It was like a AAA page ripped from 2013 or 2015.
First was Amuse, where Mr. Wright and I were greeted by the blond Californian and directed to the bar. En route to be seated, a familiar server said hello as she passed with a tray of drinks. Outside, it was still light, if a bit gray.
Like so many nights of the past, it was no trouble at all to wile away several hours at the very end of Amuse's bar, while behind us tables went from set and ready to occupied and messy and the room's volume steadily went up.
But the bar was uncrowded enough that the bartender found time to read from her paperback book when she thought no one was looking. I'm always thrilled to see a millennial reading an actual book, but come on, aren't you supposed to be working?
Always with Spain in our sites, we sipped Jaume Serra Cristalino Cava while spooning up bites of winter squash bisque singing with fall spices and sorghum. Good as it was, it definitely tasted more like November than March, but then I always have my eye on the arrival of warmer days.
Needless to say, I'm overjoyed at the time change arriving this weekend and restoring some sense of hope for what's to come.
A salad of local greens with spicy cashews and apple slices was dressed with green goddess, a round of whipped Feta atop it all. Mussels and housemade bacon swam in a bowl of white wine and butter, heavy on the butter, with a piece of grilled bread for sopping. Truth be told, it should have arrived with at least two slices, because I'm a firm believer in the "let no broth go unsopped" philosophy.
After we finished eating, it was time to think about the second A, absinthe. I interrupted the bartender's reading to suggest that if she filled up the absinthe fountain with ice water now, it would be ready when I was. "Do you want one now?" she asked. Was I not clear? I assured her she'd be the first to know.
She solved the problem of having her reading interrupted again by pouring a glass of absinthe, laying the absinthe spoon across it and placing a sugar cube atop that and setting it in front of me. I was already seated adjacent to the absinthe fountain (appropriate, no?), so setting up my own drip only made sense.
That and years of practice.
My chocolate pate touched down before my absinthe drip was finished, so I went ahead and fell on that sword and began forking up bites of what tasted like chocolate butter. Decadently good.
Finally, the sugar cube was history. Taking a sip to welcome the green fairy took me back to all those times dating back to 2011 when I'd found myself sitting at Amuse doing the same.
Some pleasures are timeless and a nice meal before a drip will always be a satisfying way to wile away the evening, especially with such good company.
Eventually, bathed in the seductive glow of the green fairy, we made our way downstairs for the final A, art. I'd set my sights on seeing "Hollar's Encyclopedic Eye: Prints from the Frank Raysor Collection," a sizable show of 200 or so prints of the 2500 the artist made during his life.
Or, at least given the absinthe buzz, see part of it.
A distinct pleasure of the exhibit was using one of the handheld magnifying glasses available to really see the prints, which, whether engravings or etchings (one was both, the figure engraved, the background etched), are incredibly detailed. I learned what a compromise view was, neither bird's eye nor straight on.
And the range of subjects chosen for the show was startling, everything from close-ups of women's hat styles to insects to long views of people playing yard games in a town square. Hollar's ability to capture the texture of a brocade dress or the intricate curls on a royal's head came to life with the magnifying glass.
Then before we knew it, it was time for the museum to close, leaving Mr. Wright and me no choice but to abandon Hollar for greener pastures. And therein lies the difference between all those old times sipping absinthe at Amuse and now.
Oscar Wilde claimed that a glass of absinthe is as poetical as anything in the world. Anything? I'll have to disagree.
The green fairy knows that when you're finally in the right pasture, there's are several things more poetical. Greener is good.
Showing posts with label amuse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label amuse. Show all posts
Friday, March 8, 2019
Friday, February 22, 2019
Heart On My Sleeve
It's an aspirational thing. I do it for Julia Child.
After all, a woman who proclaims, "People who love to eat are always the best people" is essentially setting the bar for self-improvement. Of course I want to be the best possible person, so I love to eat. And if that requires lunch with one friend and dinner with others, I'll be the one to fall on that sword.
My lunch invitation came from a friend I hadn't seen (except in passing) in nearly two years. Even given how stupidly busy my life's been during that time, I knew we were overdue.
His suggestion was Saltbox at Willow Lawn and once I discovered they had eight oyster varieties on the menu, I was all in. The challenge was in choosing, but we eventually settled on Katama Bays (described as salt bombs, sweet-as-candy finish) from Martha's Vineyard after our server assured me they tasted like "a mouth full of ocean." Coming in second were Bayford Virginia's Shooting Stars, which were touted as salty, sweet, clean finish.
My only comment about oyster service concerns accouterments. Some of us believe that raw oysters should always be served with lemon wedges, even if I do mostly eat mine naked. The abundance of offerings that rode shotgun were, to a one, the sort to mask the tantalizing taste of oysters, meaning they left me cold.
Sorry, if you're putting cocktail sauce, basil-thyme mignonette, chimichurri or vinegar-heavy horseradish on your bivalves, you're dousing the flavor of the water that birthed them.
And this from a place with a sign humble-bragging, "We've served 26,000 oysters in our first 90 days!" And not a one with a lemon wedge?
Our table was set against a wall of windows that included a garage door that could be rolled up in good weather, although why anyone would want a view of the Willow Lawn parking lot is beyond me. I told my friend that a wise owner would add large pots of greenery to screen the car parade and bring the outdoors in a bit.
But, alas, we can't solve all the restaurants' problems, so we moved on to more important topics like local gossip and how crazy the restaurant scene here has gotten since we first met. Point in fact: if you'd told me ten years ago I'd be eating oysters at Willow Lawn, I'd have spit Muscadet in your face.
And then apologized, of course.
My choice for lunch was an avocado and shrimp salad starring jalapeno-ginger shrimp over watercress, avocados and radishes in a balsamic-mint vinaigrette, while Friend went safe with a crabcake sandwich and the requisite (at least to me) cole slaw. Favorite things about the lunch menu: how heavily pescatarian it was (only 4 of 14 items weren't from the water) and that their burger uses Monrovia Farms beef (as in, the same cows that made Lucy's a beef destination).
Unexpected dessert points went to an eclair cake that friend insisted we needed to share. Not really a cake, but layers of vanilla bean pudding, graham cracker crumbs and whipped cream were alternated with dark chocolate ganache and vanilla bean sea salt, a surprisingly winning combination given that it's a riff on a classic dessert that could have gone horribly wrong.
Although we did remarkably well at catching each other up on our lives since 2017, we both needed to get back to work, so we couldn't linger once the cake was history. I know I needed to get back to earning my keep for a few hours before heading out for dinner with friends.
After a busy afternoon that was supposed to be about writing but also included accepting nine new assignments, it was time to saddle up and go meet Holmes and Beloved for dinner at Amuse. It had been my suggestion since I couldn't recall the last time I'd eaten at the restaurant with the best art in town.
We arrived via the sculpture garden, strolling past the Chihuly red reeds and into the atrium where things were lively. A band was playing in Best Cafe and the African-American Read-in was going on, so people were milling about everywhere. Holmes and Beloved made a beeline for the elevator while I ascended the stairs, netting a compliment about my tights from a stranger on the way up.
Pays to get the exercise, kids.
I was just greeting the hostess, a native Californian and long-time acquaintance, when the elevator crew arrived. Recognizing Holmes, she quipped, "Oh, no, you're not with Karen's party, are you?" Holmes' reputation is legendary.
She led us to a table near the bar, a table so large that it was hard to hear each other, so we moved our chairs closer, leaving half the table unoccupied. That position afforded Beloved and I the reflection in the glass of the lighted back bar, putting both of us in mind of Manet's "Bar at Folies Bergere," minus the wasp-waisted bartender.
The Dynamic Duo starts every meal at Amuse with curry fried oysters with pickled vegetables and cucumber mint raita - our server said they'd changed up the recipe once and the regulars balked - and who am I to buck tradition, but this one also began with one of tonight's specials: three glasses of Sublime Rose Grand Cru to set the mood pre-dinner.
An aptly-named wine, that's all I'm saying.
A bottle of J. Mourat Collection Rose accompanied my mussels and house bacon in a sauce described as white wine and butter (but which skewed heavily to the latter), Holmes' crabcakes over dirty rice and collards and Beloved's special of falling-off-the-bone short ribs.
The big news is that her broken elbow has healed enough that she can finally get a fork to her mouth with her right hand, but only if it's a long fork. Still, it's progress.
Holmes got off on a basketball tangent because his UR Spiders aren't doing well and he'd seen a billboard that read, "Fire Coach Mooney!" Ignorant of such things, I asked if he agreed with that sentiment. "He needs to go," Holmes affirmed. "He has no magic to work."
I don't know that I've ever heard a finer explanation for getting rid of a man. No magic = gone.
I've long been a big fan of the vibe at Amuse because of the diversity of museum patrons who decide to spend time there. From the clutch of millennials in the low-slung green chairs to the dressed-up older couples who looked like donors to our unlikely posse, everyone seemed to belong, like figures passing through in a Seraut painting.
Once the dining room began clearing out, we moseyed back through the sculpture garden to Holmes' man-cave for dessert of radio bars, a delicacy I'd never heard of until moving to Richmond. After polishing that off, we spent the night listening to Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music albums while I ogled his handsome face and stylish clothes on the album covers.
The man was as stylish and timeless as Bowie.
Fittingly, we started with 1982's iconic "Avalon" and worked our way back to 1976's "Let's Stick Together," which included a stellar cover of Lennon and McCartney's "It's Only Love" done in that mellow cabaret style that he does so well. And don't get me started on the seductively poetic "To Turn You On."
Because unlike some men I could mention, Bryan Ferry will always have magic to work.
After all, a woman who proclaims, "People who love to eat are always the best people" is essentially setting the bar for self-improvement. Of course I want to be the best possible person, so I love to eat. And if that requires lunch with one friend and dinner with others, I'll be the one to fall on that sword.
My lunch invitation came from a friend I hadn't seen (except in passing) in nearly two years. Even given how stupidly busy my life's been during that time, I knew we were overdue.
His suggestion was Saltbox at Willow Lawn and once I discovered they had eight oyster varieties on the menu, I was all in. The challenge was in choosing, but we eventually settled on Katama Bays (described as salt bombs, sweet-as-candy finish) from Martha's Vineyard after our server assured me they tasted like "a mouth full of ocean." Coming in second were Bayford Virginia's Shooting Stars, which were touted as salty, sweet, clean finish.
My only comment about oyster service concerns accouterments. Some of us believe that raw oysters should always be served with lemon wedges, even if I do mostly eat mine naked. The abundance of offerings that rode shotgun were, to a one, the sort to mask the tantalizing taste of oysters, meaning they left me cold.
Sorry, if you're putting cocktail sauce, basil-thyme mignonette, chimichurri or vinegar-heavy horseradish on your bivalves, you're dousing the flavor of the water that birthed them.
And this from a place with a sign humble-bragging, "We've served 26,000 oysters in our first 90 days!" And not a one with a lemon wedge?
Our table was set against a wall of windows that included a garage door that could be rolled up in good weather, although why anyone would want a view of the Willow Lawn parking lot is beyond me. I told my friend that a wise owner would add large pots of greenery to screen the car parade and bring the outdoors in a bit.
But, alas, we can't solve all the restaurants' problems, so we moved on to more important topics like local gossip and how crazy the restaurant scene here has gotten since we first met. Point in fact: if you'd told me ten years ago I'd be eating oysters at Willow Lawn, I'd have spit Muscadet in your face.
And then apologized, of course.
My choice for lunch was an avocado and shrimp salad starring jalapeno-ginger shrimp over watercress, avocados and radishes in a balsamic-mint vinaigrette, while Friend went safe with a crabcake sandwich and the requisite (at least to me) cole slaw. Favorite things about the lunch menu: how heavily pescatarian it was (only 4 of 14 items weren't from the water) and that their burger uses Monrovia Farms beef (as in, the same cows that made Lucy's a beef destination).
Unexpected dessert points went to an eclair cake that friend insisted we needed to share. Not really a cake, but layers of vanilla bean pudding, graham cracker crumbs and whipped cream were alternated with dark chocolate ganache and vanilla bean sea salt, a surprisingly winning combination given that it's a riff on a classic dessert that could have gone horribly wrong.
Although we did remarkably well at catching each other up on our lives since 2017, we both needed to get back to work, so we couldn't linger once the cake was history. I know I needed to get back to earning my keep for a few hours before heading out for dinner with friends.
After a busy afternoon that was supposed to be about writing but also included accepting nine new assignments, it was time to saddle up and go meet Holmes and Beloved for dinner at Amuse. It had been my suggestion since I couldn't recall the last time I'd eaten at the restaurant with the best art in town.
We arrived via the sculpture garden, strolling past the Chihuly red reeds and into the atrium where things were lively. A band was playing in Best Cafe and the African-American Read-in was going on, so people were milling about everywhere. Holmes and Beloved made a beeline for the elevator while I ascended the stairs, netting a compliment about my tights from a stranger on the way up.
Pays to get the exercise, kids.
I was just greeting the hostess, a native Californian and long-time acquaintance, when the elevator crew arrived. Recognizing Holmes, she quipped, "Oh, no, you're not with Karen's party, are you?" Holmes' reputation is legendary.
She led us to a table near the bar, a table so large that it was hard to hear each other, so we moved our chairs closer, leaving half the table unoccupied. That position afforded Beloved and I the reflection in the glass of the lighted back bar, putting both of us in mind of Manet's "Bar at Folies Bergere," minus the wasp-waisted bartender.
The Dynamic Duo starts every meal at Amuse with curry fried oysters with pickled vegetables and cucumber mint raita - our server said they'd changed up the recipe once and the regulars balked - and who am I to buck tradition, but this one also began with one of tonight's specials: three glasses of Sublime Rose Grand Cru to set the mood pre-dinner.
An aptly-named wine, that's all I'm saying.
A bottle of J. Mourat Collection Rose accompanied my mussels and house bacon in a sauce described as white wine and butter (but which skewed heavily to the latter), Holmes' crabcakes over dirty rice and collards and Beloved's special of falling-off-the-bone short ribs.
The big news is that her broken elbow has healed enough that she can finally get a fork to her mouth with her right hand, but only if it's a long fork. Still, it's progress.
Holmes got off on a basketball tangent because his UR Spiders aren't doing well and he'd seen a billboard that read, "Fire Coach Mooney!" Ignorant of such things, I asked if he agreed with that sentiment. "He needs to go," Holmes affirmed. "He has no magic to work."
I don't know that I've ever heard a finer explanation for getting rid of a man. No magic = gone.
I've long been a big fan of the vibe at Amuse because of the diversity of museum patrons who decide to spend time there. From the clutch of millennials in the low-slung green chairs to the dressed-up older couples who looked like donors to our unlikely posse, everyone seemed to belong, like figures passing through in a Seraut painting.
Once the dining room began clearing out, we moseyed back through the sculpture garden to Holmes' man-cave for dessert of radio bars, a delicacy I'd never heard of until moving to Richmond. After polishing that off, we spent the night listening to Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music albums while I ogled his handsome face and stylish clothes on the album covers.
The man was as stylish and timeless as Bowie.
Fittingly, we started with 1982's iconic "Avalon" and worked our way back to 1976's "Let's Stick Together," which included a stellar cover of Lennon and McCartney's "It's Only Love" done in that mellow cabaret style that he does so well. And don't get me started on the seductively poetic "To Turn You On."
Because unlike some men I could mention, Bryan Ferry will always have magic to work.
Saturday, August 19, 2017
Both Sides Now
Sometimes I let my enthusiasm get the best of me and I may come across as a bit odd.
With plans for dinner and a play, my date and I had just sat down at the bar at Amuse when I realized that next to us was a Jackson Ward neighbor. She immediately launched into praise for our alleys recently being cleared of all the leftover student debris and trash that had made our usually fine neighborhood look a little rundown at the heels lately.
Just as we were mulling who might've been responsible for the clean-up, I looked up to see Pru and company being led to a table nearby, so I went over to say hello. Everyone was in full-on Friday celebratory mode.
And since the trio was seated at a four-top, we saw no reason why a fifth couldn't be accommodated, so I was voted the one to take it up with the host.
Excitedly explaining to him that I was certain another chair could be added to the table, he asked which table my date and I wanted to glom on to. I pointed and continued to insist that one more chair wouldn't matter and how the table could easily fit five.
Looking at me with incredulity, the host asked, "Do they know you?"
Well, duh. Do I look like the kind of person who insinuates herself into the lives of strangers? Okay, of course I do, I am exactly that person, but in this case, I assured him, yes, I knew these people very well.
All of a sudden, our cozy dinner a deux was a round table dinner party for five (they were on the way to see the YSL exhibit), with views of the shades rolling up, down and up again as the photo-sensitive system tried to adjust for the rapidly-changing stormy skies outside.
A bottle of J. Mourat Rose was delivered and not long after, a second (Beau: Do we need another bottle? Me: Uh, yes Pru: Next time, don't ask, just order) as the conversation was derailed with a discussion of pigeon toes, knock knees and the problems of trying to vamp when you have both.
Not a good look and especially for a femme fatale.
Unable to narrow our preferences, my date and I shared two entrees - an earthy vegetable tajine and a special of exquisitely grilled New England cod with green beans and snap peas - so that we could taste both our food crushes. Beau was kind enough to share tastes of his shakshuka, even while wishing that there were more than two eggs on top of the eggplant and tomato stew.
"Or even just a few more yolks," he pined, not satisfied with the speed at which his arteries were closing. We helped that along with dessert, my choice of the salted chocolate bar being based on our server saying it was the darker of the two chocolate offerings but any fool knows I'd have eaten either one.
The skies opened up and torrent of rain began just as we asked for the check so we could make our curtain. Our server, who'd greeted me by name when we'd arrived, returned with two checks, her assumption being that I was alone as usual and not on a date.
Surprise! Sometimes I can dig up a date, especially these past few months. Now that everyone is firmly accustomed to me being solo all the time, I'm showing up as a couple all over the place. Who saw that coming?
We left our friends still finishing their desserts and dashed through the rain to the car, only to make it to Richmond Triangle Players' theater just as the pre-play announcements were being made.
Just this morning as I was out walking, I'd randomly run into the artistic director of a local theater company and in the course of chatting, told him which play I was seeing tonight. I could tell by his face that he had an opinion so I asked for it.
