mb palaver

TheaterPalaver: Prince Achmed is Back at Constellation Theatre

Constellation Theater will be presenting, Thursday through Saturday, another production of "The Adventures of Prince Achmed" at The Source on 14th Street.  (Thursday is sold out online, but you can put your name on a waiting list at the box office.)  I loved it when I saw it 3 years ago -- check out my previous rave.  You can also take advantage of the relative quiet in Washington to grab a bite before or after on the patio at Etto, Le Diplomate, Cork, or Doi Moi (or, as my friend Judi calls it, Boy Toy).

SportsPalaver: Bjorkman (and Murray) at Citi Open

 

It's probably safe to assume not too many people were aiming their cameras at Andy Murray's coach Jonas Björkman on the practice court at the Citi Open today. But I was a fan of the former top 10 Swede, and not just for his tennis.  Here he is doing imitations of top players from the '80s.  I found another version with better video, but somehow the French commentary on this one seems like a bonus.

 

 

SportsPalaver: Citi Open 2015

DC's annual lead-up to the US Open started today at the Rock Creek Tennis Center.  Though the major matches in the Citi Open don't get started until Monday, this weekend for $10 online ($15 at the door) you can wander the grounds and see qualifying matches, watch the pros practice, and gawk at players as they go about their business.  Today I saw the temperamental Marinko Matosevic beat USA's Austin Krajicek in a third-set tie-breaker, then saw Matosevic -- after playing for a couple of hours in 90 degree heat and humidity -- jogging around the adjacent soccer field.  (It reminded me of Agassi's complaint that Jim Courier would do that after beating him back in the day.)

You can buy tickets and find information at the tournament website and find practical tips at the Washington Post.  It costs $15 to park on the grounds and the lots there get filled up later in the week.  Neighborhood parking is restricted during the event.  If you haven't used uber before, you can get "up to" $20 off and get dropped off at the back entrance.  Whatever you do, don't try driving up 16th Street during the evening rush and expect to take a left into the parking lot without an excruciating wait.  Pudding Man and I did that once and after all that wait we got shunted to an off-site shuttle lot anyway.

The northeast court is a great (and shady, in the afternoon) place to see top players practice.  Above I'm trying to pick up tips from Sam Groth for how to up my service speed to approach his ATP record-breaking 163.4 MPH serve (hit in a tournament in Busan in 2012).  I've got a ways to go.  Groth was practicing with fellow Aussie Lleyton Hewitt.  I also saw Kei Nishikori and Kevin Anderson hitting today, and ran into friends who saw Grigor Dmitrov and Andy Murray on the practice court (not necessarily together).  I almost accidentally photobombed a kid's selfie with Richard Gasquet.  No sign of Tommy Haas today, but if you're a fan check out the Citi Open's announcement on facebook on Thursday that Denis Kudla and Haas got wild cards -- clearly whoever is running that facebook page is a Haas admirer.

 

Edited to add that tomorrow (Sunday, August 2) is National Parks Kids Day:

National Parks Kids Day

Come out and join us for our National Parks Kids Day, which will include a USTA Play Day, DC Public Library Story Time, Platform Tennis, appearances by local mascots, face painters, and more! All kids 14 and under will receive a complimentary reserved ticket for Session 2 and a lunch voucher courtesy of Guest Services, Inc. 

The complimentary tickets for kids 14 and under and the lunch voucher are only redeemable at the Box Office, which will open at 8am on Sunday, August 2.

 

FoodPalaver: Hold the Fiddleheads

Chef Vinod of Indique Heights, the restaurant preparing the Bhutanese food at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival I wrote about last week, pointed out on donrockwell.com a menu substitution I missed despite the clear evidence of my own photographs.  Chef Vinod says:

I am glad you liked the dishes - I am going to tone down the heat a little bit tomorrow for the Ema Datsi - I do not know whether you noticed that we changed the chicken dish to jasha tshoem instead of nakey tshoem - nakey means fiddlehead ferns which are out of season and cannot get them.

I hope I didn't get anyone's hopes up for those fiddleheads.  Though you probably knew they were out of season . . . .

(P.S.  Yes, the photo above is blurry.  You do not need new glasses.  As far as I know.)

