The Art in Life

Today I stopped by the Whole Foods in Fairfax to grab bread before going to lunch at a friend’s house. If you haven’t been to the Fairfax Whole Foods, you are missing one of the finest examples of the culinary abundance of American suburbia. At least twice the size of most Whole Foods I have been too, it also boasts the best (and subsequently most overwhelming) food court I have ever seen inside of a grocery store. As I was walking past the bread pudding bar and rows of designer cheeses, I saw a sign announcing that Whole Foods was now broadcasting all football games on Sunday afternoons. That’s right, you can watch Sunday football while dining on vegan delicacies.

I am not saying that this is wrong, or that football watching Americans are not the type of people who dislike an entire quinoa bar. I am just underscoring the fact that the DC area is one in which Sunday afternoon football fans might prefer quinoa to wings, which is to say, things are not typical here.

This was made glaringly apparent on Halloween. Growing up, I loved Halloween. I think I went as a princess most of my childhood, but because it was Wilmore, I was specifically Queen Esther. My costumes, and those of my peers, were generally yard sale treasures and odd conglomerations of our mothers’ makeup and jewelry.  After our candy rounds, my brothers and I traded our candy until Zach had all the snickers, I had all the Reeses, and Lyman had all the Skittles. (When you are the youngest, it is prudent to form your preferences opposite of everyone else to maximize your profit. Lyman is now in school studying economics, obviously.)

I went running Monday night during the beginning end of the Trick-or-Treaters. My route takes me through the Eastern Market neighborhood, preferred home of hipsters and the affluent. As I passed families making the rounds I was struck by several things. First, none of these costumes began in someone’s cast offs. Two, every home not only gave out candy to children, they also boasted wine and cheese tables to adults, who had all come in expensive grown up versions of the same costumes that there children were wearing, most of whom were too young to know why they were dressed as miniature Disney characters or zoo animals.

All of this is to say, our nation’s capital is perhaps not reflective its population. They are less than the frequently besmirched “1%.” But they are entertaining.