Cafe Citron is the Place to Go

This weekend I went with some friends to Café Citron, one of my favorite restaurants in D.C.

Located in Dupont Circle, Café Citron is always bursting with Latin/International/Euro beats. The bright yellow, orange and pink walls of the restaurant have a beautiful contrast with the room’s dim lighting. There’s also cushioned seating, beautiful tapestries hanging from the walls, and strange decorations like plastic mannequins and sensuous paintings.

The menu is mostly comprised of Latin American dishes. Everything I’ve eaten there is absolutely delicious and it’s all decently priced. My favorite item is definitely the fried plantains.

Café Citron also has a really good drink menu. The mojitos are a favorite among customers.

Every Monday night has Flamenco dancers, every Tuesday night has live Latin jazz and every Wednesday night has complementary Salsa lessons.

So, if you’re looking for a fun place to go that has a lively atmosphere and great food, then Café Citron is the place to go.

Audacity

Two representatives from the IRC gave our class a tutorial on the program Audacity this past Thursday. The program seems like it would be a great tool to use for my final project and I’m really excited about using it.

Audacity is free audio software that is good for sound editing and podcasting. It is compatible with WAV, AIFF, AU, IRCAM, MP3 and OGG files.

During our class we used microphones to record a sample sound clip. We then learned how to edit the clips by cutting, copying and pasting certain portions of the clips into different places.

One great thing about Audacity is that is has multi-track mixing. The program also has the ability to make precise adjustments to the audio's speed, while maintaining pitch, in order to synchronize it with video, or to have it run for a specific length of time.

This program will definitely come in handy for me some time in the near future. It’s fast, it’s easy, and I highly recommend it.

Pan's Labyrinth

Yesterday I went to the movies and saw “Pan’s Labyrinth.” I thought the film was absolutely incredible. Writer/director Guillermo del Toro did an amazing job with crafting this dark and twisted, yet beautiful fairy tale for adults.

The story takes place in fascist Spain in 1944 and is about a young bookish girl, Ofelia, who travels with her pregnant mother, Carmen, to live with her mother’s new husband, the sadistic Capitán Vidal. Upon arriving at Vidal’s mansion, Ophelia comes across a stone labyrinth that is presided over by a mythical faun.

The faun tells Ofelia she is the lost princess of a legend and that she must complete three life-threatening tasks to regain her kingdom and be reunited with her grieving father.

I loved Ofelia’s Alice-like approach to the creatures she encountered. Also, as a viewer it was so easy to get pulled into this movie. After a while, I didn’t even notice the subtitles on the screen.

One of the best parts is when Ofelia is trying to escape from a pale, skeletal creature that has eyes in the palms of its hands. No doubt, this was the creepiest monster that I’ve seen in a film for a long time. I was thoroughly impressed with the originality of it.

Although this film had a lot of violence and brutality, there was always a reason for it. There were no gratuitous blood shots, which I appreciated.

This film definitely deserves recognition and I hope to see it do well at this year’s Oscars.

New iPod+iTunes Commercial

After seeing the new iPod+iTunes commercial about a dozen times on television, I decided to do some research. I couldn’t help myself, considering the song in the commercial was so damn catchy.

I found out the song is called “Flathead” and it’s by the Scottish indie rock band, the Fratellis. You can see the commercial here, or find out more about the band at their official Web site, http://www.thefratellis.com/.

The single is an infectiously upbeat and toe-tapping kind of song that’ll be stuck in your head for the rest of the day. Lead singer and guitarist, Jon Fratelli, fronts the band with swanky, assertive vocals and boomslap rhythms, alongside bassist Barry Fratelli and drummer Mince Fratelli.

The Fratellis’ upcoming album, Costello Music, which features “Flathead,” is due to come out March 12, 2007.

I’m definitely going to keep an eye on this band and I look forward to hearing more from them.

Adventures On Capitol Hill

As part of my internship with the Entertainment Industries Council, I got to attend the 10th Annual PRISM Awards Showcase on Capitol Hill this past Wednesday. It was a pretty major event for the organization and I was glad to be a part of it.

The Showcase highlighted the winning and nominated clips from the 10th Annual PRISM Awards TV show, which took place in Los Angeles last spring. The event was a chance for government officials to see the good works the entertainment industry has been doing through accurate depictions of mental health, substance abuse, addiction and recovery in feature films, television and music.

New EIC board member, Melissa Rivers, hosted the event. Never in a million years did I think I would be in the same room as her. I was surprised by how petite she was in person. I guess the camera really does lie, hehe.

It was cool to see how everything came together so smoothly. Ever since I started with EIC at the beginning of January, I've been working with everyone at the organization to bring this event to life. Some of the projects I took part in were:

• planning and organizing the RSVP list (which had over 200 people!)
• putting together press kits by drafting out several press releases
• writing out Melissa Rivers' itinerary for her visit to Washington, D.C.
• contacting media circuits to publicize the event

So far it's been quite an experience. I can't wait to see what's up next.

Obama Barack's My World

Last Friday Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) came to speak at George Mason University. I hadn’t seen the Johnson Center packed with that many people since last year’s hype over the Final Four. The event was made possible because of the collaboration between Students for Barack Obama—a small Facebook group turned nationwide political movement—and Mason’s College Democrats.

In an article from the Broadside, Tobin Van Ostern, deputy director of Students for Barack Obama said that the senator was never scheduled to speak at any other college campus. It’s pretty exciting to know that Mason was selected as the first university for him to make an appearance. Without a doubt, GMU has made history in nationwide politics.

Though nothing has been made official, Obama’s speech was a strong indication that he has intentions of running for president in 2008—and there’s no doubt that he has a strong following. Before Obama’s appearance at the rally, several warm-up speakers shared with the crowd that students from all over the country had come to Mason to hear the Illinois senator speak.

For the most part, Obama kept his speech pretty generalized in the sense that he didn’t get into specifics on certain issues. But that doesn’t mean that what he said wasn’t motivating. The hopeful mentality of Yes We Can—a catchphrase that was repeated several times by Obama and the crowd—was an ongoing theme throughout his speech.

It’s clear that this man is a natural crowd pleaser. In my opinion, the high point of Sen. Obama’s speech happened after he quoted Dr. Martin Luther King in saying, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

And in his own words, the Illinois senator concluded his speech by saying, “And if you grab that arc, I have absolutely no doubt that regardless of what happens in this presidential year, in this campaign, America will transform itself.”