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Gary Tischler • February 8, 2012

Newt Gingrich talks a lot about being a man of big ideas, how he embraces them, gives birth to them and spouts them morning, noon and night.

He ought to come over to Arena Stage and see “Red,” John Logan’s play about the raging, despairing, non-stop talking abstract expressionist artist Mark Rothko in crisis, as he takes on a critical mural project and a new assistant.

Talk — and there’s a lot of wonderful, powerful talk — about big ideas. It’s enough to make a politician realize just how small his ideas really are.

“Red,” directed by Robert Falls, the gifted artistic director of the Goodman Theater in Chicago, is a two-character play about Rothko, arguably the star member of the generation of American painters whose abstract expressionist breakthroughs put New York at the center of the art world once defined by Paris.

Rothko, with his huge and mysterious paintings of emotional color fields achieved fame, if not understanding, early, became, along with the erratic Jackson Pollock and his action paintings, a rock star of a movement that was already being threatened by yet another next, new thing, the rising work and fame of pop art stars, such as Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg and others.

When we see Rothko, alone in a chair staring at a canvas, he is arguably one of the most famous living artists in the world. Pop art is on the horizon, and Rothko has taken on, for big money at the time, a commission to create a series of murals for the Four Seasons restaurant in the new Seagram Building.

In “Red” — the murals are varations on the color, a kind of combat between dark and light as well — we see Rothko in full with all of his famous imperfections: the grandiosity, the urge not only to talk but to make pronouncements, his famed insecurity and egomania always warring, the contempt for other artists, critics, intellectuals and so on. We see him through him, and through the eyes of a new assistant, a sharply-edged dynamo named Ken, an aspiring artist himself, a fact that Rothko notes and ignores.

Most people, either by reading the program information or just by more than a passing interest in modern art will know that Rothko’s story ends badly — a suicide in his late 60s in 1970, adding the last dose of tragedy and drama to the story of the expressionists. There’s a sense of urgency to the proceedings, especially when he’s talking about Pollock’s possibly suicidal death in a car crash, and in a scene that seems almost horrifically prophetic, paint being mistaken for blood.

What you get here is theater — about art and an artist and the artistic impulse. It’s pretty inventive stuff, high theater and drama as well as high-mindedness, all of it executed at a level of kinetic, intimate physicality.

Looking at these two artists — Ken is a young man who’s embraced the new art, he has a back story of murdered parents — you see a father-son rivalry as Ken, with thin, tensile strength like tough wire, challenges Rothko right where he lives, in his most cherished views of himself as an art-philosopher, a serious beyond serious man. That’s Rothko’s gripe about the pop artists who have achieved fame without being serious, a notion that Warhol for one would find ironically hilarious.

Ken’s continuous challenges seem at first fresh, an affront to a god, but he earns the right by sweating with Rothko, doing everything he wants, sharing his passions. There is no better scene about art in a play than the occasion when the two, like sweaty street rats, set about priming a huge canvas with paint — it’s a choreographed dance, it’s heated, almost desperate and beautiful, it’s almost a mating exercise, not with each other but with the canvas and the paint. It’s a shared moment, an intimate contact with paint which leaves both men splattered, they look like a shaman and his assistant in the dark arts.

Ken’s main and biting attack on Rothko is his betrayal of his own art by taking on a $30,000 commission. Rothko thinks he’s creating a cathedral for his works, an idea at which Ken scoffs. Rothko wants the diners to sit in awe of his work, having lost their appetite for everything else. In the end, Rothko, historically and in this play, gives back the money and won’t have his work in the Four Seasons.

Edward Gero, the long-working Washington actor who seems to be saving his best work for the latter part of his career, gives a bullish, bravura performance, the intellectual as hard-nosed verbal street fighter, defending Nietzche, discussing Apollo, drinking hard, working harder, hardly ever at rest. It’s a great performance matched sharply by Patrick Andrew as Ken. He’s prickly. His skepticism is like a coat of porcupine needles.

