You Are My Richmond Hero

Some might be surprised how much wine is required when invited to a nibble and a nip at Pru's. Not me.

Heading to the mansion on Church Hill through construction traffic, I saw a license plate that said it all: "ETA soon." That said, it took me 40 minutes to traverse the couple of miles from Jackson Ward.

Fortunately, there was wine awaiting me, specifically the Danielle de l'Ansee Sauvignon Blanc Pru had fallen in love with last month, and three people who loved to talk. As if by a fashion directive, the day's lingering heat had resulted in all the women sporting paper-thin cotton dresses with boho roots in the styles of the '70s.

The evening of spirited conversation covered topics was as varied as the people in the room. A discussion of old-fashioned sleep bras led to a male guest positing that perhaps he should wear a sleep cup. "A sleep cod piece!" Pru interjected, no doubt inspired by our upcoming plans to see "Hamlet" at Agecroft.

Our hostess, who has gone on record as saying she could exist solely on hors d'oeuvres, laid out a tasty spread of same, including what the former Mexico dweller dubbed "a salad on bread," a savory layering of guacamole, radishes and hard cooked eggs on toasted baguettes adorned with EVOO and smoked sea salt that made for a practically perfect flavor combination with just the right amount of chew.

The music was vintage soul and while it wasn't quite a dance party (other than our dance moves riding the new stair lift), Al Green, the O'Jays and Aretha provided a rollicking soundtrack to the evening, sometiems lost under the raucous laughter.

It was while drinking Argyle Sparkling Brut Rose, an offering from the recent Oregon outing, that it was agreed by everyone in the room that while Pru comes across as sweet and low key, she's really every bit as much an instigator troublemaker rapscallion firecracker as I am.

During a dedicated fashion discussion (hello, palazzo pants' comeback), Pru's Beau looked surprisingly interested, a fact we attributed to his female-centric upbringing. He's that rare male who not only notices hair and clothing changes and looks, but kindly mentions them to the woman rather than keeping them to himself. That's a man who'll go far with my people.

Our little group got along so well we wound up making plans to see a couple of Irish plays dubbed O'Theater at O'Toole's, an evening bound to be a blast in the back room. Fish and chips ought to be just the right accompaniment.

Maybe it was bottle number three - Miraval Rose - talking, but we got off on the topic of senior sex - how we're all hoping there's no cut-off point for a sex life's regularity. Needless to say, my randy parents came up as examples of making adjustments to keep things frisky.

I'm sure I was a bad influence, keeping the 9 to 5 set at the party up far too late, but then, isn't that why people invite me over for a nibble and a nip in the first place? I'll bet they were in bed before I crested the hill.

Heading westward ho, I had to pass right by Patrick Henry Pub and since I couldn't think of a single reason not to stop, I did. Within a minute of walking in I had an Espolon and within three minutes, a guy who works as an illustrator at the Martin Agency had come over to join me for conversation.

I guess I'd turned on my forehead sign "Talk to Me" without realizing it.

It worked out well because he'd lived in Portland briefly so we had lots to talk about comparing the two cities, praising Richmond's superiority and its lively arts scene before moving on to chatting abut each other's lives as the bar carried on around us. I'd lucked into a terrific conversationalist.

All because of a nibble and a nip, as the invitation promised, at Pru's, It may not be on my license plate, but ETA: Whenever I get home.

Requiem for Beauty Rest

If ever anyone doubted the musical quality of life in this town, I offer the following.

At 4:00, I had no plans. None materialized by 5:00 or even 6:00.

So by 6:30, I knew I needed to start working towards something to do until the late night birthday party I was attending began.

As I showered, I considered my options, looking for low cost.

I could go to a movie or for that same ten bucks, I could go hear the Richmond Symphony.

At 7:15, I left for CenterStage and by 7:30, had purchased a $10 ticket.

By 7:35, I was settled into the very back row with an empty seat next to me.

Before long it was filled by a guy who'd driven in 40 minutes from the far reaches of Hanover County.

When I asked what had brought him out on this slushy evening, he got right to the point.

"I was trying to decide whether to go to a movie or come hear some friends play music, so I decided on this."

Bingo. Here was tonight's soul mate.

Like me, he didn't mind being in the cheap seats.

"I don't need to see their faces," he said with a smile. "Hi, I'm Steve."

Turns out he's roommates with one of the symphony's viola players.

"People ask if that isn't really cool, getting to hear classical music all the time," he said. "But it's a viola, so I hear a lot of background stuff, but never any melodies. And lots of scales."

Before long, the concert began and the new concertmaster was introduced.

