Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Free guitar and organ concert Mar. 7 at St. John's, Lafayette Square

Mak Grgić
Slovenian guitarist Mak Grgić and organist Stephen Ackert will play preludes and fugues from J.S. Bach's "Well Tempered Clavier" in a free lunchtime concert Wednesday at St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square. 

Mr. Grgić, born in Ljubljana, performs at venues throughout the world.  He earned his bachelor's degree at the University for Music in Vienna and his doctorate at the Thornton School of Music, the University of Southern California where he was the first guitarist in USC's history to be invited to the artist diploma program.

In his non-music hours, Mr. Grgić helps fund raise for Bosnian children in need. 
Stephen Ackert

Mr. Ackert, also a well known harpsichordist in addition to his organ playing, is the recently retired director of the music department at the National Gallery of Art, where he produced Sunday concerts. He received a doctorate in organ from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and was a Fulbright Scholar to Germany.
From 1974 to 1978 Mr. Ackert was the music advisor and resident keyboard artist of the National Iranian Radio and Television Network in Persia.
 

Mr. Grgić and Mr. Ackert will play:
 
Prelude and Fugue in C Minor from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I
Transcribed for guitar and organ by Stephen Ackert


Prelude and Fugue in F Minor from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II
Transcribed for guitar and organ by Ackert

Prelude, Allemande, and Courante from Suite for Cello in D Major, BWV 1012
Transcribed for guitar by Mak Grgić

Prelude and Fugue in A Minor from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I
Transcribed for guitar and organ by Ackert
 

Maybe a young Bach/Wikipedia

The presentation is one of St. John's First Wednesday Concerts, always performed without charge and lasting about 35 minutes.

St. John's was founded in 1815 and is known to Washington residents as the yellow church at Lafayette Square. It's often called the “Church of the Presidents” since beginning with James Madison, who was president from 1809 to 1817, every president has attended services at the church, and several have been members. A plaque at the rear of St. John's designates the pew where President Abraham Lincoln often sat when he stopped by the church during the Civil War. 


Benjamin Latrobe, known as the "father of American architecture" and the architect of the U.S. Capitol Building and the White House porticos, designed St. John's Church in the form of a Greek cross.

The church bell, weighing almost 1,000 pounds, was cast by Paul Revere's son, Joseph, in August, 1822, and was hung at St. John's that November where it has rung since.
Wikipedia says two accounts report that whenever the bell rings on the occasion of the death of a notable person, six male ghosts appear at the president's pew at midnight and quickly disappear.
St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C./Photo by Patricia Leslie

Dolley Madison, wife of President Madison, was baptized and confirmed at St. John's, according to the National Park Service, which calls the church "one of the few original remaining buildings left near Lafayette Park today."
 

For those on lunch break Wednesday, food trucks are located at Farragut Square, two blocks away.

Who:
Preludes and Fugues from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier by Mak Grgić, guitar, and Stephen Ackert, organ


What: First Wednesday Concerts

When: 12:10 p.m., March 7, 2018

Where: St. John’s, Lafayette Square, 1525 H Street, NW, at the corner of 16th, Washington, D.C. 20005

How much: No charge

Duration: About 35 minutes

Wheelchair accessible

Metro stations: McPherson Square (White House exit), Farragut North, or Farragut West

For more information
: Contact Michael Lodico, St. John's director of music ministry and organist, 202-270-6265 or Michael.Lodico@stjohns-dc.org or 202-347-8766
 

Future First Wednesday concerts, all beginning at 12:10 p.m. and lasting until 12:45 p.m., are:
   
April 4: The premiere of Paul Leavitt's Fanfare for Trumpet and Organ by Lisa Galoci, organist, and Chuck Seipp, trumpet

May 2: Music for Angels, including Craig Phillips' Archangel Suite by Michael Lodico, director of music and organist, St. John's

June 6: Music by Women Composers, including Margaret Sandresky's Dialogues for Organ and Strings by Ilono Kubiaczyk-Adler, organist, with the U.S. Air Force Strings

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Friday, March 2, 2018

Take a hike in winter on Gerry Connolly's Cross County Trail


Ain't it a beaut?  Even in winter. That's the Gerry Connolly Cross County Trail in Fairfax County/Photo by Patricia Leslie


