thursday, july 8, 2010 BOOK WORLD


‘The Windup Girl’ Bangkok after the apocalypse, when the oil’s all gone and the oceans have risen: An intriguing look at the future in a book that won the Nebula Award. C3


THE TV COLUMN The Emmy


Style ABCDE C S THE RELIABLE SOURCE


nominations This morning’s choices will answer some pressing questions about shows like “Parenthood” (right) and “Glee.” C5


“Top Chef: D.C.” contestant Timothy Dean has filed suit against National Harbor, claiming he was squeezed out of a deal to open a restaurant there. C2


3LIVE TODAY @ washingtonpost.com/discussions Carolyn Hax Noon • Going Out Gurus 1 p.m. • Celebritology Live 2 p.m. • Lisa de Moraes on the Emmy Award nominations 2:30 p.m.


Tourists come and tourists go — often thanks only to the Bus Doctor


Organists hit town, pull out all the stops


Convention brings together 2,100 players for workshops, concerts and camaraderie


by Anne Midgette The Washington National Cathedral


was filled Monday night with a near- capacity crowd. You’d expect such a turnout for a state funeral. You might not expect it for a concert of two little- known 20th-century works: Samuel Bar- ber’s “Toccata Festiva” for organ and or- chestra, and Paul Paray’s Requiem for the 500th anniversary of the death of Joan of Arc. But this wasn’t a regular crowd. It con- sisted almost entirely of organists. The American Guild of Organists is holding its biennial convention in Wash- ington this week, and there are 2,100 players roaming the city. The epicenter is the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Woodley Park, where organists of all de- scriptions, from all over the country, convene for workshops, mingle in the lobby or wander through the exhibitors’ booths downstairs. There they can peruse the latest of- ferings from music publishers, such as


Washington’s churches are ringing all week with organ recitals.


the new Aria, Op. 1, by Cameron Car- penter, organ’s current controversial en- fant terrible. They can examine bro- chures from organ builders from Aus- tria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Canada and the United States. They can try out organ software and music-stand lights. They can even order personalized art, fash- ioned out of sheet music, from an en- terprising artist.


MONICA HESSE/THE WASHINGTON POST WHO YA GONNA CALL?“I do like the rush of helping people,” says Bryan Cebula, who has fixed 1,300 broken-down buses in a year. by Monica Hesse T


he buses are upon us. The height of summer is the height of bus season; they come in droves, beasts of chrome and reclining plush seats, swarm-


ing the city streets like some 11th biblical plague, whatever would come after lo- custs and frogs. During peak months, as many as a thousand tourist buses are in Washington on a given day, says the American Bus Association, which tracks this sort of thing. The buses break down. There are a million and one things that can go wrong with a bus. You got your dead batteries,


coaches for the Cure No need for formalities here: National


Public Radio now says it wants to be known simply as NPR. So the Washington-based organiza- tion has quietly changed its name to its familiar initials. Much like the corpo- rate names KFC or AT&T, the initials now stand for the initials. NPR says it’s abbreviating the name it has used since its debut in 1971 because it’s more than radio these days. Its news, music and informational programming is heard over a variety of digital devices that aren’t radios; it also operates news and music Web sites. Hence: “NPR is more modern,


streamlined,” says Vivian Schiller, NPR’s chief executive. She points to other “re- brandings” by media organizations, such as Cable News Network, which has been plain old CNN for years. NPR hasn’t formally announced the


change. But it has told its staff and some 900 affiliated stations in recent months


busted water hoses, busted belts, busted starters. Tires go. Alternators go. Air con- ditioners go, and that’s a bigger problem than it once was. “Yes, ma’am. Twenty years ago the bus- es had windows that opened. But now they don’t. You take a bus and you set it outside in the heat, it’s going to hit 140 degrees inside within an hour.” Here is a man of great wisdom. Here is a trim man with a prickly mustache, graying buzz cut and a pleasant twang. He wears navy work pants. He has a shirt with an embroidered name tag. On a re- cent sizzling morning, he pilots his re- pair truck across the 14th Street Bridge,


bus doctor continued on C8


But to hear the organs, you have to go where the organs are. So Washington’s churches are ringing all week with organ recitals by more than 20 soloists from around the world — a roster curated by the local chapters of the AGO (unfortu- nately, almost all of the offerings are closed to the public). At various times on Monday and Tuesday, the brand-new Lively-Fulcher organ at St. John’s at La- fayette Square offered a recital with the unlikely combination of organ and harp (Jean-Baptiste Robin and Elizabeth Blakeslee); the final round of an im- provisation competition was held on the Schoenstein organ at St. Paul’s on K Street; and the Aeolian-Skinner organ at National Presbyterian thundered with three large-scale works, including a Pas- sacaglia from Leo Sowerby’s Symphony for Organ that Jonathan Biggers, the so- loist, described as sounding like “the Queen Mary II rolling into the nave.”


organists continued on C3


Name shrinkage for National Public Radio


to use only the initials on the air or on- line. There’s a little bit of tension in those three initials. NPR’s affiliates, which contribute about 40 percent of NPR’s $154 million operating budget, are still primarily in the radio business. Some station managers have grumbled that NPR has invested in digital operations at the expense of more and better radio programs. The Public Broadcasting Service,


NPR’s public TV counterpart, still offi- cially refers to itself by its full name, ac- cording to a PBS spokeswoman. — Paul Farhi


ADAM GRIFFITHS


We’re looking for the Washington area’s best aspiring artists with our Real Art D.C. contest, and we have just chosen our fourth finalist. Meet him and upload your own art at washingtonpost.com/RealArtDC.


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