Okay, Byrd Park Roundhouse, get your act together.
When I attended my first show there a few weeks ago, I showed up at 7 because that was the time on the Facebook event page. But upon arriving, a sandwich board announced that the doors actually opened at 7:30 and music wasn't until 8. The change was an excuse to walk around the lake on a beautiful evening, so no big deal.
But needless to say, when I made plans to go hear the Hot Seats at the Roundhouse tonight, I knew enough to arrive just before 8:00. Stopped at a traffic light on the way over, I saw a plane fly directly under the bottom of the nearly full moon, leaving a vapor trail that looked like it provided a ledge for the moon to sit on.
I took it as a good omen for the evening.
Walking from where I parked toward the Roundhouse, I saw young families scattered around the lawn outside the Roundhouse's open door, kids scampering as parents listed to the music.
All of a sudden, I could hear that the band had started, a bit of a surprise since it wasn't yet 8.
Walking in, money in hand, the guy at the door looks apologetic. "I think they're about to finish up their set," he explained. "But maybe if you let them see you putting money in, they'll play a little longer."
Glancing over at bandleader Josh, whom I've known for years, I made an exaggerated motion with my arm, bringing it up and over my head to deposit the cash, which, incidentally, all goes to the band, and smiled broadly.
"You just got us a few more songs, I think," the door guy whispered with a grin before I found a seat in the back row. It wasn't a big crowd, but they were mighty and clearly fans of bluegrass and new grass and everything the talented Hot Seats - guitar, upright bass, fiddle, mandolin and occasionally banjo played by a woman otherwise seated in the front row - were serving up.
I'm sure if I'd been there when the show began, I'd know who she was.
The first full song I heard was "Compliance," an original song Josh said was about "someone having their foot on your throat and asking if you mind if they kick you." Who doesn't like fast-pickin' with major attitude in the lyrics?
"We're the Hot Seats, in case I didn't mention it and we've been around a while," Josh said to laughter. "It's our eighteenth birthday as a band, which makes us barely legal."
There was another original song, during which a Dad came in with his two young girls and headed toward the bathrooms, the kids never even turning to look at the four men vigorously making music as they passed by. It made me a little sad considering the volume and the energy and their complete indifference to both.
After a song about "being bona fide human beings," Josh promised, tongue firmly in cheek, that they would "keep the uplifting songs going." Then they launched into another of his songs, this one called "When You Were Young," which he says he wrote to remind himself not to be so crotchety.
When you were young
Things were fun
You used to like things
It was exciting
After reminding his bandmates they were moving into songs in the key of A, the did a nice little murder ballad called "Willow Garden." When you're listening to a good murder ballad, it's hard not to appreciate a setting as lovely as tonight's: windows open to the park, the sunset sliding behind the trees, humidity so low as to be imperceptible (which means I had to wear leggings so I wouldn't be cold).
Practically perfect except for the absence of company.
Even Josh couldn't help but commenting on our surroundings, announcing that he'd been married in the Roundhouse, "Thirteen years ago? Fourteen? I should know, shouldn't I?" All I'm saying about that is, I'd bet his wife knows how many years it's been.
Part of the beauty of the Hot Seats is hearing multiple voices harmonizing, but also hearing an occasional plaintive lead vocal by the fiddle player.
They were doing a song about a rattletrap van not known for starting with certainty or frequency when two women arrived and sat down in the row in front of me. I wondered if they'd gotten the same warning that I had, that the show was about to wind down.
When that song ended, that was it and people began heading out after a reminder from Josh about future Roundhouse shows. Curious about why the show had started so early, I stopped to ask the table guy and he explained that all the shows there are supposed to start at 7 sharp. Since I'd only been to one previously and it had started at 8, I'd made an erroneous assumption, I told him
Standing nearby was a couple who joined our conversation to say that they'd done the same thing after the Luray show. "We'd have been much earlier if we'd known it was really starting at 7," she said. Finally, witnesses to back up my story.
Finally fully armed with the correct information about future shows, I headed out, only to run into Josh, who gestured at the moon and observed that it was nearly full. When I told him about seeing the plane appearing to shave off the bottom of it earlier, he joked, "Oh, that's why it's missing that little part at the bottom." Who doesn't appreciate a clever musician?
Making my way to my car, I heard the distinctive strains of "Downtown," a song I love, so I stood by my car to finish listening to it. I couldn't tell where it was coming from because it was starting to get dark and the trees obliterated the source of the sound. Probably just somebody's boombox.
If I'd had any sense, I would have followed the music because as soon as I got home, I saw that a friend was at opening night of Dogwood Dell and the English Beat - purveyors of Brit pop, rock and prog from the '60s and '70s - were playing the night away.
I'd been within spitting distance of the amphitheater and not had a clue. So if they played my Petula Clark favorite, "Don't Sleep in the Subway, Darling," I'd rather not know about it.
I don't want to sound crotchety, but I hate missing out on double fun.
Saturday, June 15, 2019
Friday, June 14, 2019
High Noon at the Crabcake Corral
I didn't drive an hour and a half to have lunch by myself, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Or so I thought. Back on my birthday, my aunt had suggested we meet for lunch to celebrate. Because she's got great genes (and by that I mean she plays doubles tennis three times a week, looks like she's in her early '60s and, oh, by the way, she's 75), the soonest we could schedule a lunch date was today. The when and where is a constant - noon at the Confident Rabbit, formerly Bistro Bethem, in Fredericksburg - so once we had the date, everything was set.
It's not like either of us feel the need to confirm with the other the day of because we're grown-ass women who can be relied upon to show up once we commit.
I had a brief moment driving up Route 301 under roiling clouds and occasional spitting rain when I wondered if I should have confirmed our plans, but then thought, nah. Except when I got to the restaurant promptly at noon, she wasn't there and she always beats me to our usual window table. Her drive from Warrenton is shorter than my drive from Richmond, so she's reliably in place ready to greet me when I roll in.
Except she wasn't today, so I had to settle for a big hello from a charming member of the rainbow army.
For the first ten minutes, I figured she was just running late. For the next ten, I beat myself up for not having confirmed our date before wasting the time driving to Fredericksburg for a solo lunch. Then I got a grip, ordered a glass of Cremant de Loire and a crabcake on brioche with a house salad and felt much better.
Since I'd screwed up, I might as well get a nice lunch out of it and make the best of it.
Moments after ordering, I spotted my aunt coming down the sidewalk, looking tall and impeccably dressed, her spiky white hair proclaiming that she wasn't your typical 75-year old. In a flash, I motioned to our server, telling him to keep my lunch in the kitchen until she'd ordered and hers was ready, too.
"Of course, love," he said, winking at our conspiracy.
My aunt arrived apologetic but an 18-wheeler had lost control and was laying across Route 17 East, her usual route to Fredericksburg, necessitating a U-turn and alternate route. All told, the delay took her an extra half an hour and she hadn't wanted to pull over and call the restaurant to alert me for fear of being even tardier.
Meanwhile, I'm explaining to her that I'd been beating myself up all this time, convinced that we'd changed the time and I'd screwed up. "No, no, it's always high noon!" she reminded me.
Once we'd finished playing the take-the-blame game, we got on to the pleasures of eating, drinking and dishing about the family. She's a great person for me to vent to about my sisters because she knows all the characters, even sharing opinions about them. "They resent you for making choices that made you happy when they didn't do the same," she posited.
Let's just say that the satisfaction of telling her some of my sister-trip stories from April brought about a (very satisfying) dropped jaw reaction similar to what I'd felt.
That alone made me glad I'd come.
But then, so did the flourless chocolate torte that our gregarious server delivered as we chatted away until every other table finished and left. We didn't intend to be the last of the ladies who lunched at the Rabbit today, but our delayed start made it that way. Not to mention a prolonged discussion with our talkative server who hopes to wind up living in Norway sooner rather than later ("No more Virginia summers!" he emoted dramatically).
When my aunt shared that the State Department, her long-time employer, had offered her a post in Oslo that she'd turned down for one in war-torn Beirut, he was agog. "No, I like cold weather!" he insisted, although with his freshly shaved bald head (and, yes, he offered to let us rub it), he'd be wearing hats almost all the time.
Now that I think about it, he probably would have loved that, all those stylish chapeaux.
Walking down Fredericksburg's refurbished restaurant row, my aunt pointed out how garish a new rooftop restaurant looked. When I explained that it was meant to appeal to Millennials, her response was, "Yea, well, all I can say is, Millennials better vote in 2020 or we're doomed!"
Is it any wonder I drive an hour and a half in the rain to have lunch with this woman?
It's the exact same drive (and, in fact, the same restaurant, albeit under a different name) I used to make when my friend L. lived in Maryland and we'd meet there for dinner once a month. So it was an unlikely coincidence when I got home to find an email from him with the subject line, "Is nothing scared?"
He'd included an article about the Fredericksburg City Council voting to remove the slave auction block that sits on the corner near the restaurant that I'd just come from. His message was succinct: "How will we know where to meet for lunch?"
Now, mind you, he's been living in Key West for close to a decade, but I understood his point. We'd walked by that historical auction block together countless times and now city council was removing it, despite its value in sparking important conversations and its educational role in reminding us of a painful period in history.
And lest we forget, despite its prominent place in our friendship's history.
Jeez Louis, I guess nothing is sacred.
Or so I thought. Back on my birthday, my aunt had suggested we meet for lunch to celebrate. Because she's got great genes (and by that I mean she plays doubles tennis three times a week, looks like she's in her early '60s and, oh, by the way, she's 75), the soonest we could schedule a lunch date was today. The when and where is a constant - noon at the Confident Rabbit, formerly Bistro Bethem, in Fredericksburg - so once we had the date, everything was set.
It's not like either of us feel the need to confirm with the other the day of because we're grown-ass women who can be relied upon to show up once we commit.
I had a brief moment driving up Route 301 under roiling clouds and occasional spitting rain when I wondered if I should have confirmed our plans, but then thought, nah. Except when I got to the restaurant promptly at noon, she wasn't there and she always beats me to our usual window table. Her drive from Warrenton is shorter than my drive from Richmond, so she's reliably in place ready to greet me when I roll in.
Except she wasn't today, so I had to settle for a big hello from a charming member of the rainbow army.
For the first ten minutes, I figured she was just running late. For the next ten, I beat myself up for not having confirmed our date before wasting the time driving to Fredericksburg for a solo lunch. Then I got a grip, ordered a glass of Cremant de Loire and a crabcake on brioche with a house salad and felt much better.
Moments after ordering, I spotted my aunt coming down the sidewalk, looking tall and impeccably dressed, her spiky white hair proclaiming that she wasn't your typical 75-year old. In a flash, I motioned to our server, telling him to keep my lunch in the kitchen until she'd ordered and hers was ready, too.
"Of course, love," he said, winking at our conspiracy.
My aunt arrived apologetic but an 18-wheeler had lost control and was laying across Route 17 East, her usual route to Fredericksburg, necessitating a U-turn and alternate route. All told, the delay took her an extra half an hour and she hadn't wanted to pull over and call the restaurant to alert me for fear of being even tardier.
Meanwhile, I'm explaining to her that I'd been beating myself up all this time, convinced that we'd changed the time and I'd screwed up. "No, no, it's always high noon!" she reminded me.
Once we'd finished playing the take-the-blame game, we got on to the pleasures of eating, drinking and dishing about the family. She's a great person for me to vent to about my sisters because she knows all the characters, even sharing opinions about them. "They resent you for making choices that made you happy when they didn't do the same," she posited.
Let's just say that the satisfaction of telling her some of my sister-trip stories from April brought about a (very satisfying) dropped jaw reaction similar to what I'd felt.
That alone made me glad I'd come.
But then, so did the flourless chocolate torte that our gregarious server delivered as we chatted away until every other table finished and left. We didn't intend to be the last of the ladies who lunched at the Rabbit today, but our delayed start made it that way. Not to mention a prolonged discussion with our talkative server who hopes to wind up living in Norway sooner rather than later ("No more Virginia summers!" he emoted dramatically).
When my aunt shared that the State Department, her long-time employer, had offered her a post in Oslo that she'd turned down for one in war-torn Beirut, he was agog. "No, I like cold weather!" he insisted, although with his freshly shaved bald head (and, yes, he offered to let us rub it), he'd be wearing hats almost all the time.
Now that I think about it, he probably would have loved that, all those stylish chapeaux.
Walking down Fredericksburg's refurbished restaurant row, my aunt pointed out how garish a new rooftop restaurant looked. When I explained that it was meant to appeal to Millennials, her response was, "Yea, well, all I can say is, Millennials better vote in 2020 or we're doomed!"
Is it any wonder I drive an hour and a half in the rain to have lunch with this woman?
It's the exact same drive (and, in fact, the same restaurant, albeit under a different name) I used to make when my friend L. lived in Maryland and we'd meet there for dinner once a month. So it was an unlikely coincidence when I got home to find an email from him with the subject line, "Is nothing scared?"
He'd included an article about the Fredericksburg City Council voting to remove the slave auction block that sits on the corner near the restaurant that I'd just come from. His message was succinct: "How will we know where to meet for lunch?"
Now, mind you, he's been living in Key West for close to a decade, but I understood his point. We'd walked by that historical auction block together countless times and now city council was removing it, despite its value in sparking important conversations and its educational role in reminding us of a painful period in history.
And lest we forget, despite its prominent place in our friendship's history.
Jeez Louis, I guess nothing is sacred.
Thursday, June 13, 2019
A Firefly Never Forgets
I had a new recruit today, but not in the war between Freedonia and Sylvania.
Okay, not so much a recruit, per se, but a friend who'd been trying to schedule a walk with me for months, maybe even over a year by now. Problem was she broke her foot and that took a while to mend and then the fellowship that spawned a video filmed at the Bay of Fundy opened at the ICA and then another film project debuted at the Depot...you get the picture.
It was beginning to feel like it was never going to happen and then she reached out and we had compatible mornings free and we finally walked together. And on a gloriously cool June morning, too.
Naturally, I led her right down to the river, knowing full well that our chances of getting on the pipeline were nil. Two days ago, the only way I'd been able to get on it from the Brown's Island side had been by scrambling over a boulder and then propelling myself forward onto the pipeline and we'd had even more rain since then. It was much worse today with the entire western end under rushing water, but I wanted her to see it anyway.
We compensated by backtracking, taking the canal walk and picking up the pipeline walkway from the eastern end. I knew she "got" it when she marveled, "It's like walking on water."
Yes, indeed, that's exactly what it's like.
Since she'd already taken a yoga class before she met me, by the time we came off the pipeline, she admitted that her legs were feeling the walk. I've no doubt they felt it even more on the next part, which is a series of hills back up to Broad Street. Rest assured, since this was our first shared walk, I made sure to point out interesting things urban, historical, artistic and natural (she was thrilled that we saw two great blue herons) along the way as a distraction.
"You're part trainer, part field guide," she marveled. I'd call that one of my more unique compliments.
And if I was cheating on Mac walking with another woman, I made it up by meeting her at the Byrd to watch four Jews trying to get a laugh. And lest you think I said that, I can assure you that was Groucho Marx's response to those who questioned the political significance of "Duck Soup."
And while he denied it, Mussolini banned the film from showing in Italy because he thought it was an attack on him. I have to say, the anti-Fascist message came across as pretty timely in 2019 as well. Sadly.
Waiting outside for Mac to arrive, I saw guy after guy approach the box office to get a single ticket. One guy cracked wise, requesting, "One for the soup du jour, please." Clearly the Marx Brothers are big with the Y-chromosome set.
Mac and I had barely settled into our seats when a very tall man sat down in front of us, scrunched waaay down in his eat and turned to ask us if he was blocking our views. We politely said no, all the while wondering why he didn't sit somewhere he didn't have to scrunch. I mean, his legs were almost under his chin. When Mac returned with popcorn and Milk Duds, he began making crazy motions with his hand, then got up and left, never to be seen again.
You can always count on a little weirdness at the Byrd.
Manager Todd began the evening by asking if seeing "Duck Soup" tonight would be anyone's first Marx Brothers movie and, amazingly, about a dozen people raised their hands. When he asked who was a Marx Brothers fan, easily half the large crowd roared back in affirmation.
One fun fact he shared was that "duck soup" used to be slang for something easy to do, news to me.
The movie began with a screen reading, "NRA Member. We do our part," followed by the Paramount logo. Kind of disturbing, but maybe not so much in 1933.
I've got no idea when I last saw "Duck Soup" but my best guess would be in college. Back then, my boyfriend and I were very into Woody Allen and it was common knowledge what a huge Marx Brothers fan he was. So I had no memory of what the film was about, although it came back to me as the film progressed.
Interestingly, one of the seminal scenes, which Todd had mentioned, was the mirror scene where Groucho and Harpo mime each other as if they're looking in a mirror. Long before I ever saw "Duck Soup," I'd seen the "I Love Lucy" episode where Lucy does the same thing with Harpo even though it took until college to understand the reference.
Okay, so Lucy and Harpo weren't the first to do it.
One of the most charming parts of watching the movie unfold was the reaction of the children in the audience, who laughed uproariously at so much of it. The scenes of Chico and Harpo taunting the lemonade stand guy - setting his hats on fire, putting their feet in his vat of lemonade - sent them into fits of giggles you could hear throughout the theater.
As a trainer and field guide, it was the puns and word nerd humor that set me off.
Mrs. T: Notables from every country are gathered here in your honor. This is a gala day for you.
Groucho: Well, a gal a day is enough for me. I don't think I could handle any more.
Let's face it, laughing at the Marx Brothers is duck soup.
Okay, not so much a recruit, per se, but a friend who'd been trying to schedule a walk with me for months, maybe even over a year by now. Problem was she broke her foot and that took a while to mend and then the fellowship that spawned a video filmed at the Bay of Fundy opened at the ICA and then another film project debuted at the Depot...you get the picture.
It was beginning to feel like it was never going to happen and then she reached out and we had compatible mornings free and we finally walked together. And on a gloriously cool June morning, too.
Naturally, I led her right down to the river, knowing full well that our chances of getting on the pipeline were nil. Two days ago, the only way I'd been able to get on it from the Brown's Island side had been by scrambling over a boulder and then propelling myself forward onto the pipeline and we'd had even more rain since then. It was much worse today with the entire western end under rushing water, but I wanted her to see it anyway.
We compensated by backtracking, taking the canal walk and picking up the pipeline walkway from the eastern end. I knew she "got" it when she marveled, "It's like walking on water."
Yes, indeed, that's exactly what it's like.
Since she'd already taken a yoga class before she met me, by the time we came off the pipeline, she admitted that her legs were feeling the walk. I've no doubt they felt it even more on the next part, which is a series of hills back up to Broad Street. Rest assured, since this was our first shared walk, I made sure to point out interesting things urban, historical, artistic and natural (she was thrilled that we saw two great blue herons) along the way as a distraction.
"You're part trainer, part field guide," she marveled. I'd call that one of my more unique compliments.
And if I was cheating on Mac walking with another woman, I made it up by meeting her at the Byrd to watch four Jews trying to get a laugh. And lest you think I said that, I can assure you that was Groucho Marx's response to those who questioned the political significance of "Duck Soup."