Through the woods we go!/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Yeeks!  It was deer hunting season where deer slayers can kill deer in the park!  Poor little deer.  The season has ended already/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Roots, roots everywhere as they reach for room and water/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Pavement in a park? Baa humbug/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Evidence existed that big beavers with big, precision teeth liked the surroundings, too/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Yonder above stood civilization/Photo by Patricia Leslie
What's this growing on the tree?/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Oh, no!  Trees get tumors, too, but they are not like mammalian tumors, but, according to a New York Times' article, they are held in place by cell walls and caused by a virus, bacteria, or fungus stemming from injury.  In other words, they look worse than they are /Photo by Patricia Leslie
My hair in the morning (if I had this much)/Photo by Patricia Leslie
At night, she's a tap dancer/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Yonder there! What looks to be...hunters!/Photo by Patricia Leslie
A hiking we will go, a hiking we will go, hi ho the derry o, we are not... cold/Photo by Patricia Leslie
A girl and her dog is ever the pleasantest thing/Photo by Patricia Leslie
He wore University of Tennessee orange to ward off the hunters/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Look!  Even on the trail!  Free eatins' and lots of iron! You try them first/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Ain't it gawgus? And see those tire marks?  This was before the big rains but you get the picture: Trump is right: We live in a swamp/Photo by Patricia Leslie


On a warm (relatively speaking) winter's Saturday afternoon, friends and I hiked a wee portion of the 40+ miles long Gerry Connolly Cross County Trail in Fairfax County which extends from one end of the county to the other. 


Who needs a car?

We hiked about two miles roundtrip on the Difficult Run Stream Valley Trail portion, beginning at the intersection of Leesburg Pike and Colvin Run Road. (Parking at the "septic site" (?) at the intersection at Colvin Run is easier than parking at the mill up the hill since there's nowhere to walk safely on the street to reach the trail from the mill, but their cars are nicer than mine, and just to be on the "safe side," they parked upstream. )



We had not gone far on our little venture until we found a sign announcing we were in the middle of deer hunting season which was a mite disconcerting until an important Fairfax County official told me later that hunters have been taking out precious deer for a long time on the trail, and this practice was nothing new. (I declare if you live long enough you can learn something new every day.)


Besides, deer hunters don't come out until dusk when the deer come out (!), so we had no reason to worry. That the trail weaves in and around neighborhoods still makes for some consternation, but being that Fairfax County residents are not known for silence when it comes to matters of controversy (or any matters, for that matter), I suppose this is not a controversial matter since you never hear about it, the little deer being slayed. (If it doesn't bother them, it surely doesn't bother me, especially since I don't even live there!)

With the curves, rocks, roots, dogs, soggy conditions, streams, talks and scenery, we non-runners completed our short hike in about 90 minutes. 


Why is the trail named after Congressman Gerry Connolly?  Glad you wondered.  He is considered the father of the trail since he essentially started it 19 years ago (pre-Congress), working on it years and years and years until the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors decided to call it after him.  And then he quit.  Just kidding!

The trail is part of the East Coast Greenway which stretches from Maine all the way to Key West, and on it, they recycle, using plastic and fiberglass for all the signs. Glorify!


So, take a hike in winter! A delightful way to spend a Saturday afternoon getting some exercise and enjoying the outdoors with friends at no cost! (A cheap date.)

What:  The Gerry Connolly Cross County Trail


When:  Not at dusk during deer hunting season

Where: Fairfax County

How much:  It's free!  (The Fairfax County Park Foundation welcomes donations.)

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Sunday, February 25, 2018

A visit to Frederick Douglass's home in Washington, D.C.

"Frederick Douglass" and his aide welcome hundreds of visitors to his home, Cedar Hill, in Anacostia, Washington, D.C. on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of his birth/Photo by Patricia Leslie

His birth date is uncertain since he was born a slave, but it is often listed as February 14, 1818. 

