Living

Richard Selden • May 5, 2016

“Historical literacy,” according to public historian and R Street resident Brent D. Glass, “is more than simply knowing the names of leaders or when famous battles were fought. It involves understanding the context of historical events and how events are connected.”

Having devoted his career to the cause of historical literacy, the director emeritus of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History decided to take action in a direct and personal way: He wrote a book.

Published this spring, Glass’s “50 Great American Places: Essential Historic Sites Across the U.S.” doesn’t read like a lecture from your American history teacher, unless you had an unusually inspiring one. In an inviting, conversational style, Glass captures some of the atmosphere of the places his entries describe.

Better yet, many of his Great American Places are well-chosen surprises.

Yes, Great American Place No. 1 is the National Mall, here in D.C. But No. 50 is “Malls of America.” Glass uses the plural because that entry covers the history of the enclosed shopping mall, from the 1956 debut of modernist architect Victor Gruen’s Southdale Center in Edina, Minnesota, to the gargantuan Mall of America, which opened in 1992 in nearby Bloomington.

Along the way, the reader gets a capsule history of suburbanization, with a cross-reference to the phenomenon’s 19th-century roots, nurtured in books like “The American Woman’s Home,” written in 1869 by Catharine Beecher and her sister Harriet Beecher Stowe (Stowe’s Hartford, Connecticut, home, along with that of her neighbor, Mark Twain, is Great American Place No. 25).

By grouping sites both geographically and thematically, Glass has written an enjoyable volume for the hammock (or the bathroom) as well as a guidebook. You may want to get one copy for the car and one to keep handy at home.

The entries between the Mall and the Malls are roughly chronological. Glass checks in at the Liberty Bell (No. 9), the Alamo (No. 18) and Pearl Harbor (No. 41, get it?), but also touches down at key spots in the history of American art, science and social change.

Famed biographer David McCullough, who met Glass — then head of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission — in 1989 at the centennial of the Johnstown Flood, calls attention in the book’s forward to the choice of a farmhouse in Red Cloud, Nebraska, as Great American Place No. 26 (“Willa Cather’s Great Prairie”):

“[Pioneer woman] Annie Pavelka and her story were the inspiration for Willa Cather’s famous masterpiece ?My Ántonia,’ and to stand there beside the storm cellar into which she rushed her children when tornadoes struck is to feel the ?power of place’ in no uncertain terms.”

As much as anyone, McCullough has shown that history doesn’t have to go down like medicine. Well-written narratives can motivate us both to want to learn more and to experience in person the places that shaped our nation. Glass’s book contains many such motivating moments, neatly packaged for 21st-century lives.

Michelle Galler •

As so aptly described by one local denizen, “Life in Little Washington reminds one of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon or Jan Karon’s mythical Mitford.” Rappahannock County, Virginia, with its quirky villages, unspoiled scenery, outdoor activities and stellar cultural and culinary offerings, is close enough for a daytrip or a world-away weekend.

Rappahannock Central, a beautifully restored 1930s apple-packing facility in Sperryville, in the far western part of the county, is a bustling crossroads of art galleries — including the studios of River District Arts — and local shops. There is even a brewery and a distillery.

On the culinary side, Heritage Hollow Farms’ new storefront offers 100-percent ecologically farmed grass-fed and grass-finished beef, lamb and pork. Mike Peterson, a former executive sous chef in Aspen, and his wife Molly, a professional photographer who fell in love with the county’s scenery, discovered that they could work together to produce succulent food, raised with integrity. They do not use antibiotics or hormones, and their livestock live comfortable lives on healthy pasturage and non-GMO feed.

Also relatively new is Wild Roots Apothecary, which offers slow brewed, handcrafted herbal and floral syrups at its creatively earthy store. Their artisanal syrups combine Lemon-Cardamom, Elderberry-Lavender and Rosehip-Hibiscus flavors. They also offer botanical teas and locally sourced body nectars.

Known for the five-star Inn at Little Washington, the county offers other overnight accommodations — less pricey, but cozy and charming in their own ways.

Gary Aichele, that very same quoted “local denizen,” happens to run the Gay Street Inn with his wife Wendy. The 1850s farmhouse, on the edge of Little Washington, offers Shenandoah Mountain views, a relaxing stay in beautifully appointed rooms and a hearty country breakfast. The front porch and serene gardens are the perfect spots for morning coffee or afternoon wine.

