So today I did what no self-respecting native Washingtonian would do: went to the top of the Washington Monument.
It all started on October first when I read about Cuban-American artist Jorge Rodriguez- Gerada's monumental portrait "Out of Many, One" being constructed just west of the reflecting pool.
The catch? It's intended to be seen from a bird's eye view, namely from the top of the Washington Monument. And while tickets to the memorial to George are free, they're limited and go fast. Let's just say I wasted little time between reading about the piece and ordering the first available tickets.
Then all I needed was another art lover to join me on a day trip to see it. That was the easy part.
Lunch at the 2400 Diner in Fredericksburg (where the neon says "Air conditioned" and "Good food" in the window) and traffic put us on the mall five minutes after our 3:30 tour time, but we only had to wait a few more minutes at the windy base of the monument before being included in the next group to go up.
The Park Service ranger who accompanied us up in the elevator had clearly been on the job for too long. An automaton who made no eye contact and spoke in a monotone, he was nonetheless full of information about the construction and accomplishment of building the world's tallest building at the time (still the tallest stone structure in the world).
At the top, we went window to window, beginning with the view of the portrait next to the Reflecting Pool. The man's face is a composite of photographs the artist took of people in Washington, so it resembles no particular ethnicity and every ethnicity. And it kind of looks at you, even from 555 feet below.
Yesterday's rain had left a few puddles on and near the portrait and three-plus weeks of weather had begun the gradual erosion of it, all part of the design. It's expected to be gone entirely in another week.
One thing this native Washingtonian hadn't realized was that you are no longer allowed to take the steps up and down the monument. Oh, they let you take a few steps down to the museum located at 490 feet, but then you have to take the elevator the rest of the way. Disappointing.
When I asked a ranger why this was, he explained that too many people had touched and vandalized the stone plaques (donated by states, countries, organizations and individuals) that line the interior of the monument.
Apparently the collective we can't have nice things because we don't treat them right. The consolation was that on the elevator ride down, Mr. Monotone stopped the elevator and turned off the lights at certain points to show us some of the plaques including one with its griffins broken off by badly behaving visitors. Sigh.
Back on terra firma, we decide to make the most of our prime parking space and take in some other sites, namely the Martin Luther King memorial, which I'd read plenty about but never seen. As impressive as the huge stone image of MLK is, I was moved most by the series of quotes etched on the walls around it.
From there it only made sense to go look at Rodriguez-Gerarda's work from the ground, cutting through the D.C. War Memorial's stone edifice on the way to the portrait. Truly, it was unrecognizable from street level.
Oh, we could see the dark lines and the white spots, but as intended, the eye couldn't read it as a whole from down there. I felt very fortunate to have scored the tickets to access the view and see it as the artist intended before all that sand and soil becomes part of the earth again.
Mission accomplished.
To celebrate, we walked a little over a mile to the subterranean Bottom Line (hearing such '80s gems as 38 Special's "Caught Up In You"...little girl?) for a celebratory drink before walking back to reclaim the car, face the traffic and head to Alexandria for dinner.
Our destination was the casual little brother of Restaurant Eve, Eamonns, which billed itself as a Dublin chipper with the slogan "Thanks be to cod." Our handsome server asked if we wanted table service and we took him up on his offer.
Wine choices were limited to one red and one white and arrived swimming in the bottom of beer glasses, but the cod was fresh, the chips were hand cut, the slaw not overly sweet and the wings nicely crisped, a fine meal on a rustic wooden table with a view of the hustle and bustle of King Street.
Just as satisfying was the music which came from an iPod on high, so high that when a great song came on and both our server and I wanted to know what it was, he had to stand on a bench, craning to try and read the device stationed up near the ceiling, no doubt to keep lesser beings from skipping songs or changing the playlist.
We were rewarded to learn it was Phoenix band Caterwaul's "The Sheep's a Wolf" from 1989, surprising those of us who would have liked just such a female-fronted band in 1989 but had never heard of them.
Sign on the door of the women's room: "Street girls bringing in sailors must pay in advance for rooms." Duly noted, as were the superb black and white photographs of a Dublin bar and bridge hanging inside.
When our server came over to check on us, asking if we needed anything, I couldn't think of anything except a table dance, but he gestured to the people sitting at the table as the only reason he couldn't. I like a server with good attitude.
By the time we were finished, the small restaurant had filled up with people waiting for food and to-go orders (or perhaps one of the various fried candy bars on the menu), so we set out in search of dessert elsewhere.
After a stroll past endless antique shops, high end clothing stores and home furnishing meccas, we settled on Union Street Public House, noisy with a boisterous crowd and far too many screens showing Thursday night football.
When the bartender delivered Junior's famous tuxedo cake ("with a chocolate ice cream chaser," he joked), he said it had been very popular tonight; he'd already served four of the devil's food cake layered with cheesecake and ganache behemoths.
Nobody needs all this, I told him. He looked affronted. "I do! And you do!" he corrected me. So maybe he was right, even if I couldn't half finish it all.
That's the thing about need. Some would make a case that I really didn't need a trip to Washington to see "Out of Many, One."
Oh, but I did. Even natives need to see their city from on high sometimes.
Friday, October 24, 2014
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Blow by Blow
I knew I'd made the right choice of what to do tonight when I saw how many musicians were in the room.
A lot of really good ones.
The Broadberry was hosting trumpeter Rex Richardson's dual CD release party tonight and just about every table and chair in the place was already taken when I got there. Plenty of people were standing in front of the stage, too, and more continued to arrive.
No surprise there because Rex is kind of a big deal, a phenomenal musician whether he's blowing on a trumpet, coronet, flugelhorn or whatever.
My interest in tonight's program had its seeds in a show I'd gone to at the Singleton Center back in 2006 when Rex had been playing in a group called Rhythm and Brass. Memorably, that night's program had ranged from the Beatles to Radiohead with bits of everything in between.
That was the night I'd fallen for his trumpet playing (I might have even been that person who went up to him afterwards and gushed a bit).
Since that show eight years ago, I've seen him many times at VCU's Singleon Center and more recently, when he fronted an evening with the Richmond Symphony. Always on a limited budget, I'd splurged $10 on a next-to-the-last-row ticket for that show and now tonight I was dropping another ten-spot to hear Rex play his newest stuff.
His quintet began without any introduction beyond him blowing his horn to begin "Tell, Tell Me Again" and get the entire room's attention.
After that, he reminded us that CDs were for sale at a table in the back staffed by his beautiful wife Star. "Don't look at her," he warned, "look at the CDs."
After "Red Shift," which he characterized as an angry song, he said, "Now for something less manic," and played a song by the quintet's drummer, Brian Jones. It was the kind of beautiful song you could get lost in and at one point, I noticed a couple of musicians near the bar with their heads bent, not even looking at the stage, just deep in the music.
The man about town stopped by, a drink in each hand, complimented my sweater and asked if he was blocking my view (nope).
Of course Rex dedicated "Seeing Star (Blue Shift)" to "that lady at the back table selling CDs." I was bowled over when they did bassist Randall Pharr's soulful "Blues for David Henry," which they'd apparently also played on a morning TV show "when jazz musicians aren't really awake."
Just as stellar was "Big Sur" ("There's probably a story there but I never asked him") written by Jones that didn't last nearly as long as I would have liked.
Rex thanked the audience repeatedly, clearly thrilled with the size of the crowd that had shown up tonight. And just like that, the quintet portion of the show was over.
A lot of the people who'd been sitting at tables got up and left, but most of them didn't look like the kind of people who spend much time in stand up venues, so it wasn't surprising. Fact is, for a jazz show, it had started unbelievably early (not long after 8) and it was only 9:45 when the second part got rolling.
During the break, I listened to the two guys next to me on the banquette as they raved about the Star Hill Black Sabbath Stout. They were each on their fourth, so they knew of what they spoke.
All of a sudden, there was a plop next to me and a familiar smiling face sat down. It was a woman I'd met at Amuse and since run into all over town.
She was lamenting her recent resolution to only drink on weekends, although she'd had a glass of wine at dinner earlier and another at the bar at the Broadberry, so there was already some resolution bending going on. I empathized, nonetheless.
The second portion of the program was dedicated to "Dukal Bugles," written by Doug Richardson, who led a big band with some of Richmond's best jazz musicians onstage and Rex out front playing a variety of horns.
The piece is a tribute to Duke Ellington and the series of amazing trumpeters he worked with. We got a demonstration of each of the horns and sounds that would be featured before it began, but it was the seamless way Rex segued throughout that demonstrated his virtuosity.
If you weren't looking at the stage, you'd have thought there was a gaggle of horn players taking turns based on the stylistic differences we were hearing.
When it ended, everyone was on their feet and screaming for one more. The big band obliged with Mingus' "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" while the clutch of young VCU music students behind me talked non-stop about the magic going on onstage. I was sorely tempted to tell them to button it.
Boys, boys, boys. Maybe when you're real musicians, you'll take a cue from the guys I saw tonight and just lose yourselves in the music silently.
If not, I'll just have to tell, tell you again. Music this good deserves to be heard. You opinions, not so much.
A lot of really good ones.
The Broadberry was hosting trumpeter Rex Richardson's dual CD release party tonight and just about every table and chair in the place was already taken when I got there. Plenty of people were standing in front of the stage, too, and more continued to arrive.
No surprise there because Rex is kind of a big deal, a phenomenal musician whether he's blowing on a trumpet, coronet, flugelhorn or whatever.
My interest in tonight's program had its seeds in a show I'd gone to at the Singleton Center back in 2006 when Rex had been playing in a group called Rhythm and Brass. Memorably, that night's program had ranged from the Beatles to Radiohead with bits of everything in between.
That was the night I'd fallen for his trumpet playing (I might have even been that person who went up to him afterwards and gushed a bit).
Since that show eight years ago, I've seen him many times at VCU's Singleon Center and more recently, when he fronted an evening with the Richmond Symphony. Always on a limited budget, I'd splurged $10 on a next-to-the-last-row ticket for that show and now tonight I was dropping another ten-spot to hear Rex play his newest stuff.
His quintet began without any introduction beyond him blowing his horn to begin "Tell, Tell Me Again" and get the entire room's attention.
After that, he reminded us that CDs were for sale at a table in the back staffed by his beautiful wife Star. "Don't look at her," he warned, "look at the CDs."
After "Red Shift," which he characterized as an angry song, he said, "Now for something less manic," and played a song by the quintet's drummer, Brian Jones. It was the kind of beautiful song you could get lost in and at one point, I noticed a couple of musicians near the bar with their heads bent, not even looking at the stage, just deep in the music.
The man about town stopped by, a drink in each hand, complimented my sweater and asked if he was blocking my view (nope).
Of course Rex dedicated "Seeing Star (Blue Shift)" to "that lady at the back table selling CDs." I was bowled over when they did bassist Randall Pharr's soulful "Blues for David Henry," which they'd apparently also played on a morning TV show "when jazz musicians aren't really awake."
Just as stellar was "Big Sur" ("There's probably a story there but I never asked him") written by Jones that didn't last nearly as long as I would have liked.
Rex thanked the audience repeatedly, clearly thrilled with the size of the crowd that had shown up tonight. And just like that, the quintet portion of the show was over.
A lot of the people who'd been sitting at tables got up and left, but most of them didn't look like the kind of people who spend much time in stand up venues, so it wasn't surprising. Fact is, for a jazz show, it had started unbelievably early (not long after 8) and it was only 9:45 when the second part got rolling.
During the break, I listened to the two guys next to me on the banquette as they raved about the Star Hill Black Sabbath Stout. They were each on their fourth, so they knew of what they spoke.
All of a sudden, there was a plop next to me and a familiar smiling face sat down. It was a woman I'd met at Amuse and since run into all over town.
She was lamenting her recent resolution to only drink on weekends, although she'd had a glass of wine at dinner earlier and another at the bar at the Broadberry, so there was already some resolution bending going on. I empathized, nonetheless.
The second portion of the program was dedicated to "Dukal Bugles," written by Doug Richardson, who led a big band with some of Richmond's best jazz musicians onstage and Rex out front playing a variety of horns.
The piece is a tribute to Duke Ellington and the series of amazing trumpeters he worked with. We got a demonstration of each of the horns and sounds that would be featured before it began, but it was the seamless way Rex segued throughout that demonstrated his virtuosity.
If you weren't looking at the stage, you'd have thought there was a gaggle of horn players taking turns based on the stylistic differences we were hearing.
When it ended, everyone was on their feet and screaming for one more. The big band obliged with Mingus' "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" while the clutch of young VCU music students behind me talked non-stop about the magic going on onstage. I was sorely tempted to tell them to button it.
Boys, boys, boys. Maybe when you're real musicians, you'll take a cue from the guys I saw tonight and just lose yourselves in the music silently.
If not, I'll just have to tell, tell you again. Music this good deserves to be heard. You opinions, not so much.
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Great Balls of Fire
Despite making less than a ditch digger, I love my work.
There are road trips, I get to talk to interesting people and more than a few times, I've had a chance to see something I would otherwise never see.
Today it was an enormous southern mansion styled after Tara in "Gone with the Wind."
After stopping at the initialed gates to be buzzed in, I passed by the guest cottage which looked to be about 4,000 square feet. Pfft! That was nothing, I was soon to see.
As instructed, I followed the long, winding, pine needle-covered road over rustic wooden bridges spanning man-made lakes, past a turn-off for the stables and nearly a mile later got to the elaborate fountain directly in front of the house.
My host was waiting on the veranda with an umbrella and indicated that I should park directly in front of the wide front staircase so he could escort me up without getting a drop of rain on my pretty little head.
We made our way to the great room, which in Scarlet O'Hara's time would have probably been called the drawing room, with its two-story ceiling, massive fireplace and view of the grounds descending to the dock.
My purpose in being there was to interview this Philadelphia native who'd retired to the northern neck back in the '90s after having had this grand house built on 88 acres of what used to be a pine farm. That was tough to imagine given the acres of lush lawn I was seeing today which had replaced the cleared trees.
When I'd first come in, he'd said that after we talked, he'd take me on the fifty cent tour. Note he did not offer to give me the nickle tour because everything in this house was grander than could be covered in anything less than a half dollar.
Or at least that was my take on it.
I couldn't possibly recount all the rooms because after a while, I lost track. Okay, were we in the master suite sitting room or the breakfast sitting room?
Was that the library or the billiards room off one of the two wooden spiral staircases? It couldn't have been the pool room (where the air temperature is always one degree warmer than the water temperature) because that was downstairs, complete with a Jacuzzi, sauna, changing room, gym and bar.
In the small bathroom off the foyer were the most exquisite fixtures I've ever seen, even in a magazine. All the porcelain - sink, toilet, spigot fixture with facial mirror - were hand painted in elaborate floral designs. I'm willing to bet those three pieces are worth more than everything I own.
In the entrance hall, he'd had a local artist paint a mural on the curved wall depicting a plantation house with a couple - he and his wife, no doubt - in Civil War-era garb strolling the grounds. The dog in the painting is his deceased dog, Rhett, and on the back veranda, I met Scarlet, barking in excitement at a visitor. Painted on a tree were his and his wife's initials. Floating over a grove of trees in the background was a small UFO.
Artistic license, don't you think?
There was a wing to house the mother-in-law should she ever desire to move in and a widow's walk high atop the five-car garage.The dining room was bigger than many conference rooms, although he said it only got used at Christmas and Thanksgiving.
And get this: speakers were unobtrusively built into every room of the house for surround sound (controlled, naturally, by a box in the media room).
From the second floor balcony, there was a fabulous view of the cove and beyond it, the Chesapeake Bay. But the most charming element of the property was the Love Garden.
While clearing away all those pine trees near the house, he'd found a small stand of dogwood trees and taken down everything else around them. Now, in the center of that were several stone benches, a fountain and birdbath, nestled under a canopy of dogwoods. It was the kind of thing you'd read about in an Elizabethan play: a love garden where couples went to woo.
What ditch digger gets to see something so wonderful?
There are road trips, I get to talk to interesting people and more than a few times, I've had a chance to see something I would otherwise never see.
Today it was an enormous southern mansion styled after Tara in "Gone with the Wind."
After stopping at the initialed gates to be buzzed in, I passed by the guest cottage which looked to be about 4,000 square feet. Pfft! That was nothing, I was soon to see.
As instructed, I followed the long, winding, pine needle-covered road over rustic wooden bridges spanning man-made lakes, past a turn-off for the stables and nearly a mile later got to the elaborate fountain directly in front of the house.
My host was waiting on the veranda with an umbrella and indicated that I should park directly in front of the wide front staircase so he could escort me up without getting a drop of rain on my pretty little head.
We made our way to the great room, which in Scarlet O'Hara's time would have probably been called the drawing room, with its two-story ceiling, massive fireplace and view of the grounds descending to the dock.
My purpose in being there was to interview this Philadelphia native who'd retired to the northern neck back in the '90s after having had this grand house built on 88 acres of what used to be a pine farm. That was tough to imagine given the acres of lush lawn I was seeing today which had replaced the cleared trees.
When I'd first come in, he'd said that after we talked, he'd take me on the fifty cent tour. Note he did not offer to give me the nickle tour because everything in this house was grander than could be covered in anything less than a half dollar.
Or at least that was my take on it.
I couldn't possibly recount all the rooms because after a while, I lost track. Okay, were we in the master suite sitting room or the breakfast sitting room?
Was that the library or the billiards room off one of the two wooden spiral staircases? It couldn't have been the pool room (where the air temperature is always one degree warmer than the water temperature) because that was downstairs, complete with a Jacuzzi, sauna, changing room, gym and bar.
In the small bathroom off the foyer were the most exquisite fixtures I've ever seen, even in a magazine. All the porcelain - sink, toilet, spigot fixture with facial mirror - were hand painted in elaborate floral designs. I'm willing to bet those three pieces are worth more than everything I own.
In the entrance hall, he'd had a local artist paint a mural on the curved wall depicting a plantation house with a couple - he and his wife, no doubt - in Civil War-era garb strolling the grounds. The dog in the painting is his deceased dog, Rhett, and on the back veranda, I met Scarlet, barking in excitement at a visitor. Painted on a tree were his and his wife's initials. Floating over a grove of trees in the background was a small UFO.
Artistic license, don't you think?
There was a wing to house the mother-in-law should she ever desire to move in and a widow's walk high atop the five-car garage.The dining room was bigger than many conference rooms, although he said it only got used at Christmas and Thanksgiving.
And get this: speakers were unobtrusively built into every room of the house for surround sound (controlled, naturally, by a box in the media room).
