For the record I am not particularly, nor have I ever been, a Joan Jett fan.
That said, I didn't hesitate when I saw that the James River Film Society was screening "Bad Reputation," the new documentary (I am, after all, a major documentary dork) about her at the Visual Arts Center, grabbing a couple of tickets the moment I saw it would be showing a few weeks later on a Friday night.
And not that I needed validation, but the next day at lunch with a favorite Gemini, she brought up seeing a photo of Joan Jett online. "Maybe it's the hair, but I immediately thought of you," she told me. "That was your era, right?"
Technically it was, because the Runaways first album came out in 1976, although I didn't know that until I saw the documentary. Sort of like I didn't know that Rolling Stone considers her one of the top 100 guitarists of all time. Nor did I have a clue that her first band, the Runaways, were teenagers and considered a glam band.
Look, I couldn't pay attention to everything being played in the '70s and frankly, disco offered the allure of dancing, so I missed out on a lot of rock 'n roll back then. But I digress.
Since it only made sense to invite someone who'd been a music lover when Joan kicked off her career, Mr. Wright got the other ticket and we set off to up our Joan Jett knowledge. Always eager to park once and party twice, I chose El Pope for dinner, mainly so I could have their "Best in the Fan" pupusas again while Mr. Wright demolished chicken and Chorizo sopapillas.
Honestly, I don't know how this place has hung on in the high-rent Fan for over a year now, but I do know that despite a dining room that never seems to get full, they put out some stellar food and always with a smile. For my three pupusa mix, I chose tilapia, shrimp and bean, mainly because the other times I'd not been asked to choose and had wound up with pork, beans and beef. Delicious all, but it was time for something different.
Besides, Joan Jett's a vegetarian, so it was the least I could do.
Walking into Vis Arts, we ran into MJ, the guy responsible for the James River Film Society all these years. After apologizing for not getting a chance to chat at the Silent Music Revival a few weeks ago, he shared that "Bad Reputation" had played at Movieland for exactly one screening (for 63 people) and that was part of the reason they decided to show it.
I hadn't even gotten wind of that one screening, so I was just glad that fellow movie and film fans were on the ball.
The evening began with trivia and a t-shirt giveaway, but no one seemed to know Joan's real name - Joan Larkin - so I felt better about being there despite my lack of Joan Jett cred. At the very least, I was alive all the while she was making music, even if I wasn't paying attention.
And now that I've seen the documentary, I'm a little ashamed that I wasn't following her. There's no doubt that the woman is a feminist icon, from her early days with an all girl band through her years spent proving that women can be killer guitarists to all the artists she's helped, mentored or played/sung on their records.
I mean, this is the woman who fronted the two remaining members of Nirvana in their performance when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after Cobain died. I can't imagine how many musicians would have sold their soul to be taking Cobain's place on that stage.
Yet one of the most startling things about the documentary was all the old photographs of Joan, first as a fresh-faced teenager, later as a serious '80s babe with spiky hair, smokey eyes and serious attitude. Asked to describe her trademark shag haircut, she referred to it as "a bastardized bob." I'm telling you, Joan Jett has always been an attractive woman, although I was far less impressed with her current nip and tuck/botox look. I'll never understand wanting to look that fake.
Plastic surgeries aside, watching clips of her performing for the past 40+ years was nothing short of awe-inspiring because of her mad guitar skills and full-on punk attitude. That she chose not to marry or have kids only made her devotion to rock and roll more obvious, never more clearly shown than in a clip when she was on a '70s talk show and asked about those two feminine goals.
Joan was on a mission to rock the world and there was no place for something so mundane as diapers in her life.
Considering the subject, it was a wide-ranging group of people who made up the talking heads in the documentary. What I'm saying is, when's the last time Iggy Pop, Michael J. Fox, Miley Cyrus and Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day shared the screen (don't even get me started on Debbie Harry in her bug-like sunglasses, obviously intended to hide her eyes).
And that's without even acknowledging how Nikki Haley got in there.
Where the film let me down was on the subject of anything personal because clearly Joan wasn't interested in sharing that part of herself, although given how often she was the onscreen talking head, there was no shortage of Joan commenting about her musical life.
The good news is, I'll never hear a Joan Jett song the same again. I didn't even recall that she'd covered "Crimson and Clover" in 1983, not even bothering to change the pronouns from "her" to "him."
Put another dime in the jukebox, baby, that's how much Joan loved rock and roll. My era or not, I may not have been a fan before, but I sure am now.
Showing posts with label james river film society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label james river film society. Show all posts
Monday, November 12, 2018
Sunday, August 27, 2017
If It Sells, It Smells
Vaginacore. That's a thing.
If there was one takeaway from tonight, it was that vaginacore is a musical genre. I'm not even sure how that could surprise me, but it does.
My evening began at My Noodle & Bar, where the door was open to the beautiful night and the music was set to pure '90s: Alannis Morrisette, Soul Asylum, Spin Doctors. You could practically smell the flannel shirts and not in a good way.
I'd barely taken a stool for dinner when I heard my name called. In between the new decor of glass bottles holding herbs and greens along the bar (I like it), I could see Mac on the other side. It was strangely weird since we've never run into each other out before.
Behind me, conversation flew between the occupants of a table of eight.
Doesn't everyone go to Target on Saturdays?
He's got the handwriting of a 32-year old woman!
Got it! I'll send copies to you.
When their food began arriving, no one touched it. It was only once the older looking man said a prolonged grace in a language I didn't recognize that people began to pick up their chopsticks and eat.
Meanwhile, I had a documentary to make at 8:00, so when the bartender asked me if I wanted anything besides water, I declined. Funny, but he laid the drink menu back in front of me anyway.
"In case you change your mind," he says. "That no didn't sound very confident." Cheeky devil.
A group of 4 sat down at the corner of the bar (I pegged them for medical students) and began discussing what to order for dinner. When the bartender answered their question about making a dish as spicy as requested, it threw them into a collective tizzy.
"Now I have to read the whole menu all over again cause I didn't bother reading the hot ones!" one young woman whined as the others nodded. Her friend was too busy looking at her phone when their order was being taken to give hers, but you can believe the once off the phone, she wanted her order taken pronto.
It doesn't work that way, Snowflake.
Because I'd arrived right as the restaurant had filled up, the kitchen was immediately slammed and my broccoli and chicken entree took a while to show up. On the positive side, its tardy arrival gave me an excuse to "gobble like a field hand," as Mammy told Scarlet in "Gone With the Wind," once it did.
Since I was running behind, I was happy to see the organizer of tonight's documentary screening of "Turn It Around: The Story of East Bay Punk" standing outside the Visual Arts Center when I pulled up. Surely if he was out here, the movie hadn't begun inside.
"Thanks for coming, Karen," he said as I walked inside. Just doing my part for punk, I assured him.
Upstairs, I found the expected group of aging punk rockers I always encounter at punk-related events. Plenty of familiar faces, although not many I know by name.
Two I did know were newlyweds, but he and I also share a love of shoegaze and reverb, so we dished on the new Slowdive album when I stopped to say hello.
Narrated by Iggy Pop, who brought both attitude and gravitas to the reading, the film was a pretty in-depth look at the music scene that sprung up across the bay from San Francisco beginning in 1981. Plenty of archival footage fleshed out the many talking heads, who had aged at various rates, if you know what I mean.
Musician after musician explained to the camera that punk music was their thing not just because they loved its energy but also because it f*cked with people. One guy pegged it as so compelling because it was all these young people singing with such despair.
The film went deep into the scene - it was over 2 1/2 hours long - but moved as quickly as a punk song so it never felt laborious. It had to be detailed to get to all the many bands and offshoots of punk.
En route to the bathroom at intermission, I ran into the musician and nerd who shares my passion for history, poetry and all things intellectual. Being a post-punk musician now, he was most stoked about the upcoming part of the film that dealt with 1987 to 1994, the years when he'd discovered this music.
When we got to talking about our summers, he shared that his had been overtaken by his two latest projects: reading all the Southern Gothic novels he could lay his hands on and watching all the Woody Allen movies he'd never seen.
As he explained it, he really hadn't had time to do much else besides those two things.
But when his face really lighted up was when he told me that directly after the film tonight, he was leaving for Corolla and bringing Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" along with his swimsuit and suntan lotion.
Sounds like an epic beach read to me.
It was some time during the part of the film about 1987 - "when punk became safe for little kids and girls" - that I began to hear overblown Yanni-like music playing softly behind me in sharp contrast to the screaming on the screen.
I looked around several times, and every time the movie had a quiet moment (there was, needless to say, a lot of hardcore thrashing to be heard) I became more certain somebody needed to turn something off.
Only once others began glaring at her did she bother to check her purse and turn off the volume on her phone. Some aging punkers are still learning their technology, it seems.
There were so many great punk band names like Kamala and the Karnivores mentioned, but it would be hard to top the Yeastie Girlz because, well, because they named themselves the Yeastie Girlz. They not only had a message, they "played" tampons on stage to songs like "Ovary Action."
I'm telling you kids, it was a more creative time.
And, yes, as you might expect, they fall under the heading of vaginacore. Just doing my part to get the word out.
If there was one takeaway from tonight, it was that vaginacore is a musical genre. I'm not even sure how that could surprise me, but it does.
My evening began at My Noodle & Bar, where the door was open to the beautiful night and the music was set to pure '90s: Alannis Morrisette, Soul Asylum, Spin Doctors. You could practically smell the flannel shirts and not in a good way.
I'd barely taken a stool for dinner when I heard my name called. In between the new decor of glass bottles holding herbs and greens along the bar (I like it), I could see Mac on the other side. It was strangely weird since we've never run into each other out before.
Behind me, conversation flew between the occupants of a table of eight.
Doesn't everyone go to Target on Saturdays?
He's got the handwriting of a 32-year old woman!
Got it! I'll send copies to you.
When their food began arriving, no one touched it. It was only once the older looking man said a prolonged grace in a language I didn't recognize that people began to pick up their chopsticks and eat.
Meanwhile, I had a documentary to make at 8:00, so when the bartender asked me if I wanted anything besides water, I declined. Funny, but he laid the drink menu back in front of me anyway.
"In case you change your mind," he says. "That no didn't sound very confident." Cheeky devil.
A group of 4 sat down at the corner of the bar (I pegged them for medical students) and began discussing what to order for dinner. When the bartender answered their question about making a dish as spicy as requested, it threw them into a collective tizzy.
"Now I have to read the whole menu all over again cause I didn't bother reading the hot ones!" one young woman whined as the others nodded. Her friend was too busy looking at her phone when their order was being taken to give hers, but you can believe the once off the phone, she wanted her order taken pronto.
It doesn't work that way, Snowflake.
Because I'd arrived right as the restaurant had filled up, the kitchen was immediately slammed and my broccoli and chicken entree took a while to show up. On the positive side, its tardy arrival gave me an excuse to "gobble like a field hand," as Mammy told Scarlet in "Gone With the Wind," once it did.
Since I was running behind, I was happy to see the organizer of tonight's documentary screening of "Turn It Around: The Story of East Bay Punk" standing outside the Visual Arts Center when I pulled up. Surely if he was out here, the movie hadn't begun inside.
"Thanks for coming, Karen," he said as I walked inside. Just doing my part for punk, I assured him.
Upstairs, I found the expected group of aging punk rockers I always encounter at punk-related events. Plenty of familiar faces, although not many I know by name.
Two I did know were newlyweds, but he and I also share a love of shoegaze and reverb, so we dished on the new Slowdive album when I stopped to say hello.
Narrated by Iggy Pop, who brought both attitude and gravitas to the reading, the film was a pretty in-depth look at the music scene that sprung up across the bay from San Francisco beginning in 1981. Plenty of archival footage fleshed out the many talking heads, who had aged at various rates, if you know what I mean.
