DC politics and other randomness

I'm going to have to admit that since Marion Barry ceased to be a potential mayoral candidate years ago, the excitement has gone out of DC politics for me, to the extent that this time around I knew almost nothing about the two main candidates, Linda Cropp and Adrian Fenty. I say "almost" because I did have a run-in with Linda Cropp's henchmen years ago which predisposed me not to like her (perhaps a tale for another blog). And I did have those 20 or so computer-generated messages on my answering machine from the Fenty campaign, which predisposed me to not like him. But mostly I just sat this one out.

My interest was piqued slightly more post-election, however, after reading this quote in the Washington City Paper from one of George Pelecanos' fictional characters as he describes Fenty in his new novel The Night Gardener:

“Now you had politicians, like that ambitious light-skinned dude, councilman for that area up top of Georgia, trying to make laws about loitering and stopping cats from buying single cans of beer.…The light-skinned dude, he didn’t really care about folks hanging out, and he didn’t care if a man wanted to enjoy himself one beer on a summer night. But he was running for mayor, so there it was.”

So if that's on target, and it seems like it is, then DC's steady march towards sterility is unfortunately likely to continue. By the way, The Night Gardener is supposed to be pretty good. An excerpt of Chapter One is printed here.

As long as I'm dishing out recommendations, the Post wrote up a new photography exhibit at the National Gallery today called the Streets of New York, and I intend to see it at the soonest opportunity.

Anywho... I availed myself of a haircut up in Adams-Morgan this morning, and then popped down to Tryst for lunch. As usual it was packed, but a single seat was open at the bar, and I grabbed it. For lunch I had the Oscar, a delicious prosciutto-cheese-and-veggies sandwich that at one time I used to walk clear across town for. As good as I remembered. And that is all.