From the second floor balcony, there was a fabulous view of the cove and beyond it, the Chesapeake Bay. But the most charming element of the property was the Love Garden.
While clearing away all those pine trees near the house, he'd found a small stand of dogwood trees and taken down everything else around them. Now, in the center of that were several stone benches, a fountain and birdbath, nestled under a canopy of dogwoods. It was the kind of thing you'd read about in an Elizabethan play: a love garden where couples went to woo.
What ditch digger gets to see something so wonderful?
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
The Country Mouse and the City Mouse
You can't get much further apart than True Value hardware and a David Fincher film.
When I go to the country, like I did for the past couple of days, it's like being in a different world.
For instance. they have edibles such as Triscuits, meat and tomatoes at the hardware store so you can pick up a bag of concrete and get salad fixings for dinner at the same register.
In the country, you can take an outside shower and have a view of towering trees over your head while you do it. Or watch clouds sail across the night sky intermittently revealing stars and planets and then covering them back up again.
If you're really lucky, you might look across the property at 2 a.m. to see a band of horses who've wandered down from the pasture they usually occupy to mill about near a neighbor's fence.
But once back in the city, it's all about the business of life: answering e-mails, pitching an editor, going to an appointment.
And tonight, it meant going to Movieland to see a movie taken from a blockbuster book I've yet to read but was sent as a gift by my favorite ex-cop.
Walking in to the theater next to a guy also by himself, I was tempted to joke that obviously he couldn't get a date, either. Instead, I held my tongue and stood in line in front of him watching a girl using dental floss while standing in line next to her boyfriend.
I've got nothing against flossing - I do it myself daily- but is the ticket line at a theater really the place for it?
By the time I got my ticket for "Gone Girl," the theater was probably three quarters full so I must have chosen a popular movie (a rarity for me). Unlike the masses, though, the only Fincher films I've ever seen were "Fight Club" and "Seven."
Since I haven't yet read the book, I was going into the film blind and was soon enmeshed in the story of a marriage that seems to start off fine and devolves into something kind of awful before they even reach the magic five year marker. And then things really go south.
Like a good Hitchcock movie with the requisite icy blond, "Gone Girl" provided more suspense than I'm comfortable with. Very thought-provoking, it also made a strong case for the difficulty in really knowing someone, even someone you love.
When the movie ended after the briefest two hours and 25 minutes, a guy behind me shared his first reaction loudly, saying, "That's it, I'm staying single the rest of my life."
Scaredy cat. My first reaction is that I need to read that book the ex-cop sent me so I can delve even more deeply into this twisted, modern take on love and marriage.
Late night horse visitors aside, I'm thinking that the perfect place to do that would be out in the country.
When I go to the country, like I did for the past couple of days, it's like being in a different world.
For instance. they have edibles such as Triscuits, meat and tomatoes at the hardware store so you can pick up a bag of concrete and get salad fixings for dinner at the same register.
In the country, you can take an outside shower and have a view of towering trees over your head while you do it. Or watch clouds sail across the night sky intermittently revealing stars and planets and then covering them back up again.
If you're really lucky, you might look across the property at 2 a.m. to see a band of horses who've wandered down from the pasture they usually occupy to mill about near a neighbor's fence.
But once back in the city, it's all about the business of life: answering e-mails, pitching an editor, going to an appointment.
And tonight, it meant going to Movieland to see a movie taken from a blockbuster book I've yet to read but was sent as a gift by my favorite ex-cop.
Walking in to the theater next to a guy also by himself, I was tempted to joke that obviously he couldn't get a date, either. Instead, I held my tongue and stood in line in front of him watching a girl using dental floss while standing in line next to her boyfriend.
I've got nothing against flossing - I do it myself daily- but is the ticket line at a theater really the place for it?
By the time I got my ticket for "Gone Girl," the theater was probably three quarters full so I must have chosen a popular movie (a rarity for me). Unlike the masses, though, the only Fincher films I've ever seen were "Fight Club" and "Seven."
Since I haven't yet read the book, I was going into the film blind and was soon enmeshed in the story of a marriage that seems to start off fine and devolves into something kind of awful before they even reach the magic five year marker. And then things really go south.
Like a good Hitchcock movie with the requisite icy blond, "Gone Girl" provided more suspense than I'm comfortable with. Very thought-provoking, it also made a strong case for the difficulty in really knowing someone, even someone you love.
When the movie ended after the briefest two hours and 25 minutes, a guy behind me shared his first reaction loudly, saying, "That's it, I'm staying single the rest of my life."
Scaredy cat. My first reaction is that I need to read that book the ex-cop sent me so I can delve even more deeply into this twisted, modern take on love and marriage.
Late night horse visitors aside, I'm thinking that the perfect place to do that would be out in the country.
Turn Up the Heat
The combination was irresistible: wings and Sweet Justice.
Even though I had plans to head out of town Sunday afternoon, priority one was seeing my favorite '80s cover band while munching on chicken wings at the first ever Kickin' Chicken Wingfest, a dubious name at best. I bet those chickens do kick (and scream) when someone tries to remove their wings.
It turned out to be a gloriously sunny day for the boyfriend and me to walk down Broad to the 17th Street Farmers' Market and take a detour to see for the first time the Burial Ground for Negros located just off of Broad near 16th Street.
I hadn't realized how many informational historic sign markers were down there telling the story of the city gallows, Lumpkin's Jail and how the area had been used over the years.
Tucked away as it was, the verdant green field felt a world away from the bustling traffic above and nearby festival. In several places were small "altars" where people had left mementos and candles in acknowledgement of the countless slaves and free blacks long ago buried here but no longer marked in any way.
That's the thing about Richmond; you never know when history will rear its head to remind us of how much living and dying has gone on here for centuries.
From there, it was on to the farmers' market where we could hear Sweet Justice playing Pat Benetar long before we saw them or the stage. Don't get me wrong, I am a devotee of new music but listening to a middle-aged band play '80s hair and metal songs I never even knew the first time around is way more fun that you might think. And since the two of us had first experienced Sweet Justice together, they were almost "our" band.
First order of business with Sweet Justice is always checking out the long-haired bass player's t-shirt since he's got a stellar collection. Today's read "Employee of the month," a title he's likely never earned, thereby making it all the more amusing.
Since it was barely fifteen minutes into the festival, there weren't more than a dozen people gathered in front of the stage so we left them singing Scorpions' "Rock You Like a Hurricane" and went off in search of something to put in our mouths.
The first stop was at the wine on tap tent for some Prosecco, easily obtainable since there was no line so the servers still had smiles on their faces. From there, it was a scavenger hunt to find the booths offering wings in between all the cheesy fair food type booths.
I can't wrap my head around why someone would go to a wing fest to get a funnel cake or gyro, yet there they were, taking up valuable space to offer crap food. But I digress.
My first wings came from Boardwalk Hotdogs where they had two flavor options, chile-lime or garlic Parmesan, which is what I got. The wing pieces and drummetes were rolled in so much salty Parmesan that after finishing them, my mouth felt like it could turn inside out like a slug with salt poured on it by a cruel child.
Round two brought full wings, not pieces, from Zainab's Halal, which had good flavor but came across as more fried than sauced and even the addition of sauce was pretty tame. To make matters worse, the band was playing "Hotel California," easily one of the most annoying and overplayed songs of all time (also guaranteed to annoy two Eagles haters like us).
I love Sweet Justice, but they could eliminate all the Eagles' dreck and it would be fine by us.
For our last venture into wings, we tried On the Rox's version which was brined, smoked and confited and came with a smoked buffalo sauce. Never one to turn down food cooked in fat, I enjoyed the wings but the BF still found their heat lacking. Fortunately, the music wasn't, because who doesn't enjoy hearing Whitesnake's "Lay Down Your Love" on a sunny afternoon?
The ups and downs of wing tastings led to discussion of what makes a true buffalo wing, a subject on which I am no expert. But I once knew someone who was.
My frame of reference is a woman named Jeannie I met when I first moved to Richmond in 1986. Jeannie had lived her entire life in Buffalo (and had the accent to prove it) and was amazed that I'd never heard of, much less had, buffalo chicken wings.
She attempted to right this grievous wrong by first making me a batch which I devoured and then allowing me to copy her mother's "secret" recipe, which dated back to the '60s. One thing she was resolute about was that it mattered not if you baked, deep fried or grilled your wings; what mattered was the sauce.
Jeannie's mother's version wasn't complicated but it wasn't one note, either. It called for Durkee red hot cayenne pepper sauce, which, according to her mother, had originally been Frank's red hot cayenne pepper sauce before Durkee had bought it in the '70s. The sauce was cooked along with butter, lemon juice and garlic powder and once it came off the burner, honey was added.
The recipe advised one coating of the sauce for mild and two -one before putting them in the oven for three minutes and one when they came out - for hot and spicy. Then they got a sprinkle of Parmesan.
My favorite part of the recipe was, "Serve with blue cheese dressing for dipping and cold celery (on ice!) for cooling your mouth off." Because, you see, if the celery wasn't on ice, Jeannie and her Mom couldn't guarantee it would cool anything off.
As I sat on a bale of hay listening to Sweet Justice play Def Leppard and eating through an array of wing styles, my mind kept coming back to memories of Jeannie's wings, far superior to any at Wingfest.
This I knew, even though I hadn't had them since Def Leppard was playing their own songs.
Apparently, a girl never forgets her first real Buffalo wings. Jeannie, you spoiled me.
Even though I had plans to head out of town Sunday afternoon, priority one was seeing my favorite '80s cover band while munching on chicken wings at the first ever Kickin' Chicken Wingfest, a dubious name at best. I bet those chickens do kick (and scream) when someone tries to remove their wings.
It turned out to be a gloriously sunny day for the boyfriend and me to walk down Broad to the 17th Street Farmers' Market and take a detour to see for the first time the Burial Ground for Negros located just off of Broad near 16th Street.
I hadn't realized how many informational historic sign markers were down there telling the story of the city gallows, Lumpkin's Jail and how the area had been used over the years.
Tucked away as it was, the verdant green field felt a world away from the bustling traffic above and nearby festival. In several places were small "altars" where people had left mementos and candles in acknowledgement of the countless slaves and free blacks long ago buried here but no longer marked in any way.
That's the thing about Richmond; you never know when history will rear its head to remind us of how much living and dying has gone on here for centuries.
From there, it was on to the farmers' market where we could hear Sweet Justice playing Pat Benetar long before we saw them or the stage. Don't get me wrong, I am a devotee of new music but listening to a middle-aged band play '80s hair and metal songs I never even knew the first time around is way more fun that you might think. And since the two of us had first experienced Sweet Justice together, they were almost "our" band.
First order of business with Sweet Justice is always checking out the long-haired bass player's t-shirt since he's got a stellar collection. Today's read "Employee of the month," a title he's likely never earned, thereby making it all the more amusing.
Since it was barely fifteen minutes into the festival, there weren't more than a dozen people gathered in front of the stage so we left them singing Scorpions' "Rock You Like a Hurricane" and went off in search of something to put in our mouths.
The first stop was at the wine on tap tent for some Prosecco, easily obtainable since there was no line so the servers still had smiles on their faces. From there, it was a scavenger hunt to find the booths offering wings in between all the cheesy fair food type booths.
I can't wrap my head around why someone would go to a wing fest to get a funnel cake or gyro, yet there they were, taking up valuable space to offer crap food. But I digress.
My first wings came from Boardwalk Hotdogs where they had two flavor options, chile-lime or garlic Parmesan, which is what I got. The wing pieces and drummetes were rolled in so much salty Parmesan that after finishing them, my mouth felt like it could turn inside out like a slug with salt poured on it by a cruel child.
Round two brought full wings, not pieces, from Zainab's Halal, which had good flavor but came across as more fried than sauced and even the addition of sauce was pretty tame. To make matters worse, the band was playing "Hotel California," easily one of the most annoying and overplayed songs of all time (also guaranteed to annoy two Eagles haters like us).
I love Sweet Justice, but they could eliminate all the Eagles' dreck and it would be fine by us.
For our last venture into wings, we tried On the Rox's version which was brined, smoked and confited and came with a smoked buffalo sauce. Never one to turn down food cooked in fat, I enjoyed the wings but the BF still found their heat lacking. Fortunately, the music wasn't, because who doesn't enjoy hearing Whitesnake's "Lay Down Your Love" on a sunny afternoon?
The ups and downs of wing tastings led to discussion of what makes a true buffalo wing, a subject on which I am no expert. But I once knew someone who was.
My frame of reference is a woman named Jeannie I met when I first moved to Richmond in 1986. Jeannie had lived her entire life in Buffalo (and had the accent to prove it) and was amazed that I'd never heard of, much less had, buffalo chicken wings.
She attempted to right this grievous wrong by first making me a batch which I devoured and then allowing me to copy her mother's "secret" recipe, which dated back to the '60s. One thing she was resolute about was that it mattered not if you baked, deep fried or grilled your wings; what mattered was the sauce.
Jeannie's mother's version wasn't complicated but it wasn't one note, either. It called for Durkee red hot cayenne pepper sauce, which, according to her mother, had originally been Frank's red hot cayenne pepper sauce before Durkee had bought it in the '70s. The sauce was cooked along with butter, lemon juice and garlic powder and once it came off the burner, honey was added.
The recipe advised one coating of the sauce for mild and two -one before putting them in the oven for three minutes and one when they came out - for hot and spicy. Then they got a sprinkle of Parmesan.
My favorite part of the recipe was, "Serve with blue cheese dressing for dipping and cold celery (on ice!) for cooling your mouth off." Because, you see, if the celery wasn't on ice, Jeannie and her Mom couldn't guarantee it would cool anything off.
As I sat on a bale of hay listening to Sweet Justice play Def Leppard and eating through an array of wing styles, my mind kept coming back to memories of Jeannie's wings, far superior to any at Wingfest.
This I knew, even though I hadn't had them since Def Leppard was playing their own songs.
Apparently, a girl never forgets her first real Buffalo wings. Jeannie, you spoiled me.
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Autumn, Comes She Will
I hope I'm wrong, but I fear today was it.
With a cold front approaching, it could be the last day I get to wear shorts on my walk and the last night I get to see moonflowers open. As if they knew, I watched three open tonight through the screen in my bedroom window as I was dressing to go out.
Ah, summer, I miss you already.
My date for the evening was Pru and we headed to Bistro 27 for dinner, just across the street from the November theater where we planned to see a play afterwards.
Looking at my legs as we walked to the restaurant, she demanded to know how they looked so tanned in October. Simple, I told her, I'm still wearing shorts on my walk every day.
Inside, we sidled up to the bar and ordered glasses of Bricco-dei-Tati Rose, the color of cherry Kool-aid, coincidentally also the color of Barbera Rose, a far tastier pink quaff. Alas, I fear I will soon be missing my Roses, too.
Momentarily distracted by a dessert going by on its way to a nearby couple, we then debated what to order since it had been a while since we'd been in and so much of the menu is new, eventually settling on crabcakes (her) and Tuscan chicken flatbread (me).
The flatbread loomed large over the entire plate and then some, covered in a savory/sweet combination of grilled chicken, balsamic, plum tomatoes, basil and goat cheese. Her crabcake appetizer was mostly crab and sauteed golden brown, in other words, practically perfect to a crabhead like me.
Over dinner, we compared our thrifting adventures today (I won with a haul of 17 tops, 2 skirts, 1 shorts, 1 pants and 3 shrugs for a total of $5) at the Robinson Street Festival. I heard about her outing to the Roosevelt with old college chums last night, an evening that involved absinthe and a 2 a.m. bedtime, neither unusual for me and both highly irregular for her.
Today, she had the headache and lethargy that follows infrequent debauchery.
Dessert was a given (hello, Saturday night with a girlfriend) and the triple chocolate confection we'd seen go by earlier seemed like the obvious choice. Made by one of the prep cooks, it's the newest dessert item, all but begging us to check it out.
When Pru decided she needed coffee with hers, our bartender offered her espresso and then a single or double.
"Double, please," she said demurely. "I want it dark and growling." I assumed we were no longer talking about coffee, but I didn't pry.
The triple chocolate cake got my thumbs up for both its lightness and its variety of chocolate textures: mousse, cake and ganache.
As we were devouring it, four young men arrived to serenade the Irish couple sitting at the front table celebrating an occasion. Their lilting harmonies were beautiful to behold, made even better by having chocolate in our mouth as we listened.
What a delightful addition to the evening.
A satisfying meal over, we strolled across the street to see Cadence Theater's production of "Sight Unseen" by Donald Margulies.
Waiting in line to pick up tickets, I ran into a woman I hadn't seen in years whose first words were, "You don't age! You look exactly the same." While I know this is a compliment, what I wanted to say is, sure, it's fine now, but who wanted to look like this at 25 or 35? Instead, I say thanks.
Tickets in hand, we find our seats in the second row minutes before the lights go down.
My preference is always to go into a production knowing as little as possible so that the action can unfold for me with no hints of what's to come. It's like how I don't like to see previews for movies before I see them. Just give me what you got and let me see what I think.
"Sight Unseen" begins in a chilly farmhouse ("Here we hold on to our overcoats") in England ("No one is a good cook over here") with a visit from a now-famous American painter named Jonathan to Patricia, the woman who'd been his muse in college, and her adoring husband, Nick ("I take what I can get. I'm English").
His father has died last week yet he's crossed the pond for his first career retrospective where he's finding the press combative and trying to focus solely on his Jewishness. A flashback shows us how cruelly he dumped Patricia fifteen years earlier.
All of a sudden, it's intermission and I have absolutely no idea where this play is going, a truly delicious feeling as a member of the audience.
As the second act unfolds, we hear some excellent debate on what art is and what an artist's responsibility is as Nick looks at the catalog from Jonathan's show and finds his paintings lacking. As far as Nick's concerned, art ended with the Renaissance and he's dismissive of all modern art.
Jonathan insists that the job of the artist is not to participate because his intention in painting is irrelevant. Art is what the viewer brings to his work and what they choose to take away. Defending himself and his work he says, "It's the layers people go to in order to feel something today."
The layers in this play are many: about how relationships change, about settling when we can't get what we really want, about how success and money changes people, about losing our way in life and love and never really recovering. Why do people feel obligated to attend blockbuster art shows and then spend more time in the gift shop than with the art?
Andrew Firda is a standout as the husband in a mostly sexless marriage and his dry, British wit provides much of the play's humor while his sweet attempts to challenge the man who's been haunting his wife's heart for 15 years hint at the passion beneath his archeologist's heart.
