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Georgetowner • March 20, 2014

Art 17:• Albert Schweitzer’s Magical Critters

March 13th, 2014 at 06:30 PM | Free | KMcDuffie@cbmove.com | Tel: 202-387-6180 | Event Website

Art17 at Coldwell Banker’s Dupont office welcomes you to celebrate and experience the intriguing artworks of Albert Schweitzer. Delightful finger foods and beverages will be served.

Address

Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage; 1606 17th Street NW

Suor Angelica

March 14th, 2014 at 07:30 PM | Event Website

The Singers’ Theater of Washington presents Suor Angelica in concert at Convergence in Alexandria, VA on March 14 and 15, 2014 at 7:30 p.m.. Tickets are available for $20 for the general public, and $15 for students, seniors, and groups.

Please visit our website at www.singerstheater.com or EventBrite to purchase tickets.

Address

Convergence; 1801 N. Quaker Lane; Alexandria, VA 2230

Capital Restaurants of Georgetown: Third Annual Georgetown Leprechaun Leap!

March 15th, 2014 at 01:00 PM | crcinfo@capitalrestaurants.com | Tel: 202.339.6800 | Event Website

Celebrate the Irish in you with Capital Restaurants of Georgetown – Paolo’s Ristorante, J. Paul’s, and Old Glory BBQ. Form a team and be challenged as Capital Restaurants takes you on a scavenger hunt through the streets of Georgetown with food, drink and interactive games with a chance to beat out fellow “leapers” and win the pot of gold grand prizes. Registration and packet pick up starts at noon at Paolo’s Ristorante and the scavenger hunt kicks off at 1 p.m. To form your team, gather four to six “leapers” or teammates, choose a team name and select your team captain. Everyone gets a ‘LEAP’ shirt. There will be lots of prizes and giveaways and major prizes will be awarded to the top three teams. The award ceremony will begin at 6 p.m. at Old Glory BBQ.

Address

Paolo’s Ristorante 1303 Wisconsin Ave. NW

The North Face Georgetown: Mountain Athletics Workout

March 15th, 2014 at 08:00 AM | Event Website

Train smarter this spring with The North Face’s new training program, Mountain Athletics. Whether you are a runner, hiker, climber or skier, the Mountain Athletics training program trains athletes with activity-specific training regimes to help them reach their goals. Join The North Face on Saturday, March 15 at the Georgetown Waterfront Park to try out this amazing program for free. The North Face will be holding free workout sessions for anyone interested in becoming a better athlete from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. To register and learn more about Mountain Athletics and how other athletes train for their sport.

Address

North Face’s; 3333 M St. NW

Songs for a New World

March 15th, 2014 at 07:30 PM | $20-$35 | Javor323@hotmail.com | Tel: (301) 272-8604 | Event Website

Young Artists of America, Inc. (YAA) present a fully-orchestrated performance of Jason Robert Brown’s Songs for a New World, conducted by the Tony Award-winning composer himself, on Saturday, March 15 at 7:30PM and Sunday, March 16, 2014 at 3PM in Potomac, MD. Originally developed for a small cast, Mr. Brown went on to score the entire show for full orchestra and will premiere 5 new orchestrations for this production.

Address

WINSTON CHURCHILL HIGH SCHOOL; 11300 Gainsborough Road; Potomac, MD 20854

The Shamrock Beer Bash

March 15th, 2014 at 01:00 PM | 40.00 | jared.lewis@thetasteofdc.org | Tel: 2026183663 | Event Website

At the Shamrock Beer Bash, festival-goers can enjoy 3 hours of unlimited tastings of over 75 beers and unlimited full pours of 2 select beers, in addition to area food trucks and live entertainment. So come on down to the lots across from Nationals Park and celebrate the day with your fellow Washingtonians!

Session 1: SATURDAY, March 15th, 1pm – 4pm

Session 2: SATURDAY, March 15th, 6pm – 9pm

Ticket: $40.00

The event will take place in the lot directly east of National’s Park.

Address

Address: 130 N St. SE, Washington D.C. 20003; Metro: Navy Yard (Green)

St. Patrick’s Parade of Washington, DC

March 16th, 2014 at 12:00 PM | FREE, Grandstand Tickets are available for $15.00 | webmaster@dcstpatsparade.com | Tel: (202) 670-0317 | Event Website

Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and Irish heritage by attending the 43rd annual St. Patrick’s Parade of Washington, DC! Check out pictures from last year’s parade, http://dcstpatsparade.com/?page_id=178.

Address

The parade starts at Constitution Ave NW & 7th Street NW and proceeds down Constitution Avenue to the end of the parade route at Constitution Ave NW & 17th Street NW

Karen Feld •

David Brenner, 78, succumbed to cancer March 15. Until the end, the Philadelphia native used his quick wit and celebrity to voice his political beliefs against gun violence, war and foreign aid to countries that vote against the U.S. in the United Nations. He was a regular at the former Gotham Comedy Club, where he first performed stand-up in the 1970s. Brenner holds the record for the largest number of guest shots on NBC’s “The Tonight Show” and surpasses other performers with the most guest appearances on all TV talk shows.

I last saw Brenner about a year ago in New York City. Although graying a bit, he was as sharp and edgy as ever, both on stage and off. His observational humor included stories about how New York City has changed through the years. Bike lanes and taxis were among his targets. Many of his longtime social and political subjects are equally relevant today–overcrowded prisons, America’s school system, Congress and lobbyists.

He described his humor as talking about the simple things in everyday life. He stayed up-to-date on current events and discovered the ridiculous side of them in his stand-up act. He reminded the audience that he did the last live “Ed Sullivan Show” and reminisced about his career from when Buddy Hackett helped get him into Vegas.

His off-handed style of humor was true David Brenner with engaging stories to which we can all relate. His airline anecdotes brought back memories of the Eastern Shuttle between New York, Washington and Boston. Talking about his days on the road, if he landed a hotel room adjacent to the ice machine, he’d put an “out of order” sign on it so he didn’t have to hear it clang all night. If only the rest of us had thought of that.

Brenner’s other timely targets for his insightful comedy sketches included IHOP, viagra, the recession, Walmart, cable news networks, the pope’s resignation, gun control, eBay and Facebook. He left little untouched.

After the show, he pointed out the irony of how often he appeared on national television as a guest and yet lamented that he couldn’t get his own show at this time.

“There are different people running the business today,” Brenner said. “I don’t appeal to the 18 to 35 year olds. There’s nothing scandalous about me. I could back out in a limo, nude with a tattoo of Lady Gaga and smoking grass with a transvestite, and I’m a super star again.”

We’ll miss David Brenner’s “free speech.”

Gary Tischler •

If you walk into the Kennedy Center these days, you’ll be getting into the world of “World Stages: International Theater Festival 2014,” which is filling up many of the venues, foyers and walkways at the center with plays from all over the globe, exhibitions and installations and other special events, including staged readings through March 30.

The versatility of subject matter, style, and process has been evidence right from the beginning of the festival, especially with another visit from renowned and legendary director Peter Brook’s intensely emotional production of “The Suit” from South Africa.

From Australia, it perhaps wasn’t too surprising to see “Murdoch” from prolific playwright David Williamson and the Melbourne Theatre Company. It’s a play—actually, more of a fast-moving montage—about the life and times of you-know-who, the grandly belligerent, piranha-hungry media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, who is played by two different actors, the young Rupert, imagined by Murdoch himself as quite the dashing lad, and the older Murdoch we all know and often despise, smug, a little dicey, self-justified and grasping, as he and his alter ego snatch up a bagful of media enterprises, from newspapers in Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S., especially New York, to satellites , television networks and Hollywood studios, in a preposterous exercise of constant brinksmanship.

“Murdoch,”,like many of the offerings in this far-reaching festival, may not be everyone’s cup of Aussie tea, but for the longtime newsies among us, it stung and fascinated. This “Murdoch” is practically a visceral history of what’s happened to the print portion of the media industry — its take over by both technology and the scaly tastes who get close to their goal of world domination by appeasing the tastes of bottom feeders.

“Murdoch” moved along at a clip—marriages, mom, friendships with the rich and powerful, forays into controlling politics—Blair, Thatcher—the gobbling up of Fox which oddly enough offered up the enduring and endearing “The Simpsons.” For a good part of the evening, this was good and nasty fun, but in a way it’s a little like Murdoch’s hunger itself—there’s just so many buyouts, betrayals, astounding pronouncements and property grabs a body can take, however entertaining it may be.

But wait:

In terms of the festival, there’s much, much more to come. There’s “Green Snake” from China in the Terrace Theatre March 27 through 30; “Not By Bread Alone” from the Nalag ‘at Theater Deaf-Blind Acting Ensemble from Israel, March 25 to 26; “Penny Plain” from the Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes in Canada, March 20 and 22, and a staged reading of the powerful “Fallujah” by Heater Raffo and Tobin Stokes from Canada.