Musician after musician explained to the camera that punk music was their thing not just because they loved its energy but also because it f*cked with people. One guy pegged it as so compelling because it was all these young people singing with such despair.
The film went deep into the scene - it was over 2 1/2 hours long - but moved as quickly as a punk song so it never felt laborious. It had to be detailed to get to all the many bands and offshoots of punk.
En route to the bathroom at intermission, I ran into the musician and nerd who shares my passion for history, poetry and all things intellectual. Being a post-punk musician now, he was most stoked about the upcoming part of the film that dealt with 1987 to 1994, the years when he'd discovered this music.
When we got to talking about our summers, he shared that his had been overtaken by his two latest projects: reading all the Southern Gothic novels he could lay his hands on and watching all the Woody Allen movies he'd never seen.
As he explained it, he really hadn't had time to do much else besides those two things.
But when his face really lighted up was when he told me that directly after the film tonight, he was leaving for Corolla and bringing Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" along with his swimsuit and suntan lotion.
Sounds like an epic beach read to me.
It was some time during the part of the film about 1987 - "when punk became safe for little kids and girls" - that I began to hear overblown Yanni-like music playing softly behind me in sharp contrast to the screaming on the screen.
I looked around several times, and every time the movie had a quiet moment (there was, needless to say, a lot of hardcore thrashing to be heard) I became more certain somebody needed to turn something off.
Only once others began glaring at her did she bother to check her purse and turn off the volume on her phone. Some aging punkers are still learning their technology, it seems.
There were so many great punk band names like Kamala and the Karnivores mentioned, but it would be hard to top the Yeastie Girlz because, well, because they named themselves the Yeastie Girlz. They not only had a message, they "played" tampons on stage to songs like "Ovary Action."
I'm telling you kids, it was a more creative time.
And, yes, as you might expect, they fall under the heading of vaginacore. Just doing my part to get the word out.
Monday, November 14, 2016
Life Baked in a Beautiful Pie
Good vibrations must be emanating from the Supermoon.
To help beat the post-election funk some of us are experiencing, No BS Brass Band had scheduled an early show at Plan 9 Records. I made sure to arrive early enough to look for a CD I wanted and before most of the crowd wedged itself into the store.
"Hi, y'all," trombonist Reggie Pace said after the first rousing number. "We want the world to be a great place and this is how we do it."
The crowd steadily grew both inside and along the sidewalk outside as the band played through their set - Aha's "Take On Me" and the requisite "RVA All Day" - and people danced in place.
In between grooving, I wound up sharing my clementine with the toddler being held by her mother next to me. Once she saw what I had, she'd hold out a fat little hand so I could deposit a segment into it (and once in the pocket of her smock, much to her delight) until my fruit was no more.
Her Mom thanked me profusely, but if you can't share your citrus with a babe-in-arms, you're not really trying to make the world a great place, now are you?
The exuberant show ended with Reggie and a lot of us holding up peace signs in the air and hugging each other. Outside on the sidewalk, I paused to talk to friends, hearing the same refrain repeatedly: "I needed that. We needed that."
I was far from the only one at Plan 9 who was then headed down the block to the Byrd to see Jim Jarmusch's new documentary about Iggy Pop and the Stooges, "Gimme Danger" at its sole Richmond screening.
As I'd anticipated, there were scads of friends in the near-capacity crowd and, by some miracle, a favorite couple ended up right next to me shortly before Mike of the James River Film Society spoke.
He said that they'd been trying to get Jarmusch to speak at the James River Film Festival for years, first sending him Virginia peanuts and another year, Virginia bourbon. always with an invitation to come. So far he's only sent thank you postcards, but hope springs eternal.
"No luck yet, but we'll keep working on it," he shared.
I'm a sucker for a good documentary (much less one screened in Surround Sound with a roomful of music lovers) and tonight's delivered with fun facts, rare performance footage and lots of Iggy aka Jim talking about his memories of the past 50 years.
Fact: he was originally inspired by Clarabelle on "Howdy Doody" and Soupy Sales because both characters did anything they wanted to do and that appealed to him.
After starting his musical life as a drummer, he got tired of looking at butts and took over front man duties. When the band added a sax player, he told him he wanted him to sound like Maceo Parker on acid.
I learned we share a similarity when he mentioned his attraction to people who "are in their adulthood who haven't lost their childhood." The kind of person who invented the stage dive when they were opening for Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention ("The best band, in my opinion, we'd opened for at that point").
He spoke about their "big brother band," MC5 and how he remembers when they were just a cover band. There was a show poster with the Stooges and Bob Seeger on the same bill, a seemingly unlikely pairing except for their shared hometown.
What was truly amazing to see was the evolution of his stage performance, which is to say that somehow, he's still performing the acrobatic and contortionist moves he was at 20, still bare-chested (although not bleeding) and nimble as few 70-year olds could even imagine being.
Mostly, the fascinating documentary made a case for Iggy's statement to Dinah Shore on her '70s talk show when she asked about his main accomplishment.
"I helped wipe out the '60s," he said without irony and Jarmusch's film assembled all the vintage footage and interviews to prove it.
Leaving the Byrd, I couldn't help but thank the organizer who'd made sure this film came to Richmond, making for a stellar way to cap off this tumultuous week.
Things were even higher pitched when I arrived at intermission at the Firehouse Theater for the Glapcocks (hilarious anti-awards the theatrical community hands itself) and was greeted by the recent winner of the "most animalistic" award, her glowing green trophy in hand.
More crazy awards followed and after "Most Ghost," co-host Matt (along with leggy co-host Maggie) acknowledged, "We really should sell tickets to the night we come up with all these crazy categories. It's an open bar event." That much was easy to believe and would undoubtedly be well worth the price of admission.
Once awards had been given out, we moved on to a theater kid's favorite event: the theater mannequin challenge. The entire room was instructed to form tableaux with others so that a 360-degree video could be shot of all of us frozen into a mid-action pose.
Don't ask me why. I'm not and never was a theater kid.
"This side of the room looks kind of dead," Annie, the videographer announced, pointing at my side of the room, so, with no shame at all, I turned around and engaged the guy behind me.
I'm here to tell you it was challenging for this non-actor to stare into someone's eyes for the minute-plus it takes to shoot a roomful of people and finally get to me.
The rest of the evening was devoted to singing, at least in the style of the Ghostlight After Parties of old, when actors get up and sing a favorite show tune to a pianist sight-reading the music.
Turns out Ian, whose eyes I'd stared into, had a fabulous voice, while co-host Matt proclaimed another Matt "dreamy" (and simulated oral sex with his microphone to demonstrate just how dreamy) while he sang "I'd Rather Be Sailing."
Kelsey accompanied herself on ukulele to "She Used to Be Mine" from "Waitress, the Musical," crushing the room with her talent.
She is messy, but she's kind
She is lonely most of the time
She is all of this mixed up and baked in a beautiful pie
She is gone but she used to be mine
A few people attempted a group version of "One Day More," but there were a lot of forgotten lyrics and tepid singing (except for the impressive Ian behind me, who asked rhetorically, "How does no one know these words?") when our host Matt walked back in, saying, "What happened? I leave for five minutes!"
For the traditional singalong finale, we tried Toto's "Africa," but that didn't go so well (and why should millennials know a 40-year old pop song word for word?), so the evening closed out with the always reliable "Season of Love" instead.
525,600 minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets
In midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles
In laughter, in strife
In 525,600 minutes
How do you measure a year in the life?
Gorgeous voices knew every nuance of this tune and they were singing in the aisle before it ended with a sustained note. There was no way not to feel the love at the Glapcocks tonight.
As far as this whole Sunday night went, I needed that. We needed that.
To help beat the post-election funk some of us are experiencing, No BS Brass Band had scheduled an early show at Plan 9 Records. I made sure to arrive early enough to look for a CD I wanted and before most of the crowd wedged itself into the store.
"Hi, y'all," trombonist Reggie Pace said after the first rousing number. "We want the world to be a great place and this is how we do it."
The crowd steadily grew both inside and along the sidewalk outside as the band played through their set - Aha's "Take On Me" and the requisite "RVA All Day" - and people danced in place.
In between grooving, I wound up sharing my clementine with the toddler being held by her mother next to me. Once she saw what I had, she'd hold out a fat little hand so I could deposit a segment into it (and once in the pocket of her smock, much to her delight) until my fruit was no more.
Her Mom thanked me profusely, but if you can't share your citrus with a babe-in-arms, you're not really trying to make the world a great place, now are you?
The exuberant show ended with Reggie and a lot of us holding up peace signs in the air and hugging each other. Outside on the sidewalk, I paused to talk to friends, hearing the same refrain repeatedly: "I needed that. We needed that."
I was far from the only one at Plan 9 who was then headed down the block to the Byrd to see Jim Jarmusch's new documentary about Iggy Pop and the Stooges, "Gimme Danger" at its sole Richmond screening.
As I'd anticipated, there were scads of friends in the near-capacity crowd and, by some miracle, a favorite couple ended up right next to me shortly before Mike of the James River Film Society spoke.
He said that they'd been trying to get Jarmusch to speak at the James River Film Festival for years, first sending him Virginia peanuts and another year, Virginia bourbon. always with an invitation to come. So far he's only sent thank you postcards, but hope springs eternal.
"No luck yet, but we'll keep working on it," he shared.
I'm a sucker for a good documentary (much less one screened in Surround Sound with a roomful of music lovers) and tonight's delivered with fun facts, rare performance footage and lots of Iggy aka Jim talking about his memories of the past 50 years.
Fact: he was originally inspired by Clarabelle on "Howdy Doody" and Soupy Sales because both characters did anything they wanted to do and that appealed to him.
After starting his musical life as a drummer, he got tired of looking at butts and took over front man duties. When the band added a sax player, he told him he wanted him to sound like Maceo Parker on acid.
I learned we share a similarity when he mentioned his attraction to people who "are in their adulthood who haven't lost their childhood." The kind of person who invented the stage dive when they were opening for Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention ("The best band, in my opinion, we'd opened for at that point").
He spoke about their "big brother band," MC5 and how he remembers when they were just a cover band. There was a show poster with the Stooges and Bob Seeger on the same bill, a seemingly unlikely pairing except for their shared hometown.
What was truly amazing to see was the evolution of his stage performance, which is to say that somehow, he's still performing the acrobatic and contortionist moves he was at 20, still bare-chested (although not bleeding) and nimble as few 70-year olds could even imagine being.
Mostly, the fascinating documentary made a case for Iggy's statement to Dinah Shore on her '70s talk show when she asked about his main accomplishment.
"I helped wipe out the '60s," he said without irony and Jarmusch's film assembled all the vintage footage and interviews to prove it.
Leaving the Byrd, I couldn't help but thank the organizer who'd made sure this film came to Richmond, making for a stellar way to cap off this tumultuous week.
Things were even higher pitched when I arrived at intermission at the Firehouse Theater for the Glapcocks (hilarious anti-awards the theatrical community hands itself) and was greeted by the recent winner of the "most animalistic" award, her glowing green trophy in hand.
More crazy awards followed and after "Most Ghost," co-host Matt (along with leggy co-host Maggie) acknowledged, "We really should sell tickets to the night we come up with all these crazy categories. It's an open bar event." That much was easy to believe and would undoubtedly be well worth the price of admission.
Once awards had been given out, we moved on to a theater kid's favorite event: the theater mannequin challenge. The entire room was instructed to form tableaux with others so that a 360-degree video could be shot of all of us frozen into a mid-action pose.
Don't ask me why. I'm not and never was a theater kid.
"This side of the room looks kind of dead," Annie, the videographer announced, pointing at my side of the room, so, with no shame at all, I turned around and engaged the guy behind me.
I'm here to tell you it was challenging for this non-actor to stare into someone's eyes for the minute-plus it takes to shoot a roomful of people and finally get to me.
The rest of the evening was devoted to singing, at least in the style of the Ghostlight After Parties of old, when actors get up and sing a favorite show tune to a pianist sight-reading the music.
