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Robert Devaney • August 28, 2014

The 200th anniversary of the capture and burning of Washington by British forces during the War of 1812, “America’s Second War of Independence,” was marked at several spots in D.C. on Sunday, Aug. 24.

Perhaps, one of the more poignant activities of the day was the flag lesson by the National Park Service at the White House Ellipse. With the south lawn and White House in the background, visitors and ordinary citizens got to learn about the War of 1812 and the Star-Spangled Banner, as they held and unfolded and re-folded a full-sized replica of the 30-foot by 42-foot U.S. flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write what became our national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Dressed as Key, park ranger Vincent Vaise of Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine explained the meaning of the flag and the importance of the War of 1812 in America’s growth to greatness.

Some persons walking by the huge flag stopped to hear the talk by Vaise and wound up helping to hold the flag. It was an unexpected history and civics lesson for several. The White House was burned by British troops 200 years ago to the day on Aug. 24.

Meanwhile, in Georgetown, it was Dolley Day at Dumbarton House, to where first lady Dolley Madison fled from the White House on Aug. 24, 1814. Children and parents enjoyed old-time games, crafts as well as Dolley cake and ice cream, which Mrs. Madison popularized.

Robert Devaney • August 25, 2014

Sunday marks the 200th anniversary of the Capture and Burning of Washington by British forces during the War of 1812, “America’s Second War of Independence.”

On Aug. 24, 1814, Gen. Robert Ross and his troops set fire to the U.S. Capitol, Treasury, White House and other public buildings. No private property was put to the torch. Nevertheless, many Washington residents fled to Georgetown, D.C., and then to the wilds of Virginia and Maryland. Days later, President James Madison and first lady Dolley Madison returned to Washington, D.C., only to see a burned-out Executive Mansion. The capital resolved to rebuild, and America began its drive to greatness as a nation.

To commemorate the bicentennial of this long-ago British invasion, events abound in D.C. and Maryland. They include a “Flee the British” 5K at Congressional Cemetery, Dolley Day at Dumbarton House in Georgetown, an unfurling of an original-size Star-Spangled Banner replica on the Ellipse, a 1812-style Sunday service at Christ Church on Capitol Hill and a dinner at Martin’s Tavern from the White House menu of Aug. 24, 1814 , “The Meal That Was Never Served.”

Aug. 23 to 24 — War of 1812 Family Festival & Dolley Day

Walking tours, ice cream making, Dolley cake, Federal period games, and crafts from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Dumbarton House, 2715 Q St., NW. Tickets are $10. For details, call 202-337-2288.

Aug. 23 to 24 — The Battle of Bladensburg Commemoration and Monument Unveiling

A day-long festival of events including a reenactment, musical performances, children’s village, Food Truck Rally, and fireworks at Waterfront Park, 4601 Annapolis Road, Bladensburg, Md., following the unveiling of the new Battle of Bladensburg Monument. 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Admission is free. For details, call 301-887-0777.

Aug. 24 — Flee the British 5K at Congressional Cemetery

Commemorate the 200th anniversary of the British invasion of D.C. with a 5K run at 8 a.m. at the Historic Congressional Cemetery, 1801 E St., SE, among graves of many of the key players in the War of 1812 — www.CongressionalCemetery.org/flee-British-5k — 202-543-0539.

Aug. 23 — Meet Dolley Madison at the Ellipse

At President’s Park, the White House Ellipse, Washington, D.C.– 10 a.m. and noon. The United States Park Service will feature a park ranger dressed as Dolley Madison, with a 30-minute presentation about the first lady’s role in the War of 1812.

Aug. 24 — Full-Sized Star-Spangled Banner at the Ellipse

At President’s Park, White House Ellipse, visitors will get to hold — 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. — a full-sized replica of the 30-foot by 42-foot U.S. flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Chief of Interpretation Vincent Vaise will highlight the British capture of Washington, D.C., the burning of the White House and the successful Defense of Baltimore. Visitors will understand how the events of August and September 1814 shaped how many Americans currently see the flag as the symbol of the spirit of the American people and how that spirit of resilience led to the rebuilding of the Capitol and White House after the War of 1812.

Aug. 24 — The Key Story

At President’s Park, White House Ellipse, 1:30 p.m., meet Francis Scott Key, author of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” as he is portrayed by a park ranger. Learn about Key’s life as a father and lawyer in Georgetown, Key’s role in defending Washington, the series of events that led to his writing the song that later becomes the national anthem and his active role in Washington politics after the War of 1812. A lively question and answer session will follow the formal presentation.