Smart and thought-provoking, yet again Cadence Theater had provided plenty for Pru and I to discuss once the play ended and we were walking down Broad Street.
Where, I might add, the temperature was noticeably cooler than when we'd gone in and the breeze hinted at a night that will require closing my windows.
Except the bedroom windows, which will remain open so I can luxuriate in the scent of the moonflowers for the last time this year.
I take what I can get when summer is on her way out.
With a cold front approaching, it could be the last day I get to wear shorts on my walk and the last night I get to see moonflowers open. As if they knew, I watched three open tonight through the screen in my bedroom window as I was dressing to go out.
Ah, summer, I miss you already.
My date for the evening was Pru and we headed to Bistro 27 for dinner, just across the street from the November theater where we planned to see a play afterwards.
Looking at my legs as we walked to the restaurant, she demanded to know how they looked so tanned in October. Simple, I told her, I'm still wearing shorts on my walk every day.
Inside, we sidled up to the bar and ordered glasses of Bricco-dei-Tati Rose, the color of cherry Kool-aid, coincidentally also the color of Barbera Rose, a far tastier pink quaff. Alas, I fear I will soon be missing my Roses, too.
Momentarily distracted by a dessert going by on its way to a nearby couple, we then debated what to order since it had been a while since we'd been in and so much of the menu is new, eventually settling on crabcakes (her) and Tuscan chicken flatbread (me).
The flatbread loomed large over the entire plate and then some, covered in a savory/sweet combination of grilled chicken, balsamic, plum tomatoes, basil and goat cheese. Her crabcake appetizer was mostly crab and sauteed golden brown, in other words, practically perfect to a crabhead like me.
Over dinner, we compared our thrifting adventures today (I won with a haul of 17 tops, 2 skirts, 1 shorts, 1 pants and 3 shrugs for a total of $5) at the Robinson Street Festival. I heard about her outing to the Roosevelt with old college chums last night, an evening that involved absinthe and a 2 a.m. bedtime, neither unusual for me and both highly irregular for her.
Today, she had the headache and lethargy that follows infrequent debauchery.
Dessert was a given (hello, Saturday night with a girlfriend) and the triple chocolate confection we'd seen go by earlier seemed like the obvious choice. Made by one of the prep cooks, it's the newest dessert item, all but begging us to check it out.
When Pru decided she needed coffee with hers, our bartender offered her espresso and then a single or double.
"Double, please," she said demurely. "I want it dark and growling." I assumed we were no longer talking about coffee, but I didn't pry.
The triple chocolate cake got my thumbs up for both its lightness and its variety of chocolate textures: mousse, cake and ganache.
As we were devouring it, four young men arrived to serenade the Irish couple sitting at the front table celebrating an occasion. Their lilting harmonies were beautiful to behold, made even better by having chocolate in our mouth as we listened.
What a delightful addition to the evening.
A satisfying meal over, we strolled across the street to see Cadence Theater's production of "Sight Unseen" by Donald Margulies.
Waiting in line to pick up tickets, I ran into a woman I hadn't seen in years whose first words were, "You don't age! You look exactly the same." While I know this is a compliment, what I wanted to say is, sure, it's fine now, but who wanted to look like this at 25 or 35? Instead, I say thanks.
Tickets in hand, we find our seats in the second row minutes before the lights go down.
My preference is always to go into a production knowing as little as possible so that the action can unfold for me with no hints of what's to come. It's like how I don't like to see previews for movies before I see them. Just give me what you got and let me see what I think.
"Sight Unseen" begins in a chilly farmhouse ("Here we hold on to our overcoats") in England ("No one is a good cook over here") with a visit from a now-famous American painter named Jonathan to Patricia, the woman who'd been his muse in college, and her adoring husband, Nick ("I take what I can get. I'm English").
His father has died last week yet he's crossed the pond for his first career retrospective where he's finding the press combative and trying to focus solely on his Jewishness. A flashback shows us how cruelly he dumped Patricia fifteen years earlier.
All of a sudden, it's intermission and I have absolutely no idea where this play is going, a truly delicious feeling as a member of the audience.
As the second act unfolds, we hear some excellent debate on what art is and what an artist's responsibility is as Nick looks at the catalog from Jonathan's show and finds his paintings lacking. As far as Nick's concerned, art ended with the Renaissance and he's dismissive of all modern art.
Jonathan insists that the job of the artist is not to participate because his intention in painting is irrelevant. Art is what the viewer brings to his work and what they choose to take away. Defending himself and his work he says, "It's the layers people go to in order to feel something today."
The layers in this play are many: about how relationships change, about settling when we can't get what we really want, about how success and money changes people, about losing our way in life and love and never really recovering. Why do people feel obligated to attend blockbuster art shows and then spend more time in the gift shop than with the art?
Andrew Firda is a standout as the husband in a mostly sexless marriage and his dry, British wit provides much of the play's humor while his sweet attempts to challenge the man who's been haunting his wife's heart for 15 years hint at the passion beneath his archeologist's heart.
Smart and thought-provoking, yet again Cadence Theater had provided plenty for Pru and I to discuss once the play ended and we were walking down Broad Street.
Where, I might add, the temperature was noticeably cooler than when we'd gone in and the breeze hinted at a night that will require closing my windows.
Except the bedroom windows, which will remain open so I can luxuriate in the scent of the moonflowers for the last time this year.
I take what I can get when summer is on her way out.
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Until the Songs are Done
I took the A6 - also known as the motorway to the sun -to a yard show.
Since it's Virginia wine month, I began the evening at Pasture for a glass of Cardinal Point Winery A6, the lovely Viognier/Chardonnay blend named after the road in France that links Paris to Lyon, a fact I know only because I poured for Cardinal Point at the Virginia Wine Expo two years in a row.
The restaurant was busy with some people even eating outside on the patio, a treat not to be missed on an October evening.
While I thought the rest of my evening would be spent indoors watching two favorite musicians play, I arrived at the address given to find a crowd gathering in the yard next door.
Following the light and laughter to what was clearly going to be a yard show, I saw a familiar face sitting at the front picnic table and promptly joined the Hat, a.k.a. the man about town, on his bench.
From our perch, we were facing a mural I hadn't seen before of black, white, gray and orange, depicting a quarter moon, a tee-pee and a suitcase dangling from a rope near the top of the mural. In front of the mural were several metal frames on which strings of white and orange twinkle lights had been strung. A lit jack-o-lantern sat in front of chairs for musicians and drums. Smaller lit pumpkins sat on the picnic tables.
It was like a Fall fairyland and an ideal place for a little night time music.
Sitting next to the Hat, I said hello to the Richmanian warbler, waved to the record producer, spotted the long-haired breakout musician, smiled at the fashionable keyboard player and her reclusive husband while smelling the candle burning in the pumpkin on the table behind us (humor centered around citronella versus sinsemilla).
A couple spread out an Indian print blanket and sat down on the grass in front of us Soon a second blanket appeared, then a third and forth, all of the same Indian-type print that used to hang from windows as curtains back in the '70s. Apparently they're back.
Josh Small played first, explaining that he'd set out to write a song about something other than himself and settled on the flower world. Except that when all was said and done, the flower song was also about him.
The man is not only musical, but very funny.
When he was introducing a song about farming, he admitted that while he often wore overalls, he may never have actually been to a farm. "I've been to a couple pumpkin patches," he offered. Invoking Burt Reynolds, he did a Jerry Reed song called "Papa's Knee." One of the great things about a Josh Small set is how eclectic they are.
It had been eons since I'd seen David Shultz play out but, in fairness, he and his wife did have triplets so the man's been understandably busy. He began by thanking Matt, the evening's organizer, saying, "The yard couldn't look more cozy."
While the staff from Lamplighter Coffee across the street dragged trashcans along the sidewalk and traffic from the downtown expressway rumbled by, David played guitar and sang lyrics like, "Would it be so bad to dance until the song is done?"
My answer? Never.
Singing "I can't, can't get away from you," the Hat leaned over and observed, "That's a double negative, you know." I did.
David brought up drummer Willis, who'd arrived straight from a volleyball game (he is kind of tall), and they did "The Farmer," Willis' deft touch on drums and percussion adding a lot to the song and then added in Curtis on pedal steel (which was also draped in twinkle lights) and Jonathan on accordion for Blaze Foley's "Clay Pigeons."
Curtis and David joked back and forth about the limited rehearsing they'd done for this show. When David introduced "Down the Road," Curtis said, "That's the one we jammed on for 16 seconds and then talked about the chords?"
"That's why David Shultz and the Skyline aren't a band anymore," David patiently explained."Because what I really want to do is go to your house and drink wine and talk about music."
Favorite lyric: The best laid plans are the ones that don't require a second thought.
We got a real treat when David and Jonathan brought up the very talented Grant to play mandolin so they could play some Ophelia songs such as "Hunter's Bow." Along with drummer Willis, that quartet had made some outstanding music as Ophelia a few years back.
"It's a sneak attack Ophelia reunion!" someone said. Lucky us.
They did "Easy Prey" but it was the aching of "One Too Many" ("One too many nights together or one too many nights apart") that knocked the crowd off its feet, sounding just as remarkable as it did when they first played it.
David and Grant did "Oklahoma Rose," a song they wrote together and a reminder how well those two harmonize, much like on "Days Go By," a song recorded by Grant's River City Band.
Jonathan's songs never fail to tug at the heart ("I'm on my way to being on my own") and it didn't hurt having Curtis' mournful pedal steel further ripping our hearts out.
They closed the show with "The Butcher" ("I got a quarter of a quart of wine") and sitting there listening to those familiar voices singing to the sky was a reminder of just how wonderful Richmond can be sometimes.
Sort of a musical motorway to the moon on a Fall night.
Since it's Virginia wine month, I began the evening at Pasture for a glass of Cardinal Point Winery A6, the lovely Viognier/Chardonnay blend named after the road in France that links Paris to Lyon, a fact I know only because I poured for Cardinal Point at the Virginia Wine Expo two years in a row.
The restaurant was busy with some people even eating outside on the patio, a treat not to be missed on an October evening.
While I thought the rest of my evening would be spent indoors watching two favorite musicians play, I arrived at the address given to find a crowd gathering in the yard next door.
Following the light and laughter to what was clearly going to be a yard show, I saw a familiar face sitting at the front picnic table and promptly joined the Hat, a.k.a. the man about town, on his bench.
From our perch, we were facing a mural I hadn't seen before of black, white, gray and orange, depicting a quarter moon, a tee-pee and a suitcase dangling from a rope near the top of the mural. In front of the mural were several metal frames on which strings of white and orange twinkle lights had been strung. A lit jack-o-lantern sat in front of chairs for musicians and drums. Smaller lit pumpkins sat on the picnic tables.
It was like a Fall fairyland and an ideal place for a little night time music.
Sitting next to the Hat, I said hello to the Richmanian warbler, waved to the record producer, spotted the long-haired breakout musician, smiled at the fashionable keyboard player and her reclusive husband while smelling the candle burning in the pumpkin on the table behind us (humor centered around citronella versus sinsemilla).
A couple spread out an Indian print blanket and sat down on the grass in front of us Soon a second blanket appeared, then a third and forth, all of the same Indian-type print that used to hang from windows as curtains back in the '70s. Apparently they're back.
Josh Small played first, explaining that he'd set out to write a song about something other than himself and settled on the flower world. Except that when all was said and done, the flower song was also about him.
The man is not only musical, but very funny.
When he was introducing a song about farming, he admitted that while he often wore overalls, he may never have actually been to a farm. "I've been to a couple pumpkin patches," he offered. Invoking Burt Reynolds, he did a Jerry Reed song called "Papa's Knee." One of the great things about a Josh Small set is how eclectic they are.
It had been eons since I'd seen David Shultz play out but, in fairness, he and his wife did have triplets so the man's been understandably busy. He began by thanking Matt, the evening's organizer, saying, "The yard couldn't look more cozy."
While the staff from Lamplighter Coffee across the street dragged trashcans along the sidewalk and traffic from the downtown expressway rumbled by, David played guitar and sang lyrics like, "Would it be so bad to dance until the song is done?"
My answer? Never.
Singing "I can't, can't get away from you," the Hat leaned over and observed, "That's a double negative, you know." I did.
David brought up drummer Willis, who'd arrived straight from a volleyball game (he is kind of tall), and they did "The Farmer," Willis' deft touch on drums and percussion adding a lot to the song and then added in Curtis on pedal steel (which was also draped in twinkle lights) and Jonathan on accordion for Blaze Foley's "Clay Pigeons."
Curtis and David joked back and forth about the limited rehearsing they'd done for this show. When David introduced "Down the Road," Curtis said, "That's the one we jammed on for 16 seconds and then talked about the chords?"
"That's why David Shultz and the Skyline aren't a band anymore," David patiently explained."Because what I really want to do is go to your house and drink wine and talk about music."
Favorite lyric: The best laid plans are the ones that don't require a second thought.
We got a real treat when David and Jonathan brought up the very talented Grant to play mandolin so they could play some Ophelia songs such as "Hunter's Bow." Along with drummer Willis, that quartet had made some outstanding music as Ophelia a few years back.
"It's a sneak attack Ophelia reunion!" someone said. Lucky us.
They did "Easy Prey" but it was the aching of "One Too Many" ("One too many nights together or one too many nights apart") that knocked the crowd off its feet, sounding just as remarkable as it did when they first played it.
David and Grant did "Oklahoma Rose," a song they wrote together and a reminder how well those two harmonize, much like on "Days Go By," a song recorded by Grant's River City Band.
Jonathan's songs never fail to tug at the heart ("I'm on my way to being on my own") and it didn't hurt having Curtis' mournful pedal steel further ripping our hearts out.
They closed the show with "The Butcher" ("I got a quarter of a quart of wine") and sitting there listening to those familiar voices singing to the sky was a reminder of just how wonderful Richmond can be sometimes.
Sort of a musical motorway to the moon on a Fall night.
Friday, October 17, 2014
Wicked Lives
I didn't go for scary, I went to increase my literacy. And dance a little.
FilmRoasters, the crew who shows bad movies and comments all the way through a la "Mystery Science Theater" was showing the 1978 horror classic "Halloween" tonight. Needless to say, I'd never seen it.
Which is not to say I'd never been to a FilmRoasters' event because I had. Three times. I knew the drill.
The bludgeoning of the cheesy film was taking place at Bottoms Up so I arrived in time to order a monstrous slice of their famous "Karen combo" pizza (no, it really is named that), featuring all kinds of my favorite things: Italian sausage, onions, spinach and Ricotta.
I don't know what Karen it's named for, but she had great taste.
While I ate, the Roasters got warmed up with a bad '80s TV show called "The Master" about a ninja and his pupil, notable mainly for big '80s hair, a Trump-less Las Vegas and a soundtrack by Bill Conti of "Rocky" fame.
By the time that corniness ended, there were eight people in the audience and five of them were gabbing loudly because they hadn't come to see the movie.
After more than a few pointed barbs in their direction, they got the hint and moved out on the patio so that the remaining three of us could hear the movie's bad dialog and the roasters' pithy improvisation.
They asked how recently the audience had seen the movie (um, never) and said, "If the last time you saw "Halloween" it was scary, it's been too long." The event invitation had warned that, "Only really old people still think it's scary."
The only thing I already knew about "Halloween" was its soundtrack and that's because local musician Scott Burton was a huge fan of director John Carpenter's soundtrack and had transposed it from piano to guitar and I'd heard him play it on several occasions near Halloween.
The first thing I learned about "Halloween" tonight was that the virginal Laurie character was Jamie Lee Curtis' first film (the credits "introduce" her).
Then the Roasters set about mocking it at every turn.
When the first babysitter has her nude scene, someone cracked, "Seventies boobs were different." You mean high and firm without being fake? Yea, they sure were.
They made fun of the nurse in her cap and cape. The turned the murder's voice into Darth Vader imitations and said things such as, "I hate a guy with a car and no sense of humor" about one of the teen-aged victims.
And like with previous screenings, the Roasters were profoundly impatient with the '70s style of film making, making frequent comments about long shots, extended takes and showing the viewer everything.
"Film it all, film her walking up the whole street!" one guy shouted when she took five steps on camera.
Call me old school, but I found it refreshing to see a film that allowed scenes to unfold and wasn't just a non-stop montage of quick cuts for the ADD set.
But the '70s details were on point: Laurie doesn't date because all the guys think she's too smart. Don't feel bad, Laurie, I didn't get asked to prom, either.
When she and her girlfriend take off in the enormous '70s car (not wearing seat belts, natch) for their babysitting jobs, they share a joint in the car on the way, her friend saying,"Come on, we have just enough time" and the Roasters retorting, "There's always time for marijuana!"
At her babysitting job, Laurie dons a full apron to make popcorn for her charges and carve a jack-o-lantern ("Remember when we used to say jack-o-lantern?"). Really, an apron?
As the murderer stalks them in his car, someone quipped, "Is anyone concerned that the killer is driving a station wagon?"
Not in the '70s, baby.
When a character says he thinks the murderer's former house is haunted, the Roasters said, "Haunted by eight bad sequels! And number three made no sense!" I wouldn't know.
Once all the sexually active babysitters have been murdered and Laurie thinks she's killed the killer, she sits sobbing on the floor in relief and post-terror. "She's sobbing because there's going to be a sequel."
So now, ladies and gentlemen, I can say I've seen "Halloween," the film credited with beginning a long line of slasher films based on Hitchcock's "Psycho" and a reminder that boobs were better in the '70s.
Or something.
Having upped my cultural literacy over a slice, I opted to finish out the night at Balliceaux to see Red Light Rodeo.
Walking up the alley, I saw a small crowd near the door and just as I came up behind them, one guy reared back with his leg and kicked my hand with his shoe. When he realized what had happened, he joked, "Don't sneak up on a brother like that, girl!" and then apologized. I chalked it up to my quiet shoes on the cobblestones.
Inside, I found a small but exuberant crowd in the back room, many of the women dancing already to Red Light Rodeo's take on bluegrass honky tonk, including two who finished "Sitting on Top of the World" by falling on the beer-slicked floor laughing their faces off.
The band was bigger than I expected with drums/percussion, acoustic guitar, upright bass, mandolin/electric fiddle and electric guitar/pedal steel and all dapperly dressed in bolo ties, western style shirts and a couple with cowboy hats on.
When the band took a break, a woman decided to talk to me, commenting on how I'd been observing the room as I sipped my tequila. I found out she left Richmond for the West Coast only to return and wonder why she'd ever left. In other words, a familiar tale.
