Get Out! - The Events Column

Photo by David from Washington
via Wikimedia Commons

We wanted to share some events and activities that list members might be interested in. Have a great weekend -- and week beyond, too. If you know of an event that the 17,400+ members of the Cleveland Park Listserv should know about, email us at events @ fastmail dot net.

Peggy Robin and Bill Adler

Publishers, Cleveland Park Listserv

www.cleveland-park.com    

Friday, January 26 at 6 PM, The Murch Talent Show, featuring a great lineup of singers, dancers, instrumentalists, magicians, and more -- a mix of adorableness and budding talent! Enjoy Potomac Pizza before the show and support Murch at the same time. Pizza will be sold from 4:30-5:30 PM. Refreshment sales will end at 5:30 PM sharp (though you can still eat in the lobby until showtime.) All proceeds from refreshments and ticket sales support the arts and other important programs at Murch Elementary School. Everyone is invited -- friends, neighbors, Murch alumni, and extended family. To buy tickets and to purchase whole cheese pizza(s) in advance, go to http://murchschool.org/buy-your-talent-show-tickets-now/. Murch ES is at  4810 36th St NW.

Saturday, January 27 from 11 AM - 3 PM, Family Day: "Textiles 101" Open House, with Lori Kartchner, programs associate. Celebrate the opening of the new textile learning center at the George Washington University Museum and Textile Museum with live artist demonstrations and hands-on activities for all ages.Textiles 101 introduces visitors to the fundamentals of fiber, color, and structure, and will serve as a hub for the museum’s textile-making programs. Free, no reservations required. Location: 701 21st Street, NW. More info: https://museum.gwu.edu/textiles101-openhouse 

Saturday, January 27 at 1 PM, Thaddeus Coates: Into the Podderverse. Thaddeus Coates will be on hand to autograph copies of his novel SHINE: The Podderite Chronicles, a children's graphic novel. The novel chronicles six futuristic Afro-punk children. Throughout their journey, they learn about their heritage and birthright. Thaddeus, who is a native Washingtonian, graduate of McKinley Technology High School and currently attends the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. His work is inspired by African-American culture with a focus on Afrofuturism. Free. At the Shaw/Watha T. Daniel Library,1630 7th St. NW,  https://www.dclibrary.org/node/59273 

Saturday January 27 at 6 PM, Arteria - Exhibition Opening Reception for Czech artist Kateřina Vincourová, hosted by the Embassy of the Czech Republic. Kateřina Vincourová focuses on the fragile nuances of interpersonal relations and at the same time abstracts such notions into an examination of networks and shifts in time and space. The exhibition "Arteria" thus becomes a holistic system, a large-scale spatial drawing, rather than a collection of individual art works. Personal is political for Vincourová, who intersects her minimalistic compositions with textiles or household objects, playing out the notions of specificity, privacy and emotional charge of individual components on one side, and the ability to observe them from a distance on the other. Free. At American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW. More info: http://bit.ly/2Bsb6EI   

Sunday, January 28 at 10:30 AM, William Taubman on Gorbachev: His Life and Times. As memories of the Cold War fade and worries about a new era of tense relations between Russia and the West emerge, Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Taubman comes to the Amram Scholar Series at Washington Hebrew Congregation to revisit the decades when the United States and the Soviet Union – the world’s two “superpowers” – dictated geopolitical strategy, foreign policy, and economic stability. His talk will focus on this new biography, “Gorbachev: His Life and Times,” for which the former Soviet leader afforded him extensive access. Free. Washington Hebrew Congregation is at 3935 Macomb Street NW. More information: www.whctemple.org/Amram    

Sunday January 28 at 3 PM, The Navy Band Woodwind Quintet (flute, oboe, bassoon, clarinet, and horn) will give a concert at Metropolitan Memorial UMC (now officially National United Methodist Church), 3401 Nebraska Ave. NW. Parking lot entrance around the corner on New Mexico. The free concert will be followed by a reception and the opening of a show of landscape photographs by Mark Leatherman.

Monday, January 29 at 12 noon, Lecture: Stormwater Solutions Program - Partnership Between GW and THEARC. Presented by Tara Scully, teaching assistant professor, GW Biology Department; GW students. The goal of this initiative is to educate and galvanize the community to clean up and better protect the Oxon Run stream. Through a partnership with GW’s ArtReach program, located in THEARC in Southeast DC, students use a variety of art forms to help publicize the cleanups and educate the community about the problems of pollution in our waterways. Free and open to the general public. At The George Washington University Museum and the Textile Museum, 701 21st St. NW, https://museum.gwu.edu/stormwater-solution 

Monday, January 29 at 4 PM, Reader's Theatre Features 'Bring Me Some Apples And I'll Make You Some Pie.' Calling all readers and actors! Bring Me Some Apples and I’ll Make You a Pie: A Story About Edna Lewis by Robbin Gourley is the featured piece. From the whippoorwill's call on the first day of spring through the first snowfall, Edna and members of her family gather fruits, berries, and vegetables from the fields, garden, and orchard on their Virginia farm and turn them into wonderful meals. Includes facts about the life of Edna Lewis, a descendant of enslaved people who grew up to be a famous chef, and five recipes. Let’s read! Let’s act! Join us in the children's room at the Mount Pleasant Library, 3160 16th Street NW, https://www.dclibrary.org/node/58459. Free.  

