Pie and Poetry

A sweet friend had e-mailed me at 3 a.m. this morning saying he was saddened to read about the loss of my beagle and suggesting we do something fun together today. As someone who had walked the beagle with me on more than a few occasions, he knew I might be low so I appreciated the gesture.

We ended up at Pie because I'd been craving pizza all week and 8 1/2 is still closed from the fire damage they experienced. He'd never been to Pie so he wanted to experience the pizza for himself after the two scathing local reviews the place had gotten.

They have a $5 lunch menu from 11-4, with salads, sandwiches and wraps on it, so we started with a chopped Greek salad which was easily large enough to split and satisfy us both. The ingredients were fresh, the feta plentiful and we felt more virtuous for having begun with greens.

We chose the Cured Meat pizza (with Soprasetta), thus taking care of my desire for white pizza and the male need for meat. It was quite good with garlic, Fontina and Mozzarella and the desired pig product. Friend commented on how much he likes a thin, cracker-like crust which this was. We managed to down all but two slices.

Afterwards, he wanted to go down to the river to see the heron rookery I'd been so enthralled with, here, but the trees had leafed out so much in the past four weeks that we were barely able to see three of the 45 nests. Of course, any excuse to do the Pipeline walkway is a good one. We did see plenty of bird life while we were there, though.

Bird-watching turned out to be the ideal activity to segue into my next activity, an author reading at Chop Suey Books. Scheduled to read first was Tara Bray, a poet with frequent references to birds in her poetry, but it was one of her students who unexpectedly got the ball rolling.

As we waited for the reading to start, someone noted that what we needed was a slam poet to kick things off. Funny that, there was one in the audience and he volunteered to do one of his favorite pieces, written on paper after years of using a computer to create his poetry. It was entitled Soul at Sunrise and was riveting, a commentary on life filled with alliteration, wordplay and rhyme. Like the audience, I could not believe our fortune in hearing such a strong piece from a completely unexpected source.

Acknowledging her fondness for winged creatures, Bray's poetry contained references to starlings, juncos, blue jays, crows and the kingfisher, which she referred to a " a poem kind of a bird." One poem about pelicans contained the visually evocative line, "They float on the water's tension." She did have non-avian poetry, including a poignant piece about her mother's death when she was a child and one she considered a tribute to her three brothers.

She was followed by her husband, poet Bill Notter who sheepishly admitted he had not one single poem about his lovely wife, although he did have one bird poem. He had poems written during the time he lived in Mississippi ("I guess to say rural Mississippi is redundant.") as well as his birth state, Colorado ("I grew up in Colorado, but the flat part. But I knew about mountains.").

Of living in Nebraska, he wrote that it had "more space than anyone can stand until he leaves." I can't attest to that feeling, but I understood what he was trying to say. Likewise his line about a life well-lived which began with, "If I got run over by a sugar beet truck tonight..." evoked a world with which I personally have no familiarity, but became conceivable with his choice of words. Somehow, I don't think being run over by a UPS truck would have quite the same impact on reading or hearing.

The reading was SRO, an unusual occurrence I can say with certainty since I attend so many of them. It was soul satisfying to see so many people in a poetic frame of mind on a Saturday afternoon.

Obviously I wasn't the only one who needed beautiful words to improve this particular day. How lucky for me that they were just waiting to be heard.

Six Hours, Six Stops

The cancellation of February's First Friday Art walk because of the weekly weekend storm meant that it didn't take much to get me gallery-hopping tonight.

Adding in a few other activities, I planned an evening that began in Carytown, swung through the Fan then up to Church Hill and ended back a half mile from my house.

Tres convenient.

Any good Friday evening starts with a wine tasting and tonight River City Cellars was also doing a (Gearhart's) chocolate tasting in honor of St. Valentine's Day.

The place was packed, but I needed a bottle of wine for an upcoming dinner, so it wasn't just about quaffing wine and scarfing good chocolate.

Okay, it was mostly about that, but they were pouring, among others, the Innocent Bystander Pink Moscato, which paired divinely with the dark chocolate.

I got the wine I came for and a little of those heavenly Charlottesville-made chocolates.

At Chop Suey, I checked out Adam Juresko's latest show, "Flight of the Rat."

As an added attraction, Adam had also painted a mural on the wall of the staircase leading up to the second floor, which added some personality to the trip upstairs.

I already own one of his works and I was curious to see how the new work differed from what I had.

As always, he'd found fresh imagery to use throughout his collages; he may be eccentric, but the work is always interesting.

And then for something completely different, I went to Glave-Kocen Gallery on Main Street to see the "Click" Invitation Photography exhibit, showcasing local photographers like Scott Elmquist, Jay Paul and Ash Daniel.

The problem was navigating the gallery: clearly this was a see-and-be-seen event and chatty, well-dressed cliques impeded the progress of those of us there to actually see the photographs, some of which were well worth seeing.

By the time I'd finished looking at everything, I couldn't wait to escape that crowd.

Starving by now, I stopped at Pie for pizza and was greeted by the owner.

My first choice, the Cured Meat pie (garlic, Fontina, mozzarella and soprasetta) was sold out, so I ordered it with sausage instead of soprasetta.

There was some mis-communication, though, because I got a red, not white pizza, but the red sauce was so thinly spread that even I couldn't object.

The thickly sliced sausage was excellent and more than made up for the tomato presence.

And best of all, a nearby table was discussing a local food blogger's rants. Delicious!

Then I drove up the big hill to Eric Schindler Gallery for "z-black series," acrylic paintings by Scott Phillips.

The man wields paint densely and color lavishly.

There was a sense of vibrancy in his brushstrokes that made every object, every sky, everything undulate, almost van Gogh-like.

I fell particularly hard for probably the least colorful painting in the show, but unfortunately, although well-priced, it just wasn't in my budget.

My final stop of the evening was at Ipanema for some wine and girl talk; my friend had suggested I come by so that we could dish about her work life (crushing at the moment) and my social life (having a really good time lately).

She kindly pointed out that it was way more satisfying to hear about what I was up to face to face rather than just reading it on the blog, especially for the edited material.

And lest I make it sound like all we did was gab, we did discuss my local art collection; like me, she appreciates how much talent there is in this town.

So it wasn't a true First Friday since there was driving involved and I'd never have seen that Glave-Kocen crowd in J-Ward, but tonight had all the components of an art-driven evening with enough wine, food and conversation to keep me from complete art immersion.

Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but a Friday night calls for considerably more, especially for us innocent bystander types.