Let's start with the walk.
It was noon and sunny, completely dead in places and abuzz in others. The primary groups I saw were cars headed to brunch and cars headed to the river, a fact I know from several conversations I overheard thanks to rolled down car windows.
Walking down 5th Street on the weekends is always a bit worrisome because of the things I hear parents telling their children. Last week, it was a mom telling her kids that the building on the hill was the governor's mansion. When I discretely explained that it was, in fact, Ethyl Corporation, she shrugged and said they'd never know the difference.
But why lie?
Today it was a mother and son discussion after she insisted on holding something of his while he rode his bike down the fairly steep hill, especially for a 7 or 8 year old boy. The entire time he was inching down the hill behind me, he was reminding his mother not to hold "it" too tightly. She'd reassure him that she wasn't but he'd repeat the warning again. After the 4th or 5th exchange, she put on her Mother voice and said, "Don't make me sorry I brought you!"
Calling Dr. Freud. Who says that to a child?
After the deluge Thursday, the river is back to full roar, but walking the canal walk meant having a cyclist do a series of S-curves around me, while saying, "Great hat!" I like to think that's because I washed it last night so it looked particularly fetching in the sunlight.
Walking up Broad Street, I spotted a young woman in the kind of embroidered wide leg jeans (in that worn blue color) I haven't seen since the early '70s. The silhouette was similar to a pair of sailor pants except shorter and not belled, then with quarter moon pockets and all the embroidered flowers falling out from there down the legs.
When I told her how evocative (and adorable) they were, she lamented that she'd gotten them in Japan and never been able to find a similar pair. Just looking at them, I could tell how comfortable they were and she confirmed it.
In the parking lot of the Richmond Dairy building (where my Richmond grandfather worked, it should be noted), a guy had managed to wedge a good two feet of a parking lot median between his front and rear tires, so he sat there straddling it, trying to back up over the thing.
The whole time, the car is reacting by making horrible sounds and all I could think was, this had to be harshing this guy's sunny Sunday mellow big time. Not my problem, so I moved on.
All of which followed on the heels of last night's outing to Secco, then VMFA to see Quill Theater's "Pride and Prejudice."
Secco's patio was nearly full when we got there, not that we were eating outside. Mr. Wright and I had the same fabulous grains and petit greens salad we'd swooned over two weeks ago, plus roasted vegetables with goat cheese and an entree of rockfish over spaghetti squash pancakes with Romesco sauce, the latter a collection of things I enjoy eating, but would never make for myself.
Pru and Beau made a meal of an earthy mushroom soup, duck rillettes, vegetables and a cheese/charcuterie board that belonged in a still life. Beau and I both finished with a wedge of chocolate chestnut tort over orange marmalade, although I paired mine with Burmester Tawny Port while he got his buzz on with coffee.
On the table was a discussion of Pru's upcoming birthday, not just where and when, but how best to celebrate. How many people can an introvert stand in one evening? Or would it be better just to send out "Save the Date" cards for her next big birthday which is almost a decade away?
Those of us extroverted birthday celebrants never have to go through such machinations to celebrate ourselves.
Over dinner we discovered that not one of us seasoned theatergoers had seen a theatrical production of "Pride and Prejudice," which naturally led to talk about the film versions and then other Austen films.
Colin Firth, Alan Rickman, Richard Grant, how quickly we went down the British actor rabbit hole.
Walking into the VMFA theater, we found a good sized crowd and looked for seats. Explaining to my posse (and not for the first time), I said that I like to see the actors spit. Coming in from the left side, we settled in fourth row center seats, not bad for later arrivals.
To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.
It's no wonder a 196-year old work is still being produced now given how strong and well-written the Lizzie Bennet character is. Even without the context of early 19th century Regent period mores, Lizzie's determination to wed for love not money is role model worthy.
There are few people whom I really love and still fewer of whom I think well.
And of course, a play about parents eager to marry off their five daughters, one that's full of quick wordplay and laugh-out-loud-worthy dialog, is going to appeal to a word nerd who's one of six daughters.
Joe Pabst impressed us all playing Mr. Bennet, his willingness to buck his wife's requests as well as his support for his daughter holding out for true love making him seem like a thoroughly modern man. Irene Kuykenall shone as Lizzie, as content to read a good book as socialize at a party and what reader can't relate to that?
Me, I always enjoy a good love story, especially between two strong personalities with confidence to spare. Where I overlap with Lizzie is that I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.
Because like Lizzie, I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.
Showing posts with label VMFA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label VMFA. Show all posts
Sunday, March 24, 2019
Friday, March 8, 2019
The Difference Between Absinthe and a Sunset
It was like a AAA page ripped from 2013 or 2015.
First was Amuse, where Mr. Wright and I were greeted by the blond Californian and directed to the bar. En route to be seated, a familiar server said hello as she passed with a tray of drinks. Outside, it was still light, if a bit gray.
Like so many nights of the past, it was no trouble at all to wile away several hours at the very end of Amuse's bar, while behind us tables went from set and ready to occupied and messy and the room's volume steadily went up.
But the bar was uncrowded enough that the bartender found time to read from her paperback book when she thought no one was looking. I'm always thrilled to see a millennial reading an actual book, but come on, aren't you supposed to be working?
Always with Spain in our sites, we sipped Jaume Serra Cristalino Cava while spooning up bites of winter squash bisque singing with fall spices and sorghum. Good as it was, it definitely tasted more like November than March, but then I always have my eye on the arrival of warmer days.
Needless to say, I'm overjoyed at the time change arriving this weekend and restoring some sense of hope for what's to come.
A salad of local greens with spicy cashews and apple slices was dressed with green goddess, a round of whipped Feta atop it all. Mussels and housemade bacon swam in a bowl of white wine and butter, heavy on the butter, with a piece of grilled bread for sopping. Truth be told, it should have arrived with at least two slices, because I'm a firm believer in the "let no broth go unsopped" philosophy.
After we finished eating, it was time to think about the second A, absinthe. I interrupted the bartender's reading to suggest that if she filled up the absinthe fountain with ice water now, it would be ready when I was. "Do you want one now?" she asked. Was I not clear? I assured her she'd be the first to know.
She solved the problem of having her reading interrupted again by pouring a glass of absinthe, laying the absinthe spoon across it and placing a sugar cube atop that and setting it in front of me. I was already seated adjacent to the absinthe fountain (appropriate, no?), so setting up my own drip only made sense.
That and years of practice.
My chocolate pate touched down before my absinthe drip was finished, so I went ahead and fell on that sword and began forking up bites of what tasted like chocolate butter. Decadently good.
Finally, the sugar cube was history. Taking a sip to welcome the green fairy took me back to all those times dating back to 2011 when I'd found myself sitting at Amuse doing the same.
Some pleasures are timeless and a nice meal before a drip will always be a satisfying way to wile away the evening, especially with such good company.
Eventually, bathed in the seductive glow of the green fairy, we made our way downstairs for the final A, art. I'd set my sights on seeing "Hollar's Encyclopedic Eye: Prints from the Frank Raysor Collection," a sizable show of 200 or so prints of the 2500 the artist made during his life.
Or, at least given the absinthe buzz, see part of it.
A distinct pleasure of the exhibit was using one of the handheld magnifying glasses available to really see the prints, which, whether engravings or etchings (one was both, the figure engraved, the background etched), are incredibly detailed. I learned what a compromise view was, neither bird's eye nor straight on.
And the range of subjects chosen for the show was startling, everything from close-ups of women's hat styles to insects to long views of people playing yard games in a town square. Hollar's ability to capture the texture of a brocade dress or the intricate curls on a royal's head came to life with the magnifying glass.
Then before we knew it, it was time for the museum to close, leaving Mr. Wright and me no choice but to abandon Hollar for greener pastures. And therein lies the difference between all those old times sipping absinthe at Amuse and now.
Oscar Wilde claimed that a glass of absinthe is as poetical as anything in the world. Anything? I'll have to disagree.
The green fairy knows that when you're finally in the right pasture, there's are several things more poetical. Greener is good.
First was Amuse, where Mr. Wright and I were greeted by the blond Californian and directed to the bar. En route to be seated, a familiar server said hello as she passed with a tray of drinks. Outside, it was still light, if a bit gray.
Like so many nights of the past, it was no trouble at all to wile away several hours at the very end of Amuse's bar, while behind us tables went from set and ready to occupied and messy and the room's volume steadily went up.
But the bar was uncrowded enough that the bartender found time to read from her paperback book when she thought no one was looking. I'm always thrilled to see a millennial reading an actual book, but come on, aren't you supposed to be working?
Always with Spain in our sites, we sipped Jaume Serra Cristalino Cava while spooning up bites of winter squash bisque singing with fall spices and sorghum. Good as it was, it definitely tasted more like November than March, but then I always have my eye on the arrival of warmer days.
Needless to say, I'm overjoyed at the time change arriving this weekend and restoring some sense of hope for what's to come.
A salad of local greens with spicy cashews and apple slices was dressed with green goddess, a round of whipped Feta atop it all. Mussels and housemade bacon swam in a bowl of white wine and butter, heavy on the butter, with a piece of grilled bread for sopping. Truth be told, it should have arrived with at least two slices, because I'm a firm believer in the "let no broth go unsopped" philosophy.
After we finished eating, it was time to think about the second A, absinthe. I interrupted the bartender's reading to suggest that if she filled up the absinthe fountain with ice water now, it would be ready when I was. "Do you want one now?" she asked. Was I not clear? I assured her she'd be the first to know.
She solved the problem of having her reading interrupted again by pouring a glass of absinthe, laying the absinthe spoon across it and placing a sugar cube atop that and setting it in front of me. I was already seated adjacent to the absinthe fountain (appropriate, no?), so setting up my own drip only made sense.
That and years of practice.
My chocolate pate touched down before my absinthe drip was finished, so I went ahead and fell on that sword and began forking up bites of what tasted like chocolate butter. Decadently good.
Finally, the sugar cube was history. Taking a sip to welcome the green fairy took me back to all those times dating back to 2011 when I'd found myself sitting at Amuse doing the same.
Some pleasures are timeless and a nice meal before a drip will always be a satisfying way to wile away the evening, especially with such good company.
Eventually, bathed in the seductive glow of the green fairy, we made our way downstairs for the final A, art. I'd set my sights on seeing "Hollar's Encyclopedic Eye: Prints from the Frank Raysor Collection," a sizable show of 200 or so prints of the 2500 the artist made during his life.
Or, at least given the absinthe buzz, see part of it.
A distinct pleasure of the exhibit was using one of the handheld magnifying glasses available to really see the prints, which, whether engravings or etchings (one was both, the figure engraved, the background etched), are incredibly detailed. I learned what a compromise view was, neither bird's eye nor straight on.
And the range of subjects chosen for the show was startling, everything from close-ups of women's hat styles to insects to long views of people playing yard games in a town square. Hollar's ability to capture the texture of a brocade dress or the intricate curls on a royal's head came to life with the magnifying glass.
Then before we knew it, it was time for the museum to close, leaving Mr. Wright and me no choice but to abandon Hollar for greener pastures. And therein lies the difference between all those old times sipping absinthe at Amuse and now.
Oscar Wilde claimed that a glass of absinthe is as poetical as anything in the world. Anything? I'll have to disagree.
The green fairy knows that when you're finally in the right pasture, there's are several things more poetical. Greener is good.
Tuesday, December 18, 2018
In Daylights, In Midnights
When a David Byrne song starts feeling holiday-like, it's probably time to step away from the gift wrap and cookie sheets.
Cruising along Route 360 this morning with the sky a pale blue, the odd angle of the December sunlight in my eyes and the unnatural warmth of the car baking my brain, I unexpectedly heard holiday thankfulness in the music.
Everyday is a miracle
Every day is an unpaid bill
You've got to sing for your super
Love one another
The mind is a soft-boiled potato
A jewel in a chocolate shell
I staple my love to your heart, dear
With memories and beautiful smells
You can kind of hear it, right?
It was my final pre-Christmas visit to help Mom and Dad prepare for the onslaught of family that will descend like locusts on the Northern Neck over the next ten days, a whirlwind of wrapping presents, baking cookies and deleting photographs (don't ask) for them.
During a brief break, I showed them the SNL cold open from Saturday, the one where the cast redid "It's a Wonderful Life" into "It's a Wonderful Trump," showing that idiot what the world would have been like if he'd never been put in office by the Russians.
My uber-liberal parents loved it, though I suspect it may have been their first episode of SNL. At least they got all the political humor.
By noon, I had eaten my weight in raw eggs.
That's because I can't resist nibbling on cookie dough and today I made something like ten dozen cookies, so there was a lot of dough around. Mom and I mocked the recipe warning not to eat raw dough (because of the eggs), given that we've been doing so our entire lives and aren't likely to stop any time soon, no matter how much the medical science community tries to scare us.
As Hall and Oates once said, you've got to know that old habits die hard.
Frankly, as solidly as my days have been packed lately, I could justify dough-eating as fuel for the duration. Even for heathens like me, holiday season is a marathon, not a sprint.
It already seems like eons ago that Mr. Wright and I slipped over to the VMFA to see "Congo Masks: Masterpieces from Central Africa," but I think it might have been just last Friday. With the snowball that is my life rolling steadily downhill and getting bigger all the time, I thought it only prudent to get over there while I had a free moment.
The masks were a unique kind of artifact, but for me, it was the film of Congolese people wearing them and dancing in them that provided the best insight into why masks are so central to aspects of the culture. The films were also a fascinating timeline, since the ones from the '50s showed everyone in native dress, while the 1990 footage showed that Western clothing had reached the Congo.
I'm sorry, but it's disconcerting to see a man in a wooden mask with raffia hair wearing cargo shorts. Is there no point too remote on earth for these baggy bloomers to appear and degenerate native dress? Asking for a friend.
Most surprising was learning that masks are still being created and several newer ones are included in the show. There's one of Jesus from the second quarter of the 20th century and another of Elvis from the third quarter of the 20th century.
As to how either one wards off evil spirits, well, the signage wasn't specific about that.
Also unexpected was a gallery full of musical instruments, the kind used to create the sounds that men in masks danced to. Favorite? The wooden trapezoid slit drum which could produce a half dozen tones because of the varying thickness of its sides.
Almost as long ago was a cozy dinner at Max's, tucked away at the far end of the long bar behind the enormous coffee machine, where we were out of view of absolutely everyone else in the place. Even the bartender had trouble even seeing us to pour Blanc de Blanc or serve us dinner, but the allure of being out of sight was too good to pass up.
Equally as good was an entree that could have been the poster child for vegetarian comfort food: grilled asparagus with sauteed mushrooms and Brussels sprouts leaves over pommes aligot, aka obscene cheesy mashed potatoes.
And before you go thinking we've become some kind of healthy vegetarians, know that two courses had meat and one had chocolate, so we still have our heads about us.
By 11 we were walking over to the Ghost Light After Party at the Basement, the latest incarnation of a piano bar in J-Ward. We found a table with a view, scored glasses of Rose and watched as local theater types took turns singing whatever the hell they wanted to, even when that included "My Heart Will Go On."
As I told the evening's host when he came over to chat, Mr. Wright had scored major points early on in our acquaintance when he'd copped to a love of show tunes while straight.
Let's just say he looked positively beatific when "Seasons of Love" began, but that's always a show-stopper because everyone in the theater community apparently knows every word, so it's inevitably a group singalong.
525,600 minutes
525,600 moments so dear
525,600 minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunset?
In midnights? In cups of coffee?
In inches, in miles?
In laughter, in strife?
In 525,600 minutes,
How do you measure a year in a life?
Well, if you're asking Mr. Wright, he would say it's measured in something to do, someone to love and something to look forward to. He's not wrong, either.
We didn't intend to stay until last call, but the songs kept coming - I'm not sure there's ever been a GLAP where "A Whole New World" isn't sung - and it was too much fun to tear ourselves away, so we got more Rose and stayed the course, walking home at 2 a.m. through deserted J-Ward streets.
Sunday, we started at the Byrd for that perennial mash-up of love stories, "Love Actually," which I've been informed is now actually considered a Christmas movie. Whether of not that's a fact is still up for grabs, but why wouldn't I want to see a romantic comedy with Alan Rickman, Liam Neeson and Bill Nighy?
That's some pretty appealing man meat right there, and of multiple varieties, too.
Afterwards, just to prove our range, we wound up in the front row at Gallery 5 for Silent Music Revival's holiday screening of director Jean Renoir's surrealistic 1928 film, "The Little Matchgirl." Spoiler alert: all her matches can't keep her warm and she freezes to death.
That Hans Christian Anderson was dark, I'm telling you.
Disco punk band Toxic Moxie provided an improvised soundtrack that I would put up against any SMR soundtrack I've heard and I've been going to the event practically since it began 11 years ago. Their ability to react aurally to what was happening visually onscreen was spot on and evocative in that way that synths are so good at conveying sadness.
The only problem with being non-stop busy all weekend was that Monday arrived with a to-do list for the week that encompasses all the holiday prep I've been doing for Mom but needed to do for myself plus six interviews, seven deadlines and the need to get my hired mouth to a new place multiple times, all by New Year's Eve.
And don't even get me started on the travel prep that jumps into high gear once the work obligations have been met.
Sign seen on an insurance office sign in Tappahannock this morning: "Say yes to new adventures."
Don't mind if I do. This heathen is ready to dive into the holidays solely so she can come out on the other side and get back to real life.
It may mean a lot less raw egg, but a whole lot more to look forward to. Just one question, though. How did those 525,600 minutes pass so quickly this year?
Ah, yes, the biggest adventure of them all. Talk about your whole new world...
Cruising along Route 360 this morning with the sky a pale blue, the odd angle of the December sunlight in my eyes and the unnatural warmth of the car baking my brain, I unexpectedly heard holiday thankfulness in the music.
Everyday is a miracle
Every day is an unpaid bill
You've got to sing for your super
Love one another
The mind is a soft-boiled potato
A jewel in a chocolate shell
I staple my love to your heart, dear
With memories and beautiful smells
You can kind of hear it, right?
It was my final pre-Christmas visit to help Mom and Dad prepare for the onslaught of family that will descend like locusts on the Northern Neck over the next ten days, a whirlwind of wrapping presents, baking cookies and deleting photographs (don't ask) for them.
During a brief break, I showed them the SNL cold open from Saturday, the one where the cast redid "It's a Wonderful Life" into "It's a Wonderful Trump," showing that idiot what the world would have been like if he'd never been put in office by the Russians.
