The Modfather = marriage.
Allow me to explain. When you mention Paul Weller to a music-lover of a certain age, well, honestly most of them have no clue who he is.
But a few of the more musically savvy will recognize the man who burst on the scene in the '70s with the punky mod revival band the Jam, followed that with the blue-eyed soul of the Style Council, and then kicked off an exquisite solo career in the '90s.
For those people (and me), Paul Weller is forever the Modfather, a nod to his original band's sound and style of dress. These guys looked as good as they sounded.
But mention to me that Paul Weller is on tour and I can guarantee you one thing: on the night when he plays at the closest venue to me, I will be expected to be at a wedding. I kid you not.
About a decade ago, he was playing in D.C. and I was thrilled to think that I might finally get to see him after being a fan for decades. That emotion came to a screeching halt when my then-boyfriend reminded me that we were attending a friend's wedding the same evening.
Fast forward to this past May and one of my birthday gifts was a pair of tickets to see Paul Weller in D.C. with the gift-giver. I was over the moon to think that I would finally get to hear Paul's soulful British voice live.
So after waiting months for the show, I shouldn't have been surprised when I got a wedding invitation for that same night. To add insult to injury, the gift-giver also had a wedding to go to the same night.
It would have been funny if it hadn't been perfectly tragic. What does a woman have to do to see Paul Weller in the flesh?
My solution was simple and exhausting at the same time. I would drive to my sister's house in Maryland (a grueling 3-hours on soul-sucking I-95) to dress, then drive another 45 minutes to the wedding in Baltimore and leave after a couple hours to drive to D.C. to see the show.
To paraphrase Rhett Butler (who once told Scarlet, "I can't go all my life waiting to catch you between husbands"), clearly I couldn't go all my life waiting to catch Paul Weller between weddings. It was now or never.
The wedding was at Gertrude's, the restaurant at the Baltimore Museum of Art, a place I've visited for art exhibitions as well as for brunches and dinner. It's a lovely spot and this was the first visit to afford me the chance to stroll the sculpture garden, as pleasurable for the art as for the opportunity to stretch my legs after so much time in traffic.
Everything about the wedding was charming: the bride's ballerina length dress worn with blue kitten-heeled pumps, the ceremony taking place on stone slabs over the fountain, the easygoing charm of the online-ordained officiant (after both bride and groom said "I do," he responded, "Okay!").
But like Cinderella, I had a deadline so after the wedding, cocktail hour and toasts to the happy couple were raised, this fan was changing out of her wedding-appropriate dress ($4.50 at the thrift store) and into something more music show appropriate ($3) to make her way to her hometown.
Congratulations, have a happy life and I'll catch you later.
If you know me, it's hardly surprising that I immediately got turned around (despite printed directions) leaving the museum and drove around lost until flagging down a stranger who directed me south. The good news was that once I was in D.C., my lack of navigational skills were a moot point since it's a city I know and understand.
My parking spot was on the block with the theater, not obviously illegal and a miracle considering how late I was (too late to find anyone in search of a ticket since I had a spare). I'd expected to miss the opener, Lucy Rose, but Paul had already started when I got inside, too.
An usher assured me I'd only missed a few songs - a miracle considering how long I'd been lost in Charm City - and I could finally breathe now that I'd arrived at my long denied destination. All the seats seemed to be taken (it was hard to tell with so many people standing in front of them and dancing) while the aisles and sides of the venue were lined with those happy just to have standing room.
The theater was noticeably hot, undoubtedly a function of a sold-out crowd and a whole lot of shaking going on. I took off my little jacket, grateful my dress had an open back. This was a party.
I joined the hordes to worship at the altar of the Modfather, as he dazzled the crowd with so many good songs: an extended version of "My Ever Changing Moods," a horn-blaring version of Style Council's "Shout to the Top" and a shimmering "Above the Clouds," to name some highlights.
Fans - perhaps as long-deprived as me - weren't shy about calling out requests and Paul reminded them, "We can't do everything. I've got something like 150 songs!" I couldn't have been the only one who'd have listened to as many as he was willing to sing.