He thought the play, "The View Upstairs," had been unduly harsh on millennials and that while the acting and directing were strong, the story itself was not. He was also a millennial himself.
Naturally we two Baby Boomers wanted to decide for ourselves.
The premise was decidedly millennial, not a surprise given that the playwright was, too. A young Instagram-famous fashion designer buys an old building in New Orleans for a shop, only to go inside and encounter the occupants of the 1973-era gay club that once occupied the space.
And even if the program hadn't stated it was the early '70s, actor John Mincks' hairstyle, mustache and large-lensed glasses clearly stated the period. Ditto Luke Newsome's fitted, high-waisted jeans and Andrew Etheridge's fit and flare polyester bell bottoms.
The script was incredibly au courant - "Donald Trump is president, so anything is possible!" - even if the actors speaking it had to compete with the rolling thunder and pelting of rain on the theater's roof to be heard over it.
Where the script was brilliant, especially so for having been written by a guy born in 1988, was in its attempts at explaining the present reality to denizens of 1973.
You know, back when you'd judge if someone was cool or not with a few simple questions. Oscar Wilde or Arthur Miller? Sonny or Cher?
Puh-leeze.
It's tough to make dating apps and virtual reality sound appealing - because of course you'd want to see a picture of someone before you met them in real life, the better to decide if they were worth wasting your real life time on - to some of us (okay, me) today, so there's really no way to describe it to people with no frame of reference for our ceaseless connectivity married to a greater sense of unconnected humanity.
The two of us laughed a lot about the contrasts of a time we vaguely recall with the "improved" present, rife with loneliness, isolation and, too often, an absence of social and interaction skills. How must it feel when your self-esteem is based on "likes" from people you may or may not know?
We weren't the ones to ask.
But we were the ones to leave the theater and head directly to my balcony for an in-depth discussion of the play's themes set to alternate periods of hard rain and warm breezes while listening to Joni Mitchell's chronicle of a relationship, her 2000 album "Both Sides Now." Then, going down a rabbit hole about the album's arrangements and that certain kind of early '60s movie soundtracks.
Doing so didn't get us a single like from anyone, except each other.
Score.
With plans for dinner and a play, my date and I had just sat down at the bar at Amuse when I realized that next to us was a Jackson Ward neighbor. She immediately launched into praise for our alleys recently being cleared of all the leftover student debris and trash that had made our usually fine neighborhood look a little rundown at the heels lately.
Just as we were mulling who might've been responsible for the clean-up, I looked up to see Pru and company being led to a table nearby, so I went over to say hello. Everyone was in full-on Friday celebratory mode.
And since the trio was seated at a four-top, we saw no reason why a fifth couldn't be accommodated, so I was voted the one to take it up with the host.
Excitedly explaining to him that I was certain another chair could be added to the table, he asked which table my date and I wanted to glom on to. I pointed and continued to insist that one more chair wouldn't matter and how the table could easily fit five.
Looking at me with incredulity, the host asked, "Do they know you?"
Well, duh. Do I look like the kind of person who insinuates herself into the lives of strangers? Okay, of course I do, I am exactly that person, but in this case, I assured him, yes, I knew these people very well.
All of a sudden, our cozy dinner a deux was a round table dinner party for five (they were on the way to see the YSL exhibit), with views of the shades rolling up, down and up again as the photo-sensitive system tried to adjust for the rapidly-changing stormy skies outside.
A bottle of J. Mourat Rose was delivered and not long after, a second (Beau: Do we need another bottle? Me: Uh, yes Pru: Next time, don't ask, just order) as the conversation was derailed with a discussion of pigeon toes, knock knees and the problems of trying to vamp when you have both.
Not a good look and especially for a femme fatale.
Unable to narrow our preferences, my date and I shared two entrees - an earthy vegetable tajine and a special of exquisitely grilled New England cod with green beans and snap peas - so that we could taste both our food crushes. Beau was kind enough to share tastes of his shakshuka, even while wishing that there were more than two eggs on top of the eggplant and tomato stew.
"Or even just a few more yolks," he pined, not satisfied with the speed at which his arteries were closing. We helped that along with dessert, my choice of the salted chocolate bar being based on our server saying it was the darker of the two chocolate offerings but any fool knows I'd have eaten either one.
The skies opened up and torrent of rain began just as we asked for the check so we could make our curtain. Our server, who'd greeted me by name when we'd arrived, returned with two checks, her assumption being that I was alone as usual and not on a date.
Surprise! Sometimes I can dig up a date, especially these past few months. Now that everyone is firmly accustomed to me being solo all the time, I'm showing up as a couple all over the place. Who saw that coming?
We left our friends still finishing their desserts and dashed through the rain to the car, only to make it to Richmond Triangle Players' theater just as the pre-play announcements were being made.
Just this morning as I was out walking, I'd randomly run into the artistic director of a local theater company and in the course of chatting, told him which play I was seeing tonight. I could tell by his face that he had an opinion so I asked for it.
He thought the play, "The View Upstairs," had been unduly harsh on millennials and that while the acting and directing were strong, the story itself was not. He was also a millennial himself.
Naturally we two Baby Boomers wanted to decide for ourselves.
The premise was decidedly millennial, not a surprise given that the playwright was, too. A young Instagram-famous fashion designer buys an old building in New Orleans for a shop, only to go inside and encounter the occupants of the 1973-era gay club that once occupied the space.
And even if the program hadn't stated it was the early '70s, actor John Mincks' hairstyle, mustache and large-lensed glasses clearly stated the period. Ditto Luke Newsome's fitted, high-waisted jeans and Andrew Etheridge's fit and flare polyester bell bottoms.
The script was incredibly au courant - "Donald Trump is president, so anything is possible!" - even if the actors speaking it had to compete with the rolling thunder and pelting of rain on the theater's roof to be heard over it.
Where the script was brilliant, especially so for having been written by a guy born in 1988, was in its attempts at explaining the present reality to denizens of 1973.
You know, back when you'd judge if someone was cool or not with a few simple questions. Oscar Wilde or Arthur Miller? Sonny or Cher?
Puh-leeze.
It's tough to make dating apps and virtual reality sound appealing - because of course you'd want to see a picture of someone before you met them in real life, the better to decide if they were worth wasting your real life time on - to some of us (okay, me) today, so there's really no way to describe it to people with no frame of reference for our ceaseless connectivity married to a greater sense of unconnected humanity.
The two of us laughed a lot about the contrasts of a time we vaguely recall with the "improved" present, rife with loneliness, isolation and, too often, an absence of social and interaction skills. How must it feel when your self-esteem is based on "likes" from people you may or may not know?
We weren't the ones to ask.
But we were the ones to leave the theater and head directly to my balcony for an in-depth discussion of the play's themes set to alternate periods of hard rain and warm breezes while listening to Joni Mitchell's chronicle of a relationship, her 2000 album "Both Sides Now." Then, going down a rabbit hole about the album's arrangements and that certain kind of early '60s movie soundtracks.
Doing so didn't get us a single like from anyone, except each other.
Score.
Friday, April 7, 2017
Range Rover
If ever anyone wanted to understand the range of my taste, today would have been the day.
To start, it's the first day of the 24th annual James River Film Festival, which means kicking off a whirlwind of films between now and Sunday night, many of which call to me.
The first to get my seat in a chair was at the Main Library for the 1954 cinematic treasure (so says the Library of Congress' Film Registry and now that I've visited, I trust their judgment) made by a producer and director both blacklisted as part of the Hollywood 10 for refusing to name names.
Because of that, film labs refused to process the film and after a week, theaters refused to run the film about an actual 1951 mine strike in New Mexico.
Told neo-realistically with the director using a mixture of professional actors (including Grandpa Walton aka Will Geer, of whom host Mike Jones noted, "Grandpa Walton was a Communist" with delight) and local people - miners and their wives - for the cast, the film lacked any shallow Hollywood veneer.
And talk about ahead of its time.
What was completely surprising were the strong feminist themes as miners' wives fought for a voice in what the miners should strike for in addition to better working conditions and pay (say, indoor plumbing and hot water), but also in being allowed to physically walk the picket lines once an injunction rules that miners who strike would be arrested.
Watching these '50s-era Mexican immigrant women find their voices and take charge of the strike situation was positively inspiring. Matter of fact, the only thing more impressive was the women's expectations at neighborhood get-togethers: they'd make dinner and clean up while the men talked and played cards.
But after that, everyone knew the men were expected to dance with their wives for the remainder of the evening (even if they danced badly, the men, that is) to the radio. Or to a guitar player if it happened to be the night the radio got repossessed in front of all your friends.
So right out of the gate, the JRFF had fed my taste for American social history, early feminism, neo-realism filmmaking and it was only dinnertime.
That meant a trip to the VMFA to meet an out-of-town friend for a few hours before it was time for another film.
For me, taking the scenic route through the museum to get to the restaurant means cutting through the early 20th-century European gallery and midway though them, I saw a nerdy-handsome security guard engrossed in an Emil Nolde painting.
Teasing him about that being a perk of the job, he corrected me at once, "No, that's why I took this job." I liked him already.
Arriving at Amuse first, I scored a couple of mid-century chairs facing the majestic sunset resulting from today's bizarre revolving door of fronts - it's warm and humid, no it's cool and windy, wait, it's warm and drizzly - ordered a hibiscus lemonade of the most gorgeous pink hue and apologized to the older couple in the chairs across from me for interrupting their little cocktail hour.
The bartender was wearing a maxi dress as groovy as the chairs, complete with round holes the size of a quarter all over, making parts of the legs and shoulders visible through the holes. When she mentioned that she was getting the holes stuck on everything, I suggested that the problem was that the dress would be better worn at a party rather than work.
On the other hand, when you have a dress that cute, how can you not wear it?
Once my friend arrived, we moved so we both had a view of the sunset's cloud juggernaut over the former home for Confederate women, only bothering to look at the menu once our server had come back three times.
Creamy white bean soup with Tasso ham and scallions seemed particularly suited to the suddenly cooler temperatures and I followed that with a glass of Rose and a salad of beets, almonds, bleu cheese, pea shoots and mixed greens with an onion vinaigrette, while my companion stuck to variations on a French 75, citing a difficult week.
By the time the clock said that I needed to get to a movie, I'd been characterized as a life explorer, a Renaissance woman and someone unable to live anywhere but a walkable city with a plethora of options on all fronts.
To quote Bing Crosby, guilty as charged, I guess.
After goodnights and dropping off the auto at home, I walked over to the Grace Street Theater for what is easily this year's festival's finest movie title by a long shot: "Rain the Color of Blue with a Little Red In It," essentially a Nigerian remake of "Purple Rain," the clunky title a result of there being no word for "purple" in the Tuareg language.
As soon as I got to the lobby, I found familiar faces: the photographer, the world DJ, the record store owner, the Bollywood DJ, the writer, the pariah, the record collector, the metalhead, the power pop singer. As someone joked, it was all the cool kids, but really, he meant all the middle aged dudes and a couple of women.
Truth be told, not everyone's schedule allows for a 9:30 movie screening on a Thursday night, even one with multiple hooks.
Too bad for them because the film borrowed heavily from Prince's debut - troubled relationship with father, love interest who throws jewelry, envious fellow musicians, purple motorcycle - while being completely original given that it involved nomadic Africans who trade pop music gems on their cellphones as a way to hear what's new and happening.
Our hero even wore purple, albeit what looked like shiny purple African pajamas with flip-flops, which, by the way, is also what he wore to ride his motorcycle around the desert.
And of course the soundtrack was phenomenal, merging Hendrix-like electric guitar with traditional Tuareg music for something George Harrison would probably have loved.
So my second film of the day had satisfied my music lust, fulfilled my appreciation for DIY filmmaking and provided an African cultural lesson.
As for that range, it's only a long way from feminist communism to left-handed guitars if you don't go by way German-Danish painters.
Just ask any Renaissance woman.
To start, it's the first day of the 24th annual James River Film Festival, which means kicking off a whirlwind of films between now and Sunday night, many of which call to me.
The first to get my seat in a chair was at the Main Library for the 1954 cinematic treasure (so says the Library of Congress' Film Registry and now that I've visited, I trust their judgment) made by a producer and director both blacklisted as part of the Hollywood 10 for refusing to name names.
Because of that, film labs refused to process the film and after a week, theaters refused to run the film about an actual 1951 mine strike in New Mexico.
Told neo-realistically with the director using a mixture of professional actors (including Grandpa Walton aka Will Geer, of whom host Mike Jones noted, "Grandpa Walton was a Communist" with delight) and local people - miners and their wives - for the cast, the film lacked any shallow Hollywood veneer.
And talk about ahead of its time.
What was completely surprising were the strong feminist themes as miners' wives fought for a voice in what the miners should strike for in addition to better working conditions and pay (say, indoor plumbing and hot water), but also in being allowed to physically walk the picket lines once an injunction rules that miners who strike would be arrested.
Watching these '50s-era Mexican immigrant women find their voices and take charge of the strike situation was positively inspiring. Matter of fact, the only thing more impressive was the women's expectations at neighborhood get-togethers: they'd make dinner and clean up while the men talked and played cards.
But after that, everyone knew the men were expected to dance with their wives for the remainder of the evening (even if they danced badly, the men, that is) to the radio. Or to a guitar player if it happened to be the night the radio got repossessed in front of all your friends.
So right out of the gate, the JRFF had fed my taste for American social history, early feminism, neo-realism filmmaking and it was only dinnertime.
That meant a trip to the VMFA to meet an out-of-town friend for a few hours before it was time for another film.
For me, taking the scenic route through the museum to get to the restaurant means cutting through the early 20th-century European gallery and midway though them, I saw a nerdy-handsome security guard engrossed in an Emil Nolde painting.
Teasing him about that being a perk of the job, he corrected me at once, "No, that's why I took this job." I liked him already.
Arriving at Amuse first, I scored a couple of mid-century chairs facing the majestic sunset resulting from today's bizarre revolving door of fronts - it's warm and humid, no it's cool and windy, wait, it's warm and drizzly - ordered a hibiscus lemonade of the most gorgeous pink hue and apologized to the older couple in the chairs across from me for interrupting their little cocktail hour.
The bartender was wearing a maxi dress as groovy as the chairs, complete with round holes the size of a quarter all over, making parts of the legs and shoulders visible through the holes. When she mentioned that she was getting the holes stuck on everything, I suggested that the problem was that the dress would be better worn at a party rather than work.
On the other hand, when you have a dress that cute, how can you not wear it?
Once my friend arrived, we moved so we both had a view of the sunset's cloud juggernaut over the former home for Confederate women, only bothering to look at the menu once our server had come back three times.
Creamy white bean soup with Tasso ham and scallions seemed particularly suited to the suddenly cooler temperatures and I followed that with a glass of Rose and a salad of beets, almonds, bleu cheese, pea shoots and mixed greens with an onion vinaigrette, while my companion stuck to variations on a French 75, citing a difficult week.
By the time the clock said that I needed to get to a movie, I'd been characterized as a life explorer, a Renaissance woman and someone unable to live anywhere but a walkable city with a plethora of options on all fronts.
To quote Bing Crosby, guilty as charged, I guess.
After goodnights and dropping off the auto at home, I walked over to the Grace Street Theater for what is easily this year's festival's finest movie title by a long shot: "Rain the Color of Blue with a Little Red In It," essentially a Nigerian remake of "Purple Rain," the clunky title a result of there being no word for "purple" in the Tuareg language.
As soon as I got to the lobby, I found familiar faces: the photographer, the world DJ, the record store owner, the Bollywood DJ, the writer, the pariah, the record collector, the metalhead, the power pop singer. As someone joked, it was all the cool kids, but really, he meant all the middle aged dudes and a couple of women.
Truth be told, not everyone's schedule allows for a 9:30 movie screening on a Thursday night, even one with multiple hooks.
Too bad for them because the film borrowed heavily from Prince's debut - troubled relationship with father, love interest who throws jewelry, envious fellow musicians, purple motorcycle - while being completely original given that it involved nomadic Africans who trade pop music gems on their cellphones as a way to hear what's new and happening.
Our hero even wore purple, albeit what looked like shiny purple African pajamas with flip-flops, which, by the way, is also what he wore to ride his motorcycle around the desert.
And of course the soundtrack was phenomenal, merging Hendrix-like electric guitar with traditional Tuareg music for something George Harrison would probably have loved.
So my second film of the day had satisfied my music lust, fulfilled my appreciation for DIY filmmaking and provided an African cultural lesson.
As for that range, it's only a long way from feminist communism to left-handed guitars if you don't go by way German-Danish painters.
Just ask any Renaissance woman.
Saturday, February 4, 2017
Too Many Things, Not Enough Clocks
The green fairy opened her arms and welcomed us in tonight.
Pru and Beau came by to scoop me up (early, it should be noted, and with a flapper dress I need for an upcoming soiree because only Pru has an extra flapper dress lying around) to go to the VMFA.
There we walked through the 20th century European gallery, pausing to admire Salvador Dali's "God of the Bay of Roses" in advance of one of tonight's cultural offerings, but also prompting a discussion of the role of a muse.
Following the music as we exited into the atrium, we saw Plunky Branch enthusiastically performing onstage to a middlin' sized crowd, but strolled slowly enough to enjoy the jazz he and his band Oneness were putting out. Even better, once upstairs at an uncrowded Amuse, we could still hear every note, right down to the band's cover of P-Funk's "One Nation Under a Groove."
With a window table facing west to admire the darkening sky, Beau ordered J. Mourat Rose and our server responded by looking at Pru and I, asking what we'd be drinking. Just bring the damn bottle, man, and be done with it.
Although I'm not entirely certain what our starting point was, the conversation may have begun with cross-dressing, which quite naturally led to hiding "junk," but Pru was able to inform us that such a thing as thong gaff panties exist to hide a male bulge.
Every night is a learning experience when you're with the right people.
According to Pru's ratings of what we ate, her artichoke hearts with fennel, carrots and an obscene buerre blanc took top honors, closely followed by my amberjack over roasted cauliflower with fried garlic and frisee in a caper vinaigrette, but Beau made a case for his special of housemade ravioli stuffed with Ricotta cheese with housemade sausage in a red sauce. Venison stew got a tepid reaction.
