think I’d ever wear a soccer jersey with the American flag on it. Same with a sports team from my hometown, not wearing it.

---

---

---

Rhetorical Question: Which jersey above is an American territory that is treated like Washington, DC as far as congressional representation, but doesn’t have to pay Federal taxes?

This set of pictures is the final part of the series showing my Jaloro plant. As you can see from the previous entries (below), this Jaloro plant has been quite bountiful this summer. I germinated the seed indoors sometime in February which allowed the plant to grow larger than it would have under normal outdoor growing conditions. In all, even with the spider mite infestation, this plant has yielded over 80 beautifully colored peppers. I have saved many of the seeds and I hope to grow this plant again next year.

View the rest of the photos:

The other day I was outside of a Metro station in Clarendon, Virginia and noticed this unique Wall Street Journal vending machine. Its the first time I’ve seen a newspaper vending machine take credit cards. But then again, who carries 8 quarters in their pocket?

View the other two photos:

I first noticed the green bean plants in my backyard starting die but didn’t realize that it was a pest. I simply thought the plant was receiving too much sunlight and not enough water. As the leaves wilted on the green bean plant, I sincerely wondered if the ground might have been contaminated by some foreign chemical. On my 3rd floor deck, where I was already growing my Basil plant and my Jaloro pepper plant, I decided to plant some of the seeds harvested from first green bean plant in my backyard. About a month later the green bean plant was showing the same discoloration on the leaves. Again, I didn’t think much of it. I simply thought the green bean plant was not suited to either this climate or the soil I was using. I continued to let the green bean plant grow and the rest of the leaves slowly wilted. Then I noticed that my Jaloro plant was showing discoloration on the leaves. As a pepper plant, I knew it was designed to receive ample sunlight, and the discoloration raised the final flag. I decided to turn the leaf over, squint my eyes, and there they were, spider mites.

Last Friday I attended the first celebration of Park(ing) Day in Washington, DC. Originally conceived & celebrated in 2005 by the artist/activism group ReBar in San Francisco, the concept behind Park(ing) Day is quite simple: reclaim urban space normally taken by cars by taking over different parking spaces for the day and turning them into temporary parks.

Organized by the contributors of the blogs ReadysetDC & F1RSTNR, the original concept for last week’s inaugural Park(ing) Day DC involved four locations around Washington, DC, but at the last minute the DC Department of Transportation threw up some large impediments that made the day’s planned celebration nearly impossible to execute. According to one of the organizers, among the various obstacles that DCDOT came up with was that they wanted the organizers to have large concrete jersey barriers to prevent cars from plowing through the temporary park (really?!).

After hearing about this issue, I mentioned the old direct action maxim: it’s easy to beg for forgiveness, then to beg for permission. As in, if the organizers would have just gone ahead and setup their temporary park(ing) spots and let the police and DCDOT deal with the matter in real-time, they could have ‘begged for forgiveness’ and made a scene in the process. The other way around, being lawful citizens that is, involves going to the DCDOT asking for permission (aka permits) and if the authority isn’t too keen on the concept (which it appears they weren’t) they can make it impossible to undertake.

Thus result was more of a Park(ing) Lot Day than a Park(ing) Day, but that didn’t stop the fun that was had by all the participants. The day’s savior was the owner of the local business Garden District, who currently owns a vacant lot at the corner of 14th & S streets, and allowed the Park(ing) Day organizers to set up there. The organizers drove out to Virginia and picked up 1,500 pounds of sod and laid it down over the asphalt and created their own temporary urban park, which ended up being much larger than a parking space would have been! They also sourced some plants, furniture, books, 3D chalk, christmas lights, and even a badminton set; all of which made the lot more of a corner park for people to hang out at.

I arrived around 3pm and hung out with everyone, took a few photos (above & below) and even made a couple new friends. Around 5:30pm I left and went to a friend’s house to get equipment for the show at the Black Cat later in the evening. And after setting up for the show, I went back to the Park(ing) [Lot] and helped them cleanup park. In all, I had a great time. Next year, however, I am aiming for having a park in the central business district. Check the other photographs I took:

Following up yesterday’s entry about having my name in Greek, I came across this photo I took a couple weeks ago in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, DC. I took it because, well, umm, I like the way the sign looks chiseled, old, and how the creator used the Greek letter DELTA instead of ALPHA (err, Alfa) in their spelling. Thus the sign should read, Delta & Omega Tax Services— I guess they are not about the beginning and ending of fiscal matters, but the change thereof.

---

After I went to Friday’s Opening Rally of the Taxpayers March on DC at CityCenterDC, I rode my bike to the gallery opening at Civilian Art Projects.

From the Civilian Art Projects website:

Love Letters is Baltimore-based artist Cara Ober’s first solo exhibition with Civilian Art Projects. Ober layers drawing, painting, and printmaking into mixed media works that examine and reinterpret sentimental imagery. Intricate and funny, Love Letters explores the relationship of the artist to image, word, and personal meaning found in the exploration of secret fantasy and expressive interlude.

The exhibition will be up until October 17th, 2009.

View the two other photographs I took:

---

Like Part Two, this portion of photographs from today’s Taxpayers March on Washington focuses on some of the random signs I found.

---

In this portion of photographs from today’s Taxpayers March on Washington I am focusing on some of the random signs I found.

---

View the rest:

This morning I got up early to attend the Taxpayers March on Washington. Being that I’ve attended nearly every major demonstration in Washington, DC over the last ten years, I was really curious about how this demonstration would go off. How many people would there be? What would be the demographics of those present? Would people bring guns? Are these people as crazy and brainwashed as they’ve come to appear on television? Instead of relying on YouTube videos and hearsay, I wanted to see for myself who consider themselves modern day patriots.

Before I left my house I turned on the TV to see if there was any coverage of the demonstration on the major cable television news channels. Sure enough, CNN was showing that an estimated 80,000 were present. I also opened up the Washington Post and was rather startled that they had an article on the front page about the march. Where was the same kind of coverage before the Iraq war started when there were hundreds of thousands of Americans marching? After reading the article, and questioning Washington Post’s motives, I put on my FREE DC hat, charged up my camera, and rode my bike down to Pennsylvania ave to take it all in.

---

Below is my first batch of photographs from the day.

---

Earlier this evening I noticed one of my friends had posted photos of the Tea Party Rally taking place at City Center DC on Facebook. I was planning on going that part of the city to attend a gallery opening, so I decided to stop by the event and take some photographs of people in the crowd.

Generally speaking, I’ve always felt this Taxpayer March on Washington reeks of astroturf– a term used for fake grassroots. With this weekend’s Taxpayer March on Washington being heavily promoted on Fox News and other conservative media outlets, it cannot be considered grassroots by any means. The concept of a grassroots movement is that it is organic and not promoted from the top down, but organized from the bottom up.

Upon arriving at City Center I was immediately aware that the “patriots” were actually standing on astroturf. I let out a hearty laugh at the irony many of those present were not aware of. Below are some of the photographs I took earlier this evening. In a couple days I hope to have the videos I recorded uploaded to YouTube.

---

View the rest:

Earlier this evening I had the opportunity to attend the Pink Line Project-sponsored closing party for the exhibition “Metropolis Now!” at the Meridian International Center. I was on hand to help my friend Robin setup for his special VJ set and had an overall great time.

I always try to take photographs of any maps I happen to come across. The other day I was at a friends house and noticed this tattoo of the State of Maryland. View the other two photos: