News & Politics

Marit Fosso • March 12, 2012

March 8 is officially International Women’s Day and is celebrated with events all around the world. The celebrations range from acknowledging women’s achievements to general appreciation and love for women. It was begun in 1909 by the Socialist Party of America. This was a time when women could not vote and suffered sex discrimination in their jobs and elsewhere. It has since evolved beyond political and economic goals and earned itself a Google doodle this year.

No matter what your reasons for wanting to celebrate women, International Women’s Day presents a great opportunity to spoil a special lady or two with a night out. Whether it’s a mother, sister, daughter, wife or girlfriend who deserves to be celebrated, Georgetown holds a number of lovely eateries to enjoy.

Get organic chocolate-covered strawberries from Godiva, and go for a stroll along the Potomac. Take her to Mie n Yu for Silk Road-inspired regional American cuisine, or enjoy the seasonal and fresh rustic Italian food at Piccolo. Enjoy a bubbly toast for women at one of Georgetown’s many bars or lounges, such as Cafe Bonaparte, Peacock Cafe, Das Ethiopian Restaurant, Clyde’s or 1789 Restaurant.

If you don’t have the time to take your women out tonight, flowers can be a nice compensation as they are a symbol of International Women’s Day. Another nice gesture is to donate money to women’s causes. The United Nations’ theme for the International Women’s Day 2012 is “Empower Women – End Hunger and Poverty.” That could be a good place to start.

Gary Tischler • March 8, 2012

The Georgetowner just previewed what the Washington theater scene is bringing us in its upcoming spring season, but here are a few plays and shows running in the here and now that are worth a look:

Red

If you have a passion for art and the mind of the artist, this is the play for you. “Red,” at Arena Stage through March 11, stars Edward Gero, a local star who seems to be just hitting his peak, as the troubled, intense abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko as he struggles with a series of murals while taking on a new assistant. Smart and powerful, the play, written by John Logan and directed by Robert Falls of Chicago’s Goodman Theater, is a must-see.

ArenaStage.org

Peter Pan, the Boy Who Whated Mothers

Just by the title alone, you know you’re not quite in Disney’s Never Never Land. Adapted and directed by Michael Lluberes from J. M. Barrie’s original play, it is being called “a dark re-telling,” another edgy piece from the No Rules Theater Company now at H Street Playhouse at 1365 H Street NE through March 3.

HStreetPlayhouse.com

The Gaming Table

Written by Susanna Centivre with additional material by David Grimm, this Folger Theater offering centers around elegant long-ago English ladies at the gambling and card tables. It also features an all female design team and is directed by Elizabeth Holdridge in the Folger’s Elizabethan Theatre through March 4.

Folger.edu

The Water Engine

Spooky Action Theatre is bringing us David Mamet’s play about an inventor who created an engine that runs exclusively on water. The play is set during Chicago’s 1933 – 1934 World’s Fair and Century of Progress Exhibition, with veteran character actor Ian LeValley playing inventor Charles Lang. The play is being performed through March 11 at the Universalist National Memorial Church 1810 16th St NW.

SpookyActionTheatre.org

Civilization (All You Can Eat)

Woolly Mammoth Theatre is continuing its apocalyptic season with this new play by Jason Grote, which follows the trail of six ambitious and very hungry city dwellers. With a play described as a vaudevillian romp of corruption, consumption and enterprise at the dawn of the Obama age, and featuring Sarah Marshall (as a character named Big Hog), as well as Danny Escobar and Naomi Jacobson, you know you’re in Woolly territory. Through March 11.

WoollyMammoth.net

Astro Boy and the God of Comics

Good words have gotten out about this new show, created and directed by Natsu Onoda Power, receiving its intergalactic premiere at the Studio Theater, now through March 11, kicking off Studio’s 2nd Stage Season. The show is based on the 1960s animation series “Astros Boy” and the life of its creator Osamu Tezuka. Director Power also helmed last season’s haunting “Songs of The Dragons Flying to Heaven.”

StudioTheatre.org

Gary Tischler •

The Music of Budapest, Prague and Vienna Festival at the Kennedy Center

This umbrella festival is a little like taking a musical cruise on the Danube River, which runs through three of Europe’s major capitals of romantic and classical music. The Festival runs from February 25-March 29

First stop: Budapest, headquarters of the eastern part of the old Hapsburg Austro-Hungarian empire and the source of a host of musical creativity. The National Symphony Orchestra is slated to perform Bela Bartok’s “Romanian Folk Dances” and the one-act opera “Bluebeard’s Castle,” as well as music by Franz Liszt and Zoltan Kodaly and his lively waltzes. There is also a chamber performance by Budapest’s Takacs Quartet as well as a performance of “Gypsies,” a play with music from the Hungarian theatre company “Katona Jozsef Theatre.”