My uber-liberal parents loved it, though I suspect it may have been their first episode of SNL. At least they got all the political humor.
By noon, I had eaten my weight in raw eggs.
That's because I can't resist nibbling on cookie dough and today I made something like ten dozen cookies, so there was a lot of dough around. Mom and I mocked the recipe warning not to eat raw dough (because of the eggs), given that we've been doing so our entire lives and aren't likely to stop any time soon, no matter how much the medical science community tries to scare us.
As Hall and Oates once said, you've got to know that old habits die hard.
Frankly, as solidly as my days have been packed lately, I could justify dough-eating as fuel for the duration. Even for heathens like me, holiday season is a marathon, not a sprint.
It already seems like eons ago that Mr. Wright and I slipped over to the VMFA to see "Congo Masks: Masterpieces from Central Africa," but I think it might have been just last Friday. With the snowball that is my life rolling steadily downhill and getting bigger all the time, I thought it only prudent to get over there while I had a free moment.
The masks were a unique kind of artifact, but for me, it was the film of Congolese people wearing them and dancing in them that provided the best insight into why masks are so central to aspects of the culture. The films were also a fascinating timeline, since the ones from the '50s showed everyone in native dress, while the 1990 footage showed that Western clothing had reached the Congo.
I'm sorry, but it's disconcerting to see a man in a wooden mask with raffia hair wearing cargo shorts. Is there no point too remote on earth for these baggy bloomers to appear and degenerate native dress? Asking for a friend.
Most surprising was learning that masks are still being created and several newer ones are included in the show. There's one of Jesus from the second quarter of the 20th century and another of Elvis from the third quarter of the 20th century.
As to how either one wards off evil spirits, well, the signage wasn't specific about that.
Also unexpected was a gallery full of musical instruments, the kind used to create the sounds that men in masks danced to. Favorite? The wooden trapezoid slit drum which could produce a half dozen tones because of the varying thickness of its sides.
Almost as long ago was a cozy dinner at Max's, tucked away at the far end of the long bar behind the enormous coffee machine, where we were out of view of absolutely everyone else in the place. Even the bartender had trouble even seeing us to pour Blanc de Blanc or serve us dinner, but the allure of being out of sight was too good to pass up.
Equally as good was an entree that could have been the poster child for vegetarian comfort food: grilled asparagus with sauteed mushrooms and Brussels sprouts leaves over pommes aligot, aka obscene cheesy mashed potatoes.
And before you go thinking we've become some kind of healthy vegetarians, know that two courses had meat and one had chocolate, so we still have our heads about us.
By 11 we were walking over to the Ghost Light After Party at the Basement, the latest incarnation of a piano bar in J-Ward. We found a table with a view, scored glasses of Rose and watched as local theater types took turns singing whatever the hell they wanted to, even when that included "My Heart Will Go On."
As I told the evening's host when he came over to chat, Mr. Wright had scored major points early on in our acquaintance when he'd copped to a love of show tunes while straight.
Let's just say he looked positively beatific when "Seasons of Love" began, but that's always a show-stopper because everyone in the theater community apparently knows every word, so it's inevitably a group singalong.
525,600 minutes
525,600 moments so dear
525,600 minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunset?
In midnights? In cups of coffee?
In inches, in miles?
In laughter, in strife?
In 525,600 minutes,
How do you measure a year in a life?
Well, if you're asking Mr. Wright, he would say it's measured in something to do, someone to love and something to look forward to. He's not wrong, either.
We didn't intend to stay until last call, but the songs kept coming - I'm not sure there's ever been a GLAP where "A Whole New World" isn't sung - and it was too much fun to tear ourselves away, so we got more Rose and stayed the course, walking home at 2 a.m. through deserted J-Ward streets.
Sunday, we started at the Byrd for that perennial mash-up of love stories, "Love Actually," which I've been informed is now actually considered a Christmas movie. Whether of not that's a fact is still up for grabs, but why wouldn't I want to see a romantic comedy with Alan Rickman, Liam Neeson and Bill Nighy?
That's some pretty appealing man meat right there, and of multiple varieties, too.
Afterwards, just to prove our range, we wound up in the front row at Gallery 5 for Silent Music Revival's holiday screening of director Jean Renoir's surrealistic 1928 film, "The Little Matchgirl." Spoiler alert: all her matches can't keep her warm and she freezes to death.
That Hans Christian Anderson was dark, I'm telling you.
Disco punk band Toxic Moxie provided an improvised soundtrack that I would put up against any SMR soundtrack I've heard and I've been going to the event practically since it began 11 years ago. Their ability to react aurally to what was happening visually onscreen was spot on and evocative in that way that synths are so good at conveying sadness.
The only problem with being non-stop busy all weekend was that Monday arrived with a to-do list for the week that encompasses all the holiday prep I've been doing for Mom but needed to do for myself plus six interviews, seven deadlines and the need to get my hired mouth to a new place multiple times, all by New Year's Eve.
And don't even get me started on the travel prep that jumps into high gear once the work obligations have been met.
Sign seen on an insurance office sign in Tappahannock this morning: "Say yes to new adventures."
Don't mind if I do. This heathen is ready to dive into the holidays solely so she can come out on the other side and get back to real life.
It may mean a lot less raw egg, but a whole lot more to look forward to. Just one question, though. How did those 525,600 minutes pass so quickly this year?
Ah, yes, the biggest adventure of them all. Talk about your whole new world...
Sunday, November 18, 2018
Leave a Light On
There are multiple reasons to attend InLight, but overhearing strangers is surely one of them.
I'm liking Fresh Market these days, how about you?
Yea, Richmond the past two weeks reminds me of Blacksburg...
You don't have to read the sign, just look at it and come on.
It's a million hours past your bedtime, so we have to go.
I've gone on record as saying that I don't think the VMFA is as well suited to InLight as neighborhood locations, but no one listens to me. So here we - that's the thousands of us who traipsed through - were, back at a confined location being herded along paths to see light installations blocked by hordes of people.
Just an observation from the cheap seats.
My favorite piece revealed itself on the way in with Sarah Choo Jing's "Art of the Rehearsal," a massive projection on the side of the museum. My immediate reaction was one of familiarity - the two-story streetscape allowed views inside individual apartments where each tenant danced a different kind of dance to the same music - because I was reminded of "Rear Window" and the views afforded to wheelchair-bound Jimmy Stewart.
But unlike his bird's eye view of Miss Lonely Hearts, a composer and a murderer, I had a view of a salsa dancer on the roof, a ballerina in the kitchen, a Middle Eastern dancer in the hallway and myriad others going through their individual rehearsals, each framed by their space.
I don't know which I was more into, the choreography or the voyeuristic elements of of the elaborate scene. I do know I found it captivating to watch as the empty windows, balconies and patios became the setting for multiple dances before they retreated to their apartments again out of sight. I don't know about others, but I stood and watched it through many times so I could focus on a different dancer every time.
A man with a thick Spanish accent asked someone if the dancers were real and a passerby responded politely, "I think it's projections coming from these boxes." Knowing nods followed.
And while she wasn't technically part of InLight, Chloe, the 24'-high resin head of a woman, was every bit as striking as the light installations. Viewed against a deepening gray-blue sky, a tree with half its leaves still hanging on providing the backdrop, Chloe caught every bit of available light and glowed like the moon with its whiteness.
I'd have lingered there even longer than I did except that people kept posing groups in front of it for photo ops. Meanwhile, I had to accept that not everyone wanted to actually take in the art when it was so much easier to just snap a picture and move on.
I was bent over, reading a sign about Bob Kaputof's "Oasis in the Night Sky" when a woman asked if she could butt in front of me to take a picture of the sign in front of me. Without so much as looking up, I shook my head no and continued reading.
Sorry, honey, real time life trumps virtual documentation every time, at least for now. Yes, I have my concerns about the future.
Approaching the former Confederate Home for Women (now the Pauley Center), I heard a young guy exclaim, "Look, it's Chiocca's!" in reference to all the neon signs: a hand pointing downstairs, a crescent moon, an "open" sign and another that said "Butter" in yellow lights, among others. The Theremin Collection's "Hidden in Plain Sight" celebrated they neon heyday of the 1920s.
One of the best views I saw was accidental, coming when I reached the top of the hill and looked back toward the many lighted windows of the museum, the Chihuly red reeds and the endless stream of people making their way around the grounds. I'm telling you, Richmond Tourism could use that picaresque image to entice people to visit such a cool city.
Mart Finkelstein's "Echoes in Motion" was like a beacon from the sculpture garden's highest level, except that long before I'd arrived, it had become Selfie Central, so it was impossible to fully see the back-lit series of black, white and colored panels, some still and others undulating organically like microbes reproducing, for all the photo shoots and re-takes ("I look awful, take it again!").
Darkness is a big part of why InLight works, but the slate steps leading down the hill were clogged with people going in both directions, so it was inevitable there'd be traffic jams as the steps receded into the darkness.
I overheard a woman complain that she couldn't see where she was going (though she was also on the incorrect side of the staircase to go up) and then gulp, "Oops!" loudly. She'd landed on one of the stones to the side of the steps and something had toppled in the process. "It's just an orange cone," her companion said reassuringly. "I'll put it back!"
Surely one of the most lovely and unusual installations was Leila Ehteshaim and Carl Patow's "River City Reflections," a reflecting pool filled with small glass jars with lights in them. At the top of the hill, a person would write down their wish for Richmond, seal it in the jar and send it cascading down the water-covered steps to the pool to join the undulating mass of jars floating on the water's surface.
"I think Mayor Stoney should have to pull one of these out of the water and make it come true," a woman in a blue hat announced.
"What if it's for something like making unicorns real?" a stranger challenged her back. "Well, it has to be in his sphere," the first insisted, while several people chimed in, saying the best thing that could happen would be for us to become one city, black and white, rich and poor.
If only.
Because I'd waited to go to InLight until the last couple hours before it closed, the crowds had thinned a tad by the time I made my way back for one final visit to the dancers of "Art of the Rehearsal," where I was every bit as enchanted as the first time.
So the VMFA isn't my first choice for InLight. You don't see that stopping me from attending, do you? I was at the first one eleven years ago and, barring being in another country, I'll be at future events. There will be no photos to prove it, but trust me on this.
Because if I don't go, there won't be a single person there not taking photographs and that's just wrong. Somebody besides Chloe's gotta represent the Luddites, experiencing it all IRL, not virtually later.
At you service, InLight.
I'm liking Fresh Market these days, how about you?
Yea, Richmond the past two weeks reminds me of Blacksburg...
You don't have to read the sign, just look at it and come on.
It's a million hours past your bedtime, so we have to go.
I've gone on record as saying that I don't think the VMFA is as well suited to InLight as neighborhood locations, but no one listens to me. So here we - that's the thousands of us who traipsed through - were, back at a confined location being herded along paths to see light installations blocked by hordes of people.
Just an observation from the cheap seats.
My favorite piece revealed itself on the way in with Sarah Choo Jing's "Art of the Rehearsal," a massive projection on the side of the museum. My immediate reaction was one of familiarity - the two-story streetscape allowed views inside individual apartments where each tenant danced a different kind of dance to the same music - because I was reminded of "Rear Window" and the views afforded to wheelchair-bound Jimmy Stewart.
But unlike his bird's eye view of Miss Lonely Hearts, a composer and a murderer, I had a view of a salsa dancer on the roof, a ballerina in the kitchen, a Middle Eastern dancer in the hallway and myriad others going through their individual rehearsals, each framed by their space.
I don't know which I was more into, the choreography or the voyeuristic elements of of the elaborate scene. I do know I found it captivating to watch as the empty windows, balconies and patios became the setting for multiple dances before they retreated to their apartments again out of sight. I don't know about others, but I stood and watched it through many times so I could focus on a different dancer every time.
A man with a thick Spanish accent asked someone if the dancers were real and a passerby responded politely, "I think it's projections coming from these boxes." Knowing nods followed.
And while she wasn't technically part of InLight, Chloe, the 24'-high resin head of a woman, was every bit as striking as the light installations. Viewed against a deepening gray-blue sky, a tree with half its leaves still hanging on providing the backdrop, Chloe caught every bit of available light and glowed like the moon with its whiteness.
I'd have lingered there even longer than I did except that people kept posing groups in front of it for photo ops. Meanwhile, I had to accept that not everyone wanted to actually take in the art when it was so much easier to just snap a picture and move on.
I was bent over, reading a sign about Bob Kaputof's "Oasis in the Night Sky" when a woman asked if she could butt in front of me to take a picture of the sign in front of me. Without so much as looking up, I shook my head no and continued reading.
Sorry, honey, real time life trumps virtual documentation every time, at least for now. Yes, I have my concerns about the future.
Approaching the former Confederate Home for Women (now the Pauley Center), I heard a young guy exclaim, "Look, it's Chiocca's!" in reference to all the neon signs: a hand pointing downstairs, a crescent moon, an "open" sign and another that said "Butter" in yellow lights, among others. The Theremin Collection's "Hidden in Plain Sight" celebrated they neon heyday of the 1920s.
One of the best views I saw was accidental, coming when I reached the top of the hill and looked back toward the many lighted windows of the museum, the Chihuly red reeds and the endless stream of people making their way around the grounds. I'm telling you, Richmond Tourism could use that picaresque image to entice people to visit such a cool city.
Mart Finkelstein's "Echoes in Motion" was like a beacon from the sculpture garden's highest level, except that long before I'd arrived, it had become Selfie Central, so it was impossible to fully see the back-lit series of black, white and colored panels, some still and others undulating organically like microbes reproducing, for all the photo shoots and re-takes ("I look awful, take it again!").
Darkness is a big part of why InLight works, but the slate steps leading down the hill were clogged with people going in both directions, so it was inevitable there'd be traffic jams as the steps receded into the darkness.
I overheard a woman complain that she couldn't see where she was going (though she was also on the incorrect side of the staircase to go up) and then gulp, "Oops!" loudly. She'd landed on one of the stones to the side of the steps and something had toppled in the process. "It's just an orange cone," her companion said reassuringly. "I'll put it back!"
Surely one of the most lovely and unusual installations was Leila Ehteshaim and Carl Patow's "River City Reflections," a reflecting pool filled with small glass jars with lights in them. At the top of the hill, a person would write down their wish for Richmond, seal it in the jar and send it cascading down the water-covered steps to the pool to join the undulating mass of jars floating on the water's surface.
"I think Mayor Stoney should have to pull one of these out of the water and make it come true," a woman in a blue hat announced.
"What if it's for something like making unicorns real?" a stranger challenged her back. "Well, it has to be in his sphere," the first insisted, while several people chimed in, saying the best thing that could happen would be for us to become one city, black and white, rich and poor.
If only.
Because I'd waited to go to InLight until the last couple hours before it closed, the crowds had thinned a tad by the time I made my way back for one final visit to the dancers of "Art of the Rehearsal," where I was every bit as enchanted as the first time.
So the VMFA isn't my first choice for InLight. You don't see that stopping me from attending, do you? I was at the first one eleven years ago and, barring being in another country, I'll be at future events. There will be no photos to prove it, but trust me on this.
Because if I don't go, there won't be a single person there not taking photographs and that's just wrong. Somebody besides Chloe's gotta represent the Luddites, experiencing it all IRL, not virtually later.
At you service, InLight.
Saturday, August 11, 2018
Exile with a Perch
Birdcage aside, I may as well have gone to see the documentary "Generation Wealth."
Looking at my Friday night options, I considered the film about our current wealth culture and the human cost of narcissism, capitalism and greed. But why watch bad decisions play out in modern times when the same lessons could be gleaned from art history?
Besides, after a day spent writing, the appeal of walking through 11 galleries was far greater than sitting in a darkened theater for two hours. I lucked out, too, because for a Friday night, the VMFA was surprisingly uncrowded, at least in the galleries, if not in the atrium where the wine tasting was happening. It was me and fewer than a dozen other art lovers making our way through "Napoleon: Power and Splendor."
Essentially a history lesson told through paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, furniture and household items (Napoleon took scrupulously good care of his teeth, including dipping his toothbrush in opium before brushing), the exhibition laid out how Napoleon rose to power using his extensive propaganda department and how it all came crashing down on him.
I was fascinated to learn that Napoleon had looked to the young U.S. for presidential portraiture (especially of George Washington) as a source of inspiration for how he wanted to be portrayed.
His court was huge and by huge, I mean 3600 people directed by 6 grand officers making sure everything was done according to directive. One painting showed a woman fluffing the pillow of the Empress, while the signage said that she was the only one allowed to fluff when the Emperor was present in the bed chamber.
Helluva thing to have on your headstone: Royal fluffer.
One of the most unexpected pleasures of the exhibition was Napoleon's architectural vision for Paris, which was laid out in a series of drawings, including one expansive panoramic drawing that was nothing short of breathtaking. So much planning.
But like the hedonistic set I would have seen portrayed in "Generation Wealth," Napoleon's court was a study in excesses, like the gold-plated dinner service - plates and flatware - elaborately laid out on a massive dining room table in the exhibition. To further convey the sense of luxury, there were fabric scrims surrounding the table showing an etching of a banquet scene of the era.
The throne room is red and as opulent as you'd expect, while the gallery devoted to hunting (Napoleon wasn't much of a hunter but did it because it was prime networking time for the upper crust) has the unexpected allure of video projections showing leaves in the Fonainebleau forest where they hunted swaying in the breeze.
As a female, it was especially tough to get behind Napoleon's view of women - apparently we're good for childbearing and nothing else - as he cast aside his beloved Josephine (her fatal flaw being she was 7 years older and unable to bear him a son) and wasted no time in marrying the fertile Archduchess Marie Louise. Taller than me, the elaborate candlesticks and altar decorations made for that second wedding also show up in the exhibition.
But without a doubt, the highlight is the ceiling-scraping birdcage Napoleon commissioned after he was exiled to St. Helena. About the size of my bathroom, the elaborate structure was created by Chinese artisans for Napoleon's garden at Longwood House, his final address.
For me, it resembled nothing so much as the cage I'd had for my finches Claude and Camille (Monet, of course) back when I was in college. Shaped like a pagoda, with various levels and perches throughout, Napoleon's was more of an aviary than a birdcage given its size, but the idea was the same. He used it for maimed birds and chickens which eventually escaped, which is probably what he was hoping for himself.