On the occasion of the 200th birthday celebration last weekend of Frederick Douglass, I ventured out to his home, Cedar Hill in Anacostia in Washington, D.C., where I joined hundreds of others to learn more about the man and his legacy.
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Visitors climb the steps to Cedar Hill, the home of Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C. on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of his birth/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The National Park Service was out in full force with many park rangers on hand to guide and direct visitors, and although the Park Service budget is too low for all it does,  the people of the United States and visitors are grateful to the Park Service for its preservation and protection of our historic places.
Visitors climb the steps to Cedar Hill, the home of Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C. on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of his birth/Photo by Patricia Leslie
 Cedar Hill, the home of Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C./Photo by Patricia Leslie

I was led to Cedar Hill by Mr. Douglass's first book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,  An American Slave, published in 1845.  I read it recently, stunned by his eyewitness accounts of treatment received by him and others at the hands (and tools) of slave masters who beat and tormented their slaves. 

The book is an eye-opener and much of it takes places right outside Washington at St. Michael's in and around Talbot County, Maryland where Mr. Douglass was born.  If I were in charge, I would make this short book required reading for all high school students.


A National Park Service ranger presents the history of Cedar Hill, the home of Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C. to visitors waiting in line to enter the home on the 200th birthday celebration of the abolitionist and former slave/Photo by Patricia Leslie
One woman standing in line at Cedar Hill told me she had been waiting about 40 minutes/Photo by Patricia Leslie

What drove Mr. Douglass to want to learn how to read?  He knew education would open doors and offer opportunity.   How did he learn this?

Until her slave master husband made her stop, a woman began teaching Mr. Douglass how to read.  Even after the private lessons ceased, Mr. Douglass knew enough to keep going, teaching himself and other slaves how to read. During Sunday school classes he led where he taught reading, he took a huge risk that the slave master would find out and beat him.
Visitors climb the steps to Cedar Hill/Photo by Patricia Leslie
The south side of Cedar Hill, the home of Frederick Douglass in Anacostia, Washington, D.C./Photo by Patricia Leslie
The view from Cedar Hill, Frederick Douglass's home in Anacostia, Washington, D.C. looking towards the U.S. Capitol, in the distance/Photo by Patricia Leslie
The dome of the U.S. Capitol can be seen in the distance from the front of Frederick Douglass's home, Cedar Hill, in Anacostia, Washington, D.C./Photo by Patricia Leslie

In the Narrative, the first of three autobiographies he wrote, Mr. Douglass refused to tell exactly how he made his way to freedom, fearful the information would impair escapes for other slaves. 

He was an abolitionist, an orator, a supporter of women's suffrage, a builder of rental housing for blacks, presidential appointee, the first black to receive a vote for president of the United States from a delegate at the Republican National Convention (1888).
On display in the small museum at Cedar Hill are items which Frederick Douglass and his wife, Helen Pitts, may have collected from their trips to Italy, England, France, Ireland, and Greece in 1886 and 1887/Photo by Patricia Leslie
The Bible of Frederick Douglass on display in the small museum at his home, Cedar Hill/Photo by Patricia Leslie
On June 17, 2015 Loretta Lynch used Mr. Douglass's Bible when she was sworn in as the first black woman to be appointed U.S. Attorney General.  The photograph is on display in the museum at Cedar Hill/Photo by Patricia Leslie
A display case of Mr. Douglass's Bible and other items/Photo by Patricia Leslie
The death mask of Frederick Douglass by Ulric Dunbar made on February 21, 1895, the day after he died.  Before the advent of photography, death masks were an important remembrance for loved ones. Visitors to Cedar Hill immediately after Mr. Douglass's death included Susan B. Anthony/Photo by Patricia Leslie


Until he died of a heart attack at his home in 1895,  Mr. Douglass lived at Cedar Hill from 1877 with his first wife,  Anna Murray who died in 1882, and then, his second wife, Helen Pitts, a white lady and his employee whom he married in 1884.

More history of the house, its price, acreage, and a photo from 1887 are here.  

I waited too long in the afternoon to stand in the 40-minute line to see the interior of the house before I had to leave for the concert opera, but I did have time to stop by the small museum and walk around the grounds.   

The postcards I bought in the tiny gift shop I sent to family members, writing that Cedar Hill would be on the agenda the next time they come to visit.   

Black History Month is celebrated in February because it is the birthday month of Frederick Douglass and President Abraham Lincoln.  The NAACP was founded on the centennial of Mr. Lincoln's birthday, February 12, 1909.

