I Got the Night on My Side

Just call me a curiosity. Strangers do.

With every day that passes, I become more of a person of interest when I let slide that I don't have a cell phone. Scoring a single chair between two tables under the big canopy at the Valentine to await the start of Music in the Garden, a woman nearby says to no one in particular, "Oh! We all need to turn off our cell phones before the music starts."

Well, unless you don't have a cell phone, I say. When she immediately assumes I left mine in the car, I regret to inform her I simply don't have one. Never had one. She is dumbstruck. "But how do you live?" she wonders.

So it's going to be one of those conversations.

To her, it's inconceivable that I am not able to immediately Google anything that piques my interest. "How do you get directions?" she asks, incredulous that I have enough foresight to get them before leaving home. "But what if you see something interesting and want to look it up?" she wonders. Um, I delay gratification and remember to look it up later?

For the rest of the evening, she would periodically look over at me and shake her head, like she was viewing a two-headed giraffe at the zoo or something. It helped when an older couple asked if they could join her table, providing a distraction from my weirdness.

Bill Martin, the Valentine's director, came out to start the show, pointing out that there are so few opportunities to hear free music anymore, making this series all the more unique. I know I appreciate it for that reason.

Then he introduced Deau Eyes, aka Ali Thibodeau, mentioning that tomorrow is her birthday.

Wearing a short red skirt and cowboy boots, you know, like an indie singer songwriter does for a June garden show, Ali slung her guitar strap over her shoulder and got down to business singing "Some Do." Then she called up Justin Golden, the evening's second act, to sing harmony with her on the next song before launching into the very appropriate-for-a-summer-evening "Lightening Bugs."

It was still a tad early for them, but another couple hours and they'd be putting on their mating show.

I've been to Music in the Garden events where the heat and humidity settled over the garden unpleasantly, but tonight's weather was fine. A light breeze wafted down the scent of the magnolia blossoms in the old garden and the large cast iron fountain in the center of the tent provided a lovely burbling accompaniment to the music.

Next came a story about going to Barnes & Noble with her niece, who proceeded to begin directing a play, telling people where to stand and what to do, even that no photographs were allowed. When someone tried to taker her picture, she admonished them that she wasn't being cute and she was serious about what she was doing. "That feeling resonated with me," Ali explained. "So I wrote this song, 'Paper Stickers.'"

For one song, Ali entreated the crowd to do a singalong, which was as simple as saying "Shhh!" at the end of certain lines in the chorus. Even we non-singing types could manage that.

I got a dose of my youth when she decided to do a cover, which she introduced by saying, "I recently went roller skating and it's the most under-rate adult activity. It's great! You get a workout and no one's up in your business." I couldn't have been more surprised when she launched into Melanie's 1971 hit, "Brand New Key" about getting a new pair of roller skates (back when they had keys, for that matter).

After taking a long pull on her water bottle and reminding everyone to hydrate, she closed with "Autonomy," noting that all of us are trying to make it on our own. Truth.

During the break, I chatted with the older gentleman at the next table who was on date, asking why he'd come. Turns out he's as music-obsessed as I am and a regular at Music at Maymont and the concerts at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. He humble-bragged that he'd seen the Punch Brothers twice in the past year. My kind of guy.

You just can't tell by someone's age who's willing to make the effort to see live music. I probably don't look like the type, either.

After asking a woman to save my seat, I went into the Valentine to see "Developing Richmond: Photographs from the Cook Studio," a look back at post-Civil War Richmond. Granted, I'm a photography geek, but what a fabulous exhibit it was.

From 1912, there were construction workers sitting stop the uppermost girders of the First National Bank building at 8th and Main, high up in the sky. A shot of flower vendors at the Sixth Street Market - a place I walk by regularly on Marshall Street - was taken in the early 20th century and showed how vibrant the market had been.

One of the Richmond Dairy from 1914 didn't look all that different than the building looks today and I should know since it's three blocks from my apartment (not to mention where my grandfather worked his entire career).

Probably my favorite was the photograph of the Hotel Richmond Rooftop Restaurant from 1904, partly because my walk to the river takes me past that building (which is now state offices) daily, but also because I hadn't known that Richmond had a rooftop restaurant before the current crop of rooftop bars. It looked wonderfully sophisticated, especially for the turn of the century.

The most startling image in terms of change had to be the photo of the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart seen from Monroe Park which was obliterated completely by trees. Not so much as a bench or path visible. Another of the Executive Mansion was notable for the men on tall bikes tooling around in front of the governor's digs.

Eventually I made it back outside to reclaim my seat to hear Justin Golden's easy listening neo-blues (he credits the Black Keys and John Mayer as influences) and guitar playing, a nice way to close out the evening. I was amazed to see that the woman who'd been reading a book when I'd first arrived was still reading her book, as if live music wasn't happening a few feet from her table.

And people think I'm strange? Why would you not watch two singers give it their all since you're there anyway?

Before the night was over, I ran into a favorite couple who were arriving late. She wanted to know if the fried chicken at Maple Bourbon was truly as life-changing as I'd said it was in my review, here, and I assured her it was. I like to think I know a little about fried chicken. I barely got two steps before running into the former dean and his wife, who scored major points by telling me they read everything I write and sharing their favorite places in Spain.

Truth be told, I didn't bother saying goodbye to the woman who'd been gobsmacked by my lack of technology, figuring it would only get her agitated again.

I thought it wise not to mention my lack of TV, much less my choice not to use air-conditioning. Two heads seemed to be about all she could handle.

Take What You Want and Leave the Rest

Being ridiculously happy seems to leave little time to blog.

It's not like I'm not still doing stuff because of course I am. After all, I'm me, so how could I not?

After a meal in service of my hired mouth, Mac and I went to the Basement to see TheatreLab's production of "Topdog/Underdog," marveling at the tightly wound performances of Jeremy Morris and Jamar Jones as brothers with issues in the Pulitzer prize-winning play.

The production clocked in at a hefty two hours and 45 minutes (I knew I had that padding for a reason) and I thought Mac might have to dip out at intermission because of having to go to work early tomorrow, but instead she admitted how sucked in she was by such compelling performances.

Props to first-time director Katrinah Carol Lewis for providing her actors enough room to the create full, albeit flawed, characters before us.

Granted, we walked out of there feeling as if we'd been beat up, but truly great theater is always affecting in some way.

I finally made it to Goatocado, notable for the killer Tuscan arepa (Oaxacan cheese, red pepper, greens, guac and corn in a corn cake) I ate along with a pomegranate ginger-ade, but also for the 50 minutes it took some hapless, young employee to hang the canvas triangles that provided the scant shade on a sunny, blue sky day.

After ten minutes, I was feeling his pain because he was out there in the blinding sunlight without sunglasses. When I questioned the wisdom of that move, he explained that he didn't like clipping sunshades to his regular glasses. But isn't it excruciating to be out here with no sunglasses?

"I'm thinking next time I get glasses, I'll get that kind that darkens in the sun," he explained. "You know, 'cause I don't want to get cataracts." How cute is that?

And for the record, he hung and rehung those triangles unsuccessfully and repeatedly, finally asking two fellow employees to help - one to hook the pieces and the other more knowledgeable one to direct - for over 50 minutes before they were hung properly. Meanwhile, customers like us who wanted to eat outside (inside was full) had a choice of minimal shade or no shade, not the best options on a bright June day at high noon.

Fifty minutes. Have I mentioned that I weep for the future?

Lady G had finally re-surfaced and since our last rendezvous had been March 30, we were in dire need of a blather. Her suggestion was Lemaire at the Jefferson, fine by me as long as we ate outside on the patio and not inside with the business stuffy clientele.

Our table afforded a view of Franklin Street and featured a music speaker that looked like a rock in the flower bed adjacent to us. Yea, it was corny and kind of Flintstones-like, but, hey, it worked, turning the miscellaneous noises of the city into background for the jazz that was playing.

Because our time apart had encompassed April and May, Lady G insisted that it was a birthday celebration and let me choose the bottle: Argyle Brut Rose from a winery I'd visited. And while it took an inordinate amount of time to arrive (it appeared to be our server's first night and he was doing his best, at least at joking with us), it was worth the wait.

When our young server made the rookie mistake of placing the stand holding the wine near the outdoor server's station rather than tableside and G's glass went dry, she did what any self-respecting woman does: walked over, took possession of the stand and bottle and set them in their rightful place within easy reach of us.

The five-top table of young millennial women next to us knew they were in the presence of greatness. "We applaud you taking control!" one called out as the others clapped.

Someday you, too, will just take what you want, grasshopper.

We swapped updates over chilled English pea soup, crispy fried deviled eggs with cornichons and red pepper jelly and Pernod-steamed mussels with apple, fennel and chorizo while we watched people sit down and wait 20 minutes for anything more than water. Luckily, we were in no hurry, not with all the life evaluating we had going on at the table.

At one point, our charming server arrived unexpectedly and a tad out of breath, smiling and saying apropos of nothing, "I've missed you both so." What can you do but crack up at that? At the very least, a sense of humor is essential in the service industry.

We ended the evening on my balcony, where Lady G's birthday gift to me - a bottle of Chateau Kalian 2015 Monbazillac, an organic dessert wine with gorgeous notes of orange and lemon, but also with nice acidity - was opened and sipped chilled as dusk descended on Jackson Ward.

As she does every time she's on my balcony, she commented on some of the high-up architectural details on the house next door. The kind of flourishes barely visible from the street, but striking from mere feet away on the second floor. The kind of thing an artist notices and that's what Lady G is.

She and I have been swapping stories and keeping each other abreast of where the bodies are buried for two decades now, and if that's not worth toasting, I don't know what is.