From Prague, we’ll get the NSO performing Antonin Dvorak’s cantata “Stabat Mater.” The Prague Philharmonica will be on hand to perform Leos Janacek’s Suite For String Orchestra. And the Eben Trio will perform chamber works by Peter Fiala, Bedfich Smetana and Dvorak.

From Vienna, there will be programs by the NSO, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, (by way of the Washington Performing Arts Society), the NSO’s Christoph Eschenbach on piano with violinist Dan Zhu, and Matthias Goerne singing Schubert’s “Winterreise.” The WNO”s performances of Mozart’s “Cosi Fan Tutte” is also part of the festival.

For a complete breakdown of the festival and dates visit Kennedy-Center.org.

WPAS

The Washington Performing Arts Society will present the Choral Arts Society and the National Symphony Orchestra performing Brahms’ “A German Requiem.” The piece is a personal favorite of Norman Scribner, the Choral Arts conductor, who will be conducting his final concert in a remarkable 47-year-career. April 22 at the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall.

Looking much further ahead—but it’s worth doing so—is a performance by master violinist Itzhak Perlman with Rohan de Silva on Piano May 14, also at the Concert Hall.

And let’s not forget, March means St. Patrick’s Day, so we’ll be having a listen to the great, six-time Grammy award winning Chieftains, headed by founder Paddy Moloney, on a 50th Anniversary Tour also at the Concert Hall on March 16.

For more information visit WPAS.org.

Strathmore

At the Music Center at Strathmore, Max Raabe Und Das Palast Orchestra will present its own style of music from the Roaring 20s and 30s. As you might guess, Raabe and his ensemble and cohorts bring a dusky, European Berlin-ish flavor to the proceedings March 1.

Jazz and pop vocalists John Pizzarelli and Kurt Elling will pay tribute to Sinatra and Ellington with riffs on the great American Songbook May 10.

Joshua Bell and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields come to the Music Center April 13 in an already sold out program in an all-Beethoven Program April 13.

And its bluegrass and fiddle time April 17, with “The Music of Bill Monroe,” featuring Peter Rowan, Tony Rice and the Traveling McCourts.

And did you know Kevin Costner was in a band? Well, he is and its his own group called Modern West—and he’ll be at Strathmore April 5.

For more information visit Strathmore.org.

The Embassy Series

The Embassy Series, the most unique and original musical entity in the Washington area, continues another season offering top-notch classical and international music in the city’s embassies, ambassador’s residences and international cultural centers.

Coming up for founder Jerome Barry’s institution is a performance by violinist Bella Hristova, First Prize Winner in the 2008-2009 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, at the Embassy of Bulgaria March 23.

Next it’s the Mendelssohn Piano Trio at the Embassy of Austria, with Peter Sirotin on violin, Ya-Ting Chang on Piano and Fiona Thompson on cello with guest artists Michael Stepnia on viola playing a program of Austrian chamber music, including works by Haydn, Mahler and Schubert. (April 20)

April 27 brings pianist Paulius Andersson, the winner of the “Music Without Limits” competition in Lithuania playing works by Mozart, Liszt, Scarlatti, Beethoven and other at the Embassy of Lithuania.

EmbassySeries.org

Jeff Malet •

What is billed as the “Largest Parade Celebrating Washington’s Birthday in the USA” kicked off in Old Town Alexandria on President’s Day, February 20, 2012. See our photos of the bands, floats, reenactment units and George Washington himself by clicking on the photo icons below.

View additional photos by clicking here.
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Michelle Kingston •

Instead of sitting at a bar to rewind after a long week, why not try painting?

ArtJamz, a company that has been holding art sessions around Washington, D.C., since 2010, will open its very first retail location March 9.

The first session was held at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Since then, the group has hosted almost 80 and has provided more than 4,000 customers with creativity, food and drinks.