Clearing the table of plates and stacking them precariously, our server noted, "Who knew Tetris was a life skill?" The consensus was that it was clever, but sounded like a line he'd used before.
After I ordered dessert of salted chocolate bar over lemon curd with whipped cream and my compadres requested coffee, we each ordered an absinthe drip, only to have the drip placed at the center of the table within minutes.
My introduction to an absinthe drip had happened at this very museum restaurant years ago during the Picasso exhibit and while it no longer sits at the end of the bar, I happen to know it will be brought out for anyone who asks.
Me, I ask.
As we each adjust the dripping of ice water over a sugar cube and into the glass of absinthe, we get caught up in a reverie of the pleasures of not just this spirit, but this manner of drinking it and the process of creating your own iteration of the green fairy based on how you set your tap, how much of the cube you allow to dissolve and how much water you want mixed in.
It's not long before Pru, who'd earlier regaled us with descriptions and photos of her new wine jail, decides than an absinthe drip is her must-have birthday present, conveniently coming up soon.
Dropping hints for Beau like Hansel and Gretl dropped breadcrumbs, she gives him one last instruction,
"Don't go half-assed on me." As if Beau ever goes half-assed on anything.
While sipping this nectar of the gods, we went down the rabbit hole of licorice (Beau's never met any he didn't like) and the distinction between "old man licorice" as opposed to more refined examples of the flavor profile such as absinthe. Twizzlers were, we decided, not worth mentioning although Pru admitted to being a fan of black jellybeans.
I never met anything licorice-flavored I liked until I met absinthe, so I didn't have a dog in this fight.
When we got back down to the atrium, the crowd had tripled or perhaps even quadrupled and Plunky and Oneness had the room in its thrall, making it impossible not to dance our way through the hordes of happy people. Had we not had tickets for a show, I'd have happily stayed there for the rest of the evening.
But we did because tonight was Richmond Famous at the Comedy Coalition and sharing personal stories so he could be mocked (by the talented improv artists of RCC) was writer and hatted flaneur Harry Kollatz.
Because we'd lallygagged a bit over our absinthes, we arrived barely moments before the show was to start, joining the owner of Saison (who introduced me to his wife as, "Karen, a woman about town") in line and scrambling for seats once inside.
All the cool kids were there, including a favorite photographer who told her friends, "I always feel better if I see Karen when I go out because it means I'm in the right place." I don't know about all that, but I saw a lot of familiar faces in the room.
A blue wing chair was brought out for Harry to relax in after telling his stories about his Dad's collection of Edsels and how, as a youth with no friends, he had plenty of time to catalog the items found in these old cars.
Being the organized type, he'd list them by the Edsel's year, the object found and the weather. This, ladies and germs, is probably the seed of how Harry wound up giving weather reports from under the Lee's Chicken sign lo these many years later.
The RCC crew managed to turn Harry's geekdom into comedy about the lubricants of adventure and a used kid lot ("Never turn your back on a kid you've disowned"), while a reminisce about encountering a "dangerous bees" sign on a hike resulted in riffing on Dungeons and Dragons (David: "Hey, pretty lady, have you ever had a man really listen to you before?" Josh: "Wow, this man can role play a loser!") and a reference to Yahtzee.
When the comedy at Harry's expense ended, the audience was told to vacate the building before the staged reading which was to come next, but fortunately we already had a plan for how to best enjoy those 25 minutes before returning, having already verified with the owner that Saison carried absinthe.
"Carried" was a bit of an exaggeration because they were down to their last two pours, but the affable bartender stretched it to fit into three glasses, we fashioned our own drips and were back on the sidewalk heading to RCC in time to score far better seats this time.
Friday night Part Deux was the 20th anniversary performance of Harry's play, "The Persistence of Memory" about that time in 1966 when Richmond considered having Salvador Dali create a sculpture for Monument Avenue to commemorate Captain Sally Tompkins for her heroic nursing work during that war.
Dali won out because Henry Moore was too sensuous and Giacometti had just died. Leave it to Harry to document for posterity one of Richmond's most absurd moments in history.
Waiting for it to start, I was totally digging the soundtrack - Herb Alpert's "A Taste of Honey," "The Ballad of the Green Beret" and other groovy mid-60s hits - when Nancy Sinatra's "The Boots Are Made for Walkin'" came on, prompting Pru to tell me about a recent Nancy Sinatra film she'd seen, "The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini."
Because a bikini doesn't already reveal enough?
When the woman in the seat nearest me smiled at me, I began chatting with her, only to learn that she was a musician and had opened the show every night for a week when Harry's play had originally been produced, so she was especially tickled to be witnessing it again 20 years later.
I'm here to tell you that fabulous as it may have been, "The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini" couldn't possibly have compared to "The Persistence of Memory."
The story involved the village people (the blase local artists who hung out at the Village, albeit before it moved to its present location), the Monument Avenue committee (which included two of the original cast members who crossed state lines to perform tonight) including Mrs. Douglas Southall Freeman, Dali (local actor Jeff Clevenger on video talking on an actual lobster), Harry as his secretary of the military and his assistant, plus the Reynolds company representative trying to get a statue made with his aluminum.
Naturally Harry's script set the scene first, with references to Henry Miller, LSD, LBJ, Vietnam, Anais Nin and Gypsy Rose Lee ("My talking was always better than my stripping") courtesy of the village people, all sunglasses, snapping fingers and condescension about art as commodity.
Besides telling a fascinating story, the play brought on laughter, audience finger snapping and a fresh appreciation for how far Richmond has come since the time when change was seen as unacceptable.
Playwright Harry practically busted his buttons watching from the back and afterwards taking much-deserved congratulations from the crowd.
Out on the sidewalk, the air was freezing and we were still on this side of Saturday, but just barely.
Ordinarily, we're a trio who like one final stop for the sake of discussion post-culture, but He Who Starts to Wane (Pru's pithy descriptor of her man) is still getting the hang of hanging with us and looked a bit peaked so we called it a night.
His absinthe drinking was never as good as his Dungeons and Dragons role playing, but he is catching on. Meanwhile, my talking continues to be better than my almost everything else.
Just don't hold me to any green fairy giddiness, no matter the topic. Beau, I'm looking at you.
Pru and Beau came by to scoop me up (early, it should be noted, and with a flapper dress I need for an upcoming soiree because only Pru has an extra flapper dress lying around) to go to the VMFA.
There we walked through the 20th century European gallery, pausing to admire Salvador Dali's "God of the Bay of Roses" in advance of one of tonight's cultural offerings, but also prompting a discussion of the role of a muse.
Following the music as we exited into the atrium, we saw Plunky Branch enthusiastically performing onstage to a middlin' sized crowd, but strolled slowly enough to enjoy the jazz he and his band Oneness were putting out. Even better, once upstairs at an uncrowded Amuse, we could still hear every note, right down to the band's cover of P-Funk's "One Nation Under a Groove."
With a window table facing west to admire the darkening sky, Beau ordered J. Mourat Rose and our server responded by looking at Pru and I, asking what we'd be drinking. Just bring the damn bottle, man, and be done with it.
Although I'm not entirely certain what our starting point was, the conversation may have begun with cross-dressing, which quite naturally led to hiding "junk," but Pru was able to inform us that such a thing as thong gaff panties exist to hide a male bulge.
Every night is a learning experience when you're with the right people.
According to Pru's ratings of what we ate, her artichoke hearts with fennel, carrots and an obscene buerre blanc took top honors, closely followed by my amberjack over roasted cauliflower with fried garlic and frisee in a caper vinaigrette, but Beau made a case for his special of housemade ravioli stuffed with Ricotta cheese with housemade sausage in a red sauce. Venison stew got a tepid reaction.
Clearing the table of plates and stacking them precariously, our server noted, "Who knew Tetris was a life skill?" The consensus was that it was clever, but sounded like a line he'd used before.
After I ordered dessert of salted chocolate bar over lemon curd with whipped cream and my compadres requested coffee, we each ordered an absinthe drip, only to have the drip placed at the center of the table within minutes.
My introduction to an absinthe drip had happened at this very museum restaurant years ago during the Picasso exhibit and while it no longer sits at the end of the bar, I happen to know it will be brought out for anyone who asks.
Me, I ask.
As we each adjust the dripping of ice water over a sugar cube and into the glass of absinthe, we get caught up in a reverie of the pleasures of not just this spirit, but this manner of drinking it and the process of creating your own iteration of the green fairy based on how you set your tap, how much of the cube you allow to dissolve and how much water you want mixed in.
It's not long before Pru, who'd earlier regaled us with descriptions and photos of her new wine jail, decides than an absinthe drip is her must-have birthday present, conveniently coming up soon.
Dropping hints for Beau like Hansel and Gretl dropped breadcrumbs, she gives him one last instruction,
"Don't go half-assed on me." As if Beau ever goes half-assed on anything.
While sipping this nectar of the gods, we went down the rabbit hole of licorice (Beau's never met any he didn't like) and the distinction between "old man licorice" as opposed to more refined examples of the flavor profile such as absinthe. Twizzlers were, we decided, not worth mentioning although Pru admitted to being a fan of black jellybeans.
I never met anything licorice-flavored I liked until I met absinthe, so I didn't have a dog in this fight.
When we got back down to the atrium, the crowd had tripled or perhaps even quadrupled and Plunky and Oneness had the room in its thrall, making it impossible not to dance our way through the hordes of happy people. Had we not had tickets for a show, I'd have happily stayed there for the rest of the evening.
But we did because tonight was Richmond Famous at the Comedy Coalition and sharing personal stories so he could be mocked (by the talented improv artists of RCC) was writer and hatted flaneur Harry Kollatz.
Because we'd lallygagged a bit over our absinthes, we arrived barely moments before the show was to start, joining the owner of Saison (who introduced me to his wife as, "Karen, a woman about town") in line and scrambling for seats once inside.
All the cool kids were there, including a favorite photographer who told her friends, "I always feel better if I see Karen when I go out because it means I'm in the right place." I don't know about all that, but I saw a lot of familiar faces in the room.
A blue wing chair was brought out for Harry to relax in after telling his stories about his Dad's collection of Edsels and how, as a youth with no friends, he had plenty of time to catalog the items found in these old cars.
Being the organized type, he'd list them by the Edsel's year, the object found and the weather. This, ladies and germs, is probably the seed of how Harry wound up giving weather reports from under the Lee's Chicken sign lo these many years later.
The RCC crew managed to turn Harry's geekdom into comedy about the lubricants of adventure and a used kid lot ("Never turn your back on a kid you've disowned"), while a reminisce about encountering a "dangerous bees" sign on a hike resulted in riffing on Dungeons and Dragons (David: "Hey, pretty lady, have you ever had a man really listen to you before?" Josh: "Wow, this man can role play a loser!") and a reference to Yahtzee.
When the comedy at Harry's expense ended, the audience was told to vacate the building before the staged reading which was to come next, but fortunately we already had a plan for how to best enjoy those 25 minutes before returning, having already verified with the owner that Saison carried absinthe.
"Carried" was a bit of an exaggeration because they were down to their last two pours, but the affable bartender stretched it to fit into three glasses, we fashioned our own drips and were back on the sidewalk heading to RCC in time to score far better seats this time.
Friday night Part Deux was the 20th anniversary performance of Harry's play, "The Persistence of Memory" about that time in 1966 when Richmond considered having Salvador Dali create a sculpture for Monument Avenue to commemorate Captain Sally Tompkins for her heroic nursing work during that war.
Dali won out because Henry Moore was too sensuous and Giacometti had just died. Leave it to Harry to document for posterity one of Richmond's most absurd moments in history.
Waiting for it to start, I was totally digging the soundtrack - Herb Alpert's "A Taste of Honey," "The Ballad of the Green Beret" and other groovy mid-60s hits - when Nancy Sinatra's "The Boots Are Made for Walkin'" came on, prompting Pru to tell me about a recent Nancy Sinatra film she'd seen, "The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini."
Because a bikini doesn't already reveal enough?
When the woman in the seat nearest me smiled at me, I began chatting with her, only to learn that she was a musician and had opened the show every night for a week when Harry's play had originally been produced, so she was especially tickled to be witnessing it again 20 years later.
I'm here to tell you that fabulous as it may have been, "The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini" couldn't possibly have compared to "The Persistence of Memory."
The story involved the village people (the blase local artists who hung out at the Village, albeit before it moved to its present location), the Monument Avenue committee (which included two of the original cast members who crossed state lines to perform tonight) including Mrs. Douglas Southall Freeman, Dali (local actor Jeff Clevenger on video talking on an actual lobster), Harry as his secretary of the military and his assistant, plus the Reynolds company representative trying to get a statue made with his aluminum.
Naturally Harry's script set the scene first, with references to Henry Miller, LSD, LBJ, Vietnam, Anais Nin and Gypsy Rose Lee ("My talking was always better than my stripping") courtesy of the village people, all sunglasses, snapping fingers and condescension about art as commodity.
Besides telling a fascinating story, the play brought on laughter, audience finger snapping and a fresh appreciation for how far Richmond has come since the time when change was seen as unacceptable.
Playwright Harry practically busted his buttons watching from the back and afterwards taking much-deserved congratulations from the crowd.
Out on the sidewalk, the air was freezing and we were still on this side of Saturday, but just barely.
Ordinarily, we're a trio who like one final stop for the sake of discussion post-culture, but He Who Starts to Wane (Pru's pithy descriptor of her man) is still getting the hang of hanging with us and looked a bit peaked so we called it a night.
His absinthe drinking was never as good as his Dungeons and Dragons role playing, but he is catching on. Meanwhile, my talking continues to be better than my almost everything else.
Just don't hold me to any green fairy giddiness, no matter the topic. Beau, I'm looking at you.
Saturday, November 19, 2016
Old Dreams and New Dreams
I know you well enough that I'm certain you spent as much time as you could outside enjoying the beautiful November afternoon.
You'd better believe I did. The Barrister knew of whom he spoke.
In fact, I'd gotten up around 10:15 and been out the door, fed and ready to walk, by 11:15, which worked out nicely since I had plans to meet a friend at the VMFA at noon and it was a glorious morning to cover the distance on foot.
Yes, I'm shallow enough to be thrilled that we're the only U.S. destination for the "Jasper Johns and Edvard Munch: Love, Loss and the Cycle of Life" show and no, I didn't know nearly enough about either artist before today's most instructive and larger than expected exhibition.
Even so, it wasn't difficult to recognize the same walkway from Munch's "The Scream" in his "Despair" painting (there was also "Angst," surprising neither of us), although I was amazed to read that there had been a major Munch retrospective at the National Gallery in 1979 and I have no memory of such a thing or why I wouldn't have gone to it.
The show, tying together Munch's incalculable influence on Johns both directly and indirectly, read like a who's who of the creative set of the era.
One of John's 1965 pieces had a Frank O'Hara poem written on it - Sputnik is only the word for travel companion here on earth - and he was friends with composer John Cage and dancer Merce Cunningham.
His 1963 "Hatteras," with an arm print at the top, referenced the Hart Crane poem "Hatteras" and the writer's untimely death when he jumped off a ship, his arm sticking up briefly before drowning.
There was so much good high artistic drama back in those days, none of this namby-pamby Instagramming and tweeting by celebrities instead of doing something that better demonstrates their tortured souls than showing off or whining. That said, there were also several "selfies" taken by Munch that surprised us both.
My artist friend and I were far from the only attendees discussing everything we saw, although occasionally we got off topic.
Her: So he got that out of his system.
Me: Yep, worked through it and moved on.
Her: Like any good relationship...
Everything comes back to relationships. Follow me around for a day and I'll prove it.
Easily one of the most unlikely pieces in the exhibit was Johns' summer bedspread from the early 20th century, notable for its cross-hatched pattern, seen in so many of the show's paintings. Where it got eerie was seeing Munch's 1940 "Self Portrait Between Clock and Bed," because the bedspread in the picture was identical to Johns' real one.
Utility imitating art.
When we finally reached the last gallery, my friend inquired, "Are they going to have a nihilistic gift shop when we leave here?"
Nope, but by then it was lunch time, so who cared?
Amuse was almost completely full at mid-afternoon, but welcomed us to its bar for the soda of the day (strawberry vanilla), mussels and ham in butter, garlic, Parmesan and white wine broth and a special of salmon over pink-eyed peas for my friend while we compared notes on the past few weeks.
In no particular order, we covered upcoming road trips (her husband's and ours), relationships based on sex, post-election online baiting and the work of gray hallways, eventually choosing the wrong chocolate dessert even if it had a magnificent lemon curd to recommend it.
Because she's the best kind of friend, before we parted ways, she gave me a jar full of seashells she'd collected for me in September at the Outer Banks knowing they were just my style, so I walked the nearly three miles home reveling in this incredible weather and shaking a Mason jar of small purple shells.
I'd have recited the words to Crane's "Hatteras" as I walked if I'd known them, but, alas.
By the time Barr came to collect me, I'd used every scrap of sunshine and warm air available, fulfilling his prediction while leaving me resigned to a cooler evening that began at Sabai with Moo Sam Chan (because somebody was unable to resist the siren song of crispy pork belly) and Pad Broccoli (so our arteries didn't close up mid-meal or music) and managed to be in and out in just over an hour.
The parking lots near UR's Modlin Center were mobbed with cars in a way I hadn't seen since Chuck D. came to speak at the Alumni Center and we both knew it couldn't be solely because of the Steep Canyon Rangers show we were attending (although it was sold out). Turns out the problem was simultaneous shows tonight.
I'll admit, Steep Canyon Rangers was only a name I'd heard but knew nothing about beyond that they were a young North Carolina bluegrass band before Barr's invitation. So when they came out - upright bass, acoustic guitar, fiddle, mandolin, banjo and, yes, drums - we were both a bit surprised.
There's no percussion in bluegrass, right?
Except there is when you're talking about a group of musicians who use bluegrass instrumentation but allow the music to encompass whatever they like, whether rock, folk, jazz, Americana or a sample of the "Jeopardy" theme, among other snippets sampled by the fabulous fiddle player.
When they first walked out, banjo player Graham - he of the unexpectedly deep voice - had to bow his knees to lower himself to the microphone before raising it as he sang, saying, "It's our first show here," and smiling sheepishly. The mic immediately slid back down and he tightened it yet again.
