In the end, all I want is to swear by you.
~ graffiti on pipeline walkway
[heartfelt sigh]
Today's walk along the pipeline walkway involved a guy in a hammock seductively hung from two trees by the river 's edge...tragically occupied on the phone rather than with his proximity to nature.
Crossing over to Brown's Island, I encountered a guy busy mopping his sweaty head every other step, yet with no hat on. After admitting that his dermatologist uses dry ice every six months to freeze off the pre-cancerous growths on his head, he allowed that he'd erred in grabbing his towel and ear buds and leaving his hat sitting on his desk.
Ya think?
Today's heat meant that my walk on the pipeline inevitably led to scrambling out over the rocks, the better to lower my feet into the cool, moving water. It was impossible not to notice the radically different water levels from barely two weeks ago, the recent abundance having already given way to trickles.
A letter from Sister #2 today brought this sentiment: Our lives are so different from what I expected and what Mom and Dad had.
Where do I even begin to respond to the comparison of what they found at 22 and 23 and what I still seek? She's married but seems to be admitting she's not as happy as she perceives our parents to be, but also that they retired in their early 50s.
Part of my afternoon winds up being devoted to explaining in letter form why we can't expect to find such luck in either arena at this late stage of the game to someone merely 13 months younger but far less accepting of our reality.
Fortunately, the disappointment of low river levels and relationship failures was forgotten when I met up with a favorite conversationalist for purely friendly dinner and drinks.
Our outing stayed in the neighborhood, specifically Quirk Hotel's "Dinner for Two" at Maple and Pine. In fact, our server informed us that we were the first to come in for dinner for two, resulting in him scrambling to come up with the appropriate menu and a liter of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.
The music was spot on: Washed Out, Real Estate and other dreamy-sounding bands, while we munched through grilled eggplant with olive tapenade, feta, pine nuts and lentils as well as a green salad of radishes and green goddess dressing for starters.
We watched countless millennials come through the lobby only to have their IDs checked so they could take the elevator to the rooftop bar. A surprising number wore off-the-shoulder blouses, a fact which we took as a major fashion trend, albeit one that's come and gone countless times.
Discussion revolved around tomorrow's election, a beach getaway and overlapping music shows in the '80s (his with a smoker, not with each other) while we enjoyed fettuccine with pea shoot pesto, country ham, egg and Parmesan and roasted crispy-skinned chicken breast with potatoes and fennel.
Because the conversation was good - it inevitably is, though we spend too little time engaged in it - we were halfway though carrot cake glazed with cinnamon creme anglaise before even dancing near the interesting topics, namely vacation possibilities, inept help and a ticket to Franz Ferdinand sold away for want of a man to use it.
Keeping to a neighborhood theme, we stopped into Yaki, the newest bar in Jackson Ward and one convenient to us both. The music was leaning toward late era R & B and several of the faces at the bar are usually found at their own bars.
It's while we're drinking Sicilian Rose, specifically Squadra Terre Siciliane Rosato (described on the menu as "bachelorette party in a glass but more reserved) that we politely skirt my preferred topics and instead settle on innocuous conversation to keep things on a purely platonic level. It's enjoyable if a tad safe.
In the meantime, I am fortunate to have a friend who makes me laugh (and occasionally snort) and better accept that my life is completely different than what I'd expected. Unfortunately.
The fault is mine, I would imagine. Here's to correcting that before I die and, like my parents, getting the chance to swear by someone who matters in the end .
Except I will say it and not spray paint it on a railroad support.
Showing posts with label quirk hotel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quirk hotel. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
Saturday, April 22, 2017
The Lines Are Open
Move around the dial enough and you'll see and hear all manner of goings-on.
Setting out for my morning constitutional, I got three blocks before spotting a neighbor and one of Sunday's Mozart Festival organizers hanging signs.
Or, more accurately, hanging one measly sign, a process that involved upwards of six plastic zip ties, a long-winded story about City Hall's inefficiency in supplying said signs and his plans to meet the mayor for a drink to suggest improvements to the process.
Resist, man.
When his festival partner-in-crime had recently told him there'd now be a Nate's Bagels pop-up at the festival, he said his first reaction had been, "F*ckin' Karen!" knowing I'd originally suggested the idea and it meant more work for him. The way I see it, someone had to be the one to remind them to get rolling on my Sunday breakfast plans.
Arriving at Second and Grace moments after a car had hit a pedestrian, the woman was still sprawled in the street as the driver tried to move her car and park it to check on her victim. If there's one thing you don't want to see as you start your six-mile walk, it's someone else on foot bested by machinery.
(in Elephant Man-like voice) I am not a walker, I am a person.
By afternoon, I was at Reynolds Gallery to see "Donato: Fresh," a career-spanning look at Jerry Donato's paintings done in such far flung places as Paris and Hatteras, Italy and the Bowery. What I recall about the artist from the times our paths crossed at bars, parties and openings was how Chicago he was (all attitude), how Italian (insouciance oozing out of every pore) and how talented (this show).
In service of my hired mouth, a musician accompanied me for a late lunch listening to early Joni Mitchell and discussing open tuning along the way.
If you've got too many doubts
If there's no good reception for me
Then tune me out
Cause, honey, who needs the static?
It hurts the head
There was never any doubt I'd find my way to some of the 15 group readings comprising Richmond's first literary crawl which, like a Rose crawl (with which I have plenty of practice) has no fixed start or end point. I couldn't get rid of the friend who dropped by after work early enough to make the first reading at Babe's, but I managed the second at Chop Suey, along with 40 or so other bibliophiles browsing the shelves until the reading began.
Brilliant doesn't begin to describe the reading's premise, which used Roky Erikson's 1981 album "The Evil One" as a starting point for a book of short stories, each written using a song from the album as inspiration. In what may be the ultimate mash-up of my interests - be still my heart - this was a literary cover album.
And, as host Andrew pointed out, today was Iggy Pop's birthday. What better day for a literary crawl?
Five of the book's writers read their stories, sometimes over the sound of pouring rain, other times with an accompaniment of kids screaming outside on Cary Street. As you might imagine, the stories were all over the place, from observations that the smell of a woman's body reminds some men of the smell of bread to comparisons between campers kissing and sea lampreys sucking.
From there I crawled to Quirk Hotel for a reading billed as "The Originals," which seemed to mean authors who've been doing this a while reading from new work.
Unfortunately, Quirk had installed the crawl group in the lobby and between loudish music on the speakers and the conversation and laughter of a busy bar and dining room, first reader Dean King had to shout to be heard while holding someone's cell phone flashlight so he could read the too-small font of the chapter he was reading about the "self-defeatingly stubborn" John Muir and his journey.
When he finished, the Man About Town, seated next to me on the loveseat whilst sipping a pink cocktail, whispered, "I want to know where John Muir was going!"
After much (self-defeatingly) loud talking by one of the organizers during Dean's reading, the woman managed to secure a meeting room downstairs for the group to move to and off we traipsed to the relative peace and quiet of the Love and Happiness Room.
There David Robbins read from a new work on Israel, specifically from a poignant passage that took place at the liberation of Buchenwald, which he cleverly dedicated to Sean Spicer. On a somewhat related note, "Burning human flesh is a pretty good appetite suppressant" came from Howard Owen's sixth novel about a night reporter at a Richmond newspaper that was not the RTD, one where local references - the Devil's Triangle, VMFA, Sheppard Street and Patterson - abounded.
Phaedra Hise referred to herself as "the token non-fiction writer" and read a piece about raising pigs at Autumn Olive Farms, one I'd already read in the Post, with one notable exception. Her editor had cut the final sentence and tonight she included it, a satisfying moment for anyone who knows the pain of seeing her words cut.
And as people know, f*cking Karen has so many of them. But remember, when there's no good reception, tune me out.
Honey, no one needs the static who doesn't want it.
Setting out for my morning constitutional, I got three blocks before spotting a neighbor and one of Sunday's Mozart Festival organizers hanging signs.
Or, more accurately, hanging one measly sign, a process that involved upwards of six plastic zip ties, a long-winded story about City Hall's inefficiency in supplying said signs and his plans to meet the mayor for a drink to suggest improvements to the process.
Resist, man.
When his festival partner-in-crime had recently told him there'd now be a Nate's Bagels pop-up at the festival, he said his first reaction had been, "F*ckin' Karen!" knowing I'd originally suggested the idea and it meant more work for him. The way I see it, someone had to be the one to remind them to get rolling on my Sunday breakfast plans.
Arriving at Second and Grace moments after a car had hit a pedestrian, the woman was still sprawled in the street as the driver tried to move her car and park it to check on her victim. If there's one thing you don't want to see as you start your six-mile walk, it's someone else on foot bested by machinery.
(in Elephant Man-like voice) I am not a walker, I am a person.
By afternoon, I was at Reynolds Gallery to see "Donato: Fresh," a career-spanning look at Jerry Donato's paintings done in such far flung places as Paris and Hatteras, Italy and the Bowery. What I recall about the artist from the times our paths crossed at bars, parties and openings was how Chicago he was (all attitude), how Italian (insouciance oozing out of every pore) and how talented (this show).
In service of my hired mouth, a musician accompanied me for a late lunch listening to early Joni Mitchell and discussing open tuning along the way.
If you've got too many doubts
If there's no good reception for me
Then tune me out
Cause, honey, who needs the static?
It hurts the head
There was never any doubt I'd find my way to some of the 15 group readings comprising Richmond's first literary crawl which, like a Rose crawl (with which I have plenty of practice) has no fixed start or end point. I couldn't get rid of the friend who dropped by after work early enough to make the first reading at Babe's, but I managed the second at Chop Suey, along with 40 or so other bibliophiles browsing the shelves until the reading began.
