Virginia is no longer just for straight lovers, but for all lovers. And about damn time.
With gender issues blaring from the headlines this week as same sex marriage became legal here, it's kind of thrilling to step out of the shadow of so many embarrassing stories about Virginia and feel proud we are, if not ahead of the curve, at last riding the wave of progressive thought for a change.
What better reason to spend an evening further blurring gender lines using magnificent language and a ratio of 13 women to 4 men to tell a tale of cross-dressing, passionate love and drunkenness? What I mean is, I may not want to be a man, but I can dig watching women play men all night long.
That's just what I was going for when Pru and I made our way to the Speakeasy, right here in lovely downtown Jackson Ward, for a gender-reversed exploration of "Twelfth Night."
The latest in director BC Maupin's mission to produce Shakespeare's entire canon using women in men's roles, I've yet to miss a reading and, frankly, it's because of girl parts.
I love seeing that many women on stage. It doesn't matter what the play is - goodness knows I've seen "Twelfth Night" produced a lot - because even a familiar play takes on a different shape and feel when women are playing the male roles.
We arrived in time to grab a good table and eat bowls of gumbo full of shrimp, chicken and sausage topped with a perfect ball of rice and cornbread buttons before the play began. I was asked to move my chair around a bit as I was apparently right in one of the paths the actors would be using to come and go.
The action began with several locations - on top of the upright piano, from upstairs in the balcony where part of the audience sat and from either side of the bar behind us.
It was clear we were in for a treat when Molly Hood and Melissa Johnston Price stumbled out from between the tables playing drunken cohorts Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Sir Toby Belch.
A plague o' these pickle herring!
While technically, these gender-reversed plays are readings because the cast is still holding their scripts, it's not the kind of reading where actors sit in chairs and just read. Instead, they're out there cutting a caper, one might say, especially these two drunken masters.
Come, come, I'll go burn some sack. 'Tis too late to go to bed now.
Ditto Robert Throckmorton who was playing the fair Olivia, the object of the Duke of Orsino's affection, who after saying the line, "Give me my veil. Come, throw it over my face," proceeded to clip sunglasses shades over his regular glasses.
Our cross-dressing heroine Viola was played by Alexander Sapp with a scarf on his head and adoration in his eyes.
During the scene where the fake letter is left out for Malvolio to "accidentally" discover," the drunken trio of Toby, Andrew and Fabian (the always funny Jacqueline O'Connor) crouched behind a nearby bar table subbing for a hedge of bushes. Moving from there to beside our table, Toby and Fabian pulled out straws to mooch sips of people's drinks from them, including Toby taking a long pull on Pru's Pinot Noir.
The versatility award went to the energetic Rebecca Anne Muhleman playing Feste, the fool, singing like an angel and even playing piano when necessary.
I am indeed not her fool but her corrupter of words.
The Speakeasy space was put to excellent use, given that it was crowded with tables full of Shakespeare fans, like when the excellent Becki Jones as the beleaguered Malvolio is in jail, with the railing of the balcony suggesting the bars on his cell.
Watching the tall Jay Millman play the servant wench and instigator Maria, a character I think of as short and curvy (busty even), I had to keep reminding myself he was a she.
No matter how well you know the play, it was inevitable that there'd be times when you were looking at the actors trying to remember who was who. As a guy at the next table asked, "So, that's a guy playing a girl who's a boy?" His date nailed the answer. "Okay."
To put fire in your heart and brimstone in your liver.
It was easier just to go with the flow and enjoy watching the sexes play each other. One thing I did notice was how much more believable women are at playing men than men playing women. Maybe it's just me, but it rings truer to see women showing strength than seeing men showing adoration and fawning.
Of course, an added bonus of "Twelfth Night" is that in addition to all that great comedy plus love stories, you get the touching scene at the end where siblings Viola and Sebastian realize the other isn't dead, a truly moving moment even after so many times.
Love sought is good but given unsought, better.
During the talkback with the actors afterwards, there was much discussion of whether it's harder playing the opposite sex in a comedy or drama.
Price/Sir Toby was adamant that doing comedy as a man was much more difficult and that she only relaxed after she'd gotten her first few big laughs from the crowd. "We knew you had a drunk man inside you," quipped Sapp.
Even if we didn't, it was a distinct pleasure to watch the actors relax into their roles, begging the question of what a full production with plenty of rehearsal time to work out playing against your sex might be like.
Good question. I'm still working out getting good at the one I was born with and it's taking a lot longer than I expected.
One thing I do know is Sir Toby, you're wrong. 'Tis never too late to go to bed. 'Tis only too early to get up.
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Westbound Number 9
I'm getting good at the quick getaway.
After Saturday night's killer dance extravaganza with Mr. Fine Wine, I didn't even get up until mid-day Sunday, so the quick trip got a late start.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. Who knows when he'll be back in town again?
Necessities and the Sunday Washington Post were thrown in a bag, lunch of fried chicken from Lee's was procured and I was westward-bound not long after 1.
Not bad for someone whose feet didn't hit the floor until almost noon.
Stop one was Lickinghole Creek Brewery for Bluegrass Sunday. This week's band was the Creekside Pickers - mandolin, dobro, guitar, banjo and upright bass -singing with the fields of hops behind them. There were plenty of people there to hear their classic pickin'...or drink beer, I don't know which.
You know which reason had me there.
Two of the music-lovers chose to sit down at the table where I was sitting and, as it turned out, had gone to high school with the dobro player.
Even better, she just happened to have the proof: her 1968 Huguenot High yearbook.
After she showed it to her former schoolmate and they showed it to the dobro player, assuring him that he looked just the same, I asked to borrow it to take in the faces, clothing and ads of 1968. It was some kind of classic.
Most of the boys had bangs swept to the side. Most of the girls had carefully arranged flips and pageboys. There were clubs such as Future Farmers of America, Future Teachers of America and - surely on its way out in '68 - Future Homemakers of America.
There was a school pep rally and lecture warning of the dangers of hallucinogenic drugs. There were a lot of American muscle cars in the school parking lot. And the cheerleaders' skirts came down to their knees.
Some of the best reading was in the back where the class of '68 had sold ads to local businesses, many of them in the Westover Hills and Forest Hills area.
But I spotted one for a car dealership on Broad Street two blocks from where I live, where a Rite-Aid now sits. So I was learning new things about my neighborhood while looking at a civilization that no longer exists.
Let me tell you, I was some kind of sorry when the yearbook's owner decided to leave and take my entertainment away.
Dinner was old school at the Cumberland Diner, a place that has a separate dining room for smokers (and advertises it on their sign) where I had a double cheeseburger, fries and a chocolate shake (made with the kind of milkshake maker my family had when I was young) and delivered in a metal cup with a long-handled spoon.
Probably a lot like they did in 1968 when those Huguenot High kids went on dates.
Monday dawned sunny and warmer, ideal for a drive to Lovingston to winery hop and procure apples from an orchard.
Arriving at Democracy Vineyards to find a handwritten note on the door saying everyone was harvesting in the fields, we turned around to go just as a voice called down from the vineyards that he was on his way.
The affable owner, clad in one-piece coveralls, drove his mule down from the Petit Manseng fields and welcomed us into the high-ceilinged tasting room decorated with original political posters from around the world and dating back to the 19th century.
My favorite was a WPA sign for a sewer project hanging in the loo.
He called himself and his wife "recovering lobbyists" and lamented the dangers of letting an architect friend design the soaring building complete with a colorful sign on the front.
"Cause nothing says 'farm winery' like an ostentatious back-lit, red, white and blue sign," he joked self-deprecatingly.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that they grow Pinotage, South Africa's signature grape, and one he'd fallen for while there, much as I had.
All the wines had patriotic names -Republic, Dawn's Light, Suffrage - and we tasted through them before taking glasses of Declaration 2013, a Chardonnay, Viognier and Petit Manseng blend, out to the porch overlooking the hills and fields to sip.
Then it was on to Drumheller's Orchard (established 1937) to get apples (Jonagolds) for cooking. My only regret was that it wasn't the weekend, so there were no hayrides and the apple sling shot wasn't in use.
Who wouldn't be curious about an apple slingshot?
A stop at Blue Ridge Pig for pig and beef barbecue sandwiches (in a rustic, log-style building with enough dusty brick-a-brack to outfit three restaurants) was better enjoyed outside on a sunny picnic table (near a stern sign warning "Absolutely NO alcohol!") next to a car wash where a man was sudsing his front end with his hands.
Cause, apparently, we don't need no stinkin' sponges in Lovingston.
Then it was time for the outbuildings tour. Headed down the gravel path to the bathroom, outside naturally, I came upon the smokehouse, a tiny wooden building with an enormous stone chimney that announced itself with the aroma of smoke as you approached it.
With that smell still on our hands, we wound through sunny back roads to King Family Winery to round out the trip.
A dozen other people were in the tasting room, more than I'd have expected late in the afternoon on a Monday. After tasting through the wines, we took a bottle of their sparkling (which they weren't even making last time I'd been there) out to a table overlooking the polo field to enjoy it as clouds rolled in over the mountains and the sky went from blue to dramatic.
After dinner at Tavern on the James in Scottsville - they were out of the appealingly-named clodhopper steak unfortunately - it was time to take it back to Saturday night.
That's right, sitting outside on the porch swing, the nearly full moon so bright that trees were casting dramatic shadows on the lawn, we tuned into Mr. Fine Wine so I could have another outstanding evening of his vintage soul music.
Just doesn't get much better than Downtown Soulville on a Monday night.
My quick trip had taken me full circle. Mercy!
After Saturday night's killer dance extravaganza with Mr. Fine Wine, I didn't even get up until mid-day Sunday, so the quick trip got a late start.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. Who knows when he'll be back in town again?
Necessities and the Sunday Washington Post were thrown in a bag, lunch of fried chicken from Lee's was procured and I was westward-bound not long after 1.
Not bad for someone whose feet didn't hit the floor until almost noon.
Stop one was Lickinghole Creek Brewery for Bluegrass Sunday. This week's band was the Creekside Pickers - mandolin, dobro, guitar, banjo and upright bass -singing with the fields of hops behind them. There were plenty of people there to hear their classic pickin'...or drink beer, I don't know which.
You know which reason had me there.
Two of the music-lovers chose to sit down at the table where I was sitting and, as it turned out, had gone to high school with the dobro player.
Even better, she just happened to have the proof: her 1968 Huguenot High yearbook.
After she showed it to her former schoolmate and they showed it to the dobro player, assuring him that he looked just the same, I asked to borrow it to take in the faces, clothing and ads of 1968. It was some kind of classic.
Most of the boys had bangs swept to the side. Most of the girls had carefully arranged flips and pageboys. There were clubs such as Future Farmers of America, Future Teachers of America and - surely on its way out in '68 - Future Homemakers of America.
There was a school pep rally and lecture warning of the dangers of hallucinogenic drugs. There were a lot of American muscle cars in the school parking lot. And the cheerleaders' skirts came down to their knees.
Some of the best reading was in the back where the class of '68 had sold ads to local businesses, many of them in the Westover Hills and Forest Hills area.
But I spotted one for a car dealership on Broad Street two blocks from where I live, where a Rite-Aid now sits. So I was learning new things about my neighborhood while looking at a civilization that no longer exists.
Let me tell you, I was some kind of sorry when the yearbook's owner decided to leave and take my entertainment away.
Dinner was old school at the Cumberland Diner, a place that has a separate dining room for smokers (and advertises it on their sign) where I had a double cheeseburger, fries and a chocolate shake (made with the kind of milkshake maker my family had when I was young) and delivered in a metal cup with a long-handled spoon.
Probably a lot like they did in 1968 when those Huguenot High kids went on dates.
Monday dawned sunny and warmer, ideal for a drive to Lovingston to winery hop and procure apples from an orchard.
Arriving at Democracy Vineyards to find a handwritten note on the door saying everyone was harvesting in the fields, we turned around to go just as a voice called down from the vineyards that he was on his way.
The affable owner, clad in one-piece coveralls, drove his mule down from the Petit Manseng fields and welcomed us into the high-ceilinged tasting room decorated with original political posters from around the world and dating back to the 19th century.
My favorite was a WPA sign for a sewer project hanging in the loo.
He called himself and his wife "recovering lobbyists" and lamented the dangers of letting an architect friend design the soaring building complete with a colorful sign on the front.
"Cause nothing says 'farm winery' like an ostentatious back-lit, red, white and blue sign," he joked self-deprecatingly.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that they grow Pinotage, South Africa's signature grape, and one he'd fallen for while there, much as I had.
All the wines had patriotic names -Republic, Dawn's Light, Suffrage - and we tasted through them before taking glasses of Declaration 2013, a Chardonnay, Viognier and Petit Manseng blend, out to the porch overlooking the hills and fields to sip.
Then it was on to Drumheller's Orchard (established 1937) to get apples (Jonagolds) for cooking. My only regret was that it wasn't the weekend, so there were no hayrides and the apple sling shot wasn't in use.
Who wouldn't be curious about an apple slingshot?
A stop at Blue Ridge Pig for pig and beef barbecue sandwiches (in a rustic, log-style building with enough dusty brick-a-brack to outfit three restaurants) was better enjoyed outside on a sunny picnic table (near a stern sign warning "Absolutely NO alcohol!") next to a car wash where a man was sudsing his front end with his hands.
Cause, apparently, we don't need no stinkin' sponges in Lovingston.
Then it was time for the outbuildings tour. Headed down the gravel path to the bathroom, outside naturally, I came upon the smokehouse, a tiny wooden building with an enormous stone chimney that announced itself with the aroma of smoke as you approached it.
With that smell still on our hands, we wound through sunny back roads to King Family Winery to round out the trip.
A dozen other people were in the tasting room, more than I'd have expected late in the afternoon on a Monday. After tasting through the wines, we took a bottle of their sparkling (which they weren't even making last time I'd been there) out to a table overlooking the polo field to enjoy it as clouds rolled in over the mountains and the sky went from blue to dramatic.
After dinner at Tavern on the James in Scottsville - they were out of the appealingly-named clodhopper steak unfortunately - it was time to take it back to Saturday night.
That's right, sitting outside on the porch swing, the nearly full moon so bright that trees were casting dramatic shadows on the lawn, we tuned into Mr. Fine Wine so I could have another outstanding evening of his vintage soul music.
Just doesn't get much better than Downtown Soulville on a Monday night.
My quick trip had taken me full circle. Mercy!
Sunday, October 5, 2014
Freak-a-Zoid
Tonight, there was no parking on the dance floor. And the good news is, I can still dance for three hours straight without a break.
The idiocy is that I waited until 1:45 to take off my shoes and dance barefoot.
Like every year, the headliner of the Second Street festival was assured of my presence and that meant Midnight Star could count on me to be one of the hundreds crowded into the parking lot at First and Marshall.
I'll admit, walking over I couldn't recall the name of a single Midnight Star song, but I spent far too much time in clubs in the '80s to think I wouldn't recognize them once I heard them.
I sure did.
Arriving just as the band took the stage, I couldn't have timed it better. It helps being alone at a shoulder to shoulder show because every time a hole opened up, I sidled up and filled it.
When a musician onstage is playing keytar, I have to get as close as I can. That and the guy in the front row wearing a red suit and matching fedora needed to be appreciated from a shorter distance.
Diving right into the '80s, they did "Headlines" and "Wet My Whistle," inciting the old guy in front of me to dance all the way to the ground getting jiggy with it while "Midas Touch" had a guy near me crooning in his woman's ear.
Giving the crowd what they wanted, the band danced in step as they played and sang. Singer Belinda got the women in the audience riled up when she started talking about not being married yet.
"You know you're lucky when you can find someone you want to spend your whole life with. I found someone and he treats me real good. But sometimes," dramatic pause here, "he can irritate a sister. You know what I'm talking about, ladies?"
We sure as hell did.
That took us into their mega-hit "Operator" and the crowd into a frenzy. "Y'all wanna do it like we did it in the '80s?" guitarist Bo hollered before they band broke into the synchronized dance moves from the original "Operator" video circa 1984, although minus the bad '80s hair and clothes.
Of course the crowd was dancing everywhere, including two women who'd come out the window of the second floor of the Jamaica restaurant to dance on the roof.
"I hope she don't fall off," a guy near me said to me. Talk about a mid-show buzz kill.
Lots of people sang along to "Night Rider" and way too many phones and cameras came out for "Curious," but what am I going to do about it? Ignore it.
Apparently Midnight Star wrote a lot of other people's hits, too, so we got to hear Klymaxx's "Meeting in the Ladies' Room," a song by Toni Braxton and the Whispers' "Rock Steady," which about brought the house down.
They cooled us off with a song we all knew (even me), "Slow Jam," and just about everyone who had a mate was slow dancing in the parking lot to that one.
But they couldn't leave us mooney, so they brought out all the stops for "No Parking on the Dance Floor" and people danced on chairs, with strangers (or was that just me?), with kids and by themselves until Midnight Star said goodnight.
Which was my signal to high tail it to dinner, namely Amour.
The restaurant was busy but there were only two people at the bar where I began with a new-to-me pink bubbly, Willm Cremant d'Alsace Rose, a light-bodied floral beauty that I could get used to. Just to confuse things, I was also offered a taste of Willm Blanc de Blanc, the sort of bubbly I could drink morning, noon or night.
With the Django Reinhardt station playing, I ordered a meat and cheese plate, trying desperately to get my order in before the ten-top did.
The array that arrived on the slate was magnificent: Petit Basque, Fourme d'Ambert, Comte and Boucheron beside dried blueberries, figs and craisins plus speck, Tuscan sausage, Olli salume and prosciutto and fresh grapes, mustards and country pate.
While chatting with whomever was available - the photographer, the runner - I dug into the spread, very happy I didn't have to share it with anyone.
Because Amour excels at pairing wine with food, I also switched wines, savoring La Tour Chambert Cahors with my meat and cheese, an ideal complement to my meal.
One of the servers told me how great my hair looked. What a great thing to be told.
I briefly considered skipping dessert, but why would I? Instead I took my server's recommendation and had a mixed berry and apple crisp with whipped cream, an ideal summer to fall transition dessert. Clearly, it had been too long since I'd eaten at Amour.
By the time I left there, a DJ had set up across the street at Cary Court, blasting his BPM to anyone within a five-block radius.
But I had other music in mind.
A drive to Church Hill landed me at Metzger for an evening with Mr. Fine Wine, a DJ I'd fallen hard for at one of my previous Metzger visits. I'd been listening to his podcasts at home ever since, smitten with his old school soul.
They'd somehow coerced him to come down and play a three-hour set and I'd not hesitated in accepting my invitation to be part of it.
First stop: the bar for a glass of Anton Bauer Rose and some quick conversation with friends before joining the throng on the dance floor.
You have to understand, Mr. Fine Wine plays totally obscure, completely danceable soul music that never lets up. Each three-minute gem leads into the next so I could never find a reason to leave the dance floor.
Who did I dance with? The recently separated baker. The wine buyer. The bartender. The DJ and his wife. The singer. The wine bar servers. The ukulele player, but only for a moment. Myself and a whole lot of strangers.
A girl came up and told me she saw me all the time in Oregon Hill and introduced herself so now we'd know each other. Then we danced.
To my recollection, the only time I wasn't dancing was when I got another glass of wine and when I got more water.
