Let me be perfectly queer, both us girls had forgotten that today was the Capital Pride Parade when we set off for D.C.
En route, Lady G gave me my birthday present, a fabulously patterned bag she'd quilted in my favorite colors: purples, greens, hot pinks and yellows. I've known this woman for 20 years as an illustrator and painter and now that she's turned her discerning eye to quilting, she has a new art form with which to share her talent.
And I have the most gorgeous beach bag ever.
As usual, she gave me some updates from her psychic friend, who's been assuring her for a while now that something big is about to happen to our orange leader health-wise. Or, as Lady G put it, "She told me not to worry. She said she's "seeing a Joe Kennedy kind of a stroke" in his imminent future."
All that fast food has to catch up with his heart at some point, right? Please, right?
She told me about her widowed friend who'd screwed up her nerve to contact her first boyfriend from when she was 15 years old. Fifty six years later, they had a date and are now an item. The power of the Internet (and loneliness) is mighty.
And speaking of junky food, once in D.C., there were an inordinate number of food vendor trucks parked everywhere and, even for the nation's capital on a weekend, a crazy amount of people already parked and milling about considering it wasn't even 11 a.m. yet. Despite a steady rain, we'd made it to D.C. in an hour and a half and as is our luck when we do our regular art runs, we had no problem finding a parking space two blocks from the Mall.
Along the way, we saw that the line for the Natural History Museum was around the block, no doubt due the opening just days ago of the newly renovated fossil hall, aka the dinosaur bone exhibit.
Still, we were clueless.
It was only when we cut through the Air and Space Museum to use the bathroom en route to the National Gallery of Art that the mystery was solved. Going through airport-level security, one of the guards mentioned that all this rain might cancel the Pride parade.
So that's what all this mass of humanity was about.
At the Air & Space Museum, we also ran into two women in Pride shirts from Rhode Island looking for recommendations for which galleries are must-sees for first-timers. I haven't been to that museum since the '90s, so I let G take the lead on answering those questions.
Meanwhile, I was checking out the crowds and I have to say, it was as completely different a group of people from the ones we see at the National Gallery as to be two different species. We escaped as quickly as we could.
Crossing the Mall, we saw a couple taking the iconic picture of each other in front of the capital, which made G extend a helping hand by asking the German-sounding couple if they wanted her to take their photo together. Once they understood her offer (their initial reaction was to shake their heads no and begin walking away), they were thrilled to get their photo taken, arms around each other.
"Already, we're doing so much for others!" G said proudly as we made our way toward the reason for the road trip, hearing the sounds of the Pride parade as we walked.
Inside, the security checkpoint was far simpler than at Air and Space. All we had to do was open our bags. When I greeted my guard with, "Howdy!" he grinned and asked where I was from. This city, D.C., I informed him and asked his provenance. "Houston," he said with hometown pride. "And you don't hear "howdy" much around these parts."
I don't want to brag, but I think I made his morning.
Moments after the museum opened, G and I were walking into "Tintoretto; Artist of Renaissance Venice," part of the 500th anniversary of Tintoretto's birth and the first retrospective of his work in North America.
Sigh. This is what art history nerds like G and I live for.
You can imagine my delight looking at "The Contest of Apollo and Marsyas" and learning that it had been done for a critic and art promoter named Pietro, whose published letters functioned as a kind of 16th century blog. A blog, people.
So you see, I'm just carrying on a long-standing tradition of informing the world of my interests.
Although G had said she knew very little about Tintoretto, I recalled my art history professors emphasizing his significant role in art history and in unseating Titian. Turns out Tintoretto, in his day, was doing avant garde paintings designed to shock, using Michelangelo's anatomy and Titian's colors. Meanwhile, his fellow artists were outraged and probably not a little mortified by how aggressively he marketed his work.
His mastery of foreshortening was startling and G pointed out time and again where he was showing off, having a realistically depicted foot or hand - sometimes an entire princess - seeming to extend out of the picture plane and into our world.
Strolling into another gallery - mind you, it was a large show with many enormous works, including many designed for ceilings - G got a look, grinned and observed, "Well, that's an interesting place to put a dragon." She was referring to "Saint George, Saint Louis and the Princess" and we weren't surprised to learn that the critics of the day agreed with her that m'lady's position astride a dragon was hardly lady-like.
Not that I think for a moment that Tintoretto was going for ladylike. If anything came across in his work, it was his confidence and brashness as he set out to change the direction of painting. Witness "Venus and Mars Surprised by Vulcan," showing Vulcan, convinced his wife is cheating on him, pulling back Venus' drape for signs of lovemaking on her thighs. Meanwhile Mars is crouched under a table hiding, helmet still on.
Presumably, he'd taken it off for the lovemaking. At least I hope he had.
No doubt about it, this was a once in a lifetime chance to see most of these works which have never touched down in the U.S. before. And because there were so many enormous pieces, the ever-practical artist G couldn't help but note, "I can't imagine how much it cost to ship all of these here."
After two plus hours in the thrall of Tintoretto, we were starved and made our way to the NGA's Cafe for lunch. While it was nice to get off our feet for a bit, we treated it mainly as a filling station so we could get back to looking at art, this time in the NGA's East Building.
Although we hadn't come planning to see "The Life of Animals in Japanese Art," G's eye had been caught by the signage we saw for it. As it turned out, it was just as big a show as Tintoretto had been - hell, it covered 17 centuries and a wide variety of mediums - requiring another couple hours to see it all.
I especially loved a forest green robe called "Uchi Kake with Phoenix and Birds," a gorgeous 19th century garment covered in 99 birds. The hundredth bird, a white crane flying against the sun, was put inside the collar of the robe so only the wearer could see it. Brilliant.
Very different was Okamoto Taro's 1948 work "Dawn," which depicts a shrieking monster dominating the center of the large, chaotic painting full of color and energy done just after world War II ended and expressing the demons still haunting the Japanese in the aftermath of being bombed.
In contrast, some pieces were pure whimsy, like "Dragonfly," a 19th century large format ink on paper of a dragonfly with such a hangdog look that he was almost cartoon-like. It wouldn't have looked out of place on a children's book cover.
Ditto the six-panel screen, "Fox's Wedding Procession," in which the artist had substituted foxes for men by putting Samurai costumes on the foxes and making them part of a traditional wedding party as they carry the bride-to-be aloft on a palanquin.
A print that could have been straight out of a contemporary children's book, "Daikon and Mice" showed two little gray mice climbing atop a white daikon with a brilliant orange carrot behind it. With the rich, green leaves of both vegetables framing the mice, the clean-lined print had a very modern graphic look to it.
When we finally finished with the animals, we were soul-satisfied as only art nerds can be after so much new to see. G didn't admit to the blister on her foot from so much walking and standing until we were sitting in traffic on I-395, that's how good a time we were having.
Admittedly, it probably couldn't match the post-parade elation of the Pride participants, but it was a pretty spectacular day for a couple of straight women.
And you know if we'd only had time, we'd have done the parade, too.
Showing posts with label national gallery of art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label national gallery of art. Show all posts
Monday, June 10, 2019
Thursday, November 29, 2018
Black and White
For the third time this week, I was up by 8 a.m.
I'm not thrilled about that, but Lady G was picking me up at 9:12 (her suggestion), which actually turned out to be 9:38, but who's keeping track? A last minute plan hatched to put us in Washington in time for two exhibits and lunch meant we needed to be on the road early-ish.
The things I do for art.
An hour and 45 minutes later (it's best if I don't look at the speedometer when G's driving), we were pulling into a prime parking space in a sunny spot on Constitution Avenue, feeling pretty smug about our luck.
I'd barely uttered the words "I'm so happy to be here" to the world at large before discovering that the parking payment station was malfunctioning, an inconvenience that sapped the next 20 minutes between downloading the parking app and speaking to a customer service representative who asked G everything from her gender to her mother's maiden name.
More than once, she muttered, "I'm not comfortable giving these people all this information."
Had I been there alone, I'd have been out of luck since a phone is apparently a requirement now to park. Don't get me started.
Walking the half block to the museum, we were soon stopped by two lost-looking women who sized us up and asked, "Excuse me, you're from here, aren't you? Where's the Museum of Natural History?" You never saw two natives beam like G and I did from being identified correctly and sent them on their way.
Once inside the National Gallery of Art, our heavy coats left behind at the coat check, we made the requisite first stop, causing G to observe, "Wow, of all the bathrooms I've been to here, I've never been in this one."
Some women never forget their loos.
The primary reason for the trip was to see "Corot: Women," a show neither of us could resist since the artist is known for landscapes, not figure painting. Seems he'd take occasional breaks from lucrative landscape painting gigs to paint models dressed up in prop clothes in his studio, notable because he didn't idealize them.
And why would he? He didn't idealize landscapes.
What was extraordinary about his paintings of women was how he set out to capture the mood of his models more than their garb or as a way of telling a story. Whether introspective, brooding, aloof or sad, the models' full-on gaze back at the artist flouted contemporary expectations of what femininity was.
These women had opinions and feelings and weren't afraid to show them even when they were being captured for posterity. Our kind of women.
"Melancholy," a figure of a woman with her cheek resting in her hand, her left sleeve having fallen off her shoulder, set the tone for the rest of the show. Corot had meticulously captured the woman's face in great detail - everyone in town had to have known who she was - but her body and voluminous white gown were depicted in such loose brushwork that the painting almost looked unfinished.
And here's where I had a teachable moment by reading the signage. Apparently Albrecht Durer had done an engraving of a woman in the same pose back in the 16th century and ever since, pensive cheek in hand poses were shorthand for melancholy.
This was news to me.
Just as fascinating was how Corot made a point to keep various props and furnishings in his studio, including an easel with a Corot landscape on it. Most of the paintings had interiors showing Corot paintings hanging on the walls behind the figures. Three of the paintings depicted the same woman in his studio, one hand on a Corot landscape, the other holding a mandolin.
It was Corot paints Corot paints Corot, a hall of mirrors effect that undoubtedly fed the artist's ego.
Then there was "Woman in a Yellow Sleeve," notable because the signage explained the painting's provenance: "Accepted in lieu of inheritance tax by HM Government from the estate of Lucian Freud and allocated to the National Gallery of London." All I could think was, wow, that must have been a helluva lot of money Sigmund's grandson owed the Queen.
"Lady in Blue" was distinctively different than the exhibition's other paintings because rather than a model in prop costumes, it showed a lovely young woman in an expensive and deeply ruffled blue dress, one plump arm crooked to draw the eye to her face. Because the painting showed her bare-armed without her dress jacket (shocking!), it had an intimate and erotic charge to it.
It also showed the clear influence of Manet in the black-tinged blue gown. Nobody has as much black undertones in their colors as Manet.
Just as good were his nudes, which he'd taken up solely to demonstrate his abilities beyond landscapes, because he depicted real women, the kind who weren't idealized like marble statues with smooth, flawless skin. Who has that kind of skin anyway?
What scandalized 19th century viewers was that these were real, recognizable women who were actually nude while a male artist had observed and painted her.
Why, it was a downright affront to decency and social decorum.
Turning to look at another wall of Corot's figures, G gasped and asked rhetorically, "What is this man doing in here?" She was referring to "St. Sebastian," essentially a male nude with a swaddle of cloth over his twigs and berries. A stranger walked up and exclaimed, "It's a man! What's that about? This is the third time I've seen this show and I never noticed him before!"
Hold the phone. How in the world do you see a compact exhibition - there were only 45 paintings, for crying out loud - of women three times and miss the sole male nude?
Granted, I may have silently judged, but I voiced not a word.
Naturally a confident, successful painter such as Corot wanted to show off his mastery of the male nude, although G and I could make a case for the canvas not belonging at this particular show.
And just in case I ever get asked to pose nude, I've decided I will mimic the reclining nude pose of Corot's "Marietta" for best effect.
By the time we finished soaking in the beauty, our heads were full of images of women captured by the artist in whatever their mood of the day had been. Corot, it seems, gave no instructions to his models, but allowed them to move around and settle in whatever way they chose, even if it was with a dismissive or condescending gaze.
Because sometimes, that's how a girl feels and she can't mask it.
From there, we made our way to see "Gordon Parks: The New Tide, Early Works," a large (150 strong) show of the first decade of Parks' photography career. Some of the works were familiar to me from seeing the VMFA's "Gordon Parks: Back to Fort Scott" show back in 2016. The photograph of gang leader Red Jackson doing the "slow drag" with his girlfriend - some people might call it grinding - I recognized immediately.
But there was so much more to learn about Parks at this exhibition.
Like how he'd moved his young family to Chicago to start a career in portrait photography and how he'd worked at the Southside Community Art Center. How his close friendship with Langston Hughes produced images of Hughes smiling, something I'd never seen before.
Easily one of my favorites was "Self Portrait 1941," a stunning image of his face and shoulders next to his large-format camera, the light and shadow on both producing exquisite tones of black and gray. Many of the photographs had been taken in SW Washington, mere blocks from where we stood. "Negro Woman in Her Bedroom" showed her looking into the kind of round dresser mirror my own grandmother had had, with a large picture of FDR on the wall next to it.
Who didn't believe in FDR back in those days?
Even in his first decade of capturing American life, you could already see Parks' commitment to documenting the inequities of black and white life. "Young Boy Standing in the Doorway" showed a boy on crutches from behind, one of his legs amputated after a streetcar cut the leg off while he was playing in the street. It was Park's commentary about white children having playgrounds to go to while black children had nothing beyond the streets for recreation.
"Drugstore Cowboys, Alberta" showed five young men in dungarees, caps and jackets, staring back at him with looks of cockiness, uncertainty and disdain, in front of a "Drink Coca Cola" sign. All of them look street-wise and ready for their close-ups.
Meanwhile, "Panhandler on 7th Street, NW" was a reminder that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Also that we needed to head up Seventh Street ourselves or risk passing out from starvation.
Jaleo was covered in scaffolding, but the signs said they were open during construction and that's all we cared about. Given that owner Jose Andres was just the other day nominated for the Nobel Peace prize, G and I thought it only fitting to pay our respects by eating his food.
That, and the food's always fabulous.
By arriving so late in the afternoon, the lunch rush had quieted down and many tables were unoccupied, making it nice for a change not to have to raise our voices to converse. After so much art, all we wanted to do was sink back into the banquette and give in to the four course lunch menu.
G and I are so easy sometimes.
For me, diving in meant gazpacho with cherry tomatoes that inexplicably tasted like August. How does Jose do it? Next came endive with goat cheese, orange sections and almonds, a collection of bright and light flavors, then garlic slices and shrimp in chile oil, all of which I washed down with Cava Sangria.
G, meanwhile, began with roasted onions with bleu cheese, a practically perfect sweet and salty balance, before moving on to chicken fritters, which essentially tasted like chicken pot pie inside the lightest crunchy shell imaginable. She was drinking red Sangria to accompany her Daniel Patrick Moynihan pork sausage over white beans, a dish she freely admitted choosing because of its nod to the long time Democratic senator.
Although we'd intentionally ordered different dishes for each course so as to have as many things as possible to taste, when it came time for dessert, neither of us was ordering ice cream on a chilly day. Instead, we each devoured a flan with vanilla-flecked whipped cream and oranges, a heavenly finish to a stellar lunch.
All I can say is, it's a good thing Jaleo isn't in Richmond or I'd be having four course lunches every chance I got.
We'd taken so long lingering over lunch that I-395 was already starting to back up by the time we got on it, but since G and I never lack for conversational topics - old loves, new loves, crazy exes and hard-of-hearing friends - we didn't care. Still high on art, we tried to look like three people while in the HOV lanes and marveled at the beauty of the late November sky through her filthy windshield.
We tried cleaning it with Windex on I-95, but that turned out to be a bad idea in moving traffic.
Barely crawling along in the left lane near Stafford, I happened to glance over and saw two young deer standing just barely on the other side of the guard rail in the median, inches from us and thousands of moving cars.
One looked right at me, like one of Corot's models, as if to say, yea, I'm here, so what?
"Well, that was magical," G observed of our wildlife moment as the sun began to set. Parking issues aside, she could have been referring to the entire day.
My plan is to celebrate by sleeping way past 8 a.m. tomorrow. And if not, you can expect to see my cheek resting in my hand, melancholy style.
And, let's face it, no one wants to see me melancholy again. Once was plenty.
I'm not thrilled about that, but Lady G was picking me up at 9:12 (her suggestion), which actually turned out to be 9:38, but who's keeping track? A last minute plan hatched to put us in Washington in time for two exhibits and lunch meant we needed to be on the road early-ish.
The things I do for art.
An hour and 45 minutes later (it's best if I don't look at the speedometer when G's driving), we were pulling into a prime parking space in a sunny spot on Constitution Avenue, feeling pretty smug about our luck.
I'd barely uttered the words "I'm so happy to be here" to the world at large before discovering that the parking payment station was malfunctioning, an inconvenience that sapped the next 20 minutes between downloading the parking app and speaking to a customer service representative who asked G everything from her gender to her mother's maiden name.
More than once, she muttered, "I'm not comfortable giving these people all this information."