Looking at the final image in the galleries - a painting of Napoleon just after he died - all I could see was a broken man who'd milked his delusions for as long as he could before saner heads prevailed. Which meant instead of comparisons to greedy wealth-seekers, I was thinking of the last two and a half years and the delusional man currently being built up by the White House propaganda machine and wondering how all that will end.
Besides not soon enough, I haven't a clue.
"History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon," observed Napoleon.
For that brilliant analysis alone, I gave the man credit...and my Friday evening.
Looking at my Friday night options, I considered the film about our current wealth culture and the human cost of narcissism, capitalism and greed. But why watch bad decisions play out in modern times when the same lessons could be gleaned from art history?
Besides, after a day spent writing, the appeal of walking through 11 galleries was far greater than sitting in a darkened theater for two hours. I lucked out, too, because for a Friday night, the VMFA was surprisingly uncrowded, at least in the galleries, if not in the atrium where the wine tasting was happening. It was me and fewer than a dozen other art lovers making our way through "Napoleon: Power and Splendor."
Essentially a history lesson told through paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, furniture and household items (Napoleon took scrupulously good care of his teeth, including dipping his toothbrush in opium before brushing), the exhibition laid out how Napoleon rose to power using his extensive propaganda department and how it all came crashing down on him.
I was fascinated to learn that Napoleon had looked to the young U.S. for presidential portraiture (especially of George Washington) as a source of inspiration for how he wanted to be portrayed.
His court was huge and by huge, I mean 3600 people directed by 6 grand officers making sure everything was done according to directive. One painting showed a woman fluffing the pillow of the Empress, while the signage said that she was the only one allowed to fluff when the Emperor was present in the bed chamber.
Helluva thing to have on your headstone: Royal fluffer.
One of the most unexpected pleasures of the exhibition was Napoleon's architectural vision for Paris, which was laid out in a series of drawings, including one expansive panoramic drawing that was nothing short of breathtaking. So much planning.
But like the hedonistic set I would have seen portrayed in "Generation Wealth," Napoleon's court was a study in excesses, like the gold-plated dinner service - plates and flatware - elaborately laid out on a massive dining room table in the exhibition. To further convey the sense of luxury, there were fabric scrims surrounding the table showing an etching of a banquet scene of the era.
The throne room is red and as opulent as you'd expect, while the gallery devoted to hunting (Napoleon wasn't much of a hunter but did it because it was prime networking time for the upper crust) has the unexpected allure of video projections showing leaves in the Fonainebleau forest where they hunted swaying in the breeze.
As a female, it was especially tough to get behind Napoleon's view of women - apparently we're good for childbearing and nothing else - as he cast aside his beloved Josephine (her fatal flaw being she was 7 years older and unable to bear him a son) and wasted no time in marrying the fertile Archduchess Marie Louise. Taller than me, the elaborate candlesticks and altar decorations made for that second wedding also show up in the exhibition.
But without a doubt, the highlight is the ceiling-scraping birdcage Napoleon commissioned after he was exiled to St. Helena. About the size of my bathroom, the elaborate structure was created by Chinese artisans for Napoleon's garden at Longwood House, his final address.
For me, it resembled nothing so much as the cage I'd had for my finches Claude and Camille (Monet, of course) back when I was in college. Shaped like a pagoda, with various levels and perches throughout, Napoleon's was more of an aviary than a birdcage given its size, but the idea was the same. He used it for maimed birds and chickens which eventually escaped, which is probably what he was hoping for himself.
Looking at the final image in the galleries - a painting of Napoleon just after he died - all I could see was a broken man who'd milked his delusions for as long as he could before saner heads prevailed. Which meant instead of comparisons to greedy wealth-seekers, I was thinking of the last two and a half years and the delusional man currently being built up by the White House propaganda machine and wondering how all that will end.
Besides not soon enough, I haven't a clue.
"History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon," observed Napoleon.
For that brilliant analysis alone, I gave the man credit...and my Friday evening.
Friday, November 24, 2017
Time to Fly
How about the 12:10? I can also do the 9:50 one, but I think it's too early for you.
Definitely too early. Even so, the only problem with meeting a girlfriend for a movie at 12:10 is that it's hard to have an appetite for buttered popcorn less than an hour and a half after finishing breakfast.
Meeting at 11:45 meant that I didn't get my walk in first, but it was worth it to hear about her trip this week to Pittsburgh: multiple record stores, killer Detroit-style pizza and the contemporary art museum known as the Mattress Factory, which she assured me I'd love.
Best of all, she and her cute husband took the jaunt for no reason other than to escape family turkey day.
When we'd run into each other at the Waxahatchee show on Sunday, we got on the subject of how much we both love movies and how eagerly we both were anticipating Greta Gerwig's directorial debut, "Lady Bird." Naturally when I saw it was at Movieland, I notified her so we could make a date, only to find out she was in Steel City. But only till Thursday, so we made a date for Friday.
She was expecting the theaters to be mobbed and I was expecting them to be dead and the reality was something in between. It was a good-sized crowd heavy on women of all ages for a film that began with a Joan Didion quote: "Anyone who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento."
I've no doubt Joan would know.
From there, it was a coming-of-age story focusing on the non-stop battles between a strong-willed high school senior and her strong-willed Mom who undoubtedly loves her, but never really shows that she likes her. Just what every teen-aged girl doesn't need.
It's also a love letter to Sacramento, which Lady Bird (her chosen name, not her given name) refers to as "the mid-west of California" and can't wait to escape its cloying confines by applying to east coast colleges. Her senior year involves eating communion wafers with her best friend, losing her virginity and waiting for the opportunity to live through something.
Only a 17-year old wishes for the inevitable.
Walking out, my girlfriend's first words were, "I love you, Karen, but I should have brought my Mom to see this with me. I could relate to all that. It was our story." I took no offense and told her that for me, it had no relevance at all to my relationship with my Mom, who had five younger daughters to focus on by the time I got to my last year of high school.
The film was stellar and will undoubtedly get all kinds of deserved Oscar nods, but its greatest strength in my eyes was how true the characters and story rang, a fact I attribute to a woman screenwriter and director. We never felt like we were seeing these women through a man's gaze and that's far too rare in filmmaking.
Meanwhile, today's lunch was pitch-perfect: a leftover turkey sandwich so good it left me wanting another. Fortunately, I didn't have another because I know from experience that's a slippery slope.
Because I got two last minute assignments on Thanksgiving Eve, I briefly considered staying in tonight, but gave into my baser instincts and went to the VMFA where I could hear the Reginald Cyntie Group onstage in the atrium practically the moment I walked in. A big crowd was seated in front of the Maryland quintet (tenor sax, trombone, bass, keys, drums) as they filled that high-ceilinged space with protest songs, African and Caribbean-influenced songs and original jazz.
I only heard a couple of songs before they went on break, giving me a chance to check out the brand new Eakins oil sketch in the American galleries, although it took asking four people before anyone could tell me its location.
Call me persnickety, but if you're going to notify members of a new acquisition, shouldn't you also be able to direct them to it?
And then, because the museum wasn't all that busy - certainly not as crazy as it is on a typical Friday night - I got a ticket and went downstairs to see "Terracotta Army: Legacy of the First Emperor of China" with a small, well-mannered crowd.
I was completely unprepared for learning that when Ying Zheng had been buried, it was with an army of almost 8,000 life-size clay soldiers, chariots and cavalry horses. This guy got his crew started on his burial entourage almost as soon as he became emperor, for heavens' sake.
It was also fascinating to learn that all this had only been discovered in 1974 and by farmers, accidentally at that. And by "all this," I'm referring to the mere 20% that's been excavated. That's a crazy amount left to uncover.
When I finished gawking at death souveniers, I returned to the atrium for music in time to hear Reginald introducing one of their protest songs, "Blues of the People."
"We have a lot going on that's not good in this country right now," he said. "We've got someone in office who's a bobblehead and that's a problem, so I wrote a song about how anyone can be a deplorable."
Preach it, son.
They followed that with a Fela Kuti-sounding song called, "Piece of Resistance" that inspired a couple to get up and dance. Soon another woman joined them and a man with a walker/seat on wheels made his way to the dance floor, too, leaning on it as he danced and twirled.
Acknowledging the upcoming season, the band went into the jazziest, most improv-filled "O Tannenbaum" you ever heard and all of a sudden, there were a couple dozen people up there shaking their groove things to a Christmas standard complete with far-ranging solos.
He dedicated "Ballad for the Masses" to all the people who sit at home while others attend protests and marches before doing another funked up and almost unrecognizable holiday gem, "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town."
The band closed out with "Daybreak," which he said he'd written as a 20-year old while watching a sunset on the beach. I like to think he meant sunrise, but who's going to correct the man orchestrating the entertainment?
For that matter, daybreak is in the bleary eyes of the beholder. Around here, daybreak is whenever I get up.
And that's never in time to catch a 9:50 movie, I can assure you.
Definitely too early. Even so, the only problem with meeting a girlfriend for a movie at 12:10 is that it's hard to have an appetite for buttered popcorn less than an hour and a half after finishing breakfast.
Meeting at 11:45 meant that I didn't get my walk in first, but it was worth it to hear about her trip this week to Pittsburgh: multiple record stores, killer Detroit-style pizza and the contemporary art museum known as the Mattress Factory, which she assured me I'd love.
Best of all, she and her cute husband took the jaunt for no reason other than to escape family turkey day.
When we'd run into each other at the Waxahatchee show on Sunday, we got on the subject of how much we both love movies and how eagerly we both were anticipating Greta Gerwig's directorial debut, "Lady Bird." Naturally when I saw it was at Movieland, I notified her so we could make a date, only to find out she was in Steel City. But only till Thursday, so we made a date for Friday.
She was expecting the theaters to be mobbed and I was expecting them to be dead and the reality was something in between. It was a good-sized crowd heavy on women of all ages for a film that began with a Joan Didion quote: "Anyone who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento."
I've no doubt Joan would know.
From there, it was a coming-of-age story focusing on the non-stop battles between a strong-willed high school senior and her strong-willed Mom who undoubtedly loves her, but never really shows that she likes her. Just what every teen-aged girl doesn't need.
It's also a love letter to Sacramento, which Lady Bird (her chosen name, not her given name) refers to as "the mid-west of California" and can't wait to escape its cloying confines by applying to east coast colleges. Her senior year involves eating communion wafers with her best friend, losing her virginity and waiting for the opportunity to live through something.
Only a 17-year old wishes for the inevitable.
Walking out, my girlfriend's first words were, "I love you, Karen, but I should have brought my Mom to see this with me. I could relate to all that. It was our story." I took no offense and told her that for me, it had no relevance at all to my relationship with my Mom, who had five younger daughters to focus on by the time I got to my last year of high school.
The film was stellar and will undoubtedly get all kinds of deserved Oscar nods, but its greatest strength in my eyes was how true the characters and story rang, a fact I attribute to a woman screenwriter and director. We never felt like we were seeing these women through a man's gaze and that's far too rare in filmmaking.
Meanwhile, today's lunch was pitch-perfect: a leftover turkey sandwich so good it left me wanting another. Fortunately, I didn't have another because I know from experience that's a slippery slope.
Because I got two last minute assignments on Thanksgiving Eve, I briefly considered staying in tonight, but gave into my baser instincts and went to the VMFA where I could hear the Reginald Cyntie Group onstage in the atrium practically the moment I walked in. A big crowd was seated in front of the Maryland quintet (tenor sax, trombone, bass, keys, drums) as they filled that high-ceilinged space with protest songs, African and Caribbean-influenced songs and original jazz.
I only heard a couple of songs before they went on break, giving me a chance to check out the brand new Eakins oil sketch in the American galleries, although it took asking four people before anyone could tell me its location.
Call me persnickety, but if you're going to notify members of a new acquisition, shouldn't you also be able to direct them to it?
And then, because the museum wasn't all that busy - certainly not as crazy as it is on a typical Friday night - I got a ticket and went downstairs to see "Terracotta Army: Legacy of the First Emperor of China" with a small, well-mannered crowd.
I was completely unprepared for learning that when Ying Zheng had been buried, it was with an army of almost 8,000 life-size clay soldiers, chariots and cavalry horses. This guy got his crew started on his burial entourage almost as soon as he became emperor, for heavens' sake.
It was also fascinating to learn that all this had only been discovered in 1974 and by farmers, accidentally at that. And by "all this," I'm referring to the mere 20% that's been excavated. That's a crazy amount left to uncover.
When I finished gawking at death souveniers, I returned to the atrium for music in time to hear Reginald introducing one of their protest songs, "Blues of the People."
"We have a lot going on that's not good in this country right now," he said. "We've got someone in office who's a bobblehead and that's a problem, so I wrote a song about how anyone can be a deplorable."
Preach it, son.
They followed that with a Fela Kuti-sounding song called, "Piece of Resistance" that inspired a couple to get up and dance. Soon another woman joined them and a man with a walker/seat on wheels made his way to the dance floor, too, leaning on it as he danced and twirled.
Acknowledging the upcoming season, the band went into the jazziest, most improv-filled "O Tannenbaum" you ever heard and all of a sudden, there were a couple dozen people up there shaking their groove things to a Christmas standard complete with far-ranging solos.
He dedicated "Ballad for the Masses" to all the people who sit at home while others attend protests and marches before doing another funked up and almost unrecognizable holiday gem, "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town."
The band closed out with "Daybreak," which he said he'd written as a 20-year old while watching a sunset on the beach. I like to think he meant sunrise, but who's going to correct the man orchestrating the entertainment?
For that matter, daybreak is in the bleary eyes of the beholder. Around here, daybreak is whenever I get up.
And that's never in time to catch a 9:50 movie, I can assure you.
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Fashionably Late
When it's your thing, you get to do what you want to do.
That meant my Sunday began with a rarity - hosting lunch at my house, complete with a bouquet of black-eyed Susans in the middle of the dining room table - and a nerdy indulgence: seeing the documentary "Yves Saint Laurent: His Life and Times" at the air conditioned VMFA.
That the near capacity crowd leaned 90% female mattered not to my non-alpha male companion, who, like me, is a documentary dork and was also eager to learn more about the man behind the designer.
Because YSL himself had been interviewed extensively, there were all kinds of intimate revelations, from his longing to be a beatnik (don't we all?) to the fact that his father never acknowledged his son was gay (in the interview with his mother, she says she knew, but her husband traveled a lot for business, so there didn't seem to be any point in telling him).
But the piece-de-resistance had to be the 3-year old Yves telling his great aunt to go change her dress before they went out...and she did. When he was hired as Christian Dior's assistant and his mother was coming to meet Dior, he also had final say on her ensemble.
That's talent the boy was born with.
Unlike a more typical American film, the pace was slow and measured (like YSL himself) with full admissions about his depression and addictions, with plenty of self doubt thrown in.
And always, those fabulous couture collections that he managed to design during two 2-week periods every year. In one outdoor scene, a series of models walk by, each dressed like the epitome of the swingin' modern '60s woman and so very different from the more constrained gender roles of the '50s.
It was a fascinating film that should have sent anyone in the audience who hadn't already seen the YSL exhibit (don't look at me) directly to it.
How is it this person arrived on earth so fully formed in his fashion sense? I was 40 before I had a clue what worked for me fashion-wise - and a lot of bad choices before that - and I'm still playing catch-up in some respects (jeans, scarves, jewelry) even now.
It wasn't hard to wile away the late afternoon or choose a place for an early dinner and when we pulled up to Metzger, who should we see heading in for dinner but one of the couples we'd recently shared a beach house with. Now it was a party.
Despite the shades being down, the sun had positioned itself so that all of the restaurant's windows were taking the brunt of the heat and things heated up as we sipped Anton Bauer Rose and chatted. They'd just come from Sub Rosa and seeing Miramar, which was exactly what we'd done last Sunday.
Small world.
But it was my date's first Metzger outing, so I had to introduce him to the myriad pleasures of it, beginning with Mr. Fine Wine providing the killer vintage soul soundtrack. Looking around to take it all in, he was impressed with a cleaver on the wall and intrigued by the bandoleer of Underberg singles.
The menu had been updated only the day before and maybe that's why the corn soup with crab and speck tasted like the corn had been in the field yesterday. The milky broth was sublime by itself, but in my world, everything's better with with crab and the speck provided a beautiful salty note to contrast with the sweetness of the corn and crab.
Mr. First Timer felt the siren song of a special of pork loin and I encouraged him since Metzger is magic with meat, while I had an heirloom tomato salad (the tops of the slices bruleed for a sweet note) with peaches, tarragon and seeded granola in buttermilk dressing.
In other words, a plate of summer.
Plenty of other familiar faces showed up - the IT whiz and his wife in a cute ticking jump suit, the dancer, the musician, the Italian I hadn't seen in ages - and then our beach friends moved on just as our black forest bombe (cherry ice cream over chocolate cake covered in hard chocolate with brandy cream) arrived.
A dessert so rich we couldn't finish it provided a splendid introduction for the Metzger virgin to the digestif Underberg, so we ordered two of the little single-serve bottles labeled with the promise: "To feel bright and alert" and took our dose of herbal bitters clocking in at 44%.
Those little empty bottles used to be found scattered on the floor during Mr. Fine Wine dance parties, but now that those have stopped, Underberg can be appreciated for its true purpose: settling an overly-full belly after a protracted and indulgent meal.
And while we briefly toyed with the idea of going to a show, it sounded just as appealing to sit on the balcony, listen to Brazil '66 followed by Isaac Hayes and watch heat lightening until the rain arrived.
Because bright and alert is in the eye of the beholders.
That meant my Sunday began with a rarity - hosting lunch at my house, complete with a bouquet of black-eyed Susans in the middle of the dining room table - and a nerdy indulgence: seeing the documentary "Yves Saint Laurent: His Life and Times" at the air conditioned VMFA.
That the near capacity crowd leaned 90% female mattered not to my non-alpha male companion, who, like me, is a documentary dork and was also eager to learn more about the man behind the designer.
Because YSL himself had been interviewed extensively, there were all kinds of intimate revelations, from his longing to be a beatnik (don't we all?) to the fact that his father never acknowledged his son was gay (in the interview with his mother, she says she knew, but her husband traveled a lot for business, so there didn't seem to be any point in telling him).
But the piece-de-resistance had to be the 3-year old Yves telling his great aunt to go change her dress before they went out...and she did. When he was hired as Christian Dior's assistant and his mother was coming to meet Dior, he also had final say on her ensemble.
That's talent the boy was born with.
