Observer, voyeur, call me what you will.
Fact is, I like to look inside unique houses regardless of how appealing the house is to me personally. Do I want to heat a Romanesque Revival house? Definitely not. Can I see myself keeping all those rooms clean? No way.
But do I want to nose my way through it, seeking out parts of it that speak to me or pique my interest? Hellz, yes.
So when Mac informed me that she'd scored two tickets to tonight's House Story, I was all about seeing the inside of one of those monster houses on Hermitage Road. The one in question was 4500 square feet and had every overblown detail you'd expect, from hand-cut granite columns and arches to twelve rooms "of gracious scale" to recommend it.
Because it's been snowing/raining since the middle of last night, it wasn't easy to see much on the porch when we walked up the stairs. But the enormity of the tiled front porch - which took off down the front of the house to a rounded area where a large wrought iron table and chairs sat and then back down the side of the house, too - made itself felt with a weightiness and solidity that made the house seem impervious to anything that might hit it.
Short of cannon fire, I can't even see Mother Nature making a dent in this place.
Inside, we escaped the gathering crowds by heading upstairs, where the first room I found myself in was the library. And you know how I like to ogle other people's books: "Do You Sleep in the Nude?' by Rex Reed (whom my favorite grandmother read and my Mom disdained), "Graham Greene on Film" (I admit, my interest was piqued) and "20,000 Years of Fashion" are just a few of the unlikely tomes wedged on shelves rising to the 11' ceiling.
Best of all, a library ladder was propped against one wall. Be still, my heart.
Most people seemed to breeze through the hallway leading to the bedrooms and bathrooms, but I took my time because of the framed prints and etchings lining it. My favorite? A Vanity Fair print called "Men of the Day No. 36" featuring a slender man in a loose gray suit, his whiskers growing halfway down his cheeks.
The caption read, "I say, the critic must keep out of the region of immediate practice." Pretty funny, right?
Passing by the back of the house servants' stairs, I walked into one of the bedrooms to see a Chinese wedding bed, its ornate, carved wooden frame sheltering a bed covered in colorful pillows with a nightstand. The side walls were covered with open carvings, perhaps for ventilation?
One man walked in, took a gander and proclaimed, "Looks like an opium bed!" More like a deflowering bed, sir.
Mac was especially taken with a book spindle which housed two layers of books that could be spun to view all the book spines. Someone had told her that spindles were originally used in libraries until it became apparent that people weren't removing or returning books gently enough and the spindles were breaking.
And this is why we can't have nice things.
There were no small rooms (well, maybe except one, which was probably a trunk room originally), allowing ample space for the owners' eclectic taste in furniture. Bathrooms were laid out with no thought of conserving space, so the toilet would be off in its own nook but still connected to the main bath area. An odd shaped room, but one that easily accommodated two.
One bathroom especially charmed me with its double windows, the first one opening into the bathroom and the second one the kind you push up. Mac and I discussed how we'd have one or both of those open every chance we got.
Downstairs, a door led to a screen door over some bushes. Our best guess was that the door opened to allow cross-ventilation and for no other reason since the architecture made it clear that it had never been anything but a window.
A door with no purpose except air flow is my kind of door.
One feature that spoke to Mac and me was the back porch, bringing to three the total number of wide, generous porches with stained, wooden ceilings. I admit my head was also turned by the owner's extensive collection of 1920s and vintage travel posters throughout the house.
When it came time for the owner of the house built by architect D. Wiley Anderson to speak, everyone gathered in the double parlor to hear about the 1898 residence and the man who'd designed it. Seems Anderson tried his hand at several styles of architecture and designed 50 houses in Richmond, ten of which have been knocked down.
The owner mentioned that Anderson had done a similarly styled, if not quite so grand, Romanesque Revival house on Floyd Avenue and I immediately knew what house he meant, having lived a few blocks from it during my 13-year stint on Floyd.
Frankly, it's tough to miss the massiveness of turrets, deeply recessed entrances and short, squat columns among the townhouses of the Museum District.
Interestingly enough, the owner mentioned that Anderson's work owed a debt to the work of Henry Hobson Richardson, whom I'd only learned about when we toured the Customs House in Key West. Richardson redux.
We heard about how by 1988 the house had fallen into disrepair after being unoccupied for 20 years so the Shriners, who owned it, had called in a wrecking ball to sit menacingly behind the house, waiting to destroy it. Seems it took the neighborhood exactly 48 hours to get Historic Richmond involved and stop the demolition.
One of the pleasures of House Story, besides hearing the current owner talk about their house, is when the house's long-time neighbors get up to talk, since they usually have more knowledge of the house than the new owner does.
