District's Not Dead

This panel I moderated turned out to be a success, of a sort. Hatchets says that 138 people were in attendance. Of a sort, because at times it felt like a health-care townhall, a riot-turned-deliberation: 138 Angry Men. But a success, given it was the first Monday following the holidays, and freezing winds did their best to keep people away. On my way to the hotel I didn't want to be there.

I'm grateful so many people showed. Greg Allen attended and wrote a faithful account that you should read. Some of what he says kind of rankles me, but yeah, that's how that panel went.

In retrospect I have to wonder whether the kerfuffle truly follows from the power of the Washington Post or rather from the idiosyncratic personalities of the District's art community. If Jane Black had written her survey of new food on 14th Street with a negative slant—if she'd described it as, or reported it to be, an "island of misfit toys"—would food bloggers and restaurateurs have organized in upset? I don't know. But I know that many of the 138 people who showed for the art panel have deep ties in this city. This scene, sucky or scrappy, weathered a lot before money came to Northwest and Obama brought news crews. It has an attitude.