The Here and Now

History was reviewed and made, all in the same evening.

"Age of Kennedy," a black and white 1966 documentary was being shown in 16 mm at Studio Two Three as part of their Film & Video series to commemorate this 50th anniversary of the assassination.

After reading countless articles this week about every aspect of Camelot and Dallas, my interest was piqued by a film made so soon after it all.

And what a film!

Probably due to the Kennedy patriarch having been an early financier of Hollywood, there was an incredible amount of footage of JFK from the '30s, '40s and '50s, back before most people had home movie cameras.

Family winter vacations in Miami, while a student at Harvard, fishing on a boat, during his junior year of college abroad.

And speaking of that year in Europe, while over there for eight months he dutifully wrote a report on every country he visited to send back to his father.

There was fabulous footage of him as a 23-year old who'd just had his senior thesis, "Why England Slept," published as a book, showing him on a lounge with copies of his book surrounding him while he alternately made amazed and self-deprecating faces.

And may I just say, the amount of charisma and charm that emanated from those movies of him was palpable.

Because the film had originally been made for TV, it had two parts, "The Early Years" and "The Presidency."

The first reel left off with him as a delegate and the second one picked up with him already elected President; it was as if the filmmaker assumed that all the viewers knew the in-between parts because they'd happened so recently.

Still, it was odd.

We saw JFK covering the founding of the U.N. for Hearst newspapers, smoking and wearing sunglasses while watching weapons testing as the President and as a Daddy with his very young children.

This was rare stuff; I'd never seen a single one of the images before.

The progression of him from an always-smiling, slender young man to a solidly-built man of middle age with wrinkles and life experience written all over his face was fascinating to see.

I told the organizer, James, something I never thought I'd tell anyone: that he needs to be on Facebook so he can let people know when he's doing something unique like tonight's screening.

I couldn't help but think that there were other people out there - film buffs, history geeks, pop culture slaves - who would have come if only they'd known about it.

On the other hand, it's truly impressive to meet a 20-something who eschews social media.

He agreed to consider it and I said my farewell.

As a hired mouth, I'd already done my eating earlier, so my next stop was Bainbridge Collective in Manchester for a house show.

I'd been to this group house once before back in April for an evening of music and Virginia wine so at least this time I knew where I was going.

Things were just getting set up when I arrived and found music-loving friends already there.

Considering it had been billed as an evening of ambient, experimental and drone, I was surprised to see single mattresses being put in the two windows to absorb sound and a DJ friend lamenting that she'd left her earplugs at work.

I hadn't anticipated that things might get loud. Turns out, they didn't.

Once everything was good to go, people settled down on sofas, a sturdy wooden table and on the floor; it was all very communal.

First up was Counterspark, the solo project of a guy named Johnny, who used a turntable and knobs to create experimental soundscapes that fused song and words, in one case a recording of astronauts talking about their voyage.

That part of it reminded me a bit of the Books, while another girl pronounced at the end of his set, "That was very relaxing."

Part of that vibe is the big black and white wall hanging between the windows, behind which are strung colored mini-lights which twinkle through the cloth's design.

Very groovy.

Parties, the traveling band, showed up short. One member had fallen asleep and missed his flight from Raleigh so we had to content ourselves with two thirds of Parties.

"This is a band where none of us live in the same place," Andrew from California explained. "P.D. missed his flight and he should be arriving at the airport right about now. So this is for him."

With two guitars and many knobs and pedals, he and Joe sat on the floor under the twinkling lights, making hypnotic and beautiful music even without P.D.

Everyone was surprised to learn afterwards that they don't do any work together over the internet, choosing instead to get together when they end up within a reasonable distance of each other to play. This was the first night of a short tour.

Tonight's finale was Source of Sorcery, the new collaborative project of Dave Watkins and Nelly Kate, truly two of Richmond's most talented.

She had already said that the coolest part of tonight would be that she and Dave would be experiencing the music for the first time, just as the audience would.

