Movie review: Latter Days

Steve Sandvoss as Elder Aaron Davis

I hate movies that make me cry.

Ordinarily, I'm not a sentimental person. In fact, I can be very cold, calculating, and callous when appropriate. Deaths don't bother me, and I used to make lots of money singing at funerals, many of which had mourners bawling their eyes out. So, I was dismayed this afternoon when I watched a DVD of the 2004 movie Latter Days and found myself sobbing and in tears by the end of the movie.

What's worse, when I watched the music video of the song from the movie "3 a.m.," I started crying again!

New actor Steve Sandvoss stars as Elder Aaron Davis, a young Mormon doing his church mission with three other homophobic missionaries in Los Angeles, including Ryder, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt of Third Rock fame. They end up in an apartment living next to Christian, a hot gay waiter and party boy played by former Guiding Light actor Wes Ramsey, and his roommate Julie, played by model/singer Rebekah Jordan. Once Julie discovers their new neighbors are missionaries, she and their restaurant colleagues make a bet with Christian that he can't have sex with one of the Mormon boys.

As luck would have it, Aaron is already struggling with his homosexual urges and his commitments to his church, so it doesn't take long for Christian to make inroads. Aaron resists his devils, though, and challenges Christian about his promiscuous lifestyle, asking if any of his love making has any meaning whatsoever, or if it's just as casual as shaking hands. Problems ensue when Aaron is discovered, sent home in disgrace, and excommunicated from his church (a very big deal in Mormon country!). Christian has to deal with the consequences of his bet and his actions ruining Aaron's life, only to realize that he fell in love with Aaron.

Aaron's struggle reconciling his homosexuality with his church and his family was heartwrenching. The more he looked at Christian, the more he turned to his Bible and his Book of Mormon, and he was certainly the most serious and the most committed of his group of missionaries. He typified the struggles that gay Christians of all denominations have when they discover their sexuality and find themselves in direct conflict with their religion.

Jacquelyn Bissett served as the matriarch of the film, acting as proprietress and mother confessor at the restaurant where Christian and Julie work. Actor Eric Palladino (E.R., Over There) had a small but powerful role as Keith, an AIDS patient Christian delivered lunches to and visited.

Now, I have to say that casting Steve Sandvoss as Aaron was a stroke of genius. That boy is tall, handsome, blond, cute, soft-spoken, thoughtful, and looked very much the freshly-scrubbed Mormon boy. He was breathtaking. When he smiled, my heart just melted! His voice was so gentle, so full of love. How could a family or a church reject a boy like that?

I happen to be a Christian, too, but I've been blessed by being Episcopalian my whole life, where gays are tolerated and accepted by most ministers and members. At the same time, I've had gay friends from other denominations who've been kicked out of their homes, excommunicated, shunned, forced to endure exorcisms, sent to clinics to be "cured," and other atrocities, all in the name of a religion that has as its primary tenant "Love." If they reject a person God made gay, how is that loving God with their whole heart and soul? If they persecute someone for being gay, how is that loving their neighbor like themselves? It just makes me so very, very sad.

While officially categorized as a "gay movie, Latter Days could equally be grouped with Christian movies or love stories. It's certainly one of the finest "gay" movies I've ever watched, and I highly recommend it to all gays, Mormons (and all Christians), and their families and friends. There are some sex scenes which are quite romantic and hot, but tamer than what one might see on a Queer as Folk episode, so keep that in mind when you are showing it to family members. This is a movie that needs to be seen, and needs to be made available to older Christian teenagers who may be struggling with their sexuality and their faith.

And be sure to bring a big box of Kleenex.

Poetry I can understand

Back when I was teaching liberal arts classes on the collegiate level, I always had a certain degree of discomfort when I had to lecture on poetry. Poetry has never been a favorite of mine.

Of course, some of it isn't bad. When it has a rhythm to it, it rhymes, and it's rhetorical, it can be ok. I like story poems, thing that talk about something my simple mind can understand. In elementary school, I remember being introduced to poems like "Casey at the Bat" and my third grade teacher's favorite poem, Joyce Kilmer's "Trees" (the first few lines of which I still remember). Then in junior high, we got to fun things like Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and all those wonderful poems by Edgar Allen Poe Quoth The Raven Nevermore. High school got us to the heavy duty poets, like Will Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Geoffrey Chaucer. Some of these things were actually fun, they painted word pictures, and most importantly to me, they were singable; the art songs I was singing in music competitions were all poems. Even in Boy Scouts and our secret Order of the Arrow rituals, some of our longer initiation lectures were in iambic pentameter blank verse, and that was cool.