Truly, it was only when I went to the bathroom that I realized how many familiar faces were there. Two chefs. One restaurant owner. A vintage store owner. Musicians from multiple bands I've heard.
Coming back from the loo, I ran into a friend and we conspired to open the windows to allow in cool, night air to the overheated restaurant full of people dancing crazily.
The music was so good and I can honestly say I recognized only one song, "I Got My Mind Set On You," and even then, I only knew the George Harrison cover, not the original I was hearing.
Didn't matter. It was totally danceable.
When I saw DJ Mr. Fine Wine walking by, I stopped him to tell him how enthralled I'd been with his music when I'd first heard it at Metzger, even going home to listen to it online.
"That's amazing! Thank you!" he said, grabbing me in a full-on hug. So, yes, I've been hugged by Mr. Fine Wine.
Best of all, it was one of those nights where our dance moves spanned decades: the frug, the pony, the swim, the monkey and just about every variation you can imagine (or make up). After a while, I just danced and didn't care.
A group of restaurant people formed two lines, a la Soul Train, and I somehow got pulled in to dance down the middle. Why not?
At one point, I leaned over to a woman and whispered, "We're the only ones who were born when this came out." She laughed and danced with me in acknowledgement.
After two last calls, the final song played and the dancing ended. It was a heartbreaking moment as people spilled out on the sidewalk.
How was it 2 a.m. already? How had three hours passed so quickly?
Don't know, don't care. I feel certain Midnight Star would approve. I hadn't parked for so much as a second.
The idiocy is that I waited until 1:45 to take off my shoes and dance barefoot.
Like every year, the headliner of the Second Street festival was assured of my presence and that meant Midnight Star could count on me to be one of the hundreds crowded into the parking lot at First and Marshall.
I'll admit, walking over I couldn't recall the name of a single Midnight Star song, but I spent far too much time in clubs in the '80s to think I wouldn't recognize them once I heard them.
I sure did.
Arriving just as the band took the stage, I couldn't have timed it better. It helps being alone at a shoulder to shoulder show because every time a hole opened up, I sidled up and filled it.
When a musician onstage is playing keytar, I have to get as close as I can. That and the guy in the front row wearing a red suit and matching fedora needed to be appreciated from a shorter distance.
Diving right into the '80s, they did "Headlines" and "Wet My Whistle," inciting the old guy in front of me to dance all the way to the ground getting jiggy with it while "Midas Touch" had a guy near me crooning in his woman's ear.
Giving the crowd what they wanted, the band danced in step as they played and sang. Singer Belinda got the women in the audience riled up when she started talking about not being married yet.
"You know you're lucky when you can find someone you want to spend your whole life with. I found someone and he treats me real good. But sometimes," dramatic pause here, "he can irritate a sister. You know what I'm talking about, ladies?"
We sure as hell did.
That took us into their mega-hit "Operator" and the crowd into a frenzy. "Y'all wanna do it like we did it in the '80s?" guitarist Bo hollered before they band broke into the synchronized dance moves from the original "Operator" video circa 1984, although minus the bad '80s hair and clothes.
Of course the crowd was dancing everywhere, including two women who'd come out the window of the second floor of the Jamaica restaurant to dance on the roof.
"I hope she don't fall off," a guy near me said to me. Talk about a mid-show buzz kill.
Lots of people sang along to "Night Rider" and way too many phones and cameras came out for "Curious," but what am I going to do about it? Ignore it.
Apparently Midnight Star wrote a lot of other people's hits, too, so we got to hear Klymaxx's "Meeting in the Ladies' Room," a song by Toni Braxton and the Whispers' "Rock Steady," which about brought the house down.
They cooled us off with a song we all knew (even me), "Slow Jam," and just about everyone who had a mate was slow dancing in the parking lot to that one.
But they couldn't leave us mooney, so they brought out all the stops for "No Parking on the Dance Floor" and people danced on chairs, with strangers (or was that just me?), with kids and by themselves until Midnight Star said goodnight.
Which was my signal to high tail it to dinner, namely Amour.
The restaurant was busy but there were only two people at the bar where I began with a new-to-me pink bubbly, Willm Cremant d'Alsace Rose, a light-bodied floral beauty that I could get used to. Just to confuse things, I was also offered a taste of Willm Blanc de Blanc, the sort of bubbly I could drink morning, noon or night.
With the Django Reinhardt station playing, I ordered a meat and cheese plate, trying desperately to get my order in before the ten-top did.
The array that arrived on the slate was magnificent: Petit Basque, Fourme d'Ambert, Comte and Boucheron beside dried blueberries, figs and craisins plus speck, Tuscan sausage, Olli salume and prosciutto and fresh grapes, mustards and country pate.
While chatting with whomever was available - the photographer, the runner - I dug into the spread, very happy I didn't have to share it with anyone.
Because Amour excels at pairing wine with food, I also switched wines, savoring La Tour Chambert Cahors with my meat and cheese, an ideal complement to my meal.
One of the servers told me how great my hair looked. What a great thing to be told.
I briefly considered skipping dessert, but why would I? Instead I took my server's recommendation and had a mixed berry and apple crisp with whipped cream, an ideal summer to fall transition dessert. Clearly, it had been too long since I'd eaten at Amour.
By the time I left there, a DJ had set up across the street at Cary Court, blasting his BPM to anyone within a five-block radius.
But I had other music in mind.
A drive to Church Hill landed me at Metzger for an evening with Mr. Fine Wine, a DJ I'd fallen hard for at one of my previous Metzger visits. I'd been listening to his podcasts at home ever since, smitten with his old school soul.
They'd somehow coerced him to come down and play a three-hour set and I'd not hesitated in accepting my invitation to be part of it.
First stop: the bar for a glass of Anton Bauer Rose and some quick conversation with friends before joining the throng on the dance floor.
You have to understand, Mr. Fine Wine plays totally obscure, completely danceable soul music that never lets up. Each three-minute gem leads into the next so I could never find a reason to leave the dance floor.
Who did I dance with? The recently separated baker. The wine buyer. The bartender. The DJ and his wife. The singer. The wine bar servers. The ukulele player, but only for a moment. Myself and a whole lot of strangers.
A girl came up and told me she saw me all the time in Oregon Hill and introduced herself so now we'd know each other. Then we danced.
To my recollection, the only time I wasn't dancing was when I got another glass of wine and when I got more water.
Truly, it was only when I went to the bathroom that I realized how many familiar faces were there. Two chefs. One restaurant owner. A vintage store owner. Musicians from multiple bands I've heard.
Coming back from the loo, I ran into a friend and we conspired to open the windows to allow in cool, night air to the overheated restaurant full of people dancing crazily.
The music was so good and I can honestly say I recognized only one song, "I Got My Mind Set On You," and even then, I only knew the George Harrison cover, not the original I was hearing.
Didn't matter. It was totally danceable.
When I saw DJ Mr. Fine Wine walking by, I stopped him to tell him how enthralled I'd been with his music when I'd first heard it at Metzger, even going home to listen to it online.
"That's amazing! Thank you!" he said, grabbing me in a full-on hug. So, yes, I've been hugged by Mr. Fine Wine.
Best of all, it was one of those nights where our dance moves spanned decades: the frug, the pony, the swim, the monkey and just about every variation you can imagine (or make up). After a while, I just danced and didn't care.
A group of restaurant people formed two lines, a la Soul Train, and I somehow got pulled in to dance down the middle. Why not?
At one point, I leaned over to a woman and whispered, "We're the only ones who were born when this came out." She laughed and danced with me in acknowledgement.
After two last calls, the final song played and the dancing ended. It was a heartbreaking moment as people spilled out on the sidewalk.
How was it 2 a.m. already? How had three hours passed so quickly?
Don't know, don't care. I feel certain Midnight Star would approve. I hadn't parked for so much as a second.
Saturday, October 4, 2014
It's My Thing
You know how they say a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse?
Well, Tobacco Company is as good as Hardywood to a music-loving non-beer drinker.
Which means that after my hired mouth and posse finished dinner and a friend was too tired for fun, I found myself alone at Tobacco Company to see the Hi Steps on a Friday night.
Taking a seat on the far side of the bar, a tequila discussion ensued with the white-shirted bartender before Don Julio landed in front of me. A couple at the end of the bar asked of him what kind of music the band would be playing and his best guess was jazz, based on their instruments.
Unwilling to let him put misinformation out there, I corrected him. Vintage R & B, I shared. Motown even. Smiles abounded.
Not long after, a guy sat down next to me wanting more information about the band. I supplied it, sharing how good they were, and he decided to stay.
"I used to live in Detroit," he said, smiling. "I've got Motown in my veins." Well, my friend, then you're going to have a good time.
Visiting from Ann Arbor, Michigan, he turned out to be a music-loving radiologist in town to teach a class. Already, he'd had lunch at Bistro Bobette, dinner at Magpie (where he'd been forewarned about the 'hood and I un-warned him) and to the Country Club of Virginia.
I've gone on record as being no fan of the Tobacco Company or its clientele (the kind who order "three Fireballs and a Budweiser"), but I do so enjoy the Hi Steps, so I ignored my aversion for a chance to kick off my soul-filled weekend appropriately.
It only took the first few strains of "Let's Stay Together" for my new friend to thank me profusely for the recommendation. A huge Stevie Wonder fan, he totally dug hearing "Superstition" and raved about the musicianship on "Ain't Too Proud to Beg."
Between songs we chatted, during which time I learned that his first concert was 38 Special opening up for Journey in 1980. Nice. Hold on loosely, baby.
I think he decided he was going to talk to me when I pointed out that singer Butterfly's mic wasn't high enough in the mix and he pegged me for a music lover.
As the Hi Steps began winning over the drunken, shouting crowd with gems such as "Chain, Chain, Chain" and "It's Your Thing," a highly perfumed, overly made-up blond asked if the stool next to me was taken and sat down.
Explaining that she was in town from Minneapolis to visit her hospitalized brother, she was at T.C. with her sister who'd been part of a rehearsal dinner upstairs on the third floor.
Given that this woman was no spring chicken, I inquired about the wedding party's age. Uh-huh. The groom is 50-something and the bride-to be is 25. "They have a pre-nup," she informed me. Good thing.
"I give it six months," Blondie said, promising to point them out when they came downstairs to the bar.
Rather than discuss the obvious, I asked about her first show only to learn that she'd grown up in Richmond and her inaugural concert had been Foreigner at the Coliseum in 1984.
When I replied, "Wow, Foreigner," she seemed to take it as an insult, quickly sharing that she'd been to plenty of shows since.
"I saw Bon Jovi there, too," she said eagerly. "And Faith Hill and Tim McGraw. And Roger Waters doing "The Wall." And Barbra Streisand. And Bob Seger." I told her that was plenty of proof that she was a true-blue music lover.
All of a sudden, there were shrieks and the crowd behind us against the big front windows began making noise. Turning, I saw that many of them had their phones out and trained on the sidewalk outside the window.
A fight had broken out in front of TC and it wasn't even midnight yet. Give me strength. Even worse was the knee jerk reaction of the crowd to immediately begin filming it.
Meanwhile, a guy comes over and orders a double Amaretto as the bartender is lining up ten Jager Bombs for another wedding party. Kids, it's going to be a looong wedding day if you keep drinking that stuff tonight.
By now, the Hi Steps had a full crowd dancing in front of them while they played Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" and "Try a Little Tenderness." The bartender sashayed over and gave me a thumbs up, saying, "You were right!" about the band. Duh.
I noticed a shy, quiet looking man across the bar eating a sandwich and fries and after a bit, he had a bartender put some of his fries on a separate plate and send them over to a couple of older women at the end of the bar. After delivering them, the bartender pointed out the man to the women and he saluted them with a smile.
Honestly, I might prefer that a man sent me fries rather than buy me a drink at that point in the evening.
And speaking of such, after Blondie and her sister left for the club downstairs (thankfully taking her noxious cloud of perfume with her), a guy took her stool to order drinks and pay for them.
But when the check arrived, he squinted at it and handed it to me. "Can I use your eyes?" he asked. $34.68, I told him, but why in the world are you asking a woman of my advanced age, sharing it to prove my point.
"God, I'm ten years younger than you," he said, leaning in closer and staring. "You look beautiful! Is that your husband next to you?" Nope. "Can I buy you a drink?" Nope.
When I spotted a white van pull up in front of TC and a gaggle of drunk girls spill out of it, I commented to the bartender that that was the last thing they needed given the already large, loud and drunken crowd.
He agreed, acknowledging that the music was the only redeeming part of the evening. It was true, throughout the night, all three of the bartenders had been dancing behind the bar as they poured and served to the irresistible sounds of the band.
During the band's break, Mr. Ann Arbor pointed to a screen where a referee had been trampled and was laying motionless on the field face down. Watching the replay, he diagnosed what had happened to the man's leg when two large players had collided over him.
That led to discussion of sports and his teams: Lions, Tigers and Wolverines, apparently. Sounds one step removed from the "Wizard of Oz" to me.
When I explained that I grew up in a Redskins family, he first made a joke ("I hear the Redskins are thinking of changing their name. They're dropping the 'Washington' part" Ba-dum-bum) and then told me we were lucky to have Kirk Cousins quarterbacking because he'd played at Michigan State, clearly a good thing in his opinion.
But mostly we talked music while the band played songs like "Movin' On Up" and he raved about the keyboard player's prowess or the guitar player's effortless licks. Seems he'd also been at TC last night and seen a lackluster duo so he was hugely impressed with what he saw tonight.
Yea, the Hi Steps will do that to a music lover.
Realizing the late hour (and the fact that he had to be up at 6 a.m. to teach), he finally said, "Okay, I'm going to have a Fireball to remember Richmond by and then go." Since he'd already said he'd never even heard of a Fireball, I was a tad surprised.
He should have known by the bartender's face (a grimace) when he asked about it, but he bravely took a sip and turned to me. "Don't bother getting a Fireball." Don't worry.
After a killer rendition of "Take Another Little Piece of My Heart," I walked up to the stage and gave bandleader Jason a salute and a thanks for the terrific night of music.
The cobblestone streets were freshly wet from rain and the booty-short crowd was out en masse headed to clubs.
Don't drink beer, don't care for the crowd at Hardywood, but I've been to all kinds of shows there because the music appealed.
Crowd-wise, TC is far worse with golf shirts and Rumpilminz drinkers, but they at least carry tequila, so there was no reason to miss the Hi Steps.
I may not have lived in Detroit, but I got a little Motown in my veins, too. And while I'm at it, as a public service I'm willing to share my eyes with a blind horse.
Or man, as the case may be.
Well, Tobacco Company is as good as Hardywood to a music-loving non-beer drinker.
Which means that after my hired mouth and posse finished dinner and a friend was too tired for fun, I found myself alone at Tobacco Company to see the Hi Steps on a Friday night.
Taking a seat on the far side of the bar, a tequila discussion ensued with the white-shirted bartender before Don Julio landed in front of me. A couple at the end of the bar asked of him what kind of music the band would be playing and his best guess was jazz, based on their instruments.
Unwilling to let him put misinformation out there, I corrected him. Vintage R & B, I shared. Motown even. Smiles abounded.
Not long after, a guy sat down next to me wanting more information about the band. I supplied it, sharing how good they were, and he decided to stay.
"I used to live in Detroit," he said, smiling. "I've got Motown in my veins." Well, my friend, then you're going to have a good time.
Visiting from Ann Arbor, Michigan, he turned out to be a music-loving radiologist in town to teach a class. Already, he'd had lunch at Bistro Bobette, dinner at Magpie (where he'd been forewarned about the 'hood and I un-warned him) and to the Country Club of Virginia.
I've gone on record as being no fan of the Tobacco Company or its clientele (the kind who order "three Fireballs and a Budweiser"), but I do so enjoy the Hi Steps, so I ignored my aversion for a chance to kick off my soul-filled weekend appropriately.
It only took the first few strains of "Let's Stay Together" for my new friend to thank me profusely for the recommendation. A huge Stevie Wonder fan, he totally dug hearing "Superstition" and raved about the musicianship on "Ain't Too Proud to Beg."
Between songs we chatted, during which time I learned that his first concert was 38 Special opening up for Journey in 1980. Nice. Hold on loosely, baby.
I think he decided he was going to talk to me when I pointed out that singer Butterfly's mic wasn't high enough in the mix and he pegged me for a music lover.
As the Hi Steps began winning over the drunken, shouting crowd with gems such as "Chain, Chain, Chain" and "It's Your Thing," a highly perfumed, overly made-up blond asked if the stool next to me was taken and sat down.
Explaining that she was in town from Minneapolis to visit her hospitalized brother, she was at T.C. with her sister who'd been part of a rehearsal dinner upstairs on the third floor.
Given that this woman was no spring chicken, I inquired about the wedding party's age. Uh-huh. The groom is 50-something and the bride-to be is 25. "They have a pre-nup," she informed me. Good thing.
"I give it six months," Blondie said, promising to point them out when they came downstairs to the bar.
Rather than discuss the obvious, I asked about her first show only to learn that she'd grown up in Richmond and her inaugural concert had been Foreigner at the Coliseum in 1984.
When I replied, "Wow, Foreigner," she seemed to take it as an insult, quickly sharing that she'd been to plenty of shows since.
"I saw Bon Jovi there, too," she said eagerly. "And Faith Hill and Tim McGraw. And Roger Waters doing "The Wall." And Barbra Streisand. And Bob Seger." I told her that was plenty of proof that she was a true-blue music lover.
All of a sudden, there were shrieks and the crowd behind us against the big front windows began making noise. Turning, I saw that many of them had their phones out and trained on the sidewalk outside the window.
A fight had broken out in front of TC and it wasn't even midnight yet. Give me strength. Even worse was the knee jerk reaction of the crowd to immediately begin filming it.
Meanwhile, a guy comes over and orders a double Amaretto as the bartender is lining up ten Jager Bombs for another wedding party. Kids, it's going to be a looong wedding day if you keep drinking that stuff tonight.
By now, the Hi Steps had a full crowd dancing in front of them while they played Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" and "Try a Little Tenderness." The bartender sashayed over and gave me a thumbs up, saying, "You were right!" about the band. Duh.
I noticed a shy, quiet looking man across the bar eating a sandwich and fries and after a bit, he had a bartender put some of his fries on a separate plate and send them over to a couple of older women at the end of the bar. After delivering them, the bartender pointed out the man to the women and he saluted them with a smile.
Honestly, I might prefer that a man sent me fries rather than buy me a drink at that point in the evening.
And speaking of such, after Blondie and her sister left for the club downstairs (thankfully taking her noxious cloud of perfume with her), a guy took her stool to order drinks and pay for them.
But when the check arrived, he squinted at it and handed it to me. "Can I use your eyes?" he asked. $34.68, I told him, but why in the world are you asking a woman of my advanced age, sharing it to prove my point.
"God, I'm ten years younger than you," he said, leaning in closer and staring. "You look beautiful! Is that your husband next to you?" Nope. "Can I buy you a drink?" Nope.
When I spotted a white van pull up in front of TC and a gaggle of drunk girls spill out of it, I commented to the bartender that that was the last thing they needed given the already large, loud and drunken crowd.
He agreed, acknowledging that the music was the only redeeming part of the evening. It was true, throughout the night, all three of the bartenders had been dancing behind the bar as they poured and served to the irresistible sounds of the band.
