Buckminster Fuller @Arena Stage

Last night we made the trek down to Crystal City to attend the Buckminster Fuller Salon hosted by Arena Stage. Crystal City is a complex of buildings all connected by underground passages. It has a lot of restaurants and is home to a somewhat erratic supply of shops. It looks a little like a forgotten suburban 80's mall. Each hallway seems to have a theme. One hall was decorated to look like a "Knights of the Roundtable" village, another looked like clinic hallway and then the other side was more "normal" mall-like decor with the big plastic looking plants in the tiled planters.

From looking at the Yelp and Google Map reviews of the stores and restaurants in the center the big draw seems to be that you don't have to go outside in bad weather as the metro station lets you out in the mall center.

Part of the staff at Arena Stage has called this center home for the past few years as their new Mead Center is under construction. The Lincoln Theatre is where they host the musicals, and this smaller more utilitarian theatre next to the Marriot, is for the plays.

Arena Stage has assembled three experts to be the speakers along with a facilitator who had been on the directorial staff for the production of the show. Each speaker talked about their individual area of expertise and then they began to take questions from the audience. The audience was comprised of season subscribers and many of them were extremely interesting. I thought the discussion was thought provoking. It stayed near the topic at all times and both sides of many arguments were addressed. You can read more about the show- here. or read Bucky's Wiki page here.

Upon leaving the theatre we realized that a Star Trek movie night was happening just around the corner from our current location. We walked over to a small square covered in blankets, chairs and people all facing a portable movie screen. I think my husband would have liked to stay for the movie but we decided to go home as we were not wearing our sit-on-the-ground-for-2 hours clothing and it looked like the movie would not be starting for another 45 minutes or so. They are showing the Star Trek movies in order each Monday night at 7 for the rest of the summer so we may attempt to go later in the year.

USA Game on H-Street

My third adventure this week was the USA vs. Ghana game at the H-Street Country Club Bar. Our good friend Sam and his roommate Megan picked us up and we traveled through the parade mess that is the DC Caribbean Festival (FYI-The website is loud) taking up all of Georgia Ave to a stretch of H-Street that houses a ton of bars, cute restaurants and boutiques. We were going to the newest hippest bar, Biergarden. However it was packed so we hopped down the street a few storefronts to the next bar that was open, had big TV's and where we could grab a table.

H-Street Country Club bar is pretty interesting. The inside is all decorated in sporty argyle memorabilia. They have a few pool tables, a shuffleboard table and skeet-ball. Upstairs they apparently boast a mini-golf course but since someone had claimed it for a birthday party I didn't make it up there yesterday. The menu includes nachos, quesadillas, chips and salsa, and empanadas. All Mexican, although our friend Sam, who is from Mexico, thought this was slightly weird. The beer selection was ok, the prices were normal for DC and they actually had a pretty big mixed drinks, wine and margarita selection for a sports bar.

The clientèle was also interesting. It was a pretty fair split male/female and while the males were definitely there to watch the game, I got the feeling a lot of a dressed up girls were there to meet a man. I would say that 98% of the bar was cheering for USA but we did have one table of people cheering for Ghana. This made the game even more interesting and I was happy to see that even after Ghana won and the 8 of them went wild, sportsmanship prevailed.

We have been watching at home and there is a difference watching with a huge group of strangers. The energy that came from having that many people intently watching the game was fun and exhilarating. The energy and collective reactions were amazing. I can only liken it to an amazing theatrical experience. When the entire audience gasps or sighs or cries there is something so uplifting and humanizing about the togetherness of it all.

For those of you who don't follow the game USA lost to Ghana 2-1 in overtime.

After the game we met my uncle and his daughter for dinner at Paragon Thai in Cleveland Park. Highly recommended. The food was delicious, the service was great and the prices were good. Here is their website. I had the spicy eggplant, but apparently their curry is to die for.