Check that. Also worth celebrating is finding someone who keeps me so busy talking, laughing and traveling that blogging is all but forgotten.

Sorry/not sorry. Happiness and devoted attention, I have missed you both so.

For the Whole Round World to Hear

To paraphrase Miss Nina Simone, Virginia goddam. But in a good way.

I voted this morning behind a friend/neighbor/immigrant, who managed to crack me up and insinuate innuendo into the 90 seconds we sat next to each other waiting for voting booths to open up. At least we were voting for the same people.

At the Valentine for the first in their History/Controversy series, the ice breaker question asked of everyone in the room was who would win the gubernatorial race. A solid 90% of us predicted (or fervently hoped) Northam. Then we were polled about who had voted and 6% had not.

"All right, you 6%-ers are dismissed to go vote," our facilitator joked. And if he wasn't kidding, nobody was brave enough to leave and prove they'd shirked their civic duty.

Tonight's topic was voting and we were given historical context via the back stories of Sally Dooley (Virginia Association Opposed to Women's Suffrage) and Lila Meade Valentine (Equal Suffrage League of Virginia), but by far the most astounding fact we learned was that despite the Nineteenth Amendment (granting women the right to vote) being ratified in 1919, Virginia didn't get around to ratification until 1952.

That kind of crap could also be characterized as Virginia goddam, although not in a good way.

Tonight's experts - two UR law professors, one black, one white, one male, one female, hell, they were practically the Mod Squad - shared that as Virginians, we have a long history of gerrymandering going back to Patrick Henry, who tried to swing things so that James Monroe would beat out James Madison (he failed).

Looking at the current district maps was disturbing for how flagrantly they flaunted their only requirement: to be compact and contiguous. I think we can all agree that a district shaped like an amoeba with tumors hardly qualifies as compact.

It was a timely evening for a discussion of the importance of winning tonight's election because the re-districting maps will be drawn during the next administration and heaven knows, we could use some major amoeba trimming.

When I left there in the pouring rain, I only had to go two blocks to Vagabond for the music of a seminal pianist, singer, songwriter and activist. Down in the warm, dimly lit basement known as the Rabbit Hole, a crowd was already gathering for an event billed as "Sam Reed Sings Nina Simone."

Bellying up to the bar was no easy feat given the size of the crowd, but all it really gave me was a better view of a bartender so far in the weeds that he couldn't see out. The floor behind the bar was slick with moisture and I watched as he skidded on it repeatedly while people kept trying to get his attention to order.

Suddenly, from the end of the bar, somebody yelled, "Northam won!" and the room erupted in shrieks and applause. It was such a fantastic way to start the musical - and now celebratory - part of my evening. Spotting an abandoned bar stool, I dragged it over near a couch so I'd have a better (and seated) view.

That bit of luck was followed by the arrival of a guy I know and hadn't seen in ages (unless Facebook counts and it doesn't) and suddenly I had someone to chat with, too. I wanted to hear all about the Fire, Flour and Fork barbecue dinner he'd gone to - White Stone oysters at a BBQ, really? - and, since it was his first visit to the Rabbit Hole for music, he wanted to hear about bands I'd seen there.

Meanwhile, we saw other people giving up on the bartender and going upstairs to score drinks. One guy came down carrying two cans of PBR so he wouldn't have to go back up again. And people just kept coming in, filling up the place until there wasn't any room for more.

Sam Reed came out looking like a million bucks in wide, red bell bottoms and a long-sleeved black crop top and introduced her keyboard player Calvin. "We've been rehearsing these songs for weeks now, but it's not easy to come up here and suddenly become one amazing person."

After only a couple of songs, including a poignant "I Loves You, Porgy," during which some people continued to blather, Sam asked the sound guy to check on a buzz from the drum. "Any of you seen the documentary "What Happened, Miss Simone?" she inquired and a fair number of people indicated they had.

"Well, then you know she would have stopped a show with a snare drum buzzing like that. She'd also stop singing if people were talking because she wanted them to listen to her, like they did when she played classical music on piano." At that comment, many people shouted affirmations, telling her she should do just that and I agreed since near me were a couple of women catching up far too loudly while she sang.

It was just the reminder some people needed to be more respectful as she went forward with other Simone standards like "Don't Smoke in Bed" and "I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl," nailing that male/female tone that Nina's voice had.

Sam reminded the audience of Nina's place in civil rights history, chiding us with, "I hope you all voted!" and going into a set of music from that period, including a killer rendition of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," which I have to admit I knew only by the Animals' version.

But it was the song Sam said Simone had written after being devastated by the death of the four little girls in the Birmingham church that got the crowd singing along. With no prodding from her, people spontaneously joined in for the refrain of "Do it slow" in "Mississippi Goddam," making for a powerful moment to witness.

I was quickly brought back to reality when Sam said she was doing "Old Jim Crow" next and the young girl behind me asked her companion, "Jim who?"

Old Jim Crow, I thought I had you beat
Now I see you walkin' and talkin' up and down my street
Old Jim Crow, don't you know it's all over now

Referring to those lines of the song, Sam said, "I feel like that's what's been going on for the past year. But we're going to persevere and work together to change that, right?"

Right, indeed. She ended her set with "I Wish I Knew How It Feels To Be Free" and people clapping along in rhythm, like a gospel chorus. I couldn't have asked for a better way to close out election night.

Well, except to get home and see how many Republicans had been unseated in the House of Delegates. Oh, and what's this, a transgendered woman has beaten a dinosaur of a legislator, a man who bragged about being anti-LGBTQ? Karma really is a bitch.

Can't you see it? 
Can't you feel it? 
It's all in the air. 
Virginia, goddam!

And I mean that in the best possible way.

Music is a Woman

I'd been remiss in my global folk.

Although I've been at the Folk Fest the last two days, I'd yet to see anything but American music. Oh, it had been some fine American folk music - Memphis soul, western swing, soul blues, go-go, zydeco - but I couldn't be happy with my festival experience without hearing music from further afield.

It's not like the world revolves around this country.

So after the disappointment of finding that my Sunday Washington Post wasn't waiting for me on the front porch, I set out for the river, hoping to beat some of the slow-moving hordes on the Folk Fest's final day.

At the Westrock stage, I slid into a seat adjacent to a large, multi-generational Iranian clan to see Shaba Motallebi and Naghmeh Faramand school us in their instruments - Shaba on tar, a long-necked stringed instrument and Naghmeh on goblet drum and frame drum - and play classic Persian music, which we were told was all about improvising.

Shaba played a song she wrote during the birth of her second child and dedicated it to all the mothers in attendance, saying afterward that she always relives the birth when she sings that song.

Explaining how a tar was made (they're only made for a specific person and only after the maker has seen them play), she mentioned walnut and mulberry being used for the frame and the front being made with "baby lamb skin...unfortunately."

Even that disturbing bit of information didn't rouse the green and purple-haired teenager sitting in the row behind me next to her purple-haired mother. She stared stonily ahead to show her Mom her disdain for the being at the Folk Fest (or perhaps just for a mother with purple hair).

We also heard about the daf, a frame drum comprised of a large circle of goatskin in a wooden frame with rings attached to the back so it sounded like two instruments at the same time. Naghmeh shared that because of the way it was played, with hands toward the sky, it was believed to harness the power of nature,

"It sounds like Buddy Rich!" a guy behind me noted once she began playing.

Midway through a classic Persian song that was supposed to segue into improvisation, a ridiculously long coal train rumbled through and after trying to sing and play over it, Shaba gave up. "That's the longest train I ever saw. We'll wait for it to pass."

Not only was it worth it, but the closer was just as beautiful, sung in Farsi and a melding of Persian and Indian music.

The Iranian clan left when their set ended, and were replaced by two older couples, one from Bon Air and the other from New Kent County and they proceeded to argue about the best way to get "that damn horse track" (Colonial Downs) reopened so they could enjoy it again.

"Pass legislation to tax the hell out of the owner, that'll make him sell!" one suggested. Clearly he's never heard the fable about the wind and the sun.

Despite their inane conversation, I stayed put for Nicolae Feraru, a master of the hammered dulcimer, and his Chicago band playing traditional Romanian music that the announcer warned us about. "You're going to hear danger and espionage."

Turns out there were two hammered dulcimer players and a lot of the music did have a sinister sound to it, though not everything they played sounded that way.

Even so, it wasn't long before the man behind me whispered to his friend, "My bride says she wants to go," and they made tracks.

After the first few notes by the accordion player, a woman behind me clapped and grinned. "We finally get a polka!" she squealed and began dancing in her folding chair.

I spotted an old guy dressed as Uncle Sam and carrying the American flag heading toward us and all I could think was, don't let this be about the fact that it's a group of immigrants playing onstage, but happily, he and the Mrs. were just looking for seats in the shade now that the sun had come out.

Wow, there was a time when such a thought never would have crossed my mind, but that was before last November 8th.

Heading up the hill, I managed to not only catch the last part of Innov Gnawa's set of Moroccan trance, but run into a former Balliceaux regular I used to see almost weekly. He's still lamenting the loss of regular jazz in his neighborhood, but was willing to settle for another beer to lighten the mood and catch up.

At that point, I was finished with the Folk Fest, having earned my global credits in one fell swoop of an afternoon (and feeling pretty good about it), but not with the subject of music entirely.

That was because the Richmond Jazz Society was bringing Duke Ellington's granddaughter to town today as part of the "Virginia Jazz: The Early Years" exhibit currently at the Valentine and I had a ticket to be there.

Although she's a talented and well-respected dancer and choreographer, of course what people wanted to hear about was life with her grandfather, who asked his own son to dye his gray hair brown so as to make Sir Duke not seem so aged.