Had I been there alone, I'd have been out of luck since a phone is apparently a requirement now to park. Don't get me started.
Walking the half block to the museum, we were soon stopped by two lost-looking women who sized us up and asked, "Excuse me, you're from here, aren't you? Where's the Museum of Natural History?" You never saw two natives beam like G and I did from being identified correctly and sent them on their way.
Once inside the National Gallery of Art, our heavy coats left behind at the coat check, we made the requisite first stop, causing G to observe, "Wow, of all the bathrooms I've been to here, I've never been in this one."
Some women never forget their loos.
The primary reason for the trip was to see "Corot: Women," a show neither of us could resist since the artist is known for landscapes, not figure painting. Seems he'd take occasional breaks from lucrative landscape painting gigs to paint models dressed up in prop clothes in his studio, notable because he didn't idealize them.
And why would he? He didn't idealize landscapes.
What was extraordinary about his paintings of women was how he set out to capture the mood of his models more than their garb or as a way of telling a story. Whether introspective, brooding, aloof or sad, the models' full-on gaze back at the artist flouted contemporary expectations of what femininity was.
These women had opinions and feelings and weren't afraid to show them even when they were being captured for posterity. Our kind of women.
"Melancholy," a figure of a woman with her cheek resting in her hand, her left sleeve having fallen off her shoulder, set the tone for the rest of the show. Corot had meticulously captured the woman's face in great detail - everyone in town had to have known who she was - but her body and voluminous white gown were depicted in such loose brushwork that the painting almost looked unfinished.
And here's where I had a teachable moment by reading the signage. Apparently Albrecht Durer had done an engraving of a woman in the same pose back in the 16th century and ever since, pensive cheek in hand poses were shorthand for melancholy.
This was news to me.
Just as fascinating was how Corot made a point to keep various props and furnishings in his studio, including an easel with a Corot landscape on it. Most of the paintings had interiors showing Corot paintings hanging on the walls behind the figures. Three of the paintings depicted the same woman in his studio, one hand on a Corot landscape, the other holding a mandolin.
It was Corot paints Corot paints Corot, a hall of mirrors effect that undoubtedly fed the artist's ego.
Then there was "Woman in a Yellow Sleeve," notable because the signage explained the painting's provenance: "Accepted in lieu of inheritance tax by HM Government from the estate of Lucian Freud and allocated to the National Gallery of London." All I could think was, wow, that must have been a helluva lot of money Sigmund's grandson owed the Queen.
"Lady in Blue" was distinctively different than the exhibition's other paintings because rather than a model in prop costumes, it showed a lovely young woman in an expensive and deeply ruffled blue dress, one plump arm crooked to draw the eye to her face. Because the painting showed her bare-armed without her dress jacket (shocking!), it had an intimate and erotic charge to it.
It also showed the clear influence of Manet in the black-tinged blue gown. Nobody has as much black undertones in their colors as Manet.
Just as good were his nudes, which he'd taken up solely to demonstrate his abilities beyond landscapes, because he depicted real women, the kind who weren't idealized like marble statues with smooth, flawless skin. Who has that kind of skin anyway?
What scandalized 19th century viewers was that these were real, recognizable women who were actually nude while a male artist had observed and painted her.
Why, it was a downright affront to decency and social decorum.
Turning to look at another wall of Corot's figures, G gasped and asked rhetorically, "What is this man doing in here?" She was referring to "St. Sebastian," essentially a male nude with a swaddle of cloth over his twigs and berries. A stranger walked up and exclaimed, "It's a man! What's that about? This is the third time I've seen this show and I never noticed him before!"
Hold the phone. How in the world do you see a compact exhibition - there were only 45 paintings, for crying out loud - of women three times and miss the sole male nude?
Granted, I may have silently judged, but I voiced not a word.
Naturally a confident, successful painter such as Corot wanted to show off his mastery of the male nude, although G and I could make a case for the canvas not belonging at this particular show.
And just in case I ever get asked to pose nude, I've decided I will mimic the reclining nude pose of Corot's "Marietta" for best effect.
By the time we finished soaking in the beauty, our heads were full of images of women captured by the artist in whatever their mood of the day had been. Corot, it seems, gave no instructions to his models, but allowed them to move around and settle in whatever way they chose, even if it was with a dismissive or condescending gaze.
Because sometimes, that's how a girl feels and she can't mask it.
From there, we made our way to see "Gordon Parks: The New Tide, Early Works," a large (150 strong) show of the first decade of Parks' photography career. Some of the works were familiar to me from seeing the VMFA's "Gordon Parks: Back to Fort Scott" show back in 2016. The photograph of gang leader Red Jackson doing the "slow drag" with his girlfriend - some people might call it grinding - I recognized immediately.
But there was so much more to learn about Parks at this exhibition.
Like how he'd moved his young family to Chicago to start a career in portrait photography and how he'd worked at the Southside Community Art Center. How his close friendship with Langston Hughes produced images of Hughes smiling, something I'd never seen before.
Easily one of my favorites was "Self Portrait 1941," a stunning image of his face and shoulders next to his large-format camera, the light and shadow on both producing exquisite tones of black and gray. Many of the photographs had been taken in SW Washington, mere blocks from where we stood. "Negro Woman in Her Bedroom" showed her looking into the kind of round dresser mirror my own grandmother had had, with a large picture of FDR on the wall next to it.
Who didn't believe in FDR back in those days?
Even in his first decade of capturing American life, you could already see Parks' commitment to documenting the inequities of black and white life. "Young Boy Standing in the Doorway" showed a boy on crutches from behind, one of his legs amputated after a streetcar cut the leg off while he was playing in the street. It was Park's commentary about white children having playgrounds to go to while black children had nothing beyond the streets for recreation.
"Drugstore Cowboys, Alberta" showed five young men in dungarees, caps and jackets, staring back at him with looks of cockiness, uncertainty and disdain, in front of a "Drink Coca Cola" sign. All of them look street-wise and ready for their close-ups.
Meanwhile, "Panhandler on 7th Street, NW" was a reminder that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Also that we needed to head up Seventh Street ourselves or risk passing out from starvation.
Jaleo was covered in scaffolding, but the signs said they were open during construction and that's all we cared about. Given that owner Jose Andres was just the other day nominated for the Nobel Peace prize, G and I thought it only fitting to pay our respects by eating his food.
That, and the food's always fabulous.
By arriving so late in the afternoon, the lunch rush had quieted down and many tables were unoccupied, making it nice for a change not to have to raise our voices to converse. After so much art, all we wanted to do was sink back into the banquette and give in to the four course lunch menu.
G and I are so easy sometimes.
For me, diving in meant gazpacho with cherry tomatoes that inexplicably tasted like August. How does Jose do it? Next came endive with goat cheese, orange sections and almonds, a collection of bright and light flavors, then garlic slices and shrimp in chile oil, all of which I washed down with Cava Sangria.
G, meanwhile, began with roasted onions with bleu cheese, a practically perfect sweet and salty balance, before moving on to chicken fritters, which essentially tasted like chicken pot pie inside the lightest crunchy shell imaginable. She was drinking red Sangria to accompany her Daniel Patrick Moynihan pork sausage over white beans, a dish she freely admitted choosing because of its nod to the long time Democratic senator.
Although we'd intentionally ordered different dishes for each course so as to have as many things as possible to taste, when it came time for dessert, neither of us was ordering ice cream on a chilly day. Instead, we each devoured a flan with vanilla-flecked whipped cream and oranges, a heavenly finish to a stellar lunch.
All I can say is, it's a good thing Jaleo isn't in Richmond or I'd be having four course lunches every chance I got.
We'd taken so long lingering over lunch that I-395 was already starting to back up by the time we got on it, but since G and I never lack for conversational topics - old loves, new loves, crazy exes and hard-of-hearing friends - we didn't care. Still high on art, we tried to look like three people while in the HOV lanes and marveled at the beauty of the late November sky through her filthy windshield.
We tried cleaning it with Windex on I-95, but that turned out to be a bad idea in moving traffic.
Barely crawling along in the left lane near Stafford, I happened to glance over and saw two young deer standing just barely on the other side of the guard rail in the median, inches from us and thousands of moving cars.
One looked right at me, like one of Corot's models, as if to say, yea, I'm here, so what?
"Well, that was magical," G observed of our wildlife moment as the sun began to set. Parking issues aside, she could have been referring to the entire day.
My plan is to celebrate by sleeping way past 8 a.m. tomorrow. And if not, you can expect to see my cheek resting in my hand, melancholy style.
And, let's face it, no one wants to see me melancholy again. Once was plenty.
Sunday, May 20, 2018
Planners Gotta Plan
As weekends away go, it had everything.
A fair amount of rain, yes, but also my first time on the National Gallery of Art's East Building rooftop terrace (yes, the one with the bright blue rooster sculpture) overlooking Constitution Avenue's puddle-slicked lanes. To the right, the Capital seemed close enough to touch.
Truth is, I've been devoted to the National Gallery since fourth grade and it can still thrill me with something new or different.
Art, natch, with the NGA's "Cezanne: Portraits" - surely never did a man repeatedly portray his wife in such a dour manner - and the captivating newish Calder Gallery where I saw Piet Mondrian's influence on Calder's painting for the first time. The lighting in the gallery masterfully cast shadows on mobiles and stabiles, in many cases (see: "The Rearing Stallion") rendering shadows that looked quite different from the source.
Let's just say the Calder fan with me was transported.
There was the new-to-my mouth neighborhood of Del Ray where we sipped Hillinger Secco Rose at the Evening Star's atmospherically dark lounge and ate in a former house, now the farm-to-table (and French) Del Ray Cafe, which got bonus points when it seemed that every server spoke multiple languages, depending on which table they were speaking to. Or perhaps my head was turned by the chocolate beignets with orange creme anglaise accompanied by glasses of Port.
That's my kind of final course.
This trip definitely had fog. Walking toward the mall mid-morning, we found the Washington monument so shrouded in fog that its top third appeared lost in the atmosphere. Later, at Hank's Oyster Bar for Montand Brut Rose, gazpacho and tuna tartare, TV screens showed us an eerily foggy racetrack with horses being trotted out at Pimlico.
My Dad would be so proud if he knew I saw even a few minutes of one of his favorite sports. I mean, what girl-child doesn't remember going with her father to get a copy of The Racing Form from the drugstore?
Succulent cobia collar (and a charming server from Ukraine) were the bright spot at Vermilion, a place that could take itself a lot less seriously but is too self-involved to realize such a thing. At least the company was superb.
Architecture came courtesy of a private tour of the Pope-Leighey House, one of Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian (one story, affordable, small) houses, a tour given by a man so deeply involved with the house that he'd made some of the furniture reproductions in the house.
There were many things about the house that impressed me, not the least of which was a screened porch complete with screened roof that the original owners had used as a place for the kids to play while Mom cooked dinner. Child cage, screened porch, potatoes, potahtoes, call it what you like. It was a magnificent outdoor room.
I was told I got the star treatment when our guide opened up the dining room's two corner windows - yes, they were floor to ceiling windows - out into the yard. Apparently, most visitors don't get those windows opened so they can walk out them the way god and Frank Lloyd Wright intended.
We'll call that good birthday karma, although not mine.
A driving tour of mid-century modern neighborhood Hollin Hills provided an up-close look at what happens when a neighborhood association takes pains to insure that such concentrated housing stock stays true to its origins. House after house looked pretty much as it had been designed in the '40s, a startling reality in 2018.
As a fan of complementary colors, I found the bright yellow car parked in front of a low-slung purple house with clerestory windows especially fetching.
A meandering drive down the Parkway and along Route 1 (please, can we just take down those Jefferson Davis Highway signs and be done with it?) landed us in Fredericksburg by mid-afternoon, where we first tried out a rooftop deck before switching to the patio for the sake of being able to order brick oven pizza and wile away the hours discussing baseball, feminist writers and the definition of romance.
When our server discovered there was a birthday celebrant at the table, she offered up the traditional birthday cannoli (you know the one), a kind offer, but one which neither Taurus nor Gemini had room for after an elegant sufficiency of two pies, an arugula salad and a memorable weekend.
Next step: rinse and repeat.
I'm doing my best to hang on, but it's looking like it's going to be a wild ride. And I mean that in the best possible way.
A fair amount of rain, yes, but also my first time on the National Gallery of Art's East Building rooftop terrace (yes, the one with the bright blue rooster sculpture) overlooking Constitution Avenue's puddle-slicked lanes. To the right, the Capital seemed close enough to touch.
Truth is, I've been devoted to the National Gallery since fourth grade and it can still thrill me with something new or different.
Art, natch, with the NGA's "Cezanne: Portraits" - surely never did a man repeatedly portray his wife in such a dour manner - and the captivating newish Calder Gallery where I saw Piet Mondrian's influence on Calder's painting for the first time. The lighting in the gallery masterfully cast shadows on mobiles and stabiles, in many cases (see: "The Rearing Stallion") rendering shadows that looked quite different from the source.
Let's just say the Calder fan with me was transported.
There was the new-to-my mouth neighborhood of Del Ray where we sipped Hillinger Secco Rose at the Evening Star's atmospherically dark lounge and ate in a former house, now the farm-to-table (and French) Del Ray Cafe, which got bonus points when it seemed that every server spoke multiple languages, depending on which table they were speaking to. Or perhaps my head was turned by the chocolate beignets with orange creme anglaise accompanied by glasses of Port.
That's my kind of final course.
This trip definitely had fog. Walking toward the mall mid-morning, we found the Washington monument so shrouded in fog that its top third appeared lost in the atmosphere. Later, at Hank's Oyster Bar for Montand Brut Rose, gazpacho and tuna tartare, TV screens showed us an eerily foggy racetrack with horses being trotted out at Pimlico.
My Dad would be so proud if he knew I saw even a few minutes of one of his favorite sports. I mean, what girl-child doesn't remember going with her father to get a copy of The Racing Form from the drugstore?
Succulent cobia collar (and a charming server from Ukraine) were the bright spot at Vermilion, a place that could take itself a lot less seriously but is too self-involved to realize such a thing. At least the company was superb.
Architecture came courtesy of a private tour of the Pope-Leighey House, one of Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian (one story, affordable, small) houses, a tour given by a man so deeply involved with the house that he'd made some of the furniture reproductions in the house.
There were many things about the house that impressed me, not the least of which was a screened porch complete with screened roof that the original owners had used as a place for the kids to play while Mom cooked dinner. Child cage, screened porch, potatoes, potahtoes, call it what you like. It was a magnificent outdoor room.
I was told I got the star treatment when our guide opened up the dining room's two corner windows - yes, they were floor to ceiling windows - out into the yard. Apparently, most visitors don't get those windows opened so they can walk out them the way god and Frank Lloyd Wright intended.
We'll call that good birthday karma, although not mine.
A driving tour of mid-century modern neighborhood Hollin Hills provided an up-close look at what happens when a neighborhood association takes pains to insure that such concentrated housing stock stays true to its origins. House after house looked pretty much as it had been designed in the '40s, a startling reality in 2018.
As a fan of complementary colors, I found the bright yellow car parked in front of a low-slung purple house with clerestory windows especially fetching.
A meandering drive down the Parkway and along Route 1 (please, can we just take down those Jefferson Davis Highway signs and be done with it?) landed us in Fredericksburg by mid-afternoon, where we first tried out a rooftop deck before switching to the patio for the sake of being able to order brick oven pizza and wile away the hours discussing baseball, feminist writers and the definition of romance.
When our server discovered there was a birthday celebrant at the table, she offered up the traditional birthday cannoli (you know the one), a kind offer, but one which neither Taurus nor Gemini had room for after an elegant sufficiency of two pies, an arugula salad and a memorable weekend.
Next step: rinse and repeat.
I'm doing my best to hang on, but it's looking like it's going to be a wild ride. And I mean that in the best possible way.
Wednesday, July 5, 2017
After the Deluge
Not in this century have I experienced such a lucky day in the city of my nativity.
The art lover and I got there in an hour and 40 minutes, notable because she did not speed more than a perfectly respectable 4 or 5 miles an hour, even as she regaled me with stories of her youthful exploits hitchhiking in a purple gauze dress.
How was she supposed to know that those weren't dancers on the trim of her dress, they were people copulating? A girl's got to keep her eye on the bigger picture.
Then like a boss, we pulled up in front of the Freer Gallery on Independence Avenue, the equivalent of parking in the curved White House driveway.
We had only to walk across the sandy expanse of the Mall - albeit through an encampment of tents for the ongoing Folk Life Fest - and down a few blocks past the Museum of Natural History and through the delights of the National Sculpture Garden to climb the wide steps of the National Gallery of Art.
That's rock star parking for sure, but even more unexpected than that was that we were in the nation's capital during one of the biggest vacation weeks of the year and the foot traffic was oddly light. The clusters of people on corners waiting for a light change numbered a dozen rather than 40. Sidewalks weren't clotted with tour and school groups.
My friend and I - both born at GWU Hospital barely 2 miles away - looked at each other agog. Why was the city so underpopulated today? Had we driven into some "Twilight Zone"-like recreation of the Washington, D.C. we'd known growing up?