MLK Library

Today we went to the MLK Library. It is very near the Chinatown/Gallery Place Metro Station and the Verizon Center. The library is extremely large and divided into separate rooms for each subject. The rooms are on the outsides of the building so each has a great view of the DC area. In the center of the building there are conference rooms, offices, elevators and the restrooms/ water fountains. We have another library close to our apartment but as it is currently under-construction their books are pretty limited to fiction and children's lit.

We went to the library to pick up a few books on Theatre Management in the Arts, Music and Recreation Center. While I wait for my fellowship at Arena Stage to being at the end of August I decided to read all I can on Arts Management and American Theatre with a concentration on Edward Albee who is the focus for the Arena Stage season. I have picked up or purchased several books to begin reading this week.

Old Town Alexandria

I had a coffee meeting this morning in Old Town Alexandria. It was a pretty easy metro ride from our apartment, just a long sit on the yellow line train. The metro let me off on King Street and I strolled down to Misha's Coffee to meet my work acquaintance for some delicious coffee. This place is cute, the baristas are friendly and it has plenty of seating.

After my meeting I took a walk down King Street into Old Town proper. The town tried to keep the historical feel but has been modernized with lots of shopping, both chains and boutiques, as well as a ton of restaurants and bars. You can take King Street all the way down to the water and look over into the downtown district. They have a very active Farmer's Market and Art Scene in this area. The Torpedo Factory is a large building full of different artists right on the river. I walked in and wandered through several studios. It reminded me of The Blue Star Complex in San Antonio.

I forgot my camera this morning so the following image was found on google. If you get a chance to go to Old Town Alexandria, take it. And as a bonus you travel right under the Pentagon on the metro on the way down!

For more information check out the Wiki site- HERE.

National's Game

Sunday we went to a National's Game with Ry's old friend Mike. It was very hot. Mike got us great seats on the 3rd base line and we had a good view of the field and the big screen. It was a father's day special and the place was packed. Mike lives about 2 blocks away from the field and attends regularly and he was surprised at the amount of people that had shown up.

The Nats played the White Sox and lost 5 to 3. Earlier in the week President Obama had shown up to watch a game as he is apparently a fan of the White Sox. Some highlights of the day included; The President's race, where actors in costume with huge bobble-heads run around the field dressed as Presidents Lincoln, Roosevelt, Washington and Jefferson. The big sausages covered in chili, cheese and onions that Ry and Mike ate, GROSS! And the kids with their fathers who ran the bases after the game- very cute.

That's THREE for last week! This week may include Old Town Alexandria, the MLK library and possibly the drum circle at Meridian Park. Week one of the challenge is done.

Sophisticated Ladies

On Thursday night my husband and I went to see Sophisticated Ladies at Arena Stage. Since Arena Stage is undergoing a rebuilding they have been using two local stages for the past few years. The musicals have been held at the Lincoln Theatre on U Street and the plays are being held in Crystal City.

Sophisticated Ladies is a celebration of the life and music of Duke Ellington who is originally from Washington DC and was actually raised on U Street. My husband is in the middle of editing a book on Duke Ellington for Phil Schapp and Jazz at Lincoln Center. While this made him more interested in the performance, it also made him a bit of a know it all when the dates, music or images weren't exactly correct.

The show was very well done. The costumes were amazing, the dancing fantastic and I was very impressed with the technical aspects of the set. It was a standard bandstand and stairs set up; but the usage of sliding screens along with projected images was interesting and with the age of the building and the limitations thereof, challenging.

You can read more on the Arena Stage blog here, or read about their new residence program for American Playwrights at the Washington Post website.

First Visit to the Mall

On Thursday we took a trip to the National Mall to wander around the monuments. Our dear friend was in for a conference on International Health and decided to take the day off to come out with us. We started by wandering down past the Washington Monument to the Reflecting Pool and ended up at the Lincoln Memorial.

After braving the crowds at the Lincoln Monument, we took a trip down by the river to the Jefferson Memorial that overlooks the tidal pool.

Finally we walked up to the Smithsonian Castle and took at look at Madeline Albright's pin collection. You can read more about it and her new book "Read My Pins" here. To end the day we returned to Columbia Heights for a Thai dinner at Zagat rated Pho14.