Monday, January 29 at 7:30 PM, Strange Fruit: Music From - And Inspired By - The American Civil Rights Movement - a celebration of protest music, presented by the Washington Jewish Music Festival and Levine Music. Pulling from traditional spirituals and extending to the work of Nina Simone, Marvin Gaye, Gil Scott Heron and Billie Holiday, the 10-person jazz and R&B band promises an evening of big sound and revolutionary culture. Location: Edlavitch DCJCC, 1529 16th Street NW. Tickets $15 at https://www.wjmf.org/strangefruit/

Tuesday, January 30 at 2 PM and 6:30 PM, Movie: The Big Sick (US, 2017, rated R, 119 minutes). A Pakistani American man hides his romance with a white grad student from his family. However, their relationship becomes more serious when she develops a serious illness. Starring Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, and Holly Hunter. Free. At the Chevy Chase Library, 5625 Connecticut Ave. NW, https://www.dclibrary.org/node/58685  

Wednesday, January 31 at 12 noon, Call It February! A Rally to Call for a Shorter January and a Longer February. January is waaay too long, And the alternation between 30-day and 31-day months is thrown off by a 31-day December followed by a 31-day January. (We’ll defer consideration of the July-August problem until a later date.) On top of that, everyone knows February is much too short! But there’s an easy way to solve the problem: Start February on what is now January 31 and make the month of February 29 days long in regular years, 30 days in leap years. Think what a gift this would be to everyone with a February 29 birthday! If you support this sensible reform movement, join us as we march on the the headquarters of our Nation’s timekeeper, National Institute of Standards and Technology, 100 Bureau Drive in Gaithersburg, MD. Please register in advance so that we can hand out the appropriate number of protest signs and calendar-shaped hats! Go to: http://bit.ly/cpfakeevent  

Wednesday, January 31 at 7 PM, Book Hill Talks: How the Ancient Greek Idea of 'Love of Humanity' (Philanthropia) Can Help Us Think About Good Leadership Today - a talk presented by Norman Sandridge, associate professor of Classics at Howard University and Fellow at the Harvard University Center for Hellenic Studies. Free. At Georgetown Neighborhood Library, 3260 R St. NW, https://www.dclibrary.org/node/59130 

Wednesday January 31 at 6:30 PM, "An Outrage” Film Screening and Discussion.  Documentary film (33 min) about lynching in the American South including the perspectives of descendants, community activists and scholars on how this history of injustice is reflected today. Light refreshments in theater lobby before program begins. Following screening, American University SOC professor Leena Jayaswal moderates a Q&A discussion with filmmakers Hannah Ayers and Lance Warren. Free and open to the public. First come, first seated. In the Malsi Doyle and Michael Forman Theater, McKinley Building at American University, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW, https://www.american.edu/soc/calendar/ 

Thursday February 1 from 10 - 11:30 AM, Truly Unknown Soldiers — African Americans in the Civil War - a lecture by Frank Smith Jr. Frank Smith seeks to rectify one of the great injustices of American history, the erasure of the record of African-American soldiers during the Civil War. Soon after war started, slaves began to walk off plantations to join the Union Army. General Benjamin Butler refused to send them back to work for the enemy. He declared them “contraband” of war and eventually 209,000 “colored” men served in the Army and Navy. They fought important battles and took the lead after the Battle of Appomattox in integrating millions of new citizens into the nation. Correcting the narrative of the role of African Americans in their own liberation is Dr. Smith’s mission at the African American Civil War Museum in DC. Frank Smith, PhD, is the founding executive director of the African American Civil War Museum. He was a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, registered sharecroppers to vote in Holly Springs, Mississippi, and founded a black cooperative community — Strike City. In the 1960s, he worked to support the Mississippi Freedom Party, which attempted to supplant the whites-only state delegation. Upon moving to the District, Smith was elected to the DC Board of Education and then to the DC City Council, where he represented Ward 1 for 16 years. This lecture is part of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute series. Free - registration required. The Eventbrite registration link will be available on Friday at https://www.olli-dc.org/lecture_series. The lecture will be in Room A of AU’s Spring Valley Building, 4801 Massachusetts Ave. NW.

Thursday, February 1 at 4 PM, Groundhog Day Craft. Will Punxsutawney Phil see his shadow in February? Come get ready for Phil's prediction with a fun Groundhog Day craft. According to legend, if Punxsutawney Phil comes out of his burrow on Feb. 2 and does not see his shadow, then spring will come early. If he sees his shadow and goes back into his burrow, winter will last six more weeks. Free. At the Tenley-Friendship Library, 4450 Wisconsin Ave. NW, https://www.dclibrary.org/node/59237 

Thursday, February 1 at 6 PM, Harry Potter Book Night. Attention all muggles, wizards and witches! Feb. 1 is Harry Potter Book Night at Chevy Chase Library. Be ready for a night of wizarding fun with trivia, games and more to celebrate the magical world of Harry Potter. Wizarding dress is not required, but it is encouraged. https://www.dclibrary.org/node/59226. Free. At Chevy Chase Library, 5625 Connecticut Ave. NW

Thursday, February 1 at 7 PM, C.R. Gibbs Lecture Series on African American History and Culture. In celebration of 2018 African American History Month, noted historian C.R. Gibbs will deliver a presentation from his African American History and Culture Series entitled "Bound for Freedom's Light: The Story of the US Colored Troops in the Civil War." Join us for this thought-provoking lecture. Free. At the Mount Pleasant Library, 3160 16th Street NW.  https://www.dclibrary.org/node/58733