War is not the answer. As if we didn't already know that.
But I didn't go to the Westhampton Theater to see "Testament of Youth" because it was about World War I. No, I went because I'd never even heard of Vera Brittain, a feminist and pacifist who'd written a memoir by that name, so I was curious. And I wanted buttered popcorn.
The theater was far more crowded than I'd expected for a Monday night, but maybe that's the lingering holiday effect. Or perhaps, like me, they all love a good British period drama with elevated language ("You colluded with him!") and English anachronisms (signs for "Way Out" instead of "exit").
A true story about a young woman with no interest in marriage who wants to go to Oxford (Father instead buys her a piano so she can develop a skill that might land her a husband) and eventually does - at least until WW I breaks out - centered on her awakening to the realities of war as a volunteer nurse behind the front.
But before war comes love when she meets Roland Leighton, one of her brother's friends he's brought home from school and, like Vera, he's an aspiring writer, meaning they exchange letters any time they're apart from then on.
In fact, after that first meeting, he shows his attraction to her by slipping a poem under her bedroom door.
In my book, this is romance of the highest order.
Proving right off that she was my kind of woman, when he asks her about it the next day, she tells him, "It was a little dry. I couldn't find you in it." A brilliant thing to say because he rises to the challenge and begins penning her more heartfelt poetry.
And, truly, what woman doesn't want that?
This being 1914, their romance unfolded slowly and discreetly, so when the moment finally came on the train for him to kiss her, I was none too happy when a cell phone began ringing from the purse of a nearby woman. How many times did the screen instruct you to turn that thing off, lady?
Fashion-wise, the film covered that period just before the Roaring '20s when skirts got short and hats got smaller. But I'm almost certain that good girls were not sporting pierced ears in England in 1914, a glaring error in period detail.
There was even a "Gone With the Wind" homage shot when the camera pulls back to reveal a massive muddy field of wounded and dying soldiers lying on the ground, with Vera careening around the bodies trying to find one person in the moaning masses.
"I have a dust and ashes feeling about it," her beloved Roland had told her when he departed for active duty.
By the end of the war, her fiancee, brother and his two closest friends (plus another three quarters of a million British soldiers) have all been sacrificed on the altar of war. More than a few scenes are made up almost entirely of women as a generation of men were lost to combat. They were labeled the "surplus women," a terrible phrase.
Devastated by her personal losses as well as those of the country, after the war Vera spent 17 years writing this memoir as her way of dealing with the impact WWI had on the lives of women and the middle class, which included her family.
My only question is, how have I never heard of this book considered a classic piece of feminist and World War I literature? For that matter, how have I never heard of Vera Brittain? Hell, it's not like I didn't take Women's Studies classes in college and she hadn't even been dead for long at that point.
This reminds me of the time my friend Leo and I were at the Museum of American Art and I saw a painting of Charlotte Perkins Gilman with a notation that she was a prominent American feminist. Neither of us had ever heard of her and he'd taken the same classes I had.
That time, I'd come home from D.C. and promptly ordered a copy of "The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Reader" to bring my knowledge base up a notch. Looks like I need to find myself a copy of "Testament of Youth" for another instructive read.
Not about the cost of war, because that much I do know, but about how an educated and intellectual woman dealt with a world that had no use for smart women, much less one scarred by losing the love of her life. Then to make it complete, I'll need to read a collection of Roland's poetry.
Again the shadowed pool shall break
In dimples at your feet,
And when the thrush sings in your wood
Unknowing you may meet
Another stranger, sweet
I have no doubt she was able to find him in that one.
Showing posts with label the westhampton theater. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the westhampton theater. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Monday, April 20, 2015
When Generations Collide
Ask a Gemini if she's A or B, and she'll answer honestly that she's a little bit of both.
Which means when I went to see a film about the generation gap, I found myself alternately siding with both ends of the spectrum.
When I saw the previews, I was immediately attracted to Noah Baumbach's "While We're Young," the story of a middle-aged couple questioning where they'd wound up in life and their subsequent friendship with a 20-something couple they meet.
Sure, I could relate to Ben Stiller's character's resentful attitude when he's told he has arthritis and needs glasses. I'm not above complaining when I feel like my body has betrayed me simply because of how much time I've been on the planet.
But I was also in sync with the young couple's desire for simplicity. In one scene, the two couples are deep in conversation when no one can remember a fact. The middle aged guy immediately pulls out his phone to look it up.
"No, that's too easy. Let's just not know what it is," the 25-year old insists. Yes, please, let's go back to a world where we don't automatically look up everything we don't know or can't recall.
I could appreciate how appealing the older couple found hanging out with the millennials to be. I've got far more friends under 30 who are interested in the music and lifestyle I lead than I do friends my own age.
One thing the middle-aged couple found so appealing about the younger one was their openness to everything, a trait that, sadly, often fades with time and life experience.
On the other hand, the millennials had no compunction about appropriating anything that appealed to them, shamelessly "borrowing" bits of pop culture they'd not experienced or even had much knowledge of and passing it off as their own.
Honestly, I like that so many 20-somethings prefer records to digital music, ride bikes rather than drive and raise chickens for eggs. I liked it in the movie and I like it among my Richmond friends.
But it wasn't hard to relate to the middle-aged relationship either, with the woman telling her husband that she longs for how it was when they first met and he wrote her romantic e-mails daily.
By movie's end, director Baumbach had concluded that neither way was better. One was just youthful while the other more seasoned. In other words, they're not evil, they're just young.
As far as I was concerned, the most salient point the film made was also the simplest: why do we stop doing things? That's something that's always puzzled me, too, because it seems as if once you stop - going out for live music, sliding down a banister, writing romantic e-mails - you rarely get back to those things and they're gone forever.
Which means you can be sure I'll keep on keeping on. Because no Gemini wants fewer options.
Which means when I went to see a film about the generation gap, I found myself alternately siding with both ends of the spectrum.
When I saw the previews, I was immediately attracted to Noah Baumbach's "While We're Young," the story of a middle-aged couple questioning where they'd wound up in life and their subsequent friendship with a 20-something couple they meet.
Sure, I could relate to Ben Stiller's character's resentful attitude when he's told he has arthritis and needs glasses. I'm not above complaining when I feel like my body has betrayed me simply because of how much time I've been on the planet.
But I was also in sync with the young couple's desire for simplicity. In one scene, the two couples are deep in conversation when no one can remember a fact. The middle aged guy immediately pulls out his phone to look it up.
"No, that's too easy. Let's just not know what it is," the 25-year old insists. Yes, please, let's go back to a world where we don't automatically look up everything we don't know or can't recall.
I could appreciate how appealing the older couple found hanging out with the millennials to be. I've got far more friends under 30 who are interested in the music and lifestyle I lead than I do friends my own age.
One thing the middle-aged couple found so appealing about the younger one was their openness to everything, a trait that, sadly, often fades with time and life experience.
On the other hand, the millennials had no compunction about appropriating anything that appealed to them, shamelessly "borrowing" bits of pop culture they'd not experienced or even had much knowledge of and passing it off as their own.
Honestly, I like that so many 20-somethings prefer records to digital music, ride bikes rather than drive and raise chickens for eggs. I liked it in the movie and I like it among my Richmond friends.
But it wasn't hard to relate to the middle-aged relationship either, with the woman telling her husband that she longs for how it was when they first met and he wrote her romantic e-mails daily.
By movie's end, director Baumbach had concluded that neither way was better. One was just youthful while the other more seasoned. In other words, they're not evil, they're just young.
As far as I was concerned, the most salient point the film made was also the simplest: why do we stop doing things? That's something that's always puzzled me, too, because it seems as if once you stop - going out for live music, sliding down a banister, writing romantic e-mails - you rarely get back to those things and they're gone forever.
Which means you can be sure I'll keep on keeping on. Because no Gemini wants fewer options.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Curry and Crumpets
You could say the food was as unexpected as the history lesson.
Tonight the beer-centric Cask was allowing Chef Mel from Curry Craft to turn their former garage space for the beer-inclined into Curry Cask, a one-night Indian experience. Call it what you want, it was a pop-up.
With a fellow curry fan in tow, we arrived after the bar had been filled but while tables still sat empty waiting for eager mouths. Oh, sure, the big table was already occupied with a bunch of guys deep in their beer discussion (peach ale versus Budweiser, no doubt), but they were mere window-dressing for the place.
Ignoring the blackboards touting their vast beer selection, we opted for a bottle of Hugl Gruner Veltliner to accompany our meal. The menu was simple with an appetizer and two entrees, and with the smell of cardamom scenting the air, we ordered them all.
Our server, a veteran I recognized from any number of past serving positions, warned us that the kitchen (including one guy whose t-shirt read, "I am your enemy") was rockin' it and food was likely to come out all at once, bam! style.
We might have gotten through one glass each before the plates began showing up, first a Bombay masala porker starring Sausagecraft's habanero pork sausage with tamarind-chili-cumin glaze and Bombay slaw, a stellar Indian take on a very Virginia standard (pig and slaw) that got our mouths ready for more.
Our next two plates followed almost immediately, their poppadom sitting aloft like windblown sails on a boat. One was garam masala-scented market vegetable curry over basmati rice and the other a traditional chicken tikka masala.
Their aromas were tantalizing and because Mel had made them, perfectly seasoned with nice, big chunks of vegetables in one and an abundance of chicken in the other. We had no problem trading plates and taking them down to licked-clean plates.
While we did, enjoying them immensely with the Gruner Veltliner, a nine-top that included four young children with sodas took up residence next to us. It made me wonder, what happened to to the good old days when babysitters watched kids while Mom and Dad went to adult places like beer joints without them? Would it be too much to start a movement for adults-only pop-ups?
Instead, we took the path of least resistance, getting the check and heading out to a movie at the Westhampton since that won't be possible much longer now that the building has been sold.
Besides its classic movie palace exterior, it's got that upstairs theater unlike any normal theater space. I never sit anywhere but the front row (for the leg room) which is about as close to a movie screen as anyone needs to be. The ledge also conveniently holds a box of Milk Duds.
Tonight's attraction was "The Imitation Game" about the British mathematician who more or less came up with the prototype for modern-day computers. Ordinarily, I'd have zero interest in a movie about computers, but the fact that it was based on a true story sold me.
And you can make fun of me all you want, but I had no idea who Benedict Cumberbatch was. Now that I've looked him up, I know that I must have seen him in "Atonement" and "12 Years a Slave," but apparently he didn't register at all.
If only I'd known he'd been dubbed "the thinking woman's crumpet," I might have paid attention to him sooner. Hey, I like to consider myself a thinking woman and I certainly like crumpets, if you know what I mean.
So instead, I focused on the story, more than a little fascinated that this group of mathematically-inclined nerds was able to break the Nazi's Enigma code during WW II, thereby ending the war two years earlier and saving millions of lives. To a history nerd, those are facts worth knowing.
What I found appalling about another part of the history lesson was not just his prosecution for being gay (forcing him into chemical castration to avoid prison) but that indecency with a man was still a crime as late as 1967 in Britain. Thankfully the epilogue tells us that he got a royal pardon for his "crimes" in 2013.
The man who gave us the devices we can't live without had to be "pardoned" for who he was attracted to? The man responsible for shortening the war and saving all those lives? That's a difficult history lesson to swallow.
But, curry and Milk Duds, those were pure pleasure going down.
Tonight the beer-centric Cask was allowing Chef Mel from Curry Craft to turn their former garage space for the beer-inclined into Curry Cask, a one-night Indian experience. Call it what you want, it was a pop-up.
With a fellow curry fan in tow, we arrived after the bar had been filled but while tables still sat empty waiting for eager mouths. Oh, sure, the big table was already occupied with a bunch of guys deep in their beer discussion (peach ale versus Budweiser, no doubt), but they were mere window-dressing for the place.
Ignoring the blackboards touting their vast beer selection, we opted for a bottle of Hugl Gruner Veltliner to accompany our meal. The menu was simple with an appetizer and two entrees, and with the smell of cardamom scenting the air, we ordered them all.
Our server, a veteran I recognized from any number of past serving positions, warned us that the kitchen (including one guy whose t-shirt read, "I am your enemy") was rockin' it and food was likely to come out all at once, bam! style.
We might have gotten through one glass each before the plates began showing up, first a Bombay masala porker starring Sausagecraft's habanero pork sausage with tamarind-chili-cumin glaze and Bombay slaw, a stellar Indian take on a very Virginia standard (pig and slaw) that got our mouths ready for more.
Our next two plates followed almost immediately, their poppadom sitting aloft like windblown sails on a boat. One was garam masala-scented market vegetable curry over basmati rice and the other a traditional chicken tikka masala.
Their aromas were tantalizing and because Mel had made them, perfectly seasoned with nice, big chunks of vegetables in one and an abundance of chicken in the other. We had no problem trading plates and taking them down to licked-clean plates.
While we did, enjoying them immensely with the Gruner Veltliner, a nine-top that included four young children with sodas took up residence next to us. It made me wonder, what happened to to the good old days when babysitters watched kids while Mom and Dad went to adult places like beer joints without them? Would it be too much to start a movement for adults-only pop-ups?
Instead, we took the path of least resistance, getting the check and heading out to a movie at the Westhampton since that won't be possible much longer now that the building has been sold.
Besides its classic movie palace exterior, it's got that upstairs theater unlike any normal theater space. I never sit anywhere but the front row (for the leg room) which is about as close to a movie screen as anyone needs to be. The ledge also conveniently holds a box of Milk Duds.
Tonight's attraction was "The Imitation Game" about the British mathematician who more or less came up with the prototype for modern-day computers. Ordinarily, I'd have zero interest in a movie about computers, but the fact that it was based on a true story sold me.
And you can make fun of me all you want, but I had no idea who Benedict Cumberbatch was. Now that I've looked him up, I know that I must have seen him in "Atonement" and "12 Years a Slave," but apparently he didn't register at all.
If only I'd known he'd been dubbed "the thinking woman's crumpet," I might have paid attention to him sooner. Hey, I like to consider myself a thinking woman and I certainly like crumpets, if you know what I mean.
So instead, I focused on the story, more than a little fascinated that this group of mathematically-inclined nerds was able to break the Nazi's Enigma code during WW II, thereby ending the war two years earlier and saving millions of lives. To a history nerd, those are facts worth knowing.