The band scored big with a country version of "Louie, Louie" that got just about everyone in the room dancing before it was over. From there, they sang about about liquor and whores, wicked lives and mentioned how their favorite song subject was whiskey ("You and me and whiskey makes three").
Only really old people wouldn't appreciate that kind of music.
FilmRoasters, the crew who shows bad movies and comments all the way through a la "Mystery Science Theater" was showing the 1978 horror classic "Halloween" tonight. Needless to say, I'd never seen it.
Which is not to say I'd never been to a FilmRoasters' event because I had. Three times. I knew the drill.
The bludgeoning of the cheesy film was taking place at Bottoms Up so I arrived in time to order a monstrous slice of their famous "Karen combo" pizza (no, it really is named that), featuring all kinds of my favorite things: Italian sausage, onions, spinach and Ricotta.
I don't know what Karen it's named for, but she had great taste.
While I ate, the Roasters got warmed up with a bad '80s TV show called "The Master" about a ninja and his pupil, notable mainly for big '80s hair, a Trump-less Las Vegas and a soundtrack by Bill Conti of "Rocky" fame.
By the time that corniness ended, there were eight people in the audience and five of them were gabbing loudly because they hadn't come to see the movie.
After more than a few pointed barbs in their direction, they got the hint and moved out on the patio so that the remaining three of us could hear the movie's bad dialog and the roasters' pithy improvisation.
They asked how recently the audience had seen the movie (um, never) and said, "If the last time you saw "Halloween" it was scary, it's been too long." The event invitation had warned that, "Only really old people still think it's scary."
The only thing I already knew about "Halloween" was its soundtrack and that's because local musician Scott Burton was a huge fan of director John Carpenter's soundtrack and had transposed it from piano to guitar and I'd heard him play it on several occasions near Halloween.
The first thing I learned about "Halloween" tonight was that the virginal Laurie character was Jamie Lee Curtis' first film (the credits "introduce" her).
Then the Roasters set about mocking it at every turn.
When the first babysitter has her nude scene, someone cracked, "Seventies boobs were different." You mean high and firm without being fake? Yea, they sure were.
They made fun of the nurse in her cap and cape. The turned the murder's voice into Darth Vader imitations and said things such as, "I hate a guy with a car and no sense of humor" about one of the teen-aged victims.
And like with previous screenings, the Roasters were profoundly impatient with the '70s style of film making, making frequent comments about long shots, extended takes and showing the viewer everything.
"Film it all, film her walking up the whole street!" one guy shouted when she took five steps on camera.
Call me old school, but I found it refreshing to see a film that allowed scenes to unfold and wasn't just a non-stop montage of quick cuts for the ADD set.
But the '70s details were on point: Laurie doesn't date because all the guys think she's too smart. Don't feel bad, Laurie, I didn't get asked to prom, either.
When she and her girlfriend take off in the enormous '70s car (not wearing seat belts, natch) for their babysitting jobs, they share a joint in the car on the way, her friend saying,"Come on, we have just enough time" and the Roasters retorting, "There's always time for marijuana!"
At her babysitting job, Laurie dons a full apron to make popcorn for her charges and carve a jack-o-lantern ("Remember when we used to say jack-o-lantern?"). Really, an apron?
As the murderer stalks them in his car, someone quipped, "Is anyone concerned that the killer is driving a station wagon?"
Not in the '70s, baby.
When a character says he thinks the murderer's former house is haunted, the Roasters said, "Haunted by eight bad sequels! And number three made no sense!" I wouldn't know.
Once all the sexually active babysitters have been murdered and Laurie thinks she's killed the killer, she sits sobbing on the floor in relief and post-terror. "She's sobbing because there's going to be a sequel."
So now, ladies and gentlemen, I can say I've seen "Halloween," the film credited with beginning a long line of slasher films based on Hitchcock's "Psycho" and a reminder that boobs were better in the '70s.
Or something.
Having upped my cultural literacy over a slice, I opted to finish out the night at Balliceaux to see Red Light Rodeo.
Walking up the alley, I saw a small crowd near the door and just as I came up behind them, one guy reared back with his leg and kicked my hand with his shoe. When he realized what had happened, he joked, "Don't sneak up on a brother like that, girl!" and then apologized. I chalked it up to my quiet shoes on the cobblestones.
Inside, I found a small but exuberant crowd in the back room, many of the women dancing already to Red Light Rodeo's take on bluegrass honky tonk, including two who finished "Sitting on Top of the World" by falling on the beer-slicked floor laughing their faces off.
The band was bigger than I expected with drums/percussion, acoustic guitar, upright bass, mandolin/electric fiddle and electric guitar/pedal steel and all dapperly dressed in bolo ties, western style shirts and a couple with cowboy hats on.
When the band took a break, a woman decided to talk to me, commenting on how I'd been observing the room as I sipped my tequila. I found out she left Richmond for the West Coast only to return and wonder why she'd ever left. In other words, a familiar tale.
The band scored big with a country version of "Louie, Louie" that got just about everyone in the room dancing before it was over. From there, they sang about about liquor and whores, wicked lives and mentioned how their favorite song subject was whiskey ("You and me and whiskey makes three").
Only really old people wouldn't appreciate that kind of music.
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Meantime (Little Notes)
Reasons why this is already shaping up to be a fine day:
A cloudy walk to Chapel Island with a view of raindrops dotting the canal.
An Amtrack conductor hanging out of the stopped train waving to me from the tracks overhead as I walk the Capital bike trail. Hello, stranger.
The shift from clouds to sun as I reach the island and walk over to a favorite spot on the far side to survey the river. Nothing much happening today.
Crossing Cary Street and hearing my name called by a friendly wine rep and stopping to chat about the pleasures of outside showers and rooftop bars, both past and future. Top of the Tower? Nope, before my time.
Running into a culture-loving friend in front of the National box office waiting to buy tickets for Trampled by Turtles. He looks at me like he's never seen me in walking attire - shorts and a t-shirt - before, which I then realize he hasn't.
Coming home to a message from a good friend saying, "I miss you! Pick you up at 12:30? Yeah!"
Lunch right here in the 'hood at Lucy's, which is satisfyingly mobbed with eager eaters. A former Floyd Avenue neighbor stops to chat, I wave hello to the cattle farmer and the proprietor tells us there's a real estate convention in town.
The shrimp po' boy salad is stellar, full of fat fried shrimp under a drizzle of thousand island dressing with picture perfect end-of-the-season grape tomatoes still bursting with flavor.
Conversation tumbling out out of both of us as we discuss Cape Charles, not fitting in, out of town restaurateurs and Gullah culture.
Dessert of panna cotta with strawberry coulis, a worthy substitute for our usual post-lunch Rose, off limits since my friend has a meeting after we finish.
Writing assignment completed and ready for my final edit tomorrow, still several days in advance of deadline.
And it's only mid-afternoon. Feeling as sunny as the day turned out to be.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
True Love Seat Testing
Just another evening devoted to love, poetry and anniversaries.
While I'd been off celebrating summer last night, the Virginia Literary Festival had begun without me. Tonight I intended to wave my literary flag.
The rain had finally stopped by the time I left for Carytown, not that I'm complaining about a rainy day. My earlier walk down to the river had required an umbrella, but the temperature had been pleasant enough and I enjoy the unique perspective an umbrella provides: no sky, no rooves, nothing much higher than my chin. It's a very intimate kind of a walk.
But by early evening, only puddles remained as I walked to the Byrd theater for poetry and a film screening that began with buttered popcorn and people watching.
Like the couple who came down the aisle together but then each turned into different rows. From there, each would sit in a different seat, get up and move to another. They each tested out four or five seats a few rows from each other, occasionally exchanging glances.
Finally, she gave him a look and using his long legs to step over the two rows that separated them, he sat down next to her in a seat she'd already tested out for him.
The things some people do for love.
A group of older women came in looking for seats and were put off by how torn up some of them are. "Those seats look like rats have been chewing on them!" one said in disgust.
"I bet they really do," chimed in another. "You know, after it gets dark, they just come in here and tear into the seats." She sounded terrified.
My guess was more prosaic: that after 85 years of people using these seats, they're so threadbare that it doesn't take much touching for the fabric to begin to rip. Get over yourselves, ladies.
After greetings to the crowd of forty or so from the Byrd and the Virginia Literary Festival came the introduction of Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, Virginia's Poet laureate from 2006-2008.
Explaining that she'd felt a real connection to Frida Kahlo after first seeing her paintings, Foronda began to research Kahlo's life by going to Mexico to see the blue house where she'd lived, the home of Kahlo's husband, muralist Diego Rivera and more of her work.
She said it helped that her husband was a native Spanish speaker and had good street smarts because he was able to talk some of the guards into letting her into rooms not usually open to the public.
All that research into facts became the basis for her book of poetry, "The Embrace," about the artist, her life and her relationship with Rivera.
She read three of the poems, including one called "Blue House," told from the point of view of the house which, she said, "knew more about Frida than anyone else." Another, "Wedding Fiesta" was told from Frida's viewpoint about the day she married the man who'd wooed her by saying, "I was born to love you."
Favorite line: "Long live love."
Then we watched 2002's "Frida" with Salma Hayek taking on the role of the artistic woman with the unibrow and her unfaithful but loving husband.
What was especially interesting for me was seeing Alfred Molina as Diego because I'd just seen him a few weeks ago in "Love is Strange." But in this movie, he superbly captured the complex Diego, a man with a huge artistic ego, a driving political responsibility and utter devotion to Frida and her talent despite dalliances with other women.
The scene where he comes back to see her after they've divorced (and she's had her toes amputated) to ask her to marry him again was incredibly moving. When she demands to know why he's back, he looks at her with those eyes and says simply, "I miss us."
Obviously it worked because she married him again. When he thanks her, she asks him for what.
"For making a fat, old Communist a happy man." Sounds like true love to me.
On the way out of the Byrd, I dropped a donation in the popcorn tub toward those painful seats, said hi to Ward from Chop Suey at the book sale table and headed out into the night.
Next stop: Garnett's to celebrate their fifth anniversary. Where does the time go?
It seems like just a couple of years ago that the little sandwich place opened and found an immediate following. Back when it first opened, they even served coffee in the mornings and I helped out for several months, showing up before 7 a.m. to bake scones and brew coffee for the early morning worker bee crowd.
I quickly discovered how tough it is to go to bed at 2 a.m. and be unlocking the front door at 6:45. Many a morning I rode my bike over there in the early morning light fighting off yawns.
Coffee service didn't last long (so I was off the hook) but Garnett's thankfully has and as a thanks to the public, anyone who came in today and ordered a sandwich got a free dessert.
While I wasn't so much in the mood for dessert after popcorn, I was hungry for a nosh. Walking in, the place was empty except for two beat-looking servers.
"We don't have any cake or pie left!" they warned me as soon as they saw me. I reassured them that I wasn't looking for dessert and ordered chicken salad.
Naturally it had been a crazy busy day with non-stop crowds coming to claim their free desserts, but what they wanted to kvetch about was the customer who'd just called. Earlier he'd called and ordered a Cobb salad and then been late in picking it up.
Once home, he was dissatisfied that the bacon on the salad was cold so he called to register his unhappiness. He wanted to make sure the owner got a full report that his bacon was cold. He whined that he's ordered that salad a dozen times and the bacon had never been cold. He insisted that he'll never be back.
The servers, worn out after a non-stop day, politely took his complaints and apologized. What else could they do?
Finally eating and happy, I reminded them that such a customer was perfectly appropriate on the restaurant's fifth anniversary.
They'd had scads of people in all day long, worked their butts off and heard a lot of really nice things from people who make Garnett's one of their regular hangouts. So what's one bad apple in the scheme of things?
The way I see it, if you make it to five years successfully, you're doing a lot right. Especially in the restaurant business, five years is significant. Impressive, even.
As a wise poet once said on his own fifth anniversary, double or nothing?
While I'd been off celebrating summer last night, the Virginia Literary Festival had begun without me. Tonight I intended to wave my literary flag.
The rain had finally stopped by the time I left for Carytown, not that I'm complaining about a rainy day. My earlier walk down to the river had required an umbrella, but the temperature had been pleasant enough and I enjoy the unique perspective an umbrella provides: no sky, no rooves, nothing much higher than my chin. It's a very intimate kind of a walk.
But by early evening, only puddles remained as I walked to the Byrd theater for poetry and a film screening that began with buttered popcorn and people watching.
Like the couple who came down the aisle together but then each turned into different rows. From there, each would sit in a different seat, get up and move to another. They each tested out four or five seats a few rows from each other, occasionally exchanging glances.
Finally, she gave him a look and using his long legs to step over the two rows that separated them, he sat down next to her in a seat she'd already tested out for him.
The things some people do for love.
A group of older women came in looking for seats and were put off by how torn up some of them are. "Those seats look like rats have been chewing on them!" one said in disgust.
"I bet they really do," chimed in another. "You know, after it gets dark, they just come in here and tear into the seats." She sounded terrified.
My guess was more prosaic: that after 85 years of people using these seats, they're so threadbare that it doesn't take much touching for the fabric to begin to rip. Get over yourselves, ladies.
After greetings to the crowd of forty or so from the Byrd and the Virginia Literary Festival came the introduction of Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, Virginia's Poet laureate from 2006-2008.
Explaining that she'd felt a real connection to Frida Kahlo after first seeing her paintings, Foronda began to research Kahlo's life by going to Mexico to see the blue house where she'd lived, the home of Kahlo's husband, muralist Diego Rivera and more of her work.
She said it helped that her husband was a native Spanish speaker and had good street smarts because he was able to talk some of the guards into letting her into rooms not usually open to the public.
All that research into facts became the basis for her book of poetry, "The Embrace," about the artist, her life and her relationship with Rivera.
She read three of the poems, including one called "Blue House," told from the point of view of the house which, she said, "knew more about Frida than anyone else." Another, "Wedding Fiesta" was told from Frida's viewpoint about the day she married the man who'd wooed her by saying, "I was born to love you."
Favorite line: "Long live love."
Then we watched 2002's "Frida" with Salma Hayek taking on the role of the artistic woman with the unibrow and her unfaithful but loving husband.
What was especially interesting for me was seeing Alfred Molina as Diego because I'd just seen him a few weeks ago in "Love is Strange." But in this movie, he superbly captured the complex Diego, a man with a huge artistic ego, a driving political responsibility and utter devotion to Frida and her talent despite dalliances with other women.
The scene where he comes back to see her after they've divorced (and she's had her toes amputated) to ask her to marry him again was incredibly moving. When she demands to know why he's back, he looks at her with those eyes and says simply, "I miss us."
Obviously it worked because she married him again. When he thanks her, she asks him for what.
"For making a fat, old Communist a happy man." Sounds like true love to me.
On the way out of the Byrd, I dropped a donation in the popcorn tub toward those painful seats, said hi to Ward from Chop Suey at the book sale table and headed out into the night.
Next stop: Garnett's to celebrate their fifth anniversary. Where does the time go?
It seems like just a couple of years ago that the little sandwich place opened and found an immediate following. Back when it first opened, they even served coffee in the mornings and I helped out for several months, showing up before 7 a.m. to bake scones and brew coffee for the early morning worker bee crowd.
I quickly discovered how tough it is to go to bed at 2 a.m. and be unlocking the front door at 6:45. Many a morning I rode my bike over there in the early morning light fighting off yawns.
Coffee service didn't last long (so I was off the hook) but Garnett's thankfully has and as a thanks to the public, anyone who came in today and ordered a sandwich got a free dessert.
While I wasn't so much in the mood for dessert after popcorn, I was hungry for a nosh. Walking in, the place was empty except for two beat-looking servers.
"We don't have any cake or pie left!" they warned me as soon as they saw me. I reassured them that I wasn't looking for dessert and ordered chicken salad.
Naturally it had been a crazy busy day with non-stop crowds coming to claim their free desserts, but what they wanted to kvetch about was the customer who'd just called. Earlier he'd called and ordered a Cobb salad and then been late in picking it up.
Once home, he was dissatisfied that the bacon on the salad was cold so he called to register his unhappiness. He wanted to make sure the owner got a full report that his bacon was cold. He whined that he's ordered that salad a dozen times and the bacon had never been cold. He insisted that he'll never be back.
The servers, worn out after a non-stop day, politely took his complaints and apologized. What else could they do?
Finally eating and happy, I reminded them that such a customer was perfectly appropriate on the restaurant's fifth anniversary.
They'd had scads of people in all day long, worked their butts off and heard a lot of really nice things from people who make Garnett's one of their regular hangouts. So what's one bad apple in the scheme of things?
The way I see it, if you make it to five years successfully, you're doing a lot right. Especially in the restaurant business, five years is significant. Impressive, even.
As a wise poet once said on his own fifth anniversary, double or nothing?
Won't You Smile a While for Me?
Yesterday's escape to the river was enough to make me forego poetry.
My Tuesday evening plan had been to go to Poetic Principles at the Library of Virginia, an event I always look forward to.
The only problem was that it was still 82 degrees when I got home from my road trip and I couldn't bear the thought of being inside while all that summer-like warmth was still outside.
I laid out a Plan B and my fellow poetry-lover was gracious enough to agree to a change in plans.
The river it was, albeit the James this time, by way of my favorite waterfront stopover, the Lilly Pad. Expecting it to be mobbed on such a gorgeous evening, we found only one large table celebrating a birthday, complete with balloons tied to the chairs.
Inside, we inquired what our choices were in white wine and were told, "I have this Chardonnay," as she hauled out a big 1.5 bottle and looked at us expectantly. Well, if that's what the options are, we'd love two glasses of it.
Looking at the chalkboard menu, I gravitated to the adjective adorned "juicy cheeseburger" and since it was also sushi night, the poet chose a spicy roll to round out our pan Asian-American meal.
Back outside, we headed straight for the coveted glider table closest to the river, aiming for the most distance from the raucous birthday celebrants and the best views of the goings-on near the water.
Boaters were pulling their boats out of the river and a couple of small crafts were still making their way along the dock. On the other side were what looked like a couple of houseboats with the blue light of TV screens glowing from within and the occasional occupant on the upper deck.
It must be an interesting life living on a houseboat. I met a woman a couple of years ago who had a house in Urbanna but chose to live on a houseboat at the end of her dock rather than in the house, which is where she let her guests stay when she had visitors.
Touring the boat with her, I couldn't help but be impressed with what an efficient use of space it was while they still had everything they needed. She was a talented cook who whipped up elaborate meals on the boat every night for her husband after a liberal happy hour on the deck above first. It sounded like a pretty good life to me.
For all I knew, some of those houseboat residents we were looking at were doing the same.