Turns out Ian, whose eyes I'd stared into, had a fabulous voice, while co-host Matt proclaimed another Matt "dreamy" (and simulated oral sex with his microphone to demonstrate just how dreamy) while he sang "I'd Rather Be Sailing."
Kelsey accompanied herself on ukulele to "She Used to Be Mine" from "Waitress, the Musical," crushing the room with her talent.
She is messy, but she's kind
She is lonely most of the time
She is all of this mixed up and baked in a beautiful pie
She is gone but she used to be mine
A few people attempted a group version of "One Day More," but there were a lot of forgotten lyrics and tepid singing (except for the impressive Ian behind me, who asked rhetorically, "How does no one know these words?") when our host Matt walked back in, saying, "What happened? I leave for five minutes!"
For the traditional singalong finale, we tried Toto's "Africa," but that didn't go so well (and why should millennials know a 40-year old pop song word for word?), so the evening closed out with the always reliable "Season of Love" instead.
525,600 minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets
In midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles
In laughter, in strife
In 525,600 minutes
How do you measure a year in the life?
Gorgeous voices knew every nuance of this tune and they were singing in the aisle before it ended with a sustained note. There was no way not to feel the love at the Glapcocks tonight.
As far as this whole Sunday night went, I needed that. We needed that.
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Music for Pleasure
I've been told that I have fashioned my own "happy place."
That hadn't occurred to me, per se. But of course after years of living, I'm clever enough to try to create a life that gives me pleasure in as many ways as possible.
Today's mental inventory shows a thin slice of that.
I have a colorful apartment with a bathroom that has one large window I keep open six months a year. Unless I'm in the shower, that window is big enough to afford me a slice-of-the-sky view where I can feel the vagaries of the outside air. On a southern cliche of a perfect August evening in Richmond, I can admire the length of cloudless blue sky while savoring the washed-clean post-rain breeze.
Granted, it's no outdoor shower, but it's pretty wonderful.
Or I can go to see something unlikely that's landed in Richmond, something like the documentary, "The Damned: Don't You Wish That We Were Dead?" being presented by the James River Film Society.
I'll even go early enough to get to choose which of the Visual Arts Center's folding chairs I want to sit in, a right I feel I have earned since I bought my ticket for this film on May 20th. Yes, two and a half months ago.
I blame Holmes.
He's the friend who'd been terribly surprised to learn that I didn't know the Damned or its best-known guitarist, Captain Sensible. So he did what any good record-collector of a friend would do and pulled out records by both to play for me, right there and then.
He was right. I did like these guys, despite that they'd had little effect on me in my youth.
Walking in to see the movie, I was surprised to be greeted by multi-media, a "wall of the damned," so to speak. One wall was covered with Damned paraphernalia. Posters, pictures, album covers lined the wall and I watched as people had photos of themselves taken in front of certain posters.
Looking around at the crowd, I was reminded of my one and only Tulsa Drone show six years and one day ago. I have friends who met that night and are now married. But what I recall from that evening was the crowd, an older hipster crowd I wasn't used to seeing at Gallery 5.
A friend had informed me that it was the "older hipster crowd," the ones who used to go to a lot of shows but were now raising families. Similar crowd tonight.
First, of course, there was Damned trivia, but it quickly became clear that multiple people not only knew the answers, but were able to shout it out simultaneously. Prizes like SxSW posters from the movie's premiere and, even more fabulous, Captain Sensible bobbleheads were awarded diplomatically.
Then it was time for the film, a terrific mix of vintage footage, more recent shows and all kinds of interesting talking heads, including band members. It made a strong case for the Damned having been every bit as influential (not to mention lasting far longer) than other punk icons such as the Sex Pistols or the Clash.
Disaffected British youth in the '70s, that's all any of them were. But man, the Damned just had so much more talent. Theirs was a black comedy take on punk, blending vaudeville and psychedelia into one big party.
The drollest comment was when someone said, "There was no commercial application for their music." They were singing street songs, songs about the punk scene, but with Captain Sensible's sense of absurdist humor (and talent, occasionally playing guitar with a beer can instead of his fingers) and Dave Vanian's pre-Goth voice and look. Say what?
"They were clowns who could deliver," someone says of them. What else do you need? Never mind the bollocks, where's the Damned?
Tonight's crowd was fully engaged with the film, talking when something onscreen jogged a thought, singing along to some of the concert footage, watching mesmerized.
As is to be expected, the film had more than its fair share of bad British teeth. And with so many British accents spoken, there were times I was wishing for subtitles to fully understand these blokes. Lemmy of Motorhead, forget it. That's English?
Not so the legendary Chrissie Hynde (who was around in the band's early days but they never called her back) who was fully intelligible and still damn fine looking.
An uber fan who'd seen the band 582 times (he kept a log, natch) compared missing a Damned gig to losing the lottery. That's rough. Bitterness over success' elusiveness permeated several key people's interviews.
Talking about the shift away from bloated '70s music, one band member said, "You wanna drive somone from the '70s crazy? Put on the Damned."
Okay, so I walked into this film having heard a limited bit by the band and knowing little beyond that a music friend had told me it was someone I'd appreciate.
Now I'm marveling that this was the first British punk band to put out a record and an album and the first to tour the U.S. That they were carving out such a distinctive niche in punk. That just as significantly, they're mostly still together after countless reinventions some 39 years later.
Organizer Jeff finished the evening by sharing that the Damned plan to tour for their 40th anniversary next year. He's putting up a petition to get them to play Richmond. Where do I go to sign? I'm happy to buy my ticket 2 1/2 months in advance again.
Because clearly the Damned were my kind of band as I only recently found out. "What does it do for you at this age?" the filmmaker asks of band members.
Same thing it does for fans at this age. Everything you let it.
That's how you stay in your happy place.
That hadn't occurred to me, per se. But of course after years of living, I'm clever enough to try to create a life that gives me pleasure in as many ways as possible.
Today's mental inventory shows a thin slice of that.
I have a colorful apartment with a bathroom that has one large window I keep open six months a year. Unless I'm in the shower, that window is big enough to afford me a slice-of-the-sky view where I can feel the vagaries of the outside air. On a southern cliche of a perfect August evening in Richmond, I can admire the length of cloudless blue sky while savoring the washed-clean post-rain breeze.
Granted, it's no outdoor shower, but it's pretty wonderful.
Or I can go to see something unlikely that's landed in Richmond, something like the documentary, "The Damned: Don't You Wish That We Were Dead?" being presented by the James River Film Society.
I'll even go early enough to get to choose which of the Visual Arts Center's folding chairs I want to sit in, a right I feel I have earned since I bought my ticket for this film on May 20th. Yes, two and a half months ago.
I blame Holmes.
He's the friend who'd been terribly surprised to learn that I didn't know the Damned or its best-known guitarist, Captain Sensible. So he did what any good record-collector of a friend would do and pulled out records by both to play for me, right there and then.
He was right. I did like these guys, despite that they'd had little effect on me in my youth.
Walking in to see the movie, I was surprised to be greeted by multi-media, a "wall of the damned," so to speak. One wall was covered with Damned paraphernalia. Posters, pictures, album covers lined the wall and I watched as people had photos of themselves taken in front of certain posters.
Looking around at the crowd, I was reminded of my one and only Tulsa Drone show six years and one day ago. I have friends who met that night and are now married. But what I recall from that evening was the crowd, an older hipster crowd I wasn't used to seeing at Gallery 5.
A friend had informed me that it was the "older hipster crowd," the ones who used to go to a lot of shows but were now raising families. Similar crowd tonight.
First, of course, there was Damned trivia, but it quickly became clear that multiple people not only knew the answers, but were able to shout it out simultaneously. Prizes like SxSW posters from the movie's premiere and, even more fabulous, Captain Sensible bobbleheads were awarded diplomatically.
Then it was time for the film, a terrific mix of vintage footage, more recent shows and all kinds of interesting talking heads, including band members. It made a strong case for the Damned having been every bit as influential (not to mention lasting far longer) than other punk icons such as the Sex Pistols or the Clash.
Disaffected British youth in the '70s, that's all any of them were. But man, the Damned just had so much more talent. Theirs was a black comedy take on punk, blending vaudeville and psychedelia into one big party.
The drollest comment was when someone said, "There was no commercial application for their music." They were singing street songs, songs about the punk scene, but with Captain Sensible's sense of absurdist humor (and talent, occasionally playing guitar with a beer can instead of his fingers) and Dave Vanian's pre-Goth voice and look. Say what?
"They were clowns who could deliver," someone says of them. What else do you need? Never mind the bollocks, where's the Damned?
Tonight's crowd was fully engaged with the film, talking when something onscreen jogged a thought, singing along to some of the concert footage, watching mesmerized.
As is to be expected, the film had more than its fair share of bad British teeth. And with so many British accents spoken, there were times I was wishing for subtitles to fully understand these blokes. Lemmy of Motorhead, forget it. That's English?
Not so the legendary Chrissie Hynde (who was around in the band's early days but they never called her back) who was fully intelligible and still damn fine looking.
An uber fan who'd seen the band 582 times (he kept a log, natch) compared missing a Damned gig to losing the lottery. That's rough. Bitterness over success' elusiveness permeated several key people's interviews.
Talking about the shift away from bloated '70s music, one band member said, "You wanna drive somone from the '70s crazy? Put on the Damned."
Okay, so I walked into this film having heard a limited bit by the band and knowing little beyond that a music friend had told me it was someone I'd appreciate.
Now I'm marveling that this was the first British punk band to put out a record and an album and the first to tour the U.S. That they were carving out such a distinctive niche in punk. That just as significantly, they're mostly still together after countless reinventions some 39 years later.
Organizer Jeff finished the evening by sharing that the Damned plan to tour for their 40th anniversary next year. He's putting up a petition to get them to play Richmond. Where do I go to sign? I'm happy to buy my ticket 2 1/2 months in advance again.
Because clearly the Damned were my kind of band as I only recently found out. "What does it do for you at this age?" the filmmaker asks of band members.
Same thing it does for fans at this age. Everything you let it.
That's how you stay in your happy place.
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Sweet Caroline, Love Will Tear Us Apart
Good thing I already have the big hair. Today was a day which both began and ended in the '80s.
First on my to-do list was to take a man who has been been known to pick me up in his car with Neil Diamond playing to see a Neil tribute band. That's right, the always enjoyable Diamond Heist was playing their monthly musical residency at Cary Street Cafe.
Arriving early enough to stake two choice seats at the end of the bar, we ordered lunch minutes before the show began.
"We're the Shivers and it's 1989," singer Will announced. "Everyone's 25 years younger, but it won't last." A guy walking toward the door to smoke on the patio looked up and commented as he passed, "I had hair."
Sweetheart, we all had things in 1989 we no longer have. I'm willing to bet that some of the women in the room could still pass the pencil test back then.
The band played through original and cover material, including "Dear Prudence," with references to drummer Rick 's house where the back door was always unlocked. Farcically, Will also thanked the Diamond Center for allowing the band to play. "I pulled some strings."
After playing "Vancouver," Will joked, "That was our stealth hit." After playing "89," he hit it again. "That was our second stealth hit." Hits or not, they looked to be having a good time playing together.
During the break, we were chowing down on black bean nachos (my date supplemented with a sandwich) when a guy appeared next to me looking anxious. "I left my card here last night," he told the bartender. "It's red."
Were you drunk, I inquired. "Yea, it's about the tenth time I've done that here." Sounds like someone has a bit of a problem.
When the girl returned with his card, she informed him they'd given themselves a 20% tip on last night's tab. "I'd have given you that much," he gushed, clearly relieved at retrieving it.
The first thing Will announced when he and Diamond Heist took the stage was that today was the one-year anniversary of their gig at Cary Street. Unfortunately, there was no cake to celebrate.