What I found appalling about another part of the history lesson was not just his prosecution for being gay (forcing him into chemical castration to avoid prison) but that indecency with a man was still a crime as late as 1967 in Britain. Thankfully the epilogue tells us that he got a royal pardon for his "crimes" in 2013.
The man who gave us the devices we can't live without had to be "pardoned" for who he was attracted to? The man responsible for shortening the war and saving all those lives? That's a difficult history lesson to swallow.
But, curry and Milk Duds, those were pure pleasure going down.
Saturday, September 13, 2014
All Over the Map
It was a well-traveled evening.
Going to the Westhampton to see Woody Allen's latest, "Magic in the Moonlight," got me fabulous views of the south of France: azure blue seas, rose bowers so colorful you could almost smell them and winding tree-lined roadways circa 1928.
From the film's opening strains of Cole Porter's "You Do Something to Me," it announced itself as a Woody Allen movie.
Naturally, the language was delightful ("That young milksop who's smitten with her") and the life lessons spot on ("It's not where you go, it's who you travel with").
The story of a jaded and celebrated magician who sets out to debunk a dewy, so-called psychic was not Allen's best work but I'm not going to complain about looking at Colin Firth for two hours, even if he did play a grumpy, unromantic pragmatist who sees no need to pause and enjoy the pleasures of life.
Well, at least until he meets a sunny optimist with a great smile.
It was the age-old argument of fact versus fantasy, science versus magic and whether it's wise to take some things on faith.
Could it be possible some people are more cosmically in tune and can "see" things most of us can't?
All I know is that I was at a gathering back in the '90s and a psychic was present and when she stopped to talk to me, she took a ring from my hand, closed her eyes and told me things she couldn't possibly have known because no one else in the room knew them.
I'm talking things about a death very close to me and about a particular person who had meant a lot to me and she spouted off both.
So while Colin Firth's character didn't believe some people have a spiritual capability, I do.
Walking out of the theater, I found the sidewalk crawling with pods of young families with kids waiting for the dubious pleasures of eating at The Continental.
Stepping over the smallest ones sprawled on the sidewalk, I escaped back to my world to take my hired mouth out to eat, filling my belly (and taking mental notes) to fortify myself for the rest of the evening's activities.
Reynolds Gallery had two openings tonight: a solo show by Isabel Bigelow and a group show, "Taking Off: Hot, New Painters," of up and coming artists from New York and Chicago.
Moments after walking in, an artist I'd interviewed last year approached me to say hello, followed by a history and art buff I inevitably see at cultural happenings.
The kind of person who's trying to choose between going to an air show or a historical re-enactment. A nerd like me, in other words.
The perception of art openings as dull, dry affairs is a myth; they're highly social evenings fueled by wine and conversation.
But also art.
Bigelow's paintings were gorgeous images of nature in isolation, say a branch or a slice of river, rendered in a limited number of colors.
What the hot, new crew painters had in common was that they were all reworking abstraction in their own ways.
If I had pockets deep enough, I'd have shelled out for Nicole Mauser's "Untitled," a gorgeous piece of color abstraction. But alas, my pockets are so shallow they're almost concave, so I left with just memories of the big cities and the art they spawn.
It was time for music.
Sure, I'd been at Balliceaux just last night but that was for rock and tonight they were presenting world music from eastern Europe with a dash of folk and jazz fronted by Zeb Bangash, a Pakistani singer, and Michael Winograd, a virtuoso clarinet player.
Who stays home on a Friday night and misses that?
Waiting for the doors to open, one of the bartenders walked by raising an eyebrow at me. "Two nights in a row, Karen?"
Shortly after, a saxophonist friend appeared, smiling and saying, "I thought I'd see you here."
I gave him major points for being there since he has to be on the road to Charlottesville at the crack of dawn tomorrow to play from 9 in the morning until noon.
Because the band didn't start until after 11, we had plenty of time to chat about our dedication to endurance training (his running, my walking), the perks of the freelance lifestyle (he teaches music lessons) and the unique charms of what he called "suburban dive bars" such as Sharky's (been there, done that) and Daddio's.
When Sandaraa finally took the stage, we were looking at a singer, violinist and bassist (all female), guitarist, accordionist, drummer and clarinetist, making for a sonic pallet able to bridge rock, Balkan, Afghani, Klezmer and NYC, where the group is now based.
The music soon had two couples at one of the booths dancing tavern-style in the booth, hands clasped with each other and over their heads.
That was just the beginning and before long one couple, then two, then three took to the dance floor to move to the decidedly eastern- sounding music.
If some of their dance moves looked a lot like Deadhead dancers, well, so be it.
Each song seemed to bridge multiple genres, always with Zeb's exotic-sounding voice pulling it all together, and often taking off on accordion and clarinet tangents.
The crowd wasn't large (no doubt the $10 price tag kept all the pretty people out, actually a good thing since they usually gab through shows), but it was quality, with everyone obviously there for the music, too often a rarity.
I started in the back of the room but eventually moved up front to better see the band, putting myself squarely in dancing territory.
Might be the first time I ever moved to a Pakistani singer.
Of course I'd be here.
Going to the Westhampton to see Woody Allen's latest, "Magic in the Moonlight," got me fabulous views of the south of France: azure blue seas, rose bowers so colorful you could almost smell them and winding tree-lined roadways circa 1928.
From the film's opening strains of Cole Porter's "You Do Something to Me," it announced itself as a Woody Allen movie.
Naturally, the language was delightful ("That young milksop who's smitten with her") and the life lessons spot on ("It's not where you go, it's who you travel with").
The story of a jaded and celebrated magician who sets out to debunk a dewy, so-called psychic was not Allen's best work but I'm not going to complain about looking at Colin Firth for two hours, even if he did play a grumpy, unromantic pragmatist who sees no need to pause and enjoy the pleasures of life.
Well, at least until he meets a sunny optimist with a great smile.
It was the age-old argument of fact versus fantasy, science versus magic and whether it's wise to take some things on faith.
Could it be possible some people are more cosmically in tune and can "see" things most of us can't?
All I know is that I was at a gathering back in the '90s and a psychic was present and when she stopped to talk to me, she took a ring from my hand, closed her eyes and told me things she couldn't possibly have known because no one else in the room knew them.
I'm talking things about a death very close to me and about a particular person who had meant a lot to me and she spouted off both.
So while Colin Firth's character didn't believe some people have a spiritual capability, I do.
Walking out of the theater, I found the sidewalk crawling with pods of young families with kids waiting for the dubious pleasures of eating at The Continental.
Stepping over the smallest ones sprawled on the sidewalk, I escaped back to my world to take my hired mouth out to eat, filling my belly (and taking mental notes) to fortify myself for the rest of the evening's activities.
Reynolds Gallery had two openings tonight: a solo show by Isabel Bigelow and a group show, "Taking Off: Hot, New Painters," of up and coming artists from New York and Chicago.
Moments after walking in, an artist I'd interviewed last year approached me to say hello, followed by a history and art buff I inevitably see at cultural happenings.
The kind of person who's trying to choose between going to an air show or a historical re-enactment. A nerd like me, in other words.
The perception of art openings as dull, dry affairs is a myth; they're highly social evenings fueled by wine and conversation.
But also art.
Bigelow's paintings were gorgeous images of nature in isolation, say a branch or a slice of river, rendered in a limited number of colors.
What the hot, new crew painters had in common was that they were all reworking abstraction in their own ways.
If I had pockets deep enough, I'd have shelled out for Nicole Mauser's "Untitled," a gorgeous piece of color abstraction. But alas, my pockets are so shallow they're almost concave, so I left with just memories of the big cities and the art they spawn.
It was time for music.
Sure, I'd been at Balliceaux just last night but that was for rock and tonight they were presenting world music from eastern Europe with a dash of folk and jazz fronted by Zeb Bangash, a Pakistani singer, and Michael Winograd, a virtuoso clarinet player.
Who stays home on a Friday night and misses that?
Waiting for the doors to open, one of the bartenders walked by raising an eyebrow at me. "Two nights in a row, Karen?"
Shortly after, a saxophonist friend appeared, smiling and saying, "I thought I'd see you here."
I gave him major points for being there since he has to be on the road to Charlottesville at the crack of dawn tomorrow to play from 9 in the morning until noon.
Because the band didn't start until after 11, we had plenty of time to chat about our dedication to endurance training (his running, my walking), the perks of the freelance lifestyle (he teaches music lessons) and the unique charms of what he called "suburban dive bars" such as Sharky's (been there, done that) and Daddio's.
When Sandaraa finally took the stage, we were looking at a singer, violinist and bassist (all female), guitarist, accordionist, drummer and clarinetist, making for a sonic pallet able to bridge rock, Balkan, Afghani, Klezmer and NYC, where the group is now based.
The music soon had two couples at one of the booths dancing tavern-style in the booth, hands clasped with each other and over their heads.
That was just the beginning and before long one couple, then two, then three took to the dance floor to move to the decidedly eastern- sounding music.
If some of their dance moves looked a lot like Deadhead dancers, well, so be it.
Each song seemed to bridge multiple genres, always with Zeb's exotic-sounding voice pulling it all together, and often taking off on accordion and clarinet tangents.
The crowd wasn't large (no doubt the $10 price tag kept all the pretty people out, actually a good thing since they usually gab through shows), but it was quality, with everyone obviously there for the music, too often a rarity.
I started in the back of the room but eventually moved up front to better see the band, putting myself squarely in dancing territory.
Might be the first time I ever moved to a Pakistani singer.
Of course I'd be here.
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Seduced by a Breeze
It's always a challenge settling back in after vacation.
Oh, I don't mean the conscious un-vacationing part - the loads of laundry, the putting away of beach gear, the housecleaning to restore some order, the grocery shopping - I mean the adaptation to life back in the city after a week of endless reading and napping, the soothing sound of the ocean, of all leisure all the time.
Sound of brakes screeching.
That meant after a full day attending to the minutiae of life, there was no walking on the beach or sitting on the porch swing transfixed by the surf to cap it off.
Come on, Karen, make lemonade out of lemons here.
So what didn't I have at the beach? A good foreign film (and, yes, Canada counts), that was it, so it was off to the Westhampton Theater I went to see "The Grand Seduction." Me and six other people, so it wasn't a big crowd needing to be seduced.
Set in a former fishing village in Newfoundland, the sweet story of a harbor community trying to woo a young doctor to their remote location so they can qualify to have a much-needed factory built and provide jobs for the town's out of work former fishermen, unfolded gently and engagingly.
How the town seduces him is the funny part - tapping his phone to learn about his passion for jazz, his dead father and favorite food (which the town restaurant then duplicates) - and even leaving money around for him to happen upon because "finding money makes people happy."
It's true. While I was in the ocean last week, I looked up to see a $10 bill floating by and nabbed it, feeling inordinately pleased with my find. The good doctor was no different.
One of the funniest lines came when the doctor shows up at the home of the town's eligible, young postmistress. "I've been drinking," he says.
"Just what every girl wants to hear when she opens her door to a man at night," she deadpans before closing the door in his face.
My kind of humor.
The movie was charming, chock full of stunning island landscapes with a cast of wonderfully oddball characters such as you'd expect in such a remote location, a gentle reminder that seduction isn't always about sex.
Not that there's anything wrong with seduction when it is about sex.
Not ready to go home after the movie, I went instead to Balliceaux for the RVA Big Band, immediately running into a bartender friend, who, like me, was wondering how our mutual friends seem to be on vacation every other week (currently they're in Aruba).
In the back room, the big band was getting set up and tuning, so I took a table near where a sax player was unpacking his instrument. He said hello and smiled.
Shouldn't you be up there blowing? I inquired of him.
"There will be a lot of blowing tonight," he said with a grin. "You may even feel a breeze." I was okay with that. Maybe a brass breeze could substitute for the absent sea breeze.
Sitting in with the band tonight were three horn players from Charlottesville, including the guy I'd just met, and after introducing them, the band leader said, "They grow some really green grass there." Non-sequitur or inside information?
The first song began with nothing but the upright bass and within seconds, everyone in the room was snapping their fingers along with the beat, a very good start.
From there, they did some testifying, swung hard and took the band in just about every direction they could as the crowd continued to grow. One group of eight or so pretty young things arrived, all sundress-clad, pulled out their phones and shot footage of the band briefly before exiting, stage right.
At the end of the first set, I got up to leave and was stopped by the music-loving science writer I'd met there a few months ago.
"I was just coming over to join you at your table," he explained. "I was getting tired of standing. Do you have to go already?"
Actually, yes, I do. You see, I had some surprisingly early nights - 10:25 one night!- while I was at the beach and my body hasn't fully adjusted back to RVA time.
Give it a few days and it'll be there. But for now, the ocean is still sorely missed.
Oh, I don't mean the conscious un-vacationing part - the loads of laundry, the putting away of beach gear, the housecleaning to restore some order, the grocery shopping - I mean the adaptation to life back in the city after a week of endless reading and napping, the soothing sound of the ocean, of all leisure all the time.
Sound of brakes screeching.
That meant after a full day attending to the minutiae of life, there was no walking on the beach or sitting on the porch swing transfixed by the surf to cap it off.
Come on, Karen, make lemonade out of lemons here.
So what didn't I have at the beach? A good foreign film (and, yes, Canada counts), that was it, so it was off to the Westhampton Theater I went to see "The Grand Seduction." Me and six other people, so it wasn't a big crowd needing to be seduced.
Set in a former fishing village in Newfoundland, the sweet story of a harbor community trying to woo a young doctor to their remote location so they can qualify to have a much-needed factory built and provide jobs for the town's out of work former fishermen, unfolded gently and engagingly.
How the town seduces him is the funny part - tapping his phone to learn about his passion for jazz, his dead father and favorite food (which the town restaurant then duplicates) - and even leaving money around for him to happen upon because "finding money makes people happy."
It's true. While I was in the ocean last week, I looked up to see a $10 bill floating by and nabbed it, feeling inordinately pleased with my find. The good doctor was no different.
One of the funniest lines came when the doctor shows up at the home of the town's eligible, young postmistress. "I've been drinking," he says.
"Just what every girl wants to hear when she opens her door to a man at night," she deadpans before closing the door in his face.
My kind of humor.
The movie was charming, chock full of stunning island landscapes with a cast of wonderfully oddball characters such as you'd expect in such a remote location, a gentle reminder that seduction isn't always about sex.
Not that there's anything wrong with seduction when it is about sex.
