Latest News

Georgetowner • February 13, 2012

Appalachian Spring Gift Wrap for Charity

February 10th, 2012 at 10:00 AM | info@appalachianspring.com | Tel: 202-337-5780 | Event Website

Appalachian Spring in Georgetown will be offering gift wrap of your Appalachian Spring Valentine’s Day purchases with a donation to Bread for the City from February 10-14. During store hours.

Bread for the City offers low-income residents of Washington, DC: food and clothing, primary medical care, legal advice and representation, and comprehensive social services.

Address

Appalachian Spring

1415 Wisconsin Ave

Washington, DC 20007

Spy at Night

February 10th, 2012 at 06:00 PM | 14.95-27.95 | vsmanagers@spymuseum.org | Tel: 202.393.7798 | Event Website

Next month, D.C.’s most mysterious museum debuts its revamped Spy at Night experience, providing area residents exclusive, after-hours access to its permanent collection and an evening full of intrigue, deception and cocktails. The first in the re-launched series is a James Bond-themed occasion on Friday, February 10, with future events occurring the second Friday of every month.

Address

International Spy Museum

800 F Street, NW

Washington, D.C.

Gallery Place/Chinatown Metrorail Station

Film Screening: HAPPY

February 11th, 2012 at 11:00 AM | $6.00

The film HAPPY is the latest from Academy Award-nominated director, Roko Belic, and is launching discussion about the state of our nation’s ‘happiness’ level in comparison with other countries, including Japan, Bhutan and Denmark. The film won the Audience Choice Award at the Arizona International Film Festival, the Best Feature Film Award at the Costa Rica International Film Festival, and numerous other similar awards.

Address

AMC Loews Georgetown 14

3111 K Street N.W.

Washington, DC 20007

One City Summit

February 11th, 2012 at 09:30 AM | Event Website

Join Mayor Gray at the One City Summit, “Let Your Voice Be Heard” to help the District become a more livable, vibrant and inclusive city for everyone.

Address

Washington Convention Center

801 Mount Vernon Place, NW

Washington, DC 20001

Woo at the Zoo

February 14th, 2012 at 04:30 PM | $11-$22 | Event Website

Woo at the Zoo, a fun-filled event for both singles, and couples, where they can learn about animal mating, dating and reproductive habits in a humorous way.

Address

Smithsonian National Zoo

Michelle Kingston • February 8, 2012

Despite the Controlled Substances Act that makes cultivating, selling and distributing marijuana illegal, the nation’s capital will be welcoming weGrow, a full service hydroponic superstore, in March.
This place is a one-stop shop for everything necessary to start a garden. Commonly referred to as the “Wal-Mart of Weed,” weGrow has the largest showroom of hydroponic equipment sure to help medical marijuana cultivators and indoor harvesters but does not sell actual plants in stores.
“This is a great step forward for medical marijuana patients in Washington, D.C., and nearby states,” Wong said. “WeGrow will be here to work with medical marijuana growers to ensure the safest indoor growing practices are being followed to produce the best quality medicine for patients.”

Under a new D.C. law, doctors in the area can write medical marijuana prescriptions for patients with chronic ailments like cancer and HIV/AIDS. The law also lists 10 sites that will soon be authorized to grow the plant and five distribution centers where the medical marijuana can be picked up by patients.
The weGrow store is set to open its 2,500-square-foot store at 1522 Rhode Island Ave., N.E., near the only Home Depot in D.C. and just a few blocks from the Rhode Island Avenue Metro stop.

Michelle Kingston •

The Trust for the National Mall announced today that it has received a $7.5 million donation from David Rubenstein, Co-Founder of The Carlyle Group. The gift will provide the funding required to repair the Washington Monument, which suffered extensive damage from a 5.8 magnitude earthquake on August 23, 2011.

“David Rubenstein is a true patriot, and we are grateful for his significant and generous contribution to restore the Washington Monument, one of America’s greatest treasures,” said Caroline Cunningham, President of the Trust for the National Mall. “David’s leadership demonstrates how the public/private partnership of the Trust and the National Park Service will successfully drive the restoration and enhancement of the National Mall, home to the hope, history and heroes of the America.”

“America has been very good to me and I am humbled to be able to honor the father of our country in this way,” said Rubenstein. “Reopening the monument as soon as possible will help ensure that many people get to learn about American history and the unique role that George Washington played in the birth and life of our great nation.”