With a blue light bulb hanging beneath for mood, they had a small table set up between them for Nelly's knobs while Dave's mammoth pedal board sat below it as they faced each other, he with dulcitar in hand.

Dave said they were going to improvise and Nelly explained that the lyrics she would be singing would be from T.S. Elliot's "Four Quartets."

Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter

Music and poetry? Could this night get any better?

As they began improvising, two different photographers (as in people with cameras, not people with phones) each took a side and began madly photographing the very first Source of Sorcery show.

I've seen both Dave and Nelly play individually many, many times but hearing them come together was an other-wordly experience.

I looked around at one point and saw others reacting in their own ways. Some closed their eyes. Others, no doubt first-timers, watched in amazement as they laid down multiple tracks, layering their sounds until it sounded like a half dozen people were making music.

The lush, dense soundscapes they were creating were a virtuosic give and take, with Dave taking off on intricate dulcitar parts that then gave way to Nelly's hushed vocals rising up out of it.

It seemed like everyone sensed we were seeing something truly magical.

The spell was broken only when they stopped and one of the Bainbridge residents said, "Talk about making love to your music!"

If you like to watch, it was pretty heady stuff.

Thanking everyone for coming, our hostess closed out the evening by saying, "There are a lot of new faces in the room tonight. Take a few minutes to talk to somebody new and make a friend. Or make love."

People started looking around.

"Just don't do it in the bathroom," she amended. "Just in case someone needs to use it."

Some nights, it's all about experiencing everything together. Very groovy.

Dine and Dyad

What a beautiful night of community!

It began with the benefit for Sub Rosa Bakery at the Roosevelt, where chefs from Pasture, Secco, Julep, Aziza, Magpie, Heritage and, of course, the Roosevelt's own chef Lee made enough food for an army.

Knowing that between the very worthy cause and a buffet made by this crew, this was going to be major draw, I wisely arrived at 5:33 for the 5:30 event.

Foolish me.

They'd opened the doors at 5:27 and the line was already out the door with people lined up (a line lasting the next hour and a half) to pay $20 and wait as long as it took to go through the chow line.

Not me.

I paid and went to find a bar stool and glass of water.

Doing so, a server with an enormous tray of Chef Lee's fried chicken made her way through the mob, headed for the buffet table.

Without even thinking about it, I leaned in to her, inquired if I could grab a piece and got a smiling nod.

Forget that I didn't have a plate, or flatware, I was thrilled.

Sitting in my stool, I made do with bev naps as I tore into the steaming fried chicken.

Licking my fingers afterwards, I spotted Aziza's cream puffs sitting at the end of the bar and making my way there, made off with one of those.

The room was so warm with April and people that the ganache was melting on my fingers.

Yum.

When I returned to my seat, I noticed the guy now in the stool next to me busy with dinner.

Clearly he was doing things the right way with a full plate of food and not individual items eaten out of hand.

But I didn't hold that against him and he turned out to be a great conversationalist, a treat for me.

He got high points for telling me that I didn't have a cell phone.

I thought him terribly astute, but he corrected me, "It's not laying on the bar. Look around here. If you had one, it'd be out."

That may have been the point when he mentioned that I was odd.

He was there because of Sub Rosa's owner Evrim because they share a Turkish descent and the occasional conversation where he can exercise his pidgin Turkish.

So there was his reason for being at the benefit and I'm sure every other person there had their own reason, whether neighbors, customers and or just eager to help out.

The sense of community in the room was almost palpable.

Someone had donated two kegs of handcrafted beer - an Earl Grey brown ale and a black IPA- and the bartenders were wisely pouring it as fast as they could so as to have cups of it ready when people ordered it.

At one point, they were doing the equivalent of firemen passing buckets of water from team to team, with one bartender handing off two cups to the next bartender who then passed them off to a server for delivery.

Team work par excellence.

Chef Randy from Julep had stopped by and been sucked into the madness, helping Lee in the kitchen when the onslaught arrived en masse.