Not ready to go home after the movie, I went instead to Balliceaux for the RVA Big Band, immediately running into a bartender friend, who, like me, was wondering how our mutual friends seem to be on vacation every other week (currently they're in Aruba).
In the back room, the big band was getting set up and tuning, so I took a table near where a sax player was unpacking his instrument. He said hello and smiled.
Shouldn't you be up there blowing? I inquired of him.
"There will be a lot of blowing tonight," he said with a grin. "You may even feel a breeze." I was okay with that. Maybe a brass breeze could substitute for the absent sea breeze.
Sitting in with the band tonight were three horn players from Charlottesville, including the guy I'd just met, and after introducing them, the band leader said, "They grow some really green grass there." Non-sequitur or inside information?
The first song began with nothing but the upright bass and within seconds, everyone in the room was snapping their fingers along with the beat, a very good start.
From there, they did some testifying, swung hard and took the band in just about every direction they could as the crowd continued to grow. One group of eight or so pretty young things arrived, all sundress-clad, pulled out their phones and shot footage of the band briefly before exiting, stage right.
At the end of the first set, I got up to leave and was stopped by the music-loving science writer I'd met there a few months ago.
"I was just coming over to join you at your table," he explained. "I was getting tired of standing. Do you have to go already?"
Actually, yes, I do. You see, I had some surprisingly early nights - 10:25 one night!- while I was at the beach and my body hasn't fully adjusted back to RVA time.
Give it a few days and it'll be there. But for now, the ocean is still sorely missed.
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Someone to Tell Things To
After a busy day trapped inside and working, all I wanted was a little romance.
I got that and a whole lot more by going to the Westhampton to see "The Lunchbox," a film I'd seen previews for last week.
Seems I hadn't taken into consideration that the only people who go to a 9:30 movie on a Saturday night are couples. Everyone else was getting two tickets and a large popcorn to share while my small popcorn and I found a seat in the front row away from them all.
"What do we live for?' is the crux of the movie and after a wife's lovingly made lunches keep getting mistakenly delivered to a lonely widower ("I think we forget things if we have no one to tell them to") instead of her inattentive husband, it starts to become clear that they're living for the connection they feel through the daily notes they pass back and forth in the lunchbox.
After years of eating a food shop's lunches, he's enamored of her creatively prepared homemade spreads, concurring with an eager beaver coworker that "you need magic in the hands to make great food." I'm inclined to agree with that since there's no magic in my own.
The wife discusses her concerns about her marriage and the misdirected lunches with her unseen "Auntie" who lives upstairs and who sends down ingredients via a basket on a piece of rope, just the way I saw women do when I was in Italy. It's a perfectly charming method of conveyance.
Somehow life in Mumbai, whether the overcrowded trains with people hanging out every door and window or the claustrophobic cubicles full of paper pushers (ledgers, even) manage to become a meditation on loneliness in the land of overpopulation, where even burials are vertical due to lack of room.
And once the wife realizes that her husband is cheating on her, she begins to pour out her heart to this stranger, sharing dreams and memories, and he does the same.
Her young daughter comes home from school telling her of a place where there is no gross national product, just gross national happiness, making it sound like the ideal place to escape to.
As the relationship deepens through the handwritten notes -only one a day - the audience is reminded that connections used to be forged on a much more gradual basis before the advent of e-mail and texting.
Gradually both of them come to the same conclusion: sometimes the wrong train will get you to the right station.
That could be a metaphor for my entire life.
Best of all, the first-time director provides no clear cut ending, just the merest suggestion that these two people are still gradually moving toward each other.
Whether or not they end up together for the long haul remains to be seen. Just like in real life.
I got that and a whole lot more by going to the Westhampton to see "The Lunchbox," a film I'd seen previews for last week.
Seems I hadn't taken into consideration that the only people who go to a 9:30 movie on a Saturday night are couples. Everyone else was getting two tickets and a large popcorn to share while my small popcorn and I found a seat in the front row away from them all.
"What do we live for?' is the crux of the movie and after a wife's lovingly made lunches keep getting mistakenly delivered to a lonely widower ("I think we forget things if we have no one to tell them to") instead of her inattentive husband, it starts to become clear that they're living for the connection they feel through the daily notes they pass back and forth in the lunchbox.
After years of eating a food shop's lunches, he's enamored of her creatively prepared homemade spreads, concurring with an eager beaver coworker that "you need magic in the hands to make great food." I'm inclined to agree with that since there's no magic in my own.
The wife discusses her concerns about her marriage and the misdirected lunches with her unseen "Auntie" who lives upstairs and who sends down ingredients via a basket on a piece of rope, just the way I saw women do when I was in Italy. It's a perfectly charming method of conveyance.
Somehow life in Mumbai, whether the overcrowded trains with people hanging out every door and window or the claustrophobic cubicles full of paper pushers (ledgers, even) manage to become a meditation on loneliness in the land of overpopulation, where even burials are vertical due to lack of room.
And once the wife realizes that her husband is cheating on her, she begins to pour out her heart to this stranger, sharing dreams and memories, and he does the same.
Her young daughter comes home from school telling her of a place where there is no gross national product, just gross national happiness, making it sound like the ideal place to escape to.
As the relationship deepens through the handwritten notes -only one a day - the audience is reminded that connections used to be forged on a much more gradual basis before the advent of e-mail and texting.
Gradually both of them come to the same conclusion: sometimes the wrong train will get you to the right station.
That could be a metaphor for my entire life.
Best of all, the first-time director provides no clear cut ending, just the merest suggestion that these two people are still gradually moving toward each other.
Whether or not they end up together for the long haul remains to be seen. Just like in real life.
Monday, March 24, 2014
More Flavorful in Every Way
I am nothing if not able to plan a day of activities.
So when a date instructs me to "pick a place," I am already envisioning a day and evening of amusements.
We begin with brunch at Stella's, a place I hadn't been in a full two years.
Walking in, I spotted two open seats at the bar and claimed them as if they were my own. "You got here at just the right moment," the woman nearby noted of the recently vacated seats.
This is a good thing since I would not wait around for a table here. Note to self: plan to arrive at Stella's brunch sometime after 1:00 to avoid the crushing mass of humanity,
While Prosecco on tap was ordered, it was soon discovered that the tap was shot and a lengthy replacement effort began, ultimately resulting in us drinking an alternate sparkler instead.
For food, I chose a smoked salmon fritatta with capers, red onion, scallions and Manouri cheese over grilled pita with tzatiki, a dish so distinctive and appealing that a nearby couple asked what it was.
They were Charlottesville residents who'd been to the car show here and were stopping by for a bite before hitting the road. We were locals looking for a bite to eat before heading west to the movies.
Before changing gears, we savored honey tokens - puffs of fried dough bathed in honey sugar syrup and covered in fresh cinnamon - while trying our best to ignore the TV blasting basketball, a replacement for the missing TV screen in the back that used to show vintage Greek movies.
Ah, the good old days.
If you want to ensure I never return to your restaurant, show modern day TV. I promise I won't darken your door again.
But since there was no avoiding the glare of the screen, we ate and left, heading to the vintage Westhampton theater to see Wes Anderson's latest eye candy, "The Grand Budapest Hotel," a singularly beautiful movie about a snapshot in time that no longer exists, Europe pre-WW I.
Sure there's unpleasantness - a cat being tossed out a window to its untimely death, rich, old ladies dying and bad guys chasing good guys - but mostly I enjoyed glorious European scenery, a whodunnit of the highest order and ski chase sequences worthy of a James Bond movie.
It was a film that made me laugh out loud over and over again. I almost choked on my buttered popcorn.
When explaining why he preferred older women, our hero, M. Gustave was eloquent. "They're the cheaper cuts and far more flavorful."
Don't talk to me about younger women until you've cleared things with M. Gustave. He knows what of he speaks when it comes to my people.
The movie was pure Wes Anderson, full of visually stunning set design, deadpan delivery and the most unlikely situations imaginable. There was sex with 84-year olds, a stolen painting caper and a severed head.
The one thing my date and I could agree upon was that we definitely needed to see this movie a second time to catch the dialog we'd missed.
Aural and visual stimulation was followed by the same at Secco, where we ran into a friend and the woman to whom he is devoted, followed by an atypical Spanish Cava and a cheese plate.
It wasn't hard to use those around us to discuss gardening in winter, second (or 19th) chances at romance and the appeal of cellaring Roses before devouring them.
We heard a woman behind us say, "I smoke Virginia Slims and they're $6 a box. Most cigarettes are only $4," afraid to turn around and look at her.
I said farewell to a Secco server leaving to join the academic world and reveled when the sun finally made its way into the sky, lightening things up for the first time today.
When we left there, it was to got to Gallery 5 for the Silent Music Revival and a showing of vintage "Mutt & Jeff" shorts set to a soundtrack improvised by Dumb Waiter, a band who impresses me more each time I see them.
If you've seen them before, you know to expect a melange of jazz, metal, experimental and fusion and that's exactly what they delivered while we watched Mutt and Jeff have wife trouble, be sliced into hot dogs and, time after time, run so fast that they ran out of their clothes.
In the politically incorrect "Dog Gone," dogs are rounded up and then taken to a sausage plant where they are turned into links. Ouch. It was top notch humor, circa 1911-1926.
Dumb Waiter's improvisations were spot on, heightening the story and meshing with the crescendos of Mutt and Jeff's activities.
After the shorts ended, I spoke with guitarist Nick and drummer Nathaniel of Dumb Waiter, praising their performances, and chatted with other friends who had made the show.
When I finally left, it was to head to Garnett's with my date for a late night meal. In fact, it was for Garnett's stellar date night special of a bottle of wine with two entrees.
My choice was a grilled Gouda with caramelized onions, tomato and bacon and it was just the thing to allow discussion of the band's effect-laden saxophone and distinctive tapping, two points of interest for one of the two friends I'd invited to experience the band.
Honestly, Nick's guitar and Nathaniel's drumming should be enough, but the onslaught of all four was downright impressive. Mutt and Jeff never sounded so good.
We finished up with my childhood favorite cake - chocolate cake with white icing and chocolate dribbles (in this case, chocolate ganache)- a rarely seen cake that evoked memories of my youth and birthdays.
When I set our to plan a full day's activities, I never could have expected such a throwback ending to it all. I was just trying to prove that the cheaper cuts deliver the most flavor, even when enjoyed over an entire day.
Sometimes it's just a a matter of arriving at exactly the right moment and moving forward with it.
Pure luck, in other words.
So when a date instructs me to "pick a place," I am already envisioning a day and evening of amusements.
We begin with brunch at Stella's, a place I hadn't been in a full two years.
Walking in, I spotted two open seats at the bar and claimed them as if they were my own. "You got here at just the right moment," the woman nearby noted of the recently vacated seats.
This is a good thing since I would not wait around for a table here. Note to self: plan to arrive at Stella's brunch sometime after 1:00 to avoid the crushing mass of humanity,
While Prosecco on tap was ordered, it was soon discovered that the tap was shot and a lengthy replacement effort began, ultimately resulting in us drinking an alternate sparkler instead.
For food, I chose a smoked salmon fritatta with capers, red onion, scallions and Manouri cheese over grilled pita with tzatiki, a dish so distinctive and appealing that a nearby couple asked what it was.
They were Charlottesville residents who'd been to the car show here and were stopping by for a bite before hitting the road. We were locals looking for a bite to eat before heading west to the movies.
Before changing gears, we savored honey tokens - puffs of fried dough bathed in honey sugar syrup and covered in fresh cinnamon - while trying our best to ignore the TV blasting basketball, a replacement for the missing TV screen in the back that used to show vintage Greek movies.
Ah, the good old days.
If you want to ensure I never return to your restaurant, show modern day TV. I promise I won't darken your door again.
But since there was no avoiding the glare of the screen, we ate and left, heading to the vintage Westhampton theater to see Wes Anderson's latest eye candy, "The Grand Budapest Hotel," a singularly beautiful movie about a snapshot in time that no longer exists, Europe pre-WW I.
Sure there's unpleasantness - a cat being tossed out a window to its untimely death, rich, old ladies dying and bad guys chasing good guys - but mostly I enjoyed glorious European scenery, a whodunnit of the highest order and ski chase sequences worthy of a James Bond movie.
It was a film that made me laugh out loud over and over again. I almost choked on my buttered popcorn.
When explaining why he preferred older women, our hero, M. Gustave was eloquent. "They're the cheaper cuts and far more flavorful."
Don't talk to me about younger women until you've cleared things with M. Gustave. He knows what of he speaks when it comes to my people.
The movie was pure Wes Anderson, full of visually stunning set design, deadpan delivery and the most unlikely situations imaginable. There was sex with 84-year olds, a stolen painting caper and a severed head.
The one thing my date and I could agree upon was that we definitely needed to see this movie a second time to catch the dialog we'd missed.
Aural and visual stimulation was followed by the same at Secco, where we ran into a friend and the woman to whom he is devoted, followed by an atypical Spanish Cava and a cheese plate.
It wasn't hard to use those around us to discuss gardening in winter, second (or 19th) chances at romance and the appeal of cellaring Roses before devouring them.
We heard a woman behind us say, "I smoke Virginia Slims and they're $6 a box. Most cigarettes are only $4," afraid to turn around and look at her.
I said farewell to a Secco server leaving to join the academic world and reveled when the sun finally made its way into the sky, lightening things up for the first time today.
When we left there, it was to got to Gallery 5 for the Silent Music Revival and a showing of vintage "Mutt & Jeff" shorts set to a soundtrack improvised by Dumb Waiter, a band who impresses me more each time I see them.
If you've seen them before, you know to expect a melange of jazz, metal, experimental and fusion and that's exactly what they delivered while we watched Mutt and Jeff have wife trouble, be sliced into hot dogs and, time after time, run so fast that they ran out of their clothes.
In the politically incorrect "Dog Gone," dogs are rounded up and then taken to a sausage plant where they are turned into links. Ouch. It was top notch humor, circa 1911-1926.
Dumb Waiter's improvisations were spot on, heightening the story and meshing with the crescendos of Mutt and Jeff's activities.
After the shorts ended, I spoke with guitarist Nick and drummer Nathaniel of Dumb Waiter, praising their performances, and chatted with other friends who had made the show.
When I finally left, it was to head to Garnett's with my date for a late night meal. In fact, it was for Garnett's stellar date night special of a bottle of wine with two entrees.
