For the record I am not particularly, nor have I ever been, a Joan Jett fan.
That said, I didn't hesitate when I saw that the James River Film Society was screening "Bad Reputation," the new documentary (I am, after all, a major documentary dork) about her at the Visual Arts Center, grabbing a couple of tickets the moment I saw it would be showing a few weeks later on a Friday night.
And not that I needed validation, but the next day at lunch with a favorite Gemini, she brought up seeing a photo of Joan Jett online. "Maybe it's the hair, but I immediately thought of you," she told me. "That was your era, right?"
Technically it was, because the Runaways first album came out in 1976, although I didn't know that until I saw the documentary. Sort of like I didn't know that Rolling Stone considers her one of the top 100 guitarists of all time. Nor did I have a clue that her first band, the Runaways, were teenagers and considered a glam band.
Look, I couldn't pay attention to everything being played in the '70s and frankly, disco offered the allure of dancing, so I missed out on a lot of rock 'n roll back then. But I digress.
Since it only made sense to invite someone who'd been a music lover when Joan kicked off her career, Mr. Wright got the other ticket and we set off to up our Joan Jett knowledge. Always eager to park once and party twice, I chose El Pope for dinner, mainly so I could have their "Best in the Fan" pupusas again while Mr. Wright demolished chicken and Chorizo sopapillas.
Honestly, I don't know how this place has hung on in the high-rent Fan for over a year now, but I do know that despite a dining room that never seems to get full, they put out some stellar food and always with a smile. For my three pupusa mix, I chose tilapia, shrimp and bean, mainly because the other times I'd not been asked to choose and had wound up with pork, beans and beef. Delicious all, but it was time for something different.
Besides, Joan Jett's a vegetarian, so it was the least I could do.
Walking into Vis Arts, we ran into MJ, the guy responsible for the James River Film Society all these years. After apologizing for not getting a chance to chat at the Silent Music Revival a few weeks ago, he shared that "Bad Reputation" had played at Movieland for exactly one screening (for 63 people) and that was part of the reason they decided to show it.
I hadn't even gotten wind of that one screening, so I was just glad that fellow movie and film fans were on the ball.
The evening began with trivia and a t-shirt giveaway, but no one seemed to know Joan's real name - Joan Larkin - so I felt better about being there despite my lack of Joan Jett cred. At the very least, I was alive all the while she was making music, even if I wasn't paying attention.
And now that I've seen the documentary, I'm a little ashamed that I wasn't following her. There's no doubt that the woman is a feminist icon, from her early days with an all girl band through her years spent proving that women can be killer guitarists to all the artists she's helped, mentored or played/sung on their records.
I mean, this is the woman who fronted the two remaining members of Nirvana in their performance when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after Cobain died. I can't imagine how many musicians would have sold their soul to be taking Cobain's place on that stage.
Yet one of the most startling things about the documentary was all the old photographs of Joan, first as a fresh-faced teenager, later as a serious '80s babe with spiky hair, smokey eyes and serious attitude. Asked to describe her trademark shag haircut, she referred to it as "a bastardized bob." I'm telling you, Joan Jett has always been an attractive woman, although I was far less impressed with her current nip and tuck/botox look. I'll never understand wanting to look that fake.
Plastic surgeries aside, watching clips of her performing for the past 40+ years was nothing short of awe-inspiring because of her mad guitar skills and full-on punk attitude. That she chose not to marry or have kids only made her devotion to rock and roll more obvious, never more clearly shown than in a clip when she was on a '70s talk show and asked about those two feminine goals.
Joan was on a mission to rock the world and there was no place for something so mundane as diapers in her life.
Considering the subject, it was a wide-ranging group of people who made up the talking heads in the documentary. What I'm saying is, when's the last time Iggy Pop, Michael J. Fox, Miley Cyrus and Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day shared the screen (don't even get me started on Debbie Harry in her bug-like sunglasses, obviously intended to hide her eyes).
And that's without even acknowledging how Nikki Haley got in there.
Where the film let me down was on the subject of anything personal because clearly Joan wasn't interested in sharing that part of herself, although given how often she was the onscreen talking head, there was no shortage of Joan commenting about her musical life.
The good news is, I'll never hear a Joan Jett song the same again. I didn't even recall that she'd covered "Crimson and Clover" in 1983, not even bothering to change the pronouns from "her" to "him."
Put another dime in the jukebox, baby, that's how much Joan loved rock and roll. My era or not, I may not have been a fan before, but I sure am now.
Showing posts with label visual arts center. Show all posts
Showing posts with label visual arts center. Show all posts
Monday, November 12, 2018
Friday, September 8, 2017
Not a Hot Mess
It only took 7 years of friendship to get Beckham to my apartment.
Of course, if you asked him, he'd say it was 7 years before I invited him to my apartment. Semantics, really.
In any case, he and his betrothed, the Beauty, picked me up promptly at 5 for a trip to the Visual Arts Center for the opening of "After Dark," a new show by Carli Holcomb. We had enough time before the artist's talk to walk through the exhibition and acquaint ourselves with the variety of materials and styles assembled in the 3 galleries.
I looked up at one point to see a photographer capturing the moment, certain I'd just had my photo taken, though her camera was down by then.
The place began to fill up and eventually we were bound to see people we knew like the art instructor who once had a sandwich snatched out of her hands by a bird, the photography curator, the geologist-turned-lawyer who'd been M.I.A. and for the Beauty, her first pottery teacher.
When the talk began, Holcomb took us through the exhibit explaining her intent and sometimes her process. She talked of the title "After Dark" as referring to that period where nature looks different, an apt comparison given how she uses real and synthetic materials to explore light and shadow.
Some pieces were sculpture, others more like installations (hanging from the ceiling's rafters) while still others were two-dimensional pieces. You sensed that this young artist (and former artist-in-residence at Visual Arts/Quirk Gallery) was very much spreading her wings and trying new methods and materials.
She called out her Mom and Dad during her talk, acknowledging all that they'd exposed her to, including their long-time successful relationship. It was very sweet.
When we left there, it was to drop the car at my house and sashay over to Yaki for dinner. To get there, we had to run the parking lot gauntlet on Henry Street, where one guy mumbled about needing money and another who looked me right in the eye and insisted all he needed was a date tonight.
I already have a date, sir and it's this couple right here.
Yaki was just getting going when we took up seats at the bar but classic hip hop was playing and the vibe was Friday-welcoming.
Trying to decide where to sit, the Beauty suggested me between the two of them. "Let's make a Karen sandwich," she cracked.
I was fine with that.
Because they'd never been to Yaki and because I'd only been once, we dove headlong into the menu.
The Beauty had a bad experience with wine at a wine dinner, so we made cocktails - the rye and pineapple-infused rum Be Humble, the whisky-based Toki highball, a 'Round the Rings because it used macadamia orgeat and a rose-colored, off-the-menu cocktail we used as a palate cleanser - our focus.
We did just as much experimenting with the food.
Skewers of chicken thighs sang with sake and scallion, only Beckham and I devoured chicken hearts with olive oil and sea salt, meatballs with tare dipping sauce adorned by an egg yolk (to mix in for richness), broccolini skewers with sesame and 5-spice, fried chicken don (a sweet and spicy rice bowl), curry poutine (with curry gravy to die for) and one of tonight's specials, chicken oysters (easily the best two bites on a chicken).
The funny part was that the Beauty, who's not a seafood fan at all, misheard and thought we'd gotten real oysters.
They have a rule in their marriage that if he eats seafood, she doesn't kiss him, so she was ready to write off any lip locks for the rest of the evening until we assured her it didn't just taste like (incredibly rich and unctuous) chicken, it was chicken.
Still no interest on her part, but at least kissing could resume.
With our check arrived dark chocolate covered cookie sticks, the ideal way to reset our palates after so much savory food.
Though stuffed, we still had plenty to discuss, so we set off for a stroll. If nothing else, the two block walk gave us a chance to discuss the design and finish on the still-incomplete Institute for Contemporary Art as we rounded the corner.
Only when we got back to my block and their car did I I invite them up to my place. "You know what?" Beckham asked as if just now seeing the light. "I would like to see your apartment...finally!"
You never know who wants to see how you live. I was happy to invite them upstairs for wine and vinyl because if I'm going to put on Prince and open a bottle of Gary Farrell Pinot Noir, this is the friend I'd want to do it for.
He was the one who'd given me my first absinthe spoon and now I could show him the Eiffel Tower-shaped one Pru brought me from Paris. The Beauty commented on a tiny origami bird in an Underberg bottle and I reminded him that I'd gotten it the night he and I'd gone to the tiki pop-up at Saison, drank far too much rum and laughed like fools.
Beckham loved the wainscoting in my bedroom and hall and she wanted to know the story behind several pieces of my art (because, of course, most of them have back stories). For extra credit, I showed off my balcony, resplendent with moonlight and moonflowers a-bloom.
We sipped that gorgeous Pinot Noir right through "Purple Rain" and a discussion of the militarization of our police forces, then moved on to the latest XX album, "I See You" before the early risers began to lose steam, although some fault may go to chasing cocktails with wine.
As they got up to leave, I asked Beckham if my abode had been what he'd expected. He claimed no preconceived notions, but, yea, all the art on the walls didn't surprise him. "And it only took you 8 years to invite me!" he teased.
Seven, but who's counting?
Besides, I've become the entertaining queen this summer, offering up wine and records in my living room, wine and CDs on my balcony and abundant conversation anywhere there's art.
And as you might expect, that's everywhere.
Of course, if you asked him, he'd say it was 7 years before I invited him to my apartment. Semantics, really.
In any case, he and his betrothed, the Beauty, picked me up promptly at 5 for a trip to the Visual Arts Center for the opening of "After Dark," a new show by Carli Holcomb. We had enough time before the artist's talk to walk through the exhibition and acquaint ourselves with the variety of materials and styles assembled in the 3 galleries.
I looked up at one point to see a photographer capturing the moment, certain I'd just had my photo taken, though her camera was down by then.
The place began to fill up and eventually we were bound to see people we knew like the art instructor who once had a sandwich snatched out of her hands by a bird, the photography curator, the geologist-turned-lawyer who'd been M.I.A. and for the Beauty, her first pottery teacher.
When the talk began, Holcomb took us through the exhibit explaining her intent and sometimes her process. She talked of the title "After Dark" as referring to that period where nature looks different, an apt comparison given how she uses real and synthetic materials to explore light and shadow.
Some pieces were sculpture, others more like installations (hanging from the ceiling's rafters) while still others were two-dimensional pieces. You sensed that this young artist (and former artist-in-residence at Visual Arts/Quirk Gallery) was very much spreading her wings and trying new methods and materials.
She called out her Mom and Dad during her talk, acknowledging all that they'd exposed her to, including their long-time successful relationship. It was very sweet.
When we left there, it was to drop the car at my house and sashay over to Yaki for dinner. To get there, we had to run the parking lot gauntlet on Henry Street, where one guy mumbled about needing money and another who looked me right in the eye and insisted all he needed was a date tonight.
I already have a date, sir and it's this couple right here.
Yaki was just getting going when we took up seats at the bar but classic hip hop was playing and the vibe was Friday-welcoming.
Trying to decide where to sit, the Beauty suggested me between the two of them. "Let's make a Karen sandwich," she cracked.
I was fine with that.
Because they'd never been to Yaki and because I'd only been once, we dove headlong into the menu.
The Beauty had a bad experience with wine at a wine dinner, so we made cocktails - the rye and pineapple-infused rum Be Humble, the whisky-based Toki highball, a 'Round the Rings because it used macadamia orgeat and a rose-colored, off-the-menu cocktail we used as a palate cleanser - our focus.
We did just as much experimenting with the food.
Skewers of chicken thighs sang with sake and scallion, only Beckham and I devoured chicken hearts with olive oil and sea salt, meatballs with tare dipping sauce adorned by an egg yolk (to mix in for richness), broccolini skewers with sesame and 5-spice, fried chicken don (a sweet and spicy rice bowl), curry poutine (with curry gravy to die for) and one of tonight's specials, chicken oysters (easily the best two bites on a chicken).
The funny part was that the Beauty, who's not a seafood fan at all, misheard and thought we'd gotten real oysters.
They have a rule in their marriage that if he eats seafood, she doesn't kiss him, so she was ready to write off any lip locks for the rest of the evening until we assured her it didn't just taste like (incredibly rich and unctuous) chicken, it was chicken.
Still no interest on her part, but at least kissing could resume.
With our check arrived dark chocolate covered cookie sticks, the ideal way to reset our palates after so much savory food.
Though stuffed, we still had plenty to discuss, so we set off for a stroll. If nothing else, the two block walk gave us a chance to discuss the design and finish on the still-incomplete Institute for Contemporary Art as we rounded the corner.
Only when we got back to my block and their car did I I invite them up to my place. "You know what?" Beckham asked as if just now seeing the light. "I would like to see your apartment...finally!"
You never know who wants to see how you live. I was happy to invite them upstairs for wine and vinyl because if I'm going to put on Prince and open a bottle of Gary Farrell Pinot Noir, this is the friend I'd want to do it for.
He was the one who'd given me my first absinthe spoon and now I could show him the Eiffel Tower-shaped one Pru brought me from Paris. The Beauty commented on a tiny origami bird in an Underberg bottle and I reminded him that I'd gotten it the night he and I'd gone to the tiki pop-up at Saison, drank far too much rum and laughed like fools.
Beckham loved the wainscoting in my bedroom and hall and she wanted to know the story behind several pieces of my art (because, of course, most of them have back stories). For extra credit, I showed off my balcony, resplendent with moonlight and moonflowers a-bloom.
We sipped that gorgeous Pinot Noir right through "Purple Rain" and a discussion of the militarization of our police forces, then moved on to the latest XX album, "I See You" before the early risers began to lose steam, although some fault may go to chasing cocktails with wine.
As they got up to leave, I asked Beckham if my abode had been what he'd expected. He claimed no preconceived notions, but, yea, all the art on the walls didn't surprise him. "And it only took you 8 years to invite me!" he teased.
Seven, but who's counting?
Besides, I've become the entertaining queen this summer, offering up wine and records in my living room, wine and CDs on my balcony and abundant conversation anywhere there's art.
And as you might expect, that's everywhere.
Sunday, August 27, 2017
If It Sells, It Smells
Vaginacore. That's a thing.
If there was one takeaway from tonight, it was that vaginacore is a musical genre. I'm not even sure how that could surprise me, but it does.
My evening began at My Noodle & Bar, where the door was open to the beautiful night and the music was set to pure '90s: Alannis Morrisette, Soul Asylum, Spin Doctors. You could practically smell the flannel shirts and not in a good way.
I'd barely taken a stool for dinner when I heard my name called. In between the new decor of glass bottles holding herbs and greens along the bar (I like it), I could see Mac on the other side. It was strangely weird since we've never run into each other out before.
Behind me, conversation flew between the occupants of a table of eight.
Doesn't everyone go to Target on Saturdays?
He's got the handwriting of a 32-year old woman!
Got it! I'll send copies to you.
When their food began arriving, no one touched it. It was only once the older looking man said a prolonged grace in a language I didn't recognize that people began to pick up their chopsticks and eat.
Meanwhile, I had a documentary to make at 8:00, so when the bartender asked me if I wanted anything besides water, I declined. Funny, but he laid the drink menu back in front of me anyway.
"In case you change your mind," he says. "That no didn't sound very confident." Cheeky devil.
A group of 4 sat down at the corner of the bar (I pegged them for medical students) and began discussing what to order for dinner. When the bartender answered their question about making a dish as spicy as requested, it threw them into a collective tizzy.
"Now I have to read the whole menu all over again cause I didn't bother reading the hot ones!" one young woman whined as the others nodded. Her friend was too busy looking at her phone when their order was being taken to give hers, but you can believe the once off the phone, she wanted her order taken pronto.
It doesn't work that way, Snowflake.
Because I'd arrived right as the restaurant had filled up, the kitchen was immediately slammed and my broccoli and chicken entree took a while to show up. On the positive side, its tardy arrival gave me an excuse to "gobble like a field hand," as Mammy told Scarlet in "Gone With the Wind," once it did.
Since I was running behind, I was happy to see the organizer of tonight's documentary screening of "Turn It Around: The Story of East Bay Punk" standing outside the Visual Arts Center when I pulled up. Surely if he was out here, the movie hadn't begun inside.
"Thanks for coming, Karen," he said as I walked inside. Just doing my part for punk, I assured him.
Upstairs, I found the expected group of aging punk rockers I always encounter at punk-related events. Plenty of familiar faces, although not many I know by name.
Two I did know were newlyweds, but he and I also share a love of shoegaze and reverb, so we dished on the new Slowdive album when I stopped to say hello.
Narrated by Iggy Pop, who brought both attitude and gravitas to the reading, the film was a pretty in-depth look at the music scene that sprung up across the bay from San Francisco beginning in 1981. Plenty of archival footage fleshed out the many talking heads, who had aged at various rates, if you know what I mean.
Musician after musician explained to the camera that punk music was their thing not just because they loved its energy but also because it f*cked with people. One guy pegged it as so compelling because it was all these young people singing with such despair.
The film went deep into the scene - it was over 2 1/2 hours long - but moved as quickly as a punk song so it never felt laborious. It had to be detailed to get to all the many bands and offshoots of punk.
En route to the bathroom at intermission, I ran into the musician and nerd who shares my passion for history, poetry and all things intellectual. Being a post-punk musician now, he was most stoked about the upcoming part of the film that dealt with 1987 to 1994, the years when he'd discovered this music.
When we got to talking about our summers, he shared that his had been overtaken by his two latest projects: reading all the Southern Gothic novels he could lay his hands on and watching all the Woody Allen movies he'd never seen.
As he explained it, he really hadn't had time to do much else besides those two things.
But when his face really lighted up was when he told me that directly after the film tonight, he was leaving for Corolla and bringing Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" along with his swimsuit and suntan lotion.
Sounds like an epic beach read to me.
It was some time during the part of the film about 1987 - "when punk became safe for little kids and girls" - that I began to hear overblown Yanni-like music playing softly behind me in sharp contrast to the screaming on the screen.
I looked around several times, and every time the movie had a quiet moment (there was, needless to say, a lot of hardcore thrashing to be heard) I became more certain somebody needed to turn something off.
Only once others began glaring at her did she bother to check her purse and turn off the volume on her phone. Some aging punkers are still learning their technology, it seems.
There were so many great punk band names like Kamala and the Karnivores mentioned, but it would be hard to top the Yeastie Girlz because, well, because they named themselves the Yeastie Girlz. They not only had a message, they "played" tampons on stage to songs like "Ovary Action."