Then I got to college. In my freshman honors English class, our professor was not concerned about our ability to write a coherent essay (that skill was the primary criterion for admission to that section), so he had us read and discuss a lot of new, modern literature: short stories, essays, and........poetry. And therein was the problem.

Modern poetry. It was trash. It was garbage. It made no sense. It intentionally violated all the "rules" just for the sake of violating the rules. It was forced on us, because if we didn't like it, we weren't politically correct; we weren't supporting all the "victimized" poets—victimized because they were womyn or they were black or they were Chicano or they were poor or they were rich or they were country or they were urban or they were homeless or they were socially awkward or they were just a bad poet. And the hideous, uninspired, worthless modern poetry went on and on and on.

It's gotten to the point now where a serious poet dare not write a poem that rhymes for fear of being labeled old-fashioned and out of date.

I remember preparing my first English Composition 2 syllabus. I saw our departmental master outline mandate that we have a unit on poetry analysis; I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. What would I say? What would I teach? What if I had a poetry lover in my class? What would I do if a student actually had the intellectual curiosity to ask why a bad modern "poem" had been considered good enough to be in the anthology textbook?

Well, I managed to dodge those bullets. Yet, still, no end of study, reading, and preparation helped me answer to me the hard questions, the questions about modern poetry, the issues I could distill to a single, simple question: Huh?

Some of my friends like poetry. In fact, some of them actually write poetry. The "literature" kind. Occasionally our conversations will drift to the fact they have written some new poem, and I am gripped with fear: what if they want me to read their poem? Is it any good? Will I hate it? Is it weird? Or just maudlin? Can I agree with them how that editor/judge/selection committee really screwed them over by not giving them the first place prize?

Then, this morning I made a remarkable—a wonderous—discovery!

I ran across a brand new poem which flipped on the modern poetry light switch for me. Now, I can face my students. Now, I can be an English snob, too. Now, I can avoid changing the subject at cocktail parties dotted with literary people.

The exciting, young poet A. P. Quinn (who was educated at a small, no-name, Presbyterian liberal arts college with some help from the English modernists at the University of York in the north of England) has written a piece, satirical perhaps—but it's modern, so it may be deadly serious—which explains and sums up modern poetry into a single, understandable concept. It makes sense out of all those poetry books on the remainder tables at Barnes and Noble. It gives meaning to the recitations of those earnest young men and women in the coffee bars. This is the sort of breakthrough poem which jumpstarts new careers. This is the work which sets the stage for a new poet laureate (after all, Maya Angelou is almost 80!). I'm being very serious about this, and I hope my colleagues in English departments and editorial suites around the country read and cherish this poem as a brilliant primer on modern poetry.

Here is Quinn's work (Quinn doesn't believe in copyright laws, so feel free to reproduce it at will):

Erotica: A Meditation on Autumn Leaves
by A. P. Quinn

I am a poet, you
See because I can do
Pointless enjamb-
Ments that make no sense,

And I write about autumn and stuff,
Like leaves and birdies and
The autumn leaves and birdies
And nature, since nature is so poetic, ya!

But of course I will never even attempt
To utilize a single musical device since
Poems actually sounding beautiful is so
Last era. Bush sucks.

Fuck. Ooh, I said fuck, isn’t
That shocking?

Oh and I can’t use any words that are more than
Two syllables because I’m populist or something
Except, oh look, I used three-syllable words
Because I’m a master of irony.

Starbucks. Because that one contemporary pop
culture reference is so important.

Worship me.
Where’s my Pulitzer, fuckers?

What's the deal about bow ties?

Setting: The Concert Hall of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Action: The ninety-eight or so members of the National Symphony Orchestra, over half of whom are male, are sitting on stage, ready to play a concert. The men are all attired in tail coats with formal white bow ties.

Enigma: Famed conductor and NSO musical director Leonard Slatkin enters and takes his place at the podium, wearing a tuxedo suit with a black bow tie. Huh? What is wrong here?