And there he was, the guy I'd met at the Mardi Gras party Tuesday, the one whom I'd heard say, "Where are the single women?" just before the host introduced us.

Let's just say he was way more dressed up tonight.

To get us in the mood for tonight's piece de resistance, first we heard Mozart's overture for "The Magic Flute."

I saw my friend Matt, the symphony's librarian and a bass player, come onstage with music and I knew it wasn't the last I'd see of him tonight.

Next came what conductor Erin Freeman described as "a sonic journey," composed in 2007 by John Hedges and called, "Prayers of Rain and Wind."

The cool part was that Hedges had written the concerto for double bass player Joseph Conyers, who also happened to be in the house.

And playing for us tonight.

Hedges had written the piece for Conyers, a weather freak.

It began with "Summer Rain Fantasia," a rendering of a muggy, humid night, a lovely thing to evoke on this frigid evening.

Conyers' bass then offers up a prayer, "Hymn," to the weather gods and a gentle rain begins, followed by horns announcing the hurricane.

It started with winds (think "The Wizard of Oz") and moves on to the eye of the storm and you could almost feel the release as the sky exploded sonically.

For me, it was a lot like watching the weather from my balcony, knowing that the oppressive heat will eventually give way to the release of a good thunderstorm.

After intermission, we got the reason every seat was full tonight.

The symphony, along with the Richmond Symphony Chorus (all 140 of them) and four soloists, was doing Mozart's "Requiem."

My knowledge of classical music is embarrassingly shallow, but even I knew that it was Mozart's last work and left unfinished when he kicked the bucket.

It was an incredibly moving piece that got a standing ovation afterwards.

Walking out, a woman behind me said, "It was all I could do not to sing along."

I only wish I was savvy enough to wish for the same.

Steve wished me a good evening and I had no doubt it would be since I was heading to a musician friend's birthday party at Patrick Henry Pub in Church Hill.

Turns out it was a multi-person party, with not one, but four people being feted, of which I knew two.

There were probably only 25 people when I arrived, but that number soon grew.

As if the birthdays weren't enough to celebrate, it was also Saturday night, so everywhere I turned, I got interesting if not inebriated conversation.

A woman told me about her shoplifting blind aunt who used to take her with her to Woolworth's when she was a child.

"She'd always have a cigarette hanging out of her mouth," she said. It's quite a visual.

Overheard near the bar: "Back in high school drama class, she supported Bush/Cheney, but now she says she didn't, but I know she did."

When the subject of tequila came up, the talented Herschel made a face, saying he couldn't stand the burning sensation going down.

When I asked if he'd tried good tequilas, he looked at me like I was an idiot.

"I'm Prabir's brother. Of course I've tasted every tequila."

Someone walked up to the guy next to me and inquired, "Are you rolling in the deep?" to which my friend responded, "I don't even know what that means."

And, yes, Matt showed up again, this time sans tux, and there was a protracted discussion of attending a bris, something I did once and intend to never repeat.

The party's hosts had promised food "to soak up the alcohol," and I, for one, couldn't resist the array of potato skins, meatballs and wings.

Now, that's party food.

After a few hours with the DJ spinning the Ramones and the like, our attention was called.

"Does everyone know what we're celebrating?" one of our hosts asked.

It's a good bet that most people did not.

I know that when I had walked into the pub next to a stranger and asked if he was coming to Willis' party and he had said, "Who's Willis?"

So that was clarified for all who weren't overly loopy at this point. and then the live entertainment began.

Everyone's favorite ukulele player who wears a ninja hat, Herschel, then proceeded to play while birthday boy Willis held the mic and did interpretive dance.

There was "Beauty Rest," about a girl who was ugly on the outside, but working on it.

Aren't we all?

He introduced the next song by saying, "It's weird that the way you move has so much attraction. So this is like a sex advice column."

Rile #1 was, "Don't talk."

Rule #2 was, "Shake that ass."

So you see where this song was going.

Meanwhile, Willis danced to Herschel's beat, moving the mic up to his mouth and down to his uke and inciting the crowd to sing the "na-na-na" chorus when appropriate.

His last song was dedicated to several friends who'd died, taking Herschel on a tangent about children dying before their parents.

His suggested solution was not to have children.

But then he sang Randy Newman's "Losing You" beautifully and his lecture was forgotten.

Performance over, the DJ cranked it up again and the party started back in earnest.

I wiled away some time with the smokers on the front porch before deciding to slide back down the hill and call it a night.

It had been a hell of a night's entertainment for ten bones.

And how often do you get wings and Mozart on the same night?