Brilliant doesn't begin to describe the reading's premise, which used Roky Erikson's 1981 album "The Evil One" as a starting point for a book of short stories, each written using a song from the album as inspiration. In what may be the ultimate mash-up of my interests - be still my heart - this was a literary cover album.
And, as host Andrew pointed out, today was Iggy Pop's birthday. What better day for a literary crawl?
Five of the book's writers read their stories, sometimes over the sound of pouring rain, other times with an accompaniment of kids screaming outside on Cary Street. As you might imagine, the stories were all over the place, from observations that the smell of a woman's body reminds some men of the smell of bread to comparisons between campers kissing and sea lampreys sucking.
From there I crawled to Quirk Hotel for a reading billed as "The Originals," which seemed to mean authors who've been doing this a while reading from new work.
Unfortunately, Quirk had installed the crawl group in the lobby and between loudish music on the speakers and the conversation and laughter of a busy bar and dining room, first reader Dean King had to shout to be heard while holding someone's cell phone flashlight so he could read the too-small font of the chapter he was reading about the "self-defeatingly stubborn" John Muir and his journey.
When he finished, the Man About Town, seated next to me on the loveseat whilst sipping a pink cocktail, whispered, "I want to know where John Muir was going!"
After much (self-defeatingly) loud talking by one of the organizers during Dean's reading, the woman managed to secure a meeting room downstairs for the group to move to and off we traipsed to the relative peace and quiet of the Love and Happiness Room.
There David Robbins read from a new work on Israel, specifically from a poignant passage that took place at the liberation of Buchenwald, which he cleverly dedicated to Sean Spicer. On a somewhat related note, "Burning human flesh is a pretty good appetite suppressant" came from Howard Owen's sixth novel about a night reporter at a Richmond newspaper that was not the RTD, one where local references - the Devil's Triangle, VMFA, Sheppard Street and Patterson - abounded.
Phaedra Hise referred to herself as "the token non-fiction writer" and read a piece about raising pigs at Autumn Olive Farms, one I'd already read in the Post, with one notable exception. Her editor had cut the final sentence and tonight she included it, a satisfying moment for anyone who knows the pain of seeing her words cut.
And as people know, f*cking Karen has so many of them. But remember, when there's no good reception, tune me out.
Honey, no one needs the static who doesn't want it.
Friday, February 24, 2017
Living for Right Now
We're having a heatwave, despite the calendar still reading February.
I'm not saying that because the mercury hit 74 degrees, but because today was the first day that my lipsticks should have spent the day in the refrigerator like it was June, a fact a girl only discovers once she's getting ready to go out and finds them softer than ideal.
Now that I think about it, they may have warmed up driving back from the Northern Neck - where I'd gone today to visit my parents - with the windows mostly down.
I'd gotten a late start coming back because Mom and I decided to walk down to the dock, past the two weeping willow trees she tells me have just burst into leaf the past two days and wound up sprawled in an Adirondack loveseat discussing life.
And death, as it turns out. An article in today's Washington Post "Heart to Heart: The Conversation You Least Want to Have with your Aging Parents May Be the Most Important" was the starting point, but like so many conversations with my folks, there was a fair amount of laughter, too.
When I mention how hard it would be for Dad if she should die first, she waves off the problem, saying with a smile, "Oh, you don't have to worry about that. He won't last long once I go!"
I'm not sure if she means this because he's never had to fix his own food (at 8, I once found him crawling around the kitchen floor looking for where she kept the cold cereal and had to show him which cabinet) or because he'll wither away from a broken heart.
Telling her I'd just seen "In the Heat of the Night" at the Byrd for the first time last night, we dished about her memories of the award-winning film's impact at the time and about what a handsome man Sidney Poitier had been.
A tangent from there about how I've never seen "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" had her telling me about Spencer Tracy's speech in that film about how, despite his age, he remembers with absolute clarity his feelings for his wife when they first met and fell in love and how true love endures through the years.
"He was really talking about the love of his life, Katherine Hepburn," Mom tells me with absolute certainty, although certainly with the wisdom of her own experience as well. How she recalls this particular scene after not seeing the movie in decades is beyond me, but now I'm determined to see it myself, knowing that Hepburn and Tracy were long-time lovers.
The levity returns later on the walk back to the house. Surveying the two sheds full of Dad's crap and the crumbling grape arbor, she says, "I already told him when he looks down from heaven, none of this mess will be here!"
How often do you get to have an end of life discussion and get film recommendations in the same afternoon, much less riverside with waves lapping at the sand?
Once back in the city with my half-melted lipsticks, I managed to apply them before strolling over to Graffiato to meet a friend pre-theater.
Arriving first, the bartender welcomed me back and re-introduced himself, amazing me since we'd met the first week of January when he'd obligingly served a brown liquor-drinking friend while discussing distillation methods and then completely forgotten to take my drink order. For 15 minutes.
The good news is, being ignored guarantees you'll be remembered on your next visit.
With a nod to my birthplace and an appreciation for housemade ginger beer, I was drinking a variation on the DC Mule out of a copper cup when my friend came rushing in, Christmas present in hand. Once she got a pretty, pink Paloma, it was a race to catch up with each other's lives in 35 minutes so we could make a curtain.
What always happens when we try this is that I'll ask her what's been going on in her life and she'll rush through a few highlights and then insist on hearing my goings-on. Tonight, she was particularly fond of the symmetry of the trip to Cuba story, but saved plenty of enthusiasm for the good stuff and an Italian sausage pizzeta.
We didn't shut up until we headed across the street to the November Theater for Cadence Theatre's production of "Violet," another in the Acts of Faith series.
Although I was already happy being with a long-time friend I don't get to see nearly enough of, I got more fortunate still right off the bat by winning two tickets to Cadence's next production by having my seat number drawn from a bucket.
I'm lucky
I can walk under ladders
Yes, I'm so lucky
That I'm as lucky as me
I don't think I've ever been disappointed by a Cadence production and tonight kept that streak alive with a play that managed to marry high spirited musical numbers channeling gospel and country overtones (and the crack five piece band right onstage with the actors) with a poignant story about a disfigured girl looking for more conventional beauty and a big dose of self acceptance.
That it was set in the deep south in the 1964 during the Civil Rights movement only continued the thread of so many of my outings lately. That I'd gone from watching handsome Sidney Poitier last night to almost-as-handsome Josh Marin tonight was no sacrifice at all
First you choose your road and then you take it.
As an entry in the Acts of Faith Festival, Violet's story about who chooses to love her and whether they do it for who she really is or not provided the real meat of the play and enough to justify a post-theater discussion at Quirk afterward.
The bar at Maple + Pine was full, more than a few tables held diners and staff whisked new guests and luggage to the elevator as we grabbed a bar table and settled in to dissect what we'd seen over Prosecco and chocolate pecan pie.
"Please indulge!" said the server who dropped off the goodies.
In the dessert? In a soundtrack that included Tame Impala and The XX? In the bustling scene as the bar emptied and filled back up again?
All of that and more. Mostly, we indulged in conversation about the challenges of choosing your road and allowing yourself to take the right detour if it presents itself.
Hint: it doesn't always go through Cuba.
I'm not saying that because the mercury hit 74 degrees, but because today was the first day that my lipsticks should have spent the day in the refrigerator like it was June, a fact a girl only discovers once she's getting ready to go out and finds them softer than ideal.
Now that I think about it, they may have warmed up driving back from the Northern Neck - where I'd gone today to visit my parents - with the windows mostly down.
I'd gotten a late start coming back because Mom and I decided to walk down to the dock, past the two weeping willow trees she tells me have just burst into leaf the past two days and wound up sprawled in an Adirondack loveseat discussing life.
And death, as it turns out. An article in today's Washington Post "Heart to Heart: The Conversation You Least Want to Have with your Aging Parents May Be the Most Important" was the starting point, but like so many conversations with my folks, there was a fair amount of laughter, too.
When I mention how hard it would be for Dad if she should die first, she waves off the problem, saying with a smile, "Oh, you don't have to worry about that. He won't last long once I go!"
I'm not sure if she means this because he's never had to fix his own food (at 8, I once found him crawling around the kitchen floor looking for where she kept the cold cereal and had to show him which cabinet) or because he'll wither away from a broken heart.
Telling her I'd just seen "In the Heat of the Night" at the Byrd for the first time last night, we dished about her memories of the award-winning film's impact at the time and about what a handsome man Sidney Poitier had been.
A tangent from there about how I've never seen "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" had her telling me about Spencer Tracy's speech in that film about how, despite his age, he remembers with absolute clarity his feelings for his wife when they first met and fell in love and how true love endures through the years.
"He was really talking about the love of his life, Katherine Hepburn," Mom tells me with absolute certainty, although certainly with the wisdom of her own experience as well. How she recalls this particular scene after not seeing the movie in decades is beyond me, but now I'm determined to see it myself, knowing that Hepburn and Tracy were long-time lovers.
The levity returns later on the walk back to the house. Surveying the two sheds full of Dad's crap and the crumbling grape arbor, she says, "I already told him when he looks down from heaven, none of this mess will be here!"
How often do you get to have an end of life discussion and get film recommendations in the same afternoon, much less riverside with waves lapping at the sand?
Once back in the city with my half-melted lipsticks, I managed to apply them before strolling over to Graffiato to meet a friend pre-theater.
Arriving first, the bartender welcomed me back and re-introduced himself, amazing me since we'd met the first week of January when he'd obligingly served a brown liquor-drinking friend while discussing distillation methods and then completely forgotten to take my drink order. For 15 minutes.
The good news is, being ignored guarantees you'll be remembered on your next visit.
With a nod to my birthplace and an appreciation for housemade ginger beer, I was drinking a variation on the DC Mule out of a copper cup when my friend came rushing in, Christmas present in hand. Once she got a pretty, pink Paloma, it was a race to catch up with each other's lives in 35 minutes so we could make a curtain.
