The Rest is Herstory

If we established anything this weekend, it's that I'm not hermit material.

I'm not talking about just living alone and away from people, even though I'll admit that's what I thought a hermit was until Saturday night.

It began innocently enough. Mr. Wright and I had plans to have dinner and see a play with Pru and Beau. No big deal. Then Beau asks if we mind if he brings a work cohort. Of course we don't mind. Next he shares that his friend is a former Benedictine monk. Well, as long as he knows he's breaking bread with a band of heathens, I'm fine with it.

But then, after we dodge green-wearing drunks wandering away from Shamrock the Block to get to Peter Chang's, we get the full story. He wasn't just a Benedictine monk, he was a hermit. As in, living away from society. Whoa. And he was part of a hermitage that was silent. As in, zero talking.

And even that's not the reason I'm not hermit material.

It was when he explained about the one meal, two snacks a day rule that I knew with the utmost certainty that I was not cut out for the hermetic life.

Go without three square meals a day plus snacks in service of religious beliefs? Don't make me laugh.

Why, just last week I said something to Mac about our healthy appetites and she was quick with the facts. "You can eat more than I can," she reminded me. She wasn't wrong.

Just yesterday, Mr. Wright and I drove out to the Kilmarnock Inn to have brunch with my favorite sister, her family and my parents, a meal planned to celebrate my Mom's birthday the day before. Now, mind you, we were meeting at 10:30 for brunch, but we had to be up at an ungodly 8 a.m. to make the drive.

So naturally, we had breakfast before we left. As I'm diving into my Stack the Votes (a plate of four enormous pancakes with bacon), I casually mention having had breakfast earlier and Mom laughs in surprise. "Karen!" she says, like I need a good scolding.

I remind her, not for the first time given the length of our relationship, that I can't function for three hours from waking up to having my pancakes placed in front of me, so I did the logical thing and ate first.

What's the fuss about?

I might also point out that after Beau's buddy explained hermit life, he also reminded us that he'd abandoned it. The fascinating part was that apparently being a hermit, even for only a while, gives you a lifetime pass to stay at a monastery should you ever want to.

That's because being a monk, even short-term, makes you a monk forever.

When presented with such unlikely information, all I can say is, pass the scallion bubble pancake.

Unfortunately, the ex-hermit couldn't accompany us to see "In My Chair" at Cadence Theater because the show was sold out, so after a stop at Bar Solita for dessert - in my case, double chocolate cake and Tawny Port - he thanked us for a delightful evening and vanished back to California and the IT security world.

The play we'd come to see had grown out of a TED talk actress and make-up artist Eva deVirgilis had created. Seems every time she has a woman in her makeup chair, the first thing the woman does is apologize.

For her bad hair, for the bags under her eyes, for her thin lips, for everything she can think of that's not perfect about her. Eva calls this "sorryosis" and set out around the globe to talk to women about changing beauty standards, self-esteem and body image.

And, just for the record, I hadn't even realized we were into fourth wave feminism.

Then she came back to take to the stage and make women aware of what she'd been told. She did it through vignettes using the accents and comments of women in her chair. She did it through the arguments she has with her un-confident inner self, who she nicknamed Norma after normative discontent. She did it through interactions with the audience.

Along the way, she shared her life story, including the part where she had to put up with a controlling boyfriend before meeting the love of the life, who also happened to be sitting in the front row that night, cheering her on.

Once during a Patriots' game, she'd asked him if he'd ever been body shamed, but he said no, other than being called short (which he is), he never had. I can't imagine there's a woman who hasn't been body shamed at least once in her life and probably more often than that.

Eva touched on many related issues, probably none so important as when she talked about accepting compliments, something many women, myself included, do poorly. "A compliment is a tiny gift someone brought to you," she explained. "Why would you drop kick it?"

Why, indeed? I had to admit, there's no good answer for that and I left hoping that's one bad habit I can unlearn.

Last night, Mr. Wright and I closed out the James River Film Festival by strolling over to Gallery 5 for the Silent Music Revival, but only after chowing down on fish tacos at Tarrant's Back Door. Don't tell my Mom, but it was technically my fourth meal of the day.

The thing is, when your first is at 8:15 and your second at 11 a.m., you've got to have something in the afternoon to tide you over until tacos show up at 7:30, am I right?

Life in the hermitage, clearly not for me.

Showing tonight was Jean Vigo's "Zero for Conduct," a 1933 French short film that was immediately banned for its content, with live music provided by the Wimps, whose lounge-like '60s vibe somehow made for the ideal accompaniment to French boys tying up their teacher, trashing their dormitory and marching through the streets victoriously.

Vigo was moved to make the film because of the repressive days he'd spent in a boarding school where he suffered with mean teachers. frequent punishments and, wait for it, insufficient food.

There you have it. Deny a person food and they might make a subversive film or they could return to the dark underbelly of IT security. Either way, they're hungry.

I'm better off just eating as frequently as possible. As for apologizing for my appetite, no sorryosis here.

In Daylights, In Midnights

When a David Byrne song starts feeling holiday-like, it's probably time to step away from the gift wrap and cookie sheets.

Cruising along Route 360 this morning with the sky a pale blue, the odd angle of the December sunlight in my eyes and the unnatural warmth of the car baking my brain, I unexpectedly heard holiday thankfulness in the music.

Everyday is a miracle
Every day is an unpaid bill
You've got to sing for your super
Love one another

The mind is a soft-boiled potato
A jewel in a chocolate shell
I staple my love to your heart, dear
With memories and beautiful smells

You can kind of hear it, right?

It was my final pre-Christmas visit to help Mom and Dad prepare for the onslaught of family that will descend like locusts on the Northern Neck over the next ten days, a whirlwind of wrapping presents, baking cookies and deleting photographs (don't ask) for them.

During a brief break, I showed them the SNL cold open from Saturday, the one where the cast redid "It's a Wonderful Life" into "It's a Wonderful Trump," showing that idiot what the world would have been like if he'd never been put in office by the Russians.

My uber-liberal parents loved it, though I suspect it may have been their first episode of SNL. At least they got all the political humor.

By noon, I had eaten my weight in raw eggs.

That's because  I can't resist nibbling on cookie dough and today I made something like ten dozen cookies, so there was a lot of dough around. Mom and I mocked the recipe warning not to eat raw dough (because of the eggs), given that we've been doing so our entire lives and aren't likely to stop any time soon, no matter how much the medical science community tries to scare us.

As Hall and Oates once said, you've got to know that old habits die hard.

Frankly, as solidly as my days have been packed lately, I could justify dough-eating as fuel for the duration. Even for heathens like me, holiday season is a marathon, not a sprint.

It already seems like eons ago that Mr. Wright and I slipped over to the VMFA to see "Congo Masks: Masterpieces from Central Africa," but I think it might have been just last Friday. With the snowball that is my life rolling steadily downhill and getting bigger all the time, I thought it only prudent to get over there while I had a free moment.

The masks were a unique kind of artifact, but for me, it was the film of Congolese people wearing them and dancing in them that provided the best insight into why masks are so central to aspects of the culture. The films were also a fascinating timeline, since the ones from the '50s showed everyone in native dress, while the 1990 footage showed that Western clothing had reached the Congo.

I'm sorry, but it's disconcerting to see a man in a wooden mask with raffia hair wearing cargo shorts. Is there no point too remote on earth for these baggy bloomers to appear and degenerate native dress? Asking for a friend.

Most surprising was learning that masks are still being created and several newer ones are included in the show. There's one of Jesus from the second quarter of the 20th century and another of Elvis from the third quarter of the 20th century.

As to how either one wards off  evil spirits, well, the signage wasn't specific about that.

Also unexpected was a gallery full of musical instruments, the kind used to create the sounds that men in masks danced to. Favorite? The wooden trapezoid slit drum which could produce a half dozen tones because of the varying thickness of its sides.

Almost as long ago was a cozy dinner at Max's, tucked away at the far end of the long bar behind the enormous coffee machine, where we were out of view of absolutely everyone else in the place. Even the bartender had trouble even seeing us to pour Blanc de Blanc or serve us dinner, but the allure of being out of sight was too good to pass up.

Equally as good was an entree that could have been the poster child for vegetarian comfort food: grilled asparagus with sauteed mushrooms and Brussels sprouts leaves over pommes aligot, aka obscene cheesy mashed potatoes.

And before you go thinking we've become some kind of healthy vegetarians, know that two courses had meat and one had chocolate, so we still have our heads about us.

By 11 we were walking over to the Ghost Light After Party at the Basement, the latest incarnation of a piano bar in J-Ward. We found a table with a view, scored glasses of Rose and watched as local theater types took turns singing whatever the hell they wanted to, even when that included "My Heart Will Go On."

As I told the evening's host when he came over to chat, Mr. Wright had scored major points early on in our acquaintance when he'd copped to a love of show tunes while straight.

Let's just say he looked positively beatific when "Seasons of Love" began, but that's always a show-stopper because everyone in the theater community apparently knows every word, so it's inevitably a group singalong.

525,600 minutes
525,600 moments so dear
525,600 minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunset?
In midnights? In cups of coffee?
In inches, in miles?
In laughter, in strife?

In 525,600 minutes,
How do you measure a year in a life?

Well, if you're asking Mr. Wright, he would say it's measured in something to do, someone to love and something to look forward to. He's not wrong, either.

We didn't intend to stay until last call, but the songs kept coming - I'm not sure there's ever been a GLAP where "A Whole New World" isn't sung - and it was too much fun to tear ourselves away, so we got more Rose and stayed the course, walking home at 2 a.m. through deserted J-Ward streets.