And speaking of marionettes, there’s a production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, (March 20-23 in the Eisenhower Theatre) from Bristol Old Vic, in association with Handspring Puppet Company from South Africa, the folks who brought you the vivid and moving horse puppets and marionettes in “War Horse.” A sampling of their handiwork is on display in the Hall of Nations, as is an installation entitled “Pequeno Teatro” (“Little Theater”).

For young audiences, there’s also “The Adventures of Robin Hood” from Scotland’s Visible Fictions, co-commissioned with the Kennedy Center Theater for Young Audiences, March 28 through April 6 in the Family Theater.

Photos: World Stages: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bristol Old Vic & Handspring Puppet Company (England & South Africa); playing from March 20 through 23 at the Eisenhower Theater. [gallery ids="101673,144603" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner •

Voters’ opportunities for early voting has begun. Only one center is open today: One Judiciary Square.

Here are some notes from the D.C. Board of Elections:

Early Voting for the 2014 Primary Election begins on March 17 at One Judiciary Square. On Saturday, March 22, all 13 early voting locations will be open across the District of Columbia. All locations remain open until Saturday, March 29 (except Sundays). Early Voting Center hours are from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. All locations are listed below.

For details, visit www.DCBOEE.org.

Early Voting Centers:

Bald Eagle Recreation Center

Chevy Chase Community Center

Columbia Heights Community Center

Dorothy I Height-Benning Library

Emery Recreation Center

Hillcrest Recreation Center

Kennedy Recreation Center

King Greenleaf Recreation Center

One Judiciary Square

Sherwood Recreation Center

Stoddert Recreation Center

Takoma Park Recreation Center

Turkey Thickett Recreation Center

Robert Devaney •

For most, the luck of the Irish brought an easy-going snow day off. Georgetown neighbors and colleagues were checking restaurants in town by noon to say hello and to honor the patron saint of Ireland, St. Patrick. Per American tradition, crowds in many establishments are expected to larger than usual, but the weather may tamp that down. Meanwhile, the unusual snow this March 17 makes this storm the 10th-largest March snow ever.

The following report is from Accu-Weather:

Another round of late-winter snow walloped the mid-Atlantic Sunday night into Monday. Washington, D.C., received 7.2 inches of snow from the storm, making it the third-largest snowfall to hit the city so late in the season. The only storms that produced more snow in the second half of the month of March occurred in 1942 when 11.2 inches fell March 28 to 29 and when a foot fell March 27 to 28 in 1891.

This storm is also the largest March snowstorm in the city since 8.4 inches fell March 9, 1999. As the 10th-largest March storm in Washington, D.C., it knocked the historic blizzard of 1993 off the list of 10 most prolific March snowfalls.
[gallery ids="101674,144589,144601,144597,144583,144593" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner • March 13, 2014

Rising From Ashes

February 20th, 2014 at 07:20 PM | $10 in advance at www.arlingtondrafthouse.com or $12 at the door the night of the show. | gharrington3165@hotmail.com | Tel: 703-486-2345 | Event Website

“Rising From Ashes,” the award-winning feature-length documentary about Team Rwanda, will premiere in Arlington on Thursday, February 20 at 7:20 p.m. when the cycling film screens at the Arlington Drafthouse. Rising From Ashes is a joyous and uplifting independent film about the development of a national cycling team in Rwanda, a country still affected deeply by the genocide that tore the East African nation apart in 1994.

Address

Arlington Drafthouse; 2903 Columbia Pike, Arlington, VA 22204

DC Brau Dinner Beer dinner!

February 21st, 2014 at 07:00 PM| $60 per person(tax and service charge included) | info@pinstripes.com| Event Website

Enjoy an exception four course dinner with four perfectly paired beers. A DC Brau beer representative will be there throughout the evening to educate and enlighten you about the menu.

Address

Pinstripes; 1064 Wisconsin Ave NW,

Gilbert & Sullivan’s Yeomen of the Guard

February 21st, 2014 at 08:00 PM | $16-$24 | rountcd@gmail.com | Tel: 3346635885 | Event Website

The Victorian Lyric Opera Company presents a fully staged presentation of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Yeomen of the Guard. Performances are Feb. 20, 21, 22, 28 & Mar. 1, 2014 at 8pm and Feb. 23 & Mar. 2, 2014 at 2pm. Students $16, seniors $20, and adults $24. Feb. 20th will be a special $12 preview performance. Please visit www.vloc.org for more show and ticket information!