Instead, there were lots of Neil Diamond songs the band had learned since I'd seen them last - "Desiree," "You Got to Me" ( a fave of my seatmate), "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" - and new bad jokes.
After doing "Red, Red Wine," Will reminded the room to tip their bartenders. "And on that note, order a drink." What drink, singer Rebecca asked, playing along. "Love on the Rocks!" and another classic song began.
Drummer Dean was in the hospital, so the crowd was instructed to send good vibes his way, while fill-in (and Shivers') drummer Ricky had learned 34 songs in four days to fill in. The guy did a helluva job.
As I pointed out to my companion, part of the pleasure of a Diamond Heist show is watching the arc of the crowd as they move from straight through loopy to drunk. It didn't take long before people were dancing, some slow dancing and others doing the pony like it was 1967.
A guy in a jean jacket, sleeves cut off, came in to pay his tab and I couldn't help but notice his jacket had a Mt. Calvary Cemetery patch. Since I've walked through that place, I asked why he had it. "I used to live there," he said sullenly as if that explained it.
It was during what Will had called the Neil Diamond polka - the song "Beautiful Noise (nerd alert: I had the album) - while I was chair dancing and having a ball that a stranger came up to me and whispered in my ear, "You have the best legs in the whole place."
I shared that with my date, who kindly confirmed it.
By now, I know I can count on the barn-burner "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show" to be the last song of the last set, but today we got a surprise. As is typical, there are always celebrants at a Diamond Heist show and why not, given the feel-good vibes and guaranteed dancing that accompanies their gigs?
Today we had a woman celebrating her birthday and a couple celebrating one month of wedded bliss (good luck with that) plus someone named Jenny who'd requested a song, a request they saved till last.
That's when drummer Ricky proved his range by not only drumming but by doing lead vocals on "867-5309/Jenny," which got all the drunk women on the floor and gave the rest of us flashbacks to 1982. In a good way, I mean.
I always have a terrific time at a Diamond heist show, so my concern was that the one I'd brung did, too, a fact he confirmed as we left, although his delicate ears were still bleeding from the volume. Since I ruined my ears years ago with overly loud shows, the level hadn't even registered with me after the opening notes of "Forever in Blue Jeans."
After my date dropped me off, I had less than an hour to get ready and over to the Visual Arts Center for Ian Curtis' birthday celebration. Although, does it count as a celebration if the birthday boy has been dead for 35 years?
I walked in to find several musician friends, helped myself to a bag of free popcorn and took a seat with a great view.
The James River Film Society was showing the documentary "Joy Division" along with a couple of experimental films made by VCU film professor Mike Jones back in his student days in...you guessed it, the early '80s.
Jones had been a huge Joy Division fan and influenced by the band when he as making the films. The titles say it all: "Dead Love" and "Dead Friends." The former had been made after a break-up with his girlfriend and was pretty much a poem about his sadness set to black and white images shot at Belle Isle and narrated by trumpeter Paul Watson, whom I've seen many times.
After the second short about a friend who'd died in a car crash, I used the break to look at the outstanding collection of Joy Division records, singles and books on display in the back. Jones posited that their striking album art had probably caused scores of young people to go into communication arts.
Yea, and the rest to form bands.
Tonight's main feature was "Joy Division," a documentary about the seminal band and when better to show it than for lead singer Ian Curtis' birthday? I'd seen the film "Control" a few years ago when the James River Film society had shown it, but Jones said the documentary was better.
Honestly, when isn't a documentary better than a retelling of fact?
This one benefited from scads of fabulous footage of early shows and photo shoots of the four very young men from Manchester who saw an early Sex Pistols show at the Electric Circus and all resolved to form a band.
It didn't hurt that they were all talented and hard-working, none less than Curtis, the lyricist and singer whose frenetic moves onstage were mesmerizing. With the energy of punk and literary-based lyrics expressing complex emotions, they were a sensation almost from the start.
The most challenging part of the film was understanding the extremely thick accents of the musicians, producers and managers who were the talking heads of the film. Once I got past that, it was fascinating.
His wife refused to participate in the making of the film, but his lover agreed and her commentary was some of the most telling about Curtis' difficulties dealing with epilepsy and not wanting to let the band down." Onstage, it was like he was plugged into electric voltage. He was completely outside of himself."
Hardest to understand was how no one in the band paid any attention to the tortured lyrics he was writing or they might have had a clue how bad off he was. The band members admitted to not even listening to the words, a fact which is incomprehensible to someone like me who focuses on the words to a song.
The thing with a documentary is that you know going in how it will end, but you still get completely caught up in the information.
Because who could have imagined that he could have written as brilliant a pop song as "Love Will Tear Us Apart" in a mere three hours? Or that a member of the band would have been told that he'd committed suicide and gone ahead with his Sunday lunch? Or opted out of going to his funeral? Or that the name "Joy Division" came from the name the Nazis gave their military officers' brothel?
Of course it was a fabulous soundtrack because it was all Joy Division, impossible to hear without inadvertently hearing the hundreds of bands who have aped their style or Curtis' distinctive vocals in the ensuing years since his suicide in 1980.
As Neil Diamond sang back in the '70s, done too soon.
First on my to-do list was to take a man who has been been known to pick me up in his car with Neil Diamond playing to see a Neil tribute band. That's right, the always enjoyable Diamond Heist was playing their monthly musical residency at Cary Street Cafe.
Arriving early enough to stake two choice seats at the end of the bar, we ordered lunch minutes before the show began.
"We're the Shivers and it's 1989," singer Will announced. "Everyone's 25 years younger, but it won't last." A guy walking toward the door to smoke on the patio looked up and commented as he passed, "I had hair."
Sweetheart, we all had things in 1989 we no longer have. I'm willing to bet that some of the women in the room could still pass the pencil test back then.
The band played through original and cover material, including "Dear Prudence," with references to drummer Rick 's house where the back door was always unlocked. Farcically, Will also thanked the Diamond Center for allowing the band to play. "I pulled some strings."
After playing "Vancouver," Will joked, "That was our stealth hit." After playing "89," he hit it again. "That was our second stealth hit." Hits or not, they looked to be having a good time playing together.
During the break, we were chowing down on black bean nachos (my date supplemented with a sandwich) when a guy appeared next to me looking anxious. "I left my card here last night," he told the bartender. "It's red."
Were you drunk, I inquired. "Yea, it's about the tenth time I've done that here." Sounds like someone has a bit of a problem.
When the girl returned with his card, she informed him they'd given themselves a 20% tip on last night's tab. "I'd have given you that much," he gushed, clearly relieved at retrieving it.
The first thing Will announced when he and Diamond Heist took the stage was that today was the one-year anniversary of their gig at Cary Street. Unfortunately, there was no cake to celebrate.
Instead, there were lots of Neil Diamond songs the band had learned since I'd seen them last - "Desiree," "You Got to Me" ( a fave of my seatmate), "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" - and new bad jokes.
After doing "Red, Red Wine," Will reminded the room to tip their bartenders. "And on that note, order a drink." What drink, singer Rebecca asked, playing along. "Love on the Rocks!" and another classic song began.
Drummer Dean was in the hospital, so the crowd was instructed to send good vibes his way, while fill-in (and Shivers') drummer Ricky had learned 34 songs in four days to fill in. The guy did a helluva job.
As I pointed out to my companion, part of the pleasure of a Diamond Heist show is watching the arc of the crowd as they move from straight through loopy to drunk. It didn't take long before people were dancing, some slow dancing and others doing the pony like it was 1967.
A guy in a jean jacket, sleeves cut off, came in to pay his tab and I couldn't help but notice his jacket had a Mt. Calvary Cemetery patch. Since I've walked through that place, I asked why he had it. "I used to live there," he said sullenly as if that explained it.
It was during what Will had called the Neil Diamond polka - the song "Beautiful Noise (nerd alert: I had the album) - while I was chair dancing and having a ball that a stranger came up to me and whispered in my ear, "You have the best legs in the whole place."
I shared that with my date, who kindly confirmed it.
By now, I know I can count on the barn-burner "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show" to be the last song of the last set, but today we got a surprise. As is typical, there are always celebrants at a Diamond Heist show and why not, given the feel-good vibes and guaranteed dancing that accompanies their gigs?
Today we had a woman celebrating her birthday and a couple celebrating one month of wedded bliss (good luck with that) plus someone named Jenny who'd requested a song, a request they saved till last.
That's when drummer Ricky proved his range by not only drumming but by doing lead vocals on "867-5309/Jenny," which got all the drunk women on the floor and gave the rest of us flashbacks to 1982. In a good way, I mean.
I always have a terrific time at a Diamond heist show, so my concern was that the one I'd brung did, too, a fact he confirmed as we left, although his delicate ears were still bleeding from the volume. Since I ruined my ears years ago with overly loud shows, the level hadn't even registered with me after the opening notes of "Forever in Blue Jeans."
After my date dropped me off, I had less than an hour to get ready and over to the Visual Arts Center for Ian Curtis' birthday celebration. Although, does it count as a celebration if the birthday boy has been dead for 35 years?
I walked in to find several musician friends, helped myself to a bag of free popcorn and took a seat with a great view.
The James River Film Society was showing the documentary "Joy Division" along with a couple of experimental films made by VCU film professor Mike Jones back in his student days in...you guessed it, the early '80s.
Jones had been a huge Joy Division fan and influenced by the band when he as making the films. The titles say it all: "Dead Love" and "Dead Friends." The former had been made after a break-up with his girlfriend and was pretty much a poem about his sadness set to black and white images shot at Belle Isle and narrated by trumpeter Paul Watson, whom I've seen many times.
After the second short about a friend who'd died in a car crash, I used the break to look at the outstanding collection of Joy Division records, singles and books on display in the back. Jones posited that their striking album art had probably caused scores of young people to go into communication arts.
Yea, and the rest to form bands.
Tonight's main feature was "Joy Division," a documentary about the seminal band and when better to show it than for lead singer Ian Curtis' birthday? I'd seen the film "Control" a few years ago when the James River Film society had shown it, but Jones said the documentary was better.
Honestly, when isn't a documentary better than a retelling of fact?
This one benefited from scads of fabulous footage of early shows and photo shoots of the four very young men from Manchester who saw an early Sex Pistols show at the Electric Circus and all resolved to form a band.
It didn't hurt that they were all talented and hard-working, none less than Curtis, the lyricist and singer whose frenetic moves onstage were mesmerizing. With the energy of punk and literary-based lyrics expressing complex emotions, they were a sensation almost from the start.
The most challenging part of the film was understanding the extremely thick accents of the musicians, producers and managers who were the talking heads of the film. Once I got past that, it was fascinating.
His wife refused to participate in the making of the film, but his lover agreed and her commentary was some of the most telling about Curtis' difficulties dealing with epilepsy and not wanting to let the band down." Onstage, it was like he was plugged into electric voltage. He was completely outside of himself."
Hardest to understand was how no one in the band paid any attention to the tortured lyrics he was writing or they might have had a clue how bad off he was. The band members admitted to not even listening to the words, a fact which is incomprehensible to someone like me who focuses on the words to a song.
The thing with a documentary is that you know going in how it will end, but you still get completely caught up in the information.
Because who could have imagined that he could have written as brilliant a pop song as "Love Will Tear Us Apart" in a mere three hours? Or that a member of the band would have been told that he'd committed suicide and gone ahead with his Sunday lunch? Or opted out of going to his funeral? Or that the name "Joy Division" came from the name the Nazis gave their military officers' brothel?
Of course it was a fabulous soundtrack because it was all Joy Division, impossible to hear without inadvertently hearing the hundreds of bands who have aped their style or Curtis' distinctive vocals in the ensuing years since his suicide in 1980.
As Neil Diamond sang back in the '70s, done too soon.
Monday, August 18, 2014
A Lifetime Ago
It was a night for tacos and commemoration.