Burgers with The Great Unknown

Folk on, Steady Sounds.

Once again, my neighborhood record store was hosting an early show (6:30) with no price tag. Happily the crowd was bigger than at the last one, including several friends and musicians.

The inimitable Jonathan Vassar led the charge with his repertoire of sad songs. When he asked for requests, I suggested happy songs, but, as I already knew, there are no such songs in his repertoire.

Luckily there are plenty of heartfelt songs about family, places and memories, all satisfying.

Philly's The Great Unknown played next, coming from an interview at WRIR and an afternoon at the river ("It's okay to swim in your river, right? Cause we would never swim in ours in Philly!").

Formerly a quartet and now a trio, these guys have beautifully harmonious voices, accompanied by guitar, upright bass and drum.

They sang a new song, a song that used lyrics written by school children and two songs on which the audience was asked to sing along. We did our best.

After the show, the band was looking for some company, so four of us suggested Patrick Henry's (hey, it was $3 burger night) for some food, drink and conversation (RVA as good host).

We pulled two tables together to accommodate the additional two who joined us, got a terrific server (who just happened to write a webzine) and began getting to know each other with the aid of beer, Coke and, for some of us, Patron.

The problem with burger night at Patrick Henry's is not the burgers (easily one of the most flavorful cheap burgers in town) but the array of options. Pineapple compote? Hot pepper jelly? Hmmm...

After the hilarious ordeal of ordering, made all the more so because someone would order, then hear the next person's choice and second guess their own order, we began noticing the music.

It was all over the place, but in a good way. The Shins, Van Morrison, classic blues, Beach Boys, the music spurred many music tangents, including one about the inanity of Van Halen vocals.

But we also had great conversation about Cuba and its future, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and other must-read authors, and goat-milking (the band having had their first experience doing so this morning).

One of the benefits of so much chatter was that none of us could inhale our burgers immediately, despite being starved by that point.

Two enormous baskets of "community" fries took a beating, but only after our burgers were history. We were that kind of hungry.

By then the smoking had started, infiltrating clothes and hair, as it inevitably does at Patrick Henry's.

We hung on for another hour, comparing shows and talking about the Listening Room, which they had played to great acclaim this past April. I expect them to wow again tomorrow night at Sprout.

Getting up to go, a girl at a nearby table told me how much she liked my skirt. I didn't tell her it had been chosen for its thin fabric, brief length and breezy nature, not as a fashion statement.

Walking outside was like walking into an oven and while I didn't complain about the heat, my driver did. Guys never seem to tolerate summer warmth  as well as girls.

What a difference a skirt makes.

Trying to Tryst the Evening Away

Feeling a tad nervous tonight, I figured a stop for a bit of food and wine in familiar environs would be a good way to relax into the rest of my evening.

So I went to Six Burner, also the destination for an awful lot of other people tonight. I did get a chance to see Beth Marchant's show of works after Picasso; they were uncanny for their similarities to the originals. We'll call them cover paintings, like cover songs.

When I was asked what my wine preference was, I asked for the Warwick Pinotage, only to be told that it was no longer the featured red.

It was a good time to put on my pouty face because the wine rep who carries it was sitting at the bar. More is on order, I was told.

A zinfandel was suggested, tasted and rejected and I ended up choosing the Concannon Petit Syrah. Not nearly as good a pairing with springbok as the Pinotage would have been, but then I wasn't having springbok tonight.

Enjoying the roasted beet salad with goat cheese and pistachios in balsamic vinaigrette, I considered the sugar toads, but went with the fluke sashimi (with chicharron, ponzu, red plum, horseradish and bacon powder) instead.

The dish demonstrates why I want talented people to cook for me. The fluke and pork rind combination came together on the plate as if they were meant to be partnered, with the ponzu positively sop-worthy. I savored my first bacon powder, wondering how in the world such a thing is conceived of, much less made.

Tonight it was the staff who kept me entertained because there were no other bar sitters. It worked out well because I got to hear about a breakup that resulted in a reunited couple and who doesn't love a happy ending story?

The owner was telling me about some of the Picasso specials various restaurants have come up with and I had to wonder how many blue drinks Richmond will have for the next three months. Just a thought, folks, but it may have been more appetizing to focus on the painter's Rose Period.

I got to hear a long-time service industry employee get on her restaurant soapbox and tell me her interpretation of how things should be in terms of menus, staff and ambiance. She thanked me for listening and I thanked her for sharing her informed opinions; it's how I learn things.

From there it was on to Patrick Henry's to meet a recent acquaintance for some extended conversation. When he'd suggested it, my first thought had been that it would be perfect in that we could be alone in a roomful of people I wouldn't likely know.

