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Georgetowner • July 28, 2011

Dumbarton House: Jazz Dancing Night: “Swing into the Past!”

July 22nd, 2011 at 05:00 PM

$12-$15

Dumbarton House invites you and your dancing shoes to the Belle Vue Room ballroom and lower courtyard terrace for their first ever evening devoted to the Swing style of dancing on Friday, July 22 from 6 to 10 p.m. So, bring your favorite swing style – Jitterbug, East Coast Swing, Lindy Hop, etc. – for a fun filled evening of 20th-century dance. Restored in the late 1920’s through the early 1930s – the “Swing Era”! – Dumbarton House opened as a museum in 1932 and as the headquarters of the National Society of The Colonial Dames of America. Dumbarton House pays homage to swing dancing, popularized at the same time Dumbarton House was being restored and open to the public for the first time. White wines by Tradewinds Specialty Imports and sumptuous cupcakes from Sprinkles Cupcakes will be available for sale. Discounted tickets are only $12 for a limited time and $15 at the entrance if space is available.

Address

2715 Q Street, NW

Movies On The Potomac

July 24th, 2011 at 05:00 PM

National Harbor Waterfront

Enjoy entertainment moonlit on the outdoor screen along the waterfront at National Harbor. Fridays nights will be Date Night themed: June films will feature Divas of Song & Screen and Sundays will be Family Night themed: June- Tribute to Dad, July- Animated Films, August & September: Fantasy films. Bring your own chairs.

Address

137 National Plaza

Additional Information : There are 3 parking garages and one surface lot. Parking is paid. Bring blankets or lawn chairs

The Public Memory of 9/11

July 26th, 2011 at 06:30 PM

The upcoming tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks offers an opportunity to consider how the sites in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania are memorializing and interpreting this event. Leading representatives—Alice Greenwald, National September 11 Memorial & Museum; Jeff Reinbold, Flight 93 National Memorial; and Andy Ammerman, Pentagon Memorial—present the designs of the memorials and discuss the challenges in commemorating recent history. Brent Glass, director of the National Museum of American History, will moderate the program.

Editor’s Note: This event is free, but pre-registration is required. Visit www.nbm.org .

Address

National Building Museum,

401 F Street N.W. Washington, DC 20001

Baked & Wired: Nic Parrish Art Exhibit

July 27th, 2011 at 12:33 PM

Tel: 202.333.2500

On display from Wednesday, July 27 through Tuesday, August 16, Baked & Wired (1052 Thomas Jefferson Street, NW) presents an art exhibit by local D.C. artist Nic Parrish. Parrish’s post modern abstract style is alive with color and texture. Whether it’s for a cup of coffee or a need to satisfy your sweet tooth, stop by Baked & Wired to enjoy this exhibit and more. 202.333.2500

Address

Baked & Wired

1052 Thomas Jefferson Street, NW

Gary Tischler • July 27, 2011

Former President Bill Clinton stood up there on the podium in the Grand Ballroom of the Omni Shoreham Hotel and surveyed the audience, a sea of about a thousand young people, and you could’ve forgiven him if he’d erupted into a couple of bars of “Don’t Stop Believing,” the pop-rock song that was a part of his victorious 1992 presidential campaign.

For a minute, it looked like 1992 all over again what with the cheering young students, all of them there for the 7th annual Campus Progress National Conference with its theme of “Turning Truth to Power,” planning, paneling, work shopping, debating ways for the progressive youth movement to “debate, strategize and mobilize around the issues that matter to them.”

This was the same Clinton who could energize a room with an inspiring, confident message back in the day, the same Clinton whose party had lost both the House and the Senate two years into his first term, the same Clinton who ran dizzying strategic political circles around Newt Gingrich, the same Clinton who survived a devastating sex scandal to finish his presidency with a budget surplus, eight years of only nominal U.S. military involvement in international conflicts, eight years of what is now seen as a pragmatic, hands-across-the-aisle style and successful presidency.

Only now it’s different.

