Friday Is Bike-to-Work Day
• May 21, 2015

This Friday, May 15, has been dubbed Bike-to-Work Day. Commuter Connections and the Washington Area Bicyclist Association aim to gather more than 17,000 area commuters for a celebration of bicycling as a clean, fun and healthy way to get to work.

Bike riders can stop by one of 79 pit stops throughout D.C., Maryland and Virginia to receive refreshments and enter into a raffle for a bicycle giveaway.

Each pit stop will also provide registered attendees with free t-shirts. T-shirts are available to the first 14,000 who register and attend.

Cyclists can visit as many pit stops as they would like on Bike-to-Work Day. However, the free Bike-to-Work Day t-shirt can only be picked up at the pit stop one chooses while registering.

The Georgetown Business Improvement District has invited participants to come by its pit stop, 7:30 to 9:30 a.m., at Georgetown Waterfront Park, where commuters can enjoy refreshments, snacks and bicycle-themed giveaways. Registration is free. The first 300 visitors will receive a Bike-to-Work Day water bottle.

Before the bike-themed festivities, the Georgetown Professionals, a networking group that hosts monthly happy hours, will partner up with Washington Area Bicyclists Association and the Georgetown BID on May 12 to host an afternoon bike-from-work day happy hour at Malmaison, starting 4 p.m., at 3401 K St. NW. Send RSVPs for the happy hour to erinflynn09@gmail.com.

Visit www.BikeToWorkMetroDC.org for more details.

4 Restaurant Liquor Licenses in Georgetown Available 

• May 20, 2015

Four alcoholic beverage licenses will be open for application this summer for restaurants in Georgetown, according to D.C.’s Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration. ABRA will begin accepting applications for the limited and desired licenses 8:30 a.m., Thursday, June 25.

Because of the liquor license cap and restrictions within the Georgetown Moratorium Zone, a maximum of 68 restaurants are permitted to be licensed in the area, according to ABRA, which added, “Establishments exempt from the moratorium include all hotels and those in or to be located in Georgetown Park, Georgetown Park II, Prospect Place Mall, Georgetown Court and Washington Harbour.” Other D.C. neighborhoods with a liquor license moratorium are Adams Morgan, East Dupont and West Dupont and Glover Park.

The four licenses in Georgetown will be available because of license cancellations or expirations. The former licensees are M Cafe on Prospect Street, Puro Cafe on Wisconsin Avenue, Pizzeria Uno on M Street and Zenobia Lounge on 31st Street.

ABRA advised:
Applications for the licenses are available online but must be submitted in person. Any applicant must be the actual owner of the business. Businesses interested in applying can do so beginning at 8:30 a.m., Thursday, June 25 at ABRA’s office, which at the Reeves Municipal Center, 2000 14th St., NW, Suite 400 South, 4th Floor, Washington, D.C.

Completed license applications will be reviewed on a first-come, first-served basis and are subject to the consideration of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. Members of the public that have questions can contact ABRA by emailing abra@DC.gov or calling 202-442-4423. 

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Weekend Round Up May 14, 2015
• May 18, 2015

Stories of Art & Money at the Freer Gallery of Art

May 16th, 2015, AT 3:30PM | Event Website

Moderated by NPR’s Scott Simon, this moderated panel discussion focuses on the complex relationship between art, money and patronage. To collect art is a pursuit of passion, but it is also a pursuit of status, wealth and cultural influence. What is art worth? Who determines its value? Find out at the Freer! Free and open to the public.

Address

Freer Gallery of Art, 1050 Independence Ave SW

Jackson Art Center Spring 2015 Open Studios

May 17th, 2015 at 12:00 PM | free | jacksonartcenter@gmail.com | Tel: (202) 342-9778 | Event Website

Jackson Art Center Spring Open Studios, Sunday, May 17, 2015, from 12pm to 5pm.

Jackson artists host their semi-annual event on Sun., May 17 from 12 to 5pm. Visit the studios of 30+ artists while enjoying complimentary refreshments and live music. Free and open to the public.

We will also include a children’s workshop — “Marvelous Murals” — from 3 to 4pm that afternoon, in our outdoor courtyard. If there is bad weather, we’ll postpone the workshop until Sun., May 24 from 3-4 pm.