A guy named Demetri introduced himself and asked if I'd seen Paul before. I gave him the Cliff Notes version of my saga and he told me that although a long-time fan, the only reason he was there was because a buddy had bought him a ticket.
"This is a great show," he gushed. "It definitely goes in the storybook of my life." Maybe he meant scrapbook, I don't know, but I understood perfectly what he meant. I'd waited years to be here listening to this.
Wearing a fitted pale blue sweater over blue gray pants and white shoes, Paul looked every inch the aging Modfather and moved easily between guitar and keyboard duties while belting that soulful voice to the rafters and inciting butterflies in middle-aged women's psyches throughout the Lincoln Theatre.
Remember how we started on a summer's night
Too drunk to care about what might
You turned my head to kiss your lips
Time stood still as my heart skipped a beat
If I could, I'd take your hand and lead you off back to the past
I know a trail, a secret mile, better to cry than never smile...
Since I'd been tardy, I was thrilled he and his band did two encores, one that included "Hopper" about painter Edward Hopper from his album "Kindness Revolution" released this summer and the second that graced us with the Jam's "Start!" to bring it all full circle.
Driving home with the windows down listening to Paul Weller's eponymous first solo album (which a friend had told me in 1992 he could put on and listen to endlessly on repeat, a friend who Facebook said had been at the show tonight) as well as to his "Studio 150" album from 2004 (a gift from the same person who'd given me tonight's tickets and couldn't attend), I felt like I'd finally achieved the impossible.
Uh huh, oh yeh, I got to see Paul Weller perform and it only took seven hours on the road, $7.50 worth of dresses and 35 years of fandom to add the Modfather to the storybook of my life.
Shout it to the top: finally, no wedding was able to stop it.
Showing posts with label gertrude's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gertrude's. Show all posts
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Weekend Playlist
Charm City beckoned with stolen art and fine food.
After over a year of reading about the tiny Renoir painting stolen from the Baltimore Museum of Art before even I was born (1951), supposedly found and bought in a flea market for $7 and ordered returned to the BMA in January, I finally had my chance to see "On the Shore of the Seine."
It was part of a new show called "The Renoir Returns" that focused on Baltimore collector Sadie May, the woman who first acquired the Renoir in 1925 along with 20 other works by pivotal 20th century artists like Picasso, Klee and Mondrian.
But you don't just jump into that kind of art after a scenic drive up Route 301 on a Sunday morning, you ease into it, meaning brunch at the BMA's restaurant, Gertrude, a place I'd eaten only twice before.
Our bar reservation was awaiting us, a duo was playing keyboard and clarinet, so what could be better than starting Sunday with Le Fils de Gras Moutons Muscadet Sevre et Maine along with a dozen Connecticut oysters?
Short answer: nothing, really.
Our pretty, Russian bartender kept our glasses full while I took in a fluffy garden omelet of squash, zucchini, onions and broccoli with ricotta along with a special of Mosley's farm scrapple, not as good as the scrapple I recently had at Pomegranate, but pretty darn tasty.
To get to the museum proper, we had to walk back outside and in again because the BMA seems to be undergoing the same sort of major renovation Richmonders dealt with while the VMFA was brought into the 21st century.
But once upstairs with Sadie May's lovely artwork, all thoughts went to this wonderful woman who'd had the foresight to collect these artists before most people had any idea who they were.
For me, the most delightful part of the tiny Renoir was that it had been painted on a damask table napkin from a restaurant along the river. The impressionistic scene so captivated the painter that he used the closest thing to capture it.
Another significant work on view was Seraut's small oil preparatory sketch for his "La Grande Jatte" masterpiece, purchased on the same day in 1925 as the Renoir. The receipt for both - at a grand total of $2,000- was also included in the exhibit.
So was the first Cubist painting Sadie ever bought, a 1924 still life of fruit and a knife on a curved table by Picasso in brilliant shades of purple, green and brick red
Like the Cone sisters, who also were avid art collectors who donated generously to the BMA, Sadie did our fair sex proud with her unerring eye for collecting art that would matter.