Hot damn, we concluded, heading into the (endangered) Enid Haupt Gardens - not for the first time, yet only today learning that the garden sits on the roof of an underground building, so it's actually a rooftop garden with its own distinctly different micro-climate.
Today's outing had been planned around seeing "Frederic Bazille and the Birth of Impressionism" before it leaves the country on Sunday, with hopes of catching whatever else we could. We like to think we're flexible, if a bit focused.
That we were fortunate enough to spend time with the 19th century Frederic with so few 21st century people around can only be attributed to some unseen fairy godmother, whom I can only assume has a smart mouth and a quick wit.
Everything about the work in the show fed our nerdy souls, from Bazille's still-clumsy work as a student (jackpot: his sketchbooks!) to his mastery of still life and figure painting, only to be cut down in his prime due to an acute case of young man-itis: he enlisted in the army and was shot and killed at age 28.
Because nooo, he couldn't just stay home and paint, he had to put on a flashy red Zouave uniform and go to battle like young men with things to prove do. Such a waste of a talent who would have been a major force in shaping Impressionism.
And while we were particularly impressed with Bazille's paintings of his young friends Renoir (sitting with his feet up on a chair) and Monet (long, dark hair giving him a rakish air), it was hard not to admire the firm backside of the male nude in "Fisherman with a Net" most. I mean, a lot.
As it happens, I can now do so indefinitely, having made a magnet purchase sure to catch my eye every morning when I go to the refrigerator for blueberries. Some men just know how to hold a net, if you know what I mean. Also, as I protested to to my friend, it's art.
And while Bazille was the most important thing we saw today, it was far from the only one.
There was the tiny jewel of a show, "Urban Landscapes 1920-1950," full of exquisite lithographs, aquatints, cyanotypes, stereographs and woodcuts depicting a newly modern world with detail so fine it defied comprehension.
It was a complete contrast to the enormous (well, 175 pieces) photography exhibit, "East of the Mississippi: 19th Century American Landscape Photography," which managed to romanticize the East in that way we more often think of the West. Photography elders Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen both showed up in this exhibit, along with a couple of photos so old and rare they had velvet cloths hanging in front of them to protect them from the light.
Fascinating for its cultural history lesson, "America Collects 18th-century French Painting," provided a window into the well-heeled colonists' desire to own and display French art.
Seems that our forefathers found 18th century France fascinating not just because of the opulence and courtliness of the era, but because it was a place that blended Enlightenment philosophy with revolutionary ideas.
In other words, just the kind of pastel and idyllic artwork that would speak to America's nouveau riche (Whitneys, Vanderbilts, Astors) as they were furnishing their Gilded Age McMansions and needed a little something for over the fainting couch.
If I had to pick a favorite, it would likely be Fragonard's "Study for Pursuit Panel" from the "Progress of Love" (is there really such a thing?) series. As loose as the brushwork is, the story is all there, as in everything has been sketched out for the final piece, but just barely and brilliantly.
The object of desire runs away after being startled by an admirer, her arms extended out from her shoulders, her pale, white bosom heaving as she runs prettily. To my eye, the careless-looking brushstrokes and casual immediacy of the scene have far more soul than the final version of the painting.
We had lunch in the National Gallery's subterranean restaurant, our table facing a glass wall behind which water cascaded down a tiered wall. The last time we'd eaten here, the waterfall had been turned off. Again, today had good fortune written all over it.
Although I'm not usually a gift shop person, today's capitalistic foray had a purpose. Having recently finished my desktop memo book of the past 8 years, I was in the market for a new one and where better to find just the right journal than the National Gallery of Art?
Because today had fairy dust on it, I found a lined journal just the right size with a Fragonard painting of a woman in a yellow dress called "Young Girl Reading" on the front and back.
Voila, a souvenir (along with my male nude magnet) and the new written vehicle for managing my life.
After one last stroll through a nearly empty pocket garden, Lady Luck followed us across the mall back to the car, where we spotted a traffic cop uncomfortably near it and, knowing we'd overstayed our meter time, I took off running down the block to plead our case.
In flowered thong sandals, I might add, not the best running footwear for speed or distance.
When he spotted me sprinting toward him, he smiled and told me to relax, he wouldn't ticket us. "Nice show of athleticism, though" he said, wishing us a good day and walking away. We heaped thank-yous on his retreating back.
We motored back through a driving rain that turned other vehicles into shadowy silver gray forms and had us hydro-planing a time or two on I-95. Tricky as the driving was, we both had high hopes for our gardens that it would still be raining at home.
Because it was a day to get what we wanted, rain met us in Richmond and I wasted no time in putting on rain boots and heading out for an evening walk to stretch the legs that had stood for hours in galleries and unknot the bones after the rainy car ride home.
Sometimes the stay-cation hits the road with the savviest art geek I know, but today it also wound back home before moonrise.
Besides art memories, I now have a new journal for the next phase of life. See: "Middle Aged Woman Reading...When She's Not Talking."
Yellow dress optional, although I do have one. It's gauze.
The art lover and I got there in an hour and 40 minutes, notable because she did not speed more than a perfectly respectable 4 or 5 miles an hour, even as she regaled me with stories of her youthful exploits hitchhiking in a purple gauze dress.
How was she supposed to know that those weren't dancers on the trim of her dress, they were people copulating? A girl's got to keep her eye on the bigger picture.
Then like a boss, we pulled up in front of the Freer Gallery on Independence Avenue, the equivalent of parking in the curved White House driveway.
We had only to walk across the sandy expanse of the Mall - albeit through an encampment of tents for the ongoing Folk Life Fest - and down a few blocks past the Museum of Natural History and through the delights of the National Sculpture Garden to climb the wide steps of the National Gallery of Art.
That's rock star parking for sure, but even more unexpected than that was that we were in the nation's capital during one of the biggest vacation weeks of the year and the foot traffic was oddly light. The clusters of people on corners waiting for a light change numbered a dozen rather than 40. Sidewalks weren't clotted with tour and school groups.
My friend and I - both born at GWU Hospital barely 2 miles away - looked at each other agog. Why was the city so underpopulated today? Had we driven into some "Twilight Zone"-like recreation of the Washington, D.C. we'd known growing up?
Hot damn, we concluded, heading into the (endangered) Enid Haupt Gardens - not for the first time, yet only today learning that the garden sits on the roof of an underground building, so it's actually a rooftop garden with its own distinctly different micro-climate.
Today's outing had been planned around seeing "Frederic Bazille and the Birth of Impressionism" before it leaves the country on Sunday, with hopes of catching whatever else we could. We like to think we're flexible, if a bit focused.
That we were fortunate enough to spend time with the 19th century Frederic with so few 21st century people around can only be attributed to some unseen fairy godmother, whom I can only assume has a smart mouth and a quick wit.
Everything about the work in the show fed our nerdy souls, from Bazille's still-clumsy work as a student (jackpot: his sketchbooks!) to his mastery of still life and figure painting, only to be cut down in his prime due to an acute case of young man-itis: he enlisted in the army and was shot and killed at age 28.
Because nooo, he couldn't just stay home and paint, he had to put on a flashy red Zouave uniform and go to battle like young men with things to prove do. Such a waste of a talent who would have been a major force in shaping Impressionism.
And while we were particularly impressed with Bazille's paintings of his young friends Renoir (sitting with his feet up on a chair) and Monet (long, dark hair giving him a rakish air), it was hard not to admire the firm backside of the male nude in "Fisherman with a Net" most. I mean, a lot.
As it happens, I can now do so indefinitely, having made a magnet purchase sure to catch my eye every morning when I go to the refrigerator for blueberries. Some men just know how to hold a net, if you know what I mean. Also, as I protested to to my friend, it's art.
And while Bazille was the most important thing we saw today, it was far from the only one.
There was the tiny jewel of a show, "Urban Landscapes 1920-1950," full of exquisite lithographs, aquatints, cyanotypes, stereographs and woodcuts depicting a newly modern world with detail so fine it defied comprehension.
It was a complete contrast to the enormous (well, 175 pieces) photography exhibit, "East of the Mississippi: 19th Century American Landscape Photography," which managed to romanticize the East in that way we more often think of the West. Photography elders Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen both showed up in this exhibit, along with a couple of photos so old and rare they had velvet cloths hanging in front of them to protect them from the light.
Fascinating for its cultural history lesson, "America Collects 18th-century French Painting," provided a window into the well-heeled colonists' desire to own and display French art.
Seems that our forefathers found 18th century France fascinating not just because of the opulence and courtliness of the era, but because it was a place that blended Enlightenment philosophy with revolutionary ideas.
In other words, just the kind of pastel and idyllic artwork that would speak to America's nouveau riche (Whitneys, Vanderbilts, Astors) as they were furnishing their Gilded Age McMansions and needed a little something for over the fainting couch.
If I had to pick a favorite, it would likely be Fragonard's "Study for Pursuit Panel" from the "Progress of Love" (is there really such a thing?) series. As loose as the brushwork is, the story is all there, as in everything has been sketched out for the final piece, but just barely and brilliantly.
The object of desire runs away after being startled by an admirer, her arms extended out from her shoulders, her pale, white bosom heaving as she runs prettily. To my eye, the careless-looking brushstrokes and casual immediacy of the scene have far more soul than the final version of the painting.
We had lunch in the National Gallery's subterranean restaurant, our table facing a glass wall behind which water cascaded down a tiered wall. The last time we'd eaten here, the waterfall had been turned off. Again, today had good fortune written all over it.
Although I'm not usually a gift shop person, today's capitalistic foray had a purpose. Having recently finished my desktop memo book of the past 8 years, I was in the market for a new one and where better to find just the right journal than the National Gallery of Art?
Because today had fairy dust on it, I found a lined journal just the right size with a Fragonard painting of a woman in a yellow dress called "Young Girl Reading" on the front and back.
Voila, a souvenir (along with my male nude magnet) and the new written vehicle for managing my life.
After one last stroll through a nearly empty pocket garden, Lady Luck followed us across the mall back to the car, where we spotted a traffic cop uncomfortably near it and, knowing we'd overstayed our meter time, I took off running down the block to plead our case.
In flowered thong sandals, I might add, not the best running footwear for speed or distance.
When he spotted me sprinting toward him, he smiled and told me to relax, he wouldn't ticket us. "Nice show of athleticism, though" he said, wishing us a good day and walking away. We heaped thank-yous on his retreating back.
We motored back through a driving rain that turned other vehicles into shadowy silver gray forms and had us hydro-planing a time or two on I-95. Tricky as the driving was, we both had high hopes for our gardens that it would still be raining at home.
Because it was a day to get what we wanted, rain met us in Richmond and I wasted no time in putting on rain boots and heading out for an evening walk to stretch the legs that had stood for hours in galleries and unknot the bones after the rainy car ride home.
Sometimes the stay-cation hits the road with the savviest art geek I know, but today it also wound back home before moonrise.
Besides art memories, I now have a new journal for the next phase of life. See: "Middle Aged Woman Reading...When She's Not Talking."
Yellow dress optional, although I do have one. It's gauze.
Thursday, December 1, 2016
Get Your Fresh-Sliced Serenity and Calm
I was lured to Washington on false pretenses.
A couple of weeks ago, an artist friend suggested a road trip to the National Gallery to see the Caravaggio show, so I responded by choosing a 72-degree day to do it. Simple.
In the meantime, I read about the opening of a Stuart Davis show, meaning we now had two killer shows to see.
And because I'm the person in this relationship to whom research - not just about the art offerings, but also which restaurants and bars to investigate - and itinerary-making falls, I did my job, albeit at the last minute last night.
Because I waited until the eleventh hour, when I finally did go digging, it was only to discover that Caravaggio was indeed at the National Gallery.
In London. Caravaggio was at the National Gallery in frickin' London.
But, not wanting to be a spoil sport, I didn't immediately share this tidbit when my friend showed up at the crack of dawn (9:15 a.m.) to fetch me.
Sure, I had the Stuart Davis exhibition to offer up as a replacement - not to mention that even without a banner show, we could have easily occupied ourselves at the NGA from opening to close - but there seemed to be no reason to rush the bad news.
But when we stopped at a gas station in Aquia, it seemed like the right moment and I gently broke the news that there'd be no Caravaggio for us.
"Wait! I've got two credit cards in my wallet! We could be there in, what, six or so hours?" Apparently some people deal with disappointment by joking.
The good news is that the unfortunate turn of events worked out just fine. First we saw "Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1959-1971," a fascinating show about Virginia Dwan's avant garde galleries, first in LA in the early '60s and then later in NYC.
All the pieces in the show were from Dwan's personal collection and reflected her interest in new art movements, ideas and techniques.
For proof, how '60s revolutionary sounding is this?
Shusaku Arakawa's 1969 "Stolen" got its name because the artist had painted the message, "If possible, steal any one of these drawings including this sentence," with the letters of "sentence" getting progressively lighter as if they'd been stolen already.
Naturally a group of students sent the artist a letter of intent to steal the piece, then stole it and sent a telegram confirming what they'd done. Arakawa responded, saying what a great surprise it was to be "collaborating" with them and suggesting they donate the work to a museum.
This being the '60s, most museums scoffed at the notion of accepting a gift of a stolen artwork until finally a Connecticut museum accepted it and renamed it "Stolen."
Hell, that's a practically perfect short story circa 1969.
For sheer impact, it was tough to beat Robert Smithson's "Glass Stratum," 37 stepped glass pieces, each 2" smaller than the last, for a pyramid effect of brilliant translucence and opaqueness simultaneously.
I bet it must have seemed incredibly modern in 1967.
After making a detour through a collection of small French works - Bonnard, Vuillard, Modigliani, Matisse - in the East Building to cleanse our artistic palates, we headed directly to the replacement main event: "Stuart Davis: In Full Swing."
We could practically hear the jazz music just looking at the scads of canvases on the walls.
Despite being able to recognize his distinctive later canvases, neither of us had any more than a cursory knowledge of Davis so we arrived eager to soak in this retrospective, only to be rewarded again and again by an artist whose career didn't begin to take off until he'd passed the mid-century mark.
Kind of reassuring, isn't it?
I'm sure it's completely coincidental, but the exhibit was made possible by Altria and began with Davis' early paintings of tobacco packages in muted colors. Zig Zag rolling papers put in frequent appearances in his works from the '20s, as did Lucky Strikes.
It was, after all, the era of smoke 'em if you got 'em.
Making our way through the next couple decades' worth of still lifes, urban scenes and landscapes, we watched as he began adding in commercial elements and advertising language, moving closer to the Stuart Davis we knew.
But where he truly nailed it to the wall was when he began giving reality a make-over, providing the ultimate American take on self re-invention.
He did that by recycling his old compositions, reworking them into something wholly different, something immediately recognizable as the decidedly abstract, prominently pop culture-referenced and defiantly American Stuart Davis paintings that could be mistaken for the art of no one else.
With 100 paintings in the show, it's impossible to pick favorites, but I don't know who could resist the sleight of hand as Davis took the perfectly pleasant "House and Street" with its simple buildings, signs and ladders and re-imagined it as the oh-so hip "The Mellow Pad," a painting that took six years to finish and is filled to bursting with musical energy, rhythmic patterns and brilliant colors.
Despite the name suggesting someone very much in tune with NYC's jazz scene (he's referred to as "the artist laureate of the Jazz Age"), the last thing it evokes is a mellow place.
When I think mellow, I think of my friend's recent description of my apartment - "Your slice of serenity and calm" - not the swingin' hot spot abstractly depicted in Davis' canvas.
We felt completely at home looking at his "Champion," a work on loan from the VMFA and so familiar to me that I could tell you where it usually hangs in the 20th century gallery.
Oh, that old thing? We're practically on a first name basis (although I hand't been aware of the Kirk Douglas movie tie-in).
But what we hadn't seen was the heartbreaking final work of Davis' career, worked on as recently as the night before he died of a stroke.
Masking tape still marks off straight lines and the work is clearly unfinished, yet the artist painted "Fin" at the top and then was gone the next day. Perhaps he sensed something.
All I know is that the two of us left there in a Stuart Davis-induced euphoria, unwilling to take on another exhibit despite being in a city full of world class art, because our minds and hearts were still busy happily processing what we'd just experienced.
We were jazzed and the original reason for our excursion was by then no more than a distant memory.
But, oh, Caravaggio, we'd have happily met you in London if only we'd had our passports with us...
A couple of weeks ago, an artist friend suggested a road trip to the National Gallery to see the Caravaggio show, so I responded by choosing a 72-degree day to do it. Simple.
In the meantime, I read about the opening of a Stuart Davis show, meaning we now had two killer shows to see.
And because I'm the person in this relationship to whom research - not just about the art offerings, but also which restaurants and bars to investigate - and itinerary-making falls, I did my job, albeit at the last minute last night.
Because I waited until the eleventh hour, when I finally did go digging, it was only to discover that Caravaggio was indeed at the National Gallery.
In London. Caravaggio was at the National Gallery in frickin' London.
But, not wanting to be a spoil sport, I didn't immediately share this tidbit when my friend showed up at the crack of dawn (9:15 a.m.) to fetch me.