The set by designer by Todd Rosenthal is a lived-in, worked-in cathedral, informed and haloed by Rothko’s art and by the sweaty reality of the workaday artist’s studio.

“What do you see?” Rothko asks more than once. “I see red,” Ken says. In the play, we see a lot more. Going to places like the National Gallery of Art or the Phillips Collection in Washington, where you can find Rothko’s haunting work, you might ask yourself a different question: “What do you feel?”

“Red” will be performed in the Kreeger Theater at Arena Stage through March 11.
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Robert Devaney •

The noon Jan. 30 deadline came and went, as United State Park Police again warned protestors at McPherson Square at 15th and K Streets that camping with overnight sleeping would no longer be allowed. Some have already complied; many appeared ready for a fight and stay in the park overnight.

Photographer Patrick Ryan of SnarkInfested.com reported from the scene: “Occupy D.C. protestors put a giant ‘tent of dreams’ over the equestrian statue of General McPherson in the center of McPherson Square and chanted, ‘Let us sleep so we can dream!’ ”

U.S. Park Police spokesman, Sgt. David Schlosser said that Occupy D.C. protestors on McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza had been made aware of camping regulations but gave no hard schedule for arresting any die-hards violating the deadline.

On Monday, no arrests had been made as of 3 p.m. The so-called showdown seemed to have mellowed and been deferred. U.S. Civil War Major General James Birdseye McPherson, whose equestrian statue was covered with a blue tarp and who died with his boots on in 1864, might not have been so agreeable.
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Robert Devaney • January 25, 2012

The Citizens Association of Georgetown put its Oral History Project on display, Jan. 18, at the City Tavern Club. Part of CAG’s effort to document the “living history” of Georgetown, seven residents with their lively recollections made the town’s past come alive in the listeners’ minds. Introduced by the project’s Annie Lou Berman, speakers took those in the City Tavern’s packed ballroom back to their days of youth and discovery, painting a picture of a town before the big changes of half a century ago with their joyful, humorous stories.

Interior designer Frank Randolph recalled the dogwood festivals at Hardy School and his time at Western (now Duke Ellington) High School and sitting in a soda shop, across the street where he lives today.

Barry Deutschman, owner of Morgan’s Pharmacy, which opened 100 years ago, told of mixing prescriptions by hand and a store which also sold “newspapers, tobacco and magazines — none of that exists now.” Yes, chef Julia Childs did run into Morgan’s one time and ask for a pack of Tums. He has not retired.

Catherine Bowman, leader and historian of the black community, matter-of-factly talked of the days of segregation, when blacks lived at the east side of P Street and Poplar Place and went to Rose Park but were not allowed in Volta Park.

Georges Jacob, co-founder of the French Market, noted that his shop introduced the finer French cuts of meat and other foods to neighbors and embassies, as it strengthened Georgetown’s love of all things French.

Margaret Oppenheimer, who with her husband Franz raised three sons on O Street, remembered leaving New York for the calmer days of D.C.

Don Shannon, 40-year Los Angeles Times foreign correspondent, recalled there were six service stations in Georgetown and gravel works down at the waterfront just after World War II and how President John Kennedy’s father Joe Kennedy described the homes as “dog houses” because of their size.

Kay Evans, widow of columnist Roland Evans, spoke of the Kennedy years and fondly of her arrival in D.C. with a girlfriend to meet cute, young men.

The City Tavern Preservation Foundation, which recently marked its 50th anniversary of the purchase of the historic City Tavern by the City Tavern Association, hosted the CAG meeting and reception.

