Passing Strange - Studio

Mom came into town to watch the pigs while Sam and I go away for a couple of weeks so I took her out to eat at Heritage India. Sam and I went to the one in Glover Park and were very impressed. This one, just south of Dupont Circle on Connecticut, emphasized their street food and tapas and we thought they were awesome.

From there we went to the Studio Theatre to see Passing Strange, a modern rock opera. This production blew us both away. It is a coming of age story that transpires race and time period, reaffirms the importance of family. It is the story of a quest to live a life of idealism and art for the sake of art and the realization that art is an ideal not meant to be lived.

There is just so much to say about this piece that was good. The characters, the vocals, the direction, the music. How did this musical fly under the radar?

DC Beer Week

Having this week follow right after DC Restaurant week has pushed us out to a lot of restaurants (and a major dent in the wallet) but it was worth it.

Rare Beer Brunch at Pizzeria Paradiso - This was an eclectic mix of brewer's but the real standout was the food. I love this place.

Three Course Beer & Food Pairing at Dino's - They were still offering their restaurant week menu which Sam ordered from and really enjoyed. I took on their beer week menu and was not quite as impressed.

Lagunitas Beer Dinner at DC Bread & Brew - For my birthday we went to this place for the first time with Steve and Deb. I was very impressed with Lagunitas, they have very good ales and eclectic brews. Their brewery rep was very good, telling a lot of good stories. Food was good, though not top notch. They had a good excuse for that as the chef apparently quit that morning and the cooking was done by a friend of the brewery rep.

DC Restaurant Week

We went a bit overboard and did something almost every night so let me group all these together:

• PS7 - Trendy New American in Penn Quarter. I had a really good branzino with leaks and cherry tomatoes.
• Bistro Francais - French bistro in Georgetown. Came with some good recommendations but just so so.
• Zola - Trendy southern cuisine in Penn Quarter. This one was a bit more bustling but then it was friday night. Lamb sliders were good to start. They were actually pretty good all around.
• Vidalia - Trendy southern cuising near Foggy Bottom. Verrrry Gooood. Sam skipped the restaurant week special and ordered four side dishes which I think were the highlight. They also have an amazing sweet potato pie.

Twelth Night - Sidney Harmon Hall

The Shakespeare Theatre Company does an annual program called the Free For All where they give away every ticket to a production to the community, and this year was Twelth Night. You login online during the day and enter your name in a daily drawing and you are notified later that afternoon. I am not sure really how many people sign up or what the odds are but I got tickets for Saturday night on my first attempt.

Sam was supoer busy at work so she could not join me. And boy what a show she missed. This was by far the best Shakespearean piece I have seen. The actors were phenomenal, really using every aspect they could, speech, tone, facial expression, gesture, to convey their lines and making a 500 year old language fresh and relevant. The direction was also spot on, for instance, using rose petals falling to signal a character falling in love. Standing ovation. Wow.

Annapolis Food & History Tour

I think this food tour idea is an absolutely awesome way to explore a city. I wish they had something like this in a lot of the cities we have visited abroad, though I did see an episode of Anthony Bourdain in Manilla. Anyway, Annapolis was really the first city outside of DC we decided to explore. We thought of doing a weekend trip there but settled for a couple of hours one Saturday afternoon. The food tour part was pretty good though the tour guide actually stuffed a lot of history into it. I think she could have made some better food selections as there was both an ice cream and a gelatto place on the tour, and another dessert like pastry later. Annapolis itself has a cool quaint downtown. Sam found some cool clothes at a Norwegian sailing shop near the port. I really liked the all natural arts and crafts from around the world at Resails-Holley of Annapolis (no website). We also met some interesting characters, specifically the proprietor of the Annapolis Inn.

Jonathan Weiner - Long For This World

Sam's obsession with not dying found immediate appeal in this book at Politics and Prose. It was a fun discussion from a science journalist about the real science of aging and the preventing of it. I added the book to my wishlist and will hopefully get around to buying it one of these days. He told the story of his main character, a kooky scientist from the UK who has some plausible theories about how to extend life.