Sure, I had the Stuart Davis exhibition to offer up as a replacement - not to mention that even without a banner show, we could have easily occupied ourselves at the NGA from opening to close - but there seemed to be no reason to rush the bad news.
But when we stopped at a gas station in Aquia, it seemed like the right moment and I gently broke the news that there'd be no Caravaggio for us.
"Wait! I've got two credit cards in my wallet! We could be there in, what, six or so hours?" Apparently some people deal with disappointment by joking.
The good news is that the unfortunate turn of events worked out just fine. First we saw "Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1959-1971," a fascinating show about Virginia Dwan's avant garde galleries, first in LA in the early '60s and then later in NYC.
All the pieces in the show were from Dwan's personal collection and reflected her interest in new art movements, ideas and techniques.
For proof, how '60s revolutionary sounding is this?
Shusaku Arakawa's 1969 "Stolen" got its name because the artist had painted the message, "If possible, steal any one of these drawings including this sentence," with the letters of "sentence" getting progressively lighter as if they'd been stolen already.
Naturally a group of students sent the artist a letter of intent to steal the piece, then stole it and sent a telegram confirming what they'd done. Arakawa responded, saying what a great surprise it was to be "collaborating" with them and suggesting they donate the work to a museum.
This being the '60s, most museums scoffed at the notion of accepting a gift of a stolen artwork until finally a Connecticut museum accepted it and renamed it "Stolen."
Hell, that's a practically perfect short story circa 1969.
For sheer impact, it was tough to beat Robert Smithson's "Glass Stratum," 37 stepped glass pieces, each 2" smaller than the last, for a pyramid effect of brilliant translucence and opaqueness simultaneously.
I bet it must have seemed incredibly modern in 1967.
After making a detour through a collection of small French works - Bonnard, Vuillard, Modigliani, Matisse - in the East Building to cleanse our artistic palates, we headed directly to the replacement main event: "Stuart Davis: In Full Swing."
We could practically hear the jazz music just looking at the scads of canvases on the walls.
Despite being able to recognize his distinctive later canvases, neither of us had any more than a cursory knowledge of Davis so we arrived eager to soak in this retrospective, only to be rewarded again and again by an artist whose career didn't begin to take off until he'd passed the mid-century mark.
Kind of reassuring, isn't it?
I'm sure it's completely coincidental, but the exhibit was made possible by Altria and began with Davis' early paintings of tobacco packages in muted colors. Zig Zag rolling papers put in frequent appearances in his works from the '20s, as did Lucky Strikes.
It was, after all, the era of smoke 'em if you got 'em.
Making our way through the next couple decades' worth of still lifes, urban scenes and landscapes, we watched as he began adding in commercial elements and advertising language, moving closer to the Stuart Davis we knew.
But where he truly nailed it to the wall was when he began giving reality a make-over, providing the ultimate American take on self re-invention.
He did that by recycling his old compositions, reworking them into something wholly different, something immediately recognizable as the decidedly abstract, prominently pop culture-referenced and defiantly American Stuart Davis paintings that could be mistaken for the art of no one else.
With 100 paintings in the show, it's impossible to pick favorites, but I don't know who could resist the sleight of hand as Davis took the perfectly pleasant "House and Street" with its simple buildings, signs and ladders and re-imagined it as the oh-so hip "The Mellow Pad," a painting that took six years to finish and is filled to bursting with musical energy, rhythmic patterns and brilliant colors.
Despite the name suggesting someone very much in tune with NYC's jazz scene (he's referred to as "the artist laureate of the Jazz Age"), the last thing it evokes is a mellow place.
When I think mellow, I think of my friend's recent description of my apartment - "Your slice of serenity and calm" - not the swingin' hot spot abstractly depicted in Davis' canvas.
We felt completely at home looking at his "Champion," a work on loan from the VMFA and so familiar to me that I could tell you where it usually hangs in the 20th century gallery.
Oh, that old thing? We're practically on a first name basis (although I hand't been aware of the Kirk Douglas movie tie-in).
But what we hadn't seen was the heartbreaking final work of Davis' career, worked on as recently as the night before he died of a stroke.
Masking tape still marks off straight lines and the work is clearly unfinished, yet the artist painted "Fin" at the top and then was gone the next day. Perhaps he sensed something.
All I know is that the two of us left there in a Stuart Davis-induced euphoria, unwilling to take on another exhibit despite being in a city full of world class art, because our minds and hearts were still busy happily processing what we'd just experienced.
We were jazzed and the original reason for our excursion was by then no more than a distant memory.
But, oh, Caravaggio, we'd have happily met you in London if only we'd had our passports with us...
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Stylish Self Control
I'm not most people's first choice for going to a museum.
You see, I'm that art geek who can spend six hours looking at art with only a half hour for lunch and a couple of bathroom breaks.
Luckily for me, I happen to know someone who can do the same.
Even better, Moira's an artist, so she can fill me in when I see a term I don't recognize, like casein paint, which we saw a surprising amount of today.
Where to start with a day filled with so much fantastic art that my head is still spinning?
"An American in London: Whistler and the Thames" at the Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery set the bar incredibly high right off the bat.
Over 80 works - paintings, drawings and prints - detailed the changes going on along London's Thames river during the period Whistler lived there.
Looking at a print, suddenly there was a little boy in front of us holding up a magnifying glass to more closely examine the highly detailed picture.
Sure enough, the gallery had a whole rack of glasses, the better to see the minute detail of Whistler's work, and two of them were soon in our hands.
At one point, after reading about Whistler's second mistress, Moira turned to me and said, "Okay, we need a really great biography of Whistler now."
Don't I know it.
It was almost too much to take in, from his colorful early works to the later impressionistic ones that had the art critics in a tizzy over their near abstraction. And the man's use of color - blue particularly- was nothing short of breathtaking.
After a walk through the Smithsonian Castle garden, we ate lunch in the cafe, inhaling chicken salad with dried cherries and arugula and double chocolate cupcakes while people watching.
My favorite was the woman who looked like a pack animal, her belt strung with a fanny pack, a seat cushion, a bag from the museum's gift shop and on the back, a small stuffed dog. Heaven only knows what was hanging from that belt by the end of the day.
Next stop: National Gallery of Art where we made a beeline for Titian's "Danae," on short term loan from the Capodimonte Museum in Naples.
The sensual image of Danae awaiting a visit from Jupiter with Cupid at her side was stunning and a reminder that beautiful women have curves.
Walking in to "Andrew Wyeth: Looking Out, Looking In" was like walking into an old beach house; you could practically smell the salty air.
"Wind from the Sea" was the centerpiece of an exhibition where every painting and sketch featured images of windows, spare and elegant and in many cases, open to a gentle breeze causing tattered lace curtains to flutter.
Many paintings showed the bedroom windows of Christina Olsen, the crippled woman who became his model for so many years.
We agreed that the work, sometimes bordering on abstraction, often a study in tonality, proved that while Wyeth was considered old-fashioned in his time because of the emphasis on action painting and abstract expressionism, that was far from the case.
I found it especially fascinating to look at the studies that preceded the paintings to see how he reworked compositions, deleting elements until he'd achieved the most possible with the least number of elements.
Andrew, we hardly knew ye.
Then it was on to our third American of the morning, although this one accompanied by a Frenchman.
"Degas/Cassatt" was a feast for the eyes, covering the period when the older, established French master took the younger American female artist under his wing.
Cassatt's art has such a decidedly female bent - subject, palette, handling - that I couldn't help but respond to it instinctively.
Included was the VMFA Cassatt, "Child Picking Fruit," and we both felt a little local pride at seeing it as part of this landmark show.
If I could have left with one piece, it would have been "Woman Bathing," a color drypoint showing a woman in a striped robe stripped to the waist on a patterned rug surrounded by the bluest of walls.
So feminine, so beautiful.
About "Young Woman Picking Fruit," Degas had written, "No woman has a right to draw like that," a major compliment that only sounds like a sexist remark.
Hands down my favorite Degas was the series "Mary Cassatt at the Louvre," showing Cassatt from behind, dressed stylishly, leaning on a walking stick, the curve of her waist and hip quite provocative.
You can tell from her intent gaze at a painting that this is an educated and intelligent woman who also happens to be very attractive.
And she is, by far, the most feminine of all the women depicted by Degas in the show.
By now our heads were spinning from all the wonderful things we'd seen.
Did we take a break? We did not. Instead, we headed directly to the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery for more.
"Modern American Realism" covered the period from 1910 to 1980 and contained a lot of artists who are just now getting the recognition they deserve in addition to the expected Edward Hopper, Jacob Lawrence and Paul Cadmus.
And, just so you know, there was a lot of casein paint used during those years.
One of the most whimsical was Philip Evergood's colorful "Dowager in a Wheelchair" showing an aged, fat woman being pushed by a nubile, fresh-faced young thing down a bustling city street circa 1952.
No, she did not have a fanny pack or seat cushion strapped to her wheelchair.
It was a stellar show and strong reminder of how many artists were sticking to realism through the years of abstraction and pop art.
Our final museum was the Portrait Gallery for "American Cool," a photography show that attempted to define coolness, defined as "stylish self control."
Some of the photos were just plain extraordinary: Carlos Santana at 25, all soft eyes and full lips; Jimi Hendrix at 25, shot by Linda McCartney, with a sly grin on his face; an atmospheric Allen Ginsburg photo of William Burroughs from 1953.
Some of the galleries had video of the people in the photographs and early footage of Chrissie Hynde reminded me how gorgeous she was in the '80s with her great haircut and comfortable sexuality.
Paul Newman was gorgeous at 34 and Marvin Gaye was intense at the same age. Willie Nelson was downright handsome.
At the end of the exhibit was a list of people who had been considered for the exhibition and deemed not cool enough.Sort of a wannabe list.
The guard made a joke that his name had been mistakenly left off.
And our final exhibit (drum roll, please) was "Face Value: Portraiture in the Age of Abstraction," an array of mid-century portraits done at a time when portraiture was considered old, dull and very uncool.
These works were anything but.
Here we found a Warhol portrait of Jamie Wyeth, Andrew's son, as well as a Jamie Wyeth portrait of Warhol.
We'd been at this art thing so long today that motifs were starting to repeat themselves.
It was time for happy hour.
Needing to process all that art, we got ourselves to Mockingbird Hill, a sherry and ham bar that welcomed us with sunny stools and a flight of sherries labeled "Dias Baccanalia," a fitting Friday descriptor.
Dias Bacus "Ria Pita" Manzanilla was paired with olives. Grant "La Garrocha" Amontillado, probably my favorite of the three, came with peanuts.
Spanish hand-carved Mangalica was magical ham from a wooly pig, fatty and cured to perfection.
The final sherry - with a hint of cherries and screaming to be an after dinner sipper -was Gonzalez Beass "Christina" Medium Olorosa paired with chunks of walnut brittle.
That's right, Christina sherry. Now art was following us into the bar.
It was time for our art bacchanalia to end and return to Richmond.
Degas knew. No women have a right to take so much pleasure from art.
You see, I'm that art geek who can spend six hours looking at art with only a half hour for lunch and a couple of bathroom breaks.
Luckily for me, I happen to know someone who can do the same.
Even better, Moira's an artist, so she can fill me in when I see a term I don't recognize, like casein paint, which we saw a surprising amount of today.
Where to start with a day filled with so much fantastic art that my head is still spinning?
"An American in London: Whistler and the Thames" at the Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery set the bar incredibly high right off the bat.
Over 80 works - paintings, drawings and prints - detailed the changes going on along London's Thames river during the period Whistler lived there.
Looking at a print, suddenly there was a little boy in front of us holding up a magnifying glass to more closely examine the highly detailed picture.
Sure enough, the gallery had a whole rack of glasses, the better to see the minute detail of Whistler's work, and two of them were soon in our hands.
At one point, after reading about Whistler's second mistress, Moira turned to me and said, "Okay, we need a really great biography of Whistler now."
Don't I know it.
It was almost too much to take in, from his colorful early works to the later impressionistic ones that had the art critics in a tizzy over their near abstraction. And the man's use of color - blue particularly- was nothing short of breathtaking.
After a walk through the Smithsonian Castle garden, we ate lunch in the cafe, inhaling chicken salad with dried cherries and arugula and double chocolate cupcakes while people watching.
My favorite was the woman who looked like a pack animal, her belt strung with a fanny pack, a seat cushion, a bag from the museum's gift shop and on the back, a small stuffed dog. Heaven only knows what was hanging from that belt by the end of the day.
Next stop: National Gallery of Art where we made a beeline for Titian's "Danae," on short term loan from the Capodimonte Museum in Naples.
The sensual image of Danae awaiting a visit from Jupiter with Cupid at her side was stunning and a reminder that beautiful women have curves.
Walking in to "Andrew Wyeth: Looking Out, Looking In" was like walking into an old beach house; you could practically smell the salty air.
"Wind from the Sea" was the centerpiece of an exhibition where every painting and sketch featured images of windows, spare and elegant and in many cases, open to a gentle breeze causing tattered lace curtains to flutter.
Many paintings showed the bedroom windows of Christina Olsen, the crippled woman who became his model for so many years.
We agreed that the work, sometimes bordering on abstraction, often a study in tonality, proved that while Wyeth was considered old-fashioned in his time because of the emphasis on action painting and abstract expressionism, that was far from the case.
I found it especially fascinating to look at the studies that preceded the paintings to see how he reworked compositions, deleting elements until he'd achieved the most possible with the least number of elements.
Andrew, we hardly knew ye.
Then it was on to our third American of the morning, although this one accompanied by a Frenchman.
"Degas/Cassatt" was a feast for the eyes, covering the period when the older, established French master took the younger American female artist under his wing.
Cassatt's art has such a decidedly female bent - subject, palette, handling - that I couldn't help but respond to it instinctively.
Included was the VMFA Cassatt, "Child Picking Fruit," and we both felt a little local pride at seeing it as part of this landmark show.
If I could have left with one piece, it would have been "Woman Bathing," a color drypoint showing a woman in a striped robe stripped to the waist on a patterned rug surrounded by the bluest of walls.
So feminine, so beautiful.
About "Young Woman Picking Fruit," Degas had written, "No woman has a right to draw like that," a major compliment that only sounds like a sexist remark.
Hands down my favorite Degas was the series "Mary Cassatt at the Louvre," showing Cassatt from behind, dressed stylishly, leaning on a walking stick, the curve of her waist and hip quite provocative.
You can tell from her intent gaze at a painting that this is an educated and intelligent woman who also happens to be very attractive.
And she is, by far, the most feminine of all the women depicted by Degas in the show.
By now our heads were spinning from all the wonderful things we'd seen.
Did we take a break? We did not. Instead, we headed directly to the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery for more.
"Modern American Realism" covered the period from 1910 to 1980 and contained a lot of artists who are just now getting the recognition they deserve in addition to the expected Edward Hopper, Jacob Lawrence and Paul Cadmus.
And, just so you know, there was a lot of casein paint used during those years.
One of the most whimsical was Philip Evergood's colorful "Dowager in a Wheelchair" showing an aged, fat woman being pushed by a nubile, fresh-faced young thing down a bustling city street circa 1952.
No, she did not have a fanny pack or seat cushion strapped to her wheelchair.
It was a stellar show and strong reminder of how many artists were sticking to realism through the years of abstraction and pop art.
Our final museum was the Portrait Gallery for "American Cool," a photography show that attempted to define coolness, defined as "stylish self control."
Some of the photos were just plain extraordinary: Carlos Santana at 25, all soft eyes and full lips; Jimi Hendrix at 25, shot by Linda McCartney, with a sly grin on his face; an atmospheric Allen Ginsburg photo of William Burroughs from 1953.
Some of the galleries had video of the people in the photographs and early footage of Chrissie Hynde reminded me how gorgeous she was in the '80s with her great haircut and comfortable sexuality.
Paul Newman was gorgeous at 34 and Marvin Gaye was intense at the same age. Willie Nelson was downright handsome.
At the end of the exhibit was a list of people who had been considered for the exhibition and deemed not cool enough.Sort of a wannabe list.
The guard made a joke that his name had been mistakenly left off.
And our final exhibit (drum roll, please) was "Face Value: Portraiture in the Age of Abstraction," an array of mid-century portraits done at a time when portraiture was considered old, dull and very uncool.
These works were anything but.
Here we found a Warhol portrait of Jamie Wyeth, Andrew's son, as well as a Jamie Wyeth portrait of Warhol.
We'd been at this art thing so long today that motifs were starting to repeat themselves.
It was time for happy hour.
Needing to process all that art, we got ourselves to Mockingbird Hill, a sherry and ham bar that welcomed us with sunny stools and a flight of sherries labeled "Dias Baccanalia," a fitting Friday descriptor.
Dias Bacus "Ria Pita" Manzanilla was paired with olives. Grant "La Garrocha" Amontillado, probably my favorite of the three, came with peanuts.
Spanish hand-carved Mangalica was magical ham from a wooly pig, fatty and cured to perfection.
The final sherry - with a hint of cherries and screaming to be an after dinner sipper -was Gonzalez Beass "Christina" Medium Olorosa paired with chunks of walnut brittle.