During the band's break, Mr. Ann Arbor pointed to a screen where a referee had been trampled and was laying motionless on the field face down. Watching the replay, he diagnosed what had happened to the man's leg when two large players had collided over him.
That led to discussion of sports and his teams: Lions, Tigers and Wolverines, apparently. Sounds one step removed from the "Wizard of Oz" to me.
When I explained that I grew up in a Redskins family, he first made a joke ("I hear the Redskins are thinking of changing their name. They're dropping the 'Washington' part" Ba-dum-bum) and then told me we were lucky to have Kirk Cousins quarterbacking because he'd played at Michigan State, clearly a good thing in his opinion.
But mostly we talked music while the band played songs like "Movin' On Up" and he raved about the keyboard player's prowess or the guitar player's effortless licks. Seems he'd also been at TC last night and seen a lackluster duo so he was hugely impressed with what he saw tonight.
Yea, the Hi Steps will do that to a music lover.
Realizing the late hour (and the fact that he had to be up at 6 a.m. to teach), he finally said, "Okay, I'm going to have a Fireball to remember Richmond by and then go." Since he'd already said he'd never even heard of a Fireball, I was a tad surprised.
He should have known by the bartender's face (a grimace) when he asked about it, but he bravely took a sip and turned to me. "Don't bother getting a Fireball." Don't worry.
After a killer rendition of "Take Another Little Piece of My Heart," I walked up to the stage and gave bandleader Jason a salute and a thanks for the terrific night of music.
The cobblestone streets were freshly wet from rain and the booty-short crowd was out en masse headed to clubs.
Don't drink beer, don't care for the crowd at Hardywood, but I've been to all kinds of shows there because the music appealed.
Crowd-wise, TC is far worse with golf shirts and Rumpilminz drinkers, but they at least carry tequila, so there was no reason to miss the Hi Steps.
I may not have lived in Detroit, but I got a little Motown in my veins, too. And while I'm at it, as a public service I'm willing to share my eyes with a blind horse.
Or man, as the case may be.
Friday, October 3, 2014
Up for an Undertaking
When you live in Jackson Ward, the world is your oyster and it's all within four blocks.
Behind Nick's Deli, I see a friend conducting a photo shoot of good-looking Richmond guys (read: bearded) for Ledbury Shirts in the exquisite early evening light.
I'm on my way to 1708 Gallery for the opening of "Exquisite Corpse," an exhibition based on the Surrealist parlor game where each person draws a part of the whole without seeing the other contributions first.
Some of the pieces are fluid and seamless, a marvel since no one knew what the other was doing, while some are disjointed and abrupt but come together only because they're part of a greater whole. Every single one is fascinating in some way, often many ways.
It doesn't take long for me to recognize artists' names and styles: Heide Trepanier, Kevin Orlosky, Diego Sanchez, Michael Lease, Noah Scalin, Sally Bowring all catch my eye.
I am most intrigued by seeing several by Travis Robertson because I purchased one of his pieces back in 2008 and I've never met him to tell him how much I still love seeing that piece every day.
The 27 pieces in the show demonstrate such creativity. One has a sound component, another has a collaged section. Some are black and white while others glow with fields of color. Sequins and fake jewels are part of some.
Admiring one, a woman approaches me and I learn she's one of the artists who has done a section on one of the pieces. As we admire it, she asks if I'm an artist. When I explain I merely write, she insists I am an artist, too.
On the back wall, an artist has begun an enormous exquisite corpse piece, to be covered up and continued tomorrow night during the artwalk. The scale is huge and the orientation horizontal rather than vertical, but it's fascinating to watch as animals and details emerge from his brush.
When I go to leave, I run into a gallerist I know and he tells me he recently spotted me on my walk near Second Street. After driving around for an hour, he was on the downtown expressway when he caught sight of me overhead, crossing 195 on an overpass.
"She's still walking!" he recalled thinking. And mighty easy to spot in those bright pink shorts, I might add.
My next stop was Quirk Gallery for Brad Birchett's show, "Return," a collection of mostly monochromatic shades of gray, black and white with occasional lines of color - pink, coral -and images receding in and out of the painterly surface, occasionally etched into the paint, with sound recordings he'd made playing in the back of the gallery.
Making my way around, I ran into my favorite Quirk staffer (and very talented set designer) and asked what he'd been up to.
"I'm doing a lot of work on hotel stuff," he said, referring to the upcoming Quirk boutique hotel that's coming to the neighborhood. "There'll be a rooftop bar there for you."
Don't I know it. You can be sure I plan to be a habitue of that rooftop bar three blocks from my house.
Walking out, I ran into the man about town, telling him it's always nice to see him. "Nice to be seen by you," he acknowledged, doffing his hat and bowing as I swept out the door.
I was pleasantly surprised to find ADA Gallery open (turns out it's the first time they're participating in the Thursday preview night) for a new sculpture show, "Heroic Measures," by VCU alum Shannon Wright.
The larger piece was called "Folly" and was modeled on the Coliseum in Rome, assuming it had been built by the Parks and Rec Department out of bike rack parts. Almost circular, with rows on top of rows of arches, it looked both monumental yet gently mocking of public art. I'd love to see it find a home in Richmond.
When I got to Ghostprint Gallery, I found a lively crowd for Josh George's new show, "Attroupement," including the well organized gardener drinking a beer and giving me a hard time as soon as I arrived.
I've watched Josh's progress as a painter over his past four shows since he came to Richmond and I continue to be impressed by the development of his talent and vision in wonderfully vibrant and colorful works exuding the passion and energy of life.
The room was full of familiar faces and I kept stopping to chat as I ran into a poet, a tattoo artist and a former writer as I worked my way around the room.
Standing back to admire "Kissy Bat," a large scale work of a lovely woman with long hair and full lips in front of strips of floral wallpaper and a flock of bats, a man approached me and said, "I was told that you posed for this painting."
Someone was lying to him and I corrected him, but a writer friend standing nearby leaned over and said, "He obviously has money. You should have said it was you." Right.
The Corbieres series in the back, a group of small landscape pieces done after Josh's trip to France, were stunningly evocative of the French countryside with the look of work painted a century ago.
By contrast, there were several large works of urban streetscapes with skyscrapers reaching heavenward that were firmly grounded in the here and now. "Up for an Undertaking" was my favorite, with rows of buildings on either side of the streets receding into the unknown, luring a visitor to spend time exploring.
Josh's love of wine and sense of humor came to the fore in "Devil says, 'Roast it in the oven!' Angel says, 'Deep fry it!" A couple sits with wine on the table in front of them as the man prepares to cut up a bird for dinner.
My vote for most charming goes to "The Things Needed," a mixed media piece of a girl on a bike with a basket full of flowers, wine and a baguette. I didn't spot it, but presumably there was cheese in there, too.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and the gardener was there to say goodnight, kissing me on the cheek but complaining when I did the same to him. "Don't leave lipstick on my cheek! I'll get in trouble when I get home!" Where's the trust, my friend?
My last stop was at Gallery 5 for "An evening among whores: a spoken word event," whatever that meant. It was being curated by the inimitable Herschel Stratego, so anything was possible.
Already the poet had made it over from Ghostprint before me and not long after, I saw the arts activist who's given up drinking (looking newly slim and fit), heard my name called by the not so classic movie lover I'd met at the weekly B movie series over the summer, chatted with the author who lived in my apartment before I did, and been joined by the sound techie who'd just returned from two weeks touring south of the border.
That got us off on a tangent about traveling alone and we compared adventures; I'd done four days alone in Italy and he'd done time in Mexico City and we agreed that there's a unique dynamic to being alone in a country where you don't know the language and you have no companion to fall back on for navigation and companionship.
Next thing we knew, Herschel was taking the stage to tell us the saga of his friendship with the recently deceased Dave Brockie of GWAR.
He wanted to begin with the story of how he'd made out with Dave, eager to share it "for bragging purposes only." Actually, they'd only kissed once (and even then, it was a fish lips kind of a kiss, not a good French kiss) and only because they'd challenged a woman to kiss one of them if they kissed each other.
They did, she didn't, at least not in front of the one who lost (Herschel).
But that was far from the end of his storytelling, as he went on share that they'd both peed together in the same toilet ("Although Dave Brockie peed a little longer"), that he wasn't going to get sentimental and that he recalled Dave singing along to "Only the Good Die Young" at a Superbowl party.
While I claim to go on and on, Herschel has me beat by a mile.
When he finally ceded the stage, it was for comedy from Dave Marie-Garland who said things such as, "What's the difference between a guy with a ponytail and a girl with a flat top? Nothing, they're both human beings."
He got the most laughs saying he'd had a dream where he had sex with a girl but when he asked if she'd loved him, she said no. "I woke up crying because sex without love is just sad. Am I right, guys?"
Yea, pretty funny stuff.
Musician and DJ Shannon Cleary did a rumination on aging, pets and parenthood with its roots in him having turned 30 last year.
He recalled being in speech class and being asked to speak on procreation, the problem being at that point he had no idea what the word meant. "My friends tried to show me with hand gestures, pelvic thrusts and "cab hands," he deadpanned as only Shannon can do.
Reading from her phone, Angie Huckstep shared a poem called "Remember That You Like to Read" (with the line "Finish that book like you know you want to") and "Spit Spot" ("Like Mary Poppins says," she explained. "You know, get your shit together!") about being in the shower with someone.
One of the best parts of the evening was the music played between performers, like Liz Phair's "Rock Me" before Melanie Rasnic came up.
Oh, baby, you're young but that's okay
What's give or take nine years anyway?
You think I'm a genius, think I'm cool
I'm starting to think that young guys rule
With a comedienne's timing and a past meant for mocking, she told of making the Shockoe Bottom walk of shame the morning after in heels (no small accomplishment) before explaining how a whore is formed. "By the way, my Mom is not a whore, so apparently it skips a generation."
She lamented being raised a Jehovah's Witness, trying to convert people on their porches by the time she was eight and denying her "all the things that made childhood bearable."
After that, Herschel returned to the stage long enough to tell us, "By the way, I have had sex before," tell some more off-color stories and announce, "This is my blue set."
Author Andrew Blossom took the stage to a song by Groucho Marx in honor of Groucho's birthday today (Andrew also works at Video Fan) and introduced his story, "In the Not Too Distant Future" about a guy named Joel who is middle aged, divorced and loses his job. He finds salvation in endless TV watching and a space show with a character named Joel.
Hey, when you're middle aged, you find your redemption anywhere you can.
Musician and poet Ryan Kent closed out the evening, loudly reading his poetry from an e-tablet, poems with titles such as "Nobody's Bitch" and lines like, "Ashtrays as truthful as your bank account" from "Long in the Tooth."
Top honors go to this line: "She was someone I left my fingerprints on, like cement and murder."
Naturally, Herschel had to come back up to close out the evening with more Dave Brockie stories, stopping just short of sharing sexual peccadilloes and reminiscing about when Dave had suggested he open for GWAR.
To prove his worth, Herschel had sung Dave a song and he wanted to sing it for us tonight.
"I forgot to being my instrument but I don't know the chords anyway, so I'll just sing it." It turned out to be Randy Newman's song about Karl Marx, "The World Isn't Fair."
Truthfully, Herschel's a capella rendition was just about perfect, an absurdist ending to a wild ride of a night.
My walk home was only four blocks...with no shame (or heels) involved.
Behind Nick's Deli, I see a friend conducting a photo shoot of good-looking Richmond guys (read: bearded) for Ledbury Shirts in the exquisite early evening light.
I'm on my way to 1708 Gallery for the opening of "Exquisite Corpse," an exhibition based on the Surrealist parlor game where each person draws a part of the whole without seeing the other contributions first.
Some of the pieces are fluid and seamless, a marvel since no one knew what the other was doing, while some are disjointed and abrupt but come together only because they're part of a greater whole. Every single one is fascinating in some way, often many ways.
It doesn't take long for me to recognize artists' names and styles: Heide Trepanier, Kevin Orlosky, Diego Sanchez, Michael Lease, Noah Scalin, Sally Bowring all catch my eye.
I am most intrigued by seeing several by Travis Robertson because I purchased one of his pieces back in 2008 and I've never met him to tell him how much I still love seeing that piece every day.
The 27 pieces in the show demonstrate such creativity. One has a sound component, another has a collaged section. Some are black and white while others glow with fields of color. Sequins and fake jewels are part of some.
Admiring one, a woman approaches me and I learn she's one of the artists who has done a section on one of the pieces. As we admire it, she asks if I'm an artist. When I explain I merely write, she insists I am an artist, too.
On the back wall, an artist has begun an enormous exquisite corpse piece, to be covered up and continued tomorrow night during the artwalk. The scale is huge and the orientation horizontal rather than vertical, but it's fascinating to watch as animals and details emerge from his brush.
When I go to leave, I run into a gallerist I know and he tells me he recently spotted me on my walk near Second Street. After driving around for an hour, he was on the downtown expressway when he caught sight of me overhead, crossing 195 on an overpass.
"She's still walking!" he recalled thinking. And mighty easy to spot in those bright pink shorts, I might add.
My next stop was Quirk Gallery for Brad Birchett's show, "Return," a collection of mostly monochromatic shades of gray, black and white with occasional lines of color - pink, coral -and images receding in and out of the painterly surface, occasionally etched into the paint, with sound recordings he'd made playing in the back of the gallery.
Making my way around, I ran into my favorite Quirk staffer (and very talented set designer) and asked what he'd been up to.
"I'm doing a lot of work on hotel stuff," he said, referring to the upcoming Quirk boutique hotel that's coming to the neighborhood. "There'll be a rooftop bar there for you."
Don't I know it. You can be sure I plan to be a habitue of that rooftop bar three blocks from my house.
Walking out, I ran into the man about town, telling him it's always nice to see him. "Nice to be seen by you," he acknowledged, doffing his hat and bowing as I swept out the door.
I was pleasantly surprised to find ADA Gallery open (turns out it's the first time they're participating in the Thursday preview night) for a new sculpture show, "Heroic Measures," by VCU alum Shannon Wright.
The larger piece was called "Folly" and was modeled on the Coliseum in Rome, assuming it had been built by the Parks and Rec Department out of bike rack parts. Almost circular, with rows on top of rows of arches, it looked both monumental yet gently mocking of public art. I'd love to see it find a home in Richmond.
When I got to Ghostprint Gallery, I found a lively crowd for Josh George's new show, "Attroupement," including the well organized gardener drinking a beer and giving me a hard time as soon as I arrived.
I've watched Josh's progress as a painter over his past four shows since he came to Richmond and I continue to be impressed by the development of his talent and vision in wonderfully vibrant and colorful works exuding the passion and energy of life.
The room was full of familiar faces and I kept stopping to chat as I ran into a poet, a tattoo artist and a former writer as I worked my way around the room.
Standing back to admire "Kissy Bat," a large scale work of a lovely woman with long hair and full lips in front of strips of floral wallpaper and a flock of bats, a man approached me and said, "I was told that you posed for this painting."
Someone was lying to him and I corrected him, but a writer friend standing nearby leaned over and said, "He obviously has money. You should have said it was you." Right.
The Corbieres series in the back, a group of small landscape pieces done after Josh's trip to France, were stunningly evocative of the French countryside with the look of work painted a century ago.
By contrast, there were several large works of urban streetscapes with skyscrapers reaching heavenward that were firmly grounded in the here and now. "Up for an Undertaking" was my favorite, with rows of buildings on either side of the streets receding into the unknown, luring a visitor to spend time exploring.
Josh's love of wine and sense of humor came to the fore in "Devil says, 'Roast it in the oven!' Angel says, 'Deep fry it!" A couple sits with wine on the table in front of them as the man prepares to cut up a bird for dinner.
My vote for most charming goes to "The Things Needed," a mixed media piece of a girl on a bike with a basket full of flowers, wine and a baguette. I didn't spot it, but presumably there was cheese in there, too.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and the gardener was there to say goodnight, kissing me on the cheek but complaining when I did the same to him. "Don't leave lipstick on my cheek! I'll get in trouble when I get home!" Where's the trust, my friend?
My last stop was at Gallery 5 for "An evening among whores: a spoken word event," whatever that meant. It was being curated by the inimitable Herschel Stratego, so anything was possible.
Already the poet had made it over from Ghostprint before me and not long after, I saw the arts activist who's given up drinking (looking newly slim and fit), heard my name called by the not so classic movie lover I'd met at the weekly B movie series over the summer, chatted with the author who lived in my apartment before I did, and been joined by the sound techie who'd just returned from two weeks touring south of the border.
That got us off on a tangent about traveling alone and we compared adventures; I'd done four days alone in Italy and he'd done time in Mexico City and we agreed that there's a unique dynamic to being alone in a country where you don't know the language and you have no companion to fall back on for navigation and companionship.
Next thing we knew, Herschel was taking the stage to tell us the saga of his friendship with the recently deceased Dave Brockie of GWAR.
He wanted to begin with the story of how he'd made out with Dave, eager to share it "for bragging purposes only." Actually, they'd only kissed once (and even then, it was a fish lips kind of a kiss, not a good French kiss) and only because they'd challenged a woman to kiss one of them if they kissed each other.
They did, she didn't, at least not in front of the one who lost (Herschel).
But that was far from the end of his storytelling, as he went on share that they'd both peed together in the same toilet ("Although Dave Brockie peed a little longer"), that he wasn't going to get sentimental and that he recalled Dave singing along to "Only the Good Die Young" at a Superbowl party.
While I claim to go on and on, Herschel has me beat by a mile.
When he finally ceded the stage, it was for comedy from Dave Marie-Garland who said things such as, "What's the difference between a guy with a ponytail and a girl with a flat top? Nothing, they're both human beings."
He got the most laughs saying he'd had a dream where he had sex with a girl but when he asked if she'd loved him, she said no. "I woke up crying because sex without love is just sad. Am I right, guys?"
Yea, pretty funny stuff.
Musician and DJ Shannon Cleary did a rumination on aging, pets and parenthood with its roots in him having turned 30 last year.
He recalled being in speech class and being asked to speak on procreation, the problem being at that point he had no idea what the word meant. "My friends tried to show me with hand gestures, pelvic thrusts and "cab hands," he deadpanned as only Shannon can do.
Reading from her phone, Angie Huckstep shared a poem called "Remember That You Like to Read" (with the line "Finish that book like you know you want to") and "Spit Spot" ("Like Mary Poppins says," she explained. "You know, get your shit together!") about being in the shower with someone.
One of the best parts of the evening was the music played between performers, like Liz Phair's "Rock Me" before Melanie Rasnic came up.
Oh, baby, you're young but that's okay
What's give or take nine years anyway?
You think I'm a genius, think I'm cool
I'm starting to think that young guys rule
With a comedienne's timing and a past meant for mocking, she told of making the Shockoe Bottom walk of shame the morning after in heels (no small accomplishment) before explaining how a whore is formed. "By the way, my Mom is not a whore, so apparently it skips a generation."
She lamented being raised a Jehovah's Witness, trying to convert people on their porches by the time she was eight and denying her "all the things that made childhood bearable."
After that, Herschel returned to the stage long enough to tell us, "By the way, I have had sex before," tell some more off-color stories and announce, "This is my blue set."
Author Andrew Blossom took the stage to a song by Groucho Marx in honor of Groucho's birthday today (Andrew also works at Video Fan) and introduced his story, "In the Not Too Distant Future" about a guy named Joel who is middle aged, divorced and loses his job. He finds salvation in endless TV watching and a space show with a character named Joel.
