Because it's 2017 and we have to be aware of this stuff.
On a day when Richmond woke up to Klansmen effigies hung in Bryant Park, how better to finish it than watching a documentary about the militarization of our police forces?
In conjunction with the Created Equal Film series, the VCU Southern Film Festival was showing the 2016 documentary "Do Not Resist" at the Virginia Historical Society. Not sure how crowded it would be, I arrived a mite early (but with reading material) to score a decent seat.
My mistake was taking one in front of a self-involved woman who couldn't shut up. After explaining to anyone who would listen that she'd have to move when her daughter left for college so that she wasn't more than 2 hours from her side in case of emergency, she moved on to giving her hapless daughter tips for college life.
At least until her daughter couldn't take it anymore.
Daughter (in a disgusted voice): Face it, Mom, you want to go to college for me.
Mom (tossing hair): Yes, I do.
Thankfully, the film was about to be introduced, so someone shushed them. We were told that the Tribeca Film Festival had awarded the film best documentary winner and 72 minutes later when it ended, it was pretty clear why.
First off, filmmaker Craig Atkinson had obtained stellar access to film whatever he wanted for the most part, going along on raids with SWAT teams and being on the street during protests and police confrontations. And lest we get the impression that these raids are on an as-needed basis, the film explains that in 1980 there were 3,000 Swat busts and now we average 50-80,000 a year. A year.
Why has the American public been so unaware that since September 11th, the department of Homeland Security has been issuing military equipment - heavily armored trucks, bayonets, for crying out loud - to any Tom, Dick or Harry small town that wants them?
One town had a single law enforcement officer yet had requested two armored trucks. What kind of crazy is this?
As one woman on the street in Ferguson says, "They need to stop giving these boys these toys because they don't know how to handle them." Shout it to the heavens, honey.
That may be because every FBI agent and a lot of local cops are schooled by the same motivational whacko, Dave Grossman, who instructs them - "What do you fight violence with? Superior violence!" - to think of themselves as the frontline and the people in the streets as the enemy. A man who talks about "righteous violence."
A man who has helped militarize police training.
Even former FBI director James Comey puts in an appearance, trying to justify militarizing the cops but his argument doesn't hold much water.
A professor explains that with increasing technology, we'll soon be able to discover while a baby is in utero if it's more than 50% likely to grow up to commit a homicide. "What do you do with that information?" he asks rhetorically. "What does the mother do?"
Watching SWAT team members suit up,and drive over (in one case, with no clear idea where their target was, but they intended to Google map it on the way) to bust a house was disquieting, but seeming them forcefully break windows as a diversionary technique (for which they don't reimburse the homeowner) and storm doors was downright disturbing.
One agent even admits that busts are a 50/50 chance, so half the time they've swooped in on the wrong people. Their attitude? Oh, well.
In one case in the film where they were wrong and it wasn't a drug house, they steal nearly $900 of the suspect's savings after handcuffing him. Then when all they find is a tiny bud of weed in the kid's backpack, they decide to go back in the house for a further "search."
The head agent tells the filmmaker to stop filming at that point. Apparently he didn't want caught on camera their staging of the scene. Um, what country is this again?
During the Q & A afterward, it seemed clear that some people are reluctant to admit that we're currently a country transitioning to martial law without so much as acknowledging it's become the new normal.
"Do Not Resist" should be required resistance viewing. What is it that bumper sticker says, if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention?
Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore...
Showing posts with label Virginia Historical Society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Virginia Historical Society. Show all posts
Thursday, September 7, 2017
Thursday, April 27, 2017
In a Gay and Fastidious Manner
To sleep, perchance to wet dream...but during the Civil War?
The topic of today's Banner Lecture at the Virginia Historical Society - "Civil War Dreams" - had the three little old ladies I always sit next to completely perplexed. What can you possibly say in a lecture about dreaming?
I told them my best guess was that Yankee author Jonathan White had gone down the rabbit hole of letters and diaries from that era if he'd been able to assemble enough anecdotal evidence to write a book called "Midnight in America: Darkness, Sleep and Dreams During the Civil War."
Bingo. They looked at me nodding once his talk got underway. I'd nailed it.
Using notes without sounding robotic and inserting plenty of humor, White began with Jefferson Davis' dreams of his family from his cell (overly and constantly bright as a means of sleep deprivation) at Fort Monroe and moved on to wife Varina's dreams of him being captured.
Soldiers' letters, it seems, were full of dream reports used as a way to stay close to loved ones but also to share emotional concerns and, let me tell you, these soldiers were not shy about their concerns. Adultery was high on the list, as was the fear of being ignored once the man returned home.
Yet, despite the concerns that manifested themselves in dreams, these men still felt close enough to their wives and sweethearts to write them about these dreams.
Because Mars and Venus are very different types, men's dreams revolved around partner, home and hearth - all the things they were fighting for - while women's centered on devious Yankee invaders and fears of their beloved in combat.
He closed out with a heartbreaking story about a 24-year old who'd lost his arm in the war, yet 40 years later, he told a doctor every time he dreamt, he always had both arms and was able to use them normally. Such is the power of dreams that despite living 2/3 of his life as an amputee, in his dreams he was always a whole man.
Tragedy aside, White's talk was most illuminating on the unlikely subject of bodily fluids and I don't mean blood. Turns out wet dreams were grounds for discharge ("No pun intended," White wisecracked) because nocturnal emissions were seen as a legitimate disability.
Like Corporal Klinger's efforts in M*A*S*H* to secure a Section 8 to escape Army life, plenty of Civil War soldiers feigned wet dreams in hopes of going home. Tough break for them because White said 3/4 of the claims were shown to be bogus, the men having "fabricated" evidence.
I've been to a lot of Banner Lectures, but rarely do they make me and the old ladies crack up like they did today.
Well done, VHS. Foul dreams make for fascinating history.
The topic of today's Banner Lecture at the Virginia Historical Society - "Civil War Dreams" - had the three little old ladies I always sit next to completely perplexed. What can you possibly say in a lecture about dreaming?
I told them my best guess was that Yankee author Jonathan White had gone down the rabbit hole of letters and diaries from that era if he'd been able to assemble enough anecdotal evidence to write a book called "Midnight in America: Darkness, Sleep and Dreams During the Civil War."
Bingo. They looked at me nodding once his talk got underway. I'd nailed it.
Using notes without sounding robotic and inserting plenty of humor, White began with Jefferson Davis' dreams of his family from his cell (overly and constantly bright as a means of sleep deprivation) at Fort Monroe and moved on to wife Varina's dreams of him being captured.
Soldiers' letters, it seems, were full of dream reports used as a way to stay close to loved ones but also to share emotional concerns and, let me tell you, these soldiers were not shy about their concerns. Adultery was high on the list, as was the fear of being ignored once the man returned home.
Yet, despite the concerns that manifested themselves in dreams, these men still felt close enough to their wives and sweethearts to write them about these dreams.
Because Mars and Venus are very different types, men's dreams revolved around partner, home and hearth - all the things they were fighting for - while women's centered on devious Yankee invaders and fears of their beloved in combat.
He closed out with a heartbreaking story about a 24-year old who'd lost his arm in the war, yet 40 years later, he told a doctor every time he dreamt, he always had both arms and was able to use them normally. Such is the power of dreams that despite living 2/3 of his life as an amputee, in his dreams he was always a whole man.
Tragedy aside, White's talk was most illuminating on the unlikely subject of bodily fluids and I don't mean blood. Turns out wet dreams were grounds for discharge ("No pun intended," White wisecracked) because nocturnal emissions were seen as a legitimate disability.
Like Corporal Klinger's efforts in M*A*S*H* to secure a Section 8 to escape Army life, plenty of Civil War soldiers feigned wet dreams in hopes of going home. Tough break for them because White said 3/4 of the claims were shown to be bogus, the men having "fabricated" evidence.
I've been to a lot of Banner Lectures, but rarely do they make me and the old ladies crack up like they did today.
Well done, VHS. Foul dreams make for fascinating history.
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Always Vice Versa
Gemini: Stay on top of a parent's or a higher-up's request. A fog seems to permeate through your creative and dynamic ideas. You feel good and have less of an expectation of others right now and vice versa.
Mom's only request was whether I was coming to visit this week, stated in the typical I-don't-want-to-be-a-bother maternal manner: "I think we were talking about Friday but don't worry if that doesn't work."
Right.
The fog that's been permeating through all of me - not just the creative and dynamic sides - of late is a bad case of early seasonal allergies with a healthy dose of dog hair exposure at Sunday's party.
It was so dire, I washed down Benadryl with the final sips of my champagne last night.
But I did wake up feeling good, so good it must have shown in my walk because it was one of those days when everyone smiled and had something to say to me.
Walking across the street in front of my apartment, I passed a guy who must have recognized me because his first question was how many miles I planned to walk today. He gave me a thumbs up when I said six. "There's nothing old about you, there's nothing young about you. You're just right!" he said, continuing down the street.
As the first person to speak to me today, he delivered the goods.
A woman with short white hair and manicured pink nails standing in front of St. Paul's smiled and pointed a pink finger at my shorts. "Seems kind of optimistic to me," she said about bare legs on a 60 degree day, clearly unaware I was already sweating from climbing to the Capital from the river.
Two men walking toward me on Broad Street, one cis-gendered and the other clad in blue spandex pants and a hot pink turban with a bow in the front, parted like the Red Sea, their arms extended for me to pass through.
"Love the hat, honey!" the turban said. "Work it!" Already am.
Work involved finishing a restaurant review and interviewing a curator before I got to check out the Historical Society's enormous new exhibition, "Toys of the '50s, '60s and '70s."
Using period living rooms to evoke the decades when the toys and games were popular, the sheer number of items included was enough to dredge up long-forgotten memories, while informative signs told you things about them that you'd never have known as a kid.
Probably because your parents wouldn't have wanted you to.
I don't know about you, but I had no idea that Twister had been reviled as a sex game when it came out. Seems that using human bodies as playing pieces was considered taboo in the mid-sixties.
Nor had I been aware that when Mr. Potato Head was originally released in the '50s, you had to supply your own potato for the head, which necessarily follows that imaginative tots could have fashioned a Mr. Onion Head or Mr. Eggplant Head, assuming an Eisenhower-era Mom would have allowed such a thing.
There was crazy stuff like Alka-Seltzer-fueled rockets with fail safes for kids who couldn't resist using extra tablets. A '70s-era environmental test kit with tests strips that clearly read, "Contains lead." A chemistry set with radio-active materials involved. Lawn darts called Jarts which were eventually recalled when one pierced a little girl's skull and killed her.
And don't get me started on Baby Brother Tender Love from the '70s, the first anatomically correct baby doll. On the progressive side, it was available in a Black as well as Caucasian version, although there was no word on whether the anatomy size changed with the skin color.
I'm here to tell you it wasn't all sweetness and light at the toy exhibit, but it was a lot of fun.
Each of the period living rooms had a TV and with a push of a button, toy commercials from that era would play, providing a glimpse of cringe-worthy mid-century advertising targeted at America's gullible youth.
With less of an expectation of others right now, a last-minute invitation to a friend's house for wine and conversation provided just the right way to wile away an unplanned evening since he wasn't admitting to expecting anything of me, either.
Which is not to say, all things considered, that a game of Twister wouldn't have been a whole lot of fun. After all, I read somewhere that it was a day for feeling good.
Mom's only request was whether I was coming to visit this week, stated in the typical I-don't-want-to-be-a-bother maternal manner: "I think we were talking about Friday but don't worry if that doesn't work."
Right.
The fog that's been permeating through all of me - not just the creative and dynamic sides - of late is a bad case of early seasonal allergies with a healthy dose of dog hair exposure at Sunday's party.
It was so dire, I washed down Benadryl with the final sips of my champagne last night.
But I did wake up feeling good, so good it must have shown in my walk because it was one of those days when everyone smiled and had something to say to me.
Walking across the street in front of my apartment, I passed a guy who must have recognized me because his first question was how many miles I planned to walk today. He gave me a thumbs up when I said six. "There's nothing old about you, there's nothing young about you. You're just right!" he said, continuing down the street.
As the first person to speak to me today, he delivered the goods.
A woman with short white hair and manicured pink nails standing in front of St. Paul's smiled and pointed a pink finger at my shorts. "Seems kind of optimistic to me," she said about bare legs on a 60 degree day, clearly unaware I was already sweating from climbing to the Capital from the river.
Two men walking toward me on Broad Street, one cis-gendered and the other clad in blue spandex pants and a hot pink turban with a bow in the front, parted like the Red Sea, their arms extended for me to pass through.
"Love the hat, honey!" the turban said. "Work it!" Already am.
Work involved finishing a restaurant review and interviewing a curator before I got to check out the Historical Society's enormous new exhibition, "Toys of the '50s, '60s and '70s."
Using period living rooms to evoke the decades when the toys and games were popular, the sheer number of items included was enough to dredge up long-forgotten memories, while informative signs told you things about them that you'd never have known as a kid.
Probably because your parents wouldn't have wanted you to.
I don't know about you, but I had no idea that Twister had been reviled as a sex game when it came out. Seems that using human bodies as playing pieces was considered taboo in the mid-sixties.
Nor had I been aware that when Mr. Potato Head was originally released in the '50s, you had to supply your own potato for the head, which necessarily follows that imaginative tots could have fashioned a Mr. Onion Head or Mr. Eggplant Head, assuming an Eisenhower-era Mom would have allowed such a thing.
There was crazy stuff like Alka-Seltzer-fueled rockets with fail safes for kids who couldn't resist using extra tablets. A '70s-era environmental test kit with tests strips that clearly read, "Contains lead." A chemistry set with radio-active materials involved. Lawn darts called Jarts which were eventually recalled when one pierced a little girl's skull and killed her.
And don't get me started on Baby Brother Tender Love from the '70s, the first anatomically correct baby doll. On the progressive side, it was available in a Black as well as Caucasian version, although there was no word on whether the anatomy size changed with the skin color.
I'm here to tell you it wasn't all sweetness and light at the toy exhibit, but it was a lot of fun.
Each of the period living rooms had a TV and with a push of a button, toy commercials from that era would play, providing a glimpse of cringe-worthy mid-century advertising targeted at America's gullible youth.
With less of an expectation of others right now, a last-minute invitation to a friend's house for wine and conversation provided just the right way to wile away an unplanned evening since he wasn't admitting to expecting anything of me, either.
Which is not to say, all things considered, that a game of Twister wouldn't have been a whole lot of fun. After all, I read somewhere that it was a day for feeling good.
Friday, October 21, 2016
Hitting the Chisholm Trail Redux
Talk about your timely film.
The Virginia Historical Society was showing "Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbossed," sucking me in on not only that era, but the women's rights movement, the Civil Rights connection and the parallels that a woman is running for President today.
Somehow I wound up sitting in the honorary Gerald Baliles seat, notable, sure, for my current top choice of his son for mayor, but also because of the woman who introduced the film and led the discussion afterward: Mary Sue Terry, who'd been running herself in '72 and had later been attorney general under Baliles.
See how I made a whole circle of life connection right there?
The crowd skewed heavily female, meaning lots of short gray hair and chatter ("I just came from yoga, so I'm a sweaty Betty" and "I went to see that movie "The Dressmaker" for the couture and it was the worst movie I ever saw!") before Terry directed the "Baptists in the back" to move closer to the auditorium's front for better interaction.
Oh, how they grumbled about that.
Regardless of where you sat, the 2004 documentary was a compelling look at a period in time and the sheer audacity of a black woman to decide to run for the highest office in the land.
She read her speech announcing her candidacy while holding the manila file folder that contained the speech, emphasizing that she wasn't the black candidate, she wasn't the woman candidate, that she was simply the candidate of the people.
And she did it with a West Indian lilt to her voice and a slight lisp that would likely not go over well in these highly critical social media times.
What was impressive was that from the moment she won a seat in the House in 1968, she was making it clear she was going to play by her own rules. About to be assigned to the agricultural committee, she balked, saying such a posting wasn't relevant to her Brooklyn constituency that included Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Thinks about it: that's a lot of nerve for for the first black woman elected to Congress.
My fondness for archival footage was rewarded with old news clips (Walter Cronkite referring to Chisholm and Muskie simply as "other candidates" not worthy of naming; saying that Chisholm was "throwing her bonnet in the ring" when she announced or referring to "old Hubert Humphrey" as "the warhorse") and commercials such as the one singing a "Nixon Now" jingle that was probably just as grating then as today.
Her commercial also involved singing - "If you're looking for freedom, take the Chisholm trail, We will set our women free" - but looked more like an outtake from a multi-cultural Partridge Family shoot than you might expect.
That she frequently wore a full-length fur coat (and corsage!) on the campaign trail seemed both odd and appropriately feminine for the times.
As much of a determined fighter as she was, Chisholm knew better than to think she'd win the Presidency, admitting that her role was to pave the way for other women.