Tonight that person was Frank Wood, who got the ball rolling to stop the wrecking ball from doing its job. We also heard about how Hermitage was an early streetcar suburb with aspirations of being Monument Avenue Part Deux, so they asked the widow of Civil War general A.P. Hill. if they could dig up his remains and replant them under a statue of Hill on Hermitage Road.
Miraculously, she said yes, take them bones.
And that, ladies and germs, is how A. P. Hill wound up spending eternity in what is now a roundabout at Laburnum and Hermitage. Who doesn't love a good history lesson out of the blue?
Although it was too wet and cold to go out in the back yard, we were told that if we had, we'd have seen two carriage houses, one a stable and the other for Sunday carriages. Mac and swooned over the notion of Sunday carriages and the gentile world that begat such a thing.
Meanwhile, a woman from the Hermitage Road Association got up to speak, mentioning that they're trying to position the neighborhood as the gateway to Scott's Addition, a pretty dubious aspiration, if you ask me.
Which nobody did.
And speaking of our voyeuristic tendencies, once we'd opened doors (as Mac pointed out, the closets were unbelievably spacious for an 1898 house), peered through windows to check out the views and admired elaborate transoms, we bowed out after the talk in service of my hired mouth.
The critic can keep out of the region of immediate practice only if she doesn't want a roof over her head.
And while mine has nary an arch or crenolation, it is home. A place where the bathroom window opens in, there's superb cross-ventilation and the shelves are lined with a wild array of books no one else would care about.
It's no opium den, but then, whose house is anymore?
Showing posts with label house story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label house story. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
Punctuality Violations
To be punctual or not to be punctual, that is the question.
After dinner in service of my hired mouth, Mac and I headed to Northside for House Story, a chance to tour Hollybrook, a Gordon Van-Tine kit house from 1912, and hear from its owners about the stately home.
Because Mac and I like to snoop around strangers' homes.
Despite arriving moments after 6:00 when the event began, there were already lots of cars parked out front. Approaching the deep front porch - complete with living and dining areas on either side - we stopped to be checked in and wound up lingering to admire the magnificent porch. It was if there were two entire additional rooms on the front of that house, albeit with only one wall, a sheer curtain for another and open on the other two sides.
Once ushered inside the house, we made our way from room to room to admire the details of house kit life. The idea that we were inside a home that had originally arrived in Richmond on a box car in 12,000 pieces was hard to wrap our heads around. This was no CLH (a technical term we heard for "crummy little house") but a very stately, obviously highly customized kit house.
Having been built in 1912, it boasted one of my favorite qualities in a home: cross ventilation, thanks to scores of generously-sized windows - including on either side of the front door - that opened. Even bathroom windows were as wide as doors, not like those stingy little windows that became all the rage once air conditioning was standard issue.
This kit house had three floors with an artist's studio on the top floor, accessed by a curved staircase. Even with my limited knowledge of kit houses, I'm pretty sure that wasn't part of the original plan. In fact, there were so many stylish upgrades - a winding staircase, ornate tiled fireplace and wooden detailing - that it was clear that this was more of a launching pad for a kit house than anything ever seen in a catalog.
Here's where our punctuality got questionable. We'd toured the entire house twice, but it still wasn't time for the speakers, so we looked for ways to kill time, eventually settling into the living portion of the front porch to chat. "Yea, next time we don't need to be so punctual," Mac noted.
Her point was valid.
Eventually, the current owners took to the steps to regale us with what they knew about the house, which they'd bought in 1998 while expecting their third child. The real estate agent had been a half hour late, leaving the husband to cool his heels on the porch, but by the time she arrived, he was completely sold on the porch and told her he knew he'd have to buy the house to get it.
The couple apologized for the state of the large yard because, unlike the original owners, they aren't devoted gardeners. "Actually, we're in clear violation of Virginia state policy because we have only one azalea," the wife joked.
Kit house expert Rosemary Thornton spoke next, getting a laugh when she said, "For an architectural historian, I get an awful lot of hate mail." She went on to explain that the kits were dropped off at railroad stations within a mile or two of their destination and the purchasers had 48 hours to move the 12,000 pieces home. Her pronouncement? "This is a very grand kit house."
What she said.
After the talk, we headed out into what was a perfectly gorgeous evening, still sunny and 70 degrees, but Mac had been at work since 7 a.m. and was finished. I thought I was too, at least until I got home and couldn't think of a single reason not to walk over to Black Iris for music courtesy of their Tiny Bar series. The Scott Clark 4-tet was playing and I've been a fan of his for a decade.
Walking into the gallery, I was greeted by Scott and the man behind the Tiny Bar series, who cocked an eyebrow and said, "Karen, it's been a minute. How are you?"
