The Way I Am

I missed it at the New Orleans Fringe Festival, so I caught it here.

Not that I wouldn't have loved a chance to stop by the Bridge Lounge while in NOLA, but I didn't need to go that far.

"The American Girl Project" was being presented at The Shop, that random building that sits in Plant Zero's parking lot.

And it's a hell of a lot cheaper to get there than to the Big Easy.

Last time I'd been to the Shop, it had been for a video film festival way back in 2008.

Tonight was live theater courtesy of two (what else?) American girls.

With a series of scene cards, two suitcases and a coat tree of props, Kerry and Becca took us on a whirlwind romp through women's history in an attempt to figure out what makes the American girl who she is today.

They began by hanging up photos of some of their favorite men: David Byrne, John Lennon, Poe, Groucho and Alan Alda, to name a few.

From there, PBRs were passed out to a few in the audience, but I wasn't among them.

To be fair, I probably didn't look like the beer type.

The first scene was "Silent Movie: Annie" which introduced us to Becca as Annie Oakley, putting on her red lipstick (and without a mirror - impressive) and reaching out to shake hands in the audience, including mine.

When there was shooting, Kerry held up a sign that read "bang."

It was a silent movie, after all.

Another scene was called "Dress Code: Kerry and Becca" and each described her wardrobe preferences.

I'm with Kerry, who said she prefers shorts or short skirts to show off her legs.

Next was "Dress Code: Jackie" about JFK's wife's wardrobe and, yes, a pink suit was part of it.

Then there was "The Phone Call: Dorothy" and we were introduced to our third significant woman, Dorothy Parker.

She answered the phone with, "Dorothy Parker's residence. The newly resurrected speaking."

Ah, there is nothing like DP humor ("The typewriter is glaring at me" she says about being on deadline and idea-less).

We saw "The Interview: Annie" about the sharp shooter being interviewed by Buffalo Bill Cody, insisting that she'll appeal to audiences because she's a woman.

In fact, she chooses skirts over pants to make sure she reminds people she's a woman.

I do the same, lest anyone forget.

"List of Tricks: Kerry and Becca" was brilliant - a chance for each to sing her own praises, something far too many women do far too infrequently.

And theirs were worthy of praise, to be sure.

Kerry said she could hold her liquor and start a conversation with anyone.

Becca said she could sing and dance and she was very bendy.

Honestly, "List of Tricks: Annie" didn't have anything on our girls' bag of tricks.

One of the wittiest scenes was "A Poetry Reading: Dorothy" where we heard her classic "Resume."

Razors pain you
Rivers are damp
Acids stain you
And drugs cause cramp
Guns aren't lawful
Nooses give
Gas smells awful
You might as well live

For "A Poetry Reading: Kerry and Becca" we heard a couple of poems from Kerry, including the poignant "Some Other Girl's Song," which Becca praised.

"Everyone likes sad poetry," Kerry joked.

Becca's poem, "When I was Young," came in song and plant form (she referenced rosemary, pansies and rue) as she played guitar.

We saw a scene of Annie's first shot at eight years old (she got the squirrel right between the eyes) and Jackie leading a tour of the recently redecorated White House.

What was cool was that Kerry and Becca traded off roles, so they both played Annie, Jackie and Dorothy, just at different times.

When it came time for "A Drinking Game: Dorothy," the girls began handing out PBRs in earnest and this time even non-beer drinking me was given one.

The game was that Becca was singing "Roxanne" and every time she sang the name "Roxanne," Kerry/Dorothy had to take a drink.

Every time Becca sang the words "red light," the audience had to take a drink.

"It's gonna get a little dicey at the end," Kerry warned.

Within seconds, the sound of two dozen beer cans being opened was heard.

Since I don't drink beer, I couldn't do my part but everyone else was having too much fun to notice.

By the end of the game, a drunken Dorothy poured drinks on her own head, proclaiming, "I win!"

The show finished with "A Complicated Dance" with a medley of woman-based songs seguing into each other and causing the two to dress as one character only to have to rip off the outfit and dress for another character.

At one point, the music was the Material Girl and Kerry said, perplexed, "We're not even doing Madonna!"

As it wound down, they were both on the floor and the music ended with "Once in a Lifetime" and the repeating lyric, "Same as it ever was."

So by the end of the production, without doing a formal summary or putting too much of a bow on it, we'd concluded that an American girl's life is pretty much the same as it ever was.

Seems we American women have the unique skills and determination of an Annie Oakley, the grace, culture and willingness to stand by our man like a Jackie and the pleasure-seeking, talent and self deprecation that a Dorothy did.

And some of us cloak all that in short skirts and tights, others in lace and belts and others in carpet platforms, each of us perfectly comfortable with our choices.

From this grown-up girl's perspective, that's the quintessential American girl characteristic.

To quote the inimitable Dorothy Parker:

But I shall stay the way I am
Because I do not give a damn

Same as it ever was, but better, too.

At least that's how this American girl sees it.

With or Without You

There were two places I definitely wasn't going tonight.

Rappahannock and Saison.

Not because I don't want to check out two new places within walking distance, but because it was almost certainly going to be a mob scene at both.

And who needs that?

Instead, my evening's companion and I chose Aziza for a lower key vibe and the promise of great food.

We walked in to an empty restaurant and I found Chef Philip and his able-bodied assistant chatting at a table near the kitchen.

We agreed that Aziza's customers were the same as the two new places opening, which helped explain the lack of warm bodies here.

To warm our bodies further, we got a bottle of Marques de Riscal Proximo Rioja 2009, not on the menu but an easy-drinking choice with its juiciness and silky finish.

Because we were the only customers, the music was plenty loud enough for us to hear, although the content wasn't always to our liking.

Just to be clear, there's cheesy '80s and then there's '80s.

Yes' "Owner of a Lonely Heart" is not something I ever need to hear again, much less Sly Fox.

But put on some Pet Shop Boys and we're good to go.

I can even hear some old U2 and reminisce fondly about Bono's messiah period.

The music became a moot point before long because tables began to fill up and the decibel level rose accordingly.

We went from being the sole occupants to being one of seven tables, with only two small ones open.

I'm sure that made the kitchen staff happy.

We began with bacon, potato and leek soup, a cream-based indulgence with enough leeks in every bite to qualify them as the primary ingredient to be chewed.

Actually, the soup was very similar to certain oyster stews I've had, just without the oysters.

Next came spinach and sheep's milk ricotta gnudi with Szechuan peppercorn and ginger.

It was my first gnudi sighting, so I asked our server what to expect.

Seems gnudi is a kind of gnocchi made from ricotta and a little bit of flour, described by our server as "nude ravioli."

All the filling and none of the pasta. Sign me up.

The little dumplings were wonderful, delicately seasoned and with a creamy mouthfeel that was more than cheese, less than pasta.

To go with it, we tried the sauteed garlic bok choy with almonds, the kind of dish you only eat on a date if the other person is eating it, too.

Very good, very garlicky.

Tonight's crowd turned out to be a lively one, although one of the two 20-something girls behind us had the kind of foghorn voice that meant we heard every party recap, every work anecdote and every cliche that came out of her mouth.

That's entertainment.

After so much savory, there was nowhere to go but directly to Aziza's trademark cream puff and we did.

I've little doubt that if Aziza's ever thought to remove the puff from the menu, their customers would rise up and put that thought right out of their heads.

As it turned out, we'd lingered over each course so long that we'd long missed our 9:00 plans.

Fortunately, they can be had another evening.

Instead, we drove by Rappahannock to see the room crowded to the rafters with first night business.

I'd read yesterday that they'd already had 80 reservations on the books (for opening night yet) and it looked entirely possible that all 80 were still there at almost 10 p.m.

Saison was no better, with people up against the windows and spilling out into the corner.