Unlike a more typical American film, the pace was slow and measured (like YSL himself) with full admissions about his depression and addictions, with plenty of self doubt thrown in.
And always, those fabulous couture collections that he managed to design during two 2-week periods every year. In one outdoor scene, a series of models walk by, each dressed like the epitome of the swingin' modern '60s woman and so very different from the more constrained gender roles of the '50s.
It was a fascinating film that should have sent anyone in the audience who hadn't already seen the YSL exhibit (don't look at me) directly to it.
How is it this person arrived on earth so fully formed in his fashion sense? I was 40 before I had a clue what worked for me fashion-wise - and a lot of bad choices before that - and I'm still playing catch-up in some respects (jeans, scarves, jewelry) even now.
It wasn't hard to wile away the late afternoon or choose a place for an early dinner and when we pulled up to Metzger, who should we see heading in for dinner but one of the couples we'd recently shared a beach house with. Now it was a party.
Despite the shades being down, the sun had positioned itself so that all of the restaurant's windows were taking the brunt of the heat and things heated up as we sipped Anton Bauer Rose and chatted. They'd just come from Sub Rosa and seeing Miramar, which was exactly what we'd done last Sunday.
Small world.
But it was my date's first Metzger outing, so I had to introduce him to the myriad pleasures of it, beginning with Mr. Fine Wine providing the killer vintage soul soundtrack. Looking around to take it all in, he was impressed with a cleaver on the wall and intrigued by the bandoleer of Underberg singles.
The menu had been updated only the day before and maybe that's why the corn soup with crab and speck tasted like the corn had been in the field yesterday. The milky broth was sublime by itself, but in my world, everything's better with with crab and the speck provided a beautiful salty note to contrast with the sweetness of the corn and crab.
Mr. First Timer felt the siren song of a special of pork loin and I encouraged him since Metzger is magic with meat, while I had an heirloom tomato salad (the tops of the slices bruleed for a sweet note) with peaches, tarragon and seeded granola in buttermilk dressing.
In other words, a plate of summer.
Plenty of other familiar faces showed up - the IT whiz and his wife in a cute ticking jump suit, the dancer, the musician, the Italian I hadn't seen in ages - and then our beach friends moved on just as our black forest bombe (cherry ice cream over chocolate cake covered in hard chocolate with brandy cream) arrived.
A dessert so rich we couldn't finish it provided a splendid introduction for the Metzger virgin to the digestif Underberg, so we ordered two of the little single-serve bottles labeled with the promise: "To feel bright and alert" and took our dose of herbal bitters clocking in at 44%.
Those little empty bottles used to be found scattered on the floor during Mr. Fine Wine dance parties, but now that those have stopped, Underberg can be appreciated for its true purpose: settling an overly-full belly after a protracted and indulgent meal.
And while we briefly toyed with the idea of going to a show, it sounded just as appealing to sit on the balcony, listen to Brazil '66 followed by Isaac Hayes and watch heat lightening until the rain arrived.
Because bright and alert is in the eye of the beholders.
Friday, April 14, 2017
Hi-Ho From the Starship Bridge
Gemini, pace yourself, as you have a lot to do. You might feel as if something is bothering you on a subconscious level, which could be driving you much more than you are aware. Your anger is close to the surface.
And when my anger is closest to the surface, I seek out friends who make me laugh. Tonight, that was Pru and Beau as we headed to the VMFA for the James River Film Fest's final screening of "Truffaut Hitchcock," the kind of film that causes film nerds (and, as it turns out, people of a certain age) to congregate.
I was necessarily being collected at an early hour because of my refusal to conform. When Beau and I conferred about tonight's longstanding plans, I insisted on a slightly earlier time because I needed to pick up my ticket at the member services desk before the documentary.
They, on the other hand, had printed their tickets at home. Not my style.
A ticket, a real ticket, is a souvenir of an experience. I have tickets going back to the '70s that remind me of shows and plays, but it's also the retro aspect that keeps me from printing out a ticket. Mainly, it's the fact that I don't want my entire life standardized and printed on 8 1/2 by 11" sheets of paper.
We'll just call it a quality of life issue.
Heading to the museum, we immediately dove head first into a discussion about the difficulties of living with someone after becoming accustomed to living alone. Pru was the first to admit that her eccentricities have been showing, while Beau politely reminded her that everyone involved was already well aware of them.
Mine continue to come to light the more often I invite friends to stop by.
"Truffaut Hitchcock" turned out to be a cinema buff's movie, a film about film-making, one that covered Hitch's emphasis on style, how he was responsible for the "auteur" philosophy - that a director controls the artistic statement - with his ability to "write" with the camera and how he believed that logic was dull.
Tell me about it.
In addition to Truffaut and Hitchcock's conversation, so many good directors testified: Richard Linklater, Martin Scorcese, Peter Bogdanovich and Paul Schrader, among others,expounded on subjects such as how perverted "Vertigo" is (very), how Hitch deliberately made movies that played to 2,000 people, not just one and how "Psycho" was the first movie clearly drawn from the real world, so all the more disturbing for it.
One particularly satisfying takeaway is that cinema is a visual art form firmly rooted in silent films, so the long takes and leisurely pans that today unnerve and bore millennials actually make sense when referencing earlier eras. As one of our hosts pointed out, today's films have a climax every two minutes.
I don't know about you, but I find that climaxing pace exhausting. At the very least, give me a refractory period before tossing out any more expectations.
The film left us absolutely certain of Hitch's genius, but also of Truffaut's recognition of that fact, despite his relative youth. Some men catch on more quickly than others, that's all I'm going to say.
From the museum we headed to Secco for a post-film supper among the West End types that Beau pegged as being in the wrong part of town ("She's got to get home to the Barbie Dream House," Pru quipped of a stylishly-cut blond in white shoes and pricey-looking togs) whom we ignored.
Instead, we savored a bottle of Cherrier Sancerre Rose and not even two weeks after the last time we'd had grilled asparagus with breaded fried egg, oops, Pru and I had it again. Twice. There was my smoked fish brushetta with creme fraiche (tasting like pure Sweden), a special of gnocchi with oxtail (decadent and homey simultaneously) and Beau's creative entree of fried lentil pakora with artichoke, mushroom and cashew ricotta (a master class for its marriage of flavors and contrasting textures), all of which returned to the kitchen licked clean.
Because Pru and Beau once lived across the hall from each other, they keep bringing up memories I couldn't even imagine.
"Remember back in the '80s when you and Robert used to have depressing parties?" Pru asked, recalling soirees where the men smoked pipes and mulled, the music was the "Blade Runner" soundtrack and Beau turned his living room into a starship bridge ("Of course you did," Pru sniffed), whatever that might be.
Pardon my optimism, but I can imagine nothing less appealing than heading to a depressing party, although fortunately, I hadn't been invited. Or maybe I would turn it into an upbeat party and ask for dancing instead of depression.
Our final stop was Can Can for dessert, although our mistake had been in forgetting that they had an absinthe drip or we'd have headed there directly. Despite the late hour, our barkeep happily delivered chocolate fudge pudding cakes and three absinthe drips: two made with Trinity and one old school style, made from Grand Absinthe.
My only complaint was that he didn't do the drips in front of us for the pleasure that affords.
Extolling the sublime marriage of absinthe and chocolate, he became the enabler who fueled our last few hours, including procuring a baguette for the happy couple. Inexplicably, the baguettes we'd seen lolling in a basket behind the bar earlier were tossed when the kitchen closed, despite customers who wanted to purchase them. Go figure.
Appreciating the need to pace myself, I shared my second absinthe drip with Pru as the bar began to empty out and I ignored a restaurant owner leering from a nearby stool as he sipped a glass of red wine. Had ours been a depressing party, I might have asked him to join us. I didn't.
I'm pacing myself so my eccentricities don't show any more than they have to. I've been warned I have a lot to do.
Color me ready to do it.
And when my anger is closest to the surface, I seek out friends who make me laugh. Tonight, that was Pru and Beau as we headed to the VMFA for the James River Film Fest's final screening of "Truffaut Hitchcock," the kind of film that causes film nerds (and, as it turns out, people of a certain age) to congregate.
I was necessarily being collected at an early hour because of my refusal to conform. When Beau and I conferred about tonight's longstanding plans, I insisted on a slightly earlier time because I needed to pick up my ticket at the member services desk before the documentary.
They, on the other hand, had printed their tickets at home. Not my style.
A ticket, a real ticket, is a souvenir of an experience. I have tickets going back to the '70s that remind me of shows and plays, but it's also the retro aspect that keeps me from printing out a ticket. Mainly, it's the fact that I don't want my entire life standardized and printed on 8 1/2 by 11" sheets of paper.
We'll just call it a quality of life issue.
Heading to the museum, we immediately dove head first into a discussion about the difficulties of living with someone after becoming accustomed to living alone. Pru was the first to admit that her eccentricities have been showing, while Beau politely reminded her that everyone involved was already well aware of them.
Mine continue to come to light the more often I invite friends to stop by.
"Truffaut Hitchcock" turned out to be a cinema buff's movie, a film about film-making, one that covered Hitch's emphasis on style, how he was responsible for the "auteur" philosophy - that a director controls the artistic statement - with his ability to "write" with the camera and how he believed that logic was dull.
Tell me about it.
In addition to Truffaut and Hitchcock's conversation, so many good directors testified: Richard Linklater, Martin Scorcese, Peter Bogdanovich and Paul Schrader, among others,expounded on subjects such as how perverted "Vertigo" is (very), how Hitch deliberately made movies that played to 2,000 people, not just one and how "Psycho" was the first movie clearly drawn from the real world, so all the more disturbing for it.
One particularly satisfying takeaway is that cinema is a visual art form firmly rooted in silent films, so the long takes and leisurely pans that today unnerve and bore millennials actually make sense when referencing earlier eras. As one of our hosts pointed out, today's films have a climax every two minutes.
I don't know about you, but I find that climaxing pace exhausting. At the very least, give me a refractory period before tossing out any more expectations.
The film left us absolutely certain of Hitch's genius, but also of Truffaut's recognition of that fact, despite his relative youth. Some men catch on more quickly than others, that's all I'm going to say.
From the museum we headed to Secco for a post-film supper among the West End types that Beau pegged as being in the wrong part of town ("She's got to get home to the Barbie Dream House," Pru quipped of a stylishly-cut blond in white shoes and pricey-looking togs) whom we ignored.
Instead, we savored a bottle of Cherrier Sancerre Rose and not even two weeks after the last time we'd had grilled asparagus with breaded fried egg, oops, Pru and I had it again. Twice. There was my smoked fish brushetta with creme fraiche (tasting like pure Sweden), a special of gnocchi with oxtail (decadent and homey simultaneously) and Beau's creative entree of fried lentil pakora with artichoke, mushroom and cashew ricotta (a master class for its marriage of flavors and contrasting textures), all of which returned to the kitchen licked clean.
Because Pru and Beau once lived across the hall from each other, they keep bringing up memories I couldn't even imagine.
"Remember back in the '80s when you and Robert used to have depressing parties?" Pru asked, recalling soirees where the men smoked pipes and mulled, the music was the "Blade Runner" soundtrack and Beau turned his living room into a starship bridge ("Of course you did," Pru sniffed), whatever that might be.
Pardon my optimism, but I can imagine nothing less appealing than heading to a depressing party, although fortunately, I hadn't been invited. Or maybe I would turn it into an upbeat party and ask for dancing instead of depression.
Our final stop was Can Can for dessert, although our mistake had been in forgetting that they had an absinthe drip or we'd have headed there directly. Despite the late hour, our barkeep happily delivered chocolate fudge pudding cakes and three absinthe drips: two made with Trinity and one old school style, made from Grand Absinthe.
My only complaint was that he didn't do the drips in front of us for the pleasure that affords.
Extolling the sublime marriage of absinthe and chocolate, he became the enabler who fueled our last few hours, including procuring a baguette for the happy couple. Inexplicably, the baguettes we'd seen lolling in a basket behind the bar earlier were tossed when the kitchen closed, despite customers who wanted to purchase them. Go figure.
Appreciating the need to pace myself, I shared my second absinthe drip with Pru as the bar began to empty out and I ignored a restaurant owner leering from a nearby stool as he sipped a glass of red wine. Had ours been a depressing party, I might have asked him to join us. I didn't.
I'm pacing myself so my eccentricities don't show any more than they have to. I've been warned I have a lot to do.
Color me ready to do it.
Saturday, February 25, 2017
All Power to the People
I'm no longer accepting the things I cannot change...I'm changing the things I cannot accept.~ Angela Davis
When Afrikana Film Fest put tickets for Angela Davis' Evening with an Icon appearance on sale, I was second in line to get mine. No surprise, it sold out in a hot minute, so they added tickets for a separate viewing room. That sold out even faster.
Doors were scheduled to open at 7 tonight for the main event and when I arrived at the VMFA at 6:20, the line was already through the atrium and almost back to the Best Cafe.
Luckily, I'd brought a book.
Once we finally made it into the auditorium, I snagged a seat in the fifth row to watch the slide show of photographs from past Afrikana events, spotting myself in four different pictures.
I am nothing if not a creature of habit.
As hordes of later arrivals streamed in, it wasn't long before the seat next to me was appropriated by a woman who promptly introduced herself as Sharon from New Jersey.
Turns out she'd come to Richmond for the same reason I had: a move for her husband's job. Like me, when the marriage ended, she stayed in Richmond and he'd moved away. We were instant friends united in our excitement over seeing Angela Davis tonight.
Things kicked off with the VMFA's photography curator showing us 3 recent photo acquisitions by Stephen Shames, two of Angela in the '70s and one of a young boy in an Angela Davis t-shirt around the same time. All are part of the museum's concerted effort to acquire a significant collection of Civil Rights era photography.
Next came the 2013 documentary, "Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners," a brilliant means of bringing everyone at the event up to speed on why this woman is such a key figure in American history.
Only tonight did I learn that she'd been hired as a philosophy professor at UCLA and that her first lecture on the philosophy of Frederick Douglass had attracted 2,000 attendees. That Governor Ronald Reagan wanted her barred from teaching at any California university.
The archival footage - of protests, her lectures, her trial and press conferences - gave a bird's eye view of so much of what was happening to her back then.
All of which, I might add, she did with both a magnificent Afro and mini-skirts and without a bra. Ah, the '70s.
But of course, the real magic happened when her name was announced and she walked out to a standing ovation. The funny part was, she sat down onstage before the woman introducing her could read her bio, so Davis walked back offstage so she could read it, occasionally hovering within view of the adoring crowd until resuming her seat.
And while she still has the Afro, tonight it was pants not a mini-skirt. That said, the woman doesn't look all that different at 73 than she did at 33.
From there, the moderator would toss out topics and Davis would address the question, take tangents, drop pearls of wisdom and ruminate on the past, present and future.
Asked about what young people should be doing today, she said it was awkward telling people what to do. "We didn't ask our elders what to do," she said. "We wanted to find our own way because we were more in touch with what was going on in those days than our elders were."
Now that would be an interesting topic to take up. Is that still the case today?
"Students are always at the forefront of revolutionary activity and we have to encourage that!"
A fair amount of time was given over to the current political clime, with Davis referencing "the day before the Women's March...or Inauguration day, if you care to refer to it that way."
Of Trump she lamented, "This is the future we really dreaded. It's turning the clock back. Make America great again means make America a white supremacy again, that's what it's code for."
She saw Islamic-phobia as being built on centuries of black oppression and said we should be worried about any group 45 is marginalizing.
"We have to resist and prevent Donald Trump's Project from reaching realization because on that depends the future of the country." Can I get an amen?
There was much to hear her opinions on: the crisis in the prison system, global capitalism and its effects on jobs in this country and the role of global feminism, a subject for which she stood to speak. There she mined Hillary's "glass ceiling" metaphor, reminding us that it means a woman is already at the top if she's near shattering it.
"No movement happens without women, " Davis reminded the mostly female crowd, "Women do all the work because they're the organizers." Truth.
She told all the men in the room to stand and applaud the women for the work that we do. Some looked sheepish about it, others enthusiastic.
Saying she was no expert on anything since she'd been fired from her first job at UCLA ("By Ronald Reagan!"), she said, "One of the great things about longevity is you get to ride the shifts in history."
That was a reference to going back to UCLA (who now use posters of her as a selling point for the school) only to hear the university board give their interpretation of the '70s firing which in no way lined up with hers.
At least she can laugh about it now.
For the final question, she was asked about where we go from here.
"Everyone has to embrace something they can passionately engage in and not just right now. How can we create sustainable activism?"
Personally, I was thinking a large swath of American idiots just elected the most motivating force impossible for activism and community engagement, but Angela sees the bigger picture.
"Imagining the future involves doing activist work for a very long time. It requires a commitment to social justice," she said toward the end. "Donald Trump will be just a drop in the bucket."
A woman's place is in the struggle. How lucky I was to hear it from the horse's mouth.
When Afrikana Film Fest put tickets for Angela Davis' Evening with an Icon appearance on sale, I was second in line to get mine. No surprise, it sold out in a hot minute, so they added tickets for a separate viewing room. That sold out even faster.
Doors were scheduled to open at 7 tonight for the main event and when I arrived at the VMFA at 6:20, the line was already through the atrium and almost back to the Best Cafe.
Luckily, I'd brought a book.
Once we finally made it into the auditorium, I snagged a seat in the fifth row to watch the slide show of photographs from past Afrikana events, spotting myself in four different pictures.
I am nothing if not a creature of habit.
As hordes of later arrivals streamed in, it wasn't long before the seat next to me was appropriated by a woman who promptly introduced herself as Sharon from New Jersey.
Turns out she'd come to Richmond for the same reason I had: a move for her husband's job. Like me, when the marriage ended, she stayed in Richmond and he'd moved away. We were instant friends united in our excitement over seeing Angela Davis tonight.
Things kicked off with the VMFA's photography curator showing us 3 recent photo acquisitions by Stephen Shames, two of Angela in the '70s and one of a young boy in an Angela Davis t-shirt around the same time. All are part of the museum's concerted effort to acquire a significant collection of Civil Rights era photography.
Next came the 2013 documentary, "Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners," a brilliant means of bringing everyone at the event up to speed on why this woman is such a key figure in American history.
Only tonight did I learn that she'd been hired as a philosophy professor at UCLA and that her first lecture on the philosophy of Frederick Douglass had attracted 2,000 attendees. That Governor Ronald Reagan wanted her barred from teaching at any California university.