We were the first people in Boka Tako Bar where tonight's empanada special was scallop and bacon with ancho remoulade, an irresistible combo with Grove Mill Sauvignon Blanc.
He followed that with the Gauntlet, the best order for anyone who's a first-timer at Boka (which he was), while I chose my own trio (not my first Boka rodeo): fish, crispy pork belly (my fave of the three) and chorizo and stuffed myself silly .
With a solid soundtrack of Interpol, Pinback and Band of Horses playing, we watched as the place filled up almost entirely. I know the one time I arrived at 7, the place was standing room only.
I won't make that mistake again.
Bulging at the seams and with hungry diners waiting for our booth, we took a walk around the block in the sultry evening air so humid it felt heavy before driving over to the Byrd.
The James River Film Society was doing a celebration of Robin Williams' life by showing "The World According to Garp," a film I hadn't seen since it opened in theaters in 1982.
When I'd suggested it to my date, I loved his response. "Always up for a John Irving creation!" Like me, he'd enjoyed many of Irving's books and resulting films.
There was a decent-sized crowd, nowhere near full, but I'm not sure how well advertised the benefit screening was.
No question, the movie has aged well and the performances - Williams', Glenn Close's and John Lithgow's - still resonate, although it's one bad '80s costume after another.
And because it's based on a John Irving book, it's full of the kind of odd occurrences (Garp and his new bride looking at a house to buy when a plane crashes into it) and characters (a pro football player transsexual, a kid discussing getting glass eyes to coordinate with holidays ).
As always, I reveled in the cultural details: nurses wearing white uniforms and caps, wall pay phones, kids thinking being taken out to dinner was a big deal.
Oh, yes, and kids didn't wear seat belts, whether in the back seat or up front in Mom's lap.
Most telling about cultural shifts was the scene where the child Garp is pretending to be a military pilot on the roof of the dorm. When he slips, hanging from the roof and calling for help, students and teachers come running.
One adult yells to the students to get their mattresses quickly to put under the roof line in case Garp falls.
I can't help but think that the same event today would elicit two very different responses: calling the fire department and taking pictures instead of just problem-solving to handle the situation at hand.
One of the most striking things about Robin Williams was not how young he was (31), but how lithe and agile he appeared, even playing a teenager believably. Most of my memories of him are as a solidly-built (and extremely hirsute) middle-aged man.
Before the movie, manager Todd Schall-Vass said that given the range of his career, truthfully they could do a whole week of showing classic Robin Williams movies (not that they were planning to).
Absolutely true. I'd hope for "Dead Poets Society" and "Fisher King" as numbers two and three.
But what I'd really prefer is for us not to have a reason to commemorate him yet.
But the last line of the John Irving novel warned us. "In the world according to Garp, we're all terminal cases." Sadly.
Better to remember Robin Williams' last line in the film.
"I'm flying."
We were the first people in Boka Tako Bar where tonight's empanada special was scallop and bacon with ancho remoulade, an irresistible combo with Grove Mill Sauvignon Blanc.
He followed that with the Gauntlet, the best order for anyone who's a first-timer at Boka (which he was), while I chose my own trio (not my first Boka rodeo): fish, crispy pork belly (my fave of the three) and chorizo and stuffed myself silly .
With a solid soundtrack of Interpol, Pinback and Band of Horses playing, we watched as the place filled up almost entirely. I know the one time I arrived at 7, the place was standing room only.
I won't make that mistake again.
Bulging at the seams and with hungry diners waiting for our booth, we took a walk around the block in the sultry evening air so humid it felt heavy before driving over to the Byrd.
The James River Film Society was doing a celebration of Robin Williams' life by showing "The World According to Garp," a film I hadn't seen since it opened in theaters in 1982.
When I'd suggested it to my date, I loved his response. "Always up for a John Irving creation!" Like me, he'd enjoyed many of Irving's books and resulting films.
There was a decent-sized crowd, nowhere near full, but I'm not sure how well advertised the benefit screening was.
No question, the movie has aged well and the performances - Williams', Glenn Close's and John Lithgow's - still resonate, although it's one bad '80s costume after another.
And because it's based on a John Irving book, it's full of the kind of odd occurrences (Garp and his new bride looking at a house to buy when a plane crashes into it) and characters (a pro football player transsexual, a kid discussing getting glass eyes to coordinate with holidays ).
As always, I reveled in the cultural details: nurses wearing white uniforms and caps, wall pay phones, kids thinking being taken out to dinner was a big deal.
Oh, yes, and kids didn't wear seat belts, whether in the back seat or up front in Mom's lap.
Most telling about cultural shifts was the scene where the child Garp is pretending to be a military pilot on the roof of the dorm. When he slips, hanging from the roof and calling for help, students and teachers come running.
One adult yells to the students to get their mattresses quickly to put under the roof line in case Garp falls.
I can't help but think that the same event today would elicit two very different responses: calling the fire department and taking pictures instead of just problem-solving to handle the situation at hand.
One of the most striking things about Robin Williams was not how young he was (31), but how lithe and agile he appeared, even playing a teenager believably. Most of my memories of him are as a solidly-built (and extremely hirsute) middle-aged man.
Before the movie, manager Todd Schall-Vass said that given the range of his career, truthfully they could do a whole week of showing classic Robin Williams movies (not that they were planning to).
Absolutely true. I'd hope for "Dead Poets Society" and "Fisher King" as numbers two and three.
But what I'd really prefer is for us not to have a reason to commemorate him yet.
But the last line of the John Irving novel warned us. "In the world according to Garp, we're all terminal cases." Sadly.
Better to remember Robin Williams' last line in the film.
"I'm flying."
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Can't Tango, Won't Fort
The plan was to keep Friday simple with fairies, food and film at the VMFA, only the drip was missing.
I barely made it to Amuse before the sun set, a shame given the wonderful western skyline visible through the wall of windows, but darkness is coming so early now.
Taking a seat at the end of the bar put me inches from where the absinthe drip should have been but wasn't.
An inquiry revealed that with the hordes descending for the "Hollywood Costume" exhibit, the drip was exiled for the sake of room for waiting customers.
I understood and I'm thrilled the show is so popular right out of the gate, but Amuse has got to understand that they're the ones who created green fairy junkies and they're the ones who've got to be able to feed those habits even now with the ruby slippers in residence.
Translation: they retrieved the drip from the kitchen and started one for me STAT, albeit not intravenously.
Well, that was a close one.
I moved down a stool to allow a fresh-faced trio to sit together and listened with amusement as they looked at the Hollywood-themed drink menu and began discussing alcohol.
The guy in the group said he wanted no part of the Lion's Roar, a cocktail of Old Overholt rye, Strega, Luxardo Maraschino, bitters, black peppercorn essence and Dolin dry vermouth.
Why not, you ask? Because it had vermouth.
"That was the first thing I stole from my parents' bar when I was sixteen and I drank the whole bottle," he said with clear distaste.
The bartender explained that A) it was undoubtedly cheap vermouth and B) vermouth, like wine, goes bad fairly quickly.
"You mean it doesn't have to taste like urine?" he asked earnestly, causing the bartender and I to exchange glances. What in the world?
"I wouldn't really know what urine tastes like. I don't think most people would," the bartender said diplomatically.
"Well, then you've never been in a frat house," he said, as if that explained everything.
I just took another sip of my absinthe drip and kept my eyes straight ahead.
For dinner I had a bowl of Tuscan kale and potato stew with house-made lamb sausage and two bites in, a server I know came over to tell me there was Billy bread in the house.
Now, I already had Amuse's superb herb focaccia in hand and thickly buttered, but she was thinking the Billy bread would be a better sopping vehicle with its crunchy crust. Right she was.
By the time the drip and stew were history, it was the bewitching hour for me to scuttle downstairs to the theater for the James River Shorts, an evening of the best of a juried competition for short form films.
On the way down, I heard about how fabulous my tights were and then stopped next to a security guard to admire the tangoing couples in the atrium below.
I have the tights, possibly even the legs, for the tango, but not the coordination.
Once in the Cheek theater, I found a good seat and settled in to be impressed.
"Anna Walks In" had a girl smoking (unconvincingly, I might add) and telling a strange story from her childhood in front of a clock that never changed time.
The audience laughed throughout "Return to the World of Dance," a parody about instructional dance videos.
This one taught the viewer how to make a post-modern dance with a few simple steps and their easy kit.
Just so you know, creating a manifesto was one of the steps, as was smearing butter on toast in one stroke.
"We will keep you posted on new developments in dance as they occur," the narrator intoned hilariously.
"Nitro" was the tragic story of a small town by that name in West Virginia's chemical valley (something I didn't know they had), which had been founded in 1919 and peaked in the '50s and '60s, with companies like Dow and Monsanto employing most of the town.
Using old footage, the film told the story of an explosion of Agent Orange which coated the town in the toxin, causing health problems ever since.
"Daybreak" was a series of animated drawings telling the story of a character laying in bed observing everything in his room - the cracks in the walls, the radiators, the windows- and the imaginary world he imagined through them.
The story ended with the character getting up to start his day, but the surprise came during the credits.
"This film was made on paper this size," it said, showing paper smaller than a Post-It.
"We're not kidding," the next frame read and showed a storyboard of dozens of little pieces of paper.
Knowing that now, I wanted them to restart the film so I could appreciate it all over again on a whole new level.
"Steak" took place in Richmond in a typical Fan-looking apartment with two guys who were convinced one of their roommates was a murderer.
On the plus side, he was cooking dinner for them.
When it became clear they needed to discuss the matter, one said, "Fort!" and they built one out of blankets in the living room so they could talk in privacy.
I'm inclined to think that only guys would yell "fort" to signify meeting time.
After a brief intermission, we saw the saddest film of the night and the one that took the People's Choice award, "Take Me Home," about a husband with a wife who had dementia.
The patient husband tries to accommodate her wishes but she clearly has no sense of reality, asking to go home whether she was at the nursing home or at home.
At the end, he erases her voice from their answering machine and replaces it with his own. Cue lump in throat.
And the soundtrack by Recluse Raccoon was a haunting accompaniment.
"Dwell Dig Shake" was the longest film by far at 29 minutes and told its black and white story in three parts.
The protagonist, an epileptic, finds an old VHS player in the trash and returns to his childhood home to dig up a time capsule he buried in 1998.
Back at home, he looks at a tape from the capsule made in 1995 showing him as a little boy. His roommate comes in and watches for a bit, commenting about the era.
"I miss the '90s," he whines. "Fatboy Slim and Nintendo 64 were the only good things about the '90s."
As if. A comment like that makes it easy to guess the age of the filmmaker.
The final film was "Puppy Dreams" about a high school girl trying to adjust to living with her Dad, finding out she has mono and that her friend is hot for a boy she once made out with.
The young actress playing the lead had a face you couldn't take your eyes off of and the film was one of three first prize winners tonight, along with "Anna" and "Daybreak."
Leaving the screening, everyone around me was talking about how fortunate we are to have the James River Film Society and events like this shorts competition.
Tell me something I don't know, people.
I made one last unplanned stop on my way home at my neighborhood joint, Bistro 27, for a nightcap.
Like last night, I had Graham's LBV 2008 porto, only this time with chocolate mousse and a Portuguese-speaking graduate student in broadcasting and journalism.
Asking me about my career path through radio, publishing and webcasts, he wondered how I'd gotten into broadcasting and journalism.
Not being particularly post-modern, I explained that I'd done it by going to school for art history.
I'm not kidding. You should see my storyboard.
I barely made it to Amuse before the sun set, a shame given the wonderful western skyline visible through the wall of windows, but darkness is coming so early now.
Taking a seat at the end of the bar put me inches from where the absinthe drip should have been but wasn't.
An inquiry revealed that with the hordes descending for the "Hollywood Costume" exhibit, the drip was exiled for the sake of room for waiting customers.