That's right, Christina sherry. Now art was following us into the bar.
It was time for our art bacchanalia to end and return to Richmond.
Degas knew. No women have a right to take so much pleasure from art.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Modern Love
Best kind of away weekend possible.
Hometown: eat, art, eat, sleep, eat, art, art, eat, sleep. And the latter, only because I had to.
With a mere 37 1/2 hours in Washington, the itinerary was tight, albeit good tight.
First stop: Bistrot du Coin in Dupont Circle, my old neighborhood to meet a trio of strangers for champagne and mussels.
Our French server moved around the table, asking who wanted bubbles but when he got to me, just poured without asking. Why, I asked him, hadn't he checked first?
"You look like fun," he said, as if it were obvious.
An auspicious start.
My choice to go with the Piper Heidsieck Brut champagne was the moules au Pistou (mussels with pig two ways), a savory combination of pesto, prosciutto and French ham with enough crusty bread to sop up broth until I got near exploding.
Thus fortified, my companion and I did a walk through my old neighborhood, with me looking in the windows of my former apartment on 21st Street and then the condo my ex and I bought on N Street.
My imaginary soundtrack was David Bowie's "Let's Dance," which the guy who lived under us on N Street played endlessly when it came out.
And by endlessly, I mean for hours every day for about two months.
Let's sway
You could look into my eyes
Let's sway under the moonlight
The serious moonlight
You have no idea how that album came back to me in a rush when I looked into the front window of the brownstone that used to be ours.
After the walk down Memory Lane, we walked to the Phillips Collection to see "van Gogh: Repetitions."
The downside: it was timed entry and mobbed. The upside: many of the works in the exhibit came from private collections and I will probably never see them again.
Life is a balancing act and sometimes you share space with people who were raised by wolves as you all jostle to see incomparable art.
Le sigh.
Dinner was at Del Campo, a restaurant where meat reigns no doubt due to the chef's Cuban father and Peruvian mother.
The tailored-looking restaurant is a place where smoke reigns supreme, starting with both the olive oil and sea salt imparting smoky and delicious flavors.
Because there were six of us, we got to try all kinds of things: buttery ceviche of tuna, grilled avocado, olives, burnt shallots and pistachios; decadently rich Roseda farm beef heart anticucho, tartare and quail egg on grilled polenta; to-die-for charred beets, boucheron goat cheese, beet greens, burnt onion and balsamic; empanadas of wagyu skirt steak, caramelized onions and romesco; and my least favorite (but only because I'm not especially a salmon fan unless it's smoked) ceviche of grilled salmon, rapini, citrus, pork rinds and aioli.
Throughout the evening, we would get whiffs of meat on the grill or herbs being roasted, making for a delightful smell-o-vision experience.
Since we had enough people to mitigate the guilt, we followed that with a 48-ounce dry-aged Piedmont ridge tomahawk ribeye, an obscenely large chunk o' meat that arrived with bone marrow and two sauces, chimichurri and rosemary salsa verde.
Then there were the three kinds of chorizo - house, a rustic Argentianian and blood sausage- plus micro brussels sprouts with bacon and honey, executed so beautifully the green vegetable hater liked them. Yum all around.
Our accented server also talked us into grilled jumbo head-on prawns and we proceeded to bite the head and suck the tail the traditional way.
My favorite moment came when the pickiest eater in the group ate one of my beef hearts and raved about how rich and good it tasted, proving my theory that you can't dislike something if you don't know what it is.
All in all, a most enjoyable evening that morphed into an unexpectedly late night gab fest with a guy named Matt, bowls of popcorn and a '70s soundtrack at Harry's.
Then we got up and did it all over again.
Today began with another meal, this one at Graffiatio, TV chef Mike Isabella's Italian and Jersey-inspired joint.
Going at lunch was inspired so we didn't have to deal with crowds, instead taking bar seats right in front of the wood-burning oven and ordering Prosecco on tap to start the meal.
An appetizer of broccolini with red peppers, feta and walnuts was a beautiful marriage of flavors served at room temperature, a surefire way to start the day feeling somewhat virtuous.
While we listened to a soundtrack of Passion Pit, Two Door Cinema Club and Phoenix (and agreed that the kitchen staff looked like mechanics in their grey shirts), we watched our two pizzas being exactingly placed in the carefully-tended oven.
Porky's Revenge (soprassatta, pepperoni, sausage) spoke to my morning-after need for pig while the White House (Tallegio, prosciutto, ricotta and black pepper honey) had a delicate sweetness that was habit-forming after one bite.
After lunch, we walked barely a block to the National Building museum because I wanted to see "Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future 1940-1990," but got waylaid.
A docent was offering a tour of the building itself, the former Pension Bureau, and we joined a couple of strangers to learn about the space that was built to house the administrative offices that served former Civil War soldiers and grew to host inaugural balls and is now a museum.
Our guide was full of information, but also a real slow talker, a repeater and if we hadn't been standing up, probably also capable of putting us to sleep.
After a half hour with him, we politely excused ourselves to go see something more stimulating, like an exhibit about how car culture defined land development in California.
I learned that all that distinctive, colorful and futuristic-looking architecture was designed to draw in people driving by at high speeds.
And how about his: there were even drive-up churches built. You could pray and be on your way.
I found myself fascinated by the contrast in photographs of Wilshire Boulevard in 1935 (mostly fields) and 1955 (a close-together community of houses taking up every available inch).
There were several wildly funny and compelling bits of film to watch including one that advocated how to enjoy fast, safe freeway driving.
I'll warn you right now, the guy who was always changing lanes like a jack rabbit ended up getting a ticket and a stern talking-to from the police officer.
As for all those freeways and speedways built in California, who knew they had 35 mph speed limits in the beginning?
The only way to follow a show about the cultural history of L.A. was with one about Paris, so we walked down to the National Gallery to see "Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris."
Chosen to document the "modernization" of Paris after Napoleon, the galleries of exquisite black and white photographs were an extraordinary look into parts of the venerable city that no longer exist today.
Because the advent of street lights was a game-changer (the nighttime being too dark to venture out into), Marville did a series on streetlights, showing the variety of styles installed, and how they varied from poorer neighborhoods to upscale ones.
There were several photographs of the public urinals installed to improve sanitation; one even had a street light installed above it.
How is it Paris had public bathrooms in the 19th century and we still do not in the 21st, asked the woman who is frequently in need of a bathroom when in public?
The exhibit was as much a cultural lesson as a visual treat since I learned so much about the remapping of Paris to widen boulevards and correct narrow, winding streets to straight ones.
Interestingly enough, when revamping the Bois de Boulogne, a large public park, the planners set about to change the straight paths within it to meandering, curved paths instead.
Sometimes the Parisians need to curve and sometimes not apparently.
But my favorite moment seeing the show came when I read an explanation for why Marville sometimes inserted a figure into his photographs.
Sometimes it was to give a sense of isolation to the setting in order to mirror the feelings many Parisians were having as their old city disappeared.
But sometimes, the figure was meant to represent a flaneur, a person who walks the streets with no purpose other than to collect impressions.
I had learned about flaneurs only yesterday while reading a book review of "Tales of Two Cities: Paris, London and the Birth of the Modern City," a look at how Paris mimicked London to become modern.
In the review, flaneurs were mentioned as having come into existence far sooner in London than in Paris solely because of the improvements there in urban design, meaning gutters, sidewalks and, yes, streetlights.
In other words, all the things that Marville had photographed. It was a delightful overlap in my ongoing cultural history education.
Because we had time, we also looked at "Yes, No, Maybe: Artists Working at Crown Point Press," a show of working proofs and edition prints by artists as varied as Chuck Close and John Cage.
We finished our afternoon at the National Gallery with a new acquisition, Dutch master Gerrit von Honthorst's "The Concert," notable for the painter's Carvaggio influences and because it's just come into the collection.
Asking at the information desk where to find it, I mispronounced "von Honthort" and the man gently corrected me.
I had no excuse except that I wasn't raised in a groot.
Art needs met, we set off for happy hour at Ambar, a Balkan restaurant with a wine list unlike any I'd ever seen.
Full of Moldovan, Serbian, Bulgarian and Slovenian choices, we chose Belje Welschriesling, a Croatian wine that tasted of stone fruits and gave us time to talk about all the art we'd just taken in.
The music varied from pop goodness from the likes of Ivy to what sounded like Balkan trance music as we drank our wine and rested our feet.
We were in no hurry after a non-stop 30 hours.
To finish out a lovely weekend, we walked down the block to Rose's Luxury, securing two stools at the cozy garden bar ("It's my favorite place in the restaurant," the hostess told us) and getting a hip hello from the bartender with the partially shaved head, pale pink sweater and pearls.
I'm not sure when she decided to take a shine to me, maybe when I gave her a hard time, maybe when I called her on a few things, but before long she was my new best friend and we were good-naturedly parrying across the bar.
While giving each other a hard time, we tore into a warm loaf of potato bread with butter topped with chives and baked potato crumbles.
Someone in Richmond needs to do this STAT.
From there, we had Kusshi oysters with a Dark and Stormy granita, but only after I gave our bartender crap about the California oysters.
Yes, I know they're all the rage out there and yes, their small size and buttery flavor were just lovely, but, as my date observed dryly, that's a mighty big footprint for a small plate.
But, yes, they were yummy and the distinctive granita was slurp-worthy.
Because we're both fried chicken devotees, we had to get the pickle-brined fried chicken, which came in a bowl with honey and benne seeds.
We weren't expecting "nuggets" but that's what we got and while they had a perfectly crispy coating, we both agreed that the only way the pickle-brined chicken could have been improved was by cooking it in bacon fat and fortunately we know a place that does just that...and much closer to home.
For our main course, we got a family-style plate of pork schnitzel with baked applesauce, sunchoke salad and fresh greens, a satisfying meal.
By then, our bartender had pointed out which server was hot for her and asked how long my date and I had been seeing each other.
Naturally, we talked about music and which shows she'd been to lately and next thing I knew, she was bringing me a dessert I hadn't asked for.
Celery root mascarpone with poached pear juice and a brown sugar and nut crumble topping was both refreshing and elegant, a lovely and unexpected treat.
Ditto when she handed me a piece of paper with her name and e-mail address on it, making me promise to contact her so we can meet up again here or there.
Until then, she promised to send me pictures of her and the cute server who likes her.
In my quest to be a modern-day flaneur, it will be one more impression to collect.
For now, still full of good food and art, it is time for this observer to sleep.
Hometown: eat, art, eat, sleep, eat, art, art, eat, sleep. And the latter, only because I had to.
With a mere 37 1/2 hours in Washington, the itinerary was tight, albeit good tight.
First stop: Bistrot du Coin in Dupont Circle, my old neighborhood to meet a trio of strangers for champagne and mussels.
Our French server moved around the table, asking who wanted bubbles but when he got to me, just poured without asking. Why, I asked him, hadn't he checked first?
"You look like fun," he said, as if it were obvious.
An auspicious start.
My choice to go with the Piper Heidsieck Brut champagne was the moules au Pistou (mussels with pig two ways), a savory combination of pesto, prosciutto and French ham with enough crusty bread to sop up broth until I got near exploding.
Thus fortified, my companion and I did a walk through my old neighborhood, with me looking in the windows of my former apartment on 21st Street and then the condo my ex and I bought on N Street.
My imaginary soundtrack was David Bowie's "Let's Dance," which the guy who lived under us on N Street played endlessly when it came out.
And by endlessly, I mean for hours every day for about two months.
Let's sway
You could look into my eyes
Let's sway under the moonlight
The serious moonlight
You have no idea how that album came back to me in a rush when I looked into the front window of the brownstone that used to be ours.
After the walk down Memory Lane, we walked to the Phillips Collection to see "van Gogh: Repetitions."
The downside: it was timed entry and mobbed. The upside: many of the works in the exhibit came from private collections and I will probably never see them again.
Life is a balancing act and sometimes you share space with people who were raised by wolves as you all jostle to see incomparable art.
Le sigh.
Dinner was at Del Campo, a restaurant where meat reigns no doubt due to the chef's Cuban father and Peruvian mother.
The tailored-looking restaurant is a place where smoke reigns supreme, starting with both the olive oil and sea salt imparting smoky and delicious flavors.
Because there were six of us, we got to try all kinds of things: buttery ceviche of tuna, grilled avocado, olives, burnt shallots and pistachios; decadently rich Roseda farm beef heart anticucho, tartare and quail egg on grilled polenta; to-die-for charred beets, boucheron goat cheese, beet greens, burnt onion and balsamic; empanadas of wagyu skirt steak, caramelized onions and romesco; and my least favorite (but only because I'm not especially a salmon fan unless it's smoked) ceviche of grilled salmon, rapini, citrus, pork rinds and aioli.
Throughout the evening, we would get whiffs of meat on the grill or herbs being roasted, making for a delightful smell-o-vision experience.
Since we had enough people to mitigate the guilt, we followed that with a 48-ounce dry-aged Piedmont ridge tomahawk ribeye, an obscenely large chunk o' meat that arrived with bone marrow and two sauces, chimichurri and rosemary salsa verde.
Then there were the three kinds of chorizo - house, a rustic Argentianian and blood sausage- plus micro brussels sprouts with bacon and honey, executed so beautifully the green vegetable hater liked them. Yum all around.
Our accented server also talked us into grilled jumbo head-on prawns and we proceeded to bite the head and suck the tail the traditional way.
My favorite moment came when the pickiest eater in the group ate one of my beef hearts and raved about how rich and good it tasted, proving my theory that you can't dislike something if you don't know what it is.
All in all, a most enjoyable evening that morphed into an unexpectedly late night gab fest with a guy named Matt, bowls of popcorn and a '70s soundtrack at Harry's.
Then we got up and did it all over again.
Today began with another meal, this one at Graffiatio, TV chef Mike Isabella's Italian and Jersey-inspired joint.
Going at lunch was inspired so we didn't have to deal with crowds, instead taking bar seats right in front of the wood-burning oven and ordering Prosecco on tap to start the meal.
An appetizer of broccolini with red peppers, feta and walnuts was a beautiful marriage of flavors served at room temperature, a surefire way to start the day feeling somewhat virtuous.
While we listened to a soundtrack of Passion Pit, Two Door Cinema Club and Phoenix (and agreed that the kitchen staff looked like mechanics in their grey shirts), we watched our two pizzas being exactingly placed in the carefully-tended oven.
Porky's Revenge (soprassatta, pepperoni, sausage) spoke to my morning-after need for pig while the White House (Tallegio, prosciutto, ricotta and black pepper honey) had a delicate sweetness that was habit-forming after one bite.
After lunch, we walked barely a block to the National Building museum because I wanted to see "Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future 1940-1990," but got waylaid.
A docent was offering a tour of the building itself, the former Pension Bureau, and we joined a couple of strangers to learn about the space that was built to house the administrative offices that served former Civil War soldiers and grew to host inaugural balls and is now a museum.
Our guide was full of information, but also a real slow talker, a repeater and if we hadn't been standing up, probably also capable of putting us to sleep.
After a half hour with him, we politely excused ourselves to go see something more stimulating, like an exhibit about how car culture defined land development in California.
I learned that all that distinctive, colorful and futuristic-looking architecture was designed to draw in people driving by at high speeds.
And how about his: there were even drive-up churches built. You could pray and be on your way.
I found myself fascinated by the contrast in photographs of Wilshire Boulevard in 1935 (mostly fields) and 1955 (a close-together community of houses taking up every available inch).
There were several wildly funny and compelling bits of film to watch including one that advocated how to enjoy fast, safe freeway driving.
I'll warn you right now, the guy who was always changing lanes like a jack rabbit ended up getting a ticket and a stern talking-to from the police officer.
As for all those freeways and speedways built in California, who knew they had 35 mph speed limits in the beginning?
The only way to follow a show about the cultural history of L.A. was with one about Paris, so we walked down to the National Gallery to see "Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris."
Chosen to document the "modernization" of Paris after Napoleon, the galleries of exquisite black and white photographs were an extraordinary look into parts of the venerable city that no longer exist today.
Because the advent of street lights was a game-changer (the nighttime being too dark to venture out into), Marville did a series on streetlights, showing the variety of styles installed, and how they varied from poorer neighborhoods to upscale ones.
There were several photographs of the public urinals installed to improve sanitation; one even had a street light installed above it.
How is it Paris had public bathrooms in the 19th century and we still do not in the 21st, asked the woman who is frequently in need of a bathroom when in public?
The exhibit was as much a cultural lesson as a visual treat since I learned so much about the remapping of Paris to widen boulevards and correct narrow, winding streets to straight ones.
Interestingly enough, when revamping the Bois de Boulogne, a large public park, the planners set about to change the straight paths within it to meandering, curved paths instead.
Sometimes the Parisians need to curve and sometimes not apparently.
But my favorite moment seeing the show came when I read an explanation for why Marville sometimes inserted a figure into his photographs.
Sometimes it was to give a sense of isolation to the setting in order to mirror the feelings many Parisians were having as their old city disappeared.
But sometimes, the figure was meant to represent a flaneur, a person who walks the streets with no purpose other than to collect impressions.
