03.25 - spring has sprung?
what’s going on in d.c.
Friday: A Watergate exhibit premieres at the National Portrait Gallery today.
Saturday: The Blossom Kite Festival returns to the Mall with competitions and demos (10 am - 4:30 pm) | Fly a kite non-competitively or play lawn games at the NoMa in Bloom festival (10 am - 3 pm)
Sunday: The National Arboretum hosts a Native Plant Sale (9 am - 2 pm) | Welcome to Night Vale, the hit spooky podcast, makes its first stop on a world tour at the Lincoln Theatre (7 pm) | Singer Tate McRae performs at the 9:30 Club (7 pm)
All weekend: WashingCon, the D.C. tabletop gaming expo, is back this Saturday and Sunday at the convention center. | It’s the last weekend to visit the Air and Space Museum for a while - it’s about to close for renovations through the fall.
Looking ahead: Yayoi Kusama, the artist known for Infinity Mirrors (the 2017 Hirshorn exhibit that likely took over your social media feeds), is back with a new exhibit, “One with Eternity.” It premieres at the Hirshorn on April 1.
let’s talk food and drinks
my weekly best bite: Paneer tikka pizza at Wiseguy Pizza
Nighthawk Pizza, a giant pizza and beer hall, opens in Arlington with indoor and outdoor bars and ‘90s inspired décor.
The Washington Post rounded up sushi happy hours across the city, including half-price rolls at Union Market’s O-Ku.
what’s on our minds?
D.C. is suing Grubhub for deceptive business practices, including a Supper for Support program that took advantage of restaurants during early COVID days. Other deceptive practices per the complaint? Grubhub listed over 1,000 restaurants on its platform without a contract, obscured its fees, and listed items for a higher price than the restaurant charged - without disclosing the difference. This isn’t D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine’s first showdown with food delivery spots - he negotiated a $2.5M settlement with DoorDash and worked with Pennsylvania’s attorney general to require more clarity on UberEats’ pricing. Grubhub is also facing lawsuits from Chicago and class actions in Colorado and Illinois.
Quick links to other weekly #goodreads:
How Balloons Blew Up - per The New York Times, “The staple of children’s parties, awkward school-auditorium dances, and sporting events has taken on another life.”
The TikTok Trend That’s Made Me Absurdly Invested in the Lives of Medical Students- per Slate, “It’s Bama Rush TikTok, but with doctors.”
How Stepan, Ukraine’s most famous cat, escaped the war to safety - per Washington Post, “For content creators in Ukraine, an online following can be a lifeline.”
Is Russia’s Largest Tech Company Too Big to Fail? - per Wired, “It took 20 years for Arkady Volozh to build Yandex into Russia’s Google, Uber, Spotify, and Amazon combined. It took 20 days for everything to crumble.”
what are we watching/reading?
The Lost City in theaters. Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or somehow avoiding all advertisements), you’ve likely been inundated with ads for this Sandra Bullock/Channing Tatum adventure comedy. It’s getting pretty good reviews so far, with 76% on Rotten Tomatoes.