Swiss lighting artist Gerry Hofstetter brought his work to Washington National Cathedral over the weekend, as part of a celebration of the Cathedral’s centennial. Hofstetter projected his incredible artwork across the Cathedral for a piece titled Lighting to Unite. There were so many amazing captures of this event in our Flickr pool this morning, we just had to share them with you. Did you make it up to the Cathedral to see it for yourself?......

Dominick Argento and J. Reilly Lewis, photo courtesy of Cathedral Choral SocietyWashington National Cathedral celebrated its 100th anniversary last year, on September 29, the date that the cornerstone was laid in 1907. To celebrate the centenary, the Cathedral Choral Society presented a commissioned work on Sunday afternoon, a new oratorio by American composer Dominick Argento. Having recently watched his wife die of an undiagnosable neurological ailment and also having turned 80 himself, Argento thought......

The White House Christmas Tree lighting ceremony is scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday Nov. Dec. 6, at 5 p.m., which means without a doubt, if you can avoid driving your car in the city, you really should. The annual ceremony always screws up downtown traffic in an extreme way. Add the leftover snow and ice on the ground into the mix, and we can promise you a traffic clusterf*** of epic proportions tomorrow evening. If you'd......

After yesterday's preview of the endless list of holiday concerts in the area in December, it is time to discuss the piece that must not be named, Georg Friedrich Händel's Messiah (1742). Yes, it is a masterpiece of music history, but the lamentable annual round of weary performances at Christmas time (in spite of the fact that Messiah is an Easter work), makes me want to run screaming for anything else this time of......

Anyone wishing to pay their respects to former D.C. First Lady Effi Barry, who died from complications related to leukemia last week, can stop by the Wilson Building today, where her body is lying in repose. Viewing began at 10 a.m. and goes until midnight tonight, and will also occur on Friday morning from 6 a.m. until 9 a.m. If you plan to go late tonight, remember that Metro will be running until 2 a.m.......

>> 7,000 fire hydrants down, 2,500 left to go. [WaPo] >> The Chung family of Custom Cleaners is now officially seeking $82,907.50 from Roy Pearson to pay their lawyers' fees in the $54 million pants lawsuit. [WTOP] >> A coyote was spotted near the National Cathedral. Keep your roadrunners and Acme TNT locked up tight. [Free Ride] >> A doorman's manifesto. [craigslist] Photo by erin*carly......

>> Local group Ocio brings its repertoire of classic jazz standards to Twins Jazz tonight. Call (202) 234-0072 for cover information. >> It might be a bit of a drive for those of us who live in D.C., but Jeff Antoniuk and the Jazz Update, a stellar band comprised of saxophonist Antoniuk, bassist Tom Baldwin, pianist Wade Beach, and drummer Tony Martucci, plays tonight at 49 West in Annapolis. Their album, Here Today, has charted......

Everyone needs a vacation, even musicians, and the summer is quite naturally a time that the classical music world slows down. So this is it for your Classical Music Agenda, until August. This week's installment will be a little longer than normal, because there are several interesting things happening over the next couple months. If you want to hear some music this summer, you can, and here's where. HEADLINES: >> The most important classical music......

Here they come, photos from the fleeting moment in D.C. where the flowers begin to bloom and are gone before you know it. Flickr user e.teel took this photo of an interesting flower outside the National Cathedral and its pollinating companion. Go out and enjoy them now before they all wilt under the smothering heat of summer.......

It's that time of the year again, when every choral group in the city has a Lenten concert, an Easter concert, or a Holy Week concert. We start this week with some of the best ones for the upcoming week. PREACHING FROM THE CHOIR: >> When the first concert on the list requires a trip to Baltimore, you know that it is going to be good. The Tallis Scholars, one of the best choral groups......

Caroline Bartman knows her scientists. And her pop culture references. And her U.S. presidents. And her signs of the Zodiac. The DC resident and National Cathedral School senior proved her spanning knowledge of trivia Wednesday night, when she calmly slaughtered two other teen competitors during the Jeopardy Teen Tournament. Bartman barely showed her nerves during the television program (though perhaps it might have been because one of her competitors thought JFK voluntarily chose not......

What would D.C. look like if Congress took away the restrictions on building height? We’ve pondered this question before, and so have a lot of others. It’s one of the favorite parlor games of D.C.’s professional (and amateur) urban planners. The subject arose again in yesterday’s Post, when business columnist Dana Hedgpeth noted the recent comments of a land use expert questioning the wisdom and necessity of D.C.'s height limit. The expert cautioned that the......

Randomduck took some time out this morning to snap a few shots of the hearse carrying President Gerald Ford to the National Cathedral for a funeral service in his honor. The biggest local story today was also a national one, so thanks to everyone else who contributed photos of this big event. My office is very near the catherdral, so my co-workers and I all had to devise alternate routes to work this morning. If......

Those of us stuck in quiet offices this week, staring blankly at wall clocks with increasing despair, have finally arrived at the Friday before New Year's weekend. Currently DCist is taking over/under bets on the median time of departure from work today (especially for you lucky duck Federal employees who've got Tuesday off). How late will you last? 4 p.m.? 3? Just not bother to come back from lunch? We have to admit the option......

Ramsey's Legacy Pondered: The Post has a front page story this morning mulling over exactly how outgoing Police Chief Ramsey will be remembered as he leaves his post. Often criticized for emphasizing public relations and merely reacting to crime issues instead of thinking ahead, but undeniably praised for bringing order to a corrupt department and out-of-control crime situation, council member Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3) probably assessed Ramsey's overall performance most accurately: "very mixed." Ford's......