Address

3050 R Street NW, in Georgetown, across from Montrose Park

Cathedral Choral Society: Great Opera Choruses

May 17th, 2015 at 04:00 PM | $15-75 | lsheridan@cathedral.org | Tel: 202-537-2228 | Event Website

Magnificent opera music, sacred and profane, perfect for a cathedral. Stirring choruses and heartbreaking arias tell great stories of love, revenge, passion, greed, and glory. Selections from Wagner, “Die Meistersinger;” Bellini, “Norma;” Gounod, “Faust;” Verdi, “Nabucco;” Puccini, “Tosca;” Mascagni, “Cavalleria Rusticana;” Puccini, “Manon Lescaut;” and Boito, “Mefistofele.”

J. Reilly Lewis, conductor. Jessica Julin, soprano. Ben Wager, bass.

Address

Washington National Cathedral; 3101 Wisconsin Ave. NW

Life in Luon

May 18th, 2015 at 06:30 PM | lhumphrey@lululemon.com | Event Website

Join us for an evening of sweat, stories and salads. Hear how we live the luon lives we love and how you can create your next #dreamjob! Enjoy a complimentary Barre Class from 6:30 to 7:30PM (please arrive by 6:15PM with mat) and then enjoy a Q&A with a Lululemon employee panel.

For your spot on the guest list, email lhumphrey@lululemon.com

Address

lululemon athletica, 3265 M St. NW

Spanish Conversation Club

May 19th, 2015 at 11:00 AM | Free | julia.strusienski@dc.gov | Tel: 202-727-0232 | Event Website

Looking to grow, revive, or begin to develop your Spanish skills?

Join the Georgetown Neighborhood Library this May for weekly casual conversation hours, led by instructor Luz Verost.

Address

Georgetown Neighborhood Library; 3260 R St. NW

Free Chamber Concert

May 19th, 2015 at 12:00 PM | Free | info@dumbartonhouse.org | Tel: 2023372288 | Event Website

A community of music lovers and musicians, the Friday Morning Music Club, Inc., has promoted classical music in the Washington area for over 120 years. Join us for a delightful Spring concert in the Belle Vue Room of Dumbarton House.

Address

Dumbarton House, 2715 Q Street, NW

“Get Out & Play” Clinic

May 20th, 2015 at 04:30 PM | $0.00 | Tel: 888-747-5361 | Event Website

Giant Food, LLC and Ripken Baseball are again collaborating to host a series of health and fitness clinics throughout the Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. regions. The Second Annual “Get Out and Play” clinics will combine baseball instruction with nutritional programming to create a fun and informative program for youth and their families.

Address

Dwight Moseley Field Complex; 20th and Perry St NE

Fire Shutters Good Stuff Eatery
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A kitchen fire at 8 a.m. Saturday, May 2, shut down Good Stuff Eatery at 3291 M St. NW. The hamburger restaurant will be closed for several days. The fire was quickly contained. There were no injuries and minimal damage. During the fire, traffic in the 3100 and 3300 block of M Street NW was diverted.

Owner and chef Spike Mendelsohn tweeted, “#GoodStuffEatery Gtown will be closed for several days due to a small fire. Sorry for any inconvenience.”

Gunter Grass (1927-2015): Re-Righting Painful German Memories
• May 11, 2015

One of the obituaries that almost immediately hit the Internet after the death, at 87, of Gunter Grass, the Nobel Prize-winning German novelist,  focused strongly on his admission in the autobiographical work, “Peeling the Onion,” that he had been a draftee in the Waffen-SS, the Nazi Party’s soldiers—a fact that he had not exactly kept hidden but had not dealt with in his voluminous writings of novels, fiction, stories, autobiography and poems.

The revelation, which came seven years after he had won the Nobel Prize, caused a bit of an uproar among the literati, and Grass himself tried to explain away the omission as an outcrop of his sense of shame.

But in truth, he didn’t need to do even that. For all of his writing life, the subject was always German literary, cultural, societal and moral loss of memory or re-arranging of the same, which afflicted many adult Germans who survived the war. 