I understood and I'm thrilled the show is so popular right out of the gate, but Amuse has got to understand that they're the ones who created green fairy junkies and they're the ones who've got to be able to feed those habits even now with the ruby slippers in residence.
Translation: they retrieved the drip from the kitchen and started one for me STAT, albeit not intravenously.
Well, that was a close one.
I moved down a stool to allow a fresh-faced trio to sit together and listened with amusement as they looked at the Hollywood-themed drink menu and began discussing alcohol.
The guy in the group said he wanted no part of the Lion's Roar, a cocktail of Old Overholt rye, Strega, Luxardo Maraschino, bitters, black peppercorn essence and Dolin dry vermouth.
Why not, you ask? Because it had vermouth.
"That was the first thing I stole from my parents' bar when I was sixteen and I drank the whole bottle," he said with clear distaste.
The bartender explained that A) it was undoubtedly cheap vermouth and B) vermouth, like wine, goes bad fairly quickly.
"You mean it doesn't have to taste like urine?" he asked earnestly, causing the bartender and I to exchange glances. What in the world?
"I wouldn't really know what urine tastes like. I don't think most people would," the bartender said diplomatically.
"Well, then you've never been in a frat house," he said, as if that explained everything.
I just took another sip of my absinthe drip and kept my eyes straight ahead.
For dinner I had a bowl of Tuscan kale and potato stew with house-made lamb sausage and two bites in, a server I know came over to tell me there was Billy bread in the house.
Now, I already had Amuse's superb herb focaccia in hand and thickly buttered, but she was thinking the Billy bread would be a better sopping vehicle with its crunchy crust. Right she was.
By the time the drip and stew were history, it was the bewitching hour for me to scuttle downstairs to the theater for the James River Shorts, an evening of the best of a juried competition for short form films.
On the way down, I heard about how fabulous my tights were and then stopped next to a security guard to admire the tangoing couples in the atrium below.
I have the tights, possibly even the legs, for the tango, but not the coordination.
Once in the Cheek theater, I found a good seat and settled in to be impressed.
"Anna Walks In" had a girl smoking (unconvincingly, I might add) and telling a strange story from her childhood in front of a clock that never changed time.
The audience laughed throughout "Return to the World of Dance," a parody about instructional dance videos.
This one taught the viewer how to make a post-modern dance with a few simple steps and their easy kit.
Just so you know, creating a manifesto was one of the steps, as was smearing butter on toast in one stroke.
"We will keep you posted on new developments in dance as they occur," the narrator intoned hilariously.
"Nitro" was the tragic story of a small town by that name in West Virginia's chemical valley (something I didn't know they had), which had been founded in 1919 and peaked in the '50s and '60s, with companies like Dow and Monsanto employing most of the town.
Using old footage, the film told the story of an explosion of Agent Orange which coated the town in the toxin, causing health problems ever since.
"Daybreak" was a series of animated drawings telling the story of a character laying in bed observing everything in his room - the cracks in the walls, the radiators, the windows- and the imaginary world he imagined through them.
The story ended with the character getting up to start his day, but the surprise came during the credits.
"This film was made on paper this size," it said, showing paper smaller than a Post-It.
"We're not kidding," the next frame read and showed a storyboard of dozens of little pieces of paper.
Knowing that now, I wanted them to restart the film so I could appreciate it all over again on a whole new level.
"Steak" took place in Richmond in a typical Fan-looking apartment with two guys who were convinced one of their roommates was a murderer.
On the plus side, he was cooking dinner for them.
When it became clear they needed to discuss the matter, one said, "Fort!" and they built one out of blankets in the living room so they could talk in privacy.
I'm inclined to think that only guys would yell "fort" to signify meeting time.
After a brief intermission, we saw the saddest film of the night and the one that took the People's Choice award, "Take Me Home," about a husband with a wife who had dementia.
The patient husband tries to accommodate her wishes but she clearly has no sense of reality, asking to go home whether she was at the nursing home or at home.
At the end, he erases her voice from their answering machine and replaces it with his own. Cue lump in throat.
And the soundtrack by Recluse Raccoon was a haunting accompaniment.
"Dwell Dig Shake" was the longest film by far at 29 minutes and told its black and white story in three parts.
The protagonist, an epileptic, finds an old VHS player in the trash and returns to his childhood home to dig up a time capsule he buried in 1998.
Back at home, he looks at a tape from the capsule made in 1995 showing him as a little boy. His roommate comes in and watches for a bit, commenting about the era.
"I miss the '90s," he whines. "Fatboy Slim and Nintendo 64 were the only good things about the '90s."
As if. A comment like that makes it easy to guess the age of the filmmaker.
The final film was "Puppy Dreams" about a high school girl trying to adjust to living with her Dad, finding out she has mono and that her friend is hot for a boy she once made out with.
The young actress playing the lead had a face you couldn't take your eyes off of and the film was one of three first prize winners tonight, along with "Anna" and "Daybreak."
Leaving the screening, everyone around me was talking about how fortunate we are to have the James River Film Society and events like this shorts competition.
Tell me something I don't know, people.
I made one last unplanned stop on my way home at my neighborhood joint, Bistro 27, for a nightcap.
Like last night, I had Graham's LBV 2008 porto, only this time with chocolate mousse and a Portuguese-speaking graduate student in broadcasting and journalism.
Asking me about my career path through radio, publishing and webcasts, he wondered how I'd gotten into broadcasting and journalism.
Not being particularly post-modern, I explained that I'd done it by going to school for art history.
I'm not kidding. You should see my storyboard.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
A Lunchtime Weepy
We were down to a trio today.
For the final week of James River Film Society's "Films for Lunch" series, we saw "A Place in the Sun" adapted from Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy."
Maybe it was missing last week for Thanksgiving, but the audience was down to just three diehards today, which was a shame given the movie.
A melodrama, or "weepy" as Mike Jones said such films were called, qualified as a three-hanky weepy.
But only because it was a 1951 film of a 1925 book. All the problems that resulted in tragedy could have been resolved if the film were made about the present.
I don't know who was more beautiful, Elizabeth Taylor or Montgomery Clift; depending on your orientation, you could easily make a case for either.
And Taylor's wardrobe was practically a star itself. So many strapless ball gowns on that perfect body of hers. Montgomery Clift's character didn't stand a chance.
But it was mostly the strict social protocol that made the movie seem like ancient history.
Girls couldn't invite boys to their rooming houses. Couples went to theaters to make out during a movie.
People who weren't introduced to proper society didn't introduce themselves.
And girls got pregnant and insisted on marriage.
Forget the technological advances; the past sixty years represent a quantum leap in how we handle lust.
Thank goodness.
For the final week of James River Film Society's "Films for Lunch" series, we saw "A Place in the Sun" adapted from Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy."
Maybe it was missing last week for Thanksgiving, but the audience was down to just three diehards today, which was a shame given the movie.
A melodrama, or "weepy" as Mike Jones said such films were called, qualified as a three-hanky weepy.
But only because it was a 1951 film of a 1925 book. All the problems that resulted in tragedy could have been resolved if the film were made about the present.
I don't know who was more beautiful, Elizabeth Taylor or Montgomery Clift; depending on your orientation, you could easily make a case for either.
And Taylor's wardrobe was practically a star itself. So many strapless ball gowns on that perfect body of hers. Montgomery Clift's character didn't stand a chance.
But it was mostly the strict social protocol that made the movie seem like ancient history.
Girls couldn't invite boys to their rooming houses. Couples went to theaters to make out during a movie.
People who weren't introduced to proper society didn't introduce themselves.
And girls got pregnant and insisted on marriage.
Forget the technological advances; the past sixty years represent a quantum leap in how we handle lust.
Thank goodness.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
The Beauty of Brevity
Good things, when short, are twice as good. ~ Gracian
That philosophy was no doubt the genesis of the 2011 James River Shorts Festival. That or an acknowledgment that attention spans have become length-challenged.
It was the first year for the festival, which attracted 78 short film submissions, the top fourteen of which were shown tonight at the VMFA.
And the shorts varied widely in subject matter. Some were animated or stop motion and some were live action.
My favorite, "Solo Piano," was actually still photographs with a piano piece for background music.
A piano on a NYC sidewalk was photographed as people walked by it and stopped to play its keys.
Thinking it was a lighthearted piece about the randomly placed instrument pulling in people, I was saddened to eventually see men come along and destroy it, chopping up the wood and carting it away.
It ended with two young people showing up with dollies,apparently hoping to move the piano to their home.
It was a mini-tragedy in five minutes.
But there was humor, too. "The Pervert" used old '60s film footage to construct a tale of a nice boy gone astray after finding a pornographic magazine on the siddewalk.
"Another Dress, Another Button" was a stop-motion piece about the extra buttons that come with clothes.
Put in a bowl still in their tiny Ziplock bags, the buttons escaped and played games, only to hurry back into their baggies when the girl got home.
An artsy 16 mm film was "Watercolors," a silent movie with an impressionistic feel. The images of nature reflected in moving water truly looked like paintings.
Extremely touching was "My Son" about a choreographer dealing with cancer while raising a young son and continuing to dance and teach.
She saw her son as standing between her and death, while the little boy just saw her as Mom.
Especially beautiful was "The Leaf Woman and the Centaur," a combination of black and white drawings with vividly colored animation telling the story.
My friend and I had visited Amuse before the screening, enjoying a new-to-Amuse wine, Felino Malbec, which turned out to be wonderful blood-thickener on this unexpectedly cold evening.
With a local cheese plate and 40 minutes, we enjoyed a short repast to prepare us for the short films we were about to see.
Not aware of Amuse's limited hours, my friend was surprised to learn that they wouldn't be open for us to return to once the screening was over.
In fact, you could say that some good things, when short, are not twice as good.
A couple of things, Amuse's hours not being one of them, immediately come to mind to substantiate that.
But not tonight's films. Like well-written short stories, they delivered and were over.
Call it bite-sized films at their best.
That philosophy was no doubt the genesis of the 2011 James River Shorts Festival. That or an acknowledgment that attention spans have become length-challenged.
It was the first year for the festival, which attracted 78 short film submissions, the top fourteen of which were shown tonight at the VMFA.
And the shorts varied widely in subject matter. Some were animated or stop motion and some were live action.
My favorite, "Solo Piano," was actually still photographs with a piano piece for background music.
A piano on a NYC sidewalk was photographed as people walked by it and stopped to play its keys.
Thinking it was a lighthearted piece about the randomly placed instrument pulling in people, I was saddened to eventually see men come along and destroy it, chopping up the wood and carting it away.
It ended with two young people showing up with dollies,apparently hoping to move the piano to their home.
It was a mini-tragedy in five minutes.
But there was humor, too. "The Pervert" used old '60s film footage to construct a tale of a nice boy gone astray after finding a pornographic magazine on the siddewalk.
"Another Dress, Another Button" was a stop-motion piece about the extra buttons that come with clothes.
Put in a bowl still in their tiny Ziplock bags, the buttons escaped and played games, only to hurry back into their baggies when the girl got home.
An artsy 16 mm film was "Watercolors," a silent movie with an impressionistic feel. The images of nature reflected in moving water truly looked like paintings.
Extremely touching was "My Son" about a choreographer dealing with cancer while raising a young son and continuing to dance and teach.
She saw her son as standing between her and death, while the little boy just saw her as Mom.
Especially beautiful was "The Leaf Woman and the Centaur," a combination of black and white drawings with vividly colored animation telling the story.
My friend and I had visited Amuse before the screening, enjoying a new-to-Amuse wine, Felino Malbec, which turned out to be wonderful blood-thickener on this unexpectedly cold evening.
With a local cheese plate and 40 minutes, we enjoyed a short repast to prepare us for the short films we were about to see.
Not aware of Amuse's limited hours, my friend was surprised to learn that they wouldn't be open for us to return to once the screening was over.
In fact, you could say that some good things, when short, are not twice as good.
A couple of things, Amuse's hours not being one of them, immediately come to mind to substantiate that.