Also in Little Washington, the Foster Harris House, an early-20th-century farmstead, offers high-end amenities and delicious private dining. One evening in 2004, Diane and John MacPherson decided the time was right to flee their corporate lives and open a business that combines their passions for food, wine, cycling and entertaining.

The rooms are elegant and comfortable and dinner unites the elements that inspire chef John’s culinary muse: fruits and vegetables from the rich soil of Rappahannock County, surprising flavors, bold splashes of color and family traditions. With just one seating a night in the intimate dining room, the five-course, prix-fixe menu is available by reservation for $89 per person or $129 with wine pairings (tax and gratuity not included) every Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The Foster Harris House also offers two- or five-day Tours de Epicure, as much about good food and wine as they are about pedaling through the beautiful countryside.

Just outside of town, surrounded by lush pastures with views to the Blue Ridge Mountains, sits the Middleton Inn. Built in 1840 by Middleton Miller, who designed and manufactured the Confederate uniform during the Civil War, the property is a classic country estate where your pet can be as comfortable as you are.

Even though Rappahannock County has fewer than 7,000 inhabitants, it is home to two theaters. The arts are intricately woven into the texture of the community, thanks in part to RAAC (the Rappahannock Association for the Arts and the Community). RAAC promotes a series of cultural programs throughout the year and supports the RAAC Community Theatre. May will feature playwright John Logan’s Tony Award-winning play “Red,” about egotistical genius Mark Rothko, the Abstract Impressionist painter.

Just across the street is the intimate 213-seat Theatre at Washington, Virginia, presenting an eclectic mix of musical and dramatic performances, usually on weekends. This spring’s line-up includes Grammy Award-winning acoustic guitarist Laurence Juber (June 11) and flutist Emlyn Johnson in a celebration of the centennial of Shenandoah National Park (June 17).

Listed by Trip Advisor as the number-one thing to do in Little Washington, R.H. Ballard Shop and Gallery is always stocked with unique and wonderful things to buy. The shop combines quality French textiles, great design, vintage finds and fine art. Robert Ballard, who runs the shop with his wife Joanie, is a painter who originally hails from San Francisco. He shows some of his own works in the gallery, as well as art by local, regional and nationally recognized artists.

There is always plenty do see and do in Rappahannock County, and springtime is a most beautiful time of the year for exploring the county.

Michelle Galler owns homes in Georgetown and in Washington, Virginia, and is a realtor and antiques dealer in both locales. [gallery ids="102222,130537,130532,130524,130517,130510,130562,130502,130550,130545,130556" nav="thumbs"]

Josef Brandenburg • May 4, 2016

Drinking enough water is one of the simplest and easiest lifestyle changes you can make, helping you lose weight and keep it off while improving your fitness levels. Here are five things that proper hydration does.

Increases intensity. There is actually no such thing as a lactate threshold. Your muscles do not stop working or get weak because there’s too much lactic acid being produced. Fatigue happens in your brain and as a result of the temperature of your muscle cells. Proper hydration allows your body to regulate its temperature better, keeping you going harder for longer. This leads to better fitness and more fat loss.

Improves recovery. The more water you drink, the less DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) you will feel. And the less sore you are, the more often you can work out. It follows that you’ll get better results in terms of fat loss and strength.

Regulates appetite. Very often people confuse thirst with hunger. Drinking water — especially before or during a meal — helps people regulate their appetite. In other words, drinking enough water helps you eat less without being hungry.

Protects your joints. Both water and movement are essential for keeping your joints lubricated and your cartilage supple. Without enough water and enough full-range movement, our joints and cartilage can dry out and become painful. Keeping your joints healthy is essential for being able to move and maintain (or establish) a healthy weight.

Displaces high-calorie beverages. The more water you drink, the less juice, soda or other high-calorie beverages you’ll drink (there is only so much room in your stomach). In behavioral change, it is usually much more effective to replace or displace something in your diet than it is to try and eliminate something.

How much water do I need? At True 180 Fitness, we’ve had a lot of success with half your bodyweight in ounces. That is, if I weigh 200 pounds, then I want 100 ounces. We’ve also found that converting this into the number of water bottles you need per day is very helpful, because it’s so simple. For example, if I have a 20-ounce water bottle, then my goal is to drink five of these per day.

A best-selling author and fitness expert, Josef Brandenburg owns True 180 Fitness in Georgetown. Information about his 14-Day trial may be found at true180.fitness.

