It's Alive

Pink is the color of love and happiness.

I gleaned this, not by spending close to two hours in the love and happiness room at Quirk Hotel, but by listening to a Ted talk (as in Ted Ukrop was talking) about the hotel's restoration and renovation, a talk punctuated by the clinking glasses of the cocktail party vibe in the room and a fire alarm.

Given the blase age we live in, it was hardly surprising that, mid-talk, when the excruciatingly loud alarm began sounding, not a soul moved. In fact, a well-dressed guy turned and said to no one in particular, "Funny how no one's making a move to leave."

Funny? It took some time for the Modern Richmond crowd to begrudgingly accept that there was the possibility that the hotel above us was in dire straits and begin shuffling up the stairs, through the smoky lobby and outside.

We never got any explanation, but the moment the alarm ceased, we dutifully filed back in to hear more about how Quirk came to be from Ted and the architect. Like how they researched old photos at the Valentine to see what the lobby originally looked like back when the Italianate building was a toney department store.

How the second floor windows on the east side are original and high up on the walls, in the Italian style, so steps were added to access the views. How flooring from the building next door was used to fashion cabinets, closets and counters. How you can see the racetrack and the Diamond from the rooftop bar because it's the tallest building in the area.

Our ultimate goal was going upstairs to see a room and a loft suite, both with fabulous windows, local artisan-made ice buckets and Virginia art in every room and hallway. Since the rooms cost $200 and $400 a night respectively, it'll likely be my last look at them.

Chatting with a stranger about where I lived and how I liked it (J-Ward, love it) because she's considering a move to the city, she asks, apropos of nothing, "Do you work?"

I think this is about the oddest question you could ask an able-bodied person over 18 and under 65. Do I work? Do I need to pay for shelter and transportation? Do I have living expenses? What the hell?

Yes, I work.

I also eat, both for hire, for pleasure and for sustenance, meaning my next stop was dinner at Lucy's with my favorite walker.

Ensconced at the bar with "On the Town" playing silently on the screen, I licked a bowl of bacon and lentil soup clean and followed it with a fried Brussels sprout and mesclun salad jazzed up with goat cheese and red onions while my companion found religion with Lucy's incomparable cheeseburger.

Shortly, in came the chef and barkeep of Metzger, waiting to meet friends, but happy to share the plans for their new Scott's Addition restaurant in the meantime. While it certainly sounds like it's going to be fun, I can't help but wonder about the wisdom of this mass stampede to such a small and impossibly trendy neighborhood.

Or perhaps I'm secretly envious that more business owners don't consider some of the empty buildings in Jackson Ward when looking for real estate.

But no matter. In front of us was flourless chocolate cake dripping with real whipped cream on a plate squiggled with caramel sauce, so my attention was diverted to more important things like maintaining my daily chocolate quota.

That quota, in fact, had been the subject of discussion earlier today while I was out on my walkabout.

"I see you're still out here strutting every day," says the business owner whose shop I'd passed for years, at least until construction fences forced me to the opposite side of the street.

He felt comfortable giving me a hard time because we'd officially met and chatted at a nearby restaurant I was reviewing when he'd spotted me in non-walking attire. I reminded him that I strut so I can abuse chocolate and put off looking my age.

"I need to get back to the gym more often,:" he said, picking up the gauntlet and running with it before tossing me a delightful compliment (coincidentally, the third reason I walk).

Chocolate needs met for the time, I bade my companion farewell and set out for UR and the annual Musicircus,a tribute to composer John Cage. Since the first one I attended back at the old Chop Suey Books in 2007, I've been devoted to the one-hour cacophony of sound.

Wandering through the concert hall, I was a bit surprised at the small crowd, but there hadn't been much press or even social media about it, so it wasn't entirely surprising. In hallways and practice rooms, the crowd happened on all kinds of music and musicians.

A four-piece fado group, the singer's lovely voice shaping the words of Portuguese longing. A guy playing acoustic guitar and singing the stirring "This Land is Your Land." A piano and drum combo perfectly in sync. Gamelan musicians. A killer guitarist playing lap steel. A familiar sax player, eyes closed, wailing alone in a room.