After polishing of the (juicy) cheeseburger and spicy roll, we wasted time gliding in the warm night air and watching new arrivals - a couple who surprisingly chose to eat inside, a biker who arrived on a chopper and then walked around to get feeling back in his legs before going in - help populate the place.
I know it's October, but I was still surprised that more people hadn't been lured down to the river on this beautiful evening like we had.
The only problem with the Lily Pad is how early it closes, so we stopped on the way back to the city for a nightcap at the Checkered Flag, a place I knew I was going to like as soon as I approached the door and could hear the jukebox playing "Me and Mrs. Jones."
Inside, we were welcomed warmly and a couple gave up their stools to go play video bowling so we could sit down.
The bartender, affable, welcoming and attentive, looked pleased as punch when I asked for 1800. "I got a bottle already in the freezer, honey" she said, beaming. After asking us our names, she used them every time she addressed us, as if were old friends.
Turns out her mother owns the bar and it'll become hers in a few more years, something she was clearly looking forward to. So now that we knew her five-year plan, we kind of did qualify as friends. That and when we asked if the kitchen was still open, she went right in the back and perfectly fried up some chicken wings for us.
I was way into the music someone had selected on the jukebox and when it ended, the woman who'd been bowling got up to put more money in, inviting me to join her to make selections while her boyfriend did a quick shot at the bar.
Since it was her money, I didn't want to foist my taste on her, but luckily I didn't have to because she was as big a fan of old-school soul as I am. Between the two of us, we chose Marvin Gay, Four Tops, Bill Withers, Stevie Wonder and a bunch of others.
When I asked her what her first concert had been, she didn't hesitate. "Hall and Oates, Three Rivers Stadium, 1987" and then selected "Sara Smile" from the Hall and Oates offerings on the screen.
Not a personal favorite, but it wasn't my money.
Returning to the bar, we chatted with her and her younger boyfriend who didn't recognize a lot of the old R & B we'd chosen. Technically, she was also too young to recognize it but she said her taste reflected her mother's taste and that her mother had been young.
And by young, she meant fourteen.
When you're told such personal facts as that by a stranger, you just take a sip of your 1800 and smile.
With apologies to the Sundays, poetry was not for me tonight.
My Tuesday evening plan had been to go to Poetic Principles at the Library of Virginia, an event I always look forward to.
The only problem was that it was still 82 degrees when I got home from my road trip and I couldn't bear the thought of being inside while all that summer-like warmth was still outside.
I laid out a Plan B and my fellow poetry-lover was gracious enough to agree to a change in plans.
The river it was, albeit the James this time, by way of my favorite waterfront stopover, the Lilly Pad. Expecting it to be mobbed on such a gorgeous evening, we found only one large table celebrating a birthday, complete with balloons tied to the chairs.
Inside, we inquired what our choices were in white wine and were told, "I have this Chardonnay," as she hauled out a big 1.5 bottle and looked at us expectantly. Well, if that's what the options are, we'd love two glasses of it.
Looking at the chalkboard menu, I gravitated to the adjective adorned "juicy cheeseburger" and since it was also sushi night, the poet chose a spicy roll to round out our pan Asian-American meal.
Back outside, we headed straight for the coveted glider table closest to the river, aiming for the most distance from the raucous birthday celebrants and the best views of the goings-on near the water.
Boaters were pulling their boats out of the river and a couple of small crafts were still making their way along the dock. On the other side were what looked like a couple of houseboats with the blue light of TV screens glowing from within and the occasional occupant on the upper deck.
It must be an interesting life living on a houseboat. I met a woman a couple of years ago who had a house in Urbanna but chose to live on a houseboat at the end of her dock rather than in the house, which is where she let her guests stay when she had visitors.
Touring the boat with her, I couldn't help but be impressed with what an efficient use of space it was while they still had everything they needed. She was a talented cook who whipped up elaborate meals on the boat every night for her husband after a liberal happy hour on the deck above first. It sounded like a pretty good life to me.
For all I knew, some of those houseboat residents we were looking at were doing the same.
After polishing of the (juicy) cheeseburger and spicy roll, we wasted time gliding in the warm night air and watching new arrivals - a couple who surprisingly chose to eat inside, a biker who arrived on a chopper and then walked around to get feeling back in his legs before going in - help populate the place.
I know it's October, but I was still surprised that more people hadn't been lured down to the river on this beautiful evening like we had.
The only problem with the Lily Pad is how early it closes, so we stopped on the way back to the city for a nightcap at the Checkered Flag, a place I knew I was going to like as soon as I approached the door and could hear the jukebox playing "Me and Mrs. Jones."
Inside, we were welcomed warmly and a couple gave up their stools to go play video bowling so we could sit down.
The bartender, affable, welcoming and attentive, looked pleased as punch when I asked for 1800. "I got a bottle already in the freezer, honey" she said, beaming. After asking us our names, she used them every time she addressed us, as if were old friends.
Turns out her mother owns the bar and it'll become hers in a few more years, something she was clearly looking forward to. So now that we knew her five-year plan, we kind of did qualify as friends. That and when we asked if the kitchen was still open, she went right in the back and perfectly fried up some chicken wings for us.
I was way into the music someone had selected on the jukebox and when it ended, the woman who'd been bowling got up to put more money in, inviting me to join her to make selections while her boyfriend did a quick shot at the bar.
Since it was her money, I didn't want to foist my taste on her, but luckily I didn't have to because she was as big a fan of old-school soul as I am. Between the two of us, we chose Marvin Gay, Four Tops, Bill Withers, Stevie Wonder and a bunch of others.
When I asked her what her first concert had been, she didn't hesitate. "Hall and Oates, Three Rivers Stadium, 1987" and then selected "Sara Smile" from the Hall and Oates offerings on the screen.
Not a personal favorite, but it wasn't my money.
Returning to the bar, we chatted with her and her younger boyfriend who didn't recognize a lot of the old R & B we'd chosen. Technically, she was also too young to recognize it but she said her taste reflected her mother's taste and that her mother had been young.
And by young, she meant fourteen.
When you're told such personal facts as that by a stranger, you just take a sip of your 1800 and smile.
With apologies to the Sundays, poetry was not for me tonight.
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Rock Me, Baby
Afraid that today is the last time it's going to feel so gloriously summer-like this year, I took full advantage.
Conveniently, I had multiple interviews to do in Kilmarnock, leaving me mere minutes from Merroir at 1:45. Only an idiot would have high-tailed it back to Richmond without stopping by.
Driving back over the bridge, the river looked silver-gray and the sky was crowded with clouds but once on the gravel road to Merroir, I could see blue sky and bluer water beckoning.
The hostess sat me in the center-most table, the sun on my back and the river view spread out before me. Only two other tables were occupied (and only two when I left) and one was by a staff member schooling the visitors on oysters and how much more slowly the river heats and cools off than the air.
Boats were bobbing at the marina next door - one had a small pirate flag next to a small Confederate flag - and sailboats were spanning the mouth of the bay.
I began with Wimmer Gruner Veltliner and a salad of hydroponic butter lettuce with cranberries (not craisins, so decidedly tart), sunflowers, sauteed honey onions and fromage bleu. Only problem? The hearty breeze kept trying to blow my lettuce leaves off my plate. Solution? Eat faster.
The music was pretty much bluegrass, with occasional recognizable songs such as "Wagon Wheel," easy background listening on such a gorgeous day.
Next to me was a trio who weren't speaking English but the most interesting thing I noted was how one of the guys would suck the spices off the steamed shrimp before shelling it. Brilliant! How had that never occurred to me?
I could hardly enjoy such a perfect day at the river without oysters, so I got my favorite Old Saltes and sucked the briny liquor out of the shells.
When I inquired of my server if I could finish with a half glass of wine, she said they didn't do that but she'd check with her manager and ask, returning with a generous half pour which accompanied me down to an Adirondack chair by the dock.
There, I again put my back to the sun and watched as sea gulls battled it out for supremacy on posts in the water, squawking at each other as they tried to assert themselves.
One dock over, a series of tiny American flags stood out stiffly in the warm, afternoon breeze.
Summer was teasing me even as she was ripping out my heart with a day as gloriously warm and perfect as this set to the sounds of water lapping, tree tops rustling in the wind and bird calls. Is there any feeling more exquisite than sitting waterside on an 82-degree day?
Let's put it this way: if I hadn't had a date tonight, I'd have sat there until Merroir closed, returning to the restaurant only to score more food and drink.
My only regret was that now that the dock has railings, I couldn't stick my feet in the water. And I'd just heard from an oyster expert that the river is till plenty warm, so that was just too bad.
I was alone down there until a couple of employees came down to rearrange tables for an upcoming wedding on Saturday. Apparently they had their first one a couple of weeks ago and now they're hosting another. Couples get married at the end of the dock and the reception swirls in the area where I was sitting. The bride and groom-to be could only wish for a day as beautiful as today for their celebration.
I left them to their rearranging and headed back up to visit the loo and leave. On the way, I chatted with the duo who'd been seated near me, discovering that he was a visitor from Michigan who'd been to Merroir before a couple of years ago.
Like two old-timers, we immediately lapsed into a "remember when?" session, lamenting how fancy Merroir has gotten and missing its rustic elements. The old dock! The long-gone oyster shell pile! The mismatched tables!
Yet despite how uptown things have become, here we both were, back on a random gorgeous Tuesday, loving our lives because we'd spent the afternoon there.
It feels like today might be the last day of summer 2014, I told him. "Then we were exactly where we should've been for it," he agreed.
Out of the mouths of strangers straight to my sun-tinged ears. Oh, happy day.
Conveniently, I had multiple interviews to do in Kilmarnock, leaving me mere minutes from Merroir at 1:45. Only an idiot would have high-tailed it back to Richmond without stopping by.
Driving back over the bridge, the river looked silver-gray and the sky was crowded with clouds but once on the gravel road to Merroir, I could see blue sky and bluer water beckoning.
The hostess sat me in the center-most table, the sun on my back and the river view spread out before me. Only two other tables were occupied (and only two when I left) and one was by a staff member schooling the visitors on oysters and how much more slowly the river heats and cools off than the air.
Boats were bobbing at the marina next door - one had a small pirate flag next to a small Confederate flag - and sailboats were spanning the mouth of the bay.
I began with Wimmer Gruner Veltliner and a salad of hydroponic butter lettuce with cranberries (not craisins, so decidedly tart), sunflowers, sauteed honey onions and fromage bleu. Only problem? The hearty breeze kept trying to blow my lettuce leaves off my plate. Solution? Eat faster.
The music was pretty much bluegrass, with occasional recognizable songs such as "Wagon Wheel," easy background listening on such a gorgeous day.
Next to me was a trio who weren't speaking English but the most interesting thing I noted was how one of the guys would suck the spices off the steamed shrimp before shelling it. Brilliant! How had that never occurred to me?
I could hardly enjoy such a perfect day at the river without oysters, so I got my favorite Old Saltes and sucked the briny liquor out of the shells.
When I inquired of my server if I could finish with a half glass of wine, she said they didn't do that but she'd check with her manager and ask, returning with a generous half pour which accompanied me down to an Adirondack chair by the dock.
There, I again put my back to the sun and watched as sea gulls battled it out for supremacy on posts in the water, squawking at each other as they tried to assert themselves.
One dock over, a series of tiny American flags stood out stiffly in the warm, afternoon breeze.
Summer was teasing me even as she was ripping out my heart with a day as gloriously warm and perfect as this set to the sounds of water lapping, tree tops rustling in the wind and bird calls. Is there any feeling more exquisite than sitting waterside on an 82-degree day?
Let's put it this way: if I hadn't had a date tonight, I'd have sat there until Merroir closed, returning to the restaurant only to score more food and drink.
My only regret was that now that the dock has railings, I couldn't stick my feet in the water. And I'd just heard from an oyster expert that the river is till plenty warm, so that was just too bad.
I was alone down there until a couple of employees came down to rearrange tables for an upcoming wedding on Saturday. Apparently they had their first one a couple of weeks ago and now they're hosting another. Couples get married at the end of the dock and the reception swirls in the area where I was sitting. The bride and groom-to be could only wish for a day as beautiful as today for their celebration.
I left them to their rearranging and headed back up to visit the loo and leave. On the way, I chatted with the duo who'd been seated near me, discovering that he was a visitor from Michigan who'd been to Merroir before a couple of years ago.
Like two old-timers, we immediately lapsed into a "remember when?" session, lamenting how fancy Merroir has gotten and missing its rustic elements. The old dock! The long-gone oyster shell pile! The mismatched tables!
Yet despite how uptown things have become, here we both were, back on a random gorgeous Tuesday, loving our lives because we'd spent the afternoon there.
It feels like today might be the last day of summer 2014, I told him. "Then we were exactly where we should've been for it," he agreed.
Out of the mouths of strangers straight to my sun-tinged ears. Oh, happy day.
Down versus Pound
It was really too beautiful to spend the evening indoors - 77 degrees in mid-October - unless love was involved.
As it turned out, it was, but I didn't know that. I thought I was getting dinner and a play.
Given the bodacious weather, I was hardly surprised when I arrived at Magpie to find only one couple in attendance. I took a seat at the bar to await my friend's arrival and discuss my theater plans with the bartender.
Although he'd never been to Richmond Triangle Players, he used to work with their bartender, a woman I've bought wine from on many an occasion. Funny how there's never more than three degrees of separation from anyone in this town.
Right on time, my friend arrived (amuse bouche: easter egg radish slice with golden raisin chutney and carrot top) and we lost no time ordering so we could discuss theater without our mouths being full.
My only regret was that he invited me to go with him to see "Book of Mormon," a show I could never afford, and I'll be out of town that weekend. Drat the luck.
Once dinner came, we focused on that.
Not that anyone needs to eat their sweetbreads chicken-fried, but as long as they were offering, why not? These came with turnip hash, pickled relish and house hot sauce and I also shared a side of roasted brussels sprouts with my friend as he ate his huntsman's stew, which smelled divine.
Unfortunately, we had so little time left that dessert wasn't an option so we left for the theater to see 5th Wall Theater's staged reading of John Anastasi's new play, "Transition," without my sweet tooth being satisfied.
Instead, I sublimated it when the reading began with a sex scene between two women, one of whom came noisily moments after the action began. Unfortunately, her partner hadn't come (or enjoyed the strap-on she'd been using), causing her to lament, "I'd rather you went downtown instead of taking me to Pound Town."
Hmm, "Pound Town." That's a new one on me.
"Transition" was the story of a man born in a woman's body who takes 28 years to decide he needs to transition to the male he's always been. The problem is that his partner, the love of his life, is a lesbian who wants a female, not male, partner.
When he tells his mother about his planned hormone treatments and surgery, she's forced to come to terms with what she always knew but never acknowledged: her daughter is her son. "You haven't even started the male hormones and already you're acting just like your father!" Jacqueline Jones as the mother said to a big laugh.
Ditto the laughs when the subject of genital reconstruction surgery came up. "That glorious organ with the head but no brain." Ah, yes, we know the one.
But the most unexpectedly funny moment came when Melissa Johnston Price (as the doctor planning to do the surgery) explained all that was involved, right down to creation of the brain-less head. "So that's it in the nutshell," she said before turning to look at the audience with a classic WTF? look on her face. "I never saw that coming."
The audience laughed long and hard at her reaction to the line in the script.
Danya/Daniel, the woman transitioning, was played superbly by Eva DeVirgilis, who tries to convince her true love Addison (played by Sara Heifetz) that even if she has the surgery, they'll still love each other just the same, pulling out Shakespeare's "A rose by another name would smell as sweet" to prove her point.
Addison is having none of it. "Male hormones do not smell good," she retorts, miserable at the idea of having a male partner when she's madly in love with a woman.
But the bigger issue wasn't about smell or hormones or any of that. The play asks us why do we love the person we do? Is it their heart, their soul, their personality, their body?
The play was terribly poignant in parts, especially in a scene that takes place five years after surgery and the couple's split, when Daniel runs into the doctor who tries to assure him he'll get over the loss of his true love. He corrects her.
"Those who've had a real loss know that it never gets better. You just get better at living with it." I'd like to see someone put that in a fortune cookie.
The play ended ambiguously, leaving the outcome to the viewer's imagination. Some saw a happy ending and others didn't. Sort of like life.
But the biggest question remained. Could you still have real love if one of the people changes?
During the talkback with the playwright, director Carol Piersol and cast, the audience had a lot of questions and a lot of opinions on what needed to be changed and not changed in the script.
That's a major reason I look forward to this kind of reading. Part of its purpose is to provide feedback to the author and another part is to gauge audience reaction to the idea of seeing the play fully produced.
As an opinionated woman and a theater lover, I find it immensely satisfying to have a chance to provide that kind of input.
Playwright Anastasi told us he'd spent a great deal of time talking to a doctor who does this kind of surgery in order to get the finer points right. "I still take a lot of criticism as a heterosexual writing about the trans experience. But, Stephen King, did he kill all those people?"
I think not. Clearly, the man had a sense of humor.
What he did make clear was that what he had written was, more than anything else, a love story. By the end, Daniel has fully transitioned and has finally gotten what he's wanted his whole life. But in the process, he's lost the only person he ever needed. He's alone but acknowledges that that's his choice.
"He chooses not to have someone else if he can't have the love of his life, "Anastasi told us to wrap things up.
And that, if you ask me, makes it a hell of a love story.
As it turned out, it was, but I didn't know that. I thought I was getting dinner and a play.
Given the bodacious weather, I was hardly surprised when I arrived at Magpie to find only one couple in attendance. I took a seat at the bar to await my friend's arrival and discuss my theater plans with the bartender.
Although he'd never been to Richmond Triangle Players, he used to work with their bartender, a woman I've bought wine from on many an occasion. Funny how there's never more than three degrees of separation from anyone in this town.
Right on time, my friend arrived (amuse bouche: easter egg radish slice with golden raisin chutney and carrot top) and we lost no time ordering so we could discuss theater without our mouths being full.
My only regret was that he invited me to go with him to see "Book of Mormon," a show I could never afford, and I'll be out of town that weekend. Drat the luck.
Once dinner came, we focused on that.
Not that anyone needs to eat their sweetbreads chicken-fried, but as long as they were offering, why not? These came with turnip hash, pickled relish and house hot sauce and I also shared a side of roasted brussels sprouts with my friend as he ate his huntsman's stew, which smelled divine.
Unfortunately, we had so little time left that dessert wasn't an option so we left for the theater to see 5th Wall Theater's staged reading of John Anastasi's new play, "Transition," without my sweet tooth being satisfied.