And while he denied it, Mussolini banned the film from showing in Italy because he thought it was an attack on him. I have to say, the anti-Fascist message came across as pretty timely in 2019 as well. Sadly.
Waiting outside for Mac to arrive, I saw guy after guy approach the box office to get a single ticket. One guy cracked wise, requesting, "One for the soup du jour, please." Clearly the Marx Brothers are big with the Y-chromosome set.
Mac and I had barely settled into our seats when a very tall man sat down in front of us, scrunched waaay down in his eat and turned to ask us if he was blocking our views. We politely said no, all the while wondering why he didn't sit somewhere he didn't have to scrunch. I mean, his legs were almost under his chin. When Mac returned with popcorn and Milk Duds, he began making crazy motions with his hand, then got up and left, never to be seen again.
You can always count on a little weirdness at the Byrd.
Manager Todd began the evening by asking if seeing "Duck Soup" tonight would be anyone's first Marx Brothers movie and, amazingly, about a dozen people raised their hands. When he asked who was a Marx Brothers fan, easily half the large crowd roared back in affirmation.
One fun fact he shared was that "duck soup" used to be slang for something easy to do, news to me.
The movie began with a screen reading, "NRA Member. We do our part," followed by the Paramount logo. Kind of disturbing, but maybe not so much in 1933.
I've got no idea when I last saw "Duck Soup" but my best guess would be in college. Back then, my boyfriend and I were very into Woody Allen and it was common knowledge what a huge Marx Brothers fan he was. So I had no memory of what the film was about, although it came back to me as the film progressed.
Interestingly, one of the seminal scenes, which Todd had mentioned, was the mirror scene where Groucho and Harpo mime each other as if they're looking in a mirror. Long before I ever saw "Duck Soup," I'd seen the "I Love Lucy" episode where Lucy does the same thing with Harpo even though it took until college to understand the reference.
Okay, so Lucy and Harpo weren't the first to do it.
One of the most charming parts of watching the movie unfold was the reaction of the children in the audience, who laughed uproariously at so much of it. The scenes of Chico and Harpo taunting the lemonade stand guy - setting his hats on fire, putting their feet in his vat of lemonade - sent them into fits of giggles you could hear throughout the theater.
As a trainer and field guide, it was the puns and word nerd humor that set me off.
Mrs. T: Notables from every country are gathered here in your honor. This is a gala day for you.
Groucho: Well, a gal a day is enough for me. I don't think I could handle any more.
Let's face it, laughing at the Marx Brothers is duck soup.
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Will You Ride Shotgun?
I recall when a friend facetiously suggested a t-shirt for the Chamber to give out:
Welcome to Richmond
We talk at shows
And unfortunately, we don't just talk at big shows at the National with 1500 other people, we talk at house shows and small venue shows. Hell, we even talk at intimate Sundown at Scuffletown shows, where the musicians are barely amplified and we're practically in strangers' backyards.
We're just rude that way.
And by "we," I hope you know I mean "they." Whether I pay for a music show or not, I am there to listen not talk. I'm considerate enough to know that I can chat before it starts and once it ends.
Not everybody seems to be so civil.
I'd wrangled Mac into joining me and my hired mouth at lunch today and during the course of the meal, she'd shared with our young server that we were going to hear music at Scuffletown Park tonight. She even explained that it was a word of mouth event not shared on social media, which he thought was very cool (and perhaps strange).
Translation: we were looking forward to it.
I met her there an hour before sundown and, as promised, she'd brought two cans of Lambrusco, a fitting red wine for a 70 degree evening. She'd also staked out a bench for us, so we were pretty much set for the evening. It was a big crowd, easily twice what it was two weeks ago when I was last there, and while I don't care about crowd size, I do resent people talking and laughing so loudly that I can't hear the music.
The crowd continued to grow and you could get a feel for who they were by their t-shirts: "Give Richmond the Byrd," "You Da Wild, Naughty Pines, CA," "Ice Cream for Strength" and more common sightings such as "WRIR" and "Bon Iver." Me, I was wearing my feelings, too, with my newest shirt: "My book smells better than your tablet."
Because it does.
Saying that we were witnessing history tonight because it was the first Scuffletown show featuring pedal steel, our emcee introduced Trey Hall and Friends, consisting of Trey on acoustic guitar and a guy whose name we couldn't hear on pedal steel. Before their set was over, two singers joined them.
"I have torn vocal chords," Trey explained. "So I thought I'd play songs that are very sad." Trey plays with Dharma Bombs, meaning I'd seen him before, just not without the rest of the Bombs.
"Say hi to Charley," Trey said about the young woman who came to the microphone after the first couple songs. "The best part of having torn vocal chords is having friends to help me out, like Charley." And while Mac and I would have loved to have heard Charley singing along, the gaggles of giggling girls directly across from us ensured that it wasn't easy.
Introducing "Canadian Tuxedo," Trey announced, "Charley's gonna sing it better than I can," a true statement.
The coolish weather was ideal for an outdoor show, never more so than when fireflies began flitting around and there was a break in the screaming children playing tag. The sound of the pedal steel in the dusky evening air was nothing short of beautiful...and historic, as it turns out.
For that matter, I recall the time they brought a piano in for a show at Scuffletown, so they don't mess around. But pedal steel is a distinct pleasure.
If I sound like the angry guy on his front lawn shaking his fist at the kids on his grass, it's because I've been a Scuffletown regular for the past five years and each year it seems like fewer people come for the music. They come to eat (although why anyone would bring sub-par pizza from PBR when a glorious pie from 8 1/2 is available next door escapes Mac and me) and see their friends, have some beer or wine, probably even see and be seen, but an annoyingly large percentage clearly don't care about the music or they wouldn't face away from it and chatter, right?
Rude people's noise made it tough to hear lyrics, but Mac and I cracked up when we thought we heard the lines:
She's an addict
But she's got toys in the attic
But for all we know, we're mishearing lyrics and he really sang something completely different. We'll never know.
Eventually Charley was replaced with Mackenzie from the band Pistol Sister and she sang on "Black Rose Tattoo," her big voice piercing the hum of random conversations.
The set closer was by far the most raucous song, as if Trey was willing to push past his torn vocal chords for the sake of the liveliness of the guitar and pedal steel parts on their swan song.
And here's the kicker: when the emcee got up to insist on another round of applause for the band and ask if there were any community announcements, everyone got respectfully quiet and listened.
No, no, no, kids, we stop talking for the music, not for the end of the music. It's enough to give a person have toys in the attic, if you know what I'm saying.
Gimme some ice cream for strength.
Welcome to Richmond
We talk at shows
And unfortunately, we don't just talk at big shows at the National with 1500 other people, we talk at house shows and small venue shows. Hell, we even talk at intimate Sundown at Scuffletown shows, where the musicians are barely amplified and we're practically in strangers' backyards.
We're just rude that way.
And by "we," I hope you know I mean "they." Whether I pay for a music show or not, I am there to listen not talk. I'm considerate enough to know that I can chat before it starts and once it ends.
Not everybody seems to be so civil.
I'd wrangled Mac into joining me and my hired mouth at lunch today and during the course of the meal, she'd shared with our young server that we were going to hear music at Scuffletown Park tonight. She even explained that it was a word of mouth event not shared on social media, which he thought was very cool (and perhaps strange).
Translation: we were looking forward to it.
I met her there an hour before sundown and, as promised, she'd brought two cans of Lambrusco, a fitting red wine for a 70 degree evening. She'd also staked out a bench for us, so we were pretty much set for the evening. It was a big crowd, easily twice what it was two weeks ago when I was last there, and while I don't care about crowd size, I do resent people talking and laughing so loudly that I can't hear the music.
The crowd continued to grow and you could get a feel for who they were by their t-shirts: "Give Richmond the Byrd," "You Da Wild, Naughty Pines, CA," "Ice Cream for Strength" and more common sightings such as "WRIR" and "Bon Iver." Me, I was wearing my feelings, too, with my newest shirt: "My book smells better than your tablet."
Because it does.
Saying that we were witnessing history tonight because it was the first Scuffletown show featuring pedal steel, our emcee introduced Trey Hall and Friends, consisting of Trey on acoustic guitar and a guy whose name we couldn't hear on pedal steel. Before their set was over, two singers joined them.
"I have torn vocal chords," Trey explained. "So I thought I'd play songs that are very sad." Trey plays with Dharma Bombs, meaning I'd seen him before, just not without the rest of the Bombs.
"Say hi to Charley," Trey said about the young woman who came to the microphone after the first couple songs. "The best part of having torn vocal chords is having friends to help me out, like Charley." And while Mac and I would have loved to have heard Charley singing along, the gaggles of giggling girls directly across from us ensured that it wasn't easy.
Introducing "Canadian Tuxedo," Trey announced, "Charley's gonna sing it better than I can," a true statement.
The coolish weather was ideal for an outdoor show, never more so than when fireflies began flitting around and there was a break in the screaming children playing tag. The sound of the pedal steel in the dusky evening air was nothing short of beautiful...and historic, as it turns out.
For that matter, I recall the time they brought a piano in for a show at Scuffletown, so they don't mess around. But pedal steel is a distinct pleasure.
If I sound like the angry guy on his front lawn shaking his fist at the kids on his grass, it's because I've been a Scuffletown regular for the past five years and each year it seems like fewer people come for the music. They come to eat (although why anyone would bring sub-par pizza from PBR when a glorious pie from 8 1/2 is available next door escapes Mac and me) and see their friends, have some beer or wine, probably even see and be seen, but an annoyingly large percentage clearly don't care about the music or they wouldn't face away from it and chatter, right?
Rude people's noise made it tough to hear lyrics, but Mac and I cracked up when we thought we heard the lines:
She's an addict
But she's got toys in the attic
But for all we know, we're mishearing lyrics and he really sang something completely different. We'll never know.
Eventually Charley was replaced with Mackenzie from the band Pistol Sister and she sang on "Black Rose Tattoo," her big voice piercing the hum of random conversations.
The set closer was by far the most raucous song, as if Trey was willing to push past his torn vocal chords for the sake of the liveliness of the guitar and pedal steel parts on their swan song.
And here's the kicker: when the emcee got up to insist on another round of applause for the band and ask if there were any community announcements, everyone got respectfully quiet and listened.
No, no, no, kids, we stop talking for the music, not for the end of the music. It's enough to give a person have toys in the attic, if you know what I'm saying.
Gimme some ice cream for strength.
Tuesday, June 11, 2019
Like the Lark at Break of Day
It was a night for not letting truth get in the way of a good story.
A rainy night at that, for, what, the third or fourth night in a row? That's not a complaint, mind you, because I've been really enjoying these wet, beachy days. Today's was followed by a fine soggy night to spend in Stratford-on-Avon watching Shakespeare's final three years unfold at the Criterion in "All is True."
Which, for the uninformed (which was me before seeing this), was the original title of "Henry VIII," the play that was being performed when the Globe Theater burned down. That's also the point at which this particular film begins, with Will, his theater gone, vowing never to write a word again.
Directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Kenneth Branagh as Will, which made it catnip to someone like me (I thought his "Much Ado About Nothing" was a masterpiece and saw it twice), the film also boasted Judy Dench as his wife, Anne Hathaway, a non-too happy wife given her husband's prolonged absences in London over the past 20 years.
Safe to say that Will wasn't getting an invitation into the marriage bed (which is the second best bed because, of course, the best bed is in the guest room...so Puritan) anytime soon.
Although he may not have minded given that the film posits that Will's true love was the Early of Southampton, for whom he wrote all those sonnets and dedicated them to "the fair youth." Magnificently played by Ian McKellen, the conversation between the two men in front of the fireplace was a master class in poetry as they recited Sonnet 29 to each other, the difference in their ages and stations in life making for completely different interpretations.
I'm not too proud to admit that I would have sat there and listened to those two actors read sonnets for two hours. I love hearing poetry read aloud.
The film was a gorgeous escape, the soft-focus scenes of rural England's meadows, ponds and fields making them look almost magical in a Monet-in-England kind of a way. Just as dazzling in a different way were the many interior scenes lit solely by candlelight and fire's glow, although all I could think about was how limited your reading time must have been when flame provided the only illumination.
Even if the story hadn't captured my imagination, and it definitely did, it was beautifully shot that it could be appreciated solely as eye candy.
For me, one of the most thought-provoking scenes occurs while Will is gardening and a fan approaches. What he asks of the great playwright and poet is, "How did you know? to which Will asks, "Know what?"
The fan's answer? "Everything."
It was a light bulb moment. How did this man who'd never traveled and had limited life experience - he couldn't have known that many complex, compelling people on which to base characters - dream up the fantastical plots and myriad people and locales that went into his plays?
Let's face it, most of us don't know a King Lear or even an Ophelia type. Or perhaps 21st century denizens are just less complex than Jacobeans, who knows?
Nobody knows, just like nobody knows what Shakespeare did in his final three years besides spend them with his family. Maybe his imagination gave out or his brain just needed a rest from all that writing.
I'm telling you, it could happen.
A rainy night at that, for, what, the third or fourth night in a row? That's not a complaint, mind you, because I've been really enjoying these wet, beachy days. Today's was followed by a fine soggy night to spend in Stratford-on-Avon watching Shakespeare's final three years unfold at the Criterion in "All is True."
Which, for the uninformed (which was me before seeing this), was the original title of "Henry VIII," the play that was being performed when the Globe Theater burned down. That's also the point at which this particular film begins, with Will, his theater gone, vowing never to write a word again.
Directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Kenneth Branagh as Will, which made it catnip to someone like me (I thought his "Much Ado About Nothing" was a masterpiece and saw it twice), the film also boasted Judy Dench as his wife, Anne Hathaway, a non-too happy wife given her husband's prolonged absences in London over the past 20 years.
Safe to say that Will wasn't getting an invitation into the marriage bed (which is the second best bed because, of course, the best bed is in the guest room...so Puritan) anytime soon.
Although he may not have minded given that the film posits that Will's true love was the Early of Southampton, for whom he wrote all those sonnets and dedicated them to "the fair youth." Magnificently played by Ian McKellen, the conversation between the two men in front of the fireplace was a master class in poetry as they recited Sonnet 29 to each other, the difference in their ages and stations in life making for completely different interpretations.
I'm not too proud to admit that I would have sat there and listened to those two actors read sonnets for two hours. I love hearing poetry read aloud.
The film was a gorgeous escape, the soft-focus scenes of rural England's meadows, ponds and fields making them look almost magical in a Monet-in-England kind of a way. Just as dazzling in a different way were the many interior scenes lit solely by candlelight and fire's glow, although all I could think about was how limited your reading time must have been when flame provided the only illumination.
Even if the story hadn't captured my imagination, and it definitely did, it was beautifully shot that it could be appreciated solely as eye candy.
For me, one of the most thought-provoking scenes occurs while Will is gardening and a fan approaches. What he asks of the great playwright and poet is, "How did you know? to which Will asks, "Know what?"
The fan's answer? "Everything."
It was a light bulb moment. How did this man who'd never traveled and had limited life experience - he couldn't have known that many complex, compelling people on which to base characters - dream up the fantastical plots and myriad people and locales that went into his plays?
Let's face it, most of us don't know a King Lear or even an Ophelia type. Or perhaps 21st century denizens are just less complex than Jacobeans, who knows?
Nobody knows, just like nobody knows what Shakespeare did in his final three years besides spend them with his family. Maybe his imagination gave out or his brain just needed a rest from all that writing.
I'm telling you, it could happen.
Monday, June 10, 2019
Howdy, Pride
Let me be perfectly queer, both us girls had forgotten that today was the Capital Pride Parade when we set off for D.C.
En route, Lady G gave me my birthday present, a fabulously patterned bag she'd quilted in my favorite colors: purples, greens, hot pinks and yellows. I've known this woman for 20 years as an illustrator and painter and now that she's turned her discerning eye to quilting, she has a new art form with which to share her talent.
And I have the most gorgeous beach bag ever.
As usual, she gave me some updates from her psychic friend, who's been assuring her for a while now that something big is about to happen to our orange leader health-wise. Or, as Lady G put it, "She told me not to worry. She said she's "seeing a Joe Kennedy kind of a stroke" in his imminent future."
All that fast food has to catch up with his heart at some point, right? Please, right?
She told me about her widowed friend who'd screwed up her nerve to contact her first boyfriend from when she was 15 years old. Fifty six years later, they had a date and are now an item. The power of the Internet (and loneliness) is mighty.
And speaking of junky food, once in D.C., there were an inordinate number of food vendor trucks parked everywhere and, even for the nation's capital on a weekend, a crazy amount of people already parked and milling about considering it wasn't even 11 a.m. yet. Despite a steady rain, we'd made it to D.C. in an hour and a half and as is our luck when we do our regular art runs, we had no problem finding a parking space two blocks from the Mall.
Along the way, we saw that the line for the Natural History Museum was around the block, no doubt due the opening just days ago of the newly renovated fossil hall, aka the dinosaur bone exhibit.
Still, we were clueless.
It was only when we cut through the Air and Space Museum to use the bathroom en route to the National Gallery of Art that the mystery was solved. Going through airport-level security, one of the guards mentioned that all this rain might cancel the Pride parade.
So that's what all this mass of humanity was about.
At the Air & Space Museum, we also ran into two women in Pride shirts from Rhode Island looking for recommendations for which galleries are must-sees for first-timers. I haven't been to that museum since the '90s, so I let G take the lead on answering those questions.
Meanwhile, I was checking out the crowds and I have to say, it was as completely different a group of people from the ones we see at the National Gallery as to be two different species. We escaped as quickly as we could.
Crossing the Mall, we saw a couple taking the iconic picture of each other in front of the capital, which made G extend a helping hand by asking the German-sounding couple if they wanted her to take their photo together. Once they understood her offer (their initial reaction was to shake their heads no and begin walking away), they were thrilled to get their photo taken, arms around each other.
"Already, we're doing so much for others!" G said proudly as we made our way toward the reason for the road trip, hearing the sounds of the Pride parade as we walked.
Inside, the security checkpoint was far simpler than at Air and Space. All we had to do was open our bags. When I greeted my guard with, "Howdy!" he grinned and asked where I was from. This city, D.C., I informed him and asked his provenance. "Houston," he said with hometown pride. "And you don't hear "howdy" much around these parts."
I don't want to brag, but I think I made his morning.
Moments after the museum opened, G and I were walking into "Tintoretto; Artist of Renaissance Venice," part of the 500th anniversary of Tintoretto's birth and the first retrospective of his work in North America.
Sigh. This is what art history nerds like G and I live for.
You can imagine my delight looking at "The Contest of Apollo and Marsyas" and learning that it had been done for a critic and art promoter named Pietro, whose published letters functioned as a kind of 16th century blog. A blog, people.
So you see, I'm just carrying on a long-standing tradition of informing the world of my interests.
Although G had said she knew very little about Tintoretto, I recalled my art history professors emphasizing his significant role in art history and in unseating Titian. Turns out Tintoretto, in his day, was doing avant garde paintings designed to shock, using Michelangelo's anatomy and Titian's colors. Meanwhile, his fellow artists were outraged and probably not a little mortified by how aggressively he marketed his work.
His mastery of foreshortening was startling and G pointed out time and again where he was showing off, having a realistically depicted foot or hand - sometimes an entire princess - seeming to extend out of the picture plane and into our world.