You could just feel the female pride rising in the room as we watched and when a montage of women's rights marches was shown over Helen Reddy's '70s anthem "I am Woman, Hear Me Roar," I heard voices throughout the auditorium singing along.
If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong
I am invincible
I am woman
Probably most striking about the footage of Chisholm on the campaign trail was just how forthright and outspoken she was, absolutely certain of her beliefs and goals.
"I want to be remembered as a woman who fought for change in the 20th century," she says stirringly near the end of the documentary and you get the sense that she really meant it.
Terry returned to the front of the room to lead a discussion once the film ended and some people (and most males) left. Her first question was about who had been born after '72 and what had shocked them most about what they'd just seen.
"That she ran against George Wallace!" one said and while I'd known that, I'd never seen the riff on "American Gothic" using her and Wallace. Bad taste has always been the currency of the body politic, it seems.
"That she stayed in the race," said another who hadn't realized she'd made it all the way to the Democratic convention. Terry had also been at that convention, sharing that it was nothing like today's highly-scheduled events.
"We worked for 37 hours that convention and 17 of them were after midnight," she recalled of the late night wheeling and dealing of delegates to produce one nominee. "People characterized our convention as all about sex, pot and queers."
As good a place to start as any..
She reminded us that in addition to Chisholm being black and female, she was also extremely short and, "We like our elected officials tall!"
"We prefer good hair, too, don't we?" a woman in the crowd called out, getting momentarily topical about bad comb-overs.
Terry stressed how much higher the health standard is for women running for elected office than it is for men, recalling George Allen attending an event with his arm in a sling because he'd signed so many autographs he had tendinitis.
She said she could never have gotten away with doing the same.
In fact, when she'd broken her back in a few places playing racket ball, she had less than a week before she needed to attend the opening of the General Assembly. "I've got to get out of this hospital," she insisted about the looming event. "And get a permanent!"
Every woman has her priorities. A woman once told me she couldn't stay out and drink wine too late because she had an appointment the next afternoon to get her fake lashes reapplied. We don't judge.
Terry's plan was to use a cane to make walking into the General Assembly and down its steps slightly less painful but she was instructed that if she planned to arrive with a cane, she shouldn't plan to come at all. She went cane-less and without taking a pain pill for fear it would make her appear out of it.
Always held to a higher standard.
Discussion was lively, both about Chisholm and her legacy and about Terry's personal soapbox.
"I hope I'm not being recorded tonight," she joked. "I'm not anti-man, really I'm not." But she did question how a Martian would perceive a place where the larger population (my people) had a governing body primarily comprised of the smaller population.
"My plea is for more women to be elected to office. Men just decide to run but women usually have to be pushed and convinced. Let's elect more women!" She was an enthusiastic cheerleader for the cause.
Walking outside next to a young black woman, I asked what she'd thought of the film. Admitting that she'd never even heard of Chisholm before today when she saw it was being shown, she'd been impressed with the candidate and confused as to why she'd never been taught about such a historic run for the Presidency.
I asked her when she'd been born: 1991. Chisholm left Congress before then - 1982 - but was alive until 2005, yet this woman had woken up today with no idea of her historic run for the White House.
We may have numbers too big to ignore, but how're we ever going to set our women free if we don't teach them about the efforts of their foremothers, even when it includes sex, pot and queers?
My plea aligns with Terry's. Let's show the Martians who's in charge, shall we?
The Virginia Historical Society was showing "Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbossed," sucking me in on not only that era, but the women's rights movement, the Civil Rights connection and the parallels that a woman is running for President today.
Somehow I wound up sitting in the honorary Gerald Baliles seat, notable, sure, for my current top choice of his son for mayor, but also because of the woman who introduced the film and led the discussion afterward: Mary Sue Terry, who'd been running herself in '72 and had later been attorney general under Baliles.
See how I made a whole circle of life connection right there?
The crowd skewed heavily female, meaning lots of short gray hair and chatter ("I just came from yoga, so I'm a sweaty Betty" and "I went to see that movie "The Dressmaker" for the couture and it was the worst movie I ever saw!") before Terry directed the "Baptists in the back" to move closer to the auditorium's front for better interaction.
Oh, how they grumbled about that.
Regardless of where you sat, the 2004 documentary was a compelling look at a period in time and the sheer audacity of a black woman to decide to run for the highest office in the land.
She read her speech announcing her candidacy while holding the manila file folder that contained the speech, emphasizing that she wasn't the black candidate, she wasn't the woman candidate, that she was simply the candidate of the people.
And she did it with a West Indian lilt to her voice and a slight lisp that would likely not go over well in these highly critical social media times.
What was impressive was that from the moment she won a seat in the House in 1968, she was making it clear she was going to play by her own rules. About to be assigned to the agricultural committee, she balked, saying such a posting wasn't relevant to her Brooklyn constituency that included Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Thinks about it: that's a lot of nerve for for the first black woman elected to Congress.
My fondness for archival footage was rewarded with old news clips (Walter Cronkite referring to Chisholm and Muskie simply as "other candidates" not worthy of naming; saying that Chisholm was "throwing her bonnet in the ring" when she announced or referring to "old Hubert Humphrey" as "the warhorse") and commercials such as the one singing a "Nixon Now" jingle that was probably just as grating then as today.
Her commercial also involved singing - "If you're looking for freedom, take the Chisholm trail, We will set our women free" - but looked more like an outtake from a multi-cultural Partridge Family shoot than you might expect.
That she frequently wore a full-length fur coat (and corsage!) on the campaign trail seemed both odd and appropriately feminine for the times.
As much of a determined fighter as she was, Chisholm knew better than to think she'd win the Presidency, admitting that her role was to pave the way for other women.
You could just feel the female pride rising in the room as we watched and when a montage of women's rights marches was shown over Helen Reddy's '70s anthem "I am Woman, Hear Me Roar," I heard voices throughout the auditorium singing along.
If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong
I am invincible
I am woman
Probably most striking about the footage of Chisholm on the campaign trail was just how forthright and outspoken she was, absolutely certain of her beliefs and goals.
"I want to be remembered as a woman who fought for change in the 20th century," she says stirringly near the end of the documentary and you get the sense that she really meant it.
Terry returned to the front of the room to lead a discussion once the film ended and some people (and most males) left. Her first question was about who had been born after '72 and what had shocked them most about what they'd just seen.
"That she ran against George Wallace!" one said and while I'd known that, I'd never seen the riff on "American Gothic" using her and Wallace. Bad taste has always been the currency of the body politic, it seems.
"That she stayed in the race," said another who hadn't realized she'd made it all the way to the Democratic convention. Terry had also been at that convention, sharing that it was nothing like today's highly-scheduled events.
"We worked for 37 hours that convention and 17 of them were after midnight," she recalled of the late night wheeling and dealing of delegates to produce one nominee. "People characterized our convention as all about sex, pot and queers."
As good a place to start as any..
She reminded us that in addition to Chisholm being black and female, she was also extremely short and, "We like our elected officials tall!"
"We prefer good hair, too, don't we?" a woman in the crowd called out, getting momentarily topical about bad comb-overs.
Terry stressed how much higher the health standard is for women running for elected office than it is for men, recalling George Allen attending an event with his arm in a sling because he'd signed so many autographs he had tendinitis.
She said she could never have gotten away with doing the same.
In fact, when she'd broken her back in a few places playing racket ball, she had less than a week before she needed to attend the opening of the General Assembly. "I've got to get out of this hospital," she insisted about the looming event. "And get a permanent!"
Every woman has her priorities. A woman once told me she couldn't stay out and drink wine too late because she had an appointment the next afternoon to get her fake lashes reapplied. We don't judge.
Terry's plan was to use a cane to make walking into the General Assembly and down its steps slightly less painful but she was instructed that if she planned to arrive with a cane, she shouldn't plan to come at all. She went cane-less and without taking a pain pill for fear it would make her appear out of it.
Always held to a higher standard.
Discussion was lively, both about Chisholm and her legacy and about Terry's personal soapbox.
"I hope I'm not being recorded tonight," she joked. "I'm not anti-man, really I'm not." But she did question how a Martian would perceive a place where the larger population (my people) had a governing body primarily comprised of the smaller population.
"My plea is for more women to be elected to office. Men just decide to run but women usually have to be pushed and convinced. Let's elect more women!" She was an enthusiastic cheerleader for the cause.
Walking outside next to a young black woman, I asked what she'd thought of the film. Admitting that she'd never even heard of Chisholm before today when she saw it was being shown, she'd been impressed with the candidate and confused as to why she'd never been taught about such a historic run for the Presidency.
I asked her when she'd been born: 1991. Chisholm left Congress before then - 1982 - but was alive until 2005, yet this woman had woken up today with no idea of her historic run for the White House.
We may have numbers too big to ignore, but how're we ever going to set our women free if we don't teach them about the efforts of their foremothers, even when it includes sex, pot and queers?
My plea aligns with Terry's. Let's show the Martians who's in charge, shall we?
Friday, September 2, 2016
Doing the Right Thing
There is no pleasure for me in turning the calendar to September.
Oh, I did it today, rearranging my perpetual calendar to reflect the change, but it's pulling out the four-month block - September, October, November, December - knowing that that's what I have to look forward to that signals the beginning of the end for summer fans like me.
And just as the month changes, so does the tone of local culture. We're more serious, more earnest, it seems, immediately.
I don't have to look any further than the opening of "Stump," the new photography show at Candela Gallery, for proof. I recently mentioned to a friend that never in all my years as a registered voter have I felt as appalled as at this election cycle.
Apparently on the exact same page as me is Candela Gallery's owner, who deals with it creatively by mounting a show of work addressing big issues, the scarred political landscape and what a general mess we now have on our hands.
Women's concerns, the Black Lives Matter Movement, the Presidential election, consumerism, Guantanamo Bay, immigration, environmentalism, it's all laid out in an array of photographic processes for Richmond to consider.
Best of all, they also have voter registration (and changes to your status) going on every single day the gallery is open. It's a brilliant way of starting a dialog and engaging the community in a bigger conversation after being motivated by the artistic reminders on the wall of all that still needs addressing.
It is most definitely not a show you'd see during the lazy days of a goof-off summer. Nope, it's serious September all right.
The same could be said for the Virginia Historical Society's Created Equal Film series, which started tonight with a crowd that pulled from their noontime Banner lectures as well as attracting those specifically interested in the film "Rosenwald" about the Jewish Sears & Roebuck exec who'd established challenge grants to build 5,000 schools for black children across the south (you know, just a little hobby of a white man during the Jim Crow era).
That diversity meant there were maxi dresses, hearing aids, hippie types, grand dames and everyone in between. So much to see and eavesdrop on.
Sit anywhere. This is one place where anywhere you sit, the sound is great.
I can't help but notice a woman in her thirties passing the time reading a magazine, not a device.
Susan! How's retirement treating you?
A 20-something reads a hardback book, at least until her man arrives and then they both take out phones and address their attention to the outer world, not each other.
Do you have a good sight line?
Doesn't matter. Cataracts.
Are you any closer to addressing that?
I have to wait for Charlie to get better first.
Amazingly, the auditorium is filling completely up for a documentary about a rich Jewish man who gave away his fortune in the form of building YMCAs and schools for blacks, and then issuing grants and fellowships.
She's so busy with herself, she probably didn't even notice her husband wasn't there. That's my catty comment for the night.
The seats next to me were taken by a couple of history buffs who'd driven down from Stafford because of the subject matter.
Talking about race, his wife nudged him to share some of his memories, things like not being able to try on clothes at J.C. Penney, or always having to sit upstairs at movie theaters and not being allowed to eat at lunch counters.
She recalled being shocked at the difference in how history was taught when she moved from Ohio to Virginia in 1968. "In Ohio, the history books said the Civil War ended, but here..." she shrugged.
Let's just say it was the kind of audience who got excited and started murmuring when it was announced that at the next film in the series, Mary Sue Terry would be speaking.
Actually, when the speaker said that the Rosenwald schools were still in use all the way up until the Brown decision in 1960, many of them were just as vocal and a chorus of knowing "mmm-hmms" ran through the room.
My meager knowledge of Julius Rosenwald came from a book talk in this very same room a few years back, so about all I was sure of was that he'd been a terrific businessman and an early Civil Rights activist.
What came across loud and clear in the film was how much his Jewish faith shaped how he used his Sears fortune for good, mainly due to the Jewish commitment to philanthropy and charity as well as his fascination with Booker T. Washington's "Up from Slavery" and his revulsion over the pogroms going on in Russia at the time.
Early on in his success, his goal was to have $15,000: $5K to save, $5K to spend and $5K to give away. But he didn't just hand over cash; instead he expected the black community to come up with a third of the cost of a school, the white populace another third and he'd do the final third.
Fair is fair.
Needless to say, the communities raised the money and helped build the modern, light-filled schools, always built to be south-facing with high windows, probably familiar to the dozens of Rosenwald Schools graduates in the room tonight
Since most of the audience was of an age, they got a big laugh out of the film explaining the cultural significance of the Sears catalog with its endless, exotic and myriad choices.
"It was like what Amazon is today," some obviously millennial writer had penned. Thanks for the clarification, kid.
We learned that the Sears catalog was made specifically to be smaller than the Montgomery Ward catalog so it would always rest on top in a stack. How's that for marketing genius?
One woman summed up her allegiance to the catalog by saying, "You wished on it, then you could recycle it." Um, sure could.
But it was even more than YMCAs, schools and grants, though everyone from the "busboy poet" Langston Hughes to Ralph Ellison to James Baldwin to Gordon Parks benefited from those grants.
He'd also built an enormous apartment complex in Chicago, the Michigan Boulevard Garden Building so middle class blacks had a safe and handsome place to raise a family. People in the film spoke glowingly of the "village" that covered an entire city block, offering stores, apartments and a huge enclosed garden where children spent entire days and summers safely.
The film made a case for Rosenwald's philanthropy being based on a shared sense with blacks of being part of a "despised race." Someone called him a man of righteous action, a label I think he'd have been fine with.
No man of righteous action would be able to accept our current state of racial progress, meaning if old Julius were still here, he'd be trying to do something about it. Seriously.
Especially now that it's September.
Oh, I did it today, rearranging my perpetual calendar to reflect the change, but it's pulling out the four-month block - September, October, November, December - knowing that that's what I have to look forward to that signals the beginning of the end for summer fans like me.
And just as the month changes, so does the tone of local culture. We're more serious, more earnest, it seems, immediately.
I don't have to look any further than the opening of "Stump," the new photography show at Candela Gallery, for proof. I recently mentioned to a friend that never in all my years as a registered voter have I felt as appalled as at this election cycle.
Apparently on the exact same page as me is Candela Gallery's owner, who deals with it creatively by mounting a show of work addressing big issues, the scarred political landscape and what a general mess we now have on our hands.
Women's concerns, the Black Lives Matter Movement, the Presidential election, consumerism, Guantanamo Bay, immigration, environmentalism, it's all laid out in an array of photographic processes for Richmond to consider.
Best of all, they also have voter registration (and changes to your status) going on every single day the gallery is open. It's a brilliant way of starting a dialog and engaging the community in a bigger conversation after being motivated by the artistic reminders on the wall of all that still needs addressing.
It is most definitely not a show you'd see during the lazy days of a goof-off summer. Nope, it's serious September all right.
The same could be said for the Virginia Historical Society's Created Equal Film series, which started tonight with a crowd that pulled from their noontime Banner lectures as well as attracting those specifically interested in the film "Rosenwald" about the Jewish Sears & Roebuck exec who'd established challenge grants to build 5,000 schools for black children across the south (you know, just a little hobby of a white man during the Jim Crow era).
That diversity meant there were maxi dresses, hearing aids, hippie types, grand dames and everyone in between. So much to see and eavesdrop on.
Sit anywhere. This is one place where anywhere you sit, the sound is great.
I can't help but notice a woman in her thirties passing the time reading a magazine, not a device.
Susan! How's retirement treating you?
A 20-something reads a hardback book, at least until her man arrives and then they both take out phones and address their attention to the outer world, not each other.
Do you have a good sight line?
Doesn't matter. Cataracts.
Are you any closer to addressing that?
I have to wait for Charlie to get better first.
Amazingly, the auditorium is filling completely up for a documentary about a rich Jewish man who gave away his fortune in the form of building YMCAs and schools for blacks, and then issuing grants and fellowships.
She's so busy with herself, she probably didn't even notice her husband wasn't there. That's my catty comment for the night.
The seats next to me were taken by a couple of history buffs who'd driven down from Stafford because of the subject matter.
Talking about race, his wife nudged him to share some of his memories, things like not being able to try on clothes at J.C. Penney, or always having to sit upstairs at movie theaters and not being allowed to eat at lunch counters.
