Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Salmon and strings

quartet

Last Monday evening we went to the Grand Master's homecoming at East Gate Masonic Lodge up in Takoma Park. A huge contingent of Grand Lodge officers showed up to join the members and guests. They started with dinner for everyone, featuring tasty slabs of baked salmon on a bed of wild and brown rice.

The Casablanca String Quartet from "The President's Own" Marine Chamber Orchestra (the people who play for state dinners and such) provided classical background music during the meal, and then played as the featured entertainers later in the evening during the formal program. These four Marine sergeants all have had interesting training and experience, including degrees from place like the Juilliard School and the New England Conservatory. I've often wondered if military band and orchestra members get any kind of perks or salary supplements, since they all seem to have college degrees and would presumably be eligible for commissions as officers. Does anybody know?

Did I mention how cute the cellist was?

The string quartet played all four movements of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusick, which was kind of fun. Svet was about to go crazy because his boss was sitting a couple of chairs to our right and was singing along with the music, and Svet wanted to shush him but didn't dare say that to the boss!

Saturday, March 18, 2006

An offbeat St. Patrick's Day

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day. I celebrated by wearing my family tartan tie with the blue and green plaid and the white and orange lines under a dark green cable knit cotton sweater under a grey pin-striped suit. Then, rather than brave the loud, crowded, smoke-filled Irish pubs, a group of us made plans to go to a concert at the Kennedy Center.

It was an okay concert. It was the National Symphony Orchestra with their music director Leonard Slatkin conducting. I think they sounded the best I've ever heard them this season when Slatkin has been on the podium. Lest you get excited and jealous about my musical experience last night, remember that the NSO always sounds better when they have someone else conducting. They played a short, boring piece from a Barber ballet suite called "Medea's Dance of Vengeance," Op. 23a, at the begining, and a workman-like Schumann's Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, "Rhenish," Op. 97, at the end. In between was the highlight of the evening, Dvorak's seldom heard Piano Concerto in G minor, Op. 33, with soloist Garrick Ohlsson at the piano.

Svet's mother is a renowned concert pianist from Russia (she's recorded over 150 CDs), so I kept asking her opinion of the pianist and the piano concerto. She was unmovably diplomatic in all her responses, saying that Ohlsson is a very good pianist (but I couldn't pin her down as to an opinion of this performance) and her opinion of the concerto performance was directed at the long-dead composer, saying that it is "not musical." Svet, also a pianist but interestingly enough someone who used to sell Steinway pianos, complained all evening that the piano's voicing and tuning were off. They are always so polite. Svet was looking dapper in a camel cashmere blazer and grey flannel trousers and his mother, who must have brought dozens of suitcases on this trip, was very elegant in a mid-calf length suit of lavender raw silk with same tone embroidery and pearls on the top and an intriguing outer winter wrap in black wool with a bright teal meandering snake design on one side.

And thus we celebrated Saint Patrick's Day.

Monday, March 6, 2006

Filming The West Wing

marines


Did you know that when you see Marines guarding the President on The West Wing that they are real Marines and not actors?

Had a long day on the set of The West Wing Sunday where I played the role of Senator Wirth in the inauguration of the new president, which I think will be in the final episode of the series. The production company has been here in D.C. this weekend doing on location shooting for the final four episodes, so there's no telling how long they will drag out the inaugural events.

My scene today was pretty simple. I'm in a small group of dignitaries waiting outside the east Capitol plaza for the presidential motorcade carrying President Bartlett and the new president-elect. When they arrive, we have a little scene on the steps, the President shakes my hand, and then I lead him off to another area while the president-elect goes up the steps into the Capitol. Nothing terribly exciting or difficult.

It took two dozen takes to do this scene, though.

The first six takes were showing the presidential motorcade pulling in and stopping. Then, the cameras switched to the other end of the set and we did six more takes filming the motorcade from the opposite direction. This is more complicated than it sounds because the vehicles had to be driven fast, evenly spaced, and then stop in precise locations, plus traffic had to be stopped on Constitution Avenue and pedestrian traffic restricted. Then we did six takes of our "action" scene with the President and President-Elect as they emerged from the limousine, then the cameras flip-flopped and we did six more takes of that business from the other direction.