As they began their energetic set, I couldn't help but secretly hope that these guys in narrow-legged suits were as nerdy as they appeared.
Mike shredded his mandolin like nothing I'd ever seen, each musician had lengthy solos like jazz (and the annoying attendant applause) and they about wiped up the stage when they did the title song from their new album, "Radio."
Doing what they referred to as "an old tune," they broke it down to four-part harmony with occasional additions of guitar, mandolin and banjo, a gorgeous thing to hear.
It was especially satisfying when, say the fiddle and mandolin would get into a pissing match trying to outdo each other, then the banjo would jump in and before long it resembled nothing so much as a big grass-tinged post-rock soundscape, absent vocals and soaring through Booker Hall in a completely un-bluegrass like way.
"Thanks you for having us, Richmond," they said. "We could be persuaded to come back."
I'm willing to bet that no one in the room wouldn't be willing to do the same after experiencing a band forged by bluegrass yet completely open to every genre and interpretation performed by guys with solid musical chops and unbridled youthful enthusiasm.
Despite barely over a month of friendship, the Barrister had done himself proud by choosing a stellar night of unexpected music for us to wind down Friday with.
Except, of course, you don't end a superior sunny November day with just music, you end it with conversation at Rapp Session with wine (a killer Chateau du Coing Chardonnay) and smoked bluefish dip studded with red onion and celery, smeared on Saltines.
I have been eating bluefish practically since birth and I expect I'll go out eating it.
That way, there's time to discuss violin versus fiddle, possible hiking destinations (as usual, I made a case for local trails), where to find the best selection of East Coast oysters and how our mothers managed to mangle most of the foods they cooked when we were children.
As tends to be the way when we get together, we covered the important topics: love, loss and the cycle of life, minus the Sputnik references.
The only way to know someone well enough to predict their behavior is to spend a satisfying amount of each evening together exchanging pertinent opinions and back stories.
Or figure out early on they're a sucker for sunshine and roll with it. I can be so obvious about some things...
You'd better believe I did. The Barrister knew of whom he spoke.
In fact, I'd gotten up around 10:15 and been out the door, fed and ready to walk, by 11:15, which worked out nicely since I had plans to meet a friend at the VMFA at noon and it was a glorious morning to cover the distance on foot.
Yes, I'm shallow enough to be thrilled that we're the only U.S. destination for the "Jasper Johns and Edvard Munch: Love, Loss and the Cycle of Life" show and no, I didn't know nearly enough about either artist before today's most instructive and larger than expected exhibition.
Even so, it wasn't difficult to recognize the same walkway from Munch's "The Scream" in his "Despair" painting (there was also "Angst," surprising neither of us), although I was amazed to read that there had been a major Munch retrospective at the National Gallery in 1979 and I have no memory of such a thing or why I wouldn't have gone to it.
The show, tying together Munch's incalculable influence on Johns both directly and indirectly, read like a who's who of the creative set of the era.
One of John's 1965 pieces had a Frank O'Hara poem written on it - Sputnik is only the word for travel companion here on earth - and he was friends with composer John Cage and dancer Merce Cunningham.
His 1963 "Hatteras," with an arm print at the top, referenced the Hart Crane poem "Hatteras" and the writer's untimely death when he jumped off a ship, his arm sticking up briefly before drowning.
There was so much good high artistic drama back in those days, none of this namby-pamby Instagramming and tweeting by celebrities instead of doing something that better demonstrates their tortured souls than showing off or whining. That said, there were also several "selfies" taken by Munch that surprised us both.
My artist friend and I were far from the only attendees discussing everything we saw, although occasionally we got off topic.
Her: So he got that out of his system.
Me: Yep, worked through it and moved on.
Her: Like any good relationship...
Everything comes back to relationships. Follow me around for a day and I'll prove it.
Easily one of the most unlikely pieces in the exhibit was Johns' summer bedspread from the early 20th century, notable for its cross-hatched pattern, seen in so many of the show's paintings. Where it got eerie was seeing Munch's 1940 "Self Portrait Between Clock and Bed," because the bedspread in the picture was identical to Johns' real one.
Utility imitating art.
When we finally reached the last gallery, my friend inquired, "Are they going to have a nihilistic gift shop when we leave here?"
Nope, but by then it was lunch time, so who cared?
Amuse was almost completely full at mid-afternoon, but welcomed us to its bar for the soda of the day (strawberry vanilla), mussels and ham in butter, garlic, Parmesan and white wine broth and a special of salmon over pink-eyed peas for my friend while we compared notes on the past few weeks.
In no particular order, we covered upcoming road trips (her husband's and ours), relationships based on sex, post-election online baiting and the work of gray hallways, eventually choosing the wrong chocolate dessert even if it had a magnificent lemon curd to recommend it.
Because she's the best kind of friend, before we parted ways, she gave me a jar full of seashells she'd collected for me in September at the Outer Banks knowing they were just my style, so I walked the nearly three miles home reveling in this incredible weather and shaking a Mason jar of small purple shells.
I'd have recited the words to Crane's "Hatteras" as I walked if I'd known them, but, alas.
By the time Barr came to collect me, I'd used every scrap of sunshine and warm air available, fulfilling his prediction while leaving me resigned to a cooler evening that began at Sabai with Moo Sam Chan (because somebody was unable to resist the siren song of crispy pork belly) and Pad Broccoli (so our arteries didn't close up mid-meal or music) and managed to be in and out in just over an hour.
The parking lots near UR's Modlin Center were mobbed with cars in a way I hadn't seen since Chuck D. came to speak at the Alumni Center and we both knew it couldn't be solely because of the Steep Canyon Rangers show we were attending (although it was sold out). Turns out the problem was simultaneous shows tonight.
I'll admit, Steep Canyon Rangers was only a name I'd heard but knew nothing about beyond that they were a young North Carolina bluegrass band before Barr's invitation. So when they came out - upright bass, acoustic guitar, fiddle, mandolin, banjo and, yes, drums - we were both a bit surprised.
There's no percussion in bluegrass, right?
Except there is when you're talking about a group of musicians who use bluegrass instrumentation but allow the music to encompass whatever they like, whether rock, folk, jazz, Americana or a sample of the "Jeopardy" theme, among other snippets sampled by the fabulous fiddle player.
When they first walked out, banjo player Graham - he of the unexpectedly deep voice - had to bow his knees to lower himself to the microphone before raising it as he sang, saying, "It's our first show here," and smiling sheepishly. The mic immediately slid back down and he tightened it yet again.
As they began their energetic set, I couldn't help but secretly hope that these guys in narrow-legged suits were as nerdy as they appeared.
Mike shredded his mandolin like nothing I'd ever seen, each musician had lengthy solos like jazz (and the annoying attendant applause) and they about wiped up the stage when they did the title song from their new album, "Radio."
Doing what they referred to as "an old tune," they broke it down to four-part harmony with occasional additions of guitar, mandolin and banjo, a gorgeous thing to hear.
It was especially satisfying when, say the fiddle and mandolin would get into a pissing match trying to outdo each other, then the banjo would jump in and before long it resembled nothing so much as a big grass-tinged post-rock soundscape, absent vocals and soaring through Booker Hall in a completely un-bluegrass like way.
"Thanks you for having us, Richmond," they said. "We could be persuaded to come back."
I'm willing to bet that no one in the room wouldn't be willing to do the same after experiencing a band forged by bluegrass yet completely open to every genre and interpretation performed by guys with solid musical chops and unbridled youthful enthusiasm.
Despite barely over a month of friendship, the Barrister had done himself proud by choosing a stellar night of unexpected music for us to wind down Friday with.
Except, of course, you don't end a superior sunny November day with just music, you end it with conversation at Rapp Session with wine (a killer Chateau du Coing Chardonnay) and smoked bluefish dip studded with red onion and celery, smeared on Saltines.
I have been eating bluefish practically since birth and I expect I'll go out eating it.
That way, there's time to discuss violin versus fiddle, possible hiking destinations (as usual, I made a case for local trails), where to find the best selection of East Coast oysters and how our mothers managed to mangle most of the foods they cooked when we were children.
As tends to be the way when we get together, we covered the important topics: love, loss and the cycle of life, minus the Sputnik references.
The only way to know someone well enough to predict their behavior is to spend a satisfying amount of each evening together exchanging pertinent opinions and back stories.
Or figure out early on they're a sucker for sunshine and roll with it. I can be so obvious about some things...
Sunday, July 24, 2016
Heatwave in My Brain, Smolder in My Soul
The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea. ~Isak Dinesan
My first choice would be the sea and my last resort, tears. So I sweat, while the rest of Richmond seemingly takes a different tack: retreat.
It could be when you're walking down the street and, block after block, there are no other people to be seen walking, much less the usual lounging on porches.
It's going four blocks to the ice cream shop and seeing that they're sold out of over half the flavors. Seems the neighborhood has been mainlining gelato the past few days.
It's most certainly when your friends - modern-day hippies and activists when it comes to environmental concerns - praise the benefits of releasing toxins through sweat, then admit that they're going to buy a window A/C unit tomorrow to install in the "community" room of their collective's house.
It's meeting a friend I haven't seen in months for brunch at Amuse (housemade ginger limeade, chilled one-note strawberry soup, Cheddar Bay biscuits du jour, yum, and a fresh take on tres leches cake with chocolate sauce), which is mobbed, but seeing people choose to leave rather than sit on the balcony.
Or it might be when I'm standing outside in my fourth change of clothes for the day, watering my garden and filling the birdbath at 10:30 at night.
I get it, it's next level hot. Call it "soup," call it oppressive, while I take cold showers and baths and train three fans on me while I do nothing more than read in bed or sleep.
Once I got up this morning, my apartment was already 93 degrees and it wasn't much past 9:30.
Arriving home from the Silent Music revival seeing Dharma Bombs play a soundtrack to Buster Keaton's madcap chase caper, "The Goat," it's a refreshing 96 degrees in here, down from 98 when I'd come home from a feisty three hour meeting discussing the past year's theatrical season and who's award-worthy.
While I'm at home, I pretty much live in a tank top and underwear with my hair up. A constant sheen is my new normal. There can't be a toxin left in my body.
No season suits me better than Summer in the South.
Baby, I was born to sweat.
My first choice would be the sea and my last resort, tears. So I sweat, while the rest of Richmond seemingly takes a different tack: retreat.
It could be when you're walking down the street and, block after block, there are no other people to be seen walking, much less the usual lounging on porches.
It's going four blocks to the ice cream shop and seeing that they're sold out of over half the flavors. Seems the neighborhood has been mainlining gelato the past few days.
It's most certainly when your friends - modern-day hippies and activists when it comes to environmental concerns - praise the benefits of releasing toxins through sweat, then admit that they're going to buy a window A/C unit tomorrow to install in the "community" room of their collective's house.
It's meeting a friend I haven't seen in months for brunch at Amuse (housemade ginger limeade, chilled one-note strawberry soup, Cheddar Bay biscuits du jour, yum, and a fresh take on tres leches cake with chocolate sauce), which is mobbed, but seeing people choose to leave rather than sit on the balcony.
Or it might be when I'm standing outside in my fourth change of clothes for the day, watering my garden and filling the birdbath at 10:30 at night.
I get it, it's next level hot. Call it "soup," call it oppressive, while I take cold showers and baths and train three fans on me while I do nothing more than read in bed or sleep.
Once I got up this morning, my apartment was already 93 degrees and it wasn't much past 9:30.
Arriving home from the Silent Music revival seeing Dharma Bombs play a soundtrack to Buster Keaton's madcap chase caper, "The Goat," it's a refreshing 96 degrees in here, down from 98 when I'd come home from a feisty three hour meeting discussing the past year's theatrical season and who's award-worthy.
While I'm at home, I pretty much live in a tank top and underwear with my hair up. A constant sheen is my new normal. There can't be a toxin left in my body.
No season suits me better than Summer in the South.
Baby, I was born to sweat.
Saturday, April 30, 2016
Honk If You See Me
Sometimes, you take a newspaper to a restaurant, only to get moved three times.
Every seat at Amuse's bar was taken when I walked in, so I was directed to one of the mod green chairs, a perfectly fine perch for a solo diner intent on reading her Washington Post and all the better if I could find someone who wanted to read a section with me.
Just as I was finishing the Weekend section, sipping a glass of Rose and awaiting my food, I was asked if I minded moving so a group of four could use the chairs.
No problem. I took a chair near a couple who told me they were busy dissecting their awful Friday, but since my day had consisted of a walk (where one of the guys down on Dock Street had greeted me by saying, "I'd recognize that walk anywhere! Where's your hat today?") and hours in at my desk writing to make a deadline, I didn't have a lot to complain about with them.
It was a bit awkward trying to eat chicken tortilla soup while seated in a deep chair hovering over a low bar table, but the bartender's recommendation of the soup was right on. Full of chicken, chickpeas and tortilla strips, the broth had the level of heat that ensures you crave another bite immediately but not so hot that it was ever burning my mouth.
I was only halfway through the bowl when I was alerted that a seat had opened up at the bar, if I was willing to move yet again. With another drippy course on the way, it seemed wise to get to a closer surface to eat off of.
The bar crowd welcomed me into their fold, I cleaned my bowl of soup and started on a bowl of Mussels and ham in a white wine butter broth that eventually left me in a butter coma after sopping up an obscene amount of it.
Needing to move for fear I'd fall asleep, I strolled the new photography show, "Kertesz," marveling at the photographer's Modernist eye in the collection of stunning black and white images, some familiar like the one of two people looking at a circus through a hole in a fence. For another, Kertesz used his brothers as models, the two in Speedos, holding hands and using their body weight to counterbalance each other in mid-air.
I'll need to go back when I have a bit more time to scope out the show in full.
When a familiar face called my name, I joined their group, which involved tasting a new cocktail of mezcal, moonshine, pineapple juice and vanilla shrub (you'll never disappoint me with a mezcal cocktail) and discussing my trip to California with one who lived there a dozen years. It isn't often I meet someone who's also stayed at the Timber Cove Lodge, so that made for a delightful surprise.
Another restaurant type informed me that she'd spotted me in my natural habitat - J-Ward - recognized me immediately ("I spotted those legs and knew it was you!") but resisted the urge to hit the horn, knowing I wouldn't recognize her car. What's a random honk among friends?
Despite the dining room being completely full, for a change the bar wasn't overcrowded, so we had no guilt camping out to reminisce about the history of Richmond's restaurant scene and why certain neighborhoods are so far superior to others. Fan? No, thank you. Church Hill? Too isolated. Woodland Heights? Not for me.
When I pulled out my card to pay, I made a crack about its prehistoric nature since I don't yet have a chip card. As soon as I said it, the guy in the seat next to me whipped around to explain that if I called Wells Fargo, I could get a chip card immediately.
He pulled out his card to show me the graphic pattern he'd designed to go on his card and suggested when I do get my new card that I have an image put on it (so, yes, this stranger was trying to drag me into the 21st century right here at the bar) to further personalize it.
Explaining patiently to him that I'd only gotten a Wells Fargo card last year - yes, I've been carrying around a Wachovia card for years after the 2009 merger - he laughed.
I'm in no hurry for a chip card, I told him, because I'm a Luddite. When I said I had no cell phone, he countered proudly that he didn't use Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. As a 29-year old, he thinks his generation is losing social skills due to reliance on technology and as a millennial who realizes this, he's an exception.
The funny part was, he sees the generation behind him (the early 20-somethings) as completely clueless and overly-dependent on devices in a much worse way than his people. I tried not to laugh at the distinction, then belatedly noticed he had a companion.
Wait, are you on a date? Yes, he says and turns back to it reluctantly. Good luck and godspeed with that, friend.
I got home to find a message waiting for me requesting the pleasure of my company and before long I was walking over to the Comedy Theater for some laughs and a Red Eye chocolate chip cookie, which, if you ask me, was a cookie tailored to the taste of generations raised on slice and bake cookies.
Overly sweet, not enough texture, just a lame sort of cookie. Granted, their target demographic is students studying and munched out at 2 a.m. and that's not me, but I couldn't help but be disappointed.
Luckily, the comedy made up for the cookie with the Disco Lemonade team kicking things off with a skit about boys - What do dudes like to do? Play video games and smash things - and the Work Family team taking on this unfortunate election cycle - I am a millennial and we are the future - with no hesitation about slamming Trump - I went to a restaurant and there was no T-bone on the menu. What's this world coming to? - and the rationalizations of racism - I think I'm a cute racist - all in pursuit of laughs.
Walking home in the finest of drizzles, my butter coma finally starting to wear off, I took stock of my evening. A few good laughs and excellent food and wine savored in multiple seats, although epic failure at finding a fellow reader.
Wait, I went to an art-filled restaurant and there were no newspaper-readers to discuss its articles with? What's this world coming to?
Every seat at Amuse's bar was taken when I walked in, so I was directed to one of the mod green chairs, a perfectly fine perch for a solo diner intent on reading her Washington Post and all the better if I could find someone who wanted to read a section with me.
Just as I was finishing the Weekend section, sipping a glass of Rose and awaiting my food, I was asked if I minded moving so a group of four could use the chairs.
No problem. I took a chair near a couple who told me they were busy dissecting their awful Friday, but since my day had consisted of a walk (where one of the guys down on Dock Street had greeted me by saying, "I'd recognize that walk anywhere! Where's your hat today?") and hours in at my desk writing to make a deadline, I didn't have a lot to complain about with them.
It was a bit awkward trying to eat chicken tortilla soup while seated in a deep chair hovering over a low bar table, but the bartender's recommendation of the soup was right on. Full of chicken, chickpeas and tortilla strips, the broth had the level of heat that ensures you crave another bite immediately but not so hot that it was ever burning my mouth.
I was only halfway through the bowl when I was alerted that a seat had opened up at the bar, if I was willing to move yet again. With another drippy course on the way, it seemed wise to get to a closer surface to eat off of.
The bar crowd welcomed me into their fold, I cleaned my bowl of soup and started on a bowl of Mussels and ham in a white wine butter broth that eventually left me in a butter coma after sopping up an obscene amount of it.