Georgetowner •

INNS AND B&BS

The Middleton Inn
176 Main Street, Washington 540-675-2020

The Gay Street Inn
160 Gay Street Washington 540-316-9220

The White Moose Inn
291 Main Street, Washington 540-675-3207

The Loft at the Little Washington Spa
261 Main Street, Washington 540-675-1031

Hopkins Ordinary
47 Main Street, Sperryville 540-987-3383

The Foster Harris House
189 Main Street, Washington 540-674-3757

Glen Gordon Manor
1482 Zachary Taylor Highway, Huntly 540-636-6010

Inn at Mount Vernon
206 Mount Vernon Lane, Sperryville 540-987-3165

FOR THE HUNGRY AND THIRSTY

Tula’s Off Main
311 Gay Street, Washington 540-675-2223

Thornton River Grille
3710 Sperryville Pike, Sperryville 540-987-8790

Foster Harris House
189 Main Street, Washington 540-675-3757

Flint Hill Public House
675 Zachary Taylor Highway, Flint Hill 540-675-1700

Griffin Tavern
659 Zachary Taylor Hwy, Flint Hill 540-675-3227

The Headmaster’s Pub
12018 Lee Highway, Sperryville 540-987-5008

Pen-Druid Brewery
7 River Lane, Sperryville 540-987-5064

Triple Oak Bakery
11692 Lee Highway, Sperryville 540-987-9122

24 Crows
650 Zachary Taylor Highway, Flint Hill 540-675-1111 [gallery ids="102223,130496" nav="thumbs"]

Pamela Burns • April 27, 2016

Heading to a local track with some friends is not only a great way to spend a day tailgating and enjoying the weather. It’s a great excuse to dress up. The Royal Ascot, one of Britain’s oldest formal races, has a strict dress code. Perfect! Let’s use those guidelines to help us decide what to wear to horse races here in the Colonies.

For gentlemen, a suit with shirt and tie is required, naturally. For ladies, a hat, headpiece or fascinator should be worn at all times. Strapless and sheer dresses are not permitted (as if there could be any question about that).
Here are two looks that will keep you fashion-forward while hewing to traditional guidelines.
[gallery ids="102411,122218,122222,122196,122201,122227,122208,122213,122232" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner • April 20, 2016

Here are five of the most common ways we lose the motivation to work out:

Confusing inspiration with motivation. Most people who do not work out consistently will tell you, “I’m not motivated.” What they actually mean is, “I don’t feel sufficiently inspired.” Inspiration feels great, but is fleeting. If you only showed up to work on the days you were inspired, you’d be unemployed and flat broke. Motivation is something else entirely.

Relying on external motivation. External motivation is pressure from events or people, such as an upcoming wedding or an individual who judges you. Brides are often very motivated to get into the best shape of their lives for the big day. But if their appearance on the big day is their primary motivation, they almost always let themselves go starting on day one of the honeymoon. Actively cultivating your internal motivation is the key to a lifetime of health and fitness (versus riding the perpetual diet roller coaster).

Examples of internal motivation are working out because it helps you manage stress or makes you feel better, sleep better or feel strong. Many fear that taking their focus off their appearance means they won’t change it. The truth is, we will only change how we look by changing how we behave. Internal motivation is far more powerful in changing how we behave long term.

Thinking that all it takes is motivation. Motivation alone will not get you far for very long. To borrow Chip and Dan Heath’s metaphor from “Switch,” getting yourself to change is like riding an elephant. You need both the large, powerful elephant (motivation) and the rider (your logical self) to provide consistent and meaningful direction. We’ve got to break our desires into specific things to do: How many workouts? For how long? What will you do? Do those activities match your goals?

Confusing traits and skills. In upgrading your lifestyle, it’s important to remember that a healthy lifestyle is built from skills, not traits. Eating healthy is about being skilled at planning for the week, prepping and cooking. Consistent exercise is about being skilled at time management and at saying “no” to the inevitable obstacles to following through on your plans. These are skills — like learning to drive a stick shift — not traits like height or eye color. Everyone can develop these skills, and everyone develops skills the same way. It’s a struggle, requiring time and effort, making mistakes and learning how to fix them.

Ignoring your environment. The cliché is true: we actually are products of our environment. If you live in a house full of ice cream and potato chips, you will eat them on a fairly regular basis. This will be the case no matter how motivated you are. What makes humans different from other animals is that we can control and reshape our environment. We can use our self-discipline to remove temptations from our homes.

A best-selling author and fitness expert, Josef Brandenburg owns True 180 Fitness in Georgetown. Information about his 14-Day trial may be found at true180.fitness.