One of the most unique sound contributors was The Hat, reading from his unfinished novel, using his best actorly voices and hand gestures for dramatic effect.

My only complaint was that the whole point of the Musicircus is the blending of all the disparate music being made, but with such a large building, even the sound of 50+ musicians didn't always reach to the next performer.

It was only when I ran into the jazz critic that I was clued in to the additional musicians playing their hearts out in the basement. Down I went, only to be rewarded with the best bleeding of sound by far.

Just outside a stairwell were three members of No BS - Lance using nothing but a mic'd cymbal and a xylophone, Marcus and Reggie blowing horns - making a disproportionately large sound for three people.

Two favorites - Scott and Cameron - whom I'd seen recently in separate outfits were reunited (and it feels so good) and playing with trumpeter Bob. A noise group turned knobs and produced sound so loud it scared some people off. A guy playing a keyboard with earbuds in seemed to be in his own world.

Walking in on Brian and Pinson, both drummers except tonight Brian - the event's organizer all these years - was playing piano (what?), a favorite gallerist arched an eyebrow and leaned in, saying, "I see your blog is back alive."

Now there was an unexpected compliment. You just never know what instruments people play or who might be paying attention to your blog, do you?

Fittingly, my final stop was a large room with an eight-piece (guitar, bass, drums, congas, trumpet, piano, two saxes) rocking out to the point that the two guys listening were head banging while the grooviest of light shows swirled red, green and yellow on the ceiling and walls.

Needless to say, their raucous sound was bleeding out and down hallways in a manner that had to have had John Cage smiling, wherever he and partner Merce are right now.

With any luck, they're in a place with walls painted in Benjamin Moore's "Love and Happiness Pink," coincidentally, the color of half the rooms at Quirk Hotel.

If only painting it made it so. We strutting types figure that love and happiness are where you find them.

Cage Match

Some of us live in urban bohemia and some of us grew up in suburban bohemia.

The latter would be Slash Coleman, who came to the Library of Virginia tonight for a reading (actually a retelling) from his new book, "The Bohemian Love Diaries."

Three years ago, I spent Valentine's night with Slash and a bunch of other singles at Crossroads Art, listening to him and a few guests share stories about how the course of true love never does run smooth, a fact of which I was well aware at that time.

Tonight's reading drew a lively crowd, several of whom told me they were intrigued by the book's title.

After chatting with a woman about industrial farming and (no kidding) circumcision during the wine and cheese reception, Slash took center stage in a full beard and ripped jeans to bring us up to date on his life.

And while usually his stories have a humorous side, this one involved him getting a collapsed lung that eventually required surgery to re-inflate and causing him to cancel the rest of his book tour speaking engagements,

Well, except for this one because, here's the thing: Slash grew up in Chester, a word he humorously pronounced all evening long the way the locals do.

Showing us the book cover, we saw a picture of Slash when he was about eight, back when his artist father used to load up the family for monthly trips to Alaska to find an artists' colony.

Except they rarely got any farther than Fredericksburg.

Tonight's talk was about being raised by an eccentric family and his failed love relationships as a result of coming out of all that eccentricity.

He showed us an Italian version of the book with the title changed to "Love with a High Fever," a title he didn't think was any better than his.

I don't know about that.

Sharing the story of his parents' meeting at the tea room at Miller & Rhoads, we heard that Dad, a sculptor, had been a sign painter for M & R and Mom was French and a student at RPI. Along the way, he threw in that Grandpa danced at the Moulin Rouge and Grandma was a watercolor painter.

On his parents' first date, he showed up in a stolen car with a case of Manischewitz wine and a plan to win her heart. Instead he drank it all and passed out and she walked home alone to her dorm.

Disastrous as it sounds, he invited her to Passover for their second date, but they ended up eloping before the second date.

Slash recalled an early interest in sports that was of no consequence to his artistic parents. The closest to sporty they got was when his Dad organized a softball game between the Freaks, a bunch of sculptors, and the Pigs, a team of Richmond police officers.

Begging his mother to let him play baseball, she responded that he would be paralyzed and said no, but he eventually found an old glove in his Dad's studio and signed up for the team himself.