Museum Open Houses

Aug. 24 — Family Day at National Museum of the U.S. Navy

It is Family Day at the Washington Navy Yard on August 24, noon to 4 p.m. — and to commemorate two of the most important events of the War of 1812: the Battle of Bladensburg and the burning of the Washington Navy Yard, the National Museum of the United States Navy will open the new exhibit “Defeat to Victory: 1814-1815” — 202-433-6897 or 202-433-6826 — www.history.navy.mil/NMUSN.

Aug. 24 — Decatur House Open House

The White House Historical Association invites all to a War of 1812 Open House at Decatur House, commemorating the 200th anniversary of the burning of Washington — 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Aug. 24 — Octagon House Open House

Visit the home where the Madisons lived, following the burning of the White House on Aug. 24, 1814. The museum, now a part of the American Institute of Architects, will be open from noon to 4 p.m. to the public.

Aug. 24 — Commemorative Services at Christ Church on Capitol Hill

Join worshippers at historic Christ Church on Capitol Hill to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Burning of Washington, D.C. on Aug. 24, 1814. At both its 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. services on Aug. 24, Christ Church will be worshiping in the 1806 building in which its congregation would have worshiped in 1814, using the same Episcopal service that would have been used the Sunday after the Burning of Washington. The rector of Christ Church on that historic day, the Rev. Mr. McCormick, was involved in dealing with the British after they marched into the city and started the burning.

Historic Walking Tours

Aug. 24 — Washington Is Burning! 2-Part Walking Tour

The Aug. 24, 1814 conflagration ignited by British troops invading Washington, D.C. is the subject of a two-part walking tour offered by Washington Walks, a D.C.-based walking tour company. Guides will lead participants along the route British soldiers took as they marched through America’s capital city, setting ablaze key government buildings and military targets. Many of the sites are included on the “Star-Spangled Banner Trail,” a 560-mile land and water route that tells the story of the War of 1812 in the Chesapeake Bay region. Part one of the walking tour takes place in the morning, visiting the Sewall-Belmont House, U.S. Capitol, former sites of the U.S. Patent Office and Washington Daily National Intelligencer newspaper, amongst others. Following a break for lunch, the second half of the walk takes in War of 1812 history in the vicinity of the White House; the former site of Rhodes Tavern, U.S. Treasury building, Dolley Madison house, and the White House itself are a few of the featured stops. The tour concludes at the Octagon, one of the oldest houses in Washington, D.C., and site of the treaty signing that ratified the end of the war. Here tour participants will encounter first lady Dolley Madison, who became the Octagon’s most famous resident when it served as temporary home for President James Madison and his wife, following the destruction of the White House. Washington Walks has partnered with the History Warehouse, an organization that provides living history performers for commemorative events. History Warehouse founder and professional actor Leigh Jameson specializes in portraying Dolley Madison — www.washingtonwalks.com/tours/washington-is-burning-august-1814.

Aug. 24 — Georgetown During the War of 1812

Meet 10 a.m. at Dumbarton House’s East Garden at the corner of Q and 27th Streets, NW, for a two-hour walking tour of historic Georgetown devoted to the events of the War of 1812. Join Dwane Starlin, a member of the Guild of Professional Guides of Washington, D.C., for a tour de force of Georgetown during the “Second Revolutionary War,” Visit and view that areas of Georgetown that were part of the conflict, which finally established the United States as a country and not a just a former British colony. The tour ends at the Francis Scott Key Park.

Aug. 20 to 25 — Pride of Baltimore II Tall Ship at the Navy Yard

Tour and demonstrations of the Pride of Baltimore — 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. — at the Washington Navy Yard in Southeast.

Aug. 24 — Wreath-Laying at Navy Memorial

To remember those who fought at the Battle of Bladensburg 200 years ago, there will be a wreath laying ceremony at 4 p.m. at the Navy Memorial Plaza, 701 Pennsylvannia Ave., NW. In attendance will be representatives from the U.S. Navy, United States Marine Corps, Great Britain, and Canada.

Aug. 23 and 24 — National Park Service Freedom Plaza Programs

Walking tours and re-enactments, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Pennsylvania Avenue and 14th Street, NW.