My choice was a grilled Gouda with caramelized onions, tomato and bacon and it was just the thing to allow discussion of the band's effect-laden saxophone and distinctive tapping, two points of interest for one of the two friends I'd invited to experience the band.
Honestly, Nick's guitar and Nathaniel's drumming should be enough, but the onslaught of all four was downright impressive. Mutt and Jeff never sounded so good.
We finished up with my childhood favorite cake - chocolate cake with white icing and chocolate dribbles (in this case, chocolate ganache)- a rarely seen cake that evoked memories of my youth and birthdays.
When I set our to plan a full day's activities, I never could have expected such a throwback ending to it all. I was just trying to prove that the cheaper cuts deliver the most flavor, even when enjoyed over an entire day.
Sometimes it's just a a matter of arriving at exactly the right moment and moving forward with it.
Pure luck, in other words.
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Just a Shot Away
It's turning into a girlpower weekend.
After reveling in the wit and wisdom of Dorothy Parker last night, tonight was about an immensely talented but under-appreciated group of women: back-up singers.
"20 Feet from Stardom" was enough to pull a girlfriend and I down Grove Avenue to the Westhampton for a pop culture history lesson documentary-style.
I was the popcorn, she was the M & Ms and together, we were the ideal Saturday night date, no small feat in a theater full of actual couples.
The film brilliantly began with Lou Reed's "Take a Walk on the Wild Side" for the lyric, "And the colored girls sing do, do, do..." as a way of segueing from the olden days when back-up singers were all white.
The problem, it seems, with having whitey sing back-up, is that they follow the sheet music note for note.
Not so the black girls who came along in the 60s; they were testifying gospel-style, singing what they felt and not what they read.
They'd all come up singing in church, of course.
Darlene Love, looking pretty damn amazing for being 70, was the main focus of the film as we learned how her voice sold millions of records for other groups while she got no money and no credit.
It was unbelievable how many songs she'd sung back-up on - "The Monster Mash," "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)" and even Frank Sinatra's "That's Life."
We learned that the melding of church-trained voices in secular music was like catnip to the British bands of the 60s, who quickly added black back-up singers to Brit rock.
And, unlike American producers like the megalomaniac Phil Spector, the Brits cut the singers loose and let them sing however they wanted to.
Stevie Wonder, Sting, and Bruce Springsteen all talk candidly about the immeasurable contribution these women made to the songs of the day.
As they pointed out, in many cases, the listener found him/herself singing along to the backing lyrics, not the lead.
Because, you know, the back-up singers get to sing the hooks and we all love the hooks.
What I loved was the vintage performance footage we got to see, like Sting in the studio with his singers doing "Hounds of Winter," with him looking stunned by their vocals.
A couple of the clips absolutely gave me chills, like watching Merry Clayton and Mick Jagger listen to Merry's vocals on "Gimme Shelter" and reminiscing about the 2 a.m. recording session with her singing in her PJs.
The sheer power of that, "It's just a shot away" line is positively mind-blowing.
Then there was the footage of a 28-year old David Bowie doing "Young Americans" live with his back-up singers, including a 24-year old Luther Vandross.
Be still my heart. Soul with a capital "S".
Halfway through the film, it became clear that as fascinating as I was finding the film, not everyone was.
From a few rows behind came the very loud sounds of someone snoring and before long everyone was craning their neck to see who'd gone to sleep while all this music was playing.
Fortunately, an usher was summoned to stop the buzz saw from disturbing the rest of us music lovers.
Merry Clayton talked about singing back-up on Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama," but only after her husband, a wiser man at 19 years her senior, insisted she'd be glad she did when she got older.
She did sing it, but in a way that showed them she was making the statement.
There was some great footage of Tom Jones (in bell bottoms) singing onstage with back-up singers, including Darlene Love.
And don't get me started on the drop dead footage of Ike and Tina Turner, with Tina and her Ikettes dancing and singing so sizzling hard that it was tough to imagine how they could do all that and breathe, too.
One of the most interesting observations came from a long-time music producer who remembered when he first started seeing a budget for tuning on recording sessions.
As he points out, the only reason for that is because getting current singers to sing in tune now is too lengthy and too costly.
Funny, back in the days of the women featured in this film, they all made it clear how effortless and joyful it was to sing...and in tune.
All hail that kind of serious, old-school girl power.
After reveling in the wit and wisdom of Dorothy Parker last night, tonight was about an immensely talented but under-appreciated group of women: back-up singers.
"20 Feet from Stardom" was enough to pull a girlfriend and I down Grove Avenue to the Westhampton for a pop culture history lesson documentary-style.
I was the popcorn, she was the M & Ms and together, we were the ideal Saturday night date, no small feat in a theater full of actual couples.
The film brilliantly began with Lou Reed's "Take a Walk on the Wild Side" for the lyric, "And the colored girls sing do, do, do..." as a way of segueing from the olden days when back-up singers were all white.
The problem, it seems, with having whitey sing back-up, is that they follow the sheet music note for note.
Not so the black girls who came along in the 60s; they were testifying gospel-style, singing what they felt and not what they read.
They'd all come up singing in church, of course.
Darlene Love, looking pretty damn amazing for being 70, was the main focus of the film as we learned how her voice sold millions of records for other groups while she got no money and no credit.
It was unbelievable how many songs she'd sung back-up on - "The Monster Mash," "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)" and even Frank Sinatra's "That's Life."
We learned that the melding of church-trained voices in secular music was like catnip to the British bands of the 60s, who quickly added black back-up singers to Brit rock.
And, unlike American producers like the megalomaniac Phil Spector, the Brits cut the singers loose and let them sing however they wanted to.
Stevie Wonder, Sting, and Bruce Springsteen all talk candidly about the immeasurable contribution these women made to the songs of the day.
As they pointed out, in many cases, the listener found him/herself singing along to the backing lyrics, not the lead.
Because, you know, the back-up singers get to sing the hooks and we all love the hooks.
What I loved was the vintage performance footage we got to see, like Sting in the studio with his singers doing "Hounds of Winter," with him looking stunned by their vocals.
A couple of the clips absolutely gave me chills, like watching Merry Clayton and Mick Jagger listen to Merry's vocals on "Gimme Shelter" and reminiscing about the 2 a.m. recording session with her singing in her PJs.
The sheer power of that, "It's just a shot away" line is positively mind-blowing.
Then there was the footage of a 28-year old David Bowie doing "Young Americans" live with his back-up singers, including a 24-year old Luther Vandross.
Be still my heart. Soul with a capital "S".
Halfway through the film, it became clear that as fascinating as I was finding the film, not everyone was.
From a few rows behind came the very loud sounds of someone snoring and before long everyone was craning their neck to see who'd gone to sleep while all this music was playing.
Fortunately, an usher was summoned to stop the buzz saw from disturbing the rest of us music lovers.
Merry Clayton talked about singing back-up on Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama," but only after her husband, a wiser man at 19 years her senior, insisted she'd be glad she did when she got older.
She did sing it, but in a way that showed them she was making the statement.
There was some great footage of Tom Jones (in bell bottoms) singing onstage with back-up singers, including Darlene Love.
And don't get me started on the drop dead footage of Ike and Tina Turner, with Tina and her Ikettes dancing and singing so sizzling hard that it was tough to imagine how they could do all that and breathe, too.
One of the most interesting observations came from a long-time music producer who remembered when he first started seeing a budget for tuning on recording sessions.
As he points out, the only reason for that is because getting current singers to sing in tune now is too lengthy and too costly.
Funny, back in the days of the women featured in this film, they all made it clear how effortless and joyful it was to sing...and in tune.
All hail that kind of serious, old-school girl power.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Lotus and Lemons
It must be summer because the Anderson Gallery began their happy hour series tonight.
The kick-off was a reprise of one of my favorite events there, the WRIR scavenger hunt, where audio meets visual and guests like me get to figure out which matches are made in heaven.
Using the Anderson's two new excellent summer shows, "Sanford Biggers: Codex" and "Jacob Lawrence: The Harriet Tubman Series," DJ Michael Miracle had come up with songs to match fifteen of the artworks.
There were boomboxes in all the galleries as people took their list of songs and art and tried to match up which were inspired by what.
While Michael's show "Lotus Land" played on the boomboxes, we moved from gallery to gallery trying to see what he had seen in the art, all the while listening to his show.
The challenge was how thematically similar the works in each exhibit were, meaning certain songs could have gone with more than one piece of art.
But he's a clever one, that Michael Miracle, and as I chatted with others doing the hunt, I found that many of them were stymied in the same way I was.
And just like the first scavenger hunt two years ago, a big part of the pleasure of it was going back through the exhibits repeatedly, seeing new details each time.
While others finished up or gave up and went outside for the ice cream social part of the evening, I kept at it, sure I could figure this thing out.
When they announced the two-minute deadline, I turned my sheet in, still questioning two every similar song titles and not sure which painting went with which.
And, ta-da. It was a three-way tie and, no, I wasn't one of the three.
Sure enough, the two I'd gotten wrong were the two I'd repeatedly switched back and forth, not quite certain which was which.
So at least in my own head, I knew how close I'd been. In fact, if I'd turned in my sheet earlier before I started erasing, it might have been a four-way tie.
I consoled myself with romance.
The Westhampton was showing the Danish film "The Bald Hairdresser," which had been renamed for American sensibilities "Love is All You Need."
The perceived need to do that says so much about us as a people, doesn't it?
One of my favorite things about the film was how the characters moved seamlessly between Danish, English and Italian, with only occasional subtitles.
All the Danes had great big, beautiful blue eyes.
Another perk was that most of it was set in sunny and lemon-filled Sorrento, Italy, as gorgeous a place for romance as could be imagined.
That I was there just last Fall and remembered it well didn't hurt, either, especially given the magnificent cinematography.
Because the main characters are middle-aged, it wasn't a typical romantic comedy, instead showing two people who'd been around the block a few times and took a while to acknowledge the feelings developing between them instead of immediate sunshine and rainbows.
You know, like in middle-aged real life.
They even quoted Henry Miller.
The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough of is love.
A truism, even at middle age.
Give me a Danish rom-com any time and hold the corny Americanized title.
The kick-off was a reprise of one of my favorite events there, the WRIR scavenger hunt, where audio meets visual and guests like me get to figure out which matches are made in heaven.
Using the Anderson's two new excellent summer shows, "Sanford Biggers: Codex" and "Jacob Lawrence: The Harriet Tubman Series," DJ Michael Miracle had come up with songs to match fifteen of the artworks.
There were boomboxes in all the galleries as people took their list of songs and art and tried to match up which were inspired by what.
While Michael's show "Lotus Land" played on the boomboxes, we moved from gallery to gallery trying to see what he had seen in the art, all the while listening to his show.
The challenge was how thematically similar the works in each exhibit were, meaning certain songs could have gone with more than one piece of art.
But he's a clever one, that Michael Miracle, and as I chatted with others doing the hunt, I found that many of them were stymied in the same way I was.
And just like the first scavenger hunt two years ago, a big part of the pleasure of it was going back through the exhibits repeatedly, seeing new details each time.
While others finished up or gave up and went outside for the ice cream social part of the evening, I kept at it, sure I could figure this thing out.
When they announced the two-minute deadline, I turned my sheet in, still questioning two every similar song titles and not sure which painting went with which.
And, ta-da. It was a three-way tie and, no, I wasn't one of the three.
Sure enough, the two I'd gotten wrong were the two I'd repeatedly switched back and forth, not quite certain which was which.
So at least in my own head, I knew how close I'd been. In fact, if I'd turned in my sheet earlier before I started erasing, it might have been a four-way tie.
I consoled myself with romance.
The Westhampton was showing the Danish film "The Bald Hairdresser," which had been renamed for American sensibilities "Love is All You Need."
The perceived need to do that says so much about us as a people, doesn't it?
One of my favorite things about the film was how the characters moved seamlessly between Danish, English and Italian, with only occasional subtitles.
All the Danes had great big, beautiful blue eyes.
Another perk was that most of it was set in sunny and lemon-filled Sorrento, Italy, as gorgeous a place for romance as could be imagined.
That I was there just last Fall and remembered it well didn't hurt, either, especially given the magnificent cinematography.
Because the main characters are middle-aged, it wasn't a typical romantic comedy, instead showing two people who'd been around the block a few times and took a while to acknowledge the feelings developing between them instead of immediate sunshine and rainbows.
You know, like in middle-aged real life.
They even quoted Henry Miller.
The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough of is love.
A truism, even at middle age.
Give me a Danish rom-com any time and hold the corny Americanized title.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Sex and Poetry
Just in case we're nearing the end of an era, it was an Avenues kind of an evening.
The plan was to see "The Sessions," which was playing at Bowtie and Westhampton.
But just in case the imminent demise of the Westhampton is more than a rumor, I wanted to see it there.
Especially now that power tools are buzzing inside that building in the Bowtie parking lot that's supposed to be turned into an art house,
So I decided to go whole (West End) hog and eat at the Continental first.
I've been there so I knew about the out-sized portions, overly bright lighting and lame soundtrack, but it sure is convenient.
Actually, by going on a Monday, the crowd wasn't unmanageable as on some past visits.
But the music was a schizophrenic mix that swung from Sam Cook to Human League with Journey in between and really pretty awful.
When I inquired about its source, our very young bartender was wildly enthusiastic about it, so I didn't dare burst his bubble.
My Titanic was merely a wedge salad of Titanic proportions, but the bacon was generous and the bleu cheese dressing decent, so that was a score.
I tried a bite of banana rum flan but found it to be not to my taste so my companion scarfed it all.
I found compensation in a box of Sno-caps when we arrived next door for the movie.
Inside the theater, we were one of four duos in the place, meaning we felt like we were at a private screening.
Which was ideal for a movie about a disabled man using a sex surrogate.
Seriously, there was a lot of sex in the movie, all of it calmly explained by the surrogate as she helped a middle-aged man lose his virginity.
And may I just say that for a 49-year old woman, Helen Hunt is looking pretty damn good naked.
Humor abounded with lines like, "Germany, the only place in the world where humor is forbidden."
As a justification for believing in religion, the man says, "I find it absolutely intolerable not to be able to blame someone."
It's not going to make me believe in religion any time soon, but it did make me laugh out loud.
The story of a poet and journalist crippled by polio deciding to get a little action (his "sell-by" date was approaching) was beautifully acted, told without sentimentality and completely uplifting even though he dies at the end.