Needing to move for fear I'd fall asleep, I strolled the new photography show, "Kertesz," marveling at the photographer's Modernist eye in the collection of stunning black and white images, some familiar like the one of two people looking at a circus through a hole in a fence. For another, Kertesz used his brothers as models, the two in Speedos, holding hands and using their body weight to counterbalance each other in mid-air.
I'll need to go back when I have a bit more time to scope out the show in full.
When a familiar face called my name, I joined their group, which involved tasting a new cocktail of mezcal, moonshine, pineapple juice and vanilla shrub (you'll never disappoint me with a mezcal cocktail) and discussing my trip to California with one who lived there a dozen years. It isn't often I meet someone who's also stayed at the Timber Cove Lodge, so that made for a delightful surprise.
Another restaurant type informed me that she'd spotted me in my natural habitat - J-Ward - recognized me immediately ("I spotted those legs and knew it was you!") but resisted the urge to hit the horn, knowing I wouldn't recognize her car. What's a random honk among friends?
Despite the dining room being completely full, for a change the bar wasn't overcrowded, so we had no guilt camping out to reminisce about the history of Richmond's restaurant scene and why certain neighborhoods are so far superior to others. Fan? No, thank you. Church Hill? Too isolated. Woodland Heights? Not for me.
When I pulled out my card to pay, I made a crack about its prehistoric nature since I don't yet have a chip card. As soon as I said it, the guy in the seat next to me whipped around to explain that if I called Wells Fargo, I could get a chip card immediately.
He pulled out his card to show me the graphic pattern he'd designed to go on his card and suggested when I do get my new card that I have an image put on it (so, yes, this stranger was trying to drag me into the 21st century right here at the bar) to further personalize it.
Explaining patiently to him that I'd only gotten a Wells Fargo card last year - yes, I've been carrying around a Wachovia card for years after the 2009 merger - he laughed.
I'm in no hurry for a chip card, I told him, because I'm a Luddite. When I said I had no cell phone, he countered proudly that he didn't use Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. As a 29-year old, he thinks his generation is losing social skills due to reliance on technology and as a millennial who realizes this, he's an exception.
The funny part was, he sees the generation behind him (the early 20-somethings) as completely clueless and overly-dependent on devices in a much worse way than his people. I tried not to laugh at the distinction, then belatedly noticed he had a companion.
Wait, are you on a date? Yes, he says and turns back to it reluctantly. Good luck and godspeed with that, friend.
I got home to find a message waiting for me requesting the pleasure of my company and before long I was walking over to the Comedy Theater for some laughs and a Red Eye chocolate chip cookie, which, if you ask me, was a cookie tailored to the taste of generations raised on slice and bake cookies.
Overly sweet, not enough texture, just a lame sort of cookie. Granted, their target demographic is students studying and munched out at 2 a.m. and that's not me, but I couldn't help but be disappointed.
Luckily, the comedy made up for the cookie with the Disco Lemonade team kicking things off with a skit about boys - What do dudes like to do? Play video games and smash things - and the Work Family team taking on this unfortunate election cycle - I am a millennial and we are the future - with no hesitation about slamming Trump - I went to a restaurant and there was no T-bone on the menu. What's this world coming to? - and the rationalizations of racism - I think I'm a cute racist - all in pursuit of laughs.
Walking home in the finest of drizzles, my butter coma finally starting to wear off, I took stock of my evening. A few good laughs and excellent food and wine savored in multiple seats, although epic failure at finding a fellow reader.
Wait, I went to an art-filled restaurant and there were no newspaper-readers to discuss its articles with? What's this world coming to?
Saturday, March 5, 2016
As Cloudy As I Wanna Be
Absinthe, it has been too long.
That was corrected at Amuse where I adjourned for dinner with friends I hadn't seen since December, met a deep-voiced Russian and marveled at a middle-aged couple who came in, sat down and proceeded to hold hands, stare into each other's eyes and talk non-stop for two hours.
It was wooing of the highest order and they were completely oblivious to everyone around them.
Meanwhile I wanted to hear about my friends' trip to Fort Lauderdale because they'd hit all the classic beach bars like Coconuts on the Intra-coastal Waterway and Elbo Room, where the classic "Where the Boys Are" was filmed.
I love me a good beach bar.
They wanted to hear about my trip to Sullivan's Island, mainly because he used to be a regular there in his youth because a close friend's family had a vintage cottage. We're talking about the kind of family who would pack up their entire household - including servants, and, yes, he actually said those words - and move to S.C. for three months every summer.
There's a lifestyle I could get used to.
And it wasn't just any old cottage, it was one that had separate servants' quarters that were air-conditioned, so the elderly members of the family had somewhere to stay if they should occasionally decide to come down.
The rest of the time, he and his buddies co-opted the space because it was air-conditioned and their cocaine would clump up in the moist beach humidity of the big house.
You really can't beat '70s stories for sheer shock value...says the woman who's never laid eyes on coke. I am such a lame relic of that era.
Arriving pre-reservation, we took up residence in the mod green chairs at Amuse with a bottle of J. Mourat Collection Rosé and a cheese plate to tide us over while we discussed the local art on the walls and the man who looked like he was straight off of Hawaii 5-0.
We're in the home stretch for the Rodin exhibit, so Amuse was full up with last minute art lovers, but eventually we were seated. At the table next to us was a couple nonchalantly enjoying dinner when my companion looked over and noted, "That's Gary. We used to buy our records from him every Saturday at Willow Lawn."
Not being a native, Gary's record store meant nothing to me, although I recognized his date, a well-known modern dancer I've seen perform several times. When they got up to leave, we chatted with them, sharing our familiarity like old friends.
Over bouillabaisse with scallops, mussels and salmon, mussels with Surry ham, curry fried oysters and fries, we talked about their recent visit to Tay Ho Vietnamese Restaurant, the possible mayoral candidates (all of us would vote for Jon Baliles) and the unfortunate state of Cafe Diem's bathrooms.
"They were like Buckroe Beach in the '60s," my friend observed, cracking us up with references to bad turquoise.
Our late reservation meant that by the time we finished eating, three quarters of the room had cleared and, technically, Amuse was closed. Fortunately, the staff was understanding and when our server came to see what else we needed, didn't blink an eye when two of us asked for absinthe drips.
Even better, he brought the absinthe fountain over to the table so that we could control our own drips through the sugar cubes, making them as cloudy as we liked while the friend who abstained from the Green Fairy indulged in a classic Manhattan.
It was then, during the sipping portion of the evening, that one friend hilariously shared how in his youth, he'd pretended his last name was Finkelstein so that Jewish fathers would allow their daughters to date him. He justified it because his mother's maiden name had been Fink.
Between the absinthe and the story, we thought he was hilarious.
Eventually, though, all good museums must close and even devoted customers leave, so we adjourned to the sculpture garden first and then to hear music.
I'd run into a friend at Amuse who'd asked if I was going to Balliceaux tonight for the Girls Rock benefit with multiple DJs playing 45s, but my friend offered to show off his enormous new-to-him speakers and vintage 45 collection so I took him up on it.
Appropriately since it had been months since we'd heard music together, he began by pouring Rosé and playing several most excellent Bowie 45s: "Underground" from "Labyrinth," "Blue Jeans," "Ashes to Ashes," "Cat People" and, from a film I'd never heard of, "Absolute Beginners," each sounding more spectacular than the last on kick-ass speakers that came up to my waist.
Things took a cheesy turn when he pulled out Starship's "We Built This City, " but he assured us from teh next room that he could top that, and did with "Against All Odds," hyper-corny with a bare-chested Jeff Bridges on the front.
It was only in playing a Jeff Lynne-produced George Harrison 45 that he was able to redeem himself at all.
Explaining that waking up on a day like today made him want to play the Bangles' cover of "Hazy Shade of Winter," he did, justifying the 45 by saying it was the only way he could get the song without buying the soundtrack to a terrible movie.
We left 45s behind only when the estate sale queen pulled out her latest 50-cent find, the original Broadway cast recording of "Hair," skips and all, with its oh-so groovy 1968 song descriptions, as in, "Easy to Be Hard, a pop lament" or my long-time favorite, "Good Morning, Starshine," summed up as "twinkles, shines and glows...join in, flower children."
Oh, some of us joined in, alright, while he who abstained rolled his eyes at the nonsense lyrics of flower children.
Gliddy glup gloopy, nibby nabby noopy la la la lo lo
Sabba sibby sabba, nooby abba dabba
Tooby ooby walla, nooby abba dabba
Early morning singing song
And by early morning, we're talking e-a-r-l-y morning. Green fairy early.
Like sunrise at Buckroe Beach in the '60s, with none of the guilt of youth early.
That was corrected at Amuse where I adjourned for dinner with friends I hadn't seen since December, met a deep-voiced Russian and marveled at a middle-aged couple who came in, sat down and proceeded to hold hands, stare into each other's eyes and talk non-stop for two hours.
It was wooing of the highest order and they were completely oblivious to everyone around them.
Meanwhile I wanted to hear about my friends' trip to Fort Lauderdale because they'd hit all the classic beach bars like Coconuts on the Intra-coastal Waterway and Elbo Room, where the classic "Where the Boys Are" was filmed.
I love me a good beach bar.
They wanted to hear about my trip to Sullivan's Island, mainly because he used to be a regular there in his youth because a close friend's family had a vintage cottage. We're talking about the kind of family who would pack up their entire household - including servants, and, yes, he actually said those words - and move to S.C. for three months every summer.
There's a lifestyle I could get used to.
And it wasn't just any old cottage, it was one that had separate servants' quarters that were air-conditioned, so the elderly members of the family had somewhere to stay if they should occasionally decide to come down.
The rest of the time, he and his buddies co-opted the space because it was air-conditioned and their cocaine would clump up in the moist beach humidity of the big house.
You really can't beat '70s stories for sheer shock value...says the woman who's never laid eyes on coke. I am such a lame relic of that era.
Arriving pre-reservation, we took up residence in the mod green chairs at Amuse with a bottle of J. Mourat Collection Rosé and a cheese plate to tide us over while we discussed the local art on the walls and the man who looked like he was straight off of Hawaii 5-0.
We're in the home stretch for the Rodin exhibit, so Amuse was full up with last minute art lovers, but eventually we were seated. At the table next to us was a couple nonchalantly enjoying dinner when my companion looked over and noted, "That's Gary. We used to buy our records from him every Saturday at Willow Lawn."
Not being a native, Gary's record store meant nothing to me, although I recognized his date, a well-known modern dancer I've seen perform several times. When they got up to leave, we chatted with them, sharing our familiarity like old friends.
Over bouillabaisse with scallops, mussels and salmon, mussels with Surry ham, curry fried oysters and fries, we talked about their recent visit to Tay Ho Vietnamese Restaurant, the possible mayoral candidates (all of us would vote for Jon Baliles) and the unfortunate state of Cafe Diem's bathrooms.
"They were like Buckroe Beach in the '60s," my friend observed, cracking us up with references to bad turquoise.
Our late reservation meant that by the time we finished eating, three quarters of the room had cleared and, technically, Amuse was closed. Fortunately, the staff was understanding and when our server came to see what else we needed, didn't blink an eye when two of us asked for absinthe drips.
Even better, he brought the absinthe fountain over to the table so that we could control our own drips through the sugar cubes, making them as cloudy as we liked while the friend who abstained from the Green Fairy indulged in a classic Manhattan.
It was then, during the sipping portion of the evening, that one friend hilariously shared how in his youth, he'd pretended his last name was Finkelstein so that Jewish fathers would allow their daughters to date him. He justified it because his mother's maiden name had been Fink.
Between the absinthe and the story, we thought he was hilarious.
Eventually, though, all good museums must close and even devoted customers leave, so we adjourned to the sculpture garden first and then to hear music.
I'd run into a friend at Amuse who'd asked if I was going to Balliceaux tonight for the Girls Rock benefit with multiple DJs playing 45s, but my friend offered to show off his enormous new-to-him speakers and vintage 45 collection so I took him up on it.
Appropriately since it had been months since we'd heard music together, he began by pouring Rosé and playing several most excellent Bowie 45s: "Underground" from "Labyrinth," "Blue Jeans," "Ashes to Ashes," "Cat People" and, from a film I'd never heard of, "Absolute Beginners," each sounding more spectacular than the last on kick-ass speakers that came up to my waist.
Things took a cheesy turn when he pulled out Starship's "We Built This City, " but he assured us from teh next room that he could top that, and did with "Against All Odds," hyper-corny with a bare-chested Jeff Bridges on the front.
It was only in playing a Jeff Lynne-produced George Harrison 45 that he was able to redeem himself at all.
Explaining that waking up on a day like today made him want to play the Bangles' cover of "Hazy Shade of Winter," he did, justifying the 45 by saying it was the only way he could get the song without buying the soundtrack to a terrible movie.
We left 45s behind only when the estate sale queen pulled out her latest 50-cent find, the original Broadway cast recording of "Hair," skips and all, with its oh-so groovy 1968 song descriptions, as in, "Easy to Be Hard, a pop lament" or my long-time favorite, "Good Morning, Starshine," summed up as "twinkles, shines and glows...join in, flower children."
Oh, some of us joined in, alright, while he who abstained rolled his eyes at the nonsense lyrics of flower children.
Gliddy glup gloopy, nibby nabby noopy la la la lo lo
Sabba sibby sabba, nooby abba dabba
Tooby ooby walla, nooby abba dabba
Early morning singing song
And by early morning, we're talking e-a-r-l-y morning. Green fairy early.
Like sunrise at Buckroe Beach in the '60s, with none of the guilt of youth early.
Sunday, January 10, 2016
The Human Body is a World That Moves
No one said sacrificing a sunny, 63-degree January day to art would be easy. Apparently, neither is telling time.
When I bought my ticket to see "Camille Claudel" at the VMFA late in November, I couldn't have imagined today was going to deliver the kind of weather that would make me wish I could be outdoors. Just in the two miles to the museum, I saw scores of people walking, biking and basking in the sunshine, a couple of them even shedding layers as they went.
Sweetening the pot for missing the sun was that an artistic friend (and generous- she's the one who got me a VMFA membership for Christmas) was meeting me not only for the film, but for brunch first.
Lamenting the sunshine we'd be missing, we strolled through the sculpture garden, past dog walkers and yoga posers, as our first order of business since we knew the sun would be on its way down by the time we re-emerged.
Upstairs at Amuse, there wasn't a single seat available, so we detoured to the McGlothlin Collection for some fabulous eye candy, using our time to compare George Bellows' early impressionistic tendencies to his later more illustrative and less painterly style.
By the time we returned, not only had the bar cleared out, but a good part of the population of the tables as well. That should have been our first clue.
Setting ourselves up at the bar made for a fine perch to savor mussels with Surry sausage (me) and a Dutch pancake (her) and debate whether sweet or bitter should dominate in blood orange champagne cocktails.
Heading down to the Cheek Theater for the movie, there was a conspicuous absence of other theater-goers milling about. The ticket-takers looked at us askance. We'd gotten the time wrong and the movie had started half an hour earlier.
Yikes! What happened so far, we asked of them. "She made Rodin a foot and he's impressed," we were told. From there, we were on our own, but we're smart women. It helped that it was a three-hour film and we'd only missed a sixth of it.
Luckily, we hadn't missed the start of their intense romantic bond, where budding sculptor Camille and acknowledged master Rodin first realize they're hot for each other and begin kissing and groping as only artsy French types can. From there, the beautifully-shot movie unfolded with the story of two terrifically talented artists working and lusting together.
Together, that is, until Camille gets tired of sharing Rodin with his common-law wife and asks him to marry her. Poor Camille should have known better than to demand a commitment fromRodin a man who's not offering it.
Leaning over, my friend whispers to me, "Give me a talent, give me a craftsman, but a genius? No, thanks!" Her point was clear.
Gerard Depardieu, who could probably play any important male role in French history convincingly, summoned all the machismo and bravado of the self-promoting Rodin, who could love and appreciate a talented woman sculptor, as long as she only did what he wanted her to do (mainly carve hands and feet to help him make deadlines) and give up making her own art.
As my friend and I commiserated, it would have been simply awful to be a woman, much less a talented or sexually-inclined one, in the 19th century. So many restrictions and expectations at the expense of an independent self.
Isabel Adjani's performance as Camille was a marvel, as she played the young artist madly in love with her mentor, right through her breakdown once she leaves him after he refuses to marry her. Watching her descent into alcoholism and eventually mental illness was like watching a master class in acting.
During intermission, more than a few audience members opted out, a fact which amazed me since I was totally riveted by the story we were seeing.
Since I knew from the Rodin show that some of Camille's pieces were included, I couldn't wait to discover how all this was going to end. Ever the optimist, I felt sure Rodin would realize that she was the love of his life and they'd reunite to work and grope together until death parted them.
I'm such a sucker. Rodin's ego was too big, she was too damaged by losing him and her bitterness toward him and the artistic community made her such a crazy and delusional mess that her mother and brother had her committed to an insane asylum, where she lived for over 30 years and then died.
"You stole it all! My youth, my work, everything!" she screams at him in frustration.
There were so many moments when something unkind was said to Camille or she was faced with yet another awful incident and a collective groan would go up from the empathetic audience, a lot of them women.
Because women apparently will sacrifice a sunny day for high romantic tragedy couched in art. Now I feel compelled to revisit the Rodin show and ignore his work and ogle hers.
All the while thanking my lucky stars for being born late enough to have options...and not having fallen for a genius.
When I bought my ticket to see "Camille Claudel" at the VMFA late in November, I couldn't have imagined today was going to deliver the kind of weather that would make me wish I could be outdoors. Just in the two miles to the museum, I saw scores of people walking, biking and basking in the sunshine, a couple of them even shedding layers as they went.
Sweetening the pot for missing the sun was that an artistic friend (and generous- she's the one who got me a VMFA membership for Christmas) was meeting me not only for the film, but for brunch first.
Lamenting the sunshine we'd be missing, we strolled through the sculpture garden, past dog walkers and yoga posers, as our first order of business since we knew the sun would be on its way down by the time we re-emerged.
Upstairs at Amuse, there wasn't a single seat available, so we detoured to the McGlothlin Collection for some fabulous eye candy, using our time to compare George Bellows' early impressionistic tendencies to his later more illustrative and less painterly style.