Since both new restaurants are within walking distance of my house, there's no chance I won't be joining the throngs soon.

But on opening night, no way.

Far better to go with a proven winner and learn gnudi.

Even when the '80s music is giving me whiplash.

Welcome Back, Old Friend

If you invite me, I will come.

So when the bartender at Bistro Bobette messaged me reminding me that it had been a while since I'd been at his bar, I took note.

And when a friend from Maryland said she'd be in town tonight and wanted to met up with me and a favorite couple, where better to go than Bobette?

They had a nice little crowd already in place when we arrived, pleasing the out-of-towner who wanted a lively scene.

Conveniently, there were two seats together open at the bar when we arrived, another stool next to a regular who said hello (and kindly asked if I'd lost weight!) and the two stools nearby were vacated within minutes.

Our party of five took over the little bar and the bartender was impressed that his message to me had worked.

Hey, I am nothing if not responsive, one way or the other.

While the other three stayed festive with Cremant d'Alsace, my date and I opted for Chateau de Vinigelais Courbieres 2010.

Deciding on food at Bobette is doubly enjoyable because they have two menus, one for the dining room and another for the bar.

The bar is the place for surprises and great deals, so I like to look there first.

But Holmes was sure we needed oysters, so we got the last ten in the house, scoring a couple each.

It must have been a busy night because they were already out of baguettes and that's saying something at Bobette.

So while the two of us have yet to have Bob's dog together (sure, I've had it more times than I can count), we weren't going to have it tonight sans baguette.

A travesty!

And yet one in our party braved it for the sake of that exquisite Sausagecraft dog.

My interest was piqued by the chicon, a special on tonight's bar menu.

Poached endive was covered in Parisian ham, Gruyere and Swiss cheese for an obscenely rich starter that had the regular curious and the other couple placing a late order of it.

The bartender had been correct in chiding me about not having been in in a while.

I found out that my favorite wine geek had taken a prestigious wine position befitting his encyclopedic knowledge of all things grape.

The owner teased me about my absence, but all I could focus on was her new hairstyle which looked fabulous on her.

I was as surprised to learn that she had curly hair as she was to learn mine is straight.

Naturally we each wished we had the other's hair. Isn't that always the way?

My visiting friend was doing her best to convince us all to come visit for a community weekend, although she mentioned one slight problem.

There are no doors on the bedrooms in her '30s-era bungalow on the Chesapeake Bay.

Seems a tad cozy, if you know what I mean.

While she moved on to the steak frites and mixed pickled veggies (with just the right amount of tang), we ordered the Bobette burger with frites and were rewarded with a well-seasoned burger smothered in Camembert and at barely medium rare, tasting more of steak tartare than a conventional burger.

In other words, yum.

After a mound of salty fries, all I could think about was something sweet, so we ordered the chocolate hazelnut crousillant.

The dense chocolate dessert with a layer of hazelnut crunch was swoon-worthy, causing the couple in our group to order the same.

Sadly, we had gotten the last one.

Or maybe appropriately since it felt like my treat for showing up on demand.

I can be easy when I want to.

Proof in the Pudding

Apparently some people have a crises of music.

As in, a friend mentioned how his friend wanted to meet up to discuss his latest issue.

The problem? Not job woes. Not a relationship faux pas. No alarming diagnosis.

His friend is convinced that Richmond's music scene is dying.

"Go out with me for one night and I'll prove you wrong," my friend told the disillusioned one.

And tonight would have been a perfect example of the diversity of local music there for the taking.

First up, the Listening Room, where cardigan-wearing Jonathan did emcee duties, rambled a bit and then said, "Here they come and here I go."

Corny, maybe but as a friend observed as he walked off, "Jonathan may be about to become a father but he has all the makings of a grandfather."

The "they" he'd mentioned were the Black Brothers, as in Black like the VCU music building, and a quartet of guitar, drums, bass and trumpet.

Their sound was southern, bluesy and, unlike most Listening Room sets, fully electric with drums.

We don't often get drummer face-making at the Listening Room, but we did tonight, except when he had a drumstick in his mouth.

For that matter, we don't often see a pair of loafers or an argyle sweater on the Listening Room stage, either.

As if that weren't different enough, the room was darkened and there were two turntables on stage, both with lights under glass spinning on them for the grooviest of light shows.

We heard "80 Grams," a song about Heath Ledger, "Holding Back," a new song they'd never played live and a dedication to the guitarist's mom on her birthday.

Just when I'd been lulled into listening to them like another indie band, the horn would come in or the drummer would start playing around and I'd remember, oh, yea, there are jazz nerds present.

When they finished, they said they had t-shirts and one CD for sale ("It's $100," the guitarist teased).

So, Exhibit A -southern blues with horn.

At the start of the second set, host Jonathan broke the bad news: he and wife Antonia will be less involved with the Listening Room for a while because of their upcoming spawn's arrival.

I think I saw Antonia tear up when he said it and, frankly, I felt the same.

But even misty, the mom-to-be looked fabulous with a red scarf in her hair, dangling red earrings and a beautiful blue flouncy skirt that qualified her for the queen of the gypsies.

Those two have been the bedrock of the L.R. evenings and their presence will be missed, even if it's only temporary.

And then for something completely different, the Richmanian Ramblers played.

The good people who bring us Romanian gypsy music for two violins, clarinet, upright bass, accordion and acoustic guitar came to sing about drinking, sheep and dancing.

"The next song is a dance song," bassist Nate warned us. "But you guys are sitting, so that won't work."

Vocalist Antonia piped up with, "But it's the Listening Room, so you can't talk, but you can dance. Quietly."

For the record, I saw no dancing, despite the song's call to move our bodies.

And here's another thing I never expected to hear at the L.R. "Here's a song about a terrible dowry."

After having seen them multiple times, I know my favorite tune is what's affectionately called "the sheep love song."

In it, a shepherdess and her shepherd boyfriend call to each other across the hills and I love their emotive call and response (not that I understand Romanian, but I get their intent).

I knew there were a lot of first-timers at the L.R. tonight and I love what a diverse program they experienced on their initial visit.

Okay, Exhibit B - Romanian gypsy music.

After the Listening Room, I headed to the Nile to meet a friend for the Malhombre show.

Why more music after two interesting bands?

Because Malhombre's melancholy rock with occasional forays into French pop is too irresistible not to introduce to a musician friend.

And more stylish than you can imagine, with the singer in cream-colored boots and the drummer in amazing plaid pants.

The duo began by saying, "How do you like our projections? It's our honeymoon pictures from Paris and Rome."

All kidding aside, the views projected showed ruins, Citroens and a definite sense of places other than Laurel Street.

Tonight's set was particularly civilized, with the twenty or so people there seated in chairs and raptly paying attention to singer/guitarist Blasco and his partner Giustino, working up a righteous sweat on the drums.

There was a song in French, a momentous song ("I wanna be in tune for this song cause it's important") and lots of major chords ("He plays all major chords," my musician friend observed. "Just when I think he's going to go all sad, he sounds happy.").

Naturally with the French involved, there was a song about being drunk and in love.

"At the same time!" interjected Giustino.

"I don't know if I've ever been love sober," cracked Blasco.

He passed his hat, telling the audience, "If any of you want to contribute to our life, you can."  We did.

When they tried to end, the crowd called for more.

To top off a fine set, they played a "relationship song from the man's point of view."

Who knew there was such a thing?

Alright, Exhibit C - melancholy French pop/rock.

The music scene here has dried up? Seriously?

I'd say the crises is among those sitting at home while horns blow, sheep make love and major chords abound.

Call me crises-less.

Step Right Up

"I know I'm not going to get any sympathy from you," the birthday boy said with a grin.

Probably not, since turning 30 hardly requires sympathy from friends.