What always happens when we try this is that I'll ask her what's been going on in her life and she'll rush through a few highlights and then insist on hearing my goings-on. Tonight, she was particularly fond of the symmetry of the trip to Cuba story, but saved plenty of enthusiasm for the good stuff and an Italian sausage pizzeta.
We didn't shut up until we headed across the street to the November Theater for Cadence Theatre's production of "Violet," another in the Acts of Faith series.
Although I was already happy being with a long-time friend I don't get to see nearly enough of, I got more fortunate still right off the bat by winning two tickets to Cadence's next production by having my seat number drawn from a bucket.
I'm lucky
I can walk under ladders
Yes, I'm so lucky
That I'm as lucky as me
I don't think I've ever been disappointed by a Cadence production and tonight kept that streak alive with a play that managed to marry high spirited musical numbers channeling gospel and country overtones (and the crack five piece band right onstage with the actors) with a poignant story about a disfigured girl looking for more conventional beauty and a big dose of self acceptance.
That it was set in the deep south in the 1964 during the Civil Rights movement only continued the thread of so many of my outings lately. That I'd gone from watching handsome Sidney Poitier last night to almost-as-handsome Josh Marin tonight was no sacrifice at all
First you choose your road and then you take it.
As an entry in the Acts of Faith Festival, Violet's story about who chooses to love her and whether they do it for who she really is or not provided the real meat of the play and enough to justify a post-theater discussion at Quirk afterward.
The bar at Maple + Pine was full, more than a few tables held diners and staff whisked new guests and luggage to the elevator as we grabbed a bar table and settled in to dissect what we'd seen over Prosecco and chocolate pecan pie.
"Please indulge!" said the server who dropped off the goodies.
In the dessert? In a soundtrack that included Tame Impala and The XX? In the bustling scene as the bar emptied and filled back up again?
All of that and more. Mostly, we indulged in conversation about the challenges of choosing your road and allowing yourself to take the right detour if it presents itself.
Hint: it doesn't always go through Cuba.
Friday, December 9, 2016
Follow Me in Merry Measure
At some point, you just give in to the strings of street lights - even stop lights - blinking a bright red and green.
Tonight we took the Christmas train without apology.
That meant a walk by Quirk Hotel to admire its enormous pink tree and the Jefferson Street side's tasteful window decorations - a ceramic dog posed in a sea of cotton "snow" under small white trees - while outside, window boxes of blooming pink roses provided color continuity.
The Quirkster misses no details.
Compare that to the far more traditional red, gold and white color scheme that awaited us at the Jefferson Hotel, which was hosting not one but three private parties, including one that took over the entire downstairs, thus prohibiting sweeping entrances down the grand staircase as we'd hoped for.
Anticipating just this level of over-the-top holiday frenzy was exactly the reason we'd walked rather than driven. Parking at home probably was the closest parking space.
Surveying the massive two-story tree, we decided that it needed additional ornaments (preferably some with more texture and color) to fill in the irregular green spaces appealingly. We were both of the mind that you really can't overdress a tree because if there's room for a bauble, it belongs there.
But nothing could have prepared us for the Christmas craziness at Lemaire where the host warned us that no seats looked to open up any time soon, but we were welcome to hover.
Translation : welcome to cut throat Christmas at a four diamond hotel.
When we joked about how ridiculously busy it was, he told us it was a slow night for December. My condolences, indeed.
Although he was kind enough to take our drink order, what hadn't been mentioned was that we'd also need to hover like vultures near the bar if we had any hope of scoring seats so we could eat with dignity.
After losing out to a pushy couple who swooped in just as we were making our approach, we were offered two stools by a vivacious and buxom blond who knew what a favor she was doing us, so we acted properly grateful (hardly a stretch), although at that point, we were unaware of our proximity to a clutch of shrill young women who continuously screamed and laughed at a pitch usually heard only by canines.
While I wouldn't say the large staff was in the weeds, it was taking every ounce of their time and attention to keep up with the needs of so many customers - many of them in larger groups - in the restaurant at one time.
Because we had a curtain to make and because we are pros who already had drinks in hand, no time was wasted in ordering, the better to move on to important conversations before its arrival.
Like Christmas Eve dinner in some Italian families I once knew, our meal came entirely from the sea.
Rosy pink tuna tartare got crunch from cucumber, richness from avocado puree, salt from olives, and bold color from seaweed salad, but it was fried pearl onions that surprised and delighted most.
Richer than I needed, the crabcake on English muffin sandwich didn't disappoint, but I'm of the Maryland camp that believes the binder should be minimal and this was a very creamy crabcake.
For a crab purist such as myself, it doesn't come better than a blue crab tartine that layered hunks of backfin with guacamole and micro-greens on grilled and oiled rustic bread with a chew so fabulous it was challenging to cut with a knife and fork, but utterly satisfying once in our mouths, especially after a swipe through the spicy honey drizzled on the plate.
Trying to cover eight days worth of life in between bites that were worth devoting our full attention to wasn't as easy as it sounds, but we did what we had to do to de-brief each other, scrutinize the clientele and lick all three plates clean simultaneously.
All in the name of holiday cheer, you understand. I will say that we felt far less harried than some of the anxious-appearing groups around us who were clearly in the vise-like grip of holiday responsibilities looked.
We were slackers in Christmas comparison, really only out to indulge ourselves.
To that end, we'd donned our gay apparel for Richmond Triangle Players' production of "Scrooge in Rouge," which was just the seasonal ticket for a play that combined the traditional (an offbeat retelling of "A Christmas Carol" as done by an English music hall cast) with the completely irreverent, namely cross-dressing, bad puns and references to oral sex, or any sex, really.
I mean, how do you think Bob Cratchit (or Bob Crabcakes, as he's repeatedly referred to here) wound up with all those snotty-nosed children if not for a healthy drive?
Even Tiny Tim and his tiny crutch were fair game for mocking to great hilarity. It's not often you hear, "Break a leg, Tiny Tim!"
Oh, yes, and there was a dancing pickle.
Interestingly, the cast was the same as it had been when RTP had premiered the play in 2009, for which I had a reference solely because there's a poster for the original production in the ladies' room. I knew it well because you notice everything over years of waiting in line to relieve yourself.
Hands down, my favorite member of the cast was Steven Boschen who managed to play roles as disparate as a virginal beloved and a tubercular little sister in a series of wigs and costumes that only occasionally made him resemble Boy George, but in the best possible way. Between his stellar singing voice and gracefully feminine man hands, he made me laugh more than anyone else.
And, let's face it, laughing during this frenetic season is undoubtedly the best medicine.
I understand Prozac and Prosecco work well, too. Whatever gets you to falalalala.
Tonight we took the Christmas train without apology.
That meant a walk by Quirk Hotel to admire its enormous pink tree and the Jefferson Street side's tasteful window decorations - a ceramic dog posed in a sea of cotton "snow" under small white trees - while outside, window boxes of blooming pink roses provided color continuity.
The Quirkster misses no details.
Compare that to the far more traditional red, gold and white color scheme that awaited us at the Jefferson Hotel, which was hosting not one but three private parties, including one that took over the entire downstairs, thus prohibiting sweeping entrances down the grand staircase as we'd hoped for.
Anticipating just this level of over-the-top holiday frenzy was exactly the reason we'd walked rather than driven. Parking at home probably was the closest parking space.
Surveying the massive two-story tree, we decided that it needed additional ornaments (preferably some with more texture and color) to fill in the irregular green spaces appealingly. We were both of the mind that you really can't overdress a tree because if there's room for a bauble, it belongs there.
But nothing could have prepared us for the Christmas craziness at Lemaire where the host warned us that no seats looked to open up any time soon, but we were welcome to hover.
Translation : welcome to cut throat Christmas at a four diamond hotel.
When we joked about how ridiculously busy it was, he told us it was a slow night for December. My condolences, indeed.
Although he was kind enough to take our drink order, what hadn't been mentioned was that we'd also need to hover like vultures near the bar if we had any hope of scoring seats so we could eat with dignity.
After losing out to a pushy couple who swooped in just as we were making our approach, we were offered two stools by a vivacious and buxom blond who knew what a favor she was doing us, so we acted properly grateful (hardly a stretch), although at that point, we were unaware of our proximity to a clutch of shrill young women who continuously screamed and laughed at a pitch usually heard only by canines.
While I wouldn't say the large staff was in the weeds, it was taking every ounce of their time and attention to keep up with the needs of so many customers - many of them in larger groups - in the restaurant at one time.
Because we had a curtain to make and because we are pros who already had drinks in hand, no time was wasted in ordering, the better to move on to important conversations before its arrival.
Like Christmas Eve dinner in some Italian families I once knew, our meal came entirely from the sea.
Rosy pink tuna tartare got crunch from cucumber, richness from avocado puree, salt from olives, and bold color from seaweed salad, but it was fried pearl onions that surprised and delighted most.
Richer than I needed, the crabcake on English muffin sandwich didn't disappoint, but I'm of the Maryland camp that believes the binder should be minimal and this was a very creamy crabcake.
For a crab purist such as myself, it doesn't come better than a blue crab tartine that layered hunks of backfin with guacamole and micro-greens on grilled and oiled rustic bread with a chew so fabulous it was challenging to cut with a knife and fork, but utterly satisfying once in our mouths, especially after a swipe through the spicy honey drizzled on the plate.
Trying to cover eight days worth of life in between bites that were worth devoting our full attention to wasn't as easy as it sounds, but we did what we had to do to de-brief each other, scrutinize the clientele and lick all three plates clean simultaneously.