Address

The F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre; Rockville Civic Center; 603 Edmonston Dr. Rockville, MD 20851

The Greater Washington Heart Ball

February 22nd, 2014 at 06:30 PM | eliza.kanovsky@heart.org | Tel: 703-248-1717 | Event Website

The Heart Ball is a premier society event and a celebration of the life-saving work of the American Heart Association. The event brings together more than 500 of the region’s most prominent physician, corporate, health care, and community leaders. The evening includes, live and silent auctions, dinner, dancing and special presentations to honor United States Military doctors (retired and active) through the Heart Heroes program.

Address

The Mandarin Oriental, 1330 Maryland Ave SW

6th Annual DC-CAPITAL STARS

February 25th, 2014 at 07:00 PM | Show-only tickets $35; Gala tickets (performance and reception) $500. See site for sponsorship info. | adrienne.laborwit@dccap.org | Tel: 202.783.7938 | Event Website

The 6th Annual DC-CAPITAL STARS: A Tribute to Broadway will showcase the outstanding artistic abilities of college-bound students from DC public and public charter schools. Attracting over 1,000 guests and a panel of celebrity judges that has included Patti LaBelle, Dionne Warwick, and Jordin Sparks,the show will culminate with scholarships awarded to the top performers. A celebratory reception with live music and dancing follows the performance. Proceeds benefit the DC College Access Program.

Address

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; 2700 F Street, NW

Robert Devaney •

The District Department of Transportation has scheduled bridge preservation repairs on the Pennsylvania Avenue Bridge over Rock Creek Parkway and needs to close lanes temporarily.

According to DDOT, “the repairs will require temporary single-lane closures on southbound and northbound Rock Creek Parkway from Thursday, Feb. 27, to Monday, March 3. These closures will take place in off-peak (9:45 a.m. to 2:45 p.m.) and nighttime (9 p.m. to 5 a.m.) hours on the weekdays, and at nighttime (9 p.m. to 5 a.m.) on the weekends. Temporary signs and traffic control measures will be in place to alert and guide the traveling public through the work zone.”

For more information about this work, contact project manager Yared Tesfaye at 202-439-4796.

Nicole Cusick •

National Eating Disorders Awareness Week runs Feb. 23 through March 1. This year’s theme is “I Had No Idea: Food Issues, Emotional Eating & Eating Disorders . . . Where to Draw the Line?”

The purpose of the annual event, sponsored by the National Eating Disorders Association and now in its 27th year, is to bring public attention and support to the needs of those with eating disorders and their families. The events and initiatives of this week are meant to bring people together in communities across the country in raising awareness about the severity of eating disorders, which are bio-psycho-social illnesses. The signs may be hard to recognize but can be life-threatening.

There will be lots of events going on next week across the country. In and around Washington, D.C., there will be a few events open to the public. If you can’t attend any of the events listed below and want to find out more information about eating disorders, organizers will be hosting several webinars addressing a variety of issue surrounding eating disorders. Participants can sign up at [www.nationaleatingdisorders.org](http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/webinars).
Below is a selection of events where you can learn more about eating disorders.

**Presentation – Hungry for What? Empowerment Against Disordered Eating: Tuesday, Feb. 25, 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.**

American University’s School of International Service, 4400 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Founders Room. Join Rock Recovery and AU’s Active Minds chapter for Hungry for What?, an eye-opening presentation that de-mystifies and de-stigmatizes the issue of disordered eating by uncovering its true nature and causes. A $10 donation is suggested which will be donated to Rock Recovery’s programs in the D.C. community and nationwide. For more information, visit [www.rockrecoveryed.org](http://rockrecoveryed.org/), or call 571-255-9906.

**The Great Jeans Giveaway: Monday, Feb. 24, 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.**

Kogan Plaza, 2121 I St. N.W. Hosted by Students Promoting Eating Disorder Awareness and Knowledge of George Washington University (SPEAK GW), this event is designed to persuade the public to think twice about trying to change our bodies to fit fashion trends and unattainable standards of beauty. Volunteers will be collecting gently used denim that will be donated to local charities.