Which is not to say that I wasn't at his house for the pre-dinner festivities, sipping Prosecco, admiring the tucked away Christmas decorations (miniature Santa suit hanging from a mirror, HO HO HO atop a kitchen cabinet), and having a bottle of peanut butter and jelly vodka shoved under my nose for consideration.

Thank you, no. Not if it was the last spirit on earth.

Mixing and mingling was the order of the night, at least right up until it was time for the first wave to leave for Carytown.

You see, the guests were being dispatched in waves to walk the four blocks to Don't Look Back for chow.

Being a little peckish, I immediately volunteered to be part of the first wave and follow the host carrying a plate of cupcakes down the street.

Right past the ambulance at Cary Street Cafe (never a good sign).

On the other hand, according to the outside banner, they were having karaoke (Free! tonight at 9) later.

DLB was hopping on a Monday night (mega margarita specials no doubt helped), so we began our slow assault on the room, insinuating ourselves into the limited space and bar stools available.

There was an Indiana Jones movie on the big screen, which meant every male within viewing range was sharing his opinion of it.

Once they started throwing terms like "hyper-realism" around, I tuned out and considered the menu.

A friend who'd met the party at DLB took us aside and recommended that we order before our entire party decided to.

It was a brilliant suggestion and we were munching on nachos when the second wave arrived.

The birthday boy is a friend of six or so years and his friends are an eclectic lot, so there were lots of possibilities for good conversation.

I talked to a favorite gay couple about their plans to move to Maryland for a more gay-friendly state to pay taxes to.

I heard from friends their plans for a minimal family holiday. "I'd rather be sitting around a fire in the woods with friends and laughing and talking for Christmas," she said with feeling.

My fellow theater buff and I talked about what we'd both seen since we last met.

Then there was another friend who's seen Richmond Triangle Players" "Whoop-Dee-Do" three times and it runs until December 29th.

He was especially tickled because he'd advised the actor who plays Judy Garland in that play to employ her trademark over-the-shoulder mic cord maneuver and by the time he saw it for the third time, he was doing just that.

There's such satisfaction in people taking your advice, isn't there?

The birthday boy was being taken advantage of, with many of his friends buying him shots of indeterminate ingredients.

He tried to convince me that turning 30 was a big deal, but I failed to follow his reasoning.

Eventually he gave up, acknowledging that I wasn't going to see 30 as much of a milestone.

I mean, I do think that by 30 a man should be at least partly house-trained, aware of basic social conventions and able to maintain home and hearth.

And Andrew has achieved all that.

But sympathy? When 2/3 of his life is still to be enjoyed?

When he's still got decades to go to shows and talk about how these young bands aren't nearly as good as the bands he grew up to?

Sympathy for him being a fine physical specimen while his brain has developed beyond the post-college state finally?

And certainly no sympathy for his over-active metabolism which still allows him to order fries and mashed potatoes as sides for his burger.

Oh, yes. He did.

So, no, my friend, no sympathy for turning an arbitrary age when you're about to discover how much better the 30s are than the 20s.

But not any envy, either. I wouldn't mind having my 30-year old body back, but I can assure you I want nothing to do with my 30-year old mind.

You'll see. It only gets better, Andrew. Promise.

And you know how I'm always right.

You Gotta Care to Wonder

It was like the Ghost Light afterparty, only with scenes instead of show tunes.

TheatrLab, the upstart theater company that keeps impressing me with their dedication to new works and affordable tickets, was having their first Field Day at Gallery 5.

And on easy-like-Sunday-morning kind of a day, a short walk to watch everything from Chekhov monologues to a complete roast was just the thing to finish out a lazy day.

As a huge and unexpected bonus, when I walked in, it was to a bake sale table of cookies and snacks.

For the record, many's the time I've walked into the Ghost Light afterparty and wished I could buy some dessert to go with my bottle o' Rose.

Tonight there were homemade gingerbread and molasses cookies as thick as my hand and full of seasonal spices.

Now that's what I'm talking about, guys.

From a front row seat, I watched a showcase of the company members and staff of TheaterLab exhibiting their mad skills for our amusement.

Besides Chekhov, there was a song, a scene about a philandering man told entirely without words and a particularly strong scene about patricide and sexual abuse.

Just another evening of light theatrical amusements.

Two scenes were actually previews because they were taken from plays that TheaterLab will be doing in the Spring.

"Riding the Bull" with Maggie and Matt featured drawling accents, discussions of dressing cows and philosophical issues much bigger.

Favorite line: "You gotta care to wonder."

Isn't that the truth?

The other upcoming play was "Speech and Debate" about a high school kid's attempts to write about controversial subjects for the school paper.

He wants to write about abortion and gets shot down and then suggests writing about Republicans gone wild.

When his adviser suggests he also look at Democrats' behavior, DeeJay scoffs. "People expect that kind of behavior from Democrats."

Wah-wah. The room erupted with Democratic laughter.

There was also the small problem of his character not being ready to come out, but that was just a tease for what's to come.

By intermission, anyone would have been impressed with the array of drama, comedy and song we'd seen.

So impressed, in fact, that an additional gingerbread cookie was required.

The second half began with audience participation.

One of TheaterLab's exercises involves creating a play from a random setting, characters, situation and line and we were asked to provide them.

The result: the alley behind Virginia Rep, estranged twins both of whom need a kidney and the line, "Ain't nobody got time for that."

And then they were off to the upper gallery to create a play while our entertainment continued.

Starting things off was Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter," a wordy story of oyster lovers done by Elizabeth with nary a trip on the rhyming verse.

"Bachelor Holiday" was probably the longest piece and positively laugh out loud-worthy with its look at a morning in the life of young men.

You know, the kind who consider a beer and a Mars bar breakfast. The kind who whine when someone eats all their Cocoa Puffs. The kind who challenge each other to do dumb stuff.

Young men.

To be fair, one did find folding underwear to be a "Zen thing," but he, too, succumbed to lowest common denominator behavior, smashing a mouse and shooting tequila.

Young men.

The funniest line from that piece came when discussing a girlfriend who made some kind of art.

What kind, you ask? "Neurotic women art," came the answer to knowing nods.

Hysterical, if a tad politically incorrect.

But young men.

Then it was time for the just-created one act play, "Small World, Huh?"

It involved two women, one black, one white, on a cigarette break behind Virginia Rep.

Inhaling and exhaling in unison, their innocuous chat leads them to discover their similarities.

"Huh!" they say after each shared revelation.

When the truth of their being twins seems apparent, they still don't quite see it.

So they have the same birthday, were born in the same hospital, are both missing a kidney and have a dead mom.

That couldn't possibly mean anything. Why not?

"You're black!" one explains.

"You have big feet!" the other says.

The audience roared.

We had the pleasure of hearing from off-off-off Broadway legend Marjorie Lee Stewart Vandercamp (Maggie) bragging about meeting Liza (with a Z) and barking at pianist Evan to transition us into the final event.

"Roasted" was a look back at the year in Richmond theater.

No theater company was exempt and often the scene involved theatergoers discussing what they'd seen to hysterical results.

Quickly they went through each company's season.

Firehouse's "Death of a Salesman" was lauded publicly and then acknowledged in private as booooring.

Boring is in the eye of the beholder but I wouldn't have missed DoaS for anything. How often does a theatergoer get Miller?

Richmond Triangle Players' plays were catalogued with each description beginning with "gay."

Yes, and that is exactly why we love them. That and the tables to hold our drinks.

Henley Street got deserved praise for their Bootleg Shakespeare calling it, "The best f*cking play we ever saw."

You don't have to tell me. I'm one of those nerds who lines up an hour and a half in advance to ensure I get in every year.

For Sycamore Rouge, Evan said, "Sycamore Rouge gets a free pass cause we're glad they're still here."

Amen. I have fond memories of seeing "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" there.

Richmond Shakespeare got pummeled for the notoriously hot and sweaty season they do at Agecroft every summer.