“I don’t live in the same world that I lived in when I was president,” he said. “You know what happened—we had a deficit when I came into office, and when we turned it around into a surplus. Damned if they (the GOP) didn’t turn it into a deficit again. Man, I hate deficit as much or more than anybody. But I gotta tell you. Have you noticed the only time the Republicans scream about the deficit and the debt is when they’re out of office?”

Clinton deplored the current focus on deficit reduction and the debt. “It’s destructive,” he said. “You can’t do that sort of thing until you’ve got the economy going again in a good place and it’s in a horrible place right now. If you focus exclusively on spending, you’re going to make things worse, I guarantee you. You’re not creating jobs if you’re firing state employees all over the place and you can see that happening at the state level already.”

He told the gathered students that he liked the theme of the conference: “Turning Truth to Power.” “We used to talk about speaking truth to power, and yes, now, you’ve got to turn truth to power. But what’s happening? You’ve got to get the truth out. I mean, do you know at some basic level, besides the fact that it stopped a depression, that the stimulus plan worked? But nobody knows it? Because nobody has really gotten the word out.”

“There’s information about the health care reform bill that got out there that was just plain wrong, a lie, the death squad thing and a whole lot of other things,” he said. “The truth is we didn’t let people know what was in the bill, we didn’t pare it down to what it really did. It’s the same thing about the GOP budget, the Ryan budget. It’s not going to work. But nobody knows that. And you won’t turn truth into power if you don’t get the truth out and tell it.”

“What you’ve got to do is…turning basic facts into power,” he insisted.

He warned that GOP strategists would try to do everything they could to keep students like them from being able to vote in the state where they’re going to school “You’ve got to be vigilant, you’ve got know this stuff,” he said.

“There are always reasons why people hire Democrats and when,” he said. “When there’s a mess, and there was a mess in 1992 and they hired me, and there was a mess, God was there a mess, in 2008 and they hired Barack Obama. But the mess is still there, because people don’t know the basic facts.”

“The Republicans who control the House and want to control the Senate are now decided that all of a sudden the debt is the biggest problem in the world, after having tripled the debt in the 12 years before I took office, and doubled it since I left.”

That this conference was a progressive-liberal one was pretty easy to spot by the rainbow colors of the participants and reflected in what Clinton told the attendees: “Why in the world are people complaining about immigration? It’s what we are and who we are, immigrants, legal ones, make this country great. What in the world are we afraid of?”

It was also a sharp, active and motivated gathering of folks who may give the lie to claims by experts that young people disappointed with the Obama administration won’t vote. Look at some of the subjects being strategized, discussed and debated all over the hotel on the first day: “Social Media as a Catalyst for Change: Overseas and at Home”; “Understanding Social Justice Movements”; “Fighting for Reproductive Freedom in a Conservative Congress”; “The Journalism of Racial Conflict”; “Recession Generation”; “Green Jobs and the Political Impediments to a Clean Energy Economy”; “America’s Role in the World after Two Wars.”

The agendas alone make you think that just maybe the kids are all right. And so on this day, gray suit, white hair, fit and trim and combative, was William Jefferson Clinton.

Gary Tischler •

The touring version of “Rock of Ages” now at the National Theater for a short stay is probably critic-proof, bullet-proof, and any other kind of proof. You could probably find a hundred things wrong with it and none of it would matter because it’s sort of like one of those insistent puppies that jumps in your lap with muddy paws, slobbers over your fresh white shirt, and slurps your face until it shines.

If you’re immune to the charms of big hair, eighties music and the like you could of course try to ignore it and sort of nod off. Oh wait, you can’t do that either because the music, singers and guitars in this show are really loud and who knows, some jacked-up frizzy-haired guy might be running down the aisle trying to high-five you.

You might as well give it up. “Rock of Ages” is infectious and emblematic of its time, the time of the eighties, the time of stadium rock, of amped up anthems, of big-voiced, leather-booted girl singers AND guitar players, the time of Bon Jovi, Journey, Poison, and Kiss and lead singers who stuck their tongues out and wiggled them, something you don’t see the Bieber doing.

“Rock if Ages” us a big hit Broadway musical which celebrates eighties rock and roll the only way you can—by being as raunchy as possible, and as loud as possible, by screaming and pelvis pumping and guitar riffing and holding on to the scream notes for dear live.