After a full afternoon of art, we took a turn for the declasse, heading to Fell's Point and the tiny and undoubtedly unchanging Bar (writing on white board, "Yes, we're a bar called Bar"), a narrow stretch of a building with a pool table in the back, window unit air conditioners embedded in the walls and about an inch of dust on the top of the wineglasses.
I ordered tequila to be safe while the genial owner began by telling us about how she'd spent her day, having just come on duty.
Seems she'd taken bags and bags of beer cans home over the winter intending to recycle them, but she'd ignored them so long that the bags had split and she was now finding herself faced with recollecting and bagging all those old cans.
Such is the glamour of being a Baltimore bar owner, it seems.
She inquired if we were in town for the tattoo convention (as if!), leading to a discussion of why the three of us are un-inked, while we sipped and she shared that Bar has been open every Sunday since 1974 except for two, when she didn't feel like working.
I was beginning to understand why the Museum of Industry is in Baltimore. Working stiffs, indeed.
After a walk along the harbor, we set out for the highly-touted Woodberry Kitchen and our second reservation of the day.
I'd been warned that the place was big, but I put my back to the dining room and instead had a view of the softly lit outdoor dining room, with the bustle around the wood-burning oven behind me.
Our server was adorable and when I asked about her cute apron, she proudly told me in her squeaky, sweet voice that she'd made it out of several other Woodberry aprons and is hoping to start an Etsy shop for her sewing projects which are her passion.
Right about then, our passion was a bottle of beautiful, salmon-colored Robert Sinskey Vin Gris of Pinto Noir, a Rose befitting the low key but beautiful setting that felt light years away from the pubs along the harbor.
Starting with radishes with tops in tarragon ranch and herb butter, we moved on to Coppa and beef tongue, served with - I kid you not - what was labeled "adorable toast" (it may have been adorable, but two slices was best described as insufficient until our kewpie pie eventually brought two more), stone fruit mostarda and Russian dressing.
When our server raved about the wood roasted asparagus with espelette butter and bread crumbs, we took her at her word and had some to the most delicious asparagus we could have hoped for.
The musical selections were as pleasurable as the asparagus, not too obvious or overplayed, so I inquired of the source, learning it was Spotify's "weekend playlist," a meaningless moniker for such good song choices.
I also gave them points because every single bathroom was labeled "women and men" and were wallpapered in old cookbook pages. How have I not seen that done before now?
For dinner I chose Croque Monisuer flatbread with mustard cream, smoked ham, cheddar and pickled mustard seed, essentially a high end pizza with terrific crust cooked in that killer wood burning oven while my date got wood roasted sausages of Weisswurst and Kofta, although he immediately requested mustard, feeling like it was the one element missing.
For dessert, I briefly considered the farmstead cheese plate, impressed that all three cheeses were from Maryland, but with help from the cute server ("If you like chocolate, that's the one to get"), decided on the kitchen sink, a sundae of cookie dough ice cream, hot fudge, dice-sized cubes of brownies and blondies under whipped cream.
Did I need dessert? No. Did I appreciate lingering over a sweet while finishing the beautiful Rose as the dining room cleared out and we became surrounded by empty tables with candles flickering on them?
I did. Why, it was downright charming.
After over a year of reading about the tiny Renoir painting stolen from the Baltimore Museum of Art before even I was born (1951), supposedly found and bought in a flea market for $7 and ordered returned to the BMA in January, I finally had my chance to see "On the Shore of the Seine."
It was part of a new show called "The Renoir Returns" that focused on Baltimore collector Sadie May, the woman who first acquired the Renoir in 1925 along with 20 other works by pivotal 20th century artists like Picasso, Klee and Mondrian.
But you don't just jump into that kind of art after a scenic drive up Route 301 on a Sunday morning, you ease into it, meaning brunch at the BMA's restaurant, Gertrude, a place I'd eaten only twice before.
Our bar reservation was awaiting us, a duo was playing keyboard and clarinet, so what could be better than starting Sunday with Le Fils de Gras Moutons Muscadet Sevre et Maine along with a dozen Connecticut oysters?
Short answer: nothing, really.
Our pretty, Russian bartender kept our glasses full while I took in a fluffy garden omelet of squash, zucchini, onions and broccoli with ricotta along with a special of Mosley's farm scrapple, not as good as the scrapple I recently had at Pomegranate, but pretty darn tasty.