Seems I can't go anywhere these days without my recent absences being noted, but despite that, the three of us fell into conversation about doom jazz (new to me), Scott's upcoming record release and art show (I own one of his paintings) and, most importantly of all, when was tonight's show going to start? Since it's common knowledge, my preference for punctual shows came up, leading to the inevitable point: why punish the punctual and reward the latecomers?
Because that's the way the music world works in Richmond, Karen, that's why.
But an executive decision was reached that the show would go on at 8:15 and I was invited to walk upstairs through the studios and admire my host's woodworking skills by checking out some furniture he'd made to kill some time until then.
Afterward, I headed to the tiny bar and ran into several familiar musician faces. For a change, there were no candles illuminating the tiny bar, but the lights were soon dimmed for the Scott Clark 4-tet's performance, but not before we were reminded of the rules: respect the performers and please, no flash photography.
Playing a combination of original material ("Quiet" featured a magnificent bass part set to hushed drumming) and covers, including the second movement of Sibileus' Second Symphony, which Scott had heard on a classical radio station (only because he couldn't find any baseball on the radio) and decided to arrange for the quartet, the band dazzled the crowd.
I especially liked when the trumpet player went up on his toes when blowing a particularly high note.
When they finished, I chatted with the sax player who'd recently read "The Gig Economy," a subject he and I know well. He was curious if I ever got work as a result of my blog (yep), but I explained that I also get work because of the work I've already done. We agreed no one works a job for life anymore, so it's all about figuring out how many different ways you can earn money.
Then it was back to music with New York City's Signal Problems, a four piece who'd come to play one longer piece called "Love Letter" in an intimate setting. That involved the musicians doing spoken word ("Regrettable," "Please pick up," "Heart," "Say I'm sorry") between and sometimes over the music part of the piece. They even made the room work for them when the trumpeter would move side to side keeping time, causing the century old floor to creak rhythmically under his feet.
At one point, a latecomer pulled out his phone and took a flash photo of the band playing and almost immediately another guy leaned over to him and whispered something. My guess would be, "No flash photography, you idiot!"
And you know what? If he'd been punctual, he'd have known that. Just an observation.
After dinner in service of my hired mouth, Mac and I headed to Northside for House Story, a chance to tour Hollybrook, a Gordon Van-Tine kit house from 1912, and hear from its owners about the stately home.
Because Mac and I like to snoop around strangers' homes.
Despite arriving moments after 6:00 when the event began, there were already lots of cars parked out front. Approaching the deep front porch - complete with living and dining areas on either side - we stopped to be checked in and wound up lingering to admire the magnificent porch. It was if there were two entire additional rooms on the front of that house, albeit with only one wall, a sheer curtain for another and open on the other two sides.
Once ushered inside the house, we made our way from room to room to admire the details of house kit life. The idea that we were inside a home that had originally arrived in Richmond on a box car in 12,000 pieces was hard to wrap our heads around. This was no CLH (a technical term we heard for "crummy little house") but a very stately, obviously highly customized kit house.
Having been built in 1912, it boasted one of my favorite qualities in a home: cross ventilation, thanks to scores of generously-sized windows - including on either side of the front door - that opened. Even bathroom windows were as wide as doors, not like those stingy little windows that became all the rage once air conditioning was standard issue.
This kit house had three floors with an artist's studio on the top floor, accessed by a curved staircase. Even with my limited knowledge of kit houses, I'm pretty sure that wasn't part of the original plan. In fact, there were so many stylish upgrades - a winding staircase, ornate tiled fireplace and wooden detailing - that it was clear that this was more of a launching pad for a kit house than anything ever seen in a catalog.
Here's where our punctuality got questionable. We'd toured the entire house twice, but it still wasn't time for the speakers, so we looked for ways to kill time, eventually settling into the living portion of the front porch to chat. "Yea, next time we don't need to be so punctual," Mac noted.
Her point was valid.
Eventually, the current owners took to the steps to regale us with what they knew about the house, which they'd bought in 1998 while expecting their third child. The real estate agent had been a half hour late, leaving the husband to cool his heels on the porch, but by the time she arrived, he was completely sold on the porch and told her he knew he'd have to buy the house to get it.
The couple apologized for the state of the large yard because, unlike the original owners, they aren't devoted gardeners. "Actually, we're in clear violation of Virginia state policy because we have only one azalea," the wife joked.
Kit house expert Rosemary Thornton spoke next, getting a laugh when she said, "For an architectural historian, I get an awful lot of hate mail." She went on to explain that the kits were dropped off at railroad stations within a mile or two of their destination and the purchasers had 48 hours to move the 12,000 pieces home. Her pronouncement? "This is a very grand kit house."
What she said.
