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Gary Tischler • May 3, 2012

Vladimir Potanin is what’s known as a Russian oligarch and billionaire, which is to say he is one of the richest people in Russia and the world.

But don’t let that description mislead you.

Potanin, who founded the Interros Company in 1990 and turned it into one the largest private investment companies in Russia, is also a philanthropist, one of those super-rich folks who likes to give large chunks of his fortune away. He signed on to Bill and Melinda Gates’ “Giving Pledge,” which is a promise to give away half of his money.

In keeping with that, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced last week that Potanin had given a $5 million gift towards the center’s operating and programming budget.

In addition, the Kennedy Center Golden Circle Lounge, on the Box Tier level of the Opera House, will undergo a major renovation this summer, a project that will be founded by the Vladimir Potanin Foundation.

For all that, the Golden Circle Lounge will become the Russian Lounge when it reopens in the fall of 2012, which seems only fair.

Potanin said, “This is such an honor for me to give this gift on the 40th anniversary of the John F. Kennedy Center. I believe the Kennedy Center has been playing a very important role in building strong cultural relations between our countries by presenting the greatest Russian artists to the American people. I’m very grateful for the Kennedy Center and Chairman David M. Rubenstein’s continued support to the Russian Lounge project that we launch today and that is aimed to open new dimensions of Russia to the public. I believe that our cooperation with the Kennedy Center is a natural expansion of the philanthropic activities that we carry out in Russia.”

Among other things, the renovated lounge may include a multimedia zone which highlights Russian culture and museums, as well as feature unique museum collections from the Foundation’s archives.

Ari Post •

Since the Western world discovered America, the east coast’s autumn foliage has been the most ubiquitously adored seasonal harbinger in the country. It is said that crates of golden leaves were sent back to the Queen, for no one could believe the stories of the fiery, radiant landscape that swept across the new world each fall. And while it is impossible to deny the grace of the season’s initial beauty, anyone with a backyard can also attest to the less romantic, rarely discussed late fall tradition of scooping congealed globs of muddy brown tree matter into giant black garbage bags with flimsy, plastic rakes.

We are, of course, talking about leaf collection. But thanks to the D.C. Department of Public Works, many District inhabitants will be relieved of some of the burden.

The Department of Public Works (DPW) began leaf collection last week, Nov. 7, and will continue through Jan. 14. They will be employing vacuum trucks to collect the bulk of the leaves, which are then composted—a much more friendly environmental alternative to having them dragged to the dump. Residents are asked to rake their leaves into piles by the curbside treebox space. DPW will also collect bagged leaves from the treebox space. In neighborhoods with alley trash/recycling collections, bagged leaves also may be placed where trash and recycling are collected, but these leaves will be disposed with the trash.

DPW asks that all leaves be raked into the treebox space the weekend before your street’s collection weeks. Only leaves should be collected, meaning no tree limbs, bricks, dirts, rocks, and the like. It is likely to damage equipment and delay collections. They also urge you to please use the treebox spaces provided, for raking leaves right inot the street is liable to cause parking problems and potentially even fires.

For the complete collection schedule, detailing the dates of collection in each Ward and Ward zone, along with other tips and useful information, visit DPW’s online calendar.

Happy raking!

Georgetowner •

BECOME The Georgetowner’s next photography contest WINNER!

Submit up to five photographs taken anywhere in Georgetown. The coolest, most incredible, eye-catching, blow-us-away photograph will WIN THE FRONT COVER of our publication.

Deadline for photograph submissions is: January 4, 2012

We look forward to seeing your photos!

Robert Devaney •

U.S. Park Police Sgt. Michael Boehm, who suffered a fatal heart attack responding to an injured man near Key Bridge at the C&O Canal towpath Dec. 16, was eulogized and honored Dec. 28.

Boehm’s funeral mass was at the Church of the Nativity in Burke, Va. The funeral procession of police and other vehicles moved north on I-395 to the Memorial Bridge, entering Washington with D.C. Fire Department trucks extending their ladders as an arch of honor in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The procession went on to pass the headquarters of the U.S. Park Police in Potomac Park near Hains Point and then turned back to Virginia to Fairfax Memorial Park for the burial.

Boehm is survived by his wife Corrina and son Christopher. He entered service with the U.S. Park Police on Oct. 11, 1992.

The injured man near Key Bridge — to whom police and firefighters first responded — also died that Dec. 16 night. The nature of the unidentified man’s death is still under investigation by police.

Robert Devaney •

The day after Valentine’s Day was as good a day as any for the Georgetown Business Association to hold its monthly get-together, calling it a “heart-to-heart networking reception.” The group packed the upstairs at Cafe Milano Feb. 15 with warmth — and with hors d’oeuvres by the famed Prospect Street restaurant and drinks by the GBA. Brian Armstrong thanked the happy, talkative crowd and said that GBA’s March reception would be held at Sequoia Restaurant. [gallery ids="100496,118101,118092,118049,118085,118060,118078,118069" nav="thumbs"]

Marit Fosso •

Make your St. Patrick’s Day more than just an opportunity to party — remember our returning warriors and benefit the non-profit, Not Alone, at a hip, new restaurant.