I had learned about flaneurs only yesterday while reading a book review of "Tales of Two Cities: Paris, London and the Birth of the Modern City," a look at how Paris mimicked London to become modern.
In the review, flaneurs were mentioned as having come into existence far sooner in London than in Paris solely because of the improvements there in urban design, meaning gutters, sidewalks and, yes, streetlights.
In other words, all the things that Marville had photographed. It was a delightful overlap in my ongoing cultural history education.
Because we had time, we also looked at "Yes, No, Maybe: Artists Working at Crown Point Press," a show of working proofs and edition prints by artists as varied as Chuck Close and John Cage.
We finished our afternoon at the National Gallery with a new acquisition, Dutch master Gerrit von Honthorst's "The Concert," notable for the painter's Carvaggio influences and because it's just come into the collection.
Asking at the information desk where to find it, I mispronounced "von Honthort" and the man gently corrected me.
I had no excuse except that I wasn't raised in a groot.
Art needs met, we set off for happy hour at Ambar, a Balkan restaurant with a wine list unlike any I'd ever seen.
Full of Moldovan, Serbian, Bulgarian and Slovenian choices, we chose Belje Welschriesling, a Croatian wine that tasted of stone fruits and gave us time to talk about all the art we'd just taken in.
The music varied from pop goodness from the likes of Ivy to what sounded like Balkan trance music as we drank our wine and rested our feet.
We were in no hurry after a non-stop 30 hours.
To finish out a lovely weekend, we walked down the block to Rose's Luxury, securing two stools at the cozy garden bar ("It's my favorite place in the restaurant," the hostess told us) and getting a hip hello from the bartender with the partially shaved head, pale pink sweater and pearls.
I'm not sure when she decided to take a shine to me, maybe when I gave her a hard time, maybe when I called her on a few things, but before long she was my new best friend and we were good-naturedly parrying across the bar.
While giving each other a hard time, we tore into a warm loaf of potato bread with butter topped with chives and baked potato crumbles.
Someone in Richmond needs to do this STAT.
From there, we had Kusshi oysters with a Dark and Stormy granita, but only after I gave our bartender crap about the California oysters.
Yes, I know they're all the rage out there and yes, their small size and buttery flavor were just lovely, but, as my date observed dryly, that's a mighty big footprint for a small plate.
But, yes, they were yummy and the distinctive granita was slurp-worthy.
Because we're both fried chicken devotees, we had to get the pickle-brined fried chicken, which came in a bowl with honey and benne seeds.
We weren't expecting "nuggets" but that's what we got and while they had a perfectly crispy coating, we both agreed that the only way the pickle-brined chicken could have been improved was by cooking it in bacon fat and fortunately we know a place that does just that...and much closer to home.
For our main course, we got a family-style plate of pork schnitzel with baked applesauce, sunchoke salad and fresh greens, a satisfying meal.
By then, our bartender had pointed out which server was hot for her and asked how long my date and I had been seeing each other.
Naturally, we talked about music and which shows she'd been to lately and next thing I knew, she was bringing me a dessert I hadn't asked for.
Celery root mascarpone with poached pear juice and a brown sugar and nut crumble topping was both refreshing and elegant, a lovely and unexpected treat.
Ditto when she handed me a piece of paper with her name and e-mail address on it, making me promise to contact her so we can meet up again here or there.
Until then, she promised to send me pictures of her and the cute server who likes her.
In my quest to be a modern-day flaneur, it will be one more impression to collect.
For now, still full of good food and art, it is time for this observer to sleep.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Tonight I Have to Leave It
Swedish pop and German Leonardos are apparently not everyone's cup of tea.
That would explain why despite inviting no less than three different people to join me on an excursion to D.C. today, I got no takers.
It mattered not.
I'd bought my ticket for the Shout Out Louds back in mid-February and had been eagerly anticipating the show ever since.
It turned out to be a less than ideal day for traveling, with rain on and off the whole way up 95.
Even so, I managed to make it to the National Gallery of Art's east building in time to catch the last hour they were open and see the show of the year.
"Albrecht Durer: Master Drawings, Watercolors and Prints from the Albertina" represents the largest exhibition of Durer's drawings and watercolors ever exhibited in the U.S.
Despite the eleventh hour visit, plenty of other tourists were right there with me, eager to see the magnificent images on the blue-gray walls before the museum closed today.
The notes for the show referred to Durer as the "German Leonardo," a nod to his role as the master of the northern Renaissance and his visits to Italy to study the artistic developments happening there.
The show began with "Self Portrait at Thirteen," an astonishing piece of drawing for one so young and moved through much later works.
The watercolors were a revelation, like "A Great Piece of Turf," a nature study in greens that constantly had a gaggle of admirers around it.
There were many anatomical studies he'd done, part of a quest to figure out the dimensions and proportions of the human body.
I got a real sense of his mastery looking at two prints he'd done based on earlier works by Andre Mategna.
Although they were labeled "after Mategna," Durer's were so much more refined and delicate as to have only a passing acquaintance with Mantegna's.
At 5:00, the bells began ringing to notify visitors that they wanted us out and I reluctantly left the German master behind.
Planning to park once and party twice, my next stop was U Street for happy hour and dinner.
Exactly three years ago, a friend and I had come up to Washington for another Shout Out Louds show and that time we'd gone to Marvin for a splendid meal.
Tonight I'd set my sites on Brixton, the less-than-a-year-old English pub from the same guys as Marvin, one of who is half of Thievery Corporation.
At least I knew the music would be good.
And it was.
After a walk up and down U Street to stretch my legs after the arduous, rainy drive, I found the corner door and entered the appropriately dark, wooden atmosphere of Brixton.
The music was full-on dance and funk, with some remixes of Boz Scagg's "Lowdown" and Hall & Oates' "I Can't Go for That" thrown in for good measure.
My bartender was a friendly guy in madras shorts (I later found out he went to Georgetown, so that explains it) who introduced himself and shook my hand when he asked my name.
He asked what brought me in and I told him I'd driven through intermittent rainstorms all the way up from Richmond just to see music.
Chuckling, he said, "I live six blocks from here and I walked through three separate rain storms just to get to work."
The happy hour white wine was a Quinto de Aveleda Vinho Verde, a no-brainer for me.
Looking at the happy hour menu, I figured why go to a British pub and not get fish and chips, so that was a given.
"That's the only thing that's been on the menu since we opened last July, " Eric said as a recommendation.
For good measure, I also ordered a Thai chicken salad of pulled chicken, ginger, shredded cabbage and carrots, soy and chili sauce.
The roasted peanuts were missing in action, but, oh well.
Bar stools continued to fill up as I ate and drank, causing Eric to come over and tell me that over half the bar was also going to the show with me.
When he inquired if I needed anything, I told him some conversation would be about all I needed and twenty minutes later, I'd had one of the best music discussions I've had in a while with a stranger.
He'd just been to a Hot Chip show with lots of dancing. When he heard I was going to see Tame Impala next month, he told me about seeing them last year.
He's stoked to see Dirty Projectors and was blown away when I told him I'd seen them four years ago next month.
He told me about the Sweetgreen Festival he's going to, full of under the radar bands.
When I told him I was excited to hear Haerts (who were opening tonight for Shout Out Louds), he was beyond thrilled; they're one of the bands he was most looking forward to at Sweetgreen.
I finished out my meal with more Vinho Verde and chipotle chocolate cake, evidently making it look good enough that the couple next to me asked for "whatever she's having."
And I wasn't even making orgasm noises.
Walking into the 9:30 Club, I saw that the stage had been pushed out, meaning the show hadn't sold out.
While it seems inconceivable to me in a town as big as D.C., it was a refreshing change not to be packed in like sardines.
Parking myself in front of the sound booth as usual, I struck up a conversation with the girl next to me, who couldn't have been taller than 4'10".
We commiserated about not being able to see at shows, but she said her trump card was her camera, because she was there to shoot for a local music blog and had a press pass.
Brilliant.
She was also excited to hear Haerts, saying, "I love them. I've only heard the one song where she sounds like Stevie Nicks, but it's amazing!"
And they were.
The New York quintet combined 80s-influenced music (lots of synth and guitar) with her distinctive voice that had that lost little girl quality the photographer had fallen for.
"This is the first night of our tour and it seems like a good place to start," lead singer Nini said in her black trapeze top and bare midriff.
Despite having only heard three songs before tonight, I was completely enraptured with everything I heard during their 45-minute set.
I'll definitely need that CD soon.
In front of me during the break, two Swedes were beside themselves at the prospect of seeing Shout Out Louds for the first time.
It was my second time, but I was just as excited and when the lights went down and the backdrop was lit to reveal a spacey Shout Out Louds banner, it was game on.
"Welcome to the preview of our U.S. tour," singer Adam yelled.
So we were going to be the guinea pigs. I was happy with that, knowing it would probably be a loose show.
Of course they began with stuff off the new CD, including "Walking in Your Footsteps," the song that assured me I was going to like the new CD as much as the first three.
They started on "Fall Harder" when Adam stopped, looked at the bass player and asked, "Am I playing this in the wrong key?"
He was and they began a second time. Another pleasure of being the first night audience.
And if you're gonna break, just let it break
I'll pick up the pieces and mistakes
After "Normandie," Adam reminisced about their first show at the 9:30, back in 2005, opening for Futurebirds.
"So this was our first stop on our first U.S. tour ever. We didn't know shit about touring then."
A lot has changed for the band, including that regular drummer Carl was at home "making babies" and they had a new drummer tonight who looked impossibly young and incredibly happy to be there.
The already-dancing crowd went crazy with the first strains of "Impossible" and Adam saying, "This one might ring a bell."
After telling us to buy the new CD ("It's a good album"), we were rewarded with "a really old one," from 2003, "The Comeback."
After they did the exquisite "Blue Ice" off the new album, Adam explained, "That's our slow dance in Sweden. We call it polska."
It was one of the few times the floor wasn't having a full-on boppy dance party all night.
I only wish I could have been slow dancing to it.
They returned to upbeat and driving with "Hard Rain" and Adam did his guitar part standing on the drums, making for a fine return to form for the band.
Or maybe it was just a way to get back into the touring groove.
They said they'd toured the Air and Space Museum today, no doubt influencing the backdrop with its suggestion of planets and stars.
Damn. So while I was at the National Gallery, I could have been a few buildings away at Air and Space and run into these guys.
Double damn.
The encore was killer and ended with the magnificent "Tonight I Have to Leave It," which tonight meant leave the stage.
Adam stepped off and into the waiting arms of fans, then was deposited on the ground to sing a few lines while people like me rushed up to watch him sing up close.
Don't come up to me and say that you like it
It's better if you say you hate it, that's the truth exactly
When we go out dancing, I don't want to be bothered
Just want to be bothered by real love
He got back up on stage to finish the song and say goodnight before we were turned out into the misty streets of the capital.
Too bad no one chose to join me tonight or they'd have seen me walking on air down V Street.
Today was so my cup of tea, that's the truth exactly.
That would explain why despite inviting no less than three different people to join me on an excursion to D.C. today, I got no takers.
It mattered not.
I'd bought my ticket for the Shout Out Louds back in mid-February and had been eagerly anticipating the show ever since.
It turned out to be a less than ideal day for traveling, with rain on and off the whole way up 95.
Even so, I managed to make it to the National Gallery of Art's east building in time to catch the last hour they were open and see the show of the year.
"Albrecht Durer: Master Drawings, Watercolors and Prints from the Albertina" represents the largest exhibition of Durer's drawings and watercolors ever exhibited in the U.S.
Despite the eleventh hour visit, plenty of other tourists were right there with me, eager to see the magnificent images on the blue-gray walls before the museum closed today.
The notes for the show referred to Durer as the "German Leonardo," a nod to his role as the master of the northern Renaissance and his visits to Italy to study the artistic developments happening there.
The show began with "Self Portrait at Thirteen," an astonishing piece of drawing for one so young and moved through much later works.
The watercolors were a revelation, like "A Great Piece of Turf," a nature study in greens that constantly had a gaggle of admirers around it.
There were many anatomical studies he'd done, part of a quest to figure out the dimensions and proportions of the human body.
I got a real sense of his mastery looking at two prints he'd done based on earlier works by Andre Mategna.
Although they were labeled "after Mategna," Durer's were so much more refined and delicate as to have only a passing acquaintance with Mantegna's.
At 5:00, the bells began ringing to notify visitors that they wanted us out and I reluctantly left the German master behind.
Planning to park once and party twice, my next stop was U Street for happy hour and dinner.
Exactly three years ago, a friend and I had come up to Washington for another Shout Out Louds show and that time we'd gone to Marvin for a splendid meal.
Tonight I'd set my sites on Brixton, the less-than-a-year-old English pub from the same guys as Marvin, one of who is half of Thievery Corporation.
At least I knew the music would be good.
And it was.
After a walk up and down U Street to stretch my legs after the arduous, rainy drive, I found the corner door and entered the appropriately dark, wooden atmosphere of Brixton.
The music was full-on dance and funk, with some remixes of Boz Scagg's "Lowdown" and Hall & Oates' "I Can't Go for That" thrown in for good measure.
My bartender was a friendly guy in madras shorts (I later found out he went to Georgetown, so that explains it) who introduced himself and shook my hand when he asked my name.
He asked what brought me in and I told him I'd driven through intermittent rainstorms all the way up from Richmond just to see music.
Chuckling, he said, "I live six blocks from here and I walked through three separate rain storms just to get to work."
The happy hour white wine was a Quinto de Aveleda Vinho Verde, a no-brainer for me.
Looking at the happy hour menu, I figured why go to a British pub and not get fish and chips, so that was a given.
"That's the only thing that's been on the menu since we opened last July, " Eric said as a recommendation.
For good measure, I also ordered a Thai chicken salad of pulled chicken, ginger, shredded cabbage and carrots, soy and chili sauce.
The roasted peanuts were missing in action, but, oh well.
Bar stools continued to fill up as I ate and drank, causing Eric to come over and tell me that over half the bar was also going to the show with me.
When he inquired if I needed anything, I told him some conversation would be about all I needed and twenty minutes later, I'd had one of the best music discussions I've had in a while with a stranger.
He'd just been to a Hot Chip show with lots of dancing. When he heard I was going to see Tame Impala next month, he told me about seeing them last year.
He's stoked to see Dirty Projectors and was blown away when I told him I'd seen them four years ago next month.
He told me about the Sweetgreen Festival he's going to, full of under the radar bands.
When I told him I was excited to hear Haerts (who were opening tonight for Shout Out Louds), he was beyond thrilled; they're one of the bands he was most looking forward to at Sweetgreen.
I finished out my meal with more Vinho Verde and chipotle chocolate cake, evidently making it look good enough that the couple next to me asked for "whatever she's having."
And I wasn't even making orgasm noises.
Walking into the 9:30 Club, I saw that the stage had been pushed out, meaning the show hadn't sold out.
While it seems inconceivable to me in a town as big as D.C., it was a refreshing change not to be packed in like sardines.
Parking myself in front of the sound booth as usual, I struck up a conversation with the girl next to me, who couldn't have been taller than 4'10".
We commiserated about not being able to see at shows, but she said her trump card was her camera, because she was there to shoot for a local music blog and had a press pass.
Brilliant.
She was also excited to hear Haerts, saying, "I love them. I've only heard the one song where she sounds like Stevie Nicks, but it's amazing!"
And they were.
The New York quintet combined 80s-influenced music (lots of synth and guitar) with her distinctive voice that had that lost little girl quality the photographer had fallen for.
"This is the first night of our tour and it seems like a good place to start," lead singer Nini said in her black trapeze top and bare midriff.
Despite having only heard three songs before tonight, I was completely enraptured with everything I heard during their 45-minute set.
I'll definitely need that CD soon.
In front of me during the break, two Swedes were beside themselves at the prospect of seeing Shout Out Louds for the first time.
It was my second time, but I was just as excited and when the lights went down and the backdrop was lit to reveal a spacey Shout Out Louds banner, it was game on.
"Welcome to the preview of our U.S. tour," singer Adam yelled.
So we were going to be the guinea pigs. I was happy with that, knowing it would probably be a loose show.
Of course they began with stuff off the new CD, including "Walking in Your Footsteps," the song that assured me I was going to like the new CD as much as the first three.
They started on "Fall Harder" when Adam stopped, looked at the bass player and asked, "Am I playing this in the wrong key?"
He was and they began a second time. Another pleasure of being the first night audience.
And if you're gonna break, just let it break
I'll pick up the pieces and mistakes
After "Normandie," Adam reminisced about their first show at the 9:30, back in 2005, opening for Futurebirds.
"So this was our first stop on our first U.S. tour ever. We didn't know shit about touring then."
A lot has changed for the band, including that regular drummer Carl was at home "making babies" and they had a new drummer tonight who looked impossibly young and incredibly happy to be there.
The already-dancing crowd went crazy with the first strains of "Impossible" and Adam saying, "This one might ring a bell."
After telling us to buy the new CD ("It's a good album"), we were rewarded with "a really old one," from 2003, "The Comeback."