Sharing tales of gymnastics, wrestling and being brought home to his mother after sports injuries, he waxed poetic about Coach Walt, a man who wore Brut by Faberge and had a white person Afro.

It's a pretty vivid visual.

He recalled fondly the period when his father sold roadkill sculptures to support the family. It gets pretty odd here because while the head was from one animal and the legs from another, the body was always made of bread.

Yup, you read right.

So one of his pieces might have the head of a turtle, the legs of a lizard and a pumpernickel body. And when pieces didn't sell after a while, they  were retired to the backyard as ornamentation, at least until the bread rotted or was eaten.

I'd say that's pretty bohemian.

In any case, the book is being shopped around as a TV series and who knows, a series could show up on TV about a boy from Chester who came from a family of six Leo women and eight artists.

During the Q & A, Slash said he prefers to read non-fiction because, "I'm interested in how people put their truths together."

Exactly the way I feel about non-fiction and no doubt part of the reason that people read my blog every day.

Or maybe they're eager to read about my love with a high fever exploits, who knows?

Truth telling aside, next on my plate was the annual musicircus at UR, the one hour beautiful cacophony of musicians playing whatever they choose.

Don't ask me, composer John Cage thought it up and I just participate every year.

The musicircus got a late start because the eighth blackbird show ran over, so it was almost 9 when the sirens went off and everyone began playing.

Wandering down hallways, up and down staircases, into practice and classrooms, the milling crowd had myriad options for what kind of music with which to begin.

Since so many people were gathered on the first floor, my fellow Cage lover and I sprinted upstairs in an attempt to beat the masses.

Brian Jones, an organizer of the annual event, had assembled a percussion ensemble that included jazz drummer extraordinaire Scott Clark on tambourine.

Perched on an upholstered chair with two girls on couches for an audience was harmonica player Andrew Ali, whom I've seen play with Allison Self and lately, Josh Small. Tonight he was flying solo, singing and blowing his best blues.

Improv troupe the Johnsons (from Richmond Comedy Coalition) had wedged themselves into a hallway and were hilariously making up stuff with every word that came out of their mouths.

For sheer effect, it was tough to beat Kill Vonnegut, a punk quintet playing under black lights to a rapt audience.

For something completely different, the Family Band looked impossibly young and clean cut, with not a whisker of facial hair in the bunch, belting out Fountains of Wayne's "Stacey's Mom." I think they were all about 8 when it came out.

Tucked into a small room was Monk's Playground, where I recognized Larri Branch on piano, Brian Cruse on upright bass and the female sax player from RVA Big Band. As to which Monk song they were playing, I couldn't tell you.

I spotted David Roberts, whom I recognized from Classical Incarnations, playing piano alone in a room but couldn't hear him over the din, so I stepped in.

Turning, he invited me to look at his score, where I saw the title "Vexations" and the composer, Eric Satie, and an instruction at the top to play the theme 840 times.

David said that Cage had once done it and it had taken him 18 hours. Since the musicircus only lasts one hour, that wasn't happening tonight, but I was curious if repeating the same page of music was vexing him yet.

"A little, yes," he admitted with a smile, but I gave him the award for most Cage-appropriate music choice.

Coming down a stairwell, we happened on a sitar and a moment later the young woman who played it arrived, sitting on the floor to play. It was easily the handsomest instrument of the evening.

And purchased online, of course.

Tucked into a classroom with staffs drawn on the white board were guitarists Scott Burton and Matt White with another musician between them turning knobs and adjusting the effects of their playing to an ambient guitar wall of sound.

Alistair Calhoun took home the prize for smallest guitar, using reverb effects and finger picking to entice me to linger and listen.

DJ Carlito spun world music heavy on the middle east and even getting people to start dancing in the hallway. Pianist David Eslek was playing Lennon's "Imagine."

Downstairs we found the Josh Bearman group, a lot of whom seemed to be the Hot Seats, playing their spot-on old time and bluegrass music.

The gamelan orchestra had a Balinese shadow puppet play on film playing over their instruments, an ideal accompaniment to the lyrical music.

Near the door, Dave Watkins grabbed people's attention coming and going with his electric dulcitar and endless looping to create the sound of a quartet or even quintet.