After the talk, we headed out into what was a perfectly gorgeous evening, still sunny and 70 degrees, but Mac had been at work since 7 a.m. and was finished. I thought I was too, at least until I got home and couldn't think of a single reason not to walk over to Black Iris for music courtesy of their Tiny Bar series. The Scott Clark 4-tet was playing and I've been a fan of his for a decade.
Walking into the gallery, I was greeted by Scott and the man behind the Tiny Bar series, who cocked an eyebrow and said, "Karen, it's been a minute. How are you?"
Seems I can't go anywhere these days without my recent absences being noted, but despite that, the three of us fell into conversation about doom jazz (new to me), Scott's upcoming record release and art show (I own one of his paintings) and, most importantly of all, when was tonight's show going to start? Since it's common knowledge, my preference for punctual shows came up, leading to the inevitable point: why punish the punctual and reward the latecomers?
Because that's the way the music world works in Richmond, Karen, that's why.
But an executive decision was reached that the show would go on at 8:15 and I was invited to walk upstairs through the studios and admire my host's woodworking skills by checking out some furniture he'd made to kill some time until then.
Afterward, I headed to the tiny bar and ran into several familiar musician faces. For a change, there were no candles illuminating the tiny bar, but the lights were soon dimmed for the Scott Clark 4-tet's performance, but not before we were reminded of the rules: respect the performers and please, no flash photography.
Playing a combination of original material ("Quiet" featured a magnificent bass part set to hushed drumming) and covers, including the second movement of Sibileus' Second Symphony, which Scott had heard on a classical radio station (only because he couldn't find any baseball on the radio) and decided to arrange for the quartet, the band dazzled the crowd.
I especially liked when the trumpet player went up on his toes when blowing a particularly high note.
When they finished, I chatted with the sax player who'd recently read "The Gig Economy," a subject he and I know well. He was curious if I ever got work as a result of my blog (yep), but I explained that I also get work because of the work I've already done. We agreed no one works a job for life anymore, so it's all about figuring out how many different ways you can earn money.
Then it was back to music with New York City's Signal Problems, a four piece who'd come to play one longer piece called "Love Letter" in an intimate setting. That involved the musicians doing spoken word ("Regrettable," "Please pick up," "Heart," "Say I'm sorry") between and sometimes over the music part of the piece. They even made the room work for them when the trumpeter would move side to side keeping time, causing the century old floor to creak rhythmically under his feet.
At one point, a latecomer pulled out his phone and took a flash photo of the band playing and almost immediately another guy leaned over to him and whispered something. My guess would be, "No flash photography, you idiot!"
And you know what? If he'd been punctual, he'd have known that. Just an observation.
Thursday, November 16, 2017
Back to You
The one thing you hate in life is drama, as your core personality is peace-loving. The defining feature of your personality, thus, is sensibility, dignity and wisdom, which you possess in surplus.
Surplus?
The sensible thing to do was get work out of the way first, meaning I met up with Mac (dubbed by a reader as "Mac and Cheese," which I love, especially since Mac detests mac and cheese) in service of my hired mouth.
Once I'd checked that box, we moved on to Ginter Park for House Story, a new combination tour and storytelling event, this time about a beautifully dignified 1912 house with a porch to die for on an acre lot. Running a tad behind, we arrived in the foyer just after the owner began sharing the history of the house with an attentive crowd.
I immediately found a place up against a warm radiator for a saga about the murder that had happened in the yard in 1919 when owner Robert Stolz's son, asleep on the porch on a warm, summer night, heard someone on the property. While it was only a neighbor and friend of his father, the son didn't know that and grabbed a pistol and shot the man three times.
They got him in the house before they realized they needed to get him to a hospital, but the neighbor absolved the boy before he died. Whether 1919 or 2017, readily available guns kill people.
It was a heavy start to the story of a fabulous and huge house - third floor servants' quarters, stand-up attic and basement, brick carriage house - built right on a corner lot on the trolley line. The house had been broken up into a rooming house from the '30s through the '70s, until it was turned into the first Unitarian church of Richmond, sadly with plywood covering the pocket doors and moldings.
A man in the crowd actually recalled going to church there back in the day. The owner said people still knock on the door and ask to walk through because they remember going to services in the house.
After the talk, Mac and I toured the house, agog at how all the moldings, trim and columns had survived in such excellent condition over 105 years ("Good caretakers," the owner insisted).
While looking at old layout maps of Ginter Park when it was a brand new subdivision, a man came up to me smiling and asked, "Did you walk over from Jackson Ward?" like he knew me.
No, I'd driven, but then he jogged my memory about our past conversation on Marshall Street so I'd get his joke. When Mac piped up and said she walked with me, he wan't buying it. "I see her, not you," he insisted. Explaining that back in Mac's unemployment days, she did walk with me far more often, our friend suggested she consider giving up work for walking, but her new car payment demands otherwise.