I'm telling you kids, it was a more creative time.
And, yes, as you might expect, they fall under the heading of vaginacore. Just doing my part to get the word out.
If there was one takeaway from tonight, it was that vaginacore is a musical genre. I'm not even sure how that could surprise me, but it does.
My evening began at My Noodle & Bar, where the door was open to the beautiful night and the music was set to pure '90s: Alannis Morrisette, Soul Asylum, Spin Doctors. You could practically smell the flannel shirts and not in a good way.
I'd barely taken a stool for dinner when I heard my name called. In between the new decor of glass bottles holding herbs and greens along the bar (I like it), I could see Mac on the other side. It was strangely weird since we've never run into each other out before.
Behind me, conversation flew between the occupants of a table of eight.
Doesn't everyone go to Target on Saturdays?
He's got the handwriting of a 32-year old woman!
Got it! I'll send copies to you.
When their food began arriving, no one touched it. It was only once the older looking man said a prolonged grace in a language I didn't recognize that people began to pick up their chopsticks and eat.
Meanwhile, I had a documentary to make at 8:00, so when the bartender asked me if I wanted anything besides water, I declined. Funny, but he laid the drink menu back in front of me anyway.
"In case you change your mind," he says. "That no didn't sound very confident." Cheeky devil.
A group of 4 sat down at the corner of the bar (I pegged them for medical students) and began discussing what to order for dinner. When the bartender answered their question about making a dish as spicy as requested, it threw them into a collective tizzy.
"Now I have to read the whole menu all over again cause I didn't bother reading the hot ones!" one young woman whined as the others nodded. Her friend was too busy looking at her phone when their order was being taken to give hers, but you can believe the once off the phone, she wanted her order taken pronto.
It doesn't work that way, Snowflake.
Because I'd arrived right as the restaurant had filled up, the kitchen was immediately slammed and my broccoli and chicken entree took a while to show up. On the positive side, its tardy arrival gave me an excuse to "gobble like a field hand," as Mammy told Scarlet in "Gone With the Wind," once it did.
Since I was running behind, I was happy to see the organizer of tonight's documentary screening of "Turn It Around: The Story of East Bay Punk" standing outside the Visual Arts Center when I pulled up. Surely if he was out here, the movie hadn't begun inside.
"Thanks for coming, Karen," he said as I walked inside. Just doing my part for punk, I assured him.
Upstairs, I found the expected group of aging punk rockers I always encounter at punk-related events. Plenty of familiar faces, although not many I know by name.
Two I did know were newlyweds, but he and I also share a love of shoegaze and reverb, so we dished on the new Slowdive album when I stopped to say hello.
Narrated by Iggy Pop, who brought both attitude and gravitas to the reading, the film was a pretty in-depth look at the music scene that sprung up across the bay from San Francisco beginning in 1981. Plenty of archival footage fleshed out the many talking heads, who had aged at various rates, if you know what I mean.
Musician after musician explained to the camera that punk music was their thing not just because they loved its energy but also because it f*cked with people. One guy pegged it as so compelling because it was all these young people singing with such despair.
The film went deep into the scene - it was over 2 1/2 hours long - but moved as quickly as a punk song so it never felt laborious. It had to be detailed to get to all the many bands and offshoots of punk.
En route to the bathroom at intermission, I ran into the musician and nerd who shares my passion for history, poetry and all things intellectual. Being a post-punk musician now, he was most stoked about the upcoming part of the film that dealt with 1987 to 1994, the years when he'd discovered this music.
When we got to talking about our summers, he shared that his had been overtaken by his two latest projects: reading all the Southern Gothic novels he could lay his hands on and watching all the Woody Allen movies he'd never seen.
As he explained it, he really hadn't had time to do much else besides those two things.
But when his face really lighted up was when he told me that directly after the film tonight, he was leaving for Corolla and bringing Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" along with his swimsuit and suntan lotion.
Sounds like an epic beach read to me.
It was some time during the part of the film about 1987 - "when punk became safe for little kids and girls" - that I began to hear overblown Yanni-like music playing softly behind me in sharp contrast to the screaming on the screen.
I looked around several times, and every time the movie had a quiet moment (there was, needless to say, a lot of hardcore thrashing to be heard) I became more certain somebody needed to turn something off.
Only once others began glaring at her did she bother to check her purse and turn off the volume on her phone. Some aging punkers are still learning their technology, it seems.
There were so many great punk band names like Kamala and the Karnivores mentioned, but it would be hard to top the Yeastie Girlz because, well, because they named themselves the Yeastie Girlz. They not only had a message, they "played" tampons on stage to songs like "Ovary Action."
I'm telling you kids, it was a more creative time.
And, yes, as you might expect, they fall under the heading of vaginacore. Just doing my part to get the word out.
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Fight for Your Right to Post
Don't let anyone tell you it's the worst month of the year
This year's James River Film Festival will be the one remembered as the year of the wind. If I thought yesterday's gusts had moved on, I was sorely mistaken, as I discovered walking to the library for this afternoon's films.
And it's not just me getting blown around because the curator of last night's films never made it to Richmond at all because of his flight being canceled. And Guy Maddin, the Canadian director whose many films are screening this weekend, will be arriving on a later plane than scheduled because of windy weather.
But neither rain nor snow nor wind of afternoon would have kept me from today's screening of films devoted to protest and films that bore witness to history all the while questioning it. Most of the crowd who joined me were also of a certain age, including one filmmaker whom I overheard telling his seatmate, "I'm from a steamboat town...called Cincinnati."
I'm from a swamp town...called Washington, D.C. Just doesn't have the same ring, does it?
As it turned out, I'd already seen Gordon Ball's "Mexican Jail Footage" shot in 1968, because Ball himself had been at the Firehouse Theater in 2012 when his book about how beat poet Allen Ginsberg had hired him to run his farm in upstate New York.
Still, it was a kick to see Ball and his lean-as-jaguars (no high fructose corn syrup) buddies in a Mexican jail (being held without charges) and, in typical 1968 style, making the most of their time to the best of their capabilities. Hatha yoga sessions, smoking pot (one handful acquired from the jailer), an outing to a Chinese restaurant by said jailer (as well as a whorehouse), being taken to a fancy hotel for dinner by a friend's mother and, obviously, shooting footage on film smuggled in.
Clearly jails were held to different standards in the '60s, although it wasn't all fun and games, either. They had to pay local kids to go out and buy them food during their stay, meaning they quickly ran through their money and Ball had to sell his transistor radio to be able to eat. Luckily, he didn't sell the movie camera.
"Confrontation at Kent State" had been made in 1970 collectively by some faculty and students on Kent State's campus and featured interviews with students who'd been part of the mayhem, but also with townspeople about what had gone down.
Locals blamed everyone from the students to the governor to the school's administration to paid agitators for the deaths of four college students by National Guardsmen. It was appalling how many smug white townspeople said the students got exactly what they deserved.
Death for protesting? Um, I don't think so.
I don't know about the rest of the audience of a certain age, but I really knew nothing about the aftermath of the shootings: the tanks on campus, armed guards on corners, helicopters overhead rattling houses. Or even that students had burned a building in frustration after the deaths.
In the saddest possible way, it ended with the father of one of the victims reading a poem about his daughter.
"Buffalo Creek Revisited" about a West Virginia mining disaster caused by a coal waste dam collapsing and flooding nearby communities and killing 120 people, looked at the situation a decade later and things hadn't improved much.
Not just because the coal company didn't care but also because the land where people's houses had previously been located before being washed away had since been earmarked for a super-highway so they had nothing to go back to.
The final short had a local angle because the VCU film professor who introduced today's films was also the fresh-faced manager of the Biograph in a skinny tie being interviewed onscreen circa 1985. "Biograph Theater Handbill Rally" was a compilation of the three local newscasts reporting on the rally for freedom of speech issues after the city outlawed posting fliers on poles.
The idea was brilliant: place a pole on Biograph property and allow people to post on it, whether a copy of the Constitution, a lost pet flier or a music show, while gathering signatures for a petition to present the city to change the ordinance.
Meanwhile, behind him in the shots was the Biograph's marquee, clearly showing that "Stop Making Sense" was screening. Having to rally for the right to post public notices clearly demonstrates that sense was no longer being made in Richmond. I didn't get here until '86, but that's about the state I found it in when I got here.
As I recall anyway and I'm pretty good at recalling.
There was no recalling to do about poet Larry Levis because I'd never met him and he'd died of acocaine overdose heart attack in 1996, except that I had heard his name mentioned at poetry readings for years as part of VCU's literary legacy.
JRFF was screening at the Visual Arts Center tonight "A Late Style of Fire: Larry Levis, American Poet," a film I was especially eager to see for its local connections. A familiar poet sat down in the same row where I'd staked territory, so I did the only sensible thing and wished him happy poetry month.
Shaking his head, he joked, "It's the worst month of the year!" No, just the least celebrated and, worst of all, without cake.
The film provided a fascinating look at Levis' life, from growing up on a grape farm in California - where he'd concluded by his teen years that his choices were being a farmer or a poet - to the many wives and women he attracted, many of whom spoke lovingly about him on camera years after he'd let them down. Best of all, Levis' poems were read as part of the film, so the audience could get some sense of his words.
This was a man who could write a poem called, "Perfection of Solitude," yet he was also, as someone pointed out, a poet who kept a 12-gauge shotgun by the door, a rather un-poetic habit.
I especially enjoyed the inter-cut scenes of a reading he'd done in 1985, beer bottle at hand, looking very much the 40ish artistic/academic type who was as disarming reading to an audience as charming a woman. Ultimately, Levis believed he had to live self-destructively in order to create his best possible work so he was dead at 49 in Church Hill.
Ah, the siren song and simultaneous curse of self-medicating. Don't get me started.
The evening was capped off with a walk to Gallery 5 for their 12th anniversary celebration, a soiree with fire performers outside (whom I watched for 20 minutes standing outside in line waiting to get in), a burlesque show followed by Prabir's band and the Trillions inside and a multi-artist art show upstairs that included a giant kaleidoscope, a large sculptural piece with small doors of various materials which opened to show nude selfies sent to the artist (but not in a lustful way, the artistic statement assured us) and paintings, collages and drawings.
I've been in Jackson Ward for nearly 11 years, so Gallery 5 has me beat by one year, and at only 4 blocks from home, ranks as hands-down closest music venue for yours truly. In fact, when I finally got to the front of the line to get in, the door guy saw it was me and apologized that I'd had to wait in line given my frequent attendance cred.
No big deal. All that line time allowed for some fabulous eavesdropping from the lacrosse/soccer-playing female trio in front of me who could recall every game they'd played to the symphony musicians behind me who admitted they'd never been anywhere in J-Ward other than Gallery 5. Anywhere.
I don't have time to educate the entire population, people.
As it is, I barely have time to do all the things worth doing around here...or find people to do them with. The perfection of solitude is a work in progress.
This year's James River Film Festival will be the one remembered as the year of the wind. If I thought yesterday's gusts had moved on, I was sorely mistaken, as I discovered walking to the library for this afternoon's films.
And it's not just me getting blown around because the curator of last night's films never made it to Richmond at all because of his flight being canceled. And Guy Maddin, the Canadian director whose many films are screening this weekend, will be arriving on a later plane than scheduled because of windy weather.
But neither rain nor snow nor wind of afternoon would have kept me from today's screening of films devoted to protest and films that bore witness to history all the while questioning it. Most of the crowd who joined me were also of a certain age, including one filmmaker whom I overheard telling his seatmate, "I'm from a steamboat town...called Cincinnati."
I'm from a swamp town...called Washington, D.C. Just doesn't have the same ring, does it?
As it turned out, I'd already seen Gordon Ball's "Mexican Jail Footage" shot in 1968, because Ball himself had been at the Firehouse Theater in 2012 when his book about how beat poet Allen Ginsberg had hired him to run his farm in upstate New York.
Still, it was a kick to see Ball and his lean-as-jaguars (no high fructose corn syrup) buddies in a Mexican jail (being held without charges) and, in typical 1968 style, making the most of their time to the best of their capabilities. Hatha yoga sessions, smoking pot (one handful acquired from the jailer), an outing to a Chinese restaurant by said jailer (as well as a whorehouse), being taken to a fancy hotel for dinner by a friend's mother and, obviously, shooting footage on film smuggled in.
Clearly jails were held to different standards in the '60s, although it wasn't all fun and games, either. They had to pay local kids to go out and buy them food during their stay, meaning they quickly ran through their money and Ball had to sell his transistor radio to be able to eat. Luckily, he didn't sell the movie camera.
"Confrontation at Kent State" had been made in 1970 collectively by some faculty and students on Kent State's campus and featured interviews with students who'd been part of the mayhem, but also with townspeople about what had gone down.
Locals blamed everyone from the students to the governor to the school's administration to paid agitators for the deaths of four college students by National Guardsmen. It was appalling how many smug white townspeople said the students got exactly what they deserved.
Death for protesting? Um, I don't think so.
I don't know about the rest of the audience of a certain age, but I really knew nothing about the aftermath of the shootings: the tanks on campus, armed guards on corners, helicopters overhead rattling houses. Or even that students had burned a building in frustration after the deaths.
In the saddest possible way, it ended with the father of one of the victims reading a poem about his daughter.
"Buffalo Creek Revisited" about a West Virginia mining disaster caused by a coal waste dam collapsing and flooding nearby communities and killing 120 people, looked at the situation a decade later and things hadn't improved much.
Not just because the coal company didn't care but also because the land where people's houses had previously been located before being washed away had since been earmarked for a super-highway so they had nothing to go back to.
The final short had a local angle because the VCU film professor who introduced today's films was also the fresh-faced manager of the Biograph in a skinny tie being interviewed onscreen circa 1985. "Biograph Theater Handbill Rally" was a compilation of the three local newscasts reporting on the rally for freedom of speech issues after the city outlawed posting fliers on poles.
The idea was brilliant: place a pole on Biograph property and allow people to post on it, whether a copy of the Constitution, a lost pet flier or a music show, while gathering signatures for a petition to present the city to change the ordinance.
Meanwhile, behind him in the shots was the Biograph's marquee, clearly showing that "Stop Making Sense" was screening. Having to rally for the right to post public notices clearly demonstrates that sense was no longer being made in Richmond. I didn't get here until '86, but that's about the state I found it in when I got here.
As I recall anyway and I'm pretty good at recalling.
There was no recalling to do about poet Larry Levis because I'd never met him and he'd died of a
JRFF was screening at the Visual Arts Center tonight "A Late Style of Fire: Larry Levis, American Poet," a film I was especially eager to see for its local connections. A familiar poet sat down in the same row where I'd staked territory, so I did the only sensible thing and wished him happy poetry month.
Shaking his head, he joked, "It's the worst month of the year!" No, just the least celebrated and, worst of all, without cake.
The film provided a fascinating look at Levis' life, from growing up on a grape farm in California - where he'd concluded by his teen years that his choices were being a farmer or a poet - to the many wives and women he attracted, many of whom spoke lovingly about him on camera years after he'd let them down. Best of all, Levis' poems were read as part of the film, so the audience could get some sense of his words.
This was a man who could write a poem called, "Perfection of Solitude," yet he was also, as someone pointed out, a poet who kept a 12-gauge shotgun by the door, a rather un-poetic habit.
I especially enjoyed the inter-cut scenes of a reading he'd done in 1985, beer bottle at hand, looking very much the 40ish artistic/academic type who was as disarming reading to an audience as charming a woman. Ultimately, Levis believed he had to live self-destructively in order to create his best possible work so he was dead at 49 in Church Hill.
Ah, the siren song and simultaneous curse of self-medicating. Don't get me started.
The evening was capped off with a walk to Gallery 5 for their 12th anniversary celebration, a soiree with fire performers outside (whom I watched for 20 minutes standing outside in line waiting to get in), a burlesque show followed by Prabir's band and the Trillions inside and a multi-artist art show upstairs that included a giant kaleidoscope, a large sculptural piece with small doors of various materials which opened to show nude selfies sent to the artist (but not in a lustful way, the artistic statement assured us) and paintings, collages and drawings.
I've been in Jackson Ward for nearly 11 years, so Gallery 5 has me beat by one year, and at only 4 blocks from home, ranks as hands-down closest music venue for yours truly. In fact, when I finally got to the front of the line to get in, the door guy saw it was me and apologized that I'd had to wait in line given my frequent attendance cred.
No big deal. All that line time allowed for some fabulous eavesdropping from the lacrosse/soccer-playing female trio in front of me who could recall every game they'd played to the symphony musicians behind me who admitted they'd never been anywhere in J-Ward other than Gallery 5. Anywhere.
I don't have time to educate the entire population, people.
As it is, I barely have time to do all the things worth doing around here...or find people to do them with. The perfection of solitude is a work in progress.
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Music for Pleasure
I've been told that I have fashioned my own "happy place."
That hadn't occurred to me, per se. But of course after years of living, I'm clever enough to try to create a life that gives me pleasure in as many ways as possible.
Today's mental inventory shows a thin slice of that.
I have a colorful apartment with a bathroom that has one large window I keep open six months a year. Unless I'm in the shower, that window is big enough to afford me a slice-of-the-sky view where I can feel the vagaries of the outside air. On a southern cliche of a perfect August evening in Richmond, I can admire the length of cloudless blue sky while savoring the washed-clean post-rain breeze.
Granted, it's no outdoor shower, but it's pretty wonderful.
Or I can go to see something unlikely that's landed in Richmond, something like the documentary, "The Damned: Don't You Wish That We Were Dead?" being presented by the James River Film Society.
I'll even go early enough to get to choose which of the Visual Arts Center's folding chairs I want to sit in, a right I feel I have earned since I bought my ticket for this film on May 20th. Yes, two and a half months ago.
I blame Holmes.
He's the friend who'd been terribly surprised to learn that I didn't know the Damned or its best-known guitarist, Captain Sensible. So he did what any good record-collector of a friend would do and pulled out records by both to play for me, right there and then.
He was right. I did like these guys, despite that they'd had little effect on me in my youth.
Walking in to see the movie, I was surprised to be greeted by multi-media, a "wall of the damned," so to speak. One wall was covered with Damned paraphernalia. Posters, pictures, album covers lined the wall and I watched as people had photos of themselves taken in front of certain posters.
Looking around at the crowd, I was reminded of my one and only Tulsa Drone show six years and one day ago. I have friends who met that night and are now married. But what I recall from that evening was the crowd, an older hipster crowd I wasn't used to seeing at Gallery 5.
A friend had informed me that it was the "older hipster crowd," the ones who used to go to a lot of shows but were now raising families. Similar crowd tonight.