She recalled being shocked at the difference in how history was taught when she moved from Ohio to Virginia in 1968. "In Ohio, the history books said the Civil War ended, but here..." she shrugged.
Let's just say it was the kind of audience who got excited and started murmuring when it was announced that at the next film in the series, Mary Sue Terry would be speaking.
Actually, when the speaker said that the Rosenwald schools were still in use all the way up until the Brown decision in 1960, many of them were just as vocal and a chorus of knowing "mmm-hmms" ran through the room.
My meager knowledge of Julius Rosenwald came from a book talk in this very same room a few years back, so about all I was sure of was that he'd been a terrific businessman and an early Civil Rights activist.
What came across loud and clear in the film was how much his Jewish faith shaped how he used his Sears fortune for good, mainly due to the Jewish commitment to philanthropy and charity as well as his fascination with Booker T. Washington's "Up from Slavery" and his revulsion over the pogroms going on in Russia at the time.
Early on in his success, his goal was to have $15,000: $5K to save, $5K to spend and $5K to give away. But he didn't just hand over cash; instead he expected the black community to come up with a third of the cost of a school, the white populace another third and he'd do the final third.
Fair is fair.
Needless to say, the communities raised the money and helped build the modern, light-filled schools, always built to be south-facing with high windows, probably familiar to the dozens of Rosenwald Schools graduates in the room tonight
Since most of the audience was of an age, they got a big laugh out of the film explaining the cultural significance of the Sears catalog with its endless, exotic and myriad choices.
"It was like what Amazon is today," some obviously millennial writer had penned. Thanks for the clarification, kid.
We learned that the Sears catalog was made specifically to be smaller than the Montgomery Ward catalog so it would always rest on top in a stack. How's that for marketing genius?
One woman summed up her allegiance to the catalog by saying, "You wished on it, then you could recycle it." Um, sure could.
But it was even more than YMCAs, schools and grants, though everyone from the "busboy poet" Langston Hughes to Ralph Ellison to James Baldwin to Gordon Parks benefited from those grants.
He'd also built an enormous apartment complex in Chicago, the Michigan Boulevard Garden Building so middle class blacks had a safe and handsome place to raise a family. People in the film spoke glowingly of the "village" that covered an entire city block, offering stores, apartments and a huge enclosed garden where children spent entire days and summers safely.
The film made a case for Rosenwald's philanthropy being based on a shared sense with blacks of being part of a "despised race." Someone called him a man of righteous action, a label I think he'd have been fine with.
No man of righteous action would be able to accept our current state of racial progress, meaning if old Julius were still here, he'd be trying to do something about it. Seriously.
Especially now that it's September.
Friday, February 19, 2016
Longhorns and Trust Falls
Don't bother taking the first man that's offered to you in the morning.
Walking down Grace Street at the ungodly hour of 9:15, a woman heads toward me with an obvious gray cloud over her head.
"You want a boyfriend?" she asks, clearly seething. "You can have mine!" I'm inclined to say no but that fact is confirmed when I see a guy walking down the middle of the street in her direction.
"How can you hit a tree?" she hollers just before spotting her car. "Thomas!"
"What?" he asks innocently. "I didn't see the tree!"
"How can you not see a tree? Thomaaaaaas!" she wails.
I walk faster in the opposite direction, passing a guy who says, "Good morning, pretty girl!" and making me forget all about the drama behind me.
Arriving at the Virginia Historical Society for the preview of "The Art of Seating: 200 Years of American Design," I mingle, check out the colonial flag collection and eat a mini-doughnut before following the president into the galleries to see the show.
You might be surprised at how well 43 chairs can chronicle the evolution of American taste, but you wouldn't be if you saw this exhibit.
From the simplicity of a Shaker rocking chair with a lovely blue and tan checkerboard seat to an elaborate throne-like chair on casters designed in 1854 for representatives to sit in inside the House of Representatives grand, formal hall, these chairs all tell a story.
And like architecture, they can reflect the styles - Gothic Revival, Egyptian Revival, Colonial Revival - popular at the time or the image of the place they were created. An 1890 chair from Texas incorporates both longhorns, ivory and Tiffany ball casters in a strikingly "Western" style chair, while a Southern Appalachian chair is evocatively made of willow branches.
Even office chairs dazzled, such as the Frank Lloyd wright chair designed for the Johnson Wax Company that echoes the rest of the building's design and color scheme.
Things got groovy in the back gallery once we got to the post-WW I era, with chairs in Lucite, plywood and patterned fiberglass. Eero Saarinen's Grasshopper American chair was beautifully sculptural and, unlike so many earlier chairs, actually looked quite comfortable.
I couldn't have been more surprised to see Frank Gehry's compressed cardboard high stool, mainly because I remember seeing all his cardboard furniture for sale at Bloomingdale's back in the '80s. What a fool I was not to buy one.
You could almost feel the good vibrations from Jon Brooks' 1970 solid elm ball chair carved from a massive piece of elm, complete with cracks and highly polished surface. It looked like the kind of thing created at a commune while listening to Jefferson Airplane's "Volunteers" album and smoking pot with a couple of hippie chicks breastfeeding their babies on a blanket.
That's what I mean about the exhibit coming across like a cultural history lesson (only way more enjoyable). As society eased up on rules, even chairs morphed into something more comfortable, more colorful and more likely to show up in the everyday person's home and not just the well-off.
Richmond, we keep getting cooler. This is just the kind of show that people from D.C. are going to drive down to see because of its uniqueness and hip factor. These are some amazingly cool chairs.
When I left the Historical Society, I took a meandering walk, part of which took me down Broad Street and past Assado, where their sign read, "Taco fact #1: Tacos are healthier than crystal meth."
Certain that would bring in lots of business, I was equally impressed with Rumors Boutique's sign, reading, "How do snakes know who their real friends are if they can't do trust falls?"
That's a one-two punch of sign wisdom you don't see just every day.
My walk eventually deposited me at the handsome new VCU Cabell Library where a friend who works there had offered me a tour. Having only been inside the auditorium, why wouldn't I want to see what years of construction had wrought?
Holy, moley, Batman, this is a library like none you've ever seen before.
The now-shuttered Anderson Gallery's collection lives here now and piece by piece, some of it is being installed on the walls. A couple of sublime Theresa Pollaks here, a six-panel Gerry Donato there, it's a who's who of the talent that taught at VCU.
Views like you can't imagine (unless, perhaps, you lived in the Prestwould) provide a bird's eye view of the top of the Cathedral, the rooftop garden and wind turbine on top of the Pollak Building and the sweep of the Compass (sadly, Bad Hackysack Guy was nowhere to be seen).
A terrace on the third floor seemed like the ultimate library destination until I saw the reading porch full of rockers with - wait for it - windows that open and sun streaming in them. Be still, my heart.
White boards were everywhere, even on that porch, because apparently today's students use them like we used to use notebooks and scrap paper. "We can't have enough white boards," my library friend shared.
Everywhere we went, students were sprawled out, some asleep, many checking their phones, some companionably studying in small groups but not interacting (this is called "parallel play" when you're talking about toddlers), and, another favorite, the silent floor, where it truly sounded like the libraries of my youth.
For me, the Innovative Media Center might as well have been from a sci-fi movie, with laser printers where my friend informed me a med student could create a replica of a human heart while an art student made a shirt sleeve out of LED lights.
There were sewing machines, record players so students could digitize their vinyl collection and, yes, even a gaming room. Most adorable was a curio cabinet of things known only to students' parents and fans of history: slide carousels, film projectors, ViewMasters. All the stuff the AV geeks used to live for, now locked up in a museum-like display.
But that's because this library is geared to a different generation, one that had to get the hang of revolving doors on the new entrance and liked being asked to test out various chair styles and vote on their favorite before final decisions were made. One that is the reason why the library Starbucks is in the top four in the entire country.
And to think we used to go to the library solely to look for books. How hopelessly old-fashioned.
Afterwards, we strolled over to 821 Cafe for lunch - I had black bean nachos because they're healthier than crystal meth while she chose the most fattening sandwich she could conceive of, according to her - and some non-library conversation, finishing out for me a full but fabulous Friday around the city.
You know, just checking out the excellent new chair exhibit and VCU's impressive LEED-certified library, no big deal.
And, no, I don't want Thomas or any man who can't see a tree, or even the forest for it. Thanks, anyway.
Walking down Grace Street at the ungodly hour of 9:15, a woman heads toward me with an obvious gray cloud over her head.
"You want a boyfriend?" she asks, clearly seething. "You can have mine!" I'm inclined to say no but that fact is confirmed when I see a guy walking down the middle of the street in her direction.
"How can you hit a tree?" she hollers just before spotting her car. "Thomas!"
"What?" he asks innocently. "I didn't see the tree!"
"How can you not see a tree? Thomaaaaaas!" she wails.
I walk faster in the opposite direction, passing a guy who says, "Good morning, pretty girl!" and making me forget all about the drama behind me.
Arriving at the Virginia Historical Society for the preview of "The Art of Seating: 200 Years of American Design," I mingle, check out the colonial flag collection and eat a mini-doughnut before following the president into the galleries to see the show.
You might be surprised at how well 43 chairs can chronicle the evolution of American taste, but you wouldn't be if you saw this exhibit.
From the simplicity of a Shaker rocking chair with a lovely blue and tan checkerboard seat to an elaborate throne-like chair on casters designed in 1854 for representatives to sit in inside the House of Representatives grand, formal hall, these chairs all tell a story.
And like architecture, they can reflect the styles - Gothic Revival, Egyptian Revival, Colonial Revival - popular at the time or the image of the place they were created. An 1890 chair from Texas incorporates both longhorns, ivory and Tiffany ball casters in a strikingly "Western" style chair, while a Southern Appalachian chair is evocatively made of willow branches.
Even office chairs dazzled, such as the Frank Lloyd wright chair designed for the Johnson Wax Company that echoes the rest of the building's design and color scheme.
Things got groovy in the back gallery once we got to the post-WW I era, with chairs in Lucite, plywood and patterned fiberglass. Eero Saarinen's Grasshopper American chair was beautifully sculptural and, unlike so many earlier chairs, actually looked quite comfortable.
I couldn't have been more surprised to see Frank Gehry's compressed cardboard high stool, mainly because I remember seeing all his cardboard furniture for sale at Bloomingdale's back in the '80s. What a fool I was not to buy one.
You could almost feel the good vibrations from Jon Brooks' 1970 solid elm ball chair carved from a massive piece of elm, complete with cracks and highly polished surface. It looked like the kind of thing created at a commune while listening to Jefferson Airplane's "Volunteers" album and smoking pot with a couple of hippie chicks breastfeeding their babies on a blanket.
That's what I mean about the exhibit coming across like a cultural history lesson (only way more enjoyable). As society eased up on rules, even chairs morphed into something more comfortable, more colorful and more likely to show up in the everyday person's home and not just the well-off.
Richmond, we keep getting cooler. This is just the kind of show that people from D.C. are going to drive down to see because of its uniqueness and hip factor. These are some amazingly cool chairs.
When I left the Historical Society, I took a meandering walk, part of which took me down Broad Street and past Assado, where their sign read, "Taco fact #1: Tacos are healthier than crystal meth."
Certain that would bring in lots of business, I was equally impressed with Rumors Boutique's sign, reading, "How do snakes know who their real friends are if they can't do trust falls?"
That's a one-two punch of sign wisdom you don't see just every day.
My walk eventually deposited me at the handsome new VCU Cabell Library where a friend who works there had offered me a tour. Having only been inside the auditorium, why wouldn't I want to see what years of construction had wrought?
Holy, moley, Batman, this is a library like none you've ever seen before.
The now-shuttered Anderson Gallery's collection lives here now and piece by piece, some of it is being installed on the walls. A couple of sublime Theresa Pollaks here, a six-panel Gerry Donato there, it's a who's who of the talent that taught at VCU.
Views like you can't imagine (unless, perhaps, you lived in the Prestwould) provide a bird's eye view of the top of the Cathedral, the rooftop garden and wind turbine on top of the Pollak Building and the sweep of the Compass (sadly, Bad Hackysack Guy was nowhere to be seen).
A terrace on the third floor seemed like the ultimate library destination until I saw the reading porch full of rockers with - wait for it - windows that open and sun streaming in them. Be still, my heart.
White boards were everywhere, even on that porch, because apparently today's students use them like we used to use notebooks and scrap paper. "We can't have enough white boards," my library friend shared.
Everywhere we went, students were sprawled out, some asleep, many checking their phones, some companionably studying in small groups but not interacting (this is called "parallel play" when you're talking about toddlers), and, another favorite, the silent floor, where it truly sounded like the libraries of my youth.
For me, the Innovative Media Center might as well have been from a sci-fi movie, with laser printers where my friend informed me a med student could create a replica of a human heart while an art student made a shirt sleeve out of LED lights.
There were sewing machines, record players so students could digitize their vinyl collection and, yes, even a gaming room. Most adorable was a curio cabinet of things known only to students' parents and fans of history: slide carousels, film projectors, ViewMasters. All the stuff the AV geeks used to live for, now locked up in a museum-like display.
But that's because this library is geared to a different generation, one that had to get the hang of revolving doors on the new entrance and liked being asked to test out various chair styles and vote on their favorite before final decisions were made. One that is the reason why the library Starbucks is in the top four in the entire country.
And to think we used to go to the library solely to look for books. How hopelessly old-fashioned.
Afterwards, we strolled over to 821 Cafe for lunch - I had black bean nachos because they're healthier than crystal meth while she chose the most fattening sandwich she could conceive of, according to her - and some non-library conversation, finishing out for me a full but fabulous Friday around the city.
You know, just checking out the excellent new chair exhibit and VCU's impressive LEED-certified library, no big deal.
And, no, I don't want Thomas or any man who can't see a tree, or even the forest for it. Thanks, anyway.
Thursday, February 4, 2016
The Stew of Inherited Hypocrisy
Heathen though I may be, I was mighty moved by a preacher today.
The Reverend Benjamin Campbell was speaking at the Virginia Historical Society on the topic of his new book, "Richmond and the American Dream: Revolution and Reality," a topic ripe for dissection (and worth walking two miles for).
I should have expected that a man of the cloth would be a practiced speaker in a way that most lecturers are not. He used notes, but only occasionally seemed to glance at them, but the cadence of his voice and the expressiveness of it ensured that you were always hanging on for the next sentence. At several points, he opened and raised his arms as if embracing the crowd while speaking.
But it wasn't just his manner of speaking, it was his message that while freedom was the purported goal of Virginia after the Revolution, enslavement was the practice, leaving unfinished half of the American Revolution's purpose.
When he said, "Richmond still follows 1780 patterns in 2016!" he was talking about the wall of white privilege established by the Slave Codes in 1705 (and - get this- the point at which the word "white" had been appropriated to refer to a race of people) to ensure that the "Great Men" had similarly colored people to fight for them when necessary.
Best of all, he was saying all this to a full auditorium of what looked like privileged white people. People who'd probably come for a history lecture and not a call to their better selves.
After sharing that of the 500 largest cities in the world (we're #495), Richmond's urban sprawl is in the top 1% (a shameful distinction), he pointed out that we have the resources needed to address the social, educational and economic inequities, but apparently not the social and political will.
Hence the dysfunction of metropolitan Richmond, where city schools crumble while suburban schools flourish. Where public transportation (and public housing) is relegated to the city only, while over 80% of the jobs are in the counties. Where people who go to jail have no chance of finding work once they're out.
And he traced it all back to the principles of freedom and justice created as a result of the Revolution: supposedly they applied to everyone, but in reality, only for half of Virginia's population. You guessed it, the white half. Sadly, he saw these discriminatory practices as having been passed into the public consciousness, making for "a stew of inherited hypocrisy."
That would explain the 1965 Social Studies textbooks that mentioned black Virginians on only three pages, two of them referencing "the benevolence of slavery during the Civil War." Absolutely nothing about slave trade, Jim Crow or white on black violence. Zip, nada.
Nothing about how white men were given a bounty - 300 acres and a healthy, sound Negro - in exchange for fighting in the Revolution. Where's that in our history books?
How is it that the state that birthed so many of our Founding Fathers could behave so badly?
His joke was that since Virginia felt like it had birthed democracy, it didn't have to actually practice it. His point was that Virginia had subverted the intention of the Revolution.
You know, if you closed your eyes, you could almost pretend that you were at a political rally for the smartest, most socially aware, most well-spoken candidate imaginable. Here was a man who was trying be the change he wanted to see.
We owe the Virginia Historical Society a debt of gratitude for bringing this man to a public forum.
The good Reverend kidded the crowd when he said that in 1781, England began exporting convicted felons to Maryland and Virginia. "Y'all thought they all went to Georgia, didn't you?"
When he finished, it took a moment for the audience to realize it before applauding for the learned white man onstage who was calling out every one of our lily-white asses.
It was a momentous thing to see.
