THIS WEEKEND: While huffing and puffing at the gym the other day, we almost flew off the treadmill when we saw a Walmart holiday commercial come on the tube. Really? It's not even Thanksgiving yet! In a Scrooge-styled harrumph, we decided that if we are going to splurge on goodies early, it had better be worth our while.
Well, sugar plums, the Shop Around at the Mansion at Strathmore totally is. An $8 admission — all of which benefits the museum's art and education programs — gets you into the event that features items from the area museum gift shops. Whether it's a replica of a Faberge egg from the Hillwood Museum & Gardens or a silky scarf from the Textile Museum, there's plenty to stock your stuffing with. Besides, unlike the real museum shops, this event will be tourist-free. Now that's a jolly good time!
» Mansion at Strathmore 10701 Rockville Pike; Bethesda, Thu., Nov. 12-Sun., Nov. 15., $8; 301-581-5100, Strathmore.org
Photo courtesy Strathmore
AFTER SURVEYING THE FULL HOUSE from a back room at the DC Improv Comedy Club's Lounge, Chris White heads toward the stage and introduces himself. Then he starts cutting himself down. Next come the stories about his dysfunctional family: "Parenting is a job. My mom treated it like a job. Every day at
5 p.m. she would stop working and go to happy hour."
Just as the crowd teeters on the brink of deciding whether the 32-year-old comedian is funny-funny or crazy-funny, White switches gears, closing with a terribly off-key sing-along (folks chimed in on the chorus) of the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way."
And the audience knows: Whatever White's deal, they just spent an hour laughing.
For White and other local comedians, that's the ultimate employer feedback. Nine-to-5 isn't really in comics' vocabulary — unless they're talking about their day jobs, which many keep to earn a living. Prep time is short — usually a few hours per week — and performances can clock in at a whopping three minutes, but most funny folks aren't in the business for the big bucks. They're in it for the big laughs.
Continue Reading "Secrets of the Funny Business: The Pursuit of Laughter in D.C." »
LEARNING THE HARD WAY
Lauded at film festivals and finally opening in D.C., "An Education" is a sneakily smart coming-of-age story. Girl on the brink Jenny (Carey Mulligan) perhaps wittingly invites chaos and dark maturity into her life in the form of David (Peter Sarsgaard) in early-'60s London. Written by Nick Hornby, director Lone Scherfig's film explores themes of forking paths, class distinctions and individuation, and Mulligan's performance has already made her an actress to watch.
» Landmark Bethesda Row Cinema, 7235 Woodmont Ave., Bethesda; opens Fri., Oct. 30; 301-652-7273, Landmarktheatres.com. (Bethesda)
» E Street Cinema, 555 11th St. NW; opens Fri., Oct. 30, 202-452-7672, Landmarktheatres.com. (Metro Center)
Continue Reading "Indies & Arties: Coming of Age and Death" »
ONGOING: Irish playwright Conor McPherson's "Port Authority" opens on Friday at the Writer's Center in Bethesda. Quotidian Theatre Company stages the interconnected tales of the generations of men in Dublin, whose choices and loves determine their fates.
» Writer's Center, 4508 Walsh St., Bethesda; Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m. and Sundays, 2 p.m. through Nov. 22, added matinee Sat., Nov. 21, 2 p.m.,$25; 301-816-1023. (Bethesda)
Photo by Helayne Seidman/For the Washington Post
CUTTING PASTA AND pouring vino is all in a day's work for Italian cooking pro Lidia Bastianich. The dolce vita-minded chef wins converts with her New York restaurants (Felidia and Becco) and a PBS show, "Lidia's Italy." The Croatian-born Italian-cuisine crusader just released a book, "Lidia Cooks From the Heart of Italy" ($35, Knopf). She'll be signing books at Bethesda's Barnes & Noble (4801 Bethesda Ave.; 301-986-1851) Saturday at 2 p.m.
» EXPRESS: Can Italian food be easy to cook?
» BASTIANICH: Simplicity is at the heart of Italian cooking. It's really just about having great ingredients — buffalo mozzarella, prosciutto. And you don't have to use a lot of them: You don't need a quarter-pound of prosciutto on a sandwich.
» EXPRESS: What's the best place to buy those good Italian ingredients?
» BASTIANICH: The Internet is tremendous — you can order so many things. But then with vegetables like zucchini or tomatoes, it's about using what you have locally and using the right technique.