All in the name of holiday cheer, you understand. I will say that we felt far less harried than some of the anxious-appearing groups around us who were clearly in the vise-like grip of holiday responsibilities looked.
We were slackers in Christmas comparison, really only out to indulge ourselves.
To that end, we'd donned our gay apparel for Richmond Triangle Players' production of "Scrooge in Rouge," which was just the seasonal ticket for a play that combined the traditional (an offbeat retelling of "A Christmas Carol" as done by an English music hall cast) with the completely irreverent, namely cross-dressing, bad puns and references to oral sex, or any sex, really.
I mean, how do you think Bob Cratchit (or Bob Crabcakes, as he's repeatedly referred to here) wound up with all those snotty-nosed children if not for a healthy drive?
Even Tiny Tim and his tiny crutch were fair game for mocking to great hilarity. It's not often you hear, "Break a leg, Tiny Tim!"
Oh, yes, and there was a dancing pickle.
Interestingly, the cast was the same as it had been when RTP had premiered the play in 2009, for which I had a reference solely because there's a poster for the original production in the ladies' room. I knew it well because you notice everything over years of waiting in line to relieve yourself.
Hands down, my favorite member of the cast was Steven Boschen who managed to play roles as disparate as a virginal beloved and a tubercular little sister in a series of wigs and costumes that only occasionally made him resemble Boy George, but in the best possible way. Between his stellar singing voice and gracefully feminine man hands, he made me laugh more than anyone else.
And, let's face it, laughing during this frenetic season is undoubtedly the best medicine.
I understand Prozac and Prosecco work well, too. Whatever gets you to falalalala.
Thursday, April 14, 2016
It's Alive
Pink is the color of love and happiness.
I gleaned this, not by spending close to two hours in the love and happiness room at Quirk Hotel, but by listening to a Ted talk (as in Ted Ukrop was talking) about the hotel's restoration and renovation, a talk punctuated by the clinking glasses of the cocktail party vibe in the room and a fire alarm.
Given the blase age we live in, it was hardly surprising that, mid-talk, when the excruciatingly loud alarm began sounding, not a soul moved. In fact, a well-dressed guy turned and said to no one in particular, "Funny how no one's making a move to leave."
Funny? It took some time for the Modern Richmond crowd to begrudgingly accept that there was the possibility that the hotel above us was in dire straits and begin shuffling up the stairs, through the smoky lobby and outside.
We never got any explanation, but the moment the alarm ceased, we dutifully filed back in to hear more about how Quirk came to be from Ted and the architect. Like how they researched old photos at the Valentine to see what the lobby originally looked like back when the Italianate building was a toney department store.
How the second floor windows on the east side are original and high up on the walls, in the Italian style, so steps were added to access the views. How flooring from the building next door was used to fashion cabinets, closets and counters. How you can see the racetrack and the Diamond from the rooftop bar because it's the tallest building in the area.
Our ultimate goal was going upstairs to see a room and a loft suite, both with fabulous windows, local artisan-made ice buckets and Virginia art in every room and hallway. Since the rooms cost $200 and $400 a night respectively, it'll likely be my last look at them.
Chatting with a stranger about where I lived and how I liked it (J-Ward, love it) because she's considering a move to the city, she asks, apropos of nothing, "Do you work?"
I think this is about the oddest question you could ask an able-bodied person over 18 and under 65. Do I work? Do I need to pay for shelter and transportation? Do I have living expenses? What the hell?
Yes, I work.
I also eat, both for hire, for pleasure and for sustenance, meaning my next stop was dinner at Lucy's with my favorite walker.
Ensconced at the bar with "On the Town" playing silently on the screen, I licked a bowl of bacon and lentil soup clean and followed it with a fried Brussels sprout and mesclun salad jazzed up with goat cheese and red onions while my companion found religion with Lucy's incomparable cheeseburger.
Shortly, in came the chef and barkeep of Metzger, waiting to meet friends, but happy to share the plans for their new Scott's Addition restaurant in the meantime. While it certainly sounds like it's going to be fun, I can't help but wonder about the wisdom of this mass stampede to such a small and impossibly trendy neighborhood.
Or perhaps I'm secretly envious that more business owners don't consider some of the empty buildings in Jackson Ward when looking for real estate.
But no matter. In front of us was flourless chocolate cake dripping with real whipped cream on a plate squiggled with caramel sauce, so my attention was diverted to more important things like maintaining my daily chocolate quota.
That quota, in fact, had been the subject of discussion earlier today while I was out on my walkabout.
"I see you're still out here strutting every day," says the business owner whose shop I'd passed for years, at least until construction fences forced me to the opposite side of the street.
He felt comfortable giving me a hard time because we'd officially met and chatted at a nearby restaurant I was reviewing when he'd spotted me in non-walking attire. I reminded him that I strut so I can abuse chocolate and put off looking my age.
"I need to get back to the gym more often,:" he said, picking up the gauntlet and running with it before tossing me a delightful compliment (coincidentally, the third reason I walk).
Chocolate needs met for the time, I bade my companion farewell and set out for UR and the annual Musicircus,a tribute to composer John Cage. Since the first one I attended back at the old Chop Suey Books in 2007, I've been devoted to the one-hour cacophony of sound.
Wandering through the concert hall, I was a bit surprised at the small crowd, but there hadn't been much press or even social media about it, so it wasn't entirely surprising. In hallways and practice rooms, the crowd happened on all kinds of music and musicians.
A four-piece fado group, the singer's lovely voice shaping the words of Portuguese longing. A guy playing acoustic guitar and singing the stirring "This Land is Your Land." A piano and drum combo perfectly in sync. Gamelan musicians. A killer guitarist playing lap steel. A familiar sax player, eyes closed, wailing alone in a room.
One of the most unique sound contributors was The Hat, reading from his unfinished novel, using his best actorly voices and hand gestures for dramatic effect.
My only complaint was that the whole point of the Musicircus is the blending of all the disparate music being made, but with such a large building, even the sound of 50+ musicians didn't always reach to the next performer.
It was only when I ran into the jazz critic that I was clued in to the additional musicians playing their hearts out in the basement. Down I went, only to be rewarded with the best bleeding of sound by far.
Just outside a stairwell were three members of No BS - Lance using nothing but a mic'd cymbal and a xylophone, Marcus and Reggie blowing horns - making a disproportionately large sound for three people.
Two favorites - Scott and Cameron - whom I'd seen recently in separate outfits were reunited (and it feels so good) and playing with trumpeter Bob. A noise group turned knobs and produced sound so loud it scared some people off. A guy playing a keyboard with earbuds in seemed to be in his own world.
Walking in on Brian and Pinson, both drummers except tonight Brian - the event's organizer all these years - was playing piano (what?), a favorite gallerist arched an eyebrow and leaned in, saying, "I see your blog is back alive."
Now there was an unexpected compliment. You just never know what instruments people play or who might be paying attention to your blog, do you?
Fittingly, my final stop was a large room with an eight-piece (guitar, bass, drums, congas, trumpet, piano, two saxes) rocking out to the point that the two guys listening were head banging while the grooviest of light shows swirled red, green and yellow on the ceiling and walls.
Needless to say, their raucous sound was bleeding out and down hallways in a manner that had to have had John Cage smiling, wherever he and partner Merce are right now.
With any luck, they're in a place with walls painted in Benjamin Moore's "Love and Happiness Pink," coincidentally, the color of half the rooms at Quirk Hotel.
If only painting it made it so. We strutting types figure that love and happiness are where you find them.
I gleaned this, not by spending close to two hours in the love and happiness room at Quirk Hotel, but by listening to a Ted talk (as in Ted Ukrop was talking) about the hotel's restoration and renovation, a talk punctuated by the clinking glasses of the cocktail party vibe in the room and a fire alarm.
Given the blase age we live in, it was hardly surprising that, mid-talk, when the excruciatingly loud alarm began sounding, not a soul moved. In fact, a well-dressed guy turned and said to no one in particular, "Funny how no one's making a move to leave."
Funny? It took some time for the Modern Richmond crowd to begrudgingly accept that there was the possibility that the hotel above us was in dire straits and begin shuffling up the stairs, through the smoky lobby and outside.
We never got any explanation, but the moment the alarm ceased, we dutifully filed back in to hear more about how Quirk came to be from Ted and the architect. Like how they researched old photos at the Valentine to see what the lobby originally looked like back when the Italianate building was a toney department store.
How the second floor windows on the east side are original and high up on the walls, in the Italian style, so steps were added to access the views. How flooring from the building next door was used to fashion cabinets, closets and counters. How you can see the racetrack and the Diamond from the rooftop bar because it's the tallest building in the area.
Our ultimate goal was going upstairs to see a room and a loft suite, both with fabulous windows, local artisan-made ice buckets and Virginia art in every room and hallway. Since the rooms cost $200 and $400 a night respectively, it'll likely be my last look at them.
Chatting with a stranger about where I lived and how I liked it (J-Ward, love it) because she's considering a move to the city, she asks, apropos of nothing, "Do you work?"
I think this is about the oddest question you could ask an able-bodied person over 18 and under 65. Do I work? Do I need to pay for shelter and transportation? Do I have living expenses? What the hell?
Yes, I work.
I also eat, both for hire, for pleasure and for sustenance, meaning my next stop was dinner at Lucy's with my favorite walker.
Ensconced at the bar with "On the Town" playing silently on the screen, I licked a bowl of bacon and lentil soup clean and followed it with a fried Brussels sprout and mesclun salad jazzed up with goat cheese and red onions while my companion found religion with Lucy's incomparable cheeseburger.
Shortly, in came the chef and barkeep of Metzger, waiting to meet friends, but happy to share the plans for their new Scott's Addition restaurant in the meantime. While it certainly sounds like it's going to be fun, I can't help but wonder about the wisdom of this mass stampede to such a small and impossibly trendy neighborhood.