Strolling into another gallery - mind you, it was a large show with many enormous works, including many designed for ceilings - G got a look, grinned and observed, "Well, that's an interesting place to put a dragon." She was referring to "Saint George, Saint Louis and the Princess" and we weren't surprised to learn that the critics of the day agreed with her that m'lady's position astride a dragon was hardly lady-like.
Not that I think for a moment that Tintoretto was going for ladylike. If anything came across in his work, it was his confidence and brashness as he set out to change the direction of painting. Witness "Venus and Mars Surprised by Vulcan," showing Vulcan, convinced his wife is cheating on him, pulling back Venus' drape for signs of lovemaking on her thighs. Meanwhile Mars is crouched under a table hiding, helmet still on.
Presumably, he'd taken it off for the lovemaking. At least I hope he had.
No doubt about it, this was a once in a lifetime chance to see most of these works which have never touched down in the U.S. before. And because there were so many enormous pieces, the ever-practical artist G couldn't help but note, "I can't imagine how much it cost to ship all of these here."
After two plus hours in the thrall of Tintoretto, we were starved and made our way to the NGA's Cafe for lunch. While it was nice to get off our feet for a bit, we treated it mainly as a filling station so we could get back to looking at art, this time in the NGA's East Building.
Although we hadn't come planning to see "The Life of Animals in Japanese Art," G's eye had been caught by the signage we saw for it. As it turned out, it was just as big a show as Tintoretto had been - hell, it covered 17 centuries and a wide variety of mediums - requiring another couple hours to see it all.
I especially loved a forest green robe called "Uchi Kake with Phoenix and Birds," a gorgeous 19th century garment covered in 99 birds. The hundredth bird, a white crane flying against the sun, was put inside the collar of the robe so only the wearer could see it. Brilliant.
Very different was Okamoto Taro's 1948 work "Dawn," which depicts a shrieking monster dominating the center of the large, chaotic painting full of color and energy done just after world War II ended and expressing the demons still haunting the Japanese in the aftermath of being bombed.
In contrast, some pieces were pure whimsy, like "Dragonfly," a 19th century large format ink on paper of a dragonfly with such a hangdog look that he was almost cartoon-like. It wouldn't have looked out of place on a children's book cover.
Ditto the six-panel screen, "Fox's Wedding Procession," in which the artist had substituted foxes for men by putting Samurai costumes on the foxes and making them part of a traditional wedding party as they carry the bride-to-be aloft on a palanquin.
A print that could have been straight out of a contemporary children's book, "Daikon and Mice" showed two little gray mice climbing atop a white daikon with a brilliant orange carrot behind it. With the rich, green leaves of both vegetables framing the mice, the clean-lined print had a very modern graphic look to it.
When we finally finished with the animals, we were soul-satisfied as only art nerds can be after so much new to see. G didn't admit to the blister on her foot from so much walking and standing until we were sitting in traffic on I-395, that's how good a time we were having.
Admittedly, it probably couldn't match the post-parade elation of the Pride participants, but it was a pretty spectacular day for a couple of straight women.
And you know if we'd only had time, we'd have done the parade, too.
En route, Lady G gave me my birthday present, a fabulously patterned bag she'd quilted in my favorite colors: purples, greens, hot pinks and yellows. I've known this woman for 20 years as an illustrator and painter and now that she's turned her discerning eye to quilting, she has a new art form with which to share her talent.
And I have the most gorgeous beach bag ever.
As usual, she gave me some updates from her psychic friend, who's been assuring her for a while now that something big is about to happen to our orange leader health-wise. Or, as Lady G put it, "She told me not to worry. She said she's "seeing a Joe Kennedy kind of a stroke" in his imminent future."
All that fast food has to catch up with his heart at some point, right? Please, right?
She told me about her widowed friend who'd screwed up her nerve to contact her first boyfriend from when she was 15 years old. Fifty six years later, they had a date and are now an item. The power of the Internet (and loneliness) is mighty.
And speaking of junky food, once in D.C., there were an inordinate number of food vendor trucks parked everywhere and, even for the nation's capital on a weekend, a crazy amount of people already parked and milling about considering it wasn't even 11 a.m. yet. Despite a steady rain, we'd made it to D.C. in an hour and a half and as is our luck when we do our regular art runs, we had no problem finding a parking space two blocks from the Mall.
Along the way, we saw that the line for the Natural History Museum was around the block, no doubt due the opening just days ago of the newly renovated fossil hall, aka the dinosaur bone exhibit.
Still, we were clueless.
It was only when we cut through the Air and Space Museum to use the bathroom en route to the National Gallery of Art that the mystery was solved. Going through airport-level security, one of the guards mentioned that all this rain might cancel the Pride parade.
So that's what all this mass of humanity was about.
At the Air & Space Museum, we also ran into two women in Pride shirts from Rhode Island looking for recommendations for which galleries are must-sees for first-timers. I haven't been to that museum since the '90s, so I let G take the lead on answering those questions.
Meanwhile, I was checking out the crowds and I have to say, it was as completely different a group of people from the ones we see at the National Gallery as to be two different species. We escaped as quickly as we could.
Crossing the Mall, we saw a couple taking the iconic picture of each other in front of the capital, which made G extend a helping hand by asking the German-sounding couple if they wanted her to take their photo together. Once they understood her offer (their initial reaction was to shake their heads no and begin walking away), they were thrilled to get their photo taken, arms around each other.
"Already, we're doing so much for others!" G said proudly as we made our way toward the reason for the road trip, hearing the sounds of the Pride parade as we walked.
Inside, the security checkpoint was far simpler than at Air and Space. All we had to do was open our bags. When I greeted my guard with, "Howdy!" he grinned and asked where I was from. This city, D.C., I informed him and asked his provenance. "Houston," he said with hometown pride. "And you don't hear "howdy" much around these parts."
I don't want to brag, but I think I made his morning.
Moments after the museum opened, G and I were walking into "Tintoretto; Artist of Renaissance Venice," part of the 500th anniversary of Tintoretto's birth and the first retrospective of his work in North America.
Sigh. This is what art history nerds like G and I live for.
You can imagine my delight looking at "The Contest of Apollo and Marsyas" and learning that it had been done for a critic and art promoter named Pietro, whose published letters functioned as a kind of 16th century blog. A blog, people.
So you see, I'm just carrying on a long-standing tradition of informing the world of my interests.
Although G had said she knew very little about Tintoretto, I recalled my art history professors emphasizing his significant role in art history and in unseating Titian. Turns out Tintoretto, in his day, was doing avant garde paintings designed to shock, using Michelangelo's anatomy and Titian's colors. Meanwhile, his fellow artists were outraged and probably not a little mortified by how aggressively he marketed his work.
His mastery of foreshortening was startling and G pointed out time and again where he was showing off, having a realistically depicted foot or hand - sometimes an entire princess - seeming to extend out of the picture plane and into our world.
Strolling into another gallery - mind you, it was a large show with many enormous works, including many designed for ceilings - G got a look, grinned and observed, "Well, that's an interesting place to put a dragon." She was referring to "Saint George, Saint Louis and the Princess" and we weren't surprised to learn that the critics of the day agreed with her that m'lady's position astride a dragon was hardly lady-like.
Not that I think for a moment that Tintoretto was going for ladylike. If anything came across in his work, it was his confidence and brashness as he set out to change the direction of painting. Witness "Venus and Mars Surprised by Vulcan," showing Vulcan, convinced his wife is cheating on him, pulling back Venus' drape for signs of lovemaking on her thighs. Meanwhile Mars is crouched under a table hiding, helmet still on.
Presumably, he'd taken it off for the lovemaking. At least I hope he had.
No doubt about it, this was a once in a lifetime chance to see most of these works which have never touched down in the U.S. before. And because there were so many enormous pieces, the ever-practical artist G couldn't help but note, "I can't imagine how much it cost to ship all of these here."
After two plus hours in the thrall of Tintoretto, we were starved and made our way to the NGA's Cafe for lunch. While it was nice to get off our feet for a bit, we treated it mainly as a filling station so we could get back to looking at art, this time in the NGA's East Building.
Although we hadn't come planning to see "The Life of Animals in Japanese Art," G's eye had been caught by the signage we saw for it. As it turned out, it was just as big a show as Tintoretto had been - hell, it covered 17 centuries and a wide variety of mediums - requiring another couple hours to see it all.
I especially loved a forest green robe called "Uchi Kake with Phoenix and Birds," a gorgeous 19th century garment covered in 99 birds. The hundredth bird, a white crane flying against the sun, was put inside the collar of the robe so only the wearer could see it. Brilliant.
Very different was Okamoto Taro's 1948 work "Dawn," which depicts a shrieking monster dominating the center of the large, chaotic painting full of color and energy done just after world War II ended and expressing the demons still haunting the Japanese in the aftermath of being bombed.
In contrast, some pieces were pure whimsy, like "Dragonfly," a 19th century large format ink on paper of a dragonfly with such a hangdog look that he was almost cartoon-like. It wouldn't have looked out of place on a children's book cover.
Ditto the six-panel screen, "Fox's Wedding Procession," in which the artist had substituted foxes for men by putting Samurai costumes on the foxes and making them part of a traditional wedding party as they carry the bride-to-be aloft on a palanquin.
A print that could have been straight out of a contemporary children's book, "Daikon and Mice" showed two little gray mice climbing atop a white daikon with a brilliant orange carrot behind it. With the rich, green leaves of both vegetables framing the mice, the clean-lined print had a very modern graphic look to it.
When we finally finished with the animals, we were soul-satisfied as only art nerds can be after so much new to see. G didn't admit to the blister on her foot from so much walking and standing until we were sitting in traffic on I-395, that's how good a time we were having.
Admittedly, it probably couldn't match the post-parade elation of the Pride participants, but it was a pretty spectacular day for a couple of straight women.
And you know if we'd only had time, we'd have done the parade, too.
Sunday, June 9, 2019
The Future is Now
Three women of a certain age (and their male consort) walk into a Basque restaurant.
Before the evening is over, they will drink from the western Loire, consume an array of the sea's bounty (squid, softshell crab, skate and shrimp) and plant life (chilled almond soup, warm chicories, roasted artichoke hearts with anchovy aioli and heirloom white cucumber salad with Spanish ham, oh, my!) and see a play about mature southern women. In that order.
For what it's worth, all three of the women involved in our party had been born south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
Like every other time I'd eaten at Adarra, every dish was spot-on, dazzling us with nuance and flavor marriages made in heaven. The sherry vinegar-laced chilled almond soup was unlike anything I've ever had (rich, addicting and thickened with bread) and the artichoke hearts were simple perfection.
After hearing the dessert offerings, there was an order placed for three housemade strawberry ice creams and while it seemed like too much for three people, I'm here to tell you that every last drop was consumed. The credit for that goes to the fact that the chef's strawberry ice cream recipe came across a lot like my own very basic recipe: nothing but heavy cream, fresh strawberries, a little lemon juice and a pinch of salt.
As I learned long ago, it's hard to go wrong with a generous bowl of strawberries and cream. And don't get me started on my peaches and cream ice cream (at least until July).
After rolling out of Adarra, we headed south for a play espousing a philosophy of living single and drinking doubles. "Savannah Sipping Society" was written by the same trio who'd concocted "Dixie Swim Club" (which included Jamie Wooten, who'd written for "The Golden Girls"), so director Tom Width promised us a good time and plenty of familiar characters.
You know that feeling you get when you're all tingly and feeling just wonderful when you fall in love? That's common sense leaving your body.
The story followed four women, three of whom meet after escaping a hot yoga class, all of them going through changes. They begin gathering on one woman's veranda for deep discussions and alcohol of every kind. One's husband recently died, another's spouse had left her for a 23-year old chippie and the one with the veranda where all the drinking goes on has been fired from the architecture firm where she has worked for decades.
So none of them are in a great place. And that doesn't even include the Grandmother character, whose only scene requires her come onstage and die.
Enough butter and love can fix anything
The last of the group has aspirations of being a life coach, so she takes the reins to get the women out of their ruts and into the next stages of their lives. For fuel along the way, they drink Mojitos, bourbon, Madeira, hot chocolate with Kahlua, wine and probably more that I can't even remember.
Mostly, the women support each other as they move their midlife baggage from an unhappy place to a more satisfying place for their next chapter. I'm proof that it can happen.
It's not flirting. I call it chatting with intent.
And, of course, because they're women, they support each other in everything: salsa dancing, going out with a date for Valentine's Day, getting tattoos and role playing, to name a few. So they can't help but learn to love each other and rely on each other for advice, commiseration and laughs.
The play was fun, plain and simple, for many reason: relatable characters, quick dialog, physical humor and sheer familiarity. Southern accents came on strong and dropped off and it was sometimes hard to see the stage right monologues from our vantage point, but the four actresses' chemistry was so strong that you couldn't look away from their fast-moving conversations for fear of missing someone's pithy observation.
It's a concern I know well. When I'm with my five sisters, the cardinal rule is you don't exit the room unless you're willing to be talked about. I like to say I'm not escaping, I'm leaving with intent.
Fact is, you worry a lot less about that sort of thing once common sense leaves your body.
Which it did for one simple reason. Not gonna lie, I chatted with intent.
Before the evening is over, they will drink from the western Loire, consume an array of the sea's bounty (squid, softshell crab, skate and shrimp) and plant life (chilled almond soup, warm chicories, roasted artichoke hearts with anchovy aioli and heirloom white cucumber salad with Spanish ham, oh, my!) and see a play about mature southern women. In that order.
For what it's worth, all three of the women involved in our party had been born south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
Like every other time I'd eaten at Adarra, every dish was spot-on, dazzling us with nuance and flavor marriages made in heaven. The sherry vinegar-laced chilled almond soup was unlike anything I've ever had (rich, addicting and thickened with bread) and the artichoke hearts were simple perfection.
After hearing the dessert offerings, there was an order placed for three housemade strawberry ice creams and while it seemed like too much for three people, I'm here to tell you that every last drop was consumed. The credit for that goes to the fact that the chef's strawberry ice cream recipe came across a lot like my own very basic recipe: nothing but heavy cream, fresh strawberries, a little lemon juice and a pinch of salt.
As I learned long ago, it's hard to go wrong with a generous bowl of strawberries and cream. And don't get me started on my peaches and cream ice cream (at least until July).
After rolling out of Adarra, we headed south for a play espousing a philosophy of living single and drinking doubles. "Savannah Sipping Society" was written by the same trio who'd concocted "Dixie Swim Club" (which included Jamie Wooten, who'd written for "The Golden Girls"), so director Tom Width promised us a good time and plenty of familiar characters.
You know that feeling you get when you're all tingly and feeling just wonderful when you fall in love? That's common sense leaving your body.
The story followed four women, three of whom meet after escaping a hot yoga class, all of them going through changes. They begin gathering on one woman's veranda for deep discussions and alcohol of every kind. One's husband recently died, another's spouse had left her for a 23-year old chippie and the one with the veranda where all the drinking goes on has been fired from the architecture firm where she has worked for decades.
So none of them are in a great place. And that doesn't even include the Grandmother character, whose only scene requires her come onstage and die.
Enough butter and love can fix anything
The last of the group has aspirations of being a life coach, so she takes the reins to get the women out of their ruts and into the next stages of their lives. For fuel along the way, they drink Mojitos, bourbon, Madeira, hot chocolate with Kahlua, wine and probably more that I can't even remember.
Mostly, the women support each other as they move their midlife baggage from an unhappy place to a more satisfying place for their next chapter. I'm proof that it can happen.
It's not flirting. I call it chatting with intent.
And, of course, because they're women, they support each other in everything: salsa dancing, going out with a date for Valentine's Day, getting tattoos and role playing, to name a few. So they can't help but learn to love each other and rely on each other for advice, commiseration and laughs.
The play was fun, plain and simple, for many reason: relatable characters, quick dialog, physical humor and sheer familiarity. Southern accents came on strong and dropped off and it was sometimes hard to see the stage right monologues from our vantage point, but the four actresses' chemistry was so strong that you couldn't look away from their fast-moving conversations for fear of missing someone's pithy observation.
It's a concern I know well. When I'm with my five sisters, the cardinal rule is you don't exit the room unless you're willing to be talked about. I like to say I'm not escaping, I'm leaving with intent.
Fact is, you worry a lot less about that sort of thing once common sense leaves your body.
Which it did for one simple reason. Not gonna lie, I chatted with intent.
Saturday, June 8, 2019
Double Lives
How many words are too many words? Turns out that depends on the ears hearing them.
When Pru and I set out to have a mini-French Film Festival, it was purely for the sake of two things, namely popcorn for lunch and the usual French movie tropes: attractive people talking about intellectual things while smoking, drinking wine and bedding lovers. The only thing missing in this one was a woman in a dress on a bicycle, so we had to make do with a couple on a Vespa headed to the beach.
Good enough.
The problem was we'd chosen the first screening of the day and the woman running things at Criterion Cinemas wasn't quite ready to be open for business. Oh, she took our money for tickets and popcorn with no problem, but was the butter machine turned on? To my dismay, it was not. And to Pru's horror, she hadn't even set out the shakers of popcorn salt, so she had to go digging for those.
When it's your lunch, you want it just the way you like it.
Hardly surprisingly for a subtitled movie on a weekday at noon, we turned out to be the sole occupants of the theater. Our only complaint was that while generally the previews are geared to the type of film the audience has come to see, instead we suffered through previews for action-packed shoot-em-ups like "Dark Phoenix" and blockbusters like the upcoming "Star Wars" flick, neither of which held the least bit of interest for me.
Beau will undoubtedly drag Pru to the latter, but that's her problem. Tant pis, babe.
After all, we were there to see "Non-Fiction," a French serio-comic look at the state of the publishing industry, a subject near and dear to my heart. It didn't hurt that the film starred Juliette Bincohe because Pru and I are both big fans. The eye candy of Guillaume Canet - whether getting into his boxer briefs after a tryst or wearing a scarf with just the right touch of je ne sais quois - didn't hurt, either.
The film's French title was "Double Lives," which turned out to be a far better descriptor than the dumbed-down American title. Because, of course, these being Parisians, everyone had a lover on the side. When the couples weren't trysting, they were having dinner at each other's houses and discussing the state of the digital versus print worlds while sipping wine and eating pastries from the local patisserie.
Honestly, it doesn't sound like such a bad life.
But we were about halfway through the film when Pru observed in a loud voice (not a big deal since no one else was present), "Is it just me or are these people boring the shit out of you?" Honestly, they weren't, but obviously I also have a bit more of a stake in the discussion than she does, given what I do for a living.
Affairs aside, the movie was a pretty relentless critique of how technology is changing everything from literature to art and human interaction to the political scene and of course I'm going to eat that up in a way that most (cell phone-using, tablet-carrying) people wouldn't.
Let's put it this way, when a character refers to Twitter as the "new form of haiku," I'm the one who cringed. And frankly, a world without libraries isn't one I want to inhabit, despite a Millennial character assuring the Boomers that every book would be online. No, thanks.
Fortunately, not long after her comment, things got juicy when people began ditching their lovers toute suite. One got a necklace as a farewell gift, while another asked for the promise that their affair wouldn't become fodder for his next book (as he was known to do). Seems that the French liked to end their affairs in a tidy manner.