P.S. I will wear a tank top and sweat happily for outdoor Shakespeare.

Virginia Rep's roasting focused on "The Producers," the classic play about two guys trying to make money off a play.

So what else is new in the theater world? Anyway, everyone's raving about how good the play is.

They even skewered themselves, noting of TheaterLab, "Don't worry, there'll be a talkback afterwards."

Always a talkback, always room for discussion.

But then, isn't that what you want in an up and coming theater company?

Hopefully, they'll never get too big for their britches and not actively solicit audience feedback and opinion.

Or not make us laugh hysterically. Or not feel the weight of a new work.

Cause ain't nobody got time for that kind for theater company.

Cue Passion and Life Experience

Nothing says happy holidays like an outdoor picnic.

Tonight was the James River Parade of Lights and the plan was to watch from Libbie Hill Park.

So, if the destination was to be Church Hill, here was my chance to check out Proper Pie Company.

Well, me and the thirty other people crowded in there in the last hour before they closed.

When I asked the girl at the counter if it was always so crazy, she smiled and said it was, from the time they opened until they locked the doors on the shop.

"We're on our feet six straight hours pretty much," she said, although not with the least bit of complaint in her voice.

We scored two savory pies- chicken and kumara and mushroom, spinach and bleu cheese - and an A & W root beer to go.

Over in Libbie Hill Park, we joined the throngs awaiting the parade by spreading a blanket on a crest of the hill and eating dinner with our hands (as per the Proper Pie instructions).

The crust was buttery and the flavor combinations of both pies well thought out.

People continued to arrive and claim spots while children played with the glo-sticks they were handing out.

Lots of dogs, an interactive dad in a Misfits shirt and a family doing their own Christmas carol singalaong provided entertainment.

Meanwhile, a fire for roasting (free) hot dogs roared nearby.

And while it got cool once the sun fully set, the air was unseasonably warm and soft for December.

A quintet settled near us on the grass and after positioning themselves, each pulled out their phone.

It was amusing to watch as they said not a word to each other, too intent on their virtual world to enjoy what was happening in front of them.

We joked that the only way they knew about the parade was because someone texted them about it.

Joking aside, it was kind of tragic.

Just before 6:00, the crowd began a countdown and all at once the elaborately decorated boats on the river in front of us lit up.

From our vantage point, we saw the slow procession head toward us before making a U-turn and heading downriver.

And while it was lovely to see, we concluded that we'd not picked the most optimum viewing site.

Next year: Osborne landing. Live and learn, I always say.

Saturday night music came courtesy of Balliceaux, where Mirror Kisses and Dead Fame were on the bill.

My date and I arrived early enough to score places on the back banquette, next to two metro-sexuals busy on their phones.

Which was a shame because the people watching was so good.

This was definitely a Saturday night crowd, full of impossibly high heels, high-maintenance haircuts and fitted jackets on the guys.

"Come on, girls, we're going out tonight," we imagined  one girl in a skintight, low-cut extremely short dress saying to her breasts as she got dressed.

A DJ friend had told me last night at G5 that he'd heard good things about Harrisonburg's Mirror Kisses and the clips I'd heard online sounded promising.

They were a young duo and the singer planted himself, not on the stage, but on the floor amongst the crowd.

All of us on the banquette rose to the back of it once music began, with the guy next to me saying, "This is the best seat in the house," a fact of which I told him I'm well aware since it's my go-to choice in that room.

From the first notes, the singer was jumping, punching the air and emoting mightily mere inches from the audience.

The influences were obviously the '80s but the lyrics were of the very young man variety.

After a song with repeated references to, "I feel you touching me," he said, "I wrote that song for my Mom."

No judging here.

After the third song, the guy standing next to me sat back down, observing to his buddy, "It's not bad. It's just not great."

My date reached a slightly different conclusion. "It's so bad, it's good. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the sheer spectacle of it."

I think everyone was for varying reasons.

Mid-set, a friend rushed back to me, grinning ear to ear. "It's like a bad '80s movie, only he wasn't even born yet!"

But the singer was working hard to pull the crowd in, eventually challenging them.

"You think I look dumb up here, but I think you look dumb just standing there!" he exhorted. "Why don't you just act like it's a dance party and dance? The girls know what I'm talking about!"

It paid to chastise, because far more people were dancing for the last couple of songs as the singer fist-pumped and sang for all he was worth.

"Nobody knows the pain I'm in," he belted during the last song.

"All passion, no life experience," I heard someone say about the lyrics.

Ah, tortured youth.

The headliner was Dead Fame, they of the 21st century take on Joy Division, right down to the lead singer having done his homework to emulate Ian Curtis' every move onstage.

Silhouetted against a dark haze, he was a study in posturing, posing and gesturing while singing.

And with scene hair that good, why not?

My main complaint was how difficult it was to hear the guitar, which disappeared under the synth and drums.

It was the same the last time I saw them in May and I keep hoping the guitar will get a fair shot next time I hear them.

There had been a buzz before they began with many people there to see them for the first time and, while they weren't dancing along, the audience was clearly into the band.

The lead singer did a little teasing of the audience, saying, "Do you like my chains? You can chain me up. For a price, of course."

For that matter, you can chain me up for a price, too.

He definitely had a sense of humor, observing mid-song, "This is a Dead Fame love song."

Because, you know it's hard to spot a love song beneath all the brooding lyrics and lasers.

At one point, a friend walked by and grinned, saying, "I think we're gonna be blind after all this laser."

Actually, I was enjoying my standing position in the back because I was a prime central spot for the green laser to use my body as a canvas throughout the set.

And if you're going to spend your Saturday night listening to young bands ape the music you already lived through, there must be lasers.

And, for a price, chains.

I Love You But You're Dead

 First Fridays was vibrating at a lower pitch tonight.

Which was a shame considering the art and music that was out there for the taking.

A four block walk in a light rain got me to Ghostprint Gallery for Peter Fowler's wildly-colored impressionistic "Aqua Illuminations."

"Venetian" was immediately recognizable as Venice despite the hot pink and orange colors, but "Silver Industry" was the one I kept coming back to.

Alas, I didn't have a spare thousand dollars for it.

ADA Gallery was showing James Trotter's eclectic work, a pastiche of comic book characters, advertising, cartoons and random scribbles.

Barney Rubble, Alfred E. Neuman, Donald Duck, Bert (sans Ernie) and the Stax logo all made appearances.

Candela Gallery's "Greta Pratt: Taking Liberties" delivered large-format photographs and a sly look at popular culture.

One series was of Lincoln impersonators (one had a log cabin RV). Another series was of Liberty Tax workers dressed in their cheesy, green Lady Liberty costumes (green nail polish, R.I.P. tattoo, red glasses). Another was of young women dressed as southern belles (modern faces did not match period costumes).

The final destination was Gallery 5 for Adam Juresko's "Self Abuse" exhibit of paper collages.

Maybe it's me, but I'm fascinated by Juresko's work (I own two) and tonight's new work had plenty of contenders I could have taken home.

But we can't always get what we want.

What I could get was music and all I had to do was walk downstairs to get it.

Four bands were playing tonight, including one who'd been called the "America's best living lyricist" and the show was free.

Free, as in come hear terrific music on us.

I didn't have to be told twice.

Opening was local Josh Small, in his usual overalls, starting with "My Confession," moving through an Emmylous Harris cover and finishing with "Knife in My Belly."

A photographer friend summed it up best. "We can see him all the time, so we forget, but if we saw Josh play in another city, we'd be blown away."

In an unexpected turn of events that left some people disappointed, headliner Mark Eitzel played second.

Apparently, he'd wanted to so Gallery 5 had said he could. But some people didn't get the memo and missed him.

Luckily, I was not one of them.