Or perhaps I'm secretly envious that more business owners don't consider some of the empty buildings in Jackson Ward when looking for real estate.
But no matter. In front of us was flourless chocolate cake dripping with real whipped cream on a plate squiggled with caramel sauce, so my attention was diverted to more important things like maintaining my daily chocolate quota.
That quota, in fact, had been the subject of discussion earlier today while I was out on my walkabout.
"I see you're still out here strutting every day," says the business owner whose shop I'd passed for years, at least until construction fences forced me to the opposite side of the street.
He felt comfortable giving me a hard time because we'd officially met and chatted at a nearby restaurant I was reviewing when he'd spotted me in non-walking attire. I reminded him that I strut so I can abuse chocolate and put off looking my age.
"I need to get back to the gym more often,:" he said, picking up the gauntlet and running with it before tossing me a delightful compliment (coincidentally, the third reason I walk).
Chocolate needs met for the time, I bade my companion farewell and set out for UR and the annual Musicircus,a tribute to composer John Cage. Since the first one I attended back at the old Chop Suey Books in 2007, I've been devoted to the one-hour cacophony of sound.
Wandering through the concert hall, I was a bit surprised at the small crowd, but there hadn't been much press or even social media about it, so it wasn't entirely surprising. In hallways and practice rooms, the crowd happened on all kinds of music and musicians.
A four-piece fado group, the singer's lovely voice shaping the words of Portuguese longing. A guy playing acoustic guitar and singing the stirring "This Land is Your Land." A piano and drum combo perfectly in sync. Gamelan musicians. A killer guitarist playing lap steel. A familiar sax player, eyes closed, wailing alone in a room.
One of the most unique sound contributors was The Hat, reading from his unfinished novel, using his best actorly voices and hand gestures for dramatic effect.
My only complaint was that the whole point of the Musicircus is the blending of all the disparate music being made, but with such a large building, even the sound of 50+ musicians didn't always reach to the next performer.
It was only when I ran into the jazz critic that I was clued in to the additional musicians playing their hearts out in the basement. Down I went, only to be rewarded with the best bleeding of sound by far.
Just outside a stairwell were three members of No BS - Lance using nothing but a mic'd cymbal and a xylophone, Marcus and Reggie blowing horns - making a disproportionately large sound for three people.
Two favorites - Scott and Cameron - whom I'd seen recently in separate outfits were reunited (and it feels so good) and playing with trumpeter Bob. A noise group turned knobs and produced sound so loud it scared some people off. A guy playing a keyboard with earbuds in seemed to be in his own world.
Walking in on Brian and Pinson, both drummers except tonight Brian - the event's organizer all these years - was playing piano (what?), a favorite gallerist arched an eyebrow and leaned in, saying, "I see your blog is back alive."
Now there was an unexpected compliment. You just never know what instruments people play or who might be paying attention to your blog, do you?
Fittingly, my final stop was a large room with an eight-piece (guitar, bass, drums, congas, trumpet, piano, two saxes) rocking out to the point that the two guys listening were head banging while the grooviest of light shows swirled red, green and yellow on the ceiling and walls.
Needless to say, their raucous sound was bleeding out and down hallways in a manner that had to have had John Cage smiling, wherever he and partner Merce are right now.
With any luck, they're in a place with walls painted in Benjamin Moore's "Love and Happiness Pink," coincidentally, the color of half the rooms at Quirk Hotel.
If only painting it made it so. We strutting types figure that love and happiness are where you find them.
Friday, February 5, 2016
It Only Hurts When I Kiss
I can brag if I want to.
Evening found me back at VCU Cabell Library for the second night in a row to hear comic artist Keith Knight talk on the subject of "They Shoot Black People, Don't They?" (did anyone under 40 get the reference?) but before he even took the stage, my entertainment was the people around me and there were lots of them. The lecture was packed.
"I realize that I become an artist between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m.," the student behind me told his friends in all seriousness. "I write myself notes but when I look at 'em the next day, I realize they'd take too long to execute so I don't bother."
In other words, being an artist is haaaard.
The clutch of students on the other side were grilling a girl with multiple piercings. "Doesn't that one hurt when you get kissed?" a boy who sounded like he wanted to kiss her asked. "It's just, like, pressure," she answered. "But that one hurt the most to get." Nods and murmurs of empathy.
The guy in front of me, not a student, suddenly began thrashing around, looking under his chair, in his coat pockets, everywhere. "I can't find my phone!" I watched as he checked under chairs within a six foot radius, all the while looking desperate.
"I hate that so much of our lives are in these little devices," he said, looking at me for affirmation.
Not for me, I don't have one, I told him. "Don't brag!" he commanded, sort of smiling. Or was that just what jealousy looks like?
Tonight's speaker, Keith Knight, took the podium looking as hip as you'd expect an ex-San Franciscan to look and announcing that he'd discovered Sally Bell's all by himself this afternoon, enjoying a cupcake. "I just found it!" he said, clearly marveling at his luck. "Okay, if I've won all those awards he just mentioned, how come you haven't heard of me?"
It was a damn good question once he began talking and sharing his work. Like one about the benefits of black men having a male blow-up doll.
Five black men standing on a corner = a gang. Five black men standing on a corner with a white blow-up doll = basketball team and coach. That sort of commentary.
Or one called, "If signs told the truth" with a picture of a Denny's sign with the sub-head, "Serving blacks since 1997," sadly a fact brought about by a D.C. Denny's that refused to serve black Secret Service agents. In 1997.
Washington is my hometown. Are you kidding me?
His single-panel comics were as sharp and funny, just pithier. A TV screen announces that they have a picture of the man who's been terrorizing downtown. The brown guy thinks, "Please don't let him be Middle Eastern" and the black guy thinks, "Please don't let him be black" and the white guy thinks, "Ha, ha, they'll never catch me."
Funny and tragic at the same time.
Interesting as it was to see examples of his 20 years of artistry, the most compelling part of his talk was his plea for the races to really talk. "We need to talk about race until whites get uncomfortable so we can get beyond it."
Despite his geeky, mild-mannered persona, even he has been stopped by police. He was on Fulton Street in San Francisco, hanging posters with a staple gun for his band's upcoming show when he was surrounded by police who claimed to be on the lookout for a 6' black male robber.
A white friend of his happened to be riding by on the bus and noticed that his friend was surrounded by cops, so he jumped off the bus and charged the scene, hoping to clear his friend. Did the cops react to a white guy running at them the way they had to a black guy using a stapler? They did not. "That's white privilege," Knight said. "It's time for whites to start using their white privilege for good."
Another comic read, "All Lives Matter* (*restrictions apply, see skin color for details).
"You can't just be non-racist anymore, you've got to be actively anti-racist," Knight implored.
He talked for almost two hours, showing comics, telling stories and, like Reverend Campbell earlier in the day at the Historical Society, reminding people that right now is our Civil Rights movement and if we don't participate, history will be worse for it.
Impressive as the new library's third floor terraces and kitchen facilities are, it's already apparent that the level of programming they're bringing in is the real game-changer. I can't wait to see what's next.
My plan had been to go to Black Iris' opening afterwards, but the talk had gone long and I wasn't sure it was still happening. Of course, that didn't stop me from walking over there from campus, where I found a room buzzing with familiar faces to see Mickael Broth's "La Voie Sacree," a meditation on a World War I battle in Verdun, France and the supply line (la voie sacree) to that embattled town.
I knew of Broth from his wizard mural at the bus depot, but I hadn't known that he'd come to Richmond to be a graffiti artist, only to be arrested and jailed for ten months as a result of it.
Much of the work in this show was shiny and colorful and, at first glance kind of abstract, but looking more closely revealed elements of the war and how it shattered lives and perceptions. Buildings crumble, artillery flies through the air and, of course, being WW I, noxious clouds of gas hang over it all. A large scale sculptural installation in the back further drew the viewer in.
A friend suggested that the exhibit would be an excellent choice for a French museum devoted to that era. Another, whom I'd seen two of the past three nights at events, talked about similar sculptural work by a local puppet maker. I ran into a comic artist/VCU prof who had also been at the Keith Knight talk and been as blown away as I was. I chatted with the artist who's now 25 months sober about how much great stuff is happening this weekend alone.
When they finally threw us out, I walked down the block to Maple and Pine to join the Man About Town for a drink. So much walking in the cold, damp night air had me asking for a cup of tea and our bartender obliged with Quirk's special lavender blend, a tea that smelled more feminine than I do (not the tea's fault) and the ideal antidote for my cold insides.
Meanwhile, the MAT regaled me with stories of his current acting job as Ben Franklin for a FOX series ("That's right, Bill O'Reilly is signing my paycheck!"), a gig that's had him on set off and on since September. He even pulled out photos to show me how they've aged him from a younger man to an 81-year old.
All around us, Maple and Pine was hopping, with tables full of revelers and hotel guests (who was that handsome guy at the bar?) bustling throughout the restaurant and lobby. Being a late night type, I love how lively that space stays long after other places flag.
Not that I have pictures to prove it because, well, I have no cell phone and not because I misplaced it.
And, yes, that's bragging.
Evening found me back at VCU Cabell Library for the second night in a row to hear comic artist Keith Knight talk on the subject of "They Shoot Black People, Don't They?" (did anyone under 40 get the reference?) but before he even took the stage, my entertainment was the people around me and there were lots of them. The lecture was packed.
"I realize that I become an artist between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m.," the student behind me told his friends in all seriousness. "I write myself notes but when I look at 'em the next day, I realize they'd take too long to execute so I don't bother."
In other words, being an artist is haaaard.