By the time we returned, not only had the bar cleared out, but a good part of the population of the tables as well. That should have been our first clue.
Setting ourselves up at the bar made for a fine perch to savor mussels with Surry sausage (me) and a Dutch pancake (her) and debate whether sweet or bitter should dominate in blood orange champagne cocktails.
Heading down to the Cheek Theater for the movie, there was a conspicuous absence of other theater-goers milling about. The ticket-takers looked at us askance. We'd gotten the time wrong and the movie had started half an hour earlier.
Yikes! What happened so far, we asked of them. "She made Rodin a foot and he's impressed," we were told. From there, we were on our own, but we're smart women. It helped that it was a three-hour film and we'd only missed a sixth of it.
Luckily, we hadn't missed the start of their intense romantic bond, where budding sculptor Camille and acknowledged master Rodin first realize they're hot for each other and begin kissing and groping as only artsy French types can. From there, the beautifully-shot movie unfolded with the story of two terrifically talented artists working and lusting together.
Together, that is, until Camille gets tired of sharing Rodin with his common-law wife and asks him to marry her. Poor Camille should have known better than to demand a commitment from
Leaning over, my friend whispers to me, "Give me a talent, give me a craftsman, but a genius? No, thanks!" Her point was clear.
Gerard Depardieu, who could probably play any important male role in French history convincingly, summoned all the machismo and bravado of the self-promoting Rodin, who could love and appreciate a talented woman sculptor, as long as she only did what he wanted her to do (mainly carve hands and feet to help him make deadlines) and give up making her own art.
As my friend and I commiserated, it would have been simply awful to be a woman, much less a talented or sexually-inclined one, in the 19th century. So many restrictions and expectations at the expense of an independent self.
Isabel Adjani's performance as Camille was a marvel, as she played the young artist madly in love with her mentor, right through her breakdown once she leaves him after he refuses to marry her. Watching her descent into alcoholism and eventually mental illness was like watching a master class in acting.
During intermission, more than a few audience members opted out, a fact which amazed me since I was totally riveted by the story we were seeing.
Since I knew from the Rodin show that some of Camille's pieces were included, I couldn't wait to discover how all this was going to end. Ever the optimist, I felt sure Rodin would realize that she was the love of his life and they'd reunite to work and grope together until death parted them.
I'm such a sucker. Rodin's ego was too big, she was too damaged by losing him and her bitterness toward him and the artistic community made her such a crazy and delusional mess that her mother and brother had her committed to an insane asylum, where she lived for over 30 years and then died.
"You stole it all! My youth, my work, everything!" she screams at him in frustration.
There were so many moments when something unkind was said to Camille or she was faced with yet another awful incident and a collective groan would go up from the empathetic audience, a lot of them women.
Because women apparently will sacrifice a sunny day for high romantic tragedy couched in art. Now I feel compelled to revisit the Rodin show and ignore his work and ogle hers.
All the while thanking my lucky stars for being born late enough to have options...and not having fallen for a genius.
Saturday, November 28, 2015
We Thought They'd Never End
Apparently Black Friday puts people in mind of me, resulting in two hard-to-pass-up offers tossed my way today.
One was going to the Altria to see "Ragtime" and the other was going to the Coliseum to see Cirque de Soleil's "Toruk." Naturally, I went to the Camel to see Avers and Rikki Shay.
But only after meeting my most artistic friend at the extremely crowded VMFA to see the recently opened McGlothlin Collection, followed by an Eternal Spring champagne cocktail at Amuse, because what could be lovelier than blood orange liqueur and pomegranate over bubbles?
One was going to the Altria to see "Ragtime" and the other was going to the Coliseum to see Cirque de Soleil's "Toruk." Naturally, I went to the Camel to see Avers and Rikki Shay.
But only after meeting my most artistic friend at the extremely crowded VMFA to see the recently opened McGlothlin Collection, followed by an Eternal Spring champagne cocktail at Amuse, because what could be lovelier than blood orange liqueur and pomegranate over bubbles?
The collection is awe-inspiring in the truest sense of the phrase, a collection of gorgeous American art spanning 1830
Modernity oozes off the canvas throughout, but especially stirringly in “Yachting the Mediterranean,” a large 1896 piece by Julius Leblanc
Stewart (whom I'd never even heard of) showing Americans – wasp-waisted Victorian women and dandified men -
aboard a yacht churning through water that seems about to spill out on the
viewer.
From Winslow Homer (oh, those watercolors!) to George Bellows (Bud's favorite painter) to Childe Hassam ("Westminster Bridge" was absolutely breathtaking), we walked from painting to painting exclaiming over the McGlothlin's choices. We couldn't even imagine what it must have been like for them to actually live with these works in their home.
"A Gust of Wind (Judith Gautier)" by John Singer Sargent, echoing a Monet painting of a similar subject (the object of the painter's desire), was so splendidly executed that you had to wonder how neither of us had ever laid eyes on so much as a print of it before.
We left there bursting with excitement over what we'd just experienced. Just goes to show what happens when filthy rich people (with either great taste or excellent guidance) are generous enough to collect and donate art to the masses. The McGlothlins are my new art heroes.
Next came music and noshing at the Camel.
When my massive plate of black bean nachos arrived, the charming guy next to me insisted on offering me his bar stool, saying, "You can't attack that while you're standing!" I could have if I'd had no choice.
Once enjoying my new sitting status, we got to talking and of course I asked them the usual, about their first concerts. Now, we're talking about a couple of what looked like mid-20-somethings and their first shows were Hootie and the Blowfish in 2002 (I merely looked at him with pity) and Black Crowes in 1997 (so obviously he was older than he looked).
Hootie guy must have seen the pity in my eyes because he tried to compensate by sharing that his second show had been Aerosmith. When I mentioned that I'd seen them in 1979, his face fell. "Wow, you saw them before the drugs, before Joe Perry and Steven Tyler started..." and punched his fists together.
Son, there was no such time.
Son, there was no such time.
They were excited about seeing bands in as intimate a space as the Camel, so I couldn't resist mentioning a few I'd seen there, just to tease them. J. Roddy Walston and the Business, Young the Giant and Frank Turner impressed them hugely while they'd never even heard of Future Islands.
He and his buddy were up from Williamsburg ("Where nothing ever happens after 10"), both getting their masters degrees in business at William & Mary. Why on earth, I asked?
"Dollaz, dollaz, dollaz," one said. "A degree in English gets you minimum wage." Ditto a degree in art history, but at least you get to keep your soul.
Moving to the other room for music, it took forever for Rikki Shay - the new incarnation of what was the Black Girls or perhaps just a name change to address their white guys reality- to soundcheck, get their drink (or whatever) on and finally take the stage for their first show.
The name may be new, but the sound was the same eminently danceable hybrid of rock and funk it always was, with the occasional introduction saying, "Y'all might have heard this one before."
A really big crowd had formed for them but were rewarded with a particularly short set. "This is our last song. We wrote it today. For you!" A guy near the front began hollering in excitement and the singer called out, "What's your name?" When he answered "Jessie," the singer said, "We wrote this for you, Jessie!" and the big lug went nuts.
In other words, it's still a Black Girls crowd.
Siting near me was a middle-aged couple who appeared to be on a date. They were so nearby that I couldn't help but notice their interactions as they moved through the evening.
Things seemed to be going well and he kept buying them more high alcohol Hardywood beers and by the third one, she was starting to warm up to him, snuggling against him and smiling often.
Then he must have said something drastically wrong, because it was like cold water had been thrown on her. She moved away, she wouldn't meet his eyes, the smile was gone. No telling what had happened, but it didn't stop him from continuing to buy them beers.
They were on their fifth each during Rikki Shay's set, standing on the banquette and attempting to dance when his beer just slid out of his hand like it was greased. It fell under their table, shattering and splashing beer all over my feet, but they never noticed.
Fortunately for him, though, it made her laugh, she offered him a sip of hers and everything was fine again. Fine enough that he began rubbing any body part of hers he could reach.
So fine that he went and got them their sixth beers. I'm not here to judge how much they drank, but when she returned from the bathroom, she leaned a bit too hard on the table to help her mount the banquette and return to her Prince Charming.
All of a sudden, their beers and several people's cocktails went sliding toward the banquette as the table slanted alarmingly and all of us around the table reacted, grabbing for the sliding beverages.
Not the lovebirds. They started cracking up like it was the funniest thing they'd ever seen. I see real potential in this relationship.
Finally Avers took the stage. "We're going to play a whole bunch of new shit if that's okay. We're Avers by the way."
Finally Avers took the stage. "We're going to play a whole bunch of new shit if that's okay. We're Avers by the way."
The crowd may have been a bit smaller for them than Rikki Shay, but I feel pretty sure everyone in the room knew who they were looking at. Seems to me when Rolling Stone critic David Fricke told the band they were the best thing he'd heard all week at SXSW, people started paying attention to them.
No doubt he was responding to their dense sound. One of the highlights of the break before their set - besides Romeo and Juliet next to me - was watching each of the musicians lug their massive pedal boards to the stage. We're talking some fantastic effects and reverb in the service of a pastiche of psychedelic, shoegaze, rock and pop.
In fact, one of the bonuses of ordering tickets for tonight's show in advance instead of buying at the door means that we get their new EP delivered to our inbox tomorrow. Seems they've been working on a new album and the EP is the songs that didn't have the same feel as the others. "But we still really liked 'em!"
For this listener, one of my favorite things about them is that they have multiple vocalists and they trade bass, guitar and keyboards like kids used to trade baseball cards. The tambourine always seems to be up for grabs.
With the possibility of four guitars for any given song, it's a constant guitar fest with meaty interludes where everyone gets to show off, the way they also do with the many false stops and precision restarts that characterize their songs.
Listening to songs such as "Love" and "Evil" tonight reminded me again how these guys (and girl) never disappoint sound-wise. Now, if you don't have a taste for an overly-dramatic front man flipping his hair, that's another story.
But not one I'll tell tonight. I left the daters groping, the audience applauding and hollering and bugged out after Avers' set, well satisfied with a stellar night of music.
Someday, I'll be be able to wow another graduate student who offers me his bar stool by sharing that I saw Avers in a tiny bar where the band barely all fit onstage.
Those were the days, my friend.
Someday, I'll be be able to wow another graduate student who offers me his bar stool by sharing that I saw Avers in a tiny bar where the band barely all fit onstage.
Those were the days, my friend.
Saturday, November 14, 2015
Eventually Everything
Have you noticed that InLight is the visual cousin of the Folk Fest?
Who doesn't go? For eight years now, people from all over Richmond have made it their business to be anywhere the one-night extravaganza happens - Broad Street, Grace Street, the Canal Walk, Monroe Park - and see what light-based art awaits them.
Then they go and put InLight in the museum's sculpture garden and bam! Even more people are going to feel comfortable coming to see what the fuss is about.
Add in streets being closed for the VCU homecoming parade and it took a record-setting 20 minutes to go the two miles from Jackson Ward to the VMFA tonight.
Crazy. Sounds like this place is getting a little too big for its britches. Since when do I have to build in time to allow for traffic? Hello, this is Richmond?
Meeting my friend on the steps to the Boulevard entrance, the first words out of her mouth were, "I didn't recognize you. Your walk doesn't match who you are." She seems to think I appear to walk with purpose in contrast to having a laid-back personality (her words). She lopes, I march, according to her.
Early as it was, the museum was already jumping when we headed up to Amuse and a bird's eye view of the sculpture garden abuzz with last minute activity. Hell, I'd seen an artist setting up before noon this afternoon and the exhibit didn't open until 7.
A night like tonight is a seductive reminder of how lucky we are to have Amuse in the VMFA. From the moment we arrived until we left to go outside, it was like being part of a big party with strangers, but all celebrating the same thing: yet another standout happening in River City.
Moira and I seized the moment, beginning with Cava studded with multi-color cordial-filled jello shooters (baby's first Jello shooters, so a baptism of sorts for her), a cheese plate, oysters and some major dishing. Adulation was discussed and better phrasing sought. D.C. and the Renwick beckon.
Looking around the dining room, it was easy to tell that people were jazzed about the evening. I, for one, am thrilled any time the museum is willing to stay open until midnight.
Properly fortified, we headed outside after a sigh-worthy stop to see "Nightfall: Prints of the Dark Hours," and ogle 400 years of print-makers' ability to convey so much with line and rubbing. Yankee Stadium at night took her breath away.
Then light beckoned.
Perched in the sculpture garden, the view looking inside the brightly lighted interior abuzz with activity made Richmond look urbane, sophisticated and art-loving. We could have been a picture postcard.
From the people milling around the Best Cafe deck next to the glowing red Chihuly reeds to clusters of people, drinks in hand, on Amuse's balcony of ipe (a Brazilian hardwood I learned about from a British carpenter later), a visitor would likely think, wow, seriously epic place.
Meanwhile outside the museum, scads of people were patiently traversing the walkways to see the two dozen installations. Less than half an hour after opening, "Problem Piece," the installation in and around the Confederate Memorial Chapel, had a line down the walkway that turned the corner and turned another.
Last time I saw a line like that for art was for "Disrobed" at Gallery 5, an all nude show.
I'm inclined to think that all the fuss the Sons of Confederate groups raised only served to pique public curiosity. Unintentionally, they succeeded in getting probably hundreds more people to see a chapel they'd have never seen otherwise without their bellyaching.
Personally, I thought the installation was brilliant, from the cinematic lights outside shining a literal light on antiquated attitudes or the unexpected soundtrack once inside the once-sacred space, it definitely challenged your take on it.
From further away, "Dielectric Bridge" looked like a dazzling beacon of light, but once on it, the light effect was dim and less dazzling, like being in a wholly different place. Truly beautiful was "no_places_nostories," which involved a collage of colorful media images projected onto the 1936 facade of the VMFA.
"Object-Orientalis" was provocative and political, using women's bodies as symbols, but isn't that what Eva Rocha does best? I saw a bit of Bohyun Yoon's "Glassorganism" performance, watching the sounds made with the glass bottles translate to visual imagery.
Where I saw the Big Mouth Singers game, Moira saw electrocardiogram images. Go figure.
Coming back down from the highest level of the sculpture garden, we followed a barely-moving pack of people making their way along.
Kid #1: It's like a prison death march.
Kid #2: That was the worst joke.
Kid #1: It wasn't a joke.
To set the record straight, they were ten years old, tops, albeit jaded and politically correct ten year olds.
Around at the front, trying to understand "Circuit," I overheard a woman complaining to her husband. "It's like the Greek festival, it used to be fun but now it's too crowded. It's no fun being herded."
It is fun seeing so many people with alcohol in hand, the first year it's been a part of the InLight experience, legally anyway. It's less appealing seeing a big table set up for ID checks and bracelets like just another beer fest.
My thoughts exactly, so I did what any self-respecting iconoclast would and temporarily abandoned InLight for the museum. Taking a break on a low-slung chair, I had an ideal view of the passing parade, which included some familiar faces - the former restaurateur, the retired PR queen and world traveler, the gentleman farmer.
Back at Amuse, I joined Homes and Beloved for a glass of Rose and an offbeat chat with the carpenter from Manchester named Rhett (because of course a British woman is going to name her son Rhett a dozen years after "Gone with the Wind" comes out), who has taken a shine to Holmes and is rabidly discussing the Beatles, the Damned and the Sex Pistols.
I am brought into the conversation. Most unexpected question? "Are you heterosexual?" Aren't I?
There is banter, talk of a northside pool where the membership is chiefly reprobates and outlaw types, as well as lively discourse on why 30-year old males are not yet men. Rhett and Holmes discuss the wearing of Chuck Taylors post-30 and sing snippets of a Captain Sensible song to each other.
After a great deal of happy talk, we adjourn to Holmes' pad for Corail Rose and a short record-listening party before walking the block back to InLight and finding the crazy Confederate protesters just outside the entrance.
Out of the way, losers, we've got art to see.
Making my way around for the second time, only this time with male company, I finally make it into the chapel, see a few pieces I missed on my first round and make the most of the lack of crowds at 11:30.
For the first-time visitor, the disappointment is that some pieces are already turned off and abandoned. It's a shame because it seems lame to cut out before the official ending time. It's wonderful not being herded; it's unfortunate not to see everything still fully lighted.
You don't see any of the Folk Fest acts skipping their last set, do you? Frankly, my dear, we're a big town now. We can stay lit 'til midnight.
Who doesn't go? For eight years now, people from all over Richmond have made it their business to be anywhere the one-night extravaganza happens - Broad Street, Grace Street, the Canal Walk, Monroe Park - and see what light-based art awaits them.
Then they go and put InLight in the museum's sculpture garden and bam! Even more people are going to feel comfortable coming to see what the fuss is about.
Add in streets being closed for the VCU homecoming parade and it took a record-setting 20 minutes to go the two miles from Jackson Ward to the VMFA tonight.
Crazy. Sounds like this place is getting a little too big for its britches. Since when do I have to build in time to allow for traffic? Hello, this is Richmond?
Meeting my friend on the steps to the Boulevard entrance, the first words out of her mouth were, "I didn't recognize you. Your walk doesn't match who you are." She seems to think I appear to walk with purpose in contrast to having a laid-back personality (her words). She lopes, I march, according to her.
Early as it was, the museum was already jumping when we headed up to Amuse and a bird's eye view of the sculpture garden abuzz with last minute activity. Hell, I'd seen an artist setting up before noon this afternoon and the exhibit didn't open until 7.
A night like tonight is a seductive reminder of how lucky we are to have Amuse in the VMFA. From the moment we arrived until we left to go outside, it was like being part of a big party with strangers, but all celebrating the same thing: yet another standout happening in River City.
Moira and I seized the moment, beginning with Cava studded with multi-color cordial-filled jello shooters (baby's first Jello shooters, so a baptism of sorts for her), a cheese plate, oysters and some major dishing. Adulation was discussed and better phrasing sought. D.C. and the Renwick beckon.
Looking around the dining room, it was easy to tell that people were jazzed about the evening. I, for one, am thrilled any time the museum is willing to stay open until midnight.
Properly fortified, we headed outside after a sigh-worthy stop to see "Nightfall: Prints of the Dark Hours," and ogle 400 years of print-makers' ability to convey so much with line and rubbing. Yankee Stadium at night took her breath away.