In that gigantic genius of an imaginative work, “The Tin Drum,” his main character was a boy who willed himself not to grow physically, who had a gift with playing hypnotically on a tin drum and a scream that broke glass and eardrums. The boy, Oskar Matzerath, grew up in the much fought-over city of Danzig and grew to emotional maturity throughout the war, watching betrayals, bombings, serving in the army, and generally becoming a devout cynic,  a survivor who saw the devastating, ruinous, morally decrepitude and slaughter of the war: Germans winning, then waning and Russians invading.

All of his books—“Cat and Mouse” and “Dog Years,” which, with “The Tin Drum”—formed his Danzig trilogy, as well as later books, were about the effects of the rise of the Nazi state, the scalding devastation and punishment of the war, and the post-war years.  It was a German—and a Catholic at that—dealing with the moral effects of memory, of forgetting willfully or pragmatically things that should be impossible to forget.  German survivors were not crippled by the war, they were, in a way, invigorated and energized to affect a phenomenal rebuilding of the state and country. Today, Germany, pacified and pacificist, and re-unified  is the master of Europe, economically.

In one way or another, Grass, whose works in translation managed to preserve the lyricism, the wicked, metaphor-rich styles of writing,  dealt vividly with what is remembered, and what the memories mean—his characters are not about atrocities, but about moral betrayals and outrages, about sexual excess and sexual betrayal as well, and they are paradoxically rich in humor, especially books like “The Tin Drum,” the surreal “Dog Years,” which is about Hitler’s dog, and “The Flounder,” a hefty almost whimsical work of magical realism and folk tall tale.

Grass was more than a writer. He was the novelist as conscience, questioner, left-wing politician.  He was, as one person described him, a citizen-writer.  Grass said once that writers should always “keep their mouths open.” Only Heinrich Boll matched his gift for unapologetic scrutiny.

He was a teenager when he was in the Waffen-SS and died an old man, spanning war, defeat, resurgence, re-unification, deflecting controversy and creating it.   Writers like Grass are rare these days, when the Great American Novel is a little like a dream few American writers pursue.  You can find his ilk in the great Latin American writers like Marques, Allende and Fuentes, whose writing were part magic, part hidden politics and full-blooded dreams.

I read “The Tin Drum,” when I was college-age and without fully understanding the multi-ethnic—Slav, German, Polish—aspects of it, or being familiar with Danzig. I responded strongly to the book.  The book was oddly perverse and entertaining, full of violence and the kind of Grimm fairy tale—adult version—aspects that were familiar to me.

Grass’s subject—the slippery status of memory in Germany—hit home to me: I was a decade and a half behind Grass in his experience, born in Munich, with a first memory of American tanks driving over the rubble of Munich in 1945, tossing out candy bars, for which, like any hungry kid, I fought. I emigrated to the U.S. in 1952 at age 10, and that’s when I first discovered what happened in Germany, in a book about Nazi war crimes, the Holocaust, Hitler and everything else with pictures.

It’s hard to take in then, and now, still, and Grass met that subject of memory elusively, including his own. My relatives essentially claimed a kind of not-remembering.  I had three uncles which almost sum up the war—an infantry soldier killed in Russia, another an SS major and the third, an intellectual member of the German underground. That, at least, were the stories, I was told. They died so long ago.

We all do these things to move into a different life.  Somewhere, I stopped using my real name of Gerhard and went to Gary, instead. People sometimes get tired of being different, far from home. Grass gave a lot of thought to who he was and when he was:  the result are pages and pages of forever memories and their meaning.

Weekend Round Up April 16
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Forms of the Journey

April 16, 2015 at 6 p.m. | Free | media@allweartstudio.com | Tel: 202-375-9713 | Event Website

All We Art is pleased to announce the exhibition, “Forms of a Journey,” featuring artists Félix Ángel, Marta Luz Gutierrez and Jesús Matheus.

Public reception will take place on Thursday, April 16, 2015 from 6 to 9 p.m. (Please RSVP to media@artseedc.com). The three artists share their work as part of their experience as individuals committed with creation, as well as the journey that started several decades ago when they migrated to the United States.

Address
1666 33rd St NW

2015 Spring Art Walk

April 17, 2015 at 6 p.m. | Free | chris@neptunefineart.com | Tel: 202-338-0353 | Event Website

The Georgetown Galleries on Book Hill invite you to our Spring Art Walk: Friday, April 17th, 2015 from 6 – 8 pm. Nine galleries will host an evening stroll and launch their fine art exhibitions in the most beautiful part of Washington, D.C. Add to your collection and please join us for a night of art, fun, and refreshments.