Hey, when you're middle aged, you find your redemption anywhere you can.
Musician and poet Ryan Kent closed out the evening, loudly reading his poetry from an e-tablet, poems with titles such as "Nobody's Bitch" and lines like, "Ashtrays as truthful as your bank account" from "Long in the Tooth."
Top honors go to this line: "She was someone I left my fingerprints on, like cement and murder."
Naturally, Herschel had to come back up to close out the evening with more Dave Brockie stories, stopping just short of sharing sexual peccadilloes and reminiscing about when Dave had suggested he open for GWAR.
To prove his worth, Herschel had sung Dave a song and he wanted to sing it for us tonight.
"I forgot to being my instrument but I don't know the chords anyway, so I'll just sing it." It turned out to be Randy Newman's song about Karl Marx, "The World Isn't Fair."
Truthfully, Herschel's a capella rendition was just about perfect, an absurdist ending to a wild ride of a night.
My walk home was only four blocks...with no shame (or heels) involved.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
War and Work
Productive, yes; social enough, not even close.
My brain woke me up at 5:15 so that I could have an hour-long conversation in my head with myself about something that's apparently been bothering me. Let's hope we worked that out so it doesn't happen again.
When I finally awoke, it was to a message from my favorite ex-cop inviting me to the river for crabs and a lesson on the sail-yak ("I'm pretty sure I could teach you in 30 minutes or less!") but, alas, my inbox also informed me I had all kinds of obligations rearing their heads, so I reluctantly declined.
My walk to the river brought me up Cherry Street, a route I hadn't walked before. A shame since it yielded a charming house hidden behind an overgrown archway with a fat cat sunning on the brick walkway, a profusely flowering rose garden oddly placed between the sidewalk and street and a gaggle of teen-aged girls who were lost and needed my guidance to Mama Zu.
Coming back through Monroe Park, my eye was caught by an installation, "Eyes Wide Open Virginia" coordinated byQuakers Richmond Friends Meeting.
Consisting of pairs of army boots, each labeled with the name and Virginia birthplace of a fallen soldier in Afghanistan or Iraq (some with small flags, pictures or flowers) and regular shoes representing slain civilians (the children's shoes a heartbreaking reminder of the cost of war), it was a moving tribute to victims of this endless-seeming war effort.
After lunch, an interview in Church Hill had me talking with two writers about the solitary life of a writer and how frequently this profession is made up of introverts, although clearly I am the exception to that rule. By the time I finish a solitary day, I want nothing so much as company, be it familiar or strangers.
Despite sunshine and 77 degrees outside, my afternoon was spent indoors gathering words from my head and shaping them into a coherent form on the monitor screen. I am a woman who understands a deadline.
Instead of my usual dinner plans, I turned the tables and played server for a dinner board meeting, trying to parlay the unobtrusive service skills that have been used on me so often on unsuspecting diners. No one seemed to recognize me for the inexperienced fake I was. But I consider myself a success because the one thing I know for certain is that they never lacked for water or wine .
Nor did I, afterwards enjoying a glass of Ixsir Altitudes Rose (from Lebanon, no less), with a lovely mess of mesclun under crabcakes, payback perhaps for the crabs I didn't get to crack at the river today. Not to mention that my sail-yaking skills are still non-existent.
Not long before my meal, a history nerd friend had told me about a real-time tour (5:45 a.m. Monday morning!) he'd taken at Fort Harrison, regaling me with details of what he'd learned as the group retraced the route of the Union soldiers who took the fort, beginning before daylight.
Intriguing as it sounded to this extroverted history geek, I know myself well enough to know that's one tour I'd never have agreed to attend.
My subconscious may be able to get me up at that ungodly hour, but that's about the only thing that could.
My brain woke me up at 5:15 so that I could have an hour-long conversation in my head with myself about something that's apparently been bothering me. Let's hope we worked that out so it doesn't happen again.
When I finally awoke, it was to a message from my favorite ex-cop inviting me to the river for crabs and a lesson on the sail-yak ("I'm pretty sure I could teach you in 30 minutes or less!") but, alas, my inbox also informed me I had all kinds of obligations rearing their heads, so I reluctantly declined.
My walk to the river brought me up Cherry Street, a route I hadn't walked before. A shame since it yielded a charming house hidden behind an overgrown archway with a fat cat sunning on the brick walkway, a profusely flowering rose garden oddly placed between the sidewalk and street and a gaggle of teen-aged girls who were lost and needed my guidance to Mama Zu.
Coming back through Monroe Park, my eye was caught by an installation, "Eyes Wide Open Virginia" coordinated by
Consisting of pairs of army boots, each labeled with the name and Virginia birthplace of a fallen soldier in Afghanistan or Iraq (some with small flags, pictures or flowers) and regular shoes representing slain civilians (the children's shoes a heartbreaking reminder of the cost of war), it was a moving tribute to victims of this endless-seeming war effort.
After lunch, an interview in Church Hill had me talking with two writers about the solitary life of a writer and how frequently this profession is made up of introverts, although clearly I am the exception to that rule. By the time I finish a solitary day, I want nothing so much as company, be it familiar or strangers.
Despite sunshine and 77 degrees outside, my afternoon was spent indoors gathering words from my head and shaping them into a coherent form on the monitor screen. I am a woman who understands a deadline.
Instead of my usual dinner plans, I turned the tables and played server for a dinner board meeting, trying to parlay the unobtrusive service skills that have been used on me so often on unsuspecting diners. No one seemed to recognize me for the inexperienced fake I was. But I consider myself a success because the one thing I know for certain is that they never lacked for water or wine .
Nor did I, afterwards enjoying a glass of Ixsir Altitudes Rose (from Lebanon, no less), with a lovely mess of mesclun under crabcakes, payback perhaps for the crabs I didn't get to crack at the river today. Not to mention that my sail-yaking skills are still non-existent.
Not long before my meal, a history nerd friend had told me about a real-time tour (5:45 a.m. Monday morning!) he'd taken at Fort Harrison, regaling me with details of what he'd learned as the group retraced the route of the Union soldiers who took the fort, beginning before daylight.
Intriguing as it sounded to this extroverted history geek, I know myself well enough to know that's one tour I'd never have agreed to attend.
My subconscious may be able to get me up at that ungodly hour, but that's about the only thing that could.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Booty Fries and Whisker Biscuits
Our state fair is a great state fair
Don't miss it, don't even be late
Our state fair is great
It's dollars to doughnuts at our state fair
It's the best state fair in the state
Er, make that the Commonwealth.
After a short drive up Route 301, we waited for friends at the gate next to Mount Olympus' pumpkin display ("Please photograph our pumpkins, but do not sit on our pumpkins") under a bodacious blue sky.
Just as they showed up, I felt a hand on my arm and turned to see a Richmond restaurant owner smiling and saying, "I almost didn't recognize you with your sunglasses on."
How is it I go all the way to Doswell and still see people I know?
Moving through the entry gates, our friend began singing the song from "State Fair," a 1962 musical I've never even seen. Even so, we hadn't missed it and we weren't late.
A big part of the reason these friends had even been willing to come to the state fair was because they'd read about the abundance of Virginia craft breweries ("Beer IS agriculture") representing, so we immediately set out in search of some.
Actually, my friend was also hoping he could find a t-shirt saying "Beer is agriculture," but it was not to be.
Instead, he found a guy he'd grown up with and another he'd worked with for years. I put my money on him running into at least one, if not two more, people he knew (one, so I won that non-existent bet).
The problem with our state fair is that the map they give you is worthless for locating craft beer stands.
At the Secretariat booth, we finally found directions to the craft beer, but only after half our group had settled for Budweiser.
In a lucky stroke, next to the array of Virginia-brewed suds was an award-winning food stand where we scored butt fries, affectionately referred to as "booty fries' by the proprietor, ribs, cole slaw and beans.
In case your curiosity is screaming to know what booty fries are, let me tell you: fries covered in shredded pork butt, cheese sauce, sour ream and chopped scallions.
As my girlfriend put it, "No one needs to eat this, but it's so good." Honestly, I liked the ribs better, but that's just me.
I was perfectly happy with Prosecco on tap, but the beer drinkers satisfied their need for hops with Midnight Brewery's Virginia Midway, an American wheat ale designated the official beer of the fair, and Lickinghole Creek Magic Beaver, a Belgian-style pale ale.
Hardly surprisingly, all that talk of magic beavers led to discussion of magical whisker biscuits, a phrase new to me but laugh out loud worthy at the same time.
It's always nice to have some language humor when you're in the middle of a state fair crowd.
Looking at the fair schedule, we were bummed to see that we'd missed last night's coon mule jumping, in which mules jump from a standstill when raccoon hunting.
Because only at our state fair could I learn that coons and mules spent any time together.
Finishing our meal, my friend looked at her beloved and announced, "I'm going to need something sweet," echoing my exact thoughts after a salty meal.
My choice was a mixed vanilla and chocolate dipped cone, while she got a hot fudge sundae and we made our way to the festival stage to hear the funky Latin grooves of Brooklyn-based band Jose Conde y Ola Fresca.
Sprawling out on the grassy hillside in front of the stage, the Prosecco stand conveniently located right behind us, we were appalled to see no more than a dozen people taking in the rhythmic sounds of the band (keys, congas, drums, guitar, three horns and Juan singing and playing percussion).
It was mostly original material, both the band's and Juan's, with songs about the drummer's hands (the same texture as the skins on the drums), a sinuous cha cha cha, a song called "Flavor" and an abbreviated cover of "Let's Groove Tonight," to prove Juan was old enough to remember that classic.
The Afro-Cuban band was terrific and deserving of a far bigger audience than they had, and certainly of more people dancing down in front of the stage. Juan himself was an ideal instigator, moving his fluid hips non-stop as he sang.
Although he wore a hat to cover his bald head, he didn't hesitate to point out the conga player's magnificent Afro and admit some envy that he couldn't grow the same.
Tonight's beautiful weather made for a pretty terrific evening to be in a field moving to stellar Latin grooves, the neon lights of the midway and screams of the children off in the distance.
Once the music ended, we wound our way back, following the scent of frying oil to find that most traditional of fair foods, a funnel cake, sharing it four ways before ending up at the pig raceway tent.
Because what's a State Fair experience without seeing the racing pigs?
The little, pink pigs were cute and fast, the older pigs focused and faster but the Asian pot-bellied pigs with their enormous bellies dragging on the straw-covered raceway, were hilarious, lumbering along and not terribly interested in crossing the finish line, especially Lindsey Lo-Ham, who practically laid down and took a nap mid-race ("She's having flashbacks!" the swine-master said).
Only then, after a heaping helping of proper fried food and racing pigs could we exit the fairgrounds alongside kids carrying plastic bags of goldfish they'd won, feeling fully satisfied with our experience.
I'd vehemently passed on the Texas rattlesnake show and we'd never found the masters of the chainsaw, but all in all, I'd have to say it was the best state fair in the state tonight.
Where else could we have learned that beer is agriculture?
Dollars to doughnuts says only coons and mules could have made it any better.
Don't miss it, don't even be late
Our state fair is great
It's dollars to doughnuts at our state fair
It's the best state fair in the state
Er, make that the Commonwealth.
After a short drive up Route 301, we waited for friends at the gate next to Mount Olympus' pumpkin display ("Please photograph our pumpkins, but do not sit on our pumpkins") under a bodacious blue sky.
Just as they showed up, I felt a hand on my arm and turned to see a Richmond restaurant owner smiling and saying, "I almost didn't recognize you with your sunglasses on."
How is it I go all the way to Doswell and still see people I know?
Moving through the entry gates, our friend began singing the song from "State Fair," a 1962 musical I've never even seen. Even so, we hadn't missed it and we weren't late.
A big part of the reason these friends had even been willing to come to the state fair was because they'd read about the abundance of Virginia craft breweries ("Beer IS agriculture") representing, so we immediately set out in search of some.
Actually, my friend was also hoping he could find a t-shirt saying "Beer is agriculture," but it was not to be.
Instead, he found a guy he'd grown up with and another he'd worked with for years. I put my money on him running into at least one, if not two more, people he knew (one, so I won that non-existent bet).
The problem with our state fair is that the map they give you is worthless for locating craft beer stands.
At the Secretariat booth, we finally found directions to the craft beer, but only after half our group had settled for Budweiser.
In a lucky stroke, next to the array of Virginia-brewed suds was an award-winning food stand where we scored butt fries, affectionately referred to as "booty fries' by the proprietor, ribs, cole slaw and beans.
In case your curiosity is screaming to know what booty fries are, let me tell you: fries covered in shredded pork butt, cheese sauce, sour ream and chopped scallions.
As my girlfriend put it, "No one needs to eat this, but it's so good." Honestly, I liked the ribs better, but that's just me.
I was perfectly happy with Prosecco on tap, but the beer drinkers satisfied their need for hops with Midnight Brewery's Virginia Midway, an American wheat ale designated the official beer of the fair, and Lickinghole Creek Magic Beaver, a Belgian-style pale ale.
Hardly surprisingly, all that talk of magic beavers led to discussion of magical whisker biscuits, a phrase new to me but laugh out loud worthy at the same time.
It's always nice to have some language humor when you're in the middle of a state fair crowd.
Looking at the fair schedule, we were bummed to see that we'd missed last night's coon mule jumping, in which mules jump from a standstill when raccoon hunting.
Because only at our state fair could I learn that coons and mules spent any time together.
Finishing our meal, my friend looked at her beloved and announced, "I'm going to need something sweet," echoing my exact thoughts after a salty meal.
My choice was a mixed vanilla and chocolate dipped cone, while she got a hot fudge sundae and we made our way to the festival stage to hear the funky Latin grooves of Brooklyn-based band Jose Conde y Ola Fresca.
Sprawling out on the grassy hillside in front of the stage, the Prosecco stand conveniently located right behind us, we were appalled to see no more than a dozen people taking in the rhythmic sounds of the band (keys, congas, drums, guitar, three horns and Juan singing and playing percussion).
It was mostly original material, both the band's and Juan's, with songs about the drummer's hands (the same texture as the skins on the drums), a sinuous cha cha cha, a song called "Flavor" and an abbreviated cover of "Let's Groove Tonight," to prove Juan was old enough to remember that classic.
The Afro-Cuban band was terrific and deserving of a far bigger audience than they had, and certainly of more people dancing down in front of the stage. Juan himself was an ideal instigator, moving his fluid hips non-stop as he sang.
Although he wore a hat to cover his bald head, he didn't hesitate to point out the conga player's magnificent Afro and admit some envy that he couldn't grow the same.
Tonight's beautiful weather made for a pretty terrific evening to be in a field moving to stellar Latin grooves, the neon lights of the midway and screams of the children off in the distance.
Once the music ended, we wound our way back, following the scent of frying oil to find that most traditional of fair foods, a funnel cake, sharing it four ways before ending up at the pig raceway tent.
Because what's a State Fair experience without seeing the racing pigs?
The little, pink pigs were cute and fast, the older pigs focused and faster but the Asian pot-bellied pigs with their enormous bellies dragging on the straw-covered raceway, were hilarious, lumbering along and not terribly interested in crossing the finish line, especially Lindsey Lo-Ham, who practically laid down and took a nap mid-race ("She's having flashbacks!" the swine-master said).
Only then, after a heaping helping of proper fried food and racing pigs could we exit the fairgrounds alongside kids carrying plastic bags of goldfish they'd won, feeling fully satisfied with our experience.
I'd vehemently passed on the Texas rattlesnake show and we'd never found the masters of the chainsaw, but all in all, I'd have to say it was the best state fair in the state tonight.
Where else could we have learned that beer is agriculture?
Dollars to doughnuts says only coons and mules could have made it any better.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Run Over by a Bus
Not to start out too deep, but life is all about timing.
There have been certain instances in my life when I knew that a good thing was happening to me, but it wasn't the right time to accept it. Other times, I feel like my arms were wide open to whatever life handed me, but nothing appropriate came into them.
The biggest lesson of my life happened when I was 28 and it taught me that I have absolutely no control over what awful things could be dropped in my lap.
It was also a gift that convinced me that I'd had my lowest point and nothing could ever destroy me like that again. Of course, I was wrong.
These days, I'm really quite happy with my life, simple as it is. I feel lucky to have the people I do in my life and fortunate to still get so much pleasure out of what I do.
Would I change a few things if I could? No doubt. Am I complaining about where I am? Not a chance.
Tonight's adventure began at Graffiato's early, meaning when I walked in, it was uncrowded enough that I could actually hear the music (Goo Goo Dolls, Tom Petty, Bowie) and there were plenty of bar stools available for dinner. At that point the staff outnumbered the guests three to one and I saw more than one restaurant owner was in attendance.
Taking advantage of happy hour, Montelvini Prosecco on tap was procured, followed by a plate of cheeses- Grayson and Bianco Sardo- and meat -finocchiona, a fennel Tuscan salami, served on slate with all the usual suspects.
Pickled veggies, you are as ubiquitous as tattoos in this town.
Conversation was more focused than usual, defining, designating, qualifying and planning for a project that has its seeds in a decade-old idea.
Finally, it's time to walk the walk.
As customers - the kind who like to sit at tables and not the bar - began to arrive and with plans for a movie, we moved on to entrees: satisfying gnocchi with pork ragu and whipped ricotta followed by rich, meaty monkfish with farro and gremolata.
I'm getting used to the showmanship of the food runners who not only bring the plates but deliver a detailed explanation of what you're getting along with a spoon, whether you need it or not (um, a spoon for a meat and cheese board?).
Easy as it would have been to linger for more Prosecco, we had a movie to catch at the Westhampton, "Love is Strange" with John Lithgow and Alfred Molina.
Having just last month seen Lithgow in "The World According to Garp," although he was 38 in that and he was 69 (and playing a 79-year old) in tonight's film, it was fascinating to see a more recent representation of his superb acting skills.
The story of two gay men who have been together for 39 years was sweet, romantic and a reminder that marriage can still get a gay person let go from a church-related job. Is this not 2014?
Most of the film revolved around them having to temporarily bunk with relatives after they sell their apartment when one partner loses his job.
The story sails along with family interruptions, comic moments and couple tenderness when the two can be alone and then suddenly there's a huge surprise that I never saw coming. It's sad and surprising/not surprising at the same time.
Is anyone ever truly ready for whatever life hands them? Of course not. We adapt, adjust and regroup, we're mended at the places that broke but we're also changed for good.
Sometimes there's still time to move on changed, but not always. Who doesn't remember what our mothers told us about life being fair?
So after an exquisitely acted film, the only logical thing to do was stop for a nightcap and discuss the film, the bartender's path in life and chat with the woman who, when "Sweet Caroline" came on, told me she's been known to dance in the window of the bar when it plays.
After her jukebox picks ended, I insisted on making some of my own selections, to which she retorted, "I'll tell you if I don't like them." No doubt.
With her in mind, I went old school - Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, Jackson Browne, Al Green- and she didn't badmouth a single one. That said, she was also outside smoking cigarettes much of the time.
When "Cracklin' Rosie" came on, she exploded with happiness singing along and when her man finally dragged her out, she again reminded me to come back when she's drunk so I can see her dancing in the front window.
Since it's hard to say when that might be, I stand a good chance of never seeing her dance in the window, much as I might want to. Timing.