**Screening – “Someday Melissa”: Thursday, Feb. 27, 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.**

George Mason University, Johnson Center Cinema, 4400 University Drive. Screening of “Someday Melissa: The Story of an Eating Disorder, Loss and Hope,” a documentary by filmmaker Judy Avrin, who was inspired by the journal writings of her daughter Melissa, who lost her life to an eating disorder. For more information, contact Tracy McClair at csab@icpnyc.org

**Inaugural Fairfax NEDA Walk, themed NEDA Walk. Save a Life. Saturday, March 1, 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.** (Registration/check-in begins at 8:30 a.m.)

George Mason University, Johnson Center North Plaza, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA NEDA invites friends and family to help spread awareness of the seriousness of eating disorders so more people will receive the help they or their loved ones so desperately need. . For more information, contact Jordan White at jwhite17@masonlive.gmu.edu or 908-675-7613. To pre-register, visit [www.nedawalks.org/fairfaxva2014](http://neda.nationaleatingdisorders.org/site/TR?fr_id=2950&pg=entry) or call 212-575-6200. $25 per adult, $15 per student, $10 per child under 12, $5 per pet.

Georgetowner •

The couple that brought you Macaron Bee on Wisconsin Avenue has opened another business. This one is a tea room — Lady Camellia — at 3261 Prospect St., NW, next to Booeymonger’s. (Camellia is the botanical name for tea.)

Yes, it will offer Macaron Bee’s classics, along with scones, croissants, tea cakes, sandwiches, tartlets and mini cupcakes. There is also a full English tea on the menu.

Business owners Deborah and Han Kim have renovated the space which was once Tuscany Cafe with a pink and white decor and wallpaper from Britain. They had a soft landing over Valentine’s weekend and plan to open the shop this Saturday. The new place will also serve as the main kitchen for their macarons up the street at Macaron Bee as well as an office.

Georgetowner •

Former, Sometimes Controversial, National Portrait Gallery Director Martin Sullivan Dies

If you met Martin E. Sullivan, he would not have struck as the kind of man to excite controversy or the oft-used phrase “firestorm.”

Face to face, Sullivan, the director of the National Portrait Gallery from 2008 to 2012 who passed away at the age of 70 Feb. 25, seemed a graceful man who spoke in direct and down-to-earth terms. He came to the NPG determined to bring something of a fresh spirit to the museum in the Reynolds Center, usually associated with presidential portraits and portraits of nationally known artists and dignified achievers and historic personages. When Sullivan came, so did Elvis—in a “One Life Exhibition” as well as expansive exhibition of Elvis portraits by Al Wertheimer.

But that’s not flashed controversy. That would be the 2010 exhibition, “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” an expansive, ambitious and far-reaching show that meant to show the vast scope and influence of sexual differences in American art, with the works by gay artists as well as portraits of the country’s often hidden or closeted culture of sexual difference. It was as much a portrait show as it was a history show, historic for its presence as well as its subject. The show received praise in many quarters for its cultural ambition and its breadth and depth, but ignited controversies and wrath from the right and left.

Conservatives railed against the inclusion of a brief video by the late artist David Wojnarowicz, “Fire in the Belly,” which depicted briefly a crucifix covered by ants.
Conservative politicians, including Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner and members of the House Appropriations Committee, objected to the piece as did Catholic religious leaders. When Smithsonian head G. Wayne Clough ordered the piece taken from the exhibition, there was outrage from arts groups and liberals. Even so, Sullivan complied, saying he did not attention taken from the merits of the entire show or make the museum a target for cutting arts funds.

Indeed, the show was a courageous milestone for the NPG, one Sullivan could take pride in, even if it put him in a position of taking shots from the right and the left. During his career, Sullivan administered grants programs at the National Endowments for the Humanities. He was director of the New York State Museum in Albany as well as director of the Heard Museum of American Indian Art and History in Phoenix.

Alain Resnais, Last of the New Wave Directors

In the 1950s and 1960s, the world of film was overtaken by a serious interest in the works of high-minded, bravely artistic and uncommon world-wide directors, who were at the head of a movie world far removed from Hollywood.

If the name Francois Truffaut, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Michaelangelo Antonini, Jean Luc Godard, Louis Malle, Satjit Ray and Akiro Kurosawa ring a bell for you, then you were in your youth something of a cineaste, perhaps French, or were trying to impress your girlfriend who was studying art and living in the Village.

In those days, film—or cinema—was an art form film in certain circles, sometimes affected but mostly original, a kind of antidote to Cinemascope, Doris Day and Hollywood spectacles, not to mention the looming wasteland threat of television.