Sunday, we started at the Byrd for that perennial mash-up of love stories, "Love Actually," which I've been informed is now actually considered a Christmas movie. Whether of not that's a fact is still up for grabs, but why wouldn't I want to see a romantic comedy with Alan Rickman, Liam Neeson and Bill Nighy?

That's some pretty appealing man meat right there, and of multiple varieties, too.

Afterwards, just to prove our range, we wound up in the front row at Gallery 5 for Silent Music Revival's holiday screening of director Jean Renoir's surrealistic 1928 film, "The Little Matchgirl." Spoiler alert: all her matches can't keep her warm and she freezes to death.

That Hans Christian Anderson was dark, I'm telling you.

Disco punk band Toxic Moxie provided an improvised soundtrack that I would put up against any SMR soundtrack I've heard and I've been going to the event practically since it began 11 years ago. Their ability to react aurally to what was happening visually onscreen was spot on and evocative in that way that synths are so good at conveying sadness.

The only problem with being non-stop busy all weekend was that Monday arrived with a to-do list for the week that encompasses all the holiday prep I've been doing for Mom but needed to do for myself plus six interviews, seven deadlines and the need to get my hired mouth to a new place multiple times, all by New Year's Eve.

And don't even get me started on the travel prep that jumps into high gear once the work obligations have been met.

Sign seen on an insurance office sign in Tappahannock this morning: "Say yes to new adventures."

Don't mind if I do. This heathen is ready to dive into the holidays solely so she can come out on the other side and get back to real life.

It may mean a lot less raw egg, but a whole lot more to look forward to. Just one question, though. How did those 525,600 minutes pass so quickly this year?

Ah, yes, the biggest adventure of them all. Talk about your whole new world...

Mixing Metaphors

Bagels, backers, tequila and tacos. Oh, right, and Hell. Just another typical Sunday.

It was a glorious morning to walk to Nate's Bagels, overcast and brooding on the way there and blue skies and sunny coming back. Kind of like life. The only problem was that after last week's glowing review of the place, the line was even longer than usual.

Not that we were in a hurry.

But some people walked in, eyeballed the line and made an immediate U-turn. Sorry, but once my mouth is set for Nate's, I don't care how long I have to wait to be satisfied. Some people looked like they'd just rolled out of bed - I spotted a woman in slippers and several people in pajama pants - and were using their line time to wake up. Not a bad system.

When we finally got to the counter to order, Nate himself came over to say hello. When we mentioned the review, he shrugged. "It was no Karen, but it was good." Hilarious.

Given that we'd already had breakfast, the purpose of the bagels was to tide us over during the matinee we were attending, which took place only after we'd spent quality time with the Washington Post on the couch. Yet again, it was a depressing day to be reading the news, but better to be informed.

After outfitting ourselves for the theater, we drove to the Gottwald Playhouse where we ran into a trio of women, two visiting from New York, navigating the parking lot payment machine. It took me no time to find out how the local had been entertaining her guests, chief among which was Richmond's ridiculously low prices for parking. They laughed out loud at an $8 fee to park for the rest of the day. Richmond's cute, right, for its simplicity, I asked them. "It's adorable!" one said in her thick New York-ese accent. "We thought it was $25 and that didn't seem bad!"

They'd done a trolley tour the day before and now were off for a tour of Mr. Jefferson's Capital, but only after regaling me with the splendor of the brunch they'd had at the Stables at Belmont. They were as impressed with the cost of food as they were with the quality of what they'd gotten.

After wishing them a good time, we headed to the same building we'd been in the night before for the gala to meet up with Pru, Beau and Queen B. Inside the theater, a row of tables had been set up in front of the risers of seats and we found them ensconced at the last available table.

The premise of "Gutenberg! The Musical" was that the two men onstage - the hilarious and multi-talented Chris Hester and Paul Major - were presenting the musical they'd poured their blood, sweat and tears into to an audience of of potential backers. Because they needed a producer (aka money), it was just the two of them playing all the roles, a task assisted by the many baseball caps labeled with character names: Drunk #1, Young Monk, Drunk #2, Anti-Semite, Daughter. You get the idea.

As for why they'd chosen Gutenberg for the subject of their play, well, who needs historical accuracy to come up with a good musical? Not these guys. Instead, after Googling the inventor of the printing press and discovering scant personal information, they'd set out to make up a Broadway-worthy story with enough inside theater humor to keep our table in stitches all afternoon.

They spoke about the need for a "charm song," a "big end of Act 1 rock 'n roll number" and even explained what a metaphor is: "When you say one thing and mean something else, but you're not lying." That these two uber-talented men were able to play less-than-talented actors, singers and dancers only made it all the funnier.

Like when Chris Hester as Doug performed the Elvis Presley-like strains of "Glimmer in Schlimmer" complete with windmilling guitar arm nad sobbing voice. Or watching Bud, played by Paul Major, as Gutenberg's fictitious love interest, Helvetica, stomping grapes in a cardboard box labeled "barrel" and flipping her blond pig-tails.

And, yes, she was named after the font, making for some seriously nerdy graphic design humor.

As the duo went through all the scenes in their would-be play, Doug would set the scene, invariably mentioning a dirty, thatched roof and getting a bigger laugh every time he did it. Add in the brisk pacing and we were pretty much treated to a non-stop sense of amusement.

By using the character hats laid out on a table, sometimes stacked four or five deep atop their heads, the two played every character, including Dead Baby. In one case, hats were strung on a line for a crowd scene and Beau was chosen as one of two audience members asked to hold up one end while Bud and Doug moved underneath, fitting their heads into various hats to play different characters.

I think it's safe to say that I haven't laughed so much at a play in ages, but the beauty of it was the array of humor, which included everything from bad puns to dry asides to clever wordplay. And for Beau, a touch of corny. No matter what your cup of humorous tea was, these boys had you covered. It didn't hurt that they'd also step out of character to share a thought or observation.

Mel Brooks would have been proud.

And it wasn't just me, because my tablemates were cracking up right along with me. When, at the end, a backer stepped forward to offer them a contract, I stopped laughing for the first time in two hours.

The posse trooped over to Maya afterward, immediately running into a familiar server who hugged me first and welcomed us in. Seated at a large table with a view of the Carpenter Center, we spent the next few hours sipping (mine was Espolon), eating fiery mahi mahi tacos (Mr. Wright) and tamer shrimp tacos (me) while discussing Beau's upcoming trip to Seattle, hearing about Pru's manse repairs and enjoying Queen B's memories of the Plaka.

Improbably, Beau casually mentioned that time that he'd played a robot in a fashion show and we all laughed as hard as we had at Bud and Doug's exploits, which is really saying something.

Although I was seduced by neither flan nor tres leches cake for dessert, both arrived at the table along with a Belle Tango cocktail of Belle Isle Moonshine, tangerine concentrate and habanero syrup, a sweet/spicy sipper with appeal, but not as much as tequila on ice, if I'm honest.

I may be a complicated woman, but my needs are simple.

The Church Hill gang headed home, but Mr. Wright and I weren't finished yet. Our final stop was Gallery 5 for the Halloween edition of the Silent Music Revival with Kenneka Cook providing the improvised score. We had front row seats for the 1911 Italian film, "L'Inferno," considered the first full-length film (at one hour) and also the first blockbuster because it made $2 million in the U.S., which, as producer Jameson so eloquently put it, "was a whole lotta money back then."

Frankly, I still think two million is a whole lot of money, but that's just me.

I'd chatted with Jameson when we'd sat down and as we talked about how I'd been coming practically since the beginning of the Silent Music revival, the guy in front of me turned around, impressed. "You saw Mermaid Skeletons play that show?" he asked with awe in his voice. Yes, I did, son.

Meanwhile, Jameson grinned like a proud father, which is he is when it comes to introducing me (and Richmond) to the cult of silent films with live accompaniment.

He went on to tell us all kinds of interesting tidbits about the film we were about to see, some of which he mentioned when he took the stage to introduce it. In typical Silent Music Revival style - he has, after all been doing this for over 11 years now - he'd edited it some, taking out the most egregious examples of Catholic guilt as well as some political figures that would have been meaningless to 21st century audiences.

"Oh, and I sped it up ten percent," he said with a knowing smile. You don't need to tell me about today's audiences' shrinking attention spans.

Watching Virgil lead Dante through the circles of Hell meant watching early 20th century special effects, some of which were far more sophisticated than I would have thought for the time. That said, I also wondered during a scene with scattered fires and an actor in a nearby hole what kind of safety precautions were used in 1911. My guess? Not much.

Kenneka Cook's overlaid vocal looping was a strong accompaniment to the story, sometimes almost disturbing as her dulcet tones sang over scenes of human misery and bad bird costumes.

But let's get on to the real appeal of this film: major nudity. Clearly film censorship came about after "L'Inferno," because I've never seen so many naked and near naked men onscreen before. For fans of male buns, we're talking a veritable smorgasbord of good-looking Italian butts.

And who knows, maybe some of them went on to play robots in fashion shows. When you're part of the very first blockbuster movie, I bet you can write your own ticket.

Be For Real

As a long-time reader had to remind me today, "Too fine a day outside for us to be on the keyboard."

Amen, brother.

For the second weekend in a row, my passion for Nate's Bagels had me headed to his pop-up, this one at Blue Bee Cider, an easy walk for Mac and me, especially for the conversational time it afforded after not having seen each other in over a week and missing each other's smiling faces.

As we'd hoped, we were first in line as Nate got set up and ready to do business.

With Mac's glass of Blue Bee's bold-tasting Heirophant, an ice cider that's been fermented to dry, we took our bagels outside to the patio, the better to dish and chow down concurrently. And while we'd been the cidery's first visitors today, the next 10 arrived within minutes of us.

But, oh, the sheer pleasure of crunching down through that magnificent crust with its satisfying chew. We'd have walked far further than 2 1/2 miles to snag one.