According to a report released by the National Park Service, inspectors found numerous cracked and chipped stones, including six large cracks that extend through the marble exterior of the Monument’s pyramidion, that have left the 127 year-old structure extremely vulnerable. The Monument also suffered missing mortar, the displacement of components of the lightning protection system, and damage to the elevator counter weight frame.

Congress recently allocated $7.5 million to repair the Monument with the expectation that the National Park Service in partnership with the Trust for the National Mall would raise an equal amount in private donations. David Rubenstein’s generous contribution meets that objective.

“Millions of people have seen the dramatic video of chunks of mortar and limestone raining down on visitors in the monument as the quake rocked the east coast last August,” said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis. “While no one was hurt, the damage to this iconic obelisk was substantial and it has been closed to the public ever since. Thanks to David’s gift and the support of the American people, the National Park Service will once again welcome visitors to the Washington Monument and share the story of our nation’s first President.”

The National Park Service expects to award a contract to repair the monument by this August; work is expected to take 10-12 months.

The Trust for the National Mall is the official non-profit partner of the National Park Service dedicated to restoring and improving the National Mall. For more information on the Trust for the National Mall and the work that is being done to restore America’s Front Yard, please visit www.nationalmall.org.

Michelle Kingston •

Did you have any trouble accessing your favorite sites last Wednesday? Wikipedia, Reddit, Mozilla, Wordpress.org, TwitPic, Good Old Games and a couple of handfuls more shut down on Jan. 18 to participate in the largest online protest in history.

You were unable to Google these guys as they blacked out to demonstrate what the future could hold for the internet world if SOPA and PIPA were to be passed.

No, we are not talking about the Middleton sisters, but in fact, two bills that could potentially change the way we surf the net. The Stop Online Piracy Act and its sister, the Protect IP [Intellectual Property] Act, are designed to secure the problem with foreign-based sites selling pirated movies, music and more.

Many have argued that the bills undermine free speech and make it possible for the government to take down any site that includes links to pirated content. They also give the Justice Department more authority to stop U.S. companies from providing funding to the foreign sites. It would also block access by making it impossible to type in web addresses to these sites or by requiring Google and other search engines to disable links to the pirated pages.

The way the House bill is written is so broad that SOPA and PIPA opponents fear that some of the most visited online sites, such as Facebook, Wikipedia and Twitter that rely heavily on content uploaded by users which can then be pirated, could be targeted.

Thanks to our favorite pages turning their lights out, the public was alerted of the seriousness of the bill, showed us all how our lives could potentially be affected, and the bills were tossed to the trash — for now, anyway.

On Jan. 20, Congress shelved the bill. SOPA and PIPA were supposed to be debated and voted on, but after the protest, the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, released a statement explaining that they would be postponed. Pheeew.

Marit Fosso •

For those of us who live or work in Georgetown, public transportation is not always the best option. With the closest Metro stations not being really nearby, we tend to depend a lot on taxis to get around.

D.C. Council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) will proceed with a Jan. 30 hearing on the D.C. Taxicab Reform Bill. The reform comes after the D.C. Taxicab Commision’s decision in December to increase taxi fares, according to the Washington Post. “We want an enhanced level of service and better overall performance,” Cheh told the Washington Post.

If the bill passes, various improvements in the District’s taxi service could make our everyday taxi rides go more smoothly. The bill proposes that taxis will need to have equipment that allows customers to pay with credit card and to have roof lights that clearly indicate whether the cab is available or occupied. These improvements are supported by nine out of ten taxi riders, according to
a non-scientific internet survey initiated by Cheh.

Another improvement that would make our taxi rides easier is the proposal within the bill that all taxis should install GPS devices. The bill also proposes that taxi drivers should go through a training course, covering geography, passenger relations skills and driving skills.

Cheh’s bill also proposes that all taxis should have a similar color. Her internet survey shows that yellow is most popular among the taxi riders, if the taxis are required to have uniform color. ”I hope they don’t go with yellow,” Cheh — who prefers white — told the Washington Post.

Georgetowner •

Winter Contemporary Show Opening Reception

January 27th, 2012 at 05:00 PM | Free | info@oldprintgallery.com | Tel: (202) 965-1818 | Event Website

A nighttime reception, celebrating the opening of our Winter Contemporary Show. Over twenty different artists, who use printmaking as their primary medium for artistic expression, were selected for this show. The prints chosen resonate with skill and intention, and reflect the current eclecticism of contemporary printmaking. Highlights include prints by Bruce Waldman, Matt Phillips, Takamune Ishiguro, and local artists Jenny Freestone and Nikolas Schiller. Free admission and wine.