We parted ways after touring the expansive garden, she back to work and me, because I have wisdom, to Capital Ale House for music. I was surprised when I arrived to see how few people were there for Bedouine, an artist the New York Times said sounded like a future legend, the kind of singer you'll wish you'd seen back in a small venue like the tour she's on now.
I know I'd taken that to heart, especially after hearing the songs produced by Richmond's own Spacebomb, so I was thrilled to snag a table only three back from the stage. In no time, though, the room was at capacity.
The show began with local Andy Jenkins' musical wordplay, accompanied by guitarist par excellence Alan Parker. Favorite lyric: Being with you is like being stoned, I've gotten so good at being alone.
During the break after his set, I was greeted by a musician I hadn't seen in eons and was amazed to hear he'd never been to Capital Ale House for a show, especially given the eclectic nature of their programming. I pointed out that he was overdue and that nothing better was going on in Richmond tonight, so what else would he be doing if he wasn't here?
"Watching Netflix," he deadpanned. "But I can do that later." Hilarious.
Next up was quartet Howard Ivans, led by Ivan Howard, the guy who also gave the world the Rosebuds, a N.C. band I've long admired (and seen several times). Saying tonight is only the second night of this tour, they intended to play us some songs off their new Spacebomb record and then gushed about the talent of the Spacebomb band.
"Those guys really know how to play their instruments," he enthused, before launching into a song called "Denise" about Lisa Bonet and his inability to handle meeting her. The band was a pastiche of sounds with soulful vocals, driving rhythm section and atmospheric guitar that added up to neo-soul-with the occasional alt-country hint.
Favorite lyric: Show me the darkest shadows of yourself.
Things got lively and loud (or perhaps the alcohol was kicking in) during the break, but the second Bedouine walked onstage, acoustic guitar in hand, a hush fell over the room. She carefully set her cup of tea on a music stand placed next to her mic for just that purpose and began seducing the room with her voice and songwriting against a deep blue backdrop.
Just the way she could bend the word "honey" with her warm and emotive vocals was enough to feel your heart twinge. And her lyrics - more like heartfelt poetry - were like a look into her heart and mind. It felt like the world stopped when she began singing "Nice and Quiet."
All of the reasons to keep me at bay
Are the same reasons that I should stay
Despite not feeling up to snuff, she bantered between songs, sometimes with introductions ("This is my love/hate song to California"), other times with disclaimers ("This is not your typical pop song. It's like 1 BPM"). Between songs, she'd serenely sip from her mug of tea.
Announcing she was doing a song so new it hadn't been named yet, she asked for our help in suggesting names. "You have to earn your entertainment tonight." Afterward, when someone suggested "Sunshine, Sometimes," she said that had been her first inclination ("With a pretentious little comma in there") and then someone said "You're Still on my Mind," which had been her second choice (and my first).
About doing "Mind's Eye," she joked, "I've got one record and this is on it. You should buy it." After explaining that the record is only 37 minutes long and her set just a bit longer, she did "You Never Leave Me," a song that had been swapped out at the last moment. "Now that you're all warmed up, maybe someone has a suggestion for a better title?"
You can feel so far, but you never are
You never leave me
On the haunting and self-assured "Solitary Daughter" (a subject I'd know nothing of given my five sisters), she sang, I'm not an island, I am a body of water.
Guitarist Alan Parker returned to play with her for the final two songs, before which she took a sip of tea and said, "One final one for the road."
Several people recognized "Dusty Eyes" as soon as she began it and reacted accordingly. Afterward, she thanked everyone for being "so lovely and attentive" and closed with the enchanting song everyone from NPR to Pitchfork is raving about, "One of These Days."
If it's true that I feel
More for you than you feel for me
It's stunning, honey, how love has some delays
Cause one of these days our love takes flight
We're gonna get it right
And get it right one of these days.
One of these days, you know I'm gonna set our hearts ablaze
If it's my last living deal
It was stunning. The New York Times had nailed it and I knew I was lucky to be there for such an intimate show.
Confessional tendency aside, I like to think it's not drama if your core personality is peace loving.
Surplus?
The sensible thing to do was get work out of the way first, meaning I met up with Mac (dubbed by a reader as "Mac and Cheese," which I love, especially since Mac detests mac and cheese) in service of my hired mouth.
Once I'd checked that box, we moved on to Ginter Park for House Story, a new combination tour and storytelling event, this time about a beautifully dignified 1912 house with a porch to die for on an acre lot. Running a tad behind, we arrived in the foyer just after the owner began sharing the history of the house with an attentive crowd.