I thought we were leaving to walk back but Mac led us directly to King of Pops where she had an orange dream pop and I, ever a creature of habit, succumbed to a chocolate sea salt pop, both eaten as we wound our way through Scott's Addition and back toward the Ward.

Despite the reminder from that favorite reader, I had no choice but to spend part of this fine day inside, having bought a ticket to see "The Sad and Beautiful World of Sparklehorse" at the Byrd back in mid-March.

After finding a seat in my favorite row, I listened as the crowd of a certain age filtered in, inevitably recognizing each other (one guy climbing over another: "Oh, it's you!" and another asking his seat mate about his kids) because so many in the crowd had either known Mark Linkous when he was part of the Richmond scene, or had been long-time fans of his music.

Spotting a lanky friend making his way down the aisle, I called for him to take advantage of the empty seat beside me, only to hear that he knew almost everyone sitting around me (which undoubtedly makes him far cooler than me).

The documentary was indeed sad and beautiful, like its subject, and much of that was because of its painful truth that untreated mental illness is a reality no one deserves, even the poor, even the musicians, even the uninsured.

It was also an unadulterated treat to hear so much lo-fi Sparklehorse music with its distinctive hushed vocals (he usually recorded while his wife was asleep upstairs and he didn't want to wake her) and utterly poetic sound.

Afterward, the music crowd gathered in clumps on the sidewalk in front of the Byrd, sharing impressions and memories. I heard a favorite couple greeted with, "Hi, chicken people!" (they liked it), was introduced to David Lowery (who'd been a talking head in the film), queried the Man About Town on his recent bout of bubonic plague ("It was just the flu") and held a movie poster so its owner could roll a cig.

When the Nerd - at least as big a geek as me, except he's also a singer/guitarist, which lifts him out of full nerd-dom - asked if I was off to the Bijou for the next film, I admitted to a need to eat, causing him to metaphorically roll his eyes. "I have an apple in the car to tide me over," he said before dashing to the Bijou.

Clearly he was the superior festival-goer with that kind of planning.

But once I'd put on the feedbag, I walked over to the Bijou for the Silent Music Revival, the James River Film Festival's final event of the weekend, with the Richmond Avant Improv Collective - a group I'd only seen for the first time a couple of months ago - improvising a soundtrack with a vocalist. They did it first to the 1924 classic "Ballet Mechanique" and then to 1928's "Seashell and the Clergy Man."

You couldn't really ask for a more suitable group to come up with a score on the fly for surrealistic films than this group, and that's organizer Jameson's real strength: pairing just the right local band with his choice of obscure silent film. I've been watching him do it for 10 years now and he only gets better.

Even Mike, one of the JRFF creators, admitted to being blown away seeing his first Silent Music Revival tonight and understanding how sublime the combination of silent film and live band is when witnessed.

Film over, I invited a teaching friend on Spring Break this week over for some record listening, knowing he usually pleads to early mornings and couldn't use that excuse this time. Asking for nothing more than a year as a starting point, he offered up 1973, because, he said, when he looks at the songs he plays on his radio show, the majority seem to come from that year.

Even though he's a musician and a music geek, I was able to stump him with my 1973 pick of McCartney's "Red Rose Speedway" before moving through Grin (also one he couldn't identify), Fleetwood Mac's "Rumors" (his choice because he and other musicians are covering it soon), Prince's "1999" (spotted as I was flipping through discs because he hadn't heard it in eons), Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes (both of us bowing to that '70s testifying style) and closed out with the Chi-Lites because the Chi-Lites.

The fine day had finally given way to moonlit night, so all bets were off. We, on the other hand, had the windows open listening to obscure '70s and the Sounds of Philly with nary a keyboard in sight.

Mission accomplished, dear reader.

Come Play with Me

Let the record show that it was 67 degrees today and every window in my apartment was open.

Let it also show that despite having known Nate for five years - we met on February 12, 2012 at Globehopper when I first heard the Richmanian Ramblers - it was only today that I first ate his bagels, a mission accomplished by being first in line with Mac at the new Blue Bee Cidery.

Let it show that our walk from Blue Bee to the Byrd was tropical-like, if not downright beachy, and that the theater was surprisingly full for an afternoon matinee at this late stage of the holiday madness (I know a guy who went to three holiday parties today alone) when everyone there probably had something else they should've been doing.

Not Mac - who'd never seen this classic all the way through - nor me, that much was clear. Our misfortune was sitting next to a couple of women who believed that we'd rather hear them belting out the musical numbers than hear the actors doing a far better job.

Let it show that when you have seen a film, say "White Christmas," every year since you were a child, it's not enough to sit back and enjoy (always a relative term when applied to the torn and spring-popping Byrd seats) the familiar plot and dazzling mid-century visuals of VistaVision (reddest reds you've ever seen).

Curiosity seeker that I am, I must see something new.

Accomplished:
1. In the final scene, how had I never noticed the tenth anniversary sign on the cake (Happy 10th anniversary 151st Division)? The 10 candles, always, but the sign? Not once.
2. Pre-safety match usage was rampant. Bing strikes a match for his pipe on his shoe, with his fingernail, probably with his teeth in a scene that got left on the cutting room floor. 1954 was pre-safety concerns, clearly.

Let it show that walking back to Scott's Addition marveling at the still-balmy air when sunset was only minutes away, our conversation turned prescient when raindrops suddenly hit us, followed by major northerly wind gusts and an immediate and significant drop in temperature.

Frankly, we never should have brought the subject up.

Let it show that I wouldn't have missed tonight's 10th anniversary celebration of the Silent Music Revival at Gallery 5, or the opportunity to introduce a recent conversational partner to one of my long-time favorite events, despite not being up to dinner out beforehand.

The lost weekend - don't ask.

Let it show that lots of my people were there - the film prof, the filmmaker, the woman at the Byrd I'd told about the event months ago, the Turkish pop songstress - and on time, which is more than I can say for some of the newer fans.

Creator Jameson always says 8 sharp! on the invitation because he means it, kids. Take note for the future (April, in case you weren't paying attention).

He had, of course, picked a terrific holiday present for the crowd with Russian director Ladislas Starevich's 1913 black and white "Night Before Christmas," and nothing like the Clement Moore poem we know.

The herky-jerky antics of the peasant village as well as the editing (and brief bits of early stop-motion animation) couldn't have been better suited to Rattlemouth's odd time signatures and global beats ensuring that their improvised soundtrack nailed the madcap action.

Instead of Moore's sugary take on Christmas Eve, we had a witch whose cottage was known for "entertaining willing visitors" and a hirsute demon with a tongue that presaged that of Gene Simmons, along with dry humping and homo-erotica, men stuffed in bags and a young and solidly-built peasant beauty looking for the man who truly loved her.

She claimed she wanted shoes like the tsarina's, but what she really wanted was a man willing to go to great lengths to get them for her to show his love.

Let the record show that I saw two holiday classic films today, and they both came down to love stories. Because the best things really do happen when you're dancing...or entertaining willing visitors.

Before you can say Merry Christmas, you're a goner. I know it must be true because I saw it on the big screen. Twice in one festive day.

Walking This Way All Day

Indulge me for a moment while I dream about this nearly perfect weather.

If there's a place that regularly has 80-degree days like today's as the norm for late October, can you please tell me where that magical place is? Days like this make me almost (but not quite) sorry that I slept until 11:00 because so little sunny time remains once I'm finally up.

After breakfast (okay, so it was 12:30), I walked to Carytown under an umbrella (once again fighting the stigma of parasol shame) to meet Pru, Beau and Burger for some classic Mel Brooks. I'd invited not one but two others, both of whom turned me down, only to learn at dinner last night that the trio had their own plans to attend.

Along the way, I pass a man on his front porch fluffing pillows. Asking why more people don't do the same, he answers, "I have no idea. They must not know how good a pillow smells after it's spent an afternoon outside."

This is a stranger who knows wise things. My pillows are immediately slated for a time-out on my balcony tomorrow.

My posse is waiting for me at the Byrd, Pru with assorted sizes of Tootsie Rolls in hand like the good friend that she is, to see "Young Frankenstein" and her first question once the lights go down and the title comes up is, "When's the last time you saw this movie?"

Answer: some time during the last millennium in a galaxy far, far away.

And though the film was made in 1974, period details make it seem older: a man's socks with garters, references to Tinker Toys and Ovaltine. College students actively engaged in class and not looking at their screens.

I'm nothing short of amazed at how many lines from this movie are not just part of standard pop culture references today, but are also family standards. When Igor tells Dr. Frankenstein, "Walk this way," I'm reminded of my Mom who uses this phrase before walking awkwardly nearly every time I visit.

For that matter, I have a sister who dredges up, "Two nasty-looking switches there but I'm not going to be the first," every time she sees a coupe of light switches next to each other. We all overuse, "Put ze candle back!" in my family to signify a bad choice and it's been 40 years.

"Taffeta, darling" was code for I'm all decked out, so don't mess with me (just ask any of the husbands in the family).

Favorite line: "Seven or eight quickies and then you're out with the boys to boast and brag. You better keep your mouth shut! Oh, I think I love him!"

Bottom line: "Young Frankenstein," despite just as much corny and '70s male humor as I recalled, holds up with some truly stellar performances, gorgeous black and white photography and the comedic script-writing chops of Brooks and Wilder.

That the screening was also a benefit for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society adds a layer of philanthropy to laughing with friends for two hours.

On the way home, I walk around a pizza delivery guy wearing a t-shirt, flannel pants and fuzzy slippers. I'm pretty sure he was delivering pies in his pjs in this glorious weather.

From an afternoon in Transylvania (where, I noted, all the townspeople had distinct British accents), it was on to an evening in Courtempierre, France (where vampires roam), two fitting nods to the season of slutty tacos (yes, a friend actually saw that costume).