Instead, I sublimated it when the reading began with a sex scene between two women, one of whom came noisily moments after the action began. Unfortunately, her partner hadn't come (or enjoyed the strap-on she'd been using), causing her to lament, "I'd rather you went downtown instead of taking me to Pound Town."
Hmm, "Pound Town." That's a new one on me.
"Transition" was the story of a man born in a woman's body who takes 28 years to decide he needs to transition to the male he's always been. The problem is that his partner, the love of his life, is a lesbian who wants a female, not male, partner.
When he tells his mother about his planned hormone treatments and surgery, she's forced to come to terms with what she always knew but never acknowledged: her daughter is her son. "You haven't even started the male hormones and already you're acting just like your father!" Jacqueline Jones as the mother said to a big laugh.
Ditto the laughs when the subject of genital reconstruction surgery came up. "That glorious organ with the head but no brain." Ah, yes, we know the one.
But the most unexpectedly funny moment came when Melissa Johnston Price (as the doctor planning to do the surgery) explained all that was involved, right down to creation of the brain-less head. "So that's it in the nutshell," she said before turning to look at the audience with a classic WTF? look on her face. "I never saw that coming."
The audience laughed long and hard at her reaction to the line in the script.
Danya/Daniel, the woman transitioning, was played superbly by Eva DeVirgilis, who tries to convince her true love Addison (played by Sara Heifetz) that even if she has the surgery, they'll still love each other just the same, pulling out Shakespeare's "A rose by another name would smell as sweet" to prove her point.
Addison is having none of it. "Male hormones do not smell good," she retorts, miserable at the idea of having a male partner when she's madly in love with a woman.
But the bigger issue wasn't about smell or hormones or any of that. The play asks us why do we love the person we do? Is it their heart, their soul, their personality, their body?
The play was terribly poignant in parts, especially in a scene that takes place five years after surgery and the couple's split, when Daniel runs into the doctor who tries to assure him he'll get over the loss of his true love. He corrects her.
"Those who've had a real loss know that it never gets better. You just get better at living with it." I'd like to see someone put that in a fortune cookie.
The play ended ambiguously, leaving the outcome to the viewer's imagination. Some saw a happy ending and others didn't. Sort of like life.
But the biggest question remained. Could you still have real love if one of the people changes?
During the talkback with the playwright, director Carol Piersol and cast, the audience had a lot of questions and a lot of opinions on what needed to be changed and not changed in the script.
That's a major reason I look forward to this kind of reading. Part of its purpose is to provide feedback to the author and another part is to gauge audience reaction to the idea of seeing the play fully produced.
As an opinionated woman and a theater lover, I find it immensely satisfying to have a chance to provide that kind of input.
Playwright Anastasi told us he'd spent a great deal of time talking to a doctor who does this kind of surgery in order to get the finer points right. "I still take a lot of criticism as a heterosexual writing about the trans experience. But, Stephen King, did he kill all those people?"
I think not. Clearly, the man had a sense of humor.
What he did make clear was that what he had written was, more than anything else, a love story. By the end, Daniel has fully transitioned and has finally gotten what he's wanted his whole life. But in the process, he's lost the only person he ever needed. He's alone but acknowledges that that's his choice.
"He chooses not to have someone else if he can't have the love of his life, "Anastasi told us to wrap things up.
And that, if you ask me, makes it a hell of a love story.
Monday, October 13, 2014
The Remains of the Days (and Nights)
It was like going to the frat house where the big party had been the night before.
I'm talking about the riverfront after the Folk Fest this weekend.
Sneaking up on the remains of it all by taking 14th Street to the pipeline walkway, I got behind a British couple who've been Richmond residents for three years now.
The paused to let me pass by, presuming I was moving at a faster pace than they were, but instead I stopped to chat with them, learning it was their first time on the pipeline. We gushed about the river views it afforded and the pleasures of rushing water so nearby.
Like me, they'd been to the Folk Fest, but had to leave after seeing only two bands because their kids were getting restless. Today the kids were at school and they were enjoying a leisurely hike.
When the subject of the weekend weather came up, they laughed it off as "English weather," something they were used to. Good for the complexion, that's how I like to look at it. I hadn't minded it a bit.
Since they'd never taken the pipeline up to Brown's Island, they followed me up to see where it came out and then headed back down to the riverfront.
Teams of workers were busy disassembling all the trappings of the Folk Fest on the island - collapsing tents, folding chairs -and while the Dominion Dance pavilion stage was gone, the big dance floor remained so I glided across it, alone on the expanse that had seen so many dancing feet (including my own) all weekend.
Passing a Segway tour group further on, I paused to listen to the guide's spiel, learning something I never knew about the Federal Reserve building: it's a 1/8 scale version of the World Trade Center.
How had I never heard (or noticed) that interesting fact?
Heading up Fifth Street, I turned off on Gary Gerloff Way where a worker was pulling up the protective strips that cover the countless extension cords that went to the nearby stage.
I waited until he drove his little golf cart away and then ran down the hill to the RTD stage and mounted it like I had a right to be there. I may have even taken a bow to the empty field while I was up there.
The way I see it, life is full of opportunities and it's my right to grab them when I see them.
Good for way more than the complexion.
I'm talking about the riverfront after the Folk Fest this weekend.
Sneaking up on the remains of it all by taking 14th Street to the pipeline walkway, I got behind a British couple who've been Richmond residents for three years now.
The paused to let me pass by, presuming I was moving at a faster pace than they were, but instead I stopped to chat with them, learning it was their first time on the pipeline. We gushed about the river views it afforded and the pleasures of rushing water so nearby.
Like me, they'd been to the Folk Fest, but had to leave after seeing only two bands because their kids were getting restless. Today the kids were at school and they were enjoying a leisurely hike.
When the subject of the weekend weather came up, they laughed it off as "English weather," something they were used to. Good for the complexion, that's how I like to look at it. I hadn't minded it a bit.
Since they'd never taken the pipeline up to Brown's Island, they followed me up to see where it came out and then headed back down to the riverfront.
Teams of workers were busy disassembling all the trappings of the Folk Fest on the island - collapsing tents, folding chairs -and while the Dominion Dance pavilion stage was gone, the big dance floor remained so I glided across it, alone on the expanse that had seen so many dancing feet (including my own) all weekend.
Passing a Segway tour group further on, I paused to listen to the guide's spiel, learning something I never knew about the Federal Reserve building: it's a 1/8 scale version of the World Trade Center.
How had I never heard (or noticed) that interesting fact?
Heading up Fifth Street, I turned off on Gary Gerloff Way where a worker was pulling up the protective strips that cover the countless extension cords that went to the nearby stage.
I waited until he drove his little golf cart away and then ran down the hill to the RTD stage and mounted it like I had a right to be there. I may have even taken a bow to the empty field while I was up there.
The way I see it, life is full of opportunities and it's my right to grab them when I see them.
Good for way more than the complexion.
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Folk All Day
Not a lot to write about tonight besides Folk Fest version 3.
Lafayette Gilchrist and the New Volcanoes doing a tribute to go-go and D.C. Slick, lunch at Croaker's Spot (chicken wing basket with fries and cornbread), Wild Ponies doing a Patsy Cline cover and the heart-wrenching "Truthless."
A guy in the Port-Potty next to me burping big time and then saying "'scuse me" to no one in particular.
Hip-hop artist Supaman in full native American regalia, spouting corny jokes like a comedian in Atlantic City or, worse, a vaudevillian.
The Mayans who came down the pole on ropes (annoying guy behind me as they wound the ropes: "I hope this isn't going to be super-anti-climatic") and the incomparable Debashish Bhattacharya doing a different set than yesterday to a far noisier crowd. A pity.
Not to mention the Holmes Brothers absolutely killing it with effortless blues musicianship and scratchy old vocals, with me dancing all the while they played.
Random hoodies and t-shirts: "Vegan Muscle Team" and "Abs of Ale." I'll leave it to your imagination what the wearers looked like.
Spotted en route: the man about town, the neighbors pushing a stroller, the sax player, the chef and his co-owner.
Best summation of Friday's opening rainy night performances: "It was a private show for the few."
Another year of Folk Fest over, another year of sterling entertainment. A good time was had all three days.
Still, some days 'tis better to under-share. Pity.
Lafayette Gilchrist and the New Volcanoes doing a tribute to go-go and D.C. Slick, lunch at Croaker's Spot (chicken wing basket with fries and cornbread), Wild Ponies doing a Patsy Cline cover and the heart-wrenching "Truthless."
A guy in the Port-Potty next to me burping big time and then saying "'scuse me" to no one in particular.
Hip-hop artist Supaman in full native American regalia, spouting corny jokes like a comedian in Atlantic City or, worse, a vaudevillian.
The Mayans who came down the pole on ropes (annoying guy behind me as they wound the ropes: "I hope this isn't going to be super-anti-climatic") and the incomparable Debashish Bhattacharya doing a different set than yesterday to a far noisier crowd. A pity.
Not to mention the Holmes Brothers absolutely killing it with effortless blues musicianship and scratchy old vocals, with me dancing all the while they played.
Random hoodies and t-shirts: "Vegan Muscle Team" and "Abs of Ale." I'll leave it to your imagination what the wearers looked like.
Spotted en route: the man about town, the neighbors pushing a stroller, the sax player, the chef and his co-owner.
Best summation of Friday's opening rainy night performances: "It was a private show for the few."
Another year of Folk Fest over, another year of sterling entertainment. A good time was had all three days.
Still, some days 'tis better to under-share. Pity.
Saturday, October 11, 2014
Music Does Intoxicate
Meanwhile, back at the Folk Fest...
What I mean is, of course I went back today, setting out on foot from my house and going down Fifth Street with the throngs of people intent on enjoying music now that the rain had stopped.
I began with Afro-Persian band Ensemble Shanbehzadeh and wasn't there five minutes before running into the former baker and the guitarist/writer, both captured by the activity onstage featuring dancing and large sticks. It was even better when volunteers from the audience joined them, trying to match their movements.
Then it was over to the MWV stage (passing the smart-assed gardener and my J-Ward neighbors) to score a third row seat for Debashish Bhattacharya and family, meaning brother Subhasis, a master tabla player, and daughter Anandi singing.
They're touring behind their new album "Madiera: If Music Could Intoxicate," setting out to prove that we didn't need other substances to get to another place.
I saw Debashish and Subhasis at the Folk Fest back in 2009 (where he'd earned my undying fandom by pronouncing, "Music is a better religious activity than doing anything else") and, like at that show, their timing was so spot on, stopping and starting on a dime simultaneously, that the crowd couldn't help but burst into spontaneous applause throughout the show.
This time, with the addition of Anandi singing so beautifully, it was just as impressive but even more moving.
Explaining that she was going to sing an aggressive song about a king who decided not to marry a courtesan because of the color of her skin, so she "danced like lightening and sang like rain" to show him that his decision would come back to haunt him, she sang like she meant it.
It was a song, she said, that changes with every performance so it can't be written down.
My only complaint with their entire set was ongoing sound problems resulting in ear-bleeding feedback more than a few times. You'd think after ten years of Folk Fests, we'd have sound issues figured out.
After she sang "My Beloved" and her father kissed her on the head, Anandi jumped off the low stage, looking both traditional and contemporary in her pink tunic over black leggings.
Then we were treated to Indian slide guitar and tabla by two brothers who can anticipate each other so superbly that it's like they're a single four-handed musical wizard.
Deebashish told how his mother had been an exceptionally talented singer but that Indian women in the '40s and '50s weren't allowed to perform in public, so she couldn't sing outside the house.
"Now my Mom has a voice in her granddaughter," he said, praising to an already impressed crowd his daughter's talent.
When their set ended, the audience jumped to its feet in a standing ovation much like they'd done that night back in 2009 when I first saw them.
From there, I headed to the Folklife Stage to see the oyster shucking sisters I had interviewed for Style Weekly's Folk Fest issue.
Deborah, decked out in multiple loops of pearls, threw her arms around me and her sister Clementine bragged that they'd seen my piece on them at the hotel last night before they went back to shucking and answering oyster questions.
I spotted two of the local art scene's high priestesses eating lunch from the Goatacado truck and stopped to see what they'd seen so far. They'd attempted the Throwdown on Brown breakdancing competition but it had been mobbed. "The only way we could see anything was in people's phone screens," they reported.
Don't get me started, I'd replied, because the thought of people too busy filming for the future to be present in the moment is the curse of the 21st century.
A stop at the Benevolent Burrito got me a black bean quesadilla with guacamole, pickled slaw and sour cream and as I stood there devouring it, a couple walked up to me and inquired what it was and where I'd gotten it. I like to think I looked like I was enjoying my lunch.
Thus fortified, I showed my colors as the groupie I am, making a beeline for the dancing pavilion to see William Bell. Again.
Okay, yes, I'd seen him last night, although just an hour of his 90-minute performance and I wanted more.
This time I stood rather than sitting, starting out maybe eight people back from the stage and winding up in the third row by the time his set ended.
The emcee told the crowd, "If you aren't with your sweetheart now, you'll wish you were by the end of William Bell's show."
Tell me something I didn't already know.
Immediately, he got everyone moving and grooving to "Easy Coming Out, Hard Going In" (how he got away with that title in 1977, I have no idea) and just kept it up as more and more people kept arriving.
Sure, I heard some of the songs I'd heard last night and absolutely, I enjoyed hearing them live again.
During "You Don't Miss Your Water," a woman in a pink hat in the front row kept making heart signs in Bell's direction until he finally acknowledged her. "I love you, too!"
Because the crowd was so much bigger than last night's there was even more slow dancing going on all around me, but who can resist the soul stylings of William Bell?
"Can I testify a little bit, y'all?" he called out and the audience roared back their assent. Me, I just kept dancing by myself, occasionally getting knocked into my women with big purses or couples caught up in each other.
I stayed for the whole set because I knew it was my last chance to see him and if that makes me a groupie, then so be it.
Even so, I was able to catch the last few songs of duo Kostas Fetfatsidis and Evan Karapanagiotides playing traditional Pontic Greek music that sounded like it came from high on a hill from a sheepherder's lonely perch.
Walking back up to Second Street when they finished, I came upon Supaman, the Indian hip-hop performer, in his full headdress and regalia, waiting to be picked up after his recent performance.
As I walked up the rest of the hill, the wind making me cold, the van with Supaman in it drove beside me. As it should be.I'm just the rabid fan, the groupie, if you will.
I'm all for the talent saving their strength to perform for people like us. I'll even testify to that.
What I mean is, of course I went back today, setting out on foot from my house and going down Fifth Street with the throngs of people intent on enjoying music now that the rain had stopped.
I began with Afro-Persian band Ensemble Shanbehzadeh and wasn't there five minutes before running into the former baker and the guitarist/writer, both captured by the activity onstage featuring dancing and large sticks. It was even better when volunteers from the audience joined them, trying to match their movements.
Then it was over to the MWV stage (passing the smart-assed gardener and my J-Ward neighbors) to score a third row seat for Debashish Bhattacharya and family, meaning brother Subhasis, a master tabla player, and daughter Anandi singing.
They're touring behind their new album "Madiera: If Music Could Intoxicate," setting out to prove that we didn't need other substances to get to another place.
I saw Debashish and Subhasis at the Folk Fest back in 2009 (where he'd earned my undying fandom by pronouncing, "Music is a better religious activity than doing anything else") and, like at that show, their timing was so spot on, stopping and starting on a dime simultaneously, that the crowd couldn't help but burst into spontaneous applause throughout the show.
This time, with the addition of Anandi singing so beautifully, it was just as impressive but even more moving.
Explaining that she was going to sing an aggressive song about a king who decided not to marry a courtesan because of the color of her skin, so she "danced like lightening and sang like rain" to show him that his decision would come back to haunt him, she sang like she meant it.
It was a song, she said, that changes with every performance so it can't be written down.
My only complaint with their entire set was ongoing sound problems resulting in ear-bleeding feedback more than a few times. You'd think after ten years of Folk Fests, we'd have sound issues figured out.
After she sang "My Beloved" and her father kissed her on the head, Anandi jumped off the low stage, looking both traditional and contemporary in her pink tunic over black leggings.
Then we were treated to Indian slide guitar and tabla by two brothers who can anticipate each other so superbly that it's like they're a single four-handed musical wizard.
Deebashish told how his mother had been an exceptionally talented singer but that Indian women in the '40s and '50s weren't allowed to perform in public, so she couldn't sing outside the house.
"Now my Mom has a voice in her granddaughter," he said, praising to an already impressed crowd his daughter's talent.
When their set ended, the audience jumped to its feet in a standing ovation much like they'd done that night back in 2009 when I first saw them.
From there, I headed to the Folklife Stage to see the oyster shucking sisters I had interviewed for Style Weekly's Folk Fest issue.
Deborah, decked out in multiple loops of pearls, threw her arms around me and her sister Clementine bragged that they'd seen my piece on them at the hotel last night before they went back to shucking and answering oyster questions.
I spotted two of the local art scene's high priestesses eating lunch from the Goatacado truck and stopped to see what they'd seen so far. They'd attempted the Throwdown on Brown breakdancing competition but it had been mobbed. "The only way we could see anything was in people's phone screens," they reported.
Don't get me started, I'd replied, because the thought of people too busy filming for the future to be present in the moment is the curse of the 21st century.
A stop at the Benevolent Burrito got me a black bean quesadilla with guacamole, pickled slaw and sour cream and as I stood there devouring it, a couple walked up to me and inquired what it was and where I'd gotten it. I like to think I looked like I was enjoying my lunch.
Thus fortified, I showed my colors as the groupie I am, making a beeline for the dancing pavilion to see William Bell. Again.
Okay, yes, I'd seen him last night, although just an hour of his 90-minute performance and I wanted more.
This time I stood rather than sitting, starting out maybe eight people back from the stage and winding up in the third row by the time his set ended.
The emcee told the crowd, "If you aren't with your sweetheart now, you'll wish you were by the end of William Bell's show."
Tell me something I didn't already know.
Immediately, he got everyone moving and grooving to "Easy Coming Out, Hard Going In" (how he got away with that title in 1977, I have no idea) and just kept it up as more and more people kept arriving.
Sure, I heard some of the songs I'd heard last night and absolutely, I enjoyed hearing them live again.
During "You Don't Miss Your Water," a woman in a pink hat in the front row kept making heart signs in Bell's direction until he finally acknowledged her. "I love you, too!"
Because the crowd was so much bigger than last night's there was even more slow dancing going on all around me, but who can resist the soul stylings of William Bell?