Enigma 2: Featured soloist, the internationally renowned violinist Pinchas Zuckerman, makes his entrance. He is wearing a tail coat, but he has on a white shirt with a banded collar and no tie. What is going on here?

Thus, we have the rather disconcerting issue which prefaced tonight's National Symphony Orchestra concert. The music was quite fine (more on that later), but I found the mystery of the ties to be quite engrossing (that plus the mystery of why two different styles of chairs were being used haphazardly for the orchestra).

Things became more complicated at the intermission. As I headed back into the hall, who should I run in to but the conductor of the Bartlesville Symphony and the former executive director of the OK Mozart International Festival, for both of whose groups I've sung in the past. And, of course, as I encountered each of them, they both had to run up to me to say hello. As it turns out, they were there with a tour group of about 30 people from northeastern Oklahoma. Which brings me to enigma 3, which is, why is it that everywhere I go, I always manage to run in to people from back home? Those of you from small towns know how quickly the gossip and news travels. In fact, it was not at all uncommon when I was in high school and college for my parents to have heard where I was and with whom before I even got home. Well, tonight when I got home from the concert and dinner, I was surprised that I didn't have an email from my mother wanting to know who I was with at the Kennedy Center tonight and why wasn't I wearing a tie!

What's the deal about ties?

Anyway, I had a lovely evening tonight after an unexpected invitation this afternoon from the charming and gracious Fr. Steven, who had an extra ticket to tonight's concert. I'll blame him for my decision to be tieless tonight. He was determined to shed his suit and tie and go in a glen plaid blazer and blue jeans with no tie, so I took off my tie, blazer, and khakis I'd been wearing earlier today and opted to wear a green cotton sweater over an ecru Oxford-cloth button-down with some navy blue Armani trousers and my too-small-but-ever-so-fashionable black Ferragamo loafers. But no tie.

It was also a pleasure to see Mr. Zuckerman again. About five years ago, I sang a world-premiere opera with his daughter that Ransom Wilson and Jean-Michel Damase had put together. Haven't heard a thing about her since, so I don't know if she is still singing or not. Unfortunately, we didn't have backstage passes, so I didn't get a chance to go back and talk to him.

The concert opened with an orchestral transcription of Bach's "Chaconne" from Partita in D minor for Unaccompanied Violin, BWV 1004. It took the orchestra about a minute or two to get warmed up, but eventually they got things together. I often think they don't really play well for Slatkin, even though he's been their music director for ten years. Tonight was the first time I've seen him lead the orchestra from a vantage point where I could really watch him conduct—we were on row G in the lower orchestra right section. I have to say he looks like he's extremely difficult to follow! He uses a lot of curved and circular conducting motions (they really weren't regular enough to call them "patterns") with the tip of his baton making a lot of extraneous motions. Since he doesn't use a regular vertical conducting pattern, I couldn't quite determine the ictus of the beat, and even on those limited occasions when he did have clear down beats, the orchestra was definitely not playing at the bottom of the beat.

The second work of the first half of the concert was fascinating. When I saw "Concerto for Violin and Orchestra by Alban Berg" on the program, I cringed a little, since Berg was a protègé of Arnold Schönberg and he is known for his atonal works and 12-note serialism. This particular concerto was composed in the months shortly before Berg's death in 1935. As it turned out, though, this was the best part of the entire evening's concert. The violin part was fiendishly difficult, requiring Zuckerman to play the random intervals of atonal music in some sections, in other sections to play two notes simultaneously, and in yet other sections to play pizzicato (plucked) notes whilst simultaneously playing long melodic lines with slow bowing technique. The concerto was about 25 minutes long, but it seemed like the time just flew by. It was a brilliant performance by both NSO and Zuckerman.

Intermission was interesting, aside from the aforementioned encounters with Oklahomans. By the time we made our way out to the lobby, got in line for a cocktail, and were almost up to the head of the line, some ushers started ringing the bell and announced that the second half was starting soon and there would be no late seating once they started. Well, we didn't want to have to swallow our cocktails in one gulp, so we gave up and went back inside without our alcoholic fortification for the Berlioz to come.