But not tonight's films. Like well-written short stories, they delivered and were over.
Call it bite-sized films at their best.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Yes, Deceive and Entrap Me
If I'd realized what a great story "Great Expectations" was, I might have read it before now.
Seeing it in movie form for the first time today, I'm inclined to think it's a book I should finally pick up.
We saw David Lean's 1946 British version and while it got a bit theatrical-looking at times, overall the acting was excellent and the sets believable, especially for a movie almost devoid of location shooting.
The story of a blacksmith's apprentice rising in social class and standing wasn't nearly as compelling to me as the story of a rich, old woman jilted at the altar tears ago and raising her adopted daughter to be heartless and eventually break men's hearts.
Naturally the daughter is the one our hero falls for, but she stays aloof from him, allowing other men to shower her with attention.
When he challenges her on that, she responds, "Do you want me to deceive and entrap you?"
She may have been a heartless bitch, but she was a straightforward one.
Besides, he was in love with her so he probably would have said yes to that anyway.
Turnout for today's screening was down from last week's "Film for Lunch" series at the library, but it was the perfect opportunity to catch up on some local theater rumblings with the James River Film Society fellow geeks.
I was glad to hear that they're planning to start a public conversation about the proposed demise of the Westhampton Theater.
Word on the street is that the chain theaters are going to stop even showing 35 mm films altogether and then where will we be able to see true film (and not digital) versions?
It's about time we had a non-profit theater in which to show the kinds of obscure first run and repertory art films that have such a hard time finding a place to be played here.
As it is, I'm at the Grace Street Theater, the Byrd or UR almost weekly to catch the stuff that plays once in RVA.
Come on, let's make it more efficient for film lovers like me. I need time to be out there deceiving and entrapping if I'm ever going to get a love life.
Don't spread it around, but I have great expectations.
Seeing it in movie form for the first time today, I'm inclined to think it's a book I should finally pick up.
We saw David Lean's 1946 British version and while it got a bit theatrical-looking at times, overall the acting was excellent and the sets believable, especially for a movie almost devoid of location shooting.
The story of a blacksmith's apprentice rising in social class and standing wasn't nearly as compelling to me as the story of a rich, old woman jilted at the altar tears ago and raising her adopted daughter to be heartless and eventually break men's hearts.
Naturally the daughter is the one our hero falls for, but she stays aloof from him, allowing other men to shower her with attention.
When he challenges her on that, she responds, "Do you want me to deceive and entrap you?"
She may have been a heartless bitch, but she was a straightforward one.
Besides, he was in love with her so he probably would have said yes to that anyway.
Turnout for today's screening was down from last week's "Film for Lunch" series at the library, but it was the perfect opportunity to catch up on some local theater rumblings with the James River Film Society fellow geeks.
I was glad to hear that they're planning to start a public conversation about the proposed demise of the Westhampton Theater.
Word on the street is that the chain theaters are going to stop even showing 35 mm films altogether and then where will we be able to see true film (and not digital) versions?
It's about time we had a non-profit theater in which to show the kinds of obscure first run and repertory art films that have such a hard time finding a place to be played here.
As it is, I'm at the Grace Street Theater, the Byrd or UR almost weekly to catch the stuff that plays once in RVA.
Come on, let's make it more efficient for film lovers like me. I need time to be out there deceiving and entrapping if I'm ever going to get a love life.
Don't spread it around, but I have great expectations.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Potential Stumbling Blocks
It's a little like a rainy day at camp.
You sit in an auditorium in a folding chair listening to the whirring of a projector and get lost in a black and white world.
Or maybe that was just the camp I got sent to.
James River Film Society began their "Films for Lunch" series today and I was right there, just like I have been for the past three or four years.
Even when I worked at (shudder) the RTD, I'd take my lunch hour at the library during November for the sake of seeing a vintage film.
This years' theme is "Great Adaptations of the Silver Screen" and today's film was 1942's "The Magnificent Ambersons," adapted from the Booth Tarkington novel.
Sure, sure, Orson Welles' story of the decline of a wealthy and prominent family touched on the rise of the automobile culture and the beginnings of suburban sprawl, but how about the look at a time long gone?
Cotillions, serenades, balls, all day open houses. A girl refusing to see a guy because of a "drinking incident" where he broke his bass fiddle.
A sleigh ride in the afternoon that he bullies her into doing with him because men could boss girls around knowing that they would eventually acquiesce.
And a time when after a conversation saying goodbye to the love of her life as blithely as she could manage, the girl walks into a drug store and asks for a few drops of aromatic spirits and promptly faints before the druggist can give it to her.
The way I see it, it was both easier and harder to be female back then.
Says the person who's been finding it excruciatingly difficult here lately. Thanks, guys.
You sit in an auditorium in a folding chair listening to the whirring of a projector and get lost in a black and white world.
Or maybe that was just the camp I got sent to.
James River Film Society began their "Films for Lunch" series today and I was right there, just like I have been for the past three or four years.
Even when I worked at (shudder) the RTD, I'd take my lunch hour at the library during November for the sake of seeing a vintage film.
This years' theme is "Great Adaptations of the Silver Screen" and today's film was 1942's "The Magnificent Ambersons," adapted from the Booth Tarkington novel.
Sure, sure, Orson Welles' story of the decline of a wealthy and prominent family touched on the rise of the automobile culture and the beginnings of suburban sprawl, but how about the look at a time long gone?
Cotillions, serenades, balls, all day open houses. A girl refusing to see a guy because of a "drinking incident" where he broke his bass fiddle.
A sleigh ride in the afternoon that he bullies her into doing with him because men could boss girls around knowing that they would eventually acquiesce.
And a time when after a conversation saying goodbye to the love of her life as blithely as she could manage, the girl walks into a drug store and asks for a few drops of aromatic spirits and promptly faints before the druggist can give it to her.
The way I see it, it was both easier and harder to be female back then.
Says the person who's been finding it excruciatingly difficult here lately. Thanks, guys.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
"You're Everywhere Good"
Noah sold out, Kate shone in feathers, and album art stole the show.
Danny unloaded, Chris' Saturn Returned and Ashley showed me how to screen print.
It may have been the first really cold First Friday art walk in a while, but what's a little chill on a night where there was so much affordable art (think gifting) to see and I ran into so many people I know?
Besides, I knew better than to wear the Vienna tights, so I'm responsible for going for compliments over warmth.
At 1708 Gallery's "Small Wonder" show, there were scaled-down works by so many familiar names: a lyrical Tom Chenoweth metal sculpture, a Grace Teeples combine, a Chuck Scalin tablet.
I wasn't the least surprised to arrive at three small skull pieces, all marked sold.
Without a moment's hesitation, I knew they must have been Noah Scalin's (and indeed they had been).
Over at ADA Gallery were four large pieces by Chris Mahonski, all suitably priced for the holidays at $1,000-$10,000.
Price tag aside, I was taken by his "Saturn Return," a walnut veneer tower stacked with every National Geographic magazine since January 1970.
I could crouch down and see the 70s magazines, but the 21st-century ones were completely lost to my vertically-challenged self.
While admiring it, a guy walked up behind me and leaned over me to say, "That would be great in your living room."
Since I turned around to see a guy who has never seen my living room, I have to assume he was flirting with me (I'll get this yet).
We began talking about the old-school value of National Geographic teaching kids about naked bodies and sex (you know, your typical conversation with a stranger) and how unfortunate it is that today's kids have to rely on Internet porn rather than glossy photographs of natives for ogling.
Peter Fowler's show "Illuminations" at Ghostprint Gallery was a series of Impressionistic pastels updated by the use of gold and silver-leaf paint.
Several of these had also been sold, too, so obviously it was a good night for an artist to be hanging in RVA.
Over at Metro Space Gallery, Kate Horne's show of animal drawings, paintings and sculptural heads was perfectly punctuated by her large dog napping in the center of the gallery floor.
Kate, ever the showman, was splendid in her native American headdress; as we stood talking, two guys walked in and one saluted her with, '"Great headdress!"
Kate only smiled demurely back.
Talking to Mark, the owner of next door's Metro Sound and Music store, I found out that he's opening a satellite location in Carytown this weekend.
Seems he's been looking for a second location for twenty years and the perfect one just opened up over in our shopping mecca.
It'll be on the same block as Guitar Works, so music lovers will have a destination for all things music now.
Mark carries so many vintage instruments that the shop will appeal to music fans as much as true musicians.
Who wouldn't want to admire 100-year old instruments, some signed by the maker? I'm already planning a field trip.
Gallery 5 was as crowded as I've ever seen it; part of the reason was the DJ collective Cherry Bomb was hosting an exhibit of album cover art.
A host of local talent, both musical and artistic, had been asked to submit a cover for sale to benefit Art 180.
Singer Julie Karr had crocheted hers, photographers PJ Sykes and Melissa Koch naturally submitted photos, and DJ Sara Gossett's was an intricate 60s-looking drawing reminiscent of one of her vintage dresses.
One DJ's submissions was an Elvis Costello cover with every date she's ever played that record notated on the front; it was part album/part journal and I loved the history it revealed.
It was DJ Talia who came over to compliment me on being everywhere, saying she and her beau know they've walked into the right place when they see me (and, believe me, they're far hipper than me).
After a much too long wait in the restroom line, I finally asked the guy in front of me if he'd checked the door to make sure someone was actually in there.
"I don't think that's a bathroom,"he explained.
"Wrong," I informed him. "I've peed in here a hundred times" and waltzed into the bathroom he'd been standing outside of for 15 minutes.
Do I have to teach these kids everything?
Leaving the madness of G5 with a Captain Slappy's bacon-wrapped dog firmly in hand (Chef Charley had three, so I didn't feel too bad), I walked to get my car and head to the other art walk on Main Street. Studio 23 was having a printmaking demonstration in addition to opening a new show by Stuart Dumois.
Although I'm a huge fan of prints, I'd never seen them made and after my recent visit to their mix tape exhibit, Ashley had suggested coming back tonight.
I watched as she screened dozens of holiday cards (you'll know if you get one from me because the Season's Greetings are growing out of the reindeer's antlers) and told me about the recent donations to the collective's impressive array of equipment.
Dumois' art was graphic and bright, whether portraiture or a scene of regurgitation.
My favorite eye-catching piece was the female figure curled up on a blue background, with the words, "Boo hoo hoo" underneath her.
Boo hoo indeed.
And then it was time to move on from visual art to performance art in the form of Crispin Hellion Glover, presented by the James River Film Society.
Waiting in vain for a friend to arrive, I saw a cross section of Richmond arriving: DJs, book sellers, researchers, parade organizers, musicians, wine reps, restaurant people, artists, filmmakers and Glover fanatics.
In other words, lots of people I knew.
With no fanfare, Glover came out and began his narrated slide show, essentially him reading bits of some of the books he's written.
But he is Crispin Glover, so his books are, shall we say, odd.
"Studies in Rat-Catching for the Use of Schools," "Backward Swing: A Lesson to be Learned," and "Round My House" were aided by his dramatic retelling and expressive hand gestures pointing to the pages and illustrations of these books.
After that portion of the show, a member of the audience yelled out, "Hey, can we get rid of those two dudes down in front?" referring to the two idiots who had clapped fanatically at the wrong moments, laughed inappropriately and just generally made a nuisance of themselves throughout the entire first half.
The guys yelled out that they were fans, but their obnoxiousness in trying to put themselves into the center of attention was wearing on much of the audience's nerves.
The two had been just behind me in line waiting to get in and as the line began to move, a nearby couple had said, "Let's sit anywhere but near those two." It was true.
Glover intended to show his second film next but by mistake showed his first, "What Is It?" instead.
Made using actors with Down's Syndrome to portray people who did not have the condition, it was made expressly for the purpose of making the audience uncomfortable.
Glover called it a "reactive piece."