Sure that such a man wouldn't dig being called Grandpa, Mercedes asked him what he wanted her to call him. He suggested "Uncle Edward" and he forever called his granddaughter "Aunt Mercedes." That's some serious male vanity right there.

She shared stories about growing up in Duke's orbit because she was raised by her grandmother in New York City and went to a Catholic school where she learned Irish jigs and reels (predecessors to tap dance, she said) and a love of dance was spawned.

There were stories of Sir Duke's favorite singer, Ella Fitzgerald, babysitting her and how, because the band toured year round, any time they were playing in NYC, it was a celebration for the families with presents and fried chicken.

When asked about being around so many musicians, Mercedes diplomatically said, "They were unique. I was going to say strange," and went on to clarify based on "Uncle" Edward's theories.

Trombone players were "very slippery" and sax players who didn't play any other reed instrument were "not very bright." Bass players were "the salt of the earth" and "drummers were fine after they'd had their first nervous breakdown."

It was a good thing it was a mostly older crowd when the subject of the old Jackie Gleason show came up, because no one else would remember the show's June Taylor Dancers, of which Mercedes was the first and only black member, eventually moving to Miami when the show began taping there.

Given that she began dancing with the troupe in 1963, she had plenty of stories that reflect the sad state of race relations in this country.

Trying to rent an apartment in Miami, the landlord took her friend aside to ask "what" Mercedes was. The friend said she was Hawaiian so she got the lease. Traveling with family to Hawaii after a 7-month gig in Australia performing "West Side Story," a woman on the beach wanted to know why she was there since she didn't need a tan.

The mortification of being a white person never ends.

She reminded the room of rapt listeners that Duke always advocated for "a mixed bag of people" and made sure his orchestra had both black and white musicians. The Broadway musical based on his songs, "Sophisticated Ladies" was likewise cast.

His advice to his granddaughter was to move to Europe because there were more opportunities there for blacks and that home is where the work is. His mantra, Mercedes said, was to keep moving.

On that point, Duke Ellington and I are in full agreement. I don't know know how else you could describe my day...or even my life.

Meanwhile, like with an annoying train, I just wait for the interruptions to pass.

Cross the Sea

I don't believe I've ever been so glad to see May end.

That's a pretty remarkable statement coming from someone who's always adored stretching out her birthday and diving into the start of warm weather, but, man, this has been a tough May.

June kicked off with a leisurely lunch on the Chickahominy, talking with the couple I'd gone to visit about everything from what she was reading that I haven't - Joan Didion's "White Album" (the successor to "Slouching Toward Bethlehem," which I have read) - to a house concert with an environmentally conscious vegan potluck.

She had me in stitches talking about the oblivious hipsters who'd brought dried out Trader Joe's jicama, wrapped in plastic and boasting an enormous carbon footprint as their offering. "My beet hummus was the only homemade thing there!" she marveled.

Of course there were Oreos because no vegan potluck is complete without them.

Now that I see how far out they live, I am terribly impressed at how often I run into them at events in the city.

The first Music in the Garden at the Valentine for the season not only delivered good tunes (the always satisfying odd time signatures of Rattlemouth's world beats and an all-acoustic version of reggae band Mighty Joshua, complete with acoustic bass guitar and pump organ, but the soft opening of Garnetts at the Valentine.

It was also a chance for Mac and I to catch up after May had messed with us both, leaving us with the mixed emotions of having weathered a sea of storms.

Good thing we're both optimists.

We ate at a table with an older woman with a pronounced Boston accent despite having left that city to go to college in West Virginia where she met her husband and then settled in Virginia. Fifty years later, her vowels were still instantly recognizable as Beantown's.

Low humidity and a gentle breeze made it a beautiful night for live music in the Valentine's garden under an enormous magnolia tree in full bloom that we guessed had to be pre-Civil War judging by its girth. During the break between bands, we headed inside the museum so she could see "Hearts on our Sleeves," the new fashion exhibit I was happy to see a third time.

That 1970 cocktail dress with ruffled bell sleeves had my name written all over it.

And because there's no reason to go to only one show when you can go to two, I also landed at Flora for the Kia Cavallaro EP release show. Incredibly, it was my first time in Flora's back room for music, a fact that boggled not only my mind but that of one of the long-time managers, too.

"How is that possible?" she wanted to know.

I have to assume I've been remiss on my musical devotion and that's nothing I want to brag about. See: life's been a little rough lately. Begone, May.

Kia's sound had been described as homespun songs that weave together dreams and roots music and her fretless banjo certainly contributed to that rootsiness, while her little girl voice gave the songs an appealing earnest innocence.

But where she was truly in a league of her own was that she wore tap shoes and tapped out some rhythm to accompany herself and ensure that every part of her body was making music. It was nothing short of delightful and in the most unexpected way.

Next up was Kenneka Cook whom, coincidentally, I'd first seen last year at one of the Valentine's Music in the Garden shows as she layered her rich voice over beats.

Ordering wine, I got into conversation with three guys I know to varying degrees. One said he had a long history with smart women, one accused me of making people like me and one chided me for not replying to his "what are you up to?' message the day before.

I wanted to explore the first, I disagreed with the second and I reminded the third that I can't spend the abundant time on social media that he does.

Right now, I'm just trying to sort through the wreckage of May and come out happier in June. I keep reminding myself that all I can do is keep my head down and continue working on becoming a better me. I need to do this because it's overdue.

And as Didion famously wrote, "We tell ourselves stories in order to live." I tell myself scores every single day.

Mr. Big Stuff, Who Do You Think You Are?

I still have the remnants of last Monday's skinned knee and other tales from middle aged bohemia.

Walking over to Rappahannock to meet a friend for quality time, a car rolled around the corner at First and Grace, blaring "Mr. Big Stuff" like it was 1971. Crossing the street at Third, I heard church bells begin to ring, my signal that I was going to be just a tad late.

Inside, my friend awaited me, a mixed drink and Prosecco in front of her, but it was orgeat lemonade I wanted with our two dozen Old Saltes and marathon storytelling session requiring that we trade the spotlight to get it all in.

We swapped beach memories (hers trumped mine with an evacuation) and testosterone tales (sometimes there's nothing to do but explain women to a man) while slurping bivalves, rolling our eyes and kvetching.

A couple sat down not far from us and when the woman asked about a particular beer, the barkeep was good enough to pour her a taste. She wasted no time in finishing every drop.

Do you like that beer?
Yes, can I have one of those but in a bigger glass?
Well, yes, that glass was just for you to sample. 
Yea, yea, I know.

Well, if you knew, you should have known that when you order one, it arrives in a full-sized glass without having to stipulate that.

Yes, we mocked her mercilessly.

After a couple of hours that included our gloating over having seen the William Merritt Chase exhibit before it goes to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (her New England chums are pea green with envy), ticking off the myriad pleasures of retired life (hers, not mine) and listening to one of the bartenders as he did a show and tell lecture of the ink on his right arm (planets and geometry, oh, my), we parted ways.

She admitted to having lost her mojo for a cultural evening and mine was non-negotiable: the kickoff of the first Afrikanna Independent Film Fest, tonight at the Valentine, a short eight block walk away.

The party was just getting going in the garden, although before I even made it that far, I waited in the brick corridor to use the bathroom, only to find myself in the lens of the festival photographer.

Reminding her that they've already got far too many shots of me from past events ("Oh, look, honey, it's the same middle-aged woman we saw in that earlier slide"), she was quick with a retort.

"Because you've been a supporter since the beginning," she claims, snapping the shutter a couple more times for good measure.

The Valentine's charming brick garden space was made cozier tonight with a canopy overhead, plenty of tiny lights and a band warming up to entertain us.

Meanwhile, the singer, clad in a red turban with matching shoes, black tank top, a yellow skirt lively with purple, red and green zigzags (such a '70s pattern!) and armfuls of silver bangles that provided accompaniment when she danced, stole the spotlight.

But it wasn't just her ensemble because her fabulous voice was what really mattered, as she bade farewell to our mutual favorite season with Gershwin's "Summertime," even pulling a willing young man in a back-zippered t-shirt from the front table to execute a sinuous pas de deux with her.

During a bass solo in "All of Me," she said it made her want to do "the old missionary church walk," which she then demonstrated, followed by a Caribbean-infused cover of "At Last."

One of her own songs had been inspired, she said, by a two-month relationship that hadn't worked. "But we're friends now because grown folks can do grown folks stuff and still be friends afterwards and go to the movies and hang out," she explained for the record.

The evening moved indoors for the first screening of the festival, which was preceded by creative director Enjoli entreating us, "It's our first year, y'all, so don't go killin' us on Twitter. We're learning as we go."

In truth, from my vantage point, everything had gone off without a hitch tonight.

One of the most exciting things she shared was that the city of Richmond's tourism department had come on board as a new sponsor, a fact that speaks volumes about how far this city has come.

Tonight's film was actually a series of shorts by director A. V. Rockwell strung together under the title "Open City Mix Tape," and represented both documentaries and narratives based on black life in NYC, covering such topics as kids, women being objectified and, one of the most powerful called "B.L.B.," as in bad little boy.

Except of course, he wasn't bad, merely dealing with life as he knew it, even at a tender age. Many audience members reacted out loud to the ending of the film, feeling for the kid.

Shot in black and white to echo the bleakness and other-worldliness of these parts of the city, some of the shorts staged and others simply capturing real life, the vignettes were extraordinary glimpses into other lives.

As each would end, the audience was left to gasp or take a deep breath to restore equilibrium.

Afterwards, the petite Rockwell was introduced - with Enjoli saying that she looked like she was 12 - and took the director's chair for a Q & A, sharing that the film was her first after she finished her undergraduate film studies.