Aug. 24 — White House Dinner at Billy Martin’s Tavern

Martin’s Tavern in Georgetown (1264 Wisconsin Ave., NW) will be serving “The Dinner That Was Never Served” (at the White House on Aug. 24, 1814, when British troops burned the Capitol and White House) 200 years later, on Sunday, Aug. 24, 2014. The menu consists of what the 40 guests might have been served, as President James Madison’s cabinet and military officers intended to toast what they assumed would be a victory at the Battle of Bladensburg on Aug. 24, 1814.

Georgetowner •

Summer Block Party Late Night

August 21st, 2014 at 05:00 PM | marcommintern@nbm.org | Event Website

Enjoy extended Museum hours to visit exhibitions, navigate the BIG maze, and nosh at Hill Country’s Backyard Barbecue.

Address

National Building Museum; 401 F St. NW

EPL at RiRa Georgetown

August 21st, 2014 at 07:45 AM | $4 Heineken, Newcastle and Strongbow during every game! | Tel: (202) 751 2111 | Event Website

All the action on our big screens! $4 Heineken, Newcastle and Strongbow during every game!

Aston Villa vs Newcastle: 7.45am Swansea vs Burnley: 10am Southampton vs West Brom: 10am Chelsea vs Leicester: 10am

Address

Rí Rá Georgetown; 3125 M STREET NW

Georgetown Family Festival

August 23rd, 2014 at 10:00 AM | info@dumbartonhouse.org | Event Website

Dumbarton House invites you to a weekend full of events that are fun for the whole family. Programs include, Georgetown walking tours, ice cream making, a Dolley cake, and Federal period games and crafts. Events begin Saturday, August 23rd at 10am and conclude Sunday, August 24th at 4pm.Admission to the museum is free this weekend.

Address

Dumbarton House; 2715 Q ST, NW

Sunset Yoga & Pilates in the Park

August 26th, 2014 at 06:00 PM | Event Website

The Georgetown BID, in partnership with Georgetown yoga and pilates studios, will host free one-hour sunset yoga and pilates sessions in the park throughout the summer. Sessions will begin at 6 p.m. in Georgetown Waterfront Park near the intersection of Potomac Street and K Street (Water Street). Please check in upon arrival at the information booth and pick up free water and light refreshments. You must bring your own yoga mat! Space is limited, and RSVPs are required. Namaste.

Address

Georgetown Waterfront Park

Salamander Resort & Spa Celebrates its First Year Anniversary with a Birthday Bash Weekend

August 29th, 2014 at 06:30 PM | $30 | Tel: 800.651.0721 | Event Website

– Salamander Resort & Spa is celebrating its first anniversary with a fun-filled Birthday Bash over Labor Day Weekend featuring numerous activities, contests and packages. – the resort will host a Birthday Bubbles celebration from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Filled with bottomless sparkling wine, birthday sweets and live entertainment, the event will take place on the Grand Terrace and Lawn. Admission is $30 per person.

Address

500 North Pendleton Street; Middleburg, VA 20117

Joseph Park •

Thanks to Nauti Foods, D.C’s first food boat, paddlers on the Potomac River can now grab a quick bite to eat, starting this weekend. Nauti Foods will partner with local food vendors, such as Dolcezza Gelato, Bullfrog Bagels and Sticky Fingers, to offer a wide variety of snacks to anyone on the Potomac.

“We will be serving a variety of food on our boat,” said Ari Fingeroth, co-founder of Nauti Foods. “Hot dogs, healthy snacks, baked goods, ice cream and non-alcoholic drinks on board.”

“I have been boating for 15 years now,” Fingeroth said. “I think there is a high demand of quick access to food amongst the kayakers on the river so I came up with the idea of floating food boats.”

The Nauti Foods boat will be stationed north of Key Bridge on Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoons and evenings. The business hours will be flexible, 3 p.m. to 8 p.m., Fridays, noon to 7 p.m., Saturday and Sunday.

For more information and updates, follow Nauti Foods (@nautifoods) on Twitter and Facebook.

Gary Tischler • August 18, 2014

Our city is just like any other mid-sized-creeping-up-on-major-sized city in America—we’ve got our neighborhood picnics, our street-corner musicians, our restaurants and music festivals and farmers markets, and baseball teams and theaters and charities and yard sales and dog parks, just like anybody else.

Except when we’re not just like everybody else. On a day-to-day basis, that would be the presence of the seat of the Government of the United States of America and all of its branches, what with the president, and the Supreme Court justices, and all our elected officials on the Hill and their sundry staff members and the bone-white Capitol and White House. That would be the monuments and the free museums. And that would be the embassies of every country recognized by United States, which on a day-to-day basis add a special international flavor to the city. In other words, we have a lot of people in this city who are from somewhere else and not just from Scranton or San Francisco.

