Kishan vs Kanhaiya

Paresh Rawal's Kishan vs Kanhaiya (in hindi) played at Lisner today. This performance was the 99th in the US! They have been travelling a lot and seem pretty popular. The play was really good and hilarious, in typical Paresh Rawal style.

The play questions God and makes scientific arguments against typical religious customs the masses follow. I really like how the play ends, where it doesn't reject the presence of God, but instead calls out organized religion and its ridiculousness.

I wouldn't say this is one of the best plays I have been for, but it is definitely worth a watch. You will come away with laughs :)

The audience was all Indian, and obviously, there were several people trying to take videos. Paresh Rawal called a couple of them out during the play. He didn't break character or anything, but instead of launching into his lines, he pointed to the person in the audience and told them to "stop that nonsense". Good for him!

Pizza Studio

Kristina and I went for our date today and we went to a new restaurant that's opened in Dupont Circle, Pizza Studio. It's like Chipotle, but with pizza. You pick your crust (they are deliciously thin crust), your sauce(s), cheese(s), vegetables, meat(s), seasoning and in 5ish minutes, a delicious personal thin crust pizza! 

I am surprised it's taken so long for this place to come up.

Hand Delivered Tickets :-o

I bought tickets for Kishan vs. Kanhaiya, a Paresh Rawal play on Sulekha. Soon after I completed the transaction for the tickets and got the confirmation email for the order, I received another email that Manan Singh sent also to Meenu Sabharwal asking him to "allocated tix for Naila Bhatri". I didn't receive any further communication about the tickets until today. At around 9:00 PM I got a call from someone and he told me that he was coming to deliver the tickets in about 15 minutes and if that would be fine! :-o :-o Um, what!? Deliver the tickets in person? :-o

In about 15 minutes, he was here, and our tickets for the play were delivered in this way! Who does that? Why do they do that? Isn't will call cheaper and more efficient? 

Glass Stained Reflections in the National Cathedral

After the Pope-Leighey House, we went to the National Cathedral with Vijay Mama. It is free on Sundays, but there was no tour when we went in. We just walked around the nave and the crypt level. 

One of my favourite things at the cathedral that I've recently discovered (when we went with Farrah and Berjis) is the reflection of the colours of the stain glass windows on the arches. It is magnificent! 

My favourite view of the cathedral. When we come out of the garage, it just rises so majestically above. The sight is completely arresting!

The Pope-Leighey House. A Frank Lloyd Wright Home

Saurabh's mama, Vijay mama was in town. An architect, and he had already been to the National Building Museum, so we took him to the Pope-Leighey House, a Frank Lloyd Wright home. We had talked just a week ago about going there one of these days, and this worked out perfectly.

It was our first time seeing a FLW house and they are beautiful. The Pope-Leighey house is made of three materials - cyprus wood (which is water and termite resistant), brick, and recycled glass (from old drugstores). The house is a minimalist structure

The house is beautiful. It is made to blend into nature. It has a hidden entrance, as is Wright's signature. He loves horizontal lines, and so the the way the wood is placed, the grains in the wood and even the studs had only horizontal marks on them. The obsession with the horizontal lines is also obvious in the brick work. The horizontal lines separating the bricks are especially carved out, where as the vertical line are filled in and coloured in the same colour as the brick to make them inconspicuous.

I especially like the lamp in the right corner along the book shelf

The furniture is modular. The tables in the house are made so that they can all be attached to create a long dinner table for when guests come, or broken up into smaller tables to serves as different tables in the house. The height of the table top fits exactly in the slot between the wood slats on the wall. Everything is so well thought out and designed in relation to everything in the house.

There are windows on the top of the walls like this that open out, to let the hot air out and because the open outwards, it prevents rain from coming into the house.

There are similar windows in the master bedroom on the wall between the room and the hallway - it gives a sense of space to not have a completely closed wall. 

The hallways are narrow and open up into wider spaces/rooms which gives you the sense of the space being larger than it is.

Saurabh's favourite room was the sanctum. This is the first room when you enter the house, and Pope needed it to write. One of the things I really liked from a practical point of view was the use of piano hinges everywhere. It is easier to keep clean and I think it makes a lot of sense. The other thing that I thought was really cool was that the window mesh was made of copper, not aluminium. This way, you notice the mesh less as you look out the window. Such a brilliant man!

I can't wait to visit other FLW houses. Hopefully, Falling Water soon. 

Silence! The Musical

Since I have been absent from my blog for almost 2 years, my love affair with Studio Theatre has not been captured here. I have enjoyed every play I have gone for there and it is hard to resist going to a play there. Their productions, acting, directing, sets, everything is so fantastic, that even a play with an average story line is worth the watch. They do an amazing job. 