It had been the rapid gentrification of the city that had inspired her need to express what she saw happening and changing around her and the snippets felt like the equivalent of a visual mix tape. Pointing out that her favorite albums had an arc, she said she'd been going for the same thing in her films.

Confidentially, I strive for the same in my life.

After assorted questions about film-making and particularly film-making as a young black woman, Enjoli asked her how old she was, a question that caused her to demur ("You don't ask a woman her age") but not half as much as when a guy asked, "Do you have a man...or a woman?"

Now, my mother taught us that you never ask a woman her age or weight, but she said nothing about nosing into somebody's relationship status. Still, I would think there are subtler ways to discern a woman's status than in front of a roomful of people.

After all, grown folks should be able to ask other grown folks what they want to know. In theory, anyway.

Song of the South

Nothing needs to be hot right now. It's July.

Not showers or bath water, not food nor drink, certainly not clothing. It's time to embrace the heat. My method involves taking a walk along and knee-high dip in the river this morning and giving into my first heat nap this afternoon, both out of sheer necessity.

Sure those 96 degrees outside felt like 104 by 4:45, but it was a clear-skied, breezy 104. Honestly, it could be so much worse.

"Not sarcasm: I love this weather. #bringontheheat #you'll find me outside," a friend writes on Facebook. She was mocked and challenged, but I'm with her 100%.

So naturally, I did what any civilized Richmond woman living without air conditioning would do - and has done - since at least the 19th century: donned a thin cotton dress and grabbed a parasol to best deal with the heat outside.

My purpose was simply to stroll over to Rappahannock for oyster happy hour.

The dozen Old Saltes were chilled, the orgeat lemonade was possibly the most refreshing thing I ever put in my mouth and I could not have been happier to enjoy both in air conditioning that was doing its best to keep up, but mostly unsuccessfully.

Leaving the restaurant for the Valentine Museum, I passed one of Rappahannock's waiters standing on Fourth Street and joked about him being outside in the swelter.

"Like it wasn't sweltering inside, too?" he cracked, jerking his thumb at the dining room. True that.

Behind the Marriott's loading dock, a man in a black suit sat smoking a cigarette, pointing at my flowered umbrella as I walked by, saying, "That's a good idea." I wish I could say it was original.

At least I was walking East, so the worst of the sun was behind me.

The Valentine's auditorium was already filling up when I arrived hot and glistening, only to be reminded that of course the museum of the city of Richmond would be gracious enough to provide fans to its guests on such a sticky summer day.

After walking eight blocks, I was only sorry the fan didn't come with a bare-chested man to use it on me so I could just sit back and enjoy it. Addressing my own fanning needs instead, I spotted a Milky Way miniature at the feet of the woman next to me.

What, ho? There's chocolate?

On my way to score some of my own, I ran into a photographer friend and invited her to sit with me. Her backside barely landed when she spotted my candy stash and quietly asked, "Hmm, there's chocolate?''

You see, some messages get garbled as they're shared (like that childhood game "telephone") and other messages could be passed between dozens of women and the original message would stay true. Not to sound sexist, but we don't mess around when it comes to our chocolate.

But it wasn't chocolate we were there for, it was a screening of "Polyfaces," a documentary about Joel Salatin's game-changing Polyface farm, with a Q & A with Joel afterwards.

Between reading and having heard Joel talk before, I knew a fair amount about the unique farming methods and impressive results, but the Australian-made film showed how real people had become part of the movement by interning at Polyface to get grounded in farming basics or starting their own farms using his methods.

Hearing Michael Pollan of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" talk about asking Joel to ship him a chicken because he'd heard how fabulous they were and having Joel refuse, telling him to come to Virginia if he wanted to taste one of his birds, was a perfect example of how Joel marches to the beat of a different drummer.

His son picked up the tune, beginning by raising chickens as a boy and selling eggs to neighbors and progressed to then killing the old hens, cooking the meat and selling bags of chicken meat to neighbors for, what else, chicken pot pie.

The film wasn't shy about the rigors and realities of farm life - slaughter and processing animals, lots of cow pooping, farm dogs nursing - because one of the big differences in Joel's methods over mainstream U.S. farming is that his is more labor-intensive.

Somebody's got to move those cows, chickens and turkeys from field to field if you're replacing the use of chemical fertilizers with rich cow poop and yard bird scratching.

For those of us who recall the '70s, it was gratifying to see so many young couples excited to get back to the land and become part of a revolution in how we grow and consume our food. Watching a babe-in-arms eat through a fresh tomato like it was candy spoke to how we shape our children's palates and not in a good way.

I hadn't realized how fortunate we are to have access to Polyface eggs and meats since he only services an area three hours from the farm, but after watching the film, I'd have to say that his main role now is in teaching younger people his methods and inspiring new generations of conscientious farmers.

Who, coincidentally, look and sound a lot like the people being called hippies 40 years ago. Happy, groovy, nature-loving hippies. Not a thing wrong with that.

During the Q & A, things got feisty when someone asked about being told the farm now uses some GMOs and Joel wasted no time in disabusing us of that notion.

He raved about the contributions of the interns (even introducing three, two current and one former) and noted that they average one "all Polyface wedding a year," as in bride and groom were both employees or interns.

I've heard of people interning on farms and finding their soul mate that way, but I'm hardly the rise-at-dawn-and-do-chores type, so that was never really an option for me. So I may not be up to the rigors of farm life, but I can handle summer in the city like a boss.

"I'm fine with this weather," a guy tells me as I sashay by. "Think about February!"

Those of us who would prefer not to can be found outside. It's July. Sweltering, yes, but happy, too.  #nosarcasm

Moons and Junes and Ferris Wheels

It only took nine plus hours to get from gospel in the garden to Joni on the balcony at 3:30 a.m.

The Valentine Museum's new Music in the Garden series was having its second installment on such a gorgeous and California-like Thursday night that I couldn't think of a single good reason not to head to the leafy garden for music before my date.

Kenneka Cook was mid-set when I found a spot and began scanning the crowd for people I knew. There was the show booker making faces at a baby, the brass band drummer adjusting knobs onstage, the marketing man looking studious in glasses and the Frenchman, just back from Tampa where they'd beaten the impending storm by just two days.

Moving closer, I was charmed to see people sprawled out on the wide porch of the adjoining Wickham House with the "door" windows behind them, a fact I learned from a tour of the house. I'd been struck by the concept of windows so tall that the house's occupants would just throw up the sash and stroll through the opening to the porch.

"We only know how to do one thing and that's gospel music, so let's go to church," the Ingramettes announced and commenced to get people clapping and toes tapping while shaking the rafters on the tent over their heads.

On my way home, I spotted a line at the National for Catfish and the Bottlemen, a group I'd never so much as heard of. A couple clicks once I got home and I quickly learned that they were a British indie band mining '80s jangle, '90s rock and '00s alternative pop in the service of one of my favorite genres: young man music.

Sounding like their influences were comprised of lots of my guilty pleasure songs with a singer whose voice resembles that of the Arctic Monkeys' leader, the songs were buoyant, testosterone-fueled and likely drawn from the narrow scope of boyish experience.

I was hooked immediately, of course.

And I'd beg you but you know I'm never home
I'd love you but I need another year alone
I'd try to ignore it every time you phone
But I'm never coming close

Adorable, right? Now I understood why all those people were standing in line for an evening of young man angst.

But my date and I were off to Amour for dinner where a private party had commandeered the bar area, which necessitated us taking up residence in the front window for a lovely meal that began with veal sweetbreads in a Madeira wine sauce, moved through a crabcake-topped salad, lamb chops and housemade cocoa sorbet.

After making a pit stop at Secco for pink bubbly from Greece and a unique Rose blend of Malbec, Gamay and Cabernet Sauvignon, we witnessed a verbal testament to the powers of Queen Bey ("I want three things from a man and I can't remember the first two, but the last one is he has to know that Beyonce is the most important thing in the world") from a visiting California woman who will be seeing her hero in L.A. in September.

Pop star conversations aside, I'm trying to get in my Secco fixes in before they close their doors next week.

Once we were back on the street, the evening continued on my balcony with Breaux Rose we'd picked up at the winery and some triage on my boombox to get it to play on its inaugural night of summer season 2016, for which we couldn't have asked for finer weather.

Our musical entertainment began with the new Clair Morgan album "New Lions and the Not Good Night," which qualifies as young man music given its musicians, but not its subject matter, which is a reflection of songwriter Clair exploring his role parenting young children and memories of being a child himself.

But ultimately, it was Joni Mitchell's "Hits" album that we listened to twice, agreeably taking tangents about the musicians on her various albums, how sometimes a cover can be better than the original (CSNY's "Woodstock" being a perfect example) and what an absolutely brilliant medley "Chinese Cafe" and "Unchained Medley" make.

Somewhere around two hours before sunrise, my date expressed a wee bit of concern about the music and conversation being broadcast to the neighborhood pretty much in the middle of the night, so we scaled back a notch but it was a small notch.

We've never been the types to make ungainly concessions, whether music or relationships.

To "settle" is to give up. We never settled. But, man, can we kill some time together.

In the Zone

Even for my oddly-lived life, today had elements of the truly bizarre.

Of all the reasons I might have to wake up early, today's was among the least likely. I had to go have my picture taken first thing in the morning because of my writing.

Which writing? I have no idea and won't until the Virginia Press Association awards are announced in April, but higher-ups know my name will be among those called, and that, apparently, requires me to show off my dimples when I'd usually still be snoozing.

Say cheese.

That done, my next priority was voting, where I was happy to see a line of eager voters ahead of me. Sometimes it's just me and the poll workers.

As I shuffled forward, something occurred to me. Since it was an open primary, perhaps I should use my vote as a voice against the evil that threatens to overtake our country.