Wrong. Ten minutes in and we had one of my music buddies stop by the table to say hi. My new friend's neighbors came in. Forget discretion in this town because there is no privacy when you're out and about.

But that's fine because the visitor returned to his table, the neighbors ignored us and we had the rest of the evening to discuss all kinds of things amongst ourselves.

It went so well that I wondered why I'd ever been nervous about an evening of talking. Or maybe I mistook anticipation for nerves.

Look at me, actually anticipating. That's progress with a capital P.

Forget Comfy. Try Something New.

It was sort of bittersweet; tonight was the last Silent Music Revival put on by my friend Jameson, the genius behind the event.

He and his beloved leave for the West Coast soon and don't expect to be back before fall, so the shows will be managed by other capable hands, although not his.

In a nod to it being his last, he had made an unusual film choice, 1922's Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages, a documentary about how superstition and a lack of understanding of mental illness once led to witch hunts.

To further add to the final night mystique, tonight's band, Homemade Knives, had been allowed to not only view but score the film.

This is notable because with every other SMR, the bands had improvised a score to a film they had never laid eyes on.

We didn't see the entire film, only a half hour segment of narrative about a woman being accused of being a witch.

The dramatized sequence had the woman being accused of making a dying man sick and the torture and questioning she faced as a result.

Homemade Knives' score was superb; it followed the narrative perfectly and added a dramatic element to it.

What was unsettling was how the audience laughed at the most inappropriate times, like when a bloody baby was about to be boiled, for instance.

Macabre moments seemed to make people giggle; it was very strange. Several other people noticed and made comments to me, so I wasn't the only one disturbed by it.

I lingered after the show to mingle, talk about the film and music and spend time with friends. Several people asked me what my next stop was and I told them I had nothing further planned.

But I began to feel like I would be a disappointment if I headed home at 9:30 and I wasn't ready to end my evening anyway, so I punted.

I couldn't think of any of my regular hangouts that were calling to me tonight, so I opted for something different, namely Patrick Henry Pub on Church Hill.

The bar only had a couple of empty stools when I arrived, but I snagged one on the corner and settled in to see what might turn up.

Within moments, I was delighted to hear the guys next to me start talking food, servers and Christian warriors (want some Jesus with that ice cream?).

Bingo! I had my conversational partners.

They turned out to be delightful, too.

One manages a Carytown restaurant and the other clerks for a judge and both were foodies with opinions to spare. We got right down to it.

Aside from an hour or more discussing the strengths and weaknesses of various restaurants, we got into a spirited discussion of who doesn't eat what.

It turned out that one eschews oysters because (and this was my favorite line of the evening), "Oysters are like licking the ass crack of the ocean." Come on, that's brilliant.

And, no, I didn't agree with him, but I laughed long and hard at how well he had expressed his feeling.

The other had yet to try foie gras for some vaguely ethical reasons.

I think our gushing descriptions of its taste may have persuaded him to give it a try very soon, perhaps even this week.

One had recently done a stint in DC, so he wanted to talk restaurants there. Like me, he loves Zatinya and Oyamel, although, unlike me, he hadn't tried the grasshopper or tongue tacos at the latter.

Next to my two new friends was a recent come-back to RVA, a guy who had grown up here and just returned after 25 years and living in Chicago, California, and Barcelona in the interim. He was saying what a tough time he was having finding out where to eat here now that he was back.

He was feeling his ignorance particularly keenly because his ex-girlfriend had been a food writer and he'd been the happy sidekick to all her eating adventures.

Now he felt like he was settling for the old and familiar, like a pair of comfortable pajamas (where have I heard that analogy before, hmm?).

Once he overheard our discussion, he joined in, asking me for recommendations on where to find raw oysters and my blog; I accommodated him on both counts.

I was surprised to learn that the disarming duo had not yet eaten at The Empress, despite knowing Carly and Melissa, so we made plans to have a threesome there in the near future and correct that.

The music was loud and varied (The Darkness, Erika Badu, The Cure) and our discussion deviated from food long enough to cover music (the one was amazed that I knew Mumford and Sons) and the Girl Talk show the other had attended last night ("A bunch of amateurs stumbling around by 9:00").

When I looked up and realized the time, I started wrapping things up with my new friends.

They thanked me profusely for my company and I did the same.

None of us had expected to stumble onto so much of shared interest with strangers and we all felt fortunate for having done so on a random Sunday night.

Sometimes punting is the way to go, never more so than when it leads to the potential for scoring.