The archival footage - of protests, her lectures, her trial and press conferences - gave a bird's eye view of so much of what was happening to her back then.
All of which, I might add, she did with both a magnificent Afro and mini-skirts and without a bra. Ah, the '70s.
But of course, the real magic happened when her name was announced and she walked out to a standing ovation. The funny part was, she sat down onstage before the woman introducing her could read her bio, so Davis walked back offstage so she could read it, occasionally hovering within view of the adoring crowd until resuming her seat.
And while she still has the Afro, tonight it was pants not a mini-skirt. That said, the woman doesn't look all that different at 73 than she did at 33.
From there, the moderator would toss out topics and Davis would address the question, take tangents, drop pearls of wisdom and ruminate on the past, present and future.
Asked about what young people should be doing today, she said it was awkward telling people what to do. "We didn't ask our elders what to do," she said. "We wanted to find our own way because we were more in touch with what was going on in those days than our elders were."
Now that would be an interesting topic to take up. Is that still the case today?
"Students are always at the forefront of revolutionary activity and we have to encourage that!"
A fair amount of time was given over to the current political clime, with Davis referencing "the day before the Women's March...or Inauguration day, if you care to refer to it that way."
Of Trump she lamented, "This is the future we really dreaded. It's turning the clock back. Make America great again means make America a white supremacy again, that's what it's code for."
She saw Islamic-phobia as being built on centuries of black oppression and said we should be worried about any group 45 is marginalizing.
"We have to resist and prevent Donald Trump's Project from reaching realization because on that depends the future of the country." Can I get an amen?
There was much to hear her opinions on: the crisis in the prison system, global capitalism and its effects on jobs in this country and the role of global feminism, a subject for which she stood to speak. There she mined Hillary's "glass ceiling" metaphor, reminding us that it means a woman is already at the top if she's near shattering it.
"No movement happens without women, " Davis reminded the mostly female crowd, "Women do all the work because they're the organizers." Truth.
She told all the men in the room to stand and applaud the women for the work that we do. Some looked sheepish about it, others enthusiastic.
Saying she was no expert on anything since she'd been fired from her first job at UCLA ("By Ronald Reagan!"), she said, "One of the great things about longevity is you get to ride the shifts in history."
That was a reference to going back to UCLA (who now use posters of her as a selling point for the school) only to hear the university board give their interpretation of the '70s firing which in no way lined up with hers.
At least she can laugh about it now.
For the final question, she was asked about where we go from here.
"Everyone has to embrace something they can passionately engage in and not just right now. How can we create sustainable activism?"
Personally, I was thinking a large swath of American idiots just elected the most motivating force impossible for activism and community engagement, but Angela sees the bigger picture.
"Imagining the future involves doing activist work for a very long time. It requires a commitment to social justice," she said toward the end. "Donald Trump will be just a drop in the bucket."
A woman's place is in the struggle. How lucky I was to hear it from the horse's mouth.
Friday, February 17, 2017
Put on Your Readers
These things are happening and this is the medium I use.
That about sums up Richmond-born photographer Leroy Henderson's explanation for why he's spent over 40 years taking pictures of the world around him, a philosophy he didn't share with the crowd at the VMFA until almost the end of his talk tonight.
Waiting for the talk to begin, I noticed a woman across the aisle shooting pictures with a disposable camera. Just as my brain was registering how long it had been since I'd last seen one, the two young photographers behind me picked up the thread.
Check it out, she's using a disposable camera.
That's funny, I was looking online for disposable cameras, but they're running like 5 or 10 dollars each. That's crazy!
What's wrong with that? Sounds about right. Where can you get them any cheaper?
Are you kidding? At thrift stores in Pennsylvania, they're going for 2 or 3 dollars.
First they appropriated old Polaroid cameras and now, apparently, they're into disposables. These kids today.
Leroy's first camera had been a Brownie Hawkeye (which I knew of only because my Grandmother had had one), followed by a small bellows camera he'd sit on the piano just so he could admire it. I was amazed to hear that when he went in the army, he was allowed to carry his camera ("I had a very progressive first sergeant") and took pictures of his fellow soldiers cleaning their guns and drilling.
But we didn't see any of those photographs tonight, instead focusing on his work from the 60s, 70s and 80s, all in black and white, before a brief foray into color work from 2016.
It's striking to look at images such as his from the '60s and '70s because the world they captured looks so quaint and old-fashioned.
A black waiter in a white uniform serves a white family in a train's dining car. A young black boy sits in front of a poster of old white guys: Nixon, Humphrey, Rockefeller, McCarthy, Reagan and George Wallace. Multiple images of immaculately-dressed children navigating muddy Resurrection City on the Mall during the Poor People's Campaign in '68.
When a photograph of a young black ballet student standing in front of a bas relief at the Brooklyn Music School came up, Leroy said that photo had been very good to him, meaning he had sold a limited run of it. One of his customers had been Oprah, who had asked for a 10% discount.
Some people got a lot of nerve, that's all I'll say about that.
A 1973 shot of a family strolling through Central Park showed a shirtless Dad, Mom in short shorts ("Some of you all might not know, but those are hot pants," he explained) and two naked children, both with shoes and socks on.
But what had caught his eye and tickled his fancy was that the toddler girl had a purse hanging on her naked shoulder.
Lots of famous faces showed up, too. An older Rosa Parks looking at a poster of Malcolm X at the Black Political Convention in Indiana in '72. A hip-looking young Jesse Jackson in MLK medallion, bell bottoms and vest. Muhammed Ali with the Jackson 5 ("To Ali's right, that's Michael, back when he was still black"). Angela Davis at a rally in '75 just after she'd been taken off the FBI's Most Wanted List, speaking behind bulletproof screens.
The photographs taken last year in color were jarring, as much because everything else had been black and white as because they'd been shot at anti-Trump rallies during the campaign, making for a vivid reminder of how early the resistance began.
Because there were so many great photographs to see and stories to share with the crowd, the talk ran long, but no one was going anywhere as long as this talented, humorous and insightful man was talking.
The last part of the evening was dedicated to him sharing how touched he was by the VMFA's attention to his body of work.
Earlier, the VMFA's director had said the museum is dedicated to correcting the fact that Leroy has never been given proper credit for his place in the annals of American 20th century photography.
Seems they've not only bought many of his photographs, but are determined to amass the best Civil Rights photo collection in the country. Could our museum be any cooler?
Leroy said he was impressed that so many interested people had come out to hear his talk tonight, but mainly that he'd been lucky enough to do what he loved for so long.
When I interviewed him a few years ago, the renaissance of interest in his work had only recently begun, but even then, his sunny attitude about life oozed gratitude for how life had turned out for a Richmond boy possessing a way with a camera.
Afterward, I wasn't the only one who headed upstairs to the photography gallery to take in the just-opened exhibit, "A Commitment to Community: The Black Photographers Annual Volume 1," which included several of Leroy's pieces but also pretty much laid out the compelling state of black photography circa 1973.
One showed a trio of cops at a protest rally who'd been pushing the crowd - including Leroy- from behind with nightsticks. He whipped around and caught the unpleasant looks on their face, nightsticks pointed, at close range.
A masterful move, but he he also acknowledged that it would be too risky a thing for a black man to do in 2017. But photography is Leroy's medium.
During the 8+ years I've been writing this blog, I can't count the number of times someone has suggested I add photos to it. I'm not sure if they get tired of reading all my verbiage (there's a reason this blog is called what it is) or just prefer illustrated tomes, but it's nothing I'd ever consider.
I'm just going to quote the most talented photographer who ever wanted to take my picture and leave it at that.
These things are happening and this is the medium I use.
That about sums up Richmond-born photographer Leroy Henderson's explanation for why he's spent over 40 years taking pictures of the world around him, a philosophy he didn't share with the crowd at the VMFA until almost the end of his talk tonight.
Waiting for the talk to begin, I noticed a woman across the aisle shooting pictures with a disposable camera. Just as my brain was registering how long it had been since I'd last seen one, the two young photographers behind me picked up the thread.
Check it out, she's using a disposable camera.
That's funny, I was looking online for disposable cameras, but they're running like 5 or 10 dollars each. That's crazy!
What's wrong with that? Sounds about right. Where can you get them any cheaper?
Are you kidding? At thrift stores in Pennsylvania, they're going for 2 or 3 dollars.
First they appropriated old Polaroid cameras and now, apparently, they're into disposables. These kids today.
Leroy's first camera had been a Brownie Hawkeye (which I knew of only because my Grandmother had had one), followed by a small bellows camera he'd sit on the piano just so he could admire it. I was amazed to hear that when he went in the army, he was allowed to carry his camera ("I had a very progressive first sergeant") and took pictures of his fellow soldiers cleaning their guns and drilling.
But we didn't see any of those photographs tonight, instead focusing on his work from the 60s, 70s and 80s, all in black and white, before a brief foray into color work from 2016.
It's striking to look at images such as his from the '60s and '70s because the world they captured looks so quaint and old-fashioned.
A black waiter in a white uniform serves a white family in a train's dining car. A young black boy sits in front of a poster of old white guys: Nixon, Humphrey, Rockefeller, McCarthy, Reagan and George Wallace. Multiple images of immaculately-dressed children navigating muddy Resurrection City on the Mall during the Poor People's Campaign in '68.
When a photograph of a young black ballet student standing in front of a bas relief at the Brooklyn Music School came up, Leroy said that photo had been very good to him, meaning he had sold a limited run of it. One of his customers had been Oprah, who had asked for a 10% discount.
Some people got a lot of nerve, that's all I'll say about that.
A 1973 shot of a family strolling through Central Park showed a shirtless Dad, Mom in short shorts ("Some of you all might not know, but those are hot pants," he explained) and two naked children, both with shoes and socks on.
But what had caught his eye and tickled his fancy was that the toddler girl had a purse hanging on her naked shoulder.
Lots of famous faces showed up, too. An older Rosa Parks looking at a poster of Malcolm X at the Black Political Convention in Indiana in '72. A hip-looking young Jesse Jackson in MLK medallion, bell bottoms and vest. Muhammed Ali with the Jackson 5 ("To Ali's right, that's Michael, back when he was still black"). Angela Davis at a rally in '75 just after she'd been taken off the FBI's Most Wanted List, speaking behind bulletproof screens.
The photographs taken last year in color were jarring, as much because everything else had been black and white as because they'd been shot at anti-Trump rallies during the campaign, making for a vivid reminder of how early the resistance began.
Because there were so many great photographs to see and stories to share with the crowd, the talk ran long, but no one was going anywhere as long as this talented, humorous and insightful man was talking.
The last part of the evening was dedicated to him sharing how touched he was by the VMFA's attention to his body of work.
Earlier, the VMFA's director had said the museum is dedicated to correcting the fact that Leroy has never been given proper credit for his place in the annals of American 20th century photography.
Seems they've not only bought many of his photographs, but are determined to amass the best Civil Rights photo collection in the country. Could our museum be any cooler?
Leroy said he was impressed that so many interested people had come out to hear his talk tonight, but mainly that he'd been lucky enough to do what he loved for so long.
When I interviewed him a few years ago, the renaissance of interest in his work had only recently begun, but even then, his sunny attitude about life oozed gratitude for how life had turned out for a Richmond boy possessing a way with a camera.
Afterward, I wasn't the only one who headed upstairs to the photography gallery to take in the just-opened exhibit, "A Commitment to Community: The Black Photographers Annual Volume 1," which included several of Leroy's pieces but also pretty much laid out the compelling state of black photography circa 1973.
One showed a trio of cops at a protest rally who'd been pushing the crowd - including Leroy- from behind with nightsticks. He whipped around and caught the unpleasant looks on their face, nightsticks pointed, at close range.
A masterful move, but he he also acknowledged that it would be too risky a thing for a black man to do in 2017. But photography is Leroy's medium.
During the 8+ years I've been writing this blog, I can't count the number of times someone has suggested I add photos to it. I'm not sure if they get tired of reading all my verbiage (there's a reason this blog is called what it is) or just prefer illustrated tomes, but it's nothing I'd ever consider.
I'm just going to quote the most talented photographer who ever wanted to take my picture and leave it at that.
These things are happening and this is the medium I use.
Saturday, November 19, 2016
Old Dreams and New Dreams
I know you well enough that I'm certain you spent as much time as you could outside enjoying the beautiful November afternoon.
You'd better believe I did. The Barrister knew of whom he spoke.
In fact, I'd gotten up around 10:15 and been out the door, fed and ready to walk, by 11:15, which worked out nicely since I had plans to meet a friend at the VMFA at noon and it was a glorious morning to cover the distance on foot.
Yes, I'm shallow enough to be thrilled that we're the only U.S. destination for the "Jasper Johns and Edvard Munch: Love, Loss and the Cycle of Life" show and no, I didn't know nearly enough about either artist before today's most instructive and larger than expected exhibition.
Even so, it wasn't difficult to recognize the same walkway from Munch's "The Scream" in his "Despair" painting (there was also "Angst," surprising neither of us), although I was amazed to read that there had been a major Munch retrospective at the National Gallery in 1979 and I have no memory of such a thing or why I wouldn't have gone to it.
The show, tying together Munch's incalculable influence on Johns both directly and indirectly, read like a who's who of the creative set of the era.
One of John's 1965 pieces had a Frank O'Hara poem written on it - Sputnik is only the word for travel companion here on earth - and he was friends with composer John Cage and dancer Merce Cunningham.
His 1963 "Hatteras," with an arm print at the top, referenced the Hart Crane poem "Hatteras" and the writer's untimely death when he jumped off a ship, his arm sticking up briefly before drowning.
There was so much good high artistic drama back in those days, none of this namby-pamby Instagramming and tweeting by celebrities instead of doing something that better demonstrates their tortured souls than showing off or whining. That said, there were also several "selfies" taken by Munch that surprised us both.
My artist friend and I were far from the only attendees discussing everything we saw, although occasionally we got off topic.
Her: So he got that out of his system.
Me: Yep, worked through it and moved on.
Her: Like any good relationship...
Everything comes back to relationships. Follow me around for a day and I'll prove it.
Easily one of the most unlikely pieces in the exhibit was Johns' summer bedspread from the early 20th century, notable for its cross-hatched pattern, seen in so many of the show's paintings. Where it got eerie was seeing Munch's 1940 "Self Portrait Between Clock and Bed," because the bedspread in the picture was identical to Johns' real one.
Utility imitating art.
When we finally reached the last gallery, my friend inquired, "Are they going to have a nihilistic gift shop when we leave here?"
Nope, but by then it was lunch time, so who cared?
Amuse was almost completely full at mid-afternoon, but welcomed us to its bar for the soda of the day (strawberry vanilla), mussels and ham in butter, garlic, Parmesan and white wine broth and a special of salmon over pink-eyed peas for my friend while we compared notes on the past few weeks.
In no particular order, we covered upcoming road trips (her husband's and ours), relationships based on sex, post-election online baiting and the work of gray hallways, eventually choosing the wrong chocolate dessert even if it had a magnificent lemon curd to recommend it.
Because she's the best kind of friend, before we parted ways, she gave me a jar full of seashells she'd collected for me in September at the Outer Banks knowing they were just my style, so I walked the nearly three miles home reveling in this incredible weather and shaking a Mason jar of small purple shells.
I'd have recited the words to Crane's "Hatteras" as I walked if I'd known them, but, alas.
By the time Barr came to collect me, I'd used every scrap of sunshine and warm air available, fulfilling his prediction while leaving me resigned to a cooler evening that began at Sabai with Moo Sam Chan (because somebody was unable to resist the siren song of crispy pork belly) and Pad Broccoli (so our arteries didn't close up mid-meal or music) and managed to be in and out in just over an hour.
The parking lots near UR's Modlin Center were mobbed with cars in a way I hadn't seen since Chuck D. came to speak at the Alumni Center and we both knew it couldn't be solely because of the Steep Canyon Rangers show we were attending (although it was sold out). Turns out the problem was simultaneous shows tonight.
I'll admit, Steep Canyon Rangers was only a name I'd heard but knew nothing about beyond that they were a young North Carolina bluegrass band before Barr's invitation. So when they came out - upright bass, acoustic guitar, fiddle, mandolin, banjo and, yes, drums - we were both a bit surprised.
There's no percussion in bluegrass, right?
Except there is when you're talking about a group of musicians who use bluegrass instrumentation but allow the music to encompass whatever they like, whether rock, folk, jazz, Americana or a sample of the "Jeopardy" theme, among other snippets sampled by the fabulous fiddle player.
When they first walked out, banjo player Graham - he of the unexpectedly deep voice - had to bow his knees to lower himself to the microphone before raising it as he sang, saying, "It's our first show here," and smiling sheepishly. The mic immediately slid back down and he tightened it yet again.
As they began their energetic set, I couldn't help but secretly hope that these guys in narrow-legged suits were as nerdy as they appeared.
Mike shredded his mandolin like nothing I'd ever seen, each musician had lengthy solos like jazz (and the annoying attendant applause) and they about wiped up the stage when they did the title song from their new album, "Radio."
Doing what they referred to as "an old tune," they broke it down to four-part harmony with occasional additions of guitar, mandolin and banjo, a gorgeous thing to hear.
It was especially satisfying when, say the fiddle and mandolin would get into a pissing match trying to outdo each other, then the banjo would jump in and before long it resembled nothing so much as a big grass-tinged post-rock soundscape, absent vocals and soaring through Booker Hall in a completely un-bluegrass like way.
"Thanks you for having us, Richmond," they said. "We could be persuaded to come back."
I'm willing to bet that no one in the room wouldn't be willing to do the same after experiencing a band forged by bluegrass yet completely open to every genre and interpretation performed by guys with solid musical chops and unbridled youthful enthusiasm.
Despite barely over a month of friendship, the Barrister had done himself proud by choosing a stellar night of unexpected music for us to wind down Friday with.
Except, of course, you don't end a superior sunny November day with just music, you end it with conversation at Rapp Session with wine (a killer Chateau du Coing Chardonnay) and smoked bluefish dip studded with red onion and celery, smeared on Saltines.
I have been eating bluefish practically since birth and I expect I'll go out eating it.
That way, there's time to discuss violin versus fiddle, possible hiking destinations (as usual, I made a case for local trails), where to find the best selection of East Coast oysters and how our mothers managed to mangle most of the foods they cooked when we were children.
As tends to be the way when we get together, we covered the important topics: love, loss and the cycle of life, minus the Sputnik references.