Once at the desk, I inquired if it was possible. Grinning widely, the registrar informed that not only could I have either ballot I wanted, but that I was far from the first person to make the decision to jump party today. "But I can't tell you what to do." Her smile widens.

Heaven help me, I guiltily accepted the Republican ballot and voted, assuaging my conscience with the knowledge that although I have a Democratic preference, I could live with either one getting the nomination and winning, but I couldn't stand it if Trump did.

Never in my decades of regularly voting have I done such a thing and if my wildly liberal ancestors aren't rolling in their graves, they're applauding me.

Later, I told a black friend what I'd done, inspiring him to do the same, albeit with more judgment directed at him. He messaged me, "Sure, it was fine for you, Miss White Woman, but you have seen the look three brothers gave me when they saw me take that ballot."

Truly, I felt his pain.

I was nearly home from my walk when a well-dressed man stopped and introduced himself, explaining that he'd lived on the next block for the past two years and saw me all the time.

Next thing I knew, we were talking about public art, living in D.C.- which we both had - and how much Richmond has changed since the '90s when he left.

When we finally got around to discussing walking, I knew I'd met someone worthy. Sure, I do 6 or 7 miles, but this guy walks to Willow Lawn and back, for an eight mile constitutional. We compared walking Broad Street to Monument Avenue, geeking out on some of the things you see at street level that you miss entirely from a car.

After a half hour or so, he said he needed to go vote, but asked if I'd like to come over for a glass of wine or tea when he got back. Why not? "I'll call you when I'm crossing Belvidere," he said after getting over his amazement at my lack of a cell phone.

I had just enough time to eat a quick bite before the phone rang and I met him out front. "I went for Kasich," he told me, with the same guilt of a lifelong Democrat voting Republican as I'd felt.

So it was then I entered the 1870 house of a man I'd met less than an hour before. Enormous pocket doors, a kitchen where the old washing porch used to be, servants' quarters, a very handsome home, far more ornate than my 1876 house.

Then we sat down with our libations and dove into the deep end of the conversational pool with abandon. He told me how much he'd loved living in Cambridge and hated living in Boston and we compared notes on life in Washington. Since he's only been back for two years, he wanted restaurant and music venue recommendations.

It turns out his sister and I went to the same school, graduating within a year of each other. Like me, he's self-employed so we discussed the self-discipline that requires, along with its benefits, such as impromptu afternoon meet-ups with neighbors.

We were into our second hour of talking about the cultural shifts we'd seen in our lifetimes when I declined a second glass because I had work to do, but we agreed a walk is in order sooner rather than later.

Once that work was finished, I got ready to go to the Valentine for this month's Community Conversation, "Re-RVA: Revitalizing, Recycling and Re-imagining," thrilled that the weather was still so warm for the walk there.

I didn't get two blocks before I ran into my new friend for the third time today, this time returning from a meeting. Now that we've met, I think we're going to find we run into each other a lot in that way you never notice someone until you meet them and then suddenly they're everywhere.

Walking in to the Valentine, director Bill Martin greeted me by asking, "Did you vote?" My voting sticker was still stuck to my walking shirt, so I explained how I had voted a party I detest. "Lots of my friends did that today, too," he assured me.

So I'm not the only one terrified of the future, I guess.

It was by far the smallest group for one of these conversations I've yet to see, a fact no doubt attributable to voting day, but it was a dedicated one. When Bill was talking about re-purposing, he showed an image of the architectural salvage store Caravatti's, asking who'd been there.

Practically every hand in the room shot up. "Gosh, this is a recycling crowd!" he said, sounding surprised. It was, too, with people there who had specific recycling bones to pick with the panel of experts who'd come to speak.

When we were shown images of old WWI and WWII posters, one showed a thrifty housewife doing her part by saving cooking grease, straining it, storing it in a cool place and then, "selling it to your meat dealer."

"Anyone here have a meat dealer?" Bill asked to laughter. No, but my Mom certainly had a grease can with a strainer she kept in the cabinet and reused its contents often.

Shucks, I guess that means we didn't have a meat dealer, either.

Breaking into our small groups, we discussed single stream recycling, compost company pick-ups and why the counties make it so difficult for their residents to recycle, with several people making the point that the problem is not what we recycle but the over-packaging and single-use serving mindset that's overtaken consumers.

Good luck changing that.

Walking home, the air was still warm and while I was hungry, I'd had my conversational jones satisfied earlier and I knew I should get home to work, so I decided to stop at the Cultured Swine for a quick meal.

While I'm waiting for my BLTotally Awesome, the cook asks the cashier to look at the impressive Tarheel taco he's working on, at how amazingly beautiful its presentation is. Of course I'm going to stand up and take a peek at the N.C.-style barbecue he's laid out on a tortilla in three perfect meaty mounds.

"Sometimes I impress myself," he jokes, before finishing the taco off with a mountain of coleslaw and Swine sauce, only to show it off again. "Damn, look at this! Now it's even prettier!"

I came awfully close to changing my order, but I'm a huge fan of his house bacon because it's so thickly sliced it almost crosses out of bacon territory, plus he serves it with the freshest of mixed greens on a a baguette, a combo I love.

By the time my sandwich came out, I was deep into an episode of "Twilight Zone" called "The Four of Us are Dying" about a guy who could change his face to elude people, except that didn't always work out for him when he ran into someone from the face's past, like the boxer's Dad who hated him for breaking his mothers heart by running off and ruining his girlfriend's life.

So despite my intention to grab and go, there I was happily drinking a glass bottle of Sprite (zero profit in glass recycling, by the way), eating my Awesome and watching '60s television after waking up to pose, voting Republican, going to a stranger's house and talking trash.

I'm sure this day could have gotten weirder, I'm just not sure how.

Thank God I'm an Urban Girl

In the ongoing saga of "You know you're old when...," I had to explain Kodachrome to a woman tonight.

I was at the Valentine, taking in the vintage photography show, "Edith Shelton's Richmond," a sampling of the thousands of color photographs taken by an amateur photographer in Richmond during the '60s, '70s and '80s, and particularly intrigued by her focus on the Jackson Ward and Carver neighborhoods.

For me, the photographs were a treasure trove of neighborhood streets and blocks I pass often. A horse-drawn ice wagon on Baker Street, the horse grazing on grass, a little girl on Brook Road two blocks from my house, the John Woo Laundry on Second Street. Houseboats that used to reside at 17th and Dock Streets.

In true Kodachrome style, a shot of Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church on Easter Sunday in the 1950s was a riot of colorful hats against cars of orange, dark blue, pale green and turquoise.

Because Edith had shot on slide film - Kodachrome- the Valentine had included a carousel slide projector and an explanation of the vivid beauty of Kodachrome. After reading it, the woman walked over to friends and asked if they knew the song "Kodachrome."

They didn't. Eavesdropping, of course, I spoke before I thought, asking how she could not know "Kodachrome."

"You know it?" she responded incredulously. "It came up on my playlist today and then I just read that sign about it. That's what the song was about?"

Clearly she was having a moment of synchronicity.

So it was that I wound up downstairs at the Valentine Museum explaining what Paul Simon's song was about to three people who'd never heard of it. Because somebody's got to.

I'd walked there for this month's Community Conversation, but I'd arrived early because I wanted to check out Alyssa Solomon's photography exhibit, "A Chicken in Every Plot" about Richmond's backyard chicken scene.

Since backyard chickens became legal again, people all over town - Church Hill, Fulton Hill, Woodland Heights, Windsor Farms, the Executive Mansion, even my beloved Jackson Ward - now have yard birds in residence and chicken-owner Alyssa photographed them.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm fascinated by coop architecture since that seems to be one way people can express themselves, besides with their choice of fanciful breeds of chicken. Fun fact learned tonight: it was English breeding with Chinese fowl that resulted in those fancifully-plumed birds in the pictures.

Adding to the cool factor was a wall of photographs of deviled egg dishes, those fanciful plates meant to hold slippery egg halves and look just as pretty when they're empty, which never takes long with deviled eggs. From the Valentine collection came egg cups, egg cozies (who knew?), metal egg crates and a 1935 photograph of a woman and her chickens in Jackson Ward.

The exhibition tied in nicely with tonight's Community Conversation topic: Urban Farming, which brought out a really good-sized crowd. I'd barely slapped on a name tag and found a seat when a friend sat down next to me and a stranger looked at my name tag and said, "Hi, Karen! You have great hair" moments before things got started.

The Valentine's director always starts things off with a slide show from the collection and tonight's showed us images of the many outdoor farm markets Richmond once had, as well as a wonderful shot of a woman picking blackberries in the shadow of the John Marshall Hotel.

A few of the images shown were even Edith Shelton's, abundantly obvious because of their brilliant colors.

Next came audience polling to figure out who we were and what we think about certain subjects. This part of the evening always starts with a fun question so people can get the hang of the devices we use and tonight's question was about what happened in Iowa.

Once results were in, facilitator Matt observed, "Hmm, 42% of you are Sanders supporters and you're at an urban agriculture event. How interesting!"

Politics aside, discussion was robust tonight because there were so many people passionate about the topic in attendance. I don't know about the others, but from 31st Street Baptist Church's nine-year old urban farm to Tricycle Garden's Manchester farmette which I just saw for the first time last month, I learned all kinds of things tonight.

Like Slow Food RVA and the ARK of Taste, a living catalog of local foods facing extinction, such as the Hayman sweet potato, Hog Island sheep, Bradford watermelon and Hog Island fig, all delicious and all being brought back by local chefs, seed savers and food lovers.

We used to have 15,000 kinds of apples growing and now we have 1,500.