Include French director Alain Resnais, who died at the age of 91, in that stellar group. Perhaps outside of Antonini, whose subject was a kind of ennui, he was one of the most difficult artists working in film. His “Last Year at Marienbad” was a puzzling, beautiful black-and-white riff on time itself, as the lead actors, the mysteriously beautiful Delphine Seyrig and Giorgio Albertazzi continually run into each other, the man trying to suggest that they had met and loved before, to which the woman inevitably replied, “Yes,” “Perhaps,” “I’m not sure” and so on. It was a film where you could walk into it in the middle and not be any more or less confused.

“Hiroshima Mon Amour,” a film about guilt and loss and living in modern times was, if not accessible, at least resonant, while his most dramatic—and least surrealistic—film was “La Guerre Est Finie” (“The War is Over”) in which the suave, tired Ives Montand played an old Spanish revolutionary with Ingrid Thulin as his lover.

Resnais—who once said that he “made difficult films but not on purpose” was part of the French New Wave triumvirate that included the radical, political Godard and the classic movie maker Truffaut (“Jules and Jim”) . They were as different as night and day, weekend and workday, clarity and Proust. Thoughts like that is why you went to those movies then. They made you vaguely excited, stimulated hitherto untouched places in your imagination.

Au revoir, Monsieur Resnais.

Kaplan: Biographer Whose Subjects Made for Great Novels

Justin Kaplan was one of the finest American novelist of the 20th century.

Trouble was he wrote biographies about great figures of the latter part of the 19th Century.

It wasn’t actually troublesome. Kaplan, who died at the age of 88 of complications from Parkinson’s Disease, believed that biography was an act of story-telling, that it was an art form, like a novel, like poems, and short stories and plays.

He acted on the belief in the works for which he’ll be remembered, biographies of Mark Twain, Walt Whitman and Lincoln Steffens, writers, who were very different as writers, men and iconic American figures.

Kaplan, although he was born the son of a man named Joe, who owned a shirt factory in Manhattan, was to the book born. His father loved literature, Kaplan himself got a degree in English from Harvard, worked as an editor at “Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations” and would later enlarge the great quote book considerably into the windy fields of the vernacular. He and married a novelist. With Kaplan, the word and the wordsmiths were kings.

His biographies were interpretative, to be sure, but also descriptive to the point of poetry: he loved lists, he would drag out words as if they were infantry and squads in the work entire, which was a division.

It wasn’t just that Kaplan wrote a form of literary work, it was that his construction of biographies tended to be unorthodox: not for him, he was born in, lived here and there, did this and that, and died time after at such and such a date.

For his biography of Mark Twain,which he called, significantly, “Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain”, and for which he won a Pulitzer Price, Kaplan began with Twain’s arrival in New York City after a colorful and raucous career on the Mississippi River and a humorist and reporter in California. It’s fair to say that he looked at the mansions of New York and saw a kind of serious future there, perhaps the man in the white suit, he was about to become.

But it’s not just Twain who plunges into New York. It’s Kaplan, too. Here is a lengthy description of New York worth quoting, because it says a lot about Kaplan and the environs where Twain found himself. “On Sundays, the upright and well-dressed, acceptable in the sight of both Lorenzo Delmonico and the Deity, went to services at Bishop Southgate’s or across the river at Henry Ward Beecher’s in Brooklyn, to be reassured that godliness and prosperity went hand in hand, mostly to see and be seen, the ladies patting their tiny hats which looked like jockey saddles and batter cakes.”

His concept was that Twain and Clemens were one and the same, a kind of self-created amalgam of characters. Other biographies of Twain have been written—including an interesting autobiography—but none was written better than Kaplan’s.

The same can be said of the Whitman biography, which begins when the great work of “Leaves of Grass” and the rest had already been written and Whitman moved into the role of great old poetic sage after moving out of his brother’s house where he had been living. He was 61 years old.

This becomes a process of looking back and into the mind of a true—if awkward, odd, outsider-American. In its range, the book is every bit as far-reaching as “Leaves” and Whitman’s work, generous, curious, celebratory, a biography of a true American original.

Kaplan’s biography of Lincoln Steffens, the great muckraking crusader and foe of the trusts and corporations, did not attract as much attention, because, in spite of being a writer, Steffens was not naturally so. He was a political man and champion of causes, not always prophetic, especially after his visit to the new Soviet Union and his comment: “I have seen the future.”