Today at 2 p.m. in the East Building auditorium at the National Gallery of Art, a free lecture and book signing on Mr. Douglass will be presented by Celeste-Marie Bernier, professor of black studies and personal chair in English literature, School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, University of Edinburgh, and coeditor in chief, Journal of American Studies, Cambridge University Press. 

What:  Cedar Hill, the home of Frederick Douglass

When:  Open every day, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Where:   1411 W Street SE, Washington, DC, 20020

Getting there:  Parking is limited in the area and in the small, free parking lot.  


The best way to get there is via Metro.  Take the Green Line and disembark at the Anacostia station.  Take Bus #B2 to Mt. Rainier or Bladensburg Rd. V St., NE or Bus #V2 to Minnesota Avenue or Capitol Heights Station. The bus stops directly in front of the site at the corner of W and 14th Streets.
 
Or walk from Metro, about 3/4 mile. Take a right on Howard Road and walk a block. Turn left on Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue  and walk three blocks. Turn right on W Street and walk four blocks to the Visitor's Center.

Cost:  Admission is free, however, reservations to tour the house (only permitted with a park ranger) are encouraged ($1.50).


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Monday, February 19, 2018

'Aubergine' serves up rough fare at the Olney



From left, Glenn Kubota (Ray's Father), Eunice Bae (Cornelia), Tony Nam (Ray), and Song Kim (Uncle) in Julia Cho's Aubergine at Olney Theatre Center/Photo: Stan Barouh

Hats off to the Olney Theatre Center for joining 25 other regional theatres to present works by female playwrights, Women's Voices Theater Series, some on stages through March 14.  (Olney's entry, Aubergine by Julia Cho, closes March 4.) 
Tony Nam (Ray) and Eunice Bae (Cornelia) in Julia Cho's Aubergine at Olney Theatre Center/Photo: Stan Barouh 

What is an aubergine?

Why, an eggplant, of course.  

In this almost flawless production, Olney delivers everything you'd want on a play menu: excellent lighting (by Harold F. Burgess II), set (Misha Kachman), acting (Vincent M. Lancisi, director), staging, music (excluded from the program unless it's by the sound designer, Roc Lee), everything expected to serve an appreciative audience, except for one important ingredient
From left, Tony Nam (Ray) and Glenn Kubota (Ray's Father) in Aubergine by Julia Cho at Olney Theatre Center/Photo: Stan Barouh

Artistic director Jason Loewith writes in the program that Ms. Cho originally wanted to make the show "light and breezy" about food (and several lines do produce loud audience laughter), but while in preparation, the "recipe" produced an unexpected result.

The eggplant and other foods are a sidebar to the meat of the drama dominated by a son, Ray (Tony Nam, recently a leading character in Olney's Our Town), who wrestles with his relationship with his father (Glenn Kubota) who lies dying, literally, on stage.

The dad's  motionless body, the set centerpiece, groans and moans every so often, binding the production. He lies in exposed state, as you will, with a sickly presence which casts a pall on the surroundings. (If you have ever lived through a family illness like this, it's not something you want to repeat, unless it's to make viewers realize tempus fugit.)

In-between scene changes, in a flashback the father leaps from the bed to become an angry dad confronting his son. Although he has to maintain sleep with eyes closed most of the show, bedridden that he is, Mr. Kubota does so effortlessly, and the few lines he speaks exude strength and strong character.


While his father's health rapidly declines, Ray tries to pick up the pieces and forgive himself before the end. A woman Ray left behind, Cornelia (Eunice Bae from Olney's In the Heights and The King and I),  enters to add balance and perspective.  

Song Kim is an estranged uncle who arrives on scene to "forgive and forget" in a standout role.  He speaks always in Korean (with subtitles on the backdrop).

The lines for the male hospice nurse, Lucien (Jefferson A. Russell, a man of much education and a former Baltimore police officer) I hope are not realistic since his insensitive manner makes one wince to see him treating family members callously at a tragic time, and gives one pause that not all hospice nurses are like Lucien.  (Since Ms. Cho wrote Aubergine soon after her father's death, one surmises she observed and was a part of similar dialogues.)

Megan Anderson, also in Olney's Our Town, provides the author's introduction and is a hospital worker, too.