If you care to continue the conversations, become a CAG Oral History interviewer. A training session is planned for Feb. 15, 6 p.m. in the CAG office at 1365 Wisconsin Ave., N.W. (Enter via the black external staircase on O Street.) The session is for both new interviewers to learn the ropes and for seasoned interviewers to share their experiences. Training will last 90 minutes with the Oral History Project’s coordinator, Annie Lou Berman. Contact the CAG office at 337-7313 or cagmail@cagtown.org.
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Gary Tischler • January 23, 2012

When the folks at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington decided to add to its celebration of the company’s 25th anniversary by including a series of conversations between its artistic director Michael Kahn and celebrated (and classically trained) actors, they may not have guessed what a rich gift they’ve presented to Washington theater buffs.

But a gift the series is — and for free, no less — and has so far included dense, entertaining, enlightening theater talk between Kahn and a Starfleet captain, the star of “A Fish Called Wanda,” and, most recently, one of the Bingo Long Traveling All Stars.

Okay, truth be told, Patrick Stewart, Kevin Kline and James Earl Jones managed to come up with memorable theatrical performances before (and after) they ever appeared in a motion picture, including notable roles in the plays of William Shakespeare.
If the series—we hope it will be permanent—was intended to be grounded in discussions about the craft, education and performance of classical theater, they quickly became much more than that, because of Kahn, with his own long history as a director in the theater, with his puckish, sly sense of humor and gift for story-telling and sharing.

While there was always talk about the how of acting and theater, about process and methodology, it’s never sounded like that. Rather, it sounded like two theater friends, talking about stuff over a glass of water in front of a few hundred people, as it were, as if in a play, or many plays. Kahn and the three actors so far—all of them stage actors who had found almost pop culture fame in movies and/or television—were swapping fascinating, almost insider stories around a campfire, but they were also familiar tales, familiar to us because we had encountered their art, their gifts somewhere, in a theater like this, in a movie theater or at home on television. If we were here in attendance, then these men had been, at some time or another, a part of our lives, sometimes a large part.

Certainly, that’s true of James Earl Jones, a large man with large gifts, who made his way to the stage slowly, but in very cool fashion. Jones is just over 80 years of age, but going strong, working the stage a lot now—back to Big Daddy, to “Driving Miss Daisy” and prepping for a new production of Gore Vidal’s vital-still American politics play, “The Best Man.”

We know Jones, of course, from “The Great White Hope,” which first found life in this area at Arena Stage back in the 1960s, a revolutionary, long, dynamic and outsized play about the controversial fighter Jack Johnson who became the first African-American boxer to win the heavyweight title, incensing the predominantly white boxing world, and then, taking it one step further by having a white wife. Jones owned that passionate, taxing part lock stock and barrel and also starred in the film version with Jane Alexander.

“People always say that nobody could really play that part but you,” Kahn said. “Well, that’s not true, but I know I’m associated with it, that it’s mine. But Yaphet Katto (who also shared “Fences” with him), and Brock Peters did great with that part. But it changed my life, it gave me a certain amount of fame and standing, that’s for sure.”

Kahn asked him, as it is with many actors who have done film and stage work, the difference between the two. “Well, different aspects of your craft are emphasized and required,” he said. “But it’s different for everyone. I was told by the film director of “Great White Hope” not to overact the part, that things would be done in the editing room. I didn’t yet know what I was doing and I can’t say I did a perfect job. I think Jane (Alexander) struck the right balance.”

Jones’s fame and familiarity are historical—with his size he opened big doors and other African-American actors walked right through it. “Of course, you’re aware of who you are, the social aspects, the injustices, the disparities, your own history. But you cannot be bitter, you cannot just blame, or you will never succeed. I tell young black actors everything they will encounter, what’s unfair, the parts they won’t get. But you know, it’s a hard profession, period. It’s hard for young white actors, too.”

Jones was a stutterer, a fact about him that isn’t always commonly talked about. “I had help and good advice. I find that on the stage I don’t stutter, because the language, the spoken word is so strong, so musical, almost, it’s like singing, when you’re passionate, you can speak clearly.”