The March 17 celebration at Todd and Ellen Gray’s Watershed Restaurant will raise funds for Not Alone, which is dedicated to supporting returning warriors, veterans and their families. One of the sponsors for the “You are not alone” party — which will feature Gray’s signature Eastern Seaboard-inspired cuisine, a specialty cocktail drink and an open bar — is the Georgetown Media Group, which produces the Georgetowner and the Downtowner newspapers.

Many of our returning warriors struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and suicidal thoughts. Not Alone is a national organization that offers a variety of programs, services and resources for warriors, veterans and their loved ones. It offers both on-line and off-line programs that can help restore hope for those who struggle. Not Alone recently launched a free, confidential and anonymous community service in and around Washington, D.C.

Watershed Restaurant, site of the St. Patrick’s Day party, is located in the NoMa neighborhood near Capitol Hill at 1225 First Street, N.E. The Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington named Todd Gray “Chef of the Year” in 2011. He shares a passion for inventive interpretations of American cuisine with his wife Ellen. For readers of the Georgetowner and the Downtowner, tickets which cost $100 are discounted at $70 per person, or $125 for two tickets. For more information, visit www.NotAlone.com. [gallery ids="100529,119459" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

One of the more characteristic items found in the many obituaries offered up for Dick Clark, who died April 18 at age 82 was that his fellow high school seniors voted him “most likely to sell the Brooklyn Bridge,” according to the Washington Post.

That was a fair assessment, because during his life Dick Clark sold many things and played many roles and had many careers and owned many businesses and shows. The most important thing he sold—the thing with the most lasting value—was rock ‘n’ roll.

That was in his role as host of “American Bandstand,” a daily popular teenaged dance shoe emanating from Philadelphia with Clark hosting, and packs of more or less local kids dancing to the emerging pop music force that was rock and roll, a force that frightened parents and was embraced by their boomer baby kids in the 1950s.

Clark, by his demeanor, his looks—forever young—and style, actually spread the impact of rock ‘n’ roll music all over the country, including the hinterlands of small town America, at least that part which had television reception. Unlike Elvis—or Marlon Brando as a biker, for that matter—Clark was nonthreatening, and the kids on the show didn’t cut it as sullen rebels, but were clean cut, often wore ties, and the girls were pretty without being flamboyantly so.

Clark, in his 30-year tenure, proved to be as influential in spreading rock ‘n’ roll as the dreaded Elvis—the show featured kids grading the latest singles, as in “I gave it a nine cause you can dance to it,” then doing the latest dances like the Twist, the Watusi, the Chicken or the Hand Jive.”

I can vouch for this: in the 1950s, I lived in small town America where in the summers we would drag home after football practice and watch American Bandstand and hear everyone from Pat Boone and Fats Domino to the Everly Brothers or Buddy Holly (“That’ll Be the Day”) and I swear every guy on the team had a crush on Justine Correlli, the pretty blonde girl who became something of a star on the show.

Clark could sell the music even though he looked nothing like a rock-n-roller, although he was, as many dubbed him, “America’s oldest teenager.” He gained recognition, exposure and acceptance for the genre at a time when it was just beginning to surge into the mainstream of pop music. Clark pushed it along and expanded its popularity, the greatest promoter rock ‘n’ roll ever had.

He wasn’t a rock star, but he knew rock stars. He knew business, and he knew American pop culture better than anyone. He headed “American Bandstand” for 35 years from 1952 to 1987. Performers on the show included Simon and Garfunkel, Ike and Tina Turner, the great Motown acts, (before Soul Train), and even the eclectic David Byrne and the Talking Heads. Clark did not, as far as we know, dance on the show, but he didn’t need to.

At heart, he was a promoter, a salesman, pursuing the great American business model. “American Bandstand” was the thing he turned into an institution, a legend and something of lasting import. But there’s more — America is full of second and third acts — Clark, after all the Grammy Award Shows, the Emmy Shows, the theater and businesses and television appearances, became a legend all over again. Since 1972, Dick Clark Productions produced “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” on ABC, with Clark himself presiding over the lowering of the ball in Times Square every year until a stroke in 2004 sidelined him.

Clark did not idealize or even exaggerate his impact, especially “American Bandstand.” “I played the music, the kids danced and America watched,” he said.

All of that happened. And America has never quite been the same since.

Gary Tischler •

Pay attention, kids. The Chairman of the Board, Old Blue Eyes, the Voice is back and in the house.

The house being the Eisenhower Theater at the Kennedy Center, where Frank Sinatra’s music and voice provide a kind of electric muse, a poetic kick in the pants, to the dancers — couples coming together, falling apart and twisting and flying through the air — in “Come Fly Away,” Twyla Tharp’s dance homage and expression of the Sinatra musical essence and persona.