And underneath, there’s actually a story, and it’s still the same old story, a fight for love and groupies, boy meets girl, boy meets girl in a rock blub, boy loses girl to a rock star in the men’s room (don’t ask), boy loses his way for a time, boy finally meets girl again at a strip joint. Well, it’s not the most wholesome of romances, but basically they’re sweet kids and, like the song goes, “she’s just a small town girl and ….it goes on and on and on” and “don’t stop believing,” you betchya.

There is sub-plot too, involving a German developer who wants to destroy the strip and the city that was built on rock and roll, and he has a dubious blond son named Franz who wants with all his heart to become a confectioner before the age of cupcakes. If only. Franz, who’s blonde, sweet and a little light on his feet, is aghast when the girl thinks he’s gay. “I’m not gay,” he explains, “I’m German.”

The plot convolutions shouldn’t concern audience members too much because they go completely off track in the second act. What never stops is the music, the energy, the push-push and pounding of the guitar and the house band, full of riffs that could give “Edge” a run for his pick.

The tempo and high energy of the show and the campy atmospherics of 1980s rock club and strip bar seem authentic and reek of nostalgia and draft beer, not to mention the general wretched excess which characterized the decade.

It’s an audience show—it’s as much fun to watch the audience members as it is to keep track of the performers on stage and what they’re up to. Just for fun, you’re equipped with tiny little plastic flashlights which you can wave so that it seems like 1985 all over again. If you should happen to experience a flashback to the time, be afraid, be very afraid.

All being said, here’s a few surprises: Constantine Maroulis, the nominal star of this production and an American Idol grad is a gangly, high-hair, appealing performer, with a voice pitched perfectly to the rockers and anthems he sings. Leather seems to be a major accessory for everyone, including blonde Elicia MacKenzie, who can knock a song like “I’m Gonna Harden my Heart” at least out of the theater and probably a ballpark. She seems equally at home as a heartland naïve would-be actress as a tough-chick Pasadena employee of the Venus Club.

Still, some things are bewildering, most notably what they’ve done with Pat Benator’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” which for reasons not to be pursued, features Franz and his father. But then there’s Peter Deiwick as Stacee Jazxx, an aging out-in-front-of-the-band star a la, I don’t know, whoever fronted Poison or Def Leopard. Apparently Tom Cruise is doing the role in the movie version. For real. Risky business, that.

If the eighties were or are your greatest decade ever, then “Rock of Ages” is, well, “Nothing but a Good Time.”

Suzanna Nelson •

Experience something like nothing else before; a place of performance and theater that holds no judgment and standard. Capital Fringe Festival, running from July 7 through July 24, is a show spectacular with over 200 productions including comedy, dramas, puppetry, dance, music, and every other genre possible, even ones that don’t exist. Variety for families, new theater adventures, or old critics, Fringe is an all day adventure down the rabbit hole of performance and production.

Leave your traditionalism behind because once you enter The Fort (the ticket office and administration building) famously known from past Capital Fringes. Get ready to lose all concept of theater when you enter The Gypsy Tent, the main social area for viewers and performers with a bar and grill, dancing area, live music and performance space.

A few blocks from Chinatown and the Convention Center, Capital Fringe is an escape from D.C. daily adventures. Actors and viewers alike comment that the best part of Fringe is the people. “Everyone is so nice and energetic,” says Michael Bergman, the producer of “Moby Dick, An Adaption for Theater,” husband of one of the actresses in “Moby Dick” and father to technical manager of the play.

Fringe festivals started back in the mid-20th century in Scotland, where performance companies that were not allowed to perform on regal stages, banded together and created a place where they could perform. Here they were free from societal censorship, and were welcoming to all who wanted to participate. Somewhat castaways from society, they were on the fringe; hence the name.

With great Happy Hour specials, “sublime” food (according to Freelance Visual Art Critic and Curator David Tannous, an avid Capital Fringe viewer) the heart of the Fringe, The Gypsy Tent is where it’s at. Not only is it a social scene, but it also is the central location of performance, with three venues on location.