Take it from someone who knows, the difference between the Silent Music Revival of 10 years ago and tonight's comes down to one thing: ear filler.

Where once a roll of toilet paper was torn, wadded and shared for earplugs, on the 10th anniversary, we had actual orange earplugs distributed to the capacity crowd.

Given my 9-year devotion to the SMR, I felt no shame in showing up way early and putting "reserved" cards on two chairs to hold places for tonight's 10th anniversary part one celebration.

Called out on it when we arrived, organizer Jameson laughed about it, confirming that he had no issue with me pulling rank to save seats (and not even comfortable seats, but those awful folding chairs at Gallery 5).

Long-time friendship has its privileges.

"Vampyr" from 1932 got a soundtrack courtesy of reunited noise-rock duo Navi, who managed to take an incredibly dark film and improvise to it magnificently, in part because Jameson had sped up the film by 21%, the better to marry it with the band's frenetic musical energy.

Sitting there for nearly an hour watching this classic horror film and its fabulous soundtrack, it was tough not to flash back to those early Silent Music Revivals with a fraction of the number of people and toilet paper in our ears to staunch the bleeding.

Like our grandparents having to walk uphill in a snowstorm five miles to get to school, some of us sat on hard store floors for nine years to make 2016's cushy-in-comparison SMR possible for those just now learning the pleasures of silent film set to local bands.

Feel free to thank me in person at part two of the 10th anniversary celebration come December.

Strolling from Gallery 5 afterward to Lucy's for a sandwich pop-up, we ran into two guy friends of mine just leaving and pumped them for recommendations. Inside, the place was nearly full-up with earnest-looking bearded types, a few more familiar faces and a smattering of Halloween costumes.

That's the beauty and/or problem with a Monday Halloween: the celebration starts Friday and rolls through for four consecutive nights, leaving broken glass on sidewalks and streets (at least here in J-Ward), shards of jack-o-lanterns everywhere and bits of costume (although I'm not entirely sure why I've also spotted two pairs of underwear) shed in the heat of the moment.

At some point, a person's bound to get tired of wearing a fake crown and toss it on the sidewalk, or so it would seem.

Tonight's sloppy sandwich pop-up provided the perfect late-night noshes - a manly Philly cheese steak and a more delicate but overloaded sensational seafood salad (and by that, I mean fake crab) sandwich dusted with flying fish roe inside a split hot dog roll - to accompany glasses of Rose and a dissection of the holes in the plot of "Vampyr."

After a stint at the bar watching the tail end of the World Series, we packed it in and headed out into the still-warm night, although the occasional rogue raindrop told us that a change of weather fronts was in the works. Sadly.

Mother Nature, put ze candle back!

Heatwave in My Brain, Smolder in My Soul

The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea. ~Isak Dinesan

My first choice would be the sea and my last resort, tears. So I sweat, while the rest of Richmond seemingly takes a different tack: retreat.

It could be when you're walking down the street and, block after block, there are no other people to be seen walking, much less the usual lounging on porches.

It's going four blocks to the ice cream shop and seeing that they're sold out of over half the flavors. Seems the neighborhood has been mainlining gelato the past few days.

It's most certainly when your friends - modern-day hippies and activists when it comes to environmental concerns - praise the benefits of releasing toxins through sweat, then admit that they're going to buy a window A/C unit tomorrow to install in the "community" room of their collective's house.

It's meeting a friend I haven't seen in months for brunch at Amuse (housemade ginger limeade, chilled one-note strawberry soup, Cheddar Bay biscuits du jour, yum, and a fresh take on tres leches cake with chocolate sauce), which is mobbed, but seeing people choose to leave rather than sit on the balcony.

Or it might be when I'm standing outside in my fourth change of clothes for the day, watering my garden and filling the birdbath at 10:30 at night.

I get it, it's next level hot. Call it "soup," call it oppressive, while I take cold showers and baths and train three fans on me while I do nothing more than read in bed or sleep.

Once I got up this morning, my apartment was already 93 degrees and it wasn't much past 9:30.

Arriving home from the Silent Music revival seeing Dharma Bombs play a soundtrack to Buster Keaton's madcap chase caper, "The Goat," it's a refreshing 96 degrees in here, down from 98 when I'd come home from a feisty three hour meeting discussing the past year's theatrical season and who's award-worthy.

While I'm at home, I pretty much live in a tank top and underwear with my hair up. A constant sheen is my new normal. There can't be a toxin left in my body.

No season suits me better than Summer in the South.

Baby, I was born to sweat.

Yippee-Ki-Yay, Comrade

Just another December day chock full of sewing, sunshine and silent movies in the heart of hipsterdom.

Still Life with Clementines and Pincushion

Driving to southside with the windows down, I'm listening to Juliana Hatfield singing "Everybody Loves Me But You" likes it's 1992 again.

Beauty and brains are all that I've got
I've got a cold, cold bed and a broken heart

South of the river I find a friend playing gardener while I set up camp sewing on her screened-in porch, somehow sure that Richmond women have a long history of sewing aprons on porches and that I'm merely the latest in a long line of needle-pushers doing so.

I bring along my Shaker pincushion and my friend immediately pegs it for an '80s purchase, which it was.

Because the right tool for the job is essential, I'm using a Kenmore sewing machine circa 1970, back when they were still made of metal and not plastic. It's remarkably similar to the '68 Singer my Washington, D.C. grandmother taught me to sew on, which I still have.

Despite J. Roddy Walston's admonishment, I do manage to break the needle, but replace it like the pro that my grandmother taught me to be.

I dip out as my friend begins preparing dinner from a new recipe for her homecoming warrior who's been off for a fortnight's hunting (deer) and gathering (tall tales probably), apron duty accomplished.

All the Young Middle-Aged Dudes

Hard labor behind me, I primp to go out, recalling a peculiar conversation I had with a favorite bassist the other night. Topic: big hair. That descriptor's been thrown my way plenty and the bassist cops to a full-on "Jew- boy 'fro" when his stylist-to-the-stars goes on vacation, meaning we both know the pain of a big 'do with nowhere to go and being crowded by clothing and scarves.

As men go, he's the exception who gets that. Hell, he mentioned it first.

The Byrd was filling up as I walked in to find lots of familiar faces to say hello to - Mike, Trent, Todd, Don, James, Nate, Josh - all suspiciously male. When I note as much to a former editor buying Non-Pareils ("They're really the movie standard," the concession girls pronounces) while I purchase popcorn, his response is, "Now you're here to balance us all out."

Not my job.

Of course a screening of Chaplin's "The Kid" with legendary guitarist Marc Ribot is going to attract every guitar geek over 30 who knows he's played with Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, et al. As for the visuals, I'd already seen the movie at the Silent Music Revival back in April 2013 with Wolf//Goat improvising a soundtrack.

A guy sitting alone in the row in front of me must have been a Byrd virgin because as I sat down, he was snapping photos of the large popcorn wedged between his thighs. Odd, I thought, but eventually, he turned his phone up to document the chandelier as well and I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

If I am to be honest here, the movie was a bit of a blur, not for any reason you might readily guess but because the entire day was. I only had one contact lens in. Getting lost in the musical score to a plot I already knew was as effortless as it was enjoyable as he nailed the moods of the story on his guitar.

Waling out afterwards, a guitarist friend summed it up. "That may be the best thing I experienced the entire year." And that's saying a lot considering how fab this town is these days. As a photographer and chicken owner neatly observed to me yesterday, "We sold out Dream Syndicate. In Richmond!" And it was amazing, as we both had seen.

So it was dark but not late when I left the Byrd. Movie Club was showing "Diehard" and I think we can all agree on what a Christmas Eve classic that is, but the timing didn't work with Silent Music Revival at Gallery 5, so I had to give up seeing Bruce Willis save mankind.

Vamp Him

It was worth it, though, because the SMR organizers had turned G5 into somebody's Christmas rec-room with a fake fire, Christmas lights strung along the stage and a live tree top decorated in a container. The neighbor's tree had been too tall, so when he sliced off the top, my friends had adopted it as their micro-Christmas tree.

Reuse and recycle, friends.

The grooviest of J-Ward neighbors were in the house with their friend, a petite woman who happens to be a stonemason and shared wildly immature things men have done to her on the job. As she put it, what grade are you in anyway?

Best random thing said to me by the guy to my right: "Never take acid and watch that film." Duly noted.

We were treated to a series of holiday shorts with Antiphons improvising along through drama (Scrooge-like rich neighbor and large, happy poor family), my second viewing of "The Insects' Christmas" (2011, also at SMR), a film I called a classic, garnering many laughs when organizer Jameson repeated it, and "The Snow Man" that starts sweet and goes south quickly as he becomes a snow monster who eats small animals and eventually gets a sword in the anus.

But my favorite would have to be "Soviet Toys," a Soviet propaganda film with a Christmas tree made of soldiers who hang various people so that the workers can rise to the top and presumably do egg nog shots in celebration.

The kind of film where you'll feel guilty for contributing to a capitalistic society by eating Non Pareils while a farm-wave sad rock band plays.

Chances are, the kind of film that could go either way on acid. Your call.

Can't Be Sporty

The only thing about taking vacation is post-vacation.

I'm not talking about adjusting to the three-hour time difference, although it hasn't been easy. I went to bed at midnight last night only to discover that my body thought it was 9:00 Portland time. Let's just say by the time I finally fell asleep, it was well after 3 a.m. and I'd done nothing fun to show for that time.

I've got no problem with late nights, but I expect escapades in trade.

I'm not even talking about the inevitable unpacking, laundry, plant watering and grocery shopping required after you've been away from home all but one of the last ten days.