Now if we can only marshal our collective social and political will to change things. Yes, Richmond, we can.
The Reverend Benjamin Campbell was speaking at the Virginia Historical Society on the topic of his new book, "Richmond and the American Dream: Revolution and Reality," a topic ripe for dissection (and worth walking two miles for).
I should have expected that a man of the cloth would be a practiced speaker in a way that most lecturers are not. He used notes, but only occasionally seemed to glance at them, but the cadence of his voice and the expressiveness of it ensured that you were always hanging on for the next sentence. At several points, he opened and raised his arms as if embracing the crowd while speaking.
But it wasn't just his manner of speaking, it was his message that while freedom was the purported goal of Virginia after the Revolution, enslavement was the practice, leaving unfinished half of the American Revolution's purpose.
When he said, "Richmond still follows 1780 patterns in 2016!" he was talking about the wall of white privilege established by the Slave Codes in 1705 (and - get this- the point at which the word "white" had been appropriated to refer to a race of people) to ensure that the "Great Men" had similarly colored people to fight for them when necessary.
Best of all, he was saying all this to a full auditorium of what looked like privileged white people. People who'd probably come for a history lecture and not a call to their better selves.
After sharing that of the 500 largest cities in the world (we're #495), Richmond's urban sprawl is in the top 1% (a shameful distinction), he pointed out that we have the resources needed to address the social, educational and economic inequities, but apparently not the social and political will.
Hence the dysfunction of metropolitan Richmond, where city schools crumble while suburban schools flourish. Where public transportation (and public housing) is relegated to the city only, while over 80% of the jobs are in the counties. Where people who go to jail have no chance of finding work once they're out.
And he traced it all back to the principles of freedom and justice created as a result of the Revolution: supposedly they applied to everyone, but in reality, only for half of Virginia's population. You guessed it, the white half. Sadly, he saw these discriminatory practices as having been passed into the public consciousness, making for "a stew of inherited hypocrisy."
That would explain the 1965 Social Studies textbooks that mentioned black Virginians on only three pages, two of them referencing "the benevolence of slavery during the Civil War." Absolutely nothing about slave trade, Jim Crow or white on black violence. Zip, nada.
Nothing about how white men were given a bounty - 300 acres and a healthy, sound Negro - in exchange for fighting in the Revolution. Where's that in our history books?
How is it that the state that birthed so many of our Founding Fathers could behave so badly?
His joke was that since Virginia felt like it had birthed democracy, it didn't have to actually practice it. His point was that Virginia had subverted the intention of the Revolution.
You know, if you closed your eyes, you could almost pretend that you were at a political rally for the smartest, most socially aware, most well-spoken candidate imaginable. Here was a man who was trying be the change he wanted to see.
We owe the Virginia Historical Society a debt of gratitude for bringing this man to a public forum.
The good Reverend kidded the crowd when he said that in 1781, England began exporting convicted felons to Maryland and Virginia. "Y'all thought they all went to Georgia, didn't you?"
When he finished, it took a moment for the audience to realize it before applauding for the learned white man onstage who was calling out every one of our lily-white asses.
It was a momentous thing to see.
Now if we can only marshal our collective social and political will to change things. Yes, Richmond, we can.
Thursday, August 6, 2015
History Period, Lunch Period
You want your historical speaker to have a sense of humor. You do not, however, want him to go beyond the time allotted.
Just ask the man a few rows behind me at the Virginia Historical Society who began snoring loudly at the 45-minute mark. Or the clutches of people who began leaving at the one hour mark.
It's not like today's subject - "The Quest for Loving: Race, Sex and the Freedom to Marry" - or lecturer Peter Wallenstein, a professor of history at Virginia Tech, were boring. But when people commit to an hour in the middle of the day to be schooled on history, that's all they want.
Wallenstein's humor helped the cause a lot with comments such as, "If you see two houses at the same time in Caroline County, you know you've come to a settlement."
Beginning at the end of the story of bi-racial couple Mildred and Richard Loving with Robert long dead and Mildred just buried, Wallenstein sat down and wrote 5,000 words after going to her funeral.
Only then did he realize he'd written an epilogue which now necessitated him writing the book that comes before it. We all know how that goes.
Highlights of this he shared with us today, such as, "Tell the court I love my wife and I want to be able to live with her in Virginia," which is what Richard told his lawyer during their trial for breaking the law stipulating that blacks and whites couldn't marry.
Interesting was his point that Judge Leon Bazile could have punished them with one to five years in jail, but instead banished them from Virginia, perhaps in part because the Catholic Bazile had married a Baptists woman against his family's wishes and they'd gone on to have a long and happy marriage.
An empathetic sentence, perhaps?
Fortunately Mildred, once settled in D.C., was the pro-active type who wrote to Attorney General Bobby Kennedy asking for help with their case. RFK referred her to the American Civil Liberties Union and a young lawyer named Cohen took up their cause mainly because he loved the couple's name and thus, what the name of the case would be.
Loving versus Virginia. How can you not win a case with a name like that?
Not only did SCOTUS rule in the Lovings' favor, but they went further, essentially transforming the law of the land. Wallenstein made a case for the same sex marriage movement years later using the template of the Loving case.
What goes around, comes around.
The over-abundance of material - he kept losing his place in his script and joking that someone needed to rewrite it for him and bring it to him onstage - caused one of his biggest laughs when he cracked, "Since I can't see a clock, I think that I have three more hours to talk."
Other jokes fell flat, slipped into his talk so dryly that most of the audience seemed to miss them entirely.
On the subject of being southern (at the time the Supreme Court ruled in the Lovings' favor, fifteen other states had anti-marriage laws for the races on their books), he said that when he asks his Tech students if they're southern, many say no "because we're from northern Virginia."
It's terrifying, right, that these are the people who will be running the country when we're old?
Although I wasn't part of the first wave to cut out on the talk, by 1:10, I had to, knowing a friend was meeting me at my house to go to lunch. Walking out through the VHS, the trio in front of me complained about the overly long lecture, saying a bell needs to go off at 12:50 to warn the speaker he's out of time and allow time for a Q & A.
Fortunately my patient friend was still waiting out front when I got home, so we strolled over to the Cultured Swine with me playing guide by pointing out the sidewalk grate that a man had fallen through yesterday. The caution tape was still up, looking ominous.
Do you know how many times I've walked over those grates on my daily constitutional?
Things were lively at the Swine with RTD columnist Michael Paul Williams picking up his lunch just after we ordered ours. The RTD's wedding correspondent was also scoring eats and stopped to chat with us while we awaited food.
My first choice had been the classic, a Sausagecraft rosemary garlic pork belly and shoulder sausage smothered in coleslaw, but they'd run out of pork belly sausage the talent in the kitchen informed me. No surprise there.
Instead I chose the BLTotally Awesome of house-smoked bacon, mixed dark greens, tomatoes and local mayo on a toasted baguette while my partner in crime had the Belly Mi, a banh mi-inspired pork belly sandwich with pickled veggies, sauteed veggies and bourbon-bacon pate, also on a toasted baguette.
The baguette, a key component of a true banh mi was perfect - nice chew, beautifully toasted, delicately flavorful. Both of our sandwiches exceeded expectations with the sheer quality of ingredients. My friend, not usually a brine fan, even raved about the pickled vegetables. Every bite of mine was a burst of fresh greens, summer tomatoes and smoky bacon.
No doubt about it, the place was warm, though, so when I spotted a nearby box fan just sitting there, I plugged it in and directed it at the small dining room. The wedding reporter praised my initiative. My friend joked about my endless supply of nerve.
But like the Lovings' case, it wasn't just about me. I did it for the greater good. Even in the South - and Virginia is the South, kids - swine so fine deserves a tad more air flow.
Just ask the man a few rows behind me at the Virginia Historical Society who began snoring loudly at the 45-minute mark. Or the clutches of people who began leaving at the one hour mark.
It's not like today's subject - "The Quest for Loving: Race, Sex and the Freedom to Marry" - or lecturer Peter Wallenstein, a professor of history at Virginia Tech, were boring. But when people commit to an hour in the middle of the day to be schooled on history, that's all they want.
Wallenstein's humor helped the cause a lot with comments such as, "If you see two houses at the same time in Caroline County, you know you've come to a settlement."
Beginning at the end of the story of bi-racial couple Mildred and Richard Loving with Robert long dead and Mildred just buried, Wallenstein sat down and wrote 5,000 words after going to her funeral.
Only then did he realize he'd written an epilogue which now necessitated him writing the book that comes before it. We all know how that goes.
Highlights of this he shared with us today, such as, "Tell the court I love my wife and I want to be able to live with her in Virginia," which is what Richard told his lawyer during their trial for breaking the law stipulating that blacks and whites couldn't marry.
Interesting was his point that Judge Leon Bazile could have punished them with one to five years in jail, but instead banished them from Virginia, perhaps in part because the Catholic Bazile had married a Baptists woman against his family's wishes and they'd gone on to have a long and happy marriage.
An empathetic sentence, perhaps?
Fortunately Mildred, once settled in D.C., was the pro-active type who wrote to Attorney General Bobby Kennedy asking for help with their case. RFK referred her to the American Civil Liberties Union and a young lawyer named Cohen took up their cause mainly because he loved the couple's name and thus, what the name of the case would be.
Loving versus Virginia. How can you not win a case with a name like that?
Not only did SCOTUS rule in the Lovings' favor, but they went further, essentially transforming the law of the land. Wallenstein made a case for the same sex marriage movement years later using the template of the Loving case.
What goes around, comes around.
The over-abundance of material - he kept losing his place in his script and joking that someone needed to rewrite it for him and bring it to him onstage - caused one of his biggest laughs when he cracked, "Since I can't see a clock, I think that I have three more hours to talk."
Other jokes fell flat, slipped into his talk so dryly that most of the audience seemed to miss them entirely.
On the subject of being southern (at the time the Supreme Court ruled in the Lovings' favor, fifteen other states had anti-marriage laws for the races on their books), he said that when he asks his Tech students if they're southern, many say no "because we're from northern Virginia."
It's terrifying, right, that these are the people who will be running the country when we're old?
Although I wasn't part of the first wave to cut out on the talk, by 1:10, I had to, knowing a friend was meeting me at my house to go to lunch. Walking out through the VHS, the trio in front of me complained about the overly long lecture, saying a bell needs to go off at 12:50 to warn the speaker he's out of time and allow time for a Q & A.
Fortunately my patient friend was still waiting out front when I got home, so we strolled over to the Cultured Swine with me playing guide by pointing out the sidewalk grate that a man had fallen through yesterday. The caution tape was still up, looking ominous.
Do you know how many times I've walked over those grates on my daily constitutional?
Things were lively at the Swine with RTD columnist Michael Paul Williams picking up his lunch just after we ordered ours. The RTD's wedding correspondent was also scoring eats and stopped to chat with us while we awaited food.
My first choice had been the classic, a Sausagecraft rosemary garlic pork belly and shoulder sausage smothered in coleslaw, but they'd run out of pork belly sausage the talent in the kitchen informed me. No surprise there.
Instead I chose the BLTotally Awesome of house-smoked bacon, mixed dark greens, tomatoes and local mayo on a toasted baguette while my partner in crime had the Belly Mi, a banh mi-inspired pork belly sandwich with pickled veggies, sauteed veggies and bourbon-bacon pate, also on a toasted baguette.
The baguette, a key component of a true banh mi was perfect - nice chew, beautifully toasted, delicately flavorful. Both of our sandwiches exceeded expectations with the sheer quality of ingredients. My friend, not usually a brine fan, even raved about the pickled vegetables. Every bite of mine was a burst of fresh greens, summer tomatoes and smoky bacon.
No doubt about it, the place was warm, though, so when I spotted a nearby box fan just sitting there, I plugged it in and directed it at the small dining room. The wedding reporter praised my initiative. My friend joked about my endless supply of nerve.
But like the Lovings' case, it wasn't just about me. I did it for the greater good. Even in the South - and Virginia is the South, kids - swine so fine deserves a tad more air flow.
Thursday, June 4, 2015
A Dream Within a Dream
Make no mistake, I love a good lecture.
Today's was the Virginia Historical Society, a place still torn up with construction (meaning the Boulevard entrance is closed unfortunately) and on the topic of Richmond's favorite adopted son, Edgar Allen Poe. Barbara Cantalupo, author of Poe and the Visual Arts was speaking on "The Poe You May Not Know."
Barely back from my truncated walk in time to leave for the lecture, I debated changing out of my walking clothes but decided not to since I had more walking to do after the lecture. I should have known that my choice all but guaranteed I'd run into someone I knew.
And not just anyone but a former work associate from 15 years ago who said he'd been wondering recently what had happened to me. Well, clearly I go out in public looking like a mess since you last saw me, drat the luck. After suggesting that we get together, his next question was blunt. "Did you get married again or can I find you in the book?" I wrote out my phone number to make it easier and waved farewell.
Once in the auditorium, the sweet older woman I usually sit next to couldn't resist leaning in and asking if I wasn't cold "with just those pink shorts on." I explained my before and after walk and she let my attire slide just as the lecture began.
First we got a little humor from the VHS president, who greeted the crowded room saying, "Good afternoon. Isn't it a Poe-like day?" Gray, wet and coolish, I suppose it was. His final reminder was to silence cell phones, saying, "Even if they have an eerie ring, take out your phone and make sure it squawks nevermore." Big laugh.
The speaker was an English professor at Penn State who lectured about Poe's deep worship of beauty, beginning before he was even 20 years old, and his desire to be a poet and express beauty through language. She spoke of "graphicality," a term Poe coined to describe striking imagery, the kind he used in his writing.
I found her most compelling thesis to be about how Poe tried to mimic the way painters create illusion when writing for the desired effect, trying to represent what he sensed in nature through "the veil of his soul." She used Claude Lorraine as an example of someone who had a huge effect on American painters but also on Poe's work.
She said that during his time living in Philly, he'd visited the Pennsylvania Academy of Arts many times (alas, I've only been once), soaking in the landscape work of Thomas Cole, Thomas Scully and Nicolas Poussin, the latter's "The Deluge" showing the elemental fury of nature. When he moved to New York, he saw Frederick Church's landscapes.
Her conclusion: Poe's work was influenced by landscape painting and his abiding love of nature, a place that always calmed him down in a way that the built world did not. She read from Poe's "The Philosophy of Furniture," a treatise on creating an interior room's space in the same way a painting is created.
Calling Landor's Cottage Poe's the last story published before he died, she conjectured that it brought about a renewed desire to be a romantic poet after years of magazine writing (and the kind of suspense/horror work with which most people associate him) he'd had to do to earn a living.
Despite a wealth of interesting material, the lecture itself was presented without expression or vitality. The man next to me pulled out his book and began reading instead of listening after a few minutes. Several people appeared to be dozing in the rows behind me.
The problem was that the entire lecture was read word for word, sometimes even when the wording was a direct quote and was shown on the screen onstage. Other times, she would misread a sentence or paragraph only to realize it meant something entirely different than what she'd intended and reread the entire thing. It was tedious, to put it kindly, although her subject matter wasn't and clearly she'd done a wealth of research and possessed loads of knowledge on the subject.
Walking out afterwards, a stranger caught up to me and smiled. His first question was, "Do you come to a lot of these?" and I said I'd come for years.
"So do I. That was the most boring one I've ever sat through. I wanted to leave after ten minutes. Why did she have to read the whole thing?" Some questions have no answers. It wasn't that she wasn't knowledgeable, but it would have come across far more appealingly spoken rather than read like a to-do list.
The good news is, I learned about an entirely different side of Poe than I'd ever heard about and reconnected with someone I haven't seen in over a decade. It should be fun to catch up.
Sometimes lectures are good for more than just learning new information. They're a reminder not to wear pink shorts to the historical society.
Today's was the Virginia Historical Society, a place still torn up with construction (meaning the Boulevard entrance is closed unfortunately) and on the topic of Richmond's favorite adopted son, Edgar Allen Poe. Barbara Cantalupo, author of Poe and the Visual Arts was speaking on "The Poe You May Not Know."
Barely back from my truncated walk in time to leave for the lecture, I debated changing out of my walking clothes but decided not to since I had more walking to do after the lecture. I should have known that my choice all but guaranteed I'd run into someone I knew.
And not just anyone but a former work associate from 15 years ago who said he'd been wondering recently what had happened to me. Well, clearly I go out in public looking like a mess since you last saw me, drat the luck. After suggesting that we get together, his next question was blunt. "Did you get married again or can I find you in the book?" I wrote out my phone number to make it easier and waved farewell.
Once in the auditorium, the sweet older woman I usually sit next to couldn't resist leaning in and asking if I wasn't cold "with just those pink shorts on." I explained my before and after walk and she let my attire slide just as the lecture began.