Having already seen more than 10 shows, Fringe has blown all of my expectations out of the water. What seems too many theater purists as just a hipster post-contemporary production, I think that Fringe has just as much credibility as Shakespeare or the American Ballet Theater.
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Georgetowner •

Director’s Cut Opening Reception

July 15th, 2011 at 05:00 PM info@oldprintgallery.com | Tel: (202) 965-1818

Director’s Cut opens with a free reception from 5-8 pm at The Old Print Gallery. The show is an celebration of the woodcut medium, the oldest known printmaking technique. Handpicked by our gallery director and ranging from 15th to 21st century prints, the selection will be a showcase of the evolution and creative innovation of the woodcut over time. Prints from the Nuremberg Chronicles (1493), white-line woodcuts from acclaimed Provincetown artist Blanche Lazzell (1878-1956), and more.
Address

The Old Print Gallery
1220 31st Street, NW
Washington, DC 20007

NMWA Summer Exhibitions 2011

July 15th, 2011 at 10:00 AM

$10 adults, $8 students/visitors 65 and over, free for NMWA members/youth 18 and under.

mcragle@nmwa.org | Tel: 202-783-7373

The Art of Travel: Picturesque Views of Europe by Richenda Cunningham (July 15, 2011- October 30, 2011)

The Art of Travel features “Nine Views Taken on the Continent,” c. 1830, a lithographic portfolio of travel prints from NMWA’s collection by 19th-century British artist Richenda Cunningham. Employing the picturesque style, Cunningham depicts natural and architectural points of interest throughout France, Switzerland, Italy and Germany, including Heidelberg Castle, Pont du Gard, and the Roman-era triumphal arch at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.

Address

1250 New York Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20005-3970

Garden to Table: Flowering and Edible

July 16th, 2011 at 10:00 AM | Tel: 202-965-0400

Flowers on your table? They’re for plates as well as vases. There’s still time to register for this hands-on workshop! Learn how to grow edible flowering plants at home, using sustainable methods, and prepare them in easy, great-tasting dishes. The morning opens in the Tudor Place Gardens with director of gardens and grounds Suzanne Bouchard. Then it’s into the kitchen with renowned instructor and locavore Chris Coppola Leibner of Just Simply… Cuisine, where you’ll prepare a delicious lunch from the gardens’ bounty.

(In July, don’t miss “Fruit Cultivation in Small Spaces!” Learn how tiny plots and patios can still put forth luscious fruit.)
Address

Tudor Place Historic House and Garden
1644 31st Street, NW
Washington, DC 20007

Tasting of Italian Dessert Wines

July 16th, 2011 at 12:00 PM

$45 | Tel: 202-467-4466

Taste 11 different varieties of grappa and Italian dessert wines, as part of the year-long celebration of Italy’s 150th and Al Tiramisu’s 15th anniversaries. Chef Luigi Diotaiuti discusses each wines history and region. Appetizers and pasta will accompany the wines.
Address

Al Tiramisu
2014 P St. NW
Washington, DC 20036

Robert Devaney •

Neyla restaurant on N Street provided an above-average sartorial scene, July 14, for a stylish book-signing party, hosted by Robert Finfer, president and CEO of Integrity Capital Partners, and Michael Yo of both E! News and the Chelsea Handler Show. The man of the hour was Glenn O’Brien, “Style Guy” columnist for Gentleman’s Quarterly, and author of “How to be a Man: A Guide to Style and Behavior for the Modern Gentleman” (Rizzoli New York).

“How to be a Man” is a trusty compendium of man-knowledge. Part how-to guide, part memoir, “How to be a Man” covers the important items in O’Brien’s signature common sense and conversational tone. Chapters include “How to Not Look Stupid” and “Hair Today (Gone Tomorrow?).” In a world where men have long since abandoned wearing ties to work, along with the majority of manners, it is nice to see a guide for the modern gentleman.

O’Brien, a Georgetown University graduate, got his start in New York covering Manhattan’s pop scene for Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine, later becoming its editor. He has since written for Spin and Artforum. O’Brien’s GQ column, “The Style Guy,” answers readers’ questions about everything from skinny jeans to pinkie rings.