Pigs are the only animal you can't have in the city. You can have up to four hens, but no roosters. We have one cow in the city and multiple horses. Spayed feral cats with up-to-date shots are available free if you have a mice problem on your property.

Talking about how so many people get into urban farming by first growing tomatoes, the guy next to me nailed it. "Tomatoes are the gateway drug to farming." All hail the heirloom.

Unrelated to farming, but best story: the FBI did a raid on a local house and found a cottonmouth snake being used to guard the owners' drugs and money. Brilliant, right?

And then there's what other people learned.

Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day

Isn't it?

Smart Enough

Let's get this out of the way right off the bat: I voted.

Some things are just non-negotiable, like eating deviled eggs on National Deviled  Egg Day (yesterday, and, yes, I did, at Shoryuken, if you must know) and voting is one of them.

Other activities are optional.

But since I'd missed Matmos' show last night at Black Iris, I consoled myself with seeing them at The Depot, where they drew a huge crowd, played some of their music and videos and gave what was loosely termed an "artists' talk."

Note quotations.

VCU sound artist Stephen Vitiello began by welcoming the throngs, saying, "For those of you smart enough to come, welcome."

Drew, who did the lion's share of talking about the electronic music duo's music and creative process, while his partner in life and music, Martin, provided the low-voiced, hilarious color commentary, began by skewering the notion of the artist's talk, saying it was all about pleasuring the artist.

To prove his point, he squeezed his own nipples as he spoke.

After playing one of their songs from "The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of the Beast," - during which they both laid down on mats on the floor, causing a flurry of students to snap photos with their phones - Drew explained its genesis.

"Anyone here ever hard of the Germs?" he inquired and I wasn't the only one to raise my hand. "Anyone here have a germ burn?"

Not a soul did, understandable given the age of the group, but also that a Germ burn used to be acquired by allowing self-loathing and closeted lead singer Darby to hold a lighted cigarette to a fan's wrist to mark them.

The tie-in to the song? The manipulated sounds we'd heard were of Drew's wrist being burnt, his cries of pain and Martin shaving his head. Honestly, it had just sounded like really interesting electronic music to my unsophisticated ear.

His point was that there is sound for sound's sake and sound that delivers information. Clearly we all felt differently about the song after learning what we were hearing.

Talking about their show last night, Drew said they purposely push for autonomy of sound by using quad sound, making it impossible for people in the audience to record. "So if you do record it, your file will sound like shit," Drew said with obvious delight. "That's our insistence on presence in the moment."

Sigh. My heroes.

He made the point that he didn't want to be the old man yelling and shaking his fist at Soundcloud, but that the huge audio sound in the room was the point of being at the show.

Their breakthrough was a piece that was based on manipulating amplified crayfish nerve tissue  and, yes, you read that right. "As a result of that song, we were called scientists of sound and surgeons of sound and so we were given all this credit we didn't deserve."

Humility is a beautiful thing.

They loved working with Bjork, who told them that she wanted their collaboration to be like Utopia with no suffering. "Yea, we want this job," they told her happily.

Drew, a tenured Shakespeare professor at Johns Hopkins, was a fascinating speaker, never losing his thread no matter how many tangents he took, but his best line came near the end.

"No one would go to a restaurant that only served mussel meat and bouillon cubes and that's what EDM is." I may like some EDM, but I like this analogy even better.

Although it had been a beautiful, blue sky kind of afternoon when I'd walked up the steps to the Depot, by the time I got out it was dark and getting cooler by the minute. Meanwhile, I am counting the days until March 6th when we spring forward and life gets warm and bright again.

Tonight was the Valentine's Community Conversation, this month on the topic of housing, particularly public and affordable.

Looking at photographs from the Valentine's extensive collection, we saw many dilapidated wood frame houses - or maybe shacks would be a better word - in Carver and on Second Street in Jackson Ward, houses in such awful shape it broke your heart to think people lived in them. Many, we learned had dirt floors.

I learned a new architecture term - dogtrot house - and saw examples on Moore Street, which I'd passed by on my walk this very morning. Two one story wooden structures connected by a breezeway, this was the first I'd ever heard of such a thing, although I'd seen something similar in Carver and wondered about it.

We saw the Carverettes, a youth group, cleaning up the neighborhood in the '60s, a scale model of what Randolph would look like from the '70s and the first Habitat for Humanity house in Richmond, built in Church Hill in 1990.

Truth be told, I could look at old photographs of the city for the entire two-hour community conversation, but that's not how this works.

Instead we use handheld devices to find out the demographics of the room (always a whiter representation than the actual city and usually more females than representative) and then break into small groups to discuss issues related to the topic.

Tonight it was fact or fiction statements about housing and welfare, house values and HUD. Our group had a terrific advantage in Lillian, who actually lived in public housing and could give us a hard-won feel for what that life was like.

The expert panel brought together the impressive TK (40+ years in the job) from Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority, Bernard and David from the Better Housing Coalition (photographs of the Cary and Meadow area before their residential and retail redevelopment projects were downright scary) and Jane from Habitat, who said prospective homeowners are expected to take classes and put in 350 hours of sweat equity to qualify for a mortgage.

Probably the most compelling discussions were about inclusionary housing - where a percentage of affordable housing is built along with market housing - and how race and politics play such a huge role in making those decisions.

Even once the evening ended, I was there for another 20 minutes talking with a woman who challenged what the benefit was to mixing people from affordable and market housing in the same neighborhood or complex.

As someone who moved from a very suburban white bread, homogeneous community into a very diverse urban one, I have extremely strong opinions on the subject.

With my intellect stimulated, I moved on to mindless fun. Tonight I'd been invited to the preview of the new Vagabond restaurant in the old Coda space next to the National.

I arrived late enough that every crumb of food that had been put out was long gone, but enough people remained to socialize with, including the chef's wife, newly blond, the real estate agent I run into everywhere and the former critic whom I'm always happy to see.

Curious about how they'd transformed the enormous space, I was charmed by a red textured and partially stenciled wall, another with crystals and constellations painted on and everywhere, small touches - flowers, glasses, framed art from the old Magpie - that gave a sense of personality to the two floors.

Airlift cocktail in hand, I got a tour from the chef - the easy access directly to the floor of the National and the VIP section is awfully appealing  - and settled in to chat with a foodie and a restaurateur.

This is how I learned that when Daniel Ratcliffe was in town, he ate repeatedly at Buckhead's (bleu cheese-crusted fillet every time) and Osaka, but drank at neither, having given up the sauce a few years ago. I knew he'd been in town - I'd seen his bus parked at Quirk Hotel - but heard he'd begun at the Jefferson and decided to move.

Hardly surprising. Of course Harry Potter would prefer funky over staid.

After a protracted discussion of adopting country dogs and bringing them to the city, why the "Gilmore Girls" is such a good source for fashion tips (her statement, not mine, since I've never seen the show) and a thorough analysis of "Burnt" (saw it last night after the ramen, steamed buns and deviled eggs) with the restaurateur who'd seen it at Cinebistro, I decided I'd had enough fun for one night.

An invitation to join the talkers for a nightcap at Heritage failed to change my mind.

Maybe it was depression. I'd just been told that Republicans had held onto the Virginia Senate.

At least it wasn't my fault. I voted.

Go, Dog, Go

With Fall comes the chance to talk to strangers and discuss the city.

Tonight was the first of this season's Community Conversations at the Valentine and the broad appeal topic was transportation. Coming on the heels of the bike race and the recent attention to that form of getting around, I was expecting some lively discussion.

It took a while for everybody to settle down, despite director Bill Martin's attempts (similar to herding cats, I'd imagine) and when people finally acknowledged him by sitting, he responded with, "Gracious, people!"

Inevitably, one of the very best parts of these conversations involves no one talking but Bill and that's when he shares some of the fabulous photographs in the Valentine's collection (compiled by a savvy intern) that pertain to the topic.

The first one nailed it all: a shot of a horse and wagon followed by a carriage followed by a car. There it was.

There were so many pictures of places I walk by on a regular basis, places such as a vintage shot of Great Shiplock Park in use. He said that Broad Street and 6th, 7th and 8th streets are about the most photographed in the city and we saw plenty from those junctions, crowded with horses and wagons, trolleys, cars and buses.

During his presentation, he made several terribly interesting points: that mass transportation and public transportation are not the same thing.

That while people have a tendency to romanticize the trolleys (which I hadn't realized were constructed and run by real estate development companies, not the city), they forget how they segregated the city by economic class, race, religion and ethnicities, too. Nothing romantic about that.

Next came the usual polling phase of the evening where each of us used hand-held devices to answer questions to determine who was in the room. For instance, 73% of us were city residents and we were predominantly male tonight.

When polled on our two favorite things about the city - people, neighborhoods, outdoor activities, history, Short Pump Towne Center, those kinds of things. - I was amazed to see that culture was not one of the options.

Naturally, I chose "other" to represent the absent culture. No surprise, absolutely no one chose the faux village of Short Pump.

Next came small group time where we discussed the statements found on cards we'd each been given. Mine read, "Fact or fiction: Using public transit is slower than traveling in a car." My group agreed that that's not always so given the constraints of one-way streets and finding parking.

But it was, "Fact or fiction: it's safer to ride a bike on the sidewalk than the street." that really got everyone jabbering. One guy said he'd nearly mowed down two bicyclists on the sidewalk near Lee's Chicken because he'd been making the turn and never thought to scan the sidewalk for bikers.

Another older woman made the point that some people ride on the sidewalk because they don't feel safe in a bike lane. Personally, as a daily walker, I hate bikes on the sidewalk and when they whiz past me, I want to be that old man who raises his fist and reminds them it's a sidewalk not a sideride.

But I refrain.