The entire second half of the concert was devoted to a single work, Hector Berlioz's infrequently heard Harold in Italy, Op. 16. Harold is, in essence, a symphony based on Lord Byron's epic poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage with four movements: I. Harold in the Mountains. Scenes of Melancholy, Happiness, and Joy. II. March of the Pilgrims Singing Their Evening Prayer. III. Serenade of an Abruzzi Mountaineer to His Mistress. IV. Orgy of the Brigands. Reminiscences of Earlier Scenes.

Berlioz, who is probably best known for his tone poem Symphonie Fantastique, tends to write in a very effusive, melodramatic way, and Harold was no exception. The interesting thing about this work, though, was an obbligato part for solo viola, and soloist Zuckerman switched to a viola for this portion of the concert. The work, though, is very formulaic, and the "big ending" met with the intended crowd approval. Tonight's audience was an interesting mix of musical enthusiasts and musical sophicates, with about half the audience standing for the final ovations and about half the audience rather pointedly and stubbornly remaining in their seats. Given what the performers had to work with, though, the symphony was good.

There is one more performance of this particular concert program remaining on tomorrow (Saturday) night, and I encourage everyone to go hear it, particularly for the Berg concerto.

Ushering for charity

What would you do if you discovered that you had been cloned?

How many clones? Well, a number.....

And thus, we have the plot of Caryl Churchill's play A Number, one of the two current productions at the Studio Theater in Washington, D.C.

A Number is a fairly new play, only about three years old, and it certainly presents modern issues requiring some deep thought on the part of theatergoers. Now, the Studio Theater's promotional materials said that this play examined "the complex and often heart-wrenching relationship between father and son, as Churchill boldly examines the personal cost of powerful new technology;" however, I found it presented a more troubling and more controversial issue: that of nature versus nurture. What happens when you have genetically identical children raised apart in completely different home environments? Can you blame a parent for the criminal proclivities of a child? Are some parents so unfit to rear children that the children should be placed at birth with different, "better" parents?

There are many aspects of the play I would love to discuss, but I can't mention them here, because it would give away too much of the surprising plot twists of this engaging play.

Two actors comprised the entire cast of the show, with Tom Story as the early 20-something young man and Ted van Griethuysen as his father. They were both excellent. The only thing I didn't like was the director's decision to have the two actors speak with faux-British accents. Now, Churchill is an English playwright, and she used a couple of English expressions in the script, but I think I would have made the decision to Americanize those limited expressions (for example, saying "in the hospital" instead of "in hospital") and then the actors wouldn't have had to struggle with their mixed English accents. I'm sure the vast majority of the audience didn't notice, but one of my hobbies when I was up at Oxford was trying to learn the various British regional accents and dialects. So, I notice.

Studio Theater has two theaters inside. We were in the Mead Theater, which is an intimate space seating about 200 with a thrust stage, meaning there are seats on three sides of the performance space. The design of this production also meant there was no "curtain," and the set was in full view of the audience at all times. The main stage had a series of vertical screens which later would be used to project pictures of actor Story. The thrust was covered with a large square of shabby, grey, shag carpeting. A large, contemporary, Mies van der Rohe-inspired, Barcelona armchair with well-worn black leather upholstery sat in the middle of the carpet with a big glass ashtray on the floor to the side. Just prior to the audience being let in, actor van Griethuysen, looking disheveled and unkempt in a rumpled, cheap, blue chalkstripe suit and open-collared wrinkled shirt, took his place in the chair, facing upstage, and began smoking cigarettes. Story would appear in blue jeans and a white t-shirt.

This performance was also the debut of my volunteer ushering for the Studio Theater. It was a lot of fun.

I signed up to usher, thinking this would be a good way to meet new people, but I was a little disappointed that most all of the volunteers were women. My hopes rose a bit when the one other man walked into the lobby—a cute, trim, 30-something guy with curly dark hair, a European-cut suit, and a $200 custom shirt from Hong Kong who works for the World Bank—but then he went straight up to one of the female volunteers, his girlfriend. Alas. Then I noticed his shabby shoes and I knew for sure he'd be paying more attention to her than me. Anyway, they had twelve volunteers, one who ran the coat check, one who sold drinks at the concession stand, two who took tickets, one who was a "greeter" in the lobby, four who passed out programs and helped patrons find their seats, and three extras they decided they didn't need, so they sent those three volunteers to go watch the other play in the house, Hilda. Once all the patrons were seated, we got seats on the left side of the thrust on row A. Easy work for a free ticket to professional theater.