The only way to know someone well enough to predict their behavior is to spend a satisfying amount of each evening together exchanging pertinent opinions and back stories.
Or figure out early on they're a sucker for sunshine and roll with it. I can be so obvious about some things...
You'd better believe I did. The Barrister knew of whom he spoke.
In fact, I'd gotten up around 10:15 and been out the door, fed and ready to walk, by 11:15, which worked out nicely since I had plans to meet a friend at the VMFA at noon and it was a glorious morning to cover the distance on foot.
Yes, I'm shallow enough to be thrilled that we're the only U.S. destination for the "Jasper Johns and Edvard Munch: Love, Loss and the Cycle of Life" show and no, I didn't know nearly enough about either artist before today's most instructive and larger than expected exhibition.
Even so, it wasn't difficult to recognize the same walkway from Munch's "The Scream" in his "Despair" painting (there was also "Angst," surprising neither of us), although I was amazed to read that there had been a major Munch retrospective at the National Gallery in 1979 and I have no memory of such a thing or why I wouldn't have gone to it.
The show, tying together Munch's incalculable influence on Johns both directly and indirectly, read like a who's who of the creative set of the era.
One of John's 1965 pieces had a Frank O'Hara poem written on it - Sputnik is only the word for travel companion here on earth - and he was friends with composer John Cage and dancer Merce Cunningham.
His 1963 "Hatteras," with an arm print at the top, referenced the Hart Crane poem "Hatteras" and the writer's untimely death when he jumped off a ship, his arm sticking up briefly before drowning.
There was so much good high artistic drama back in those days, none of this namby-pamby Instagramming and tweeting by celebrities instead of doing something that better demonstrates their tortured souls than showing off or whining. That said, there were also several "selfies" taken by Munch that surprised us both.
My artist friend and I were far from the only attendees discussing everything we saw, although occasionally we got off topic.
Her: So he got that out of his system.
Me: Yep, worked through it and moved on.
Her: Like any good relationship...
Everything comes back to relationships. Follow me around for a day and I'll prove it.
Easily one of the most unlikely pieces in the exhibit was Johns' summer bedspread from the early 20th century, notable for its cross-hatched pattern, seen in so many of the show's paintings. Where it got eerie was seeing Munch's 1940 "Self Portrait Between Clock and Bed," because the bedspread in the picture was identical to Johns' real one.
Utility imitating art.
When we finally reached the last gallery, my friend inquired, "Are they going to have a nihilistic gift shop when we leave here?"
Nope, but by then it was lunch time, so who cared?
Amuse was almost completely full at mid-afternoon, but welcomed us to its bar for the soda of the day (strawberry vanilla), mussels and ham in butter, garlic, Parmesan and white wine broth and a special of salmon over pink-eyed peas for my friend while we compared notes on the past few weeks.
In no particular order, we covered upcoming road trips (her husband's and ours), relationships based on sex, post-election online baiting and the work of gray hallways, eventually choosing the wrong chocolate dessert even if it had a magnificent lemon curd to recommend it.
Because she's the best kind of friend, before we parted ways, she gave me a jar full of seashells she'd collected for me in September at the Outer Banks knowing they were just my style, so I walked the nearly three miles home reveling in this incredible weather and shaking a Mason jar of small purple shells.
I'd have recited the words to Crane's "Hatteras" as I walked if I'd known them, but, alas.
By the time Barr came to collect me, I'd used every scrap of sunshine and warm air available, fulfilling his prediction while leaving me resigned to a cooler evening that began at Sabai with Moo Sam Chan (because somebody was unable to resist the siren song of crispy pork belly) and Pad Broccoli (so our arteries didn't close up mid-meal or music) and managed to be in and out in just over an hour.
The parking lots near UR's Modlin Center were mobbed with cars in a way I hadn't seen since Chuck D. came to speak at the Alumni Center and we both knew it couldn't be solely because of the Steep Canyon Rangers show we were attending (although it was sold out). Turns out the problem was simultaneous shows tonight.
I'll admit, Steep Canyon Rangers was only a name I'd heard but knew nothing about beyond that they were a young North Carolina bluegrass band before Barr's invitation. So when they came out - upright bass, acoustic guitar, fiddle, mandolin, banjo and, yes, drums - we were both a bit surprised.
There's no percussion in bluegrass, right?
Except there is when you're talking about a group of musicians who use bluegrass instrumentation but allow the music to encompass whatever they like, whether rock, folk, jazz, Americana or a sample of the "Jeopardy" theme, among other snippets sampled by the fabulous fiddle player.
When they first walked out, banjo player Graham - he of the unexpectedly deep voice - had to bow his knees to lower himself to the microphone before raising it as he sang, saying, "It's our first show here," and smiling sheepishly. The mic immediately slid back down and he tightened it yet again.
As they began their energetic set, I couldn't help but secretly hope that these guys in narrow-legged suits were as nerdy as they appeared.
Mike shredded his mandolin like nothing I'd ever seen, each musician had lengthy solos like jazz (and the annoying attendant applause) and they about wiped up the stage when they did the title song from their new album, "Radio."
Doing what they referred to as "an old tune," they broke it down to four-part harmony with occasional additions of guitar, mandolin and banjo, a gorgeous thing to hear.
It was especially satisfying when, say the fiddle and mandolin would get into a pissing match trying to outdo each other, then the banjo would jump in and before long it resembled nothing so much as a big grass-tinged post-rock soundscape, absent vocals and soaring through Booker Hall in a completely un-bluegrass like way.
"Thanks you for having us, Richmond," they said. "We could be persuaded to come back."
I'm willing to bet that no one in the room wouldn't be willing to do the same after experiencing a band forged by bluegrass yet completely open to every genre and interpretation performed by guys with solid musical chops and unbridled youthful enthusiasm.
Despite barely over a month of friendship, the Barrister had done himself proud by choosing a stellar night of unexpected music for us to wind down Friday with.
Except, of course, you don't end a superior sunny November day with just music, you end it with conversation at Rapp Session with wine (a killer Chateau du Coing Chardonnay) and smoked bluefish dip studded with red onion and celery, smeared on Saltines.
I have been eating bluefish practically since birth and I expect I'll go out eating it.
That way, there's time to discuss violin versus fiddle, possible hiking destinations (as usual, I made a case for local trails), where to find the best selection of East Coast oysters and how our mothers managed to mangle most of the foods they cooked when we were children.
As tends to be the way when we get together, we covered the important topics: love, loss and the cycle of life, minus the Sputnik references.
The only way to know someone well enough to predict their behavior is to spend a satisfying amount of each evening together exchanging pertinent opinions and back stories.
Or figure out early on they're a sucker for sunshine and roll with it. I can be so obvious about some things...
Sunday, October 30, 2016
It Always Comes Back to Star Trek
Anyone close to me has, in all likelihood, alluded to my sunny side up affliction.
The go-to is derision. Pru calls it "unicorn land," another prefers "Karen's world" (art nerds, can't you just see me from the back on that grassy hill like Christina?), several family members call it "the bubble," and, sure, they're mocking me, but the reality is lovely things happen there all the time.
Like an evening during the absolute dregs of October - today's the 29th, for crying out loud - spent on a screened porch in Church Hill, a porch lit by strings of tiny lights and a small lamp or two, with the night air as soft and comfortable as if we were about to tear September off the calendar rather than October.
An evening accompanied by the business of life going on around us - dogs being walked, sirens in the distance, headlights in the alley - as the five of us converse across the table in the golden glow of that porch, where everywhere you look, something pleasurable or interesting catches your eye.
A master class of a porch.
The kind of space ideal for Pru to share a memory. "That reminds me of 10th grade when I said 'semen' instead of 'stamen." Pause. "It was the male part of the plant, so at least I got that part right."
That prch can become a cozy game room when the visitor from Arizona, Burger, admits he's never played Cards Against Humanity during dinner at Belmont Food Shop (where an autumn terrine of squashes, celery root and carrot rocks my world and chocolate truffles are referred to by FabCon as "tip manipulators" because they work).
It's once the game's underway, after we explain that you choose your answer from the ten cards in your hand that we learn Burger has 12...and a stack splayed out under his chair for easy accessing. Political commentary follows.
Q: In today's newscast, Donald Trump made headlines when he denounced what?
My A: The Dewey Decimal system
Peanut Gallery: He would.
With big, comfortable wicker chairs with cushions, it's a most suitable place for long-winded ruminations on language.
When Beau tries to explain the appeal of Hannah Montana, it's by saying she was wholesome and had hi-jinks. Hi-jinks, a word that dotted the Eisenhower-era series we read as kids. Nancy Drew had hi-jinks, the Hardy Boys had hi-jinks.
This crowd could do a minimum of 10 minutes just on a word like that.
As proof, earlier on the porch, we'd gotten on the topic of unlikely building materials, a rabbit hole that began with bales of hay, moved on to used car tires and crashed and burned with 2-litre soda bottles.
Why, you ask, did such a fascinating environmental and architectural topic die that premature death? Because some people brought only the veneer of information to the table and once others of us began digging, they admitted to no further knowledge on the subject than the shred they'd already hurled into the fray.
Don't come to a conversational pit unless you can hold your own.
The porch is just dim enough on a Saturday night for indelicate admissions.
Q: In the new Disney Channel original movie, "Hannah Montana Struggles with what?
My A: A really nasty yeast infection
Beau: I'd watch that.
Pru: Who ARE you?
It's the first time on this practically perfect porch for the dry wit from Philly now languishing in the southwest, who after observing the bossy and bossed dynamic between the usual cast of characters, thinks he's got it all figured.
"Ooooh, I see, it's a dominatrix party!" He only wishes (fervently, too).
Tonight, Bootleg Shakespeare (cue "There's something happening here, What it is ain't exactly clear") was performance art (none of it as riveting or hilarious as a pants-less BC Maupin as Brutus and a kneeling Sara Heifetz as Portia having a, shall we say, intimate moment) allowing an impromptu party to kick off early.
If memory serves, I lectured a man on italics (they are to be read aloud more emphatically), Pru got poetic with Burger ("We can't make plans with your "ifs") and Beau used the third person to feed me verbiage for this post ("Who knew that Beau was a mouth dispenser virgin?" about never having squirted whipped cream or E-Z Cheese in his mouth).
Middle-aged hi-jinks, as fine a way as any to spend an October evening on a screened porch with a great aura. Kind of makes me want to sing a song about Nebraska.
The go-to is derision. Pru calls it "unicorn land," another prefers "Karen's world" (art nerds, can't you just see me from the back on that grassy hill like Christina?), several family members call it "the bubble," and, sure, they're mocking me, but the reality is lovely things happen there all the time.
Like an evening during the absolute dregs of October - today's the 29th, for crying out loud - spent on a screened porch in Church Hill, a porch lit by strings of tiny lights and a small lamp or two, with the night air as soft and comfortable as if we were about to tear September off the calendar rather than October.
An evening accompanied by the business of life going on around us - dogs being walked, sirens in the distance, headlights in the alley - as the five of us converse across the table in the golden glow of that porch, where everywhere you look, something pleasurable or interesting catches your eye.
A master class of a porch.
The kind of space ideal for Pru to share a memory. "That reminds me of 10th grade when I said 'semen' instead of 'stamen." Pause. "It was the male part of the plant, so at least I got that part right."
That prch can become a cozy game room when the visitor from Arizona, Burger, admits he's never played Cards Against Humanity during dinner at Belmont Food Shop (where an autumn terrine of squashes, celery root and carrot rocks my world and chocolate truffles are referred to by FabCon as "tip manipulators" because they work).
It's once the game's underway, after we explain that you choose your answer from the ten cards in your hand that we learn Burger has 12...and a stack splayed out under his chair for easy accessing. Political commentary follows.
Q: In today's newscast, Donald Trump made headlines when he denounced what?
My A: The Dewey Decimal system
Peanut Gallery: He would.
With big, comfortable wicker chairs with cushions, it's a most suitable place for long-winded ruminations on language.
When Beau tries to explain the appeal of Hannah Montana, it's by saying she was wholesome and had hi-jinks. Hi-jinks, a word that dotted the Eisenhower-era series we read as kids. Nancy Drew had hi-jinks, the Hardy Boys had hi-jinks.
This crowd could do a minimum of 10 minutes just on a word like that.
As proof, earlier on the porch, we'd gotten on the topic of unlikely building materials, a rabbit hole that began with bales of hay, moved on to used car tires and crashed and burned with 2-litre soda bottles.
Why, you ask, did such a fascinating environmental and architectural topic die that premature death? Because some people brought only the veneer of information to the table and once others of us began digging, they admitted to no further knowledge on the subject than the shred they'd already hurled into the fray.
Don't come to a conversational pit unless you can hold your own.
The porch is just dim enough on a Saturday night for indelicate admissions.
Q: In the new Disney Channel original movie, "Hannah Montana Struggles with what?
My A: A really nasty yeast infection
Beau: I'd watch that.
Pru: Who ARE you?
It's the first time on this practically perfect porch for the dry wit from Philly now languishing in the southwest, who after observing the bossy and bossed dynamic between the usual cast of characters, thinks he's got it all figured.
"Ooooh, I see, it's a dominatrix party!" He only wishes (fervently, too).
Tonight, Bootleg Shakespeare (cue "There's something happening here, What it is ain't exactly clear") was performance art (none of it as riveting or hilarious as a pants-less BC Maupin as Brutus and a kneeling Sara Heifetz as Portia having a, shall we say, intimate moment) allowing an impromptu party to kick off early.
If memory serves, I lectured a man on italics (they are to be read aloud more emphatically), Pru got poetic with Burger ("We can't make plans with your "ifs") and Beau used the third person to feed me verbiage for this post ("Who knew that Beau was a mouth dispenser virgin?" about never having squirted whipped cream or E-Z Cheese in his mouth).
Middle-aged hi-jinks, as fine a way as any to spend an October evening on a screened porch with a great aura. Kind of makes me want to sing a song about Nebraska.
Friday, October 14, 2016
The Cat Who Won't Cop Out
If it wasn't one thing politics today, it was another blaxploitation in the '70s.
On my walk this morning, I saw a couple hammering a "Stoney for Mayor" sign into their pocket-sized lawn in the Fan and it was all I could do restrain myself from going over and demanding to know why they thought a man with such limited experience and tenure in town would be well-suited to running our city.
At the very least, I knew I'd have a sympathetic ear for the story later, when my plans were to meet up with an activist type to discuss all things mayoral before the VMFA screening of "Shaft" for the final night of the Gordon Parks mini-film fest.
Along the way, I spotted a dead raccoon laid out on Boulevard, with no cars parked anywhere near it, as if it had cooties or something.
Strolling down Floyd to get to Doner Kebab, I spied a yard with the right kind of political signs to give me all the feels, so I paused on the sidewalk to chat from a distance with the couple on the porch of the house, which just happened to be next to the one I lived in from 1993 through 2006.
It's a neighborhood I know well, even if it has become quite a bit more affluent since my early days there. Fortunately, funky still competes with renovated on block after block.
In a nutshell, the couple had been wowed by Balile's honesty and preparedness, could see why people were sucked in by Stoney's glibness, abhorred Morrissey and put up a Clinton/Kaine sign mainly to prove there's no shame in doing so.
I liked them immensely after 10 minutes conversation and discovering that her name was the same as mine.
A few houses down, I passed a raised garden bed from which sprouted the white legs of an upside down mannequin with black combat boots on its feet.
Ah, there's the Floyd Avenue that originally seduced me back in the '90s.
Naturally, the local political scene was all we talked about over Middle Eastern dance music and shawermas, mainly because there's so much at stake. As an unexpected bonus, the owner decided to throw his support behind Baliles while we were there, so perhaps we brought good vibes or something.
Walking into the museum afterward, the guard told me to enjoy my evening, and when I assured him I would because I was coming to see "Shaft," his face lit up and then fell. "That's playing tonight?" he asked. "And I gotta work."
We agreed it was a shame for him.
Downstairs, my dining companion and I met up to find good seats for the 1971 film and got to talking about that era when he'd been a conscientious objector assigned to work on LBJ's War on Poverty in Kentucky.
This is why you see a period film with someone who lived through the period.
During the introduction, we learned that "Shaft" was considered revolutionary both in terms of its cinematic role and its cultural role, not to mention the Isaac Hayes soundtrack that won the Oscar that year.
Told we were seeing the unedited version, we were both curious how it would stack up against current movies in terms of violence, language and sex.
And I've got to say that those first few distinctive notes of the "Theme from Shaft" (and the full soundtrack version, not the radio edit) along with shots of John Shaft moving through Manhattan (past Corvairs and picketers carrying signs reading, "I got my job through the New York Times") set the tone for a total immersion into the early days of black power.
It was a far cry from director Gordon Parks's debut film, "The Learning Tree," which I'd seen last night, despite there being only two years between the films. That had been a soft-lens focus look back at a difficult coming of age story where "Shaft" was all manhood.
And don't get me started on Richard Roundtree's dimple or the superb way that man wore a turtleneck.
It warms my black heart to see you so concerned about us minority folk.
But, man, was it ever a reminder of what another lifetime 1971 was. Hotels with telephone switchboards behind the front desk. Vegetable vendors with their products in wooden carts with metal wheels. A bag of hot chestnuts for two bits. A poster on a boarded up wall for an upcoming Four Tops show. "Wop" insults hurled with abandon.
Taxi drivers who refused to stop for black passengers.
When you lead your revolution, whitey better be standing still because you don't run worth a damn no more.
Drug humor - "Billy, could you go turn on..." "Hey, man, I already turned on!" "No, no, turn on the lights?" was no surprise but sexuality openness was ("I'm gay"), although both spoke to the time, as did Shaft's bachelor pad, complete with shelves holding hardback books, a reel to reel player and a turntable.
A sex machine needs that stuff in order to play Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield for any lady visitors. He apparently also needs to keep a spare pistol in a Baggie in the freezer, right next to the cans of Minute Maid orange juice every bachelor keeps around.
What did you get, Shaft? I got laid.
But my personal favorite was the sex scene, all soft focus and seen through a Calder mobile hanging above the white couch which provides such great contrast with Shaft's naked brown skin.
And while I knew intellectually that it was a blaxploitation movie, it came across more like a film noir with a black private dick in a fitted leather jacket. Suspenseful scenes were accompanied by Hayes' taut percussion and sometimes, the reddest fake blood you've ever seen.