FoodPalaver: Got Yak Milk?

If you find yourself near the Mall between now and June 29 or July 2 through 6 and have a hankering  for nakey tshoem or ema datsi, you will be in luck.  The Smithsonian Folklife Festival this year honors Bhutan, a small country in the eastern Himalayas between India and China.  In addition to watching traditional arts and crafts demonstrations, visiting a Buddhist temple built in the middle of the Mall, and viewing monastic ritual dances, you can sample three traditional Bhutanese dishes.  The rice and peppers dish, ema datsi, is traditionally made with yak milk.  According to Emily Wax of The Washington Post, the director of Bhutan's department of culture originally planned to bring a yak to the United States for the festival, but gave that up upon learning the animal would have to be quarantined for two months, which "didn't seem like the Buddhist thing to do."  They ended up having the food prepared by Indique Heights.  No yak milk, I presume.

A friend and I sampled a couple of the dishes yesterday (fortunately for us, before the real heat descended).  The ema datsi -- made with rice, cheese, onions, and slivers of jalapeno-like chiles-- was hot hot hot.  The nakey tshoem -- chicken with fiddlehead ferns, cheese, chiles, onion, garlic, ginger, and special seasonings (with ginger the most prominent flavor) -- was also hot, but not Africa hot.  Both dishes were quite tasty, a bit different from the usual fare, and served very quickly, a rarity at festivals.  We did not try the pork and cheese filled dumplings, or momos, though I wish I had for the name alone.

Ms. Wax says that in Bhutan, "blistering-hot chilies are the essential ingredient, probably because they raise body temperatures in the cold Himalayan climate."  Raising body temperatures in the blistering heat of the Washington summer might not be as good an idea.  Make sure you also get a mango lassi to cool off.

If Bhutanese food doesn't grab you, the festival is also honoring Texas, so you can have everything from Tex-Mex fare like fajitas and quesadillas, to barbecued ribs, to Vietnamese-influenced dishes at the Texas Noodle House (who knew?).  Full food listings can be found here, and everything else you need to know to visit the festival here.

MusicPalaver: Lots of Doings at the Folger

As an English major at Georgetown University, I was delighted to go to a performance of a Shakespeare play -- I don't recall which one -- in the beautiful Elizabethan theatre at the Folger Shakespeare Library on Capitol Hill.  Since then the Shakespeare Theatre Company has moved to Penn Quarter, but the Folger continues to put on exhibits, plays, and musical performances.

The Folger Consort is a chamber music ensemble, performing music from the twelfth through eighteenth centuries.  This week it celebrates Valentine's Day with "Seven Songs of Love," a program of love songs from the 13th Century, running February 15 to 17:

A rich and varied assortment of lyric song including the Gallician poet/singer Martin Codax's Seven Songs of Love, Western Europe's first song cycle.  Treating love in all its guises, the songs of the troubadours and lively dances for fiddles, harps, citole, and percussion celebrate the joy of love requited.   

In April, fans of Scotland and Shakespeare will have a treat in store with "Highland Ayres":

Macbeth's enchanted homeland has a fascinating musical tradition dating back to the Middle Ages. This trove of Scottish riches -- traditional and courtly, simple and sophisticated -- is explored with medieval accounts of battle, songs from the 16th and 17th centuries, distinctive Scottish music for pipes and fiddle, and music from the French allies of the Scots, preserved only in Edinburgh.

This musical event, running April 18 to 20, complements the Folger Theatre's production of Macbeth, which runs from February 28 to April 13.  Here's an interesting tidbit about the play:  one of its directors is Teller, of Penn & Teller, and includes magic designed by him.  (P.S. Teller is the quiet one.)  For those of you up in New Jersey, the play is running at the Two River Theater Company in Redbank until February 17.

If history is more your thing, check out the Folger Shakespeare Library's current exhibit, "History in the Making:  How Early Modern Britain Imagined Its Past":

This exhibit considers the ways in which the early modern British made, and remade, their own history. "Making History" focuses on how key events, such as the controversial execution of Mary Queen of Scots or the murderous Gunpowder Plot, were interpreted in the period, as well as on crucial ideas that helped shaped those interpretations.