To get to the museum proper, we had to walk back outside and in again because the BMA seems to be undergoing the same sort of major renovation Richmonders dealt with while the VMFA was brought into the 21st century.
But once upstairs with Sadie May's lovely artwork, all thoughts went to this wonderful woman who'd had the foresight to collect these artists before most people had any idea who they were.
For me, the most delightful part of the tiny Renoir was that it had been painted on a damask table napkin from a restaurant along the river. The impressionistic scene so captivated the painter that he used the closest thing to capture it.
Another significant work on view was Seraut's small oil preparatory sketch for his "La Grande Jatte" masterpiece, purchased on the same day in 1925 as the Renoir. The receipt for both - at a grand total of $2,000- was also included in the exhibit.
So was the first Cubist painting Sadie ever bought, a 1924 still life of fruit and a knife on a curved table by Picasso in brilliant shades of purple, green and brick red
Like the Cone sisters, who also were avid art collectors who donated generously to the BMA, Sadie did our fair sex proud with her unerring eye for collecting art that would matter.
After a full afternoon of art, we took a turn for the declasse, heading to Fell's Point and the tiny and undoubtedly unchanging Bar (writing on white board, "Yes, we're a bar called Bar"), a narrow stretch of a building with a pool table in the back, window unit air conditioners embedded in the walls and about an inch of dust on the top of the wineglasses.
I ordered tequila to be safe while the genial owner began by telling us about how she'd spent her day, having just come on duty.
Seems she'd taken bags and bags of beer cans home over the winter intending to recycle them, but she'd ignored them so long that the bags had split and she was now finding herself faced with recollecting and bagging all those old cans.
Such is the glamour of being a Baltimore bar owner, it seems.
She inquired if we were in town for the tattoo convention (as if!), leading to a discussion of why the three of us are un-inked, while we sipped and she shared that Bar has been open every Sunday since 1974 except for two, when she didn't feel like working.
I was beginning to understand why the Museum of Industry is in Baltimore. Working stiffs, indeed.
After a walk along the harbor, we set out for the highly-touted Woodberry Kitchen and our second reservation of the day.
I'd been warned that the place was big, but I put my back to the dining room and instead had a view of the softly lit outdoor dining room, with the bustle around the wood-burning oven behind me.
Our server was adorable and when I asked about her cute apron, she proudly told me in her squeaky, sweet voice that she'd made it out of several other Woodberry aprons and is hoping to start an Etsy shop for her sewing projects which are her passion.
Right about then, our passion was a bottle of beautiful, salmon-colored Robert Sinskey Vin Gris of Pinto Noir, a Rose befitting the low key but beautiful setting that felt light years away from the pubs along the harbor.
Starting with radishes with tops in tarragon ranch and herb butter, we moved on to Coppa and beef tongue, served with - I kid you not - what was labeled "adorable toast" (it may have been adorable, but two slices was best described as insufficient until our kewpie pie eventually brought two more), stone fruit mostarda and Russian dressing.
When our server raved about the wood roasted asparagus with espelette butter and bread crumbs, we took her at her word and had some to the most delicious asparagus we could have hoped for.
The musical selections were as pleasurable as the asparagus, not too obvious or overplayed, so I inquired of the source, learning it was Spotify's "weekend playlist," a meaningless moniker for such good song choices.
I also gave them points because every single bathroom was labeled "women and men" and were wallpapered in old cookbook pages. How have I not seen that done before now?
For dinner I chose Croque Monisuer flatbread with mustard cream, smoked ham, cheddar and pickled mustard seed, essentially a high end pizza with terrific crust cooked in that killer wood burning oven while my date got wood roasted sausages of Weisswurst and Kofta, although he immediately requested mustard, feeling like it was the one element missing.
For dessert, I briefly considered the farmstead cheese plate, impressed that all three cheeses were from Maryland, but with help from the cute server ("If you like chocolate, that's the one to get"), decided on the kitchen sink, a sundae of cookie dough ice cream, hot fudge, dice-sized cubes of brownies and blondies under whipped cream.
