On a casual jaunt around Adams Morgan after work last Friday I came across a performance by The People’s Party. This was not a reincarnation of the debunked political party prominent in the American south in the 1890’s, nor a showing by the Spanish “liberal-conservative” party. Oh no! It was a seemingly spontaneous concert by the self described “hippy-hop” group from Venice Beach, CA: The People’s Party. The stage (I use this term loosely, it was a converted van/trailer configuration) was set in front of Asylum with a solid crowd of thirty or so people. These guys rocked, but with a guy playing rock and roll violin and an entourage on the roof, how can you not?

This was my first opportunity to get some use out of my “new” (I think it’s older than me) Olympus XA-2. It is a very fast/discrete little 35mm shooter and should be good for getting some candids.

   
We were blessed with some idle time on this blistery February night and decided to visit, appropriately, Idle Time Books in Adams Morgan. Located at the north end of the strip, this is a pleasant break from the typical 18th St. bar scene. It’s a great place to check out if you don’t have a specific book in mind or are just looking to spend a bit of time. Coming here with a certain book in mind, particularly a new release, would probably be an exercise in futility. None the less, there is something very enjoyable about aimlessly perusing around a musty used bookstore searching for that “diamond in the rough”.

Idle Time Books is 3 stories tall and seemed to be in fairly good order as far as subject matter of the books. The lower floor is primarily fiction, art/architecture, children’s books, and vintage notecards. Moving up to the second floor (which is really more of a landing on the stairs) is a large section of biographies. Idle Time’s upper story is home to the non-fiction books that covered topics like: the Official Rules of Leisure Sports, Russian history in the mid 1700’s, Freudian psychology, Alaskan Tours, Models of the Contemporary City, and pretty much everything in between.

A good way to spend a few hours on a slow evening.

….been walkin’ down the backstreets.

I did a nice little Adams Morgan alley walk-about as part of my hang-over prevention on Sunday morning. It helped, moderately.

I miss four day weekends.