It also examines some of the period's most important figures, both real (Charles I) and imaginary (Shakespeare's Falstaff), and the roles they played in the making of British Renaissance history.

"History in the Making" is on display in the Folger Great Hall until May 17, Monday through Saturday, from 10 am to 5 pm.

Folger Shakespeare Library
201 E. Capitol Street, SE
Washington, DC  20003
(202) 544-4600

HistoryPalaver: Celebrating Martin Luther King Day at the Folger

If you're still looking for a way to celebrate Martin Luther King's legacy today, head to the Folger for a poetry/speech reading and open mike event hosted by Donnajean Ward, the Folger Consort Manager, and Teri Cross Davis, Folger's poetry coordinator.  The event is free, and runs from 2 to 5 tomorrow, Monday, January 21.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

Martin Luther King, Jr.
August 28, 1963

Folger Shakespeare Library
201 East Capital Street, NE
Washington, DC 20003
(202) 544-4600

ArtPalaver: Annie and Ansel at the Corcoran

If you want to see "Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990-2005" at the Corcoran, you'd better act fast:  the exhibit closes this Sunday, January 13.  You would be wise to order tickets ahead; friends told me they were shut out last Sunday, and the Corcoran website now says that it's likely that tickets will sell out for Saturday and Sunday, January 12 and 13, and that you should call Ticketmaster at (202) 824-0786 "to confirm ticket availability prior to your arrival."  I recommend using this link to order online (the link is somewhat buried on the website). You've got a bit more time to see the Ansel Adams exhibit.  It closes January 27.

As Dubliner learned the hard way a few weeks ago, the Corcoran is closed on Tuesdays.  Check out hours and directions on their website.  Tickets for these exhibits are $14 (plus service charge if you order ahead).  The Corcoran offers brunch in the atrium on Sundays.  It used to be a gospel brunch; the website doesn't say whether it still is.  Regardless, but particularly if they do still feature live music, I wouldn't recommend it for this Sunday. With the crowds tonight it was so loud in the atrium I thought my head would explode.

If you are interested in a bite to eat before or after your visit to the Corcoran, tapas at Taberna del Alabardero, Peruvian food at El Chalan, and Italian at the revamped Spezie are all within a few blocks.

Corcoran Gallery of Art
500 17th Street, NW
Washington, DC  20006
(202) 824-0786
nearest metro:  Farragut West (blue/orange line)

WinePalaver: Tour de Vin at the Phillips

Tour de Vin Wine Tasting Experience
Thursday, October 25, 6:00 and 7:15

Tomorrow night, you can check out the "Impressionists by the Sea" exhibit at The Phillips Collection and sample wine from the six major wine regions of France.  The Tour de Vin Wine Tasting Experience, with Lisa Airey, director of education for the Society of Wine Educators, takes place at 6 and 7:15.  Admission to the exhibit and one of the wine tasting sessions is $25 for Phillips Collection members and $35 for nonmembers.  Alliance Francaise members can attend the 6:00 session at the member price.  (Admission to the exhibit alone costs $14, as far as I can tell from some conflicting sources.)

The Phillips Collection
1600 21st Street, NW
Washington, DC 20009
(202) 387-2151

DCPalaver: Dupont Circle House Tour

If next Sunday is half as nice as yesterday was, you could do worse than spend it wandering around Dupont Circle peeking into people's houses. The annual Dupont Circle House Tour takes place Sunday, October 21, from noon to 5 p.m. The tour is self-guided: you pick up a brochure and map, and choose your own itinerary. I took my parents on the tour when they were visiting a couple of years ago, and they enjoyed getting a glimpse of everyday Washington homes, a bit more upscale than my own.  The houses varied from designer showcases, to quirky gems, to what seemed to us to be ordinary houses with owners hoping to increase their homes' cache when they go on the market.  If you are looking for refreshments, a Victorian tea will be held at the Hotel Palomar.  You can also visit the “Resident Artists Living And Working in Dupont Circle" Exhibit at the Washington Studio School while on the tour.

Tickets cost $25 in advance, either online or at a number of area retailers, and $30 on the day of the tour.  Find out more information at the Dupont Circle Citizens Association website or call (202) 265-3222.