Then again, life could surprise me with something so much better I'll forget all about her. Lucky timing.
For better or for worse, always the optimist.
There have been certain instances in my life when I knew that a good thing was happening to me, but it wasn't the right time to accept it. Other times, I feel like my arms were wide open to whatever life handed me, but nothing appropriate came into them.
The biggest lesson of my life happened when I was 28 and it taught me that I have absolutely no control over what awful things could be dropped in my lap.
It was also a gift that convinced me that I'd had my lowest point and nothing could ever destroy me like that again. Of course, I was wrong.
These days, I'm really quite happy with my life, simple as it is. I feel lucky to have the people I do in my life and fortunate to still get so much pleasure out of what I do.
Would I change a few things if I could? No doubt. Am I complaining about where I am? Not a chance.
Tonight's adventure began at Graffiato's early, meaning when I walked in, it was uncrowded enough that I could actually hear the music (Goo Goo Dolls, Tom Petty, Bowie) and there were plenty of bar stools available for dinner. At that point the staff outnumbered the guests three to one and I saw more than one restaurant owner was in attendance.
Taking advantage of happy hour, Montelvini Prosecco on tap was procured, followed by a plate of cheeses- Grayson and Bianco Sardo- and meat -finocchiona, a fennel Tuscan salami, served on slate with all the usual suspects.
Pickled veggies, you are as ubiquitous as tattoos in this town.
Conversation was more focused than usual, defining, designating, qualifying and planning for a project that has its seeds in a decade-old idea.
Finally, it's time to walk the walk.
As customers - the kind who like to sit at tables and not the bar - began to arrive and with plans for a movie, we moved on to entrees: satisfying gnocchi with pork ragu and whipped ricotta followed by rich, meaty monkfish with farro and gremolata.
I'm getting used to the showmanship of the food runners who not only bring the plates but deliver a detailed explanation of what you're getting along with a spoon, whether you need it or not (um, a spoon for a meat and cheese board?).
Easy as it would have been to linger for more Prosecco, we had a movie to catch at the Westhampton, "Love is Strange" with John Lithgow and Alfred Molina.
Having just last month seen Lithgow in "The World According to Garp," although he was 38 in that and he was 69 (and playing a 79-year old) in tonight's film, it was fascinating to see a more recent representation of his superb acting skills.
The story of two gay men who have been together for 39 years was sweet, romantic and a reminder that marriage can still get a gay person let go from a church-related job. Is this not 2014?
Most of the film revolved around them having to temporarily bunk with relatives after they sell their apartment when one partner loses his job.
The story sails along with family interruptions, comic moments and couple tenderness when the two can be alone and then suddenly there's a huge surprise that I never saw coming. It's sad and surprising/not surprising at the same time.
Is anyone ever truly ready for whatever life hands them? Of course not. We adapt, adjust and regroup, we're mended at the places that broke but we're also changed for good.
Sometimes there's still time to move on changed, but not always. Who doesn't remember what our mothers told us about life being fair?
So after an exquisitely acted film, the only logical thing to do was stop for a nightcap and discuss the film, the bartender's path in life and chat with the woman who, when "Sweet Caroline" came on, told me she's been known to dance in the window of the bar when it plays.
After her jukebox picks ended, I insisted on making some of my own selections, to which she retorted, "I'll tell you if I don't like them." No doubt.
With her in mind, I went old school - Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, Jackson Browne, Al Green- and she didn't badmouth a single one. That said, she was also outside smoking cigarettes much of the time.
When "Cracklin' Rosie" came on, she exploded with happiness singing along and when her man finally dragged her out, she again reminded me to come back when she's drunk so I can see her dancing in the front window.
Since it's hard to say when that might be, I stand a good chance of never seeing her dance in the window, much as I might want to. Timing.
Then again, life could surprise me with something so much better I'll forget all about her. Lucky timing.
For better or for worse, always the optimist.
Monday, September 29, 2014
Houseguests and Fish
I've become a cottage groupie.
For the third time since August began, my favorite boyfriend and I headed the car east to visit the happy couple who live in the most charming cottage on the northern neck. Despite warning them that their effusive hospitality was going to result in me saying yes every chance I could, they keep rolling out the welcome mat.
"Who wants to go out in the boat?" our handsome host asked seconds after arriving not long after noon. Pointing at me, he grinned, "I know you do."
I've known the man less than two months and he's already on to me.
Meanwhile, our hostess, my girlfriend, was crackling with enthusiasm; she'd just read an article about oyster gardening and was jazzed to take it up. When I asked her who'd written the piece, she pulled out the magazine, checked and whooped in surprise. "I didn't even notice your name!"
Sometimes in life, you have to point out your own byline. What thrilled me was that my article had done exactly what I'd set out to do - encourage anyone on the northern neck with a dock to take up oyster gardening.
So, sure, I was pretty proud of myself. And hungry, too.
We began with the quintessential river meal: crabs cracked and eaten on a picnic table overlooking the river while the man of the house prepared the boat for takeoff. You see, he's not a fan of cracking crabs (like so many men who find it far too much work for the amount of meat), so his adored wife cracks for him, leaving a pile of backfin meat for him to enjoy.
After gorging, we washed the Old Bay off of our hands and took off in the boat, a bottle of champagne in hand, our skipper abstaining as always.
We moseyed up toward Irvington and gawked at the pricey boats in front of the Tides Inn, bantered about the difference between true cottages and river McMansions and saw sailboats of all sizes breezing along.
Returning to the shore mainly because their dog Jake seemed eager to relieve himself, we took time to snack on the deck, scarfing black bean, corn, onion and avocado salsa our smiling hostess had made. It's a personal favorite, something I could eat almost daily and still look forward to.
Not that she knew that. Is it any wonder I'm such a fan of hers?
When we'd arrived, I'd seen a piece of paper on the dining room table that said "lumbago." Curious, I'd asked about it and our host, as much a language geek as I am, said he'd written it down because it's one of those worlds that has fallen out of use and he wanted to remember it.
He's right, of course, these days people complain of lower back pain but no one (except maybe octogenarians) refers to it as lumbago anymore.
Similarly, he was talking about a trial he'd attended where one of the attorneys had used the word "swale," another underused word that had captured his attention. Later he referred to me as a gadabout. How can I not get a kick out of a man who delights in obscure words?
Soon we left wordsmithing behind and took off again, the menfolk in the back and we girls planted on the bow of the boat, pink polka dot beach towels draped over our legs, laughing and talking the whole way. Most hysterical thing to come out of her mouth (and there were many because she's a funny woman)? "If I recall correctly, I threw up on the dog."
This time, we boated up the eastern branch of the Corrotoman to deep water areas where huge sailboats and yachts were anchored and moored.
One of the most interesting homes we saw was not up on a bluff like most of the houses around, but down near the waterline, so close we worried that the wake from the boat was going to send the river lapping at their front door.
You have to admire those who choose to live dangerously, no?
Heading back, the sun was dropping lower in the sky and everyone had an appetite. My mother has always said that children eat and sleep better near water than anywhere else and apparently it's true for adults, too.
Steak and steelhead trout were expertly grilled outside while the womenfolk made an elaborate salad (spinach, strawberries, glazed nuts, bacon, raspberry vinaigrette, oh, my!) and set the table inside to avoid the mosquitoes that had recently taken up residence on the deck.
Full as ticks, we spent the evening listening to music, talking about Grace Street in the old days, reminiscing about past dogs and wishing our hostess did not have to drive back to Richmond. But duty called.
For the second time, I got to spend the night on the bed that sits on the porch of their guest house, a bedroom with a ceiling fan, three screened walls surrounded by trees and the sounds of nature for a lullabye.
It's about the most perfect place to sleep you could imagine.
Our morning plans to boat to Urbanna and have lunch were canned once we looked at the weather and saw the massive front of rain approaching.
Making lemonade out of lemons, we came up with Plan B, even though it meant leaving the charming, little cottage: a visit to nearby Menokin to see its historical ruins, walk its trails and see Cat Point Creek on which it sits.
It's not as random as it sounds. In 2012, I'd heard a lecture at the Virginia Historical Society about Menokin and the efforts to restore it. Just last January, I'd seen an exhibit at the Virginia Center for Architecture of design plans envisioned by Harvard Graduate School of Design students.
So my curiosity about the real thing had been piqued twice and I'm lucky enough to have an accommodating man to investigate with me.
The heavy gray skies and impending rain were a dramatic backdrop as we pulled up to the 500-acre estate (back in original owner and Declaration of Independence signer Francis Lightfoot Lee's day, it had been 1,000 acres) for a look around.
A short film told us additional history, but I was more impressed with the room full of architectural features removed from the house back in the '60s and destined to be returned once the ruins are enclosed with glass walls.
Closet doors, mantel pieces, the front door keystone and many other significant elements of the original house had been presciently stored away in a peanut barn at Bacon's Castle a half century ago and await return to their home.
The ruins are striking because when the roof eventually collapsed, it left standing two corner sections of wall diagonally across from each other and two massive chimneys, in addition to various other bits of walls and cellar, now all somewhat protected under a large shed.
Just so you know, there is nothing cottage-like about this place. It was a big house for an important man.
The once-terraced gardens that sloped gradually down to Cat Point Creek are now overgrown with trees blocking the view, but restoration of the grounds will come in phase two of the project after the house is redone.
Never one to pass up a good water view, we took the trail down through the woods past walnut trees (the ground under them a minefield of green nuts), dogwoods, American beeches, dark cherry trees and tulip poplars until reaching the creek, serene and silver on a day like this.
Old Lightfoot Lee and the wife would have had a marvelous waterfront view back in the 18th century.
Today it was all ours.
For the third time since August began, my favorite boyfriend and I headed the car east to visit the happy couple who live in the most charming cottage on the northern neck. Despite warning them that their effusive hospitality was going to result in me saying yes every chance I could, they keep rolling out the welcome mat.
"Who wants to go out in the boat?" our handsome host asked seconds after arriving not long after noon. Pointing at me, he grinned, "I know you do."
I've known the man less than two months and he's already on to me.
Meanwhile, our hostess, my girlfriend, was crackling with enthusiasm; she'd just read an article about oyster gardening and was jazzed to take it up. When I asked her who'd written the piece, she pulled out the magazine, checked and whooped in surprise. "I didn't even notice your name!"
Sometimes in life, you have to point out your own byline. What thrilled me was that my article had done exactly what I'd set out to do - encourage anyone on the northern neck with a dock to take up oyster gardening.
So, sure, I was pretty proud of myself. And hungry, too.
We began with the quintessential river meal: crabs cracked and eaten on a picnic table overlooking the river while the man of the house prepared the boat for takeoff. You see, he's not a fan of cracking crabs (like so many men who find it far too much work for the amount of meat), so his adored wife cracks for him, leaving a pile of backfin meat for him to enjoy.
After gorging, we washed the Old Bay off of our hands and took off in the boat, a bottle of champagne in hand, our skipper abstaining as always.
We moseyed up toward Irvington and gawked at the pricey boats in front of the Tides Inn, bantered about the difference between true cottages and river McMansions and saw sailboats of all sizes breezing along.
Returning to the shore mainly because their dog Jake seemed eager to relieve himself, we took time to snack on the deck, scarfing black bean, corn, onion and avocado salsa our smiling hostess had made. It's a personal favorite, something I could eat almost daily and still look forward to.
Not that she knew that. Is it any wonder I'm such a fan of hers?
When we'd arrived, I'd seen a piece of paper on the dining room table that said "lumbago." Curious, I'd asked about it and our host, as much a language geek as I am, said he'd written it down because it's one of those worlds that has fallen out of use and he wanted to remember it.
He's right, of course, these days people complain of lower back pain but no one (except maybe octogenarians) refers to it as lumbago anymore.
Similarly, he was talking about a trial he'd attended where one of the attorneys had used the word "swale," another underused word that had captured his attention. Later he referred to me as a gadabout. How can I not get a kick out of a man who delights in obscure words?
Soon we left wordsmithing behind and took off again, the menfolk in the back and we girls planted on the bow of the boat, pink polka dot beach towels draped over our legs, laughing and talking the whole way. Most hysterical thing to come out of her mouth (and there were many because she's a funny woman)? "If I recall correctly, I threw up on the dog."
This time, we boated up the eastern branch of the Corrotoman to deep water areas where huge sailboats and yachts were anchored and moored.
One of the most interesting homes we saw was not up on a bluff like most of the houses around, but down near the waterline, so close we worried that the wake from the boat was going to send the river lapping at their front door.
You have to admire those who choose to live dangerously, no?
Heading back, the sun was dropping lower in the sky and everyone had an appetite. My mother has always said that children eat and sleep better near water than anywhere else and apparently it's true for adults, too.
Steak and steelhead trout were expertly grilled outside while the womenfolk made an elaborate salad (spinach, strawberries, glazed nuts, bacon, raspberry vinaigrette, oh, my!) and set the table inside to avoid the mosquitoes that had recently taken up residence on the deck.
Full as ticks, we spent the evening listening to music, talking about Grace Street in the old days, reminiscing about past dogs and wishing our hostess did not have to drive back to Richmond. But duty called.
For the second time, I got to spend the night on the bed that sits on the porch of their guest house, a bedroom with a ceiling fan, three screened walls surrounded by trees and the sounds of nature for a lullabye.
It's about the most perfect place to sleep you could imagine.
Our morning plans to boat to Urbanna and have lunch were canned once we looked at the weather and saw the massive front of rain approaching.
Making lemonade out of lemons, we came up with Plan B, even though it meant leaving the charming, little cottage: a visit to nearby Menokin to see its historical ruins, walk its trails and see Cat Point Creek on which it sits.
It's not as random as it sounds. In 2012, I'd heard a lecture at the Virginia Historical Society about Menokin and the efforts to restore it. Just last January, I'd seen an exhibit at the Virginia Center for Architecture of design plans envisioned by Harvard Graduate School of Design students.
So my curiosity about the real thing had been piqued twice and I'm lucky enough to have an accommodating man to investigate with me.
The heavy gray skies and impending rain were a dramatic backdrop as we pulled up to the 500-acre estate (back in original owner and Declaration of Independence signer Francis Lightfoot Lee's day, it had been 1,000 acres) for a look around.
A short film told us additional history, but I was more impressed with the room full of architectural features removed from the house back in the '60s and destined to be returned once the ruins are enclosed with glass walls.
Closet doors, mantel pieces, the front door keystone and many other significant elements of the original house had been presciently stored away in a peanut barn at Bacon's Castle a half century ago and await return to their home.
The ruins are striking because when the roof eventually collapsed, it left standing two corner sections of wall diagonally across from each other and two massive chimneys, in addition to various other bits of walls and cellar, now all somewhat protected under a large shed.
Just so you know, there is nothing cottage-like about this place. It was a big house for an important man.
The once-terraced gardens that sloped gradually down to Cat Point Creek are now overgrown with trees blocking the view, but restoration of the grounds will come in phase two of the project after the house is redone.
Never one to pass up a good water view, we took the trail down through the woods past walnut trees (the ground under them a minefield of green nuts), dogwoods, American beeches, dark cherry trees and tulip poplars until reaching the creek, serene and silver on a day like this.
Old Lightfoot Lee and the wife would have had a marvelous waterfront view back in the 18th century.
Today it was all ours.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Hopelessly Devoted to You
Tonight turned out nothing like I expected it to.
I watched one of my moon flowers open.
There was the unexpected invitation to a friend's house where we shared a bottle of Corail Rose and discussed feminism, anacondas and mens (plural intended).
Best of all, she shared with me egg rolls and cheese smuggled in from Bermuda.
I was sprayed with perfume for what was perhaps the first time in decades. Mmm, I smell like a girl.
On the way to our next stop, she observed, "You know, we're not going to meet anyone who knows what Rose is."
Point taken. I drank 1800 and she had Ketel 1 on the rocks. The female bartenders glared at us both.
Of the first two gents who tried to be friendly, from Chester and Hopewell respectively, one was wearing a t-shirt that read, "Don't Bro me 'till you know me."
The other one had the audacity to put his tongue on my friend's hand, causing her to warn him, "Don't lick me like you know me."
It was the first time I ever slow danced with a girl. It's better than you might think.
Best compliment of the evening: a man walked up to me and said, "I had to talk to you because you have the beautiful hair."
Why is it the wrong mens always say the right things?
So that you know, my plan tonight was to watch "Grease" outside at Quirk Gallery.
For the record, I definitely qualify as a beauty school dropout.
I watched one of my moon flowers open.
There was the unexpected invitation to a friend's house where we shared a bottle of Corail Rose and discussed feminism, anacondas and mens (plural intended).
Best of all, she shared with me egg rolls and cheese smuggled in from Bermuda.
I was sprayed with perfume for what was perhaps the first time in decades. Mmm, I smell like a girl.
On the way to our next stop, she observed, "You know, we're not going to meet anyone who knows what Rose is."
Point taken. I drank 1800 and she had Ketel 1 on the rocks. The female bartenders glared at us both.
Of the first two gents who tried to be friendly, from Chester and Hopewell respectively, one was wearing a t-shirt that read, "Don't Bro me 'till you know me."
The other one had the audacity to put his tongue on my friend's hand, causing her to warn him, "Don't lick me like you know me."
It was the first time I ever slow danced with a girl. It's better than you might think.
Best compliment of the evening: a man walked up to me and said, "I had to talk to you because you have the beautiful hair."
Why is it the wrong mens always say the right things?
So that you know, my plan tonight was to watch "Grease" outside at Quirk Gallery.
For the record, I definitely qualify as a beauty school dropout.
Friday, September 26, 2014
Le Petit Mort au Diner
Truth is, I'd planned to stay in tonight.
Sure, sure, whatever, Karen, I can hear the derisive laughter now. As if.
But here's the thing: I have five deadlines this weekend and at the last minute, I was informed that one of my subjects would not be available for me to interview after all.
Not the news I wanted to hear, just when I was down to my next to last piece.
So I (albeit briefly) considered staying home, working so there would be less to do tomorrow.
But then a friend suggested dinner on his dime and I thought, what the heck, a few hours eating isn't going to make much difference.
It's not like staying home would ensure that the publicist puts me in touch with the musician I need.
Looking at it that way, it only made sense to go to dinner.
Friend asked where and I suggested L'Opossum. Although he can be hard to please, I had a feeling it would be right up his alley.
As it turned out, the music wasn't, although I was drawn to its quirkiness.
Liberace, Tom Jones, Bobbi Gentry (twice!) and "Little Green Apples," a corny song I haven't heard in decades.
Arriving first, I took a stool at the end of the bar near an available stool for my tardy friend, where I was offered a taste of their new pink, the well-balanced Domaine Bellevue Touraine Rose.
The genial bartender introduced me to a guy deep into his crabcakes, leading to a little music talk, a little discussion of Buddhism (never refuse free food), and a lot of praise for the dish he'd just inhaled.
A photographer I know spotted me and we caught up on what she'd been up to, including a summer photography retreat at a Mississippi mansion complete with wandering armadillos and plenty of brown liquor drinking.
Frankly, I see both as conducive to the creatively-inspired taking of pictures.
My friend showed up full of apologies for his delayed entrance, no big deal since I can amuse myself.
It was his first visit, so he began by assessing the wine list, impressed with not only the bottle choices but the price points.