First we got a little humor from the VHS president, who greeted the crowded room saying, "Good afternoon. Isn't it a Poe-like day?" Gray, wet and coolish, I suppose it was. His final reminder was to silence cell phones, saying, "Even if they have an eerie ring, take out your phone and make sure it squawks nevermore." Big laugh.
The speaker was an English professor at Penn State who lectured about Poe's deep worship of beauty, beginning before he was even 20 years old, and his desire to be a poet and express beauty through language. She spoke of "graphicality," a term Poe coined to describe striking imagery, the kind he used in his writing.
I found her most compelling thesis to be about how Poe tried to mimic the way painters create illusion when writing for the desired effect, trying to represent what he sensed in nature through "the veil of his soul." She used Claude Lorraine as an example of someone who had a huge effect on American painters but also on Poe's work.
She said that during his time living in Philly, he'd visited the Pennsylvania Academy of Arts many times (alas, I've only been once), soaking in the landscape work of Thomas Cole, Thomas Scully and Nicolas Poussin, the latter's "The Deluge" showing the elemental fury of nature. When he moved to New York, he saw Frederick Church's landscapes.
Her conclusion: Poe's work was influenced by landscape painting and his abiding love of nature, a place that always calmed him down in a way that the built world did not. She read from Poe's "The Philosophy of Furniture," a treatise on creating an interior room's space in the same way a painting is created.
Calling Landor's Cottage Poe's the last story published before he died, she conjectured that it brought about a renewed desire to be a romantic poet after years of magazine writing (and the kind of suspense/horror work with which most people associate him) he'd had to do to earn a living.
Despite a wealth of interesting material, the lecture itself was presented without expression or vitality. The man next to me pulled out his book and began reading instead of listening after a few minutes. Several people appeared to be dozing in the rows behind me.
The problem was that the entire lecture was read word for word, sometimes even when the wording was a direct quote and was shown on the screen onstage. Other times, she would misread a sentence or paragraph only to realize it meant something entirely different than what she'd intended and reread the entire thing. It was tedious, to put it kindly, although her subject matter wasn't and clearly she'd done a wealth of research and possessed loads of knowledge on the subject.
Walking out afterwards, a stranger caught up to me and smiled. His first question was, "Do you come to a lot of these?" and I said I'd come for years.
"So do I. That was the most boring one I've ever sat through. I wanted to leave after ten minutes. Why did she have to read the whole thing?" Some questions have no answers. It wasn't that she wasn't knowledgeable, but it would have come across far more appealingly spoken rather than read like a to-do list.
The good news is, I learned about an entirely different side of Poe than I'd ever heard about and reconnected with someone I haven't seen in over a decade. It should be fun to catch up.
Sometimes lectures are good for more than just learning new information. They're a reminder not to wear pink shorts to the historical society.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
The Days of Flies and Deer
Curiosity about a building I'd seen was all it took.
The Virginia Historical Society's banner lecture was "Sheltering Arms: A Legacy of Caring" given by Anne Lower from her book of the same name, out this year on the 125th anniversary of the hospital.
If it weren't for one of my walks having taken me down Clay Street across from the Valentine where I saw a handsome three-story building labeled "Sheltering Arms," I doubt the lecture would have piqued my interest.
Lower had my attention immediately when she explained that the original St. James Episcopal Church had been in Jackson Ward before moving to the "west end," over on Franklin Street in the heart of what is now VCU.
I couldn't have been more surprised to learn that Episcopalians had once gathered in J-Ward.
That was relevant because Rebekah Peterkin was the daughter of Reverend Joshua Peterkin of St. James church and she was the founder of Sheltering Arms.
With the limited powers of a 19th century woman, she convened her sewing circle to help establish a hospital for needy patients in the city.
Their first building - Clifton House on 14th Street - located behind the governor's mansion was donated and opened in 1889.
Lower made it sound like a community effort with doctors volunteering their time and bringing their own instruments, even painting walls, while farmers donated food and hunters donated deer.
Women, of course, donated time and endless fund-raising efforts.
After Rebekah died in 1891, the hospital was moved to the stately Grant mansion on Clay Street, the handsome building that had first caught my eye.
In the old photograph Lower showed, nurses wore floor-length white uniforms and she told us that they lived on the third floor of the mansion.
We heard about the formation of the Florence Nightingale Auxiliary and their community efforts - scout canned food drives, the Bal du Bois ("the most beautiful of parties," Lower called it), sorority fundraisers - to keep funds and goods coming in to Sheltering Arms.
Showing a picture of the operating room on Clay Street, Lower pointed out the three big windows, "Opened for fresh air during surgery, but also letting in flies because there were no screens then."
She said the windows had a great view of the countryside looking east.
That's the kind of details I go to these lectures for. Imagine a time when operating rooms were open to views and flies!
The rest of the history interested me less - the move to northside where they no longer delivered babies or did surgery, the decline in need for free care once Medicare was put into law and how Sheltering Arms reinvented itself as a rehabilitation facility.
All well and good.
For me, I have a new appreciation of the Grant Mansion and next time I walk by, I'll try to imagine those long-skirted nurses working and living in that lovely house.
I'll probably even try to figure out which windows were the operation room ones so I can envision the view.
And then when I get back to Jackson Ward, I'll completely suspend belief and try to imagine Episcopalians in my neighborhood.
It must be true. I heard it at a Banner Lecture.
The Virginia Historical Society's banner lecture was "Sheltering Arms: A Legacy of Caring" given by Anne Lower from her book of the same name, out this year on the 125th anniversary of the hospital.
If it weren't for one of my walks having taken me down Clay Street across from the Valentine where I saw a handsome three-story building labeled "Sheltering Arms," I doubt the lecture would have piqued my interest.
Lower had my attention immediately when she explained that the original St. James Episcopal Church had been in Jackson Ward before moving to the "west end," over on Franklin Street in the heart of what is now VCU.
I couldn't have been more surprised to learn that Episcopalians had once gathered in J-Ward.
That was relevant because Rebekah Peterkin was the daughter of Reverend Joshua Peterkin of St. James church and she was the founder of Sheltering Arms.
With the limited powers of a 19th century woman, she convened her sewing circle to help establish a hospital for needy patients in the city.
Their first building - Clifton House on 14th Street - located behind the governor's mansion was donated and opened in 1889.
Lower made it sound like a community effort with doctors volunteering their time and bringing their own instruments, even painting walls, while farmers donated food and hunters donated deer.
Women, of course, donated time and endless fund-raising efforts.
After Rebekah died in 1891, the hospital was moved to the stately Grant mansion on Clay Street, the handsome building that had first caught my eye.
In the old photograph Lower showed, nurses wore floor-length white uniforms and she told us that they lived on the third floor of the mansion.
We heard about the formation of the Florence Nightingale Auxiliary and their community efforts - scout canned food drives, the Bal du Bois ("the most beautiful of parties," Lower called it), sorority fundraisers - to keep funds and goods coming in to Sheltering Arms.
Showing a picture of the operating room on Clay Street, Lower pointed out the three big windows, "Opened for fresh air during surgery, but also letting in flies because there were no screens then."
She said the windows had a great view of the countryside looking east.
That's the kind of details I go to these lectures for. Imagine a time when operating rooms were open to views and flies!
The rest of the history interested me less - the move to northside where they no longer delivered babies or did surgery, the decline in need for free care once Medicare was put into law and how Sheltering Arms reinvented itself as a rehabilitation facility.
All well and good.
For me, I have a new appreciation of the Grant Mansion and next time I walk by, I'll try to imagine those long-skirted nurses working and living in that lovely house.
I'll probably even try to figure out which windows were the operation room ones so I can envision the view.
And then when I get back to Jackson Ward, I'll completely suspend belief and try to imagine Episcopalians in my neighborhood.
It must be true. I heard it at a Banner Lecture.
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Cowcatchers on Clay
Give me a rainy day and some old photographs and I'm in heaven. Just don't make me choose between the two.
As it happened, today I didn't have to.
The Virginia Historical Society's banner lecture, given by author Kitty Snow, was entitled From a Richmond Streetcar: Life through the Lens of Harris Stilson.
I was intrigued because my Richmond grandmother had taken the streetcar to get to her job as an operator at C & P Telephone Company and as a kid, I'd been fascinated with her stories of riding them.
Suspecting that the topic would be a popular one, I arrived early and was soon joined by an older couple who arrived holding hands.
Before long I was chatting with the woman who told me that she'd been married 27 years to a Vietnam vet and then alone for ten years, before meeting her current husband, an engineer now sitting next to her (and looking up directions to a Bon Air store on his phone), who'd been married 52 years.
Of course I had to ask how they'd met. Seems before his first wife died she'd suggested he join the church choir and once she was gone, he did.
There he'd met the woman I was talking to, who'd been a member of the choir her entire adult life.
At that point, the husband leaned over his wife with a smile and whispered to me, "She needed a lot of retraining!"
The wife was just as funny, responding, "So did he! He told me he'd be good for five years and we've been together ten."
How cute is that?
The lecture began with the VHS president telling us, "If you have a cell phone, please grind it under your heel," easily the wittiest way to remind people to silence their devices I've ever heard.
Kitty Snow turned out to be the great-granddaughter of Harris Stilson, a Richmond streetcar driver (she said he always referred to himself as a "carman") and amateur photographer in the early 1900s, and the recipient of his archives.
Best of all for me, he'd driven the West Clay line, so I was guaranteed to see familiar sights given that that's where I live.
She'd only brought a small fraction of the fabulous collection of pictures and negatives he'd taken, but even so we were treated to an hour of Richmond's places and people a hundred years ago.
Apparently Harris' talent with a camera was well known enough that people would flag him down when he was driving the streetcar and ask him to take their picture. He charged 15-20 cents for whites and, admirably, a nickel less for blacks.
I'd come to the lecture because of my grandmother, but it was my grandfather who first came to mind when we saw a picture of a milkman on his Richmond Dairy horse and wagon because my grandfather had been a milkman for Richmond dairy his entire working life, both with horse and wagons then later milk trucks
Harris took plenty of self-portraits at a time when cameras didn't do that on their own, employing string, wire and other devices to capture his own image.
We saw First Union Church at Moore and Elizabeth Streets and while the original church is gone, the location is one I walk by often.
He'd taken many photographs of Jewish shops and shopkeepers; I was surprised to learn that Eric Cantor's grandfather had once owned a store in Jackson Ward.
One thing Harris liked to document was accidents like the streetcar collision with a cow, a horse and two goats on the first day of the streetcars running in 1888.
The picture showed the cow under a streetcar, but Kitty said the horse died when it stepped on the live electric line and no one knew how the goats had perished, but they had. It wasn't long before cow catchers were attached to the front of the cars.
Another accident photo showed a wagon with a bull in it toppled at Norton and Clay, again only a few blocks from my house.
When Kitty mentioned how at the end of the street car lines, all the seats had to be reversed for the return trip, many white and gray haired heads in the audience nodded in acknowledgement of the memory.
We saw peddlers on Leigh Street, kids jumping off the high dive into Shields' Lake, and the Piggly Wiggly on the Boulevard with a circus parade going by.
A shot of Hartshorn College, a women's teaching school then and where Maggie Walker Governor's School is now, captured a man climbing out of a women's dorm window. Pretty racy for the time.
I was tickled to see a shot of Hurdles Drug Store at Hancock and Clay (also very close to me), looking very old fashioned, right down to the spittoon by the counter.
There were many pictures of Leigh Street as a dirt road, one with a herd of cattle moseying down the middle.
Somehow I'd never heard or read about the stockyards here, but Harris had been to them so we saw his photograph of a pig in a slaughterhouse dead from heat with workers standing nearby.
That's just it. Harris - the poor man's photographer- took pictures for the masses. Blacks, Jews, immigrants, laborers, maids, slaughterhouse workers, Girl Scouts, businessmen, the St. Luke's Bank marching band.
Basically, anyone who asked or anyone who caught his eye.
The hour of looking at his photographs passed in what seemed like five minutes and I'd have happily stayed for another hour or two if she'd been willing to show us more.
Sometimes you sign on for a short time and happily stay much longer because you're enjoying yourself so much. Marriage, a noon-time lecture, they're not that far apart.
As it happened, today I didn't have to.
The Virginia Historical Society's banner lecture, given by author Kitty Snow, was entitled From a Richmond Streetcar: Life through the Lens of Harris Stilson.
I was intrigued because my Richmond grandmother had taken the streetcar to get to her job as an operator at C & P Telephone Company and as a kid, I'd been fascinated with her stories of riding them.
Suspecting that the topic would be a popular one, I arrived early and was soon joined by an older couple who arrived holding hands.
Before long I was chatting with the woman who told me that she'd been married 27 years to a Vietnam vet and then alone for ten years, before meeting her current husband, an engineer now sitting next to her (and looking up directions to a Bon Air store on his phone), who'd been married 52 years.
Of course I had to ask how they'd met. Seems before his first wife died she'd suggested he join the church choir and once she was gone, he did.
There he'd met the woman I was talking to, who'd been a member of the choir her entire adult life.
At that point, the husband leaned over his wife with a smile and whispered to me, "She needed a lot of retraining!"
The wife was just as funny, responding, "So did he! He told me he'd be good for five years and we've been together ten."
How cute is that?
The lecture began with the VHS president telling us, "If you have a cell phone, please grind it under your heel," easily the wittiest way to remind people to silence their devices I've ever heard.
Kitty Snow turned out to be the great-granddaughter of Harris Stilson, a Richmond streetcar driver (she said he always referred to himself as a "carman") and amateur photographer in the early 1900s, and the recipient of his archives.
Best of all for me, he'd driven the West Clay line, so I was guaranteed to see familiar sights given that that's where I live.
She'd only brought a small fraction of the fabulous collection of pictures and negatives he'd taken, but even so we were treated to an hour of Richmond's places and people a hundred years ago.
Apparently Harris' talent with a camera was well known enough that people would flag him down when he was driving the streetcar and ask him to take their picture. He charged 15-20 cents for whites and, admirably, a nickel less for blacks.
I'd come to the lecture because of my grandmother, but it was my grandfather who first came to mind when we saw a picture of a milkman on his Richmond Dairy horse and wagon because my grandfather had been a milkman for Richmond dairy his entire working life, both with horse and wagons then later milk trucks
Harris took plenty of self-portraits at a time when cameras didn't do that on their own, employing string, wire and other devices to capture his own image.
We saw First Union Church at Moore and Elizabeth Streets and while the original church is gone, the location is one I walk by often.
He'd taken many photographs of Jewish shops and shopkeepers; I was surprised to learn that Eric Cantor's grandfather had once owned a store in Jackson Ward.
One thing Harris liked to document was accidents like the streetcar collision with a cow, a horse and two goats on the first day of the streetcars running in 1888.
The picture showed the cow under a streetcar, but Kitty said the horse died when it stepped on the live electric line and no one knew how the goats had perished, but they had. It wasn't long before cow catchers were attached to the front of the cars.
Another accident photo showed a wagon with a bull in it toppled at Norton and Clay, again only a few blocks from my house.
When Kitty mentioned how at the end of the street car lines, all the seats had to be reversed for the return trip, many white and gray haired heads in the audience nodded in acknowledgement of the memory.
We saw peddlers on Leigh Street, kids jumping off the high dive into Shields' Lake, and the Piggly Wiggly on the Boulevard with a circus parade going by.
A shot of Hartshorn College, a women's teaching school then and where Maggie Walker Governor's School is now, captured a man climbing out of a women's dorm window. Pretty racy for the time.
I was tickled to see a shot of Hurdles Drug Store at Hancock and Clay (also very close to me), looking very old fashioned, right down to the spittoon by the counter.
There were many pictures of Leigh Street as a dirt road, one with a herd of cattle moseying down the middle.
Somehow I'd never heard or read about the stockyards here, but Harris had been to them so we saw his photograph of a pig in a slaughterhouse dead from heat with workers standing nearby.
That's just it. Harris - the poor man's photographer- took pictures for the masses. Blacks, Jews, immigrants, laborers, maids, slaughterhouse workers, Girl Scouts, businessmen, the St. Luke's Bank marching band.
Basically, anyone who asked or anyone who caught his eye.
The hour of looking at his photographs passed in what seemed like five minutes and I'd have happily stayed for another hour or two if she'd been willing to show us more.
Sometimes you sign on for a short time and happily stay much longer because you're enjoying yourself so much. Marriage, a noon-time lecture, they're not that far apart.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Sweet, Sweet Neighborhood
Facebook saved me after I slept late.
There it was, reminding me that there was a lecture I wanted to go to today. One that started in half an hour.
Throwing back my breakfast, I realized there was no time for my walk beforehand. Oh, well.
When I got to the Virginia Historical Society, I was about to take my seat when I heard my name called.
It was the new stay-at-home Dad who'd brought Peabody Crustbottom, his baby, to the lecture rather than miss it.