Did I need dessert? No. Did I appreciate lingering over a sweet while finishing the beautiful Rose as the dining room cleared out and we became surrounded by empty tables with candles flickering on them?
I did. Why, it was downright charming.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Leave the Light On, Darling
I do not know my way around Charm City.
Heading there on the BW Parkway, we passed a flashing highway sign that said, "Speed Enforced...Smooth Operator."
Call us idiots, but we had no idea what that meant or why it would be on a sign.
Despite four trips to Baltimore in the past three years, I was useless as a navigator on today's odyssey.
Oh, we got there just fine, but ended up doing the Grand Tour of Baltimore neighborhoods once inside the city limits.
Wouldn't you just know the only ones we didn't hit were Canton and Fell's Point, the two areas I know.
We passed row houses with marble stoops in almost every neighborhood. We admired rooftop decks with views of Camden Yards.
Somewhere after the Greek neighborhood but before the Latino neighborhood, we passed Corn Beef Heaven but didn't have the sense to stop.
Or later, any idea where we had seen it.
Didn't a wise man say that it's the things you don't do that you regret?
When we discovered Corned Beef Row, we couldn't find the corned beef. Luckily, we kept our humor and kept going.
It only took one heavily-accented gas station owner, one not-nearly-scruffy- enough art student, one tattooed girl walking a dog and one female mailman to set us on the right path.
Days, weeks and months later, we arrived at the Baltimore Museum of Art, home to an incredible collection of Matisse works.
Given our delayed start, we wasted no time in scoping out the Cone Collection.
Claribel and Etta Cone were Baltimore residents who had a life-long passion for collecting Matisse's work.
And money, apparently. Lots and lots of cash.
Included in one of the galleries was a flat screen with a virtual tour of the sisters' 1930s Baltimore apartment.
By touching the screen, you could enter rooms, walk down hallways and open doors where every inch of wall space, bathrooms included, was covered in art.
I aspire to be a Cone sister.
There's nothing like walking galleries filled with Matisses of every size and color palette with another art geek.
We would have made normal people gag with our non-stop art references.
There were two Giacometti sculptures of human figures, one that made me weak in the knees, and both much bigger than any others of his I've seen .
"Man Pointing" had the rough-hewn look of so many Giacomettis, but a real presence. You wanted to follow his finger.
"Headless Woman" was as smooth as glass and truly a stunning representation of the female form, if a bit attenuated.
The artist said that his female figures represented the way he felt when he looked at a woman.
I'd say that it's the way a woman would want a man to feel when he looked at her.
The time passed so quickly that we only had time for a little European art and the American period rooms before a guard warned us it was almost closing time.
Hoping to unobtrusively linger, we slipped into an empty American painting gallery only to have the lights flickered, indicating they were serious about closing time.
Fine. Close your museum before people are ready to leave.
Not to worry, we took the stairs down to Gertrude's where we had a reservation at the bar for dinner.
Our bartender immediately got our attention with his Moonshine Manhattan, an alluring combination of Corsair Wry Moon un-aged rye whiskey, blood orange bitters, white sweet vermouth and a Luxardo cherry.
Because the Wry Moon rye is un-aged, technically it's moonshine, which made for my second moonshine this week should anyone be counting.
Going forward, Friend chose the White Hall Cabernet Franc and I the Paul Jaboulet "Parallele 45" Rose.
The bartender gave me major props for my pink choice, acknowledging that he was a fan.
"Good choice. I've been drinking that all summer," he endorsed.
Getting lost and ogling nudes make a person hungry and we were starving.
P.E.I mussels were a logical place to start, especially because of the unique broth of Loose Canon Ale and grain mustard with Andouille sausage.
I liked the broth a lot but my beer-loving friend loved the broth and sopped long after I'd given up.
Mmm, beer.
A huge seafood salad of mixed greens with lump crab meat, scallops and shrimp was offset with BBQ pulled pork sliders with chow chow on brioche buns.
"You really can't have too much pig, can you?" my friend asked rhetorically.
No, but I really can't have too much art, either.
We drove home through a driving rainstorm that turned 95 into an endless parking lot with brake lights everywhere.
