Author: Jeff Tabaco

Another announcement for you local foodies: D.C.’s Restaurant Week, which began on Aug. 1 (I know, this notice is a bit late in coming), ends this Sunday, Aug. 7. You know the deal: prix fixe lunch for $20.05, and dinner for $30.05. Most of the participating restaurants offer online reservations on OpenTable, which I love using, by the way. (What ever did I do before OpenTable? Oh yeah, use the phone and actually talk to people.)

By the way, both locations of La Tasca (downtown D.C. and Arlington [Clarendon]) are making the deal especially sweet with all-you-can-eat tapas. Mmm.

» Related (sort of): Recent Times article on the financial aspects of New York’s Restaurant Week. “Some chefs say it is worth the financial blow if participating customers return, and research compiled by NYC & Company says two-thirds of them do.” Thom and I had dinner at David Greggory for the first time during restaurant week here a couple of years ago, and based on that excellent experience we’ve been back a few times since then.

[Addendum (Aug. 7): Our trip to La Tasca in Clarendon this evening didn’t turn out as expected. After we were seated and placed our order, the power went out, effectively shutting down the kitchen. The staff had little information about it and no estimated time for the restoration of power, so after having sat around with just water for more than half an hour, we decided to leave. Thom talked to the manager (something I know I should do in these situations, but seem to lack the gumption), and he was able to get us a gift certificate to use on our next visit. In the end, we went to one of our regular haunts, Silver Diner, and had some good grub. Thom put a quarter in the jukebox and played our song, “Happy Together.” So everything turned out just fine.]

On Wednesday night Thom and I went to Wolf Trap for the Odd Men Out tour: Rufus Wainwright and Ben Folds with Ben Lee. It was fun. Rufus sounded good. He had a small band with him, including bassist Jeff Hill, a familiar face from tours past. And Rufus looked good; he wore a white suit and took off the jacket not only ’cause it was hot but also he said his vest had “naked cowboys with their penises hanging out.” (We weren’t sitting close enough to make them out.)

For the record, Rufus’ set list (albums are noted, where applicable):

“The Maker Makes”
“The Art Teacher” (Want Two)
“Rebel Prince” (Poses)
“The One You Love” (Want Two)
“Vibrate” (Want One)
“Katonah”
“Poses” (Poses)
“Between My Legs”
“Memphis Skyline” (Want Two)
“Hallelujah” (Shrek)
“Beautiful Child” (Want One)
“Gay Messiah” (Want Two)

[Addendum: The schedule for the rest of the Odd Men Out tour and Rufus’ other gigs can be found on the events page of his website.]

[» Related: Washington Post, Washington Times, and Rufus message board reviews.]

We had a great time in New York. (I kept singing the phrase “we’re on vacation” from The Light in the Piazza.) Here’s the (somewhat) quick rundown:

We arrived via Amtrak on Friday around noon and made our way to Jere‘s, which was home base for the weekend. Thom and I went out for a delicious prix-fixe lunch at Victor’s Café, a Cuban restaurant on 53rd Street. (They extended their Restaurant Week deal through the rest of the summer.) After a quick nap back at the apartment, we went to see The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at the Circle in the Square. What fun! We had great seats on the floor, in the first row behind the lottery seats. (Aside: We watched the movie Spellbound recently. Ah, what memories. My losing word at my regional spelling bee: “reviviscence.” You never forget, do you?) After the show we went to the Duplex and had a good time at Mostly Sondheim, where we met up with Jeff and Mike. (Photo: The Hearst Tower, under construction at Eighth and West 57th.)

