Who's Zooming Who?

Ah, the challenges of a religious holiday for a heathen.

I don't want to eat Easter brunch, I'm sure as hell not going to church and I don't need to see overdressed dogs in hats.

So, taking a cue from my game-designing friend Dave, I organized a board game afternoon.

I know, so 20th century, right?

There was a suggestion of beer pong (as if) before we decided on something slightly more cerebral.

One of the guests graciously brought plenty of Prosecco and I supplied the Scrabble (50th anniversary edition) as we spent the gray afternoon trying to beat the pants off each other.

Maybe it was the bubbles, but my crowning glory was "zoom," which only garnered me 35 points.

So I've had better Scrabble matches.

Eventually thoughts turned from vowels and consonants to food and I persuaded them to consider my traditional Easter dinner: Chinese food.

We arrived at Peking in the Slip just about the time they opened and the four of us slid into a booth to do some refueling.

I was teased about my boring order of wonton soup and Hunan pork, but I wasn't looking to reinvent the Easter wheel today, just for comfort food.

The conversation got kind of raucous but fortunately there were only two other people in the joint then so we told ourselves it didn't matter.

We'd already decided to finish out our day at UR for tonight's international film series selection, a Colombian film called "Fat, Bald, Short Man."

Irresistible title, right?

Walking into Ukrop Auditorium I found a couple of attendees thanking the cinematography professor for showing a movie on this, the resurrection.

I threw in my gratitude while they were at it.

He admitted that having to cancel last Sunday due to snow had been a factor, a boon for the religious-averse this week.

The movie was a dark humor, animated (rotoscoped, actually) tale of a 46-year old man who lives the lonely lifestyle.

Colleagues make fun of him, gambling brother uses him, no real friends and not even cats to keep him company.

And what lonely middle-aged man doesn't surround himself with cats? I can't think of a one.

Everything changes when he gets a new boss who happens to be fat, bald and short.

Despite their physical resemblance, though, the boss is successful, respected and has a pretty wife.

Kindly, he takes Antonio under his wing and they become friends.

Before long Antonio is encouraged to join a self-help group to get over his shyness and befriends a sickly and slightly crazy neighbor with whom he can talk.

Because the film was animated rather than live-action, part of the charm of it was the starkly simple figures (like a child's drawing of a face: dots for eyes and a line for nose and mouth) set against real backgrounds, which made for few distractions from the sweet story of a man who finally learns to step outside himself.

When challenged at a shy group meeting to share one of his experiences with woman, he's so embarrassed he makes up a story about his quiet co-worker.

Something about passionate lovemaking behind the coffee plants at the botanical garden.

No one buys it, but rather than ridicule his fantasy, the group leader tells him to imagine what he wants to happen and make it so.

One particularly poignant exchange between Antonio and his group leader summed up the challenge of changing yourself.

Why aren't you married?
It's not that simple to be married.
It's not that simple to be alone, either.

Don't I know it.

By the time Antonio stands up to an obnoxious co-worker (who's trying to pressure him to lie for his benefit) and tells off his brother (while assuring him he still loves him), you couldn't help but cheer for the fat, bald, short man.

Thankfully, it was a foreign film, so there was no tidy conclusion, just an obvious change of attitude in Antonio's demeanor by the time the credits rolled.

As he all but dances around his kitchen making a meal for himself, there's a clear optimism and enthusiasm for life that he hadn't shown before.

It was like he'd been raised from the dead...or the 46-year old lonely lifestyle (with or without cats), which is practically the same thing.

Ooh, did I say that out loud?

The Corner of What?

It was a multi-cultural evening beginning in the deep south, stopping briefly in China and and settling into 70s-era Italy for the duration.

To kick off VCU's Southern Film Festival this weekend, author Charles Shields was giving a talk ("Let's keep this more of a conversation," he said right off the bat) about his book "Mockingbird: An Intimate Portrait of Harper Lee" at Fountain Books.

Audience members shared their first memory of reading "To Kill a Mockingbird" and they varied widely; some people fell in love with Scout's character while others saw Atticus as the memorable one.

I only first read the book ten years ago and I remember being struck by how very Southern small-town it was, probably because it depicted a world so different from the one in which I was raised.

Shields got some fascinating input for his book, especially about the interpretation of the Scout character.

Harper Lee described Scout, who was based on her own childhood persona, as "Too hard for the girls" and the Truman Capote character of Dill as, "Too soft for the boys," making them both misfits and kindred spirits.