The last scene took place at a beautiful seaside house with waves crashing on the shore, whole grilled fishes for lunch and Canet's publishing house not being sold to a digital conglomerate after all (whew!), satisfying our desire for one final scenic French locale and a reassurance that all is not lost yet in the battle against technological domination. A laugh out loud-worthy inside joke about Juliette Binoche only made it better.
"We must choose the change, not suffer it," one character says of the techno revolution affecting modern life, becoming my hero.
Safe to say that Pru and I prefer a French take on the state of contemporary life to an American one, especially when it comes from attractive and articulate people.
As for me, I'm continuing to choose the Luddite life. It saves me the suffering of Twitter as haiku.
When Pru and I set out to have a mini-French Film Festival, it was purely for the sake of two things, namely popcorn for lunch and the usual French movie tropes: attractive people talking about intellectual things while smoking, drinking wine and bedding lovers. The only thing missing in this one was a woman in a dress on a bicycle, so we had to make do with a couple on a Vespa headed to the beach.
Good enough.
The problem was we'd chosen the first screening of the day and the woman running things at Criterion Cinemas wasn't quite ready to be open for business. Oh, she took our money for tickets and popcorn with no problem, but was the butter machine turned on? To my dismay, it was not. And to Pru's horror, she hadn't even set out the shakers of popcorn salt, so she had to go digging for those.
When it's your lunch, you want it just the way you like it.
Hardly surprisingly for a subtitled movie on a weekday at noon, we turned out to be the sole occupants of the theater. Our only complaint was that while generally the previews are geared to the type of film the audience has come to see, instead we suffered through previews for action-packed shoot-em-ups like "Dark Phoenix" and blockbusters like the upcoming "Star Wars" flick, neither of which held the least bit of interest for me.
Beau will undoubtedly drag Pru to the latter, but that's her problem. Tant pis, babe.
After all, we were there to see "Non-Fiction," a French serio-comic look at the state of the publishing industry, a subject near and dear to my heart. It didn't hurt that the film starred Juliette Bincohe because Pru and I are both big fans. The eye candy of Guillaume Canet - whether getting into his boxer briefs after a tryst or wearing a scarf with just the right touch of je ne sais quois - didn't hurt, either.
The film's French title was "Double Lives," which turned out to be a far better descriptor than the dumbed-down American title. Because, of course, these being Parisians, everyone had a lover on the side. When the couples weren't trysting, they were having dinner at each other's houses and discussing the state of the digital versus print worlds while sipping wine and eating pastries from the local patisserie.
Honestly, it doesn't sound like such a bad life.
But we were about halfway through the film when Pru observed in a loud voice (not a big deal since no one else was present), "Is it just me or are these people boring the shit out of you?" Honestly, they weren't, but obviously I also have a bit more of a stake in the discussion than she does, given what I do for a living.
Affairs aside, the movie was a pretty relentless critique of how technology is changing everything from literature to art and human interaction to the political scene and of course I'm going to eat that up in a way that most (cell phone-using, tablet-carrying) people wouldn't.
Let's put it this way, when a character refers to Twitter as the "new form of haiku," I'm the one who cringed. And frankly, a world without libraries isn't one I want to inhabit, despite a Millennial character assuring the Boomers that every book would be online. No, thanks.
Fortunately, not long after her comment, things got juicy when people began ditching their lovers toute suite. One got a necklace as a farewell gift, while another asked for the promise that their affair wouldn't become fodder for his next book (as he was known to do). Seems that the French liked to end their affairs in a tidy manner.
The last scene took place at a beautiful seaside house with waves crashing on the shore, whole grilled fishes for lunch and Canet's publishing house not being sold to a digital conglomerate after all (whew!), satisfying our desire for one final scenic French locale and a reassurance that all is not lost yet in the battle against technological domination. A laugh out loud-worthy inside joke about Juliette Binoche only made it better.
"We must choose the change, not suffer it," one character says of the techno revolution affecting modern life, becoming my hero.
Safe to say that Pru and I prefer a French take on the state of contemporary life to an American one, especially when it comes from attractive and articulate people.
As for me, I'm continuing to choose the Luddite life. It saves me the suffering of Twitter as haiku.
Friday, June 7, 2019
I Got the Night on My Side
Just call me a curiosity. Strangers do.
With every day that passes, I become more of a person of interest when I let slide that I don't have a cell phone. Scoring a single chair between two tables under the big canopy at the Valentine to await the start of Music in the Garden, a woman nearby says to no one in particular, "Oh! We all need to turn off our cell phones before the music starts."
Well, unless you don't have a cell phone, I say. When she immediately assumes I left mine in the car, I regret to inform her I simply don't have one. Never had one. She is dumbstruck. "But how do you live?" she wonders.
So it's going to be one of those conversations.
To her, it's inconceivable that I am not able to immediately Google anything that piques my interest. "How do you get directions?" she asks, incredulous that I have enough foresight to get them before leaving home. "But what if you see something interesting and want to look it up?" she wonders. Um, I delay gratification and remember to look it up later?
For the rest of the evening, she would periodically look over at me and shake her head, like she was viewing a two-headed giraffe at the zoo or something. It helped when an older couple asked if they could join her table, providing a distraction from my weirdness.
Bill Martin, the Valentine's director, came out to start the show, pointing out that there are so few opportunities to hear free music anymore, making this series all the more unique. I know I appreciate it for that reason.
Then he introduced Deau Eyes, aka Ali Thibodeau, mentioning that tomorrow is her birthday.
Wearing a short red skirt and cowboy boots, you know, like an indie singer songwriter does for a June garden show, Ali slung her guitar strap over her shoulder and got down to business singing "Some Do." Then she called up Justin Golden, the evening's second act, to sing harmony with her on the next song before launching into the very appropriate-for-a-summer-evening "Lightening Bugs."
It was still a tad early for them, but another couple hours and they'd be putting on their mating show.
I've been to Music in the Garden events where the heat and humidity settled over the garden unpleasantly, but tonight's weather was fine. A light breeze wafted down the scent of the magnolia blossoms in the old garden and the large cast iron fountain in the center of the tent provided a lovely burbling accompaniment to the music.
Next came a story about going to Barnes & Noble with her niece, who proceeded to begin directing a play, telling people where to stand and what to do, even that no photographs were allowed. When someone tried to taker her picture, she admonished them that she wasn't being cute and she was serious about what she was doing. "That feeling resonated with me," Ali explained. "So I wrote this song, 'Paper Stickers.'"
For one song, Ali entreated the crowd to do a singalong, which was as simple as saying "Shhh!" at the end of certain lines in the chorus. Even we non-singing types could manage that.
I got a dose of my youth when she decided to do a cover, which she introduced by saying, "I recently went roller skating and it's the most under-rate adult activity. It's great! You get a workout and no one's up in your business." I couldn't have been more surprised when she launched into Melanie's 1971 hit, "Brand New Key" about getting a new pair of roller skates (back when they had keys, for that matter).
After taking a long pull on her water bottle and reminding everyone to hydrate, she closed with "Autonomy," noting that all of us are trying to make it on our own. Truth.
During the break, I chatted with the older gentleman at the next table who was on date, asking why he'd come. Turns out he's as music-obsessed as I am and a regular at Music at Maymont and the concerts at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. He humble-bragged that he'd seen the Punch Brothers twice in the past year. My kind of guy.
You just can't tell by someone's age who's willing to make the effort to see live music. I probably don't look like the type, either.
After asking a woman to save my seat, I went into the Valentine to see "Developing Richmond: Photographs from the Cook Studio," a look back at post-Civil War Richmond. Granted, I'm a photography geek, but what a fabulous exhibit it was.
From 1912, there were construction workers sitting stop the uppermost girders of the First National Bank building at 8th and Main, high up in the sky. A shot of flower vendors at the Sixth Street Market - a place I walk by regularly on Marshall Street - was taken in the early 20th century and showed how vibrant the market had been.
One of the Richmond Dairy from 1914 didn't look all that different than the building looks today and I should know since it's three blocks from my apartment (not to mention where my grandfather worked his entire career).
Probably my favorite was the photograph of the Hotel Richmond Rooftop Restaurant from 1904, partly because my walk to the river takes me past that building (which is now state offices) daily, but also because I hadn't known that Richmond had a rooftop restaurant before the current crop of rooftop bars. It looked wonderfully sophisticated, especially for the turn of the century.
The most startling image in terms of change had to be the photo of the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart seen from Monroe Park which was obliterated completely by trees. Not so much as a bench or path visible. Another of the Executive Mansion was notable for the men on tall bikes tooling around in front of the governor's digs.
Eventually I made it back outside to reclaim my seat to hear Justin Golden's easy listening neo-blues (he credits the Black Keys and John Mayer as influences) and guitar playing, a nice way to close out the evening. I was amazed to see that the woman who'd been reading a book when I'd first arrived was still reading her book, as if live music wasn't happening a few feet from her table.
And people think I'm strange? Why would you not watch two singers give it their all since you're there anyway?
Before the night was over, I ran into a favorite couple who were arriving late. She wanted to know if the fried chicken at Maple Bourbon was truly as life-changing as I'd said it was in my review, here, and I assured her it was. I like to think I know a little about fried chicken. I barely got two steps before running into the former dean and his wife, who scored major points by telling me they read everything I write and sharing their favorite places in Spain.
Truth be told, I didn't bother saying goodbye to the woman who'd been gobsmacked by my lack of technology, figuring it would only get her agitated again.
I thought it wise not to mention my lack of TV, much less my choice not to use air-conditioning. Two heads seemed to be about all she could handle.
With every day that passes, I become more of a person of interest when I let slide that I don't have a cell phone. Scoring a single chair between two tables under the big canopy at the Valentine to await the start of Music in the Garden, a woman nearby says to no one in particular, "Oh! We all need to turn off our cell phones before the music starts."
Well, unless you don't have a cell phone, I say. When she immediately assumes I left mine in the car, I regret to inform her I simply don't have one. Never had one. She is dumbstruck. "But how do you live?" she wonders.
So it's going to be one of those conversations.
To her, it's inconceivable that I am not able to immediately Google anything that piques my interest. "How do you get directions?" she asks, incredulous that I have enough foresight to get them before leaving home. "But what if you see something interesting and want to look it up?" she wonders. Um, I delay gratification and remember to look it up later?
For the rest of the evening, she would periodically look over at me and shake her head, like she was viewing a two-headed giraffe at the zoo or something. It helped when an older couple asked if they could join her table, providing a distraction from my weirdness.
Bill Martin, the Valentine's director, came out to start the show, pointing out that there are so few opportunities to hear free music anymore, making this series all the more unique. I know I appreciate it for that reason.
Then he introduced Deau Eyes, aka Ali Thibodeau, mentioning that tomorrow is her birthday.
Wearing a short red skirt and cowboy boots, you know, like an indie singer songwriter does for a June garden show, Ali slung her guitar strap over her shoulder and got down to business singing "Some Do." Then she called up Justin Golden, the evening's second act, to sing harmony with her on the next song before launching into the very appropriate-for-a-summer-evening "Lightening Bugs."
It was still a tad early for them, but another couple hours and they'd be putting on their mating show.
I've been to Music in the Garden events where the heat and humidity settled over the garden unpleasantly, but tonight's weather was fine. A light breeze wafted down the scent of the magnolia blossoms in the old garden and the large cast iron fountain in the center of the tent provided a lovely burbling accompaniment to the music.
Next came a story about going to Barnes & Noble with her niece, who proceeded to begin directing a play, telling people where to stand and what to do, even that no photographs were allowed. When someone tried to taker her picture, she admonished them that she wasn't being cute and she was serious about what she was doing. "That feeling resonated with me," Ali explained. "So I wrote this song, 'Paper Stickers.'"
For one song, Ali entreated the crowd to do a singalong, which was as simple as saying "Shhh!" at the end of certain lines in the chorus. Even we non-singing types could manage that.
I got a dose of my youth when she decided to do a cover, which she introduced by saying, "I recently went roller skating and it's the most under-rate adult activity. It's great! You get a workout and no one's up in your business." I couldn't have been more surprised when she launched into Melanie's 1971 hit, "Brand New Key" about getting a new pair of roller skates (back when they had keys, for that matter).
After taking a long pull on her water bottle and reminding everyone to hydrate, she closed with "Autonomy," noting that all of us are trying to make it on our own. Truth.
During the break, I chatted with the older gentleman at the next table who was on date, asking why he'd come. Turns out he's as music-obsessed as I am and a regular at Music at Maymont and the concerts at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. He humble-bragged that he'd seen the Punch Brothers twice in the past year. My kind of guy.
You just can't tell by someone's age who's willing to make the effort to see live music. I probably don't look like the type, either.
After asking a woman to save my seat, I went into the Valentine to see "Developing Richmond: Photographs from the Cook Studio," a look back at post-Civil War Richmond. Granted, I'm a photography geek, but what a fabulous exhibit it was.
From 1912, there were construction workers sitting stop the uppermost girders of the First National Bank building at 8th and Main, high up in the sky. A shot of flower vendors at the Sixth Street Market - a place I walk by regularly on Marshall Street - was taken in the early 20th century and showed how vibrant the market had been.
One of the Richmond Dairy from 1914 didn't look all that different than the building looks today and I should know since it's three blocks from my apartment (not to mention where my grandfather worked his entire career).
Probably my favorite was the photograph of the Hotel Richmond Rooftop Restaurant from 1904, partly because my walk to the river takes me past that building (which is now state offices) daily, but also because I hadn't known that Richmond had a rooftop restaurant before the current crop of rooftop bars. It looked wonderfully sophisticated, especially for the turn of the century.
The most startling image in terms of change had to be the photo of the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart seen from Monroe Park which was obliterated completely by trees. Not so much as a bench or path visible. Another of the Executive Mansion was notable for the men on tall bikes tooling around in front of the governor's digs.
Eventually I made it back outside to reclaim my seat to hear Justin Golden's easy listening neo-blues (he credits the Black Keys and John Mayer as influences) and guitar playing, a nice way to close out the evening. I was amazed to see that the woman who'd been reading a book when I'd first arrived was still reading her book, as if live music wasn't happening a few feet from her table.
And people think I'm strange? Why would you not watch two singers give it their all since you're there anyway?
Before the night was over, I ran into a favorite couple who were arriving late. She wanted to know if the fried chicken at Maple Bourbon was truly as life-changing as I'd said it was in my review, here, and I assured her it was. I like to think I know a little about fried chicken. I barely got two steps before running into the former dean and his wife, who scored major points by telling me they read everything I write and sharing their favorite places in Spain.
Truth be told, I didn't bother saying goodbye to the woman who'd been gobsmacked by my lack of technology, figuring it would only get her agitated again.
I thought it wise not to mention my lack of TV, much less my choice not to use air-conditioning. Two heads seemed to be about all she could handle.
Thursday, June 6, 2019
The Good Life
It pays to fall for a soul man early in his career.
From the very first time I'd heard Devon Gilfillian, I was in love with this voice and musicianship. The song "High" was as close to 21st century R&B perfection as I've yet to hear and, believe me, that's a sound I go looking for. But too often, I'm disappointed by overly graphic lyrics that spell out what I'd prefer to hear suggested subtly.
I'm looking at you, Miguel. Love your songs, but not the trashy lyrics.
Then I heard Devon's second single, "Get Out and Get It" and it was full of '70s musical references, showing that young Devon had been well-schooled in the music of my youth. Turns out his Dad is a musician who'd made sure his son listened to lots of Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind and Fire and, perhaps most interestingly, Jimi Hendrix.
So when I saw that Devon was playing the Southern in Charlottesville, I bought tickets without even caring if I had plans that night. Nothing could top hearing that man live in that tiny room. Mac didn't hesitate to jump on board, and a plan was hatched.
After the massive thunderstorm that blew threw today, darkening the sky so that I had to turn on lights to work at 3:00 in the afternoon, the drive to the show was dry and uneventful (if you don't count Mac's penchant for speeding). After she grabbed a slice at Christian's Pizza, we made it to the Southern minutes before opener Carl Anderson took the stage, his leather guitar strap embossed with his name: CARL.
I'd seen Carl before when he opened for Sons of Bill at Capital Alehouse and like that time, his low-key sad songs reminded me of Richmond's own Jonathan Vassar, the Americana master of morose melodies and haunting songwriting. After Carl sang his first song, he took off his glasses, flung them to the stage's carpeted floor and asked of the crowd, "How the hell are you?"
For a Wednesday night crowd - most of which was wearing flip-flops and definitely not a Richmond-looking crowd - which spanned all ages and genders, we were loud and excited to be there listening to his heartfelt Americana, accompanied only by acoustic guitar.
Don't come 'round with the devil on your breath.
He talked abut how happy he was to be playing some dates with Devon since his last tour had been, "just me in the Corolla, getting a little stoned and spending too much time in my head." Heads nodded in understanding.
"I don't know why I took my glasses off," Carl later lamented. "I can't see my set list now. I'm always making things hard on myself." Between his self-deprecation, humor ("I'm going to slow things down here, but looking at my set list, it's amazing I'm still alive. I gotta write some happy songs") and singing songs in character, he was the epitome of a Nashville troubadour.
His song "Pills," sung with a sickeningly sweet fake smile, was not, however, a happy song. And no surprise, he closed with a sad song, but we would have expected nothing less.
You could feel the excitement building during the break.
The stage was already set for Devon's band, three extremely talented (white) Nashville musicians with seriously long hair, jaw-droppingly good back-up singer voices (their harmonies with Devon were nothing short of swoon-worthy) and lots of energy, the better to support Devon's soulful voice, on display from the very first notes.
From the slow jam sound accompanied by Hendrix-like guitar parts (he switched between three different guitars) of "Full Disclosure" to the booty-shaking sound of "Dangerous," Devon had the crowd in the palm of his handsome hand from start to finish. For a musician who's only put out an EP (his full-length album is due to drop soonish), the man oozed confidence.
At one point, Mac and I looked at each other amazed that we were lucky enough to be seeing him in this tiny venue before he blows up, which he inevitably will (Capitol Records wouldn't have signed him so blindingly fast otherwise).
Things got serious when he shared a story of he and his band driving somewhere when a car hit them head-on. The experience had understandably affected him greatly and, like any good songwriter, it had shifted his attitude about life ("You gotta think about what's important in life") and he'd written a song about it called "Stranger."
"Whether someone drives into you at 80 mph or you meet someone and fall in love with them, I'm telling you that one person can completely change your life." Don't I know it. The haunting song was accompanied only by the keys.
Besides the immense talent we were witnessing, it was his (and his bandmates') genuine pleasure in performing that truly made the show. They were clearly having as much fun as we were, except they also got to show off their talent.
That's what's known as a win/win.
Telling the crowd that the band had just completed their first full-length record, Devon asked to play some of the new songs for us before he introduced "The Good Life," as a song about embracing diversity of all kinds.
I just want everyone to love one another
Do you hear what I'm sayin', sisters and brothers?
Yet another great thing about the music was that it encompassed not only plenty of slow jams but just as much hard rockin' thank to Devon's years studying Hendrix (and maybe Buddy Guy?) to shape his guitar stylings. It was never more apparent than during "Troublemaker" when he and the bass player leaned back to back to execute screaming solos together.