I’d been wanting to check out the new Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, so on Saturday we set out in that direction and on the way stopped at a deli for a quick lunch. We got to Columbus Circle and went inside the center for some window shopping. (I went into Sephora specifically to sample Alan Cumming’s new fragrance, and I have to say I’m not impressed. Maybe the scent softens on the skin, but it’s very pungent at first.) Next on the agenda was MoMA, where the highlight for me was the comprehensive Lee Friedlander exhibit. I didn’t really know anything about Friedlander beforehand (though I did recognize his photo of Miles Davis), so it was neat to “discover” his work. After our walk through some of the other galleries, we had dinner in The Bar Room at MoMA’s restaurant The Modern (my appetizer was a cucumber and mint gazpacho with crab croquettes that totally hit the spot), and then we went to see Spamalot at the Shubert Theatre. (John Bolton, the understudy for Tim Curry, played Arthur that night and did a great job.) I enjoyed it. As Camelot is a silly place, Spamalot is a silly show. (Photo: Columbus Circle, as seen from inside the Time Warner Center. [more])

On Sunday we had a long, leisurely brunch at The River Café in Brooklyn. (I’d been there a few years ago and have been wanting to go back for a special occasion ever since.) It’s a small restaurant at the edge of the East River, near the Brooklyn Bridge, so there are great views. While we were having the main course, I sneaked off to tell the hostess that it was Thom’s birthday and asked if we could arrange a little something; so after the meal they surprised Thom with a small plate of chocolate and treats with a candle. Aww. The brunch was so long and leisurely in fact that we ended up running late for The Light in the Piazza. We arrived at Lincoln Center about five minutes past curtain, so we had to wait outside and watch the monitors until the first scene (“Statues and Stories”) was over. Fortunately that was the scene we were most familiar with anyway, since we had seen a version of it on the Tonys. It’s a lovely show; the sets, costumes, music, everything comes together beautifully. Aside: We saw Spelling Bee cast members Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Derrick Baskin in the audience. As everyone was getting up for intermission, I said to Thom, “Look, isn’t that Leaf Coneybear? And Mitch Mahoney?” (Photo: The two of us enjoying the light in the [Lincoln Center] plaza. [more])

All told, a lovely (though hot) weekend in New York. That night we took the train back to D.C., weary but happy.

Tomorrow morning Thom and I are off to New York for a three-day vacation. Yay! For the past couple of years we’ve been making good on our plan to visit once each season (we might’ve missed one last year), and this summer’s New York trip is scheduled to coincide with Thom’s birthday, which is this Sunday. We’ll be taking over chez Jere while he’s out of town (good luck getting us to leave; kidding… mostly), and as usual checking out shows and restaurants. See Thom’s blog for more weekend details.

Have a great weekend, kids.

Last Sunday we went to MetroStage in Alexandria to see The Last Five Years, a musical (or more aptly, song cycle) by Jason Robert Brown. I hadn’t known anything about the show until recently; one song from it, “A Summer in Ohio,” was performed at Signature Theatre’s concert in Ballston last month, and it intrigued me so much that when I heard MetroStage was producing it, I figured it’d be worth checking out. It’s really a lovely show, about two young people in a relationship: Jamie, a successful writer, and Cathy, a struggling actress. The framework of the show is that with each song, she tells her story going backward, starting with the breakup of their marriage, while his goes forward, starting with their first meeting. It’s poignant since you know how the relationship ends, and interesting to track the very different emotional trajectories of the two characters. There are also some very funny moments. For example, “Climbing Uphill,” in which we hear Cathy’s anxiety-ridden inner dialogue while she sings an audition song, is hilarious.

The two actors and the five-member orchestra really handled this show well. This production at MetroStage runs through July 31. By the way, the off-Broadway cast recording stars Sherie Rene Scott and Norbert Leo Butz (no shortage of names here), both of whom are now in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Aside: Speaking of “five years,” it’s now almost five years to the day that I moved to D.C. Perhaps a quick look back over the last five years is worth a blog entry. When I get around to it.

A couple of weeks ago Adam came across a craiglist “missed connections” listing and wondered if it was directed toward me.

pentagon city to archives on the yellow line – m4m – 26

so yea you’re the cute guy that rides the yellow the line in the morning from pentagon city to archives. i’ve seen you a few times, but not recently until this morning and i was like “hmmmm i forgot how cute he was.”

anyway, you had on gray pants, black shoes, and a blue/white/gray stripped button down. you also have some pretty sweet thick dark hair 🙂

stay cute 🙂

(Take a moment to lament the decline of proofreading.) No, that’s not me. I do take the yellow line, but I switch trains at Gallery Place and have not in recent memory worn gray pants and black shoes to work. But “pretty sweet thick dark hair,” okay, I’ll give you that.