First, of course, there was Damned trivia, but it quickly became clear that multiple people not only knew the answers, but were able to shout it out simultaneously. Prizes like SxSW posters from the movie's premiere and, even more fabulous, Captain Sensible bobbleheads were awarded diplomatically.
Then it was time for the film, a terrific mix of vintage footage, more recent shows and all kinds of interesting talking heads, including band members. It made a strong case for the Damned having been every bit as influential (not to mention lasting far longer) than other punk icons such as the Sex Pistols or the Clash.
Disaffected British youth in the '70s, that's all any of them were. But man, the Damned just had so much more talent. Theirs was a black comedy take on punk, blending vaudeville and psychedelia into one big party.
The drollest comment was when someone said, "There was no commercial application for their music." They were singing street songs, songs about the punk scene, but with Captain Sensible's sense of absurdist humor (and talent, occasionally playing guitar with a beer can instead of his fingers) and Dave Vanian's pre-Goth voice and look. Say what?
"They were clowns who could deliver," someone says of them. What else do you need? Never mind the bollocks, where's the Damned?
Tonight's crowd was fully engaged with the film, talking when something onscreen jogged a thought, singing along to some of the concert footage, watching mesmerized.
As is to be expected, the film had more than its fair share of bad British teeth. And with so many British accents spoken, there were times I was wishing for subtitles to fully understand these blokes. Lemmy of Motorhead, forget it. That's English?
Not so the legendary Chrissie Hynde (who was around in the band's early days but they never called her back) who was fully intelligible and still damn fine looking.
An uber fan who'd seen the band 582 times (he kept a log, natch) compared missing a Damned gig to losing the lottery. That's rough. Bitterness over success' elusiveness permeated several key people's interviews.
Talking about the shift away from bloated '70s music, one band member said, "You wanna drive somone from the '70s crazy? Put on the Damned."
Okay, so I walked into this film having heard a limited bit by the band and knowing little beyond that a music friend had told me it was someone I'd appreciate.
Now I'm marveling that this was the first British punk band to put out a record and an album and the first to tour the U.S. That they were carving out such a distinctive niche in punk. That just as significantly, they're mostly still together after countless reinventions some 39 years later.
Organizer Jeff finished the evening by sharing that the Damned plan to tour for their 40th anniversary next year. He's putting up a petition to get them to play Richmond. Where do I go to sign? I'm happy to buy my ticket 2 1/2 months in advance again.
Because clearly the Damned were my kind of band as I only recently found out. "What does it do for you at this age?" the filmmaker asks of band members.
Same thing it does for fans at this age. Everything you let it.
That's how you stay in your happy place.
That hadn't occurred to me, per se. But of course after years of living, I'm clever enough to try to create a life that gives me pleasure in as many ways as possible.
Today's mental inventory shows a thin slice of that.
I have a colorful apartment with a bathroom that has one large window I keep open six months a year. Unless I'm in the shower, that window is big enough to afford me a slice-of-the-sky view where I can feel the vagaries of the outside air. On a southern cliche of a perfect August evening in Richmond, I can admire the length of cloudless blue sky while savoring the washed-clean post-rain breeze.
Granted, it's no outdoor shower, but it's pretty wonderful.
Or I can go to see something unlikely that's landed in Richmond, something like the documentary, "The Damned: Don't You Wish That We Were Dead?" being presented by the James River Film Society.
I'll even go early enough to get to choose which of the Visual Arts Center's folding chairs I want to sit in, a right I feel I have earned since I bought my ticket for this film on May 20th. Yes, two and a half months ago.
I blame Holmes.
He's the friend who'd been terribly surprised to learn that I didn't know the Damned or its best-known guitarist, Captain Sensible. So he did what any good record-collector of a friend would do and pulled out records by both to play for me, right there and then.
He was right. I did like these guys, despite that they'd had little effect on me in my youth.
Walking in to see the movie, I was surprised to be greeted by multi-media, a "wall of the damned," so to speak. One wall was covered with Damned paraphernalia. Posters, pictures, album covers lined the wall and I watched as people had photos of themselves taken in front of certain posters.
Looking around at the crowd, I was reminded of my one and only Tulsa Drone show six years and one day ago. I have friends who met that night and are now married. But what I recall from that evening was the crowd, an older hipster crowd I wasn't used to seeing at Gallery 5.
A friend had informed me that it was the "older hipster crowd," the ones who used to go to a lot of shows but were now raising families. Similar crowd tonight.
First, of course, there was Damned trivia, but it quickly became clear that multiple people not only knew the answers, but were able to shout it out simultaneously. Prizes like SxSW posters from the movie's premiere and, even more fabulous, Captain Sensible bobbleheads were awarded diplomatically.
Then it was time for the film, a terrific mix of vintage footage, more recent shows and all kinds of interesting talking heads, including band members. It made a strong case for the Damned having been every bit as influential (not to mention lasting far longer) than other punk icons such as the Sex Pistols or the Clash.
Disaffected British youth in the '70s, that's all any of them were. But man, the Damned just had so much more talent. Theirs was a black comedy take on punk, blending vaudeville and psychedelia into one big party.
The drollest comment was when someone said, "There was no commercial application for their music." They were singing street songs, songs about the punk scene, but with Captain Sensible's sense of absurdist humor (and talent, occasionally playing guitar with a beer can instead of his fingers) and Dave Vanian's pre-Goth voice and look. Say what?
"They were clowns who could deliver," someone says of them. What else do you need? Never mind the bollocks, where's the Damned?
Tonight's crowd was fully engaged with the film, talking when something onscreen jogged a thought, singing along to some of the concert footage, watching mesmerized.
As is to be expected, the film had more than its fair share of bad British teeth. And with so many British accents spoken, there were times I was wishing for subtitles to fully understand these blokes. Lemmy of Motorhead, forget it. That's English?
Not so the legendary Chrissie Hynde (who was around in the band's early days but they never called her back) who was fully intelligible and still damn fine looking.
An uber fan who'd seen the band 582 times (he kept a log, natch) compared missing a Damned gig to losing the lottery. That's rough. Bitterness over success' elusiveness permeated several key people's interviews.
Talking about the shift away from bloated '70s music, one band member said, "You wanna drive somone from the '70s crazy? Put on the Damned."
Okay, so I walked into this film having heard a limited bit by the band and knowing little beyond that a music friend had told me it was someone I'd appreciate.
Now I'm marveling that this was the first British punk band to put out a record and an album and the first to tour the U.S. That they were carving out such a distinctive niche in punk. That just as significantly, they're mostly still together after countless reinventions some 39 years later.
Organizer Jeff finished the evening by sharing that the Damned plan to tour for their 40th anniversary next year. He's putting up a petition to get them to play Richmond. Where do I go to sign? I'm happy to buy my ticket 2 1/2 months in advance again.
Because clearly the Damned were my kind of band as I only recently found out. "What does it do for you at this age?" the filmmaker asks of band members.
Same thing it does for fans at this age. Everything you let it.
That's how you stay in your happy place.
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Call Me
As enjoyable as my evening was, the highlight came when I got home.
I'd just gotten in and the phone rang - mind you it's almost midnight - and when I answer, I hear a friend's deep voice asking, "You just getting home from the cluuub?"
I laughed so long and hard he accused me of being wine-drunk when I hadn't had anything to drink for days. It was just such an unlikely thing to hear, especially with his unexpectedly suave delivery.
Just to enjoy another good laugh, I made him say it to me again before we hung up.
But I hadn't been out at the club, I'd been watching filmmakers screen their latest works, listening to a D.C. shoegaze band and eating pizza. The beauty of it was that I'd done all that in one place.
Tonight was the sixth anniversary of the James River Filmmakers Forum, a far cry from the very first forum held at the former Carver Healing Arts Center (the building that went on to be sued for Obama's first Richmond campaign), which I'd attended a lifetime ago in 2009.
Back then, I'd known no one and tonight I recognized several people during the mingling period. I even met strangers. A man came up and introduced himself as an avid fan of the James River Film Society.
In fact, he'd been their very first (and unsolicited) donor years ago, after attending an event and wanting to help support them. What's interesting about that is that just today I was reading an article about the woman who was the first donor to the Smithsonian's African-American museum.
It had never occurred to me that being the first donor was a thing, but twice in one day I'd seen proof otherwise.
Chatting with the one I met tonight, I learned he was from the West End. When he heard I live in Jackson Ward, he wanted to know more about the restaurant scene in my neighborhood. His proposition was to meet at one and have me tell him all about the others.
Just call me the J-Ward ambassador.
The genial gentleman behind the repertory movie theater project was also there and, as always, I put in my plug for locating it in the Arts District (also known as my 'hood). He wants to meet and talk about the theater's board, but I'm not sure I'm board material.
On the other hand, he's become a pro at biscuit-making (he's a Southern boy), having learned from his grandmother, something I wish I'd the sense to do. Maybe he can provide biscuit=making tips.
But I digress.
Like that very first forum, tonight's program of films was eclectic but with a much darker slant.
"Bill" traced the path of a $20 bill through many hands and all kinds of recognizable places: Ipanema, the rocks at Belle Isle, Fine Foods in Oregon Hill. The one place I didn't recognize was the street where the prostitute plied her trade.
Maybe I 'm not supposed to know that sort of thing.
Much darker was "Memory," shot at the VCU School of Nursing and dealing with mental imbalance after the death of a young patient.
Most unique was "Emotional Dimensions of the James River," a project initiated by a 15-year old scientist and artist (who knew you could be both at 15?) with music and visuals conveying joy, sadness, anger and fear, created separately and not co-joined until the editing process.
For something completely different, there was "Optimist, Pessimist, Solipsist," completely hand-drawn in #2 pencil and chronicling three unlikely characters. It was voiced by actor Alan Sader, whom I've seen tear it up onstage so many times.
After so much film drama, we had intermission and D.C. shoegaze band These Quiet Colours got up and played for the crowd in the dark while delicate videos of pastel flowers opening played on the screen.
Theirs was a shoegaze-influenced sound with shimmering guitars and lots of reverb, meaning they were very much my kind of band. I heard that the British singer used to be in Florence and the Machine and she certainly had a beautiful enough voice to believe it.
One thing that struck me was that it had to be the first time I'd seen a band playing on carpet. Between the high-ceilinged room and the carpet tiles, it was a good room for the sound they were creating. No hard edges.
After their too brief set, we all dove into a table laid out with three kinds of pizza, nourishment to get us through the rest of the screenings.
Good thing, too, because the last two were especially heavy.
For his first Virginia screening, the filmmaker, who was from Cleveland, had gotten off the plane in Richmond, looked around and said, "You call this snow?" Tonight he was showing us his least gory movie.
"Lock-Out/Tag-Out" began with statistics about pay and accidents for those working for the elevator unions before telling a tragic story of suicide and death by elevator, with a sex scene and Lucky Charms along the way.
The night ended with "Neco's Basement," an even grislier tale of a sleazy guy who hits on young girls at a club (Off the Hookah) and then kidnaps them afterwards. Let's just say a lot of blood was spilled in that basement and it wasn't just Neco doing the bludgeoning.
These Quiet Colours played one short final set before the evening ended, giving us one more shot of music from a cave (my favorite, you know) on which to send the remaining film lovers out into the night.
Where, it should be noted, I walked outside to see an SUV barreling down Main Street in the wrong direction. The surprising part was that no one honked at him until he almost hit an oncoming car.
What do you think those horns are for, idiots? Warning devices!
Luckily, I was headed away from the runaway SUV and back toward the relative safety of home.
Where I am still chuckling about being accused of just coming in from the cluuub. Friend, if I'd been at the cluuub - like I was last Saturday night - I can assure you I wouldn't be home this early.
I'd just gotten in and the phone rang - mind you it's almost midnight - and when I answer, I hear a friend's deep voice asking, "You just getting home from the cluuub?"
I laughed so long and hard he accused me of being wine-drunk when I hadn't had anything to drink for days. It was just such an unlikely thing to hear, especially with his unexpectedly suave delivery.
Just to enjoy another good laugh, I made him say it to me again before we hung up.
But I hadn't been out at the club, I'd been watching filmmakers screen their latest works, listening to a D.C. shoegaze band and eating pizza. The beauty of it was that I'd done all that in one place.
Tonight was the sixth anniversary of the James River Filmmakers Forum, a far cry from the very first forum held at the former Carver Healing Arts Center (the building that went on to be sued for Obama's first Richmond campaign), which I'd attended a lifetime ago in 2009.
Back then, I'd known no one and tonight I recognized several people during the mingling period. I even met strangers. A man came up and introduced himself as an avid fan of the James River Film Society.
In fact, he'd been their very first (and unsolicited) donor years ago, after attending an event and wanting to help support them. What's interesting about that is that just today I was reading an article about the woman who was the first donor to the Smithsonian's African-American museum.
It had never occurred to me that being the first donor was a thing, but twice in one day I'd seen proof otherwise.
Chatting with the one I met tonight, I learned he was from the West End. When he heard I live in Jackson Ward, he wanted to know more about the restaurant scene in my neighborhood. His proposition was to meet at one and have me tell him all about the others.
Just call me the J-Ward ambassador.
The genial gentleman behind the repertory movie theater project was also there and, as always, I put in my plug for locating it in the Arts District (also known as my 'hood). He wants to meet and talk about the theater's board, but I'm not sure I'm board material.
On the other hand, he's become a pro at biscuit-making (he's a Southern boy), having learned from his grandmother, something I wish I'd the sense to do. Maybe he can provide biscuit=making tips.
But I digress.
Like that very first forum, tonight's program of films was eclectic but with a much darker slant.
"Bill" traced the path of a $20 bill through many hands and all kinds of recognizable places: Ipanema, the rocks at Belle Isle, Fine Foods in Oregon Hill. The one place I didn't recognize was the street where the prostitute plied her trade.
Maybe I 'm not supposed to know that sort of thing.
Much darker was "Memory," shot at the VCU School of Nursing and dealing with mental imbalance after the death of a young patient.
Most unique was "Emotional Dimensions of the James River," a project initiated by a 15-year old scientist and artist (who knew you could be both at 15?) with music and visuals conveying joy, sadness, anger and fear, created separately and not co-joined until the editing process.
For something completely different, there was "Optimist, Pessimist, Solipsist," completely hand-drawn in #2 pencil and chronicling three unlikely characters. It was voiced by actor Alan Sader, whom I've seen tear it up onstage so many times.
After so much film drama, we had intermission and D.C. shoegaze band These Quiet Colours got up and played for the crowd in the dark while delicate videos of pastel flowers opening played on the screen.
Theirs was a shoegaze-influenced sound with shimmering guitars and lots of reverb, meaning they were very much my kind of band. I heard that the British singer used to be in Florence and the Machine and she certainly had a beautiful enough voice to believe it.
One thing that struck me was that it had to be the first time I'd seen a band playing on carpet. Between the high-ceilinged room and the carpet tiles, it was a good room for the sound they were creating. No hard edges.
After their too brief set, we all dove into a table laid out with three kinds of pizza, nourishment to get us through the rest of the screenings.
Good thing, too, because the last two were especially heavy.
For his first Virginia screening, the filmmaker, who was from Cleveland, had gotten off the plane in Richmond, looked around and said, "You call this snow?" Tonight he was showing us his least gory movie.
"Lock-Out/Tag-Out" began with statistics about pay and accidents for those working for the elevator unions before telling a tragic story of suicide and death by elevator, with a sex scene and Lucky Charms along the way.
The night ended with "Neco's Basement," an even grislier tale of a sleazy guy who hits on young girls at a club (Off the Hookah) and then kidnaps them afterwards. Let's just say a lot of blood was spilled in that basement and it wasn't just Neco doing the bludgeoning.
These Quiet Colours played one short final set before the evening ended, giving us one more shot of music from a cave (my favorite, you know) on which to send the remaining film lovers out into the night.
Where, it should be noted, I walked outside to see an SUV barreling down Main Street in the wrong direction. The surprising part was that no one honked at him until he almost hit an oncoming car.
What do you think those horns are for, idiots? Warning devices!
Luckily, I was headed away from the runaway SUV and back toward the relative safety of home.
Where I am still chuckling about being accused of just coming in from the cluuub. Friend, if I'd been at the cluuub - like I was last Saturday night - I can assure you I wouldn't be home this early.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Action!
The beach is good for many things, but culture is rarely one of them.
So after getting settled in and having dinner with a good friend on a patio where we saw three army planes fly overhead in formation, I was ready to be stimulated.
The James River Filmmakers Forum was just the ticket.
A bar, free popcorn and a roomful of talent ensured a stimulating way to spend the evening.
I even had company, sitting down next to a woman who told me she "lived on the bay."
And yet here she was on this Saturday night.
Surely there was a story there.
Further nosiness revealed that she lives in Whitestone, has no husband or boyfriend (so usually cooks Punjabi for herself) and drove in because she'd previously seen the work of Fabian Rush, one of the filmmakers screening tonight.
From me, she wanted to know what I thought of Deco, how often I came to the Northern Neck and if I was a filmmaker.
All this and popcorn gratis.
Tonight's event was dedicated to long-time James River Film Society volunteer James Parrish, not because he's dead but because he's moved on to other film-related projects.
His honey-coated southern drawl will be missed.
Screened first was Fabian Rush's "DWAM," which he described as resulting from making his nightmares into short, surrealistic films.
A horror film, in other words, that captured the mood and essence of a dream.
This one was about a woman who lives alone in the woods (always a bad idea) with a wolf/dog and what happens when she begins to hear demonic sounds at 3 a.m.
Nothing good, I can assure you.
For something completely different, we then saw an installment of the Dodd Brothers' web series, "The Drunk Skeptic."
Centered around two PBR-drinking guys (ergo, set in Richmond), this episode was called, "Pick Up Your F*cking Trash."
A slacker comedy, it involved one of the guys being hit by a car, only to have his head cut open and beer inserted.
On the plus side, they reattached the top of his head and he came back to life.
Just for the record, both of the first two films featured characters with nose rings.
I don't know if it means anything, but I thought it was worth noting.
Next up was "Anxiety Dream," an experimental film by Jeff Roll, organizer of the Filmmakers Forum.
He told us beforehand that the idea for the film came about because his apartment had been burglarized a decade ago, resulting in years of waking up and walking around thinking he'd heard something.
The dark and moody black and white film was his tribute to silent-era German Expressionist films.
Afterwards, to lighten the mood, he told us that the menacing figure in the film had been played by the guy who was now tending bar in the back of the room.
From there, we went to a documentary called "The Bugler's Statue" by Les Owen.
A musician in an army band, Les is also the video producer for the U.S. Army band in Washington.