But not before a poignant discussion of what's important in life and that boiled down to poetry and sex.
Beyond that, the characters decide, is nothing or everything and it's all negotiable.
Now there's a concept I can get behind.
I think that'll be my religion.
The plan was to see "The Sessions," which was playing at Bowtie and Westhampton.
But just in case the imminent demise of the Westhampton is more than a rumor, I wanted to see it there.
Especially now that power tools are buzzing inside that building in the Bowtie parking lot that's supposed to be turned into an art house,
So I decided to go whole (West End) hog and eat at the Continental first.
I've been there so I knew about the out-sized portions, overly bright lighting and lame soundtrack, but it sure is convenient.
Actually, by going on a Monday, the crowd wasn't unmanageable as on some past visits.
But the music was a schizophrenic mix that swung from Sam Cook to Human League with Journey in between and really pretty awful.
When I inquired about its source, our very young bartender was wildly enthusiastic about it, so I didn't dare burst his bubble.
My Titanic was merely a wedge salad of Titanic proportions, but the bacon was generous and the bleu cheese dressing decent, so that was a score.
I tried a bite of banana rum flan but found it to be not to my taste so my companion scarfed it all.
I found compensation in a box of Sno-caps when we arrived next door for the movie.
Inside the theater, we were one of four duos in the place, meaning we felt like we were at a private screening.
Which was ideal for a movie about a disabled man using a sex surrogate.
Seriously, there was a lot of sex in the movie, all of it calmly explained by the surrogate as she helped a middle-aged man lose his virginity.
And may I just say that for a 49-year old woman, Helen Hunt is looking pretty damn good naked.
Humor abounded with lines like, "Germany, the only place in the world where humor is forbidden."
As a justification for believing in religion, the man says, "I find it absolutely intolerable not to be able to blame someone."
It's not going to make me believe in religion any time soon, but it did make me laugh out loud.
The story of a poet and journalist crippled by polio deciding to get a little action (his "sell-by" date was approaching) was beautifully acted, told without sentimentality and completely uplifting even though he dies at the end.
But not before a poignant discussion of what's important in life and that boiled down to poetry and sex.
Beyond that, the characters decide, is nothing or everything and it's all negotiable.
Now there's a concept I can get behind.
I think that'll be my religion.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
On Languorous Lips and Lives Well Led
It was a night to indulge my inner girl.
After a day of being productive - re-potting outdoor begonias inside for the winter, re-framing a local artist's print when the glass on the first frame broke and making basil walnut pesto out of the gargantuan basil plant that's been growing in a dining room window box since June- I wanted a low-key Saturday night.
The dinner location was prescribed by my need to review.
Dessert followed at Shyndigz, that cake cafe in the near West End.
Sure, it was a tad out of my comfort zone, but I'd heard raves about the mondo pieces of cake and was curious.
I was as unprepared for how small a place it was as for the sheer number of people crowded into it at 9:00 on a Saturday night.
My partner in crime and I didn't get particularly creative with our selections once we found seats at the small community table.
The place's signature cake is the salted chocolate caramel cake so we got one to share along with a salted hot chocolate.
The hot chocolate was good (maybe not quite as good as Can Can's) but the two enormous homemade marshmallows on top were divine, airy and not too sweet.
The cake was of the Alice in Wonderland variety, somehow having grown bigger than any piece of cake needed to be.
For me, the best part of it was the buttery chocolate frosting with the complementary salt crystals.
Between the heavy meal we'd had first and the thick-as-cream hot chocolate, half the cake left with us in a box.
We were off to the Westhampton Theater to see "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel," a documentary about the doyenne of fashion during the 20th century, first at "Harper's Bazaar" and then at "Vogue."
The documentary had tons of talking heads of the most interesting kinds, like former models Lauren Hutton, Verushka and Ali McGraw (looking about as awful as imaginable) and designers (Blahnik, Oscar de la Renta, CalvinKlein).
From a childhood with her mother telling her she was ugly compared to her beautiful sister to becoming the arbiter of taste for women in this country (Jackie O. contacted her for First Lady wardrobe advice), I was fascinated by her imagination and her wide circle of (in many cases younger) friends.
And was she ever quotable!
I think so few people believe in pleasure.
Don't worry, Diana, I believe in it, too.
She spoke of the wisdom of being born in Paris and even that, "The best thing about London is Paris."
Having been to London but only through Paris, I take her word on that.
I say to evoke the imagination of the public is a wonderful thing if you can manage it.
Managing to do it is the challenge I've found, but such a satisfying one.
My intense reading was natural.
I always suspected that my intense reading was as natural as breathing, and here was my corroboration.
People described her in glowing terms, like, "She gave energy and pep to everything she did."
Oh, for people to say that about me when I'm dead.
But her standards were exacting and co-workers said she could look at a photo spread and pinpoint the smallest failing.
Once she dismissed a photo because, "There's no languor in the lips."
Only Vreeland could spot the absence of languor.
That said, she was also praised as, "Understanding the genius of vulgarity."
Why don't you paint a map of the world on all four walls of your boys' nursery so they won't grow up with a provincial point of view?
I'm with her on this one, too. Save me from a provincial point of view, please.
And while she may not have been a conventionally pretty woman, between her red lipstick, her ever-present smile and her pure verve, she was riveting to watch and listen to.
We could have been friends, I feel certain of it. Hell, she'd have made a great mentor, too.
There's only one life and it's the one that you want and you make happen.
There's one Vreeland-ism I didn't need to hear to instinctively know.
Hell, life? I'm not shy about saying that this is the one I wanted and this is the one I (painstakingly) made happen.
And I didn't even have the advantage of being born in Paris.
After a day of being productive - re-potting outdoor begonias inside for the winter, re-framing a local artist's print when the glass on the first frame broke and making basil walnut pesto out of the gargantuan basil plant that's been growing in a dining room window box since June- I wanted a low-key Saturday night.
The dinner location was prescribed by my need to review.
Dessert followed at Shyndigz, that cake cafe in the near West End.
Sure, it was a tad out of my comfort zone, but I'd heard raves about the mondo pieces of cake and was curious.
I was as unprepared for how small a place it was as for the sheer number of people crowded into it at 9:00 on a Saturday night.
My partner in crime and I didn't get particularly creative with our selections once we found seats at the small community table.
The place's signature cake is the salted chocolate caramel cake so we got one to share along with a salted hot chocolate.
The hot chocolate was good (maybe not quite as good as Can Can's) but the two enormous homemade marshmallows on top were divine, airy and not too sweet.
The cake was of the Alice in Wonderland variety, somehow having grown bigger than any piece of cake needed to be.
For me, the best part of it was the buttery chocolate frosting with the complementary salt crystals.
Between the heavy meal we'd had first and the thick-as-cream hot chocolate, half the cake left with us in a box.
We were off to the Westhampton Theater to see "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel," a documentary about the doyenne of fashion during the 20th century, first at "Harper's Bazaar" and then at "Vogue."
The documentary had tons of talking heads of the most interesting kinds, like former models Lauren Hutton, Verushka and Ali McGraw (looking about as awful as imaginable) and designers (Blahnik, Oscar de la Renta, CalvinKlein).
From a childhood with her mother telling her she was ugly compared to her beautiful sister to becoming the arbiter of taste for women in this country (Jackie O. contacted her for First Lady wardrobe advice), I was fascinated by her imagination and her wide circle of (in many cases younger) friends.
And was she ever quotable!
I think so few people believe in pleasure.
Don't worry, Diana, I believe in it, too.
She spoke of the wisdom of being born in Paris and even that, "The best thing about London is Paris."
Having been to London but only through Paris, I take her word on that.
I say to evoke the imagination of the public is a wonderful thing if you can manage it.
Managing to do it is the challenge I've found, but such a satisfying one.
My intense reading was natural.
I always suspected that my intense reading was as natural as breathing, and here was my corroboration.
People described her in glowing terms, like, "She gave energy and pep to everything she did."
Oh, for people to say that about me when I'm dead.
But her standards were exacting and co-workers said she could look at a photo spread and pinpoint the smallest failing.
Once she dismissed a photo because, "There's no languor in the lips."
Only Vreeland could spot the absence of languor.
That said, she was also praised as, "Understanding the genius of vulgarity."
Why don't you paint a map of the world on all four walls of your boys' nursery so they won't grow up with a provincial point of view?
I'm with her on this one, too. Save me from a provincial point of view, please.
And while she may not have been a conventionally pretty woman, between her red lipstick, her ever-present smile and her pure verve, she was riveting to watch and listen to.
We could have been friends, I feel certain of it. Hell, she'd have made a great mentor, too.
There's only one life and it's the one that you want and you make happen.
There's one Vreeland-ism I didn't need to hear to instinctively know.
Hell, life? I'm not shy about saying that this is the one I wanted and this is the one I (painstakingly) made happen.
And I didn't even have the advantage of being born in Paris.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Coming from Reality
The game of musical kitchens has deposited one of my favorite chefs at one of my (and his) favorite restaurants.
Walking into Aziza's on Main, one of the servers hugged me and chided me at the same time for not having seen me in a while.
I'm okay with being rebuked as long as there's P.D.A. simultaneously.
Every table was full but the bar was wide open except foe one lone wolf, so we joined his party of one.
The one thing the wine list didn't have was any Italian bottles (they did have a half bottle of bubbles), so we steered slightly west to Spain.
A juicy and fruity Marques de Riscal Prximo Rioja set the tone for the conversation and the Saturday night in general.
And then it was on to Chef Philip Denny's menu.
The former Six Burner chef, in my opinion, always suffered the same fate as his predecessor, Lee Gregory.
During both their tenures at 6B, in my opinion, neither got the attention or accolades they deserved; maybe it was 6B's stuffy, older clientele, maybe it was their low key personalities.
For me, Six Burner never dropped out of my regular rotation because the kitchen was always talented even when the vibe was lacking.
So when 6B closed, I was eager to hear where Philip would land.
Nothing could have pleased me more than it being Aziza, especially since I'd run into him and his wife eating there years ago and agreed it was one of the best restaurants in town.
Looking at tonight's menu, I saw just the kind of creatively different dishes he delivers.
Our first choice was a ful mudammas of porchetta, crowder peas, butter beans, pink-eyed peas came with grilled pita to soak up the juices.
A stew-like mixture with flavors of olive oil, onion and garlic was chock full of perfectly cooked beans and a big curve of salty, fatty porchetta.
The richness of the pig was an ideal complement to the toothsome and savory beans.
For our next course, fortunately we'd reserved one of the two remaining shrimp with Chorizo raviolis left.
Any good diner knows that if you snooze, you lose, so we'd put our bid in early.
The dish featured wood-fired shrimp with finger lime, radishes and cilantro and onions along with plump ravioli stuffed with spicy Chorizo.
It was such a lovely interplay of flavors - bordering on spicy, some sweetness and the cilantro adding its distinctive note.
After devouring every bite, we used crusty bread to get the rest of that incredible sauce to our mouths.
The Chef was two for two.
Eschewing the new for the tried and true, we finished our bottle with one of Aziza's trademark cream puffs, causing my date to wax poetic on the subject of butter and sugar and the memories they conjure.
We all have our weaknesses.
By the time we finished, my only complaint was the music interruptus (a radio station with far too much talking), and I knew I'd be back soon for more.
We crossed east to west to go to the Westhampton Theater then to see the documentary "Searching for Sugarman."
After having seen previews for this Sundance winner at least four times (and maybe more), I was curious about this Dylan-esque singer from the late 60s-early 70 of whom I knew nothing.
The story is literally unbelievable.
Mexican-American from Detroit makes a couple of albums which are expected to do great things, but they go unnoticed.
Musician gives up music and goes on with non-descript life.
Meanwhile, records make it to apartheid-era South Africa, where his politically-charged songs of the life of the inner-city poor are adopted by the masses.
His records get airplay, everyone owns them, knows of him and meanwhile he's back in Detroit, poor and living an anonymous life.
It's only when two fans decide to try to track down the truth and learn if the urban legend of his onstage suicide is true that the film ends up getting made.
Once Rodriguez is rediscovered in the mid-90s, he plays sold-out concerts in South Africa and his career is resuscitated.
There are now people lobbying to get him a Kennedy Center honor. I'll sign that petition.
Had the movie been fiction, it would have seemed ludicrous.
As depiction of the facts, it was an hour and a half of stellar music,vintage photos and more recent shots of Rodriquez, a singer who put Dylan's voice to shame and sang songs of the poor.
Songs from his two albums "Cold Fact" and "Coming From Reality" were played throughout the film.
I now need to hear those two albums in their entirety.
Interestingly enough, when we left the theater I ran into a sextet that included two friends.
They'd just seen the movie, too, and were as enraptured as we were.
The difference was, they'd been listening to Rodriguez's music in the weeks before they saw the film.
For a minute, I envied them their brilliance at preparing themselves.
My partner in crime saw it differently and I had to agree he was right.
Our first encounter with Rodriguez's voice and songwriting was as part of the movie and it was as ideal an introduction as we could have hoped for.
Now is the time to go back and hear his back catalog, now that we know the story and have an appreciation for the man and his life.
The cold fact is, this is a guy any music lover should know.
And I will.
Walking into Aziza's on Main, one of the servers hugged me and chided me at the same time for not having seen me in a while.
I'm okay with being rebuked as long as there's P.D.A. simultaneously.
Every table was full but the bar was wide open except foe one lone wolf, so we joined his party of one.
The one thing the wine list didn't have was any Italian bottles (they did have a half bottle of bubbles), so we steered slightly west to Spain.
A juicy and fruity Marques de Riscal Prximo Rioja set the tone for the conversation and the Saturday night in general.
And then it was on to Chef Philip Denny's menu.
The former Six Burner chef, in my opinion, always suffered the same fate as his predecessor, Lee Gregory.
During both their tenures at 6B, in my opinion, neither got the attention or accolades they deserved; maybe it was 6B's stuffy, older clientele, maybe it was their low key personalities.
For me, Six Burner never dropped out of my regular rotation because the kitchen was always talented even when the vibe was lacking.
So when 6B closed, I was eager to hear where Philip would land.
Nothing could have pleased me more than it being Aziza, especially since I'd run into him and his wife eating there years ago and agreed it was one of the best restaurants in town.
Looking at tonight's menu, I saw just the kind of creatively different dishes he delivers.