"Can I testify a little bit, y'all?" he called out and the audience roared back their assent. Me, I just kept dancing by myself, occasionally getting knocked into my women with big purses or couples caught up in each other.
I stayed for the whole set because I knew it was my last chance to see him and if that makes me a groupie, then so be it.
Even so, I was able to catch the last few songs of duo Kostas Fetfatsidis and Evan Karapanagiotides playing traditional Pontic Greek music that sounded like it came from high on a hill from a sheepherder's lonely perch.
Walking back up to Second Street when they finished, I came upon Supaman, the Indian hip-hop performer, in his full headdress and regalia, waiting to be picked up after his recent performance.
As I walked up the rest of the hill, the wind making me cold, the van with Supaman in it drove beside me. As it should be.I'm just the rabid fan, the groupie, if you will.
I'm all for the talent saving their strength to perform for people like us. I'll even testify to that.
A House is Not a Home
If you know me, you know I'm not the suburban type.
I get to say that because I tried it a long time ago in a county not all that far away and I was miserable with all of it: the distance to the city, the lack of sidewalks, the dead end streets, excuse me, cul de sacs, every bit of it.
So while I wasn't nearly as curious to see the Richmond Symphony Designer House all the way out in Hallsley as I'd been when it was in the city, the reliably generous Holmes offered me tickets so I grabbed a friend and went to the county.
Clearly, I went in biased because I'm not a fan of a) big, showy houses or b) suburban architecture or even c) overly designed rooms that don't seem livable.
Example: designers who put color-coordinated covers on books in the library or study so the books match the decor (actually happened at another designer house). Spare me.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying that much of the designer house was not to my taste. Not the pseudo-Hamptons architecture, not the retro '80s wallpaper styles, not the nouveau riche accouterments.
Even so, I can always find something to appreciate and today it was the porches and the graffiti.
The screened porch was unlike any I'd ever seen, with its arched screened walls and enormous center screen wall with no support pieces breaking up the view of the woods.
Oh-so politically correct, it had a faux wood floor, touted as easy to clean, but I tend to think that's a non-issue because rich people don't actually use screened porches, do they?
I also gave it points for its multiple uses given there was a sofa, two chairs, a chaise lounge and a table for eating, all with views.
The upstairs sleeping porch, just as huge, had only a single bed where I would have put a queen bed and used it every night of the summer. But that's just me.
A couple of women came in behind me, noted the whirring ceiling fan and immediately started asking where the vents for heat and air conditioning were. None were to be found.
Reminding them that it was a sleeping porch, I said that the idea was to have the many windows open to the night air. But wait, rich people don't want fresh air ever. What was I thinking?
The porch had a lot of charming elements including an unusual shape that gave it six walls of windows and a table with an old Candyland game set up on it.
One room I got a kick out of was a guest room designed by the U-Fab guys over on Robinson Street. What I loved about their very colorful room was that the inspiration had been all the street art on the old GRTC bus sheds which sit directly across from U-Fab.
Photographs on the walls were close-ups of the street art - including a scarred door on which was painted "just another day in paradise" - and the palette was just as colorful, all bright primary colors. The rug had been made out of bright t-shirts woven together making it very soft underfoot.
Maybe I liked it because it had such an un-suburban feel.
An unexpected bonus to my suburban field was walking into bedroom #4 to find a designer friend who had created the modern, masculine room. He proudly explained that the colorful, large, abstract photographs were close-ups of geodes he'd found as a kid. One sat on the dresser.
I gave him much credit for such a nerdy take on his design. Well done, my friend.
We hadn't seen each other in months, but part of that is how busy he's been since he took on the designer house project, a seven day a week proposition apparently. On the plus side, he said he'd given out hundreds of business cards, and hopefully that will translate into new customers, surely the goal of doing one of these extravaganzas.
I heard on the way out that the house has been sold to a young family who will take possession of it once all the designers' hard work is removed. One woman said she'd heard a rumor that the new owners had bought everything in the master bedroom because they liked it so much.
Meh. Not my style.
But then, neither is county living. I'm the type who prefers to actually sleep on porches. And I like to see my street art first hand.
That said, I'm glad I went. It's important to be reminded how good you have it. Simple, but so good.
I get to say that because I tried it a long time ago in a county not all that far away and I was miserable with all of it: the distance to the city, the lack of sidewalks, the dead end streets, excuse me, cul de sacs, every bit of it.
So while I wasn't nearly as curious to see the Richmond Symphony Designer House all the way out in Hallsley as I'd been when it was in the city, the reliably generous Holmes offered me tickets so I grabbed a friend and went to the county.
Clearly, I went in biased because I'm not a fan of a) big, showy houses or b) suburban architecture or even c) overly designed rooms that don't seem livable.
Example: designers who put color-coordinated covers on books in the library or study so the books match the decor (actually happened at another designer house). Spare me.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying that much of the designer house was not to my taste. Not the pseudo-Hamptons architecture, not the retro '80s wallpaper styles, not the nouveau riche accouterments.
Even so, I can always find something to appreciate and today it was the porches and the graffiti.
The screened porch was unlike any I'd ever seen, with its arched screened walls and enormous center screen wall with no support pieces breaking up the view of the woods.
Oh-so politically correct, it had a faux wood floor, touted as easy to clean, but I tend to think that's a non-issue because rich people don't actually use screened porches, do they?
I also gave it points for its multiple uses given there was a sofa, two chairs, a chaise lounge and a table for eating, all with views.
The upstairs sleeping porch, just as huge, had only a single bed where I would have put a queen bed and used it every night of the summer. But that's just me.
A couple of women came in behind me, noted the whirring ceiling fan and immediately started asking where the vents for heat and air conditioning were. None were to be found.
Reminding them that it was a sleeping porch, I said that the idea was to have the many windows open to the night air. But wait, rich people don't want fresh air ever. What was I thinking?
The porch had a lot of charming elements including an unusual shape that gave it six walls of windows and a table with an old Candyland game set up on it.
One room I got a kick out of was a guest room designed by the U-Fab guys over on Robinson Street. What I loved about their very colorful room was that the inspiration had been all the street art on the old GRTC bus sheds which sit directly across from U-Fab.
Photographs on the walls were close-ups of the street art - including a scarred door on which was painted "just another day in paradise" - and the palette was just as colorful, all bright primary colors. The rug had been made out of bright t-shirts woven together making it very soft underfoot.
Maybe I liked it because it had such an un-suburban feel.
An unexpected bonus to my suburban field was walking into bedroom #4 to find a designer friend who had created the modern, masculine room. He proudly explained that the colorful, large, abstract photographs were close-ups of geodes he'd found as a kid. One sat on the dresser.
I gave him much credit for such a nerdy take on his design. Well done, my friend.
We hadn't seen each other in months, but part of that is how busy he's been since he took on the designer house project, a seven day a week proposition apparently. On the plus side, he said he'd given out hundreds of business cards, and hopefully that will translate into new customers, surely the goal of doing one of these extravaganzas.
I heard on the way out that the house has been sold to a young family who will take possession of it once all the designers' hard work is removed. One woman said she'd heard a rumor that the new owners had bought everything in the master bedroom because they liked it so much.
Meh. Not my style.
But then, neither is county living. I'm the type who prefers to actually sleep on porches. And I like to see my street art first hand.
That said, I'm glad I went. It's important to be reminded how good you have it. Simple, but so good.
Honest, You Do
So it rained a bit. No one's going to melt.
Rarely do I miss opening night at the Folk Fest and my plans to go alone got a shot in the arm when one of my favorite couples agreed to let me and my umbella tag along.
We parked on Franklin Street, right in front of the Main Library and hoofed it down Second Street to the new amphitheater space.
My friends had yet to experience the fabulous new Brown's Island Way, also know as the connector road, and the view behind the Virginia War Memorial. I like it because standing at the top of it affords a panoramic view of the river grander and wider than any other.
It is steep, though. Because the route down Second Street leads to Belle Isle, it's a terrain I know well since it's one of my regular walks. My friends were less impressed with having to walk down it on a wet evening, something about a near 90-degree angle and wet sidewalks.
That was solved by stopping midway down and taking up roost on a gravel path that allowed a view of Mariachis los Camperos de Nato Cani that was matched only by the four year old in front of us, choreographing a dance to match the Mariachis' music and slyly glancing up to make sure someone was watching him every step of the way.
I obliged and smiled at his spontaneous performance. The kid had some serious moves for a toddler.
Dressed in regional costume, they did music for dancing (and a costumed couple came out and showed us how it was done) and music for romancing (with dramatic vocals guaranteed to win a woman), one after the other.
When they finished, we continued heading lower toward the food and merch tents until we found Sherry's crabcakes out of Charlottesville, done the way I like them: thick and sauteed golden brown. None of this deep-fried crab cake business for me. For god's sake, I grew up in Maryland.
When we each ordered one, the man behind the counter inquired if we all wanted sauce on them. No thanks, I told him, I prefer to taste just the crab. My friends were aghast that I'd go sauce-less, but I got back-up from behind the counter.
"Everybody should get what they want," he said with a smile to me and a raised eyebrow in their direction. So there.
P.S. My crabcake sandwich was delicious just as I ordered it. It was interesting, although there were eight large tables set up along these food tents, we were the only ones who sat down at one, facing a row of empty and wet white tables glowing under the lights.
As I was finishing up my sandwich, I could the hear the distinct sounds of soul music and immediately called it to the attention of my friends. We're going to need to go find that, I said.
When they finished eating, we took the stairs to reach the Community stage and hear William Bell, Stax Studio pioneer. I stood on the wall behind the Lincoln statue and had a terrific view of Bell and his crack band, but my friends decided to sit down inside the tent and I followed.
Immediately sorry I had missed even a moment of his show, I nonetheless was thrilled when the first thing he did was his mega-hit "I Forgot to Be Your Lover."
"Fellas," he said, "I'm doing something for you. Ladies, I want you to listen to me" and then began singing, "Never stop loving me."
Women swooned. To take it over the top, he segued into "You Send Me" and now everybody knew every word. Next came "New Lease on Life," the horn section killing it.
I'm going to start my life all over again
I got a new lease on life, I got a lover and a friend
Before long, a couple standing just outside the tent began slow-dancing under the ropes. It was very sweet.
Pulling out the first song he'd ever recorded at age 17, he let the crowd sing along with him to "You Don't Miss Your Water." During a dramatic pause during the song, he called out, "Somebody play a solo for me!" and the keyboard player obliged.
Introducing his song, "Every Day Will Be Like a Holiday When My Baby Comes Home," he said, "And by come home, I mean to William Bell's house."
Smooth move.
Saying that they'd sold a million and a half of the next song, they played "Tryin' To Love Two" about how that just wouldn't do (no sh*t, Sherlock) and then went seamlessly into "Stand By Me" and "Cupid, Draw Back Your Bow."
That was it, he thanked the crowd "because without you, there would be no me" and left the stage. Happily, the band stayed put and he soon returned for the slow burn of "Everybody Loves a Winner."
It felt like we had just seen a legend and we had. A serious soul legend who'd been making music since 1961 and still had what it takes. Damn impressive.
From there, we wandered back to the Altria stage, running into a sassy and smiling bartender friend, a telephone collector and far too many people with enormous baby strollers trying to navigate wet surfaces.
Once back on that most sloped of hills, we found Boban and Marko Markovic Orkestar, a large Balkan brass band dressed in matching red shirts except for the two soloists out front.
They got to wear faded and holey jeans, clearly a status symbol for a brass player.
You could hear so much in the music - gypsy, tavern, my friend even heard King Crimson - and the crowd went crazy when they recognized the music to "Hava Nagila."
Twice, fans from the audience climbed onstage to dance and show their appreciation for the band while out on the wet grass, the crowd clapped, danced and hollered with as much enthusiasm as the band was putting out.
And when they finished, we weren't left with that sense of loss like at a regular show. The festival will be back for the next two days, so I've got plenty more chances to hear amazing music, with or without friends.
Sure, it rained lightly a few times and umbrellas came out, but never hard and never long. The air temperature cooperated, hovering in the mid-60s, sweater or light jacket weather. The little white lights crisscrossing the riverfront gave the look of shiny necklaces strung across the Tredegar grounds.
The way I see it, it's just one weekend a year of endless folk music, so neither snow nor rain nor heat, much less gloom of night, is going to keep me from taking in everything I can.
And tonight that was whatever my friends wanted to see. They've got great taste.
Rarely do I miss opening night at the Folk Fest and my plans to go alone got a shot in the arm when one of my favorite couples agreed to let me and my umbella tag along.
We parked on Franklin Street, right in front of the Main Library and hoofed it down Second Street to the new amphitheater space.
My friends had yet to experience the fabulous new Brown's Island Way, also know as the connector road, and the view behind the Virginia War Memorial. I like it because standing at the top of it affords a panoramic view of the river grander and wider than any other.
It is steep, though. Because the route down Second Street leads to Belle Isle, it's a terrain I know well since it's one of my regular walks. My friends were less impressed with having to walk down it on a wet evening, something about a near 90-degree angle and wet sidewalks.
That was solved by stopping midway down and taking up roost on a gravel path that allowed a view of Mariachis los Camperos de Nato Cani that was matched only by the four year old in front of us, choreographing a dance to match the Mariachis' music and slyly glancing up to make sure someone was watching him every step of the way.
I obliged and smiled at his spontaneous performance. The kid had some serious moves for a toddler.
Dressed in regional costume, they did music for dancing (and a costumed couple came out and showed us how it was done) and music for romancing (with dramatic vocals guaranteed to win a woman), one after the other.
When they finished, we continued heading lower toward the food and merch tents until we found Sherry's crabcakes out of Charlottesville, done the way I like them: thick and sauteed golden brown. None of this deep-fried crab cake business for me. For god's sake, I grew up in Maryland.
When we each ordered one, the man behind the counter inquired if we all wanted sauce on them. No thanks, I told him, I prefer to taste just the crab. My friends were aghast that I'd go sauce-less, but I got back-up from behind the counter.
"Everybody should get what they want," he said with a smile to me and a raised eyebrow in their direction. So there.
P.S. My crabcake sandwich was delicious just as I ordered it. It was interesting, although there were eight large tables set up along these food tents, we were the only ones who sat down at one, facing a row of empty and wet white tables glowing under the lights.
As I was finishing up my sandwich, I could the hear the distinct sounds of soul music and immediately called it to the attention of my friends. We're going to need to go find that, I said.
When they finished eating, we took the stairs to reach the Community stage and hear William Bell, Stax Studio pioneer. I stood on the wall behind the Lincoln statue and had a terrific view of Bell and his crack band, but my friends decided to sit down inside the tent and I followed.
Immediately sorry I had missed even a moment of his show, I nonetheless was thrilled when the first thing he did was his mega-hit "I Forgot to Be Your Lover."
"Fellas," he said, "I'm doing something for you. Ladies, I want you to listen to me" and then began singing, "Never stop loving me."
Women swooned. To take it over the top, he segued into "You Send Me" and now everybody knew every word. Next came "New Lease on Life," the horn section killing it.
I'm going to start my life all over again
I got a new lease on life, I got a lover and a friend
Before long, a couple standing just outside the tent began slow-dancing under the ropes. It was very sweet.
Pulling out the first song he'd ever recorded at age 17, he let the crowd sing along with him to "You Don't Miss Your Water." During a dramatic pause during the song, he called out, "Somebody play a solo for me!" and the keyboard player obliged.
Introducing his song, "Every Day Will Be Like a Holiday When My Baby Comes Home," he said, "And by come home, I mean to William Bell's house."
Smooth move.
Saying that they'd sold a million and a half of the next song, they played "Tryin' To Love Two" about how that just wouldn't do (no sh*t, Sherlock) and then went seamlessly into "Stand By Me" and "Cupid, Draw Back Your Bow."
That was it, he thanked the crowd "because without you, there would be no me" and left the stage. Happily, the band stayed put and he soon returned for the slow burn of "Everybody Loves a Winner."
It felt like we had just seen a legend and we had. A serious soul legend who'd been making music since 1961 and still had what it takes. Damn impressive.
From there, we wandered back to the Altria stage, running into a sassy and smiling bartender friend, a telephone collector and far too many people with enormous baby strollers trying to navigate wet surfaces.
Once back on that most sloped of hills, we found Boban and Marko Markovic Orkestar, a large Balkan brass band dressed in matching red shirts except for the two soloists out front.
They got to wear faded and holey jeans, clearly a status symbol for a brass player.
You could hear so much in the music - gypsy, tavern, my friend even heard King Crimson - and the crowd went crazy when they recognized the music to "Hava Nagila."
Twice, fans from the audience climbed onstage to dance and show their appreciation for the band while out on the wet grass, the crowd clapped, danced and hollered with as much enthusiasm as the band was putting out.
And when they finished, we weren't left with that sense of loss like at a regular show. The festival will be back for the next two days, so I've got plenty more chances to hear amazing music, with or without friends.
Sure, it rained lightly a few times and umbrellas came out, but never hard and never long. The air temperature cooperated, hovering in the mid-60s, sweater or light jacket weather. The little white lights crisscrossing the riverfront gave the look of shiny necklaces strung across the Tredegar grounds.
The way I see it, it's just one weekend a year of endless folk music, so neither snow nor rain nor heat, much less gloom of night, is going to keep me from taking in everything I can.
And tonight that was whatever my friends wanted to see. They've got great taste.
Friday, October 10, 2014
Southern Hemisphere Win
When you get invited to an embassy, you go, mate.
That's how I found myself on the way to an event called "Come Wine with Us" at the Australian Embassy in D.C. yesterday.
Walking down the street, someone drove by and hollered, "Hey, RVA!" but we had no idea who and went on about our business.
After being cleared by the guard at the embassy, we made it in. I've been to a few wine tastings in my time, but never one with so many men in suits and sports coats.
On the back wall, a video of the splendors of Australia played while below people milled about from table to table tasting wines from Tasmania, South Australia and New Zealand.
It's hard not to love a tasting than begins with Jansz Premium Cuvee Rose, made in (and here's where their sense of humor comes in) the methode Tamanoise and moves on to 2005 Late Disgorged Cuvee, a pale gold sip of the stars.
Of course, because the wines were from the land down under, there were many stellar Shirazes- Langmeils Winery's 2012 Orphan Bank Shiraz and Jim Barry Wines' 2002 The Armagh Museum Release, to name just two.
After hobnobbing for a bit - I chatted with several wine buyers from Rehobeth Beach and a familiar French wine rep from Williamsburg - it was time for greener pastures.
Luckily for me, that meant Rural Society, a low-lit, sexy new restaurant with a focus on grilling and meat. Touches of light blue kept all the brown from looking too rec-room like and what middle-aged woman doesn't look fabulous when the dimmer is on?
