Washington DC Art, From Nature to Hip Hop to Sex

Yesterday, Chris and I caught the orchid exhibit at the Botanic Garden. I wouldn’t exactly call it exciting, but (as you can see) the flowers are gorgeous.

We hit the portrait gallery twice this week. Thursday, we went to see the new hip hop portraiture exhibit called Recognize! The highlight of the exhibit is definitely the paintings by Kehinde Wiley. He paints contemporary hip hop stars in intense colors, but puts them in poses reminiscent of classical portraits. They may hold pool cues instead of royal staffs and often have royal crests painted into the scene. Very cool.

Also yesterday, we went back to the portrait gallery on our way back from the Botanic Garden. It’s one of the only museums open later (until 7:00). We hit the top floor where the portraits of music and sports legends are housed in a very cool part of the historic building. But first we stopped to see the portrait of Stephen Colbert. Incredibly, this is a picture of the line in front of the bathroom where Colbert’s portrait is. I assure you there was no line in front of any of the presidents’ portraits next door.

Thinking about the pictures of all those old, dead, white dudes reminds me. We also voted last week. DC went 75% for Barack Obama, helping to give him another primary day sweep. What a great time to be in DC.

The week before, Chris and I headed over to the Rock and Roll Hotel for the Sex Worker’s Art Show. Former and current sex workers entertained us with tales of their exploits and plenty of nudity. They started us off with a male prostitute reading the letter he wrote to Rick Hilton while staying in one of his hotels. It then moved on to burlesque and a crazy fetish show. Some poor guy from the audience ended up tied and forced to blow Mistress Keva’s strap-on while the crowd chanted “faster” in Vietnamese. It was all topped off with a naked transvestite sticking a sparkler up her/his ass and lighting it. They couldn’t go anywhere from there and neither can I.

Until next week...

The Best Vodka in DC and Two Hours in Hell

Chris and I finally decided to head over to the Russia House this week. We see it every time we leave our apartment, but we were under the impression it would require us to dress up. And, well, we’re generally too lazy for that. My workmate informed me that jeans would be perfectly acceptable in the bar and that they had amazing martinis, so I decided to check it out for myself.

She was right. The Red Velvet Punch (Raspberry Vodka, Mandarin Vodka, Orange Juice, Lemonade, and Grenadine) was like drinking the best fruit punch you ever had. Still, I regretted having ordered it after seeing the size of the vodka shots in our vodka tasting. We let the bartender pick our vodka and, with the exception of the blueberry Stoli, he did a great job. The best pure vodka was definitely the Reyka, incredibly smooth. My overall favorite; however, was the Alchemy “Chocolate.” It was like a Dr. Brown’s Creme Soda, but so much better.

Given the ridiculous amount of vodka we were drinking, we decided it would be best to actually order some food. All these years I thought I grew up eating Jewish food. Turns out I grew up eating Russian food. We had borscht, perogies and rye bread. I don’t even like rye bread, but I ate it in a fit of vodka-tinged nostalgia. Of course, these perogies were made with puff pastry and the borscht contained meat (including pork) - definitely not the Jewish way. We also had some of the best duck I have ever tasted. All of which was in a cozy, dark, elegant, and relaxed bar.

The most amazing thing - Neither one of us was the least bit hung over the next day.

Now for Hell

Those of you who know me know that I am not a group person. However, since I don’t want to lose my Spanish, I decided to sign up for a Spanish Meet-up. This is supposed to be people just going to a restaurant and talking in Spanish for a while. I went to one a while back and it was good. Met some cool people, spoke a little Spanish...

Unfortunately, the person who ran this group is leaving to go to Boston. The man who took over the group is a little too into being a leader. We met at a restaurant near U Street. The man had his wife and kid with him. He made everyone wear name tags. He led us like a substitute teacher on a grade school field trip. He made speeches. He talked about activities. And then...Oh God...It’s like reliving it all over again...He busted out musical instruments and Started Singing!

It was at that point that I slammed my vodka tonic and asked for my portion of the check. I was really trying not to be rude, and there were some sane people there, but it was all too much.

This weeks movie recommendation is:

A Thousand Roads has been playing at the Museum of the American Indian. It was directed by Chris Eyre (Smoke Signals) and shows vignettes of different indigenous people in the Americas (a Mohawk in New York City, An Inuit in Alaska, A Navajo in New Mexico, and an Inca in Peru). It is slightly corny, but interesting. Word of warning, it shows the aftermath of a whale hunt in Alaska. It’s not as gross as you might think. The scenery is gorgeous.