His film concerned the creation of a statue of a bugler to go in the visitors' center at Arlington Cemetery to represent the Arlington experience.
The army chose an actual bugler who was sent to a studio in NYC where, over the course of a day, they made casts of his face (complete with pursed lips for bugle-blowing), legs (wearing tights), torso and hands (one of which they forgot to grease first, meaning when they removed the cast, it took the hair off his hand, too).
As much as I know about casting sculpture from art history classes, I'd never seen the process done and it was fascinating to watch.
One of the pieces in the studio was of Jefferson, the same one done for the Virginia State Capital, so there was even a hometown touch in the film.
We took a short break to mingle, visit the menacing bartender and regroup before seeing the final film, "The Coward," by far the longest movie we saw at 27 minutes.
Filmmaker Joe Duca said he'd been inspired to make a modern silent film because of his love for Impressionism and his lack of money for microphones.
It was abundantly clear by this point that in order to make films, one must have a sense of humor.
Set in 1945, the black and white film concerned a group of soldiers acting badly and the consequences of it.
At first, I thought the soldiers all looked impossibly young but it soon occurred to me that that's reality, especially back when men would lie about their age to enlist sooner.
A couple of times during the film, there was a glitch and the images froze for a second or two and you could feel the tension in the room as people held their breath to see what was next.
We kept hoping our hero would man up and take control, but, alas, it wasn't to be.
By the end of the screening, I'd been reminded of one thing.
The beach may feed my soul but I need the city to feed my head.
Taking the pulse of the filmmaking community made for a really good mind meal.
If only it could lull me to sleep like the waves.
So after getting settled in and having dinner with a good friend on a patio where we saw three army planes fly overhead in formation, I was ready to be stimulated.
The James River Filmmakers Forum was just the ticket.
A bar, free popcorn and a roomful of talent ensured a stimulating way to spend the evening.
I even had company, sitting down next to a woman who told me she "lived on the bay."
And yet here she was on this Saturday night.
Surely there was a story there.
Further nosiness revealed that she lives in Whitestone, has no husband or boyfriend (so usually cooks Punjabi for herself) and drove in because she'd previously seen the work of Fabian Rush, one of the filmmakers screening tonight.
From me, she wanted to know what I thought of Deco, how often I came to the Northern Neck and if I was a filmmaker.
All this and popcorn gratis.
Tonight's event was dedicated to long-time James River Film Society volunteer James Parrish, not because he's dead but because he's moved on to other film-related projects.
His honey-coated southern drawl will be missed.
Screened first was Fabian Rush's "DWAM," which he described as resulting from making his nightmares into short, surrealistic films.
A horror film, in other words, that captured the mood and essence of a dream.
This one was about a woman who lives alone in the woods (always a bad idea) with a wolf/dog and what happens when she begins to hear demonic sounds at 3 a.m.
Nothing good, I can assure you.
For something completely different, we then saw an installment of the Dodd Brothers' web series, "The Drunk Skeptic."
Centered around two PBR-drinking guys (ergo, set in Richmond), this episode was called, "Pick Up Your F*cking Trash."
A slacker comedy, it involved one of the guys being hit by a car, only to have his head cut open and beer inserted.
On the plus side, they reattached the top of his head and he came back to life.
Just for the record, both of the first two films featured characters with nose rings.
I don't know if it means anything, but I thought it was worth noting.
Next up was "Anxiety Dream," an experimental film by Jeff Roll, organizer of the Filmmakers Forum.
He told us beforehand that the idea for the film came about because his apartment had been burglarized a decade ago, resulting in years of waking up and walking around thinking he'd heard something.
The dark and moody black and white film was his tribute to silent-era German Expressionist films.
Afterwards, to lighten the mood, he told us that the menacing figure in the film had been played by the guy who was now tending bar in the back of the room.
From there, we went to a documentary called "The Bugler's Statue" by Les Owen.
A musician in an army band, Les is also the video producer for the U.S. Army band in Washington.
His film concerned the creation of a statue of a bugler to go in the visitors' center at Arlington Cemetery to represent the Arlington experience.
The army chose an actual bugler who was sent to a studio in NYC where, over the course of a day, they made casts of his face (complete with pursed lips for bugle-blowing), legs (wearing tights), torso and hands (one of which they forgot to grease first, meaning when they removed the cast, it took the hair off his hand, too).
As much as I know about casting sculpture from art history classes, I'd never seen the process done and it was fascinating to watch.
One of the pieces in the studio was of Jefferson, the same one done for the Virginia State Capital, so there was even a hometown touch in the film.
We took a short break to mingle, visit the menacing bartender and regroup before seeing the final film, "The Coward," by far the longest movie we saw at 27 minutes.
Filmmaker Joe Duca said he'd been inspired to make a modern silent film because of his love for Impressionism and his lack of money for microphones.
It was abundantly clear by this point that in order to make films, one must have a sense of humor.
Set in 1945, the black and white film concerned a group of soldiers acting badly and the consequences of it.
At first, I thought the soldiers all looked impossibly young but it soon occurred to me that that's reality, especially back when men would lie about their age to enlist sooner.
A couple of times during the film, there was a glitch and the images froze for a second or two and you could feel the tension in the room as people held their breath to see what was next.
We kept hoping our hero would man up and take control, but, alas, it wasn't to be.
By the end of the screening, I'd been reminded of one thing.
The beach may feed my soul but I need the city to feed my head.
Taking the pulse of the filmmaking community made for a really good mind meal.
If only it could lull me to sleep like the waves.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Short and Sweet
Taking the temperature yielded concerns about self-image, bullying and atheism.
The reading being taken was that of the local film making scene at the winter edition of the James River Filmmakers Forum.
There was a decent crowd at the Visual Arts Center and the brown bags full of popcorn were lined up on the counter for the taking.
I took.
First up was Paul Hugins' "Applications," with a woman at a makeup table trying to make herself beautiful.
Make-up application wasn't enough, so she resorted to scalpels and giving herself plastic surgery while brassy vintage music played.
It's not pretty to watch someone carve up their own face, meaning the effects were good.
"As Best I Can Remember," was introduced by filmmaker James Mattise as, "There's gonna be a lot different vibe for this one. I was trying to create a film documentary without using Ken Burns."
Using audio created by his grandfather reminiscing about his life, James placed still photographs of his life - shots from his time on a minesweeper in the Navy, as a groom and young father, working at the family dairy- along with family shots to create a visual to accompany the memories.
The grandfather's dialog was informative and sharply observed, as when he said about being in the South Pacific during WWII, "If you were going to survive, you couldn't be foolish."
Nils Westergard and Daniel Ardure's "William" was introduced with the caveat," We made this after my first years as a film student and his second. We haven't watched it in a while so some parts may make me wince. And that's okay."
The story of a shy kid invited to a party in order to later cyber-bully him could be seen as a 21st century tragedy.
All I know is, I hate to see a college kid wake up next to a Supercan.
And speaking of college kids, I recognized the intersection of Main and Harrison and the credits acknowledged Pabst Blue Ribbon.
The only filmmaker in a tux (he said he was planning to fly out and crash the Oscars), James Cappello called the making of "Cain" a "long, arduous and sometimes lazy journey to get a film made. Oh, and I'm an atheist."
He then asked his parents to move to the front row so they could watch his film without heads in front of them and they obliged.
The tinny voice of god narrated the unusual take on the classic bible tale, with quotes from Nietzsche and lines like, "Humans can be such opportunists," and "Boys will be boys."
"The Persistence of Poe" was a more recent edit of the film I'd seen at the Poe Museum in September, introduced by David Fuchs as, "After biblical deepness, here's some light history."
A prior viewing meant I knew to expect excellent old photographs and illustrations along with the story of Poe's deeply unhappy and thwarted life.
Which meant that by the end of the screenings, we'd swung from self-mutilation to poets dying in gutters, with granddads, mean boys and brothers in between.
The only way to deal with that was by calling all the filmmakers up front for the forum part of the evening.
Alright, you guys, time to explain yourselves.
This is always a fun part of the program because you never know what you'll hear out of their mouths.
Like Hugins saying, "After seeing that again, I found that final shot (of her stabbing herself in the nose) too humorous for what I wanted to do with this film."
Humorous, grotesque, call it what you will.
He did say the film was about his (and everyone's) sense of self-doubt when it comes to looks.
Mattise talked about the sense he had when making the film about his grandfather of listening to the audio on headphones and feeling like he was having a conversation with the long-gone relative, meaningful since he'd been in high school when his grandfather had died and not really taking much note.
The screenwriter for the sad tale of "William" said that the intent was, "Going for the the most dramatic story I could to make a film with no money and our friends."
They spoke of Facebook as an analogy for the ancient art of public humiliation, something that hadn't occurred to me.
John the Atheist said he was drawn to using a bible story so he didn't have to create one of his own.
"I wanted a cheap but challenging story, but the original "Cain and Abel" was so dry."
JRFF host Jeff Roll asked him a terrific question about why an atheist would turn to a bible story instead of, say, Nietzsche or Sartre.
"What better way to talk about my opinion of the bible than by splintering it?" he retorted.
When asked, "How did being raised Catholic and turning atheist affect your film?" John answered, "Mom, do I have to answer that?"
Mom said yes.
He talked about Cain and Abel as victims, finishing with, "I don't really know how to justify it cause I'm just a 22-year old."
Then, turning back to his Mom, he inquired, "Did I answer that right?"
So cute.
The Poe filmmaker Christine Stoddard spoke about all the little changes they'd made to the film since September in an attempt to make it more appropriate for long-term viewing at the Poe Museum, the eventual goal.
And, just like that, we closed out the forum, secure in the knowledge that interesting film making is being churned out all around us.
I'd probably cite "As Best I Can Remember" as my favorite tonight, but the fact that my grandfather was a milkman for Richmond Diary no doubt plays a role.
What's key is that young, local filmmakers continue to crank out new work on important subjects like mutilation, bullies, fratricide and dissolution.
Short-form Oscars, here they come.
The reading being taken was that of the local film making scene at the winter edition of the James River Filmmakers Forum.
There was a decent crowd at the Visual Arts Center and the brown bags full of popcorn were lined up on the counter for the taking.
I took.
First up was Paul Hugins' "Applications," with a woman at a makeup table trying to make herself beautiful.
Make-up application wasn't enough, so she resorted to scalpels and giving herself plastic surgery while brassy vintage music played.
It's not pretty to watch someone carve up their own face, meaning the effects were good.
"As Best I Can Remember," was introduced by filmmaker James Mattise as, "There's gonna be a lot different vibe for this one. I was trying to create a film documentary without using Ken Burns."
Using audio created by his grandfather reminiscing about his life, James placed still photographs of his life - shots from his time on a minesweeper in the Navy, as a groom and young father, working at the family dairy- along with family shots to create a visual to accompany the memories.
The grandfather's dialog was informative and sharply observed, as when he said about being in the South Pacific during WWII, "If you were going to survive, you couldn't be foolish."
Nils Westergard and Daniel Ardure's "William" was introduced with the caveat," We made this after my first years as a film student and his second. We haven't watched it in a while so some parts may make me wince. And that's okay."
The story of a shy kid invited to a party in order to later cyber-bully him could be seen as a 21st century tragedy.
All I know is, I hate to see a college kid wake up next to a Supercan.
And speaking of college kids, I recognized the intersection of Main and Harrison and the credits acknowledged Pabst Blue Ribbon.
The only filmmaker in a tux (he said he was planning to fly out and crash the Oscars), James Cappello called the making of "Cain" a "long, arduous and sometimes lazy journey to get a film made. Oh, and I'm an atheist."
He then asked his parents to move to the front row so they could watch his film without heads in front of them and they obliged.
The tinny voice of god narrated the unusual take on the classic bible tale, with quotes from Nietzsche and lines like, "Humans can be such opportunists," and "Boys will be boys."
"The Persistence of Poe" was a more recent edit of the film I'd seen at the Poe Museum in September, introduced by David Fuchs as, "After biblical deepness, here's some light history."
A prior viewing meant I knew to expect excellent old photographs and illustrations along with the story of Poe's deeply unhappy and thwarted life.
Which meant that by the end of the screenings, we'd swung from self-mutilation to poets dying in gutters, with granddads, mean boys and brothers in between.
The only way to deal with that was by calling all the filmmakers up front for the forum part of the evening.
Alright, you guys, time to explain yourselves.
This is always a fun part of the program because you never know what you'll hear out of their mouths.
Like Hugins saying, "After seeing that again, I found that final shot (of her stabbing herself in the nose) too humorous for what I wanted to do with this film."
Humorous, grotesque, call it what you will.
He did say the film was about his (and everyone's) sense of self-doubt when it comes to looks.
Mattise talked about the sense he had when making the film about his grandfather of listening to the audio on headphones and feeling like he was having a conversation with the long-gone relative, meaningful since he'd been in high school when his grandfather had died and not really taking much note.
The screenwriter for the sad tale of "William" said that the intent was, "Going for the the most dramatic story I could to make a film with no money and our friends."
They spoke of Facebook as an analogy for the ancient art of public humiliation, something that hadn't occurred to me.
John the Atheist said he was drawn to using a bible story so he didn't have to create one of his own.
"I wanted a cheap but challenging story, but the original "Cain and Abel" was so dry."
JRFF host Jeff Roll asked him a terrific question about why an atheist would turn to a bible story instead of, say, Nietzsche or Sartre.
"What better way to talk about my opinion of the bible than by splintering it?" he retorted.
When asked, "How did being raised Catholic and turning atheist affect your film?" John answered, "Mom, do I have to answer that?"
Mom said yes.
He talked about Cain and Abel as victims, finishing with, "I don't really know how to justify it cause I'm just a 22-year old."
Then, turning back to his Mom, he inquired, "Did I answer that right?"
So cute.
The Poe filmmaker Christine Stoddard spoke about all the little changes they'd made to the film since September in an attempt to make it more appropriate for long-term viewing at the Poe Museum, the eventual goal.
And, just like that, we closed out the forum, secure in the knowledge that interesting film making is being churned out all around us.
I'd probably cite "As Best I Can Remember" as my favorite tonight, but the fact that my grandfather was a milkman for Richmond Diary no doubt plays a role.
What's key is that young, local filmmakers continue to crank out new work on important subjects like mutilation, bullies, fratricide and dissolution.
Short-form Oscars, here they come.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
It's Enlightenment, Man
If you think you hear fingers snapping, it's just beatnik applause for the evening.
Some friends just need to be scooped up and made to go out sometimes and tonight was one of those sometimes.
I took her to Lunch for dinner because she hadn't been and I knew she'd love it.
Make no mistake, it was a little warm in Lunch, but, to be fair, it was a warm day, it's a small place and I'm already sick of over-air conditioned buildings (and it's only June).
Let's just say that I was pleased I didn't need the sweater that I'd brought (just in case).
Seeing as how it was still happy hour, what winos could resist $3.50 glasses when everything on their short list is fair game?
Not us, that's for sure.
I admit, I fell victim to the siren song of Lunch's pulled pork. Yet again.
It was my fifth time there and I never seem to stray far from the pig that dominates the menu.
Why would I?
Bacon and corn griddle cakes loaded with pulled pork and cole slaw delighted as much as they had the first time I'd had the dish.
My friend chose the pecanwood-smoked bacon-wrapped shrimp over stone ground grits once I rhapsodized about the last time I'd had it.
Our server was sweetly attentive, even letting us know ten minutes before happy hour was to end in case we needed more well-priced wine.
We did.
What we didn't have room for was dessert, but that's been the case every time I've been there.
Fat and happy, we left to get some culture and snap ourselves out of the food coma that had descended.
The James River Filmmakers Forum was playing at the Visual Arts Center tonight, which meant five filmmakers were going to show us what they've been up to.
Bruce Spivey's film about the VSU gospel chorale and musician Larry Bland showed the energy and passion of a gospel performance as well as the spiritual awakening such shows represent for some people.
"Asleep in the Chapel" by Mike Buchbauer was a gorgeously-shot film showing a girl showering, dressing and waiting.
When it ended, film teacher Ted Salins commented, "Great film, but it would have been better if you'd picked a more attractive woman."
General laughter ensued since the girl in the film had been lovely.
"Can we see it again?" he said salaciously and hilariously.
Salins was introducing a film made with his first-year film students, "Beatnik Party."
After the third week of classes, he has the students dress and talk like beatniks.
Obviously for college freshmen, this involves a fair amount of research to even discover what a beatnik was.
Lots of sunglasses and nonchalance.
The film began with snapping fingers applauding a performance and went on to use appropriate beatnik slang.
"Blow my top," one said with the indifference of a Beat. "Like wow."
I wasn't in the least surprised that once they got into it, some of the students began to adopt Beat fashion and language outside of class.
Only a square wouldn't get the attraction.
We were told that "Singularium" by Joey Tran and Sean Hambright was shot in a week and took eighteen months to do the special effects.
That tells me that filmmakers have a special kind of patience. But also humor.
The program clarified, "Shawn would like to punch Joey Tran in the kidneys when he isn't looking, then kick him about the had and chest. Joey has it coming."
The story centered on the collapse of the universe and one guy's problem with his girlfriend, who kept clarifying that they weren't getting back together.
Once you break up, there's really no point, even with doom staring you in the face.
The movie's music caught my ear and I found out in the credits that it was done by Prabir, he of Goldrush renown.
Hunter Brumfield's "Biosolid" got played last because, we were told, "It was being redone in the back room at the last minute."
The experimental film left the girls behind us whining,"I don't get it."
But that's the beauty of the James River Filmmakers Forum.
You don't have to "get" all of the films. Or even some of them.
You don't have to like them, either.
It's just a fine opportunity to see what's going on in the local filmmaking community.
From what I saw, praising and dancing. Soaping up of a belly. Repeating girlfriends. A girl eating laundry detergent.
And bongo playing.
Because some things will always be worth snapping your fingers about on a Saturday night.
Dinner at Lunch was one. Local film was another.
And bongo playing, always.
Dig it.
Some friends just need to be scooped up and made to go out sometimes and tonight was one of those sometimes.
I took her to Lunch for dinner because she hadn't been and I knew she'd love it.
Make no mistake, it was a little warm in Lunch, but, to be fair, it was a warm day, it's a small place and I'm already sick of over-air conditioned buildings (and it's only June).
Let's just say that I was pleased I didn't need the sweater that I'd brought (just in case).
Seeing as how it was still happy hour, what winos could resist $3.50 glasses when everything on their short list is fair game?
Not us, that's for sure.
I admit, I fell victim to the siren song of Lunch's pulled pork. Yet again.
It was my fifth time there and I never seem to stray far from the pig that dominates the menu.
Why would I?