Then light beckoned.
Perched in the sculpture garden, the view looking inside the brightly lighted interior abuzz with activity made Richmond look urbane, sophisticated and art-loving. We could have been a picture postcard.
From the people milling around the Best Cafe deck next to the glowing red Chihuly reeds to clusters of people, drinks in hand, on Amuse's balcony of ipe (a Brazilian hardwood I learned about from a British carpenter later), a visitor would likely think, wow, seriously epic place.
Meanwhile outside the museum, scads of people were patiently traversing the walkways to see the two dozen installations. Less than half an hour after opening, "Problem Piece," the installation in and around the Confederate Memorial Chapel, had a line down the walkway that turned the corner and turned another.
Last time I saw a line like that for art was for "Disrobed" at Gallery 5, an all nude show.
I'm inclined to think that all the fuss the Sons of Confederate groups raised only served to pique public curiosity. Unintentionally, they succeeded in getting probably hundreds more people to see a chapel they'd have never seen otherwise without their bellyaching.
Personally, I thought the installation was brilliant, from the cinematic lights outside shining a literal light on antiquated attitudes or the unexpected soundtrack once inside the once-sacred space, it definitely challenged your take on it.
From further away, "Dielectric Bridge" looked like a dazzling beacon of light, but once on it, the light effect was dim and less dazzling, like being in a wholly different place. Truly beautiful was "no_places_nostories," which involved a collage of colorful media images projected onto the 1936 facade of the VMFA.
"Object-Orientalis" was provocative and political, using women's bodies as symbols, but isn't that what Eva Rocha does best? I saw a bit of Bohyun Yoon's "Glassorganism" performance, watching the sounds made with the glass bottles translate to visual imagery.
Where I saw the Big Mouth Singers game, Moira saw electrocardiogram images. Go figure.
Coming back down from the highest level of the sculpture garden, we followed a barely-moving pack of people making their way along.
Kid #1: It's like a prison death march.
Kid #2: That was the worst joke.
Kid #1: It wasn't a joke.
To set the record straight, they were ten years old, tops, albeit jaded and politically correct ten year olds.
Around at the front, trying to understand "Circuit," I overheard a woman complaining to her husband. "It's like the Greek festival, it used to be fun but now it's too crowded. It's no fun being herded."
It is fun seeing so many people with alcohol in hand, the first year it's been a part of the InLight experience, legally anyway. It's less appealing seeing a big table set up for ID checks and bracelets like just another beer fest.
My thoughts exactly, so I did what any self-respecting iconoclast would and temporarily abandoned InLight for the museum. Taking a break on a low-slung chair, I had an ideal view of the passing parade, which included some familiar faces - the former restaurateur, the retired PR queen and world traveler, the gentleman farmer.
Back at Amuse, I joined Homes and Beloved for a glass of Rose and an offbeat chat with the carpenter from Manchester named Rhett (because of course a British woman is going to name her son Rhett a dozen years after "Gone with the Wind" comes out), who has taken a shine to Holmes and is rabidly discussing the Beatles, the Damned and the Sex Pistols.
I am brought into the conversation. Most unexpected question? "Are you heterosexual?" Aren't I?
There is banter, talk of a northside pool where the membership is chiefly reprobates and outlaw types, as well as lively discourse on why 30-year old males are not yet men. Rhett and Holmes discuss the wearing of Chuck Taylors post-30 and sing snippets of a Captain Sensible song to each other.
After a great deal of happy talk, we adjourn to Holmes' pad for Corail Rose and a short record-listening party before walking the block back to InLight and finding the crazy Confederate protesters just outside the entrance.
Out of the way, losers, we've got art to see.
Making my way around for the second time, only this time with male company, I finally make it into the chapel, see a few pieces I missed on my first round and make the most of the lack of crowds at 11:30.
For the first-time visitor, the disappointment is that some pieces are already turned off and abandoned. It's a shame because it seems lame to cut out before the official ending time. It's wonderful not being herded; it's unfortunate not to see everything still fully lighted.
You don't see any of the Folk Fest acts skipping their last set, do you? Frankly, my dear, we're a big town now. We can stay lit 'til midnight.
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Lunchroom Buddies, Richmond
When the life of the party invites you to her Paris debriefing and a long lunch at Amuse, I cannot say "oui" fast enough.
Only days after returning from her sojourn to France, she is dressed like a Parisienne - mostly black with touches of white and red and, naturellement, black tights and flats. By the time she added a cap to the ensemble while on holiday, she was being mistaken for a local and asked for directions in the City of Lights.
Always a fabulous storyteller, she's also the only ami I have who always has anecdotes related to height, mainly because she's 6'2. One involved standing by the Eiffel Tower when a small Indian man sidles up and begins leaning in...to her. The point, it turns out, is for his cohort to snap a picture of the two of them.
At one point, he says in heavily accented English, "I like you," accompanied by a finger poke and another picture is taken. "Embrace her!" the photographer calls out.
That's about enough of that, the tall one decides and moves on.
I've heard of poverty tourists, but height tourists? When you're 5'5", no one who doesn't know you wants a picture of you under the Eiffel Tower.
Over an enormous bowl of mussels and ham in white wine and garlic, I listened as she shared as many details about the art and museums she'd visited as she could cram in between slurps of her peanut soup.
She was aghast at the hordes of tourists who spent all their time jockeying for placement, the better to use their selfie stick and document that they'd been there when the truth was, they'd barely, if at all, bothered to really look at the artworks,
Striking lock workers meant that she wound up with less than an hour in Giverney, the place that had been her main destination on their journey, and yet still, she managed to soak in the wonder of the place. Her conclusion was simple: duh, Impressionism, because given the light and the abundance of foliage, how else would they have captured the place's beauty?
Best of all, she took me back to my years studying art history in college with the three fundamental reasons Impressionism happened: trains to take them out of the city cheaply, paint in tubes so no need to mix paints outdoors. and the debut of photography. Why exactly render something on canvas when we now have an art form for that?
Mais oui, it made as much sense then as it does now.
Fully aware of the pea green-envy it would cause in me, she casually dropped the fact that while visiting the Musee d'Orsay, she'd had a chance to see "Splendours and Miseries: Images of Prostitution 1850-1910," a show I'd eagerly read about in the Washington Post, knowing full well I'd never see it.
When she told me there'd even been galleries with vintage porn movies, I had to ask what kids of things they were doing in them. All the usual depravities, it turns out, a subject that only made us want chocolate torte with fresh berries, if you know what I mean. Or at least, that's how we channeled our sex talk.
Before we'd taken up our bar stools to eat, we'd begun looking at the new photography exhibit, "The Likeness of Labor" but had been too eager to chat to finish. We made up for that with a stroll through the gallery afterwards.
Lewis Hines' exquisite photographs documenting child labor were simultaneously art and horror.
The unbelievably young faces that stared out from commercial laundries and textile mills were heart-rending. His work was so striking that a subsequent generation of photographers - Walker Evans, Margaret Bourke-White, Dorothea Lange - took up the cause and photographed workers during the Depression and in Russia, in lace-making factories, ironworks and other places poor immigrants worked.
One of my favorites, perhaps because of the absence of grimness, was Evans' "Lunchroom Buddies, New York City," a 1931 shot of two men - one with a huge schnoz of a nose and ears that stood straight out, a cigarette burning in his workmanlike hands, a jaunty white kitchen cap on his head - amiably posing on the back steps of the presumed lunchroom.
Their faces spoke to their roots. Not for them the homogenized look of men today, but two men with goofy and distinctive features as a result of their heritage, looking out at the photographer with equanimity and maybe just a touch of cockiness.
They looked like they could have just enjoyed an extended lunch together like we had.
Although whether or not they discussed vintage porn like some art geeks I know is anybody's guess.
Only days after returning from her sojourn to France, she is dressed like a Parisienne - mostly black with touches of white and red and, naturellement, black tights and flats. By the time she added a cap to the ensemble while on holiday, she was being mistaken for a local and asked for directions in the City of Lights.
Always a fabulous storyteller, she's also the only ami I have who always has anecdotes related to height, mainly because she's 6'2. One involved standing by the Eiffel Tower when a small Indian man sidles up and begins leaning in...to her. The point, it turns out, is for his cohort to snap a picture of the two of them.
At one point, he says in heavily accented English, "I like you," accompanied by a finger poke and another picture is taken. "Embrace her!" the photographer calls out.
That's about enough of that, the tall one decides and moves on.
I've heard of poverty tourists, but height tourists? When you're 5'5", no one who doesn't know you wants a picture of you under the Eiffel Tower.
Over an enormous bowl of mussels and ham in white wine and garlic, I listened as she shared as many details about the art and museums she'd visited as she could cram in between slurps of her peanut soup.
She was aghast at the hordes of tourists who spent all their time jockeying for placement, the better to use their selfie stick and document that they'd been there when the truth was, they'd barely, if at all, bothered to really look at the artworks,
Striking lock workers meant that she wound up with less than an hour in Giverney, the place that had been her main destination on their journey, and yet still, she managed to soak in the wonder of the place. Her conclusion was simple: duh, Impressionism, because given the light and the abundance of foliage, how else would they have captured the place's beauty?
Best of all, she took me back to my years studying art history in college with the three fundamental reasons Impressionism happened: trains to take them out of the city cheaply, paint in tubes so no need to mix paints outdoors. and the debut of photography. Why exactly render something on canvas when we now have an art form for that?
Mais oui, it made as much sense then as it does now.
Fully aware of the pea green-envy it would cause in me, she casually dropped the fact that while visiting the Musee d'Orsay, she'd had a chance to see "Splendours and Miseries: Images of Prostitution 1850-1910," a show I'd eagerly read about in the Washington Post, knowing full well I'd never see it.
When she told me there'd even been galleries with vintage porn movies, I had to ask what kids of things they were doing in them. All the usual depravities, it turns out, a subject that only made us want chocolate torte with fresh berries, if you know what I mean. Or at least, that's how we channeled our sex talk.
Before we'd taken up our bar stools to eat, we'd begun looking at the new photography exhibit, "The Likeness of Labor" but had been too eager to chat to finish. We made up for that with a stroll through the gallery afterwards.
Lewis Hines' exquisite photographs documenting child labor were simultaneously art and horror.
The unbelievably young faces that stared out from commercial laundries and textile mills were heart-rending. His work was so striking that a subsequent generation of photographers - Walker Evans, Margaret Bourke-White, Dorothea Lange - took up the cause and photographed workers during the Depression and in Russia, in lace-making factories, ironworks and other places poor immigrants worked.
One of my favorites, perhaps because of the absence of grimness, was Evans' "Lunchroom Buddies, New York City," a 1931 shot of two men - one with a huge schnoz of a nose and ears that stood straight out, a cigarette burning in his workmanlike hands, a jaunty white kitchen cap on his head - amiably posing on the back steps of the presumed lunchroom.
Their faces spoke to their roots. Not for them the homogenized look of men today, but two men with goofy and distinctive features as a result of their heritage, looking out at the photographer with equanimity and maybe just a touch of cockiness.
They looked like they could have just enjoyed an extended lunch together like we had.
Although whether or not they discussed vintage porn like some art geeks I know is anybody's guess.
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Saw One Cute Girl and Met One
Dear Diary,
In a rebuke to all the ridiculous stuff - kittens and deer bonding, personality quizzes, baby pictures - people post online, the intrepid Holmes has been posting a page a day from his diary as a 13-year. Imagine a newly-minted teenager on a two-month trip to Europe with the 'rents and brother.
Best of all, it's 1965 and the whole crazy cultural and sexual revolution is unfolding before his virgin eyes.
August 14, 1965
There I bought Thunderball for 3 and 6 (49 cents)...We went to eat dinner at the hotel (boy, there is one good looking girl there).
So when it came time to head out tonight, he was the first person I thought of and we made plans to meet at Amuse.
Arriving first, I staked out three stools, trying to stretch my belongings to indicate "taken." A guy at mid-bar raises an eyebrow about my attempts and suggests the stool next to him so I could guard the other two. "Are they always late?" he asks.
Thinking about it, I couldn't say that they were habitually tardy, but as I pointed out, I probably hadn't noticed their punctuality because my evening wasn't dependent on their arrival. "What if they stand you up?" he asks.
What if they do? I'll still drink Rose and eat something, I'll still admire the Manet-like view of the pink and blue sunset in the back bar's mirror, I'll undoubtedly still talk to strangers. Business as usual, with or without them.
"Being late is one of my pet peeves," he shares. Life will go on if I have to wait, I tell him.
"Tell me your story," he insists and I give him a bulleted summary in record time. "Wow," he says, clearly unprepared for an efficient delivery of key points. "Tell me more."
When he finds out I write about art, he responds with "I love art!" Call me dogmatic, but doesn't everyone love some kind of art? It's like those stupid "I love mountains" bumper stickers. Are there really mountain haters out there? Art haters, too?
What's funny is when he wisecracks and I can't help but laugh. "So that was funny, hmm? I made you laugh." He says it as if he's proving something to me.
When Holmes and Beloved do arrive, the man next to my new friend leans in and tells him loudly, "Now you're going to have to talk to me." He's eager to find out if this is true.
We took our bags to room 19 and then went down to lunch. After lunch, I listened to the radio. "Help" is no. 1 in Scotland at the present.
My attention turned to my friends because after seeing "Help" for the first time last night, I wanted to talk about it. Holmes had seen "Help" in London on opening night, so the film holds a special place in his adolescent memory.
The bartender was new but perfectly capable of delivering a bottle of J. Mourat "Collection" Rose, although we did enjoy a bit of "who's on first" when we asked about specials. Everyone behind the bar claimed to be unable to recall what they were until someone actually checked and found that there were no specials tonight.
The subject of the diary came up and Holmes cracked me up when telling me, "Tomorrow Dad crashes the car." It was like a "coming attractions" for his diary.
Amuse bouches arrived, one perfect bite of shrimp salad on summer tomato, as we talked about the Eastern Shore with the hostess. Once the three of them got off on old Richmond stories, though, I was lost. From here, I do not come, as Yoda would say.
After that I went swimming. The water was very cold and the only other person swimming was Sheila Boyd. I think Sheila must be around 14. Instead of dinner, I had high tea. After high tea, I watched TV.
Holmes had ordered the last rack of lamb in the house, but mussels and sausage were plenty for me while the little lady had truffle fries and fried oysters. Another bottle of J. Mourat benefited us all.
Our dinner travelogue came courtesy of one of the staff who shared his upcoming plans to move to Maui. He's currently living in a packed box-filled apartment and planning to fly first class so he can take extra baggage without a fee.
In the time since he made the call to move, he said he's not yet wavered in his resolve to go. "I have lots of attachments here but nothing keeping me here. I can always come back here and be happy."
If not now, when? My vote was to embrace the new.
From tonight on, I shall start locking this diary.
It was during a trip to the loo that a woman came in and I complimented her hair as she sailed into a stall. From behind the door, she thanked me.
"I've got some gray and it's curly," she said, as if these were bad things. Within moments, we were engaged in a deep philosophical discussion about learning to accept yourself and having a style of your own, all without actually being able to see each other.
By the time she emerged, we were pondering whether our 25-year old selves would have taken any advice from wise old broads like us (unlikely).
I think I'm developing a crush on Sheila. Right before bed I found out her room was no. 15. I accidentally walked into the wrong room.
After introducing himself to my friends, I couldn't help but notice that the guy next to me had begun casually draping his arm on the back of my chair, sometimes even brushing my shoulder or back when he was making a point.
Glamour magazine used to call this a "don't". I did, too.
Someone asked him what this guy did for a living and we discovered that he was an antiques dealer with a sprawling storefront in Hanover County housing millions of items (Holmes guessed one, he claimed six). He often supplies pieces for film shoots. That's when it hit me.
Beloved has a house and three garages full of almost 90 years of family stuff, none of which she needs or uses. Here was a man whose business bought stuff fromhoarders people with too much if it.
How old is your oldest furniture, I asked of her pointedly.
"Some of it's from the 1890s," she said. "But he's not going to want that." The hell he isn't. Although he tried to hide it, I saw him react to the prospect of some pristine antique furniture. Beloved asks how to contact him and he wisely writes down his name, store name, phone number and e-mail and hands her the piece of paper.
He also slides an identical sheet under my silverware, presumably thinking I have antiques to sell as well. I don't.
We then got in the car and drove to the university and the museum. I saw three Rodins at the museum.
When Mr. Punctuality goes to pay his bill, he cracks to the new bartender, "Well, that was an amusing meal." Barkeep groans and says, "Gee, I haven't already heard that too many times."
Holmes has missed the exchange and asks for a summary. I say he told a corny joke the bartender's already heard a bazillion times. "Corny?!" he says to me as if affronted. As Kansas in August, mister.
We have a three-way for dessert, sharing the towering triple chocolate cake - mousse, ganache, cake- with a high hat of laced chocolate, raspberries and blackberries, but Holmes has something different in mind.
We then proceed along the A85 until we reach the town of Oban.
Fifty years ago today, Holmes was in Oban, although at such a tender age, not yet a Scotch drinker. He decides to toast that memory with Oban single malt 14 year malt scotch, neat of course, offering to buy me one but I decline.
I do take his glass and inhale deeply, trying to imagine how wondrous a 13-year old Richmond teenager would have found Scotland in 1965. One thing that's already apparent in his writings is that Holmes' brain was already that of an accountant.
Diary entries include conversion rates from pounds to dollars and references to route numbers, distances, movie ticket prices, even room rates.
I got my first jip, a 10 cent Pepsi for 25 cents.
He may have been jipped monetarily in his young eyes, but it's hard to feel sorry for a kid who spent his thirteenth summer on the Continent.
Walked to a shop and then bought three firecrackers.
I've yet to have high tea. I didn't see "Help" until yesterday. Never read "Thunderball" or any Ian Fleming for that matter. Teenagers could buy firecrackers?
We then came home, watched the "Addams Family" and went to bed.
Well, kiss my arm, Gomez. Thirteen-year old Holmes is my hero.
In a rebuke to all the ridiculous stuff - kittens and deer bonding, personality quizzes, baby pictures - people post online, the intrepid Holmes has been posting a page a day from his diary as a 13-year. Imagine a newly-minted teenager on a two-month trip to Europe with the 'rents and brother.