A lesbian fan of the book told Shields that, "Scout is enough to make any girl-loving girl's heart go pitter-patter." That is high praise indeed.

Shields is speaking again Saturday before the screening of "To Kill a Mockingbird" at Grace Street Theater, but I knew it couldn't possibly be as intimate as a Fountain Books talk. There's something about sitting in evangelical church folding wooden chairs to hear about Southern literature that just feels right.

Walking up Cary Street in the rain afterwards, I peeked out from under my red umbrella when I heard the unmistakable sound of accordion playing in front of Bistro Bobette; it was the guy I'd met there recently who plays in the restaurant on occasion singing and playing his heart out.

It was delightful seeing and hearing him on the sidewalk and under a streetlight on a rainy, reflective evening. Don't tell me Richmond has no charm.

I ducked into Peking for some take-out (hot and sour soup, Hunan pork) to bring home and devour while I knocked out a writing assignment before going out again.

My fortune cookie laid it out for me: Love is just around the corner.

Dinner demolished, story submitted, I made my way to Balliceaux for the Mondo Italia dance party with Glows in the Dark. This free jazz group is a long-time favorite of mine, but tonight they were doing something they'd never done before: not improvising.

Like the last time they did something similar, here, there was an Italian film showing behind them, this time 1977's "The Big Racket." But this time, guitarist Scott Burton had actually arranged all this 70s Italian movie music, so there was no noodling.

His musical choices were inspired and the group well-rehearsed. Trombonist Reggie pace also played wah-wah guitar and percussion, Cameron Ralston was on electric bass, John Lily on sax and Scott Clark on drums.

We were even treated to Eddie Prendergast of Amazing Ghost doing lead vocal on one very disco-sounding song and he was a show stopper with his smooth delivery and near-dance moves. The crowd went crazy, but so did the band. It was a highpoint in an evening of stellar moments.

The idea behind not improvising had been to keep the music going for the sake of dancing, but it took a while for people to get started actually dancing and then it was just a few people.

It was a shame because the music was so danceable, so very 70s groovy with big old bass lines that made you move almost involuntarily. Nobody does movie music better than Glows in the Dark.

I had a great vantage point from the settee by the bar and my musician friend Marshall, who'd been with me last night, joined me there again tonight. At one point, trumpeter and funnyman Bob Miller came over to say hello to us.

"Have you guys moved since last night?" he asked, half in jest. Well, we're wearing different clothes so we must have, we told him.

Hell, I'd been through Alabama and China before he found me back on that settee enjoying 70s grooves Italian-style while gunfights and bad moustaches played out on the wall.

There could not have been a more amazing experience going on in RVA tonight. If I wasn't going to turn the corner and find love, Balliceaux was the place to be.

Don't Call Me a Foodie

I have no taste, nor do I claim to; I am not a gourmet although most definitely a gourmand.

I eat what I like and make no apologies for it.

My penchant for putting meat on a white pizza has been fodder for discussion, my omission of shrimp in a mussels and shrimp dish was questioned and the list goes on.

Just this week, a friend read my post about having Mahi-Mahi souvlakia the other night at Basilis and took me to task for having a fish version of something he deemed should have been pork, or at the very least, lamb.

But Mahi-Mahi? Blasphemous apparently, not that his chiding mattered to me.

Actually, I think it made me a little defiant, which paid off in spades today in the most unexpected place.

I was craving broccoli at lunch (always a sure sign that I've been eating more salad greens than true veggies of late), so I decided to get lunch at Peking, good old Peking.

Like a lot of people, I order pretty much the same thing whenever I do Chinese and for me, that's Hunan something.

I don't really care what the protein in it is and I've eaten them all: shrimp, chicken, pork, beef. I like this dish because of its heat and the abundance of broccoli and mushies.

But one of today's specials was Hunan Fish and I admit, I was curious. The fish was tilapia, a fish I never seek out since it seems to be pretty much defined by its preparation.

But in this case, it made my taste buds sing because it was such a good conduit for all that spicy sauce.

 The fish was so completely infused with the Hunan flavor as to take the dish to a whole new level. Its texture was perfect and each bite brought another hit of that heat; the flavor of the sauce was one with the tilapia.

And of course, it's not on the regular menu.

Okay, now I've laid myself bare again by eating something that will undoubtedly be scoffed at by someone with superior taste buds.

Not that it matters, because I'm the one who had the exceptional lunch.

But then, I always concede to the superiority of just about everyone else's palate over mine.

I just like to eat.