Continue Reading "A Blast From the Pasta: Italian Cooking Pro Lidia Bastianich" »
OVERACHIEVERS OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, please take a seat. We regret to inform you that in Self magazine's annual survey of the nation's healthiest cities for women, Bethesda has slipped from top of the heap to second place. Actually, make that Bethesda-Gaithersburg-Frederick, which Self groups together. (D.C.-Arlington-Alexandria also fell a notch, from 15 to 16.)
But Sara Austin, Self's features director, assures, "To come out second, an area needs to score well across the board. I don't think it's anything for Bethesda to lose sleep over." That's especially true because one of the newest bits of data Self added this year was sleep quality, and Bethesda scored a very average 51st out of 100.
The suburb can boast, however, about its superb safety stats — 46 percent less violent crime than average and 54 percent fewer rapes — and its status as the reigning champ in the number of OB-GYNs. "That means it's a good place to have a baby," Austin adds.
Continue Reading "Rank Check: Bethesda's Scores Slip in Self Survey" »
BLOGGER AND AUTHOR Jen Yates never thought the cake-decorating classes she was taking with her husband John would lead her down a path to Internet fame. But if it weren't for him sparking her interest in the frosting and fondant world — and a coincidental e-mail from a close friend about the infamously absurd "Under Neat That" cake (Google it) — then Yates' blog Cake Wrecks, which highlights "deformed, distasteful and bizarrely decorated wedding and birthday cakes," never would have been born in May 2008.
"It's funny how life works sometimes, isn't it?" Yates said of the six-month sequence of events that led to her blog, which has now been adapted into a book, "Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong." And that "Under Neat That" cake? It's forever immortalized on the book's cover.
But if you scroll through Yates' blog on any given day, you'll see a plethora of ridiculously upsetting baked goods, from a cake that looks like a raw, frozen chicken to one that resembles a moose that got run over in the Alaskan tundra or something. Yates spends every morning updating her blog with the Wreckiest of them all, and she chatted with us about the best kind of awful cakes and why she still can't get over Cake Wercks' success.
Continue Reading "Icing Capades: Jen Yates, 'Cake Wrecks'" »
CARTOONS HAVEN'T BEEN the same since ol' hand-drawn Bugs got the boot and digital computer animation took over Saturday mornings. So, nuzzle out a space at EatBar (11 a.m.) for its Saturday Brunch Cartoon Bonanza and wax nostalgic about that wascally wabbit and other old animated friends while scarfing down house-made doughnuts and other brunch favorites. Brunch continues on Sunday (11 a.m.) with screenings of new and old animated films, and Sunday night movies (at 8 p.m.) bring funny back. This week's pick: "Superbad."
» 2761 Washington Blvd., Arlington; 703-778-9951. (Clarendon)
Taste of Bethesda: 20 Years of Good Eats
Feast on two decades of memories and a sample or three from more than 50 restaurants when Taste of Bethesda celebrates its 20th anniversary. And because it's rude to eat and run, of course, stay and enjoy four stages of live entertainment and a play area for little eaters only.
» Woodmont Triangle, Norfolk and Auburn avenues, Bethesda; Sat., Oct. 3, 11 a.m.-4 p.m., free; 301-215-6660, Bethesda.org. (Bethesda)
Photo courtesy Warner Bros.
LOOKING AT AN old photo of yourself and wishing you still possessed that much hair or so few wrinkles starts to be a universal experience after age 35 or so.
But if you're Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde's forever young antihero, that pesky aging process isn't a problem. That's because the good-looking swain — both in Wilde's then-scandalous 1890 novel and in playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's stage redo — has made a bargain with some evil force: He'll stay twentysomething and perky while a painting of him will grow old and haggard.
LET'S BE HONEST. When you're at work, you're not always doing work. You're reading Gawker, checking Facebook and probably reading your favorite Web comics. The Internet has been an unprecedented boon to aspiring comic artists, allowing them to get their work seen without publishing a thing on dead trees.
But once they achieve online fame, out on paper they go — and that's where the Small Press Expo comes in. SPX, held this weekend in Bethesda, brings comic artists from all over the place — even the far-off land of Canada — to sell books and talk about their lives as artists and the modern comics business.
It goes without saying that you should go this weekend. It's cheap, it's fun, and it could be a great way to re-ingratiate yourself with that indie girl you accidentally spilled your gin and tonic on at the Red Derby last weekend.
So, if you're somewhat new to Web comics, who should you make sure to check out at SPX? Here's a cheat sheet.
Continue Reading "From the Web to Bethesda: Small Press Expo" »
Addison Road