Afterwards, he apologized for showing the wrong film and asked that the trailer for his second movie, "It is Fine. Everything is Fine" be shown, followed by a question and answer period, a misnomer for a protracted discussion with a man who loves words.
To be clear, a question and answer period with Crispin Hellion Glover is a long-term proposition.
He is the kind of actor/filmmaker/mind with volumes to say on almost every subject.
He spent a good amount of time on how his resentment of corporate film making led him to attempt a film that would address cultural taboos and complexities.
He railed about the dumbing down of movies and the reluctance of the Hollywood machine to feed the audiences anything but pablum.
His insistence on not condescending to his audience or dictating their interpretation took up a good part of Glover's time on stage.
Interestingly, he said he takes the most flak about the abuse of snails in the first movie, not for using actors with Down's syndrome or even including a racist KKK song in it.
Of course, audiences for this man's movies are not the typical audience by a long stretch, either.
Glover continued to take questions for hours and the audience slowly began to trickle out although the devoted remained in place, rapt.
I don't want to say it was late when I left, but NYD's dance party was winding down and Secco was dark.
But then again, how often does the Hellion show up in RVA on a Friday night?
Danny unloaded, Chris' Saturn Returned and Ashley showed me how to screen print.
It may have been the first really cold First Friday art walk in a while, but what's a little chill on a night where there was so much affordable art (think gifting) to see and I ran into so many people I know?
Besides, I knew better than to wear the Vienna tights, so I'm responsible for going for compliments over warmth.
At 1708 Gallery's "Small Wonder" show, there were scaled-down works by so many familiar names: a lyrical Tom Chenoweth metal sculpture, a Grace Teeples combine, a Chuck Scalin tablet.
I wasn't the least surprised to arrive at three small skull pieces, all marked sold.
Without a moment's hesitation, I knew they must have been Noah Scalin's (and indeed they had been).
Over at ADA Gallery were four large pieces by Chris Mahonski, all suitably priced for the holidays at $1,000-$10,000.
Price tag aside, I was taken by his "Saturn Return," a walnut veneer tower stacked with every National Geographic magazine since January 1970.
I could crouch down and see the 70s magazines, but the 21st-century ones were completely lost to my vertically-challenged self.
While admiring it, a guy walked up behind me and leaned over me to say, "That would be great in your living room."
Since I turned around to see a guy who has never seen my living room, I have to assume he was flirting with me (I'll get this yet).
We began talking about the old-school value of National Geographic teaching kids about naked bodies and sex (you know, your typical conversation with a stranger) and how unfortunate it is that today's kids have to rely on Internet porn rather than glossy photographs of natives for ogling.
Peter Fowler's show "Illuminations" at Ghostprint Gallery was a series of Impressionistic pastels updated by the use of gold and silver-leaf paint.
Several of these had also been sold, too, so obviously it was a good night for an artist to be hanging in RVA.
Over at Metro Space Gallery, Kate Horne's show of animal drawings, paintings and sculptural heads was perfectly punctuated by her large dog napping in the center of the gallery floor.
Kate, ever the showman, was splendid in her native American headdress; as we stood talking, two guys walked in and one saluted her with, '"Great headdress!"
Kate only smiled demurely back.
Talking to Mark, the owner of next door's Metro Sound and Music store, I found out that he's opening a satellite location in Carytown this weekend.
Seems he's been looking for a second location for twenty years and the perfect one just opened up over in our shopping mecca.
It'll be on the same block as Guitar Works, so music lovers will have a destination for all things music now.
Mark carries so many vintage instruments that the shop will appeal to music fans as much as true musicians.
Who wouldn't want to admire 100-year old instruments, some signed by the maker? I'm already planning a field trip.
Gallery 5 was as crowded as I've ever seen it; part of the reason was the DJ collective Cherry Bomb was hosting an exhibit of album cover art.
A host of local talent, both musical and artistic, had been asked to submit a cover for sale to benefit Art 180.
Singer Julie Karr had crocheted hers, photographers PJ Sykes and Melissa Koch naturally submitted photos, and DJ Sara Gossett's was an intricate 60s-looking drawing reminiscent of one of her vintage dresses.
One DJ's submissions was an Elvis Costello cover with every date she's ever played that record notated on the front; it was part album/part journal and I loved the history it revealed.
It was DJ Talia who came over to compliment me on being everywhere, saying she and her beau know they've walked into the right place when they see me (and, believe me, they're far hipper than me).
After a much too long wait in the restroom line, I finally asked the guy in front of me if he'd checked the door to make sure someone was actually in there.
"I don't think that's a bathroom,"he explained.
"Wrong," I informed him. "I've peed in here a hundred times" and waltzed into the bathroom he'd been standing outside of for 15 minutes.
Do I have to teach these kids everything?
Leaving the madness of G5 with a Captain Slappy's bacon-wrapped dog firmly in hand (Chef Charley had three, so I didn't feel too bad), I walked to get my car and head to the other art walk on Main Street. Studio 23 was having a printmaking demonstration in addition to opening a new show by Stuart Dumois.
Although I'm a huge fan of prints, I'd never seen them made and after my recent visit to their mix tape exhibit, Ashley had suggested coming back tonight.
I watched as she screened dozens of holiday cards (you'll know if you get one from me because the Season's Greetings are growing out of the reindeer's antlers) and told me about the recent donations to the collective's impressive array of equipment.
Dumois' art was graphic and bright, whether portraiture or a scene of regurgitation.
My favorite eye-catching piece was the female figure curled up on a blue background, with the words, "Boo hoo hoo" underneath her.
Boo hoo indeed.
And then it was time to move on from visual art to performance art in the form of Crispin Hellion Glover, presented by the James River Film Society.
Waiting in vain for a friend to arrive, I saw a cross section of Richmond arriving: DJs, book sellers, researchers, parade organizers, musicians, wine reps, restaurant people, artists, filmmakers and Glover fanatics.
In other words, lots of people I knew.
With no fanfare, Glover came out and began his narrated slide show, essentially him reading bits of some of the books he's written.
But he is Crispin Glover, so his books are, shall we say, odd.
"Studies in Rat-Catching for the Use of Schools," "Backward Swing: A Lesson to be Learned," and "Round My House" were aided by his dramatic retelling and expressive hand gestures pointing to the pages and illustrations of these books.
After that portion of the show, a member of the audience yelled out, "Hey, can we get rid of those two dudes down in front?" referring to the two idiots who had clapped fanatically at the wrong moments, laughed inappropriately and just generally made a nuisance of themselves throughout the entire first half.
The guys yelled out that they were fans, but their obnoxiousness in trying to put themselves into the center of attention was wearing on much of the audience's nerves.
The two had been just behind me in line waiting to get in and as the line began to move, a nearby couple had said, "Let's sit anywhere but near those two." It was true.
Glover intended to show his second film next but by mistake showed his first, "What Is It?" instead.
Made using actors with Down's Syndrome to portray people who did not have the condition, it was made expressly for the purpose of making the audience uncomfortable.
Glover called it a "reactive piece."
Afterwards, he apologized for showing the wrong film and asked that the trailer for his second movie, "It is Fine. Everything is Fine" be shown, followed by a question and answer period, a misnomer for a protracted discussion with a man who loves words.
To be clear, a question and answer period with Crispin Hellion Glover is a long-term proposition.
He is the kind of actor/filmmaker/mind with volumes to say on almost every subject.
He spent a good amount of time on how his resentment of corporate film making led him to attempt a film that would address cultural taboos and complexities.
He railed about the dumbing down of movies and the reluctance of the Hollywood machine to feed the audiences anything but pablum.
His insistence on not condescending to his audience or dictating their interpretation took up a good part of Glover's time on stage.
Interestingly, he said he takes the most flak about the abuse of snails in the first movie, not for using actors with Down's syndrome or even including a racist KKK song in it.
Of course, audiences for this man's movies are not the typical audience by a long stretch, either.
Glover continued to take questions for hours and the audience slowly began to trickle out although the devoted remained in place, rapt.
I don't want to say it was late when I left, but NYD's dance party was winding down and Secco was dark.
But then again, how often does the Hellion show up in RVA on a Friday night?
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Mais C'est la Vie pour Maintenant
I would have thoroughly enjoyed the James River Film Society's French Film for Lunch series today even if a handsome Frenchman hadn't come up and introduced himself. But it was certainly a lovely addition to my noontime adventure.
Today's screening was the last week of the series and it was a double feature: Jean Vigo's Zero for Conduct (1933) and Jean Renoir's A Day in the Country (1936). As mentioned in the pre-screening lecture, both films were notable as much for their superb cinematographers as for their seminal French directors.
And for true film buffs, there was the pleasure of both being shown on 16 mm celluloid, so the satisfying clacking of the projector was always there, just under the dialog and music, reminding us that this is the film experience as it was intended to be.
Zero for Conduct was notable for having spawned any number of schoolkids-gone-crazy movies that have followed, including Rock and Roll High School and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Pillow fights, anarchy in the classroom and rebellion at recess were all the set-ups for the final scene where the kids disrupt Alumni Day. Kids and chaos, always a crowd-pleaser.
Easily one of the most beautiful black and white films I've ever laid eyes on, A Day in the Country, based on the experiences of the Impressionists was a sweet little story of Parisians escaping the city for a day of "wildness," like rowing, swinging and a picnic lunch of fresh fried fish and Bordeaux.
Frankly, it still sounds like a great way to spend an afternoon. And maybe it's just me, but being romanced on the banks of the Seine on a sultry summer day will probably always have its appeal.
When I went to leave the library auditorium afterwards, a charming member of the audience walked up to me and asked, "Parlez-vous Francaise?" Surprised, I told him no with my best all-American smile.
Seems he recognized me from other screenings and presumed I was French speaking; surely I disappointed him by admitting that I was merely a film lover, although he didn't show it. He asked if I was a regular at the French Film Festival, which of course I am, and told me that for him, "It's cheaper than a trip back home."
The French Film Festival will undoubtedly take on a whole new level of enjoyment this time for having a Frenchman with whom to watch and discuss the films.
I may even brush up a little on my French before February. It's been a while, but it couldn't hurt, now could it?
Today's screening was the last week of the series and it was a double feature: Jean Vigo's Zero for Conduct (1933) and Jean Renoir's A Day in the Country (1936). As mentioned in the pre-screening lecture, both films were notable as much for their superb cinematographers as for their seminal French directors.
And for true film buffs, there was the pleasure of both being shown on 16 mm celluloid, so the satisfying clacking of the projector was always there, just under the dialog and music, reminding us that this is the film experience as it was intended to be.
Zero for Conduct was notable for having spawned any number of schoolkids-gone-crazy movies that have followed, including Rock and Roll High School and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Pillow fights, anarchy in the classroom and rebellion at recess were all the set-ups for the final scene where the kids disrupt Alumni Day. Kids and chaos, always a crowd-pleaser.
Easily one of the most beautiful black and white films I've ever laid eyes on, A Day in the Country, based on the experiences of the Impressionists was a sweet little story of Parisians escaping the city for a day of "wildness," like rowing, swinging and a picnic lunch of fresh fried fish and Bordeaux.
Frankly, it still sounds like a great way to spend an afternoon. And maybe it's just me, but being romanced on the banks of the Seine on a sultry summer day will probably always have its appeal.
When I went to leave the library auditorium afterwards, a charming member of the audience walked up to me and asked, "Parlez-vous Francaise?" Surprised, I told him no with my best all-American smile.
Seems he recognized me from other screenings and presumed I was French speaking; surely I disappointed him by admitting that I was merely a film lover, although he didn't show it. He asked if I was a regular at the French Film Festival, which of course I am, and told me that for him, "It's cheaper than a trip back home."
The French Film Festival will undoubtedly take on a whole new level of enjoyment this time for having a Frenchman with whom to watch and discuss the films.
I may even brush up a little on my French before February. It's been a while, but it couldn't hurt, now could it?
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