The clutch of students on the other side were grilling a girl with multiple piercings. "Doesn't that one hurt when you get kissed?" a boy who sounded like he wanted to kiss her asked. "It's just, like, pressure," she answered. "But that one hurt the most to get." Nods and murmurs of empathy.
The guy in front of me, not a student, suddenly began thrashing around, looking under his chair, in his coat pockets, everywhere. "I can't find my phone!" I watched as he checked under chairs within a six foot radius, all the while looking desperate.
"I hate that so much of our lives are in these little devices," he said, looking at me for affirmation.
Not for me, I don't have one, I told him. "Don't brag!" he commanded, sort of smiling. Or was that just what jealousy looks like?
Tonight's speaker, Keith Knight, took the podium looking as hip as you'd expect an ex-San Franciscan to look and announcing that he'd discovered Sally Bell's all by himself this afternoon, enjoying a cupcake. "I just found it!" he said, clearly marveling at his luck. "Okay, if I've won all those awards he just mentioned, how come you haven't heard of me?"
It was a damn good question once he began talking and sharing his work. Like one about the benefits of black men having a male blow-up doll.
Five black men standing on a corner = a gang. Five black men standing on a corner with a white blow-up doll = basketball team and coach. That sort of commentary.
Or one called, "If signs told the truth" with a picture of a Denny's sign with the sub-head, "Serving blacks since 1997," sadly a fact brought about by a D.C. Denny's that refused to serve black Secret Service agents. In 1997.
Washington is my hometown. Are you kidding me?
His single-panel comics were as sharp and funny, just pithier. A TV screen announces that they have a picture of the man who's been terrorizing downtown. The brown guy thinks, "Please don't let him be Middle Eastern" and the black guy thinks, "Please don't let him be black" and the white guy thinks, "Ha, ha, they'll never catch me."
Funny and tragic at the same time.
Interesting as it was to see examples of his 20 years of artistry, the most compelling part of his talk was his plea for the races to really talk. "We need to talk about race until whites get uncomfortable so we can get beyond it."
Despite his geeky, mild-mannered persona, even he has been stopped by police. He was on Fulton Street in San Francisco, hanging posters with a staple gun for his band's upcoming show when he was surrounded by police who claimed to be on the lookout for a 6' black male robber.
A white friend of his happened to be riding by on the bus and noticed that his friend was surrounded by cops, so he jumped off the bus and charged the scene, hoping to clear his friend. Did the cops react to a white guy running at them the way they had to a black guy using a stapler? They did not. "That's white privilege," Knight said. "It's time for whites to start using their white privilege for good."
Another comic read, "All Lives Matter* (*restrictions apply, see skin color for details).
"You can't just be non-racist anymore, you've got to be actively anti-racist," Knight implored.
He talked for almost two hours, showing comics, telling stories and, like Reverend Campbell earlier in the day at the Historical Society, reminding people that right now is our Civil Rights movement and if we don't participate, history will be worse for it.
Impressive as the new library's third floor terraces and kitchen facilities are, it's already apparent that the level of programming they're bringing in is the real game-changer. I can't wait to see what's next.
My plan had been to go to Black Iris' opening afterwards, but the talk had gone long and I wasn't sure it was still happening. Of course, that didn't stop me from walking over there from campus, where I found a room buzzing with familiar faces to see Mickael Broth's "La Voie Sacree," a meditation on a World War I battle in Verdun, France and the supply line (la voie sacree) to that embattled town.
I knew of Broth from his wizard mural at the bus depot, but I hadn't known that he'd come to Richmond to be a graffiti artist, only to be arrested and jailed for ten months as a result of it.
Much of the work in this show was shiny and colorful and, at first glance kind of abstract, but looking more closely revealed elements of the war and how it shattered lives and perceptions. Buildings crumble, artillery flies through the air and, of course, being WW I, noxious clouds of gas hang over it all. A large scale sculptural installation in the back further drew the viewer in.
A friend suggested that the exhibit would be an excellent choice for a French museum devoted to that era. Another, whom I'd seen two of the past three nights at events, talked about similar sculptural work by a local puppet maker. I ran into a comic artist/VCU prof who had also been at the Keith Knight talk and been as blown away as I was. I chatted with the artist who's now 25 months sober about how much great stuff is happening this weekend alone.
When they finally threw us out, I walked down the block to Maple and Pine to join the Man About Town for a drink. So much walking in the cold, damp night air had me asking for a cup of tea and our bartender obliged with Quirk's special lavender blend, a tea that smelled more feminine than I do (not the tea's fault) and the ideal antidote for my cold insides.
Meanwhile, the MAT regaled me with stories of his current acting job as Ben Franklin for a FOX series ("That's right, Bill O'Reilly is signing my paycheck!"), a gig that's had him on set off and on since September. He even pulled out photos to show me how they've aged him from a younger man to an 81-year old.
All around us, Maple and Pine was hopping, with tables full of revelers and hotel guests (who was that handsome guy at the bar?) bustling throughout the restaurant and lobby. Being a late night type, I love how lively that space stays long after other places flag.
Not that I have pictures to prove it because, well, I have no cell phone and not because I misplaced it.
And, yes, that's bragging.
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Minor Miseries
So much on my mind that I'm a day late in posting.
Mirroring my feelings lately, a gallerist wrote to me, "You, more than most, must hate not being able to go out in the evenings!"
You know it and it was time to correct it.
Yesterday's epic walk to the Criterion - down the middle of Leigh Street, necessitating climbing snow mounds and the occasional splash from speeding cars - to see Charlie Kaufman's stop-motion "Anomalisa" delivered puppet porn and a consumer culture theme seemingly meant to echo the tragic world we now live in.
And while I can feel superior all I want about my simplistic lifestyle, all too often I am listening to new music, i.e.consuming. Guilty as charged.
And if I am lost - the person who subsists on the fringes of current cultural norms - all is lost. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
My date found "Anomalisa" to be too depressing for entertainment, but my pleasure came in admiring the puppets, the stop animation, essentially the craft of it all. This is a film not about the performance of the actors, but about the art of puppetry.
Of course, there was also the premise: Sadly, there's so much sameness surrounding us in the 21st century that something different becomes jarring ("What, you don't have a cell phone?" people ask me in horror or, "What do you mean you don't watch TV?") or, for the lonely, irresistibly attractive.
As in real life, a happy ending was impossible - even after our heroine sung "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" - so we were left with a sense that we as a society are too far gone to dare hope that things might work out satisfactorily in our lives.
Tragically, in 2016 that no longer seems to be an option. Everyone seems to be older, fatter and tireder, meaning the collective passion of youth is spent and happy endings impossible.
Dwelling on this sad fact is pointless. It is what is is.
Did I mention how impressed I was with an hour and a half of state-of-the-art stop-motion animation? If "Rudolph" or "Gumby" is your frame of reference for this art form (as it was mine), prepare to be bowled over.
Just don't expect that an enthusiastic male suitor, even one portrayed by a puppet, can sustain devotion.
After a fruitless high-speed walk to TheatreLAB to see "Nine Circles," only to find it closed down tight due to snow, we punted.
That meant razzing the familiar faces shoveling snow in front of Max's on Broad and then drinks at Quirk Hotel where the liveliest table was a group of male West Enders who'd refused to allow Storm Jonas to crush their birthday celebration plans.
The bartender let slip that rapper Macklemore had been staying there as a lead-up to last night's performance at the Altria, keeping busy writing during the recent snow storm.
Devoted fans stopped by on their way to the show, downing Lemon Drops (I kid you not) and Tres Generations Tequila (different duo, this one with a babysitter at home) to prep for the show ahead.
Whatever it takes, kids.
Since Macklemore isn't my thing, I enjoyed watching the arriving guests - my favorite being the couple who loaded cases of wine on the luggage cart because they weren't willing to risk a shortage - as well as the bored kitchen staff (not a single reservation for the night) and the punchy servers, many of whom, like our bartender, had stayed the past few nights at the hotel so as to be on the job when required.
She said her only mistake had been in forgetting her boots. Not so me and my green and pink flowered rubber boots, which reliably garner compliments for its wearer while allowing me to wade through the deepest puddle.
I'm still hoping to be the one who walks in the sun, but Charlie Kaufman has convinced me that that's unlikely.
That's life, right?
Mirroring my feelings lately, a gallerist wrote to me, "You, more than most, must hate not being able to go out in the evenings!"
You know it and it was time to correct it.
Yesterday's epic walk to the Criterion - down the middle of Leigh Street, necessitating climbing snow mounds and the occasional splash from speeding cars - to see Charlie Kaufman's stop-motion "Anomalisa" delivered puppet porn and a consumer culture theme seemingly meant to echo the tragic world we now live in.
And while I can feel superior all I want about my simplistic lifestyle, all too often I am listening to new music, i.e.consuming. Guilty as charged.
And if I am lost - the person who subsists on the fringes of current cultural norms - all is lost. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
My date found "Anomalisa" to be too depressing for entertainment, but my pleasure came in admiring the puppets, the stop animation, essentially the craft of it all. This is a film not about the performance of the actors, but about the art of puppetry.
Of course, there was also the premise: Sadly, there's so much sameness surrounding us in the 21st century that something different becomes jarring ("What, you don't have a cell phone?" people ask me in horror or, "What do you mean you don't watch TV?") or, for the lonely, irresistibly attractive.
As in real life, a happy ending was impossible - even after our heroine sung "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" - so we were left with a sense that we as a society are too far gone to dare hope that things might work out satisfactorily in our lives.
Tragically, in 2016 that no longer seems to be an option. Everyone seems to be older, fatter and tireder, meaning the collective passion of youth is spent and happy endings impossible.
Dwelling on this sad fact is pointless. It is what is is.
Did I mention how impressed I was with an hour and a half of state-of-the-art stop-motion animation? If "Rudolph" or "Gumby" is your frame of reference for this art form (as it was mine), prepare to be bowled over.