Bacon and corn griddle cakes loaded with pulled pork and cole slaw delighted as much as they had the first time I'd had the dish.
My friend chose the pecanwood-smoked bacon-wrapped shrimp over stone ground grits once I rhapsodized about the last time I'd had it.
Our server was sweetly attentive, even letting us know ten minutes before happy hour was to end in case we needed more well-priced wine.
We did.
What we didn't have room for was dessert, but that's been the case every time I've been there.
Fat and happy, we left to get some culture and snap ourselves out of the food coma that had descended.
The James River Filmmakers Forum was playing at the Visual Arts Center tonight, which meant five filmmakers were going to show us what they've been up to.
Bruce Spivey's film about the VSU gospel chorale and musician Larry Bland showed the energy and passion of a gospel performance as well as the spiritual awakening such shows represent for some people.
"Asleep in the Chapel" by Mike Buchbauer was a gorgeously-shot film showing a girl showering, dressing and waiting.
When it ended, film teacher Ted Salins commented, "Great film, but it would have been better if you'd picked a more attractive woman."
General laughter ensued since the girl in the film had been lovely.
"Can we see it again?" he said salaciously and hilariously.
Salins was introducing a film made with his first-year film students, "Beatnik Party."
After the third week of classes, he has the students dress and talk like beatniks.
Obviously for college freshmen, this involves a fair amount of research to even discover what a beatnik was.
Lots of sunglasses and nonchalance.
The film began with snapping fingers applauding a performance and went on to use appropriate beatnik slang.
"Blow my top," one said with the indifference of a Beat. "Like wow."
I wasn't in the least surprised that once they got into it, some of the students began to adopt Beat fashion and language outside of class.
Only a square wouldn't get the attraction.
We were told that "Singularium" by Joey Tran and Sean Hambright was shot in a week and took eighteen months to do the special effects.
That tells me that filmmakers have a special kind of patience. But also humor.
The program clarified, "Shawn would like to punch Joey Tran in the kidneys when he isn't looking, then kick him about the had and chest. Joey has it coming."
The story centered on the collapse of the universe and one guy's problem with his girlfriend, who kept clarifying that they weren't getting back together.
Once you break up, there's really no point, even with doom staring you in the face.
The movie's music caught my ear and I found out in the credits that it was done by Prabir, he of Goldrush renown.
Hunter Brumfield's "Biosolid" got played last because, we were told, "It was being redone in the back room at the last minute."
The experimental film left the girls behind us whining,"I don't get it."
But that's the beauty of the James River Filmmakers Forum.
You don't have to "get" all of the films. Or even some of them.
You don't have to like them, either.
It's just a fine opportunity to see what's going on in the local filmmaking community.
From what I saw, praising and dancing. Soaping up of a belly. Repeating girlfriends. A girl eating laundry detergent.
And bongo playing.
Because some things will always be worth snapping your fingers about on a Saturday night.
Dinner at Lunch was one. Local film was another.
And bongo playing, always.
Dig it.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
More Than This
Even the most sociable of extroverts occasionally needs an introverted day.
I began mine with a drive past the windmill, past the sheep farm and out to the Northern Neck to see my parents.
They are both talkers so while I help out with things around the house, we chat about the strangest things.
My mother's wedding suit was a size seven and she weighed 104 pounds when she got married, I learn as I mend a draft snake for them.
While helping water the array of plants on the big screened porch, we compare the soft-shelled crab preparations we've all had lately.
I hear that they've gotten an e-mail from their local restaurant saying sugar toads are in.
As is typical for her, my mother expresses disgust at the thought of something so exotic while I wax poetic about the sugar toads I had three days ago.
Sometimes the apple does fall far from the tree.
After lunch I sit bundled on the dock with the river lapping all around me, finishing Rob Sheffield's ode to coming of age in the 80s, "Talking to Girls about Duran Duran."
May I just acknowledge that I hadn't thought about Madonna's "Dress You Up" since, well, probably the 80s?
I related to both the musical references, Roxy Music, A Flock of Seagulls, Psychedelic Furs, as well as the spirit of the book: "So we beat on, boats against the currents, borne ceaselessly back into Bryan Ferry."
Surely that set the tone for the rest of my night, if not my life.
Back home, I chose some solitary art time by going to the Visual Arts Center to see "Oscar Munoz: Imprints for a Fleeting Memorial" because it leaves tomorrow.
It's a compelling show with the Colombian artist exploring image and memory in various multi-media permutations.
And I was the sole occupant of the gallery.
"Narcissus" was a video self-portrait done by sifting charcoal onto the water of a bathroom sink.
The charcoal causes a shadow of the image to form and as the water slowly drains, the image and its shadow coincide, his mouth becoming misshapen, his jaw floating away, until it all goes down the drain.
So much for vanity.
In the back gallery was an installation called "Sedimentaciones," consisting of two tables with overhead video projections on them.
Table as canvas, so to speak.
On each were images of photos, blank paper and two developing trays with drains.
Out of nowhere, a hand appears and picks up an image and places it in the tray where it dissolves.
But wait, moments later another hand appears, chooses a blank image, placing it in the tray where an image appears.
Ad infinitum. And all the while, the sound of a drain is heard.
Mesmerizing was the video piece, "Roltrato," a word which can mean either "portrait" or "I try again."
In the video, Munoz uses a paint brush with water on it to "paint" his portrait with water on a concrete slab in the sun.
The moment he creates the image, it starts to disappear. Trying again endlessly to create a portrait.
Roltrato.
It undoubtedly says something about what an art geek I am that I can walk out of a show the night before it leaves town feeling lucky to have made a last minute catch.
Book finished, art appreciated, there was nothing left for me to do but go eat.
But eating's tricky this week what with restaurant week going on; I don't want to add to the fracas.
That led me practically back home to Magpie where I found a civilized but small crowd probably seeking the same thing.
A glass of Conde Villar Tinto was an easy-drinking Portuguese wine I found justifiable given today's cooler temperatures.
The amuse bouche was a cucumber square in tomato coconut cream with lime foam.
Now I was amused.
I heard about upcoming nuptials from a groom-to-be, with the bachelor party involving guns, pig and a road trip.
Most brilliant of all, it's also scheduled days in advance of the big day.
As the bartender said, "Who ever thought the night before was a good idea?"
Needless to say, the bride was not in attendance, given the proximity of the ceremony.
I was happy to see a section of the menu devoted to low-priced small plates and began there with fried hearts of artichoke with roasted poblano pesto ("I could eat a vat of that pesto," the bartender told me and I agreed).
Nor could I resist the fish special, a sandwich of all things.
More precisely, an open-faced sandwich, a pan-fried softshell on a French batard with house cured bacon (pork belly), tomatoes, sunflower shoots and a poblano curry sauce.
The bacon was thick and plentiful, the crab crispy and the kitchen clearly working the poblanos.
Well, I might add.
Other than my brief chat with the groom, I'd spent the evening reading about Baltimore's quintessential cookie and keeping my sociability to myself.
For an extrovert, it's almost like beating against the current.
I began mine with a drive past the windmill, past the sheep farm and out to the Northern Neck to see my parents.
They are both talkers so while I help out with things around the house, we chat about the strangest things.
My mother's wedding suit was a size seven and she weighed 104 pounds when she got married, I learn as I mend a draft snake for them.
While helping water the array of plants on the big screened porch, we compare the soft-shelled crab preparations we've all had lately.
I hear that they've gotten an e-mail from their local restaurant saying sugar toads are in.
As is typical for her, my mother expresses disgust at the thought of something so exotic while I wax poetic about the sugar toads I had three days ago.
Sometimes the apple does fall far from the tree.
After lunch I sit bundled on the dock with the river lapping all around me, finishing Rob Sheffield's ode to coming of age in the 80s, "Talking to Girls about Duran Duran."
May I just acknowledge that I hadn't thought about Madonna's "Dress You Up" since, well, probably the 80s?
I related to both the musical references, Roxy Music, A Flock of Seagulls, Psychedelic Furs, as well as the spirit of the book: "So we beat on, boats against the currents, borne ceaselessly back into Bryan Ferry."
Surely that set the tone for the rest of my night, if not my life.
Back home, I chose some solitary art time by going to the Visual Arts Center to see "Oscar Munoz: Imprints for a Fleeting Memorial" because it leaves tomorrow.
It's a compelling show with the Colombian artist exploring image and memory in various multi-media permutations.
And I was the sole occupant of the gallery.
"Narcissus" was a video self-portrait done by sifting charcoal onto the water of a bathroom sink.
The charcoal causes a shadow of the image to form and as the water slowly drains, the image and its shadow coincide, his mouth becoming misshapen, his jaw floating away, until it all goes down the drain.
So much for vanity.
In the back gallery was an installation called "Sedimentaciones," consisting of two tables with overhead video projections on them.
Table as canvas, so to speak.
On each were images of photos, blank paper and two developing trays with drains.
Out of nowhere, a hand appears and picks up an image and places it in the tray where it dissolves.
But wait, moments later another hand appears, chooses a blank image, placing it in the tray where an image appears.
Ad infinitum. And all the while, the sound of a drain is heard.
Mesmerizing was the video piece, "Roltrato," a word which can mean either "portrait" or "I try again."
In the video, Munoz uses a paint brush with water on it to "paint" his portrait with water on a concrete slab in the sun.
The moment he creates the image, it starts to disappear. Trying again endlessly to create a portrait.
Roltrato.
It undoubtedly says something about what an art geek I am that I can walk out of a show the night before it leaves town feeling lucky to have made a last minute catch.
Book finished, art appreciated, there was nothing left for me to do but go eat.
But eating's tricky this week what with restaurant week going on; I don't want to add to the fracas.
That led me practically back home to Magpie where I found a civilized but small crowd probably seeking the same thing.
A glass of Conde Villar Tinto was an easy-drinking Portuguese wine I found justifiable given today's cooler temperatures.
The amuse bouche was a cucumber square in tomato coconut cream with lime foam.
Now I was amused.
I heard about upcoming nuptials from a groom-to-be, with the bachelor party involving guns, pig and a road trip.
Most brilliant of all, it's also scheduled days in advance of the big day.
As the bartender said, "Who ever thought the night before was a good idea?"
Needless to say, the bride was not in attendance, given the proximity of the ceremony.
I was happy to see a section of the menu devoted to low-priced small plates and began there with fried hearts of artichoke with roasted poblano pesto ("I could eat a vat of that pesto," the bartender told me and I agreed).
Nor could I resist the fish special, a sandwich of all things.
More precisely, an open-faced sandwich, a pan-fried softshell on a French batard with house cured bacon (pork belly), tomatoes, sunflower shoots and a poblano curry sauce.
The bacon was thick and plentiful, the crab crispy and the kitchen clearly working the poblanos.
Well, I might add.
Other than my brief chat with the groom, I'd spent the evening reading about Baltimore's quintessential cookie and keeping my sociability to myself.
For an extrovert, it's almost like beating against the current.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Who's the Greatest Star?
Highlight #1 - Ice cream and deflowering
Visit #4 to the James River Film Festival at the Visual Arts Center was frigid (too much a/c) and charming (foreign and subtitled).
The short, "Bregman/As Follows" was about a Jewish Latin American kid about to have his bar mitzvah.
He studies, he practices, he has the ceremony and party.
And then dad takes him to lose his virginity. When he picks him up, he asks how it was.
The boy turns up the car radio.
Dad asks the boy if he wants to go for ice cream. Fin.
A charming film about a 13-year old being thrown into the deep waters of manhood.
Next was "A Useful Life," a Uruguayan film about a guy who'd worked in an art house cinema for 25 years.
When it closes, he has to figure out what to do with himself.
Like many a confirmed bachelor, he has no idea.
It was shot in black and white and the lead is played by a Uruguayan film critic, making for a particularly un-actorly performance.
I saw it as addressing the philosophical question, what do you do when everything you know goes away?
I seem to recall addressing that very issue just a few years ago myself, but not in nearly so stylish a black and white film.
Highlight #2- Half priced and washed out
Sunday supper came courtesy of Carytown's new gastropub, Burger Bach, and I went in eager to try a grass-fed, organic burger.
Instead we bellied up to a bar with four screens (a major negative and in hindsight it would have behooved us to sit at the community table and face Thompson Street) and went seafood.
Turns out every day from 4-6 is half off mussels, oysters and shrimp.
Each came with the option of four or five preparations, so we got mussels in a traditional sauce (garlic, shallots, parsley, lemon, white wine), oysters casino (bacon, peppers, onions, Parmesan) and shrimp in a French sauce (Dijon mustard, shallots, cream, garlic and tarragon).
The place had a borderline chain feel despite being a standalone, the wine list was all New World (although no U.S.) so there were several good South African choices and tons of Australian and New Zealand.
The music was spot on, doing enough interesting alternative to keep my ears pricked.
Anytime I hear Washed Out in a restaurant two night before I'll see them play out gets major points.
A stroll down Cary Street wound up at Amici where the front was completely open in the beautiful evening air.
Lots of people were catching a pre-show meal before Allison Krause but we just wanted dessert: panna cotta and chocolate mousse with a light breeze blowing in from the street.
Highlight #3: Song for a Ukrop
The Ghostlight Party at Richmond Triangle Players had been on my calendar for a month since I always seem to be out of town when they occur.
I knew from the organizer (a fabulous bartender and chatter) that it promised to be a rollicking good time and it was.
We arrived at 8:00 for naught; by the time it did begin, host Matt came out in a black bustier, panties, fishnets, black heels and lipstick.
"Sorry for the late start. Clearly we're on drag time," he said to much laughter.
And that's how the party began and I use party loosely because you pay your five bucks and you're at the party.
It's worth it for the parade of local theater talent who show up at one point or another during the four-plus hour soiree.
One of tonight's guests was actress Susan Sanford, whom I first saw in "The Merry Wives of Windsor Farms" so long ago that neither she nor I would want to admit it.
Although I still remember it as one of the cleverest adaptations of the Bard I've seen.
Back to my point, which was that despite having seen her in many shows, I had no idea she had such a great singing voice.
When called to the stage and heralded as "the best diva here," she was quick to toss an "Oh, shut up!" over her shoulder.
Everyone was a ham and it was great fun watching them tackle theater music whether they remembered every lyric or not ("Not the point," the host Matt insisted).
And it's a theater-savvy audience with people saying things to each other like, "You can't go wrong with a Richard Rodgers."
Matt switched to a leather jacket, cuffed up girl's jeans and hot pink platform pumps to sing a pouty happy birthday to Ted Ukrop.
Ted allowed that Matt's legs were the best he'd seen in a while.
Sarah Porter got up to do "A Single Tear" (and in Italian, too; it was impressive) since it's the 100th anniversary of the Titanic.
"Do we applaud that?" Matt ruminated out loud to the audience.
Good question. There was a smattering of applause.
We heard "Because the Night" and Joe Jackson's "Breaking us in Two," resulting in a funny moment when Andrew Hamm stopped playing piano and singing and said accusingly to Liz Blake-White, "Wait, you're not supposed to be singing the harmony there."
Her guilty face said it all.
One showstopper was Sanford doing "I'm the Greatest Star" from "Funny Girl" except that she substituted names Streisand wouldn't have known.
Instead of singing "Hey, Mr. Keeney, here I am!" she substituted "Hey, Mr. Kniffen, Hey, Mrs. Piersol, Hey, Mr. Maupin, Hey, Mr. Patton, here I am!" to make it RVA-funny.
And don't get me started about the two guys who shall remain nameless singing "Suddenly, Seymour" to each other as they tried not to crack up.
One guy was asked to remove his shirt before he sang (actually there was also unzipping of his pants).
Once we admired his body, we heard his beautiful singing voice.
That's just how they roll at the Ghostlight party.
The whole evening was truly like a party; the bar was open, there was all kinds of food (little savory meat roll-ups) and sweets (eclairs and cupcakes) and later snacks (pizza arrived around 11:30).
If you didn't want to hear a song, you went to the lobby and gabbed away.
And Matt and Maggie kept the whole show rolling along, collecting names of people who wanted to perform when not dancing or singing backup (Maggie) and making witty and/or dirty commentary between songs (Matt).
Both played mic stand at one point or another.
But let's be real here. Maggie did her job in flats and Matt was working in five-inch heels and major eye makeup.
You gotta give a man credit where credit is due.
That said, we couldn't have asked for two better hosts for an evening of divas, male and female.
By the time we left, all I could think was "Baby, Hit Me One More Time."
Scott's Addition has the best piano bar in Richmond.
I'd be a fool to be out of town for the next one.
Visit #4 to the James River Film Festival at the Visual Arts Center was frigid (too much a/c) and charming (foreign and subtitled).
The short, "Bregman/As Follows" was about a Jewish Latin American kid about to have his bar mitzvah.
He studies, he practices, he has the ceremony and party.
And then dad takes him to lose his virginity. When he picks him up, he asks how it was.
The boy turns up the car radio.
Dad asks the boy if he wants to go for ice cream. Fin.
A charming film about a 13-year old being thrown into the deep waters of manhood.
Next was "A Useful Life," a Uruguayan film about a guy who'd worked in an art house cinema for 25 years.
When it closes, he has to figure out what to do with himself.
Like many a confirmed bachelor, he has no idea.
It was shot in black and white and the lead is played by a Uruguayan film critic, making for a particularly un-actorly performance.
I saw it as addressing the philosophical question, what do you do when everything you know goes away?
I seem to recall addressing that very issue just a few years ago myself, but not in nearly so stylish a black and white film.
Highlight #2- Half priced and washed out
Sunday supper came courtesy of Carytown's new gastropub, Burger Bach, and I went in eager to try a grass-fed, organic burger.
Instead we bellied up to a bar with four screens (a major negative and in hindsight it would have behooved us to sit at the community table and face Thompson Street) and went seafood.
Turns out every day from 4-6 is half off mussels, oysters and shrimp.
Each came with the option of four or five preparations, so we got mussels in a traditional sauce (garlic, shallots, parsley, lemon, white wine), oysters casino (bacon, peppers, onions, Parmesan) and shrimp in a French sauce (Dijon mustard, shallots, cream, garlic and tarragon).
The place had a borderline chain feel despite being a standalone, the wine list was all New World (although no U.S.) so there were several good South African choices and tons of Australian and New Zealand.
The music was spot on, doing enough interesting alternative to keep my ears pricked.
Anytime I hear Washed Out in a restaurant two night before I'll see them play out gets major points.
A stroll down Cary Street wound up at Amici where the front was completely open in the beautiful evening air.
Lots of people were catching a pre-show meal before Allison Krause but we just wanted dessert: panna cotta and chocolate mousse with a light breeze blowing in from the street.
