Around Town
With Donna Shor
CHINESE BLING
The Kennedy
Center’s Festival of China opened
with a bang, literally. Noise from
the very special fireworks was so
loud that frightened residents were
calling emergency services from
every part of the area. This monthlong
celebration of Chinese culture
featured more than 600 performers
in Chinese dance, music, theater
and traditional opera, and spurred
a number of China-related events
around town.
One was a very charming
evening co-hosted by Aniko Gaal
Schott and Bill Haseltine at his
handsome Georgetown home. Kai-
Yin Lo’s jewelry collection, “The
New China Chic,” was shown,
and guests also toasted her fellow
designers Barney Cheng, Vivienne
Tam and Tim Yip as the champagne
flowed.
Kai-Yin’s collections are known
for her placing of rare and precious
materials—unusual jades, ivories,
sapphires and pearls—in contemporary
settings.
PROSPERITY ON YOUR COMPUTER?
Also in Georgetown, over
on Wisconsin Avenue, Fernando
Batista’s K.N.E.W. Gallery showcased
three notable Chinese artists.
Poet-painter Huang Yung Yu uses
satire in his paintings, sometimes
anti-government-directed. Artist
Xu Huayi was denied permission
to study art during the (very anticultural)
Cultural Revolution, but
since then has been able to study
under Huang Yung Yu, among others.
The dragonflies in Xu’s painting
are exquisite, and Fernando
told us they are never attempted by
novices, as they require over 20,000
brush strokes for each wing (and a
lot of patience!).
Ninety-one year old Xu Lin Lu,
a Chinese impressionist, likes to
paint fish, and his viewers like that,
too, because fish are the symbol of
wealth, and viewing them could
attract good fortune. It didn’t add
anything to my wallet as I looked,
but you could try the gallery’s web
site, “knew.com,” and see if the
finny ones can work their magic
for you over the internet.
FROM KENYA TO KALORAMA
When Jeffrey and Juleanna
Glover Weiss introduced their
guest of honor, Father Angelo
D’Agostino, at their Wyoming
Avenue reception, Glover Weiss
told of the Catholic priest’s work
in Kenya, the hardships at the
NYUMBANI Hospice/Orphanage
there, and its need for support.
Among the appreciative crowd were
Laura Genero, the deputy secretary
of labor; Washington Times writer
Ralph Hallow and his wife Millie;
Antoine Sanfuentes, NBC’s senior
White House producer; Washington
Post cartoonist Tom Toles; Kristen
Silberberg from the state department;
and Time-Warner’s Matt
Cooper. While Fr. D’Agostino
was here from Nairobi, a benefit
was held for the orphanage at the
Renaissance Washington Hotel,
with entertainment by Washington’s
favorite musical mischief-maker,
political satirist Mark Russell.
FALL REUNIONS
The 250-strong
crowd thronging the Chevy Chase
Club at Lynda Webster’s annual fall
coffee gathering included many of
Washington’s most-visible and stylish women. Tall and always elegant Nini
Ferguson and petite, always-beautifully-
dressed Tandy Dickerson were
a case in point. (“Wyatt helps with
decisions on my wardrobe,” Tandy
says of her husband. “He has a
discerning eye that I trust.”)
“WATER DIVIDES NATIONS AND
WINE UNITES THEM”
This is
wine and hospitality consultant
Daniel Mahdavian’s (of D.M. and
Company) happy motto, and it
was wine which united him to
his betrothed, wine authority
Melanie Corcoran, granddaughter
of the legendary lobbyist and
FDR-confidante Tommy “the
Cork” Corcoran. They celebrated
their engagement at an “It’s
nacho ordinary” Latin-themed
party hosted by Elsie and Dr. Jim
Sprague, and Melanie’s mother,
Carole Anderson, with south-ofthe-
border food, margaritas and
wines (top quality, of course) for
80 local and international friends,
including Anthony and Chase
Harrigan of IBG Partners LLC; Les
and Mary Lou Zimmerman of First
Capital Realty (who are big wine
collectors), Jan Donovan; Salim
and Himela Mohammed of Vancouver;
Melanie’s father, Dr. David
Corcoran, and his wife, Margaret;
and Steve Maguire, the night life
lounge guru, about to open his
new place at Dupont Circle, the
Science Club.
THE NEWEST OLDEST NEWSPAPER
Unlike all the just-born
publications recently popping
up like—well, popcorn—on
the local scene, is the historical
Alexandria Times. John Arundel of
the communications family, has
just revived—200 years later—the
newspaper that George Washington
sat down with at five o’clock in the
morning to read under his favorite
fig tree. The Times’ re-launch was
celebrated at a party at Crystal
City’s McCormick and Schmidt’s
restaurant, where we learned that
co-owner William McCormick
had just been appointed U.S.
ambassador to New Zealand and
was about to leave for that country.
AGED BUT NOT AGING
One
publication that is fresh and certainly
even more relevant today than when
it began is the recently revamped
the Congressional Quarterly, which
just celebrated its sixtieth birthday.
Newsmakers and news gatherers
flocked to Decatur House for
CQ’s event, and some even made it
around the corner to Olives for the
instantaneous after-party. Host and
CQ president and publisher Robert
Merry has been attracting attention
and controversy with his recent,
incisive book. The title explains
the hoop-la-la, “Sands of Empire:
Missionary Zeal, American Foreign
Policy and the Hazards of Global
Ambition…” A week prior, power
players, columnists and staffers joined
the Washingtonian’s Philip and Ellie
Merrill and editor Jack Limpert to
celebrate the magazine “Washington
Lives By.” Guests included Fred
Malek, John McLaughlin, former
Sen. Paul Laxalt and former GOP
chairman Frank Fahrenkopf.
POMP AND PAGEANTRY
Carmen
Petrowitz and William Feighan represented
the United States recently
at a colorful ceremony in Austria.
The “white-tie-and-decorations”
Investiture of the Order of St. Stanislas
took place in the 12th century
Plankenstein Castle, just outside
Vienna, during an eventful weekend.
The chivalric order was founded in
1765 by Poland’s last king in honor
of the martyred saint, and continues
today the charitable works for which
it was begun. Afterward Carmen
returned to the U.S. only to take off
again for Buenos Aires.
Send advance notice of an event you
think Around Town should know about
to aroundtown@washingtonlife.com.
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