So I wasn't the only one eager to hear about "The Carillon: The Story of a Richmond Community."
I left him to the care and feeding of Peabody and took my seat next to an older woman who began chatting me up.
When I asked where she lived, she responded, "Between the two saints, St. Christopher's and St. Michael's."
Leaning in conspiratorially, she said, "When I moved there, my friend said at least you're between two Episcopalians! Well, one of them is, I told her." And she laughed at her own irreverent humor.
Elizabeth O'Leary, former curator of American art at the VMFA and a resident of the Carillon neighborhood, spent the next hour talking about the fish-shaped area that began as a colonial frontier, became farmland during the antebellum period and eventually became a streetcar neighborhood before becoming an exemplary integrated one.
She showed the eagle-topped arches that face the Carillon at the entrance to the neighborhood and I realized I'd never seen them.
It was right about then that I decided that after the talk, I'd be taking my walk in this neighborhood she was explaining.
One thing I hadn't known was that the early conception for the neighborhood was much like that of Windsor Farms, to be an upscale, fashionable neighborhood and there were several houses like that built by the 1930s.
She talked a little about the Carillon itself, the monument to the WWI soldiers with 66 bronze bells and a war museum on the ground floor.
There was a fabulous picture of the opening of it in 1932, with dignitaries in chairs and the cadets of VMI and VA Tech marching from the State Capital to the Carillon for the ceremony.
One thing I hadn't known was that originally there was supposed to be a reflecting pool in front of it, hence the lowered grassy lawn which, she said, fills up with water during hurricanes, sort of a natural reflecting pool.
Then the Great Depression hit and mansion-building in the neighborhood came to a screeching halt, eventually replaced with post-WWII housing - 250 brick houses, many of them Cape Cods - for all those returning troops.
But teh reality was that the neighborhood, like the nearby park, was whites-only until the first black family moved in in 1967.
By 1968, it was 40% black and the Carillon civic association was created to, among other things, encourage further integration.
Their slogan was, "Since we're neighbors, let's be friends" and they worked tirelessly to get real estate agents to show houses for sale to blacks and whites and change the segregated way house sales were listed in the classified ads.
An early Carillon neighborhood booklet described the place as "Where people care, not just for their yards, but for others."
Governor Holton called the neighborhood "a model for racial integration," and considering it was the days of segregated Richmond, it's pretty impressive how neighbors banded together to affect positive change.
By the time she finished her talk, I couldn't wait to get over there and see this model neighborhood.
It was illuminating, especially considering I've been in Richmond since the '80s, as I walked the streets over there, seeing both grand and simple houses.
Not all blocks had sidewalks and even some that did had those very narrow ones that don't exactly encourage strolling, but the very mature trees had left cascades of soft, bright yellow leaves to plow through, a distinct autumn pleasure.
And I did see the diversity.
At one beautiful, big stone house, a woman was walking three maids to their car, thanking them for their hard work.
Behind a rancher no bigger than a single-wide trailer, I saw a clothes line and a truck up on cinder blocks.
Many streets dead-ended, ensuring a minimum of random traffic.
O'Leary had mentioned how the streetcars came down South Belmont to this neighborhood and I hadn't been able to visualize it, but coming across it on my walk, I was able to link it up to N. Belmont in my head finally.
It was every bit as charming as O'Leary had made it sound and, as one neighbor getting out of his car said to me, "Perfect day for a walk, isn't it?"
And the perfect place for it today, too.
I finished up with a couple of laps around Fountain lake as, no doubt, scores of Carillon residents have for years.
The lake was full of geese and ducks enjoying the sunny day, dunking themselves and being photographed by a visitor.
I passed one guy sitting on a bench with a small, silver transistor radio tied to the handlebars and turned on.
Honestly, I didn't know people even used those little transistor radios anymore.
Even better was an old black guy on a bench playing his guitar with a music stand set up in front of him as he played and sang.
It was the sheet music for Elvis' "Sweet, Sweet Spirit" and I stopped to listen on both my loops around, applauding after the second time.
He smiled and tipped his head at me, never missing a beat of the song.
For all I know, he's exactly the kind of friendly person who lives in the Carillon neighborhood.
There it was, reminding me that there was a lecture I wanted to go to today. One that started in half an hour.
Throwing back my breakfast, I realized there was no time for my walk beforehand. Oh, well.
When I got to the Virginia Historical Society, I was about to take my seat when I heard my name called.
It was the new stay-at-home Dad who'd brought Peabody Crustbottom, his baby, to the lecture rather than miss it.
So I wasn't the only one eager to hear about "The Carillon: The Story of a Richmond Community."
I left him to the care and feeding of Peabody and took my seat next to an older woman who began chatting me up.
When I asked where she lived, she responded, "Between the two saints, St. Christopher's and St. Michael's."
Leaning in conspiratorially, she said, "When I moved there, my friend said at least you're between two Episcopalians! Well, one of them is, I told her." And she laughed at her own irreverent humor.
Elizabeth O'Leary, former curator of American art at the VMFA and a resident of the Carillon neighborhood, spent the next hour talking about the fish-shaped area that began as a colonial frontier, became farmland during the antebellum period and eventually became a streetcar neighborhood before becoming an exemplary integrated one.
She showed the eagle-topped arches that face the Carillon at the entrance to the neighborhood and I realized I'd never seen them.
It was right about then that I decided that after the talk, I'd be taking my walk in this neighborhood she was explaining.
One thing I hadn't known was that the early conception for the neighborhood was much like that of Windsor Farms, to be an upscale, fashionable neighborhood and there were several houses like that built by the 1930s.
She talked a little about the Carillon itself, the monument to the WWI soldiers with 66 bronze bells and a war museum on the ground floor.
There was a fabulous picture of the opening of it in 1932, with dignitaries in chairs and the cadets of VMI and VA Tech marching from the State Capital to the Carillon for the ceremony.
One thing I hadn't known was that originally there was supposed to be a reflecting pool in front of it, hence the lowered grassy lawn which, she said, fills up with water during hurricanes, sort of a natural reflecting pool.
Then the Great Depression hit and mansion-building in the neighborhood came to a screeching halt, eventually replaced with post-WWII housing - 250 brick houses, many of them Cape Cods - for all those returning troops.
But teh reality was that the neighborhood, like the nearby park, was whites-only until the first black family moved in in 1967.
By 1968, it was 40% black and the Carillon civic association was created to, among other things, encourage further integration.
Their slogan was, "Since we're neighbors, let's be friends" and they worked tirelessly to get real estate agents to show houses for sale to blacks and whites and change the segregated way house sales were listed in the classified ads.
An early Carillon neighborhood booklet described the place as "Where people care, not just for their yards, but for others."
Governor Holton called the neighborhood "a model for racial integration," and considering it was the days of segregated Richmond, it's pretty impressive how neighbors banded together to affect positive change.
By the time she finished her talk, I couldn't wait to get over there and see this model neighborhood.
It was illuminating, especially considering I've been in Richmond since the '80s, as I walked the streets over there, seeing both grand and simple houses.
Not all blocks had sidewalks and even some that did had those very narrow ones that don't exactly encourage strolling, but the very mature trees had left cascades of soft, bright yellow leaves to plow through, a distinct autumn pleasure.
And I did see the diversity.
At one beautiful, big stone house, a woman was walking three maids to their car, thanking them for their hard work.
Behind a rancher no bigger than a single-wide trailer, I saw a clothes line and a truck up on cinder blocks.
Many streets dead-ended, ensuring a minimum of random traffic.
O'Leary had mentioned how the streetcars came down South Belmont to this neighborhood and I hadn't been able to visualize it, but coming across it on my walk, I was able to link it up to N. Belmont in my head finally.
It was every bit as charming as O'Leary had made it sound and, as one neighbor getting out of his car said to me, "Perfect day for a walk, isn't it?"
And the perfect place for it today, too.
I finished up with a couple of laps around Fountain lake as, no doubt, scores of Carillon residents have for years.
The lake was full of geese and ducks enjoying the sunny day, dunking themselves and being photographed by a visitor.
I passed one guy sitting on a bench with a small, silver transistor radio tied to the handlebars and turned on.
Honestly, I didn't know people even used those little transistor radios anymore.
Even better was an old black guy on a bench playing his guitar with a music stand set up in front of him as he played and sang.
It was the sheet music for Elvis' "Sweet, Sweet Spirit" and I stopped to listen on both my loops around, applauding after the second time.
He smiled and tipped his head at me, never missing a beat of the song.
For all I know, he's exactly the kind of friendly person who lives in the Carillon neighborhood.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Bad Woman Lesson
Turns out I spent my formative years in a hotbed of assassins.
So I learned at today's Banner Lecture at the Virginia Historical Society where David Stewart talked about "Family of Assassins: The Surratts of Maryland." You know, the family we all learned in social studies class had aided and abetted John Wilkes Booth after he did the deed.
The usual greatest generation crowd was there with the predictable snorer in the back, the only concessions to Halloween being the VHS president referring to himself as the "chief executive goblin" and the woman next to me wearing orange pumpkin socks.
Stewart, a lawyer before he was an author of histories, said he'd been inspired to write his first work of non-fiction, "The Lincoln Deception," when he read a paragraph that intrigued him while doing research.
In a 40-year old book, he read that the prosecutor in the Lincoln assassination trial had alluded to "Mary Surratt's terrible secret" on his deathbed.
Since the gentler sex are not known for their assassination prowess, Stewart had been intrigued by the idea of a mother/son crime team.
Mary's was very southern family despite living in Maryland and when she married John Surratt, they opened a tavern/inn that aided Confederate spies during the war by taking in mail and forwarding it to help the cause.
It was easy enough to do once John became postmaster and the area around the tavern became known as Surrattsville.
What I learned today was that Surrattsville is in Prince George's county which is where I grew up. How is it no social studies teacher ever told me that?
Well, it was until after the assassination, when it was changed to Clinton, he told us.
Laughter erupted in the audience and Stewart said, "I didn't know that would get a laugh." Clearly he didn't know the VHS audience then.
I'm sure he did know he'd get a laugh when he began telling us about how the Surratts moved to Washington D.C., showing a slide of the still-intact building.
"It now houses an Asian fusion restaurant," he said, gesturing at the image. "It still looks exactly the same as it did then...except for the dim sum table inside."
Humor aside, I learned that the Surratts and Booth had originally planned to kidnap Lincoln, bring him to Richmond and ransom him to get Confederate prisoners of war back.
Their attempt was an epic fail when Lincoln didn't show up so they decided to figure out a way to kill him instead, along with the VEEP, the secretary of war, and general Ulysses Grant.
The member of the gang assigned to kill the VP got drunk and chickened out, the secretary of war got some stab wounds and Grant?
Well, he was tired and went to the beach with his fam, thus making it tough to kill him when he was gone.
But Booth shot Lincoln and got away for eleven days before being discovered in a barn, where he was shot and the barn set ablaze.
The other eight conspirators went on trial with Mary being one of the four who got hanged.
And, remember, we weren't hanging women back in those days, so clearly the evidence didn't look good for the old broad.
Her son John, part of the group of plotters, managed to escape to Canada and then to Europe, leaving Mom to pay the price.
That's a pretty lousy son.
Stewart ended by talking about how different fiction and non-fiction writing are.
"Most of history is silence," he explained. "If nobody writes it down, we don't know about it. This was my opportunity to write the things not said."
So what had he concluded was Mary Surratt's terrible secret?
"I couldn't possibly tell you what I concluded Mary's secret was," he grinned. "My publisher would kill me. But I hope you have a chance to find out."
Probably not given my depleted book budget, but I do have a suggestion.
I think every Prince George's county schoolchild needs to learn about Mary Surratt, the boardinghouse owner who "kept the nest that hatched the egg of assassination" and was the first woman executed by the U.S. government.
Sure would have made fourth grade social studies more interesting.
So I learned at today's Banner Lecture at the Virginia Historical Society where David Stewart talked about "Family of Assassins: The Surratts of Maryland." You know, the family we all learned in social studies class had aided and abetted John Wilkes Booth after he did the deed.
The usual greatest generation crowd was there with the predictable snorer in the back, the only concessions to Halloween being the VHS president referring to himself as the "chief executive goblin" and the woman next to me wearing orange pumpkin socks.
Stewart, a lawyer before he was an author of histories, said he'd been inspired to write his first work of non-fiction, "The Lincoln Deception," when he read a paragraph that intrigued him while doing research.
In a 40-year old book, he read that the prosecutor in the Lincoln assassination trial had alluded to "Mary Surratt's terrible secret" on his deathbed.
Since the gentler sex are not known for their assassination prowess, Stewart had been intrigued by the idea of a mother/son crime team.
Mary's was very southern family despite living in Maryland and when she married John Surratt, they opened a tavern/inn that aided Confederate spies during the war by taking in mail and forwarding it to help the cause.
It was easy enough to do once John became postmaster and the area around the tavern became known as Surrattsville.
What I learned today was that Surrattsville is in Prince George's county which is where I grew up. How is it no social studies teacher ever told me that?
Well, it was until after the assassination, when it was changed to Clinton, he told us.
Laughter erupted in the audience and Stewart said, "I didn't know that would get a laugh." Clearly he didn't know the VHS audience then.
I'm sure he did know he'd get a laugh when he began telling us about how the Surratts moved to Washington D.C., showing a slide of the still-intact building.
"It now houses an Asian fusion restaurant," he said, gesturing at the image. "It still looks exactly the same as it did then...except for the dim sum table inside."
Humor aside, I learned that the Surratts and Booth had originally planned to kidnap Lincoln, bring him to Richmond and ransom him to get Confederate prisoners of war back.
Their attempt was an epic fail when Lincoln didn't show up so they decided to figure out a way to kill him instead, along with the VEEP, the secretary of war, and general Ulysses Grant.
The member of the gang assigned to kill the VP got drunk and chickened out, the secretary of war got some stab wounds and Grant?
Well, he was tired and went to the beach with his fam, thus making it tough to kill him when he was gone.
But Booth shot Lincoln and got away for eleven days before being discovered in a barn, where he was shot and the barn set ablaze.
The other eight conspirators went on trial with Mary being one of the four who got hanged.
And, remember, we weren't hanging women back in those days, so clearly the evidence didn't look good for the old broad.
Her son John, part of the group of plotters, managed to escape to Canada and then to Europe, leaving Mom to pay the price.
That's a pretty lousy son.
Stewart ended by talking about how different fiction and non-fiction writing are.
"Most of history is silence," he explained. "If nobody writes it down, we don't know about it. This was my opportunity to write the things not said."
So what had he concluded was Mary Surratt's terrible secret?
"I couldn't possibly tell you what I concluded Mary's secret was," he grinned. "My publisher would kill me. But I hope you have a chance to find out."
Probably not given my depleted book budget, but I do have a suggestion.
I think every Prince George's county schoolchild needs to learn about Mary Surratt, the boardinghouse owner who "kept the nest that hatched the egg of assassination" and was the first woman executed by the U.S. government.
Sure would have made fourth grade social studies more interesting.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
I'll Have the Lobster and the Bacon
Come on in, honey, and get some of this A/C. I see you finally found a parking space!
It's so nice when a guard oversees your arrival.
I was headed to the Virginia Historical Society's banner lecture, "The Jefferson Hotel: The History of a Richmond Landmark" by Paul Herbert.
"It's packed back there!" my new best friend warned me as I headed down to the talk.
Sure enough, the room was already near capacity, with an audience that looked to have a median age of about 70.
No problem. I never mind being on the young side of the demographic.
The VHS blurb had said that Herbert had "loved the Jefferson since his first visit there more than 20 years ago" and I would have guessed that most of this crowd's memories went back two or three times that far.
Hell, my first visit was 21 years ago (for a local radio station's dance night) and I'm not even a local.
Clearly Herbert didn't know that 20 years is nothing in this town.
He'd brought over 50 slides relating to the Jefferson Hotel and proceeded to tell us all kinds of arcane information, a lot of which got the crowd smiling and nodding in agreement.
Starting with how Lewis Ginter, the man who'd originally built the hotel, had made his third fortune in tobacco by selling pre-rolled cigarettes that came with trading cards, he told us about what a model hotel it was when it opened in 1895.
The roof garden shows were a big hit, but only for a while because the Jefferson charged 50 cents while the other venues in town only charged a quarter.
When he got on the subject of the Jefferson being known for the alligators in its Palm Court, the blue hair next to me stated to no one in particular, "I've seen the alligators."
Apparently a common method to herd the baby alligators was sticking the bristle end of a broom in their mouth and dragging them back to the pond.
And despite certain northern newspaper assumptions, the hotel had not been named after Jefferson Davis. Duh.
Herbert mentioned the big-names visitors, essentially "everyone famous who came to the east coast between 1900 and 1960," people like Winston Churchill and John D. Rockefeller (both named "honorary Virginians"), Charles Lindbergh and Elvis (who mortified the Jefferson's manager by eating bacon with his fingers).