Everyone went crazy for his new single, "Get Out and Get It" with its Afro-beat influences. Seems he toured South Africa last year and fell hard for the Afro-beat sound.
Stop asking who's gonna light the fire
Stop asking who's gonna take you higher
I swear, between the socially conscious message and solid funk groove, it could have been the '70s all over again. Mac and I just kept grinning at each other, thrilled to witness it all. At one point, she noted, "He reminds me of Sam Cooke," referring to his heart-melting voice. Uh huh.
After introducing his bandmates, complete with mini bios and effusive compliments, the band went back to playing and Devon took his guitar-playing into the crowd, crouching low as he moved, until he was three feet in front of us. To top that, he then laid down on his back while continuing to play, smiling all the while like he was having the time of his life.
I know we were.
As if we couldn't be any more enamored of this man, when he mentioned that he'd be at the merch table after the show, he promised that he had t-shirts with his cat's picture on them. I'm not even a cat person and I found that charming.
After an hour and a half whipping the crowd into a frenzy, Devon said goodnight before returning, grinning with happiness, for the encore we demanded loudly. More, we wanted so much more.
"Think of the slow dancing days back in the '90s," he instructed. "Then find someone you want to squeeze and let's take it back!" He called his band back onstage to harmonize with him and using only a keyboard accompaniment, began something very '90s sounding that got plenty of people in the room singing along.
All my life, I prayed for someone like you
And I hope that you do love me, too
And I hope you feel the same way, too
Mac's guesses were Boyz 2 Men or New Kids on the Block and I admit I hadn't a clue. Actually, I couldn't have cared less, since anytime this man was singing, I was all ears, whether I recognized it or not. My only (teeny, tiny) regret was that he didn't sing "High," the song that introduced me to him.
Driving home through patches of light fog, I had en epiphany. The good news was we'd just seen a rising star in a room the size of my apartment. The bad news is we know with absolute certainty we'll never get to see him in such a small venue again. And you know what they say: you gotta take the good with the bad.
Do you hear what I'm sayin', sisters and brothers?
From the very first time I'd heard Devon Gilfillian, I was in love with this voice and musicianship. The song "High" was as close to 21st century R&B perfection as I've yet to hear and, believe me, that's a sound I go looking for. But too often, I'm disappointed by overly graphic lyrics that spell out what I'd prefer to hear suggested subtly.
I'm looking at you, Miguel. Love your songs, but not the trashy lyrics.
Then I heard Devon's second single, "Get Out and Get It" and it was full of '70s musical references, showing that young Devon had been well-schooled in the music of my youth. Turns out his Dad is a musician who'd made sure his son listened to lots of Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind and Fire and, perhaps most interestingly, Jimi Hendrix.
So when I saw that Devon was playing the Southern in Charlottesville, I bought tickets without even caring if I had plans that night. Nothing could top hearing that man live in that tiny room. Mac didn't hesitate to jump on board, and a plan was hatched.
After the massive thunderstorm that blew threw today, darkening the sky so that I had to turn on lights to work at 3:00 in the afternoon, the drive to the show was dry and uneventful (if you don't count Mac's penchant for speeding). After she grabbed a slice at Christian's Pizza, we made it to the Southern minutes before opener Carl Anderson took the stage, his leather guitar strap embossed with his name: CARL.
I'd seen Carl before when he opened for Sons of Bill at Capital Alehouse and like that time, his low-key sad songs reminded me of Richmond's own Jonathan Vassar, the Americana master of morose melodies and haunting songwriting. After Carl sang his first song, he took off his glasses, flung them to the stage's carpeted floor and asked of the crowd, "How the hell are you?"
For a Wednesday night crowd - most of which was wearing flip-flops and definitely not a Richmond-looking crowd - which spanned all ages and genders, we were loud and excited to be there listening to his heartfelt Americana, accompanied only by acoustic guitar.
Don't come 'round with the devil on your breath.
He talked abut how happy he was to be playing some dates with Devon since his last tour had been, "just me in the Corolla, getting a little stoned and spending too much time in my head." Heads nodded in understanding.
"I don't know why I took my glasses off," Carl later lamented. "I can't see my set list now. I'm always making things hard on myself." Between his self-deprecation, humor ("I'm going to slow things down here, but looking at my set list, it's amazing I'm still alive. I gotta write some happy songs") and singing songs in character, he was the epitome of a Nashville troubadour.
His song "Pills," sung with a sickeningly sweet fake smile, was not, however, a happy song. And no surprise, he closed with a sad song, but we would have expected nothing less.
You could feel the excitement building during the break.
The stage was already set for Devon's band, three extremely talented (white) Nashville musicians with seriously long hair, jaw-droppingly good back-up singer voices (their harmonies with Devon were nothing short of swoon-worthy) and lots of energy, the better to support Devon's soulful voice, on display from the very first notes.
From the slow jam sound accompanied by Hendrix-like guitar parts (he switched between three different guitars) of "Full Disclosure" to the booty-shaking sound of "Dangerous," Devon had the crowd in the palm of his handsome hand from start to finish. For a musician who's only put out an EP (his full-length album is due to drop soonish), the man oozed confidence.
At one point, Mac and I looked at each other amazed that we were lucky enough to be seeing him in this tiny venue before he blows up, which he inevitably will (Capitol Records wouldn't have signed him so blindingly fast otherwise).
Things got serious when he shared a story of he and his band driving somewhere when a car hit them head-on. The experience had understandably affected him greatly and, like any good songwriter, it had shifted his attitude about life ("You gotta think about what's important in life") and he'd written a song about it called "Stranger."
"Whether someone drives into you at 80 mph or you meet someone and fall in love with them, I'm telling you that one person can completely change your life." Don't I know it. The haunting song was accompanied only by the keys.
Besides the immense talent we were witnessing, it was his (and his bandmates') genuine pleasure in performing that truly made the show. They were clearly having as much fun as we were, except they also got to show off their talent.
That's what's known as a win/win.
Telling the crowd that the band had just completed their first full-length record, Devon asked to play some of the new songs for us before he introduced "The Good Life," as a song about embracing diversity of all kinds.
I just want everyone to love one another
Do you hear what I'm sayin', sisters and brothers?
Yet another great thing about the music was that it encompassed not only plenty of slow jams but just as much hard rockin' thank to Devon's years studying Hendrix (and maybe Buddy Guy?) to shape his guitar stylings. It was never more apparent than during "Troublemaker" when he and the bass player leaned back to back to execute screaming solos together.
Everyone went crazy for his new single, "Get Out and Get It" with its Afro-beat influences. Seems he toured South Africa last year and fell hard for the Afro-beat sound.
Stop asking who's gonna light the fire
Stop asking who's gonna take you higher
I swear, between the socially conscious message and solid funk groove, it could have been the '70s all over again. Mac and I just kept grinning at each other, thrilled to witness it all. At one point, she noted, "He reminds me of Sam Cooke," referring to his heart-melting voice. Uh huh.
After introducing his bandmates, complete with mini bios and effusive compliments, the band went back to playing and Devon took his guitar-playing into the crowd, crouching low as he moved, until he was three feet in front of us. To top that, he then laid down on his back while continuing to play, smiling all the while like he was having the time of his life.
I know we were.
As if we couldn't be any more enamored of this man, when he mentioned that he'd be at the merch table after the show, he promised that he had t-shirts with his cat's picture on them. I'm not even a cat person and I found that charming.
After an hour and a half whipping the crowd into a frenzy, Devon said goodnight before returning, grinning with happiness, for the encore we demanded loudly. More, we wanted so much more.
"Think of the slow dancing days back in the '90s," he instructed. "Then find someone you want to squeeze and let's take it back!" He called his band back onstage to harmonize with him and using only a keyboard accompaniment, began something very '90s sounding that got plenty of people in the room singing along.
All my life, I prayed for someone like you
And I hope that you do love me, too
And I hope you feel the same way, too
Mac's guesses were Boyz 2 Men or New Kids on the Block and I admit I hadn't a clue. Actually, I couldn't have cared less, since anytime this man was singing, I was all ears, whether I recognized it or not. My only (teeny, tiny) regret was that he didn't sing "High," the song that introduced me to him.
Driving home through patches of light fog, I had en epiphany. The good news was we'd just seen a rising star in a room the size of my apartment. The bad news is we know with absolute certainty we'll never get to see him in such a small venue again. And you know what they say: you gotta take the good with the bad.
Do you hear what I'm sayin', sisters and brothers?
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
Clipped Corners and Green Tambourines
Funny how life teases you.
Stopping at the light at Williamsburg Road and Main Street while coming back from the East End this morning, I spotted two middle-aged women at the base of the steps to Taylors Hill Park, aka Taylors Hell.
Not surprisingly, they were looking up at all those steep steps with trepidation, like they were willing their feet to start the ascent. Good luck, ladies.
Meanwhile, I get home to a message from Mac suggesting we begin our walk in Church Hill today for a change. So we take the 26th Street steps down and get on the Capital Trail, taking it along the Low Line, past Great Shiplock Park and over to the recently refurbished Sugar Pad. It's there that Mac asks if I want to turn around soon because her plan is to return via Taylors Hell, I mean Hill, and those bloody steps.
Which, incidentally, in 33 years of living in Richmond, I have never climbed. But it's the unlikelihood of having looked at those women contemplating the steps just an hour earlier that makes me realize that nothing's ever truly random.
Mac warns me that once she starts up the steps, she doesn't stop because of how difficult it is to convince her legs to start up again. I don't doubt it. Even the people coming down the steps look pained, although it may be that they climbed up them first.
Fortunately, we're only going in one direction. Although I won't deny that it's a steep climb, midway up it occurred to me that it felt a lot like climbing a lighthouse - which I love for the views - minus the curved route. Just when your legs are saying they'd prefer not to go any higher, you reach another landing and another set of steps.
And it's not like we don't do hill work every time we walk the pipeline walkway, because being at river level means climbing 3/4 of a mile straight uphill - only having to deal with a short set of steps on Capital Hill - in order to return to Broad Street and head west. But inclines are one thing and steps quite another.
And for the record, we didn't so much as pause.
Once we'd conquered the hill, we walked back through Chimborazo Park, alongside Tricycle Gardens to admire the bounty of the produce and past a 19th century drug store built with a "clipped corner," a phrase we learned only because of the historical sign.
Mere diversions to distract us from our complaining leg muscles.
All I can say is, I'm pretty sure we didn't look anywhere near as worried as those two women I'd seen earlier. But then, Mac and I are walkingfools pros.
The universe was still playing with me when I showed up at Holmes' digs before going to dinner at Acacia. I knocked, no answer. A neighbor sitting on her porch a few doors down told me they'd just gone out and maybe I should text them. Explaining that I have no cell phone, she offered to call Holmes for me and leave a message.
Fifteen minutes later, still no word, so she insisted on calling him again. Turns out they'd been worried about Crabcake Week crowds at Acacia, so they'd headed over to snag a table. I dutifully got in my car and drove to meet them before they downed the first bottle of Langlois Cremant de Loire Brut Rose.
I barely made it and when I did, the bartender immediately asked if he should ice down a second bottle. With these two? Good idea.
Again eating for the cause - the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay - tonight's crabcake was a sandwich, notable for the sliced housemade bread and butter pickles that gave the jumbo lump crabcake a sweet crunch that I loved. Given that it came after fried deviled eggs with pimento cheese and a stellar salad loaded with slices of Edwards country ham over Romaine, shaved Parmesan and herbed croutons with a Parmesan peppercorn dressing, it was a miracle I could enjoy it as much as I did.
The inevitable listening party followed at Holmes' man cave, tonight with a focus on 45s dredged up from some deep basement shelf Beloved and I had never been privy to before. What amazed me was what pristine condition they were all in, as if they'd been in a vault since the MTV days.
When Beloved came across the Lemonpipers' bubblegum-sounding "Green Tambourine," a debate about the one hit wonder ensued. I stayed out because frankly, I was a kid in 1967 and knew nothing about the song. But upon hearing it, I felt sure it had to have been a really early use of reverb.
Play [play, play, play, play]...my green tambourine.
Other 45 gems included Todd Rundgren's "Hello, It's Me," Neil Diamond's "Solitary Man" and the Jagger/Bowie collaboration "Dancing in the Streets,"which Beloved swore she'd never heard before. She got most excited when she came across Dan Hartman's "I Can Dream About You," which came from the "Streets of Fire" movie, which I never saw but sure got a lot of airplay.
To Holmes, it resembled nothing so much as a Paul Carrick song, but then he's a big Paul Carrick fan. To me, it just sounded like pure '80s: big hair, shoulder pads and dancing in clubs every weekend.
Given that so much of what we were listening to was straight out of the Carter and Reagan years and Beloved and I always want to know what year each single or album was from, Holmes came up with a dating system on the spot. When I inquired about a 45 of REM's "Fall On Me," he answered with, "Orwell plus two," a system that only works for the book-literate and math-capable.
Which we mostly were at that point. "Why can't it be Friday night?" Beloved wailed at one point as we agonized over how many more records we could play before they ought to go to bed.
Hello, it's me on a Tuesday night. Maybe not a night for dancing in the streets, but not a night to be a solitary man (or woman), either.
I say when a girl climbs Taylors Hell for the first time, she's entitled to stay up as late as she wants. Sore legs be damned.
Stopping at the light at Williamsburg Road and Main Street while coming back from the East End this morning, I spotted two middle-aged women at the base of the steps to Taylors Hill Park, aka Taylors Hell.
Not surprisingly, they were looking up at all those steep steps with trepidation, like they were willing their feet to start the ascent. Good luck, ladies.
Meanwhile, I get home to a message from Mac suggesting we begin our walk in Church Hill today for a change. So we take the 26th Street steps down and get on the Capital Trail, taking it along the Low Line, past Great Shiplock Park and over to the recently refurbished Sugar Pad. It's there that Mac asks if I want to turn around soon because her plan is to return via Taylors Hell, I mean Hill, and those bloody steps.
Which, incidentally, in 33 years of living in Richmond, I have never climbed. But it's the unlikelihood of having looked at those women contemplating the steps just an hour earlier that makes me realize that nothing's ever truly random.
Mac warns me that once she starts up the steps, she doesn't stop because of how difficult it is to convince her legs to start up again. I don't doubt it. Even the people coming down the steps look pained, although it may be that they climbed up them first.
Fortunately, we're only going in one direction. Although I won't deny that it's a steep climb, midway up it occurred to me that it felt a lot like climbing a lighthouse - which I love for the views - minus the curved route. Just when your legs are saying they'd prefer not to go any higher, you reach another landing and another set of steps.
And it's not like we don't do hill work every time we walk the pipeline walkway, because being at river level means climbing 3/4 of a mile straight uphill - only having to deal with a short set of steps on Capital Hill - in order to return to Broad Street and head west. But inclines are one thing and steps quite another.
And for the record, we didn't so much as pause.
Once we'd conquered the hill, we walked back through Chimborazo Park, alongside Tricycle Gardens to admire the bounty of the produce and past a 19th century drug store built with a "clipped corner," a phrase we learned only because of the historical sign.
Mere diversions to distract us from our complaining leg muscles.
All I can say is, I'm pretty sure we didn't look anywhere near as worried as those two women I'd seen earlier. But then, Mac and I are walking
The universe was still playing with me when I showed up at Holmes' digs before going to dinner at Acacia. I knocked, no answer. A neighbor sitting on her porch a few doors down told me they'd just gone out and maybe I should text them. Explaining that I have no cell phone, she offered to call Holmes for me and leave a message.
Fifteen minutes later, still no word, so she insisted on calling him again. Turns out they'd been worried about Crabcake Week crowds at Acacia, so they'd headed over to snag a table. I dutifully got in my car and drove to meet them before they downed the first bottle of Langlois Cremant de Loire Brut Rose.
I barely made it and when I did, the bartender immediately asked if he should ice down a second bottle. With these two? Good idea.
Again eating for the cause - the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay - tonight's crabcake was a sandwich, notable for the sliced housemade bread and butter pickles that gave the jumbo lump crabcake a sweet crunch that I loved. Given that it came after fried deviled eggs with pimento cheese and a stellar salad loaded with slices of Edwards country ham over Romaine, shaved Parmesan and herbed croutons with a Parmesan peppercorn dressing, it was a miracle I could enjoy it as much as I did.
The inevitable listening party followed at Holmes' man cave, tonight with a focus on 45s dredged up from some deep basement shelf Beloved and I had never been privy to before. What amazed me was what pristine condition they were all in, as if they'd been in a vault since the MTV days.
When Beloved came across the Lemonpipers' bubblegum-sounding "Green Tambourine," a debate about the one hit wonder ensued. I stayed out because frankly, I was a kid in 1967 and knew nothing about the song. But upon hearing it, I felt sure it had to have been a really early use of reverb.
Play [play, play, play, play]...my green tambourine.
Other 45 gems included Todd Rundgren's "Hello, It's Me," Neil Diamond's "Solitary Man" and the Jagger/Bowie collaboration "Dancing in the Streets,"which Beloved swore she'd never heard before. She got most excited when she came across Dan Hartman's "I Can Dream About You," which came from the "Streets of Fire" movie, which I never saw but sure got a lot of airplay.
To Holmes, it resembled nothing so much as a Paul Carrick song, but then he's a big Paul Carrick fan. To me, it just sounded like pure '80s: big hair, shoulder pads and dancing in clubs every weekend.
Given that so much of what we were listening to was straight out of the Carter and Reagan years and Beloved and I always want to know what year each single or album was from, Holmes came up with a dating system on the spot. When I inquired about a 45 of REM's "Fall On Me," he answered with, "Orwell plus two," a system that only works for the book-literate and math-capable.
Which we mostly were at that point. "Why can't it be Friday night?" Beloved wailed at one point as we agonized over how many more records we could play before they ought to go to bed.
Hello, it's me on a Tuesday night. Maybe not a night for dancing in the streets, but not a night to be a solitary man (or woman), either.
I say when a girl climbs Taylors Hell for the first time, she's entitled to stay up as late as she wants. Sore legs be damned.
Tuesday, June 4, 2019
All Aboard
Fourth time's the charm apparently.
It's not like I hadn't been on the canal boat tour before because I had, dating back as far as 2008 and as recently as 2017. But this was the first time that it was just me, my date and the boat's captain and who am I to complain about a private tour?
You know me, I'll revel in it.
Even better, our captain was a Scotsman, complete with accent ("goods" sounded like "gutes") and tales from his recent trip back to Glasgow, where improbably, he experienced only one hour of rain over ten days. I'm here to tell you I was only in Scotland for three days and, with the exception of one hour, it rained, snowed, hailed or sleeted the entire time. When I mentioned I had a friend who lives in Barrhead, we were instant buddies.
But I digress.
The idea of taking the canal boat tour had been based solely on the glorious weather which was mid-70s, sunny and breezy without a drop of humidity in the air. And while I love my humidity, it gets mighty hot on the canal when it's hanging in the air. Besides, if a boat tooling along the canal wasn't the ideal place to be from 6 to 7:00, it was pretty darn close.
Since I'd been on the tour before, one thing I'd learned was that each captain has his own spiel and they differ. Our Scotsman, for instance, made no mention of the canal as a natural habitat - great blue herons, turtles - as several past guides had.