No, the biggest adjustment is shifting out of vacation mode and back into real life. For me, that means running errands, finally answering work e-mails and diving back into my social calendar.

It also means catching up on over a week's worth of Washington Posts left by my intrepid delivery guy who continues to make a stop here even when I've notified him I'm out of town. Unlike the rest of the world, when I go on vacation, I stop paying attention to the larger world to focus on fun.

Sure, now that I'm back, I see that Greece is in deep doo-doo, read the gruesome details of the latest North Carolina shark attack and learned that it's now okay to take pictures on White House tours, long verboten. With any luck, I'll get to today's newspaper before going to bed tonight.

But what I also needed was friends and the Silent Music Revival at Gallery 5 offered me that. I got barely a block away when I first saw lightening and turned around and walked home for an umbrella before proceeding. Turns out I didn't need it, but the sidewalks were wet by the time I got out, so it did happen even if I didn't see it.

The first friend I ran into shared the latest on the house she and her partner are rehabbing slowly but surely. Boards have been removed from windows so glass and caulking can make them usable. The hydrangea I'd given her for her birthday had been planted and is blooming.

They'd collected a wood-burning stove and claw foot tub from her grandmother's house, all the more impressive because the tub will be an outdoor tub, which may be the coolest thing I've heard of in a while. Sure, I've got my own claw foot tub but it's in that most mundane of places, the bathroom.

Jameson, the organizer of the event and always the supremely serene type, was tonight a bit keyed up because it had been one mishap after another preparing for tonight.

First he hadn't been able to locate tonight's feature, "Say Ah-h!" because it was in storage in northern Virginia. Attempting to download it, his computer had been infected with a virus. Then Gallery 5's projector was on the fritz. Somehow, he'd sorted all this out and while we were now seeing another film, at least he hadn't had to cancel.

It was the first time I'd seen the teacher/music fan who'd just spent five weeks in Europe, bouncing around between Germany, Romania (Transylvania, natch), Austria and Italy. A devoted metal-head, I wasn't at all surprised to hear about the multi-day music festival he'd attended (we compared notes on Strand of Oaks since I'd seen them here while he'd seen them there).

But I couldn't have been more surprised to hear that he and his main squeeze had taken a four-hour "Sound of Music" bicycle tour in Salzburg. The funny part was that he'd never even seen the movie until deciding to book the tour, so he'd watched it just before going abroad. He got to see it all  - the von Trapp mansion, the abbey and cemetery, the town - except the mountain where Maria sings to the hills. Seems that hill is in Berlin, not Salzburg. Who knew?

Tonight's crowd for the music and film was smaller than usual, probably because of the holiday weekend or even the impending rain, so I had no problem scoring a front row seat.

Instead of one film, we were seeing a bunch of animated shorts from 1907-11, created by Frenchman Emile Cohl, whom Jameson said was the first to use pen and ink drawings for animation. The earliest were white figures on a black background (meaning negatives), eventually giving way to black figures on a white background.

Providing tonight's soundtrack were DJ Harrison for the first set and DJ Ohbliv for the second, both hidden behind the movie screen. Their seamless mashups of song snippets were an ideal match for the fast-moving action in shorts such as "Affair of the Heart" with characters with hearts for heads and faces, "Art's Infancy" and "Mr. Crack" based on an operetta about Baron Munchausen.

More people arrived and a few left during the break, while I ran into a guy I'd met a few years ago and hadn't seen at all in the past year. I'm always surprised when people remember me after so much time.

The last half of the program was later work by Cohl, much of it foreshadowing the work of the surrealist and avant garde film makers of coming decades. More plot driven, they also featured much more of a mix of live action and drawn animation.

Mothers-in-law seemed to be a recurring theme, always drawn as hideous old hags with bad teeth and menacing eyes. "Let's Be Sporty" began with a figure trying to ride a horse, then drive an automobile, ride a bike and ice skate. "Nothing beats walking!" it seemed to conclude, but, walking was bested by jumping, a movement not easily captured at this stage of animation.

When the show ended, Ohbliv kept playing and Jameson queried the group, "One more?" which got him a rousing affirmative from the crowd in the room.

"The Mind of a Cafe Worker" began with a table of men drinking in a restaurant while the tired server slumped in a nearby chair (at least he wasn't on his cell phone). Once he fell asleep and began dreaming, it was about wine...and beer...and absinthe, fanciful bottles showering him in alcohol, so happy dreams. He awoke only because his patrons were squirting seltzer water bottles at him, laughing at him as the crowd laughed at them.

Classic silent films about walking and absinthe, two things I know a little about. Not a bad way to ease back into my Richmond life.

And Now, the Romance

I didn't need a whole lot tonight versus embracing the random. All good.

You see, the last two nights in Delaplane with my sisters had taken their toll. Friday night I'd gotten about six hours' sleep and last night no more than five. Fact is, I'm a nine hour a night myself type. So while I wanted to go out, it wasn't going to take much to satisfy me.

The Silent Music Revival at Gallery 5 was ideal: a four-block walk, it lasts less than an hour, I never tire of the combination of a silent film with live, improvised music.

While tonight's crowd was nowhere near as large as the Halloween show had been, the Sunday crowd held plenty of friends. The globe-trotting couple who just put a contract on a farm. The tireless musician whom I hadn't seen in ages and his lovely date. The former co-worker on a rare night out. The Hat in his leather jacket.

Tonight's band was the Richmanian Ramblers, an apt choice as we began with a Lithuanian/Romanian silent short film, "Lullabye." It was even more intricate than that because host Jameson explained that there's a good chance Charlie Chaplin was of Romanian descent, born at a gypsy camp and taken under by English parents who saw his potential as a member of their traveling circus.

Boy, it sure is harder to exploit your children these days than it was 100 years ago.

The 1919 film "Sunnyside" had all the usual Charlie Chaplin tropes: plenty of slapstick, just enough pathos, a down and out character. Charlie's character herded cows (of course losing them), was tickled awake by a quartet of nymphs with daisy chains (an early dream sequence), got kicked in the butt almost constantly and climbed in and out of windows as if they were doors.

He also fell in love (the title card read, "And now, the romance"), tried unsuccessfully to woo and eventually got the girl. As a bonus, I could geek out on language since one of the title cards used the word forenoon - "the whole forenoon nearly gone" - which you never see anymore. What more could I want out of a 29-minute film?

The Ramblers did an ace job of pairing their Romanian gypsy songs with appropriate scenes (during one scene with goats, the song had sheep bleating sounds) to enhance the experience of watching. Accordion music flowed freely.

Afterwards, a friend suggested getting a drink at Saison because she still had a babysitter's services, so with the Man About Town in tow, we walked over. The bar stools were occupied, so we made do with a table to support their cleverly named cocktails: the Nimble Kitten Parade.

Our trio made an interesting group since never before in the history of mankind had the three of us done anything together. You could chalk it up to silent movies making for strange bedfellows or you could say three smart people who'd just seen a tasty film/music performance wanted to keep talking.

And topics? Everything was fair game: seeing the mayor drunk and acting like a fat cat, "gentle" gentrification, rebuilding the Diamond and memories of Gaston and Isabelle. After so much dealing with sisters this weekend, it was just great to have conversation with non-family.

Before long, a friend came over to the table to say hello, bringing with her tales of her latest art work (nude snowflakes and dollar bill portraits) and what her three-year plan is. I admire a woman with a plan.

After a couple of hours, the friend with the babysitter had her Cinderella moment, suddenly realizing she needed to be home shortly. We three walked a block together before going our separate ways, me home to bed after a long weekend.

One way to look at my evening is that I ended up with way more than I needed tonight. Another would be that there wasn't a single thing I didn't want. Random wins every time.

Haunted 'Hood

'Tis the season for horror movies, none better than the one considered the first ever made.

Silent Music Revival was showing the 1920 classic, "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," with improvised musical accompaniment by Bermuda Triangles, the only quartet I know of with three drummers and a sax player.

Interestingly enough, I'd already seen the film at a Silent Music Revival years ago as well as having seen Bermuda Triangles perform many times, including at a SMR when "Poor Mrs. Jones" was shown back in 2010.

Even so, the combo of the crazy doctor and the pulsing drums was just too tempting, perhaps all the more so since it was at Gallery 5 a few blocks from my house.

With a history of going to the SMR that dates back to 2007, I know the drill: it starts at 8:00 sharp so don't be late. Accordingly, I stopped by Gallery 5 about 7:20 to deposit my bag on a chair in the front row, knowing full well that the place was going to be filled to overflowing tonight.

Seat procured, I chatted with Jameson and Laney who put on the event, all of us asking how it was possible that we'd not seen each other in months. Our conclusion? There are so many things to do on any given night these days that friends can be scattered all over town at multiple places.

It's a great problem to have, we agreed.

Promising I'd be back, I wandered down the street to Tarrant's back door, planning to score a big slice of pizza for dinner. Approaching the back door, I saw a trio of kitchen employees on a smoke break, so bored that they chatted me up on my way in.

"How's your night going so far?" one inquired. Can't complain.

Looking at the chalkboard, I revised my pizza plan and ordered a couple of fish tacos instead. Waiting for them to be made, I overheard the counter girl tell one of the servers that she was letting her go because they were so slow tonight ("Already?" the cut staffer asked). Neither had any idea why the entire week has been deadly. Umm, summer-like weather perhaps?

Dinner in hand, I returned to G5 and my front row seat. Tucking into the tacos, I was pleasantly surprised to find each filled with a tortilla-length piece of grilled mahi mahi under a flurry of corn relish and guacamole. Tarrant's isn't my thing, but this was a better than expected, inexpensive back door meal.

The place kept filling up with more unfamiliar than familiar faces, but you want new people. Besides, I had plenty of people to talk to.

