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Gary Tischler • May 21, 2015

Bluesman B.B. King, a legend in his and many people’s times, a man who personified the music he played, influenced hundreds of black and white singers and guitar players who played the blues, died in his sleep in Las Vegas May 14 at the age of 89.

He died forever famous and died rich, but he did and could and would still play the blues, especially “The Thrill is Gone,” which was the biggest hit of a storied career that probably began when he heard all those sounds swirling around him and his life, beginning in Mississippi. There was gospel, Robert Johnson at the cross roads and all those Delta blues guys, sharecroppers at some point or another, visitations to the road side boogie joints and jukebox joints and front porch guys, soon to be on the road, playing for quarters and dollars in edgy, hazy, sweaty place where the local brew could make you sick or crazy.

Listening to the blues could evoke that whole world and B.B. King evoked better than anybody ever—the blues were about remembered pain, but sometimes they could just make you get up and jump around, like kicking the demons out.

Born Riley B. King, B.B. was Blues Boy, which was pretty apt, although it is hard to think of him, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Woolf, the Reverend Blind Gary Davis or Johnson as boys of any sort.  Nothing much playful in that song, or many of his songs or any of the blues songs—they’re about loving, losing, about back-breaking and heart-breaking stuff and not ever, ever getting over it: “The thrill is gone away/you know you done me wrong baby/and you’ll be sorry someday.”

He was a sharecropper who made less than five dollars a day for a time, and he heard gospel, and blues, and country music and Count Basie, and for a time he played in places on Beale Street in Memphis.   He was married a couple of times, but everybody says the love of his life was Lucille, his guitar.  According to reports, he once ran into a burning hotel to rescue his guitar.

Once King got successful—with a hit called “Three O’Clock Blues”—he toured extensively with stops at the Howard Theatre in Washington, along with the Apollo and the Royal Theater.  He had a star on Hollywood Boulevard and was inducted double duty in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame. He also received a Kennedy Center Honor in 1995 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2006.

He influenced people—especially some of the blues rockers from England in the 1960s, especially Eric Clapton who paid him a online special tribute.  “Thank you for everything, your friendship and your inspiration” says Clapton, looking older, too.

King can be found all over YouTube—including a rendition of “The Thrill is Gone” from 1993—glitzy blue jacket, black bow tie, sweating a little, squeezing the music out of Lucille, you guess, alive as you and me and then some.
           
“You know I’m free, free now baby, free from your spell,” he sings, “and now that’s all over/all I can do is wish you well.”

You, too, Blues Boy.  Wish you well. The thrill is NOT gone. 

Robert Devaney •

The May 14 murder of Savvas Savopoulus, 46, and his wife, Amy Savopoulos, 47, as well as their 10-year-old son, Philip, who attended St. Alban’s School, and a housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa, 57, has shocked relatives and friends of the family, which lived blocks away from Washington National Cathedral and the Vice President’s Residence. After the attacks, the Savopoulus house — valued at $4.5 million — on Woodland Drive NW was set on fire. The couple’s two teenage daughters were at boarding school at the time of the murder and are safe. Savvas Savopoulos was the president and CEO of American Iron Works. He and his wife Amy were known around town and were involved with school and other social benefits.

D.C. police issued the following video — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh8egOuX4rc&feature — as well as request over the weekend.

“Detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch are investigating a quadruple homicide. Investigators seek the public’s assistance in identifying and locating a person of interest in a quadruple Homicide which occurred on Thursday, May 14, 2015, in the 3200 block of Woodland Drive, NW. The subject was subsequently captured by a surveillance camera.

??”The subject was possibly operating a blue 2008 Porsche 911 sports car which was located abandoned in the 8000 block of Annapolis Road in New Carrollton, Md. Anyone with information about the vehicle or who saw it being operated between Wednesday, May 13, and Thursday, May 14, 2015, is asked to contact police.??

“Do your part to help prevent and solve crime. The Metropolitan Police Department currently offers a reward of up to $25,000 to anyone that provides information which leads to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons wanted for any homicide committed in the District of Columbia. Your assistance is appreciated by your community. Ref. CCN #15-069-981.

??”Anyone who can identify these individuals or who has knowledge of this incident should take no action but call police at 202-727-9099 or text your tip to the Department’s TEXT TIP LINE to 50411.

??”To learn more about the MPD Rewards program, please visit www.mpdc.dc.gov/rewards.”

Gary Tischler •

The Council of the District of Columbia now stands fulfilled.

That is to say, with the swearing May 14 of its two newest member—newly elected members Brandon Todd, who won easily in Ward 4, the seat formerly held by Mayor Muriel Bowser, and LaRuby May, who squeaked to victory in a tight election in Ward 8—the city council is now at full strength.

It is a council that is full of relatively fresh faces, a council that is made up of seven men and six women — and seven African American members and six white members.

Chaired by Phil Mendelson, this council has a number of new and newer members who were elected in the last several years, including May, Todd, Chair Pro Tempore Kenyan McDuffie of Ward 5, at-large members David Grosso and Elissa Silverman and Brianne Nadeau and Charles Allen of Ward 6.   The more veteran members of the council include Ward 2’s Jack Evans, the longest serving member of the council, Mendelson, at-large members Vincent Orange and Anita Bonds, Mary Cheh of Ward 3 and Yvette Alexander of Ward 7.

The newest members, Todd and May, have clear ties to Mayor Muriel Bowser.  Todd was a former aide to Bowser, and May worked on Bowser’s mayoral campaign. The mayor endorsed both candidates in their council races.

Robert Devaney •

That was the case when D.C. Superior Court Judge Maurice Ross ordered Douglas G. Jefferies, the owner of a Dupont Circle property at 2220 Q St. NW, to cease unlawfully operating an unlicensed residential housing business, public hall, boarding house, bed and breakfast and general business by renting the home for parties, weddings and concerts.

The order came after the Office of the Attorney General had filed a lawsuit against Jefferies for creating a hazard to public safety and a nuisance to neighbors. The order stated that Jefferies had been using vacation-rental websites to rent the property, despite the owner and the venue not being properly licensed or outfitted for such events.

“Assuming Mr. Jefferies abides by the terms of the consent order, this agreement will bring an end to the dangerous, illegal and troublesome use of this property to host large and noisy events,” Attorney General Karl A. Racine said. “Today’s action sends a strong message to individuals who seek to unlawfully conduct lodging and entertainment businesses without proper licenses.”

Jefferies was also ordered to pay an $8,000 fine.

The lawsuit was filed after an investigation by DCRA officials, who had received numerous complaints from neighbors about excessive noise.

Georgetowner • 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. 

Georgetowner • 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

Robert Devaney •

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.”

Gary Tischler • 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.

Georgetowner •

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