Address
1662 33rd Street NW

The Sum Total of Our Memory: Facing Alzheimer’s Together

April 17, 2015 AT 1 p.m. | $11 | Tel: 703-960-1970 | Event Website

When Barbara Klutinis’ husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s she had no idea how she was going to get through the ordeal ahead of her. After joining a support group and hearing the stories of others going through the same thing, Klutinis realized she was not alone. Inspired by the experience, she decided to make a documentary about the lives of couples suffering from the disease.

Address
Angelika Film Center
2911 District Ave.
Fairfax, VA 22031

Opening Reception: Layered Memories: The In-between paintings by Karen Silve

April 17, 2015 at 6 p.m. | Free | gallery@callowayart.com | Tel: 202-965-4601 | Event Website

After spending the summer in the South of France, Karen Silve reflects on the differences between older and new memories. Her seductive, painterly abstractions reveal a unique expression of harmonious colors: bright and joyous, warm and sensual, cool and luscious. On view April 17 – May 23, 2015.

Address
Susan Calloway Fine Arts
1643 Wisconsin Ave NW
Washington, DC 20007

Global Citizen Earth Day Rally

April 18, 2015 at 11 a.m. | Free | Event Website

The Global Citizen Earth Day Rally will take place from 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. on the National Mall. The event features a free concert with performances by My Morning Jacket, Train, Fall Out Boy, Mary J. Blige, Usher and No Doubt. It is hosted by Will.i.am and Soledad O’Brien. Speakers throughout the day will include Don Cheadle, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim.

Posey Quilt Exhibition

April 18, 2015 at 11 a.m | $5 | info@dumbartonhouse.org | Tel: 202-337-2288 | [Event Website] (http://dumbartonhouse.org/archives/2990)

2015 from April to Labor Day, Dumbarton House will display the “Posey Quilt,” an early 19th century American pieced quilt made of silk dress fabrics from a number of early American women and Posey family members. The exhibition will highlight the eight women believed to have owned the dresses used in the quilt, as well as the Posey family and its long tradition of passing the quilt down from mother to oldest daughter.

Address
Dumbarton House, 2715 Q Street, N.W.

“Partners in Crime” presented by FilmFest DC and TECRO

April 18, 2015 at 5 p.m. | $13 | Tel: 202-234-3456 | [Event Website](http://www.filmfestdc.org/filmView.cfm?passID=59)

The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States will join FilmFest DC in presenting Partners in Crime. The screenings will be held both on Saturday, April 18, at 5:00 p.m. and on Sunday, April 19, at 3:00 p.m. at the Landmark E Street Cinema.

Partners in Crime is a 2014 Taiwanese thriller directed by Jung-chi Chang following his debut feature, Touch of the Light (Taiwan’s foreign-language Oscar entry in 2012).

Address
555 11th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20004

Cantate Chambers Singers featuring HU’s Afro Blue: A Concert Meditation on Civil Rights in America

April 19, 2015 at 5 p.m. | $35-45, $15 with student ID, Ages 18 and under free | exec@cantate.org | Tel: 301-986-1799 | [Event Website](http://cantate.org)

Closing its adventurous 30th anniversary season, Cantate Chamber Singers hosts jazz a cappella virtuosos Afro Blue in a concert tribute to the rich musical heritage of the Civil Rights Movement. Featuring classic spirituals, jazz, and the timely world premiere of Rise by Judah Adashi, with text by Tameka Cage Conley. With a special appearance by journalist Gwen Ifill. Tickets available at www.cantate.org, 301-986-1799, or at the door.

Address
Metropolitan A.M.E. Church
1518 M Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005

Mika Brzezinski Wants You to Know Your Value
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Mika Brzezinski may be the co-host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and a New York Times best-selling author, but she’s also leading a conversation about empowering women in the workforce. And she’s bringing that conversation to D.C. this May.

“I developed the message for 40-something women like myself,” Brzezinski said.

However, the dialogue created by her book, “Know Your Value,” has captured a far wider audience. “This message is universal,” she said. “It’s for women of all ages, stages and choices.”