I would have liked to have gotten some pictures of me with Martin Sheen, but we aren't allowed to take pictures on the set or to ask the principal actors for pictures. So, you'll have to make do with this picture I took in our very dark canteen and holding area of Martin eating lunch with some visiting entourage with the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania. This is a greatly lightened enlargement of an already blurry photo, but you can see Martin sitting in the middle of the frame.

canteen


Martin is, I think, one of the friendliest "name stars" I've ever met. When he came on to the set after the scenes were blocked and rehearsed, he went around and introduced himself and shook hands with all of the local cast. He has this wonderful charisma about him and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he were to become a politician and be very successful at it. He's also surprisingly short, coming up to just above my shoulders.

When I first met Jimmy Smits in the canteen during lunch, I was surprised to discover that he's an inch taller than me! I had no idea that he was tall. If you've ever watched M*A*S*H or recent West Wing episodes, Alan Alda is exactly like his characters in real life. And during actual filming, Teri Polo has to wear five inch heels so she's tall enough to walk beside her "husband," and the second the cameras stop rolling, she kicks off those shoes and puts on a pair of booties. We didn't see any of the actors who are White House staffers, and the rumored appearance of Rob Lowe in the final episode didn't materialize in today's shooting.

staffers


Now, what kind of senator would I be if I didn't have two cute Senate staffers? Robin is on the left and Marcus on the right and they are friends from some competitive frisbee league. Interestingly enough, Marcus is a real-life Senate staffer for a Democrat from the Northwest.

We started at noon and my scene was over before five, so the rest of the day (we weren't released until ten) was spent chatting with other cast members and eating both lunch and dinner from the excellent on-location caterers. While both meals were completely different, they had in common a huge selection of salads, two or three simple vegetables, three or four pasta dishes, entrees of beef, chicken, fish, and something vegetarian, and several desserts and fresh fruit selections. Lunch included a carving station with a roast baron of beef and two different types of shrimp salads. In addition to the lunch and dinner buffets, in another area they maintained all day long multiple tables of hot and cold beverages, all kinds of snack foods, nuts, dried fruits, bagels, muffins, and even the fixings for simple, self-made sandwiches. Out on the set, assistants wandered around bearing bottled water, espresso, and even trays of grapes, berries, cheese cubes, and tiny pastries. The cast and crew at these things certainly never go hungry!

Here are some more fellow actors, including Mike the "Capitol Policeman" on the far left and Elizabeth (who was recently in the movie Syriana) the "distinguished guest" on the far right.

cops1elizabeth1


Now, I just have to see if I can get all of this shellac, um, I mean, hairspray out of my hair!

Friday, March 3, 2006

Gardening in Africa

After dinner last night, Svet and I finally got around to watching a DVD we rented about a week ago and have started and stopped several times called The Constant Gardener, starring Ralph Fiennes and based on a John le Carré novel. It was rather a depressing movie. Fiennes plays a British diplomat in Kenya who marries a young political activist (Rachel Weisz) who had heckled him at one of his diplomatic presentations. The movie jumps to him identifying her body at the morgue after she and a native physician had been found murdered, and the whole rest of the movie was devoted to his search for the truth about her political activities and background and the people who murdered her. The bad guys turned out to be a multinational pharmaceuticals corporation which was doing questionable drug trials in Kenya and trying to silence her dissent, but this was all set out in the beginning of the movie, so there was no suspense as we watched Fiennes' trials and tribulations for the next two hours. The only "mystery" which I'll leave to you is the issue of what happens to the pharmaceutical corporation.

The movie went for a lot of scenic African vistas and did a lot of gratuitous closeups of cute African children who had nothing to do with the story line. They also took a rather more bleeding-heart-liberal viewpoint in the movie than was in the novel, but that's very Hollywood these days. The movie reviewers all thought very highly of this movie last summer, but I was not that impressed with the acting, the direction, or really with the cinematography, and the screenplay really dragged (especially since we had to start and stop the movie three different days before we embarked upon a mandatory watching!). I can't decide whether to give the movie a B- or a C+.