Eitzel (yes, he of American Music Club) came onstage wearing a hat and began singing in the direction of, not us, but his keyboard player.

I wasn't sure if he was uncomfortable with the audience or just getting in a groove, although he did make a point to tell us that he was only going to play briefly.

Whatever he was doing, his voice was a thing of beauty.

A singer friend called it immediately. "Great pipes!"

A musician friend was more specific, putting Eitzel's talent at the level of a Tom Waits.

Me, I was just reveling in being in the same room with this man's gift.

His voice was so strong, so assured, that half the time he held the mic at waist level and still belted very note across the room.

He introduced a song as, "About a beautiful woman named Gena Rowlands," a reference I doubt most of the 20-somethings in the room got.

It was an American Music Club song, "What Holds the World Together," with the exquisite lyric, "Through the window the warm summer air does a two-step, I wish there was some way I could keep it."

I have wished the same thing many times.

From his new album "Don't Be a Stranger," he did "I Love You But You're Dead," a song he said was about going to a rock concert and asking the star to sign his poster.

The superb song got cheering along with applause, prompting the quixotic Eitzel to promise, "Don't worry, it won't be long."

Oh, Mark, honey, we wish it could go on all night. Please be long.

"I wrote this song about a nightclub, the kind where everyone's mean. Not like here."

Mean? We were enthralled.

He introduced "Windows on the World" by saying, "Everything that happens in this song is true. I went to a party at the top of the World Trade Center."

What I remember is the evocative lyric, "We were so downtown," before the song began to wind down and Eitzel announced that the next song was his last.

He left us with a song about a male stripper named Spanky and only a world-class lyricist could cover the topics he covered in that song and make them sound so memorable.

During the break, I discussed what we'd just seen with friend after friend and everyone admitted to having been blown away by the man's talent. His voice. His songs.

And we saw him for free. Mark Eitzel for free.

The room should have been packed, but as a local DJ pointed out, the show had gotten no press.

How the hell that happened, no one could fathom.

Up next was Modern Drugs, a trio of guys who looked impossibly young and played the shortest of songs, all youthful energy and broken strings.

After playing several songs, the lead singer said, "We have several additional songs to sing."

My friend and I guessed that he was new to stage banter.

When the guitarist noticed the dangling string, a voice from the audience called out, "What were you supposed to bring?"

It was his girlfriend apparently and he sheepishly looked at her, cradling the string, admitting, "An extra guitar."

Always listen to your girlfriend, son, because she knows best.

When their exuberant set finished, the guitarist said earnestly, "I'm sorry for everything."

He needn't have apologized; turns out this was their very first show.

"A" for effort, boys. And a little tip from a pro: don't ever say you're sorry.

Low Branches closed out the show and after Modern Drugs' noise-fest, I was a little surprised at how hushed the room got all at once.

But then, Christina's voice and Matt and Josh's restrained playing sort of demands that you shut up and listen.

Still, it doesn't always happen, but tonight it did.

As a stranger said to me afterwards, "Whoa, that was some really different bands, but I liked it!"

I liked it, too.

And seeing Mark Eitzel in a room not even half full was out of this world.

Maybe I didn't get what I wanted art-wise, but I sure got what I needed musically.

Through the gallery the mild winter air did a two step
I wish there was some way I could keep that man's voice with me.

I wish.

Clave is the Word

The mambo kings played songs of love.

And at UR, of all places.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Modlin Center, but the choices of places to eat nearby are lacking.

But Phil's welcomed us in with its usual bar crowd and a waitress who described the salad dressing as strawberry vinaigrette-ish.

Vinaigrette-ish? What does that even mean?

No matter, we eschewed ish for "The Cuban Spectacular: From the Big Easy to the Big Apple, a Celebration of the Mambo."

Because, let's face it, the mambo deserves some celebrating.

Not only was the show sold out, but there was a line of people waiting on standby for any unused tickets and it stretched down the hallway into oblivion.

Meanwhile, we sashayed into fifth row center seats, right between the student doused in cheap cologne to mask her body odor and a jacked up older couple who cheered the musicians after each song.

Maybe they were as tickled as I was about the big band-like staging with custom music stands with the letter "P" on them.

Just like Ricky Ricardo had for his band at the Tropicana nightclub.

Except Ricky's band had no female musicians and tonight we had girl parts on bass, sax, trumpet and drums.

In addition to the evening's entertainment, the multi-media performance also provided a musical history lesson.

We saw pieces of a documentary made by UR in Cuba about Cuban music, interspersed with live music and dancing.

There was a Cuban vocalist singing some of the songs (the Cuban standard "Guantanamera" which even I recognized), a blond student singing others (the Gershwins' "Fascinating Rhythm") and two dancers jitterbugging to "Sing, Sing, Sing" in spats.

Dixieland reared its head with seven pairs of khakis and a tux (not to mention a white tuba) doing "Just a Closer Walk with Thee."

The point was that mambo began in New Orleans, moved up the Mississippi through St. Louis to Chicago and on to NYC.

We heard Cuban trivia, like when a baby first stands in Cuba, people say he's dancing, not standing like we do here.

Telling, isn't it?

There was a demonstration of the habanera bass line which runs through all Cuban music, followed by a lesson in tango.

Two dancers appeared and the man, Edwin, had the hips of a snake and oozed rhythm no matter who his partner was.

He was mesmerizing to watch with his fluidity and effortless moves.

At one point, his partner swooned into him and he moved her body around; her feet stayed put as if she'd become an extension of him.

The consensus in my row was that those two could have danced to every song and we'd still have wanted more.

As part of my continuing musical education, I learned that "Oye Como Va" was written by Tito Puento (not Santana) and the band's spirited performance of it had the bandleader fanning the sax player after his solo and a couple of audience members dancing down in front.

"Bang Bang" was introduced as a "party song" and the three male and three female dancers tore up the stage to it.

On Dizzy Gillespie's "Manteca," the keyboard player was jamming so hard that his keyboard was rocking side to side like in a cartoon from the forties.

Only then did we arrive at Latin jazz and the classic "Mambo No. 5," instantly recognizable to even the whitest of us.

Coincidentally, I learned that even the whitest of us had helped give birth to mambo, which came out of the Palladium Ballroom in NYC, where Latin jazz was played to enormous crowds (the club held 1,000 couples) back in the '50s.

That would be crowds of Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Jews, blacks and even Irish-Americans, like my great-grandparents.

No thanks are necessary. Just letting you know that my people did their part to bring you the mambo.

The Palladium also held pie-eating contests and skirt-raising contests between dances to mix it up.

Hey, whatever it took to birth the mambo.

Naturally Jose, the vocalist, returned for another Tito Puente song, "Ran Kan Kan" and a dance fest par excellence.

The only place to go after finally having achieved that Latin climax was back to the roots of it all and that's when the Hanover High School Marching Hawks paraded onstage, their bandleader marching sharply to lead them in "When the Saints Go Marching In."

The ensemble took up most of the stage, but it was the marching band's skinny clarinet player who seemed to be having a party of his own onstage.

I can't swear he was playing the notes properly, but certainly he got the award for most enthusiastic playing.

Hanover was joined by the full band for a reprise of "Mambo No. 5" and all at once our lesson in mambo was over.

I'd take the final exam on the jungle madness of mambo, but I'm not sure my hips are slinky enough.

On the other hand, I think I'd do just fine at the skirt-raising contest.

Soggy Sal and Grand Passion

I took the handoff from last night.

Since I'd so enjoyed the Del Fosse Cuvee Laurent I'd been drinking, why not a leisurely drive to the source of it to taste the rest of Del Fosse's wines?

I took it as a sign when this morning's weather morphed from a light rain when I walked to sunshine an hour later.

A plan was hatched and a willing partner in crime found.

The trip to Lovingston to visit Del Fosse Winery was a study in naked mountains since the trees out there were leafless against the landscape.