The menu is bigger than a place mat so the wisest thing to do, we did. We ordered the chef's tasting menu with the wine pairings and sat back to let the kitchen seduce us.
Music was playing but rarely heard over the cacophony of suits talking, but there was plenty to look at on the walls in the form of black and white photographs of bullfighters, street scenes and cow ropers in the log-filled dining room.
As a card-carrying bread lover, I was thrilled when a bread basket chowed up stuffed with four (five?) kinds of bread and rolls and three different spreadables, one chimichurra-based, one red salsa variety and a swoon-worthy Malbec butter as purple as a pansy.
Blame it on my Richmond grandmother, but I am a sucker for good bread, although I have been accused of using it mainly as a vehicle for butter. I just never saw the problem with that.
One song I did manage to hear during a lull was Santana's "Oye Como Va" just as our server showed up with glasses of bubbly and Carpaccio de Pulpo, thin slices of braised octopus and tiny Malbec chips of wine-soaked potatoes. My favorite part of the next offering, baby arugula salad, was the fig emulsion, distinctively sweet and crunchy.
Next came a delightful white blend, Vinedo de los Vientos Estival 2012, a silky blend of Chardonnay, Gewurztrimer and Moscato Bianco, which accompanied empanadas of Swiss chard, Sardo cheese and roasted onions, oozing heat and melting cheese.
As the diners around us came and went, our tasting continued on in their absence. At one point, I was one of three women in the entire place with dozens of men surrounding me. Maybe it was a D.C. thing, maybe a meat thing or maybe a fluke.
I pity the women who miss out on Rural Society.
Meat was soon to arrive, so our genial server first brought glasses of Zuccardi Serie A Bonarda, smooth and tasting of red fruits, to signal a shift in direction and assess our readiness.
Glossy Chorizo Gaucho - a sausage of beef and pork - was followed by housemade ham and cheese ravioli in a Reggianito cream sauce and I began to realize that there was a lot more eating to be done and I was beginning to fill up.
Aside: I did not mention this to my date.
Shut up and eat, my brain told me and I did. It was a lot easier than I'm making it sound because everything about the experience was winning. Without knowing what might be arriving next, it was a constant surprise (in the best possible way), there was so much eye candy to look at and a top-notch conversationalist was the cherry on top of it all.
Vina Ventisquero "Grey," a single block Carmenere from Chile met its match in Uruguayan New York strip (I find that phrasing somewhat odd), each morsel a testament to happy, grass fed cows. As we were digging into that, stuffed heritage breed pork tenderloin from Iowa showed up, providing a multi-continent meat feast to go with garlic whipped potatoes with Mozzarella curd.
Veggies followed - wood-roasted carrots with cider glaze and fennel goat cheese and ember-roasted beets studded with coriander seeds in an orange-coriander vinaigrette - the kind that would get even the pickiest eater interested.
Regrets, I have a few and one was that I'd finally reached my capacity and couldn't do justice to as many carrots and beets as I would have liked to.
Our server had been terrific, pacing out our courses so we had room to breathe, digest and blather in between eating, but when he came back to talk dessert, he found us bettered.
No way was a sweet possible, so we ordered the cheese plate which arrived with glasses of Tannat but I never got beyond a few sips because, well, I was already dangerously close to exploding.
And this from someone who eats for a living.
By the evening's end, Rural Society had succeeded in seducing this urban duo. The only way to end a meal that fine was with a little dancing in the dark.
It was the only thing they couldn't provide.
That's how I found myself on the way to an event called "Come Wine with Us" at the Australian Embassy in D.C. yesterday.
Walking down the street, someone drove by and hollered, "Hey, RVA!" but we had no idea who and went on about our business.
After being cleared by the guard at the embassy, we made it in. I've been to a few wine tastings in my time, but never one with so many men in suits and sports coats.
On the back wall, a video of the splendors of Australia played while below people milled about from table to table tasting wines from Tasmania, South Australia and New Zealand.
It's hard not to love a tasting than begins with Jansz Premium Cuvee Rose, made in (and here's where their sense of humor comes in) the methode Tamanoise and moves on to 2005 Late Disgorged Cuvee, a pale gold sip of the stars.
Of course, because the wines were from the land down under, there were many stellar Shirazes- Langmeils Winery's 2012 Orphan Bank Shiraz and Jim Barry Wines' 2002 The Armagh Museum Release, to name just two.
After hobnobbing for a bit - I chatted with several wine buyers from Rehobeth Beach and a familiar French wine rep from Williamsburg - it was time for greener pastures.
Luckily for me, that meant Rural Society, a low-lit, sexy new restaurant with a focus on grilling and meat. Touches of light blue kept all the brown from looking too rec-room like and what middle-aged woman doesn't look fabulous when the dimmer is on?
The menu is bigger than a place mat so the wisest thing to do, we did. We ordered the chef's tasting menu with the wine pairings and sat back to let the kitchen seduce us.
Music was playing but rarely heard over the cacophony of suits talking, but there was plenty to look at on the walls in the form of black and white photographs of bullfighters, street scenes and cow ropers in the log-filled dining room.
As a card-carrying bread lover, I was thrilled when a bread basket chowed up stuffed with four (five?) kinds of bread and rolls and three different spreadables, one chimichurra-based, one red salsa variety and a swoon-worthy Malbec butter as purple as a pansy.
Blame it on my Richmond grandmother, but I am a sucker for good bread, although I have been accused of using it mainly as a vehicle for butter. I just never saw the problem with that.
One song I did manage to hear during a lull was Santana's "Oye Como Va" just as our server showed up with glasses of bubbly and Carpaccio de Pulpo, thin slices of braised octopus and tiny Malbec chips of wine-soaked potatoes. My favorite part of the next offering, baby arugula salad, was the fig emulsion, distinctively sweet and crunchy.
Next came a delightful white blend, Vinedo de los Vientos Estival 2012, a silky blend of Chardonnay, Gewurztrimer and Moscato Bianco, which accompanied empanadas of Swiss chard, Sardo cheese and roasted onions, oozing heat and melting cheese.
As the diners around us came and went, our tasting continued on in their absence. At one point, I was one of three women in the entire place with dozens of men surrounding me. Maybe it was a D.C. thing, maybe a meat thing or maybe a fluke.
I pity the women who miss out on Rural Society.
Meat was soon to arrive, so our genial server first brought glasses of Zuccardi Serie A Bonarda, smooth and tasting of red fruits, to signal a shift in direction and assess our readiness.
Glossy Chorizo Gaucho - a sausage of beef and pork - was followed by housemade ham and cheese ravioli in a Reggianito cream sauce and I began to realize that there was a lot more eating to be done and I was beginning to fill up.
Aside: I did not mention this to my date.
Shut up and eat, my brain told me and I did. It was a lot easier than I'm making it sound because everything about the experience was winning. Without knowing what might be arriving next, it was a constant surprise (in the best possible way), there was so much eye candy to look at and a top-notch conversationalist was the cherry on top of it all.
Vina Ventisquero "Grey," a single block Carmenere from Chile met its match in Uruguayan New York strip (I find that phrasing somewhat odd), each morsel a testament to happy, grass fed cows. As we were digging into that, stuffed heritage breed pork tenderloin from Iowa showed up, providing a multi-continent meat feast to go with garlic whipped potatoes with Mozzarella curd.
Veggies followed - wood-roasted carrots with cider glaze and fennel goat cheese and ember-roasted beets studded with coriander seeds in an orange-coriander vinaigrette - the kind that would get even the pickiest eater interested.
Regrets, I have a few and one was that I'd finally reached my capacity and couldn't do justice to as many carrots and beets as I would have liked to.
Our server had been terrific, pacing out our courses so we had room to breathe, digest and blather in between eating, but when he came back to talk dessert, he found us bettered.
No way was a sweet possible, so we ordered the cheese plate which arrived with glasses of Tannat but I never got beyond a few sips because, well, I was already dangerously close to exploding.
And this from someone who eats for a living.
By the evening's end, Rural Society had succeeded in seducing this urban duo. The only way to end a meal that fine was with a little dancing in the dark.
It was the only thing they couldn't provide.
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Sing a Song or Line Hell
I can't say I wasn't warned.
When I heard that Earth, Wind and Fire were playing Innsbrook, my reaction was immediate. Must go.
Even after I was warned of what a nightmare the whole experience is, I ignored it and bought a ticket. Worse, I invited one of my favorite people to join me.
Moira and I hadn't seen each other since our epic trip to Washington back in mid-August and tonight was the only night this week we could both make it. Besides, only another child of the '70s would appreciate standing in a field listening to old school funk and soul.
The problem was we were Innsbrook neophytes with no idea how long it would take us to get there on rush hour-clogged 64.
Or how long we'd sit in stopped traffic on Cox Road before finally making it into a parking lot.
We couldn't have known that the line just to buy tokens with which to purchase food and drink would stretch out of the tent. Or that we'd then have to join another line to have our IDs checked and get a wristband.
On some level, we probably knew that the line to get beer would be long but at least it moved quickly. Although I don't drink beer, I opted out of wine, not willing to risk another wait for god only knows what kind of swill.
But there was no way for us to be prepared for the food lines which stretched halfway across the field to the stage. Rejecting chains such as Papa John's and Sticks, we got in line for Halligan's, at least hoping to support the local.
The line was an exercise in patience, moving incrementally infrequently.
The only saving grace was the couple in front of us celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary and looking for conversation.
With endless time in front of us, I asked for the story of their romance, learning that they'd met at Bird in Hand and that he'd been on crutches (my question being, why would anyone on crutches go to a club?).
At the end of the night, he asked for her name and she'd told him (but hadn't spelled it) and walked away, sure he'd never figure out how to spell her obscure Italian name.
Needless to say, he called a friend or six until someone knew her and could give him the correct spelling to look her up in the phone book.
You see, kids, this is how people courted in the olden days before cell phones. It actually took some effort and ingenuity.
Moira and I made the most of our time chatting with strangers, making it all the way to third in line when Earth, Wind and Fire finally took the stage singing "Boogie Wonderland."
And while the two of us turned around, transfixed to finally be hearing the reason for our foray into this no-man's land, most of the people around us in line went right on talking and shouting at each other as if the main attraction hadn't begun.
Because there were a bazillion people at the show, they'd put up a giant screen so that people in the back (that would be those of us in line) could still see what we were hearing.
It was about the only well-thought out thing we experienced all night.
After "Sing a Song," lead singer Philip Bailey, resplendent in a black and white patterned blazer, said, "I don't know about y'all but I'm feeling pretty good up here."
Having just that moment finally scored our pork barbecue sandwiches with slaw and a side of spicy mac and cheese, we high-tailed it to the center of the field to fill our bellies while watching the band from a far better vantage point.
One thing I have to give EW&F, they'd attracted a diverse crowd: young, old, black and white, attired in everything from a wife beater from a yellow South Dakota Harley Davidson shop to a gold lame blouse and matching 4" heels.
The band has been together for 43 years but you'd never know it from the non-stop dancing and smiling faces of its members. Original bass player Verdine White got my vote for best ensemble: a white shirt with elaborate ruffles and patterned bellbottoms with fringe on the side.
The man looked fine, at least '70s style.
Moira and I were surrounded by middle-aged people who knew every world to every song, singing along to "Devotion" and "That's the Way of the World" while dancing in place.
"Some of you have been fans since the very beginning," Bailey called out. "And some of you were conceived to our music!" That was a point Moira and I had already noted.
They had a killer light show which changed with songs, sometimes cartoon-like, other times flashing the word "love." Luckily, tonight's full moon was bright enough to compete.
During the middle section of the evening, they did "songs not from the charts but from our hearts," including some Latin-influenced songs, but since they weren't all familiar, far too many people went back to chatting, even when Philip was playing the African thumb piano, an amazing instrument to hear.
Slow jams "After the Love Has Gone" and "Reasons" got the couples in the crowd slow-dancing, groping and whispering in each other's ears while Moira and I just swayed in place.
When Philip Bailey got to the sustained high note in "Reasons," he held it like it was 1975, afterwards standing there with a self-assured grin and his hands on his hips as if to say, "I still got it."
He sure does. Even though his son is now in the band, he still handles the high notes like a pro.
During their version of the Beatles' "Got to Get You Into My Life," we noticed people began leaving and it was barely after 9:00. Tragic.
Their loss because they missed "September," possibly the happiest sounding song ever written (and dubbed by NPR "the song that never ends" because it's just as popular now as it was when it came out in 1978) and cause enough for Moira and I to dance in the dirt.
They closed the show with "Let's Groove Tonight," which probably could have also been the show opener since that's exactly what we had spent the evening doing and loving every minute of it.
I guess you could say my friend's warning about Innsbrook had been dead on, at least for the first two and a half hours.
But, man, once Earth, Wind and Fire took the stage, it was magical. How the hell do guys who have been doing this for 43 years still dance and sing so well?
You will find peace of mind
If you look way down in your heart and soul
Don't hesitate cause the world seems cold
Stay young at heart, cause you're never, ever old at heart
If anything will keep you young at heart, it's dancing to classic soul music in a field of people.
I don't know about y'all, but Moira and I were feeling more than pretty good about seeing Earth, Wind and Fire live. Truth be told, I wouldn't have missed it.
And I will never, ever, return to Innsbrook for anyone. The warned becomes the warner. Just don't.
When I heard that Earth, Wind and Fire were playing Innsbrook, my reaction was immediate. Must go.
Even after I was warned of what a nightmare the whole experience is, I ignored it and bought a ticket. Worse, I invited one of my favorite people to join me.
Moira and I hadn't seen each other since our epic trip to Washington back in mid-August and tonight was the only night this week we could both make it. Besides, only another child of the '70s would appreciate standing in a field listening to old school funk and soul.
The problem was we were Innsbrook neophytes with no idea how long it would take us to get there on rush hour-clogged 64.
Or how long we'd sit in stopped traffic on Cox Road before finally making it into a parking lot.
We couldn't have known that the line just to buy tokens with which to purchase food and drink would stretch out of the tent. Or that we'd then have to join another line to have our IDs checked and get a wristband.
On some level, we probably knew that the line to get beer would be long but at least it moved quickly. Although I don't drink beer, I opted out of wine, not willing to risk another wait for god only knows what kind of swill.
But there was no way for us to be prepared for the food lines which stretched halfway across the field to the stage. Rejecting chains such as Papa John's and Sticks, we got in line for Halligan's, at least hoping to support the local.
The line was an exercise in patience, moving incrementally infrequently.
The only saving grace was the couple in front of us celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary and looking for conversation.
With endless time in front of us, I asked for the story of their romance, learning that they'd met at Bird in Hand and that he'd been on crutches (my question being, why would anyone on crutches go to a club?).
At the end of the night, he asked for her name and she'd told him (but hadn't spelled it) and walked away, sure he'd never figure out how to spell her obscure Italian name.
Needless to say, he called a friend or six until someone knew her and could give him the correct spelling to look her up in the phone book.
You see, kids, this is how people courted in the olden days before cell phones. It actually took some effort and ingenuity.
Moira and I made the most of our time chatting with strangers, making it all the way to third in line when Earth, Wind and Fire finally took the stage singing "Boogie Wonderland."
And while the two of us turned around, transfixed to finally be hearing the reason for our foray into this no-man's land, most of the people around us in line went right on talking and shouting at each other as if the main attraction hadn't begun.
Because there were a bazillion people at the show, they'd put up a giant screen so that people in the back (that would be those of us in line) could still see what we were hearing.
It was about the only well-thought out thing we experienced all night.
After "Sing a Song," lead singer Philip Bailey, resplendent in a black and white patterned blazer, said, "I don't know about y'all but I'm feeling pretty good up here."
Having just that moment finally scored our pork barbecue sandwiches with slaw and a side of spicy mac and cheese, we high-tailed it to the center of the field to fill our bellies while watching the band from a far better vantage point.
One thing I have to give EW&F, they'd attracted a diverse crowd: young, old, black and white, attired in everything from a wife beater from a yellow South Dakota Harley Davidson shop to a gold lame blouse and matching 4" heels.
The band has been together for 43 years but you'd never know it from the non-stop dancing and smiling faces of its members. Original bass player Verdine White got my vote for best ensemble: a white shirt with elaborate ruffles and patterned bellbottoms with fringe on the side.
The man looked fine, at least '70s style.
Moira and I were surrounded by middle-aged people who knew every world to every song, singing along to "Devotion" and "That's the Way of the World" while dancing in place.
"Some of you have been fans since the very beginning," Bailey called out. "And some of you were conceived to our music!" That was a point Moira and I had already noted.
They had a killer light show which changed with songs, sometimes cartoon-like, other times flashing the word "love." Luckily, tonight's full moon was bright enough to compete.
During the middle section of the evening, they did "songs not from the charts but from our hearts," including some Latin-influenced songs, but since they weren't all familiar, far too many people went back to chatting, even when Philip was playing the African thumb piano, an amazing instrument to hear.
Slow jams "After the Love Has Gone" and "Reasons" got the couples in the crowd slow-dancing, groping and whispering in each other's ears while Moira and I just swayed in place.
When Philip Bailey got to the sustained high note in "Reasons," he held it like it was 1975, afterwards standing there with a self-assured grin and his hands on his hips as if to say, "I still got it."
He sure does. Even though his son is now in the band, he still handles the high notes like a pro.
During their version of the Beatles' "Got to Get You Into My Life," we noticed people began leaving and it was barely after 9:00. Tragic.
Their loss because they missed "September," possibly the happiest sounding song ever written (and dubbed by NPR "the song that never ends" because it's just as popular now as it was when it came out in 1978) and cause enough for Moira and I to dance in the dirt.
They closed the show with "Let's Groove Tonight," which probably could have also been the show opener since that's exactly what we had spent the evening doing and loving every minute of it.
I guess you could say my friend's warning about Innsbrook had been dead on, at least for the first two and a half hours.
But, man, once Earth, Wind and Fire took the stage, it was magical. How the hell do guys who have been doing this for 43 years still dance and sing so well?
You will find peace of mind
If you look way down in your heart and soul
Don't hesitate cause the world seems cold
Stay young at heart, cause you're never, ever old at heart
If anything will keep you young at heart, it's dancing to classic soul music in a field of people.
I don't know about y'all, but Moira and I were feeling more than pretty good about seeing Earth, Wind and Fire live. Truth be told, I wouldn't have missed it.
And I will never, ever, return to Innsbrook for anyone. The warned becomes the warner. Just don't.
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