“Come Fly Away” — where a set of four couples never going far from the stage set of the kind of bar where you drown your sorrows and dance to the tune of your troubles, or fly like ecstatic birds to the tune of romance — has Sinatra in full voice, ever present, his great voice and songs bathing the performers with a knowing air.

Tharp, America’s greatest living choreographer, has always had a gift for blending the pop with dance, a fascination not held alone by her but also Mikhail Barishnikov, who worked with her on her first Sinatra effort. “Come Fly Away,”, rooted in “Sinatra Suite” and the earlier “Nine Sinatra,” is leaner, and physically meaner and tougher than the Broadway original. It runs at 80 minutes with no intermission and is a gift if you still can’t get Sinatra’s combination of brass and sass, hitched to rueful romance, out of your head. Some of Sinatra’s finest songs are here—and it’s saying a lot given that he recorded literally thousands of songs.

The hitch, the hook, here is love, all kinds of love, including tough love with a background provided by the genuine article of Sinatra’s recorded love, and a full orchestra, much of it brass, the piano, the mournful sax, the sweet muted horn you haven’t heard very often. The couples in question are all kinds of American lovers—the stormy weather , battling, bruising love of Hank (Anthony Burrell) and flaming-haired Kate (Ashley Blair Fitzgerald), the uneven infuation-style course of Babe (Meredith Miles) and Sid (Stephen Hannah), the All-American sweets of Betsy and Marty (Amy Ruggiero and Ron Todorowski), not to mention the high-flying efforts of Chano (Mattahew Stockwell Dibble) to find love.

Dancing to songs as varied as “Luck Be a Lady,” “Let’s Fall in Love,” the stained-napkin boozy, “Here’s to the Losers,” “One for My Baby,” the defiant “My Way,” “That’s Life” and the exuberant “New York, New York.” In the mode of Sinatra-in-past-midnight-trenchcoat-alone with “Saturday Night is the Loneliest Night of the Week, the couples and the ensemble do something awesome. They embody the music, a lot of Sinatra himself, and a little and a lot of all of us. They do it with tremendous gifts of physicality, grace, buoyancy and dazzling acrobatics. They toss each other around like muscular confetti, they meet, they pounce and they battle.

This is also, it should be said, sexy stuff, as love less idealized, the I-love-you-I-hate-you brand expressed in turns that escape one partner and land with another. This is hot stuff. All the couples on stage make this dancing a full-contact body bouncing effort: so much so that it’s a wonder nobody gets engaged during the course of the show. Or divorced.

Dibble can startle you with his high-flying leaps. Tudorowski carries with him a confidence that is equal parts funny and romantic. Miles turns every male dancer on stages to mush with her languid, red-dress moves.

But it’s the romance of Kate and Hank that carry the show and set the pace: theirs is almost a Frank-and-Ava affair. Every time they hook up, mash against each other, you feel the heat emanating from the sleek, slick, muscled moves of Burrell and Fitzgerald’s sassy, defiant attempts to escape and inability to leave, her red mane flying.

In fact, flight in all its definitions is at work here. All the boys and girls, at some point, manage to fly, to appear headed somewhere. They, if not away, still fly, fancy free and all.

Robert Devaney •

Before its April 22 Sunday night cable debut, the cast of HBO’s comedy series, “Veep,” checked into Washington April 11 at the United States Institute of Peace for red-carpet poses and interviews along with a reception and preview of the first episode.

Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, best know for “Seinfeld,” stars as Vice President Selina Meyer with her office more or less in its own bubble, with the president never shown on screen, and with Washington seen as much as a popularity contest as high school. At the preview, Louis-Dreyfus and a few of her co-stars said that they were happy being actors and did not envy the lives of politicians. Nevertheless, the D.C.-Hollywood connection continues in film, in lobbying efforts and with the increasingly exclusive White House Correspondents Association Dinner April 28. And, while Louis-Dreyfus talked to several politicians in her research for the role, but not Sarah Palin, the subject of an earlier HBO political show. [gallery ids="100750,122249,122225,122239,122235" nav="thumbs"]

Robert Devaney •

The Washington Nationals won their home opener, 3-2, in the 10th inning with Ryan Zimmerman, face of the franchise, running to home and getting out of a jam with visiting team, the Cincinnati Reds, thanks to a wild pitch. Before the game, the Nationals put on a patriotic show with Army veteran, actor and “Dancing with the Stars” champion J.R. Martinez, who threw out the ceremonial first pitch. Several VIPs, such as Wolf Blitzer, Charlie Brotman and Jim Kimsey as well as members of the Lerner family, watched the ceremonies from the field. With a sell-out crowd of 40,907 and their inaugural home win this season, the Nationals are in first place in the National League East. [gallery ids="100732,121374,121321,121368,121331,121363,121340,121357,121349" nav="thumbs"]