When it comes to films, he had a nice little start: his first movie role was as the bomber who couldn’t get the bomb loose in Stanley Kubrick’s “Doctor Strangelove.” “What a great film, I was lucky with that. So, Slim Pickens had to ride the bomb down to Moscow.” This was in the 1960s when his peers where people like George C. Scott, Richard Harris and Richard Burton among others.

Jones had the part the common soldier who gets into an argument with King Henry in “Henry V,” about how war is different for the king and the soldiers, not knowing he’s talking to the king, in a Joseph Papp-directed version of the play. “This was the ’60s, you remember, and everyone thought he was somehow making an anti-war statement by casting me,” Jones said. “He wasn’t, as far as I know. I was a spear carrier.”

He became much more than that. Especially when he encountered “Othello.” “My god, I have played Othello seven times,” he said. “I still don’t think I got it right. I don’t know. Different Iagos, different Desdemonas. I sometimes I think when I played it with Christopher Plummer, I sometimes think I should have grabbed Iago and stuck his head and near-drowned him in a fountain when I said, ‘Prove my wife a whore,’ to add emphasis.”

He was asked if he thought Iago, the man who plotted against him and made him believe his wife had betrayed him, was a racist.

Jones took his time answering. “On balance, I do think so,” he said. “It’s not good enough, as some people suggest just to say he’s naturally evil, like Richard III. He mesmerizes people, including Othello. But he has an advantage. He talks to the audience. Othello doesn’t.” This led to discussions about Shakespeare’s intentions and feelings vis-a-vis race and prejudice, a controversy that also simmers every time out over “The Merchant of Venice,” and its central character of the Jewish moneylender Shylock.

It’s something we all forget sometimes. In the life of these men, they have played many parts, and we remember their bearing, their voices—especially the resonant, powerful voice of Jones. They are in our minds and dreams and the way we remember them mostly is: Stewart making the U.S.S. Enterprise go to warp, the voice of Darth Vader, in movie images. The tales of the stage are just that: memories.

I happened to see Jones and Plummer in “Othello,” which happened to include an over-the-top performance by a pre-“Frazier, “pre-“Boss” Kelsey Grammer. And you realize then that while those of us lucky enough to be able to see many plays, nevertheless, see them really only once. To Jones, there must be a thousand Othellos in his head, the voice modulated a little here, a line slipped there, the hand on Desdemona’s throat softer or stronger each night.

But, we remember too and being with them like this makes us think and remember. Later, going home from the talk in a cab, the Ethiopian cab driver talked heatedly about Othello, although he has only seen a film version, while I remembered Plummer and other Iagos, saying “I hate the Moor.”

These classical conversations have been classics. Bravo.

David Post •

2011 was so much fun in Congress. Will 2012 offer the same? The House of Representatives convened on Tuesday, January 17th, and the Senate will return next week. The fun hasn’t quite started yet, but it will and it will be loud.

Here are my economic predictions for 2012:

• Last month, Congress extended the payroll tax cut that saves the average American family $1,000 per year. It expires again in a few weeks. Expect another cliff hanger. It will be extended through December. The debate will be contentious, and its outcome will hinge on a political fight disguised as an economic fight. Republicans still want the oil pipeline from Canada to Texas with minimal environmental study, and Democrats still want to increase tax on millionaires. Same old, same old.

• The debt ceiling was increased last August – but only for a few months – after almost throwing international markets into turmoil. The time has come to do it again. This time, Congress will do it without threatening to blow up the economy. With an election in progress, many will make incendiary speeches about wasteful government spending. After a short round of shouting, Congress will approve the increase.

• In March, President Obama will present his 2013 budget, showing more large deficits driven by high safety net costs and reduced revenues related to the poor economy. The president’s annual budget has no legal impact, so it will only become a source for making speeches. All of the Republican presidential candidates are attaching themselves to President Reagan’s coattails. Interestingly, of the eight budgets President Reagan prepared, Democratic Congresses passed budgets with lower deficits in seven of those eight years.