The friend I'd seen at Monday's show but hadn't spoken to, the world traveler thinking of finally making the leap and buying a house here, a guy from Bread and Puppets, in town from Brooklyn working on Halloween parade puppets (and wearing a fabulous black and gold sweater).

So many people came that the floor became the only seating option and I was gratified to see a guy who'd arrived as early as I had to secure a front row seat offer it up to an older woman on the hard, concrete floor in front of him. Somebody's mother raised him right.

When Jameson introduced the film, he talked about its lasting influence on movies and the horror genre, saying we'd see a lot that influenced Tim Burton. It was even obvious in the crazy, angular sets with shadows as much a part of the scenery as objects.

He also said he'd edited out some of the movie to bring it down to under an hour. Excised had been scenes where they think they've found the murderer but they haven't. "So, nothing that changes the story, but that took them like 16, 17 minutes," he said about an era when everything wasn't quick cuts.

As usual, he'd chosen the absolute perfect band for the movie, with Bermuda Triangles' relentless soundtrack only increasing the tension as the story unfolded and dead bodies began stacking up. Three drummers make for a whole lot of intensity.

When the movie ended, the screen was pulled up so we could finally see the band, who'd been hidden behind it, playing for another few minutes. One musician, Jason, appeared to be running a drumstick against the metal grate of a grill, a small mic held up against it to capture the sound. Crazy.

There really is nothing like seeing a band improvise music for a silent movie as they watch it along with the audience.

Or if there is, it's happening somewhere other than where I am. Now, that doesn't seem very likely.

Perfect Amount of Art and Awkward

Just another Friday night that starts with a makeshift disco and ends with strippers.

A photographer friend and I were walking to dinner when he spied some interesting tile work on a building and paused to take a picture.

Next thing we know, the owner of the building, a charming Mexican, comes out and invites us in for a tour of the building he is renovating for his construction company.

I'm sure my mother would disapprove of going into a stranger's building with him, but I figure my sturdy male friend is my insurance against bodily harm.

Inside, the owner tells us that the building was a laundry for 75 years, showing off massive sliding metal doors, huge exhaust fans and an abundance of windows to let out the hot, steamy air.

Everywhere but the front of the building is still a work in progress, with part of the floor torn up in one place and a walkway over the hole.

When we get almost to the back, though, we find an intact floor, finished walls and where, wait for it, he says nonchalantly, "Here is my discotheque," while hitting a switch which starts the mirror ball turning and myriad strobe lights flashing along the roof line.

He says this is where they dance when he holds employee parties. It was about the last thing on earth I'd expected when we'd walked in the building.

That said, if he'd put on some music, I might have tried it out and I bet my friend would have, too.

Neither of us could get over the unexpected invitation followed by a peek inside a building we would otherwise never have seen.

While we were eating dinner afterwards, we caught up with each other's lives, the best part being when I asked how his relationship is going. I'd guessed that since he never has time to get together, it must be going quite well.

He affirmed how happy he was, saying, "She's smart, she likes to talk, she's good company and she used to be a cheerleader so she's flexible."

A man couldn't really ask for much more than that, could he?

The icing on the cake was when he surprised me by saying, "Since I won't be seeing you on Valentine's day, I have a present for you," pulling out a large pink eraser shaped like a diamond ring. "Anyone who doesn't put a ring on it is a dumbass."

Clearly he didn't want to be among that group. It was my first pink eraser diamond ring and although I'm not a jewelry person, I wore it all night.

Our next stop was Glave Kocen gallery to See "Click III," a biannual invitational photography show with the theme "From Mountains to Sea."

We both recognized several of the photographers' names while taking in a fascinating array of photography styles from photo montage to pinhole Polaroids to photo-journalism to abstractions. Our post-gallery discussion involved how the best digital photographs look like they were shot on 35 mm.

We parted ways in the arts district since I had First Fridays artwalking to do and he had other plans.

My first stop was at Black Iris gallery to see "Public Eye: Civil Rights Case Study," a series of photographs and videos shot for surveillance purposes during the '60s and '70s in Richmond.

The mug shots looked like Joe Average people, a comment I made to a woman who responded, "Yea, there's one of my sister."

I'm willing to bet if you're of an age and were in Richmond during the days of protests and demonstrations, you might recognize some young person's mug in the exhibit, too.

Projected on the back wall was a series of film clips, like a 1970 busing protest on Belvidere, a memorial for Martin Luther King at the state capital in 1968 (with women in white gloves and hats), a KKK parade and a Black Panther meeting on Laurel Street.

Of course Laurel Street. Where else but Oregon Hill would you expect to find Black Panthers and anarchists?

A black and white no-frills look at a period in RVA's history I missed, presented without political agenda or bias. As in, just the facts, ma'am. Definitely worth checking out.

From there, it was just a short walk to the Renaissance for WRIR's annual "party for the rest of us" to celebrate their ninth birthday.

I made a point to get there early enough to see River City Taiko, a group that plays traditional Japanese drums, which I have to assume means one person on either side of the drum playing different rhythms because that's what these people were doing, sometimes two at a time and sometimes the entire group at once.

The Colloquial Orchestra was next and while I've seen them many times, that's meaningless because the orchestra is defined as Dave Watkins on dulcitar and anyone else he asks to play with him, so never the same.

It can be a three piece, a six-piece or, like tonight, a 14-piece: two drummers, six guitarists (one acoustic), bass, trumpet, keyboard, violin,and a late-arriving sax player.

Improvising for a half hour, they wove elaborate soundscapes around the bass and drum center, creating what one first-timer described to me as sounding like "bagpipes on acid."

Changing rooms to catch some storytelling courtesy of Secretly Y'All, I heard the inimitable Herschel tell a tale of falling hard for a girl after hearing her laugh because, "it was the best laugh I ever heard."

Now there's a hell of a  compliment.

He accompanied himself on ukulele when he sang a song partially based on their interaction.

Justin's story was about moving from Powhatan and an outdoor-centered life to Church Hill and having to push himself "to get off my ass and go outside," and his song was called "Silver and Diamonds."

Patrick's story was about a girl joining his group traveling Europe and after spending 24 hours with her, knowing he was deeply in love. Two months here went great but six weeks in Berlin made it painfully obvious she'd lost interest. His heartbreaking tribute was called "Waltz to Noel."

No one had mentioned that tonight's theme would be "guys with sad stories."

Milling about between bands, I ran into the DJ who works at WPA and had made all the lovely birthday cakes for tonight's party. I had him give me a rundown on what kind of cake was inside each since they all looked different.

Chocolate coconut and caramel chocolate seemed to hold the most promise for me. I took a swipe of icing just to be sure, alarming a DJ.

That's an annual tradition for me at this party, my friend. Just ask Andrew.

The one band I wanted to make sure I caught tonight was Hypercolor and walking into the ballroom as their set began, I knew in an instant that they were right up my alley.

A ruby-throated female lead singer playing guitar ("She's not your typical lead, she's even doing some finger-picking," the guy behind me whispered to me), two other lush-sounding guitars including one of the guys from Avers whom I'd just seen and the bassist from Fear of Music (also just seen last weekend) who together with the drummer kept everyone from wandering off into psychedelic bliss.

I kept moving closer and closer to the front to watch and listen to the impressive execution and well-written songs. I'll need to see them again soon.

The Silent Music Revival was presenting the avant-garde 1947 film "The Cage" with improvised soundtrack by Snack Truck and their thunderous rock was a fine match for the falling eyeballs, nude women running, leek stealers and other assorted oddities of the silent movie.

I could tell that a lot of people watching had never seen a SMR presentation before as they focused solely on the band and ignored the movie.

Guys, guys, guys.

Back in the main ballroom, the Ar-Kaics had morphed from a trio to a quartet since I'd last seen them at Steady Sounds but hard and fast ear-splitting garage rock was still their metier.

For something completely different, I crossed rooms to hear the RVA Squares, a bluegrass band with a dance caller.

Eight couples took the challenge, including three all girl couples (one of each was given a tie to make her easier to identify as the male) and squared off as Grant Hunnicutt, hat, microphone and all, proceed to call out the square dancing instructions.

Gents go round the outside line
Pass your partner one time by
Pick a new girl on the fly
Swing her round
Step right back and watch her strut
Step back up and bump your butt

I'm not sure those are the same square dancing calls I heard when we square danced in elementary school, but they seemed to elicit much the same results.

It really did look like fun and while I'm sure I would have made a mess of it, I'd have tried square dancing for the first time since elementary school if someone had asked.

But they didn't, so I accepted an invitation from my favorite J-Ward couple to leave for Gallery 5 and the last of their evening of burlesque and boylesque.

The place was packed and we heard major hooting and hollering from outside, so I found a place by the radiator and stood on tip-toe to see the ample Dante the Inferno gyrate and strip down.

"That was just the perfect amount of awkward," host Parker said afterwards while scantily clad women were sweeping up the stripping droppings of Dante.

The lovely and zaftig Ellie "Iron Lady" Quinn was next and her red and gold costume zipped off while she danced provocatively to reveal a gold bikini top and gold thong with tassels .

The crowd ate it up, cheering her on until she removed her bikini top and it was just pasties with tassels, which she then proceeded to twirl like a pro, shimmying wildly.

Buster Britches was introduced as "the cream show Casanova" and Parker instructed us to make a path down the center of the room "cause he's gonna be coming from the back, just the way he likes it."

In a short floral robe and carrying an umbrella, the ample Buster strutted onstage to Billie Holiday's "He's a Tramp," dropped the robe and then spent the rest of the time adding clothes back on.

The night ended with Deanna Danger, not only a burlesque performer but a teacher ("You, too, can be up here taking your clothes off!" Parker said by way of introduction) in a fabulous gold and black dress with a slit skirt that got twirled and swirled overhead before being removed to reveal the tiniest of pasties and leopard briefs.