Brzezinski is bringing a “Know Your Value” conference to town next month, with appearances by her “Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Brooke Shields and others. The event will take place May 15 at the Marriott Marquis at 901 Massachusetts Ave. N.W. from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Brzezinski encouraged women to enter in the “Grow Your Value Bonus Competition.” Participants must submit a video pitch explaining why they deserve a bonus in one minute or less. Videos can be submitted at msnbc.com/know-your-value. Deadline for submissions is Sunday, April 19.

“I got so much response. Women were coming up to me everywhere,” she said. “I knew there needed to be more to the conversation.”

Her next book called “Grow Your Value: Overcoming Roadblocks to Women’s Success” will be available May 12.

The “Know Your Value” tour will continue through November, making stops in Boston, Chicago and Orlando. Check msnbc.com/knowyourvalue for details and tickets to the May 15 D.C. event.

Watergate Evacuated After Parking Garage Collapse
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Updated 5:30 p.m.

A three-story, partial collapse of a parking garage occurred around 10 a.m. Friday, May 1, at the Watergate complex, prompting evacuation of buildings and a large D.C. Fire Department response, shutting down Virginia Avenue from 25th Street to Rock Creek Parkway.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser held a 4 p.m. press briefing after visiting the site of the accident and said that rescue dogs indicated no human activity at the three levels affected by the collapse but that a cadaver dog made “a possible hit.”

Two persons were hurt, and earlier Bowser said, “Not everyone is accounted for,” according to NBC News.

“The building shook a little bit and we saw a sinkhole growing in the courtyard,” said Tom Wall of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which is headquartered on the 10th and 11th floors of the Watergate office building at 2600 Virginia Ave., NW. A tree and foliage fell down into the hole, as water sprayed up from broken pipes, the witness said.

A main part of the collapse was at the underground pathway to the public garage and between the office building and Watergate East. “Thank God it happened at 10 a.m.,” Wall said, “and not around lunchtime,” when the area would be more traveled by office workers and visitors. “With rubble spilling out,” the area “looked like footage from a war zone,” he said.

Office workers and residents are used to noise and construction activity, as the Watergate Hotel is undergoing a $125-milllion renovation, due for completion by the end of summer. The garage was also under construction at the time. All construction workers have been accounted for.

“Rescue crews are using dogs to search the rubble of the garage,” NBC News reported. “Special Ops and a local collapse team are searching the garage in the 2600 block of Virginia Avenue NW for any other possible victims. The D.C. Fire & EMS Department’s only search dog has been deployed to Nepal to help in the aftermath of the earthquake there. Montgomery County Fire & Rescue sent their dogs to aid at the Watergate.”

The cause of the collapse is undetermined at this time.

The Watergate complex, known for the 1972 burglary that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, lies along the banks of the Potomac River next to another Washington landmark, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

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Bill Clinton to Speak at Georgetown University
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Former President (and potential first “first gentleman”) Bill Clinton will speak at Georgetown University Tuesday, April 21, in the third of four lectures he plans to give at the Jesuit institution.

The university stated online: “The lectures examine the framework for a lifetime spent championing an idea espoused by his Georgetown professor Carroll Quigley: that America is the greatest nation in history because our people have always believed in two things — that tomorrow can be better than today and that every one of us has a personal, moral responsibility to make it so.”

The first of the Clinton lectures came in 2013, when the former president spoke on his background and the purpose of service. Clinton returned last year to argue the importance of public policy in a defense of Obamacare. There is no word yet on what Clinton is set to talk about tomorrow but it’s unlikely that he goes to bat for his wife’s presidential campaign – yet. He told Town & Country that his role “should primarily be as a backstage adviser” until the end of the campaign.

Clinton gave a series of talks at Georgetown University in 1991, as well, as he ramped up his own presidential campaign. In those three lectures, Clinton laid out a “New Covenant” on community, the economy and American security.

In a bit of happenstance, Clinton’s former foreign policy ally, ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair will speak at Georgetown on Thursday, April 23, on “The Global Future of Development.” The university wrote online that his speech continues “a semester-long conversation” on the topic convened by the school’s new Global Futures Initiative, which invites world leaders in the public sector, business, and civil society to engage with the university community around critical issues.