We Will Not Be Snow WImps

Early in the week, my friend Danny and I had made plans to have lunch and an outing today. By yesterday, the forecast was sounding a bit ominous, so I sent him an email letting him know that we were still on regardless of whether or not the sky fell. Of the same mind, he agreed.

But the weather wasn't making it easy. We got to our lunch destination only to find it closed for the day, the note on the door not even explaining why. Okay, fine. There are plenty of other restaurants in this town, so we instead went to Louisiana Flair, where the glowing "open" sign was like a beacon in the falling sleet and snow.

We were barely inside the restaurant before being enthusiastically welcomed by our server-to-be, who asked what we wanted to drink. At that moment, Danny remembered he hadn't fed the meter. We didn't know if the parking nazis worked on a day like this, but why take the risk?

Before he left to take care of that, he asked for coffee and our server graciously said he'd put a fresh pot on while Danny was taking care of business. Since it was going on 2:00 by then, I insisted he order before going outside.

That turned out to be the easy part. We glanced at the Daily Specials menu: smothered pork chop or meat loaf with mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and roll. I said I'd be getting the chop, so he wanted the meatloaf. Done.

By the time Danny returned unsuccessfully ("The meter's frozen!"), our server was placing our plates on the table and telling us, "You just made it in time. We were about to close." Wouldn't that have been tragic?

My large bone-in chop was lost under all that gravy goodness, but I managed to get every scrap of meat off the bone without ever really being able to see it. Danny shared a bite or two of his meatloaf and we agreed it was seasoned just right; Mom would approve. And my grandmother would have also given her blessing to the long-cooked pork-seasoned string beans. A perfect meal for a snowy day.

As we drove to our next destination, a church, Danny warned me that they'd probably be closed, too. Closed? Aren't they supposed to be open and available for sanctuary and solace at all times? Besides the website said they were open daily until 4:00.

Except, apparently, when it snows. The pink sign on the door said they were closed for snow. I could make a wimpy Episcopalian joke here, but I'll refrain.

Once back in the car, Danny said that we should have had a Plan B. True that, so we put on our thinking caps. He suggested the main library for their current art show, and with nothing else immediately coming to mind, I was more than happy to agree.

"Evolution of City Art" turned out to be paintings by RVA artists influenced by graffiti; the interesting part was the many directions the artists had taken from graffiti to their current works. We saw skateboard decks, what looked like a death mask and a detailed schematic called "Stereo," among other things.

My favorites were a couple of large-scale, intricate pen drawings overlaid with calligraphy. The contrast in the delicacy of the drawing and the wide brushstrokes of the calligraphy was truly beautiful. Sadly, they were also NFS, not that I should be thinking of buying art.

In the spirit of the season, it's book giveaway week at the library, so we couldn't resist stopping at the shelves on the way out and scoring a few freebies (the limit is one grocery bag, fyi).

My non-fiction nerdy side couldn't resist Showman: The Life of David O. Selznick and The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty, a mere 1100 pages between the two of them. Both will make great beach reads.

Danny handed me a slim, tattered volume called Hiroshima by John Hersey, the story of six people who survived the atom bomb. The book is the text of the report to which The New Yorker devoted its entire issue of August 31, 1946. I couldn't resist bringing it home, difficult as I know it will be to read.

You see my point? Snow wimps would have missed out on smothered chops, urban art and free books.

Not this chick.

Silent Movies in the Basement

As part of the Silent Classics series that the Richmond Moving Image Co-Op is currently putting on, today I saw perhaps the first successful sequel ever, Son of the Sheik, starring Rudolph Valentino. I'd never even seen a Valentino movie before, much less the original The Sheik, not that it mattered given the plot: hero falls in love, is duped and tortured, finds lover is loyal, wipes out bad guys and rides into sunset. All in 68 minutes.

It was Valentino's last film before an early death at age 31 and, as it came out in 1926, made only shortly before the advent of talkies. By that time in silent film production, fewer and fewer title cards were used and the actors conveyed quite a bit themselves, without the crutch of cards. Valentino seemed to rely on a lot of sultry looks and cigarette smoking, which was apparently what the female portion of the audience liked. I tend to agree with his critics of the era; he seemed a tad foppish, which may well have translated as continental at the time. He was, I learned, Italian.

The final film in the series will be Sunrise, made in 1927 and supposedly much copied for its use of lighting and camera. I think I'm spoiled, though, because I miss the musical accompaniment with a silent film. The last credit in the movie was the composer of the organ score, which obviously was not being played in the downtown library's auditorium. Too bad, really, because music, like bacon, makes practically everything better. Even Valentino.