After it ended, my companion and I couldn't wait to compare notes, starting with how even in its unedited form, it didn't come close to today's movie violence. Seems we've moved that needle so far in 45 years that a groundbreaking film like this just seems like business as usual with wide lapels. That brought up bell bottoms, which we hadn't seen a lot of in the movie.
Before I could even bring it up, he mentioned something I'd also noticed, namely the easily recognizable wallpaper ("I had that gray one in my house!" he tells me) and wall hangings (I had the green one in my first apartment) of that era. Bold, curved lines in dark and metallic colors had immediately taken me back to some of the hipper '70s homes I was in.
As we were leaving the museum, I paused to chat with the guard, telling him about all the '70s details, including Shaft's sound system.
"Reel to reels were the thing back then," he says, embracing the subject. "I still have mine and my turntable, but all my albums got warped."
Turns out he isn't the only reel to reel holdout because the activist still maintains two himself: one to play and the other to use for spare parts as needed. Come on, it sounds so good.
As Shaft would say, you're damn right. Relics that we are, we can dig it.
On my walk this morning, I saw a couple hammering a "Stoney for Mayor" sign into their pocket-sized lawn in the Fan and it was all I could do restrain myself from going over and demanding to know why they thought a man with such limited experience and tenure in town would be well-suited to running our city.
At the very least, I knew I'd have a sympathetic ear for the story later, when my plans were to meet up with an activist type to discuss all things mayoral before the VMFA screening of "Shaft" for the final night of the Gordon Parks mini-film fest.
Along the way, I spotted a dead raccoon laid out on Boulevard, with no cars parked anywhere near it, as if it had cooties or something.
Strolling down Floyd to get to Doner Kebab, I spied a yard with the right kind of political signs to give me all the feels, so I paused on the sidewalk to chat from a distance with the couple on the porch of the house, which just happened to be next to the one I lived in from 1993 through 2006.
It's a neighborhood I know well, even if it has become quite a bit more affluent since my early days there. Fortunately, funky still competes with renovated on block after block.
In a nutshell, the couple had been wowed by Balile's honesty and preparedness, could see why people were sucked in by Stoney's glibness, abhorred Morrissey and put up a Clinton/Kaine sign mainly to prove there's no shame in doing so.
I liked them immensely after 10 minutes conversation and discovering that her name was the same as mine.
A few houses down, I passed a raised garden bed from which sprouted the white legs of an upside down mannequin with black combat boots on its feet.
Ah, there's the Floyd Avenue that originally seduced me back in the '90s.
Naturally, the local political scene was all we talked about over Middle Eastern dance music and shawermas, mainly because there's so much at stake. As an unexpected bonus, the owner decided to throw his support behind Baliles while we were there, so perhaps we brought good vibes or something.
Walking into the museum afterward, the guard told me to enjoy my evening, and when I assured him I would because I was coming to see "Shaft," his face lit up and then fell. "That's playing tonight?" he asked. "And I gotta work."
We agreed it was a shame for him.
Downstairs, my dining companion and I met up to find good seats for the 1971 film and got to talking about that era when he'd been a conscientious objector assigned to work on LBJ's War on Poverty in Kentucky.
This is why you see a period film with someone who lived through the period.
During the introduction, we learned that "Shaft" was considered revolutionary both in terms of its cinematic role and its cultural role, not to mention the Isaac Hayes soundtrack that won the Oscar that year.
Told we were seeing the unedited version, we were both curious how it would stack up against current movies in terms of violence, language and sex.
And I've got to say that those first few distinctive notes of the "Theme from Shaft" (and the full soundtrack version, not the radio edit) along with shots of John Shaft moving through Manhattan (past Corvairs and picketers carrying signs reading, "I got my job through the New York Times") set the tone for a total immersion into the early days of black power.
It was a far cry from director Gordon Parks's debut film, "The Learning Tree," which I'd seen last night, despite there being only two years between the films. That had been a soft-lens focus look back at a difficult coming of age story where "Shaft" was all manhood.
And don't get me started on Richard Roundtree's dimple or the superb way that man wore a turtleneck.
It warms my black heart to see you so concerned about us minority folk.
But, man, was it ever a reminder of what another lifetime 1971 was. Hotels with telephone switchboards behind the front desk. Vegetable vendors with their products in wooden carts with metal wheels. A bag of hot chestnuts for two bits. A poster on a boarded up wall for an upcoming Four Tops show. "Wop" insults hurled with abandon.
Taxi drivers who refused to stop for black passengers.
When you lead your revolution, whitey better be standing still because you don't run worth a damn no more.
Drug humor - "Billy, could you go turn on..." "Hey, man, I already turned on!" "No, no, turn on the lights?" was no surprise but sexuality openness was ("I'm gay"), although both spoke to the time, as did Shaft's bachelor pad, complete with shelves holding hardback books, a reel to reel player and a turntable.
A sex machine needs that stuff in order to play Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield for any lady visitors. He apparently also needs to keep a spare pistol in a Baggie in the freezer, right next to the cans of Minute Maid orange juice every bachelor keeps around.
What did you get, Shaft? I got laid.
But my personal favorite was the sex scene, all soft focus and seen through a Calder mobile hanging above the white couch which provides such great contrast with Shaft's naked brown skin.
And while I knew intellectually that it was a blaxploitation movie, it came across more like a film noir with a black private dick in a fitted leather jacket. Suspenseful scenes were accompanied by Hayes' taut percussion and sometimes, the reddest fake blood you've ever seen.
After it ended, my companion and I couldn't wait to compare notes, starting with how even in its unedited form, it didn't come close to today's movie violence. Seems we've moved that needle so far in 45 years that a groundbreaking film like this just seems like business as usual with wide lapels. That brought up bell bottoms, which we hadn't seen a lot of in the movie.
Before I could even bring it up, he mentioned something I'd also noticed, namely the easily recognizable wallpaper ("I had that gray one in my house!" he tells me) and wall hangings (I had the green one in my first apartment) of that era. Bold, curved lines in dark and metallic colors had immediately taken me back to some of the hipper '70s homes I was in.
As we were leaving the museum, I paused to chat with the guard, telling him about all the '70s details, including Shaft's sound system.
"Reel to reels were the thing back then," he says, embracing the subject. "I still have mine and my turntable, but all my albums got warped."
Turns out he isn't the only reel to reel holdout because the activist still maintains two himself: one to play and the other to use for spare parts as needed. Come on, it sounds so good.
As Shaft would say, you're damn right. Relics that we are, we can dig it.
Enthusiasm is the Electricity of Life
The dichotomy of Richmond, that's what all those national publications fail to mention when they're singing our praises.
It's living in a town where a terrific and historic photography show such as "Gordon Parks: Back to Fort Scott" results in a mini-Gordon Parks film festival, for which I immediately buy tickets.
But it's also arriving at the VMFA to find the misguided Sons of the Confederacy with their enormous Confederate flags standing on the corner in front of the museum as part of their endless protesting about the lost cause.
My first thought is what an unpleasant welcome they'll make for any black museum or film-goers, but it turns out they're just as unpleasant for me. Walking by three flag bearing, redneck-looking men to get to the steps, one looks me up and down, gives me a smarmy grin and says, "Hey, there, hot stuff" as if I might actually respond to him.
Negative.
It occurs to me that if all those national articles praising Richmond as a rising star and a shining example of the hip "new south" were to also mention this sort of nonsense, it might make for a far more realistic sense of this town.
Because, truthfully, it is all part of the flavor and color of who we are.
Inside the Cheek auditorium, I overhear some women behind me talking. One regrets not having read Parks' book "The Learning Tree" before seeing the film tonight. Another explains a friend's absence, saying she'll probably just watch the movie on Netflix.
The woman next to me shares that she's here because she'd read the book back in middle school and had just recently learned there was a film based on it. I'm amazed, but also older than she is, because I was certainly never assigned a black-penned book at that age.
The film is introduced as being the work of Renaissance man Parks, who not only wrote the screenplay, but directed, produced and wrote the music for it. Turns out it was also exceedingly difficult to locate, meaning that not seeing it tonight likely means not seeing it at all.
Shot on location in Fort Scott, the movie was the first by a black director in Hollywood, which makes me suddenly aware of how much was riding on what Parks did and how he did it with this film.
From the opening frame, the film was as gloriously Technicolor as you'd expect a major film to be in 1969. What I had a harder time reconciling was that although the film was set in the 1920s - straw boaters on the men's heads, candlestick phones - the women's clothing was pure late '60s with mini-dresses, low slung belts and knee socks.
Just as of the era was the young love montage, complete with teens feeding ducks and running hand in hand through sun-dappled fields in slow motion. Shades of Love's Baby Soft product commercials, for those who recall such things.
Judging by the fact that some people left during the screening, I'm guessing that they couldn't appreciate the particular nature of 1969 pacing, not to mention the overt sentimentality of how the story was told. To them I would say, consider what was at stake for the first black director's film.
Rather than join the curator-led gallery walk of the Parks exhibit afterward - in my own defense, I have seen it twice so far - I met my date in the atrium so we could scuttle upstairs for a glass of J. Mourat Rose before Amuse closed.
From there, we wandered over to Belmont Food Shop, running into my favorite mayoral candidate as we navigated a traffic circle on foot. "Stop writing nice things about me!" he joked.
Stop sharing my opinion? Never!
Although we were late arrivals, we were welcomed in to the fold of lingering diners and staff for dinner at the end of the bar while the usual '20s-era music played.
Continuing the evening's wine theme with a bottle of J. Mourat Rose, we began with gougeres and gizzard confit, followed by the bounty of the sea: crab and avocado, rare slices of tuna over frisee and seared scallops over squash and sausage.
When the chef finished up, he came out and joined us, providing an opportunity for me thank him for the surprise confit.
"My biggest stress in life is not enough duck fat," he explains semi-seriously.
It was while we were enjoying a fabulous butterscotch custard that a gentleman at the end of the bar brought out a 1989 bottle of wine for decanting, which the barkeep's research showed was one of only 13 left around.
Turning to those around him as the wine was poured into glasses for everyone in the room, the chef observed with a grin, "This is how we roll at Belmont Food Shop."
A deep garnet color, the nose on the Chateau Prieure-Lichine was earthy and full of dark fruit flavors, but its real beauty was with time, as the longer we sat, swirled and sipped, the more impressive the wine became.
That we'd accidentally happened into the generosity of a stranger only added to the pleasure of the wine. That such things happen as often as they do only adds to the running list of what's so wonderful about Richmond.
If I were writing those articles about our city, I'd mention such intimate attractions right along with the flamboyant flag wavers.
Because for better or for worse, all of it represents how we roll in Richmond.
It's living in a town where a terrific and historic photography show such as "Gordon Parks: Back to Fort Scott" results in a mini-Gordon Parks film festival, for which I immediately buy tickets.
But it's also arriving at the VMFA to find the misguided Sons of the Confederacy with their enormous Confederate flags standing on the corner in front of the museum as part of their endless protesting about the lost cause.
My first thought is what an unpleasant welcome they'll make for any black museum or film-goers, but it turns out they're just as unpleasant for me. Walking by three flag bearing, redneck-looking men to get to the steps, one looks me up and down, gives me a smarmy grin and says, "Hey, there, hot stuff" as if I might actually respond to him.
Negative.
It occurs to me that if all those national articles praising Richmond as a rising star and a shining example of the hip "new south" were to also mention this sort of nonsense, it might make for a far more realistic sense of this town.
Because, truthfully, it is all part of the flavor and color of who we are.
Inside the Cheek auditorium, I overhear some women behind me talking. One regrets not having read Parks' book "The Learning Tree" before seeing the film tonight. Another explains a friend's absence, saying she'll probably just watch the movie on Netflix.
The woman next to me shares that she's here because she'd read the book back in middle school and had just recently learned there was a film based on it. I'm amazed, but also older than she is, because I was certainly never assigned a black-penned book at that age.
The film is introduced as being the work of Renaissance man Parks, who not only wrote the screenplay, but directed, produced and wrote the music for it. Turns out it was also exceedingly difficult to locate, meaning that not seeing it tonight likely means not seeing it at all.
Shot on location in Fort Scott, the movie was the first by a black director in Hollywood, which makes me suddenly aware of how much was riding on what Parks did and how he did it with this film.
From the opening frame, the film was as gloriously Technicolor as you'd expect a major film to be in 1969. What I had a harder time reconciling was that although the film was set in the 1920s - straw boaters on the men's heads, candlestick phones - the women's clothing was pure late '60s with mini-dresses, low slung belts and knee socks.
Just as of the era was the young love montage, complete with teens feeding ducks and running hand in hand through sun-dappled fields in slow motion. Shades of Love's Baby Soft product commercials, for those who recall such things.
Judging by the fact that some people left during the screening, I'm guessing that they couldn't appreciate the particular nature of 1969 pacing, not to mention the overt sentimentality of how the story was told. To them I would say, consider what was at stake for the first black director's film.
Rather than join the curator-led gallery walk of the Parks exhibit afterward - in my own defense, I have seen it twice so far - I met my date in the atrium so we could scuttle upstairs for a glass of J. Mourat Rose before Amuse closed.
From there, we wandered over to Belmont Food Shop, running into my favorite mayoral candidate as we navigated a traffic circle on foot. "Stop writing nice things about me!" he joked.
Stop sharing my opinion? Never!
Although we were late arrivals, we were welcomed in to the fold of lingering diners and staff for dinner at the end of the bar while the usual '20s-era music played.
Continuing the evening's wine theme with a bottle of J. Mourat Rose, we began with gougeres and gizzard confit, followed by the bounty of the sea: crab and avocado, rare slices of tuna over frisee and seared scallops over squash and sausage.
When the chef finished up, he came out and joined us, providing an opportunity for me thank him for the surprise confit.
"My biggest stress in life is not enough duck fat," he explains semi-seriously.
It was while we were enjoying a fabulous butterscotch custard that a gentleman at the end of the bar brought out a 1989 bottle of wine for decanting, which the barkeep's research showed was one of only 13 left around.
Turning to those around him as the wine was poured into glasses for everyone in the room, the chef observed with a grin, "This is how we roll at Belmont Food Shop."
A deep garnet color, the nose on the Chateau Prieure-Lichine was earthy and full of dark fruit flavors, but its real beauty was with time, as the longer we sat, swirled and sipped, the more impressive the wine became.
That we'd accidentally happened into the generosity of a stranger only added to the pleasure of the wine. That such things happen as often as they do only adds to the running list of what's so wonderful about Richmond.
If I were writing those articles about our city, I'd mention such intimate attractions right along with the flamboyant flag wavers.
Because for better or for worse, all of it represents how we roll in Richmond.
Thursday, September 29, 2016
We Built This City
The Presidential debate's got nothing on the Richmond Mayorathon.
Did the Clinton/Trump shindig begin with the director of a top ten museum clutching a doll representing "The Scream" while bragging about the upcoming Edvard Munch/Jasper Johns show? I'm afraid it didn't.
Did the national event have not one but two women moderators? It did not. Nor did it have a moderator who repeatedly called out candidates who rambled without answering the question, although she wasn't consistent about it, letting some people off the hook.
Did the prez debate begin with each candidate walking out to his or her own self-selected theme song? I don't think so and although some choices were regrettably trite - "I am the Champion, "Fight Song" or ~shudder~ Dave Matthews Band - it established early on that Richmond was doing this debate thing in our usual DIY way.
Did the unpleasant big business candidate in Monday's debate get showered in a spontaneous chorus of "boos" from the crowd when he went self-servingly off-topic in the very first question of the evening like RVA's unpleasant big business candidate did tonight? No such luck.
Did the main event have a pedophile on the dais main-splaining about how, despite being known as a fighter, he works well with others to accomplish things? Um, nope.
Well, did the televised debate have a candidate who would answer a question about the city's defects by saying, "The biggest weakness is Miss Mosby not being mayor" or fake pout because she wasn't getting enough applause?
And am I the only voter concerned about a would-be mayor referring to herself in the third person?
You don't think Monday's moderator would have had the balls to pull a speed round titled "Team of Rivals" and ask each candidate to say what person running they'd pick to be part of their team and in what capacity, do you?
Or have a candidate so clueless he would respond, "I'd pick a name out of a hat" when asked to choose a specific person, or another who could - with a straight face, mind you - refer to corporate pimp Berry as a "fine southern gentleman"?
It is to laugh.
Where tonight's local version of democracy in action aligned with the all-important Presidential debate was that there was clearly one candidate who'd prepared scrupulously to talk issues and past record and, best of all, even bring humor to the table while others were known to traffic in run-on sentences, platitudes and meaningless rah-rah.
On the subject of transit and how to sell regional transit to the counties, Jon Baliles pointed to the Broad Street corridor labeled in purple on the map and said, "We need to convince the people along the purple route that bus is not a four-letter word."
Boom. And, make no mistake, by "people," he means NIMBY-type white people.
Asked about increasing the city's walkability and bikability, Baliles reminded the sold-out crowd that, "Everyone knows Richmonders are equally bad at walking, biking and driving." Affirmations like we were in church abounded.
Even when reminiscing about the James when he was a boy growing up in Stratford Hills, he managed to elicit a laugh when he said, "Back then, you didn't go in the river for fear you'd grow a second head."
No, where the Presidential debate and Richmond's Mayorathon dovetailed was that any sentient voter could plainly see there was only one viable option to lead. Even the other candidates knew it.
When asked about who they'd want on their team if elected, three of them chose Baliles. Duh. Let's hope Richmond voters in five districts are that savvy in November.
Next to me was a couple who moved to the Fan from London two weeks ago with a table and chairs ("It's a long story," they said in unison when I asked), yet here they were, out trying to learn about the people who want to run their adopted city.
Leaning in, he asked me, "We're new here. Is there a runoff if no one candidate gets at east 50% of the vote?"
I explained that if no candidate gets a majority in at least 5 of the 9 districts, there most certainly is a runoff and he seemed satisfied with that as we exited the auditorium.
Using the warm, humid and breezy night that we agreed felt like beach weather as an excuse, Mac and I ditched the post-debate reception at the museum for the greener pastures of Meadow and Park, where we could hear Janis Joplin blaring from Garnett's open windows and doors from a block away.
Inside, the air was every bit as beach-like as outside, but the music was even more enjoyable at close range and we could sup and sip while rehashing Richmond's political spectacle and the folly of a proposed riverfront project to turn the wilderness of one of our favorite walking destinations, Chapel Island, into a manicured, concrete "park."