• The two largest banks in the country, Bank of American and Citibank, are underwater like many of their mortgage borrowers. The market says they are worth a lot less than the value on their books. With only three large U.S. banks still standing, our nation’s economy is dependent upon them. So, they are truly too big to fail. As long as they are sick, the entire banking world will suffer, loans will be hard to come by and the economy can only sputter.

• For every foreclosed house on the market, banks have almost two more that could go into foreclosure. Pushing all of them into the market will harm both the banks and the housing market even more. Declining real estate values have not only decimated the construction industry but have pushed local governments and school systems to the brink. This pattern will continue in 2012.

• Real estate sits underneath every job. Because banks are nervous about lending and foreclosures have created an overload of housing stock, the demand for new real estate construction is very restrained. Real estate will not recover in 2012. Thus, job growth will be limited, and the unemployment rate will remain well above acceptable levels.

• Occupy Wall Street has, if anything, upset people about the increasing wealth gap between rich and poor. Occupy Wall Street will die down as the year goes on. Consumer confidence will improve somewhat, but it will be an anemic and nervous improvement because most new job creation will be in low-paying service sector jobs.

• Every presidential candidate and most politicians are promising that they can simplify the tax code by closing loopholes (which increase tax collections) and reducing rates (which decrease tax collections). At first, so-called tax loopholes are born as tax incentives. It’s an indirect way that government picks winners and losers. As incentives age, they become loopholes. Those loopholes have armies of lobbyists. It is hard to take away what has been given. The tax code will not change much.

• Last August, Congress appointed a super committee to identify $1.2 trillion in budget cuts with automatic cuts – half from defense and half from domestic spending – to begin in 2013 if the super committee failed. It failed. Regardless of who wins, that deal will be re-written after this November’s election.

• The Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of this year. If they expire, the deficit will be reduced by $4 trillion over the next ten years, ironically the amount that most agree should trimmed from the budget. 90 percent of those tax cuts went to those earning over $250,000. Republicans want to make them permanent arguing that they are necessary for job creators. Democrats want to preserve the tax cuts for those earning below $250,000. Expect a colossal fight as the year closes.

Georgetowner •

Vera Wang Fall 2012 Wedding Dress Trunk Show

January 20th, 2012 at 10:00 AM | Tel: (240) 396-5411

Saks Jandel will host Vera Wang’s Fall 2012 Wedding Dress Trunk Show showcasing non-traditional hues Thursday- Saturday all day. Appointment necessary.

Address

Saks Jandel

5510 Wisconsin Avenue

Chevy Chase, MD

Make sure to pick up The Georgetowner’s Wedding Issue on February 8th for bridal ideas and tips!

Saturday Night Sips Ticket

January 21st, 2012 at 06:30 PM | $125 | Event Website

January 21st, 2012 at 06:30 PM | $125 | Event Website

Cocktail party features tastes from the D.C. area’s best chefs. The event benefits D.C. Central Kitchen and Martha’s Table.

Address

Newseum

555 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Mad Hatter’s Dance Party

January 21st, 2012 at 09:00 PM | $95 | Event Website

Washington Ballet Jete Society hosts one of the best parties of the year with an Alice in Wonderland theme, a 5 hour open bar, gourmet hors d’ouevres, a DJ and a performance by the ballet.

Address

The Ritz Carlton

1150 22nd Street NW

Washington DC

FREE CONCERT FOR 18 & UNDER: “The Human Spirit”

January 22nd, 2012 at 03:00 PM | $14 adult, $10 senior/college student, free for ages 18 & under | events@aypo.org | Tel: 703-642-8051 | Event Website

Comps for Kids Concert: Free for Ages 18 & Under!