The well-suited crowd of guys (and gals, of course) included local influencers, politicos, media types and financial advisors, who sipped cocktails from Rémy Martin as well as iced tea mixed by The Teaologist’s Jennie Ripps. They also received O’Brien’s new book which he happily signed. The style guru recalled his days as a Hoya, working for a time at Clyde’s and Safeway. He said he was delighted to have lunch that afternoon at The Tombs which looked to him pretty much as he left it back in the late 1960s – and more than delighted at his reception at Neyla. As for D.C. style? The women dress better than the men, he said. And future books? Maybe, he said, something on White House protocol . . . and “How to be a Congressman.”
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Nico Dodd •

This Friday, the world was shaken by an attack on government offices in Oslo, Norway, and on a youth summer camp at Utoya. A gunman opened fire on at the camp in Utoya, killing 68, and a car bomb in Oslo killed 8.

In Washington, a mass of flowers and candles has collected beneath the statue of Crown Princess Martha in front of the Norwegian Embassy.

For those wishing to express their support, a book of condolences will be open for signing at the Norwegian Embassy, located at 2720 34th Street N.W., on Tuesday July 26 between 1 and 3 p.m. and Wednesday July 27 between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m.

Samantha Hungerford • July 26, 2011

NOW OPENED!

Georgetown will see the addition of a familiar newcomer to its home goods retail scene. West Elm, a contemporary furnishings chain, has opened its new location at 3333 M St. NW. It has been more than a year after closing its original branch in the Woodward & Lothrop Building in downtown D.C.

West Elm, a subsidiary of Williams-Sonoma, Inc., has opened a “pop-up” store in Georgetown with a seven-month lease to test the success of their new location. It seems that the area’s economic climate is ripe for such an endeavor following the success of nearby stores such as BoConcept, Contemporaria and Georgetown’s newest addition, CB2.

Abigail Jacobs, a company spokeswoman, told the Washington Post that West Elm has been looking into the Georgetown area for some time now because of the high number of Internet and catalogue sales the company has made there.

At 6,500 square feet, the new store will be tiny in comparison with its former location, which was at one time West Elm’s largest branch. “Different concept, different neighborhood,” Jacobs told the Post. “If you look at Georgetown and the size of stores there, this will be a perfect fit.”

Gary Tischler •

BETTY FORD

Most of the time First Ladies don’t get the credit they deserve. They may get the first in the designation, but history tends to judge them as second to their husbands, as if they were footnotes.

Eleanor Roosevelt wasn’t a footnote. Mary Todd Lincoln wasn’t a footnote. Lady Bird Johnson wasn’t a footnote. Jacqueline Kennedy wasn’t footnote.

For sure, Betty Ford wasn’t a footnote.

Her death at 93, widow of Gerald Ford, the country’s only appointed president who died in 1996, reminds us of the idea of legacy, of her vivid personality, of her humane and human qualities. Ford, a high-ranking Republican, was picked by the embattled Richard Nixon, entangled in a Watergate scandal that would lead to his resignation, to become his vice president after Spiro Agnew left in his own scandal.

After all the Watergate turmoil, the Fords were like a breath of fresh air, real people, and solid as breakfast. Gerald Ford exuded normalcy and strength, Betty Ford seemed like a down-to-earth wife. Along with their son and daughter, they exuded a spirited confidence and a recognizable sort of family and mother who happened to now live in the White House, as opposed to a suburb, a town, a place like Alexandria where they had lived before.

Betty Ford had style, and she had substance, and she had her views and stances, and she talked about them, and she had her troubles, and she talked about those, too. She talked about her breast cancer, and later, after Ford lost the narrowest of elections to Jimmy Carter in 1976, she had a rough bout with alcohol, which she later opened about. Her honesty, her championing of treatment for alcoholism and addictions would result in the Betty Ford Center, one of the pioneering rehabilitation centers which are now so commonplace that the word rehab, sometimes linked to her name, often not, are a part of daily conversation.

She was no Jackie—although she had plenty of dazzle and style of her own as a point in fact. She had other things on her mind, since after all, she was quite a political asset to her husband who had a lengthy career in the House of Representatives going back to the 1940s. They complimented each other is what they did, and her obvious affection and enduring love for him added some allure to his persona. Ford, when he became vice president and then president, became something of an object of fun-making on the emergent Saturday Night Live where comedian Chevy Chase regularly lampooned his supposed clumsiness and his football days. He was the object of two failed and bungled assassination attempts by female would-be killers no less, one of them a former member of the Manson family.