Once he made it to the food menu, he was flummoxed, unsure which of several tantalizing options to go for.
We began with Chapel Creek oysters rock over watercress, misted with a green fairy fog (my beloved absinthe) right before our eyes, resulting in some of the most exquisite oysters Rockefeller I've ever tasted.
With a nod to the VMFA, Faberge eggs bedazzled with caviar and vodka-laced accoutrements including pale pink gelatinous "les jiggles de la Champagne Rose."
We got into a discussion with a bar sitter and our barkeep about cars, including the "artist series" of BMWs, something I'd never even heard of.
But my friend had and the other guy had actually seen a Warhol BMW (supposedly took him 27 minutes to do) at a museum , so they got going great guns on this.
It was a fitting tie-in to the Warhol- designed pattern that festoons the bar and table tops in the restaurant.
That led to talk about cop magnets (Porsches, red cars, high end black BMWs), getting pulled over and suspended licenses, again not my forte.
But eating is, so I couldn't have been happier when my whole fried baby chicken on mashed potato waffles showed up with pan gravy, kale and pickled okra.
Crispy golden brown, I went for the drumsticks first before turning my attention to the perfectly cooked kale but the most striking part of the dish looked like two little red balls.
They turned out to be Fireball butter, knobs of spicy butter to slather on my waffle and swoon over.
When I offered my friend some pickled okra, he hesitated, remembering his mother's pickled okra full of red pepper and left to sit for a year until it was unpleasant to eat.
This okra, he had to admit, was a horse of a different color, piquant and still responding with snap when bitten into. Southern perfection.
He'd chosen bunny, as he put it, - "Madame Dot du Powhatan's cider-braised rabbit peppered with gingersnap spaetzle and schadenfreude" - the latter one of many clever word plays ("uninhibited mushroom broth") on a menu where alliteration reigns supreme.
Have I mentioned how much I like literate restaurant owners who use their menus to convey more than just the kitchen's offerings, using language to engage and entertain and not just inform?
Just so you know.
Since it had been ages since my friend and I had gotten together, a goodly part of the meal was spent catching up.
Since he's read all of her books, I knew he'd want to hear about my evening listening to Doris Kearns Goodwin and he did.
That reminded him that he wanted to find a good biography of Woodrow Wilson and then a multi-volume series on WWI, an era he feels he is not well enough informed on.
I, on the other hand, accept that I am ill-informed on plenty of things and read what I choose, which probably makes him a better person than me.
When neither of us was able to finish our entrees, he explained that he wouldn't be able to take his leftovers home because he had no room in his refrigerator.
After cataloging what was in there (including a lot of bread: croissants, bialies, baguettes, sandwich bread, pizza) he reconsidered and got a box for the rest of his rabbit but chose to leave the schadenfreude behind.
Language geek humor there.
Both stuffed, we did the only logical thing and got dessert: caramel-glazed figs in a refreshing elixir of watermelon, plums, sake and lime.
I'm passionate about figs and these had sugar fired on top but just as wonderful was that elixir, which we spooned up greedily and would have happily eaten as a soup if it had been delivered as such.
That only whet our appetites for our second dessert, a chocolate pate seductively named "le petite mort au chocolat" (and yes, I know what that means) set aflame by our bartender.
Who, by the way, caused me to turn pea-green with envy when he told me that he'd been given a free ticket to see Bryan Ferry in Washington next week.
I wanted to put my head down on the bar and weep in jealousy but it would have been unseemly.
What I will do is go back and get a blow by blow report from him on the show, not that it will assuage my loss any, but at least it's something.
By that point, Friend was raving about what an outstanding meal it had been but we were also balancing precariously on the edge of a food coma, so we decided to cede our stools to latecomers and go our separate ways.
After all, I had "work" to do.
But you better believe there's Bryan Ferry playing in the background as I do it.
Sure, sure, whatever, Karen, I can hear the derisive laughter now. As if.
But here's the thing: I have five deadlines this weekend and at the last minute, I was informed that one of my subjects would not be available for me to interview after all.
Not the news I wanted to hear, just when I was down to my next to last piece.
So I (albeit briefly) considered staying home, working so there would be less to do tomorrow.
But then a friend suggested dinner on his dime and I thought, what the heck, a few hours eating isn't going to make much difference.
It's not like staying home would ensure that the publicist puts me in touch with the musician I need.
Looking at it that way, it only made sense to go to dinner.
Friend asked where and I suggested L'Opossum. Although he can be hard to please, I had a feeling it would be right up his alley.
As it turned out, the music wasn't, although I was drawn to its quirkiness.
Liberace, Tom Jones, Bobbi Gentry (twice!) and "Little Green Apples," a corny song I haven't heard in decades.
Arriving first, I took a stool at the end of the bar near an available stool for my tardy friend, where I was offered a taste of their new pink, the well-balanced Domaine Bellevue Touraine Rose.
The genial bartender introduced me to a guy deep into his crabcakes, leading to a little music talk, a little discussion of Buddhism (never refuse free food), and a lot of praise for the dish he'd just inhaled.
A photographer I know spotted me and we caught up on what she'd been up to, including a summer photography retreat at a Mississippi mansion complete with wandering armadillos and plenty of brown liquor drinking.
Frankly, I see both as conducive to the creatively-inspired taking of pictures.
My friend showed up full of apologies for his delayed entrance, no big deal since I can amuse myself.
It was his first visit, so he began by assessing the wine list, impressed with not only the bottle choices but the price points.
Once he made it to the food menu, he was flummoxed, unsure which of several tantalizing options to go for.
We began with Chapel Creek oysters rock over watercress, misted with a green fairy fog (my beloved absinthe) right before our eyes, resulting in some of the most exquisite oysters Rockefeller I've ever tasted.
With a nod to the VMFA, Faberge eggs bedazzled with caviar and vodka-laced accoutrements including pale pink gelatinous "les jiggles de la Champagne Rose."
We got into a discussion with a bar sitter and our barkeep about cars, including the "artist series" of BMWs, something I'd never even heard of.
But my friend had and the other guy had actually seen a Warhol BMW (supposedly took him 27 minutes to do) at a museum , so they got going great guns on this.
It was a fitting tie-in to the Warhol- designed pattern that festoons the bar and table tops in the restaurant.
That led to talk about cop magnets (Porsches, red cars, high end black BMWs), getting pulled over and suspended licenses, again not my forte.
But eating is, so I couldn't have been happier when my whole fried baby chicken on mashed potato waffles showed up with pan gravy, kale and pickled okra.
Crispy golden brown, I went for the drumsticks first before turning my attention to the perfectly cooked kale but the most striking part of the dish looked like two little red balls.
They turned out to be Fireball butter, knobs of spicy butter to slather on my waffle and swoon over.
When I offered my friend some pickled okra, he hesitated, remembering his mother's pickled okra full of red pepper and left to sit for a year until it was unpleasant to eat.
This okra, he had to admit, was a horse of a different color, piquant and still responding with snap when bitten into. Southern perfection.
He'd chosen bunny, as he put it, - "Madame Dot du Powhatan's cider-braised rabbit peppered with gingersnap spaetzle and schadenfreude" - the latter one of many clever word plays ("uninhibited mushroom broth") on a menu where alliteration reigns supreme.
Have I mentioned how much I like literate restaurant owners who use their menus to convey more than just the kitchen's offerings, using language to engage and entertain and not just inform?
Just so you know.
Since it had been ages since my friend and I had gotten together, a goodly part of the meal was spent catching up.
Since he's read all of her books, I knew he'd want to hear about my evening listening to Doris Kearns Goodwin and he did.
That reminded him that he wanted to find a good biography of Woodrow Wilson and then a multi-volume series on WWI, an era he feels he is not well enough informed on.
I, on the other hand, accept that I am ill-informed on plenty of things and read what I choose, which probably makes him a better person than me.
When neither of us was able to finish our entrees, he explained that he wouldn't be able to take his leftovers home because he had no room in his refrigerator.
After cataloging what was in there (including a lot of bread: croissants, bialies, baguettes, sandwich bread, pizza) he reconsidered and got a box for the rest of his rabbit but chose to leave the schadenfreude behind.
Language geek humor there.
Both stuffed, we did the only logical thing and got dessert: caramel-glazed figs in a refreshing elixir of watermelon, plums, sake and lime.
I'm passionate about figs and these had sugar fired on top but just as wonderful was that elixir, which we spooned up greedily and would have happily eaten as a soup if it had been delivered as such.
That only whet our appetites for our second dessert, a chocolate pate seductively named "le petite mort au chocolat" (and yes, I know what that means) set aflame by our bartender.
Who, by the way, caused me to turn pea-green with envy when he told me that he'd been given a free ticket to see Bryan Ferry in Washington next week.
I wanted to put my head down on the bar and weep in jealousy but it would have been unseemly.
What I will do is go back and get a blow by blow report from him on the show, not that it will assuage my loss any, but at least it's something.
By that point, Friend was raving about what an outstanding meal it had been but we were also balancing precariously on the edge of a food coma, so we decided to cede our stools to latecomers and go our separate ways.
After all, I had "work" to do.
But you better believe there's Bryan Ferry playing in the background as I do it.
Keep the Gloves On
You can imagine how well I fit in in a room full of banking types. At the Jefferson, no less.
Not that it mattered because a friend had invited me to be his stand-in date (his beloved was working) for an evening with Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Yes, that Doris, the one who wrote "Team of Rivals" on which "Lincoln" was based.
So many Dorises this week.
My friend suggested we arrive fashionably late to the cocktail reception, making us the exception since the banking revelry was in full swing as we descended the grand staircase to the rotunda.
First came name tags (magnetic, of course, so as not to have to put a pin through anyone's expensive ensemble) and seating cards so we'd know which table would welcome us upstairs.
Everywhere were dark suits with drinks in hand, a sea of navy and black broken up only by their accompanying female guests.
Before we could even order a drink, a functionary informed us that we could stand in line to have our photograph taken with Doris.
We opted out of that nonsense, scored glasses of Barboursville Pinot Grigio and found a place to stand and chat.
I'm 99% positive that Doris has no interest in having her picture taken with me.
Once we roosted, some sort of invisible bat signal went up to the roving waitstaff who immediately zeroed in on us to offer bite-sized hors d'oeuvres.
A fat little crabcake. Tomato bisque with a sliver of grilled cheese. Ham biscuits. Corned beef roll-ups.
The roll ups caused some consternation because they came mounted on little metal stands shaped like an inverted "V" and nobody was quite sure how the food was attached.
No fear here, so I took one, bit the meat off and went to return the stand to her tray.
"Don't you put that there!" the server barked before remembering herself. "Oh, I'm sorry, miss, that was rude," and scuttled away.
I put my metal stand on a nearby table.
A man came over to chat with us, sharing that Doris had been taken in a limo up to St. John's church today to see it and hear some of the Patrick Henry re-enactment. When she climbed out of the car, a cluster of tourists immediately recognized her.
Call me a historical nit-wit, but I wouldn't have recognized Doris from Adam on the street. Okay, from Eve.
Not long afterwards, a man appeared on the grand staircase and began ringing a bell like the town crier. Apparently it was time to withdraw to the grand ballroom for dinner.
"This is the cattle call part," my date whispered, leaning down as the slow-moving crowd began the trip upstairs, not everyone happy to leave the open bar behind.
The first to arrive at our table, we took the best seats facing the stage and subsequently met the remainder of the table's occupants as they arrived.
Up there, our libation choices had been reduced to a couple of Californians, Stag's Leap "Karia" Chardonnay and Belle Glos "Meiomi" Pinot Noir.
Two of the men had dates who looked decades younger than them, but it wasn't our place to judge (although we did discuss the disparities once we left), so instead we left the conversational ball in their court.
You know what everyone wanted to talk about? Richmond restaurants. Even without any prodding, this is a town obsessed with food.
Speaking of, our mesclun greens with pears, Feta, candied walnuts and sesame pomegranate dressing were already waiting for us, so once we had a quorum, I dove in.
Polishing off my greens, I looked around to see that most people had taken only a token bite or two before pushing their plate away.
But the real issues came with the meat course.
At our table we had one gluten-intolerant and one vegetarian, meaning they had to have special plates brought to them while the rest of us just wanted to dig into our beef tenderloin, pumpkin-encrusted salmon, sweet potato dauphinoise and petite squash and asparagus.
The eating world used to be such a simpler place.
Over that course, people started conversing across the table, one guy talking about his move to Vistas on the James after his sons left for college, another about his 18 grandchildren.
I was asked by a man if I was a native (no) and a woman told me I looked familiar. "Are you famous?" she inquired (no).
"You have great dimples," another man said, always one of my favorite compliments.
Dessert was a trio of miniatures: bourbon chocolate pecan pie, red velvet opera torte and Jefferson banana pudding (which apparently meant whipped), my date's favorite because it reminded him of the banana pudding his mother had made for him as a child.
Finally it was time for the woman who needed no introduction, not because she won a Pulitzer prize, not because she wrote the book that got a movie filmed here but because (drum roll)...
She was the first female to enter the locker room at Fenway Park.
So, yes, there was baseball talk (never forgave the Dodgers for leaving Brooklyn but eventually became a Red Sox fan when she moved to Boston), mainly about how her father had her listen to the game and take notes so she could report it back to him play by play, thus planting the seed for her love of retelling history.
Her talk was focused on lessons learned by three Presidents, coincidentally three that she's written mega-selling books about.
Beginning by saying it was good to be back at the Jefferson after a half dozen previous times, she said, "It's probably the most graceful hotel in the country."
Recalling her time with a White House fellowship under LBJ and the many conversations they had then and later when she helped him write his memoirs, she said he was a great storyteller and she turned out to be great listener, only later realizing that not all his stories were based in truth.
Why let the facts get in the way of a good story?
Explaining that the best presidents had traits in common, she went on to illustrate those traits using Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and FDR as examples.
Because of his humble beginnings and his mother dying, Abe wanted to do things that would make him live on to future generations.
Teddy's life-threatening asthma motivated him to become a mega-athlete who could ride a horse for 50 miles a day or walk 20 miles.
FDR's polio-induced paralysis made him expand his mind, reaching out to other people and empathizing with the poor and underprivileged.
Talking about how brilliant Abe was to put his top three rivals in his cabinet, she quoted LBJ on the subject.
"Better to have your enemies inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in." Don't know about you, but a man who can turn a phrase like that and has beagles is my kind of man.
There was a terrific story about the first black motorman hired for Philly's mass transit system. When he showed up for work, transit was at a standstill because no (white) drivers had shown up as a way of protesting his hiring.
FDR had letters sent to all the men telling them that if they didn't show up for work, they would be considered non-essential to the city and drafted immediately.
Guess who all returned to work the next day?
She told how on the morning Abe was to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, his hand was tired and sore from shaking 1,000 hands that day.
Rather than sign the important document in a shaky hand, he waited, aware that posterity would see his shakiness as tentativeness.
For stress relief, FDR instituted nightly cocktail hours where war was not to be discussed.
The soirees became so popular, people moved into the White House ("the most exclusive residential hotel," Doris called it) for weeks, months and years to make it more convenient to attend them.
Teddy just made people go on walks through Rock Creek Park with him, insisting on a point to point walk. Ergo, if they came upon a rock, they had to go over it.
Once when he and a French diplomat came to a stream, the man was sure they'd turn back.
Instead, Teddy insisted they strip down so as not to get their clothes wet crossing.
The Frenchman insisted on keeping on his violet kid gloves, "In case we run into any ladies."
Put that kind of thing in the history books and kids will be a whole lot more interested, I'd wager.
During the Q & A, Doris made the point that partisanship has gotten worse because the members of Congress didn't always leave town every weekend as they do now.
According to her, because they stayed in Washington more, they had more chances to socialize, play poker and drink with fellow House and Senate members week in and week out, making it easier to forge alliances when necessary for voting issues.
While her lecture had the sing-song quality of an oft-repeated one, her stories were compelling and the obscure stuff she dug up in old journals and letters was wonderful to hear about.
Abe was a card. Eleanor liked to argue. Teddy could laugh at himself.
As if food, wine, compliments and the past weren't enough for one night, everyone got a goody bag with an autographed copy of Doris' latest book, "The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and the Golden Age of Journalism" on the way out.
Moral of the story: Better to have bankers giving you books than pissing in your tent.
Even so, I think they figured out I wasn't one of them.
Not that it mattered because a friend had invited me to be his stand-in date (his beloved was working) for an evening with Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Yes, that Doris, the one who wrote "Team of Rivals" on which "Lincoln" was based.
So many Dorises this week.
My friend suggested we arrive fashionably late to the cocktail reception, making us the exception since the banking revelry was in full swing as we descended the grand staircase to the rotunda.
First came name tags (magnetic, of course, so as not to have to put a pin through anyone's expensive ensemble) and seating cards so we'd know which table would welcome us upstairs.
Everywhere were dark suits with drinks in hand, a sea of navy and black broken up only by their accompanying female guests.
Before we could even order a drink, a functionary informed us that we could stand in line to have our photograph taken with Doris.
We opted out of that nonsense, scored glasses of Barboursville Pinot Grigio and found a place to stand and chat.
I'm 99% positive that Doris has no interest in having her picture taken with me.
Once we roosted, some sort of invisible bat signal went up to the roving waitstaff who immediately zeroed in on us to offer bite-sized hors d'oeuvres.
A fat little crabcake. Tomato bisque with a sliver of grilled cheese. Ham biscuits. Corned beef roll-ups.
The roll ups caused some consternation because they came mounted on little metal stands shaped like an inverted "V" and nobody was quite sure how the food was attached.
No fear here, so I took one, bit the meat off and went to return the stand to her tray.
"Don't you put that there!" the server barked before remembering herself. "Oh, I'm sorry, miss, that was rude," and scuttled away.
I put my metal stand on a nearby table.
A man came over to chat with us, sharing that Doris had been taken in a limo up to St. John's church today to see it and hear some of the Patrick Henry re-enactment. When she climbed out of the car, a cluster of tourists immediately recognized her.
Call me a historical nit-wit, but I wouldn't have recognized Doris from Adam on the street. Okay, from Eve.
Not long afterwards, a man appeared on the grand staircase and began ringing a bell like the town crier. Apparently it was time to withdraw to the grand ballroom for dinner.
"This is the cattle call part," my date whispered, leaning down as the slow-moving crowd began the trip upstairs, not everyone happy to leave the open bar behind.
The first to arrive at our table, we took the best seats facing the stage and subsequently met the remainder of the table's occupants as they arrived.
Up there, our libation choices had been reduced to a couple of Californians, Stag's Leap "Karia" Chardonnay and Belle Glos "Meiomi" Pinot Noir.
Two of the men had dates who looked decades younger than them, but it wasn't our place to judge (although we did discuss the disparities once we left), so instead we left the conversational ball in their court.
You know what everyone wanted to talk about? Richmond restaurants. Even without any prodding, this is a town obsessed with food.
Speaking of, our mesclun greens with pears, Feta, candied walnuts and sesame pomegranate dressing were already waiting for us, so once we had a quorum, I dove in.
Polishing off my greens, I looked around to see that most people had taken only a token bite or two before pushing their plate away.
But the real issues came with the meat course.
At our table we had one gluten-intolerant and one vegetarian, meaning they had to have special plates brought to them while the rest of us just wanted to dig into our beef tenderloin, pumpkin-encrusted salmon, sweet potato dauphinoise and petite squash and asparagus.