Best of all, it's 1965 and the whole crazy cultural and sexual revolution is unfolding before his virgin eyes.
August 14, 1965
There I bought Thunderball for 3 and 6 (49 cents)...We went to eat dinner at the hotel (boy, there is one good looking girl there).
So when it came time to head out tonight, he was the first person I thought of and we made plans to meet at Amuse.
Arriving first, I staked out three stools, trying to stretch my belongings to indicate "taken." A guy at mid-bar raises an eyebrow about my attempts and suggests the stool next to him so I could guard the other two. "Are they always late?" he asks.
Thinking about it, I couldn't say that they were habitually tardy, but as I pointed out, I probably hadn't noticed their punctuality because my evening wasn't dependent on their arrival. "What if they stand you up?" he asks.
What if they do? I'll still drink Rose and eat something, I'll still admire the Manet-like view of the pink and blue sunset in the back bar's mirror, I'll undoubtedly still talk to strangers. Business as usual, with or without them.
"Being late is one of my pet peeves," he shares. Life will go on if I have to wait, I tell him.
"Tell me your story," he insists and I give him a bulleted summary in record time. "Wow," he says, clearly unprepared for an efficient delivery of key points. "Tell me more."
When he finds out I write about art, he responds with "I love art!" Call me dogmatic, but doesn't everyone love some kind of art? It's like those stupid "I love mountains" bumper stickers. Are there really mountain haters out there? Art haters, too?
What's funny is when he wisecracks and I can't help but laugh. "So that was funny, hmm? I made you laugh." He says it as if he's proving something to me.
When Holmes and Beloved do arrive, the man next to my new friend leans in and tells him loudly, "Now you're going to have to talk to me." He's eager to find out if this is true.
We took our bags to room 19 and then went down to lunch. After lunch, I listened to the radio. "Help" is no. 1 in Scotland at the present.
My attention turned to my friends because after seeing "Help" for the first time last night, I wanted to talk about it. Holmes had seen "Help" in London on opening night, so the film holds a special place in his adolescent memory.
The bartender was new but perfectly capable of delivering a bottle of J. Mourat "Collection" Rose, although we did enjoy a bit of "who's on first" when we asked about specials. Everyone behind the bar claimed to be unable to recall what they were until someone actually checked and found that there were no specials tonight.
The subject of the diary came up and Holmes cracked me up when telling me, "Tomorrow Dad crashes the car." It was like a "coming attractions" for his diary.
Amuse bouches arrived, one perfect bite of shrimp salad on summer tomato, as we talked about the Eastern Shore with the hostess. Once the three of them got off on old Richmond stories, though, I was lost. From here, I do not come, as Yoda would say.
After that I went swimming. The water was very cold and the only other person swimming was Sheila Boyd. I think Sheila must be around 14. Instead of dinner, I had high tea. After high tea, I watched TV.
Holmes had ordered the last rack of lamb in the house, but mussels and sausage were plenty for me while the little lady had truffle fries and fried oysters. Another bottle of J. Mourat benefited us all.
Our dinner travelogue came courtesy of one of the staff who shared his upcoming plans to move to Maui. He's currently living in a packed box-filled apartment and planning to fly first class so he can take extra baggage without a fee.
In the time since he made the call to move, he said he's not yet wavered in his resolve to go. "I have lots of attachments here but nothing keeping me here. I can always come back here and be happy."
If not now, when? My vote was to embrace the new.
From tonight on, I shall start locking this diary.
It was during a trip to the loo that a woman came in and I complimented her hair as she sailed into a stall. From behind the door, she thanked me.
"I've got some gray and it's curly," she said, as if these were bad things. Within moments, we were engaged in a deep philosophical discussion about learning to accept yourself and having a style of your own, all without actually being able to see each other.
By the time she emerged, we were pondering whether our 25-year old selves would have taken any advice from wise old broads like us (unlikely).
I think I'm developing a crush on Sheila. Right before bed I found out her room was no. 15. I accidentally walked into the wrong room.
After introducing himself to my friends, I couldn't help but notice that the guy next to me had begun casually draping his arm on the back of my chair, sometimes even brushing my shoulder or back when he was making a point.
Glamour magazine used to call this a "don't". I did, too.
Someone asked him what this guy did for a living and we discovered that he was an antiques dealer with a sprawling storefront in Hanover County housing millions of items (Holmes guessed one, he claimed six). He often supplies pieces for film shoots. That's when it hit me.
Beloved has a house and three garages full of almost 90 years of family stuff, none of which she needs or uses. Here was a man whose business bought stuff from
How old is your oldest furniture, I asked of her pointedly.
"Some of it's from the 1890s," she said. "But he's not going to want that." The hell he isn't. Although he tried to hide it, I saw him react to the prospect of some pristine antique furniture. Beloved asks how to contact him and he wisely writes down his name, store name, phone number and e-mail and hands her the piece of paper.
He also slides an identical sheet under my silverware, presumably thinking I have antiques to sell as well. I don't.
We then got in the car and drove to the university and the museum. I saw three Rodins at the museum.
When Mr. Punctuality goes to pay his bill, he cracks to the new bartender, "Well, that was an amusing meal." Barkeep groans and says, "Gee, I haven't already heard that too many times."
Holmes has missed the exchange and asks for a summary. I say he told a corny joke the bartender's already heard a bazillion times. "Corny?!" he says to me as if affronted. As Kansas in August, mister.
We have a three-way for dessert, sharing the towering triple chocolate cake - mousse, ganache, cake- with a high hat of laced chocolate, raspberries and blackberries, but Holmes has something different in mind.
We then proceed along the A85 until we reach the town of Oban.
Fifty years ago today, Holmes was in Oban, although at such a tender age, not yet a Scotch drinker. He decides to toast that memory with Oban single malt 14 year malt scotch, neat of course, offering to buy me one but I decline.
I do take his glass and inhale deeply, trying to imagine how wondrous a 13-year old Richmond teenager would have found Scotland in 1965. One thing that's already apparent in his writings is that Holmes' brain was already that of an accountant.
Diary entries include conversion rates from pounds to dollars and references to route numbers, distances, movie ticket prices, even room rates.
I got my first jip, a 10 cent Pepsi for 25 cents.
He may have been jipped monetarily in his young eyes, but it's hard to feel sorry for a kid who spent his thirteenth summer on the Continent.
Walked to a shop and then bought three firecrackers.
I've yet to have high tea. I didn't see "Help" until yesterday. Never read "Thunderball" or any Ian Fleming for that matter. Teenagers could buy firecrackers?
We then came home, watched the "Addams Family" and went to bed.
Well, kiss my arm, Gomez. Thirteen-year old Holmes is my hero.
Saturday, May 23, 2015
She Don't Fade
A friend tells me the other night that I'm the only person over 25 she knows who makes a big deal of her birthday.
If it was meant to be an insult, I didn't pick up on it.
Instead, I went to Amuse at the (very quiet) VMFA to meet Moira for a birthday cocktail or two. Slow when we arrived, it was a hotbed of middle aged activity before long. If there was a middle aged Tinder, this room would have been ripe for it.
But we weren't there to date, we were there to kick off my birthday eve celebration.
I'd brought my Parisian absinthe spoon, a recent gift from Pru, and handed it over to a favorite bartender to fit on the lip of my glass to allow the drip to pass through the sugar cube. Meanwhile, Moira found her life's blood in a bourbon and bubbly cocktail with the most divine lemon/egg white foam that ever graced a drink.
It was an ideal night to be in Amuse's dining room, the deep blue sky and ecstatic sun mere embellishments to the occasion. Noshing on snacks - housemade beef jerky, bleu cheese and bacon deviled eggs and spiced pecans - we compared exes, considered exit strategies and daydreamed about the possibilities of shared free time.
Because it's birthday season, there must be dessert, in this case, a Madame X (absinthe, bubbly and a sugar cube) and a chocolate cake contained in chocolate ganache and split by chocolate mousse under a cloud of whipped cream. If you ever wonder why I walk five miles ever day (besides so that strangers can shout random things at me like this morning's "Great ass!" on the Lee bridge), this is why.
If you wonder what I do on my birthday eve, I go to the National to see Psychedelic Furs despite having seen them last April at the Beacon Theater in Hopewell. It's not just getting to gawk at how amazingly well Richard Butler has aged, it's to hear the music that defined a big chunk of my (relative) youth and to which I danced many, many nights in clubs.
Standing in line to get a wristband, one of the staff called out to the milling crowd, "If you're over 21, have your ID out. If you're under 21, you've all aged really badly." Young man humor. When I raised an eyebrow, he said, "What? I've always wanted to say that to people."
Another staff member pulled me aside, saying, "Don't mind him. He's really 84. He hasn't aged on the outside, but inside..."
Walking in late due to my extended absinthe interlude and much hilarious conversation, I managed to catch the last few songs of Bad English's set, including a cover of Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne," admittedly captured by the lead singer's (striped shirt, cap, deep voice) charisma.
"We're Black English. Look us up on whatever you look people up on. If we come back, would you come see us?" and a fair amount of cheers resulted. I would for sure. A bit of a ham, he worked well off the drummer at center stage while the girl playing keys was tough to hear, whether by design or a bad sound mix, I don't know.
During the break, I headed to the bar for a Cazadores, delivered by a bartender who inquired sweetly, "Were you walking down the Lee Bridge today?" Damned if I wasn't, but I also wouldn't think anyone could spot me at 45 mph.
"Oh, I knew it was you," he said. "I recognized you right away."
Chatting with a woman whose first concert was Kiss at age four, she told me that the crowd was older than it had been when she'd come to see INXS. My, how time flies.
Soon after, the Psychedelic Furs came out and from the first moment, singer Richard Butler could have had any one of the middle aged women in the room, present company included. Dapper in a suit with his shirt cuffs hanging out unfastened, he got even better after discarding the jacket leaving only vest and shirt.
I'm an unabashed fan of it all, the posturing, the hand gestures, the drama. And don't get me started on how he curtsies, cuffs flying, after some songs.
Oblivious to my neighbors, I danced to everything - "High Wire Days," "I Wanna Sleep with You," "Love My Ways" (during which he had the crowd singing along) and "When She Comes." Personally, I could have died happy during "Heartbreak Beat" with his hand on his undulating hips.
And it feels like love,
got the radio on
and it's all that we need
Maybe it's my age, but every possibility imaginable in the '80s resurfaced listening to songs such as "The Ghost in You" tonight. So of course it ended too soon, even after an encore with "Pretty in Pink" that spoke to the crowd who'd arrived via film and not music.
Tequila gone, show over, there was only one thing to do: continue my birthday eve celebration somewhere else. What better way than to stop by Richmond Comedy Coalition and listen to rock god Prabir tell stories from his life and be skewered afterwards by a group of improvisational comedians?
When I arrived, he was telling a Prabir and the Substitutes tour tale from a stop in West Virginia ("I'm sure that technically they were females...") and talking about some fans getting kind of "handsy" with band members afterwards as they appealed for a place to spend the night.
"I wouldn't say they were cougars but I would say they were bobcats," he explained. "These girls were very aggressive." He brilliantly solved that by putting on a DVD of "Lord of the Rings" which apparently makes bobcats stop touching band members.
The comedy troupe was soon trashing West Virginia and riffing on his story, occasionally breaking out into "With a Little Help from My Friends" and "All You Need is Love," a scene which closed with the characters falling on their imaginary swords to end the song. West Virginia jokes abounded.
During intermission, I chatted with all kinds of friends - the tourism guy, the beer fiend, the theater lover, the former neighbor and DJ - before we heard one last story from Prabir. This one was less a memory and more a lecture about the wonders of science and time, hardly surprising coming from a major science geek.
As he got deep into metaphysical talk, one of the comedians threw his hands up, walking away shaking his head in disbelief. "F*ck, dude, f*ck," he wailed about trying to make comedy about fourth dimension talk.
"Are there different rules for mating in other dimensions? What if we needed a third element to replicate the species?" he asked rhetorically. "Is there a place where they pair off in threes?" You can only imagine the comedic possibilities of groups of people trying to mate in the fourth dimension.
Although I saw Prabir checking his phone during that sketch, I thought is was laugh out loud funny. Pair off in threes? God, no, two is tough enough.
From there, we somehow got to a funeral for pizza attended by Papa John, Grandma Sbarro and little Cesar, all delivering eulogies. Don't ask.
Absinthe, Furs and laughter? Sure, some people would call this making a big deal of their birthday. Pshaw. You don't see me pairing off in threes, do you?
If it was meant to be an insult, I didn't pick up on it.
Instead, I went to Amuse at the (very quiet) VMFA to meet Moira for a birthday cocktail or two. Slow when we arrived, it was a hotbed of middle aged activity before long. If there was a middle aged Tinder, this room would have been ripe for it.
But we weren't there to date, we were there to kick off my birthday eve celebration.
I'd brought my Parisian absinthe spoon, a recent gift from Pru, and handed it over to a favorite bartender to fit on the lip of my glass to allow the drip to pass through the sugar cube. Meanwhile, Moira found her life's blood in a bourbon and bubbly cocktail with the most divine lemon/egg white foam that ever graced a drink.
It was an ideal night to be in Amuse's dining room, the deep blue sky and ecstatic sun mere embellishments to the occasion. Noshing on snacks - housemade beef jerky, bleu cheese and bacon deviled eggs and spiced pecans - we compared exes, considered exit strategies and daydreamed about the possibilities of shared free time.
Because it's birthday season, there must be dessert, in this case, a Madame X (absinthe, bubbly and a sugar cube) and a chocolate cake contained in chocolate ganache and split by chocolate mousse under a cloud of whipped cream. If you ever wonder why I walk five miles ever day (besides so that strangers can shout random things at me like this morning's "Great ass!" on the Lee bridge), this is why.
If you wonder what I do on my birthday eve, I go to the National to see Psychedelic Furs despite having seen them last April at the Beacon Theater in Hopewell. It's not just getting to gawk at how amazingly well Richard Butler has aged, it's to hear the music that defined a big chunk of my (relative) youth and to which I danced many, many nights in clubs.
Standing in line to get a wristband, one of the staff called out to the milling crowd, "If you're over 21, have your ID out. If you're under 21, you've all aged really badly." Young man humor. When I raised an eyebrow, he said, "What? I've always wanted to say that to people."
Another staff member pulled me aside, saying, "Don't mind him. He's really 84. He hasn't aged on the outside, but inside..."
Walking in late due to my extended absinthe interlude and much hilarious conversation, I managed to catch the last few songs of Bad English's set, including a cover of Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne," admittedly captured by the lead singer's (striped shirt, cap, deep voice) charisma.
"We're Black English. Look us up on whatever you look people up on. If we come back, would you come see us?" and a fair amount of cheers resulted. I would for sure. A bit of a ham, he worked well off the drummer at center stage while the girl playing keys was tough to hear, whether by design or a bad sound mix, I don't know.
During the break, I headed to the bar for a Cazadores, delivered by a bartender who inquired sweetly, "Were you walking down the Lee Bridge today?" Damned if I wasn't, but I also wouldn't think anyone could spot me at 45 mph.
"Oh, I knew it was you," he said. "I recognized you right away."
Chatting with a woman whose first concert was Kiss at age four, she told me that the crowd was older than it had been when she'd come to see INXS. My, how time flies.
Soon after, the Psychedelic Furs came out and from the first moment, singer Richard Butler could have had any one of the middle aged women in the room, present company included. Dapper in a suit with his shirt cuffs hanging out unfastened, he got even better after discarding the jacket leaving only vest and shirt.
I'm an unabashed fan of it all, the posturing, the hand gestures, the drama. And don't get me started on how he curtsies, cuffs flying, after some songs.
Oblivious to my neighbors, I danced to everything - "High Wire Days," "I Wanna Sleep with You," "Love My Ways" (during which he had the crowd singing along) and "When She Comes." Personally, I could have died happy during "Heartbreak Beat" with his hand on his undulating hips.
And it feels like love,
got the radio on
and it's all that we need
Maybe it's my age, but every possibility imaginable in the '80s resurfaced listening to songs such as "The Ghost in You" tonight. So of course it ended too soon, even after an encore with "Pretty in Pink" that spoke to the crowd who'd arrived via film and not music.
Tequila gone, show over, there was only one thing to do: continue my birthday eve celebration somewhere else. What better way than to stop by Richmond Comedy Coalition and listen to rock god Prabir tell stories from his life and be skewered afterwards by a group of improvisational comedians?
When I arrived, he was telling a Prabir and the Substitutes tour tale from a stop in West Virginia ("I'm sure that technically they were females...") and talking about some fans getting kind of "handsy" with band members afterwards as they appealed for a place to spend the night.
"I wouldn't say they were cougars but I would say they were bobcats," he explained. "These girls were very aggressive." He brilliantly solved that by putting on a DVD of "Lord of the Rings" which apparently makes bobcats stop touching band members.
The comedy troupe was soon trashing West Virginia and riffing on his story, occasionally breaking out into "With a Little Help from My Friends" and "All You Need is Love," a scene which closed with the characters falling on their imaginary swords to end the song. West Virginia jokes abounded.
During intermission, I chatted with all kinds of friends - the tourism guy, the beer fiend, the theater lover, the former neighbor and DJ - before we heard one last story from Prabir. This one was less a memory and more a lecture about the wonders of science and time, hardly surprising coming from a major science geek.
As he got deep into metaphysical talk, one of the comedians threw his hands up, walking away shaking his head in disbelief. "F*ck, dude, f*ck," he wailed about trying to make comedy about fourth dimension talk.
"Are there different rules for mating in other dimensions? What if we needed a third element to replicate the species?" he asked rhetorically. "Is there a place where they pair off in threes?" You can only imagine the comedic possibilities of groups of people trying to mate in the fourth dimension.
Although I saw Prabir checking his phone during that sketch, I thought is was laugh out loud funny. Pair off in threes? God, no, two is tough enough.
From there, we somehow got to a funeral for pizza attended by Papa John, Grandma Sbarro and little Cesar, all delivering eulogies. Don't ask.
Absinthe, Furs and laughter? Sure, some people would call this making a big deal of their birthday. Pshaw. You don't see me pairing off in threes, do you?
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