To celebrate the 800-square-foot new, cozy home, ArtJamz is hosting “Dupont Studio Launch Sessions” throughout March. For $65, eat, drink and paint while receiving tips and tricks from ArtJamz’s “creative enablers.” Along with unlimited use of paints, brushes and art materials, they’ll provide beer, wine, bottled water and pizza while artists work on painting a canvas that you can take home.

Although the group has a place of its own, ArtJamz’s “chief creative enabler,” Michael M. Clements, says, “Pop-up sessions are in our blood. We will be continuing our partnership with the Smithsonian American Art Museum as well as other pop-up sessions at cool and unusual places.”

ArtJamz is family-friendly, too. From noon to 4 p.m. on weekends, the store offers KidsJamz. Two-hour sessions are $40.

Located at 1742 Connecticut Ave., N.W., the studio is taking reservations at www.artjamzdc.com.
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Patrick G. Ryan •

On February 22,2012, President Obama speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African and American History & Culture on Wednesday morning. Just like the Air and Space Museum challenges us to set our sights higher, or the Natural History Museum encourages us to look closer, or the Holocaust Museum calls us to fight persecution wherever we find it, this museum should inspire us as well. It should stand as proof that the most important things in life rarely come quickly or easily. It should remind us that although we have yet to reach the mountaintop, we cannot stop climbing.

To read more visit snarkinfested.com [gallery ids="102434,121491,121486,121498" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner •

Arthur Phillips: The Tragedy of Arthur

February 24th, 2012 at 07:00 PM | FREE | Event Website

Phillips discusses The Tragedy of Arthur, his novel about about a newly discovered — and fictional — play by Shakespeare.

Address

Folger Shakespeare Library

201 East Capitol Street SE

Washington, DC

20003

Free Computer Tune-Up

February 24th, 2012 at 07:00 PM | FREE | Event Website

Bring your computer in for a Free Tune-UP.

Optimize your hard drive

Remove unnecessary start-up programs

Clean up junk files

Provide free upgrade recommendations

Blow the dust out of your computer and clean the screen

Address

2010 P St NW,

Washington, DC

2012 DC Design House Bare Bones Tour

February 25th, 2012 at 10:00 AM | Event Website

From 10-3PM, DC Design House Bare Bones Tour benefits the Children’s National Medical Center. $5 (can be applied to the purchase of a $20 ticket for the DC Design House, April 14-May 13).
Last chance to see the 5th Annual DC Design House spaces BEFORE the 23 designers begin transforming the rooms. In 37 days, the spaces will be stunning, reflective of the top DC design talent in the DC area.

Address

4951 Rockwood Parkway, NW,

Washington DC (in Spring Valley)

FREE Puppy Playtime!

February 25th, 2012 at 10:00 AM | Event Website

FREE puppy socialization class with our Certified Dog Trainer. Please bring proof of vaccination (first round of puppy shots required.)

Address

855 Wisconsin Ave NW,

Washington, DC 20007

Blast at Bibiana

February 27th, 2012 at 06:30 PM | Event Website

Join Washington Women and Wine at Bibiana Osteria- Enoteca with NBC 4 Anchor, Angie Goff for dinner

Address

Bibiana Osteria- Enoteca

1100 New York Avenue NW

Hardy PTA Fundraiser at Town Hall

February 27th, 2012 at 05:00 PM |

Join the Hardy PTA for a fundraiser, Monday, Feb. 27 at Town Hall Restaurant.

Town Hall Restaurant – located at 2340 Wisconsin Avenue, just up the hill from Hardy – will donate 15 percent of the night’s proceeds to the PTA. Bring your friends and neighbors, meet other Hardy parents, enjoy a great meal, and support the Hardy PTA! Come anytime between 5 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.

Address

2340 Wisconsin Ave NW,

Washington, DC 20007

Gary Tischler •

The death of Davy Jones, the most popular member of the singing group, the Monkees, at age 66 was shocking.

Who knew he was 66?

Who knew that even Monkees could age and become vulnerable to all the dangers of old age, like the heart attacked that felled Jones?

The Monkees — Jones, Mickey Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork — were in their brief time absolutely huge, and they were unique. In the time of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors and the Beach Boys, the Monkees were a totally manufactured — after much auditioning — rock group made for television — literally. “The Monkees” was a quirky, big-hit, half-hour television show, right in the middle of the glory days and haze of 1960s’ rock and roll.