In hearing what the other groups talked about, one guy was beaming with pleasure, saying his group had talked about all the transit options available. "I found like-minded people," he boasted.

"That's your tribe?" facilitator Matt asked him.Without a doubt, that is one of the benefits of these community conversations. Usually people who come are passionate about their feelings.

Our expert panel was made up of Carrie from GRTC who did a succinct summary of the proposed bus rapid transit, Jacob from the city's bike/pedestrian initiative and Charles from RVA Rapid Transit, a citizens' group.

One of the slides shown was a pie chart of different kinds of bike riders, such as "never" or "strong and fearless."

The largest section - 60%- was the segment of those who wanted to ride more but weren't sure how comfortable they were with the associated issues. They were labeled "interested but concerned."

The Man About Town, sitting in front of me, responded with, "That's me on most things" and let out a chuckle. Ba dum bum.

Charles talked about the difficulty of getting the nine local governments together to agree on anything, much less get anything built in this region. We're the 44th largest metro area in the US by population, but we rank 92nd in the top 100 areas for public transit. Let's face it, that's embarrassing.

Although I'd been to one of the bus rapid transit community meetings, I didn't know until tonight that they'd identified the BRT corridors that need to come after Broad Street is finished. If Hull Street, Midlothian Turnpike and Jeff Davis Highway BRT routes are built, Richmond would go from 27% of the population to 80% being connected by public transit.

Far less embarrassing.

The Q & A provided even more fascinating nuggets. Carrie told us, "Chesterfield County owns half of GRTC. Spoiler alert." I find this especially fascinating since Chesterfield is also the county that has historically wanted no buses because they'd just as soon keep people without cars out of their sprawling county.

So you can imagine the audience's surprise when Charles told us his group had met with the Woodlake Homeowners' Association, that bastion of suburban hell living. "Your eyes will bug out, but they want it." Eyes were bugged. Seems they think it'll improve that stretch of Hull Street from the city line to them (property values, you know).

People still had questions, but one thing Bill insists on is that all community conversations end on time, so we did (mostly), although plenty of lingering involved furthering some of those conversations.

I enjoy talking to strangers, but if you want to have a seven-hour conversation with me, I'm going to have to know you a whole lot better. Spoiler alert.

There Were Never Such Devoted

Most common response: How did you not kill each other?

Today was a testament to the peccadilloes of family. You see, my Dad is in a local hospital after surgery for kidney stones. As the sole Richmond daughter of six, I am the closest to the hospital and, by default, the hostess to all who come down to see Dad.

Colorful Sister #3 was the first. Well, actually, Sister #5 was the first because she was there with my mother at the hospital room when I arrived to take up my post. But she soon headed north for Maryland, leaving me and Sister #3 to carry on caring for Dad.

Perhaps our most compelling conversation was about whether Mom or Dad had chosen each of our names and middle names. Mom settled the score, making it clear which names had been chosen by whom and why. These were stories I'd never heard shared.

Naturally, I had to invite Sister #3 out for a bite and a drink since she'd never come to visit me in Richmond.

While she tied up loose ends at the hospital, I visited the Valentine Museum for the opening of "In Gear: Richmond Cycles," a look at how our fair city took to and advanced the cause of the bike. Because it was the Valentine, there was a fabulous slide show of (far superior) old black and white photographs and (interesting but lesser) color cigarette cards documenting the development of bicycle culture here.

Every aspect - Christmas morning with tricycles, courting couples, families on bikes all wearing black socks - was covered along with actual bikes owned by Richmonders. Video showed extended shots of local cyclists. In the crowd I saw bike kids, rich people and artsy types, all curious about Richmond's cycling past.

Back at my house, I met Sister #3 for a nickel tour ("It's not at all tiny like Mom said") before heading the seven blocks to Magpie. The Rolling Stones were blaring and we waited patiently for two bar stools to empty out before taking our rightful places at the bar.

Having given herself over to Fall, she went with red wine, but I held out for La Bella Fernando Tempranillo Blanco (because why not a white skinned mutation of the dark-skinned Tempranillo?) and a plate of roasted goat shoulder, Romesco, petite salad, orange vinaigrette and Manchego. Beer bread and honey butter filled in the cracks. Our server shared that the very same goat had been the taco filling at lunch of late, a Magpie meal I've yet to experience.

Because it was her first time there, I strongly suggested my sister begin with Chef Owen's pork and Manchego sausage, an obscenely large portion of sausage and onion rings. "Go on, I know you like a good onion ring," my sister cajoled, so I did.

Both servers, upon hearing of our status as one of six daughters inquired, "How have you not killed each other?" It's a question I ask only when I spend any time with one of them.

Our conversation about family travails caught the attention of the bartender, who was a middle child (like Sister #3) with a younger sister. "I could tell you were sisters by the way you talked to each other and the way you talked about your Mom and Dad," she explained. With exasperation, right?

The funny part is that Sister #3 and I are far from the closest but yet share certain very particular traits. Both city people, we are outspoken and at ease anywhere. Not so others (sisters #2, 4 and often 5). If anyone's going to dance on tables, it's the two of us.

In fact, years ago, Dad shared with me that the sisters could be split into two groups. Half were the result of a romantic meal with Mom and tender lovemaking afterwards.

The other three (and I fall into this group, as you may be able to tell) were conceived after wild nights out with guy friends where he came home and had a ripping good time with Mom. As you might imagine, the resulting spawn are wildly different.

Celebrating the sisterhood, we enjoyed corn bread cake with Nutella ice cream and blackberry gastrique to end the meal, discussing how Bessie, our Richmond grandmother, had been an impressive role model when it came to fried chicken, biscuits, string beans, walking, abstinence and life advice.

Perhaps because we'd been so flamboyantly different than her and her Cumberland County ways, we'd appreciated her wisdom. Sister #3 even selected her as the person she'd most like to talk to from the grave, should she be given the chance to glean from a past family member. I didn't go that far.

What finally ended our evening of reminiscing and one upmanship was that my sister needed to get back to her hotel. Seems her husband had discovered online that she'd booked herself into a local pet-friendly hotel and like any good spouse had decided to gather up the dog, drive down from Baltimore and come spend the night with her in Richmond.

I'd be barfing at the corniness of it if it wasn't quite romantic. He's off tomorrow, she's in a nearby city (relatively speaking - it's a 2 1/2 hour drive), so why shouldn't he come help keep her king size bed warm?

I may never have hitchhiked barefoot to Ocean City like Sister #3 did, but we're blood brothers sisters when it comes to some things. Did she get loopy and over-share tonight with people I know and she doesn't? Of course.

Isn't that what middle sisters do?

Thanks for the Memories

A friend got me thinking about gratitude.

I could tell as we drove to eat that he was down and that a lot of stressful stuff had been going on in his life since we'd last gone out. Bit by bit, he shared as he drove and I listened.

By the time we arrived at the restaurant, he was looking for a reaction from me. I told him that the good news was that all these seemingly negative things were nothing more than a clear indicator that his life was going in new directions.

Yes, I've been called Pollyanna on occasion.

He didn't respond immediately, but later, over our second course, he looked at me and said, "I just need to remember to have gratitude." I agreed.

Then he launched into a story about a woman he frequently sees standing on a corner near his house in Carver staring at the sky, her middle finger extended upward. Is she flipping off passers-by? Examining her digit? Crazy as a loon?

"If nothing else, I need to be grateful I'm not her," he said and that led to a discussion of all the things he has gratitude for, including my friendship.

A former boyfriend used to frequently comment on my equilibrium, once asking if I looked in the mirror every day and said affirming things to myself. Can't say that I do.

But I do have gratitude for whatever life I'm living at any given time. This week, I'm oozing gratitude for no longer being in the grip of food poisoning and its lingering (and challenging) aftereffects. Spring's arrival means I'm also grateful that I no longer need to pay for heat or wear a sweater all day.

By the time we left the restaurant, I could tell his mood had improved significantly and not just because we'd eaten ourselves into a stupor.

He was headed out to Blacksburg for work tonight while my destination was going to be the Valentine Museum for this month's Community Conversation.

After parking my car, I headed to the kiosk to buy some parking time when I heard a voice across the street calling out, "Miss! Miss in the green skirt!"

The Valentine parking attendant across the street was telling me not to bother paying for parking since restrictions ended in ten minutes. Unsure about risking a ticket, I paused. What if the traffic gestapo was just evil enough to show up in the waning minutes and leave me a citation?

"I'll throw myself across your car and stop them." Good enough.

Inside was a smaller crowd than usual for tonight's discussion of Carver, a neighborhood that interests me because it's adjacent to Jackson Ward. What I love about these events is not only seeing old photos from the Valentine's collection, but hearing from locals and experts about the 'hood.

For instance, Carver was called Sheep Hill for over a century. Only in 1948 when they built Carver School did they change the name. And, while the former name sounds sylvan, it's actually a nod to the sheep that were herded along Leigh Street to a nearby Brook Road slaughterhouse.

Not nearly as bucolic, eh?

Unlike my beloved J-Ward which was always a mix of business and residential, Carver always had industry in the mix with furniture factories and shopping cart makers.

Because I walk through Carver so often on my daily march or even to the grocery store, it's an area I know well, alleys, side streets and all, so seeing images of it 70 or 100 years ago was eye-opening.

Some of the most fascinating photos we saw were of the extension of Belvidere Street over I-95. That construction apparently took out a police station at Belvidere and Marshall as well as a local bakery. The Home Brewing building was where Richbrau beer was originally brewed. Who knew?

The odd little houses I'd seen on Catherine Street turned out to be prototype "Carver Houses," small-scale dwellings designed to get people out of dilapidated 19th century shacks and into something "modern."