Just don't expect that an enthusiastic male suitor, even one portrayed by a puppet, can sustain devotion.
After a fruitless high-speed walk to TheatreLAB to see "Nine Circles," only to find it closed down tight due to snow, we punted.
That meant razzing the familiar faces shoveling snow in front of Max's on Broad and then drinks at Quirk Hotel where the liveliest table was a group of male West Enders who'd refused to allow Storm Jonas to crush their birthday celebration plans.
The bartender let slip that rapper Macklemore had been staying there as a lead-up to last night's performance at the Altria, keeping busy writing during the recent snow storm.
Devoted fans stopped by on their way to the show, downing Lemon Drops (I kid you not) and Tres Generations Tequila (different duo, this one with a babysitter at home) to prep for the show ahead.
Whatever it takes, kids.
Since Macklemore isn't my thing, I enjoyed watching the arriving guests - my favorite being the couple who loaded cases of wine on the luggage cart because they weren't willing to risk a shortage - as well as the bored kitchen staff (not a single reservation for the night) and the punchy servers, many of whom, like our bartender, had stayed the past few nights at the hotel so as to be on the job when required.
She said her only mistake had been in forgetting her boots. Not so me and my green and pink flowered rubber boots, which reliably garner compliments for its wearer while allowing me to wade through the deepest puddle.
I'm still hoping to be the one who walks in the sun, but Charlie Kaufman has convinced me that that's unlikely.
That's life, right?
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Walking to Jefferson
For an evening that began with my car dying and an unexpected walk home, it ended splendidly.
I have Quirk's Maple and Pine - along with a smart, amusing date - to thank for that, although I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention the entertainment value of a gaggle of tourism people, name tags strung round their necks, also at the restaurant, including a slightly tipsy one from Virginia Beach ("A coin toss brought me there"), whom I officially met in the ladies' room.
You know the one, down the stairs, under the sign that reads, "Love, Happiness, Restrooms." Joke all you want but sometimes a restroom does make me extremely happy.
Meanwhile, the tourism types. So. Much. Networking. Quirk seems to already be a magnet for those kinds of gatherings, or at least in my experience of three visits that's been the case.
And why not? The space is gorgeous, there's Prosecco on tap (although why the taps are on the outside of the bar I can't quite figure) and the staff is engaging. Our dimpled server even gave us a dramatic pose to make a point.
But what I like best is that it's a hotel so you're bound to see out-of-towners. I spotted two of them lounging by the windows and pegged them for visitors at once. Bingo, one with an accent as thick as butter on a biscuit from Wilson, North Carolina and the other with colorful socks and patent leather shoes from Miami.
When they left to hit the streets, we wondered where they were headed, only because it can be challenging to find major fun on a Monday evening.
A handful of people in the big tourism group opted for a tour of Quirk and their metro-sexual guide paused near enough me that I could overhear his spiel, including that the building had originally been (J.P.) Mosby's Department Store.
What were the chances? We'd been wondering about the building's origins since we'd sat down.
We'd also been eating from practically the moment we'd arrived, starting with the smoked pork pate I'd already had twice (and adore), chicken wings that had me licking sauce off my fingers and meaty oxtail egg rolls and moving right through marinated vegetables in brown butter and duck breast with quinoa and finishing smartly (and with the bartender's seal of approval) with chocolate espresso mousse studded with orange and hazelnuts.
The latter bites were accompanied by a Left Coast Pinot Blanc that conjured memories of drinking it at the winery this summer and the delightful conversations we'd had with the owners. She and I discussed working in publishing and he smiled at me a lot and refilled my glass every chance he got.
I'd liked them both and tonight's bottle was a delicious reminder of that.
Only the sound system disappointed, with too few and tinny-sounding speakers pointed at the ceiling and insufficient volume to provide true ambiance. My friends know how seriously I take my restaurant (or any) music. Obviously, Quirk does not.
But it does have charm in abundance. Although I've already seen plenty of pooches paraded through the lobby and restaurant to the elevators, tonight owner Katie Ukrop was pausing to let her dog pee on the tree in front of the hotel, and while urination per se is hardly charming, seeing an owner going about the business of life in front of her pretty pink and gray hotel most definitely is.
Keepin' it real in Richmond. Maybe that's what the tourism people should have seen.
I have Quirk's Maple and Pine - along with a smart, amusing date - to thank for that, although I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention the entertainment value of a gaggle of tourism people, name tags strung round their necks, also at the restaurant, including a slightly tipsy one from Virginia Beach ("A coin toss brought me there"), whom I officially met in the ladies' room.
You know the one, down the stairs, under the sign that reads, "Love, Happiness, Restrooms." Joke all you want but sometimes a restroom does make me extremely happy.
Meanwhile, the tourism types. So. Much. Networking. Quirk seems to already be a magnet for those kinds of gatherings, or at least in my experience of three visits that's been the case.
And why not? The space is gorgeous, there's Prosecco on tap (although why the taps are on the outside of the bar I can't quite figure) and the staff is engaging. Our dimpled server even gave us a dramatic pose to make a point.
But what I like best is that it's a hotel so you're bound to see out-of-towners. I spotted two of them lounging by the windows and pegged them for visitors at once. Bingo, one with an accent as thick as butter on a biscuit from Wilson, North Carolina and the other with colorful socks and patent leather shoes from Miami.
When they left to hit the streets, we wondered where they were headed, only because it can be challenging to find major fun on a Monday evening.
A handful of people in the big tourism group opted for a tour of Quirk and their metro-sexual guide paused near enough me that I could overhear his spiel, including that the building had originally been (J.P.) Mosby's Department Store.
What were the chances? We'd been wondering about the building's origins since we'd sat down.
We'd also been eating from practically the moment we'd arrived, starting with the smoked pork pate I'd already had twice (and adore), chicken wings that had me licking sauce off my fingers and meaty oxtail egg rolls and moving right through marinated vegetables in brown butter and duck breast with quinoa and finishing smartly (and with the bartender's seal of approval) with chocolate espresso mousse studded with orange and hazelnuts.
The latter bites were accompanied by a Left Coast Pinot Blanc that conjured memories of drinking it at the winery this summer and the delightful conversations we'd had with the owners. She and I discussed working in publishing and he smiled at me a lot and refilled my glass every chance he got.
I'd liked them both and tonight's bottle was a delicious reminder of that.
Only the sound system disappointed, with too few and tinny-sounding speakers pointed at the ceiling and insufficient volume to provide true ambiance. My friends know how seriously I take my restaurant (or any) music. Obviously, Quirk does not.
But it does have charm in abundance. Although I've already seen plenty of pooches paraded through the lobby and restaurant to the elevators, tonight owner Katie Ukrop was pausing to let her dog pee on the tree in front of the hotel, and while urination per se is hardly charming, seeing an owner going about the business of life in front of her pretty pink and gray hotel most definitely is.
Keepin' it real in Richmond. Maybe that's what the tourism people should have seen.
Sunday, October 18, 2015
This Way to Love and Happiness
Ah, the pleasures of a space transformed.
The first was the new Quirk Hotel, and while I'd walked by countless time since it opened (hello, bike race), I'd yet to go inside, which meant I hadn't anticipated the two doormen in their flowered pink ties greeting me. Beards seemed to be everywhere.
Going inside the pink, gray and glass room required the minutest mental shift - oh, right, we're in a hotel now - before heading back to place ourselves in the capable hands of the host of Maple & Pine. We landed at a center table, Pru and Beau at one of the curved banquettes and me facing them with a splendid view of the Jefferson Street hill.
Our server was generous sharing his time with us so I used the opportunity to get his story, unexpectedly tickled to learn that he grew up in Cumberland County, where his grandmother still lives and knows everyone and every scrap of history. When I told him my grandmother had been born and raised there as well, he assured me they had to have known each other's families, because that's just how small Cumberland County was. And is, apparently.
When Beau complimented his bow-tie, the former country boy explained that the staff has a choice of bow-tie or regular tie, with some people choosing the latter so they don't have to bother learning how to tie a bow-tie (clip-ons are forbidden).
I'd have thought think quirky types would appreciate a good challenge.
We began with a Bordeaux blend because Fall. Color me cold at this drastic turn in the weather because I was not ready for 40-degree temperatures yet, much less the mid-30s expected tonight. If one more person chirps about how much they love Fall, I may personally tighten their trendy scarf for them.
The beauty of it being the first time for all three of us at M & P was that it made it easy to order. Basically, we asked for everything on the small plates menu except for the ramen. When our server said the scallop plate was small, we said fine, bring two then.
If tonight's meal was any indication, there are some exquisite bites to be had mere blocks from my house.
Chestnut soup with bacon and croutons almost lost out because I was put off by croutons being misspelled as crouton's. Let us all witness the failure of the American school system in the first line of this menu. Call me petty, call me a word geek, but it's not that hard to have someone proofread your menu to save you from inappropriate apostrophes and other menu abominations.
That the soup was a symphony of complementary Fall flavors only mildly assuaged my longing for summer, but you'd never know it for how quickly it was devoured.
Marinated vegetables with sourdough and brown butter was the first item to catch my eye and it took exactly one bite to prove my instinct correct. The preserved orange mousse under duck breast prosciutto was glorious, seriously tempting me to lick the plate (I settled for the fork).
Glossy slices of diver scallop (thank you Jean-Louis Palladin) crudo took on heat from curry, but neither Pru nor Beau are as big a fan of uncooked seafood as I am, so neither liked the dish as much as me. As Holmes' Dad used to say about blueberry pie, "Don't like it? Fine, more for me."