The audience was practically salivating and clearly disappointed that the evening's stripping was over.

Not me. Despite the fact that I hadn't danced at the discotheque, hadn't square danced, hadn't danced while taking my clothes off and no one's writing a "Waltz to Karen," tonight was a terrific lot of fun.

Not only am I wearing the latest in pink eraser jewelry, but I was told me that I always add laughter to a room.

A woman couldn't really ask for much more than that, could she?

Hearts and Pearls

That's one off my list.

I knocked off one of the 1001 movies you must see before you die, "Sherlock Jr." at the Silent Music Revival tonight at Gallery 5.

The classic 1924 Buster Keaton movie got a boost with an improvised soundtrack by the Green Boys, the handsome Fredericksburg band with slide guitar, doublebass and mandolin, along with the usual suspects.

Host Jameson had created the perfect pairing with the tale of a lowly film projectionist who yearns to be a detective and gets his chance when a rival for his love steals a watch and pawns it.

He warned us to look out for a scene where Buster jumped off a train and into a water torrent because during that scene, the actor had broken his neck, unbeknownst to him.

I have to say, it's more than a little unsettling to watch an actor do his own stunt, knowing that his neck is being broken in the process.

But most of the film was laugh-out-loud funny and the Green Boys' accompaniment was  ideal- energetic, homey and with just enough twang to convey our hero's everyman status.

As a bonus, I loved all the scenes of '20s-era California, so much simpler a time.

All the cool kids were there- the scientist bearing chocolate he shared with me, the DJ who'd had a sad morning (our third meeting in as many days), the printmaker whose prints I'd coveted earlier today, the harmonium player about to go out on tour.

It was a record crowd in Gallery 5, where, mercifully, the heating system had been restored after Friday night's breakdown, and they had to bring in extra chairs to accommodate them all.

Judging by all the laughter during the movie and the heartfelt applause afterwards, I'd say it was a perfect marriage of film and music.

But then, that's what Jameson does best. I should know; I've been going since 2007 when he used to do it in Rumors boutique for a dozen people.

When I left there, it was to go to Max's on Broad for a bite where a familiar actor friend greeted us and before long, the scientist and his date showed up, too.

The music was ideally suited to the room - Billy Holiday, Edith Piaf- and we started with an extremely generous serving of steak tartare, made all the richer with an egg yolk and a creamy pesto to take it over the top.

I followed meat with meat with a French dip with Gruyere, horseradish and red onion on a baguette with asparagus on the side, a sandwich so tasty I shared a bite with the scientist despite his date's surprised look.

The way I see it, if a man offers me his chocolate, the least I can do is offer him a bite of my roast beast in return.

And that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Degenerate Art and Tin Can Men

You start some things and before you know it, you lose interest.

Other things are so pleasurable, you keep doing them until you look up one day and realize years have gone by and you're still doing them.

That's the Silent Music Revival, for me at least.

I went to my first SMR back in 2007 and somehow six years have passed and I still never miss an opportunity to hear local music improvised to a vintage silent film.

Walking over to Gallery 5 tonight, I found SMR organizer Jameson sitting outside enjoying the beautiful evening.

As we talked about all the SMRs he's done over the years, he mentioned that he needs to add more silent films to his collection or he'll have to start repeating films from the early days.

"Of course, nobody but you would know that I've shown them before," he laughed.

And honestly, I wouldn't mind seeing a silent film I haven't seen in five or six years again.

When last he showed "The Mechanical Man" back in 2007, DJ Mike Murphy provided the soundtrack.

Tonight he'd carried that tradition forward, asking DJ Ohbliv to do the honors.

The evening kicked off with a 1928 Dadaist film called "Ghosts Before Breakfast" and Ohbliv getting warmed up doing music for it.

The nine-minute film, destroyed by the Nazis as "degenerate art" according to the opening credits, was full of the kind of ghosts that would have amazed 1920s audiences.

Flying hats, water going back into a hose, branches sprouting leaves, ties untying themselves.

In other words, stop motion and reverse film, but who knew that back then?

Introducing "The Mechanical Man," Jameson praised Ohbliv, saying, "No one's really holding down hiphop in Richmond like Ohbliv."

Then he explained that we were about to see a 1921 science fiction film that had been lost until a Portuguese print had been discovered in Brazil, albeit only part of the original 80-minute film.

To make up for what we weren't going to see, Jameson offered a "trailer version" to bring us up to speed on the plot.

Basically it amounted to the only way to stop an evil mechanical man was with another mechanical man.

Duh.

The first thing that struck me about MM was what mincing steps he took; you'd think a big scary robot-looking creature would take big, hulking steps, but he walked like a girl in a tight skirt and overly high heels.

In one scene, two women are taking off their jewelry after a party, putting it in a chest and storing it in a wall safe.

Then a title card tells us, "We were tranquil when suddenly Mechanical Man enters."

Ahhhhh!

Let's just say their tranquility was shattered when MM rips the safe out of the wall as the cowering women watch.

So much for tranquility.

In another scene, MM appears at a party, only this MM is supposedly a costumed guest and he's nice to everyone, even calling for champagne for those at his table.

Not surprisingly, he opened it by snapping off the top of the bottle, upsetting the men at the table, while the woman happily drank the glass he poured her.

Not long after, there was an epic battle between the two mechanical men which got the entire audience tittering over the clumsy effects, but no doubt impressed audiences in 1921 no end.

And through it all, the hospital scenes, the fire, the marauding MM, DJ Ohbliv kept the music apace with the action, whether fast or slow, scary or comical.

You have to appreciate a man who can think on his feet, since, like the audience, he was seeing the film for the first time.

And when our hero, Saltarello, manages to ride a stolen motorbike to the laboratory of the evil criminal Mado and flip a switch to short circuit the MM, Ohbliv's music was right there with the last minute save.

It was so good a climax, I almost needed a cigarette.

Now I just have to wait until October for the next installment of SMR.

I already know it'll be worth the wait.

Vamp and Punk

Without birthdays, there can be no death.

The birthday was my aunt's and it required me to drive up to Maryland for a luncheon.

Don't get me wrong, I love my aunt, a woman who was a role model for me in terms of her abiding passion for books and travel when I was a kid.

But having to spend my morning driving up soul-sucking I-95 is a lot to ask of me.

The luncheon was fine and to soothe my soul, I came home via Route 301 so I could avoid the aggressive drivers and speed demons than distract me from my road trip music.

By the time I meandered back down the back roads (it took 45 minutes longer than I-95), it was time to get on with the night.

It was a night of film, starting at Gallery 5.

The Silent Music Revival was breaking form and showing a long film tonight, Charlie Chaplin's "The Kid," billed as a "comedy with a smile and perhaps a tear."

Wolf//Goat was providing the soundtrack from behind the screen, a presence heard but unseen.

Organizer Jameson introduced the movie as a significant because it was Chaplin's first feature-length film and because it was made just after Chaplin's own baby son died.

No there was a poignant fact to contemplate and no doubt the source of the "tear" possibility.

He also said Chaplin had done everything for this film - directed, produced starred and even written the score- "But you won;t hear that tonight," Jameson reminded us.

As "The Kid" began, local band Wolf//Goat started with a rendition of "Amazing Grace" and the marriage of film and improvised score began.

The story of an orphan brought up by Chaplin's little tramp showed a man thrust into fatherhood (he found the baby in an alley) who handled it well.

I loved a scene of the adorable five-year old boy making pancakes for the two of them while Chaplin laid in bed reading the paper.

That was only way being a kid sucked in 1921, though; lots of other less than sterling things happened to the kid, from his real mother leaving him in a car to the welfare authorities trying to cart him off to the workhouse to his two-bit life of crime with the tramp.

I'll give Jameson credit; once again, he'd chosen the ideal band to match the film.

Wolf//Goat played much tighter tonight than the first time I'd seen them and their "score" was a terrific match for the movie's action.

One of my favorite moments came during the little tramp's dream sequence when a devil advises a woman to tempt him, instructing, "Vamp him!"

Haven't we all wanted to vamp someone at one time or another?

The minute the kid and the tramp found their happy ending, I was out of my seat and off to the Visual Arts Center for more James River Film Festival.

Tonight they were showing another documentary and since in my world you can never have too many docs, I'd gotten my ticket almost a week ago at Steady Sounds, who was co-sponsoring the event.

The room was nearly full of people of all ages when a fellow music-lover and I got there, with lots of musicians in attendance.

It was the story of three teen-aged black brothers from Detroit who'd started a band in the early seventies, which would've been no big deal if it had been a funk or disco band, but it wasn't.

It was proto-punk, which if it had gotten any attention at the time (it didn't), would have been a sea change in the music scene.

It would have been the first punk band.

But when black guys tried to do rock and roll in Motown in 1973 with a name like "Death," nobody much wanted to listen.

One guy at a record company believed in their sound, so they recorded an album's worth of material and released a single.

But no radio station was willing to play it, so the story basically ended there.

And even if it hadn't one of the three brothers, David, the leader and the one who refused to change the band's name to garner more of a shot at fame, died young of lung cancer.

And that's what was great to see, how the filmmakers documented when a few rabid record collectors got wind of the single thirty years alter and tracked down a few copies, leading to the son of Death's bass player getting wind of the band via a friend who'd heard the single and called it the best thing she'd ever heard.

You can imagine his surprise when he discovered that his Dad and two uncles had been that band.

To paraphrase one of the sons, how cool is that?

You can also see how a story like this would have never happened in the pre-Internet days.

The sons formed a tribute band and began doing shows of Death's music.

The old master tapes from the recording session were found in the family attic and the album mastered and put out.

And, best of all, the two remaining members of Death found a worthy guitar player to replace their brother and started playing shows to packed houses.