Because he's Dave, he kept playing long after other musicians had stopped (or even left), treating the lingerers to a sonic finale that blew minds. But then, he's Dave Watkins, so he always delivers the grandiose.

Every year I say it because every year it's true.

Richmond is incredibly fortunate that we have a musicircus put on every year, with dozens of musicians both new to their craft and long-standing, playing their hearts out for free for one hour.

I saw so many people I know taking it all in. There were musicians playing and musicians as guests. Students experiencing it for the first time. Even a few little children in headphones.

Heads full and ears happy, the musicircus beats even Barnum & Bailey for sheer delight in the experience. Plus, no animals are harmed in the making of the musicircus.

That's how I'm putting today's truth together, ladies and germs. Make of it what you will.

Should you have any questions, you can find me in New Bohemia...or thereabouts. Possibly with a high fever.

Let's Talk

You might not think I'd have much in common with NPR's Susan Stamberg.

But guess what?

Like her, when I'm at a party, I go around and ask people questions. Interview them, even.

And I'm not talking about the people I know.

Stamberg was at UR today to talk about her life as a cultural corespondent as part of the Crimmel Colloquium.

That would be the one that advances the cause of a liberal education.

Go, team!

Beginning by asking us for a show of hands as to who listened to NPR (nearly everyone in the room), she quipped, "Wow! It used to be just my mother."

Her humor continued. "I know it's hard to put the face with the voice. Close your eyes," she instructed. "This is National Public Radio."

Laughter and applause followed.

A founding member of NPR, she went on to regale us with her life, her opinions and her experiences.

She made a slave of me when she said, "It all began with reading. But then, doesn't everything?"

Yes, it does.

Talking about "All Things Considered," she said the goal was to redefine the news. Well done, Susan et al.

Now that she's a cultural correspondent, she's also a preacher for why it's so important to include the arts when telling the news.

"I would choose five minutes with a  performance artists over five hours with Paul Ryan," she said to laughter, explaining that she wants to spend her time with creative people. "If this world is to be saved, it won't be by the politicians."

Amen.

She described interviewing, a process with which I am intimately familiar, as "a conversation designed to be overheard."

She bested me on childhood, though, saying that as adults, some of her childhood friends had admitted that they didn't like sleepovers at her house because she'd keep them up all night asking questions.

Not me. I'd ask questions until I got tired, but sleep always wins out with me.

When someone's phone rang mid-lecture, she didn't miss a beat, but inserted "Turn it off!" in a sing-song but stern voice, qualifying it with, "Unless it's George Clooney."

Of course she had great interview stories.

Writer Joan Didion was her favorite, although she didn't hesitate to say that her last book was too raw to read.

She raved about how in a 1982 interview with author Saul Bellow, he'd expressed concern about the news media shortening our attention spans.

Bellow told her that "we live in a world of distracting substitutes for reality."

Since it couldn't be more true today, I've no doubt Saul is spinning in his grave.

After a lively lecture, Stamberg graciously took questions, no doubt the exact same ones she gets at every talk.

When asked if  NPR had a liberal bias, she cracked, "You know, I've never been asked that."

But she went on, "I think we are just like a liberal arts education. No issue can't be raised in our public forum. Oh, did you mean politically? That's ridiculous."

As for the future of NPR in thirty years, she said, "First, I drink to your health," a nod to the member-supported stations but then admitted it was unlikely, like print media, to last much longer.

Her interview that didn't go as planned was with David Crosby who walked out of the studio after being asked a question (supplied by an NPR colleague) he didn't want to answer.

She wanted to run it with the silence ("Quiet is golden on radio") but her producer nixed that idea.

But it was her last story that was the best and no famous names were involved.

Years ago, she'd been walking through the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris when she spied a woman on a bench with a "Let's talk" sign on her lap.

Miss Lilly, a former interpreter for NATO, took her sign everywhere as a way of encouraging conversation with strangers.

Her only rules were no sex, no politics, no religion ("That's how wars begin," Stamberg said Miss Lily told her).

Miss Lilly saw it as her mission to get people talking.

But that's not even the best part of a woman holding a sign like that.

Miss Lilly said that a young woman couldn't do it because it would be titillating.

A man couldn't do it because it would be unnerving.