We were the only visitors at the winery, although our pourer assured us that they'd been getting all kinds of day trippers since the weather turned warm this week.

I'd been especially excited when we'd arrived to see signs pointing to "Trails," only to learn that the trails are closed at the moment.

It's killing wild animals season, so I'll have to return after the first week in January to ensure an errant bullet doesn't harsh my wine mellow.

With no trails to walk, we did the full reserve tasting of fourteen wines.

Our pourer was knowledgeable but she had the squeaky voice of a seven-year old girl, making for an interesting contrast when discussing tannins and structure.

When all was said and done (or poured out), I still liked the Cuvee Laurent, but it was the Petit Verdot that came back to Richmond with us.

We'd lingered long enough that dusk was approaching when we left, so we hit the road for Charlottesville.

After wandering around the UVA area (no one on earth could mistake a UVA student for a VCU student, that's for sure), we made tracks for the downtown mall.

Not wanting to repeat ourselves, we ended up at Sal's Caffe Italia, the kind of place with old black and white photographs of (presumably) Sal's family covering an entire wall.

The music was a given: Sinatra, big band, Louie Armstrong.

We went just as conventional with the meal.

An Italian salad was overdressed, but had olives and anchovies to compensate.

A quattro gusti pizza promised artichokes, ham, anchovies and sliced tomatoes, a promise it didn't fulfill because the tomatoes were of the canned variety and the juices leaked out everywhere making a soggy mess of the flavorful crust.

Sal, you need to be paying more attention here, buddy.

Those people on the wall would not be happy with a plate full of soggy crust.

As long as we were right there, it seemed like a good idea to see a movie, too.

Walking into the theater, a woman standing outside talking loudly on her phone promised, "I can get you two or three hundred dollars," leaving us to wonder what that situation was all about.

I'll never know because I went to the ladies' room only to discover a scale that read, "Check your weight! Stand still on scale and deposit coin" in bold, red letters.

Weight, schmate.

With Milk Duds and tickets for "Anna Karenina" in hand, we joined a small group in theater #3.

Three were two teen-aged girls very busy texting, three middle-aged woman who discussed the movie  throughout and a 20-something guy behind us who made bored noises loudly throughout the film.

Which was kind of hard to understand given how the classic Tolstoy story played out onscreen.

Stuffy historical drama it was not.

The brilliance came from using playwright Tom Stoppard as the screenwriter.

I was reminded of Stoppard's play "Arcadia," with its time and location shifts because this one shifted from a crumbling theater where some of the action plays out on stage to the real world and back and forth throughout.

But even if the guy was bored or confused by that, I thought there was too much eye candy to look at to be as bored as he sounded.

The sets were sumptuous - opera boxes, grand ballrooms, elegant train compartments.

The costumes were exquisite - the face veils! the muffs! the hats!

Even the dancing was like nothing I'd ever seen, with elaborate hand and arm gestures occupying the ball goers as they waltzed around the floor.

And the cinematography was a work of art - long, continuous shots instead of quick cuts and 360-degree angles on the dance floor that made me feel I was being led around the floor by a dashing cavalry officer.

And, of course, because of their terrific sexual chemistry, there was the language of love.

When Count Vronsky is eager to see Anna, he goes to an art museum because he thinks she will be there.

"I didn't know you were an art lover," a friend says to him.

"I am prepared to be," he answers emphatically.

To the texting teens, that line probably didn't even get noticed.

With the three women, one of them probably said, "Yea, he says that now, but just wait, honey."

And the guy behind me, well, he just yawned.

Not me. After Tolstoy and Stoppard, I am prepared to be anything I need to be.

Well, anything except the doomed lover who throws herself in front of a train.

I am nothing if not practical.

Adjusting for the Curve

Best possible outcome: plans go astray because of an unexpected friend and yard bird.

I had nothing but good intentions tonight: a foreign film and music from California.

But you know how it goes when you're trolling Facebook and something catches your eye and all of a sudden you have new information to consider.

Yea, that's how I was caught off guard by shiny things.

Okay, they weren't really shiny, just fried.

The Roosevelt was advertising tonight as fried chicken night until 6:30.

That didn't leave much room for error, so I got myself together and headed east for dinner.

Early as I was, I walked in to find a couple of friend already knuckle deep in fried chicken.

Technically speaking, this is where the evening took a sharp left turn.

I joined them, ordering a glass of Del Fosse Cuvee Laurent, the Chambourcin blend I'd fallen for on my last visit.

Just as I was ordering my fried chicken, another couple I know arrived and took the seats to my right.

They turned out to be Roosevelt fried chicken veterans, having taken advantage of the first fried chicken night.

Naturally, they were curious when my order came out, eager to see if it was as appealing as last time.

They immediately noticed that the chicken is now boneless but seemed mollified by the presence of the spicy honey glaze.

We all took deep breaths.

While I dove into my plate o' fried chicken, I heard tales of lives regained, businesses sold and happier people.

Best line randomly overheard: "We're a fart joke kind of couple."

There's no way to even respond to that.

There was discussion of a new Roosevelt t-shirt and a suggestion was made that the ideal t-shirt would have an outline of bartender T's beard.

You have to admit, it's not a bad idea.

The fried chicken was superb with a well-seasoned crust and just the right amount of spicy honey to provide sweet heat.

By the time I finished, my fingers were as sticky as a toddler's after his first pancake.

Someone made the foolhardy suggestion that the Roosevelt should do fried chicken on a regular basis but several of us voted that down.

No one should have access to this chicken day in and day out if we ever hope to win the war on obesity.

What I mean is, thank god they had sold out of fried chicken by 6:15 to save people from themselves.

My friend's beloved eventually left her to me and went home so we used the unexpected opportunity to do the girltalk thing.

We'll just say Cuvee Laurent greased the wheels and leave it at that.

Soon there was an adorable and androgynous couple sitting nearby and when their food arrived, my nose followed.

Apparently my sniffing of their vicinity made my interest in their dinner obvious, because one of them raved about the lamb shank and inquired, "Want a germ-covered bite?" and tore off a piece of meat to hand to me.

My friend returned from the bathroom at that moment, mortified at my behavior and asking, "Are you mooching food from those people?"

I prefer to think that I was using my olfactory senses to appreciate their food and besides, they offered.

By the way, the bite was delicious, germy or not.

After debating Venus and Mars with my friend, we ordered a slice of peanut butter pie to share, my first time trying this dessert.

Rich and obscenely sweet by the end, it was part of the currency I was using tonight to buy a ticket to go to hell in a hand basket.

At one point, my friend looked at her phone, realized the time and said, "Ooh, sorry, I made you miss your show!" but her voice really didn't sound too sorry.

Everything happens for a reason, Grasshopper.

Besides, perhaps this was the best possible outcome for us both.

It certainly worked for those of us with sticky fingers.

Nouvelle Vague Luncheon

I learned my lesson yesterday.

On a 74-degree December day, seek out a sunny spot for lunch.

After a stop at Stuart Circle to pick up a friend, we made our way to the VMFA and Amuse's balcony for lunch.

Surprisingly, the balcony was relatively unpopulated and we took a table with a view of the falling water and the sun on our backs.

My friend was eager to tell me about his trip to Ireland, which for me is the Motherland, and I was eager to hear.

Long story short: driving sucked, hotels unimpressive, beer outstanding, people congenial and talkative and food so-so.

Luckily, the tights were good and he'd brought me back a cute pair to add to my international collection.

Our server got as far as the first special and we both said, "Yes, please."

So two grilled quail halves with roasted beets, wild mushrooms and broccoli rabe landed at our table as I heard tales of broken rental car mirrors, local oyster tastings and errant cows on the winding roads.

Sitting there on the balcony with a view of the sculpture garden full of sunning patrons, a breeze suddenly came up.