One of the nice things about sitting right up front at plays and other performances (I love being on the first or second row) is you get to see the true expression and emotion on the faces of the actors. You can see the sweat dripping off the tips of their noses. And, you can tell if they are truly "feeling" the emotions they are portraying, or if they are just doing stage business. Thus, that is why I like the seats up front, even though sometimes one can't see the big picture of the entire stage. One of the other interesting things about sitting there for this production was watching the sprays of saliva spewing from the actors' mouths as they worked to enunciate all of their words clearly and sharply—truly spitting out their lines.

A Number only runs through this Sunday, so if you like theater and drama, I'd urge you to hurry to the Studio Theater and see this production.

Review: Hauptmann

This evening you will be executed for murder; it was a notorious murder; it made world-wide headlines, as did your trial and conviction.

The only problem is, you didn't do it.

How would you act? How would you feel? Nervous? Scared? Angry?

Last night, we saw local thespian Michael Kharfen answer that question with his impressive performance in the title role of Port City Playhouse's production of Hauptmann at the Lee Center for the Performing Arts in Alexandria. Hauptmann is the story of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, the German immigrant who was convicted and executed on April 3, 1936, for allegedly kidnapping and murdering the infant son of famed transatlantic aviator Charles Lindbergh.

John Logan, more popularly known as the writer of the recent Howard Hughes movie The Aviator and the screenplay writer of the blockbuster motion pictures Star Trek: Nemesis and Gladiator, wrote this play, which made its premiere in 1986, joining an ever growing body of writers doing plays, movies, and books questioning the Hauptmann verdict, proclaiming Hauptmann's innocence, and suggesting that the public furor for an arrest and conviction in the Lindbergh baby case led to Hauptmann being framed and tried by desparate New Jersey police and prosecutors.

This was a stark play. It met all of the demands of Greek tragedy, complete with catharsis for those people who still unequivocally advocate for capital punishment. DId Hauptmann do it? We really don't know, and Logan, who wrote the play from Hauptmann's perspective, says that he doesn't take sides. But there is certainly plenty for us to think about.

The spare set consisted of a simple raised platform center stage which at times represented Hauptmann's cell and at other times was the trial judge's bench. Three simple, ladder-back chairs flanked each side of the platform. Colors were all black and dark greys. The entire cast came out at the begining of the play, Hauptmann dressed in prison dungarees and the other characters played by two women and four men dressed in dark grey prison guard uniforms. Large, dark grey mesh boxes were upstage of each chair to hold the collateral temporary props for each actor. As Hauptmann narrated his story, each actor transformed with a simple costume prop to play various other characters: a fedora and camera for a reporter, gown and gavel for the judge, bomber jacket and white scarf for Lindbergh. a crocheted shawl for Hauptmann's wife.

The burden of the play fell to Kharfen, as he was talking and acting constantly throughout the grueling, two act play. He chose to make Hauptmann a nervous, slightly frenetic man with some consistent hand mannerisms and slight shaking and a strong, realistic, German accent. I'd only met Kharfen briefly several weeks ago, so I couldn't recall all of his normal personal mannerisms, and I wasn't sure how much of his acting was him and how much was for the character. In those moments when he broke into playing Hauptmann's defense attorney, though, Kharfen was a completely different person, and I immediately knew he was "acting" for Hauptmann. There were a couple of brief moments of over-the-top histrionics, but I blame those tiny glitches more on the director than the actor. Kharfen wasn't wearing face makeup as did the other players, so his activity and the heat of the stage lights quickly had his face glowing—and eventually dripping—with perspiration. You know, if I were about to be executed in a couple of hours, I might be having a little perspiration, myself! Kharfen normally directs plays around here, but I certainly think he should do more frequent acting.

Port City Playhouse is a community theater. One of the problems with community theater is there is often a great disparity in talent between leading actors and supporting cast. While the six supporting characters each had some very good moments, it was very apparent that this was community theater and they were doing amateur acting, probably overly highlighted by Kharfen's talents. They worked together as a cohesive cast, though, so if one could ignore some of the amateur issues, it was really quite a good ensemble cast. The two women, particularly, did excellent jobs in creating completely different characters for the different roles they played.

Hauptmann has three more performances in this run, on the 11th, 14th, and 15th. If you're a fan of drama and tragedy, be sure to drop in. Tickets are only $14, and that includes free cups of soda and some pretzels during the intermission.