We went there for a cabaret, Silence! The Musical. It was a spoof on Silence of the Lambs. The play was really good, funny! The actors, again, did a fantastic job. One of my favourite parts was a costume change. One of the actresses was out in black pants and shirt, singing and dancing, when a curtain drew around her. She was completely behind the curtain, with her head sticking out, singing and performing, and in a minute or less the curtains pulled away and she was in a shiny red dress!!! 

They had themed drinks. Mine was Hannibal Nectar, and Saurabh had Quantico Mule

Peirce Mill and Rock Creek Park

Peirce Mill

We woke up close to noon this morning but we wanted to go somewhere. Saurabh looked at the map, saw Peirce Mill and that's where we headed after running errands. 

There is some parking there, and when we got there we found the last available spot. 

"Peirce Mill represents the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution in America. For centuries, small water-powered mills had ground grain into flour, using human labour in every step of the process. This 1829 mill, on the other hand was a mechanized marvel, incorporating the latest labour-saving technologies pioneered by American inventor Oliver Evans. Water turned the wheel, which spun a shaft that drove gears, belts, a grain elevator, and a variety of machines. Assisted by gravity and a single miller, the mill's machinery automatically turned grain into flour."

The mill was used as a tea house after it was stopped being used as a mill. It was used as a tea house until the park services decided to restore the mill in 1930. 

Peirce Mill Dam and "Herring Highway"

We looked around the barn and the mill and then went outside to look at the small Peirce Mill Dam and the "Herring Highway". 

Then we began our hike along the Western Ridge Trail. The trail was fun to walk and we meandered towards and away from rock creek. At one point we got close enough to the creek we could go in. And go in we did :) we step-stoned and waded through the water and climbed up on rocks in the middle of the creek and sat there for a while. 

The water up the creek looked so still till about 12 feet away from us, but from there on you could see it babbling along. It looked so deceiving. After spending the first few minutes taking photos, we just sat enjoying the place and looking at the fish swimming around. I found a stick and amused myself with it. Most of it broke away and continued downstream. Later, I got excited when I spotted another stick coming downstream toward us. As I pointed to it to show Saurabh, I saw it duck back into the water and realised it was a snake!!! As soon as it went under water, it disappeared. I tried to look for it again, but it was gone. I think it swam back upstream. 

We stayed on the rock for a while longer, and then left to make our way back to the car. It was 5 PM and we hadn't eaten a meal all day! 

Screen on the Green - 2015

Out of my 11 years in DC, I have heard about Screen on the Green at least for 9 of them. I had never been. This year, I was determined to make it. 

Our plan on August 3rd didn't quite work out as we ended up at Denson Liquor Bar for a couple of drinks before the movie, and well...never made it to the mall. 

So, on August 10th, even with the threat of rain, we packed our blanket and headed to the mall. We settled in, and started eating our sandwiches (DC Classic and Mushroom Melt) and soup from GCDC. At dusk, it begins. First, with a cartoon. We watched "Feed the Kitty". The dog Marc Anthony in it was adorable. He fell in love with this random kitten that showed up in the house and buried itself in his fur and went to sleep. The rest of the cartoon he tries to hide and protect the kitten, who kept getting him into trouble, from his mistress lest the mistress throw the kitten out. The cartoon was adorable and reminded me of the cartoons I watched as a kid. 

Back to the Future was the movie that night and personally I think it's a great movie to watch outdoors. We watched about an hour of it before the rain came. It was a great experienced, and I definitely want to come back next year if we can...But, for now, I am glad we did this. :)

The Beach - National Building Museum

The Beach! The Beach! The Beach! We had read and seen photos about it for a while and finally we were heading there! Yayyyyy! 

The National Building Museum regularly has installations. Last year they had a huge maze that we never ended up going to. This year, for the duration of the summer (from memorial day weekend until labour day weekend) of they The Beach. The Beach installation is an indoor beach. It is all white, with white lounge chairs, white umbrellas, a concession stand and the "sea". The "sea" is a giant ball pit filled with white balls. Childhood revived! 

Saurabh and I got to the Beach a little before 1PM and stayed there past 4PM. We had the best time! We spent a lot of time going under and staying there. Once you were under it was not easy coming out, it was deep and trying to get your foot on stable ground took some...a lot of effort!

We also got to jump into the balls from some platforms and that was a lotttt of fun. Families were picking their kids up and throwing them in. It looked like so much fun. At one point I heard a little boy squealing as he kept going under. His parents were a little distance away, but in the ball pit, it's far enough away. So I helped him out and his dad said, just throw him here. Haha! And I did! It was lovely! Then his sister jumped near me, so I picked her up and threw her into the ball pit near her parents! :) Such fun! 

What an absolutely fun installation at the National Building Museum! I wish it wasn't only for the summer. 

Navy Memorial

On our way to the building museum we passed the Navy Memorial. They have along it, in a semi circle, these images from the wars of the Navy that are sculpted beautifully! They are done so well and I don't know why I had not noticed them before. Maybe they are new?