Instead, he was all about the history, some of it old hat (the spy Elizabeth van Lew posing as a mumbling homeless person to gather intel) and some of it new to me. Captain Dave explained that Tobacco Row had come to be because all the tobacco companies wanted the easy access to boats bringing in tobacco leaf, so they all built warehouses long the canal.
Seems it didn't take long for everyone to realize that the warehouses were prone to flooding and the companies fled for higher ground. All, that is, except Philip Morris, who stayed put. Interesting how that decision played out in the long run. I mean, let's not forget that as recently as 1984 (!!), Richmond held the National Tobacco Festival, complete with parade and Tobacco Queen and who do you suppose helped finance the festivities?
Call for Philip Morris (how's that for dating myself?).
The best part of being on a private tour (even if it was accidental) was having the ability to move around the boat to see whatever we wanted to or escape the sun while Captain Dave regaled us with obscure information, his enthusiasm for the local history evident in every obscure fact he shared. That and not having strangers' bodies blocking the breeze.
After disembarking, we headed up the hill toward Elizabeth van Lew's old estate (now a school) and onward to Dutch & Co. for dinner. The dining room was filling up but the bar was wide open except for a couple of women discussing what's wrong with men and relationships at the far end. And rather loudly, I might add.
Fortunately, nothing that a little Rose of Cinsault couldn't blot out.
Turns out it's Crabcake Week in Richmond and it's to benefit Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, a worthy cause if ever there was one. Given my childhood in Maryland, I couldn't help but order Dutch's version given that they were baked, not fried, and served with succotash. I believe I've gone on record as saying that good succotash makes me weak in the knees and this was the first I've had this year.
But before that came an amuse bouche of a tiny pea shoot meringue with cilantro cream, followed by fave bean crostini, a fine starter that layered Sub Rosa bread with mashed fava beans, spicy Capicola (oh, how I've missed you, Capicola!) and a drizzle of honey. The bread and spread made a glorious backdrop for the killer one-two punch of the meat's spice and the honey's sweetness.
Then the crabcakes showed up and the swooning began. Two fat filler-less crabcakes (as in gluten-free, so zero bread binder) looked more like lump crab patties than traditional crabcakes, bound only with a little mayo, mustard and egg. To take them over the top was lobster roe butter sauce and a healthy helping of bacon-studded succotash with fresh fava beans and sweet corn.
Be still my heart (and belly).
I'd have scarfed them down even if it didn't aid the Bay, though I'll admit I felt a little more virtuous for knowing it did.
When it came time for dessert, I passed right over the regular dessert menu for a special of phyllo dough-wrapped chocolate cake, topped with chocolate ganache and orange marmalade. After I ordered it, the bartender double-checked to make sure I understood about the phyllo dough part, aka the buttery, crispy "leaves" surrounding the chocolate center. Seems several women have ordered it and then been upset that it's not just chocolate cake.
It reminded me of that time I ordered Spam at Ste. Ex in D.C., only to have the sever ask if I knew what Spam was. Well, duh. Why do you think I ordered it, son?
Anyway, the dessert was a brilliant take on an old standard, the phyllo's outer crispiness a satisfying textural contrast to the soft, dark center it encased. At my date's suggestion, we savored it with glasses of Ten Year Old Tawny Port, all but ensuring that we weren't going anywhere anytime soon.
But as Captain Dave had told us at the beginning of the cruise, what's the hurry? We'd sailed the seas, had a private history lesson, saved the Bay and outlasted the men-bashers.
I'd say that's more than enough for a Monday night.
It's not like I hadn't been on the canal boat tour before because I had, dating back as far as 2008 and as recently as 2017. But this was the first time that it was just me, my date and the boat's captain and who am I to complain about a private tour?
You know me, I'll revel in it.
Even better, our captain was a Scotsman, complete with accent ("goods" sounded like "gutes") and tales from his recent trip back to Glasgow, where improbably, he experienced only one hour of rain over ten days. I'm here to tell you I was only in Scotland for three days and, with the exception of one hour, it rained, snowed, hailed or sleeted the entire time. When I mentioned I had a friend who lives in Barrhead, we were instant buddies.
But I digress.
The idea of taking the canal boat tour had been based solely on the glorious weather which was mid-70s, sunny and breezy without a drop of humidity in the air. And while I love my humidity, it gets mighty hot on the canal when it's hanging in the air. Besides, if a boat tooling along the canal wasn't the ideal place to be from 6 to 7:00, it was pretty darn close.
Since I'd been on the tour before, one thing I'd learned was that each captain has his own spiel and they differ. Our Scotsman, for instance, made no mention of the canal as a natural habitat - great blue herons, turtles - as several past guides had.
Instead, he was all about the history, some of it old hat (the spy Elizabeth van Lew posing as a mumbling homeless person to gather intel) and some of it new to me. Captain Dave explained that Tobacco Row had come to be because all the tobacco companies wanted the easy access to boats bringing in tobacco leaf, so they all built warehouses long the canal.
Seems it didn't take long for everyone to realize that the warehouses were prone to flooding and the companies fled for higher ground. All, that is, except Philip Morris, who stayed put. Interesting how that decision played out in the long run. I mean, let's not forget that as recently as 1984 (!!), Richmond held the National Tobacco Festival, complete with parade and Tobacco Queen and who do you suppose helped finance the festivities?
Call for Philip Morris (how's that for dating myself?).
The best part of being on a private tour (even if it was accidental) was having the ability to move around the boat to see whatever we wanted to or escape the sun while Captain Dave regaled us with obscure information, his enthusiasm for the local history evident in every obscure fact he shared. That and not having strangers' bodies blocking the breeze.
After disembarking, we headed up the hill toward Elizabeth van Lew's old estate (now a school) and onward to Dutch & Co. for dinner. The dining room was filling up but the bar was wide open except for a couple of women discussing what's wrong with men and relationships at the far end. And rather loudly, I might add.
Fortunately, nothing that a little Rose of Cinsault couldn't blot out.
Turns out it's Crabcake Week in Richmond and it's to benefit Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, a worthy cause if ever there was one. Given my childhood in Maryland, I couldn't help but order Dutch's version given that they were baked, not fried, and served with succotash. I believe I've gone on record as saying that good succotash makes me weak in the knees and this was the first I've had this year.
But before that came an amuse bouche of a tiny pea shoot meringue with cilantro cream, followed by fave bean crostini, a fine starter that layered Sub Rosa bread with mashed fava beans, spicy Capicola (oh, how I've missed you, Capicola!) and a drizzle of honey. The bread and spread made a glorious backdrop for the killer one-two punch of the meat's spice and the honey's sweetness.
Then the crabcakes showed up and the swooning began. Two fat filler-less crabcakes (as in gluten-free, so zero bread binder) looked more like lump crab patties than traditional crabcakes, bound only with a little mayo, mustard and egg. To take them over the top was lobster roe butter sauce and a healthy helping of bacon-studded succotash with fresh fava beans and sweet corn.
Be still my heart (and belly).
I'd have scarfed them down even if it didn't aid the Bay, though I'll admit I felt a little more virtuous for knowing it did.
When it came time for dessert, I passed right over the regular dessert menu for a special of phyllo dough-wrapped chocolate cake, topped with chocolate ganache and orange marmalade. After I ordered it, the bartender double-checked to make sure I understood about the phyllo dough part, aka the buttery, crispy "leaves" surrounding the chocolate center. Seems several women have ordered it and then been upset that it's not just chocolate cake.
It reminded me of that time I ordered Spam at Ste. Ex in D.C., only to have the sever ask if I knew what Spam was. Well, duh. Why do you think I ordered it, son?
Anyway, the dessert was a brilliant take on an old standard, the phyllo's outer crispiness a satisfying textural contrast to the soft, dark center it encased. At my date's suggestion, we savored it with glasses of Ten Year Old Tawny Port, all but ensuring that we weren't going anywhere anytime soon.
But as Captain Dave had told us at the beginning of the cruise, what's the hurry? We'd sailed the seas, had a private history lesson, saved the Bay and outlasted the men-bashers.
I'd say that's more than enough for a Monday night.
Monday, June 3, 2019
Music to Gamble By
For some, it's their annual trek to Jackson Ward. For me, it's a day to hunker down and we all know I'm not the hunkering down type.
Of course I'm talking Broad Appetit, the food festival that draws bad parallel parkers, parents with enormous strollers and trashy people who don't hesitate to leave their debris on my neighborhood's sidewalks. A day that no sentient J-Ward denizen would dare move her car unless she wasn't going to return until after 6:00.
Oh, sure, I did my walk on the pipeline, carefully skirting the blocks devoted to the madness, but once back, you can be sure I spent the day at home reading the Sunday Post and my current book, Fred Astaire's memoir, "Steps in Time."
Which means that by evening, I was chomping at the bit to be among the living.
Since I was nearly at the end of my book, with plans to donate it to the neighborhood Little Free Library, I took it with me as I headed to Gallery 5 for Classical Incarnations. Since I only had a few pages left, I read as I walked the two blocks to the library. It was at the stop sign that a guy pulled up and from behind me, I heard, "Whatcha reading, sweetheart?"
Holding up my book, I explained that it was the dancer's 1959 look back at his career, although told in a pretty matter of fact manner. We were so busy chatting that neither of us noticed the car that had pulled up behind him until the driver honked.
Waving, he smiled and said, "I didn't want to bother you, but I had to ask," and drove off. I finished the final two pages standing in front of the library, deposited it for some other dance lover to enjoy and headed to Gallery 5, which, let's face it, I could walk to in my sleep.
It was a bigger crowd than I'd anticipated, so I wound up in one of the back rows where I could overhear everyone discussing their Sunday. One guy was sharing his city horror story of parking behind a car with a busted window, which apparently made him nervous enough to then move his car.
When he told the two guys he was talking to that he wasn't sure it was safe around here, I stepped in to tell him that I've lived here nearly 13 years without incident. All three marveled at that news.
Another guy was telling someone that he and his wife had tried to go to Mama J's before the show, but that there was a 50-minute wait. "Probably people from Broad Appetit still hungry," he guessed. No, sir, Mama J's is like that every single Sunday evening. Do I have to explain everything to these rubes?
And I shouldn't call them rubes because at least they were at Classical Incarnations, which is basically a classical music variety show deliberately set in a bar to make it more accessible. A small groups of musicians play, then there's a five minute break while the next act sets up and that goes on for about an hour and a half. It's an interesting (and probably less-threatening) way to enjoy classical music, plus it allows time for lots of bar breaks. Classical music without the attitude.
Let's just say that if you want to see the program, you're expected to look it up on your phone.
The evening began with a scene from the third act of a new opera, "MineRVA: Times Change," which takes place in Richmond (and opens this weekend). Labeled by our host as a blend of old and new music, one thing it wasn't was your Mama's opera. Meaning one character sung into her phone while at a coffee shop, which I'm pretty sure has never been done in an opera before.
Another sung about the app he'd created that turn thoughts into song, an app for which he was offered a billion dollars, which he turned down because he prefers that people still talk to each other. "It would be just another way to sacrifice your soul online!" he sang.
Needless to say, this guy was my hero. Accompanying the three singers were musicians from Jefferson Baroque playing guitar, harpsichord, bassoon and violin and, I gotta say, it was a distinct pleasure to hear a harpsichord played live at Gallery 5.
And just when I think I've experienced it all at my neighborhood haunt...
During the break, I heard a guy complaining that he'd wanted to hear certain bands at Broad Appetit, but after he'd eaten, they still weren't playing. So then he began drinking, but they still weren't on. "I don't know why I even went," he concluded. Um, for the food, sir?
Next up was Natalie, who'd been seated in the row next to me with her boyfriend, both of them conspicuous because of the large black "X" on their hands that precluded their drinking. She explained that it would be her last time playing Classical Incarnations because she was leaving for school in California. Sad crowd noises followed.
She was playing a Brahms piece on piano that she described as "contemplative and longing because they couldn't be together," making me wonder if it wasn't dedicated to the young man next to me as she heads off to the Left Coast.
Besides Broad Appetit, the other big topic during breaks was Galaxy Con, which had just ended a few hours earlier at the nearby Convention Center. "Whose autograph did you get? one guy quizzed another. After the guy rattled off names, his inquisitor demanded, "You didn't get John de Lancie's? What? Come on, he was in "Star Trek!"
I was half tempted to turn around and tell this guy that I not only had no clue who John de Lancie was but I'd never once seen a Star Trek movie or TV episode. The only thing that stopped me was not wanting to send him into cardiac arrest and delay the rest of the performances.
Next came a string quartet doing Schubert's "Death and the Maiden," which the cellist explained was written on the composer's deathbed. So you can see it was turning into a very upbeat evening. I kid because it was a gorgeous piece beautifully played.
Overheard during the break: a man says to his wife, "There's a line at the bathroom. Why aren't you in it?" as if she didn't know her own needs. Mansplaining of the highest order.
In an evening full of unusual performances, the next stood out. One musician played a baroque bassoon and the one in the electric blue socks played viola de gamba, an instrument I'd only learned about by going to a lecture performance at UR a few years ago. The duo was playing compositions by a little known composer named Jean Daniel Braun, or as it was explained by the bassoonist, "French dance forms with Italian names by a German composer." Now that's some melting pot for you.
The big finale involved our host, a classical guitarist, and a violinist (not incidentally, the Richmond Symphony's concertmaster) who'd chosen obscure works - because what these musicians love best about Classical Incarnations is getting to play rare pieces nobody's heard of - by Paganini. Seems the composer was part owner in a casino toward the end of his life and had composed music to be played there.
After they did three pieces, the audience rose to its feet and gave them a standing ovation. But guitarist Andrew held up a finger to indicate they had one last piece for us. Encore time, kids.
A guy in the row near me who was on his fourth glass of red wine called out, "Free Bird!" which may sound like disrespect, but it also speaks to Classical Incarnations mission: to take the starch out of classical music listening. Done!
Fortunately, the virtuosic duo did not deliver any Skynyrd, but rather one last Paganini piece to gamble by.
Walking home, I could hear the clanging of poles being dropped as the tents along Broad Street were dismantled. Parking spaces were available on every block and for the first time all day, there were no smells of cooking food. I'd made it out without once having to deal with that mess.
Best of all, no souls were sacrificed online in the making of such a lovely evening.
Of course I'm talking Broad Appetit, the food festival that draws bad parallel parkers, parents with enormous strollers and trashy people who don't hesitate to leave their debris on my neighborhood's sidewalks. A day that no sentient J-Ward denizen would dare move her car unless she wasn't going to return until after 6:00.
Oh, sure, I did my walk on the pipeline, carefully skirting the blocks devoted to the madness, but once back, you can be sure I spent the day at home reading the Sunday Post and my current book, Fred Astaire's memoir, "Steps in Time."
Which means that by evening, I was chomping at the bit to be among the living.
Since I was nearly at the end of my book, with plans to donate it to the neighborhood Little Free Library, I took it with me as I headed to Gallery 5 for Classical Incarnations. Since I only had a few pages left, I read as I walked the two blocks to the library. It was at the stop sign that a guy pulled up and from behind me, I heard, "Whatcha reading, sweetheart?"
Holding up my book, I explained that it was the dancer's 1959 look back at his career, although told in a pretty matter of fact manner. We were so busy chatting that neither of us noticed the car that had pulled up behind him until the driver honked.
Waving, he smiled and said, "I didn't want to bother you, but I had to ask," and drove off. I finished the final two pages standing in front of the library, deposited it for some other dance lover to enjoy and headed to Gallery 5, which, let's face it, I could walk to in my sleep.
It was a bigger crowd than I'd anticipated, so I wound up in one of the back rows where I could overhear everyone discussing their Sunday. One guy was sharing his city horror story of parking behind a car with a busted window, which apparently made him nervous enough to then move his car.
When he told the two guys he was talking to that he wasn't sure it was safe around here, I stepped in to tell him that I've lived here nearly 13 years without incident. All three marveled at that news.
Another guy was telling someone that he and his wife had tried to go to Mama J's before the show, but that there was a 50-minute wait. "Probably people from Broad Appetit still hungry," he guessed. No, sir, Mama J's is like that every single Sunday evening. Do I have to explain everything to these rubes?
And I shouldn't call them rubes because at least they were at Classical Incarnations, which is basically a classical music variety show deliberately set in a bar to make it more accessible. A small groups of musicians play, then there's a five minute break while the next act sets up and that goes on for about an hour and a half. It's an interesting (and probably less-threatening) way to enjoy classical music, plus it allows time for lots of bar breaks. Classical music without the attitude.
Let's just say that if you want to see the program, you're expected to look it up on your phone.
The evening began with a scene from the third act of a new opera, "MineRVA: Times Change," which takes place in Richmond (and opens this weekend). Labeled by our host as a blend of old and new music, one thing it wasn't was your Mama's opera. Meaning one character sung into her phone while at a coffee shop, which I'm pretty sure has never been done in an opera before.
Another sung about the app he'd created that turn thoughts into song, an app for which he was offered a billion dollars, which he turned down because he prefers that people still talk to each other. "It would be just another way to sacrifice your soul online!" he sang.
Needless to say, this guy was my hero. Accompanying the three singers were musicians from Jefferson Baroque playing guitar, harpsichord, bassoon and violin and, I gotta say, it was a distinct pleasure to hear a harpsichord played live at Gallery 5.
And just when I think I've experienced it all at my neighborhood haunt...
During the break, I heard a guy complaining that he'd wanted to hear certain bands at Broad Appetit, but after he'd eaten, they still weren't playing. So then he began drinking, but they still weren't on. "I don't know why I even went," he concluded. Um, for the food, sir?
Next up was Natalie, who'd been seated in the row next to me with her boyfriend, both of them conspicuous because of the large black "X" on their hands that precluded their drinking. She explained that it would be her last time playing Classical Incarnations because she was leaving for school in California. Sad crowd noises followed.
She was playing a Brahms piece on piano that she described as "contemplative and longing because they couldn't be together," making me wonder if it wasn't dedicated to the young man next to me as she heads off to the Left Coast.
Besides Broad Appetit, the other big topic during breaks was Galaxy Con, which had just ended a few hours earlier at the nearby Convention Center. "Whose autograph did you get? one guy quizzed another. After the guy rattled off names, his inquisitor demanded, "You didn't get John de Lancie's? What? Come on, he was in "Star Trek!"
I was half tempted to turn around and tell this guy that I not only had no clue who John de Lancie was but I'd never once seen a Star Trek movie or TV episode. The only thing that stopped me was not wanting to send him into cardiac arrest and delay the rest of the performances.
Next came a string quartet doing Schubert's "Death and the Maiden," which the cellist explained was written on the composer's deathbed. So you can see it was turning into a very upbeat evening. I kid because it was a gorgeous piece beautifully played.
Overheard during the break: a man says to his wife, "There's a line at the bathroom. Why aren't you in it?" as if she didn't know her own needs. Mansplaining of the highest order.
In an evening full of unusual performances, the next stood out. One musician played a baroque bassoon and the one in the electric blue socks played viola de gamba, an instrument I'd only learned about by going to a lecture performance at UR a few years ago. The duo was playing compositions by a little known composer named Jean Daniel Braun, or as it was explained by the bassoonist, "French dance forms with Italian names by a German composer." Now that's some melting pot for you.