Rob in Town

My brother was in town for the weekend so we wanted to show him what a typical weekend in DC consisted of... ok well a busy weekend in DC anyway.

Maroon 5 @ Jiffy Lube Live - Great concert, great seats. They really do not have any bad songs. All hits. Opening act was Owl City which I expect we will all remember as being a mediocre one hit wonder five years from now. Venue was a bit out of the way and leaving the parking lot was painful.

Capital Skyline Pool - same palce as SynchroSwim 2010, but this time for the pool and bar scene. Spent a couple of hours laying out poolside, drinking some beers. Ate sandwiches from Dupont Market which were awesome.

National Building Museum - went for the Lego exhibit but got there as it was closing and they wanted to charge us like $15 per person so we skipped it. There were some portholes into the exhibit room though so we actually got to see everything if at a bit of a distance. Looked cool. Walked around the museum and peeked in on a couple of others, though none really stood out.

Importance of Being Ernest - I really wanted to show Rob a play while in town as so much of my life is about going to the theatre nowadays. So my thinking was basically that we should se something that we had heard of before rather than risking something unknown. What a mistake. This show was a terrible. Easily the worst I have seen. Ever. Anywhere. The director had women playing the male parts and vice versa. And they were trying very hard to act like how they thought the opposite gender would act and all failed miserable.

H-Street - Luckily the night redeemed itself by bar hopping down H Street which is easily my favorite area to go out in DC... too bad it is so hard to get to. We hit Biergarden Haus (large outdoor beer garden and amazing warm pretzel rolls), H-Street Country Club (in door putt putt), Palace of Wonder (for a low quality if somewhat humorous for the experience burlesque show), and Granville Moore's (for some amazing late night mussels, fries and Belgian beer).

The Nationals vs someone - We're not Nationals fans so I won't pretend this game was interesting on a competitive level but we got to see the young phenom, Steven Strasbourg in his second start back from the DL. He was underwhelming but showed flashes of brilliance. We sat for a couple innings then roamed the stadium, ending up at the bar. I determined that was really not a bad way to watch a game if I ever wanted to come see them for real. $5 tix for the standing room area which includes the bar.

Pizzeria Paradiso - I love this place but I have to say this night was not one of their best showings. Beers were good, but the pizza with mussels Rob got and the one with eggplant we got were not too appealing. Oh well

Drove Rob to the airport monday and that was that.

Synchroswim

I heard about this from my old stalwart, the DCist. It is an amateur synchronized swimming competition held at the outdoor pool at the Capital Skyline Hotel. This is a hotel Sam had been hearing about for a while as it is open to the public and has a great pool and bar scene on weekend afternoons. Going to the competition was mainly on a lark... and what a lark it was. There were four entries and they basically came out in descending order of excellence. The first was a large group doing a rough dramatic story of Jason and the Argonauts. Next was a threesome doing a montage of Van Halen videos. After that... well let's just say they could have ended it after two acts and we would have all been better off. Good times.

Washington Rules - Andrew Bacevich

I have heard Andrew Bacevich speak in an interview on NPR and he seemed to come up with such spontaneously interesting observations in conversations that I had an immediate respect for his intellect. So when I heard that he was coming to Politics and Prose for a new book release I was thrilled. And apparently I was not the only one. I had not seen so may cars parked in the neighborhood since Michael Lewis was in town.

Unfortunately, his actual talk was not nearly as enlightening. It was not that he did not say anything that I did not agree with. It was just that perhaps by this point in my life of observing politics and Washington society, I no longer found it interesting. Perhaps following politics has finally inspired the cynicism it has inspired in so many others. His basic point is that the entire philosophy of the foreign policy establishment of power projection is one that no longer accomplishes its stated goals, is in fact more likely to cause problems then solve them, and that the tremendous cost of this ideology would be better applied elsewhere. I am simplifying a bit but that is the gist. And like I said, I agree. Nuff said.