The Associated Press has the early word on scheduling for President Gerald Ford's state funeral and public viewing, though they have yet to be approved by the Ford family and therefore are not final. Officials were preparing tentative plans for President Gerald Ford's body to lie in state this weekend and expected a funeral service after New Year's at National Cathedral capping days of mourning in the capital. U.S. Capitol Police officers said they were......

Georg Friedrich Händel's Messiah (1742) is, I have to keep reminding myself, a masterpiece of music history. It is not that I hate the production, but its overexposure, due to the lamentable annual round of weary performances in December, has mostly deadened my ear to its pleasures. Later this week, we will have a run-down of other Holiday Concert possibilities, but for some people, it is just not the Holiday Season without attending a performance......

Morning, Washington. First things first: how freaking awesome was that field goal? Second, how wonderful was the gorgeous fall weather we had all weekend? Hope you all got out to enjoy the colors of the trees a bit -- 25,000 of which Mayor Williams has planted since he first took office eight years ago. This past Sunday, the city's biggest tree was honored (which begs the question of how one honors a tree, exactly).......

Did you get caught on Connecticut Avenue near the Uptown Theatre last night? Were you blinded by the sight of limos and more barricades than you can shake a stick at? We were. And, boy, was traffic, both of the automobile and pedestrian sort, a riot. Looks like it was all courtesy of the premiere of the movie The Guardian, starring Kevin Costner, Ashton Kutcher and Sela Ward. We didn't spot any stars, but, according......

Happy Hot as Hell Tuesday, everyone. Yes, it's going to 100 degrees today, with a heat index up around 110. The best advice is to stay inside whenever possible during what we like to call our Heat Emergency, but if you have to be outdoors, the National Weather Service advises drinking plenty of water, planning activities outside for the morning or evening and wearing loose, light-colored clothing and a hat. It's unfortunate that the current......

If your fellow employees were able to reap the benefits of July 4th being on a Tuesday and took July 3rd off -- and even added today for good measure -- chances are your workplace will be a veritable ghost town. So much the better, right? There's World Cup soccer to be watched. Pharmacies Oppose D.C. Cold Medicine Law: Kids getting high off of Sudafed? Basement drug producers using cold medication to make meth? It's......

Unlike Jules from Pulp Fiction, I can dig on swine. Especially swine of the gargoyle variety. Flickr user a nameless yeast provides us with today's photo, which, if the tags are any indication, was taken at the National Cathedral. This photo was taken with a Nikon D70s. The EXIF data can be found here.......

This is going to be a good week. There are so many things to hear, concerts that promise great delights. We'll start with the best of the best and go from there. RECOMMENDED: >> For many serious fans of the piano, especially those who prize accuracy of technique and intellectual craft, there is only Maurizio Pollini. The last time that he played in Washington, I leapt at the chance to hear him, as I have......

National Cathedral clergy will showcase their mad skillet skillz this afternoon for the annual Shrove Tuesday Pancake Race. According to the Cathedral’s Web site, the eighth annual race builds on a tradition dating back to fifteenth-century, where Christians cooked foods like pancakes to get their fill of eggs and fat before Lent started on Ash Wednesday. At around 12:30 pm – after the noon Eucharist – Cathedral staff and students from Cathedral schools with join......

Every time we crossed the 14th Street Bridge, we wondered what the rotating bar atop the Crystal City Doubletree was like. This week we decided to stop wondering, and hazard the post-urban tangle of freeways around Crystal City on foot to check it out. After some Googling we found out the hotel calls the bar the Skydome Lounge, and that it's a bar with light fare during the week and restaurant on weekends. At worst,......

Driving up Massachusetts Avenue beyond Dupont Circle and Sheridan Circle one quickly comes across Embassy Row -- the expanse of real estate stretching up towards the National Cathedral occupied primarily by the embassies and residences of the many countries that maintain diplomatic relations with the U.S. And while the houses and buildings speak of stately tradition, what happens within may not. Law students at American University's Washington College of Law are taking to the courts......

Well, Washington, we are now two weeks into Christmas Concert Hell, and it's only going to get worse. Non-holiday programs will increasingly be edged out by holiday ones, but this does not mean that there will be no good concerts to be heard, of either kind. Let DCist be your guide. We are planning to take some time off from the Classical Music Agenda for the holiday break: for concert information, read our Classical Week......

You've seen them selling t-shirts, bumper stickers, and magazines on the busy corners of Georgetown, Dupont Circle, and other areas. Their schwag carries the same bold slogan: "Stop Bitching, Start a Revolution." Perhaps you or a friend have even purchased a shirt or sticker. And although we hadn't put much thought into who the people selling the stuff might be, this week's City Paper delves deep into the source -- a West Virginia-based agrarian commune......

This DCist has managed to satisfy those persistent classical music cravings from time to time lately, but August is a slow month for concerts. In fact, we took our passport to make the trip all the way out to Wolf Trap last night, on a dangerous quest to see Rossini's La Cenerentola in a semistaged version by the Wolf Trap Opera Company (reviewed at Ionarts). The big party resumes in Washington next month, of course,......

We considered not even posting the Classical Music Agenda this week, given how few concerts there are to hear. (Our concert schedule for the month of August at Ionarts is the shortest it's ever been.) Still, it would be pathetic for this DCist to shirk work this easy, so we promise to keep it short. Basically, it comes down to one of two instruments, cello or organ, and both are free. So, choose your poison.......