In a way, the Monkees, who looked like very early unscruffed Beatles, adorable as panda bears, were antidotes to the hippie-blues world of drugs, sex and rock and roll that prevailed during their two-year stay on television from 1966-1968. “We don’t like to put people down” was part of their anthem sound, nor, apparently did they have truck with groupies (thousands of screaming girls were part of their live act), drugs, booze or politics. They were energized, electric, nice guys with nice voices, whose energy was infectious, it had a sweet delirious quality to it that was reminiscent of the Richard Lester Beatle films like “Help!”

Hardcore rock-and-roll critics, who found the boys wanting in seriousness, content and rebelliousness, pretty much dumped on them, although hordes of fans embraced them. It should be noted that in one year, the Monkees had record sales that topped the combined efforts of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, a considerable achievement.

The Monkees rolled out hit after hit, including “Hey, Hey We’re The Monkees,” the theme song of the show, “I’m a Believer” and “Daydream Believer.”

Jones, easily the best known of the quartet, never stopped performing, without or without his mates. Although the group as a whole had a faintly British trope to them, Jones was the only actual Englishman, who once played the Artful Dodger in a Broadway production of “Oliver.” Story has it that the cast played the Ed Sullivan Show the same night that the Beatles rocked the American world.

Jones was born in Manchester, England, which eventually became a title for a rock song. The Monkees may not have been great singers, but they achieved great and huge pop status, with their own inimitable combo of personalities. They were the softer side of rock and roll in the 1960s and 1970s, much like Herman’s Hermits, with impossible to get-out-of-your-head songs (“I’m Henery the Eight, I am” in the Hermits’ case).

We interviewed Peter Noone, the Herman of the Hermits, once when he toured with a production of “Pirates of Penzance” at the National Theater. In one of those unaccountable moments of sheer blank stupidity, I asked him “what was it like being a Monkee?” After what seemed like a very long no-place-to-hide silence, Noone, with good humor, acknowledged that he was in fact a Hermit, not a Monkee.

John Stewart, a former member of the legendary folk group, the Kingston Trio, wrote “Daydream Believer,” when he was living in Marin County outside San Francisco in the 1960s. A rugged singer with Kristofferson charisma, he recorded his own version, which was rueful, romantic, a paen to loving and living young and hardscrabble; it sold few copies, The Monkees turned it into a huge hit, transforming it instantly into a “Sweet Caroline” of memory. They’re the reason most remember the lyrics: “Cheer up, sleepy Jean. Oh, what can it mean. To a daydream believer and a homecoming queen.” Stewart made a nice career for himself singing about regular American folks around the country, including on Bobby Kennedy’s campaign trail, until his death a few years ago. Stewart probably didn’t complain much, given the royalties.

Stewart and Jones were both daydream believers and both gone now.

Gary Tischler •

Even as the Michigan and Arizona Republican primaries have gone into the record books, I’m going on the record to say what I’ve been saying pretty much since around the primary days of Iowa and New Hampshire.

It’s over.

I don’t know how many times I have to say it. The GOP primary race is over.

Romney will win, has won even as he muddles on. He’ll win even if he loses Ohio on Super Tuesday tomorrow.

I don’t pretend to be a seer here by any means. I mean, even when Romney wins, he loses or ties. If anyone could screw up a sure thing, it’s the honorable Mitt Romney of BYU, Utah, Michigan and Massachusetts.

But still: it’s over.

Why? Because nobody among the rag-tag band of survivors from the original rag-tag band of announced candidates can win.

The media loves to talk about members of the Republican establishment — Bob Dole, a lobbyist or two in New York and Fred Thompson perhaps — who are panicking with almost every vote cast for, at first, Newt, now fading faster than a silver bullet gone astray, and now Rick Santorum, who was unceremoniously booted out of the Senate seat he had in Pennsylvania when last he ran for office.

Santorum has become the defender of true conservatism, and certainly typical of the 2012 crop of GOP candidates suffering from terminal foot-in-mouth disease. Just recently, when he called President Barack Obama a “snob” for insisting that everyone should go to college, GOP governors were reduced to defending Obama. Of late, he picked a fight with President John Kennedy over the issue of separation of church and state, which the former senator apparently doesn’t believe in much.

Santorum, avoiding the jobs issue, has gone all in with no chips on the values issues: abortion, contraceptives, gays and religion. Which is why I repeat: it’s over.

Santorum is heading into Super Tuesday hoping to win Ohio, Gingrich hopes to win in Georgia, and Romney is going to win . . . period. Santorum got swamped in Arizona where he did badly in the debate but got a split of delegates in Romney’s home state of Michigan. So, he figures a tie is not like kissing your sister, of which he would disapprove vehemently in any case.