The big finale involved our host, a classical guitarist, and a violinist (not incidentally, the Richmond Symphony's concertmaster) who'd chosen obscure works - because what these musicians love best about Classical Incarnations is getting to play rare pieces nobody's heard of - by Paganini. Seems the composer was part owner in a casino toward the end of his life and had composed music to be played there.
After they did three pieces, the audience rose to its feet and gave them a standing ovation. But guitarist Andrew held up a finger to indicate they had one last piece for us. Encore time, kids.
A guy in the row near me who was on his fourth glass of red wine called out, "Free Bird!" which may sound like disrespect, but it also speaks to Classical Incarnations mission: to take the starch out of classical music listening. Done!
Fortunately, the virtuosic duo did not deliver any Skynyrd, but rather one last Paganini piece to gamble by.
Walking home, I could hear the clanging of poles being dropped as the tents along Broad Street were dismantled. Parking spaces were available on every block and for the first time all day, there were no smells of cooking food. I'd made it out without once having to deal with that mess.
Best of all, no souls were sacrificed online in the making of such a lovely evening.
Sunday, June 2, 2019
Love is Like Oxygen
Words I never expected to hear from an artist's mouth: "I like to use data to make art."
That artist Sara Bouchard was saying it as we stood on the top floor of the Pump House - the very same one that used to host dances to which people came by boat back in the day - only made it more unlikely.
In this case, she'd created a sound installation based on water quality data from the James collected over all four seasons in 2017. She explained that the data showing dissolved oxygen levels in the river in two-hour increments was then entered into a software program that converted it to notes, which is almost more than I could comprehend.
Let's just say that this Luddite had no clue that such a thing was possible.
Once she had a score, she tapped tenor saxophonist Jason Scott to record it, while she played piano based on the pH levels of the river, which, like the oxygen levels, rise and fall on a daily basis and with the seasons.
Are you beginning to see why my head almost exploded as she explained it all?
Like my one and only tour of the Pump House previously, a hard hat was required to enter and only 20 people at a time were allowed inside the Pump House's cool, dim interior. Speakers were placed all around so that no matter which level you were on, the 30-minute composition was playing as the late afternoon sun slanted through the windows.
And beautiful as the music was anywhere in the late-19th century stone building, it was most dazzling when heard while on the Southern Gothic-looking uppermost dance floor with its lush views overlooking the canal.
I could only imagine what a wonderful place it must have been for dancing.
Chatting with the artist, I asked how she'd chosen Jason to record the piece. Seems he went to school with her husband, so he seemed like an easy choice. She was curious how I knew Jason and I explained that it was as simple as having seen him play in countless bands - RVA Big Band, the Hi-Steps, the Blue Tips, the Scott Clark 4-tet, the Jason Scott Quintet, to name but a few - over the years.
Well, that and running into him at all kinds of events around Richmond during the past decade.
If wandering around the vintage Pump House to a soundtrack created by the river's oxygen saturation levels isn't my most Richmond experience yet, it's got to be pretty damn close. So while the music only lasted half an hour, some of us spent a full hour taking in the completely unique vibe.
Now if only the Friends of the Pump House could raise enough money to restore the old place so that it could be enjoyed without hard hats, we'd be getting somewhere.
Then it was on to Secco's patio for a little Spanish immersion as the sun slowly set behind the trees. Okay, a lot of immersion.
There were pink Spanish bubbles as a belated birthday nod, Spanish white to accompany a killer kale salad with bottarga and breadcrumbs and meze (the spinach falafel among the best I've ever had), Spanish red to stand up to the spiciness of octopus Bolognese and even an after dinner Moscatel to make my warm carrot cake with dried fruit compote shine even brighter.
I have to say that the only thing that could have made the meal any more perfect would have been if we'd had a Saturday night dance at the Pump House to go to afterwards.
Dancing (slightly loopy) in the moonlight? Yes, please.
That artist Sara Bouchard was saying it as we stood on the top floor of the Pump House - the very same one that used to host dances to which people came by boat back in the day - only made it more unlikely.
In this case, she'd created a sound installation based on water quality data from the James collected over all four seasons in 2017. She explained that the data showing dissolved oxygen levels in the river in two-hour increments was then entered into a software program that converted it to notes, which is almost more than I could comprehend.
Let's just say that this Luddite had no clue that such a thing was possible.
Once she had a score, she tapped tenor saxophonist Jason Scott to record it, while she played piano based on the pH levels of the river, which, like the oxygen levels, rise and fall on a daily basis and with the seasons.
Are you beginning to see why my head almost exploded as she explained it all?
Like my one and only tour of the Pump House previously, a hard hat was required to enter and only 20 people at a time were allowed inside the Pump House's cool, dim interior. Speakers were placed all around so that no matter which level you were on, the 30-minute composition was playing as the late afternoon sun slanted through the windows.
And beautiful as the music was anywhere in the late-19th century stone building, it was most dazzling when heard while on the Southern Gothic-looking uppermost dance floor with its lush views overlooking the canal.
I could only imagine what a wonderful place it must have been for dancing.
Chatting with the artist, I asked how she'd chosen Jason to record the piece. Seems he went to school with her husband, so he seemed like an easy choice. She was curious how I knew Jason and I explained that it was as simple as having seen him play in countless bands - RVA Big Band, the Hi-Steps, the Blue Tips, the Scott Clark 4-tet, the Jason Scott Quintet, to name but a few - over the years.
Well, that and running into him at all kinds of events around Richmond during the past decade.
If wandering around the vintage Pump House to a soundtrack created by the river's oxygen saturation levels isn't my most Richmond experience yet, it's got to be pretty damn close. So while the music only lasted half an hour, some of us spent a full hour taking in the completely unique vibe.
Now if only the Friends of the Pump House could raise enough money to restore the old place so that it could be enjoyed without hard hats, we'd be getting somewhere.
Then it was on to Secco's patio for a little Spanish immersion as the sun slowly set behind the trees. Okay, a lot of immersion.
There were pink Spanish bubbles as a belated birthday nod, Spanish white to accompany a killer kale salad with bottarga and breadcrumbs and meze (the spinach falafel among the best I've ever had), Spanish red to stand up to the spiciness of octopus Bolognese and even an after dinner Moscatel to make my warm carrot cake with dried fruit compote shine even brighter.
I have to say that the only thing that could have made the meal any more perfect would have been if we'd had a Saturday night dance at the Pump House to go to afterwards.
Dancing (slightly loopy) in the moonlight? Yes, please.
Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head
...or, how I wound up in a stranger's sweatshirt.
It's not like I didn't check the forecast before I left the house. I did: partly cloudy all day, but little chance of rain. Instead of doing my usual river walk, I opted to walk west, drop off my rent at my landlord's house and continue the two blocks to the Byrd Theater for a morning screening of "Mrs. Doubtfire."
I'm not sure why the Robin Williams classic spoke to me this morning (especially for a Family Classics screening guaranteed to be full of brats), except that I knew I'd be in the neighborhood, I hadn't seen it since it came out in 1993 and the overcast sky made it feel like a good movie morning. It really was that simple.
Crossing the street from Monroe Park to the Cathedral of the Scared Heart, it was obvious something big was going on. Every few feet, I saw a young man in a black suit and clergy collar, usually with family fawning over him and taking snaps. It was like I'd stumbled into seminarians' graduation day at the cathedral or something.
Leaving those crazy enough to devote their lives to a made-up person to their deluded fantasies, I persevered down Floyd Avenue only to have the sky open up on me somewhere after Harrison Street. At first it was just a gentle drizzle, then a shower and before long, a deluge. So that was me, the woman in the sun hat and sunscreen - running in white rivulets down my arms and legs - slogging along the next two miles, dropping off her rent check and lumbering on.
And while it wasn't unpleasant rain because it was warm, I knew that the second I sat down in the theater's air conditioning, I was going to freeze my patootie off. So I arrived with a plan: raid the lost and found for a cover-up to tide me through the movie.
Fortunately for me, there was a pale green men's XXL "Salty Dog Cafe Hilton Head, S.C." sweat shirt languishing in the lost and found and the ticket taker (whom I know from so many Byrd visits) was only too happy to loan it to me for a few hours. In fact, she first gave me the option of a stylish women's sweater, but given that the sweatshirt was thick and as long as my dresses, I knew it would be the warmer, cozier choice.
I also warned her that if it was raining when the movie ended, I'd be "retrieving" (wink, wink) the umbrella I'd left there. She said I was welcome to help myself.
So I remove my dripping sun hat, don the sweatshirt and ask the guy at the concession stand for a bottle of water. He'd noticed I'd come in soggy wet, soaked to the skin, and now he's telling me how lucky I am that I'd left my sweatshirt at the Byrd to reclaim it this rainy morning. Silly boy. I explain that it isn't mine and that I'm merely borrowing it for a bit. "That's pretty cool!" he enthuses.
That's what we call problem-solving, son. Try it sometime.
Then I head off to find a seat nowhere near any gaggles of small children. Taking one, I hang my soggy hat upside down to drip-dry, remove my wet shoes and place the bottle of water in the cup-holder on my right. But when I go to put my ticket stub in the cup-holder on my left, I see that there are already two ticket stubs there from Wednesday's one night only screening of the 1972 reggae classic, "The Harder They Come" with Jimmy Cliff.
That's when I realize that I have chosen the exact same row where I sat Wednesday to see "The Harder They Come" and those are my stubs, which I clearly forgot to throw away. Talk about being a creature of habit. That said, it was probably because of how much I'd enjoyed the reggae film with its unintelligible Jamaican patois that begged for subtitles and fabulous soundtrack that the stubs had been forgotten.
Since I'd never been to a Family Classics performance, I wasn't expecting the classic Warner Bros. cartoon - Foghorn Leghorn battling with a youthful chicken hawk - that kicked off the screening. Just as surprising was the organist rising from the bowels of the Byrd to play a handful of movie themes like "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" before disappearing again.
So much entertainment on a Saturday morning.
About all I recalled of "Mrs. Doubtfire" was the premise and Robin Williams' vacuuming to Aerosmith's "Dude Looks Like a Lady." Hell, I hadn't even been to San Francisco yet when I first saw the movie, so that part couldn't have resonated the first time.
Mainly the film was a treat for all the improvisation Williams does throughout and that's not even counting the scenes where Harvey Fierstein is applying his make-up for the first time and they're invoking "Fiddler on the Roof" and Barbra Streisand in what amounts to a comedy routine.
Truly, he was a once in a lifetime genius.
As luck would have it, when I exited the Byrd after peeling off the stranger's sweatshirt and without a "borrowed" umbrella, it was to somewhat sunny skies.
And you know I'm never gonna stop the rain by complaining. Nothing's bothering me.
It's not like I didn't check the forecast before I left the house. I did: partly cloudy all day, but little chance of rain. Instead of doing my usual river walk, I opted to walk west, drop off my rent at my landlord's house and continue the two blocks to the Byrd Theater for a morning screening of "Mrs. Doubtfire."
I'm not sure why the Robin Williams classic spoke to me this morning (especially for a Family Classics screening guaranteed to be full of brats), except that I knew I'd be in the neighborhood, I hadn't seen it since it came out in 1993 and the overcast sky made it feel like a good movie morning. It really was that simple.
Crossing the street from Monroe Park to the Cathedral of the Scared Heart, it was obvious something big was going on. Every few feet, I saw a young man in a black suit and clergy collar, usually with family fawning over him and taking snaps. It was like I'd stumbled into seminarians' graduation day at the cathedral or something.
Leaving those crazy enough to devote their lives to a made-up person to their deluded fantasies, I persevered down Floyd Avenue only to have the sky open up on me somewhere after Harrison Street. At first it was just a gentle drizzle, then a shower and before long, a deluge. So that was me, the woman in the sun hat and sunscreen - running in white rivulets down my arms and legs - slogging along the next two miles, dropping off her rent check and lumbering on.
And while it wasn't unpleasant rain because it was warm, I knew that the second I sat down in the theater's air conditioning, I was going to freeze my patootie off. So I arrived with a plan: raid the lost and found for a cover-up to tide me through the movie.
Fortunately for me, there was a pale green men's XXL "Salty Dog Cafe Hilton Head, S.C." sweat shirt languishing in the lost and found and the ticket taker (whom I know from so many Byrd visits) was only too happy to loan it to me for a few hours. In fact, she first gave me the option of a stylish women's sweater, but given that the sweatshirt was thick and as long as my dresses, I knew it would be the warmer, cozier choice.
I also warned her that if it was raining when the movie ended, I'd be "retrieving" (wink, wink) the umbrella I'd left there. She said I was welcome to help myself.
So I remove my dripping sun hat, don the sweatshirt and ask the guy at the concession stand for a bottle of water. He'd noticed I'd come in soggy wet, soaked to the skin, and now he's telling me how lucky I am that I'd left my sweatshirt at the Byrd to reclaim it this rainy morning. Silly boy. I explain that it isn't mine and that I'm merely borrowing it for a bit. "That's pretty cool!" he enthuses.
That's what we call problem-solving, son. Try it sometime.
Then I head off to find a seat nowhere near any gaggles of small children. Taking one, I hang my soggy hat upside down to drip-dry, remove my wet shoes and place the bottle of water in the cup-holder on my right. But when I go to put my ticket stub in the cup-holder on my left, I see that there are already two ticket stubs there from Wednesday's one night only screening of the 1972 reggae classic, "The Harder They Come" with Jimmy Cliff.
That's when I realize that I have chosen the exact same row where I sat Wednesday to see "The Harder They Come" and those are my stubs, which I clearly forgot to throw away. Talk about being a creature of habit. That said, it was probably because of how much I'd enjoyed the reggae film with its unintelligible Jamaican patois that begged for subtitles and fabulous soundtrack that the stubs had been forgotten.
Since I'd never been to a Family Classics performance, I wasn't expecting the classic Warner Bros. cartoon - Foghorn Leghorn battling with a youthful chicken hawk - that kicked off the screening. Just as surprising was the organist rising from the bowels of the Byrd to play a handful of movie themes like "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" before disappearing again.
So much entertainment on a Saturday morning.
About all I recalled of "Mrs. Doubtfire" was the premise and Robin Williams' vacuuming to Aerosmith's "Dude Looks Like a Lady." Hell, I hadn't even been to San Francisco yet when I first saw the movie, so that part couldn't have resonated the first time.
Mainly the film was a treat for all the improvisation Williams does throughout and that's not even counting the scenes where Harvey Fierstein is applying his make-up for the first time and they're invoking "Fiddler on the Roof" and Barbra Streisand in what amounts to a comedy routine.
Truly, he was a once in a lifetime genius.
As luck would have it, when I exited the Byrd after peeling off the stranger's sweatshirt and without a "borrowed" umbrella, it was to somewhat sunny skies.
And you know I'm never gonna stop the rain by complaining. Nothing's bothering me.
Saturday, June 1, 2019
Bad is in the Eye of the Beholder
Park once and party twice? Check. Bluegrass music? Check. A senseless Dada comedy? Check.
Weeks ago, I'd gotten tickets for Dog Stuff's production at Firehouse Theater of "Wrong Chopped," which was billed as theater of the absurd based on a TV show - "Chopped" - that I'd never seen.
So naturally my curiosity was piqued. Sure, I avoid TV but not theater based on TV.
But then musician Alison Self came to town and was joining the Hot Seats for Beers and Banjos at the Camel and while I neither drink the former nor play the latter, neither was a requirement. Instead, I added in a musical component to the evening.
It didn't hurt that the Camel and the Firehouse are on the same block.
Yea, yea, I had just seen Alison perform the night before at Gallery 5, but this was her singing and playing as part of Sweet Fern, her duo with Josh Bearman, who also leads bluegrass pickers the Hot Seats. As a bonus, my former J-Ward neighbors showed up and joined the party, sharing their summer music festival plans and laughs.
Sweet Fern, for the record, holds a special place in my heart because they're the duo I'd chosen to open the Listening Room set the night I curated the event. Got all that? They're reliably entertaining, with both having talent to spare, meaning they coasted through songs by Conway Twitty, Johnny Cash and their bedrock, the Carter Family.
Let's just say there were songs about cheatin' hearts, jail and a tornado that killed thirteen children in a schoolhouse. You know, everyday life, albeit with Alison's comedic comments thrown in for good measure.
They closed with a classic I'd heard them do years ago, "When I Come Home the Other Night," a duet between a drunk husband and his unfaithful wife. Josh sang the man's part, questioning the things he saw - another man's horse in the stable, someone else's coat on the rack and, most hilarious of all, a head on the pillow next to her - while Alison sang that it was just a cabbage.
Well, I've roamed the whole world over
A thousand times or more
But a mustache on a cabbage head
I never seen before
Leaning into the mic after they finished the song, Alison joked, "Don't you know that's how you check to see if a cabbage is ripe, by its mustache?"
After their set, the Hot Seats took the stage with two fiddle players for a change and a whole lot of fast-moving, hard-pickin' songs guaranteed to get toes tapping. I know because I was mid-tap when the clock struck 7:15 and it was time to head next door to see a twisted spoof on a cooking show.
"Wrong Chopped" was most definitely Fringe Fest-worthy, what with the playwright playing keyboard in his underwear and shoes throughout, a contestant who used bones for hands to make a dish using bones (don't ask), popcorn and rice pilaf flying everywhere and a host who liked to regularly kiss the bald head of one of the judges.
Plot? Not so much. Laughs? Erratic, age-dependent and, at times, unavoidable (like when one actor tells the audience, "This is a bad play!"). References? James Bond, Hamlet, Avengers. Weird? You have no idea. Hearing my name said by the host as an acknowledgement that I was there? What the...?
As for the appearance of a teddy bear mid-show, I don't know what to tell you.
But the cast's enthusiasm and the utter lack of a linear narrative definitely made for a unique theater experience unlike any this theater-goer had ever had.
Consider me fully fringed. And couldn't we all use a little more of that in our mundane lives?
When the play ended and everyone headed back to the sane world, the couple in front of me pushed open the Firehouse's front door only to reveal what may as well have been a monsoon: driving rain, sweeping wind, puddles already over the curb and ferocious thunder and lightening.
"Is this part of the play?" the woman mused, only half kidding.
You know, I wouldn't have put it past this bunch of theater mavericks. After all, some of them were part of the group who staged the most uproarious and, for a change, politically correct "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" known to man. I know I fell in love with it, even seeing it twice.
Bless their beautiful hides. Someone's gotta be our theatrical future.
Weeks ago, I'd gotten tickets for Dog Stuff's production at Firehouse Theater of "Wrong Chopped," which was billed as theater of the absurd based on a TV show - "Chopped" - that I'd never seen.
So naturally my curiosity was piqued. Sure, I avoid TV but not theater based on TV.
But then musician Alison Self came to town and was joining the Hot Seats for Beers and Banjos at the Camel and while I neither drink the former nor play the latter, neither was a requirement. Instead, I added in a musical component to the evening.
It didn't hurt that the Camel and the Firehouse are on the same block.