Highlight #3: Song for a Ukrop
The Ghostlight Party at Richmond Triangle Players had been on my calendar for a month since I always seem to be out of town when they occur.
I knew from the organizer (a fabulous bartender and chatter) that it promised to be a rollicking good time and it was.
We arrived at 8:00 for naught; by the time it did begin, host Matt came out in a black bustier, panties, fishnets, black heels and lipstick.
"Sorry for the late start. Clearly we're on drag time," he said to much laughter.
And that's how the party began and I use party loosely because you pay your five bucks and you're at the party.
It's worth it for the parade of local theater talent who show up at one point or another during the four-plus hour soiree.
One of tonight's guests was actress Susan Sanford, whom I first saw in "The Merry Wives of Windsor Farms" so long ago that neither she nor I would want to admit it.
Although I still remember it as one of the cleverest adaptations of the Bard I've seen.
Back to my point, which was that despite having seen her in many shows, I had no idea she had such a great singing voice.
When called to the stage and heralded as "the best diva here," she was quick to toss an "Oh, shut up!" over her shoulder.
Everyone was a ham and it was great fun watching them tackle theater music whether they remembered every lyric or not ("Not the point," the host Matt insisted).
And it's a theater-savvy audience with people saying things to each other like, "You can't go wrong with a Richard Rodgers."
Matt switched to a leather jacket, cuffed up girl's jeans and hot pink platform pumps to sing a pouty happy birthday to Ted Ukrop.
Ted allowed that Matt's legs were the best he'd seen in a while.
Sarah Porter got up to do "A Single Tear" (and in Italian, too; it was impressive) since it's the 100th anniversary of the Titanic.
"Do we applaud that?" Matt ruminated out loud to the audience.
Good question. There was a smattering of applause.
We heard "Because the Night" and Joe Jackson's "Breaking us in Two," resulting in a funny moment when Andrew Hamm stopped playing piano and singing and said accusingly to Liz Blake-White, "Wait, you're not supposed to be singing the harmony there."
Her guilty face said it all.
One showstopper was Sanford doing "I'm the Greatest Star" from "Funny Girl" except that she substituted names Streisand wouldn't have known.
Instead of singing "Hey, Mr. Keeney, here I am!" she substituted "Hey, Mr. Kniffen, Hey, Mrs. Piersol, Hey, Mr. Maupin, Hey, Mr. Patton, here I am!" to make it RVA-funny.
And don't get me started about the two guys who shall remain nameless singing "Suddenly, Seymour" to each other as they tried not to crack up.
One guy was asked to remove his shirt before he sang (actually there was also unzipping of his pants).
Once we admired his body, we heard his beautiful singing voice.
That's just how they roll at the Ghostlight party.
The whole evening was truly like a party; the bar was open, there was all kinds of food (little savory meat roll-ups) and sweets (eclairs and cupcakes) and later snacks (pizza arrived around 11:30).
If you didn't want to hear a song, you went to the lobby and gabbed away.
And Matt and Maggie kept the whole show rolling along, collecting names of people who wanted to perform when not dancing or singing backup (Maggie) and making witty and/or dirty commentary between songs (Matt).
Both played mic stand at one point or another.
But let's be real here. Maggie did her job in flats and Matt was working in five-inch heels and major eye makeup.
You gotta give a man credit where credit is due.
That said, we couldn't have asked for two better hosts for an evening of divas, male and female.
By the time we left, all I could think was "Baby, Hit Me One More Time."
Scott's Addition has the best piano bar in Richmond.
I'd be a fool to be out of town for the next one.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
The Art of Destruction
One site-specific installation divided by the eager hands of a few dozen adults and children and it becomes history.
Jonathan Brilliant's "Stick Stack" show at the Visual Arts Center ended today with people like me stopping by to pull apart the room-sized piece of sculpture made entirely of wooden coffee stir sticks held together by tension and compression.
Wisely, I arrived in time to take in the installation in its entirety before the mayhem began.
It was truly beautiful, open and airy in an almost lacy way with undulating curves around pipes, columns and walls.
Arched openings yielded to different ceiling heights in the structure; it felt like a magical place inside.
And then the group of excited children and eager adults were allowed to begin dismantling it all. Because no adhesives were used, it was a matter of gently prying apart a section or two to take home.
Some people were more interested in letting loose the tension and having sticks fall around them.
I took the time to pry out a section about three feet wide and tall, my personal part of Brilliant's RVA contribution of his "Have Sticks, Will Travel World Tour."
While the structure as a whole would never again exist exactly like what I'd seen just moments before, I now had my own piece of it for the ages.
The problem was that I had walked to the Visual Arts Center. And while it had been pouring on the walk over, it had been manageable because it wasn't cold and my umbrella was large.
Walking the mile and a half home with a section of unglued sticks under the umbrella was going to be considerably more challenging.
But art lovers persevere and I made it home with only one small piece having become dislodged.
With a bit of personal tension applied to it, I was able to reattach it to the larger piece and it's already been hung on one of the cantaloupe-colored walls in my kitchen.
I think a piece of art made form the detritus of commercial coffee consumption is the ideal thing to greet me when I go in my kitchen to make breakfast each morning.
Since I've never been a coffee drinker, I expect the irony of the piece to be a delicious daily reminder of Brilliant's "natural environment," the coffee shop, only without the alluring smell.
Frickin' brilliant.
Jonathan Brilliant's "Stick Stack" show at the Visual Arts Center ended today with people like me stopping by to pull apart the room-sized piece of sculpture made entirely of wooden coffee stir sticks held together by tension and compression.
Wisely, I arrived in time to take in the installation in its entirety before the mayhem began.
It was truly beautiful, open and airy in an almost lacy way with undulating curves around pipes, columns and walls.
Arched openings yielded to different ceiling heights in the structure; it felt like a magical place inside.
And then the group of excited children and eager adults were allowed to begin dismantling it all. Because no adhesives were used, it was a matter of gently prying apart a section or two to take home.
Some people were more interested in letting loose the tension and having sticks fall around them.
I took the time to pry out a section about three feet wide and tall, my personal part of Brilliant's RVA contribution of his "Have Sticks, Will Travel World Tour."
While the structure as a whole would never again exist exactly like what I'd seen just moments before, I now had my own piece of it for the ages.
The problem was that I had walked to the Visual Arts Center. And while it had been pouring on the walk over, it had been manageable because it wasn't cold and my umbrella was large.
Walking the mile and a half home with a section of unglued sticks under the umbrella was going to be considerably more challenging.
But art lovers persevere and I made it home with only one small piece having become dislodged.
With a bit of personal tension applied to it, I was able to reattach it to the larger piece and it's already been hung on one of the cantaloupe-colored walls in my kitchen.
I think a piece of art made form the detritus of commercial coffee consumption is the ideal thing to greet me when I go in my kitchen to make breakfast each morning.
Since I've never been a coffee drinker, I expect the irony of the piece to be a delicious daily reminder of Brilliant's "natural environment," the coffee shop, only without the alluring smell.
Frickin' brilliant.
Friday, September 23, 2011
I Want a Man Like Herb
Did you hear about the ballerina who wasn't very good?
She was only a one and a half, one and a half.
That, my friends, is the kind of tutu joke the old guy behind me tells when I go to a lecture called "Ballet Russes: From Dress to Dance" at the VMFA.
On the plus side, I started at Amuse with a glass of Routas Rose listening to the story of the bartender's friend whose husband decided to go body surfing in a hurricane and broke his neck a couple of weeks ago.
Seemed like a bad call, so I was having a hard time feeling sympathy for the guy but apparently so is his wife. At least he's not dead, she said.
At the lecture I ran into two people I knew when I expected to see no one familiar.
Wait, I know people who want to hear about dead dancers and rotting costumes? Who knew?
But at Stop #2, the Visual Arts Center, I was friendless. Not that it mattered since I was there for a film screening.
They were showing "Herb and Dorothy," a documentary (like the kind I won't be able to go to the Westhampton to see much longer, here) about art collectors.
I loved the story of an NYC couple who lived on her income as a librarian in a one-bedroom apartment so they could use all of his income as a postal worker to buy art.
Starting in the 60s, they amassed a collection of over 4800 pieces of contemporary art.
They became friends with the artists from whom they bought work, many of whom went on to great success and acclaim.
Their entire life was going to galleries and art shows and finding stuff they loved.
And they were adorable together, still holding hands and discussing every purchase together.
Herb said he originally asked Dorothy out because she looked intelligent ("Not because I was cute?" she teased him).
Eventually they donated 1,000 works to the National Gallery of Art and the rest are being given out in batches of fifty to one museum in all fifty states.
That's right; the VMFA has five years to display their fifty pieces from the Vogel collection.
I get warm and fuzzy just knowing that people like Herb and Dorothy exist.
But after a lecture and a documentary, I put away my nerd hat for a little food and drink.
Now that Bobby Kruger has moved his mixology magic to Fanhouse and the scandalously illegal downstairs bar has been removed (please note tongue in cheek), my curiosity was getting the best of me.
I couldn't have picked a better evening to hang out.
The downstairs has a liquor station but no bar. High community tables fill that space and I had company come and go from my end of it all evening.
My libation of choice was a Prosecco with pepper and plum syrup, the spice of the pepper on the front balanced nicely by the rich plumminess on the finish.
The expanded menu made choosing tough.
My crab bisque was delightfully light instead of tasting like a bowl of cream and the grilled tiger shrimp gave it a nice char flavor.
I'm a sucker for a fish taco and this one benefited from the freshest of greens on it.
The beef tender (a cut I hadn't even heard of) over a Himalayan salt block with two dipping sauces was out of this world.
I couldn't decide if the best part was how the very rare meat picked up the essence of salt or what an impressive presentation it made to be served the beef on this large amber chunk of salt.
The music was spot on, just as it always was when Bobby was at Mint. Anyplace I can hear the Helio Sequence and Bon Iver is okay in my book.
My evening would have been terrific based solely on what went into my mouth, but I was unexpectedly treated to all kinds of friends, both staff and customers.
A girlfriend I haven't seen in six months. A sous chef who throws the best parties. The beer rep I run into all over town (and swears she'll make a beer drinker out of me yet). One of my very favorite food geeks.
Honestly, I couldn't have asked for a better array of company, one after the other all night long.
It was like an impromptu cocktail party with great guests, especially after my geekfest earlier.
Just what I needed until I find my very own Herb.
She was only a one and a half, one and a half.
That, my friends, is the kind of tutu joke the old guy behind me tells when I go to a lecture called "Ballet Russes: From Dress to Dance" at the VMFA.
On the plus side, I started at Amuse with a glass of Routas Rose listening to the story of the bartender's friend whose husband decided to go body surfing in a hurricane and broke his neck a couple of weeks ago.
Seemed like a bad call, so I was having a hard time feeling sympathy for the guy but apparently so is his wife. At least he's not dead, she said.
At the lecture I ran into two people I knew when I expected to see no one familiar.
Wait, I know people who want to hear about dead dancers and rotting costumes? Who knew?
But at Stop #2, the Visual Arts Center, I was friendless. Not that it mattered since I was there for a film screening.
They were showing "Herb and Dorothy," a documentary (like the kind I won't be able to go to the Westhampton to see much longer, here) about art collectors.
I loved the story of an NYC couple who lived on her income as a librarian in a one-bedroom apartment so they could use all of his income as a postal worker to buy art.
Starting in the 60s, they amassed a collection of over 4800 pieces of contemporary art.
They became friends with the artists from whom they bought work, many of whom went on to great success and acclaim.
Their entire life was going to galleries and art shows and finding stuff they loved.
And they were adorable together, still holding hands and discussing every purchase together.
Herb said he originally asked Dorothy out because she looked intelligent ("Not because I was cute?" she teased him).
Eventually they donated 1,000 works to the National Gallery of Art and the rest are being given out in batches of fifty to one museum in all fifty states.
That's right; the VMFA has five years to display their fifty pieces from the Vogel collection.
I get warm and fuzzy just knowing that people like Herb and Dorothy exist.
But after a lecture and a documentary, I put away my nerd hat for a little food and drink.
Now that Bobby Kruger has moved his mixology magic to Fanhouse and the scandalously illegal downstairs bar has been removed (please note tongue in cheek), my curiosity was getting the best of me.
I couldn't have picked a better evening to hang out.
The downstairs has a liquor station but no bar. High community tables fill that space and I had company come and go from my end of it all evening.
My libation of choice was a Prosecco with pepper and plum syrup, the spice of the pepper on the front balanced nicely by the rich plumminess on the finish.
The expanded menu made choosing tough.
My crab bisque was delightfully light instead of tasting like a bowl of cream and the grilled tiger shrimp gave it a nice char flavor.
I'm a sucker for a fish taco and this one benefited from the freshest of greens on it.
The beef tender (a cut I hadn't even heard of) over a Himalayan salt block with two dipping sauces was out of this world.
I couldn't decide if the best part was how the very rare meat picked up the essence of salt or what an impressive presentation it made to be served the beef on this large amber chunk of salt.
The music was spot on, just as it always was when Bobby was at Mint. Anyplace I can hear the Helio Sequence and Bon Iver is okay in my book.
My evening would have been terrific based solely on what went into my mouth, but I was unexpectedly treated to all kinds of friends, both staff and customers.
A girlfriend I haven't seen in six months. A sous chef who throws the best parties. The beer rep I run into all over town (and swears she'll make a beer drinker out of me yet). One of my very favorite food geeks.
Honestly, I couldn't have asked for a better array of company, one after the other all night long.
It was like an impromptu cocktail party with great guests, especially after my geekfest earlier.
Just what I needed until I find my very own Herb.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Who Questions Much Shall Learn Much
Was Lewis Ginter gay? How good is a vegan cookie? How can you stand three feet from a musician and not hear the sounds that he's making?
Should a blog post start with all questions?
My evening began with a reading at Chop Suey Books where Brian Burns was talking about his new book "Lewis Ginter."
I'd met Brian at a hurricane party last week and caught his enthusiasm for his subject matter, the man who brought mass-produced cigarettes to the U.S.
Well, that and the Jefferson Hotel. And the neighborhoods of Ginter Park and Bellevue.
Brian had made sure that the reading was more like a get-together with a cooler full of drinks (including Stewart's orange soda in bottles and lemonade) and a tray of cheese and crackers ("Ooh, Captain's wafers!" one attendee exclaimed).
Since Ginter left no personal papers, Burns turned to old newspapers from the 1880s through the 19920s, recently digitized and available ("Isn't that fabulous?" he asked).
Using the keywords Ginter, tobacco and Pope (Ginter's long-time companion and the man he mentored was John Pope), Burns uncovered plenty of source material about Ginter.
When Ginter started his cigarette factory, they were hand rolled by white women. Jefferson was his idol.
Tobacco was part of the rations for a Civil War soldier, of which Ginter was one.
His motto was "If you see an opportunity, take it."
He designed his own cigarette packs and was a major supporter of the arts.
But did it mean anything that Ginter lived with a man thirty years his junior until his death?
Burns didn't uncover the answer to that one, despite untold hours researching it and inquiring minds wanting to know.
But with the two framed pictures sitting on the table, Ginter and Pope side by side as they had been in real life, it didn't seem that far-fetched.
Not that it was the kind of thing Ginter would have wanted to share in 19th-century Richmond. Oh, my, no.
All the talk of repressed sexuality was making me hungry.
A mere three blocks away at Amuse, I arrived to a full dining room and an empty bar. Empty of people, not of spirits, that is.
I had the Sette Ventiquattro Spumante, a Prosecco-style sparkler that worked well with my mussels and Surry sausage in a lemon butter broth.
Unexpectedly, I had company when a friend who'd just gotten off sat down next to me for dinner, also ordering the mussels and sharing the Spumante with me.
We got in a discussion with the bartender about friends and wanna-be friends and how no one has enough time to spend it with people they don't care about.
That's when I was told about the "reject line," a handy-dandy phone number to give people who request your digits when you don't want to hear from them.
And here I've just been saying no when asked. Leave it to technology to save people the trouble of being honest face to face.
For dessert, we got an item brand-new to the menu, so new that the bartender hadn't even laid eyes on it yet.
It was a chickpea cookie with saffron and Mandarin and lemon sorbet on the side.
True, the cookie was gluten-free and vegan, but I don't know who could tell that from a taste of it.
We talked about how a lot of people probably wouldn't order it because they wouldn't understand what it was, but if they tasted it without knowing, they'd think it delicious.
But I think that's true of sweetbreads, too.
A torrential rain began while we ate our dessert and since I had to leave soon, my friend saved me from becoming a soggy mess when he pulled out an extra rain jacket from his backpack.
Only a guy would have two rain jackets in his bag and if that sounds sexist, so be it.
I didn't have far to go in the rain, but the jacket couldn't save my feet, which had to step through ankle-deep puddles to get to my car.
My cute sandals will never be the same.
But wet feet couldn't keep me from the Musicircus, the annual tribute to composer John Cage that drummer Brian Jones coordinates every year.
From outside the Visual Arts Center, I could see Matt Coyle playing vibes in a front window but all I could hear was the driving rain.
Just inside, I stood three feet from Josh small playing banjo, but all I could hear was the Gamelan orchestra in the next room.
Moving from room to room, I heard sax player Jason Scott playing as a duo with a grimacing drummer, trombonist Bryan Hooten with two other horn players, Marionette's bassist with two clarinet players, and of course Brian Jones, tonight playing as part of a two-bassist jazz quintet.
SCUO, the duo of Scott Clark and Scott Burton finished just as I walked in their room. My loss.
One of the more interesting musicians played a collection of everyday items, like clay flower pots, restaurant-style metal kitchen containers, cans of paint taped together, a watering can and a piece of sheet metal.
It was a percussion wonderland amidst a musical extravaganza.
You have to experience the musicircus to understand how fascinating it is to see one group playing and hear another.
Or how you have to practically get on top of some musicians to hear them over the cacophony of others.
Or to realize how lucky we are to have an annual free Musicircus featuring some of the best musicians in Richmond.
Wouldn't Lewis Ginter and John Pope have raised a glass of Spumante to that?
Should a blog post start with all questions?
My evening began with a reading at Chop Suey Books where Brian Burns was talking about his new book "Lewis Ginter."
I'd met Brian at a hurricane party last week and caught his enthusiasm for his subject matter, the man who brought mass-produced cigarettes to the U.S.
Well, that and the Jefferson Hotel. And the neighborhoods of Ginter Park and Bellevue.
Brian had made sure that the reading was more like a get-together with a cooler full of drinks (including Stewart's orange soda in bottles and lemonade) and a tray of cheese and crackers ("Ooh, Captain's wafers!" one attendee exclaimed).