This GOP race for the nomination has been a farce. As that great political sage and seer Stephen Sondheim wrote, “Send in the clowns, don’t bother they’re here.”

You gotta admit: Romney is a fighter especially with a bunch of opponents that hardly resemble murderer’s row. More like doofus row. He flustered Perry, ignored Bachman, was nice to the pizza guy, shot Newt out of the water in Florida, and now has Santorum by way of Obama in his sights. Romney is like the Harlem Globetrotters who routinely are matched with designated loser teams, which they dispatch with ease after much hilarity. Romney’s opponents have been somewhat similar —they’re not in his class. Yet Romney appears to have trouble winning and winning over the GOP base. This allows him to be the front runner and the comeback kid at the same time, a neat trick come to think of it.

Along the way, the former governor of Massachusetts has shed almost every shred of what could tag him as a moderate to court the party’s base, otherwise known as the Tea Party and Christian right. He’s accepted the endorsement of Donald Trump and, most recently, the governor of Arizona who appeared to notice, after yelling nose to nose at Obama, that Romney had a double-digit lead and made her endorsement on Meet The Press.

Nevertheless, he has failed to seal the deal. The right is suspicious of him, the independents and moderates are aghast every time he says stuff like how nice the trees are in Michigan, that his wife drives two Cadillacs or that $350,000 isn’t a lot of money.

So, why does the Republican Party seem so fragmented, so ill at ease, united on hardly anything except “We don’t like Barack Obama, the lying elitist socialist Muslim from Kenya who’s going to destroy the American way of life”?

The trouble with Romney is nobody really knows what he stands for, what his core principles are — except that what’s good for business is good for America . . . so let’s cut taxes. When you get his slogans — drop Obama care, stay in Afghanistan, lower taxes, you get bromides which sound with every telling a little closer to Tea Party rhetoric.

He’s the spitting image of a presidential candidate — those teeth, that hair, those boys, those blue jeans ensembles. His wife is the perfect candidate’s wife: she’s funny, blonde, gorgeous, smart and down to earth. It’s a wonder Gingrich hasn’t proposed to her.

Nothing sticks to Romney. He has turned detachment into a plus, minus the irony that usually accompanies it. Most importantly, he’s detached from the lives of most Americans. If the nomination process has done anything, it’s to expose that detachment, that disconnect.

One media writer who supports Romney nonetheless admitted he was “a dork” and that he would present himself as the brainy doctor who would cure the economy. Good luck in convincing the middle class of that one.

But the GOP race?

It’s over. Don’t say a word, Yogi Berra.

Michelle Kingston • March 7, 2012

Natural medicine is nothing new to Dr. Snejana Sharkar. Growing up, her mother would cure her colds with ingredients in their kitchen. “Teaspoons of herbal honey, black pepper and red wine several times a day,” said Sharkar. “For coughs and congestion, she would make a warm compress for my chest with crushed poppy seeds.”

After receiving several Masters Degrees and Board Certifications, Sharkar is now giving her patients the same care her mother gave to her.

“I believe in conventional medicine, too, don’t get me wrong,” she said. “But it’s more beneficial to treat botanically first, using hydrotherapy and even healing with massages and acupuncture.”

Dr. Sharkar spent seven years at a family practice in Washington, D.C. as an ANCC Board Certified Nurse Practitioner and then 12 years specializing in adult cardiology before opening her own practice in Georgetown in February 2011. She received her Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine (ND) from the University of Science, Art and Technology, Montserrat, British West Indies and London, United Kingdom, is Board Certified in Integrative Medicine and is a member of the American Association of Integrative Medicine. She is the only provider in the Washington, D.C. area who holds a certification with the Wilson’s Temperature Syndrome (WTS) Restorative Medicine.

Her new private practice, Indigo Integrative Health Clinic, is focused on allowing the body to heal itself by discovering and treating or removing the cause of pain. IIHC is located at 1010 Wisconsin Avenue and is open Monday – Wednesday. Her patients receive her time and devotion at each appointment. She tells them to leave 60-90 minutes in their schedules for their initial visits in order to get the most out of what the clinic has to offer.

Contact Indigo Integrative Health Clinic at 202-298-9131 or go online to schedule an appointment at www.IndigoHealthClinic.com.