I immediately found a place up against a warm radiator for a saga about the murder that had happened in the yard in 1919 when owner Robert Stolz's son, asleep on the porch on a warm, summer night, heard someone on the property. While it was only a neighbor and friend of his father, the son didn't know that and grabbed a pistol and shot the man three times.
They got him in the house before they realized they needed to get him to a hospital, but the neighbor absolved the boy before he died. Whether 1919 or 2017, readily available guns kill people.
It was a heavy start to the story of a fabulous and huge house - third floor servants' quarters, stand-up attic and basement, brick carriage house - built right on a corner lot on the trolley line. The house had been broken up into a rooming house from the '30s through the '70s, until it was turned into the first Unitarian church of Richmond, sadly with plywood covering the pocket doors and moldings.
A man in the crowd actually recalled going to church there back in the day. The owner said people still knock on the door and ask to walk through because they remember going to services in the house.
After the talk, Mac and I toured the house, agog at how all the moldings, trim and columns had survived in such excellent condition over 105 years ("Good caretakers," the owner insisted).
While looking at old layout maps of Ginter Park when it was a brand new subdivision, a man came up to me smiling and asked, "Did you walk over from Jackson Ward?" like he knew me.
No, I'd driven, but then he jogged my memory about our past conversation on Marshall Street so I'd get his joke. When Mac piped up and said she walked with me, he wan't buying it. "I see her, not you," he insisted. Explaining that back in Mac's unemployment days, she did walk with me far more often, our friend suggested she consider giving up work for walking, but her new car payment demands otherwise.
We parted ways after touring the expansive garden, she back to work and me, because I have wisdom, to Capital Ale House for music. I was surprised when I arrived to see how few people were there for Bedouine, an artist the New York Times said sounded like a future legend, the kind of singer you'll wish you'd seen back in a small venue like the tour she's on now.
I know I'd taken that to heart, especially after hearing the songs produced by Richmond's own Spacebomb, so I was thrilled to snag a table only three back from the stage. In no time, though, the room was at capacity.
The show began with local Andy Jenkins' musical wordplay, accompanied by guitarist par excellence Alan Parker. Favorite lyric: Being with you is like being stoned, I've gotten so good at being alone.
During the break after his set, I was greeted by a musician I hadn't seen in eons and was amazed to hear he'd never been to Capital Ale House for a show, especially given the eclectic nature of their programming. I pointed out that he was overdue and that nothing better was going on in Richmond tonight, so what else would he be doing if he wasn't here?
"Watching Netflix," he deadpanned. "But I can do that later." Hilarious.
Next up was quartet Howard Ivans, led by Ivan Howard, the guy who also gave the world the Rosebuds, a N.C. band I've long admired (and seen several times). Saying tonight is only the second night of this tour, they intended to play us some songs off their new Spacebomb record and then gushed about the talent of the Spacebomb band.
"Those guys really know how to play their instruments," he enthused, before launching into a song called "Denise" about Lisa Bonet and his inability to handle meeting her. The band was a pastiche of sounds with soulful vocals, driving rhythm section and atmospheric guitar that added up to neo-soul-with the occasional alt-country hint.
Favorite lyric: Show me the darkest shadows of yourself.
Things got lively and loud (or perhaps the alcohol was kicking in) during the break, but the second Bedouine walked onstage, acoustic guitar in hand, a hush fell over the room. She carefully set her cup of tea on a music stand placed next to her mic for just that purpose and began seducing the room with her voice and songwriting against a deep blue backdrop.
Just the way she could bend the word "honey" with her warm and emotive vocals was enough to feel your heart twinge. And her lyrics - more like heartfelt poetry - were like a look into her heart and mind. It felt like the world stopped when she began singing "Nice and Quiet."
All of the reasons to keep me at bay
Are the same reasons that I should stay
Despite not feeling up to snuff, she bantered between songs, sometimes with introductions ("This is my love/hate song to California"), other times with disclaimers ("This is not your typical pop song. It's like 1 BPM"). Between songs, she'd serenely sip from her mug of tea.
Announcing she was doing a song so new it hadn't been named yet, she asked for our help in suggesting names. "You have to earn your entertainment tonight." Afterward, when someone suggested "Sunshine, Sometimes," she said that had been her first inclination ("With a pretentious little comma in there") and then someone said "You're Still on my Mind," which had been her second choice (and my first).
About doing "Mind's Eye," she joked, "I've got one record and this is on it. You should buy it." After explaining that the record is only 37 minutes long and her set just a bit longer, she did "You Never Leave Me," a song that had been swapped out at the last moment. "Now that you're all warmed up, maybe someone has a suggestion for a better title?"