Since Ginter left no personal papers, Burns turned to old newspapers from the 1880s through the 19920s, recently digitized and available ("Isn't that fabulous?" he asked).
Using the keywords Ginter, tobacco and Pope (Ginter's long-time companion and the man he mentored was John Pope), Burns uncovered plenty of source material about Ginter.
When Ginter started his cigarette factory, they were hand rolled by white women. Jefferson was his idol.
Tobacco was part of the rations for a Civil War soldier, of which Ginter was one.
His motto was "If you see an opportunity, take it."
He designed his own cigarette packs and was a major supporter of the arts.
But did it mean anything that Ginter lived with a man thirty years his junior until his death?
Burns didn't uncover the answer to that one, despite untold hours researching it and inquiring minds wanting to know.
But with the two framed pictures sitting on the table, Ginter and Pope side by side as they had been in real life, it didn't seem that far-fetched.
Not that it was the kind of thing Ginter would have wanted to share in 19th-century Richmond. Oh, my, no.
All the talk of repressed sexuality was making me hungry.
A mere three blocks away at Amuse, I arrived to a full dining room and an empty bar. Empty of people, not of spirits, that is.
I had the Sette Ventiquattro Spumante, a Prosecco-style sparkler that worked well with my mussels and Surry sausage in a lemon butter broth.
Unexpectedly, I had company when a friend who'd just gotten off sat down next to me for dinner, also ordering the mussels and sharing the Spumante with me.
We got in a discussion with the bartender about friends and wanna-be friends and how no one has enough time to spend it with people they don't care about.
That's when I was told about the "reject line," a handy-dandy phone number to give people who request your digits when you don't want to hear from them.
And here I've just been saying no when asked. Leave it to technology to save people the trouble of being honest face to face.
For dessert, we got an item brand-new to the menu, so new that the bartender hadn't even laid eyes on it yet.
It was a chickpea cookie with saffron and Mandarin and lemon sorbet on the side.
True, the cookie was gluten-free and vegan, but I don't know who could tell that from a taste of it.
We talked about how a lot of people probably wouldn't order it because they wouldn't understand what it was, but if they tasted it without knowing, they'd think it delicious.
But I think that's true of sweetbreads, too.
A torrential rain began while we ate our dessert and since I had to leave soon, my friend saved me from becoming a soggy mess when he pulled out an extra rain jacket from his backpack.
Only a guy would have two rain jackets in his bag and if that sounds sexist, so be it.
I didn't have far to go in the rain, but the jacket couldn't save my feet, which had to step through ankle-deep puddles to get to my car.
My cute sandals will never be the same.
But wet feet couldn't keep me from the Musicircus, the annual tribute to composer John Cage that drummer Brian Jones coordinates every year.
From outside the Visual Arts Center, I could see Matt Coyle playing vibes in a front window but all I could hear was the driving rain.
Just inside, I stood three feet from Josh small playing banjo, but all I could hear was the Gamelan orchestra in the next room.
Moving from room to room, I heard sax player Jason Scott playing as a duo with a grimacing drummer, trombonist Bryan Hooten with two other horn players, Marionette's bassist with two clarinet players, and of course Brian Jones, tonight playing as part of a two-bassist jazz quintet.
SCUO, the duo of Scott Clark and Scott Burton finished just as I walked in their room. My loss.
One of the more interesting musicians played a collection of everyday items, like clay flower pots, restaurant-style metal kitchen containers, cans of paint taped together, a watering can and a piece of sheet metal.
It was a percussion wonderland amidst a musical extravaganza.
You have to experience the musicircus to understand how fascinating it is to see one group playing and hear another.
Or how you have to practically get on top of some musicians to hear them over the cacophony of others.
Or to realize how lucky we are to have an annual free Musicircus featuring some of the best musicians in Richmond.
Wouldn't Lewis Ginter and John Pope have raised a glass of Spumante to that?
Thursday, August 18, 2011
It's What They Wear Underneath
With the James River Filmmakers Forum, you are guaranteed variety.
That means 16 mm and video. It means comic fables and music documentaries. It means shorts and clips from longer works. It means stories about dating and self-mutilation (not related, by the way).
At tonight's screening at the Visual Arts Center, it meant five films (or parts of films) and a good-sized crowd to take them in.
The first two shorts by Robert Massa,"Margaret" and "Cora," were from a series about women and their neuroses.
Because they were done on film, the images were just beautiful. Interestingly, some of the film had been developed in the filmmaker's bathroom.
The main character in "Cora" was a cutter and, in a truly odd twist, so was the actress who played her. It was an unsettling thing to learn after the fact.
"Treezilla" by Joey Tran and Shawn Hambright used paper cutouts and a pipe cleaner tree monster to tell a cautionary tale about over-sized trees gone bad.
A lot of the dialog had a dry wit to it, surpassed only by the sound the raging tree made, which we learned was a combination of screaming and burping.
Some things they can't teach you in film school.
We only saw fifteen minutes of Les Owens' "The Silo Effect: The Treehouse Sessions" because it was a 47-minute film.
It documented local band The Silo Effect's three day recording session at Sound of Music Studios.
Made by the father of one of the band members who was a professional musician for over thirty years before taking up filmmaking, the documentary served as a tease to a bigger story than we got to see.
The youngest of the filmmakers was Thomas Bell, a senior filmmaking student at VCU.
"The Gauntlet" was a humorous take on speed dating (shot at the Empress, of all places) and the issues inherent in any kind of first date when so much can be read into what people say.
And don't say.
From the overly agreeable yes man to the over-confident studly type, the film exposed a variety of male stereotypes and what their behavior means.
There were also a few female cliches like the girl obsessed with her ex and the bitch who wouldn't cut any guys any slack.
Even the credits were funny, with one that said, "Thanks to all the extras who forgot to give us their names."
It was quite a leap from there to Tamara Eastman's historical documentary, "Birthing a Colony," a film about how different the experiences of women giving birth in the Virginia colony were depending on their social class.
Indentured servants and slaves had it worst, not surprisingly, often having their babies taken from them before being thrown in jail or sold.
But as the film showed, any woman was at risk giving birth in a time where childbirth frequently killed mother or infant or both.
I always stick around for the filmmakers' panel after the screenings, because, cutting and burping aside, you never know what fascinating tidbits you'll hear from the filmmakers.
For example, when some women are talking about an attractive guy one of them saw, the first question they ask is, "Is he in a kilt?"
When women like that start a production company, they name it Is He in a Kilt? Productions.
Fact.
So I guess if I ever start a production company, it'll be called Is He a Good Talker and Kisser? Productions.
Prediction.
That means 16 mm and video. It means comic fables and music documentaries. It means shorts and clips from longer works. It means stories about dating and self-mutilation (not related, by the way).
At tonight's screening at the Visual Arts Center, it meant five films (or parts of films) and a good-sized crowd to take them in.
The first two shorts by Robert Massa,"Margaret" and "Cora," were from a series about women and their neuroses.
Because they were done on film, the images were just beautiful. Interestingly, some of the film had been developed in the filmmaker's bathroom.
The main character in "Cora" was a cutter and, in a truly odd twist, so was the actress who played her. It was an unsettling thing to learn after the fact.
"Treezilla" by Joey Tran and Shawn Hambright used paper cutouts and a pipe cleaner tree monster to tell a cautionary tale about over-sized trees gone bad.
A lot of the dialog had a dry wit to it, surpassed only by the sound the raging tree made, which we learned was a combination of screaming and burping.
Some things they can't teach you in film school.
We only saw fifteen minutes of Les Owens' "The Silo Effect: The Treehouse Sessions" because it was a 47-minute film.
It documented local band The Silo Effect's three day recording session at Sound of Music Studios.
Made by the father of one of the band members who was a professional musician for over thirty years before taking up filmmaking, the documentary served as a tease to a bigger story than we got to see.
The youngest of the filmmakers was Thomas Bell, a senior filmmaking student at VCU.
"The Gauntlet" was a humorous take on speed dating (shot at the Empress, of all places) and the issues inherent in any kind of first date when so much can be read into what people say.
And don't say.
From the overly agreeable yes man to the over-confident studly type, the film exposed a variety of male stereotypes and what their behavior means.
There were also a few female cliches like the girl obsessed with her ex and the bitch who wouldn't cut any guys any slack.
Even the credits were funny, with one that said, "Thanks to all the extras who forgot to give us their names."
It was quite a leap from there to Tamara Eastman's historical documentary, "Birthing a Colony," a film about how different the experiences of women giving birth in the Virginia colony were depending on their social class.
Indentured servants and slaves had it worst, not surprisingly, often having their babies taken from them before being thrown in jail or sold.
But as the film showed, any woman was at risk giving birth in a time where childbirth frequently killed mother or infant or both.
I always stick around for the filmmakers' panel after the screenings, because, cutting and burping aside, you never know what fascinating tidbits you'll hear from the filmmakers.
For example, when some women are talking about an attractive guy one of them saw, the first question they ask is, "Is he in a kilt?"
When women like that start a production company, they name it Is He in a Kilt? Productions.
Fact.
So I guess if I ever start a production company, it'll be called Is He a Good Talker and Kisser? Productions.
Prediction.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Honest. I Did Not Lick the Art.
I couldn't get excited about going to the county, even for festive Lebanese food.
So for my lunch plans with a favorite couple, I countered by suggesting Olio and two of us had the bright idea to do the Main Street art walk afterwards.
I arrived a bit ahead of time, early enough to play straight man to owner Jason as we chatted about the scarcity of available (straight) men, the cashier heartily seconding that.
A salad seemed like just the thing for two of us (he got the smoked salmon Nicoise and I got the Springtime), while the Bottomless Pit got the prosciutto di parma sandwich and then scarfed our leftover grilled bread.
We took Jason up on his suggestion of cookies for dessert as we headed down Main Street to see what we might find.
I have to admit, I'm a big fan of the galleries in my J-Ward neighborhood (and, honestly, I usually like the art better on my side of town) and tend to avoid the Main Street ones because of the kind of people I encounter in them.
But on a leisurely Saturday, those people are absent and the galleries are an interesting mix of out-of-town Picasso visitors and others like us, out for an afternoon art stroll.
Our first stop was the Page Bond Gallery to see Andrea Keys Connell and Lacey Jane Roberts' "VCU Arts Craft/Material Studies Fountainhead Fellows" show.
Connell did large scale ceramic works, most of which pertained to the myth of Hercules, some coming in or out of the wall, and some emerging from the floor.
From hard to soft, the centerpiece of Roberts' works was a large scale knitted piece hung on the wall and draped on the floor with words sewn on it.
It was called "Queer Houses of Brooklyn" and a variety of topical buttons lay on the floor in front of it. The price listing for the show indicated that the buttons were for giving away, so I helped myself to one that said "shooting star."
Next up was Artemis Gallery, a place new to all of us. The array of hand-crafted items was staggering and the delightful assortment of handmade and artistic pasties undoubtedly the best I've ever seen. And, just for the record, I'm not that I'm in the market for pasties.
I ran into an artist who recognized me (I couldn't pull up her name for anything) when she overheard my friend make a remark about another artist she knew.
Luckily, she didn't hear the negative comment he'd made about her friend first (one of his most charming habits being his ill-timed and frequently overheard commentary). Oops.
At Red Door, Justin Bishop's metal sculpture from the past ten years reminded me of Giacometti's work, attenuated and with rough metal surfaces.
I was particularly fascinated by the one with nails driven into the figure. Another of a horizontal figure over sharp points was visually stunning.
Leslie Wayne's show at the Visual Arts Center was difficult to get our heads around. Wayne uses sculptural techniques to craft paintings that are three-dimensional. It was challenging to read the vibrantly colored, textured surfaces as paint.
A sign in the gallery said "Please do not touch (or lick) the paintings."
Awkwardly, I saw this sign after my friend and I had yielded to the impulse to lightly touch a surface in hopes of figuring it out.
Part of the show included Wayne's "One Big Love" series, for which the artist created rules including one that the canvases couldn't be larger than 13" x 10".
She also made listening to music one of the conditions of painting the series, resulting in her playing Patty Griffin's song "One Big Love" repeatedly. Needless to say, an artist using music as an obsession feeds into all kinds of things that appeal to me.
Our final stop was Glave Kocen for Ed Trask's show of large scale works, small photographs and metal sculpture.
I was charmed by seeing one of Ed's trademark straw hats hanging on the wall in between paintings.
I was taken by how many of the pieces had a red "sold" sticker on them when the show just opened a week ago. It appears that the Main Street art-buying set had their checkbooks out at Ed's opening.
Hell, I'd happily buy a Trask if I could afford one. I know I could enjoy looking at his work on my walls every day; it embodies Richmond.
And while I could have afforded one of the framed photographs, the ones that spoke to me had already been stickered.
Ah,well. Not meant to be, today anyway, or so the pragmatist in me whispered.
Likewise the Lebanese Food Festival wasn't meant to be for me today. But given the satisfying afternoon I spent eating and ogling art with the happy couple, I'm not feeling any loss.
Shooting stars look forward, not at what they missed.
So for my lunch plans with a favorite couple, I countered by suggesting Olio and two of us had the bright idea to do the Main Street art walk afterwards.
I arrived a bit ahead of time, early enough to play straight man to owner Jason as we chatted about the scarcity of available (straight) men, the cashier heartily seconding that.
A salad seemed like just the thing for two of us (he got the smoked salmon Nicoise and I got the Springtime), while the Bottomless Pit got the prosciutto di parma sandwich and then scarfed our leftover grilled bread.
We took Jason up on his suggestion of cookies for dessert as we headed down Main Street to see what we might find.
I have to admit, I'm a big fan of the galleries in my J-Ward neighborhood (and, honestly, I usually like the art better on my side of town) and tend to avoid the Main Street ones because of the kind of people I encounter in them.
But on a leisurely Saturday, those people are absent and the galleries are an interesting mix of out-of-town Picasso visitors and others like us, out for an afternoon art stroll.
Our first stop was the Page Bond Gallery to see Andrea Keys Connell and Lacey Jane Roberts' "VCU Arts Craft/Material Studies Fountainhead Fellows" show.
Connell did large scale ceramic works, most of which pertained to the myth of Hercules, some coming in or out of the wall, and some emerging from the floor.
From hard to soft, the centerpiece of Roberts' works was a large scale knitted piece hung on the wall and draped on the floor with words sewn on it.
It was called "Queer Houses of Brooklyn" and a variety of topical buttons lay on the floor in front of it. The price listing for the show indicated that the buttons were for giving away, so I helped myself to one that said "shooting star."
Next up was Artemis Gallery, a place new to all of us. The array of hand-crafted items was staggering and the delightful assortment of handmade and artistic pasties undoubtedly the best I've ever seen. And, just for the record, I'm not that I'm in the market for pasties.
I ran into an artist who recognized me (I couldn't pull up her name for anything) when she overheard my friend make a remark about another artist she knew.
Luckily, she didn't hear the negative comment he'd made about her friend first (one of his most charming habits being his ill-timed and frequently overheard commentary). Oops.
At Red Door, Justin Bishop's metal sculpture from the past ten years reminded me of Giacometti's work, attenuated and with rough metal surfaces.
I was particularly fascinated by the one with nails driven into the figure. Another of a horizontal figure over sharp points was visually stunning.
Leslie Wayne's show at the Visual Arts Center was difficult to get our heads around. Wayne uses sculptural techniques to craft paintings that are three-dimensional. It was challenging to read the vibrantly colored, textured surfaces as paint.
A sign in the gallery said "Please do not touch (or lick) the paintings."
Awkwardly, I saw this sign after my friend and I had yielded to the impulse to lightly touch a surface in hopes of figuring it out.
Part of the show included Wayne's "One Big Love" series, for which the artist created rules including one that the canvases couldn't be larger than 13" x 10".
She also made listening to music one of the conditions of painting the series, resulting in her playing Patty Griffin's song "One Big Love" repeatedly. Needless to say, an artist using music as an obsession feeds into all kinds of things that appeal to me.
Our final stop was Glave Kocen for Ed Trask's show of large scale works, small photographs and metal sculpture.
I was charmed by seeing one of Ed's trademark straw hats hanging on the wall in between paintings.
I was taken by how many of the pieces had a red "sold" sticker on them when the show just opened a week ago. It appears that the Main Street art-buying set had their checkbooks out at Ed's opening.
Hell, I'd happily buy a Trask if I could afford one. I know I could enjoy looking at his work on my walls every day; it embodies Richmond.
And while I could have afforded one of the framed photographs, the ones that spoke to me had already been stickered.
Ah,well. Not meant to be, today anyway, or so the pragmatist in me whispered.
Likewise the Lebanese Food Festival wasn't meant to be for me today. But given the satisfying afternoon I spent eating and ogling art with the happy couple, I'm not feeling any loss.
Shooting stars look forward, not at what they missed.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Ambushed by Joy and Urgency
I thought there is no finer thing ever to happen in a man's life but to have a woman fall in love with you...
Today is the second day of National Poetry Month, so the Visual Arts Center was offering up a poetic treat in the form of Steve Scafidi reading his work.
It happened at 5, just as the pounding rain ceased and sun began streaming through the skylights of the VAC's reading room gallery.
Scafidi began by opting out of using the microphone, saying that he was "naturally kind of loud and proud." In fact, he did project well and it was a pleasure to hear poetry read without amplification.
He recalled being nineteen and coming to VCU. "All I knew was I loved poetry and found myself surrounded by people who took the art of poetry seriously."
The line above about no finer thing happening is from "Ten Letter Word for a Lucky Man" and refers to the first and last name of a man so lucky as to have had a woman fall in love with him. Go ahead, gentlemen, count out the letters in your name and consider if your ten letters stand for a lucky man.
Explaining that he thought many of us, including himself, had fallen in love with Lincoln, Scafidi said he was 250 pages into writing a magical biography of the man.
A co-worker at the cabinet shop where he works replied skeptically, "You mean you're making it up?" He then read "The Cavalry," certainly a magical tale of sky-bound Appaloosas on the eve of Antietam.
"Witness to the Work" was a tribute to his wife giving birth and "Naked Sunlit Afternoon with Vultures" about the creatures so familiar from his childhood near Virginia's mountains.
Just as beautiful as his poetry was his explanation of why he writes. "How much of poetry is obsession? The things you can't turn away from? Solving something in my head so I could move forward? It's the urgency."
He closed with a poem he wrote for his daughter, "To an Old Woman in the Air," about the future and intended it to be read when she's an old woman and he's long gone.
I am hoping days of unexplained joy ambushed you at every turn...
I am hoping that such beautiful words set the tone for National Poetry Month in Richmond, described by Scafidi as "The one city on earth that said yes to me when I needed it."