Richard Selden • April 18, 2016

Billing itself as a “full-service, boutique fitness studio,” the first BLAST outside Georgia — just west of Georgetown, at 2311 M St. NW — held its grand opening March 19.

The brand’s backstory will sound familiar to many.

In the course of carrying her second child, founder Missi Wolf put on weight — a lot of weight. Five feet tall, after giving birth she weighed 206 pounds and had 34 percent body fat. Her doctor categorized her as morbidly obese and borderline diabetic.

That was motivating. Wolf immediately began researching, studying and experimenting in order to create her own personal fitness program, which enabled her to lose 100 pounds in two years and get her body fat out of the danger zone (in the ‘after’ photograph on the website, Wolf has also become a blonde).

That crash program evolved into BLAST, an acronym for Balanced Level of Aerobic and Strength Training. The three parts of the program are classes, metabolic testing and nutritional coaching. Wolf opened her first studio in Atlanta in 2008.

Among the five instructors at the D.C. location are Christa A., a cheerleader for the football team with the objectionable name, whose power song is “Anything” by Calvin Harris. To read more instructor profiles, schedule a class and connect with the BLAST community, visit theblastlife.com.

Richard Selden • April 8, 2016

A National Historic Landmark, the Seventh Regiment Armory on Manhattan’s Upper East Side made an about-face in 2007.
The one-time drill hall for New York’s aristocracy — with interiors by Tiffany, Stanford White and the Herter Brothers, among others — had become best known as a cavernous venue for high-end antiques shows.

That year, the massive brick castle became the home of Park Avenue Armory, a nonprofit that undertook the building’s restoration and began to program performances and contemporary art installations. The Royal Shakespeare Company came for six weeks one summer and the Merce Cunningham Company danced its last there. Visitors listened in the dark to “The Murder of Crows,” a sound piece by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller; swung on giant swings amid dangling sheets at Ann Hamilton’s “The Event of a Thread”; and marveled at Paul McCarthy’s pornographic take on Snow White, “WS.”

Almost singlehandedly, the Armory has made the Upper East Side hip. (The next major installation, “Martin Creed: The Back Door,” opens June 8.) Its avant-garde events have been so successful that last year the New York Art, Antique & Jewelry Show, an annual rental of $300,000 or so, was evicted; the 2016 show will be at Pier 94 in November.

But two of the most prestigious shows of their kind in the world are still Armory tenants. The Winter Antiques Show will return in January 2017. This weekend, April 7 to 10, more than 200 of the top U.S. and international vendors of rare books, maps, manuscripts and ephemera will be at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair.

A short walk up Park Avenue from the Armory is the Asia Society Museum, between 70th and 71st streets, where “Kamakura: Realism and Spirituality in the Sculpture of Japan” is on view through May 8. The exhibition focuses on sculpture from the politically turbulent Kamakura period (1185 to 1333), when artists and their workshops were commissioned by the warrior class to create Buddhist icons of exceptional realism, power and technical excellence.

Meanwhile, the big news on the Upper East Side is the opening, last month, of the Met Breuer. With the Whitney Museum of Art in a new Renzo Piano building in the Meatpacking District (at the southern terminus of the High Line), the Metropolitan Museum of Art has taken over the old Whitney, at Madison Avenue and 75th Street, a Brutalist icon designed by Marcel Breuer.

The inaugural exhibition at what this writer calls the Metney (until I hear from both museums’ lawyers) is “Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible,” running through Sept. 4. Under the direction of Sheena Wagstaff, named the Met’s chair of modern and contemporary art, a new department, in 2012, the show’s curators selected nearly 200 works — by contemporary artists and by big names from Rembrandt to Rauschenberg — that were never completed or “partake of a non finito … aesthetic that embraces the unresolved and open-ended.”

About eight blocks away, at what is now identified as the Met Fifth Avenue, the top-billed special exhibition is “Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France.” Closing May 15, the display of 80 paintings and pastels is said to be the painter’s first retrospective “in modern times.”

Finally, across Fifth Avenue from the “Big Met,” the exquisite Neue Galerie on the corner of 86th Street is the sole U.S. venue for “Munch and Expressionism,” through June 13. Organized with the Munch Museum in Oslo, the exhibition will explore the mutual influences among Edvard Munch and his German and Austrian contemporaries, including Max Beckmann, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele.
[gallery ids="102397,122717" nav="thumbs"]