You can feel so far, but you never are
You never leave me
On the haunting and self-assured "Solitary Daughter" (a subject I'd know nothing of given my five sisters), she sang, I'm not an island, I am a body of water.
Guitarist Alan Parker returned to play with her for the final two songs, before which she took a sip of tea and said, "One final one for the road."
Several people recognized "Dusty Eyes" as soon as she began it and reacted accordingly. Afterward, she thanked everyone for being "so lovely and attentive" and closed with the enchanting song everyone from NPR to Pitchfork is raving about, "One of These Days."
If it's true that I feel
More for you than you feel for me
It's stunning, honey, how love has some delays
Cause one of these days our love takes flight
We're gonna get it right
And get it right one of these days.
One of these days, you know I'm gonna set our hearts ablaze
If it's my last living deal
It was stunning. The New York Times had nailed it and I knew I was lucky to be there for such an intimate show.
Confessional tendency aside, I like to think it's not drama if your core personality is peace loving.
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
It's Not Houses, It's the Life Lived in Them
Romance is wherever you find it.
Whatever the room had originally been - mud room? l'orangerie? former stable? - it must have given off an aura of unbridled passion, or else why would the woman who led us there whisper, "It looks like where the chauffeur would meet the Downton Abbey daughter."
Since television isn't my forte, I saw it more as a place where Lady Chatterly might meet the gamekeeper Oliver and wile away a sticky afternoon such as today reading poetry to each other. Or, better yet, "reading poetry to each other." Wink, wink.
The room was notable for the minimally framed windows (the kind that open out) that made up the upper half of three walls of a brick-floored room that looked out on the garden. It seemed to be more of a final resting place for anything that didn't have a more appropriate place in the house proper than a room dedicated to anything in particular.
The charm of it was that it was completely unexpected.
Tonight was the first installment of House Story, a new monthly series that mashes up the storytelling elements of Secretly Y'All and the voyeuristic urges of Modern Richmond tours. Since I'd been going to both of those events for years, House Story seemed like a natural.
The chosen house on Grace Street looks completely different from those around it, so that was a definite draw. Add in that Mac and I had both walked by that house countless times (she used to live 2 blocks down and I walked that route for years) and always been curious about the interior and backyard, and it was all but assured we'd want tickets for the tour.
What I didn't expect was to walk through the front door and immediately run into a poet I know. For that matter, I did a double take with a woman (and she did the same) as we passed in the kitchen, only to turn around and realize we had met through work some 15 years ago.
"Just being in this house makes me love it even more," Mac observed as we made our way from one gracious room to the next, indulging our voyeuristic tendencies.
What was unexpectedly striking was that the 1838 house was mostly furnished in mid-century modern furniture and contemporary art while boasting details such as molded cove ceilings and curving walls, while the floors were remarkable for the intricate herringbone patterns throughout.
In the upstairs bathroom, a tiled undulating wall backed an open shower, but the owner said that they'd found the curved wall buried in a closet and immediately decided it needed to be seen, not hidden away.
After traipsing through rooms up and downstairs while letting our imaginations wander, we joined the group gathering in front of the staircase for some history and storytelling.
The current owner told us that the house had been built by a wealthy farmer named Talley - hence the house's name Talavera - on 25 acres in Henrico County in the Greek revival style: two rooms upstairs, two rooms downstairs and a central hall.
At some point, the house was moved from a Broad Street location to its current digs on Grace between Strawberry and Davis and enlarged. Then a two-story wing was added by C.F. Sauer in 1901 when he bought it. By 1922, it had been chopped up into a rooming house and by 1961, the city assessed the house and land at $10,000.
It was a fascinating history, to be sure. And the kicker was that two weeks before his death, Poe had done a public reading of "The Raven" in the front room by the fireplace.
Lois, the next door neighbor, had lived there since 1975, so she came next and shared memories of a previous owner named Serge who recalled hearing the clang of swords as Confederate soldiers climbed the stairs.
Lois pointed out that those stairs hadn't existed during the Civil War, but Serge had apparently been insistent. Other ghost sightings followed. Tonight, a kid who was filming the speakers piped up and said that a yellow orb had appeared in the frame as she talked about ghosts.
What the hell?
More recently, a woman showed up at the front door and asked to come in because she'd been married in the house in 1964, right in front of the fireplace next to which Mac and I were now sitting.
The director of the Poe Museum shocked everyone when he told the story of how when Vincent Price came to town, he'd asked to visit Talavera (for obvious reasons) and once there, read from "The Raven."
Because he could, that's why.
It was the perfect lead-in to a reading by poet Gregory Kimbrell of, that's right, "The Raven," done in front of the same fireplace where Poe had read, except with all the House Story attendees gathered 'round.
For those like me who stopped to think about that, it was a remarkable thing to experience given the location and reading material.
