Raindrops on the Windshield Like Tears

I have a friend who nicknamed me "femme fatale" when he met me a few years back.

When he e-mails me, he addresses me as "ff." The friend of his that he introduced me to has me listed as "femme fatale" in her phone.

For the record, I am not a femme fatale. I have never used my charms to ensnare a man into a compromising or deadly situation. I don't use lying or coercion to achieve hidden purposes. And now that I've seen a B-film noir with a true femme fatale, I'm a lot less fond of my nickname.

"Detour" from 1945 was showing at Gallery 5 as part of, yes, the James River Film Festival. I suggested my recently uncoupled friend join me for the distraction of an over-the-top film noir cult classic and a couple of readings from "Richmond Noir."

Although I'd seen some of the A-list film noir classics ("Double Indemnity," "The Postman Always Rings Twice"), I'd yet to see one from Hollywood's "Poverty Row" studios.

To add to the overall seediness, it was a lousy copy, dark and fuzzy, but we were informed that all copies of this movie are beat up because it took so long for it to be recognized as a classic.

The dialog was pure 40s potboiler-style, like "If you act wise, well mister, you'll pop into jail so fast it'll give you the bends!"

There was corny dame bashing, like "I was tussling with the most dangerous animal in the world, a woman." And even trash-talking of men. "Shut up, you're making noises like a husband!"

But it was the femme fatale character of Vera (were nice girls ever named Vera? I'm going to guess no) played by Ann Savage that was, well, savage. She wasn't just scheming or deceitful, she was a shrew, shrill, sneering and condescending; she didn't have a single redeeming quality.

Her occasional cough seemed to indicate that she was ill but not even that could make me like her. A reference to Camille dying of consumption did bring a moment of levity to her sheer meanness, though.

But of course with film noir, you're not supposed to like everybody. There were flashbacks, a confessional voice over, and an acknowledgment of the raison d'etre of film noir: "That's life. Whichever way you turn, fate sticks out a foot to trip you."

That's what I've been trying to remind my friend in his time of relationship crisis. As it turned out, "Detour" said it better in 67 dark minutes than I could have in twice the time.

Take it from Vera, my friend. "Life's like a ball game. You gotta take a swing at whatever comes along before you find it's the ninth inning."

Even this nerd gets that sports metaphor...and agrees.

Richmond's Dark Side: Music and Books

With creepy season in full swing, there's no shortage of ways to indulge an All Hallows' Eve urge.

Tonight's was Chop Suey's Halloween celebration, "The Dark Side of Richmond" at (where else?) the site of the former Richmond Gallows, none other than G5.

The evening began with one of my favorite Halloween traditions, local band Glows in the Dark, performing music inspired by and taken from John Carpenter movies.

Yes, The Fog, The Thing and of course Halloween came to life with a lot of improvisation in between at the hands of these free jazz masters.

And as you may recall (I didn't and had to be told), Carpenter's movie music was written mainly for keyboards, necessitating a lot of work to bring it around to guitar, upright bass, sax, trombone and drums, but once gain GitD pulled it off in the eeriest possible way.

I first saw them do this music a couple of years ago at Commercial Taphouse and tonight's audience was even more into it.

Word must have gotten around about what an audio treat it was.

A seasonably-suitable reading followed, featuring two of the writers from Richmond Noir, the short story collection where each features a different Richmond neighborhood.

Nothing says Halloween season quite like death, so Tom de Haven read the "money scene" from his story based in Manchester (three-way sex and shots fired on southside) and Dennis Danvers read his tale of Texas Beach (a dead dog and a dead illegal immigrant).

Beth Brown, author of Wicked Richmond, a book about RVA's dark underbelly, read the chapter on old Richmond's boy gangs, apparently quite a force from the time of the Civil War and for some 50 years afterwards.

Rocks, slingshots and eventually pistols were the weapons of choice for boys (some as young as four!) to stake out their territory in this town.

Thumbing through Brown's book, it looks to be a catalog of the debauchery that defined our fair city's history; clearly it wasn't all moonlight and magnolias.

Billed as the spookiest reading of the season (and I know of no other Halloween readings, so it undoubtedly was), the audience of music and book lovers geeked out afterwards talking about the intricacies of the music and the macabre nature of the stories.

Before long, conversation moved on to clever costumes and upcoming parties.

And just for the record, I've never seen a John Carpenter movie.

There, I said it.

Still enjoyed the hell out of it.

Richmond Noir: Andrew Slept Here

If you've read this blog more than once, you're undoubtedly noticed I'm very into two things: writing and Richmond.

So the publication of a new anthology of local writers called 'Richmond Noir" had me from the first announcement.

Tapping fifteen diverse local writers, each of whom celebrated a different Richmond neighborhood and produced a short story in the noir vein, the editors have compiled a love letter to rva's hard-bitten side.

That means hard-boiled characters, evocative moods, desperate situations and any of the multitude of variations that have developed in that genre in the past 50 years.

"Richmond Noir" is part of a series, begun with "Brooklyn Noir," and was three years in the making. Today at the Library of Virginia,editors Andrew Blossom, Brian Castleberry and Tom De Haven talked about the project before readings by four of the writers.

I was pleased that we got to hear writer Megan Saunders share her Jackson Ward tale of drugs and jazz at the Hippodrome.

Interestingly, Dennis Danvers' story of Texas Beach was part noir, part 21st-century topical. All the excerpts we heard sounded worthy of a full read.

The writers got to pick the neighborhood they wrote about, so many neighborhoods are included in the book: Hollywood Cemetery, of course, Manchester, the East End, Oregon Hill, the West End, the Museum District, all the obvious choices except the Fan. But then, how noir-like is the Fan, really?

 Just saying.

One other thing had attracted me to this project and that was editor Andrew Blossom. Andrew was the prior long-time occupant of the apartment in which I now live.

When I moved here in March, my landlord bragged that a really talented writer lived here before me.

Since then, we have run into each other repeatedly, at parties, shows and, of course, at Chop Suey where he works.

We share anecdotes about the charm and unusual qualities of a space we both know well.

Not that I'm bragging, but just so you know, Andrew slept here first.

That's what I want him to inscribe in my copy of "Richmond Noir."

I can only hope that his talent with words has rubbed off on me as a result.