Photo of 2008’s French Maid Relay Race at L’Enftant by ~shepdc~
BASTILLE DAY: Skip your freedom fries tonight and head to the Adams Morgan Bastille Day Events, beginning at 4 p.m. at the Marie Reed Learning Center (2200 18th Street NW). Start the evening off by watching National Capital Club de Pétanque play a French Pétanque (similar to Bocce Ball). Then from 6-8 p.m., you’ll be able to hear French and world music performed by the Kamel Zennia Band, and over at L’Enfant Cafe at 8 p.m., you can mourn the passing of Les Halles by enjoying 18th Street’s own version of the French Maid Relay Race. The race includes free cake, food and drink specials, music, and door prizes. While in the neighborhood, stop by the French restaurant Napoleon Bistro (1847 Columbia Rd NW), where anyone dressed in blue, white, and red can indulge in free champagne. With that offer, Napoleon is bound to be crowded, so make a plan B for food and wine at other Adams Morgan French restaurants such as La Fourchette or Bardia’s New Orleans Café.
MUSIC: Get in tune with nature and bluegrass music tonight at 8 p.m. at the U.S. Navy Memorial (701 Pennsylvania Ave NW). Tonight’s performers, the 7-member United States Navy Band ensemble called “Country Current”, tours the country each year and has performed with other musicians such as Boots Randolph, Charlie Daniels, Vince Gill and David Ball. Free.
PERFORMANCE Think you can dance to Radiohead? Maybe you should go to Wolf Trap tonight and watch it done by experts before you attempt it in front of your bedroom mirror. Tonight Wolf Trap hosts the famed Merce Cunningham Dance Company for a performance of the 1975 classic Sounddance and the gracefully complex Split Sides, set to music by Radiohead and Sigur Rós. The performance starts at 8:30 p.m. and costs $10 for lawn seats or $38 for reserved seating.
MOVIE: Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film To Catch a Thief, starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, screens for free tonight at the Shirlington Library. 7 p.m.
ART: Hear artist Kristina Bilonick and curator Steven Frost conduct a gallery talk on the Honfleur Gallery’s current exhibits of sonic art, digital projection, media, installation, photography, and how mixed media assemblage are unified under the artist’s search for meaning in rites of passage. The lecture is free and starts at 7 p.m.
LECTURE: Tonight’s Progressivism on Tap lecture by the Center for American Progress features Ezra Klein, lately of the Washington Post, and Matthew Yglesias, of Think Progress. Both bloggers will discuss how political ideology, history, and philosophy can shape domestic and international policy debates. The lecture is free, at Left Bank restaurant at 2424 18th St NW, but call 202-682-1611 to RSVP.