Next thing we knew, the wind lifted leaves from the ground below and began swirling them upward over our heads and across the roof of the museum.

"It's like a Truffaut movie," my friend observed.

The three older women next to us mistakenly presumed that the leaves were falling down when really it was so much more interesting than that.

We succumbed to dessert because it's a tradition with the two of us and the shared pot de creme came with two coconut cookies we both savored.

Just to celebrate the sunny day, we also finished with Kaleidescopes, the showy drink created by the Amuse bar staff for the Chihuly exhibit.

A combination of sparkling wine, sweet vermouth and absinthe, the flute also contained three colorful gelatin cubes made from various cordials.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating.

There is nothing like a little absinthe in the  afternoon.

Especially on a sunny balcony with leaves swirling upward.

In fact, I couldn't have ordered up a more enjoyable lunch experience.

"Life has more imagination than we do" ~ Truffaut

And aren't we lucky that it does?

Got a Fever of 103

The right music sets the tone for the meal.

So, after a lovely walk over to Olio in the early evening air, it was a distinct pleasure to walk in and hear some well-chosen '80s music blaring.

And by blaring, I mean playing at a volume that allowed talk but made you wish you could dance.

Looking at the specials board while listening to When in Rome, I was thrilled when it was followed by the Smiths, Psychedelic Furs and Talk Talk.

It's my life, don't you forget
It's my life, it never ends

Let's just say that  soon I was inquiring of our server the source of the music.

Pandora set to New Order. Well, that explains everything except the 20-something who had clearly chosen this music for his evening's work.

It was hard to resist the evening's specials: an Italian lentil soup (executed perfectly according to the nearest Italian) and a sandwich of duck liver pate, roasted pork loin, fig jam and Dijon mustard on a crusty baguette.

My, my, the earthiness of that pate with the sweet figs was sublime.

Paired with a bottle of Planeta La Segreta red blend, this was a meal worthy of a balmy December evening.

Double chocolate cake with chocolate ganache finished everything off beautifully as Jesus and Mary Chain poured from the speakers.

Listen to the girl
As she takes on half the world
Moving up and so alive

Well done, Olio.

From there it was an easy walk to Firehouse Theater for TheaterLab's "Life of Hannah," written by a local playwright, Michael Musatow, and rehearsed for a mere two and a half weeks.

Waiting for the play to begin, Foreigner was the music of choice and it led right into the play.

I'm hot-blooded, check it and see.

Or, better yet, don't and take my word for it.

The play about family coming to visit a young couple for Thanksgiving had the expected nervousness of the young wife while her husband placated her about his crazy family.

When he goes out for cranberries (the traditional jelled variety that comes from a can), she goes on cleaning, only to hit her head.

The bump causes her mind to imagine the husband's family arriving to hilarious results.

Funniest was Stephen Ryan as Grandpa, an old man planted in a chair whose primary activity was tapping one hand and spouting non sequiters.

If I hadn't already seen Ryan playing very different and younger roles, I'd have believed he really was as old as Grandpa.

But Grandpa wasn't the only funny one.

Daughter Clarice had changed her name to Hydrangea and adopted a hippie-dippie attitude toward life.

There was the New Jersey-accented Georgia, who espoused a theory of "Men and gambling, they're just the same."

It was your classic dysfunctional family, full of under-achievers, damaged souls and an overbearing mother.

The play was short, less than 45 minutes, but by the end, Hannah had seen enough dysfunction to resolve to change her own ways.

She even called her terrible mother to wish her a happy holiday.

And really, any woman who claims to clean to relax needs better relaxing options.

She was even going to have a drink with the turkey feast, something the very controlled Hannah didn't usually do.

Her husband was so proud.

That or he knew things would go much better if she was properly lubricated to deal with his crazy relatives once they really arrived and not just in Hannah's mind.

So glad that's Hannah's life and not mine.

And fortunately, it never ends.

Doors Wide Open

The warm weather is a game-changer.

Walk into a popular restaurant on a 75-degree December day and the silence will be deafening.

It was so quiet, so empty, that I stepped back outside to make sure they hadn't ceased Monday hours.

Nope. Open every day.

Back in I went, only to be greeted this time by a smiling face from the kitchen.

And then shortly thereafter, an affable server.

Turns out that they were only too happy to welcome me in on an unusually dead afternoon.

We agreed that any place with a patio was doing record business this Monday.

But Secco has no patio.

What they do have is two doors, front and side, so I immediately started a campaign to have them both opened.

The only downside was that the staff then realized what an exquisite day they were missing.

Given the unseasonable warmth, I decided to go with a rose from the chalkboard's secret stash.

The kitchen staff, with no one to cook for, was eager to have something to do.

I heard tell of a sandwich they were thinking of adding to the menu and volunteered to be a guinea pig for it.

The grilled sandwich of house-cooked pastrami, house-made sauerkraut, Swiss and whole grain mustard came on a Billy bread, although once it makes it on to the menu, it'll be on Sub Rosa's rye bread.

Even without the benefit of caraway, the sandwich was stellar - crispy bread filled with perfect pastrami, bits of fat still clinging to the meat, and and the ooze of kraut and cheese.

With no other customers to talk to, the staff was at my mercy for mealtime conversation.

Willingly (no doubt boredom) they obliged.

I got music talk, bread talk (it's everywhere these days), restaurant talk and (surprise) wine talk.

My sandwich came with a nicely dressed mixed green salad, an ideal way to mitigate the pastrami's heft.

And outside the open door, Caytown buzzed by.

A woman in work clothes and athletic shoes getting in some sunny exercise.

A couple with matching nose rings walking hand in hand.

Two moms with young 'uns soliciting donations for their children's school.

And yet not a one of them came in.

The loss was theirs.

The rose was drinking like a red, the sandwich was beautifully executed and the music (XX, Arcade Fire) was cranked just high enough to wash over me and float out the door.

Much as I loved being the star (read: only) customer in a restaurant, I eventually played lemming and followed everyone else out into the day.

But way better fed than they were.

Walk This Way

Today was like a day in Italy.

The weather was beautiful and I spent the day walking everywhere.

The only thing missing was the overly-forward men leering and saying inappropriate things.

Ah, Italian men.

First there was the hilly walk to the Bottom in search of lunch, a challenge after 2:00 we discovered.

Eventually we found settled in at Globehopper for sandwiches in the sunny room surrounded by people on laptops.

The walk back up the hill was far shadier, but still temperate enough to convince me I wanted an evening of the same.

Playing tourist, we stopped to admire the public art along Main Street, notable mainly for how inoffensive and uninteresting it was.

Really, in the city with the number one sculpture school in the country we can't find better large scale  sculpture?

After cleaning up and a change into evening attire, it was soon time to set out for Balliceaux and Classical Incarnations with members of the Richmond Symphony playing in small chamber group iterations.

The music began with a duo who morphed into a trio.

Next up was a guy on upright bass with a looping pedal, so I saw the equivalent of Dave Watkins done classically.

Very cool.

Next came a guy on guitar doing a Steve Reich composition with 16 guitar parts. As he explained it, it had been written in the 1980s and to do it all himself, he'd had to record all 16 tracks individually.

Tonight, he'd recorded all but one, saying, "Now I'm doing it with a laptop."

The New Age sounding piece was a dense layering of guitars.

We went on to hear a duo do a piece they said demonstrated Prokofiev's beautiful harmonies and did it ever.

Then came a favorite, a Brahms horn trio for piano, violin and French horn.

The horn player called it, "The quintessential chamber music for horn players."

I knew two of the three.

 Russell Wilson, the Symphony's pianist tore it up, even turning up the volume on his keyboard early on.

Treesa Gold's blond hair was flying as she got into her part and the horn player looked blissed out.

After intermission, they did a Brahms sonata that came about after another violinist and Russell had been jamming (i.e., sight-reading at a practice) on it last week.