Acknowledging that his work owed a debt to Edward Gorey and was campier than Poe's, he followed that with a couple pieces from his own collection of macabre poetry, "The Primitive Observatory." And while I'd heard him read from it several times, I'm guessing many in the room were experiencing his disarming and disturbing poems for the first time.
Short of finding a willing gamekeeper in the mudroom, how could I not appreciate an event that delivers house porn, history, neighborly anecdotes and poetry?
Quoth the raven, nevermore...
Whatever the room had originally been - mud room? l'orangerie? former stable? - it must have given off an aura of unbridled passion, or else why would the woman who led us there whisper, "It looks like where the chauffeur would meet the Downton Abbey daughter."
Since television isn't my forte, I saw it more as a place where Lady Chatterly might meet the gamekeeper Oliver and wile away a sticky afternoon such as today reading poetry to each other. Or, better yet, "reading poetry to each other." Wink, wink.
The room was notable for the minimally framed windows (the kind that open out) that made up the upper half of three walls of a brick-floored room that looked out on the garden. It seemed to be more of a final resting place for anything that didn't have a more appropriate place in the house proper than a room dedicated to anything in particular.
The charm of it was that it was completely unexpected.
Tonight was the first installment of House Story, a new monthly series that mashes up the storytelling elements of Secretly Y'All and the voyeuristic urges of Modern Richmond tours. Since I'd been going to both of those events for years, House Story seemed like a natural.
The chosen house on Grace Street looks completely different from those around it, so that was a definite draw. Add in that Mac and I had both walked by that house countless times (she used to live 2 blocks down and I walked that route for years) and always been curious about the interior and backyard, and it was all but assured we'd want tickets for the tour.
What I didn't expect was to walk through the front door and immediately run into a poet I know. For that matter, I did a double take with a woman (and she did the same) as we passed in the kitchen, only to turn around and realize we had met through work some 15 years ago.
"Just being in this house makes me love it even more," Mac observed as we made our way from one gracious room to the next, indulging our voyeuristic tendencies.
What was unexpectedly striking was that the 1838 house was mostly furnished in mid-century modern furniture and contemporary art while boasting details such as molded cove ceilings and curving walls, while the floors were remarkable for the intricate herringbone patterns throughout.
In the upstairs bathroom, a tiled undulating wall backed an open shower, but the owner said that they'd found the curved wall buried in a closet and immediately decided it needed to be seen, not hidden away.
After traipsing through rooms up and downstairs while letting our imaginations wander, we joined the group gathering in front of the staircase for some history and storytelling.
The current owner told us that the house had been built by a wealthy farmer named Talley - hence the house's name Talavera - on 25 acres in Henrico County in the Greek revival style: two rooms upstairs, two rooms downstairs and a central hall.
At some point, the house was moved from a Broad Street location to its current digs on Grace between Strawberry and Davis and enlarged. Then a two-story wing was added by C.F. Sauer in 1901 when he bought it. By 1922, it had been chopped up into a rooming house and by 1961, the city assessed the house and land at $10,000.
It was a fascinating history, to be sure. And the kicker was that two weeks before his death, Poe had done a public reading of "The Raven" in the front room by the fireplace.
Lois, the next door neighbor, had lived there since 1975, so she came next and shared memories of a previous owner named Serge who recalled hearing the clang of swords as Confederate soldiers climbed the stairs.
Lois pointed out that those stairs hadn't existed during the Civil War, but Serge had apparently been insistent. Other ghost sightings followed. Tonight, a kid who was filming the speakers piped up and said that a yellow orb had appeared in the frame as she talked about ghosts.
What the hell?
More recently, a woman showed up at the front door and asked to come in because she'd been married in the house in 1964, right in front of the fireplace next to which Mac and I were now sitting.
The director of the Poe Museum shocked everyone when he told the story of how when Vincent Price came to town, he'd asked to visit Talavera (for obvious reasons) and once there, read from "The Raven."
Because he could, that's why.
It was the perfect lead-in to a reading by poet Gregory Kimbrell of, that's right, "The Raven," done in front of the same fireplace where Poe had read, except with all the House Story attendees gathered 'round.
For those like me who stopped to think about that, it was a remarkable thing to experience given the location and reading material.
Acknowledging that his work owed a debt to Edward Gorey and was campier than Poe's, he followed that with a couple pieces from his own collection of macabre poetry, "The Primitive Observatory." And while I'd heard him read from it several times, I'm guessing many in the room were experiencing his disarming and disturbing poems for the first time.
Short of finding a willing gamekeeper in the mudroom, how could I not appreciate an event that delivers house porn, history, neighborly anecdotes and poetry?
Quoth the raven, nevermore...
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