What we were in complete agreement over was smoked pork pate with BBQ Dijonnaise and tiny fried pickles (we're talking a delicate tempura batter, not those buried-in-breading versions that obliterate all sense of a brined vegetable inside), which took a French staple and introduced it to the American south, the smokiness of the pig perfectly attuned to the hints of barbecue sauce
Let's put it this way: before we'd finished the first plate of pate, we ordered it a second time.
We were struck by the number of dogs who led their owners through the lobby and restaurant during our meal, amused by the signs pointing downstairs to "Love, Happiness, Conference Rooms, Restrooms" and charmed enough by the room's vibe and the succession of first-rate food to know we'd be back soon.
But before we left, there was dessert to be had and for my companions, Blanchard's coffee served in brilliantly-conceived coffee cups that were fitted into deep-holed saucers to eliminate spillage. I'd like to shake the hand of the genius who conceived of this long-overdue concept and I don't even drink the stuff.
Hearkening back to my childhood was warm pineapple upside down cake (thankfully sans the unnaturally bright maraschino cherries of my youth), although never so elevated as this version, served with bourbon ice cream. For the requisite chocolate course, we had chocolate espresso mousse with roasted hazelnuts on top, good, but not as dark a chocolate as this chocoholic would have wished.
Of the more ridiculous topics covered was what name I should use for myself in this blog. While Karen has worked rather well for the past six years, Beau sought an alias comparable to his and Pru's.
"How about Candy?" Pru interjected nonsensically. Not in this lifetime, but the suggestion did made me laugh.
Happily replete and with a curtain to catch, we soon left for the nearby Basement and Quill Theater's production of David Mamet's "American Buffalo."
Here again, we were walking into a transformed space.
The lettering on the door read "Don's Resale Shop" and practically every inch of the Basement was crammed with what could diplomatically be called antiques and less kindly referred to as junk.
Culled from Caravatti's, Diversity Thrift and Paul's Place, it was a treasure trove for would-be hoarders with a baby carriage filled with "elephant toothpicks," a pipe stand with pipes, a crate of albums (the classic "Buckingham and Nicks" at the front), snow shoes, pennants and a signed, framed photo of RFK.
Hanging from the ceiling in the front were lampshades and in the back, tennis rackets. Hubcaps adorned one wall. I opened an old Encyclopedia Britannica - the P volume - to Painting to find color plates of significant art works. And get this: any item with a price tag was for sale...with the stipulation that you couldn't take it with you until after the run of the play ended.
It was a total transformation of the space. Without a doubt, it was the most immersive set I'd experienced.
And it took us directly into Mamet's world, a place populated by unpleasant men, much swearing and the relentless push and pull of capitalism and altruism, friendship and business. No one's ever light and happy the way Mamet sees it.
Because the roles were written so strongly, the trio of actors - Alan Sader, Jesse Mattes and Jeffrey Schmidt - disappear into their macho '70s-era roles, inhabiting them so completely that at times it was impossible for the audience not to look at the actions or comments of a character and lose sight of the fact that it wasn't reality.
Pity, revulsion and disgust were all elicited as these three would-be big men prove that they aren't capable of much beyond infighting and false bravado. It's heartbreaking on so many levels and also wildly compelling. Mamet World may not be pretty, but it sucks you in even as you know deep down that the playwright is never going to provide any real answers.
"We all live like cavemen." This is just life for below average Joes and it's tragic to see when so well acted.
Have I bragged lately about how my neighborhood is way cooler than yours? Because unless you can walk out your door, have a memorable dinner at a jewel of a new restaurant in an offbeat boutique hotel followed by a brilliant Mamet play at an underground space a few blocks east, my neighborhood still wins.
Don't doubt it. Candy says so.
The first was the new Quirk Hotel, and while I'd walked by countless time since it opened (hello, bike race), I'd yet to go inside, which meant I hadn't anticipated the two doormen in their flowered pink ties greeting me. Beards seemed to be everywhere.
Going inside the pink, gray and glass room required the minutest mental shift - oh, right, we're in a hotel now - before heading back to place ourselves in the capable hands of the host of Maple & Pine. We landed at a center table, Pru and Beau at one of the curved banquettes and me facing them with a splendid view of the Jefferson Street hill.
Our server was generous sharing his time with us so I used the opportunity to get his story, unexpectedly tickled to learn that he grew up in Cumberland County, where his grandmother still lives and knows everyone and every scrap of history. When I told him my grandmother had been born and raised there as well, he assured me they had to have known each other's families, because that's just how small Cumberland County was. And is, apparently.
When Beau complimented his bow-tie, the former country boy explained that the staff has a choice of bow-tie or regular tie, with some people choosing the latter so they don't have to bother learning how to tie a bow-tie (clip-ons are forbidden).
I'd have thought think quirky types would appreciate a good challenge.
We began with a Bordeaux blend because Fall. Color me cold at this drastic turn in the weather because I was not ready for 40-degree temperatures yet, much less the mid-30s expected tonight. If one more person chirps about how much they love Fall, I may personally tighten their trendy scarf for them.
The beauty of it being the first time for all three of us at M & P was that it made it easy to order. Basically, we asked for everything on the small plates menu except for the ramen. When our server said the scallop plate was small, we said fine, bring two then.
If tonight's meal was any indication, there are some exquisite bites to be had mere blocks from my house.
Chestnut soup with bacon and croutons almost lost out because I was put off by croutons being misspelled as crouton's. Let us all witness the failure of the American school system in the first line of this menu. Call me petty, call me a word geek, but it's not that hard to have someone proofread your menu to save you from inappropriate apostrophes and other menu abominations.
That the soup was a symphony of complementary Fall flavors only mildly assuaged my longing for summer, but you'd never know it for how quickly it was devoured.
Marinated vegetables with sourdough and brown butter was the first item to catch my eye and it took exactly one bite to prove my instinct correct. The preserved orange mousse under duck breast prosciutto was glorious, seriously tempting me to lick the plate (I settled for the fork).
Glossy slices of diver scallop (thank you Jean-Louis Palladin) crudo took on heat from curry, but neither Pru nor Beau are as big a fan of uncooked seafood as I am, so neither liked the dish as much as me. As Holmes' Dad used to say about blueberry pie, "Don't like it? Fine, more for me."
What we were in complete agreement over was smoked pork pate with BBQ Dijonnaise and tiny fried pickles (we're talking a delicate tempura batter, not those buried-in-breading versions that obliterate all sense of a brined vegetable inside), which took a French staple and introduced it to the American south, the smokiness of the pig perfectly attuned to the hints of barbecue sauce
Let's put it this way: before we'd finished the first plate of pate, we ordered it a second time.
We were struck by the number of dogs who led their owners through the lobby and restaurant during our meal, amused by the signs pointing downstairs to "Love, Happiness, Conference Rooms, Restrooms" and charmed enough by the room's vibe and the succession of first-rate food to know we'd be back soon.
But before we left, there was dessert to be had and for my companions, Blanchard's coffee served in brilliantly-conceived coffee cups that were fitted into deep-holed saucers to eliminate spillage. I'd like to shake the hand of the genius who conceived of this long-overdue concept and I don't even drink the stuff.
Hearkening back to my childhood was warm pineapple upside down cake (thankfully sans the unnaturally bright maraschino cherries of my youth), although never so elevated as this version, served with bourbon ice cream. For the requisite chocolate course, we had chocolate espresso mousse with roasted hazelnuts on top, good, but not as dark a chocolate as this chocoholic would have wished.
Of the more ridiculous topics covered was what name I should use for myself in this blog. While Karen has worked rather well for the past six years, Beau sought an alias comparable to his and Pru's.
"How about Candy?" Pru interjected nonsensically. Not in this lifetime, but the suggestion did made me laugh.
Happily replete and with a curtain to catch, we soon left for the nearby Basement and Quill Theater's production of David Mamet's "American Buffalo."
Here again, we were walking into a transformed space.
The lettering on the door read "Don's Resale Shop" and practically every inch of the Basement was crammed with what could diplomatically be called antiques and less kindly referred to as junk.
Culled from Caravatti's, Diversity Thrift and Paul's Place, it was a treasure trove for would-be hoarders with a baby carriage filled with "elephant toothpicks," a pipe stand with pipes, a crate of albums (the classic "Buckingham and Nicks" at the front), snow shoes, pennants and a signed, framed photo of RFK.
Hanging from the ceiling in the front were lampshades and in the back, tennis rackets. Hubcaps adorned one wall. I opened an old Encyclopedia Britannica - the P volume - to Painting to find color plates of significant art works. And get this: any item with a price tag was for sale...with the stipulation that you couldn't take it with you until after the run of the play ended.
It was a total transformation of the space. Without a doubt, it was the most immersive set I'd experienced.
And it took us directly into Mamet's world, a place populated by unpleasant men, much swearing and the relentless push and pull of capitalism and altruism, friendship and business. No one's ever light and happy the way Mamet sees it.
Because the roles were written so strongly, the trio of actors - Alan Sader, Jesse Mattes and Jeffrey Schmidt - disappear into their macho '70s-era roles, inhabiting them so completely that at times it was impossible for the audience not to look at the actions or comments of a character and lose sight of the fact that it wasn't reality.
Pity, revulsion and disgust were all elicited as these three would-be big men prove that they aren't capable of much beyond infighting and false bravado. It's heartbreaking on so many levels and also wildly compelling. Mamet World may not be pretty, but it sucks you in even as you know deep down that the playwright is never going to provide any real answers.
"We all live like cavemen." This is just life for below average Joes and it's tragic to see when so well acted.
Have I bragged lately about how my neighborhood is way cooler than yours? Because unless you can walk out your door, have a memorable dinner at a jewel of a new restaurant in an offbeat boutique hotel followed by a brilliant Mamet play at an underground space a few blocks east, my neighborhood still wins.
Don't doubt it. Candy says so.
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