Playing tourist at the Kennedy Center

While I had my camera with me this morning at the Kennedy Center for the Festival of China, I took the opportunity to snap a few more photos inside the center and some shots of Washington and Georgetown from the Rooftop Terrace. Pictured above is the bust of John F. Kennedy in the Grand Foyer, just outside the Opera House.



Above on the left is a view of the Grand Foyer taken from in front of the Millenium Stage, the locale where free performances are given every evening at 6 p.m. On the right is a picture of one of the costumes worn by Placido Domingo in a performance years ago at the Kennedy Center, which is enshrined in a display in the lobby of the Opera House. This particular costume is a rich, heavy brocade embroidered with gold metallic threads and studded with real gemstones. The fur trim is mink. There is quite a bit of Domingo worship around here by the local operaphiles.

On performance evenings, one can dine in one of the several Kennedy Center restaurants, including the Terrace Restaurant on the rooftop, with a view of the Lincoln Memorial. The restaurant is a little pricy, so we starving singers don't get to eat there often. Here is the October menu:



And this is a view of the Lincoln Memorial from the Rooftop Terrace:



As the Kennedy Center is set on the banks of the Potomac River, there are fine views of the river from the western side of the rooftop terrace. Here is a view of the bend in the river, from the Key Bridge on the left to the Watergate on the right, and the second picture is of rowers in front of the Georgetown waterfront. On the horizon on the far right, you can see the Washington National Cathedral.





From the north end of the terrace, one can see a great view of the infamous Watergate complex next door. One of my friends and his wife lives there, and he says it's a great big concrete monstrosity in great need of upkeep and repair, but they are limited as to what can be done due to its National Historic Register status.

Kennedy Center's Festival of China

Today launched the month-long Festival of China at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and I took advantage of the beautiful fall weather to wander over this morning and take a look around.



I'd actually gone to see what fun things were in the booths at the "street fair" that goes on this week only. It was a bit disappointing, since these were the only tents set up, and I'd expected a lot more, but they did have some fun works of art, calligraphy, sculpture, porcelainware, photographs, handicrafts, and various curios inside for sale. On the other side of the terrace was a "sidewalk cafe," with the table umbrellas decorated with Chinese kites. The food booths weren't open yet, but they were setting up tables with various Chinese dumplings and carts with Tsing Tao beer and Chinese plum wines.



Even though events were slated to begin today at 10 a.m., they were still busy setting up a lot of stuff. Below you can see workers still installing decorations on interior windows in the Hall of Nations. In the other picture, a banner over one of the building entrances announces the Festival.



While I was wandering through the inside of the Kennedy Center looking for some of the Chinese exhibits, I caught one of the Chinese acrobat troops rehearsing in the lobby of the Eisenhower Theater. Later, I saw them outside setting up a stage on the terrace, where they were going to be giving demonstrations after lunch.



A lot of photographs of China were on display in the various halls and lobbies of the center. Upstairs, I found an exhibit dedicated to the upcoming Olympics slated to be held in Beijing. Here is a picture of one of the models of the Olympic Village. Some of the buildings look intriguing, with a natatorium that looks like it will be constructed out of glass blocks and the stadium which is a mass of graceful crystal spires.



One of the most exciting things in the festival for me is the display from the terra cotta army of Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang, an archeological marvel which dates back to around 210 B.C., which is something I've discussed with my humanities students in the past. Only discovered in 1974, some 8,099 terra cotta warriors and their horses were created to guard the mausoleum of the emperor, and no two warriors are alike. The Chinese government was kind enough to bring two warriors and one horse to the United States for us to view. We could not, unfortunately, touch the statutes, as they were protected behind red silk cords tied into bars and decorative knots, but we could get within about ten feet of them. When they were originally made, they were all brightly painted, and at their first rediscovery, the colors were still present, but sunlight and exposure to air after they were unearthed caused the pigments to fade, so today we just see the terra cotta, almost weathered bronze, hue.





The festival continues throughout the month, and will feature all kinds of performing arts from China, including instrumental and vocal music, opera, dance, acrobatics, and the visual arts. There's a special fireworks display tonight which we may try to catch (the Watergate complex blocks our view of the Kennedy Center and the river, so we'll have to actually go over there to see it).