Latest News

Nico Dodd • July 28, 2011

Construction for new streetcars has been under way for two years along H Street but it won’t be until late 2013 that they will be they will be working, according to ABC 7 news.

The streetcar line was scheduled to be finished in 2012. Since the area is far from a Metro station, the streetcar line is an important component of the neighborhood’s development.

Road improvements, including streetcar tracks, are in place. But city officials concede it will take more time than expected to buy and install other parts of the system, like additional cars, overhead wires and build power stations necessary to run streetcars down H Street.

According to DCist, the construction of these is scheduled to begin in the beginning of next year.

Over the past few years, many new restaurants, bars, and night clubs have opened along the H Street corridor. The long-term goal is a network of eight streetcar lines criss-crossing the District, covering 37 miles of track. The overall cost from local, federal and private sources is estimated around $1.5 billion. [gallery ids="100220,100221" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner •

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

Georgetown’s historic Evermay Estate, which was listed by Jeanne Livingston of Long and Foster, was sold this week with a final listing price of $25.9 million, making it the most expensive home sale in the D.C. area since 2007. Mark McFadden of Washington Fine Properties represented the buyers in this historic sell.

On July 8, the property held a very successful estate sale, auctioning off items such as linens, glasses and books.

Evermay has been on the market since 2008, when it was originally listed for $49 million, according to Washingtonian. Although the final listing price was $25.9 million, D.C. Urban Turf reports that its final sales price was $22 million. Washington Fine Properties cannot yet say who is the buyer of the Evermay Estate.

This will mark the first time the property is owned by a new family since 1923 when Evermay was sold to F. Lammot Belin, the heir of DuPont Chemical, who passed the estate down through three generations.

The home, which is included in the National Register of Historic Places, is 12,000 square feet sitting on 3.5 acres, and contains a ballroom, gardens, tennis court, gate house, parking for 100 cars and enough dining space for 40 dinner guests.

Under its last owner, Evermay was frequently used as an event facility. Mark McFadden of Washington Fine Properties was unable to comment about whether this service will continue under new ownership.

Gary Tischler •

In Washington, D.C., national politics is always the talk of the town, until the NFL season and babble-babble about the Redskins starts. But this may not happen this year, due to the deadlock between players and owners over how to divide up billions in revenue, an unseemly labor quarrel in the summer of our economic discontent. If there’s no football, folks may finally realize that Owner Dan Snyder really is not only the face of the Redskins organization, but its heart and soul, which is to say it, has neither.

Locally, the mayor’s woes and that of sundry council men stuck with unseemly problems seems to have brought local politics to a serious case of the slows, nearing stagnation.

On the national front, on the other hand, some odd, weird, media-pushed and otherwise scandals, mishaps and downright strangeness are about the only things that are keeping at bay the creeping stagnation that now exists.

Consider the economy, which is stagnant, and promises to remain that way, wiping away whatever surge in popularity President Barack Obama may have gained from the death of Osama Bin Laden. Jobs are trumping almost every other other issue, and yet, the Republicans continue to insist that the national debt trumps jobs, and anyway, that’s Obama’s job and fault. This, in a climate where the unemployment rate actually crept upward, while Wall Street, alarmed, saw the Dow Jones drop below 12,000 for the first time in quite some time. The recovery, assumed to be steadily happening, now looked as vulnerable as a rabbit running into a mongoose

State polls, where GOP governors have been trying to solve the debt problem by firing public employees show that that’s perhaps not the way to go. Almost every GOP governor elected by Tea Party support has a lower approval rating than the president, which was sinking slightly.

Stagnant—in its own way—was the Middle East where revolution and the Arab spring (although perhaps we should could it summer) were a continuing saga that refused to come to a climax. The turmoil though is now a consistent part of the landscape in the Middle East, sort of like a long overtime soccer match that just goes on forever. The results or lack of are full of dangerous portents.

It also appears that the administration, the military and the nation is now exhausted and tired of Afghanistan and all the turmoil there, where President Karzai, the Taliban, Pakistan and U.S. forces are enmeshed in some long-standing, interminable violent dance without end. But more and more the talk is of withdrawal, less so of some convincing final victory.

You can just see the national malaise creeping on.

Mother nature is no help: floods, fires, tornadoes have wreaked so much havoc here that we’ve almost forgotten how much worse things were in Japan.

Given all this gloom and doom, what are the pundits talking about? There’s Arnold. There’s the aftermath of the John Edwards meltdown. There’s the Palin express and the Palin e-mails. There’s the Newt Gingrich meltdown. There’s Weiner-Twitter (ew) and there’s Beast-Twitter, and no doubt a few twits.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the terminator, the governator, Conan the Barbarian and the Eraser, is about to get a new title: ex-husband. After being discovered not only having a mistress, but a love child for a number of years, Arnold is now considering reviving his movie career. Let’s see, what comic book franchise could he start: Doctor Doom?

The John Edwards sad saga rose up again like a reminder of his hubris-filled, once-promising political career and all the things you can lose in life. The Feds are now going after him on a possible indictment for using funds gifted to him by rich supporters to hide his affair and resulting offspring from the media… This while his wife, who passed away last year, was suffering from terminal cancer.

Larry King, I think got this right on the Bill Maher show, saying it was an American tragedy. But it did not prevent the town from buzzing for at least all of two or three days.

Sara Palin took off on a bus trip across the country to take the pulse of, you know, us. She also managed to mangle the Paul Revere story, and insisted that her version—Revere was warning the British—was right and anyway it was a gotcha question that got her. Meanwhile, thousands of e-mails from her abbreviated days as Alaska governor were made public, and elicited nothing much more than her consistent whines about the media.

Newt Gingrich imploded. This is perhaps the least surprising political news in the land, matching everyone’s expectations. But he outdid himself—almost all of his senior staff bolted the campaign, which has to be some kind of record.

And lets not forget the twitter saga of Anthony Weiner, (pronounced apparently wiener, to the joy of every late night talk show host), who may not be a congressman by the time you read this, who twittered pictures of his boxer briefs containing obviously himself, or at an outline of the part most men think with. Denial, backtrack, more changes of story, admission, apologies, full responsibility, and a blah and a blah, but no wife at his side and seeking treatment and so on. This may have been the first true case of the weird nether world of the internet expressing itself in a real national scandal that goes on and on and on until it too will become stagnant.

The endless chatter about this whole thing is inexplicable. It is a media malaise all of its own.

But speaking of Twitter, thank good for Beast. Dane Cook, a comedian, twittered about his missing Chihuahua named, yup, “Beast,” who was found instantly. And perhaps cast in the next “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” movie.

Now that’s news you can use.