Our sense of being at peace with the world eating strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting in the soft night air while Jefferson Airplane blared only encouraged us to believe that yes, we can elect a mayor who will move Richmond forward without selling out or diluting what makes this place so distinctive and livable.
He's only got one head, but tonight proved that was plenty. Baliles is our guy. Even the Londoners said so.
Did the Clinton/Trump shindig begin with the director of a top ten museum clutching a doll representing "The Scream" while bragging about the upcoming Edvard Munch/Jasper Johns show? I'm afraid it didn't.
Did the national event have not one but two women moderators? It did not. Nor did it have a moderator who repeatedly called out candidates who rambled without answering the question, although she wasn't consistent about it, letting some people off the hook.
Did the prez debate begin with each candidate walking out to his or her own self-selected theme song? I don't think so and although some choices were regrettably trite - "I am the Champion, "Fight Song" or ~shudder~ Dave Matthews Band - it established early on that Richmond was doing this debate thing in our usual DIY way.
Did the unpleasant big business candidate in Monday's debate get showered in a spontaneous chorus of "boos" from the crowd when he went self-servingly off-topic in the very first question of the evening like RVA's unpleasant big business candidate did tonight? No such luck.
Did the main event have a pedophile on the dais main-splaining about how, despite being known as a fighter, he works well with others to accomplish things? Um, nope.
Well, did the televised debate have a candidate who would answer a question about the city's defects by saying, "The biggest weakness is Miss Mosby not being mayor" or fake pout because she wasn't getting enough applause?
And am I the only voter concerned about a would-be mayor referring to herself in the third person?
You don't think Monday's moderator would have had the balls to pull a speed round titled "Team of Rivals" and ask each candidate to say what person running they'd pick to be part of their team and in what capacity, do you?
Or have a candidate so clueless he would respond, "I'd pick a name out of a hat" when asked to choose a specific person, or another who could - with a straight face, mind you - refer to corporate pimp Berry as a "fine southern gentleman"?
It is to laugh.
Where tonight's local version of democracy in action aligned with the all-important Presidential debate was that there was clearly one candidate who'd prepared scrupulously to talk issues and past record and, best of all, even bring humor to the table while others were known to traffic in run-on sentences, platitudes and meaningless rah-rah.
On the subject of transit and how to sell regional transit to the counties, Jon Baliles pointed to the Broad Street corridor labeled in purple on the map and said, "We need to convince the people along the purple route that bus is not a four-letter word."
Boom. And, make no mistake, by "people," he means NIMBY-type white people.
Asked about increasing the city's walkability and bikability, Baliles reminded the sold-out crowd that, "Everyone knows Richmonders are equally bad at walking, biking and driving." Affirmations like we were in church abounded.
Even when reminiscing about the James when he was a boy growing up in Stratford Hills, he managed to elicit a laugh when he said, "Back then, you didn't go in the river for fear you'd grow a second head."
No, where the Presidential debate and Richmond's Mayorathon dovetailed was that any sentient voter could plainly see there was only one viable option to lead. Even the other candidates knew it.
When asked about who they'd want on their team if elected, three of them chose Baliles. Duh. Let's hope Richmond voters in five districts are that savvy in November.
Next to me was a couple who moved to the Fan from London two weeks ago with a table and chairs ("It's a long story," they said in unison when I asked), yet here they were, out trying to learn about the people who want to run their adopted city.
Leaning in, he asked me, "We're new here. Is there a runoff if no one candidate gets at east 50% of the vote?"
I explained that if no candidate gets a majority in at least 5 of the 9 districts, there most certainly is a runoff and he seemed satisfied with that as we exited the auditorium.
Using the warm, humid and breezy night that we agreed felt like beach weather as an excuse, Mac and I ditched the post-debate reception at the museum for the greener pastures of Meadow and Park, where we could hear Janis Joplin blaring from Garnett's open windows and doors from a block away.
Inside, the air was every bit as beach-like as outside, but the music was even more enjoyable at close range and we could sup and sip while rehashing Richmond's political spectacle and the folly of a proposed riverfront project to turn the wilderness of one of our favorite walking destinations, Chapel Island, into a manicured, concrete "park."
Our sense of being at peace with the world eating strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting in the soft night air while Jefferson Airplane blared only encouraged us to believe that yes, we can elect a mayor who will move Richmond forward without selling out or diluting what makes this place so distinctive and livable.
He's only got one head, but tonight proved that was plenty. Baliles is our guy. Even the Londoners said so.
Monday, August 8, 2016
The Hard Part
I'm going to call it like I see it. Gordon trumps Kehinde, hands down.
Friends were in from out of town, so we met up to see VMFA's summer blockbuster, "Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic," joining an unusually diverse crowd doing the same on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon.
And by diverse, I mean a trio of black women eagerly looking for more information in the exhibition catalog as they discussed several pieces and a couple of white women who blandly observed, "I love the background of these things."
Don't get me wrong, I completely appreciate what Wiley is going for by inserting people of color - all gorgeous individuals with not a blemish among them - into compositions from traditional European (read: white) paintings and adding densely patterned overlays and backgrounds to them.
Not to mention the frames which were as much works of art as the paintings.
Without a doubt, the bronze busts were my favorite part of the show, particularly the one of a man in a dashiki with a pick in his hair, a monumental sculpture of black power and beauty.
Like a dutiful museum guest, I read about Wiley's process and was intrigued. He recruited everyday people off the street to model, then asked them to choose a painting from an art history book for him to recreate using their face and modern day clothes.
The randomly-chosen models made fascinating choices in some cases, choosing to be depicted as religious men, as part of biblical scenes, even as a white slave. One of the most interesting facets was the gender play throughout, men depicted as women and vice versa.
But there was also a soul-less quality to the work, a fact undoubtedly due to Wiley's large workshop crews who help bring the paintings to fruition. The figures had a photo-realistic quality that may have been the result of Wiley working from photographs of his models, but also made them feel more like copies than originals.
Where were the brushstrokes, the painterly qualities that give dimension to a painting? Granted, black skin tones were beautifully represented in shades from purple-hued to golden brown, but the overall effect came across like a highly decorative airbrushed picture.
The art historian in the group was disappointed that the information cards next to the paintings revealed little more than the title, year and painting's owner. Why was there no contextualization, explanation, inside scoop about the subject, source or method?
Shallow and disappointingly vapid, that's how the whole thing felt, like a Twitter feed trying to replace an actual book when what you seek is meaningful information.
Give me Gordon Parks' iconic black and white (occasionally color) photographs documenting his high school class revisited and there's some meat to chew on. The exhibition's information cards provide a satisfying backstory and update for every Fort Scott face looking out at you.
Since VMFA re-opened, they've been reminding us regularly that it's our art, a technicality which I embrace whole-heartedly.
But like anything I consider mine - books, clothes, music, friends - there are some that give me more pleasure than others. Those I choose to revisit repeatedly.
Life's too short to waste on the rest.
Friends were in from out of town, so we met up to see VMFA's summer blockbuster, "Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic," joining an unusually diverse crowd doing the same on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon.
And by diverse, I mean a trio of black women eagerly looking for more information in the exhibition catalog as they discussed several pieces and a couple of white women who blandly observed, "I love the background of these things."
Don't get me wrong, I completely appreciate what Wiley is going for by inserting people of color - all gorgeous individuals with not a blemish among them - into compositions from traditional European (read: white) paintings and adding densely patterned overlays and backgrounds to them.
Not to mention the frames which were as much works of art as the paintings.
Without a doubt, the bronze busts were my favorite part of the show, particularly the one of a man in a dashiki with a pick in his hair, a monumental sculpture of black power and beauty.
Like a dutiful museum guest, I read about Wiley's process and was intrigued. He recruited everyday people off the street to model, then asked them to choose a painting from an art history book for him to recreate using their face and modern day clothes.
The randomly-chosen models made fascinating choices in some cases, choosing to be depicted as religious men, as part of biblical scenes, even as a white slave. One of the most interesting facets was the gender play throughout, men depicted as women and vice versa.
But there was also a soul-less quality to the work, a fact undoubtedly due to Wiley's large workshop crews who help bring the paintings to fruition. The figures had a photo-realistic quality that may have been the result of Wiley working from photographs of his models, but also made them feel more like copies than originals.
Where were the brushstrokes, the painterly qualities that give dimension to a painting? Granted, black skin tones were beautifully represented in shades from purple-hued to golden brown, but the overall effect came across like a highly decorative airbrushed picture.
The art historian in the group was disappointed that the information cards next to the paintings revealed little more than the title, year and painting's owner. Why was there no contextualization, explanation, inside scoop about the subject, source or method?
Shallow and disappointingly vapid, that's how the whole thing felt, like a Twitter feed trying to replace an actual book when what you seek is meaningful information.
Give me Gordon Parks' iconic black and white (occasionally color) photographs documenting his high school class revisited and there's some meat to chew on. The exhibition's information cards provide a satisfying backstory and update for every Fort Scott face looking out at you.
Since VMFA re-opened, they've been reminding us regularly that it's our art, a technicality which I embrace whole-heartedly.
But like anything I consider mine - books, clothes, music, friends - there are some that give me more pleasure than others. Those I choose to revisit repeatedly.
Life's too short to waste on the rest.
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Stupid Girl, Only Happy When it Rains
When someone writes, "It was cool hanging out with you," couldn't they be saying you make them forget about the heat?
I'm fascinated to read today that the Washington Post labels people like me "heat deniers," a term that makes us sound more like morons but actually just addresses our rational acceptance of hot weather in summer.
Important to note: it's not that we deny that it's hot, just that it's unbearable. Buck up, weather wimps.
My solution to dealing with triple digit temperatures involves several pro moves, the only one of which I'll admit to publicly is wading out to waist-high depths in two different rivers over the course of two days.
Despite waiting out the sky's ominous threats in a breezy gazebo with friends and strangers, tonight's outdoor party got rained out, but not before some of us gathered for a fine dinner and lots of conversation about theater, hypocrisy and gifts of jewelry.
Because now, finally, I understand why women love being given a bijou or bauble.
To compensate for ankle-deep puddles, a wet dress and missed opportunities, I accept a friend's invitation to Amour for Le Petit Rouviere Rose and the accompanying thrill of seeing a sweetbread virgin's cherry popped after an octopus salad.
We finish with Cremant d'Alsace Rose and sorbet samplers, sharing cantaloupe pastis, blueberry, lychee rose, strawberry, coconut milk and pineapple, along with the heaviest of topics: why some people choose to take care of themselves while others slide into decay with abandon.
For that matter, the more things change, they more they stay just as unsatisfactory as they were.
Proof of just that abounded at the VMFA's fabulous new photography show, "Gordon Parks: Back to Fort Scott," a collection of mid-century photographs, many of them chronicling just how little progress we've made in this, our so-called post-racial world.
Witness: An image of a man behind a newspaper with the screaming headline, "Seven Unarmed Negroes Shot in Cold Blood by L.A. Police" and another capturing five black men in suits and hats picketing with protest signs, including one reading, "Police Brutality Must Go."
A closer inspection of Parks' images of black life in the '50s and '60s tells stories so much bigger than a first glance offers up and surely must have been revelatory to Life Magazine's mostly white readership. The exhibit could not be more timely.
As for changing with the times, I thought that Old Saltes were the love of my life, but after years of devotion, I find that my head can be turned by a Pickering Pass.
Permanently? We shall see.
I'm fascinated to read today that the Washington Post labels people like me "heat deniers," a term that makes us sound more like morons but actually just addresses our rational acceptance of hot weather in summer.
Important to note: it's not that we deny that it's hot, just that it's unbearable. Buck up, weather wimps.
My solution to dealing with triple digit temperatures involves several pro moves, the only one of which I'll admit to publicly is wading out to waist-high depths in two different rivers over the course of two days.
Despite waiting out the sky's ominous threats in a breezy gazebo with friends and strangers, tonight's outdoor party got rained out, but not before some of us gathered for a fine dinner and lots of conversation about theater, hypocrisy and gifts of jewelry.
Because now, finally, I understand why women love being given a bijou or bauble.
To compensate for ankle-deep puddles, a wet dress and missed opportunities, I accept a friend's invitation to Amour for Le Petit Rouviere Rose and the accompanying thrill of seeing a sweetbread virgin's cherry popped after an octopus salad.
We finish with Cremant d'Alsace Rose and sorbet samplers, sharing cantaloupe pastis, blueberry, lychee rose, strawberry, coconut milk and pineapple, along with the heaviest of topics: why some people choose to take care of themselves while others slide into decay with abandon.
For that matter, the more things change, they more they stay just as unsatisfactory as they were.
Proof of just that abounded at the VMFA's fabulous new photography show, "Gordon Parks: Back to Fort Scott," a collection of mid-century photographs, many of them chronicling just how little progress we've made in this, our so-called post-racial world.
Witness: An image of a man behind a newspaper with the screaming headline, "Seven Unarmed Negroes Shot in Cold Blood by L.A. Police" and another capturing five black men in suits and hats picketing with protest signs, including one reading, "Police Brutality Must Go."
A closer inspection of Parks' images of black life in the '50s and '60s tells stories so much bigger than a first glance offers up and surely must have been revelatory to Life Magazine's mostly white readership. The exhibit could not be more timely.
As for changing with the times, I thought that Old Saltes were the love of my life, but after years of devotion, I find that my head can be turned by a Pickering Pass.
Permanently? We shall see.
Monday, May 9, 2016
You're So Vain, You Probably Think This Blog is About You
Google says that a blog is a regularly updated website or webpage, typically run by an individual or small group that is written in an informal or conversational style.
Pretty clear-cut, right?
It's the "regularly updated" part that trips up many would-be bloggers, although I readily admit that the only time I'm not regular is when I purposely choose not to be.
Truth: if I'm not writing, there's good reason, albeit not one always shared.
What some people have difficulty grasping is that my blog is a personal thing. Yes, it's online so everyone has access to it, but it's personal in that it's nothing more than bits of my life told through the lens of how I see things, filtered by how much I choose to share.
A few years ago, a commenter took me to task for talking about what people said to me at an event rather than dwelling on the event's purpose. I not so gently informed the anonymous commenter (aren't they always?) that it's my blog and I'll parse if I want to.
Granted, I love that a favorite couple sought out my blog, knowing I'd written about the show that was their first date, to confirm their anniversary date since neither could quite recall when it had been. But that kind of thing is a bonus for others, not the reason I write.
So I'm always surprised when someone reads a post and expresses surprise that my reality differs from theirs.
I enjoyed reading your blog about our encounter. Your writing style is easy, engaging and much in line with how you are in person. I, of course, would describe our encounter differently as one would expect.
As I told the visitor from Phoenix, in all likelihood, the truth about that encounter rests squarely between my version and his. But I included enough details to remind myself of the evening for possible future reference and that's my real intention, although sometimes I offend inadvertently.
Sorry to read that you didn't enjoy lunch.
Here's the thing: I most certainly did enjoy lunch at Vagabond. How could I not? I've been a fan of the chef's food since he opened Magpie so any excuse to eat it gives me great pleasure. But my blog take on lunch acknowledged that my companion hadn't seemed quite as taken with the creativity of the menu as I was.
Not that I allowed his food preferences to affect my enjoyment of lunch because, hell, why would I? Yet his panties were in a wad because he didn't care for my personal take.
It's silly because that's just what I do for my own record keeping. When I am an old lady, I shall look back at these posts and marvel at the wonderful things people said to me, the opportunities I was offered and the fun I had along the way.
I wile away a Sunday afternoon at the VMFA, walking the galleries and the sculpture garden, scarfing an Italian sub at Chiocca's where soccer is on the screen and our server shows off her garishly bruised thigh. Those kind of details are just place markers should I want a reminder of how I spent today.
The late, great Unknown once said that a blog is merely a tool that lets you do anything from change the world to share your shopping list.
My blogging intent falls somewhere squarely in the middle of that. It's my world and welcome to it.
And if you want to know the full story, don't expect to find it here. But ask and I might just tell.
Pretty clear-cut, right?
It's the "regularly updated" part that trips up many would-be bloggers, although I readily admit that the only time I'm not regular is when I purposely choose not to be.
Truth: if I'm not writing, there's good reason, albeit not one always shared.
What some people have difficulty grasping is that my blog is a personal thing. Yes, it's online so everyone has access to it, but it's personal in that it's nothing more than bits of my life told through the lens of how I see things, filtered by how much I choose to share.
A few years ago, a commenter took me to task for talking about what people said to me at an event rather than dwelling on the event's purpose. I not so gently informed the anonymous commenter (aren't they always?) that it's my blog and I'll parse if I want to.
Granted, I love that a favorite couple sought out my blog, knowing I'd written about the show that was their first date, to confirm their anniversary date since neither could quite recall when it had been. But that kind of thing is a bonus for others, not the reason I write.
So I'm always surprised when someone reads a post and expresses surprise that my reality differs from theirs.
I enjoyed reading your blog about our encounter. Your writing style is easy, engaging and much in line with how you are in person. I, of course, would describe our encounter differently as one would expect.
As I told the visitor from Phoenix, in all likelihood, the truth about that encounter rests squarely between my version and his. But I included enough details to remind myself of the evening for possible future reference and that's my real intention, although sometimes I offend inadvertently.
Sorry to read that you didn't enjoy lunch.
Here's the thing: I most certainly did enjoy lunch at Vagabond. How could I not? I've been a fan of the chef's food since he opened Magpie so any excuse to eat it gives me great pleasure. But my blog take on lunch acknowledged that my companion hadn't seemed quite as taken with the creativity of the menu as I was.
Not that I allowed his food preferences to affect my enjoyment of lunch because, hell, why would I? Yet his panties were in a wad because he didn't care for my personal take.
It's silly because that's just what I do for my own record keeping. When I am an old lady, I shall look back at these posts and marvel at the wonderful things people said to me, the opportunities I was offered and the fun I had along the way.
I wile away a Sunday afternoon at the VMFA, walking the galleries and the sculpture garden, scarfing an Italian sub at Chiocca's where soccer is on the screen and our server shows off her garishly bruised thigh. Those kind of details are just place markers should I want a reminder of how I spent today.
The late, great Unknown once said that a blog is merely a tool that lets you do anything from change the world to share your shopping list.
My blogging intent falls somewhere squarely in the middle of that. It's my world and welcome to it.
And if you want to know the full story, don't expect to find it here. But ask and I might just tell.
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