I was surprised to learn that the Jefferson had so many full-time residents (80 when it closed in 1980 and as many as 100 before then), including Horace Ganz, its most famous.
Of course, back in those days, the manager and his family lived on site, too.
We heard how the opening of the nearby Hotel John Marshall at the beginning of the Great Depression hurt the Jefferson as people fled further downtown to the fancy new kid on the block.
Prices told the most unbelievable story, with rooms $1.50 in 1895 (with another $1 for a bathroom), a full dinner for $2.50 in 1930, a lobster dinner for $8.50 in 1970 and $7.50 for Mother's Day dinner in 1975.
And, yes, Billy Joel was a 25% owner of the Jefferson for a while, even showing up behind the piano on his occasional visits to town to sing and play.
Sure, that would have been an unexpected treat, but personally, I'd rather sit with Elvis and eat bacon with my fingers.
Historical anecdote aside, is there another way to eat bacon?
It's so nice when a guard oversees your arrival.
I was headed to the Virginia Historical Society's banner lecture, "The Jefferson Hotel: The History of a Richmond Landmark" by Paul Herbert.
"It's packed back there!" my new best friend warned me as I headed down to the talk.
Sure enough, the room was already near capacity, with an audience that looked to have a median age of about 70.
No problem. I never mind being on the young side of the demographic.
The VHS blurb had said that Herbert had "loved the Jefferson since his first visit there more than 20 years ago" and I would have guessed that most of this crowd's memories went back two or three times that far.
Hell, my first visit was 21 years ago (for a local radio station's dance night) and I'm not even a local.
Clearly Herbert didn't know that 20 years is nothing in this town.
He'd brought over 50 slides relating to the Jefferson Hotel and proceeded to tell us all kinds of arcane information, a lot of which got the crowd smiling and nodding in agreement.
Starting with how Lewis Ginter, the man who'd originally built the hotel, had made his third fortune in tobacco by selling pre-rolled cigarettes that came with trading cards, he told us about what a model hotel it was when it opened in 1895.
The roof garden shows were a big hit, but only for a while because the Jefferson charged 50 cents while the other venues in town only charged a quarter.
When he got on the subject of the Jefferson being known for the alligators in its Palm Court, the blue hair next to me stated to no one in particular, "I've seen the alligators."
Apparently a common method to herd the baby alligators was sticking the bristle end of a broom in their mouth and dragging them back to the pond.
And despite certain northern newspaper assumptions, the hotel had not been named after Jefferson Davis. Duh.
Herbert mentioned the big-names visitors, essentially "everyone famous who came to the east coast between 1900 and 1960," people like Winston Churchill and John D. Rockefeller (both named "honorary Virginians"), Charles Lindbergh and Elvis (who mortified the Jefferson's manager by eating bacon with his fingers).
I was surprised to learn that the Jefferson had so many full-time residents (80 when it closed in 1980 and as many as 100 before then), including Horace Ganz, its most famous.
Of course, back in those days, the manager and his family lived on site, too.
We heard how the opening of the nearby Hotel John Marshall at the beginning of the Great Depression hurt the Jefferson as people fled further downtown to the fancy new kid on the block.
Prices told the most unbelievable story, with rooms $1.50 in 1895 (with another $1 for a bathroom), a full dinner for $2.50 in 1930, a lobster dinner for $8.50 in 1970 and $7.50 for Mother's Day dinner in 1975.
And, yes, Billy Joel was a 25% owner of the Jefferson for a while, even showing up behind the piano on his occasional visits to town to sing and play.
Sure, that would have been an unexpected treat, but personally, I'd rather sit with Elvis and eat bacon with my fingers.
Historical anecdote aside, is there another way to eat bacon?
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Now Surveying Her Future
Imagine telling a person's life story through maps.
In my case, it would start with a city grid (Washington, DC) and eventually change to a planned close-in suburban community, only to be followed by a return to the logical patterns of a couple of cities. And none of the maps would be drawn by yours truly.
But in the case of George Washington, a man who died with over ninety maps in his personal collection, some were by his own hand, while others served him during key periods in his life.
Today's Banner Lecture at the Virginia Historical Society began with the President making an historical joke about settlers praising Virginia's temperate breezes. "I'm glad they were right," he joked.
From the back came an enormous guffaw and snort, to which he responded, "Clearly some people already have heatstroke."
Barnet Schecter's topic was "George Washington's America: A Biography Through His Maps" and he wove a history of the man using only maps as visuals and reference points.
From his early connections to Lord Fairfax's massive land holdings on the Northern Neck (I pass GW's mother's house when I visit my parents out there), it became obvious that GW was fiercely ambitious, sure of what he wanted and going after it to get it.
Maps were Washington's way of thinking about the world; he seemed to presume that whoever had the most detailed information regarding the terrain had the advantage. At the time, he was no doubt correct.
From maps of Mount Vernon to maps he did of the wilderness and Canadian border to maps of Boston Harbor used to help the colonist fight the British, it was clear what an important role they played.
On the subject of the latter, I was fascinated to learn that French map dealers traded heavily with the nearby Brits and thus were able to supply the revolutionaries here with maps of the British armaments in places like Boston. How convenient was that?
The last map we saw was drawn by Washington while still in office but when he was dreaming about returning to the gentleman farmer life.
It showed Mount Vernon as he hoped to see it; after emancipating his slaves, the adjoining land would be farmed by capable agriculturalists who would then hire the freed blacks to work the land and earn a living.
Sadly, his slaves weren't freed until after he died, but it's thought-provoking to imagine how the course of history might have changed if his vision had been realized. And his vision was laid out on a map.
Of course, nobody uses maps anymore, except maybe me occasionally. With no use for the whole GPS revolution, I still occasionally need to pull out a map and I always find it satisfying to do so and figure out what I need to know.
If only everything I needed to know could be found on a map. Perhaps I need to lay out my own map for the future, like the great man did.
Nah, I'm pretty happy just fumbling toward ecstasy, whatever that may be.
In my case, it would start with a city grid (Washington, DC) and eventually change to a planned close-in suburban community, only to be followed by a return to the logical patterns of a couple of cities. And none of the maps would be drawn by yours truly.
But in the case of George Washington, a man who died with over ninety maps in his personal collection, some were by his own hand, while others served him during key periods in his life.
Today's Banner Lecture at the Virginia Historical Society began with the President making an historical joke about settlers praising Virginia's temperate breezes. "I'm glad they were right," he joked.
From the back came an enormous guffaw and snort, to which he responded, "Clearly some people already have heatstroke."
Barnet Schecter's topic was "George Washington's America: A Biography Through His Maps" and he wove a history of the man using only maps as visuals and reference points.
From his early connections to Lord Fairfax's massive land holdings on the Northern Neck (I pass GW's mother's house when I visit my parents out there), it became obvious that GW was fiercely ambitious, sure of what he wanted and going after it to get it.
Maps were Washington's way of thinking about the world; he seemed to presume that whoever had the most detailed information regarding the terrain had the advantage. At the time, he was no doubt correct.
From maps of Mount Vernon to maps he did of the wilderness and Canadian border to maps of Boston Harbor used to help the colonist fight the British, it was clear what an important role they played.
On the subject of the latter, I was fascinated to learn that French map dealers traded heavily with the nearby Brits and thus were able to supply the revolutionaries here with maps of the British armaments in places like Boston. How convenient was that?
The last map we saw was drawn by Washington while still in office but when he was dreaming about returning to the gentleman farmer life.
It showed Mount Vernon as he hoped to see it; after emancipating his slaves, the adjoining land would be farmed by capable agriculturalists who would then hire the freed blacks to work the land and earn a living.
Sadly, his slaves weren't freed until after he died, but it's thought-provoking to imagine how the course of history might have changed if his vision had been realized. And his vision was laid out on a map.
Of course, nobody uses maps anymore, except maybe me occasionally. With no use for the whole GPS revolution, I still occasionally need to pull out a map and I always find it satisfying to do so and figure out what I need to know.
If only everything I needed to know could be found on a map. Perhaps I need to lay out my own map for the future, like the great man did.
Nah, I'm pretty happy just fumbling toward ecstasy, whatever that may be.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
RVA: American City, Southern Place
All lectures should be cultural history lectures and you know why? Because attendees at a lecture don't fall asleep when the speaker is talking about people and not just historical fact.
That bit of wisdom came to me courtesy of today's Banner Lecture at the Virginia Historical Society. Gregg Kimball of the Library of Virginia (these museums are almost as incestuous as the restaurants are, but in an educational way) was giving a talk on "American City, Southern Place: Richmond in the 1850s." Of note was that I didn't see a single snorer.
Kimball got the audience's attention right off the bat by wryly observing that, "People in the antebellum period didn't know they were in the antebellum period." Bada bing.
He described Richmond on the eve of war as relatively cosmopolitan, with many ties to the north, a fairly advanced industrial culture and deeply tied to the hinterlands (you know, the part of the state west of us that we tend to forget about).
Some of the most interesting of the information he shared concerned the 1850 and 1860 changes in the Virginia census. The foreign-born population here soared while the free black population barely sustained itself. Surely no one was surprised at the latter given the climate of the time.
Letters from Mann Valentine (yes, of that Valentine family) home to his wife from NYC were illuminating for how long-standing the South's lack of comprehension of Northern ways is.
He told her that the place reminded him of ants moving along a busy street and lamented the fact that no one spoke to each other on the street, not even a quick hello. Howe many generations of Southerners have returned from their first trip north to say exactly the same thing?
What else kept the usually drowsy audience wide awake and interested today? Probably Kimball's explanation of the growth of fraternal organizations (newcomers seeking to "belong") and tales of drinking, gambling and prostitution (oh, my!) being lures to the city for country folk.
In another example of the more things change, the more they stay the same, two of Richmond's councilmen at that time were slaveholders. Draw your own conclusions from there.
Undoubtedly part of Kimball's appeal was his stellar slide presentation, full of historic paintings and photographs and augmented by some fascinating maps drawn from census date. Where are the Baptists? Look and see. And the free blacks? There they are. Each map gave a different snapshot of a group of people.
And, let's face it, people are far more interesting than dates and events. It's why of all the newspapers of the time, it was the penny paper, The Daily Dispatch, that provided Kimball a wealth of information about what was actually going on in the streets of Richmond.
People have always wanted to know what the other people are doing. Still do; otherwise, why read a blog, right?
That bit of wisdom came to me courtesy of today's Banner Lecture at the Virginia Historical Society. Gregg Kimball of the Library of Virginia (these museums are almost as incestuous as the restaurants are, but in an educational way) was giving a talk on "American City, Southern Place: Richmond in the 1850s." Of note was that I didn't see a single snorer.
Kimball got the audience's attention right off the bat by wryly observing that, "People in the antebellum period didn't know they were in the antebellum period." Bada bing.
He described Richmond on the eve of war as relatively cosmopolitan, with many ties to the north, a fairly advanced industrial culture and deeply tied to the hinterlands (you know, the part of the state west of us that we tend to forget about).
Some of the most interesting of the information he shared concerned the 1850 and 1860 changes in the Virginia census. The foreign-born population here soared while the free black population barely sustained itself. Surely no one was surprised at the latter given the climate of the time.
Letters from Mann Valentine (yes, of that Valentine family) home to his wife from NYC were illuminating for how long-standing the South's lack of comprehension of Northern ways is.
He told her that the place reminded him of ants moving along a busy street and lamented the fact that no one spoke to each other on the street, not even a quick hello. Howe many generations of Southerners have returned from their first trip north to say exactly the same thing?
What else kept the usually drowsy audience wide awake and interested today? Probably Kimball's explanation of the growth of fraternal organizations (newcomers seeking to "belong") and tales of drinking, gambling and prostitution (oh, my!) being lures to the city for country folk.
In another example of the more things change, the more they stay the same, two of Richmond's councilmen at that time were slaveholders. Draw your own conclusions from there.
Undoubtedly part of Kimball's appeal was his stellar slide presentation, full of historic paintings and photographs and augmented by some fascinating maps drawn from census date. Where are the Baptists? Look and see. And the free blacks? There they are. Each map gave a different snapshot of a group of people.
And, let's face it, people are far more interesting than dates and events. It's why of all the newspapers of the time, it was the penny paper, The Daily Dispatch, that provided Kimball a wealth of information about what was actually going on in the streets of Richmond.
People have always wanted to know what the other people are doing. Still do; otherwise, why read a blog, right?
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Blog as 21st Century Diary
Tomorrow is the 150th anniversary of the day that our most unschooled President (and best prose stylist) took office. The Virginia Historical Society observed it a day early with a Lincoln lecture.
"The Diary of a Public Man and Abraham Lincoln" was the subject of Dr. Daniel Crofts' talk (with pictures). The diary referred to was published anonymously in 1879 and claimed to detail conversations between Lincoln, his rival Stephen Douglas and Secretary of State William Seward in the five months running up to the Civil War.
After over a century of the diary author's anonymity, Crofts had discovered through the alert eyes of one of his students the similarities between the diary's writing style and that of a prominent journalist of that time, William Henry Hurlbert. Bingo! Book deal in the offing.
What had been purported to have been a diary then was in fact a memoir penned by a mere newspaper writer, albeit one who was writing editorials for The New York Times before he was 30 years old.
Still, the diary contained priceless nuggets of information about the goings-on behind the scenes and Crofts' talk was a compelling look at the difficulty of the situation Lincoln faced from the moment he took office.
Yet again, I was lucky enough to sit by a guy who fell asleep, mouth wide open, only minutes into the lecture. Why do these people come to lectures that don't interest them enough to stay awake? I'd really like to know.
Once he began snoring, the guy behind me tapped him on his shoulder to tell him to knock it off. Sleeper guy was apologetic and requested that if he began snoring again, he should be pushed in the back. Gladly. How about a full-on shove?
Amazingly, he managed to fall asleep only a couple more times before the Q & A session began. And, just like all guilty lecture nappers, he just had to raise his hand to ask a question of the speaker. I swear these people do this to make themselves feel better about having slept through the talk.
Brain full of information about our Constitutionally- conservative, Shakespeare-reading President, I headed over to Bonvenu to meet a friend and fill my belly full of food.
It was his first time at Bonvenu and, as I expected, he was totally taken with the fact that their midday menu is both brunch and lunch every day, not just weekends. So, at 1:45 on a Thursday afternoon, a nice breakfast was an option.
Even more enticing, pitchers of Bloody Marys and Mimosas are also available and we were sorely tempted. We are weak people and we are okay with that.
Naturally he went for it, ordering steak and sunny side up eggs with hashed browns and an enormous biscuit with butter and cherry preserves and then raving about how good it all was.
Breakfast long forgotten on my part, I got a turkey and spinach panini with an enormous salad that caused my friend to say, "That's a side salad? I need to remember that!"
Dessert was a chocolate torte about four inches high with a crumb crust and dense in a sticky, heavier than mousse-like way.
Actually our server called it a cake because the baker had, but this was like no cake we knew of. It was so rich we couldn't finish it, which says a lot for the two of us dessert pros.
By the time we finished gabbing and gorging, my friend didn't think there was any point in going back to work. Like me, he's his own boss, so it was a pretty simple executive decision for him to make given the hour and Plan 9's proximity.
Dear Diary,
Learned a little, ate a lot, did some work and called it a day. Juicy bits withheld...
"The Diary of a Public Man and Abraham Lincoln" was the subject of Dr. Daniel Crofts' talk (with pictures). The diary referred to was published anonymously in 1879 and claimed to detail conversations between Lincoln, his rival Stephen Douglas and Secretary of State William Seward in the five months running up to the Civil War.
After over a century of the diary author's anonymity, Crofts had discovered through the alert eyes of one of his students the similarities between the diary's writing style and that of a prominent journalist of that time, William Henry Hurlbert. Bingo! Book deal in the offing.
What had been purported to have been a diary then was in fact a memoir penned by a mere newspaper writer, albeit one who was writing editorials for The New York Times before he was 30 years old.
Still, the diary contained priceless nuggets of information about the goings-on behind the scenes and Crofts' talk was a compelling look at the difficulty of the situation Lincoln faced from the moment he took office.
Yet again, I was lucky enough to sit by a guy who fell asleep, mouth wide open, only minutes into the lecture. Why do these people come to lectures that don't interest them enough to stay awake? I'd really like to know.
Once he began snoring, the guy behind me tapped him on his shoulder to tell him to knock it off. Sleeper guy was apologetic and requested that if he began snoring again, he should be pushed in the back. Gladly. How about a full-on shove?
Amazingly, he managed to fall asleep only a couple more times before the Q & A session began. And, just like all guilty lecture nappers, he just had to raise his hand to ask a question of the speaker. I swear these people do this to make themselves feel better about having slept through the talk.