But an older woman could do it because it was non-threatening.

That's right.

I'm already considering where I can sit with my sign.

No, it's not an original idea, but I think it's brilliant.

Thanks for asking, Susan.

A Sunday Kind of Love

First rule of Sunday: start high and get progressively sillier.

You really couldn't start much higher than a dazzling audio vision like "Koyaanisqatsi," the 1983 film about life out of balance with a Philip Glass soundtrack.

Sitting at UR's Modlin Center with a roomful of people willing to forsake a crystalline late summer day and the NFL for a non-narrative movie with only one word in it (the Hopi chant "koyaanisqatsi") surely qualified me as both a music and film nerd.

Unfortunately, not everyone in attendance was as enthralled with the movie as my companions and I were.

Directly in front of us was a UR student who moved constantly and restlessly from side to side in his chair, his head always in his hands as if he needed to hold it up.

In front of him, a kid napped through the whole thing.

Personally, I find the visuals of nature followed by technology followed by cultural references and eventually decay to be a meditation on the planet.

And of course, on the late '70s, early '80s when it was shot.

Like the billboard in Times Square advertising, "Sony Betamax."

And the beauty of implosions, long a fascination for me.

I am one of those people who got up at the crack of dawn to watch the old Times Disptach building imploded  back in September '98.

The film had image after image of implosions, truly a combination of science and beauty.

But if you've seen the film, you know how tense the score and images make you by the end of the film.

We stayed for the talkback with UR's music director and the remaining devotees of the film for some additional insight.

Afterwards, the four of us dined at Don't Look Back, discussing the film and its two sequels, neither of which I've seen.

A Frito pie and Herradura Reposado helped clear my head of the apocalyptic vision we'd just seen on the big screen.

And, honestly, where can you go after apocalypse and Fritos but to the Ghost Light Afterparty?

This month's event was called "Sha-GLAP," leading me to suspect a '50s theme.

Walking in to a room full of poodle skirts, bobby socks and ponytails, I knew I was right.

My date guessed that there's be some '60s, too, and a chat with co-host Maggie confirmed this.

The decades may change, but the GLAP is essentially a piano bar with members of the theater community taking the stage to sing whatever the hell they want.

As co-host Matt said tonight, "If you wanna sing a song from Les Mis and then talk about how much you hate Les Mis, that's fine."

Maggie explained the housekeeping issues, including a plea for some appropriate music. "We do appreciate some theme-i-ness."

And we got theme-i-ness almost at once with the marvelous Wonderettes (currently in production at Swift Mill) doing "Son of a Preacherman," complete with choreography and praying hands.

And we were off and running.

Part of the drill at GLAP is always Mad Libs set to a song of the period and we were warned that two Mad Libs were now in circulation and to feel free to contribute any dirty words we cared to to the project.

"F**k hasn't come up and we only have one penis," Miss Mad Lib informed us.

"One penis is never enough," Matt quipped.

Lamentation gave way to opera as Stephanie and Ingrid got up and sang a piece from "Tales of Hoffman."

"Last month we had "Smells Like Teen Spirit," Matt laughed. "And now we have opera. That's what Ghost Light is all about."

Maggie sang "Let the Good Times Roll" with Matt on shaker balls, providing my favorite lyric of the evening, "Love can be such a swinging thing."

Warning us that, "This could be tragic, but we welcome tragedy here," Matt did "On Broadway" (with back up singers), even changing the lyrics to "On Broad Street" and ending with jazz hands.

We like jazz hands at the GLAP.

Elizabeth jumped decades and did "Sweet Baby James,"  Peter did a soulful version of "Let It Be Me" and Sarah did "Stand By Me" with an impromptu group of backup singers and shakers almost upstaging her.

The Wonderettes returned for a beautifully-executed "Mr. Sandman" and an hysterical "Lollipop" that included a take-off on a Saturday Night Live skit that had one of the Wonderettes wearing prosthetic tubes with doll arms attached.

Georgia was the brave one to sing the first Mad Lib to "It's My Party," full of innuendo and trash talk ("It's my party and I'll masturbate if I want to").

When Matt spotted Evan looking very much like Buddy Holly, he burst into Weezer song, "Ooh,we, ooh, you look just like Buddy Holly and Karen, you're Mary Tyler Moore."