Sometimes, a whole bunch of them come at once, and gather together for the kind of traffic-stopping, street-packing, siren-filled confab with flag-fluttering official black limos rarely seen anywhere else in the country. That happened last week with the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, hosted by the White House, in which political and economic leaders from nearly 50 countries from Africa came and stayed from Aug. 1 to Aug. 4 for a series of talks, meetings, discussions, group brain storming, dinners—and some more dinners—all over the city, led President Barack Obama, whose father hailed from Kenya.

In this mind-boggling gathering, tackling issues of economics, entrepreneurships, women’s rights and place in society, culture and business, climate change and global warning, the growing threat of Ebola in Western Africa, the threat of terrorism throughout the region, locals could hear the echoes of the issues on their television screens, in local coverage, on the Internet and in newspapers, or even just talking with cab drivers, a major proportion of whom, in the District, hail from Ethiopia, and Eritrea and Nigeria.

Several African leaders spoke at the National Press Club during the course of the summit. The last of them—Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore—summed up the gathering in a Newsmaker talk in the club’s Zenger room last week.

Compaore, who has been president of the smallish country, bordering Mali and Niger in West Africa since 1987, is the founder the country’s political party, the Congress for Democracy and Progress. In 1983, a military coup, led by Captain Thomas Sankara, Compaore and others toppled Major Jean-Bapstiste Ouedraogo and created a Marxist-flavored government. In 1987, Compaore came to power in another coup, in which his friend Sankara was killed.

Over time and several elections—it is not clear yet whether Campaore will run again next year—the Burkina Faso president reversed much of the country’s Marxist policies and has tempered his role and burnished an image as conciliator and negotiator among warring factions and with the region’s radical groups.

Speaking in French, Compaore called the gathering a success and noted that Africa, as a continent of numerous diverse governing bodies, cultures and countries, needed to work together with each other. With the help and leadership of the United States, Compaore said, “Africa is rising. But no one can do this by themselves.” He noted the troubles in neighboring Mali, the threat of Ebola and the need for women to have a bigger role in each country’s economic, and governing and politics. “Everyone is entitled to an education,” he said. “We must make sure that women in our countries receive their entitled and fair share, not just young men.”

“I think we are making progress in this as a nation, and as a continent, although there are still pockets of resistance to the idea of women playing a major role in society, not just in the home, but in schools, as entrepreneurs, as leaders,” Compaore said.

In this civil press club setting or in the many stories in the press, some of the focusing on the fashion style of the first lady of Cameroon, or on the dinner gatherings in posh restaurants all over D.C., the immense difficulties—from hunger, AIDS, political unrest, terrorist groups, the control and development of resources—seemed a continent away.

What was evident in the event, hosted by the Press Club for a president of a country whose name even politically smart residents of our city might be hard pressed to recognize, there were opportunities presented and opportunities taken by visitors and locals alike to have a closer look at each other and exchanges ideas. Or just mingle and socialize at restaurants like Mintwood Place in Adams Morgan, Equinox, Acadiana or Bourbon Steak in Georgetown — or even at a reception held by the Women’s Ambassadors Foundation at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center after the talk.

Gary Tischler •

They stuffed the news in right at the end of a local news broadcast, leading into a national one, yesterday: “We’ve just learned that it appears that Robin Williams has died” or words to that effect.

It was an eye-blink moment, as if you’ve just heard something that wasn’t quite right, couldn’t be true. No details, just a Joe Friday just-the-facts.

Until the news was confirmed by online news sites and midway through the nightly news, I didn’t quite believe it. Williams was such a motor mouth, such a force of nature. How do you put the shut-up quiet on that?

Death has its ways, as it turns out. Williams had already been gone for a number of hours at that point, found dead in his home in Tiburon, in Marin County outside San Francisco, Calif., apparently a suicide by asphyxiation at the age of 63. Williams was known to suffer from depression — as sometimes the people who make you laugh the hardest do — and to have gone back into rehab. He openly battled alcohol and drug addictions throughout his life, a process which sometimes found its way into his standup comedy routines. (“Cocaine,” he quipped, “is God’s way of telling you you’re making too much money.”)

Mostly, Williams was a wizard, one of those non-stop brilliant imagineers, blessed and cursed with great talent, an ability, for instance—to play with literally an army of toy soldiers and individualize and talk with each and every one of them as a child—to create worlds that spilled out of his mouth, his mind, heart and soul with alarming rapidity, full-blown, uncensored, profanely funny. He became others fluently, with both facility and intensity, almost at will.