Our first choice was a ful mudammas of porchetta, crowder peas, butter beans, pink-eyed peas came with grilled pita to soak up the juices.
A stew-like mixture with flavors of olive oil, onion and garlic was chock full of perfectly cooked beans and a big curve of salty, fatty porchetta.
The richness of the pig was an ideal complement to the toothsome and savory beans.
For our next course, fortunately we'd reserved one of the two remaining shrimp with Chorizo raviolis left.
Any good diner knows that if you snooze, you lose, so we'd put our bid in early.
The dish featured wood-fired shrimp with finger lime, radishes and cilantro and onions along with plump ravioli stuffed with spicy Chorizo.
It was such a lovely interplay of flavors - bordering on spicy, some sweetness and the cilantro adding its distinctive note.
After devouring every bite, we used crusty bread to get the rest of that incredible sauce to our mouths.
The Chef was two for two.
Eschewing the new for the tried and true, we finished our bottle with one of Aziza's trademark cream puffs, causing my date to wax poetic on the subject of butter and sugar and the memories they conjure.
We all have our weaknesses.
By the time we finished, my only complaint was the music interruptus (a radio station with far too much talking), and I knew I'd be back soon for more.
We crossed east to west to go to the Westhampton Theater then to see the documentary "Searching for Sugarman."
After having seen previews for this Sundance winner at least four times (and maybe more), I was curious about this Dylan-esque singer from the late 60s-early 70 of whom I knew nothing.
The story is literally unbelievable.
Mexican-American from Detroit makes a couple of albums which are expected to do great things, but they go unnoticed.
Musician gives up music and goes on with non-descript life.
Meanwhile, records make it to apartheid-era South Africa, where his politically-charged songs of the life of the inner-city poor are adopted by the masses.
His records get airplay, everyone owns them, knows of him and meanwhile he's back in Detroit, poor and living an anonymous life.
It's only when two fans decide to try to track down the truth and learn if the urban legend of his onstage suicide is true that the film ends up getting made.
Once Rodriguez is rediscovered in the mid-90s, he plays sold-out concerts in South Africa and his career is resuscitated.
There are now people lobbying to get him a Kennedy Center honor. I'll sign that petition.
Had the movie been fiction, it would have seemed ludicrous.
As depiction of the facts, it was an hour and a half of stellar music,vintage photos and more recent shots of Rodriquez, a singer who put Dylan's voice to shame and sang songs of the poor.
Songs from his two albums "Cold Fact" and "Coming From Reality" were played throughout the film.
I now need to hear those two albums in their entirety.
Interestingly enough, when we left the theater I ran into a sextet that included two friends.
They'd just seen the movie, too, and were as enraptured as we were.
The difference was, they'd been listening to Rodriguez's music in the weeks before they saw the film.
For a minute, I envied them their brilliance at preparing themselves.
My partner in crime saw it differently and I had to agree he was right.
Our first encounter with Rodriguez's voice and songwriting was as part of the movie and it was as ideal an introduction as we could have hoped for.
Now is the time to go back and hear his back catalog, now that we know the story and have an appreciation for the man and his life.
The cold fact is, this is a guy any music lover should know.
And I will.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Rock and Roll Will Never Die
I admit it, I'm one of those people who has little use for classic rock.
Maybe it's an age thing, but I have no interest in hearing songs I've been hearing for decades.
But I still wanted to see "Neil Young Journeys."
While I'm not a rabid Neil Young fan, I am a fan and I did see him many moons ago (okay, the '70s) as part of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
But on a Monday night at the Westhampton, there were few fans to be found.
Fact is, it was me and three middle-aged men.
There were so few of us that you could hear crickets chirping.
And I don't mean that metaphorically; there were clearly crickets in the theater.
The Jonathan Demme-directed documentary begins appropriately in "a town in north Ontario," much like Young did.
Driving around his hometown before the show, he points out the school named after his father.
Hilariously, he tells a story of where and how he blew up a turtle (firecracker in its butt), chuckling and saying, "So my environmental roots are not that deep."
It's the kind of low-key humor he uses throughout the film.
But there are sober moments, too, especially when he's shown singing "Ohio" and clips of the Kent State massacre are shown over him.
The footage of peacefully protesting and then terrified running college students is still deeply disturbing.
The shot ends with individual photographs of the four victims and their lifespans, much like tombstones.
It was touching that Young still makes a case for certain causes.
He seems so comfortable in his own skin, even for 66-year old who's smoked a lot of weed over a long period.
Following his brother to the site of their childhood house, he praises him. "My brother is driving the perfect speed, not too fast, not too slow. It's just beautiful."
I am also one of those people who appreciates a well-paced and not overly fast drive.
The scenes of him driving around his hometown before playing a show at Massey Hall are interspersed with scenes of his show that night.
It was just Young with no backing musicians but with plenty of instruments: multiple guitars, a piano and organ, not to mention our house crickets.
And his voice was in fine fettle; he hit every note on "After the Goldrush," pumping the organ in accompaniment and giving me chills for how much his voice resembled what I'd heard all those years ago.
While I'm sure I wasn't the only one surprised at a magisterial version of the classic "I Believe in You," I think all of us were sure we'd hear "My My, Hey Hey" and we did.
Demme's camera angles were often interesting or odd (duh), giving us the bottom half of his grizzly face, his open mouth or peeking around instruments.
Because it had been so long since I'd seen Young live, the film was like an almost-concert, giving me the sense of having seen him again.
When he leaves the stage at the end of the show, he goes backstage where he sucks orange slices, gulps coffee and drinks part of a beer.
It wouldn't be my choice of post-show indulgence, but the man moves lithely and without any of the cumbersome effort of some people his age.
He encored with "Walk with Me" and the seminal "Helpless" before pulling the plug on his amp and walking offstage to thunderous applause.
Even the credits provided entertainment.
One said "Burgers and Fries provided by In-n-Out Burger."
Always credit your burgers.
A musical experience like that requires post-film conversation, so just after the rain surprised everyone on the streets, we ducked into Ipanema for wine and desert.
Normally I avoid the sausagefest at Ips on Monday night, preferring to let boys drink draughts with their own kind, but it worked out fine.
We got pear/blueberry pie a la mode and a bottle of Franco Serra 10 Dolcetto d'Alba at the far end of the bar.
The medium-bodied wine had light tannins, balanced acidity and a nose of red fruits, making it the ideal wine to transition us into slightly cooler weather.
But rather than finish it amongst the suds drinkers, the bottle followed us home to the porch and a view of the lightly falling rain.
A view, yes, but the sound of the rain was lost to crickets chirping.
Only Neil Young can compete with the sound of crickets on a September night.
Maybe it's an age thing, but I have no interest in hearing songs I've been hearing for decades.
But I still wanted to see "Neil Young Journeys."
While I'm not a rabid Neil Young fan, I am a fan and I did see him many moons ago (okay, the '70s) as part of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
But on a Monday night at the Westhampton, there were few fans to be found.
Fact is, it was me and three middle-aged men.
There were so few of us that you could hear crickets chirping.
And I don't mean that metaphorically; there were clearly crickets in the theater.
The Jonathan Demme-directed documentary begins appropriately in "a town in north Ontario," much like Young did.
Driving around his hometown before the show, he points out the school named after his father.
Hilariously, he tells a story of where and how he blew up a turtle (firecracker in its butt), chuckling and saying, "So my environmental roots are not that deep."
It's the kind of low-key humor he uses throughout the film.
But there are sober moments, too, especially when he's shown singing "Ohio" and clips of the Kent State massacre are shown over him.
The footage of peacefully protesting and then terrified running college students is still deeply disturbing.
The shot ends with individual photographs of the four victims and their lifespans, much like tombstones.
It was touching that Young still makes a case for certain causes.
He seems so comfortable in his own skin, even for 66-year old who's smoked a lot of weed over a long period.
Following his brother to the site of their childhood house, he praises him. "My brother is driving the perfect speed, not too fast, not too slow. It's just beautiful."
I am also one of those people who appreciates a well-paced and not overly fast drive.
The scenes of him driving around his hometown before playing a show at Massey Hall are interspersed with scenes of his show that night.
It was just Young with no backing musicians but with plenty of instruments: multiple guitars, a piano and organ, not to mention our house crickets.
And his voice was in fine fettle; he hit every note on "After the Goldrush," pumping the organ in accompaniment and giving me chills for how much his voice resembled what I'd heard all those years ago.
While I'm sure I wasn't the only one surprised at a magisterial version of the classic "I Believe in You," I think all of us were sure we'd hear "My My, Hey Hey" and we did.
Demme's camera angles were often interesting or odd (duh), giving us the bottom half of his grizzly face, his open mouth or peeking around instruments.
Because it had been so long since I'd seen Young live, the film was like an almost-concert, giving me the sense of having seen him again.
When he leaves the stage at the end of the show, he goes backstage where he sucks orange slices, gulps coffee and drinks part of a beer.
It wouldn't be my choice of post-show indulgence, but the man moves lithely and without any of the cumbersome effort of some people his age.
He encored with "Walk with Me" and the seminal "Helpless" before pulling the plug on his amp and walking offstage to thunderous applause.
Even the credits provided entertainment.
One said "Burgers and Fries provided by In-n-Out Burger."
Always credit your burgers.
A musical experience like that requires post-film conversation, so just after the rain surprised everyone on the streets, we ducked into Ipanema for wine and desert.
Normally I avoid the sausagefest at Ips on Monday night, preferring to let boys drink draughts with their own kind, but it worked out fine.
We got pear/blueberry pie a la mode and a bottle of Franco Serra 10 Dolcetto d'Alba at the far end of the bar.
The medium-bodied wine had light tannins, balanced acidity and a nose of red fruits, making it the ideal wine to transition us into slightly cooler weather.
But rather than finish it amongst the suds drinkers, the bottle followed us home to the porch and a view of the lightly falling rain.
A view, yes, but the sound of the rain was lost to crickets chirping.
Only Neil Young can compete with the sound of crickets on a September night.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Got Me Some Tail
Southern met fantasy tonight, not once, but twice.
The unexpected began at the Roosevelt, where I ran into a friend and heard of her passage to India, got the latest local restaurant scuttlebutt from a cheap food lover and heard of the challenges of composing music for Tic-Tacs.
One of my favorite moments came when I was told that a friend, when asked the source of her recent hangover, had responded, "Karen."
Since I'm not the boss of her, I'm sure I don't know what she's talking about.
We ordered a bottle of Gabriele Rausse Vin de Gris (the one the winemaker calls a "happy mistake") at a mostly empty bar.
Bartender T got as far as telling us the first special - pigs' tails in a bourbon barrel teriyaki sauce - before we ordered it.
The Roosevelt's chef is the one who first introduced me to crispy fried pig's head many moons ago, so if he was offering up tail tonight, I wanted in.
The sauce was finger-licking' good on the outer thick crispy part of the tails while the inner fatty bits were just obscene.
Wisely, there were pickled veggies to balance the palate and no doubt help digest all that fat.
When all was said and done, we left a pile of little round bones on a sticky plate.
And went to the bathroom to wash our hands.
As the room began to fill up, we got our next dish, octopus fried rice.
Clearly the usually southern kitchen was having Asian fantasies tonight.
The fried rice had the freshest-tasting tiny sliced carrots and corn in it while the octopus was perfectly cooked.
And a great, big fried egg sat atop the whole thing, its bright yellow yolk imparting an unbelievable richness to the already-decadent flavors.
But two dishes in and we were already getting stuffed.
No fools, we followed such rich food with a lighter course to clear our arteries while we still had feeling in our left arms.
Roasted beet and watermelon salad with Caramont goat cheese and lemon oil was a refreshing break but it was the avocado mousse on it that took it over the top.
The creaminess of the avocado enhanced both beets and melon in an unexpectedly complementary way.
Over a discussion of noun and verb usage (no, really), we finished our wine while sharing a slice of Coca Cola cake, not because we needed it but because it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Three layer cake after pigs' tails, why it's simply how it's done in the south.
That, or the wine was doing the ordering.
Best overheard conversation:
#1: I keep forgetting I'm in this country and want to say bonjour when I talk to people.
#2: Man, don't worry about it. Say whatever you want. This is America!
Honestly, I couldn't make this stuff up.
After losing my dinner companion to the daily grind, I made the cultural shift from Church Hill to the near west end and the Westhampton Theater.
I was there to see "Beasts of the Southern Wild," the Sundance grand jury prize winner and the one all the critics have been raving about.
It wasn't hard to see why.
The beautifully shot story of bayou folks who live on the wrong side of the levee used two first-time actors in the lead roles of father and daughter.
Watching non-actors carry a completely believable story about a Katrina-like storm that all but wipes out their tiny community was mesmerizing.
Mostly a hardscrabble story, at times it had a certain poignant humor.
When the father tells the little girl about her long-missing mother, he says, "She was so pretty, she never had to turn the stove on. She'd just walk in the kitchen and the water would start boiling."
Now that's pretty.
The movie's story of natural devastation and the resulting loss was wrapped around a fantasy element of nature being out of whack (Katrina being proof of that).
As a result, ice caps melt, ancient beasts are released from ice blocks and begin to roman the world, threatening even the bayou.
I'd be the first to admit I'm not much on fantasy, whether in books or movies. I'm more the non-fiction type.
But actually, there was so much honesty about the devotion of the small group of delta dwellers refusing to abandon their homes even after a mandatory evacuation, that I could swallow a few stampeding beasts as part of the plot.
And I'm glad I did. The moving story was unlike anything I've ever seen before.
Sometimes you need a little fiction to remind you of the basic tenets of life and death.
The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right. If one piece busts, even the smallest piece, the whole universe will get busted.
I guess Sundance proves that the talented ones can make this stuff up...beautifully.
The unexpected began at the Roosevelt, where I ran into a friend and heard of her passage to India, got the latest local restaurant scuttlebutt from a cheap food lover and heard of the challenges of composing music for Tic-Tacs.
One of my favorite moments came when I was told that a friend, when asked the source of her recent hangover, had responded, "Karen."
Since I'm not the boss of her, I'm sure I don't know what she's talking about.
We ordered a bottle of Gabriele Rausse Vin de Gris (the one the winemaker calls a "happy mistake") at a mostly empty bar.
Bartender T got as far as telling us the first special - pigs' tails in a bourbon barrel teriyaki sauce - before we ordered it.