Yet, the Fords persisted in the White House, allowed the nation to take a deep breath after the long nightmare of Watergate, and even survived Ford’s controversial pardon of Nixon. And here’s something that Betty Ford accomplished because when she talked people listened. She raised breast cancer awareness but more than that she spoke frankly, with grace and honesty about her family, about sex, about abortion and other rising issues of the time in a way that had not been heard from previous first ladies.

She did something else: the obvious bond between Ford and her husband made him larger. It made the jibes nothing more than they were – jokes which he laughed at himself – even though he might not have appreciated them that much. She had, after all, picked him, a classy, smart, elegant woman of intelligence and humor. All these qualities became her and were transferred to him and gave him grace so that in the end, after their bitter and narrow defeat, they endured as a presidential couple who shared a lasting love, and left the presidency better than the way they found it.

CY TWOMBLY

Cy Twombly, who died at the age of 82 recently, was what you could honestly call an important American artist, the kind of figure that the American art world periodically produces and certainly needs. He was also controversial in that if you entered a museum showing of his works you could get an argument started about the value and merit of his work without too much effort.

He wasn’t beyond category since people, writers, admirers and non-fans often tried to bag him into an ism: neo-expressionism, abstract expressionism, even pop-ism, if you will, and he was often compared to others: De Koonig, Pollock, etc., etc. etc. One critic who was not a fan lumped him into the dada camp. He was perhaps too much written and talked about in his times, not so much over-rated as rated over and over again to the point of distraction.

I’d say he was one of a kind, mysterious, paintings full of sharp, swirly lines, and in later days after he moved to Rome, full of words, too, scribbles that seemed to require some explanation, as if they were captions written not in this century but some other times.

To many he was a titan, to others in today’s parlance, not so much. The nice thing when it comes to Twombly was that he didn’t give a hoot what they were saying in New York. He was never a fad, but his work could be maddening and moving all at once.

A major retrospective at the National Gallery of Art a number of years ago proved to this writer to be alternatingly light and sometimes, quite often in fact, haunting. I think it’s as if the lines, the mind and Twombly’s vision turned way backward, the painter getting a whiff of thousand-year-old dust and grains of sand, dried blood, and ancient stories. I could have done without the words, and because of the haunting aspects, the lightness was sometimes unbearable.

Titan? Not for me to say. We can always look again, and then again, and that’s where we’ll find him, like a fragment from “The Iliad.”

Robert Devaney •

Before her official welcome to Washington today, President Barack Obama took German Chancellor Angela Merkel to 1789 Restaurant, where they dined alone, having salad and beef tenderloin but no dessert, at the second-floor Wickets Room, June 6.

Dan Harding, general manager of 1789 and the Tombs, said that the White House gave them short notice of the special visit, calling at 4 p.m. for a reservation. Dinners for the two leaders were prepared by sous chef Erwin Rhodas, not executive chef Daniel Giusti, who was off for the day, filming a Food Network show in New York, Harding said.

The presidential motorcade rocketed along Prospect Street just after 7 p.m., as neighbors found nearby intersections closed by the Secret Service and the Metropolitan Police Department. Countersniper team moved atop Georgetown University’s Walsh Building across the street from 1789 and the Tombs, and police dogs checked the sidewalks. A crowd gathered at 36th & Prospect with phones and cameras and waited for the president to depart.

Meanwhile, patrons continued to enter 1789 and the Tombs and were wanded by the Secret Service. Georgetown University students Saum Ayria and Chris Scribner, dining at the Tombs at the same time as the president, enjoyed the surprise. “What a Washington, D.C., experience — the president just upstairs.” Scribner said. As Obama and Merkel left around 9:15 p.m., Jennyfer Sellem, a lawyer from Paris interning at the French Embassy, snapped a shot of the leaders inside the limo as it raced back to the White House. “What happened yesterday evening has added to my amazing experience here,” she said.

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