When Robin Williams got on a stage and grabbed a mike, he was a one-man parade. He was the trombone, the drummer, the cheerleader, the politician waving to the crowd, the clown in full, sloppy makeup, the baton twirler, the confetti and the Shriners doing wheelies — and, boy, did we love his parade.

He really was a gift and gifted. It’s easy to think of him in any number of ways, in so many parts. He was a comic, to be sure, a clown, for sure, but he was always a hard-working, convincing actor who explored as many arenas of human experience as he could, on stage, but on the screen as well. He was a bona fide movie star, and on the small screen, where he first and forcefully invaded our consciousness as the Mork of “Mork and Mindy,” a goofy alien send to study earthlings, he nano-nanoed his way into our living rooms along with the bewildered, sweet Pam Dawber.

His inspiration was Jonathan Winters, the man of many parts, who slid easily and with remarkable aplomb in and out of characters who sprang fully blown, with beady eyes, onto a stage or in front of a camera. He was Winters on steroids, in a way, but mostly he was Williams, hairy, curly haired, sometimes bug eyed, profane as all get out, pacing like someone who’s just escaped a straight jacket.

President Obama, in a White House statement, captured him movingly, referencing his movie roles: “Robin Williams was an airman, a doctor, a genie, nanny, a president, a professor, a bangarang Peter Pan, and everything in between. He was one of a kind. He arrived in our lives as an alien, but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit. He made us laugh. He made us cry.”

Williams first arrived on the movie screen as “Popeye,” a big-screen version of the sailor-man hero of the daily comics, directed by none other than Robert Altman. I will admit to liking it and him a lot—although I was in a critical and popular minority on that one. It was a comic truly envisioned as otherworldly and totally believable, bulging muscles, tattoo and love for Olive Oyl (aggressively played by Shelley Duvall), it was all colors and magic.

But he found his stride as both a comic actor (the memorable, manic “Good Morning Viet Nam” and “Moscow on the Hudson” and the dazzling “Mrs. Doubtfire”) as an actor-actor (“Good Will Hunting,” for which he won an Oscar, the understated (yes, a quiet Robin) and inspiring teacher in “Dead Poet’s Society” and a turn in “The Fisher King.”

Critics preferred Williams’s darker roles as opposed to “Dead Poets,” which they saw as sentimental, a quality they react to in much the same way as the Wicked Witch of the West reacts to Toto. He was praised for creepy and even bad guy roles in “One Hour Photo,” which hardly anyone saw, and “Insomnia,” in which he was paired with Al Pacino and Hilary Swank in a brisk but atmospheric cop and killer noir thriller set in Alaska.

Williams and Steve Miller, comedians both, found the humor under the direction of Mike Nichols in a brief-run Broadway production of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” in which Vladimir and Estragon at one point yelled at each other, taking turns abusing each other verbally: “Critic,” Williams hurled at Martin, a game-ender, that one.

His imagination, even in not-so-hot-movies, and the recent attempt at a television return, called resonantly “The Crazy Ones” (cancelled), was always running wild.

I had seen him in person once, when he was one of the saluters and razzers for the Kennedy Center’s first Mark Twain Prize for American Humor which honored Richard Pryor. Williams—and a host of his peers—four-lettered in characteristic fashion, giving an impression of how a possibly Irish, shocked Kennedy Center usher might have reacted. “Oh my god, they used that word again, and the other ones, too.” It remains a mystery how Williams managed to avoid receiving the Twain award over the years. George Carlin, one of his idols, won it posthumously.

Still, that news flash about Williams’s death was hard to take, hard to shake, and the days news only made things more final. How do you slow down that dust devil of a performing energy? Truth: You don’t.

I sat in front of my computer and watched his ironically and sadly entitled “Weapons of Self Destruction” standup show. As he downed about 40 plastic bottles of water and paced across the stage like a mountain climber, I watched him go from forest fires to coyotes, to Osama Bin Laden, to Obama, to Schwarzenegger, sprinkling profanity like four-letter, scented and exploding prunes throughout.

I watched, and I listened and I laughed until it made my sides ache. In tribute, I would say this, because it was his gift: I laughed my ass off.

Nothing today is totally final. Something is always left behind, like his trail of funny stuff, a funny man past pacing himself. Wherever he goes, he will land on his feet, motoring.