Address

1220 31st Street NW

Washington, DC 20001

Weschler’s Capital Collections Estate Auction

January 28th, 2012 at 10:00 AM | Event Website

The auction combines American and European furniture and decorations, Asian works of art, jewelry, coins & watches, fine art and 20th century decorative arts. The auction will also showcase a 3.30 carat oval diamond ring, an oil canvas by Wolf Kahn and a selection of Napolean III ormulu-mounted furnishings with estimates ranging from $500-$6,000.

Address

Weschler’s

909 E Street NW

Georgetown Safeway & DC Fire and EMS Present Wellness and Safety Fair

January 28th, 2012 at 10:00- 4:00 PM | FREE | Event Website

Community Wellness and Safety Fair, with an array of educational, fun and even life-saving activities for all ages, including:

Child Seat Safety Inspections and Installations

Stop, Drop and Roll Demonstration (fun for young children, but beneficial too)

CPR and AED Demonstrations

Blood Pressure and Glucose Screenings

Fire Extinguisher Simulation (learn to use one properly)

Smoke Alarm Registration

Jeanne Robertson “Looking for Humor”

January 28th, 2012 at 08:00 PM | $34.50 | Tel: (202) 994-6800 | Event Website

Humorist Jeanne Robertson, known for her family friendly and engaging brand of comedy, will be stopping at The George Washington University Lisner Auditorium on Sat. Jan 28, 2012 at 8:00PM as part of her multi-city “Looking for Humor” solo tour. This 68-year-old former Miss North Carolina stands tall at 6’2″ and has a personality, heart and sense of humor just as soaring.

Address

730 21st Street, NW,

Washington, DC 20052

A Free Ride for the Community

January 29th, 2012 at 12:00 PM | FREE | clarendon@revolvefitness.com | Tel: (703) 567-4516 | Event Website

Revolve is thrilled to announce their first ever Community Ride. The new Clarendon-based specialized indoor cycling studio created the special class to help Revolve’s neighbors get to know them better and see what all of the buzz is about. This Community Ride will last an extra 15 minutes and be taught by TWO instructors instead of one! Christianne and Francina will lead a Complete Body Ride, an all-encompassing class that combines cycling with upper body weight training.

Address

Revolve

1025 N. Fillmore Street

Arlington, VA 22201

McLean Rotary Chocolate Festival

January 29th, 2012 at 12:00 PM | $1 | Event Website

Come out for McLean Rotary’s 1st annual chocolate festival with everything and anything chocolate. Vendors will be selling local area chocolatiers’ specialties and 25% of all proceeds will go towards local community organizations.

Address

McLean Community Center

1234 Ingleside Ave

McLean, VA 22101

The Gaming Table

January 30th, 2012 at 07:30 PM | $30-$65 | bemelson@folger.edu | Tel: (202) 544-4600 | Event Website

Whimsy, wit, and wordplay sparkle in this effervescent comedy by Susanna Centlivre, one of 18th- century London’s most popular playwrights. An independent-minded widow with a penchant for gambling holds a nightly card game — teeming with revelers and rakes — which bankrupts some and entertains all. The opening night is Monday, January 30 and plays through March 4, 2012.

Address

Folger Theatre

201 East Capitol Street SE

Washington, DC 20003

Robert Devaney •

The Georgetown “Social” Safeway at 1855 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W., presented a Community Wellness and Safety Fair Jan. 28. With the help of the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services those who stopped by learned about child seat safety and installation, saw the proper way to “Stop, Drop and Roll” during a fire, received blood pressure and glucose screenings — along with CPR and AED demonstrations and fire extinguisher simulations. There were oven mitts, kids’ firemen helmets and other fire safety items given away.

Safeway plans other safety fairs at other District stores.

Gary Tischler •

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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Gary Tischler •

Gay marriage is a hot-button issue among what’s left of the sorry lot of Republicans running for President. Alongside the debates and elections is the touring production of the successful 2010 Broadway revival of “La Cage Aux Folles,” the 1980s mega-hit musical of gay glitter, glam, romance and divas. This musical brings with it an aura that’s part eager-to-please and part pixelated nostalgia that has settled in at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater.