It wasn't long before the food began running out, a fact politely explained to latecomers, most of whom took it well.

There was the one group who copped an attitude, complaining that they'd driven in from the West end and even using the f-word to express their displeasure, but complaining because a benefit runs out of food seems incredibly petty, not to mention overly-entitled.

But for the other 98% of the attendees, there was much smiling, laughing, talking to Evrim and support for both his bakery and making sure the tenants above him are taken care of.

It was a beautiful thing to behold.

I lingered till the staff began eating, just in case they needed help with anything, but they seemed to have everything under control once the eaters left.

From there I moved on to another community, the musical one, at Bainbridge Collective.

The house show was called Dyad: A Night of Wine and Acoustic Music for Two and featured three bands, each comprised of a man and a woman.

The wine was all from Virginia, something I've never once seen in all my years of show-going, so there was Jefferson, Trump, St. Michele and Horton, among many others.

In a nod to the evening's theme, I went with Horton Norton, as indigenous as it gets.

We began on the back porch of the house with conversation and shared pleasure about the warm, spring weather.

Pittsburgh duo Broken Fences were the reason for the evening as they made a stop in Richmond on their current tour and they were happily sitting on a porch couch talking about how much they like Richmond.

Eventually, the show began in the main room and we took seats so that locals Dalliance could start.

He played guitar and they both sang, a delight because they both had such incredible voices for the literate songs they sang.

I was sorry when they got to their last song "Near" so quickly but laughed when guitarist Kendall said in a martyred voice, "I like this song with lots of reverb, but I guess I can do it acoustic."

He could, they did and I was sorry to see them go.

The reason for the evening, Broken Fences, was next, and I hadn't seen them since June 2011, back at the now-defunct Sprout.

They began by saying they'd arrived early to our fair city, allowing time to rework an old song they hadn't played in a while and half-apologizing in advance for it.

All I heard was two more amazing voices combined in ethereal harmonies for gentle folk songs.

Afterwards, they promised they'd go back to singing songs they knew better.

On "Song for You," Dalliance's Kendall added in foot stomping while Lobo Marino's Laney did thigh slapping, causing Broken Fence's Guy to thank them for the percussion when the song finished.

They mentioned that for a change they were getting to spend two nights in Richmond instead of rising at the crack of dawn to make it to the next city, so they had plans to go to Belle Isle tomorrow.

Boy, if they think they like Richmond now, they're never going to want to leave after a sunny day on the river.

They said the next song was begun before their dog got sick and finished the day before they had to put him down.

It was exquisite, heartbreaking and when it was over, someone said, "I'm sad," while someone else said, "Must be the wine's making me a little teary, too."

I know I was sitting there choking up thinking about the beloved beagle I'd had to put down a few years ago.

Saying, "Let's have some levity," they launched into a newer song, "The Glass is Gone" before finishing with "Stormy Clouds," as evocative as you'd imagine with that title and their voices.

Now that we're older
Can we stand still
And let the world unfurl?

We certainly can.

The other thing we can (and should) do is get this duo to play the Listening Room so dozens of people can hear their intense-sounding songs and incredible voices.

Last up was Lobo Marino playing their usual eastern-influenced tribal music, only this time in front of a black and white wall hanging with flashing colored Christmas lights underneath it.

Way cool.

Everyone in the room was having a blast as Jameson and Laney rolled through some of their songs, including one in Spanish and the much-requested, "Celebrate."

Banging on a jug, squeezing a harmonium, or wailing, these two put every bit of their travels into their music.

Laney's effort was so energetic that when the song ended, she looked at the audience and said, "That's it! We're finished."

But she wasn't finished reminding the audience to go buy Broken Fence's CDs and put some gas money in the jar to help them along on their travels.

"Cause Richmond does the right thing when musicians come through this town," Jameson said, stating the obvious.

We do the right thing whether it's out-of-towners or one of our own.

It's what makes this such a fine community.