The Roosevelt's chef is the one who first introduced me to crispy fried pig's head many moons ago, so if he was offering up tail tonight, I wanted in.
The sauce was finger-licking' good on the outer thick crispy part of the tails while the inner fatty bits were just obscene.
Wisely, there were pickled veggies to balance the palate and no doubt help digest all that fat.
When all was said and done, we left a pile of little round bones on a sticky plate.
And went to the bathroom to wash our hands.
As the room began to fill up, we got our next dish, octopus fried rice.
Clearly the usually southern kitchen was having Asian fantasies tonight.
The fried rice had the freshest-tasting tiny sliced carrots and corn in it while the octopus was perfectly cooked.
And a great, big fried egg sat atop the whole thing, its bright yellow yolk imparting an unbelievable richness to the already-decadent flavors.
But two dishes in and we were already getting stuffed.
No fools, we followed such rich food with a lighter course to clear our arteries while we still had feeling in our left arms.
Roasted beet and watermelon salad with Caramont goat cheese and lemon oil was a refreshing break but it was the avocado mousse on it that took it over the top.
The creaminess of the avocado enhanced both beets and melon in an unexpectedly complementary way.
Over a discussion of noun and verb usage (no, really), we finished our wine while sharing a slice of Coca Cola cake, not because we needed it but because it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Three layer cake after pigs' tails, why it's simply how it's done in the south.
That, or the wine was doing the ordering.
Best overheard conversation:
#1: I keep forgetting I'm in this country and want to say bonjour when I talk to people.
#2: Man, don't worry about it. Say whatever you want. This is America!
Honestly, I couldn't make this stuff up.
After losing my dinner companion to the daily grind, I made the cultural shift from Church Hill to the near west end and the Westhampton Theater.
I was there to see "Beasts of the Southern Wild," the Sundance grand jury prize winner and the one all the critics have been raving about.
It wasn't hard to see why.
The beautifully shot story of bayou folks who live on the wrong side of the levee used two first-time actors in the lead roles of father and daughter.
Watching non-actors carry a completely believable story about a Katrina-like storm that all but wipes out their tiny community was mesmerizing.
Mostly a hardscrabble story, at times it had a certain poignant humor.
When the father tells the little girl about her long-missing mother, he says, "She was so pretty, she never had to turn the stove on. She'd just walk in the kitchen and the water would start boiling."
Now that's pretty.
The movie's story of natural devastation and the resulting loss was wrapped around a fantasy element of nature being out of whack (Katrina being proof of that).
As a result, ice caps melt, ancient beasts are released from ice blocks and begin to roman the world, threatening even the bayou.
I'd be the first to admit I'm not much on fantasy, whether in books or movies. I'm more the non-fiction type.
But actually, there was so much honesty about the devotion of the small group of delta dwellers refusing to abandon their homes even after a mandatory evacuation, that I could swallow a few stampeding beasts as part of the plot.
And I'm glad I did. The moving story was unlike anything I've ever seen before.
Sometimes you need a little fiction to remind you of the basic tenets of life and death.
The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right. If one piece busts, even the smallest piece, the whole universe will get busted.
I guess Sundance proves that the talented ones can make this stuff up...beautifully.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Sing, Baby, Sing
Do enough stuff and someone will call you on it.
With no more of a plan than to hear live music on the lawn of a plantation by the river, we packed a goody bag and headed to Hopewell.
That may be the only time I've been able to say that.
Fredericksburg's World Jam Club was playing at Weston Plantation on the Appomattox river.
Stately trees, a fine-looking 1789 house and a long fishing pier out onto the river looked to be a bucolic spot for listening to music al fresco.
Our outdoor intentions were dashed when we arrived to find that the changeable weather had moved the performance into the "winter kitchen" of the old house.
For the infrequent plantation visitors, that means the basement, a tiny place that was never going to comfortably hold the attendees.
An older couple walked up with chairs and we told them about the switch.
"Oh, no," the kindred soul said. "I wanted it to be outside!" Didn't we all?
Switch to Plan B.
We strolled down the bank, part timbers set into hill and part steep wooden stairs, and stopped midway down where we were chased down by a videographer for the Hopewell Tourism Board who wanted to interview us about why we were there.
My companion tends to be fairly taciturn and most of his answers involved pointing at me as the source of his trip to Hopewell.
I, on the other hand, was more than happy to wax poetic about why I'd chosen a plantation lawn for Sunday afternoon music.
I fly my geek flag proudly.
Don't get me started on the intersection of culture, history and picnicking with a microphone clipped to my dress.
Press duties done, we finished our descent to the middle of the pier.
With our backs to a good breeze, we admired the stormy sky and began by pulling out cherries to eat as we watched huge gray clouds roll by.
Our idyll was interrupted when a snake swam up, stopped just in front of our dangling feet and looked us straight in the eye.
I do bugs, but I don't do snakes. There was a position adjustment on my part as fish jumped all around us.
Two minutes later a couple comes down to the pier and asks, "Seen any critters?"
Jarringly, yes.
Eventually we went back up the hill and spread ourselves out on a pink spread under a huge, old tree, mere yards from the open door that led to the "winter kitchen."
Under a tree with music wafting our way, we sipped vinho verde, ate fruit and cheese and admired this fine old house by the river.
Soon another couple broke bad and put their chairs under a nearby tree, cracking beers as they listened.
And then another, right by the stairs to the basement.
We'd been involuntary trendsetters.
By the time the concert was winding down, we began to feel rain and packed up, completely unprepared to find out how hard it was already raining outside the protection of the tree.
The further north we went on 95, the more the rain began to taper off.
Dinner followed at Cellar Door where all our choices came off the specials menu.
Twenty four-hour marinated Peruvian chicken drumsticks packed heat and meat and the arugula underneath took its creaminess from the Peruvian ranch dressing.
A spinach salad with blue cheese, white wine poached pear, red onion, tomato, cucumber, and chunks of salt-and-pepper chicken was satisfying and flavorful enough to have been a main dish for any one person.
The braised short ribs were a bit dry but much better with onions, butter-poached red apples and pears in every bite.
Our server had on a bike polo t-shirt, leading to me asking and discovering myseven two degrees of separation from him.
It never ceases to amaze me just how small this town is. Small good, of course.
Final stop was the Westhampton Theater for "Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (for the Elderly and Beautiful)," full of superb English acting, colorful India locations and humor about aging.
"I can't think that far ahead. I don't buy green bananas."
The story of Brits who go to stay in an Indian hotel that's falling apart was charming, funny and understated.
"Everything will be alright in the end and if it's not alright, then, trust me, it's not the end."
Sex was enthusiastically pursued. Long time loves were rediscovered. Expectations were not met and then exceeded.
"Nothing here has worked out quite as expected."
"Most things don't. But sometimes what happens instead is the good stuff."
The film captured India's unique light, energy, masses of people and colorful beauty as each of the guests explored it differently.
By the charming end of the film, no less than three couples had acknowledged their emotional attachment to their beloved.
Just like a tidy Shakespearean comedy ending, true love triumphs.
Except, in this case, they were on motorbikes in India.
"When one does adapt, the past withdraws."
And they live happily ever after on a pink spread under a tree...assuming the snake doesn't return.
With no more of a plan than to hear live music on the lawn of a plantation by the river, we packed a goody bag and headed to Hopewell.
That may be the only time I've been able to say that.
Fredericksburg's World Jam Club was playing at Weston Plantation on the Appomattox river.
Stately trees, a fine-looking 1789 house and a long fishing pier out onto the river looked to be a bucolic spot for listening to music al fresco.
Our outdoor intentions were dashed when we arrived to find that the changeable weather had moved the performance into the "winter kitchen" of the old house.
For the infrequent plantation visitors, that means the basement, a tiny place that was never going to comfortably hold the attendees.
An older couple walked up with chairs and we told them about the switch.
"Oh, no," the kindred soul said. "I wanted it to be outside!" Didn't we all?
Switch to Plan B.
We strolled down the bank, part timbers set into hill and part steep wooden stairs, and stopped midway down where we were chased down by a videographer for the Hopewell Tourism Board who wanted to interview us about why we were there.
My companion tends to be fairly taciturn and most of his answers involved pointing at me as the source of his trip to Hopewell.
I, on the other hand, was more than happy to wax poetic about why I'd chosen a plantation lawn for Sunday afternoon music.
I fly my geek flag proudly.
Don't get me started on the intersection of culture, history and picnicking with a microphone clipped to my dress.
Press duties done, we finished our descent to the middle of the pier.
With our backs to a good breeze, we admired the stormy sky and began by pulling out cherries to eat as we watched huge gray clouds roll by.
Our idyll was interrupted when a snake swam up, stopped just in front of our dangling feet and looked us straight in the eye.
I do bugs, but I don't do snakes. There was a position adjustment on my part as fish jumped all around us.
Two minutes later a couple comes down to the pier and asks, "Seen any critters?"
Jarringly, yes.
Eventually we went back up the hill and spread ourselves out on a pink spread under a huge, old tree, mere yards from the open door that led to the "winter kitchen."
Under a tree with music wafting our way, we sipped vinho verde, ate fruit and cheese and admired this fine old house by the river.
Soon another couple broke bad and put their chairs under a nearby tree, cracking beers as they listened.
And then another, right by the stairs to the basement.
We'd been involuntary trendsetters.
By the time the concert was winding down, we began to feel rain and packed up, completely unprepared to find out how hard it was already raining outside the protection of the tree.
The further north we went on 95, the more the rain began to taper off.
Dinner followed at Cellar Door where all our choices came off the specials menu.
Twenty four-hour marinated Peruvian chicken drumsticks packed heat and meat and the arugula underneath took its creaminess from the Peruvian ranch dressing.
A spinach salad with blue cheese, white wine poached pear, red onion, tomato, cucumber, and chunks of salt-and-pepper chicken was satisfying and flavorful enough to have been a main dish for any one person.
The braised short ribs were a bit dry but much better with onions, butter-poached red apples and pears in every bite.
Our server had on a bike polo t-shirt, leading to me asking and discovering my
It never ceases to amaze me just how small this town is. Small good, of course.
Final stop was the Westhampton Theater for "Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (for the Elderly and Beautiful)," full of superb English acting, colorful India locations and humor about aging.
"I can't think that far ahead. I don't buy green bananas."
The story of Brits who go to stay in an Indian hotel that's falling apart was charming, funny and understated.
"Everything will be alright in the end and if it's not alright, then, trust me, it's not the end."
Sex was enthusiastically pursued. Long time loves were rediscovered. Expectations were not met and then exceeded.
"Nothing here has worked out quite as expected."
"Most things don't. But sometimes what happens instead is the good stuff."
The film captured India's unique light, energy, masses of people and colorful beauty as each of the guests explored it differently.
By the charming end of the film, no less than three couples had acknowledged their emotional attachment to their beloved.
Just like a tidy Shakespearean comedy ending, true love triumphs.
Except, in this case, they were on motorbikes in India.
"When one does adapt, the past withdraws."
And they live happily ever after on a pink spread under a tree...assuming the snake doesn't return.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
The Middle of all the Karens
The best thing about European movies is not knowing what's next.
They mock us.
"You sound like an American. That's a bad sign."
They admire us.
"It's as if Liechtenstein were walking with the U.S."
They cook differently.
"I brought ratatouille. I cooked each vegetable separately."
They woo differently.
"I love your hair. I could go on holiday in your hair."
They end their movies differently.
"I am happy to sit in the middle of all the Nathalies and just hide."
The movie in question was French and at the Westhampton.
"Delicacy" was the story of how a man wooed a woman named Nathalie who didn't even realize she wanted to be wooed.
In simplest terms, anyway.
Oh sure, her husband died and she grieved and her boss hit on her and her friends worried about her.
All with great panache because she was French.
And eventually she initiates a kiss with a coworker and begins the slow descent out of her cocoon of the past.
The pleasure was in being treated like an intelligent audience, so we weren't shown everything.
Some things went unexplained and we put two and two together ourselves.
It wasn't difficult; it was an early show and we were a small but smart bunch.
Hell, when a character's Swedish parents visited, we didn't even get subtitles. What they were saying was irrelevant but we got the point of the scene.
How do you go back to your prior life once you've met that someone who changes everything?
Bonuses to seeing a movie full of nuances of behavior and thoughtful dialog?
Lots of things to discuss when you get to Beauregard's Thai Room and my favorite outdoor eating space in Richmond.
Case in point: a pot of purple Canterbury Bells next to our secluded table near the fountain.
Two colors of calla lilies behind us -mauve and white- and a night sky low overhead.
It wasn't France, but it didn't feel like Richmond, either.
Squid over salad with lime, red onions, coriander and chilies was followed by shrimp with baby corn, straw mushrooms and scallions.
Meanwhile our first server got distracted and forgot all about us, our second server did research for us on the date of the building, and the Thai dance music got suddenly loud enough to dance to.
Reason number two that Beauregard's gets points?
Their housemade ice creams. Trying to choose a flavor, humor won us over.
Banana walnut was described as "mainly banana; the walnuts impede gulping."
Who wouldn't have to taste that?
Just for good measure, we got a scoop of black walnut on top of the banana walnut and washed it down with a glass of Prosecco.
Sitting in the emptying garden was like being hidden away from the rest of the city on a warm night.
Gulp. It almost felt like the ending of a French movie.
But with only one Karen.
They mock us.
"You sound like an American. That's a bad sign."
They admire us.
"It's as if Liechtenstein were walking with the U.S."
They cook differently.
"I brought ratatouille. I cooked each vegetable separately."
They woo differently.
"I love your hair. I could go on holiday in your hair."
They end their movies differently.
"I am happy to sit in the middle of all the Nathalies and just hide."
The movie in question was French and at the Westhampton.
"Delicacy" was the story of how a man wooed a woman named Nathalie who didn't even realize she wanted to be wooed.
In simplest terms, anyway.
Oh sure, her husband died and she grieved and her boss hit on her and her friends worried about her.
All with great panache because she was French.
And eventually she initiates a kiss with a coworker and begins the slow descent out of her cocoon of the past.
The pleasure was in being treated like an intelligent audience, so we weren't shown everything.
Some things went unexplained and we put two and two together ourselves.
It wasn't difficult; it was an early show and we were a small but smart bunch.
Hell, when a character's Swedish parents visited, we didn't even get subtitles. What they were saying was irrelevant but we got the point of the scene.