The Human Spirit

American Youth Philharmonic

Daniel Spalding, Music Director & Conductor

Guest Artist: Dotian Levalier, harp

Program:

Miguel del Aguila: The Giant Guitar

Mark Adamo: Four Angels, Concerto for Harp and Orchestra

Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Op. 39

Comps for Kids is generously sponsored by Target. No reservations are necessary and free tickets will be available at the door.

Address

Center for the Arts, George Mason University

4373 Mason Pond Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030

Cocktail party features tastes from the D.C. area’s best chefs. The event benefits D.C. Central Kitchen and Martha’s Table.

Address

Newseum

555 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Living the Dream…Singing the Dream: Celebrating the Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

January 22nd, 2012 at 07:00 PM | $25-$45 | choralarts@choralarts.org | Tel: 202.785.9727 | Event Website

The Choral Arts Society of Washington and Washington Performing Arts Society (WPAS) Men, Women, and Children of the Gospel Choirs raise joyful voices together in the annual community concert celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr., “Living the Dream…Singing the Dream.” Including classical music selections, moving Gospels, hymns and spirituals, this 24-year-old tradition honors Dr. King’s values of unity, peace and brotherhood.

Address

Kennedy Center Concert Hall

2700 F Street, NW

FotoWeekDC and International Lifeline Fund invites you to Deborah Terry’s Opening Reception

January 25th, 2012 at 06:30 PM | $20 | lifelinefundevents@gmail.com | Tel: 202-530-8550 | Event Website

International Lifeline Fund and FOTOWEEKDC cordially invite you to Deborah Terry’s Photography Works Opening Night on Wednesday, January 25 from 6:30 until 9:00pm. The exhibit will be up until Wednesday, February 1, 2012.

All proceeds from the event, sales or donations, will benefit the International Lifeline Fund and FotoWeekDC organizations.

Address

L2 Lounge

3315 Cadys Aly NW,

Washington, DC 20007

Robert Devaney •

In September 1981, the Shops at Georgetown Park opened to much fanfare: 100 stores (including 128 condominiums), such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Garfinckel’s, Ann Taylor, Scan Furniture, Conran’s, Davisons of Bermuda, Mark Cross and Godiva Chocolatier. With such memories, any longtime local walking through the 30-year-old place in 2012 is saddened by its fall.

Today, none of those stores remains. Indeed, few remain in the 317,000-square-foot shopping complex at 3222 M St., N.W. Leases have expired, and others are set to expire Jan. 31. Consumers’ reaction to the now-disliked concept of an enclosed urban shopping mall are to blame, just as are a few of Georgetown Park’s business decisions through the years. A slow economy seems a minor factor here, but a legal fight between developers Herb Miller, whose Western Development Corp. created Georgetown Park, and Anthony Lanier of Eastbanc over the property do not help, either.

Not even angels could save it. A la Charlie’s, the Georgetown Angels — owners Heidi Kallett of the Dandelion Patch, Stephanie Fornash Kennedy of Fornash Designs and Kassie Rempel of Simply Soles — held events and launched promotions to gain exposure for the shopping center. They will be soon gone, too, as the mall is emptied to be prepared for renovation.

The new landlord of the property, Vornado Realty Trust is vague about its bigger plans, because it is still finalizing new arrangements. A Bloomingdale’s store coming? Heard about that often, but do not know. Hmm, how about a Target? Perhaps, New York’s hip food shop Eataly showing up here? Mere speculation.

Advisory neighborhood commissioner Bill Starrels, whose district includes the shopping complex, sums it up: “We are all hoping that these persons from New York will not just restore Georgetown Park but also bring it into the 21st century.”

“They took something wonderful and destroyed it,” says Alex Shirazi, vice president of Rush Hour Printing & Graphics, a Georgetown Park tenant, whose lease extends through March. A sales rep visiting him Jan. 12 said she was shaken by the sound of the fall of a panel onto the canal-level tiled floor, according to Shirazi. Janitors quickly cleaned up any mess. No one was hurt; no one else was there.