Not gonna lie, it was my first musical shout-out from the stage and I could get used to it.

"The Lion Sleeps Tonight" got the bongos and shaker treatment.

One of the night's highlights was Katrina singing (with flowers in her hair)  and Iman beat boxing to "Killing Me Softly."

It was the kind of sublime moment that you just had to be present for.

The TheaterLab group did "Summer Nights" from "Grease" and Evan added a mean tambourine to that.

Then it was intermission, meaning pizza time and Matt instructed, "Crank up that tuna-age!" so we had music to munch by.

Sarah did "Freddy, My Love" before raffle winners were pulled.

One prize was a bottle of malbec and Maggie read from the bottle's label that the winemakers selected from grapes that were 47 years old.

"That's so old!" Maggie exclaimed.

God, yes, 47, that's practically deathbed material.

Paul did a sweet version of "In My Own Little Corner" from "Cinderella," complete with high drama and an abrupt and unexpected ending, at least for him.

"That was very unceremonious and I loved it," Maggie observed.

Katie got Mad Lib duty this time and hers came with a warning at the top saying, "This is filthy."

Sung to Grease's "Sandra Dee" it included phrases like "pink velvet sausage pocket."

GLAP is not for the faint of heart, kids.

Nick did a rousing rendition of "If You Wanna Be Happy" with the sage lyrics "never make a pretty woman your wife" and three guys on heartfelt backup vocals plus bongos.

The crowd, now well lubricated, got vocal, testifying as Carla sang Streisand's "Evergreen" to shouts of "Come on!" and "Go, girl."

In a nod to the mood, she even changed a lyric to "Every day I am tipsy."

Katrina got called back up next, prompting her to say, "Oh, great! I have to go after Carla!"

Oh, great was right as she did "Stars and the Moon," noting midway through, "This song makes me cry."

Meanwhile you could have heard a pin drop in the room as everyone listened intently.

Even as our own bottle of Rose got lower and lower, Matt acknowledged, "I just accidentally chugged my bourbon and ginger and there's so many words on this page," before singing the hilarious "Therapy" from "Tick Tick Boom."

Paul did a song requested by Annie, saying, "To all you Glappers who have nothing better to do on a Sunday, there's nothing better than love, so here's "A Sunday Kind of Love."

Once again, he finished unceremoniously, getting many laughs for it.

The last song was "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss)" with Carla, Matt, Maggie and even Evan shaking his moneymaker tambourine along with everyone else who couldn't resist joining in the last big singalong.

Conclusion after nearly five hours of Glappage?

If it's love, if it really is, it's there in his kiss.

That, and I'm happy to concede that I have nothing better to do on a Sunday evening than let tipsy theater people sing to me.

Where else on earth am I going to be able to relive my youth singing along with a roomful of people to "Good Morning, Starshine"?

Only at GLAP, my friends, only at GLAP.

Barefoot and Punjabi

How crazy is it to have a program for a dance party?

Our initial intent was to fuel up for the evening ahead at Secco. It was on the way to UR, there are always such an array of (affordable) wine choices and the food is reliably awesome. Case in point: a lightly fizzy wine from Spain not yet on the menu, Avinyo Petillant (the name means "wine with a prickle") with a highly aromatic nose and loads of effervescence.

There were some lovely new items on the menu, like a Tuscan kale salad with Asian pears, oyster mushrooms, 3-year Gouda with pumpkin seeds and oil that delivered the hearty flavor of kale dressed in its prettiest fall flavors. I coveted the lentil soup with ham hocks and creme fraiche, finding the pig element to be what made the dish sing.

Next to us, a young woman tried flirting with food talk to some nearby guys only to be corrected when she informed them that, "You know, pate is illegal in California."

"You mean foie gras?" one of the guys politely corrected her, grinning at me but allowing the girl to continue to fawn.

House-made smoked paprika sausage with vinegar collard greens was a perfect balance of heat and tang, addicting almost in its complementary flavors. Because we were short on time, we finished with more Petillant and a cheese course of Blue del Moncenesio because it was promised to be a "dense, smokey, meaty bleu."