By the way, as you may remember a while back Adam had a missed connection of his own. No new secret admirers as of yet.

I still have this year’s Tony Awards on my TiVo, because every now and then I like to watch the performances from the nominated musicals. (I wish I had kept my recording from a couple years ago, if only to learn the choreography to “You Can’t Stop the Beat” from Hairspray.) Each time I watched bits from this year’s Tonys, I had to search forwards and backwards with the TiVo buttons since I’d always forget when and in what order the performances appear.

Today I decided to go through and write them down; I don’t know if this’ll be helpful to anyone out there, but I might as well share the list. Hour/minute markers are noted, and in the interest of completeness the list includes the additional musical performances, some of which I’d rather not revisit. Oh, Aretha. Tsk, tsk.

0:00-0:04 Opening montage: Bernadette Peters, “Another Op’nin’, Another Show” (Kiss Me, Kate); and casts of Spamalot, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Light in the Piazza, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
0:20-0:24 Hugh Jackman, dance medley
0:31-0:35 Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, “Great Big Stuff”
0:47-0:51 The Light in the Piazza, “Statues and Stories”
1:01-1:04 Sweet Charity, “Big Spender” / “If My Friends Could See Me Now” / “I’m a Brass Band”
1:19-1:23 La Cage aux Folles, “La Cage aux Folles”
1:51-1:56 The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” / “Prayer of the Comfort Counselor”
2:07-2:08 Jesse L. Martin and cast of Chicago, “Razzle Dazzle”
2:20-2:24 Spamalot, “Find Your Grail”
2:33-2:36 Hugh Jackman and Aretha Franklin, “Somewhere” (West Side Story)

Andy of towleroad got his hands on a scan of a poster for the much awaited movie Brokeback Mountain, directed by Ang Lee and based on the short story by Annie Proulx. (You probably already know this by now, but it’s about two cowboys in love, and stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway play their wives.) And when all this waiting is over (as of now the release date is Dec. 2005), I really hope the movie doesn’t water down the very moving original story. One of my favorite passages comes when the two men are reunited:

Late in the afternoon, thunder growling, that same old green pickup rolled in and he saw Jack get out of the truck, beat-up Resistol tilted back. A hot jolt scalded Ennis and he was out on the landing pulling the door closed behind him. Jack took the stairs two and two. They seized each other by the shoulders, hugged mightily, squeezing the breath out of each other, saying, son of a bitch, son of a bitch, then, and easily as the right key turns the lock tumblers, their mouths came together, and hard, Jack’s big teeth bringing blood, his hat falling to the floor, stubble rasping, wet saliva welling, and the door opening and Alma looking out for a few seconds at Ennis’s straining shoulders and shutting the door again and still they clinched, pressing chest and groin and thigh and leg together, treading on each other’s toes until they pulled apart to breathe and Ennis, not big on endearments, said what he said to his horses and daughters, little darlin.

The tag line on the movie poster is “Love is a force of nature.” How very true.

[Addendum (Aug. 23): I should’ve posted about this sooner, but definitely go see The Malcontent for a sneak peek that aired on Entertainment Tonight. The best line of those clips: “I wish I knew how to quit you.” Here it is in context in the short story:]

“Try this one,” said Jack, “and I’ll say it just one time. Tell you what, we could a had a good life together, a fuckin real good life. You wouldn’t do it, Ennis, so what we got now is Brokeback Mountain. Everthing built on that. It’s all we got, boy, fuckin all, so I hope you know that if you don’t never know the rest. Count the damn few times we been together in twenty years. Measure the fuckin short leash you keep me on, then ask me about Mexico and then tell me you’ll kill me for needin it and not hardly never gettin it. You got no fuckin idea how bad it gets. I’m not you. I can’t make it on a couple a high-altitude fucks once or twice a year. You’re too much for me, Ennis, you son of a whoreson bitch. I wish I knew how to quit you.”