Electric, effective music adds mood to the production, but credit for it was not found

Other creative crew members are:  Zachary Borovay, projections; Zach Campion, dialect coach; Ivania Stack, costumes; Cat Wallis, stage manager; and Debbie Ellinghaus, managing director

What: Aubergine

 
Where: Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney, MD 20832

When: Now through March 4, 2018, Wednesday through Sundays at 8 p.m., weekend matinees at 2 p.m. and a 2 p.m. matinee Wednesday, February 28.  If requested, a performance for the visually and hearing impaired will be performed March 1 at 8 p.m.

Tickets: Begin at $47 with discounts for groups, seniors, military, and students.

Ages: Recommended for ages 15 and up. Olney's parental guide says if this were a movie, it would be rated R due to mature themes and adult language. The play centers on impending death due to cancer and includes the impending slaughter of a turtle onstage (for turtle soup).

Duration: 2 hours and 15 minutes with one intermission

Refreshments: Available and may be taken to seats

Parking: Free, nearby, and plentiful on-site

For more information
: 301-924-3400 for the box office or 301-924-4485

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Sunday, February 11, 2018

A book political junkies can skip



I read it so you don't have to.

Junkies:  We have so much to read, you'll be happy to learn this is one you can pass up, Marian Cannon Schlesinger's  I Remember:  A Life of Politics, Paintings and People.

I learned of the book from her obituary last fall when she died at age 105.  This is the second volume of Mrs. Schlesinger's memoirs,  the first titled Snatched from Oblivion: A Cambridge Memoir which I have not read.

Since I wanted to find out more about Mrs. Schlesinger's experiences, I got this volume from interlibrary loan through the Fairfax County Public Library.

Mrs. Schlesinger was married to Pulitzer-Prize winner, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., confidant of JFK and RFK, and author of biographies about each. Mr. Schlesinger is barely mentioned in I Remember,  perhaps because they divorced after 30 years' marriage, and he remarried the following year.

For junkies, the book is a huge disappointment, poorly written and edited, with only half of it devoted to politics, the Kennedys, and Mrs. Schlesinger's favorite candidate, Adlai Stevenson.

The rest of it is about her trips to China, Guatemala, India, and her life in Cambridge, Massachusetts where she spent most of her life.

The publisher of I Remember was TidePool Press in Cambridge where Mrs. Schlesinger likely knew staff members. (Little, Brown published her first volume in 1997.)

Mrs. Schlesinger knew the Kennedys and their wives well, and she was a hearty campaigner for all their presidential quests. Robert Kennedy personally asked her to go on the road for him in 1968 which she did. 

Still, that doesn't restrain her critical remarks about every one of them, save Jackie, "so self-centered that if something happened to them, then it had to be of overwhelming importance to everyone concerned" (pages 166-67)
  
On these pages, she comes across as catty, shallow, and with a "chip on her shoulder."

Snide remarks about the size of someone's torso, Scottie Fitzgerald's knack for  messing up statistics on the campaign trail, and Ethel Kennedy having fun are a few examples of her descriptions. 

I Remember may be self-edited.  Two examples: "The fact of a newspaper unread before she went to sleep was unthinkable for her" (171,  referring to F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgeralds' daughter, Scottie, on the campaign trail for Robert Kennedy). "Even the president of Harvard on one occasion was seen to have attended" (193).

The book includes boring pieces she wrote for the Washington Post which is surprising that the newspaper carried them, but given who she was, maybe not so surprising.   

Little or no mention is made of the Schlesingers' children and what they were doing at the time she was writing. (The book was published in 2011.) 

Mrs. Schlesinger guesses it was her less than "worshipful" oral history project she gave the Kennedy Library that drew Kennedy authors to her, seeking interviews which she found odd they would want to talk with her.

Some of the interviewers "asked questions and if you waited long enough they answered their own questions," and if you waited even longer, "the whole history of their lives came tumbling out" (144-145).
 
On pages 143-144 she effusively praises Washington's Phillips Collection:  "THE aesthetic resource...I always thought those rooms provided a perfect setting for a tryst, a romantic spot in this strangely sexless city (despite all the goings-on...)." 

The book includes many samples of her art work which strike me as amateurish (spoiled by D.C.'s National Gallery of Art, the Phillips Collection, and more, that I am) but since she was commissioned to draw portraits of many celebs' children (including the Kennedys), they saw talent I don't. 

And that's all she wrote!


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