Not to mention Italian. They weren't lying. With a creamy mouth feel and a fairly assertive taste, it was a stinky cheese lover's dream. We all but inhaled the cheese in order to take our stinky breath to the Modlin Center to see Red Baraat.

Billed as combining a New Orleans street band sound with Bollywood tunes and a go-go beat, I had decided it was a must-see. In fact, when I'd gotten the tickets, the ticket seller had asked if I wanted assigned seats in the balcony or general admission in the orchestra pit.

Are you kidding?

If the Modlin Center is expecting enough dancing for Red Baraat to negate the need for seats, you bet I want general admission. Walking in to a Beatles soundtrack, we saw no one standing down near the stage. Okay, so we'll take seats in the front row and see what happens.

I had to laugh at being handed a program on my way in.

True, it had some information about the band's history in it, including that they were as likely to  be found "throwing down at an overheated and unannounced warehouse party in their Brooklyn neighborhood" as at  Lincoln Center. But there's not a lot more you can say about this kind of performance in the pages of a program.

A friend came by shortly, telling us of his amazement that the audience was filling up the seats in the back of the theater and not the front. Not us. We were close enough to see the band sweat and spit.

When Red Baraat took the stage, they were missing one member, so they were down to only eight.
It was still a lot of musicians: soprano saxophone, trumpet, bass trumpet, trombone, sousaphone, drummer, percussionist and leader Sonny playing dohl, a double-sided north Indian drum he wore slung over his sweaty shoulder.

Sonny explained that "baraat" referred to a procession that happens for a wedding in India and their first song was "Today is My Best Friend's Wedding Day."

It wasn't long after that when Sonny instructed the audience to stand. Next he directed us to move forward and fill the empty space in front of the stage. Then the band began playing and all hell broke loose.

All of a sudden, the pit was filled with people of all ages dancing wildly to music drawn from Punjabi rhythms with a ferocious horn section that brought jazz and funk into the mix.

By the second song, I knew my shoes had been the wrong choice and deposited them on my empty chair in the front row. Back down in front, I saw an Indian-American friend busting his best Bollywood moves, a sight I never thought I'd live to see.

It was pretty impressive.

I said hello to WRIR's DJ Carlito, the orchestrator of the popular Bollywood dance parties around town, telling him I knew he'd be there. The rest of the evening was pretty much a dance party, pure and simple.

Oh, sure, we heard raucous, we heard sinewy, we heard hard-core sousaphone, but never did the beat waver or the dancing crowd stop moving. I only hope the seated people up in the balcony were having a fraction of the good time we were having down in the pit, but I really don't see how.

As the evening progressed, the temperature went up with all the sweaty, dancing bodies and I couldn't help but think that it was the Alice Jepson Theater's first-ever dance party.

May I just say how satisfying it was to be dropping sweat at a venerable location like UR?

I had told my date just before the show began that I wished we were seeing Red Baraat in an overheated warehouse instead of a stately theater.

Wrong.

By the time the energetic show ended almost two hours later, my shirt was stuck to my back, my hair was wet at the roots and anyone looking at me would have thought I'd been in an overheated warehouse dancing all night.

But you don't get a glossy program at a warehouse dance party, now do you?

Existential Dread Done Right

With classical music, it's important to set the tone.

So you can imagine my surprise upon walking into UR's Camp Concert Hall for a lecture on composer Philip Glass to hear Michael Jackson blaring from the speakers.

Don't stop till you get enough. Don't worry, I won't.

And if I was a tad surprised, I imagine the largely blue-hair audience was, too.

On the other hand, I was thrilled that UR is doing a Philip Glass festival that will include the man himself coming here.

Here.

Two members of eighth blackbird, UR's ensemble-in-residence, introduced the film, each saying as little as possible.

Minimalists musicians apparently are also minimalist talkers.

"Glass: A Portrait of Philip in 12 Parts" begins with Glass' annual tradition of riding the Cyclone at Coney Island.

I have to think that that's a 75-year old man worth knowing more about.

The filmmaker followed Glass for over a year as he wrote a symphony, premiered an opera,  and scored a few films (we heard from Woody Allen and Martin Scorcese).