As always happens with these events, part of the time is devoted to determining the demographic in the room so we use small devices to answer questions about age, sex and domicile. Tonight, one of the questions was about how we felt about Duke winning.

I was part of the 33% who responded with, "What did they win?"

When we broke into small groups to discuss our memories and vision for Carver, I was fortunate enough to wind up with a 27-year resident, an 8-month resident two years out of VCU and the woman who does the Carver walking tour for the Valentine.

It wound up being a discussion of Carver's evolution with so many VCU students now living there. I mentioned having seen drunk kids on many a weekend night there, a fact which appalled the Museum District resident in our group.

He couldn't understand how underage kids had access to alcohol but the recent graduate explained just how easy that was accomplished. "Well, it doesn't sound like Carver is anyplace I want to go if there are drunk kids walking the streets at night," he sputtered. Okay, so don't go.

A longtime Carver resident looked at him and asked rhetorically, "Didn't you get drunk when you were a student?" and Mr. Indignant said an emphatic "no!"

Some of the most enlightening information came via the researcher who explained that Carver's population had more than doubled between 2000 and 2010 from 1000 residents to 2100.

Most interesting about that was that although the perception is that it's whites who've replaced blacks, in truth both the black and white population have grown as well as the Asian and Hispanic. So it's just more diverse in general.

Tonight's speaker was a 24-year Carver resident and city planner who took us through the evolution of the neighborhood as he'd experienced it.

In the '90s, he said it was "sort of okay" during the day and "dodgy" at night. Lots of drug dealing and prostitution.

He recalled hearing the new bells at Cathedral of the Sacred Heart and going outside for a better listen. There he spotted some bills on the ground and came up with $440. He checked and it didn't belong to his neighbors, so while he wasn't comfortable spending someone else's money, he put it in the bank and spent his other money. True story.

I'd always wondered why there were two power stations in Carver, one right on Clay next to houses and another by the school. He said nobody objected to putting them in black neighborhoods back then.

"On the other hand, we never lose power in Carver," he quipped.

We heard about how at one time VCU was considering putting the school of social work at Belvidere and Broad but then-president Trani thought it was too remote to make students go that far. Hell, now it's student housing.

Another juicy tidbit was that a VCU/Carver partnership had been formed and the school had promised not to expand north of Marshall without the invitation of Carver's group. Of course that didn't stop private development geared at students north of Marshall.

I couldn't have been more surprised that Carver had approved that basketball training facility they're now constructing on Marshall.

But for every sad tale, he had a good one. "The Lowe's replaced the saddest A & P in America," he recalled. I never saw the A & P, but everyone in the city uses that Lowe's.

He concluded by saying that there was nowhere else in the city he'd want to live, a sentiment I can relate to since I can't imagine living anywhere but Jackson Ward. That's part of that gratitude thing, finding where you belong and being okay with it.

Because no matter where that might be, sometimes you just need to realize that in the grand scheme of things, at least you're not that person on the corner giving the finger to the world.

Or if you are, be grateful it makes you happy.

Walk Behind Me

When the French flag is flying over the Byrd Theater, I know it's time for my annual binge-watching.

While it was tough to abandon a sunny, 77-degree afternoon to enter the darkness of the Byrd Theater, no self-respecting French film lover would do otherwise.

Given that it was the first day of the festival, what surprised me was that it wasn't more crowded, although 4:30 on a Thursday afternoon isn't ideal for the 9 to 5 set.

As the first film of the day, it came closest to starting when it claimed it would. If there is one thing the French Film Festival is not, it's punctual about starting.

"Do you know why you're special?" Peter, the FFF organizer, asked of us about the film borrowed from the British Film Institute. "You're about to see the only 35 mm copy with English subtitles of this movie in the world."

I'll be the first to admit that I get a kick out of knowing that sort of thing,

The film was Francois Truffaut's "Day for Night" and considering I'd only seen one Truffaut movie in my entire life ("Wild Child"), I figured I owed it to myself to be there to see the cinematographer and stunt coordinator of the film introduce it.

When the film started, I was immediately reminded of how much I enjoy watching movies on film and not video. I love the look of film.

The 1973 film was about a director (Truffaut acting) making a film (maybe that's why it won the Oscar for best foreign film) and starred Jacqueline Bisset, an actress I'd forgotten all about, but remember all the guys being hot for at the time.

It had plenty of very French moments - "Walk in front of me so I can look at your behind" - as well as a story that involved everyone falling into bed with everyone else oh-so casually. Or maybe that was more of a '70s moment like a package arriving in brown paper tied up with string.

"Do you think women are magical?" one immature guy asks his co-workers. "Some are and some are not," he's told by a woman. By a man, it's, "No, but their legs are because they wear skirts and we wear pants."

I already had an inkling of that.

When filming on the movie within a movie ends, it's with one character's simple conclusion: "My sweet, my darling, you're wonderful. We all need that." Do we ever, none more so than those who don't get it much.

So now I've seen my second Truffaut film, enjoyed it immensely and realize I need to see more.

Walking out of the theater, the air was almost as soft and warm as when I'd walked in, although we were on our way to sunset.Still, it was a treat to not be the slightest bit chilly going outside.

Having taken a pass on the next French offering, I headed straight to the Valentine for the opening of "Beard Wars," a brilliantly curated new exhibit.

Making my way through a crowd that included some of the most awe-inspiring beards you can imagine, I found myself in front of a wall of photographs both new (by the multi-talented Terry Brown) and old (no doubt from the collection).

On the left hand side of each was a Civil War general with a picture and a description of the man and what he was known for. On the right hand side, a picture of a Richmond guy with a very similar beard and a bit about him.

I knew we had some world-class beards in this town (hence the Richmond Beard and 'Stache League) but I have to say there were some magnificent match-ups.

One guy's wife asked him to shave his beard because it was scratchy and he compromised by shaving his chin, leaving his mustache, mutton chops and side beard, also knows as "friendly mutton chops." Friendly to the wife, I suppose. See? I was learning new things.

Another guy had come out at the First Annual Mid-Atlantic Beard and 'Stache Competition, figuring it was the best way to show people how he self-identified. Well done.

Midway through the show, I ran into a photographer friend, IPA in hand, and chatted with her long enough to learn that she checks my blog any time she runs into me to see if she merits a mention. This is that.

Yet another said he first grew facial hair when he hit puberty because he hates to shave. Hate, he repeated in case we weren't clear on that. One used his nipple-length beard as a conversation starter. Curly, straight, gray, red, blond and brunette. One guy's mustache was wider than his face.

There were also on display four shaving mugs and a rare silver-plated mustache cup (to keep your beverage out of your 'stache) from the collection.

Turning from the cups, I almost ran into a guy with mutton chops and a fabulous handlebar mustache handing off his beer - complete with straw - to his mother. She and I chatted for a bit and I joked that her son should have brought a mustache cup so he wouldn't have to use a straw. "I offered to bring mine for him but he said no," she claimed. So much for my joke.

Turns out her son has a sponsorship from a facial hair grooming product company, meaning his visage has appeared in a British sporting magazine and he's gone to Austin to compete in beard competitions on the company's dime.

Who knew facial hair had such big payoffs?

In case you can't tell, I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibit and a big part of that was because of how it had been curated with the generals for comparison. It was like a cultural lesson in the similarities in facial hair between now and 150 years ago.

Leaving the show, I walked past three bearded guys shooting the breeze in parking lot. Two of them had beards past their arm pits. It truly was impressive.

Back in Carytown, I dropped by Secco for a glass of J. Mourat Collection Rose and a hilarious story. As a guy is leaving Secco, his friend spots him from across the street, yelling to ask what in the world he's doing at a wine bar.

"This where bitches be at!" he hollers from Secco's front door all the way across Cary Street. The owner is thinking of having that screened on t-shorts for the staff. I seconded the motion.

From there, I went on to admire photographs of a friend's mother from the '60s, '70s and '80s. What a stylish creature she had been despite a cigarette frequently in hand. Some were even taken in Paris, making them an ideal prelude to my next stop: more French film.

The crowd for "The Return of Martin Guerre" was half the size of the one for the 7:00 film, but I guess that's to be expected on a school night when you're talking about a film that doesn't start until after 9 p.m.

Introduced by its director, Daniel Vigne, the film appealed to me because it was one of a handful of the films that made up my first exposure to foreign films and I still recall being moved by it, partly because it had been based on a true story.

Something that struck me tonight that would not have occurred to me in 1982 was that it was a film about identity theft in the 16th century. How au courant a theme is that? And, get this, the village where the story took place faded back into obscurity after the notoriety of the film, only to grab the headlines again four years ago because a terrorist cell was discovered there.

Mon dieu, it was fascinating to see Gerard Depardieu young (34) and not as big as a whale like he was in "My Afternoons with Margueritte," which I also saw at the FFF.

Just as compelling was how much more relatively realistically the 16th century was portrayed in 1982 than it would be now. People's clothing looked dirty and hand-sewn. If the actress who played Martin Guerre's wife had on any make-up at all, it was undetectable. It's ridiculous to see a woman playing a peasant and see that she's wearing mascara or even the palest of lipstick.

That said, I don't buy Martin returning from fighting wars after nine years with a bowl-cut haircut. Seems unlikely.

What I particularly enjoyed was watching the love story unfold between the Martin pretender and the neglected wife of the real Martin. The actors conveyed a very touching and sensual relationship.

Being totally engrossed in the film, I couldn't have been more surprised when the two women in my row got up and left an hour into the film. What, you don't like a well-acted true story, shot in a real medieval village and scripted to use words like 'calumny'?

Be gone, ladies. Obviously we're not cut from the same cloth.

Your legs must not be as magical as mine.