Also, on the canal level, the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles still operates its Georgetown branch, but it has put out a request to lease new space elsewhere. With entrances on M Street, J. Crew, Sisley and Intermix have locked their back doors to the mall, even as the original Clyde’s Restaurant leaves open its back entrance to the M Street level. In a bit of irony or carelessness, Georgetown Park’s website incorrectly lists many stores as they existed a year ago or more and are now gone.

Meanwhile, life goes on as usual in Georgetown Park’s condos. And for all its collapsed empire of retail, a kind of renaissance — indeed, a redesign and reconstruction — is anticipated for the Shops at Georgetown Park. The neighborhood’s merchant space remains a gold mine.
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Robert Devaney •

A new year brings new schedules, new meetings and new officers at the Georgetown Business Association, which will meet Wednesday, Jan. 18, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., at The Georgetown Club, 1530 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W. With complimentary light fare and refreshments, the reception is free to GBA members; $25 for non-members. It is a good opportunity to meet old and new friends and business colleagues. RSVP to Karen Ohri at Karen@georgetownfloorcoverings.com

The Georgetown Business Association is a non-profit membership organization committed to maintaining and improving the climate for conducting business in Georgetown. Its prime goals are to connect Georgetown businesses with potential customers, other businesses and Georgetown and D.C. leadership and to advocate on behalf of the Georgetown businesses and professionals.

The GBA’s 2012 officers are

— Rokas Beresniovas, HSBC Bank USA, president

— Riyad Said, Wells Fargo Advisors, vice president

— Karen Ohri, Georgetown Floorcoverings, treasurer

— Janine Schoonover, Serendipidy3, secretary

Robert Devaney •

The Citizens Association of Georgetown will meet Wednesday, Jan. 18, 7 p.m., at the City Tavern Club (3206 M St., N.W.) to honor well-known Georgetowners who have been interviewed for CAG’s Oral History Project. The program will begin at 7:30 p.m.

These residents have recorded their recollections about life in Georgetown in one-on-one interviews with CAG’s oral history volunteers. The following will be honored for documenting the “living history” of Georgetown:

— Catherine Bowman, leader and unofficial historian of the black community

— Barry Deutschman, pharmacist at Morgan’s whose clients swear he knows everything

— Kay Evans, insider in the fabled Georgetown journalism world and widow of the syndicated columnist Roland Evans

— Georges Jacob, last surviving founder of the famous French Market on Wisconsin Avenue

— Margaret Oppenheimer, long-time resident, who along with husband Franz, raised three sons on O Street

— Frank Randolph, lifetime Georgetowner and renowned interior designer

— Don Shannon, 40-year Los Angeles Times foreign correspondent and 50-year Georgetown resident
Annie Lou Berman will introduce the program with a summary of the project. The interviewees will talk informally about their memories of growing up in or moving to Georgetown, pursuing careers here, raising families, building business, entertaining, renovating houses — and more.

The City Tavern Preservation Foundation, which recently marked its 50th anniversary of the purchase of the historic City Tavern by the City Tavern Association, is hosting the CAG meeting and reception. As the City Tavern Preservation Foundation is hosting this special meeting, please RSVP to cagmail@cagtown.org or 337-7313 if you plan to attend.
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Georgetowner • January 17, 2012

DC DMV’s ticket amnesty program is drawing to a close. All open parking, moving violation and photo-enforcement tickets issued prior to January 1, 2010, qualify for amnesty. During the amnesty period, all late penalties on eligible tickets are waived.

Pay your amnesty tickets online at www.dmv.dc.gov, over the phone (866-893-5023) or in person at DMV Adjudication Services, 301 C Street, NW, 8:15 a.m. – 5:00 p.m, Monday-Friday. If you are unsure of what you owe, visit www.dmv.dc.gov and click on ticket amnesty to complete an online request form.
Don’t miss this opportunity! The program ends on January 27, 2012.