Culture

ReStore Manager Colin Campbell works with volunteer Marvin Cruz: Photo by Laura Rush

In a semi-hidden warehouse space at the back end of a strip mall in Alexandria, Va., stuffed with used refrigerators, cabinets, sinks, and countless other random household goods, Colin Campbell surveys the faces of the people sitting at the conference room table in front of him and launches into his orientation speech. 

Prevace Moss in 2008, prior to house arrest.: Photo courtesy of Prevace Moss

After years in and out of detention centers, and under house arrest, 23-year-old Prevace Moss, a convicted criminal, struggles to maintain a job and is looking toward building a music career.  Growing up in a stable family, he entered into a life of crime as a teenager, and now feels there's little room to leave it behind. 

Facebook poking has become another outlet for flirting online: Photo courtesy of flickr user
Noodle93, Creative Commons Attribution License
Is spring a time for new beginnings — a status held for years, months or mere weeks – and a time to bask in the enjoyment of singledom? Picnics with friends, bike rides to the Washington Monument, ballgames in the sun, barbecues every other weekend – all activities sans significant other. Or is it a time to declare yourself on the prowl, dedicating yourself only to the best of candidates for a soon-to-be-summer love? Each outing to a bar, each casual house party, even a visit to the local ice cream shop is spent intently sightseeing for "the one."

D.C. Ink artist Isaac Colon, 25, sketches a tribal tattoo design for a returning client.: Photo by Alyssa Mulliger

With each puncture, the high-pitched buzz of the needle resembles a bloodthirsty mosquito, piercing the outer layer of skin as it deposits a drop of insoluble ink one-sixteenth of an inch below the surface of the skin. Isaac Colon, a 25-year-old Latino tattoo artist who has been tattooing with D.C. Ink for two years, quickly moves the needle in and out of the skin on the waist of Ebony Brown, an African-American woman in her early twenties.

"Dapper," "suave," and gentleman are are just a few words that come to mind when describing Joseph Daniel Clipper. “In my day, we didn’t shake a young lady’s hand,” says Clipper, leaning in for a hug as I walked into the lobby of the Camden Roosevelt apartment building on 16th St., N.W. Standing next to Clipper in my sweatpants and tennis shoes, I suddenly felt underdressed. Most people leave the fancy work clothes in the closet and don something a little more comfortable on a Saturday, but not Clipper.

SAN FRANCISCO – The 40-year-old muralist stood at the top of the iron stepladder and aimed his spray can at a concrete wall on Haight Street one Thursday morning last November. A few passers-by with cameras tried to get a picture of the painted wall.

(Note: This piece is part III in a three part series on anime fandom in D.C. Read part I here. Read part II here. )

The night before the convention, T-MODE staff members prepare for the next day's onslaught of attendees. Photo by Lauren Orsini.

Gourmet-on-the-go is the latest food trend to hit the District. 

From ethnic fare to sweet treats, food trucks are differentiating themselves from food carts through their approach to food and customer service. The mobile restaurants are meeting the needs of busy customers by traveling to them and communicating through social networks.

A portrait of Nobuo Uematsu. Photo by Ken Eith Jr.This is Nobuo Uematsu's first anime convention, and everyone can tell.

Surrounded by flamboyantly costumed young guests, it is the short, quiet 50-year-old who stands out in the crowd. Wearing khakis, a brown button down, with his silver hair tied back in a ponytail, he looks almost too ordinary.

Next year, he'll dress up "as a Chocobo," he says through his translator, Geoff Tebbetts.

He's referring to the yellow ostrich-like bird that is used as transportation in the popular Final Fantasy video games for which he has composed music.

 District resident Deborah Charles-Chisholm, a journalist with an international news agency, traveled the world, living and working in foreign capitals for a decade before returning to at the age of 34. She became a first-time bride at 38.