Yea, yea, I had just seen Alison perform the night before at Gallery 5, but this was her singing and playing as part of Sweet Fern, her duo with Josh Bearman, who also leads bluegrass pickers the Hot Seats. As a bonus, my former J-Ward neighbors showed up and joined the party, sharing their summer music festival plans and laughs.
Sweet Fern, for the record, holds a special place in my heart because they're the duo I'd chosen to open the Listening Room set the night I curated the event. Got all that? They're reliably entertaining, with both having talent to spare, meaning they coasted through songs by Conway Twitty, Johnny Cash and their bedrock, the Carter Family.
Let's just say there were songs about cheatin' hearts, jail and a tornado that killed thirteen children in a schoolhouse. You know, everyday life, albeit with Alison's comedic comments thrown in for good measure.
They closed with a classic I'd heard them do years ago, "When I Come Home the Other Night," a duet between a drunk husband and his unfaithful wife. Josh sang the man's part, questioning the things he saw - another man's horse in the stable, someone else's coat on the rack and, most hilarious of all, a head on the pillow next to her - while Alison sang that it was just a cabbage.
Well, I've roamed the whole world over
A thousand times or more
But a mustache on a cabbage head
I never seen before
Leaning into the mic after they finished the song, Alison joked, "Don't you know that's how you check to see if a cabbage is ripe, by its mustache?"
After their set, the Hot Seats took the stage with two fiddle players for a change and a whole lot of fast-moving, hard-pickin' songs guaranteed to get toes tapping. I know because I was mid-tap when the clock struck 7:15 and it was time to head next door to see a twisted spoof on a cooking show.
"Wrong Chopped" was most definitely Fringe Fest-worthy, what with the playwright playing keyboard in his underwear and shoes throughout, a contestant who used bones for hands to make a dish using bones (don't ask), popcorn and rice pilaf flying everywhere and a host who liked to regularly kiss the bald head of one of the judges.
Plot? Not so much. Laughs? Erratic, age-dependent and, at times, unavoidable (like when one actor tells the audience, "This is a bad play!"). References? James Bond, Hamlet, Avengers. Weird? You have no idea. Hearing my name said by the host as an acknowledgement that I was there? What the...?
As for the appearance of a teddy bear mid-show, I don't know what to tell you.
But the cast's enthusiasm and the utter lack of a linear narrative definitely made for a unique theater experience unlike any this theater-goer had ever had.
Consider me fully fringed. And couldn't we all use a little more of that in our mundane lives?
When the play ended and everyone headed back to the sane world, the couple in front of me pushed open the Firehouse's front door only to reveal what may as well have been a monsoon: driving rain, sweeping wind, puddles already over the curb and ferocious thunder and lightening.
"Is this part of the play?" the woman mused, only half kidding.
You know, I wouldn't have put it past this bunch of theater mavericks. After all, some of them were part of the group who staged the most uproarious and, for a change, politically correct "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" known to man. I know I fell in love with it, even seeing it twice.
Bless their beautiful hides. Someone's gotta be our theatrical future.
Expect the Unexpected
Tonight's lesson was downright blunt: you just never know what's going to happen to you.
Well, I knew I was going to dinner, a play and to hear music with an old friend. But he's been living in the 'burbs for a while now, causing him to ask a really dumb question when I suggested the plan for the evening. "Are we going to walk?" he messaged me.
Duh.
Now, mind you, it's not like he's some rube. This is a man who used to live in J-Ward, a man who's known me for a decade now and with whom I've walked to these places before.
Had he forgotten the J-Ward drill already?
Because he was coming straight from work and the play started earlier than usual, we decided to make Tarrant's Back Door for fish tacos our destination. It was also a sentimental choice because when we'd first met, he'd been bartending at Tarrant's. Right off the bat, he caused a sensation by asking if he could use Apple Pay instead of a card to pay for dinner. Turns out he could, but almost no one on staff knew that, so they all watched intently as he paid the 21st century way.
"Wow, I would have told a customer no, we can't do that," one of the managers admitted. Glad to help train the staff, son.
It was while we were eating our guac-slathered tacos that he shared that his relationship of the past few years was ending and naturally, that became the topic of conversation for the rest of the meal. While he'd long acknowledged that the relationship wasn't perfect (are any?), he hadn't foreseen its conclusion (but then, who does?).
As a long-time friend, I just hated seeing him sad about it.
After we ate, we strolled over to the November Theater for Cadence Theater Company's production of "Gloria," a multi-award winning play and Pulitzer Prize finalist. You know, the usual J-Ward fare.
We're grown-ups. We're supposed to choose our friends.
The utterly engrossing story followed a fictional publishing company and the Generation X editors, Generation Y editorial assistants and the Generation Z intern and receptionist as they try to figure out if they'll ever achieve their career dreams given that the Baby Boomers continue to hold on to all the top positions.
And now these Boomers aren't dying!
Where the play shocked the entire audience was in its depiction of how one disgruntled employee handled her resentment of others in the office. It was clear that none of her coworkers - much less the audience - had any idea what was going to happen to them when they went to work that day. Spoiler alert: intermission involved the stage crew removing lots of fake blood.
In the pre-Internet days, when you sat down at your desk, you had no choice but to work.
At intermission, everyone walked around half-dazed at the unexpectedness of what we'd just seen, sort of a witness-lite reaction to fictionalized trauma. The second half of the story showed how survivors - witnesses and those absent but part of the office - processed what they'd been through. And if they made money in the process, all the better to them.
It was exactly the kind of thought-provoking theater you can always count on Cadence Theatre Company delivering. My friend and I couldn't stop talking about it from the moment the applause began until we walked into Gallery 5, which for tonight, had been turned into a honky-tonk.
That meant sad songs, heartbreak and an unusually high number of cowboy hats in the room. Once it got hot in there, the hat owners began using said headgear to fan themselves.
DJ Mary was playing honky tonk vinyl when we walked in and the first person to throw her arms around me was the reason I was there. Musician Alison Self is back in Richmond for the first time in something like three years and there was no way I was missing seeing her and hearing that voice. Confession: I've been a devoted fan since I first met her back in 2008.
In fact, the evening was a benefit because Alison had been diagnosed with colon cancer back in December and been through a couple rounds of chemo. Talk about not knowing what's going to happen to you.
Meanwhile, my friend was totally digging on DJ Mary playing a cover of "Delta Dawn," a song that took him back to elementary school because his music teacher used to have his class sing it. I have to say, it was a real kick to hear a DJ playing nothing but honky tonk records for a change.
Then Alison took the stage in her fringed shirt, jeans and hat, holding her guitar and introducing her dobro player Mike before saying how nice it was to see all our beautiful faces. "It's like a family reunion!" she laughed before getting down to business. "Go ahead and swipe right on me on Tinder. I'm single!" Pure Alison.
So is her voice, bigger sounding than she looks and pure twang. As the night progressed, she did songs by Kitty Wells like "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels," as well as Loretta Lynn's "Kentucky Girl" and originals I'd heard before and loved, like "When I Feel Weak, I Pour a Strong Drink," which she explained was about coping mechanisms.
But being Alison, she used the moments between songs to banter with the crowd of friends and fans, saying, "Y'all are so responsive and sweet, but this is a bar and we're going to get drunk!"
Explaining that she was going to put out a tip jar in case we wanted to contribute to the cause ("my butt hole!"), she sang another of her own, "Go Ahead, Girl," which she'd started because she wanted to use the word "strychnine" in a song. Honky tonk goals, I'm guessing.
Meanwhile, a photographer roamed the room shooting crowd footage for Alison's upcoming video and couples began two-stepping, although it was mostly all girl couples since my people tend to be the ones who want to dance.
"Are you ready for a dirty song?" Alison asked rhetorically, before introducing her classic, "I'll Buy the Plan B If You Buy the Whiskey," which she claimed hadn't been written as a political song but now very much felt that way in today's oppressive legislating. Then there was a Hank, Sr. song and a Buck Owens song and one about growing up outside of Petersburg, and wanting to escape, which she did.
I mean, who wouldn't?
And, yes, she offered to let anyone who wanted to touch her chemo port. I'll be honest, I wasn't one of them. But even with all the singing and joking, she included a PSA for the greater good: "If you have blood in your butt for a year, you should probably have that checked out!"
From there, it was only natural for her to launch into "I Wouldn't Kiss You If I Was Whiskey Drunk," an Alison Self classic if there ever was one and the ultimate statement about attraction.
Granted, we don't always know what's going to happen to us. Seems to me that that's exactly why I need to be out there having a ball every chance I get. Especially with friends who are going through the unexpected.
All I'm saying is, I'll buy the fish tacos if you buy the tequila.
Well, I knew I was going to dinner, a play and to hear music with an old friend. But he's been living in the 'burbs for a while now, causing him to ask a really dumb question when I suggested the plan for the evening. "Are we going to walk?" he messaged me.
Duh.
Now, mind you, it's not like he's some rube. This is a man who used to live in J-Ward, a man who's known me for a decade now and with whom I've walked to these places before.
Had he forgotten the J-Ward drill already?
Because he was coming straight from work and the play started earlier than usual, we decided to make Tarrant's Back Door for fish tacos our destination. It was also a sentimental choice because when we'd first met, he'd been bartending at Tarrant's. Right off the bat, he caused a sensation by asking if he could use Apple Pay instead of a card to pay for dinner. Turns out he could, but almost no one on staff knew that, so they all watched intently as he paid the 21st century way.
"Wow, I would have told a customer no, we can't do that," one of the managers admitted. Glad to help train the staff, son.
It was while we were eating our guac-slathered tacos that he shared that his relationship of the past few years was ending and naturally, that became the topic of conversation for the rest of the meal. While he'd long acknowledged that the relationship wasn't perfect (are any?), he hadn't foreseen its conclusion (but then, who does?).
As a long-time friend, I just hated seeing him sad about it.
After we ate, we strolled over to the November Theater for Cadence Theater Company's production of "Gloria," a multi-award winning play and Pulitzer Prize finalist. You know, the usual J-Ward fare.
We're grown-ups. We're supposed to choose our friends.
The utterly engrossing story followed a fictional publishing company and the Generation X editors, Generation Y editorial assistants and the Generation Z intern and receptionist as they try to figure out if they'll ever achieve their career dreams given that the Baby Boomers continue to hold on to all the top positions.
And now these Boomers aren't dying!
Where the play shocked the entire audience was in its depiction of how one disgruntled employee handled her resentment of others in the office. It was clear that none of her coworkers - much less the audience - had any idea what was going to happen to them when they went to work that day. Spoiler alert: intermission involved the stage crew removing lots of fake blood.
In the pre-Internet days, when you sat down at your desk, you had no choice but to work.
At intermission, everyone walked around half-dazed at the unexpectedness of what we'd just seen, sort of a witness-lite reaction to fictionalized trauma. The second half of the story showed how survivors - witnesses and those absent but part of the office - processed what they'd been through. And if they made money in the process, all the better to them.
It was exactly the kind of thought-provoking theater you can always count on Cadence Theatre Company delivering. My friend and I couldn't stop talking about it from the moment the applause began until we walked into Gallery 5, which for tonight, had been turned into a honky-tonk.
That meant sad songs, heartbreak and an unusually high number of cowboy hats in the room. Once it got hot in there, the hat owners began using said headgear to fan themselves.
DJ Mary was playing honky tonk vinyl when we walked in and the first person to throw her arms around me was the reason I was there. Musician Alison Self is back in Richmond for the first time in something like three years and there was no way I was missing seeing her and hearing that voice. Confession: I've been a devoted fan since I first met her back in 2008.
In fact, the evening was a benefit because Alison had been diagnosed with colon cancer back in December and been through a couple rounds of chemo. Talk about not knowing what's going to happen to you.
Meanwhile, my friend was totally digging on DJ Mary playing a cover of "Delta Dawn," a song that took him back to elementary school because his music teacher used to have his class sing it. I have to say, it was a real kick to hear a DJ playing nothing but honky tonk records for a change.
Then Alison took the stage in her fringed shirt, jeans and hat, holding her guitar and introducing her dobro player Mike before saying how nice it was to see all our beautiful faces. "It's like a family reunion!" she laughed before getting down to business. "Go ahead and swipe right on me on Tinder. I'm single!" Pure Alison.
So is her voice, bigger sounding than she looks and pure twang. As the night progressed, she did songs by Kitty Wells like "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels," as well as Loretta Lynn's "Kentucky Girl" and originals I'd heard before and loved, like "When I Feel Weak, I Pour a Strong Drink," which she explained was about coping mechanisms.
But being Alison, she used the moments between songs to banter with the crowd of friends and fans, saying, "Y'all are so responsive and sweet, but this is a bar and we're going to get drunk!"
Explaining that she was going to put out a tip jar in case we wanted to contribute to the cause ("my butt hole!"), she sang another of her own, "Go Ahead, Girl," which she'd started because she wanted to use the word "strychnine" in a song. Honky tonk goals, I'm guessing.
Meanwhile, a photographer roamed the room shooting crowd footage for Alison's upcoming video and couples began two-stepping, although it was mostly all girl couples since my people tend to be the ones who want to dance.
"Are you ready for a dirty song?" Alison asked rhetorically, before introducing her classic, "I'll Buy the Plan B If You Buy the Whiskey," which she claimed hadn't been written as a political song but now very much felt that way in today's oppressive legislating. Then there was a Hank, Sr. song and a Buck Owens song and one about growing up outside of Petersburg, and wanting to escape, which she did.
I mean, who wouldn't?
And, yes, she offered to let anyone who wanted to touch her chemo port. I'll be honest, I wasn't one of them. But even with all the singing and joking, she included a PSA for the greater good: "If you have blood in your butt for a year, you should probably have that checked out!"
From there, it was only natural for her to launch into "I Wouldn't Kiss You If I Was Whiskey Drunk," an Alison Self classic if there ever was one and the ultimate statement about attraction.
Granted, we don't always know what's going to happen to us. Seems to me that that's exactly why I need to be out there having a ball every chance I get. Especially with friends who are going through the unexpected.
All I'm saying is, I'll buy the fish tacos if you buy the tequila.
Friday, May 31, 2019
A Summer State of Mind
And just like that, my summer has (unofficially) arrived.
I say that not because of the marathon birthday celebration that lasted all last week featuring stellar meals at Dinamo, Lemaire and Metzger, although it was a fine excuse to debut some of my newest thrift store summer dresses and pack away the leggings until Halloween.
For that matter, surely I could be forgiven for designating this year's first visit to Quirk's rooftop - with posse in tow, several of whom had yet to experience the beauty of Jackson Ward laid out before them from on high - as the kickoff to the most wonderful time of the year, but it wasn't.
And I don't say that my favorite season is upon us because of spending a day last week on the Outer Banks, despite the pleasures of a crabcake sandwich lunch at Frog Island Seafood, a cookout in the backyard of a soundfront cottage and the distinct pleasure of a major first: riding bikes from sound to ocean.
Technically, I could even make a case for the commencement of summer as the first night that required not only open windows (they've been the norm since April) but the additional machinations of the ceiling fan, the table fan and the upright fan, all wafting moving air directly at my bed. But I won't do that.
Another worthy indicator might be the hissing of the sprinkler saturating the continuous waves of flowers - heirloom roses, Asian lilies, Gerbera daisies, dianthus, petunias, clematis, pincushion flowers - in my little front garden. It seems like every time I'm down there moving the sprinkler, a stranger walks by and smilingly tells me some version of, "I love looking at your flowers." A woman with a toddler in a stroller has walked by repeatedly, explaining that she made my block part of her route solely so they can enjoy my garden.
No question, I could say that attending my first Sundown at Scuffletown show earlier this week qualifies as some sort of musical announcement that summer is here. The dusky interludes are one those established things (this is, what, the sixth year now?) I continue to do that never get old because the best things never do. It doesn't hurt that I always run into familiar faces, either.
As new to me as my latest summer dresses, the Billy Bacci Band - keys, guitar, bass and drums - delivered a solid set of keyboard-based indie music as the sun set behind the trees. Even Billy seemed thrilled with the outdoor venue, noting, "This is the best gig ever because I live a block from here!" But is my first outdoor show this year worthy of being the harbinger of summer's arrival? I think not.
What did make it feel like summer without a doubt was - wait for it - Mac and I finally being able to walk the Pipeline.
That it occurred on my birthday only made it all the sweeter. Uncharacteristically, we hadn't been able to get on the pipeline since last October, despite regularly attempting to do so only to find it submerged. Thanks to a record-setting soggy 2018, the pipeline has been partially or mostly underwater for months, depriving Mac and I of our favorite daily walk.
All I know is that as of May 23, the pipeline was back and we could experience the particular pleasures, both sight and sound, of walking on water again. Which means as far as I'm concerned, my season is here.
Let the hot fun in the summertime begin.
I say that not because of the marathon birthday celebration that lasted all last week featuring stellar meals at Dinamo, Lemaire and Metzger, although it was a fine excuse to debut some of my newest thrift store summer dresses and pack away the leggings until Halloween.
For that matter, surely I could be forgiven for designating this year's first visit to Quirk's rooftop - with posse in tow, several of whom had yet to experience the beauty of Jackson Ward laid out before them from on high - as the kickoff to the most wonderful time of the year, but it wasn't.
And I don't say that my favorite season is upon us because of spending a day last week on the Outer Banks, despite the pleasures of a crabcake sandwich lunch at Frog Island Seafood, a cookout in the backyard of a soundfront cottage and the distinct pleasure of a major first: riding bikes from sound to ocean.
Technically, I could even make a case for the commencement of summer as the first night that required not only open windows (they've been the norm since April) but the additional machinations of the ceiling fan, the table fan and the upright fan, all wafting moving air directly at my bed. But I won't do that.
Another worthy indicator might be the hissing of the sprinkler saturating the continuous waves of flowers - heirloom roses, Asian lilies, Gerbera daisies, dianthus, petunias, clematis, pincushion flowers - in my little front garden. It seems like every time I'm down there moving the sprinkler, a stranger walks by and smilingly tells me some version of, "I love looking at your flowers." A woman with a toddler in a stroller has walked by repeatedly, explaining that she made my block part of her route solely so they can enjoy my garden.
No question, I could say that attending my first Sundown at Scuffletown show earlier this week qualifies as some sort of musical announcement that summer is here. The dusky interludes are one those established things (this is, what, the sixth year now?) I continue to do that never get old because the best things never do. It doesn't hurt that I always run into familiar faces, either.
As new to me as my latest summer dresses, the Billy Bacci Band - keys, guitar, bass and drums - delivered a solid set of keyboard-based indie music as the sun set behind the trees. Even Billy seemed thrilled with the outdoor venue, noting, "This is the best gig ever because I live a block from here!" But is my first outdoor show this year worthy of being the harbinger of summer's arrival? I think not.
What did make it feel like summer without a doubt was - wait for it - Mac and I finally being able to walk the Pipeline.
That it occurred on my birthday only made it all the sweeter. Uncharacteristically, we hadn't been able to get on the pipeline since last October, despite regularly attempting to do so only to find it submerged. Thanks to a record-setting soggy 2018, the pipeline has been partially or mostly underwater for months, depriving Mac and I of our favorite daily walk.
All I know is that as of May 23, the pipeline was back and we could experience the particular pleasures, both sight and sound, of walking on water again. Which means as far as I'm concerned, my season is here.
Let the hot fun in the summertime begin.
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