After they did the exquisite "Blue Ice" off the new album, Adam explained, "That's our slow dance in Sweden. We call it polska."
It was one of the few times the floor wasn't having a full-on boppy dance party all night.
I only wish I could have been slow dancing to it.
They returned to upbeat and driving with "Hard Rain" and Adam did his guitar part standing on the drums, making for a fine return to form for the band.
Or maybe it was just a way to get back into the touring groove.
They said they'd toured the Air and Space Museum today, no doubt influencing the backdrop with its suggestion of planets and stars.
Damn. So while I was at the National Gallery, I could have been a few buildings away at Air and Space and run into these guys.
Double damn.
The encore was killer and ended with the magnificent "Tonight I Have to Leave It," which tonight meant leave the stage.
Adam stepped off and into the waiting arms of fans, then was deposited on the ground to sing a few lines while people like me rushed up to watch him sing up close.
Don't come up to me and say that you like it
It's better if you say you hate it, that's the truth exactly
When we go out dancing, I don't want to be bothered
Just want to be bothered by real love
He got back up on stage to finish the song and say goodnight before we were turned out into the misty streets of the capital.
Too bad no one chose to join me tonight or they'd have seen me walking on air down V Street.
Today was so my cup of tea, that's the truth exactly.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Song 1 in the Mist
The best reason to be back in my hometown is for no reason at all.
A couple of days in D.C. is reason enough to find things I want to do and drag a willing accomplice along.
Arriving late in the afternoon, the easy default was to go to the National Gallery to see "Picasso's Drawings: 1890-192, Reinventing Tradition."
As a companion piece for last year's VMFA Picasso show, it too traced the development of his career, but with nothing but drawings.
One done at age nine and another at age eleven were mesmerizing for his facility at such tender ages.
Most fascinating was seeing how the artist easily demonstrated his competence in everyone else's style. It was like Ryan Adams" "Rick and Roll," a way for the artist to demonstrate he could do any style he chose.
An attenuated figure of a man was pure Aubrey Beasley. A drawing of a dancer screamed Toulouse Lautrec.
But it was the one done in the style of Paul Gauguin that was not only an homage to the former banker, but a tribute to one of Picasso's heroes.
So much so that he actually signed it "Paul Picasso" in a nod to Gauguin. Now it's hard to conceive of the egotist Picasso being so worshipful.
My favorite was "Young Man with Arms Crossed," a gouache and charcoal from 1899-1900, striking to me for the handsome and direct gaze of the subject.
The man's black suit was loosely sketched, barely filled in with lines to suggest the texture of the suit, but irrelevant given the compelling stare that drew this viewer back to his face time and time again.
I got to enjoy a moment of civic pride at seeing "Woman in Kerchief," on loan from our own VMFA and a beautiful image.
From there it was upstairs to see "Civic Pride: Group Portraits from Amsterdam," two large scale works of city fathers done thirteen years apart.
In the earlier image, the old men portrayed in an unadorned, dark hall were serious, sedate and conveyed their ability to make wise decisions.
Fast forward and the new crop of leaders were younger, clearly drinking and far more concerned with conviviality than the business of a city.
Oyster shells littered the floor even as scullery maids brought in platters of more. Nearly everyone has an adult beverage and smiles abound.
What a difference a few years make in now powerful men wanted themselves depicted.
We decided to depict ourselves eating and drinking as well, heading to Palena Cafe for dinner.
Despite a reservation, we let the personable host be the bad guy and rearrange bar sitters so we could have seats at the bar and began with Dutour Chinon Rose "Cuvee Marie Justine."
Sunday night means the Sunday menu (starters, pastas, pizzas and sides) and while I am no pasta lover, that's right where I went.
Tagliatelle a duo guancia promised two kinds of cheeks in a ragout over Neapolitan pasta (also sold in the adjoining Palena Market) and before I could even order it, my companion drolly observed that "Of course you're going to get the most disgusting thing on the menu."
The bartender immediately corrected him, saying, "It's the best thing on the menu" and once he tasted it, agreed that it was an earthy and yet otherworldly dish.
I got to taste his linguine with rock shrimp, Calabrian chilis and lemon bread crumbs, perfectly al dente
and with delicately nuanced flavor, but certainly no cheeks.
The Calabrian chilis also showed up as part of the rapini, providing a new twist on greens.
We finished with a chocolate meringue torte with a red wine reduction that I would kill to see on a Richmond dessert menu.
The sweetness of the brown sugar meringue was the ideal foil for the bittersweet torte, making the whipped cream superfluous, and the deep flavor of the red wine reduction could have been mistaken for a mature fruit coulis.
We paired it with a 2008 Domaine Perroud Brouilli because beaujolais seemed up to the task of standing up to such a stellar sweet.
For the record,I intend to sing the praises of that dessert to everyone I know who wields a pastry brush or egg white whisk.
Not much could have topped such a lovely meal, but we managed to do so anyway.
No surprise, it was with more art.
The Hirshhorn's new installation is a 360-degree projection by Doug Aitken that shows on the exterior of the cylindrical building from sunset to midnight.
Blending visuals of people singing, driving, working and playing cards, they are set to the classic song "I Only Have Eyes for You" sung by all kinds of singers.
Beck, Devendra Banhart, James Murphy, John Legend, the list of people who sing a few bars of the iconic song is all over the place.
There was a light rain falling when we arrived, so we took an umbrella and began the process of seeing Aitken's "Song 1."
The pleasures of it were myriad; walking through the bricked paths of the sculpture garden afforded new impressions of it with every step.
Sometimes trees were silhouetted against the moving images and sometimes grand sculptures between the viewer and the film combined.
The speakers, we noticed, were positioned well and being played at a far greater volume than even a music lover could have dared wish for.
It was never too loud and yet there was a distinct pleasure to walking away from one speaker only to begin hearing the next.
We watched from across the street, from under trees and projectors, from bricked corners and stairs and remained constantly engaged.
Perhaps it was being in the bubble of the umbrella as raindrops fell on the fragrant garden around us.
Perhaps it was the choice of song, so much an American standard that it could be heard continuously for an hour, albeit by different voices, without ever growing tired of it.
Perhaps it was having the right company for such a meandering day.
Perhaps it was the discussion: was the song meant to be sung to the beloved or sung to the heavens about the beloved?
I'm not even sure the "why" matters.
It was enough being in my hometown on a beautiful damp spring night full of cheeks, chocolate and wine and listening to one of the most beautiful love songs of the past century in a sculpture garden.
To be clear, I still don't want to move back.
But with cities, as with people, it's always satisfying to remember why I fell in love with it in the first place.
Oh, yes. I remember.
A couple of days in D.C. is reason enough to find things I want to do and drag a willing accomplice along.
Arriving late in the afternoon, the easy default was to go to the National Gallery to see "Picasso's Drawings: 1890-192, Reinventing Tradition."
As a companion piece for last year's VMFA Picasso show, it too traced the development of his career, but with nothing but drawings.
One done at age nine and another at age eleven were mesmerizing for his facility at such tender ages.
Most fascinating was seeing how the artist easily demonstrated his competence in everyone else's style. It was like Ryan Adams" "Rick and Roll," a way for the artist to demonstrate he could do any style he chose.
An attenuated figure of a man was pure Aubrey Beasley. A drawing of a dancer screamed Toulouse Lautrec.
But it was the one done in the style of Paul Gauguin that was not only an homage to the former banker, but a tribute to one of Picasso's heroes.
So much so that he actually signed it "Paul Picasso" in a nod to Gauguin. Now it's hard to conceive of the egotist Picasso being so worshipful.
My favorite was "Young Man with Arms Crossed," a gouache and charcoal from 1899-1900, striking to me for the handsome and direct gaze of the subject.
The man's black suit was loosely sketched, barely filled in with lines to suggest the texture of the suit, but irrelevant given the compelling stare that drew this viewer back to his face time and time again.
I got to enjoy a moment of civic pride at seeing "Woman in Kerchief," on loan from our own VMFA and a beautiful image.
From there it was upstairs to see "Civic Pride: Group Portraits from Amsterdam," two large scale works of city fathers done thirteen years apart.
In the earlier image, the old men portrayed in an unadorned, dark hall were serious, sedate and conveyed their ability to make wise decisions.
Fast forward and the new crop of leaders were younger, clearly drinking and far more concerned with conviviality than the business of a city.
Oyster shells littered the floor even as scullery maids brought in platters of more. Nearly everyone has an adult beverage and smiles abound.
What a difference a few years make in now powerful men wanted themselves depicted.
We decided to depict ourselves eating and drinking as well, heading to Palena Cafe for dinner.
Despite a reservation, we let the personable host be the bad guy and rearrange bar sitters so we could have seats at the bar and began with Dutour Chinon Rose "Cuvee Marie Justine."
Sunday night means the Sunday menu (starters, pastas, pizzas and sides) and while I am no pasta lover, that's right where I went.
Tagliatelle a duo guancia promised two kinds of cheeks in a ragout over Neapolitan pasta (also sold in the adjoining Palena Market) and before I could even order it, my companion drolly observed that "Of course you're going to get the most disgusting thing on the menu."
The bartender immediately corrected him, saying, "It's the best thing on the menu" and once he tasted it, agreed that it was an earthy and yet otherworldly dish.
I got to taste his linguine with rock shrimp, Calabrian chilis and lemon bread crumbs, perfectly al dente
and with delicately nuanced flavor, but certainly no cheeks.
The Calabrian chilis also showed up as part of the rapini, providing a new twist on greens.
We finished with a chocolate meringue torte with a red wine reduction that I would kill to see on a Richmond dessert menu.
The sweetness of the brown sugar meringue was the ideal foil for the bittersweet torte, making the whipped cream superfluous, and the deep flavor of the red wine reduction could have been mistaken for a mature fruit coulis.
We paired it with a 2008 Domaine Perroud Brouilli because beaujolais seemed up to the task of standing up to such a stellar sweet.
For the record,I intend to sing the praises of that dessert to everyone I know who wields a pastry brush or egg white whisk.
Not much could have topped such a lovely meal, but we managed to do so anyway.
No surprise, it was with more art.
The Hirshhorn's new installation is a 360-degree projection by Doug Aitken that shows on the exterior of the cylindrical building from sunset to midnight.
Blending visuals of people singing, driving, working and playing cards, they are set to the classic song "I Only Have Eyes for You" sung by all kinds of singers.
Beck, Devendra Banhart, James Murphy, John Legend, the list of people who sing a few bars of the iconic song is all over the place.
There was a light rain falling when we arrived, so we took an umbrella and began the process of seeing Aitken's "Song 1."
The pleasures of it were myriad; walking through the bricked paths of the sculpture garden afforded new impressions of it with every step.
Sometimes trees were silhouetted against the moving images and sometimes grand sculptures between the viewer and the film combined.
The speakers, we noticed, were positioned well and being played at a far greater volume than even a music lover could have dared wish for.
It was never too loud and yet there was a distinct pleasure to walking away from one speaker only to begin hearing the next.
We watched from across the street, from under trees and projectors, from bricked corners and stairs and remained constantly engaged.
Perhaps it was being in the bubble of the umbrella as raindrops fell on the fragrant garden around us.
Perhaps it was the choice of song, so much an American standard that it could be heard continuously for an hour, albeit by different voices, without ever growing tired of it.
Perhaps it was having the right company for such a meandering day.
Perhaps it was the discussion: was the song meant to be sung to the beloved or sung to the heavens about the beloved?
I'm not even sure the "why" matters.
It was enough being in my hometown on a beautiful damp spring night full of cheeks, chocolate and wine and listening to one of the most beautiful love songs of the past century in a sculpture garden.
To be clear, I still don't want to move back.
But with cities, as with people, it's always satisfying to remember why I fell in love with it in the first place.
Oh, yes. I remember.
Monday, May 16, 2011
BD Kickoff: Jaleo and Fleet Foxes
My birthday, which arrives next Monday, has over the years become a pastiche of traditions that make me happy.
I spend a good week celebrating, preferably with as many of my friends as possible, in as many possible ways as we can think of.
And there is always a birthday show, often out of town, involving a band I'm eager to see, even if it requires a splurge.
This year's celebration kicked off today with a solo road trip to Washington for a few of my favorite things: art, food and music.
1. The Art Part
Ever since I'd read the Post's article on "Out-Vermeering Vermeer," I'd been dying to see the Gabriel Metsu show at the National Gallery.
This Dutch master, with whom I had no familiarity, was a gifted visual storyteller with a knack for color and brushstrokes and I spent a good part of my afternoon admiring works I'd never even seen in books.
Skilled at paintings of market scenes, his depictions of sellers and buyers were informative and charming. "A Baker Blowing His Horn" had one of the most elaborate loaves of bread I've ever seen.
"A Vegetable Market in Amsterdam" showed all kinds of drama: a vendor arguing with a customer, a man hitting on a maid, a dog staring down a rooster.
Have I missed all that at the Byrd House Market?
But my favorite Metsus were the many which depicted a man insinuating himself into a woman's world. "Woman Tuning her Cittern Approached by Man," "The Intruder" showed a man bursting into a lady's bedchamber with two woman showing surprise, "A Hunter Visiting a Woman at her Toilet," ( I overheard a man tell his wife, ""That doesn't mean a toilet, it means she's doing her make-up." Seriously) and "A Man Visiting a Woman Washing Her Hands."
That's a lot of men where they shouldn't have been.
My favorite title was "Woman Composing Music with an Inquisitive Man."
And as he leaned over her chair, the man smiled, clearly showing intent of I can't say what.
Couldn't he see she had music to compose?
I also took in "The Gothic Spirit of John Taylor Arms," a printmaking exhibit of a twentieth-century architect- turned- printmaker who embraced all things Gothic at a time when others were embracing modernity.
His prints of Venice (with every building mirrored perfectly in the canals) and France were breathtaking and while there were a few of New York City, he gave up on Gotham because he "did not love the buildings and couldn't etch what he didn't love."
Now that's a devoted printmaker.
2. The Dinner Part
I left my car parked in front of the NGA and walked up to Jaleo just in time to beat the rain.
A native Washingtonian who lived in the neighborhood sat down next to me and provided company for the next few hours.
She's a regular at Jaleo, so I listened to her recommendations and then ordered what I wanted.
Jaleo does happy hour every day except Saturday, so I enjoyed the Campos de Luz white wine because of its appealing price tag and easy drinkability.
I was high on art anyway by that point.
First I did the endives with goat cheese, oranges and slivered almonds.
My new friend described them as "the perfect first course...or last."
With their clean, crisp flavors, I tended to agree.
Next I had my first sea urchin, mixed with diced peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers and served over ice.
The cilantro-laced oil gave a richness to the urchin I hadn't expected.
Carlos was our bartender and he knew my seatmate well, but it was my glass that received the bonus pour when he got near the end of a bottle.
I asked if it was because I'd driven up from Richmond.
"It's so that you'll come back," he said.
Spicy chorizo wrapped in paper-thin slices of crispy potato arrived and there were six good-sized pieces of sausage, more than I expected. my new friend, concerned about the spiciness, offered up Pepto-Bismol should I need it.
Not likely with my iron gut.
Carlos insisted I try the shrimp sauteed in garlic, butter and guindilla pepper because of its classic nature.
Good, but too rich by that point in the meal.
He also suggested the dark chocolate mousse with cocoa spongecake and hazelnut ice cream and I managed to find room for that, but then I had all that extra wine to finish it with.
Before I left, my friend gave me her number and insisted I return for a night out to celebrate my birthday, even offering a discounted hotel room to entice me further.
"We could have so much fun," she laughed.
3. The Music Part
My choice for birthday band this year was Fleet Foxes because I needed to hear Robin Pecknold's voice live before I die.
Lyrically and harmony-wise, they really have no folk peer at the moment.
The show was at D.A.R. Constitution Hall, always such a civilized place to see a show because it's a seated venue and they require shows be over by 11:00.
Because I hadn't bought my ticket the day they went on sale, I was in the upper tier in Row L.
It was high, but it was on the side of the stage so I had a good view.
Within minutes of sitting down, a girl came over and asked, "Are you alone?"
Seems he wanted to trade one of her mismatched tickets so she could sit nearer her friend, also in the upper tier.
"It's in the orchestra, third row. I don't think your view will be obstructed."
From Row C? No, I guess not.
I graciously exchanged my nosebleed ticket for her third row.
I honestly don't know how these things happen to me.
Seattle's Cave Singers opened the show with beautiful harmonies (well, you'd better if you're opening for harmony virtuosos FF), guitar, drums, washboard, tambourine and harmonica.
The only fly in the ointment was all the talkers during their set.
Not so for Fleet Foxes; the audience was positively worshipful except for shouting out between songs.
I honestly don't understand how people can think bands want to hear things like "We love you" and "You're perfect!" every night.
At least be creative with your shoutouts, kids.
The best I heard was, "Play what you want!" to which Pecknold replied, "Thank you, sir."
Pecknold was not a big chatter between songs, but it didn't matter given how tight and beautiful the band sounded throughout.
Lots of guitars, drums, mandolin, upright bass, keyboard, tambourine, two flutes and even a bass clarinet made for every complementary sound required.