How do you go back to your prior life once you've met that someone who changes everything?
Bonuses to seeing a movie full of nuances of behavior and thoughtful dialog?
Lots of things to discuss when you get to Beauregard's Thai Room and my favorite outdoor eating space in Richmond.
Case in point: a pot of purple Canterbury Bells next to our secluded table near the fountain.
Two colors of calla lilies behind us -mauve and white- and a night sky low overhead.
It wasn't France, but it didn't feel like Richmond, either.
Squid over salad with lime, red onions, coriander and chilies was followed by shrimp with baby corn, straw mushrooms and scallions.
Meanwhile our first server got distracted and forgot all about us, our second server did research for us on the date of the building, and the Thai dance music got suddenly loud enough to dance to.
Reason number two that Beauregard's gets points?
Their housemade ice creams. Trying to choose a flavor, humor won us over.
Banana walnut was described as "mainly banana; the walnuts impede gulping."
Who wouldn't have to taste that?
Just for good measure, we got a scoop of black walnut on top of the banana walnut and washed it down with a glass of Prosecco.
Sitting in the emptying garden was like being hidden away from the rest of the city on a warm night.
Gulp. It almost felt like the ending of a French movie.
But with only one Karen.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Standing Room Only
If romantic comedies are date movies, does that make historical dramas about sex nerd date movies?
Not that a movie was even necessary after a killer meal at the Roosevelt.
Some of us have been on an Italian wine kick here lately, a need easily satisfied by Gabriele Rausse Vin Gris de Pinot Noir and its delightful fruitiness.
Although I'd brought along stellar company, there were plenty of friends around to stoke the conversational fires.
One had seen U2 at the Bayou in 1982 and one had played the Bayou when he was 15. One came in after finishing his honey-do list.
Meanwhile, my partner in crime and I ordered enough food for an army. First was the white sweet potato and Surry sausage hash with a soft-cooked egg and Tennessee truffles.
It was the kind of dish that would make a perfect breakfast after a rambunctious night before. Or the perfect start to our dinner.
Next came the charcuteie plate and it was easily the most creative of those I've seen in some time.
A generous slab of lamb neck terrine was to die for and came with Olli salami, sugared bacon, lardo and duck liver pate.
Yes, it was a heart attack on a plate and yes, it was out of this world.
A witty friend came over and commented that, unlike me, she hadn't had the plate because she doesn't eat all those things, "Unlike Karen, who'll eat babies."
Not true.
Next up was Lee's fried chicken sliders with house-made pickles and kimchee mayo (this could be the ultimate picnic sandwich).
Last up was a chicken breast with gnocchi, local mushrooms, chicken oysters and a decadent foie gras sauce.
If we'd had any sense we would have skipped the movie and stayed there to digest such a feast and sip a little more wine.
But, no, we soldiered on because we're the types who can't resist a book turned into a play turned into a movie about Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.
"A Dangerous Method" was playing at the Westhampton.
That's right, a movie about the fathers of psychoanalysis and analytical psychology and the beautiful patient who liked to be spanked.
If it sounds simplistic, it wasn't. The rivalry and differing schools of thought that kept the men from collaborating made for an enlightening, if somewhat stagey film about the power of talk.
It was basically one long conversation, with magnificent shots of Zurich and Vienna in between.
I know plenty of people who'd have been nodding off at so much talk, but, fortunately for me, I also know a person or two who would be as caught up in the history, the development of theory and the extensive analysis as I would be.
Walking out after it was over, the manger asked what I'd thought of the movie and I told her.
"We expected bigger crowds for it," she said. "Even on the weekend, not many people came."
Well, duh. Surely a catchier title would have helped.
Considering Freud's debate with Jung over the basis of all action, I'd suggest "It's All About Sex" would have brought in far more viewers.
Still, it's doubtful that they'd have been like us and afterwards had one long conversation about the book turned play turned film.
But then they probably wouldn't have wanted to eat blueberries and listen to the Pet Shop Boys afterwards, either.
You can live your life lonely
Heavy as a stone
Live your life learning and working alone
Say this is all you want
But I don't believe that it's true
I like to think that the blueberries balanced out the charcuterie because who among us can get through the day without one or two good rationalizations?
The spanking, however, I could do without.
Not that a movie was even necessary after a killer meal at the Roosevelt.
Some of us have been on an Italian wine kick here lately, a need easily satisfied by Gabriele Rausse Vin Gris de Pinot Noir and its delightful fruitiness.
Although I'd brought along stellar company, there were plenty of friends around to stoke the conversational fires.
One had seen U2 at the Bayou in 1982 and one had played the Bayou when he was 15. One came in after finishing his honey-do list.
Meanwhile, my partner in crime and I ordered enough food for an army. First was the white sweet potato and Surry sausage hash with a soft-cooked egg and Tennessee truffles.
It was the kind of dish that would make a perfect breakfast after a rambunctious night before. Or the perfect start to our dinner.
Next came the charcuteie plate and it was easily the most creative of those I've seen in some time.
A generous slab of lamb neck terrine was to die for and came with Olli salami, sugared bacon, lardo and duck liver pate.
Yes, it was a heart attack on a plate and yes, it was out of this world.
A witty friend came over and commented that, unlike me, she hadn't had the plate because she doesn't eat all those things, "Unlike Karen, who'll eat babies."
Not true.
Next up was Lee's fried chicken sliders with house-made pickles and kimchee mayo (this could be the ultimate picnic sandwich).
Last up was a chicken breast with gnocchi, local mushrooms, chicken oysters and a decadent foie gras sauce.
If we'd had any sense we would have skipped the movie and stayed there to digest such a feast and sip a little more wine.
But, no, we soldiered on because we're the types who can't resist a book turned into a play turned into a movie about Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.
"A Dangerous Method" was playing at the Westhampton.
That's right, a movie about the fathers of psychoanalysis and analytical psychology and the beautiful patient who liked to be spanked.
If it sounds simplistic, it wasn't. The rivalry and differing schools of thought that kept the men from collaborating made for an enlightening, if somewhat stagey film about the power of talk.
It was basically one long conversation, with magnificent shots of Zurich and Vienna in between.
I know plenty of people who'd have been nodding off at so much talk, but, fortunately for me, I also know a person or two who would be as caught up in the history, the development of theory and the extensive analysis as I would be.
Walking out after it was over, the manger asked what I'd thought of the movie and I told her.
"We expected bigger crowds for it," she said. "Even on the weekend, not many people came."
Well, duh. Surely a catchier title would have helped.
Considering Freud's debate with Jung over the basis of all action, I'd suggest "It's All About Sex" would have brought in far more viewers.
Still, it's doubtful that they'd have been like us and afterwards had one long conversation about the book turned play turned film.
But then they probably wouldn't have wanted to eat blueberries and listen to the Pet Shop Boys afterwards, either.
You can live your life lonely
Heavy as a stone
Live your life learning and working alone
Say this is all you want
But I don't believe that it's true
I like to think that the blueberries balanced out the charcuterie because who among us can get through the day without one or two good rationalizations?
The spanking, however, I could do without.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
The Talkie Type
How often do you see a silent movie two nights in a row?
But then how often is there a brand-new silent film at the movie theater?
After seeing the previews for "The Artist" several times, I was pretty sure I'd enjoy it.
And I did, except for the man with the oral fixation chewing loudly on a plastic straw one seat away.
Just for the record, that was after he'd polished off a sandwich (wrapped in foil), a canned Diet Coke and a king-size fountain soda
But I digress.
After all the silent movies I've seen in the past four-plus years at the Silent Music Revival and James River Film Society events, I've actually seen a fair amount of silent film.
I mean, I'm no Jameson Price, but I've probably seen more than your average bear.
But I think the most recent one I ever saw was 1948 and even then, it was highly unusual to make a silent film that late.
So of course a French film director decides last year to make a black and white silent film tribute to Hollywoodland.
Count me in.
The hero looked like a matinee idol (and had the greatest smile in his eyes), the photography was exquisite and the music perfectly attuned to the scenes.
I know Kim Novak is upset about them using a snippet of music from "Vertigo" but it didn't bother me.
The romance was suggested but never developed, only hinted at.
But you should have seen the way they smiled at each other Oh, it was romance.
What I was curious about was what the audience's reaction to seeing a silent film would be.
Besides hearing every cough (and straw chewer), you clearly heard comments ("That's a gun") and reactions (a woman's audible gasp when the hero carelessly stepped off a curb and almost got hit by a car).
Everything unfolded but not with words, only with movements, gestures and nuance.
Which I can (and did) totally appreciate as far as telling the story went.
But no words? In a romance?
In a movie, fine, but that would never fly, at least for me, in real life.
If you're going to go romantic, it's got to be wordy or just shoot me now.
But then how often is there a brand-new silent film at the movie theater?
After seeing the previews for "The Artist" several times, I was pretty sure I'd enjoy it.
And I did, except for the man with the oral fixation chewing loudly on a plastic straw one seat away.
Just for the record, that was after he'd polished off a sandwich (wrapped in foil), a canned Diet Coke and a king-size fountain soda
But I digress.
After all the silent movies I've seen in the past four-plus years at the Silent Music Revival and James River Film Society events, I've actually seen a fair amount of silent film.
I mean, I'm no Jameson Price, but I've probably seen more than your average bear.
But I think the most recent one I ever saw was 1948 and even then, it was highly unusual to make a silent film that late.
So of course a French film director decides last year to make a black and white silent film tribute to Hollywoodland.
Count me in.
The hero looked like a matinee idol (and had the greatest smile in his eyes), the photography was exquisite and the music perfectly attuned to the scenes.
I know Kim Novak is upset about them using a snippet of music from "Vertigo" but it didn't bother me.
The romance was suggested but never developed, only hinted at.
But you should have seen the way they smiled at each other Oh, it was romance.
What I was curious about was what the audience's reaction to seeing a silent film would be.
Besides hearing every cough (and straw chewer), you clearly heard comments ("That's a gun") and reactions (a woman's audible gasp when the hero carelessly stepped off a curb and almost got hit by a car).
Everything unfolded but not with words, only with movements, gestures and nuance.
Which I can (and did) totally appreciate as far as telling the story went.
But no words? In a romance?
In a movie, fine, but that would never fly, at least for me, in real life.
If you're going to go romantic, it's got to be wordy or just shoot me now.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
The Edge of Life
Sure, I know I can't single-handedly keep the Westhampton Theater open, but I can try.
Tonight I had lots of company in my effort and saw what will surely be called one of the best movies of the year.
I could be wrong about that, though, because it's not mindless escapism; it's about the way life sometimes knocks you down and then kicks you a few more times as you try to get up.
Not that I would know anything about that.
"The Descendants" has a lot going for it: George Clooney and a Hawaiian setting, not to mention a trailer that makes it look like a goofy comedy.
While it does have moments of comedic brilliance, they're the kind that life unexpectedly hands you when you're trying to wade through the tough stuff.
The kind that don't make anything better, but relieve the heaviness briefly.
Because the intertwined plots were some of life's heaviest.
When do you pull the plug on a comatose loved one? How do you forgive infidelity? How do you accept your own failures?
Once the climax had been reached and the ends tied up, there was a brief scene at the end which provided the closest thing to a feel-good "we will move forward" moment in the entire film.
It wasn't a happy ending, but it was about as good as it could get considering the storyline.
To me, it felt totally unnecessary but very typical of an American film. Still, it's hard to argue with hope and Hawaiian music.
Walking out, an older woman behind us told her companion, "That was interesting...and edgy."
Hmm. I would say it was about as edgy as life.
Tonight I had lots of company in my effort and saw what will surely be called one of the best movies of the year.
I could be wrong about that, though, because it's not mindless escapism; it's about the way life sometimes knocks you down and then kicks you a few more times as you try to get up.
Not that I would know anything about that.
"The Descendants" has a lot going for it: George Clooney and a Hawaiian setting, not to mention a trailer that makes it look like a goofy comedy.
While it does have moments of comedic brilliance, they're the kind that life unexpectedly hands you when you're trying to wade through the tough stuff.
The kind that don't make anything better, but relieve the heaviness briefly.
Because the intertwined plots were some of life's heaviest.
When do you pull the plug on a comatose loved one? How do you forgive infidelity? How do you accept your own failures?
Once the climax had been reached and the ends tied up, there was a brief scene at the end which provided the closest thing to a feel-good "we will move forward" moment in the entire film.
It wasn't a happy ending, but it was about as good as it could get considering the storyline.
To me, it felt totally unnecessary but very typical of an American film. Still, it's hard to argue with hope and Hawaiian music.
Walking out, an older woman behind us told her companion, "That was interesting...and edgy."
Hmm. I would say it was about as edgy as life.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Truly, Madly, Deeply
Sometimes you meet a person and you just know that they're your person.
But when I went to see a Sundance award-winning film at the Westhampton this afternoon, I had no idea that that was the premise of the story I'd be seeing.
"Like Crazy" turned out to be a beautifully (and hand-held) shot, exquisitely acted movie about relationship difficulties once two people fall for each other.
I appreciated that it wasn't cliched, but rather full of the realities of dealing with the problems that inevitably arise even between people who adore each other, especially when there's a period of separation.
Once more, popular culture reminds us how difficult relationships are and how much patience they take.
It was underscored in the film when he gave her a bracelet engraved with the word "patience" when they temporarily separated.
At the film's end, there was no pat Hollywood ending.
The audience was left wondering if the two were going to be able to overcome all the things that had happened both when they were together and when they were apart.
Like in real life, that's the kind of thing no one can predict.
It's just that you don't get awards for having that kind of story in real life.
But when I went to see a Sundance award-winning film at the Westhampton this afternoon, I had no idea that that was the premise of the story I'd be seeing.
"Like Crazy" turned out to be a beautifully (and hand-held) shot, exquisitely acted movie about relationship difficulties once two people fall for each other.
I appreciated that it wasn't cliched, but rather full of the realities of dealing with the problems that inevitably arise even between people who adore each other, especially when there's a period of separation.
Once more, popular culture reminds us how difficult relationships are and how much patience they take.
It was underscored in the film when he gave her a bracelet engraved with the word "patience" when they temporarily separated.
At the film's end, there was no pat Hollywood ending.
The audience was left wondering if the two were going to be able to overcome all the things that had happened both when they were together and when they were apart.
Like in real life, that's the kind of thing no one can predict.
It's just that you don't get awards for having that kind of story in real life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