The eating world used to be such a simpler place.
Over that course, people started conversing across the table, one guy talking about his move to Vistas on the James after his sons left for college, another about his 18 grandchildren.
I was asked by a man if I was a native (no) and a woman told me I looked familiar. "Are you famous?" she inquired (no).
"You have great dimples," another man said, always one of my favorite compliments.
Dessert was a trio of miniatures: bourbon chocolate pecan pie, red velvet opera torte and Jefferson banana pudding (which apparently meant whipped), my date's favorite because it reminded him of the banana pudding his mother had made for him as a child.
Finally it was time for the woman who needed no introduction, not because she won a Pulitzer prize, not because she wrote the book that got a movie filmed here but because (drum roll)...
She was the first female to enter the locker room at Fenway Park.
So, yes, there was baseball talk (never forgave the Dodgers for leaving Brooklyn but eventually became a Red Sox fan when she moved to Boston), mainly about how her father had her listen to the game and take notes so she could report it back to him play by play, thus planting the seed for her love of retelling history.
Her talk was focused on lessons learned by three Presidents, coincidentally three that she's written mega-selling books about.
Beginning by saying it was good to be back at the Jefferson after a half dozen previous times, she said, "It's probably the most graceful hotel in the country."
Recalling her time with a White House fellowship under LBJ and the many conversations they had then and later when she helped him write his memoirs, she said he was a great storyteller and she turned out to be great listener, only later realizing that not all his stories were based in truth.
Why let the facts get in the way of a good story?
Explaining that the best presidents had traits in common, she went on to illustrate those traits using Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and FDR as examples.
Because of his humble beginnings and his mother dying, Abe wanted to do things that would make him live on to future generations.
Teddy's life-threatening asthma motivated him to become a mega-athlete who could ride a horse for 50 miles a day or walk 20 miles.
FDR's polio-induced paralysis made him expand his mind, reaching out to other people and empathizing with the poor and underprivileged.
Talking about how brilliant Abe was to put his top three rivals in his cabinet, she quoted LBJ on the subject.
"Better to have your enemies inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in." Don't know about you, but a man who can turn a phrase like that and has beagles is my kind of man.
There was a terrific story about the first black motorman hired for Philly's mass transit system. When he showed up for work, transit was at a standstill because no (white) drivers had shown up as a way of protesting his hiring.
FDR had letters sent to all the men telling them that if they didn't show up for work, they would be considered non-essential to the city and drafted immediately.
Guess who all returned to work the next day?
She told how on the morning Abe was to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, his hand was tired and sore from shaking 1,000 hands that day.
Rather than sign the important document in a shaky hand, he waited, aware that posterity would see his shakiness as tentativeness.
For stress relief, FDR instituted nightly cocktail hours where war was not to be discussed.
The soirees became so popular, people moved into the White House ("the most exclusive residential hotel," Doris called it) for weeks, months and years to make it more convenient to attend them.
Teddy just made people go on walks through Rock Creek Park with him, insisting on a point to point walk. Ergo, if they came upon a rock, they had to go over it.
Once when he and a French diplomat came to a stream, the man was sure they'd turn back.
Instead, Teddy insisted they strip down so as not to get their clothes wet crossing.
The Frenchman insisted on keeping on his violet kid gloves, "In case we run into any ladies."
Put that kind of thing in the history books and kids will be a whole lot more interested, I'd wager.
During the Q & A, Doris made the point that partisanship has gotten worse because the members of Congress didn't always leave town every weekend as they do now.
According to her, because they stayed in Washington more, they had more chances to socialize, play poker and drink with fellow House and Senate members week in and week out, making it easier to forge alliances when necessary for voting issues.
While her lecture had the sing-song quality of an oft-repeated one, her stories were compelling and the obscure stuff she dug up in old journals and letters was wonderful to hear about.
Abe was a card. Eleanor liked to argue. Teddy could laugh at himself.
As if food, wine, compliments and the past weren't enough for one night, everyone got a goody bag with an autographed copy of Doris' latest book, "The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and the Golden Age of Journalism" on the way out.
Moral of the story: Better to have bankers giving you books than pissing in your tent.
Even so, I think they figured out I wasn't one of them.
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Mad About Good Books, Can't Get My Fill
I'd like to make a public service announcement. It's not winter.
Walking around today, I saw people in bulky jackets, scarves and hats. It was 65. Granted, drizzly, but 65 degrees.
When it's 65 in April, folks in these parts are sporting shorts and sundresses. Today suddenly, it's bundle up time.
Perhaps there's a chance it was a reaction, not to the temperature, but to the long-absent rain that fell all afternoon.
I know because I drove to the northern neck to spend the afternoon talking to a couple of award-winning sisters, the rain steady from the moment I left home and all the way to the Rapphannock and back.
While hearing one delicious story after another, one sister said that she didn't have any men in her life because she didn't want anyone telling her what she couldn't do.
Seems the David Letterman show had invited her on and when they called to confirm, she wasn't home and her fiance told them she wouldn't be able to come.
You hold something like that against all mankind, it seems.
So it was I spent a fascinating afternoon with the two of them, hearing 60 years worth of stories, with a whole lot of testifying and "uh-huh-ing" going on all the while.
We had a ball.
Back in the city, I found rushing water so deep in the curb along my street that I needed to shed my shoes before exiting the car.
I showered while it was showering outside, got dressed while it rained on and drove to meet a favorite couple at Pomegranate under a steady drizzle.
Not ashamed to say I like days like this. I can even do a stretch of them, just not daily.
But driving from J-Ward to Carytown, it was hard to miss how empty places were, even for notoriously slow September.
It's only rain, after all, and a mild, soft humid night at that.
Unless you're the Wicked Witch of the West, I think you're okay.
Because the only other occupants were taking up half the bar, we wound up right in front of the screen, so I just swiveled to look out the big front window and watch the rain and car lights make patterns on the shiny streets.
What screen?
This was not a random get-togetherbut a posthumous celebration of my friend's Aunt Doris, who would have been 95. In tribute to Doris, she'd had two martinis by 7.
I believe that's how the Doris tradition is kept alive, a nod to all the great adventures, drinking and otherwise, she'd had with Doris over the years.
Waiting for our food over Jean-Luc Columbo Viognier (with one abstaining for a cocktail), we toasted Doris and allowed our ears to wander with whatever Great American Songbook Pandora station they'd chosen.
Apparently it was just the kind of music Doris loved.
Jimmy Durante, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat "King" Cole, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Gershwin.
I like New York in June, how about you?
I like a Gershwin tune, how about you?
I love a fireside when a storm is due
I like potato chips, moonlight, motor trips, how about you?
A far cry from last night's thrash at 821.Variety, spice of life and all that.
I'd chosen mussels and frites in a tomato basil broth, getting such a plentiful serving of mussels (and a mound of flaccid fries) that I left little room for bread sopping of what was a perfectly delicious broth, hunks of cooked tomato throughout.
My friends told me about having seen violinist Joshua Bell with the symphony Saturday evening followed by a discussion of Bell's performance next week at the Union Station Metro.
It'll be interesting to hear how differently people react to him playing than they did when he first tried it in 2007 and only a handful paid him any mind.
We talked about how much my friend dislikes listening to WCVE's jazz show with Peter Solomon and having the musical vibe broken hourly with jarring news.
In his opinion, they should hold the news until after jazz ends. First world problem.
Sharing notes on each other's full moon-like experiences last Friday, they told me about finding a girl passed out on a neighbor's lawn and I shared how I'd seen a girl go from vertical on a corner to crumpled on the curb in less than five seconds.
Rein it in, kids. Life's a marathon, not a sprint.
They both smacked their lips over their dishes - his enormous and vaguely obscene pig and bacon sausage over spaetzel and apples, her steak frites made with culotte steak, a lean cut I like for its toothsome meatiness and she did, too - and we agreed on Espolon for dessert.
My friend whined that his high school reunion had been scheduled for opening night of the Folk Fest. He's not pleased.
I heard about a new exhibit at UR showing the development of the Westhampton area from amusement park to university, just the geeky kind of thing I'd love to see.
My aunt Faye went to UR back in the '60s and never quite accepted the merging of the men's and women's campuses, despite being extremely liberal and forward-thinking. I think it had more to do with academics than anything.
The male in our midst was left behind when we got off on a tangent about VCU's Grace Street area in its heyday.
I told her how when I first moved here from Washington, I was thrilled to discover Sunny Day, a clothing shop on Grace Street that carried decidedly un-Richmond like clothes for 1987.
Squealing in delight, she said she'd bought two pairs of sky-high platform shoes there in the '70s, one pair black and the other silver, both of which she danced in until destroying the black ones.
The silver ones she still has.
And get this, she paid for them by the shoe, not by the pair. Crazy, man.
I told her I'd danced a half dozen times this summer and had on platform shoes every time. Old habits die hard.
Just for the record, I also like potato chips, moonlight and motor trips.
Motor trips, even in rain like this. Here's to you, Doris.
Walking around today, I saw people in bulky jackets, scarves and hats. It was 65. Granted, drizzly, but 65 degrees.
When it's 65 in April, folks in these parts are sporting shorts and sundresses. Today suddenly, it's bundle up time.
Perhaps there's a chance it was a reaction, not to the temperature, but to the long-absent rain that fell all afternoon.
I know because I drove to the northern neck to spend the afternoon talking to a couple of award-winning sisters, the rain steady from the moment I left home and all the way to the Rapphannock and back.
While hearing one delicious story after another, one sister said that she didn't have any men in her life because she didn't want anyone telling her what she couldn't do.
Seems the David Letterman show had invited her on and when they called to confirm, she wasn't home and her fiance told them she wouldn't be able to come.
You hold something like that against all mankind, it seems.
So it was I spent a fascinating afternoon with the two of them, hearing 60 years worth of stories, with a whole lot of testifying and "uh-huh-ing" going on all the while.
We had a ball.
Back in the city, I found rushing water so deep in the curb along my street that I needed to shed my shoes before exiting the car.
I showered while it was showering outside, got dressed while it rained on and drove to meet a favorite couple at Pomegranate under a steady drizzle.
Not ashamed to say I like days like this. I can even do a stretch of them, just not daily.
But driving from J-Ward to Carytown, it was hard to miss how empty places were, even for notoriously slow September.
It's only rain, after all, and a mild, soft humid night at that.
Unless you're the Wicked Witch of the West, I think you're okay.
Because the only other occupants were taking up half the bar, we wound up right in front of the screen, so I just swiveled to look out the big front window and watch the rain and car lights make patterns on the shiny streets.
What screen?
This was not a random get-togetherbut a posthumous celebration of my friend's Aunt Doris, who would have been 95. In tribute to Doris, she'd had two martinis by 7.
I believe that's how the Doris tradition is kept alive, a nod to all the great adventures, drinking and otherwise, she'd had with Doris over the years.
Waiting for our food over Jean-Luc Columbo Viognier (with one abstaining for a cocktail), we toasted Doris and allowed our ears to wander with whatever Great American Songbook Pandora station they'd chosen.
Apparently it was just the kind of music Doris loved.
Jimmy Durante, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat "King" Cole, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Gershwin.
I like New York in June, how about you?
I like a Gershwin tune, how about you?
I love a fireside when a storm is due
I like potato chips, moonlight, motor trips, how about you?
I'd chosen mussels and frites in a tomato basil broth, getting such a plentiful serving of mussels (and a mound of flaccid fries) that I left little room for bread sopping of what was a perfectly delicious broth, hunks of cooked tomato throughout.
My friends told me about having seen violinist Joshua Bell with the symphony Saturday evening followed by a discussion of Bell's performance next week at the Union Station Metro.
It'll be interesting to hear how differently people react to him playing than they did when he first tried it in 2007 and only a handful paid him any mind.
We talked about how much my friend dislikes listening to WCVE's jazz show with Peter Solomon and having the musical vibe broken hourly with jarring news.
In his opinion, they should hold the news until after jazz ends. First world problem.
Sharing notes on each other's full moon-like experiences last Friday, they told me about finding a girl passed out on a neighbor's lawn and I shared how I'd seen a girl go from vertical on a corner to crumpled on the curb in less than five seconds.
Rein it in, kids. Life's a marathon, not a sprint.
They both smacked their lips over their dishes - his enormous and vaguely obscene pig and bacon sausage over spaetzel and apples, her steak frites made with culotte steak, a lean cut I like for its toothsome meatiness and she did, too - and we agreed on Espolon for dessert.
My friend whined that his high school reunion had been scheduled for opening night of the Folk Fest. He's not pleased.
I heard about a new exhibit at UR showing the development of the Westhampton area from amusement park to university, just the geeky kind of thing I'd love to see.
My aunt Faye went to UR back in the '60s and never quite accepted the merging of the men's and women's campuses, despite being extremely liberal and forward-thinking. I think it had more to do with academics than anything.
The male in our midst was left behind when we got off on a tangent about VCU's Grace Street area in its heyday.
I told her how when I first moved here from Washington, I was thrilled to discover Sunny Day, a clothing shop on Grace Street that carried decidedly un-Richmond like clothes for 1987.
Squealing in delight, she said she'd bought two pairs of sky-high platform shoes there in the '70s, one pair black and the other silver, both of which she danced in until destroying the black ones.
The silver ones she still has.
And get this, she paid for them by the shoe, not by the pair. Crazy, man.
I told her I'd danced a half dozen times this summer and had on platform shoes every time. Old habits die hard.
Just for the record, I also like potato chips, moonlight and motor trips.
Motor trips, even in rain like this. Here's to you, Doris.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
For Once in Your Life
You learn better when your belly's full.
Since I had plans to attend honors film class, I made plans to meet up first with a fellow film lover at Cafe 821, where it turned out to be "breakfast all day" Tuesday with discounted mimosas.
Fittingly, since when I go to 821 for breakfast I always order black bean nachos, I did the same tonight.
Only hitch? I requested a half order and was told there's no such thing.What, I dreamt it?
The strange thing about that is that I'd ordered those nachos for five years before the day a server asked me if I'd prefer a half order since I was never able to finish a whole.
Why, yes, a half order would be ideal, I'd told her, surprised that no one had ever told me it was a possibility to do so.
Tonight I was informed that it's not a possibility, just something that particular server does. Fortunately, my companion was willing to nibble off my plate in a vain attempt to help me do justice to the mega plate of food in front of me.
I still sent back as much as I ate, thereby proving I should be allowed to get a half order.
My fellow film lover took off to pick up his date while I strolled over to the Grace Street Theater for VCU Cinematheque's screening of "Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."
It was my first Cinematheque of the fall season and instead of just the usual blase film students, tonight also included an honors class so nearly every seat was taken with earnest artistic types.
Dr. Rob began by listing out the staples of any Stanley Kubrick film: creative cinematography, use of ironic, contrasting music, a melding of genres, realism and innovative visual effects.
"You're really fortunate to get to see a 35mm print of this," he said of the 50-year old classic. "This is probably the only time in your life you'll see this."
Since I've never seen it before, it seemed only right to get to see it the proper way my first time.
Although I'm not big into war movies, I am a huge fan of satire, period details and '60s movies, so except for the absent girl parts, it turned out to be very much my kind of movie.
There was one female character in the entire film and she wore a bikini and high heels while laying on the bed reading under a sunlamp, waiting for her man to come out of the bathroom.
You see, kids, this was back before we knew that tanning was bad for us.
Since it was 1964, she had a soft, curvy body, so unlike the hard body norm of today. It was lovely.
When we see the soldiers aboard the top secret B-52 Bomber, they're reading a Playboy magazine, with the centerfold sporting a newspaper over her bottom.
You know, for decorum.
When they have to go inside the B-52's safe to get the bombing instructions, more nudie picks are taped to the inside of the safe door.
Ah, for the good old days when men had to cut and paste their porn and not just click a mouse.
Because it was a college-aged crowd, there were the usual tittering at that which with they weren't familiar, such as when one of the three Peter Sellers characters had to use a pay phone and insert coins.
OMG, pay phonz, LOL!!
Spare me.
Watching Sellers play three such different characters - the President, the RAF officer and the demented German Dr. Strangelove- was like watching a master class in comedy.
Sometimes you could even spot another actor cracking up in the background.
But honestly, it was just as fascinating to watch a young-looking George C. Scott go absolutely bananas in his scenes, as only a younger man can do.
Clearly most of my memories of his film roles were older roles when he was more staid.
After the film, half the room cleared out and the remaining film devotees discussed it.
I was thrilled when Dr. Rob asked who'd seen the movie before and pointed out that seeing it on a small screen - TV, computer or god forbid, phone- made it come across more rational whereas seeing it on the big screen made it more visceral, the way Kubrick had intended it to be.
Pshaw. Like he had to tell me that.
Discussing Kubrick's influence on subsequent directors, he appealed to the students. "What big film of your youth had a similar plane interior and flying shots?"
It took two guesses before someone came up with the obvious: "Star Wars." Even I knew that and I haven't seen "Star Wars" since it opened in 1977.
Please note, I did see it, though.
After more discussion of how much of Sellers' dialog was improvised (a lot), how Kubrick would do up to 50 takes on a scene and about the importance of editing for impact, he dismissed class.
Walking out, I saw a friend and we stood outside discussing the film on the sidewalk.
He'd been taken with the race issues raised in the film and I'd been struck by the feminist issues.
You see, at the end, Dr. Strangelove proposes a plan for post-nuclear survival where people live underground breeding to replace all those killed.
To do this, he says, there must be a ratio of ten highly stimulating women for every man.
George C. Scott's general character immediately sees the benefit of this, asking if this means that men would have to give up monogamy. That old male fantasy.
Naturally, all the men now see this as a fabulous idea. Culturally speaking, it's obvious there's been no consciousness raising prior to this film.
After ten minutes of film dissection, he suggested a drink and we headed to the Village Cafe for hot tea with honey (him) and a chocolate shake for me.
You know, the good, old Village, where you can count on some rummy at the bar reaching for his backpack, only to have a half-full 40-ounce roll out of it, clanking on the floor on the way down.
And nobody bats an eye.
A fine place to wile away a couple of hours talking about Hillary's chances, lowering the drinking age, good websites for music shows and historic preservation of the heart of Grace Street corridor.
It's interesting, when you're having your first in-depth conversation with someone you've only known casually socially, you have no idea when you might cross a conversational line or offend with your opinion.
We even trash-talked Smart phones and people who don't like going to movie theaters.
He posited a theory that the older you get, the more comfortable you get striking up conversations with strangers and expressing your opinion to new people.
Hell, by that measure, I was born old.
Tuesday Evening or: How I Never Started Worrying and Love the Conversation. Anywhere, anytime.
Since I had plans to attend honors film class, I made plans to meet up first with a fellow film lover at Cafe 821, where it turned out to be "breakfast all day" Tuesday with discounted mimosas.
Fittingly, since when I go to 821 for breakfast I always order black bean nachos, I did the same tonight.
Only hitch? I requested a half order and was told there's no such thing.What, I dreamt it?
The strange thing about that is that I'd ordered those nachos for five years before the day a server asked me if I'd prefer a half order since I was never able to finish a whole.
Why, yes, a half order would be ideal, I'd told her, surprised that no one had ever told me it was a possibility to do so.
Tonight I was informed that it's not a possibility, just something that particular server does. Fortunately, my companion was willing to nibble off my plate in a vain attempt to help me do justice to the mega plate of food in front of me.