You can only imagine the fanatical interest of what is now multiple generations of punk fans getting to hear a band that was capturing that sound and energy, even that tinniness due to the era, before anyone else.

The diversity of the people at Death's shows roughly mirrored the diversity of the people at tonight's JRFF sold-out screening of "A Band called Death."

Like the son of Death said, how cool is that?

A Day with the Gentler Sex

Praise be for sunny January afternoons.

The kind that inspire a person to get in the car and drive to the norther neck to eat at Merroir.

Yea, I know Rappahannock is 3/4 of a mile from home, but it's not the same.

And getting there is a whole different thing, too.

Getting gas at the station just before the bridge in West Point (where a friend once did a sudden U-turn, announcing to the three surprised occupants of the car,"I can't drive over that bridge"), I saw  a sign on the fence.

Dangerous Tree Removal 
693-0998

Clearly this was an enterprise that doesn't mess around removing benign trees.

And don't we all feel safer knowing someone is on top of this risky task?

Crossing the bridge, it occurred to me what a shame it is that the picaresque billowing smoke coming out of factory smokestacks is a bad thing.

Seeing the six smokestacks all putting out cartoon-like puffs of white smoke against the white and gray buildings and bright blue sky was a study in shades of gray and blue, a lovely thing.

When my oyster-loving companion and I rolled up, we found the porch at Merroir draped in plastic and nearly every seat taken.

With back-up sweaters, we took a picnic table out back with a view of the bright blue river with its surface choppy in the afternoon breeze.

But it didn't last long; our server got as far as trying to set the wineglasses on the table when the wind demonstrated why drinking outside was not an option.

A sunny table on the porch provided a stellar view of the marina and a safe surface for the bottle of Thorny Rose and wineglasses.

We'd caught the end of the lunch rush, so the porch got progressively emptier as we ate and drank.

Given the stiff breeze, we started with the lamb and clam stew, a perennial favorite no matter the season.

Honestly, that tomato-based broth thick with bits of ground lamb is a thing of beauty and required extra bread for final sopping.

The eclectic music (The Fray to John Lennon) was much easier to hear inside, but sunglasses were still required.

In the spirit of a sunny afternoon and hopes for warmer days, we did the Wagyu beef and cheddar sliders with bacon jam, meaty little burgers that were going to a lot of tables near us.

About that time, it occurred to us that we'd be lying to ourselves if we didn't get some oysters, so a plate of them soon followed.

The briney liquid in the shells tasted a lot like I imagined the salty wind that had been whipping around the point outside did.

Say what you want about Rappahannock in the heart of Richmond, but it'll never beat the price or relaxed vibe of Merroir.

During a trip to the bathroom, I found my sex's room occupied, so I took advantage of the empty men's room next door.

Walking out afterwards, a short man in boots was lounging against the door frame.

Seeing me emerge, he raised an eyebrow over his mirrored sunglasses, but didn't say a word.

I quickly explained what had happened, hoping to mollify him.

"I'd've done the same," he drawled. "Have a nice afternoon, girl."

Girl?

He and his aging Madonna-lookalike girlfriend circa 1986 (right down to the scrunchy, sunglasses and boots) soon drove off in a little, red Corvette.

It was as satisfying a moment as seeing the dangerous tree sign.

A walk down to the dock is de rigueur after a lunch at Merroir, the better to admire the distinctive winter color palette of a January day on the northern neck.

But eventually, city slickers have to motor back to the city, so as to enjoy cultural activities, or they wither and die.

My chosen culture for the evening was the Silent Music Revival at Gallery 5.

What used to be a monthly event has become a much more occasional one as organizer Jameson has spent more time touring and traveling and less time teaching us neophytes about silent movie history.

Everything I know about silent movies I owe to Jameson and while it's not sizable (my fault, not his) it at least taught me how much I enjoy silent film.

But part of the magic of the SMR is that Jameson chooses a band he thinks will best complement the movie he's showing.

He's very, very good at this, which is really what makes the whole event so special, and tonight was no exception.

Sonic Nectar was hiding behind the movie screen, ready to improvise a score to "Hands: The Life and Love of the Gentler Sex," essentially an interpretive German film about romance using only hands

The hands met, flirted, grabbed and one even rescued the other's suicide attempt.

I thought the band's psychedelic instrumental rock was a fine match for the story of hands in love.

Usually at the SMR, there is one band and one movie, but tonight we got a double feature.

"Hands" ended up being merely the prelude for the main event, "Meshes of the Afternoon," an American avant-garde movie from 1943.

The film was a collaboration between Maya Deren and her husband Alexander Hammid and she starred in it.

While that may sound egotistical, the woman was an exotic beauty with a face you couldn't take your eyes off of, so watching her dream experiences that blended in with her real life was riveting.

Brilliantly, Jameson had chosen a woman to score this female-driven film in the form of Nelly Kate.

As many times as I've seen her perform (and not nearly enough in recent months), I love hearing her work magic with her voice, keyboard and a loop pedal.

Tonight, she used her voice to make all kinds of sounds and since we couldn't see her behind the screen, sometimes it was difficult to know whether she or her keys were responsible for what we were hearing.

Only afterwards did I hear from a photographer who'd been backstage that most of that had been created with her voice.

But having a woman's voice and words over a woman working her way through an interior life was nothing short of mesmerizing.

That was the great part. The less great part was that there won't be another SMR for months, probably not until April.

Leave 'em wanting, Jameson. Well done.

Because the SMR starts early and on time, it ends early, there was time to head to the Camel to see Scolaro, a band I had seen only once and that was a year and a half ago, here.

Not one to rush things, they were tonight doing their second live show.

I couldn't risk missing it since it might be mid-2014 before they bother to play out again.

I could tell as soon as I walked into the Camel that a lot of people must have tomorrow off because it was a fat crowd for a Sunday night.

There are two things you can count on at a Camel show: it won't start on time and all too often the sound is muddy.

Tonight we were two for two.

So much so that I changed locations, hoping for a better mix if I stood dead center in the room.

Sadly, no.

Scolaro, a sextet, has three vocalists and yet it placed a serious strain on my ear to hear the vocals in the mix, especially over the drums.

Not fair.

Josh, the leader and a long-time music buddy, began by saying, "I now it's silly to introduce ourselves 'cause I know most of you, but we're Scolaro."

I recognized several of the songs they played, including "Innervention," from some tracks Josh had sent me a while back.

They did a song so new it's still untitled, although they were referring to it as "Megan's song" because she sang it.

Although there was some question about Megan remembering all the words, we agreed as a group that it wouldn't matter since none of us had ever heard the song before.

It turned out to be one of my favorites tonight, with both women singing.

"Regift" shone brightest, sounding for all the world like well-produced, smooth R&B, a very good thing.

By the time they got to the end of their set, guitarist/vocalist Josh was obviously hot, wiping sweat from his face.

"Who'd like to hear another girl song?" he asked, steering the band toward his sister Megan singing again. "I would."

I would have too, although it would have been even better with the vocals higher in the mix.

But I'm not complaining because I was just happy to come back from the river and have so much fun stuff to do tonight.

I'd overheard a woman at Merroir today tell her friends that the great thing about visiting Richmond was that there was so much going on, that you could walk to bars, restaurants and music any night you go.

Isn't it the truth?

Postcard from Puerto Rico

Much as I enjoy attending, I can't begrudge the cessation of the Silent Music Revival.

You see, the organizers are going to Puerto Rico for a few months.

They have the loveliest habit of up and going away for months at a time to work and live in other countries before returning to Richmond.

So tonight's event was the last one for an indefinite amount of time.

To commemorate such an auspicious occasion, Jameson chose a perfect marriage of film and music.

A 1926 movie, "Now You Tell One" starring Charley Bowers played while Nick Coward and the Last Battle improvised a score.

NC & the LB did a superb job of matching their music with the story of a Liar's Club competition and the man off the street who's brought in to spin a tale.

No surprise, he wins the gold.

Afterwards, he swears his story is true, tells a man he loves his daughter (she turns out to be his wife) and is eventually chased by the broom-wielding husband right up until "Le Fin."

Good old twenties slapstick circa Buster Keaton, but by a far less well-known comedian.

I was happy to see that there was a good-sized crowd since no one wanted to miss their last chance for a while.

Being a seasoned veteran, I knew to get there early and grab front row seats while also allowing enough time to say fond farewells to the soon-to-be departed couple.

And while I hate to see them go, I can't help but envy people who are leaving below freezing temperatures for sunny climes.

For people who will be wearing shorts while I continue to layer and wear gloves.

For people who will write music based on where they are and the experiences they're having.

For people who always come back to this city energized and ready to make music and things happen.

Wait a minute....

Hell, if I had any sense, I'd be joining them.

On the Four Overrated Things

It was Silent Music Revival, deluxe holiday edition.

The silent was the two movies, the music was Snowy Owls and the Revival was more of a party in a 19th-century townhouse on Franklin Street.

Shoegaze accompanied "The Insects' Christmas" and "The Frozen North," the latter with Buster Keaton killing people.

It was funnier than it sounds.

My only complaint with having Snowy Owls do the musical score tonight was that hearing them for 24 minutes was not enough.

They must have sensed my feelings because even after the films ended and Jameson said thanks for coming, they began to noodle around and people like me stayed to listen.

At a Christmas party afterwards, I was talking to a friendly woman I didn't know and she was complimenting me wildly on my tights.

When her boyfriend came up, she began to introduce me when he waved her off, saying we already knew each other.

"Oh? How do you two know each other? she asked in a less friendly voice than before.

I turned back around to her. "He's never seen me with my tights off," I assured her.

That cured that attitude problem.

Mingling and misconceptions, that's the stuff holiday parties: are made of.