Yes.
Today is the second day of National Poetry Month, so the Visual Arts Center was offering up a poetic treat in the form of Steve Scafidi reading his work.
It happened at 5, just as the pounding rain ceased and sun began streaming through the skylights of the VAC's reading room gallery.
Scafidi began by opting out of using the microphone, saying that he was "naturally kind of loud and proud." In fact, he did project well and it was a pleasure to hear poetry read without amplification.
He recalled being nineteen and coming to VCU. "All I knew was I loved poetry and found myself surrounded by people who took the art of poetry seriously."
The line above about no finer thing happening is from "Ten Letter Word for a Lucky Man" and refers to the first and last name of a man so lucky as to have had a woman fall in love with him. Go ahead, gentlemen, count out the letters in your name and consider if your ten letters stand for a lucky man.
Explaining that he thought many of us, including himself, had fallen in love with Lincoln, Scafidi said he was 250 pages into writing a magical biography of the man.
A co-worker at the cabinet shop where he works replied skeptically, "You mean you're making it up?" He then read "The Cavalry," certainly a magical tale of sky-bound Appaloosas on the eve of Antietam.
"Witness to the Work" was a tribute to his wife giving birth and "Naked Sunlit Afternoon with Vultures" about the creatures so familiar from his childhood near Virginia's mountains.
Just as beautiful as his poetry was his explanation of why he writes. "How much of poetry is obsession? The things you can't turn away from? Solving something in my head so I could move forward? It's the urgency."
He closed with a poem he wrote for his daughter, "To an Old Woman in the Air," about the future and intended it to be read when she's an old woman and he's long gone.
I am hoping days of unexplained joy ambushed you at every turn...
I am hoping that such beautiful words set the tone for National Poetry Month in Richmond, described by Scafidi as "The one city on earth that said yes to me when I needed it."
Yes.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Cheap Thrills: Poetry, Party and Pop
First I had to drive through that raging thunderstorm to get to the Visual Arts Center and then make my way through ankle-deep rushing streams of water overtaking the curb to get from the car to the safety of the building.
I did both for the sake of a poetry reading which couldn't start until after the rain ceased beating noisily on the roof. There was a surprisingly good crowd in the room for the latest installment of the Fresh Ink literary series; poetry lovers are not afraid of a little cataclysmic weather it would seem.
Tara Bray led off with her lyrical poetry focused on nature and bird life (chickadees, starling, pelicans), transitioning from that to her next subject by saying, "I like birds and I like avocados."
Poet Bill Notter, standing against a side wall, missed his cue to go to the podium, asking, "Have I been introduced already?" as he approached it (he had, along with a story about how he'd spent a summer digging post holes on John Grisham's estate. "Is that awful for a poet or what?").
A reference to public phones in "Breakfast at the Roadrunner Cafe" resulted in him acknowledging, "This was back in the days of pay phones." Wow, this was ancient poetry.
His work evoked many locations because of the assortment of places he'd lived ("Parchman Farm," also known as the Mississippi State Penitentiary) or traveled to ("California Pasture").
Rounding out the reading was Jehanne Dubrow, whose poetry focused on female voices and experiences and domestic life. References to food (beets, potatoes, onions) and being a wife ran throughout.
One of the loveliest poems was about the elegant embassy parties her parents attended as members of the Foreign Service, with descriptions of clothing and the aura of excitement that surrounded their leaving. "His hand rested on the small secret of her back..."
I followed poetry with a girls' night in party at the home of a local restaurateur. It was fun because I knew only her and one other person, so I got to meet some interesting new women, including a neighbor who lives barely two blocks from me. How have we missed each other?
The food was an eclectic feast with quite a sampler from Kobe, two kinds of hummus and pistachio baklava (and I thought I didn't like baklava; this was sublime) from Mediterranean Bakery, cheeses from Urban Farmhouse and a host of other homemade taste delights (stuffed mushrooms, roasted asparagus, guacamole, crab dip) to ensure that we had something to mitigate the effects of so much much excellent wine.
We repaired to the man cave in the basement and the girl talk flowed right along with the wine. The only problem with a roomful of women is that I can't join in on a lot of the discussions. Tonight that included Short Pump mall, the pleasures of jewelry, shopping for clothes and TV favorites.
I did fine on discussions of city living, biking (and the need for a helmet) and dog walking, though. I'm always the first to acknowledge that I'm a poor representation of my sex and actually, I'm fine with that.
After the party, I wandered down the street to Gallery 5 for music, specifically to hear Chapel Hill's Embarrassing Fruit. Great name aside, I had checked them out online and really liked what I'd heard. They billed themselves as indie Italian pop, whatever the hell that meant (and I meant to find out).
Occupying audience space was the usual assorted musician crowd (more smilers than usual), in addition to mere fans like me. One talented musician spotted me and said, "You're at every show...or at least the ones I'm at. We must like the same music." You mean new and good?
It's always fun to watch drummers study the drummer and guitarists study the guitarists. Those guys got a special treat tonight because one of the Fruit's guitarists had a double neck (6 and 12-string), not an instrument you see out often and apparently of interest to everyone.
Standing with both a guitarist and a drummer, the three of us came up with comparisons to Guided By Voices and a Southern Weezer because of the great guitar sound and melodic vocals. I particularly liked the bass lines, but that's a personal preference. All in all, it was a thoroughly enjoyable set and I hope these guys come back through town again.
They don't have to bring another epic thunderstorm back with them, but they do have to bring that doubleneck. I love watching guitar geeks gawk.
It's practically poetry to a mere music-lover like me.
I did both for the sake of a poetry reading which couldn't start until after the rain ceased beating noisily on the roof. There was a surprisingly good crowd in the room for the latest installment of the Fresh Ink literary series; poetry lovers are not afraid of a little cataclysmic weather it would seem.
Tara Bray led off with her lyrical poetry focused on nature and bird life (chickadees, starling, pelicans), transitioning from that to her next subject by saying, "I like birds and I like avocados."
Poet Bill Notter, standing against a side wall, missed his cue to go to the podium, asking, "Have I been introduced already?" as he approached it (he had, along with a story about how he'd spent a summer digging post holes on John Grisham's estate. "Is that awful for a poet or what?").
A reference to public phones in "Breakfast at the Roadrunner Cafe" resulted in him acknowledging, "This was back in the days of pay phones." Wow, this was ancient poetry.
His work evoked many locations because of the assortment of places he'd lived ("Parchman Farm," also known as the Mississippi State Penitentiary) or traveled to ("California Pasture").
Rounding out the reading was Jehanne Dubrow, whose poetry focused on female voices and experiences and domestic life. References to food (beets, potatoes, onions) and being a wife ran throughout.
One of the loveliest poems was about the elegant embassy parties her parents attended as members of the Foreign Service, with descriptions of clothing and the aura of excitement that surrounded their leaving. "His hand rested on the small secret of her back..."
I followed poetry with a girls' night in party at the home of a local restaurateur. It was fun because I knew only her and one other person, so I got to meet some interesting new women, including a neighbor who lives barely two blocks from me. How have we missed each other?
The food was an eclectic feast with quite a sampler from Kobe, two kinds of hummus and pistachio baklava (and I thought I didn't like baklava; this was sublime) from Mediterranean Bakery, cheeses from Urban Farmhouse and a host of other homemade taste delights (stuffed mushrooms, roasted asparagus, guacamole, crab dip) to ensure that we had something to mitigate the effects of so much much excellent wine.
We repaired to the man cave in the basement and the girl talk flowed right along with the wine. The only problem with a roomful of women is that I can't join in on a lot of the discussions. Tonight that included Short Pump mall, the pleasures of jewelry, shopping for clothes and TV favorites.
I did fine on discussions of city living, biking (and the need for a helmet) and dog walking, though. I'm always the first to acknowledge that I'm a poor representation of my sex and actually, I'm fine with that.
After the party, I wandered down the street to Gallery 5 for music, specifically to hear Chapel Hill's Embarrassing Fruit. Great name aside, I had checked them out online and really liked what I'd heard. They billed themselves as indie Italian pop, whatever the hell that meant (and I meant to find out).
Occupying audience space was the usual assorted musician crowd (more smilers than usual), in addition to mere fans like me. One talented musician spotted me and said, "You're at every show...or at least the ones I'm at. We must like the same music." You mean new and good?
It's always fun to watch drummers study the drummer and guitarists study the guitarists. Those guys got a special treat tonight because one of the Fruit's guitarists had a double neck (6 and 12-string), not an instrument you see out often and apparently of interest to everyone.
Standing with both a guitarist and a drummer, the three of us came up with comparisons to Guided By Voices and a Southern Weezer because of the great guitar sound and melodic vocals. I particularly liked the bass lines, but that's a personal preference. All in all, it was a thoroughly enjoyable set and I hope these guys come back through town again.
They don't have to bring another epic thunderstorm back with them, but they do have to bring that doubleneck. I love watching guitar geeks gawk.
It's practically poetry to a mere music-lover like me.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
A Photographic Lesson
When all is said and done, the three concurrent South African shows on exhibit and the attendant lectures, films and gallery walks have provided RVA with an unmatched opportunity to learn about a country, its people and its art.
Today's lecture "Image as Text: Photography in South Africa During and After Apartheid," by Dr. Babatunde Lawal at the Visual Arts Center provided an historical context for the photographs currently making up the locals exhibits.
He made the point that photographs provide not only an artistic and aesthetic record of history but also a voyeuristic one with a subjective interpretation. By focusing a camera, an element of choice is inserted into the photographic record.
He began with early Western images of Africans (the "African Other") and moved into the apartheid years where photographers, both black and white, courageously risked life, limb and government reprisal for documenting the atrocities.
Some of the photographs of the Sharpville Massacre, where 69 people were killed and 186 injured in 49 seconds, were heartbreaking to see. Pictures of dead bodies being slung into police vehicles gave witness to the official attitude of the then-government toward blacks.
After the mass displacement and resettling of blacks to the outlying arid and inhospitable areas, the regulation housing built for them presented a depressing photograph. But other shots of South African women painting their houses in an effort to brighten their new neighborhoods demonstrated a glimmer of hope.
Dr. Lawal mentioned that the South African government eventually and tellingly realized the worth of what the women were doing and encouraged it, not to help them settle in to their enforced homes, but for tourist purposes.
Like all there of the current South African exhibits it was clear from the lecture that black South Africans used two main coping skills to deal with the horrors under which they lived: faith and music. Photographs of people celebrating church services and making music are, without a doubt, the most joyful images taken during the apartheid years.
But all of the photographs need to be seen, in my opinion, if only for the reminder of the past that they provide.
Today's lecture "Image as Text: Photography in South Africa During and After Apartheid," by Dr. Babatunde Lawal at the Visual Arts Center provided an historical context for the photographs currently making up the locals exhibits.
He made the point that photographs provide not only an artistic and aesthetic record of history but also a voyeuristic one with a subjective interpretation. By focusing a camera, an element of choice is inserted into the photographic record.
He began with early Western images of Africans (the "African Other") and moved into the apartheid years where photographers, both black and white, courageously risked life, limb and government reprisal for documenting the atrocities.
Some of the photographs of the Sharpville Massacre, where 69 people were killed and 186 injured in 49 seconds, were heartbreaking to see. Pictures of dead bodies being slung into police vehicles gave witness to the official attitude of the then-government toward blacks.
After the mass displacement and resettling of blacks to the outlying arid and inhospitable areas, the regulation housing built for them presented a depressing photograph. But other shots of South African women painting their houses in an effort to brighten their new neighborhoods demonstrated a glimmer of hope.
Dr. Lawal mentioned that the South African government eventually and tellingly realized the worth of what the women were doing and encouraged it, not to help them settle in to their enforced homes, but for tourist purposes.
Like all there of the current South African exhibits it was clear from the lecture that black South Africans used two main coping skills to deal with the horrors under which they lived: faith and music. Photographs of people celebrating church services and making music are, without a doubt, the most joyful images taken during the apartheid years.
But all of the photographs need to be seen, in my opinion, if only for the reminder of the past that they provide.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Thursday Thrills
Ever since the VMFA transformed itself into a world-class museum, it's been one amazing thing after another. The latest was the lecture tonight by Jun Kaneko, the Japanese sculptor who did all those massive and beautiful pieces temporarily residing in the VMFA sculpture garden.
The evening got off to an auspicious start when, while walking to Will Call to pick up my ticket, I passed an Asian man with flowing white hair and glasses who smiled at me. Smiling back, I immediately knew that he was the artist and I don't even know why. And I could tell I was going to enjoy hearing him talk.
I joined a nearly full house to hear this painter-turned-sculptor share his life and art. His passion for creating imbued every word of his lecture and he emphasized that creative energy comes from curiosity. Being a naturally curious person myself, I loved having my need to know validated.
He said his origins as a painter left him in the dark about sculpture. "It's really great not to know anything because you have nothing to worry about, " he recalled. "Lots of things I did shouldn't have worked."
I could say the same about my own life, although I have no sculpture to show for it (well, except for the little blue glazed flower pot I made in 4th grade...but I digress). Next up was dinner.
With flamenco on the menu at Olio tonight, I couldn't resist a stop for food and a chance to listen to the flying fingers of guitarist Frank Bourke. I'd heard him previously at the Listening Room, so I knew how good he was. And how often do I have a chance to hear flamenco guitar playing?
I arrived in between sets, so I went to the counter to choose my meal. One thing I love abut Olio is that you don't have to order off the menu. Tonight I chose a couple of things from the case, paid by the ounce and was delivered a lovely plate of roasted chicken salad on mesclun greens with cumin-spiced black bean and corn salad on the side. It looked so much more appealing on the plate than it had in the plastic containers.
Between songs, a nearby diner asked if he could join me at my table, despite there being plenty of empty tables. He asked if I played guitar (ha!), informed me he likes music without lyrics and
then said I looked fantastic in blue ("It's your dark hair."). It seemed like a good time to leave for the Visual Arts Center and one of my favorite annual events.
Musicircus, the yearly tribute to composer John Cage, is assembled by drummer extraordinaire Brian Jones. The cacophony of a dozen or so different musicians and groups performing whatever they like simultaneously is an aural treat unlike any other.
Moving from room to room and space to space, music blends and becomes something different entirely. Tonight's offerings included Josh Small and Lance Koehler (banjo and percussion), yet another Brian Jones trio (drums, two bass clarinets), Scott Clark and Scott Burton aka SCUO (drums and jazz guitar), Richmond Gamelon Orchestra (they encouraged viewers to play the cymbals with them), Happy Lucky Combo, a female duo (violin and viola) and a bluegrass band I didn't know (upright bass, two banjos, fiddle, guitar and washboard). And that's just what I remember right now.
Moving around to hear and see different music, I ran into all kinds of random people. The complimentary biologist whom I'd also seen at the Kaneko lecture, the jewelry-maker I'd met at the Down Home Family Reunion, the renowned local guitarist I'd asked to explain pedal steel playing to me, the fellow former coworker who barely leaves the house anymore, and of course the walking writer I run into everywhere.
But I never lingered to chat for long because Musicircus only lasts for an hour and I didn't want to miss a moment of the experience. As Cage said, "You should let each thing that happens happen from its own center..."
And there was much happening from many centers. I was just there to bear witness to it all and smile with the pleasure of being part of it.
And, no, I did not have the nerve to pick up the cymbals and join in, although I thought about it. Maybe next year.
Because if Brian Jones puts on a musicircus, I will come. I always have. I always will.
The evening got off to an auspicious start when, while walking to Will Call to pick up my ticket, I passed an Asian man with flowing white hair and glasses who smiled at me. Smiling back, I immediately knew that he was the artist and I don't even know why. And I could tell I was going to enjoy hearing him talk.
I joined a nearly full house to hear this painter-turned-sculptor share his life and art. His passion for creating imbued every word of his lecture and he emphasized that creative energy comes from curiosity. Being a naturally curious person myself, I loved having my need to know validated.
He said his origins as a painter left him in the dark about sculpture. "It's really great not to know anything because you have nothing to worry about, " he recalled. "Lots of things I did shouldn't have worked."
I could say the same about my own life, although I have no sculpture to show for it (well, except for the little blue glazed flower pot I made in 4th grade...but I digress). Next up was dinner.
With flamenco on the menu at Olio tonight, I couldn't resist a stop for food and a chance to listen to the flying fingers of guitarist Frank Bourke. I'd heard him previously at the Listening Room, so I knew how good he was. And how often do I have a chance to hear flamenco guitar playing?
I arrived in between sets, so I went to the counter to choose my meal. One thing I love abut Olio is that you don't have to order off the menu. Tonight I chose a couple of things from the case, paid by the ounce and was delivered a lovely plate of roasted chicken salad on mesclun greens with cumin-spiced black bean and corn salad on the side. It looked so much more appealing on the plate than it had in the plastic containers.
Between songs, a nearby diner asked if he could join me at my table, despite there being plenty of empty tables. He asked if I played guitar (ha!), informed me he likes music without lyrics and
then said I looked fantastic in blue ("It's your dark hair."). It seemed like a good time to leave for the Visual Arts Center and one of my favorite annual events.
Musicircus, the yearly tribute to composer John Cage, is assembled by drummer extraordinaire Brian Jones. The cacophony of a dozen or so different musicians and groups performing whatever they like simultaneously is an aural treat unlike any other.
Moving from room to room and space to space, music blends and becomes something different entirely. Tonight's offerings included Josh Small and Lance Koehler (banjo and percussion), yet another Brian Jones trio (drums, two bass clarinets), Scott Clark and Scott Burton aka SCUO (drums and jazz guitar), Richmond Gamelon Orchestra (they encouraged viewers to play the cymbals with them), Happy Lucky Combo, a female duo (violin and viola) and a bluegrass band I didn't know (upright bass, two banjos, fiddle, guitar and washboard). And that's just what I remember right now.
Moving around to hear and see different music, I ran into all kinds of random people. The complimentary biologist whom I'd also seen at the Kaneko lecture, the jewelry-maker I'd met at the Down Home Family Reunion, the renowned local guitarist I'd asked to explain pedal steel playing to me, the fellow former coworker who barely leaves the house anymore, and of course the walking writer I run into everywhere.
But I never lingered to chat for long because Musicircus only lasts for an hour and I didn't want to miss a moment of the experience. As Cage said, "You should let each thing that happens happen from its own center..."
And there was much happening from many centers. I was just there to bear witness to it all and smile with the pleasure of being part of it.
And, no, I did not have the nerve to pick up the cymbals and join in, although I thought about it. Maybe next year.
Because if Brian Jones puts on a musicircus, I will come. I always have. I always will.
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