Hilariously, at one point Glass' phone rings and he glances at the caller ID. "Oh, it's Hollywood," he says, ignoring the call.

Not surprisingly, a man so talented is a challenge to live with and by the time the movie starts he is on his fourth wife.

"And then I came along," Holly Glass says of her arrival in his life after his having been "sad for years" over the death of his previous wife and soul mate.

Imagine how brave a woman would have to be to try marriage with a thrice-married man.

She's funny about his idiosyncrasies ("Philip keeps everything. He's kind of a hoarder") but also accepting of those realities ("I hope we never have a fire in this house").

After having seen paintings of Glass done by artist Chuck Close at the VMFA a couple of years ago and seeing Close speak at the museum, I got a kick out of seeing Close and Glass reminisce in this film.

They talked about NYC's amazing art scene back in the '60s and '70s, back when Glass was still playing house shows.

WTF?

I could barely wrap my head around the idea of seeing Glass play one of his minimalist compositions in someone's living room, but photographs proved it was so.

"Everyone was high, the audience and the musicians," we were told.

But so what?

At a performance in a park, a man came up and started banging on Glass' piano as he played, shouting "Stop, this is not music!"

The guy doing pianus interuptus was none other than a music teacher offended by the new sounds.

Not that Glass cared (actually he was amused). In fact he even told the camera that if people didn't like his music, they could listen to something else.

He said it cheerfully and sounding quite truthful.

And he never stopped doubting that his muse would arrive. "As you get older, you get confident it will come. But it doesn't come if you're not there waiting for it," he warned.

But he made it clear he did not want his muse arriving at night and interrupting his sleep.

The director of the film "The Thin Blue Line" nailed it when he said, "Philip does existential dread better than anyone."

Is there a higher post-modern compliment?

He had his own praise for one of his music teachers. "She took me from being a Julliard graduate to a composer."

I have no doubt it was her greatest accomplishment.

The documentary was fascinating as a look at a driven and talented man still vibrant at 70+ by a filmmaker with almost unlimited access to him and those close to him.

Sometimes even uncomfortably so, like when his wife teared up admitting how hard it was to put up with his absolute devotion to music and the different directions their lives were taking.

Not surprisingly, in the ladies' room after the film, I heard three women discussing whether or not he'd divorced wife #4 since the film was made.

"I'm going to Google it as soon as I get out of this bathroom," one woman said with determination.

Inquiring minds want to know.

And still looking quite good for an old guy, too, not all that different from the Close paintings done in 1969 when he was in college.

He admits that he has "a lot of music left in me, so I better take care of myself," but unlike a lot of men his age, he actually does it.

And even after seeing him being mortal, making pizza and playing with his toddlers, I had to acknowledge he wasn't like most of us.

"Music doesn't have to be imagined," he explained. "It just has to be written down. I just listen."

Wow. So it's all in there and he's just the vehicle.

As far as I was concerned, the only problem with the film was that Glass is a mumbler and at times it was difficult to decipher his words.

One couple walked out after the first five minutes and the couple in front of us kept asking each other, "What did he say?"

By the time it was over, I had a whole new appreciation for Glass and any woman brave enough to take him on.

Full of Glass love, we then faced the dilemma of where to eat on a Sunday early evening.

We ended up at Stuzzi where the a/c was inappropriately cold (necessitating seats near the pizza oven) and  where a football-watching group was just breaking up.

Given that factor and today's cooler weather, I betrayed summer and jumped ship for red wine, enjoying a Sangiovese's warming qualities.

We combined courses with a roasted mushroom, soprasetta salami and arugula pizza, downing the greens first.

I'm not a fan of red sauce, but occasionally I dip my toe in that pond and Stuzzi's red sauce of San Marzano tomatoes did the job tonight.

As we ate, a guy left his date alone at their table to come to the bar and ask that the Redskins game be put on.

My date and I discussed how that might have felt to his date, or whether she even cared.

Not that it was any of our business.

But after two hours of watching unlimited access to Philip Glass, I was still in full-on nosy mode.

And as far as relationships go, just as curious as the women in the bathroom about Glass' current marital status.

Although there's no way this existentialist could end up wanting to marry a four-time married man.

Seriously. No matter how much music is in him.