This “La Cage,” maybe any “La Cage,” does not prove the show biz and social buzz of everything old is new again. This “La Cage” is what it is, or as its true star and diva, Zaza, famously sings, “I am What I Am.” The musical is plenty dazzling, even if the production often seems like a visitor from the past.

“La Cage” has had so many incarnations and identities that it’s a wonder Leonardo DiCaprio hasn’t been in one of them. It started out as a French comedy and became very successful in the United States. This show features a pair of gay men, one being Georges, a stylish, elegant owner of “La Cage a Folles,” a popular nightclub where men dress spectacularly as women and put on a nightly vaudeville/musical show. His partner, Albin, is insecure, emotional and often hysterical, who transforms himself nightly into Zaza, the blinding star of “La Cage.” Together, they’ve managed to raise a son whom Georges acquired as a result of a youthful fling with a Parisian showgirl long ago. Now, sunny boy is in love with the daughter of a virulently homophobic politician who’s coming to visit with his wife. Voila-le situation.

Out of this material, the writer-actor-playwright, Harvey Fierstein, and big-time Broadway composer, Jerry Herman, brought forth a hugely successful musical which starred the growly-voiced Fierstein as Albin and, oddly, Gene Barry of television’s “Bat Masterson” as Georges. The show ran as forever as you can on Broadway and then reappeared in a not quite successful revival in the early 2000s. A second revival, which originated in the West End in London, was again a big hit, as was its Broadway version which would feature Kelsey Grammer in his Broadway musical debut as Georges in 2010. The production, now at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater, has George Hamilton starring as Georges and Christopher Sieber as Albin.

“La Cage” was the crowning glory of Herman’s career, which was preceded by “Hello, Dolly!” and “Mame,” both spectacular musicals and vehicles for diva-type actresses and anthem songs. Both seemed to be part of a journey for which “La Cage” and Albin/Zaza seemed to be the final destination.

A few years back, Mike Nichols directed an American non-musical film version called, “The Bird Cage,” which starred Robin Williams (playing Georges) and Nathan Lane as his partner, as well as Gene Hackman in a remarkably funny turn as a blustering right-wing senator.

But now we have “La Cage” right in our own backyard. For mysterious reasons, although it often operates in a kind of vacuum where no time has passed at all, it’s almost irresistible for its sheer entertaining sincerity and pink-and-white-feather, scene-stealing and changing show. In spite of its not-so-middle-of-the-road setting, it has an old-style Broadway razzle-dazzle and — it should be said — sentiment. It’s all about love, romance, enduring affection, great big hearts and, what do you know, family values. In “La Cage”, nobody argues about gay marriage, but the idea of family is sentimentally self-evident, especially in the song, “Look Over There,” which extolls Albin’s constancy and maternal qualities. With great, slapdash humor, the show also manages to get across the point that the home of Albin and Georges — colorful and eccentric though it may be — is 1,000 mega-watts more normal and loving than that of the politician, who treats his wife like a beast of burden not allowed to speak.

It is 2012 after all, and this show still bowls you over as in the past with eye-candy costume, terrific dancing on the part of the gentlemen and lads who perform as “Les Cagelles” (Angelique, Bitelle, Chantal, Hanna of the Whips, Mercedes and Phaedra), and also includes a house warm-up act, a kind of sit-down comedian in drag.

The part of Georges — a stylish, but low-key, pragmatic sort — has often been played in the past by a Hollywood leading-man type, somewhat asexual except for the red smoking jacket. It has included the likes of Barry, Van Johnson and Hollywood Squares host, Peter Marshall. Hamilton, while a little slow afoot at age 72, still had that old Hollywood, wavy hair magnetism, but he had something even better. At first blush, Georges and Albin have always appeared as an odd couple, a relationship that runs like a roller coaster going down most of the time. But Hamilton lets you see by singing “The Best of Times” and looking at Albin with hapless, hopeful, can’t-help-myself love just how deep the feelings run between these two men.

You might cringe a little here and there throughout the production since it remains squarely rooted in the 1980s: the politicians are hurling words like “homosexual,” as if they were saying “serial killer” and the events taking place at “La Cage” are seen as scandalous and shocking. Time has done its work, as it always does, but it’s taken none of the fizz off this enduring and legendary musical.

Just don’t expect to see Rick Santorum sitting next to you.

“La Cage Aux Folles” runs through Feb. 12 at the Eisenhower Theater.
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