As a result, much tuning went on and it became a running joke.
"No one understands the meta spectacle thing we're trying to do with the tuning thing," they joked. "So be amazed."
This crowd was more than happy to listen to these guys tune.
In between bands, I struck up a music conversation with the two twenty-somethings next to me in Row C, only to learn that most of the music they listen to is old.
CSNY, Dylan, that sort of thing.
I made my usual case for new music, but they consider their generation a failure at creativity.
Fleet Foxes is one of a very few current bands they tolerate.
Imagine my surprise, when I asked where the one guy lived (the monosyllabic one having returned to looking at his phone) and he said, "Richmond, Grace between Strawberry and Allison."
You mean a block I walk every day of my life?
Small fricking world, isn't it?
I drive two hours up soul-sucking 95 to sit next to someone who lives less than a mile from me.
It is to laugh.
And the music was to savor.
The haunting lyrics, the multi-part harmonies, the evocation of a sound that will never go out of style all made for the best kind of birthday show.
As any FF fan in the audience could predict, the band did the title track from their new album "Helplessness Blues" as the final encore.
The crowd could no longer contain itself and rose to its feet to listen to the ode to becoming part of something bigger than yourself.
All I can say is, it's a hell of a start to my birthday week celebration.
Keep it coming.
I spend a good week celebrating, preferably with as many of my friends as possible, in as many possible ways as we can think of.
And there is always a birthday show, often out of town, involving a band I'm eager to see, even if it requires a splurge.
This year's celebration kicked off today with a solo road trip to Washington for a few of my favorite things: art, food and music.
1. The Art Part
Ever since I'd read the Post's article on "Out-Vermeering Vermeer," I'd been dying to see the Gabriel Metsu show at the National Gallery.
This Dutch master, with whom I had no familiarity, was a gifted visual storyteller with a knack for color and brushstrokes and I spent a good part of my afternoon admiring works I'd never even seen in books.
Skilled at paintings of market scenes, his depictions of sellers and buyers were informative and charming. "A Baker Blowing His Horn" had one of the most elaborate loaves of bread I've ever seen.
"A Vegetable Market in Amsterdam" showed all kinds of drama: a vendor arguing with a customer, a man hitting on a maid, a dog staring down a rooster.
Have I missed all that at the Byrd House Market?
But my favorite Metsus were the many which depicted a man insinuating himself into a woman's world. "Woman Tuning her Cittern Approached by Man," "The Intruder" showed a man bursting into a lady's bedchamber with two woman showing surprise, "A Hunter Visiting a Woman at her Toilet," ( I overheard a man tell his wife, ""That doesn't mean a toilet, it means she's doing her make-up." Seriously) and "A Man Visiting a Woman Washing Her Hands."
That's a lot of men where they shouldn't have been.
My favorite title was "Woman Composing Music with an Inquisitive Man."
And as he leaned over her chair, the man smiled, clearly showing intent of I can't say what.
Couldn't he see she had music to compose?
I also took in "The Gothic Spirit of John Taylor Arms," a printmaking exhibit of a twentieth-century architect- turned- printmaker who embraced all things Gothic at a time when others were embracing modernity.
His prints of Venice (with every building mirrored perfectly in the canals) and France were breathtaking and while there were a few of New York City, he gave up on Gotham because he "did not love the buildings and couldn't etch what he didn't love."
Now that's a devoted printmaker.
2. The Dinner Part
I left my car parked in front of the NGA and walked up to Jaleo just in time to beat the rain.
A native Washingtonian who lived in the neighborhood sat down next to me and provided company for the next few hours.
She's a regular at Jaleo, so I listened to her recommendations and then ordered what I wanted.
Jaleo does happy hour every day except Saturday, so I enjoyed the Campos de Luz white wine because of its appealing price tag and easy drinkability.
I was high on art anyway by that point.
First I did the endives with goat cheese, oranges and slivered almonds.
My new friend described them as "the perfect first course...or last."
With their clean, crisp flavors, I tended to agree.
Next I had my first sea urchin, mixed with diced peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers and served over ice.
The cilantro-laced oil gave a richness to the urchin I hadn't expected.
Carlos was our bartender and he knew my seatmate well, but it was my glass that received the bonus pour when he got near the end of a bottle.
I asked if it was because I'd driven up from Richmond.
"It's so that you'll come back," he said.
Spicy chorizo wrapped in paper-thin slices of crispy potato arrived and there were six good-sized pieces of sausage, more than I expected. my new friend, concerned about the spiciness, offered up Pepto-Bismol should I need it.
Not likely with my iron gut.
Carlos insisted I try the shrimp sauteed in garlic, butter and guindilla pepper because of its classic nature.
Good, but too rich by that point in the meal.
He also suggested the dark chocolate mousse with cocoa spongecake and hazelnut ice cream and I managed to find room for that, but then I had all that extra wine to finish it with.
Before I left, my friend gave me her number and insisted I return for a night out to celebrate my birthday, even offering a discounted hotel room to entice me further.
"We could have so much fun," she laughed.
3. The Music Part
My choice for birthday band this year was Fleet Foxes because I needed to hear Robin Pecknold's voice live before I die.
Lyrically and harmony-wise, they really have no folk peer at the moment.
The show was at D.A.R. Constitution Hall, always such a civilized place to see a show because it's a seated venue and they require shows be over by 11:00.
Because I hadn't bought my ticket the day they went on sale, I was in the upper tier in Row L.
It was high, but it was on the side of the stage so I had a good view.
Within minutes of sitting down, a girl came over and asked, "Are you alone?"
Seems he wanted to trade one of her mismatched tickets so she could sit nearer her friend, also in the upper tier.
"It's in the orchestra, third row. I don't think your view will be obstructed."
From Row C? No, I guess not.
I graciously exchanged my nosebleed ticket for her third row.
I honestly don't know how these things happen to me.
Seattle's Cave Singers opened the show with beautiful harmonies (well, you'd better if you're opening for harmony virtuosos FF), guitar, drums, washboard, tambourine and harmonica.
The only fly in the ointment was all the talkers during their set.
Not so for Fleet Foxes; the audience was positively worshipful except for shouting out between songs.
I honestly don't understand how people can think bands want to hear things like "We love you" and "You're perfect!" every night.
At least be creative with your shoutouts, kids.
The best I heard was, "Play what you want!" to which Pecknold replied, "Thank you, sir."
Pecknold was not a big chatter between songs, but it didn't matter given how tight and beautiful the band sounded throughout.
Lots of guitars, drums, mandolin, upright bass, keyboard, tambourine, two flutes and even a bass clarinet made for every complementary sound required.
As a result, much tuning went on and it became a running joke.
"No one understands the meta spectacle thing we're trying to do with the tuning thing," they joked. "So be amazed."
This crowd was more than happy to listen to these guys tune.
In between bands, I struck up a music conversation with the two twenty-somethings next to me in Row C, only to learn that most of the music they listen to is old.
CSNY, Dylan, that sort of thing.
I made my usual case for new music, but they consider their generation a failure at creativity.
Fleet Foxes is one of a very few current bands they tolerate.
Imagine my surprise, when I asked where the one guy lived (the monosyllabic one having returned to looking at his phone) and he said, "Richmond, Grace between Strawberry and Allison."
You mean a block I walk every day of my life?
Small fricking world, isn't it?
I drive two hours up soul-sucking 95 to sit next to someone who lives less than a mile from me.
It is to laugh.
And the music was to savor.
The haunting lyrics, the multi-part harmonies, the evocation of a sound that will never go out of style all made for the best kind of birthday show.
As any FF fan in the audience could predict, the band did the title track from their new album "Helplessness Blues" as the final encore.
The crowd could no longer contain itself and rose to its feet to listen to the ode to becoming part of something bigger than yourself.
All I can say is, it's a hell of a start to my birthday week celebration.
Keep it coming.
Friday, March 25, 2011
How To Be Happy by Paul Gauguin
Amongst the pleasurable lessons I learned at the crowded National Gallery's "Gauguin: Maker of Myths" exhibition was this: Be in love and you will be happy.
It was the name of a woodcut print. It was the name of a carved and painted linden wood piece. It was one of two things inscribed on the wooden panels Gauguin made for the entrance to his house (which he called the house of sensual pleasure) in Tahiti.
To enter his studio, you had to walk under the inscription and through his bedroom. There was really no missing his point.
The exhibition explored how Gauguin used myths throughout his career, blending fact and fiction to blur the lines between reality and his fertile imagination.
And given his artistic gift (when he was 28, his landlord taught him marble-carving and a bust of his wife showed his immediate mastery of the medium), he could blur that line using any number of methods.
This was beautifully illustrated in one of my favorites in the show, "Clovis Asleep," an especially Impressionistic piece for Gauguin, with a lovely blue wall covered in planets and stars over the slumbering child's head, surely signifying his dreams.
Another piece I couldn't resist was a pair of wooden Dutch shoes from which Gauguin had removed the bright paint, adding two decorative motifs (Breton women and a goose); he took to wearing them frequently to show his identification with the Breton peasantry, as well as his rejection of Parisian excesses.
I found it fascinating how Gauguin used questions for titles of paintings. It is supposed that many of the questions came from overheard conversations in Tahiti, but it gave an intimacy to the figures in the works, as you literally saw them and figuratively heard them.
"Ondine in the Waves" was the simplest of compositions and yet spectacular: a nude woman's back with an S-curve of red hair stood against an entire background of green waves. A study in color and form, it was mesmerizing.
Making my way through the exhibition and around the masses of humankind, it was hard not to get caught up in the beauty of the tropics. Even through the primitive paradise Gauguin sought turned out to be a thing of the past, I'm thinking he may have been right about the secret to happiness.
I was all kinds of happy looking at the fruits of his labors of love this afternoon, even without being in love. Yet. Give me time.
It was the name of a woodcut print. It was the name of a carved and painted linden wood piece. It was one of two things inscribed on the wooden panels Gauguin made for the entrance to his house (which he called the house of sensual pleasure) in Tahiti.
To enter his studio, you had to walk under the inscription and through his bedroom. There was really no missing his point.
The exhibition explored how Gauguin used myths throughout his career, blending fact and fiction to blur the lines between reality and his fertile imagination.
And given his artistic gift (when he was 28, his landlord taught him marble-carving and a bust of his wife showed his immediate mastery of the medium), he could blur that line using any number of methods.
This was beautifully illustrated in one of my favorites in the show, "Clovis Asleep," an especially Impressionistic piece for Gauguin, with a lovely blue wall covered in planets and stars over the slumbering child's head, surely signifying his dreams.
Another piece I couldn't resist was a pair of wooden Dutch shoes from which Gauguin had removed the bright paint, adding two decorative motifs (Breton women and a goose); he took to wearing them frequently to show his identification with the Breton peasantry, as well as his rejection of Parisian excesses.
I found it fascinating how Gauguin used questions for titles of paintings. It is supposed that many of the questions came from overheard conversations in Tahiti, but it gave an intimacy to the figures in the works, as you literally saw them and figuratively heard them.
"Ondine in the Waves" was the simplest of compositions and yet spectacular: a nude woman's back with an S-curve of red hair stood against an entire background of green waves. A study in color and form, it was mesmerizing.
Making my way through the exhibition and around the masses of humankind, it was hard not to get caught up in the beauty of the tropics. Even through the primitive paradise Gauguin sought turned out to be a thing of the past, I'm thinking he may have been right about the secret to happiness.
I was all kinds of happy looking at the fruits of his labors of love this afternoon, even without being in love. Yet. Give me time.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Poolside Dining at Best Cafe
My earliest memories of eating at a museum are of dried out burgers in the basement cafeteria of the National Gallery of Art.
Even as a child, I appreciated that I was there for the art, not the food, so whatever was available was good enough; it was just sustenance between morning and afternoon gallery roaming.
And I was fine with that.
I'd fallen in love with the museum experience the very first time I stood in wonder in the rotunda of the National Gallery, a passion that has never waned.
Fast forward to 2010 and a friend and I made plans for lunch at the VMFA, followed by a tour of the Tiffany exhibition today.
As it turned out, we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day for an al fresco lunch, although neither of us had had any idea that that would be the case.
We'd already eaten at Amuse, so we were going to give the Best Cafe a shot and see how it stood up to my misty cafeteria memories.
To start with, dried out gray burgers were not an option.
We could choose from salads, wraps, paninis, a couple of entrees, hot dogs and pizza.
And then there was the unexpected glamour of wine and desserts; clearly we weren't in a basement lunchroom anymore, Toto.
One of the salad options was country ham, asparagus and mozzarella over mixed greens and that sounded pretty wonderful to me.
With a piece of unexpectedly good cheese-sprinkled bread, followed by flourless chocolate cake, it was the perfect summer lunch.
The Best Cafe is situated alongside the reflecting pool, which I have admired on previous visits from inside for its mirror-like stillness.
But today it was appealing for different reasons, so we took our meals outside to enjoy on the patio.
The breeze rustling through the enormous magnolias and the constant rippling motion of the water made for a tranquil oasis on a Friday afternoon.
My friend teased me because I was so quiet (a second night of less than five hours sleep will slow down even a talker like me on occasion), but part of the reason was just my enjoyment of the experience.
I wouldn't have changed anything about the moment.
As for Mr. Tiffany's glass, I was impressed with the scope of the exhibit.
Knowing that he'd been a painter first, I would have been disappointed had some of his paintings not been included.
I'm also one of those people who are not satisfied with simply seeing the fruits of an artist's labor, either.
I need the historical context to full appreciate a body of work and was rewarded with vintage photographs of his homes, studio, store, and glass factory as well as pictures of the workers and artists who brought his vision to fruition.
I definitely appreciate a side of history with my art entree.
The chapel-like room that housed the full-size Tiffany windows from a church in Canada was the centerpiece of the exhibition and absolutely breath-taking.
Even a heathen like me could appreciate the majesty of these ecclesiastical scenes rendered in eye-popping colors with light streaming through them.
If anything, I became a convert to the church of Louis Comfort Tiffany, so perhaps I'm not a completely lost soul.
And although personally, I still go to museums for the art, and food is just the fuel for doing so, a place like the Best Cafe will be far more likely to impress a ten-year old on her first visit to a museum than a basement cafeteria could ever hope to.
I understand that not every kid will experience the genuine frisson of pleasure that I did on merely being in such a place. If hot dogs and pizza help win her over, so be it.
But we want her to be won.
Even as a child, I appreciated that I was there for the art, not the food, so whatever was available was good enough; it was just sustenance between morning and afternoon gallery roaming.
And I was fine with that.
I'd fallen in love with the museum experience the very first time I stood in wonder in the rotunda of the National Gallery, a passion that has never waned.
Fast forward to 2010 and a friend and I made plans for lunch at the VMFA, followed by a tour of the Tiffany exhibition today.
As it turned out, we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day for an al fresco lunch, although neither of us had had any idea that that would be the case.
We'd already eaten at Amuse, so we were going to give the Best Cafe a shot and see how it stood up to my misty cafeteria memories.
To start with, dried out gray burgers were not an option.
We could choose from salads, wraps, paninis, a couple of entrees, hot dogs and pizza.
And then there was the unexpected glamour of wine and desserts; clearly we weren't in a basement lunchroom anymore, Toto.
One of the salad options was country ham, asparagus and mozzarella over mixed greens and that sounded pretty wonderful to me.
With a piece of unexpectedly good cheese-sprinkled bread, followed by flourless chocolate cake, it was the perfect summer lunch.
The Best Cafe is situated alongside the reflecting pool, which I have admired on previous visits from inside for its mirror-like stillness.
But today it was appealing for different reasons, so we took our meals outside to enjoy on the patio.
The breeze rustling through the enormous magnolias and the constant rippling motion of the water made for a tranquil oasis on a Friday afternoon.
My friend teased me because I was so quiet (a second night of less than five hours sleep will slow down even a talker like me on occasion), but part of the reason was just my enjoyment of the experience.
I wouldn't have changed anything about the moment.
As for Mr. Tiffany's glass, I was impressed with the scope of the exhibit.
Knowing that he'd been a painter first, I would have been disappointed had some of his paintings not been included.
I'm also one of those people who are not satisfied with simply seeing the fruits of an artist's labor, either.
I need the historical context to full appreciate a body of work and was rewarded with vintage photographs of his homes, studio, store, and glass factory as well as pictures of the workers and artists who brought his vision to fruition.
I definitely appreciate a side of history with my art entree.
The chapel-like room that housed the full-size Tiffany windows from a church in Canada was the centerpiece of the exhibition and absolutely breath-taking.
Even a heathen like me could appreciate the majesty of these ecclesiastical scenes rendered in eye-popping colors with light streaming through them.
If anything, I became a convert to the church of Louis Comfort Tiffany, so perhaps I'm not a completely lost soul.
And although personally, I still go to museums for the art, and food is just the fuel for doing so, a place like the Best Cafe will be far more likely to impress a ten-year old on her first visit to a museum than a basement cafeteria could ever hope to.
I understand that not every kid will experience the genuine frisson of pleasure that I did on merely being in such a place. If hot dogs and pizza help win her over, so be it.
But we want her to be won.
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