Brain full of information about our Constitutionally- conservative, Shakespeare-reading President, I headed over to Bonvenu to meet a friend and fill my belly full of food.
It was his first time at Bonvenu and, as I expected, he was totally taken with the fact that their midday menu is both brunch and lunch every day, not just weekends. So, at 1:45 on a Thursday afternoon, a nice breakfast was an option.
Even more enticing, pitchers of Bloody Marys and Mimosas are also available and we were sorely tempted. We are weak people and we are okay with that.
Naturally he went for it, ordering steak and sunny side up eggs with hashed browns and an enormous biscuit with butter and cherry preserves and then raving about how good it all was.
Breakfast long forgotten on my part, I got a turkey and spinach panini with an enormous salad that caused my friend to say, "That's a side salad? I need to remember that!"
Dessert was a chocolate torte about four inches high with a crumb crust and dense in a sticky, heavier than mousse-like way.
Actually our server called it a cake because the baker had, but this was like no cake we knew of. It was so rich we couldn't finish it, which says a lot for the two of us dessert pros.
By the time we finished gabbing and gorging, my friend didn't think there was any point in going back to work. Like me, he's his own boss, so it was a pretty simple executive decision for him to make given the hour and Plan 9's proximity.
Dear Diary,
Learned a little, ate a lot, did some work and called it a day. Juicy bits withheld...
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Don't Worry, He Didn't Inhale
As I stood in the lobby of the Virginia Historical Society's lobby waiting for my friend to arrive, a man came through ranting about how bright it was in the auditorium. "I need extra sunglasses!" he yelled disgustedly.
Okay, so it was brighter at today's Banner Lecture than usual, but that was because C-Span's Book Talk was recording the event. In fact, the president of the VHS even told us to be on our best behavior because of it. This crowd? I think you can count on them being good.
He also reminded us to turn off our cell phones so as not to be embarrassed on national TV and still, somehow, a phone went off mid-lecture. Really, people?
The topic was "Inventing George Washington: America's Founder in Myth and Memory" by Dr. Edward Lengel. He began by talking about how the young country was plunged into grief at the death of the great, white father.
In an effort to fill that loss, a mythology began to be created to keep Washington's spirit alive. One of the first and most mercenary was Parson Weems, who contacted a publisher suggesting that stories about GW were the way to go.
"Parson Weems saw the dollar bill in George Washington long before George Washington was on the dollar bill," Lengel observed. After much audience laughter, he acknowledged, "Thanks. I made that up myself."
Weems was apparently the first in a long line of people who tried to capitalize on GW, including P.T. Barnum. Lengel touched on GW's spirituality (not the devout Christian some have painted him as), possible pre-Martha loves like Sally Fairfax (the best ever colonial porn name), and the large number of missing papers from GW's extensive writings (Martha burned all their letters for privacy's sake).
Let's face it, even the tourism industry co-opted GW for profit (if the man had really slept everywhere it was claimed he had, he couldn't have spent a single night at war or at Mount Vernon).
And because we are a people who like to tear down what we build up, he discussed the post-World War I years when attempts to discredit the man were rampant. He swilled gin! He smoked cigars! He relaxed by smoking pot! He made passes at women! He blundered his way through the Revolutionary War!
After our history lesson, Friend and I went to Stronghill for lunch, which worked out well because he'd never been there. He loved the Art Nouveau feel of the place, admiring the langorously-figured mural and coveting the enormous chandelier.
With my sniffles continuing, I was all about some soup and they had a doozy on the menu today. It was a duck confit and black-eyed pea soup with carrots, onion and scallions. Yes, please.
The duck stock made for an incredibly rich broth which was full of duck, beans and veggies. I'm ashamed to say that I tore through it without ever offering my friend a taste, something he later pointed out.
I also had the wedge salad because it was a different variation than the classic bacon/bleu cheese. This had a decadent housemade Caesar dressing with Parmesan crostini on the side and was delicious, crispy and creamy at the same time.
I didn't taste my friend's roast beef sandwich with caramelized onions, fennel slaw and Monterey Jack cheese (despite being a huge fan of sandwiches with slaw on them) but I may have helped myself to a fry or seven (only because he offered, mind you).
We talked about the difficulty in deciding what to see this weekend given that there are two film festivals going on. He shared that a mutual friend is sleeping around on his wife, never what you want to hear about someone.
He's a bartender and told me about the large group of salesmen who had come in at 4:30 yesterday and not left till almost 11:00, talking business the whole time. Such dedication to career is no doubt made easier with the aid of a large bar tab (On the company? We'll guess yes).
When we finished, my friend was off to thrift, hoping to find a vanity stool for his honey with which to surprise her. Me, I was off to address these sniffles which must not come between me and my upcoming plans.
That may involve a nap, but not in a bed where GW slept. My historical curiosity extends only so far.
Okay, so it was brighter at today's Banner Lecture than usual, but that was because C-Span's Book Talk was recording the event. In fact, the president of the VHS even told us to be on our best behavior because of it. This crowd? I think you can count on them being good.
He also reminded us to turn off our cell phones so as not to be embarrassed on national TV and still, somehow, a phone went off mid-lecture. Really, people?
The topic was "Inventing George Washington: America's Founder in Myth and Memory" by Dr. Edward Lengel. He began by talking about how the young country was plunged into grief at the death of the great, white father.
In an effort to fill that loss, a mythology began to be created to keep Washington's spirit alive. One of the first and most mercenary was Parson Weems, who contacted a publisher suggesting that stories about GW were the way to go.
"Parson Weems saw the dollar bill in George Washington long before George Washington was on the dollar bill," Lengel observed. After much audience laughter, he acknowledged, "Thanks. I made that up myself."
Weems was apparently the first in a long line of people who tried to capitalize on GW, including P.T. Barnum. Lengel touched on GW's spirituality (not the devout Christian some have painted him as), possible pre-Martha loves like Sally Fairfax (the best ever colonial porn name), and the large number of missing papers from GW's extensive writings (Martha burned all their letters for privacy's sake).
Let's face it, even the tourism industry co-opted GW for profit (if the man had really slept everywhere it was claimed he had, he couldn't have spent a single night at war or at Mount Vernon).
And because we are a people who like to tear down what we build up, he discussed the post-World War I years when attempts to discredit the man were rampant. He swilled gin! He smoked cigars! He relaxed by smoking pot! He made passes at women! He blundered his way through the Revolutionary War!
After our history lesson, Friend and I went to Stronghill for lunch, which worked out well because he'd never been there. He loved the Art Nouveau feel of the place, admiring the langorously-figured mural and coveting the enormous chandelier.
With my sniffles continuing, I was all about some soup and they had a doozy on the menu today. It was a duck confit and black-eyed pea soup with carrots, onion and scallions. Yes, please.
The duck stock made for an incredibly rich broth which was full of duck, beans and veggies. I'm ashamed to say that I tore through it without ever offering my friend a taste, something he later pointed out.
I also had the wedge salad because it was a different variation than the classic bacon/bleu cheese. This had a decadent housemade Caesar dressing with Parmesan crostini on the side and was delicious, crispy and creamy at the same time.
I didn't taste my friend's roast beef sandwich with caramelized onions, fennel slaw and Monterey Jack cheese (despite being a huge fan of sandwiches with slaw on them) but I may have helped myself to a fry or seven (only because he offered, mind you).
We talked about the difficulty in deciding what to see this weekend given that there are two film festivals going on. He shared that a mutual friend is sleeping around on his wife, never what you want to hear about someone.
He's a bartender and told me about the large group of salesmen who had come in at 4:30 yesterday and not left till almost 11:00, talking business the whole time. Such dedication to career is no doubt made easier with the aid of a large bar tab (On the company? We'll guess yes).
When we finished, my friend was off to thrift, hoping to find a vanity stool for his honey with which to surprise her. Me, I was off to address these sniffles which must not come between me and my upcoming plans.
That may involve a nap, but not in a bed where GW slept. My historical curiosity extends only so far.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Opening the Front Door to the Past
Front doors. I'm a big fan of going in the front door. It probably stems from growing up in a house where people always entered through the side door.
So here's the big news: the Virginia Historical Society is reopening their front door. Grand buildings require grand entrances and after ten years of entering through the back of this grand building, visitors will once again be welcomed from the Boulevard entrance.
I, for one, will never again enter through the back, much the way I am a convert to the VMFA's reopened Boulevard entrance. I think it's exciting to know that visitors can once again enter these places the way they were intended to welcome the public.
And much the way the Picasso show is going to draw people from all over, the new exhibit at the VHS is sure to do the same.
American Turning Point: The Civil War in Virginia is a blockbuster of a show of over 3,000 square feet and featuring objects, art and audio-visual displays that are like nothing seen at the VHS before.
At this morning's preview, which had that great "new exhibit" smell, there were still some unfinished pieces, but the overall impact of the show was terribly impressive and in a non-traditional way.
This is not an exhibit focusing just on battles; the civilian experience is explored in depth as is the back story of waging the war.
A three-sided mural shows a holographic image of a battle while the speaker overhead provides the sound of horses, gun shots, and screaming. It's harrowing to stand inside this area and hear the chaos and terror of battle. I felt totally in another place and time, but couldn't linger long because it was so unsettling.
It made me understand how soldiers could say that they had no clear memories of battle; the assault on the senses and overwhelming nature of it all would probably be impossible to process at the time.
Equally realistic was a display of a medical procedure going on inside a tent. Silhouetted by a light from inside, you watch as medical personnel perform surgery, peeling back layers of skin, muscle and ligaments and eventually sewing the man back up. It's a look at an important part of the war effort, but conveyed in a more visceral way than a picture could ever do.
After having driven by Hanger Prosthetics on Belvidere hundreds of times, I was fascinated to learn the story behind the company and the exhibit delivered that.
I'd always thought it was a terrible name, not realizing that the company was named after James Hanger, the first amputee of the war; heartbreakingly, Hanger had only been a soldier for a day when it happened.
While recovering, the 18-year old designed and made an improved prosthetic leg with a hinged knee and foot.
Naturally, other soldiers clamored for the same and a company was born that survives today, with a facility five blocks from my house. Now I know.
There are more than 200 objects in this exhibit and not all of them were yet in place today, but I would be planning to go back and see the exhibit again even if they had been.
The emphasis on everybody involved in the war, not just the men, not just the Confederates and not just the soldiers, makes it a well-rounded look at our country's most tragic period.
It's a must-see. And that front door is a must-enter. It's an impressive combination.
So here's the big news: the Virginia Historical Society is reopening their front door. Grand buildings require grand entrances and after ten years of entering through the back of this grand building, visitors will once again be welcomed from the Boulevard entrance.
I, for one, will never again enter through the back, much the way I am a convert to the VMFA's reopened Boulevard entrance. I think it's exciting to know that visitors can once again enter these places the way they were intended to welcome the public.
And much the way the Picasso show is going to draw people from all over, the new exhibit at the VHS is sure to do the same.
American Turning Point: The Civil War in Virginia is a blockbuster of a show of over 3,000 square feet and featuring objects, art and audio-visual displays that are like nothing seen at the VHS before.
At this morning's preview, which had that great "new exhibit" smell, there were still some unfinished pieces, but the overall impact of the show was terribly impressive and in a non-traditional way.
This is not an exhibit focusing just on battles; the civilian experience is explored in depth as is the back story of waging the war.
A three-sided mural shows a holographic image of a battle while the speaker overhead provides the sound of horses, gun shots, and screaming. It's harrowing to stand inside this area and hear the chaos and terror of battle. I felt totally in another place and time, but couldn't linger long because it was so unsettling.
It made me understand how soldiers could say that they had no clear memories of battle; the assault on the senses and overwhelming nature of it all would probably be impossible to process at the time.
Equally realistic was a display of a medical procedure going on inside a tent. Silhouetted by a light from inside, you watch as medical personnel perform surgery, peeling back layers of skin, muscle and ligaments and eventually sewing the man back up. It's a look at an important part of the war effort, but conveyed in a more visceral way than a picture could ever do.
After having driven by Hanger Prosthetics on Belvidere hundreds of times, I was fascinated to learn the story behind the company and the exhibit delivered that.
I'd always thought it was a terrible name, not realizing that the company was named after James Hanger, the first amputee of the war; heartbreakingly, Hanger had only been a soldier for a day when it happened.
While recovering, the 18-year old designed and made an improved prosthetic leg with a hinged knee and foot.
Naturally, other soldiers clamored for the same and a company was born that survives today, with a facility five blocks from my house. Now I know.
There are more than 200 objects in this exhibit and not all of them were yet in place today, but I would be planning to go back and see the exhibit again even if they had been.
The emphasis on everybody involved in the war, not just the men, not just the Confederates and not just the soldiers, makes it a well-rounded look at our country's most tragic period.
It's a must-see. And that front door is a must-enter. It's an impressive combination.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Count Me as a Book-Owning Woman
Thomas Jefferson rules this town and if you have any doubt about that, just go to a Banner Lecture about TJ at the Virginia Historical Society. But get there early, because the parking lot is completely filled half an hour before the event.
At previous lectures, I'd observed that R.E. Lee was a big audience-getter, but I think TJ topped even old whisker-face. Speaking today was Susan Kern on her new book The Jeffersons at Shadwell, about the great man's birthplace. Oddly enough, she warned us that there would be much talk of punch.
Kern displayed a keen sense of humor immediately, saying that what had been discovered about TJ at the archaeological dig at Shadwell TJ didn't match the Five Ponds Press textbooks Virginia is using.
I couldn't resist laughing out loud which made the tiny little gray-haired woman next to me look at me in horror (my grandmother also thought I had a tendency to be too loud). The guy on the other side of me nudged me and gave me a thumbs-up in agreement, though.
Her lecture was full of fun facts, highlighting all the new information gleaned from the dig. The home of Peter and Jane Jefferson had five or six heated rooms, the dining room could hold twenty people for intimate little dinner parties, and Jane was the only woman in Virginia who owned her own books.
Some pieces of of Peter's surveying tools were even discovered and Kern said she got a huge thrill matching up the hash marks of his to her own tool. It was these images that ended up on the cover of her book, if that gives you any idea of how satisfying it must have been for a history geek to find them.
The two most startling facts I heard today were that it took five days of travel to get from Shadwell to Williamsburg and that Peter's will bequeathed his slaves to his eight children by age.
So his two year old was bequeathed a two-year old slave, the better for the servant to spend a lifetime learning the needs of serving the gentry. And, you know, so when you left the family home, you could take a person who'd known you your whole life.
As for the punch angle, a bowl of it was apparently part of the deal when Peter acquired the land for Shadwell and again at his funeral where 35-100 pounds of sugar were required to make sufficient punch to send him off.
After her lecture, Kern said, "Were it later in the day, I'd suggest a bowl of punch, but instead I'll take questions." Quite honestly, I would have preferred the questions followed by punch, but I think I'm getting spoiled by lectures with benefits.
But at least we're back in lecture season, so I'm happy to take what I can get, with or without punch.
At previous lectures, I'd observed that R.E. Lee was a big audience-getter, but I think TJ topped even old whisker-face. Speaking today was Susan Kern on her new book The Jeffersons at Shadwell, about the great man's birthplace. Oddly enough, she warned us that there would be much talk of punch.
Kern displayed a keen sense of humor immediately, saying that what had been discovered about TJ at the archaeological dig at Shadwell TJ didn't match the Five Ponds Press textbooks Virginia is using.
I couldn't resist laughing out loud which made the tiny little gray-haired woman next to me look at me in horror (my grandmother also thought I had a tendency to be too loud). The guy on the other side of me nudged me and gave me a thumbs-up in agreement, though.
Her lecture was full of fun facts, highlighting all the new information gleaned from the dig. The home of Peter and Jane Jefferson had five or six heated rooms, the dining room could hold twenty people for intimate little dinner parties, and Jane was the only woman in Virginia who owned her own books.
Some pieces of of Peter's surveying tools were even discovered and Kern said she got a huge thrill matching up the hash marks of his to her own tool. It was these images that ended up on the cover of her book, if that gives you any idea of how satisfying it must have been for a history geek to find them.
The two most startling facts I heard today were that it took five days of travel to get from Shadwell to Williamsburg and that Peter's will bequeathed his slaves to his eight children by age.
So his two year old was bequeathed a two-year old slave, the better for the servant to spend a lifetime learning the needs of serving the gentry. And, you know, so when you left the family home, you could take a person who'd known you your whole life.
As for the punch angle, a bowl of it was apparently part of the deal when Peter acquired the land for Shadwell and again at his funeral where 35-100 pounds of sugar were required to make sufficient punch to send him off.
After her lecture, Kern said, "Were it later in the day, I'd suggest a bowl of punch, but instead I'll take questions." Quite honestly, I would have preferred the questions followed by punch, but I think I'm getting spoiled by lectures with benefits.
But at least we're back in lecture season, so I'm happy to take what I can get, with or without punch.
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