Even so, it couldn't take away from a perfectly charming day sipping moonshine in Charm City.
Our only regret was that the lights went out too soon.
Heading there on the BW Parkway, we passed a flashing highway sign that said, "Speed Enforced...Smooth Operator."
Call us idiots, but we had no idea what that meant or why it would be on a sign.
Despite four trips to Baltimore in the past three years, I was useless as a navigator on today's odyssey.
Oh, we got there just fine, but ended up doing the Grand Tour of Baltimore neighborhoods once inside the city limits.
Wouldn't you just know the only ones we didn't hit were Canton and Fell's Point, the two areas I know.
We passed row houses with marble stoops in almost every neighborhood. We admired rooftop decks with views of Camden Yards.
Somewhere after the Greek neighborhood but before the Latino neighborhood, we passed Corn Beef Heaven but didn't have the sense to stop.
Or later, any idea where we had seen it.
Didn't a wise man say that it's the things you don't do that you regret?
When we discovered Corned Beef Row, we couldn't find the corned beef. Luckily, we kept our humor and kept going.
It only took one heavily-accented gas station owner, one not-nearly-scruffy- enough art student, one tattooed girl walking a dog and one female mailman to set us on the right path.
Days, weeks and months later, we arrived at the Baltimore Museum of Art, home to an incredible collection of Matisse works.
Given our delayed start, we wasted no time in scoping out the Cone Collection.
Claribel and Etta Cone were Baltimore residents who had a life-long passion for collecting Matisse's work.
And money, apparently. Lots and lots of cash.
Included in one of the galleries was a flat screen with a virtual tour of the sisters' 1930s Baltimore apartment.
By touching the screen, you could enter rooms, walk down hallways and open doors where every inch of wall space, bathrooms included, was covered in art.
I aspire to be a Cone sister.
There's nothing like walking galleries filled with Matisses of every size and color palette with another art geek.
We would have made normal people gag with our non-stop art references.
There were two Giacometti sculptures of human figures, one that made me weak in the knees, and both much bigger than any others of his I've seen .
"Man Pointing" had the rough-hewn look of so many Giacomettis, but a real presence. You wanted to follow his finger.
"Headless Woman" was as smooth as glass and truly a stunning representation of the female form, if a bit attenuated.
The artist said that his female figures represented the way he felt when he looked at a woman.
I'd say that it's the way a woman would want a man to feel when he looked at her.
The time passed so quickly that we only had time for a little European art and the American period rooms before a guard warned us it was almost closing time.
Hoping to unobtrusively linger, we slipped into an empty American painting gallery only to have the lights flickered, indicating they were serious about closing time.
Fine. Close your museum before people are ready to leave.
Not to worry, we took the stairs down to Gertrude's where we had a reservation at the bar for dinner.
Our bartender immediately got our attention with his Moonshine Manhattan, an alluring combination of Corsair Wry Moon un-aged rye whiskey, blood orange bitters, white sweet vermouth and a Luxardo cherry.
Because the Wry Moon rye is un-aged, technically it's moonshine, which made for my second moonshine this week should anyone be counting.
Going forward, Friend chose the White Hall Cabernet Franc and I the Paul Jaboulet "Parallele 45" Rose.
The bartender gave me major props for my pink choice, acknowledging that he was a fan.
"Good choice. I've been drinking that all summer," he endorsed.
Getting lost and ogling nudes make a person hungry and we were starving.
P.E.I mussels were a logical place to start, especially because of the unique broth of Loose Canon Ale and grain mustard with Andouille sausage.
I liked the broth a lot but my beer-loving friend loved the broth and sopped long after I'd given up.
Mmm, beer.
A huge seafood salad of mixed greens with lump crab meat, scallops and shrimp was offset with BBQ pulled pork sliders with chow chow on brioche buns.
"You really can't have too much pig, can you?" my friend asked rhetorically.
No, but I really can't have too much art, either.
We drove home through a driving rainstorm that turned 95 into an endless parking lot with brake lights everywhere.
Even so, it couldn't take away from a perfectly charming day sipping moonshine in Charm City.
Our only regret was that the lights went out too soon.
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