I still sent back as much as I ate, thereby proving I should be allowed to get a half order.
My fellow film lover took off to pick up his date while I strolled over to the Grace Street Theater for VCU Cinematheque's screening of "Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."
It was my first Cinematheque of the fall season and instead of just the usual blase film students, tonight also included an honors class so nearly every seat was taken with earnest artistic types.
Dr. Rob began by listing out the staples of any Stanley Kubrick film: creative cinematography, use of ironic, contrasting music, a melding of genres, realism and innovative visual effects.
"You're really fortunate to get to see a 35mm print of this," he said of the 50-year old classic. "This is probably the only time in your life you'll see this."
Since I've never seen it before, it seemed only right to get to see it the proper way my first time.
Although I'm not big into war movies, I am a huge fan of satire, period details and '60s movies, so except for the absent girl parts, it turned out to be very much my kind of movie.
There was one female character in the entire film and she wore a bikini and high heels while laying on the bed reading under a sunlamp, waiting for her man to come out of the bathroom.
You see, kids, this was back before we knew that tanning was bad for us.
Since it was 1964, she had a soft, curvy body, so unlike the hard body norm of today. It was lovely.
When we see the soldiers aboard the top secret B-52 Bomber, they're reading a Playboy magazine, with the centerfold sporting a newspaper over her bottom.
You know, for decorum.
When they have to go inside the B-52's safe to get the bombing instructions, more nudie picks are taped to the inside of the safe door.
Ah, for the good old days when men had to cut and paste their porn and not just click a mouse.
Because it was a college-aged crowd, there were the usual tittering at that which with they weren't familiar, such as when one of the three Peter Sellers characters had to use a pay phone and insert coins.
OMG, pay phonz, LOL!!
Spare me.
Watching Sellers play three such different characters - the President, the RAF officer and the demented German Dr. Strangelove- was like watching a master class in comedy.
Sometimes you could even spot another actor cracking up in the background.
But honestly, it was just as fascinating to watch a young-looking George C. Scott go absolutely bananas in his scenes, as only a younger man can do.
Clearly most of my memories of his film roles were older roles when he was more staid.
After the film, half the room cleared out and the remaining film devotees discussed it.
I was thrilled when Dr. Rob asked who'd seen the movie before and pointed out that seeing it on a small screen - TV, computer or god forbid, phone- made it come across more rational whereas seeing it on the big screen made it more visceral, the way Kubrick had intended it to be.
Pshaw. Like he had to tell me that.
Discussing Kubrick's influence on subsequent directors, he appealed to the students. "What big film of your youth had a similar plane interior and flying shots?"
It took two guesses before someone came up with the obvious: "Star Wars." Even I knew that and I haven't seen "Star Wars" since it opened in 1977.
Please note, I did see it, though.
After more discussion of how much of Sellers' dialog was improvised (a lot), how Kubrick would do up to 50 takes on a scene and about the importance of editing for impact, he dismissed class.
Walking out, I saw a friend and we stood outside discussing the film on the sidewalk.
He'd been taken with the race issues raised in the film and I'd been struck by the feminist issues.
You see, at the end, Dr. Strangelove proposes a plan for post-nuclear survival where people live underground breeding to replace all those killed.
To do this, he says, there must be a ratio of ten highly stimulating women for every man.
George C. Scott's general character immediately sees the benefit of this, asking if this means that men would have to give up monogamy. That old male fantasy.
Naturally, all the men now see this as a fabulous idea. Culturally speaking, it's obvious there's been no consciousness raising prior to this film.
After ten minutes of film dissection, he suggested a drink and we headed to the Village Cafe for hot tea with honey (him) and a chocolate shake for me.
You know, the good, old Village, where you can count on some rummy at the bar reaching for his backpack, only to have a half-full 40-ounce roll out of it, clanking on the floor on the way down.
And nobody bats an eye.
A fine place to wile away a couple of hours talking about Hillary's chances, lowering the drinking age, good websites for music shows and historic preservation of the heart of Grace Street corridor.
It's interesting, when you're having your first in-depth conversation with someone you've only known casually socially, you have no idea when you might cross a conversational line or offend with your opinion.
We even trash-talked Smart phones and people who don't like going to movie theaters.
He posited a theory that the older you get, the more comfortable you get striking up conversations with strangers and expressing your opinion to new people.
Hell, by that measure, I was born old.
Tuesday Evening or: How I Never Started Worrying and Love the Conversation. Anywhere, anytime.
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
You Oughta Know
The universe as we know it is a joint product of the observer and the observed, or so said a French philosopher.
I began the evening being the observed.
That meant a first stop at Lakeside Tavern where a half dozen seasoned-looking regulars (I'm guessing anyway) turn and gawk on arrival.
Sipping my 1800, ignoring the TVs, I see no one at the pool table, a steady succession of wizened old men going outside for a smoke barely outside the front door and the most magnificent dive bar chandelier I've ever laid eyes on.
Racks intended for wine glasses have instead been intermittently filled with empty beer bottles - Schlitz, Miller Lite, Yuengling - and strung through with tiny, blinking Christmas lights for a one of a kind redneck light fixture.
It alone was worth the visit before moving on to do some observing at the new Southern Season, the specialty grocer on Staples Mill.
Despite the crammed parking lot with the likes of Lexus, BMW and other high end cars, I quickly observe that no amount of tinned foodstuffs and artisan cheese straws is going to make this place a regular stop for me.
Besides the obvious - a far higher employee to customer ratio than seems prudent to stay in the black - I am struck by the array of high-priced items I can't afford.
Jose Andres brand tinned seafood. $149.99 per pound Iberian ham. Esoteric counter appliances I neither need nor want.
What I did like: Sprite in individual green glass bottles (99 cents) and "try me!" sample size pieces of expensive cheese, wrapped up in pieces that cost a couple of bucks. Long-stemmed yellow roses that still have a scent.
Will I be back? Probably for research only. As an observer.
My final point of observation was as one of three attendees at the Criterion Theater to see "My Trip to Italy."
The film used two British TV actors and the premise that the London Observer sent them to Italy to review restaurants, drive the scenic coast and stay at boutique hotels with rooms named after American movie stars.
If only I could figure out how to get that job for myself.
Like several movies I've seen lately - "Chef" and "One Hundred Foot Journey" immediately come to mind- food and food prep are lovingly shot to the point they become characters in the film. Not a complaint, mind you.
Within the first five minutes, I was laughing out loud so hard at the duo's verbal interplay that I was missing the next line, always a good sign.
Setting off in a Mini convertible with only a soundtrack of Alanis Morrisette's 1995 classic, "Jagged Little Pill" provided stunning scenery and hilarious music discussion as they retrace the long-ago journey of Romantic poets Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley.
While I've done the Naples, the Amalfi Coast and Rome portions of that journey, I've yet to take in the entire swath they did, ranging from the Piedmont to Capri.
Fingers crossed, before I die.
As they cruise from hill town to ancient city, they try to out-do each other with put-downs, film trivia and impersonations of famous actors.
Some are quite good and after a bit, I had to marvel at the ability to do impressions of everyone from Dustin Hoffman to Clint Eastwood to Marlon Brando, complete with pieces of bread stuck in his cheeks.
They even did a bit on how only one actor who played James Bond was actually English (Roger Smith), doing spot-on impressions of each along the way.
And the pithy one-liners!
"Where do you stand on Michael Buble?"
"On his windpipe."
Hysterical, right?
Using "Roman Holiday" and "Notting Hill" as contrasting examples of how love works out in films, it winds down with a poignant discussion of how there is no unrequited love in the world anymore, a point I would argue.
But not tonight. Plenty of requited observation and droll conversation was had.
Here's where the story ends.
I began the evening being the observed.
That meant a first stop at Lakeside Tavern where a half dozen seasoned-looking regulars (I'm guessing anyway) turn and gawk on arrival.
Sipping my 1800, ignoring the TVs, I see no one at the pool table, a steady succession of wizened old men going outside for a smoke barely outside the front door and the most magnificent dive bar chandelier I've ever laid eyes on.
Racks intended for wine glasses have instead been intermittently filled with empty beer bottles - Schlitz, Miller Lite, Yuengling - and strung through with tiny, blinking Christmas lights for a one of a kind redneck light fixture.
It alone was worth the visit before moving on to do some observing at the new Southern Season, the specialty grocer on Staples Mill.
Despite the crammed parking lot with the likes of Lexus, BMW and other high end cars, I quickly observe that no amount of tinned foodstuffs and artisan cheese straws is going to make this place a regular stop for me.
Besides the obvious - a far higher employee to customer ratio than seems prudent to stay in the black - I am struck by the array of high-priced items I can't afford.
Jose Andres brand tinned seafood. $149.99 per pound Iberian ham. Esoteric counter appliances I neither need nor want.
What I did like: Sprite in individual green glass bottles (99 cents) and "try me!" sample size pieces of expensive cheese, wrapped up in pieces that cost a couple of bucks. Long-stemmed yellow roses that still have a scent.
Will I be back? Probably for research only. As an observer.
My final point of observation was as one of three attendees at the Criterion Theater to see "My Trip to Italy."
The film used two British TV actors and the premise that the London Observer sent them to Italy to review restaurants, drive the scenic coast and stay at boutique hotels with rooms named after American movie stars.
If only I could figure out how to get that job for myself.
Like several movies I've seen lately - "Chef" and "One Hundred Foot Journey" immediately come to mind- food and food prep are lovingly shot to the point they become characters in the film. Not a complaint, mind you.
Within the first five minutes, I was laughing out loud so hard at the duo's verbal interplay that I was missing the next line, always a good sign.
Setting off in a Mini convertible with only a soundtrack of Alanis Morrisette's 1995 classic, "Jagged Little Pill" provided stunning scenery and hilarious music discussion as they retrace the long-ago journey of Romantic poets Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley.
While I've done the Naples, the Amalfi Coast and Rome portions of that journey, I've yet to take in the entire swath they did, ranging from the Piedmont to Capri.
Fingers crossed, before I die.
As they cruise from hill town to ancient city, they try to out-do each other with put-downs, film trivia and impersonations of famous actors.
Some are quite good and after a bit, I had to marvel at the ability to do impressions of everyone from Dustin Hoffman to Clint Eastwood to Marlon Brando, complete with pieces of bread stuck in his cheeks.
They even did a bit on how only one actor who played James Bond was actually English (Roger Smith), doing spot-on impressions of each along the way.
And the pithy one-liners!
"Where do you stand on Michael Buble?"
"On his windpipe."
Hysterical, right?
Using "Roman Holiday" and "Notting Hill" as contrasting examples of how love works out in films, it winds down with a poignant discussion of how there is no unrequited love in the world anymore, a point I would argue.
But not tonight. Plenty of requited observation and droll conversation was had.
Here's where the story ends.
Monday, September 22, 2014
An Easy Day's Night
With fond memories of a thatched roof, I set off for a wine dinner.
Crossing the Lee bridge, I spot a young guy, guitar slung across his back, walking across the bridge, his back to the sun as it begins to slide down into the James River.
It's a picture postcard reminder of the charm and beauty of this city.
The host for the dinner was Camden's and the winery was First Colony, the source of tonight's wines.
They'd won me over on two successive tastings with well-crafted wines and a thatched roof being put on their tasting room. Truth be told, I'm a sucker for architectural details like that.
I'm walking down the sidewalk, about to enter the restaurant as two women approach me.
Holding the door open for them, they say, "Are you ready to drink too much?" and we proceed inside with that intent.
I find the room is quickly filling up and grab a seat at the bar between two familiar faces.
Our first pour comes courtesy of a five-gallon batch made by First Colony winemaker Brad and it's a doozy.
Available only at this time of year as grapes are harvested, the apperitif Ratafia is a mixture of just harvested chardonnay juice fortified with un-aged brandy, a refreshing combination that clocks in at 18%.
Holy moly, that woman at the door wasn't kidding.
All of a sudden, the room is abuzz with tongues loosened by this 1000 year old Italian apperitif and the night is off to a brilliant conversational start.
Before long, we are poured "Zephyr," a white blend of equal parts Petit Manseng and Vidal, with just enough Riesling and Viognier to matter, paired with swordfish tacos with pickled cabbage and salsa fresca, the wine as bright as the lemon-cilantro flavors of the tacos.
The man next to me tells me about his recent trip to New England - the radiator that died in Stowe, the DIY farm wedding in Portland with endless friends' readings and a delayed starting time, his detour to the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Graycliff House in Derby - and I chuckle at the stories.
Our second course is a Cumberland County tomato stack (and may I just say here that the tomatoes in the first three courses were a testament to the beauty of September tomatoes, so ripe and juicy they act as sirens to even non-tomato lovers like the guy next to me) wit house made ham, Mozzarella and micro basil paired with First Colony's Rose.
Everything about this dish sings with flavor and freshness, a pink feast of food and drink.
I might also mention that technically, a stack is a vertical construct and this was more of a fanned array of tomato, cheese and ham, but it wasn't the time to argue semantics.
On my other side, I had a woman who tells me flat out, "I need some alone time with the ocean," as preamble to telling me about her upcoming trip to Virginia Beach (although a another guys assures me, "Virginia Beach is not the ocean") this week.
We discuss how essential periodic ocean face time is for our type and she shudders telling me she was once married to a man who never needed to see the ocean.
What kind of human depravity is this?
With the Meritage, a blend of Cab Franc, Cab Sauv, Petit Verdot and Merlot, we dive into lamb carpaccio with fried tomato confit, a dish ideal with the light-bodied wine.
On my way back from the bathroom, I spot a couple I know from Floyd Avenue and we bemoan missing seeing "A Hard Day's Night" at the Byrd Theater tonight.
In honor of the occasion, I am wearing a thrift store find so ideally suited to the time that I could be an extra in the film.
My navy blue shift has bright gold buttons laid out sailor-style for a dress that looks straight out of 1964, a friend informs me.
Sadly, I missed the movie - which I've never seen although my friend originally saw it at the Byrd, no less - but at least I looked the part of a screaming Beatles fan circa the swinging '60s.
It is when the Monrovia Farms braised beef over spaetzel with bleu cheese crumbles arrives with Petit Verdot poured in our glasses that the room goes suddenly quiet.
People are lapping up this rich combo of meat and pasta with cheese and ignoring their dinner companions as they do. Yum.
My nearby seatmate mentions that he's been to talks and tours by my favorite park ranger, Mike Gorman, and we take off on a tangent about historical photographs, enthusiastic historical tours and how we both like to geek out over such things.
The evening closes with Mountain View Swiss cheese from Lexington, laid out with cherry preserves and honeyed walnut paste and paired with fruity and smooth Claret.
The winemaker has spent the evening working the room, explaining his wines and the pairings, and finally settles down to enjoy some food.
I've discussed salsa dancing, vacation photos, the missing UVA student and any number of other topics with people around me throughout the evening.
So far, I've heard zero mention of the thatched roof at First Colony, clearly a much bigger deal to me than the rest of the room.
Clearly they've not had alone time with the thatched roof like I have or they'd have been far more interested.
Or perhaps they'd just had too much to drink. Perhaps.
Crossing the Lee bridge, I spot a young guy, guitar slung across his back, walking across the bridge, his back to the sun as it begins to slide down into the James River.
It's a picture postcard reminder of the charm and beauty of this city.
The host for the dinner was Camden's and the winery was First Colony, the source of tonight's wines.
They'd won me over on two successive tastings with well-crafted wines and a thatched roof being put on their tasting room. Truth be told, I'm a sucker for architectural details like that.
I'm walking down the sidewalk, about to enter the restaurant as two women approach me.
Holding the door open for them, they say, "Are you ready to drink too much?" and we proceed inside with that intent.
I find the room is quickly filling up and grab a seat at the bar between two familiar faces.
Our first pour comes courtesy of a five-gallon batch made by First Colony winemaker Brad and it's a doozy.
Available only at this time of year as grapes are harvested, the apperitif Ratafia is a mixture of just harvested chardonnay juice fortified with un-aged brandy, a refreshing combination that clocks in at 18%.
Holy moly, that woman at the door wasn't kidding.
All of a sudden, the room is abuzz with tongues loosened by this 1000 year old Italian apperitif and the night is off to a brilliant conversational start.
Before long, we are poured "Zephyr," a white blend of equal parts Petit Manseng and Vidal, with just enough Riesling and Viognier to matter, paired with swordfish tacos with pickled cabbage and salsa fresca, the wine as bright as the lemon-cilantro flavors of the tacos.
The man next to me tells me about his recent trip to New England - the radiator that died in Stowe, the DIY farm wedding in Portland with endless friends' readings and a delayed starting time, his detour to the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Graycliff House in Derby - and I chuckle at the stories.
Our second course is a Cumberland County tomato stack (and may I just say here that the tomatoes in the first three courses were a testament to the beauty of September tomatoes, so ripe and juicy they act as sirens to even non-tomato lovers like the guy next to me) wit house made ham, Mozzarella and micro basil paired with First Colony's Rose.
Everything about this dish sings with flavor and freshness, a pink feast of food and drink.
I might also mention that technically, a stack is a vertical construct and this was more of a fanned array of tomato, cheese and ham, but it wasn't the time to argue semantics.
On my other side, I had a woman who tells me flat out, "I need some alone time with the ocean," as preamble to telling me about her upcoming trip to Virginia Beach (although a another guys assures me, "Virginia Beach is not the ocean") this week.
We discuss how essential periodic ocean face time is for our type and she shudders telling me she was once married to a man who never needed to see the ocean.
What kind of human depravity is this?
With the Meritage, a blend of Cab Franc, Cab Sauv, Petit Verdot and Merlot, we dive into lamb carpaccio with fried tomato confit, a dish ideal with the light-bodied wine.
On my way back from the bathroom, I spot a couple I know from Floyd Avenue and we bemoan missing seeing "A Hard Day's Night" at the Byrd Theater tonight.
In honor of the occasion, I am wearing a thrift store find so ideally suited to the time that I could be an extra in the film.
My navy blue shift has bright gold buttons laid out sailor-style for a dress that looks straight out of 1964, a friend informs me.
Sadly, I missed the movie - which I've never seen although my friend originally saw it at the Byrd, no less - but at least I looked the part of a screaming Beatles fan circa the swinging '60s.
It is when the Monrovia Farms braised beef over spaetzel with bleu cheese crumbles arrives with Petit Verdot poured in our glasses that the room goes suddenly quiet.
People are lapping up this rich combo of meat and pasta with cheese and ignoring their dinner companions as they do. Yum.
My nearby seatmate mentions that he's been to talks and tours by my favorite park ranger, Mike Gorman, and we take off on a tangent about historical photographs, enthusiastic historical tours and how we both like to geek out over such things.
The evening closes with Mountain View Swiss cheese from Lexington, laid out with cherry preserves and honeyed walnut paste and paired with fruity and smooth Claret.
The winemaker has spent the evening working the room, explaining his wines and the pairings, and finally settles down to enjoy some food.
I've discussed salsa dancing, vacation photos, the missing UVA student and any number of other topics with people around me throughout the evening.
So far, I've heard zero mention of the thatched roof at First Colony, clearly a much bigger deal to me than the rest of the room.
Clearly they've not had alone time with the thatched roof like I have or they'd have been far more interested.
Or perhaps they'd just had too much to drink. Perhaps.
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