It was a mashup of lullaby and lively.

Singer Lisa did two songs ("In English!") to Russell's accompaniment while the guy next to me noted, "This is chick music."

There were so many things I could have said, but why ruin a lovely Italian day?

My hands-down favorite piece was by Hayden and affectionately called "The Rider" for its galloping rhythms on two violins, viola and cello.

 A demented waltz by Shostakovitch was a killer finish as I looked around to see a roomful of  classical nerds smiling broadly at this madcap ending.

From classical music, we set out again, this time for Live at Ipanema and dessert.

Double chocolate cake and Franco Serra Dolcetta d'Alba took care of the last course of the day as the band set up.

Ocean vs. Daughter was playing so while we still had keyboards, it was quite a change from what we'd just heard.

More Tori Amos, less long hair music.

And definitely more D.I.Y., with photographer P.J. Sykes saving the day by finding a piece of cinder block for the cellist to prop his instrument against.

There were friends to talk to- musicians, a teacher out too late, and restaurant types - all out looking for music to end their weekend.

Lead singer Flanna began solo but soon we got the benefit of Kevin's drums (and background vocals) and the cello.

Her material done alone was of the confessional girl sort, but it was the louder songs that won over the crowd.

Or maybe that was just me.

They did a song they'd never played out before ("We'll see what happens") and nailed it.

And then it was over and time to head out into the still decidedly un-December like weather.

In other words, it was a lovely walk home.

Unlike in Italy, though, we passed no gelaterias or pastry shops open late along the way.

Still, a midnight walk is always to be appreciated, whether here or in the land of the leer.

Curtain Call

To a theater-lover, it was a thing of beauty.

I walked into my neighborhood joint, Bistro 27, around 6:00 to find it easily 80% full.

Granted, we were the only ones at the bar, but there were very few empty tables.

Everywhere I looked, couples, groups and families were talking, laughing and eating.

It was so lively it could have been staged.

We took bar seats and cracked the wine list; by the time we'd decided on a Sangiovese, every table was taken.

Within minutes, every bar stool. And then there were people standing just to wait for a stool.

Be still, my dramatic heart.

Don't get me wrong, the meal was lovely, too.

A Caesar salad boasted loads of anchovies and gnocchi with duck ragout had a deep heartiness and was full of duck meat.

Even the fresh tomato and garlic aioli that came with the bread was worthy of not only of commentary but of using every last scrap of bread in the basket.

But my favorite part of it all was that most of these people were theater-bound.

Virginia Rep's rousing production of "The Producers" and Richmond Shakespeare's lyrical "A Child's Christmas in Wales" are playing just across the street from 27.

Tonight was also the Richmond Symphony Pop's "Let It Snow" performance with the talented, lanky and Jewish symphony librarian Matt Gold playing Santa.

That alone would have been worth the price of admission.

I'd heard from someone in the know that Theater VCU's "Avenue Q" sold out the entire weekend days ago (and deservedly so).

Then there was "How the Grinch Stole Christmas: The Musical" playing mere blocks away at the Landmark.

That would be the same green guy who was in the Christmas parade this morning.

If I had to guess, I'd wager that everyone in that dining room had theater tickets in their pocket or waiting for them at Will Call.

We wanted hazelnut chocolate torte for dessert, but given the waiting throngs and impending curtain calls, we ceded our seats and took dessert home instead.

For years now I've been going to Bistro 27, not just because it's within easy walking distance, but because I love the friendly vibe and stellar food.

I've often seen neighbors there, I've heard bands there, I've done New Year's eve and Easter there, but I don't think I've ever seen every single table taken with pre-theater goers.

The late, great lyricist and producer Oscar Hammerstein once said, "The number of people who will not go to a show they do not want to see is unlimited."

Sorry, Oscar baby, but I'm going to have to put a more positive spin on that thought.

The number of people in Richmond who will go to a show and want to eat out first nearby is unlimited.

Why, it's practically proof positive that we're becoming a real theater town.

Now if only we could have more places where we could eat after the show.

Can I get an "amen" from the theater community?

Of Trunks and Batons

It's hard to resist a parade when it deposits itself practically at my doorstep.

Leaving for my daily walk, I head south toward Broad Street, just like I do most days.

Today, I am greeted by an inflatable Snoopy, fist ducking under the street lights on the west side of the intersection and then rising to his full height in the middle.

It's still not all that high, but then this is no Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, either.

As I walk west on Broad, the parade is coming right at me with marching band after marching band from distant counties.

Just how early do you have to get up in Northumberland County to be here for a 10:00 parade?

Baton twirlers dressed in skimpy costumes throw, catch and occasionally miss, but their lipsticked smiles never waver.

The SEAL Team has a float and a cadre of OCD-looking people marching and probably wishing they were carrying logs or something.

One of the highlights is the River City Rollergirls, one of them carrying a sign saying "Seasons' Beating" as the they skate madly around her, attired in bright colors and knee pads.

My vote for most lurid entry in the parade is the partially-inflated Christmas tree, its brown trunk looking way too phallic as it wavered between full and flacid, and angled at the crowd below.

There were the Christmas Mothers doing the beauty queen wave from car dealerships vehicles.

Finally Santa came in view, accompanied by what I have to assume was the Snow Queen, although she looked young enough to be his granddaughter.

Mrs. Claus, take note.

Once himself had passed, the parade was over, so since it was time for me to turn around, I joined the gaggle of street vendors following the parade downtown and still hawking their  cheap, Chinese-made wares to a crowd of mostly families.

Cause nothing says Christmas parade like an inflatable SpongeBob Squarepants balloon on a stick.

And lots of Krispy Kreme donuts.

Didn't someone say this is the most wonderful time of the year?

Destination: L. City

You could say short films get short shrift.

Actually, James Parrish of the James River Film Society said just that tonight at VMFA during the opening of the two-night James River Shorts screenings.

The event came about after the JRFS acknowledged that the shorts weren't getting their due as part of the larger James River Film festival.

I'd thoroughly enjoyed last year's event, so here I was back again for this year's.

First, there was a late lunch at Best Cafe, which was populated somewhere between almost empty (my last few lunches) and completely mobbed (my last few Thursday Jazz cafes), meaning practically perfect.

We scored the wine of the evening, Primal Roots, a red blend of syrah, zinfandel and Merlot, along with ham and bean soup and a salad with chicken, but notable for its other ingredients: grapes, strawberries, candied walnuts, goat cheese and red onions.

We finished our Primal with a triple chocolate ganache before heading down to the Cheek theater for the shorts.

A jury of five local cinephiles and a visiting guest, filmmaker Lyn Elliot, had decided what we were to view tonight out of the many entries received.

After having seen the twelve finalists, I have two conclusions.

There's a lot of interesting short-form films being made in 2012 and there are several recurring themes.

See: falling rain, nudity and the appearance of scratched film.

"Lot 22 (Concession 5)" had a vintage feel, with occasionally flickering images of farms, fields and animals.

It was followed by technical difficulties (the filmmaker having insisted on a high-res showing), causing one of the JFFS guys to announce in the dark, "This is part of the transition to the digital age."

Eventually after some storytelling in the dark, we saw "Simple Machines," a black and white film that told essentially the same story as Koyonasqatsi but in a fraction of the time.

A seed sprouts and grows in time lapse photography before imagery of machines and large metal things take over.

Nature lost, technology inevitable.

"L. City" was exquisite, beginning with a jittery black and white shot of a man on a train and moving onto animation to describe the heartbreak of a woman gone and a man for whom time stops in her absence.

I was smitten with the beauty of the black and white pictures that made up this film.

"Alphabet" was a stop-motion film with a white Gumby-like figure trying to scrawl a message on a cave wall for mankind (Gumby-kind?).

"THEM" he wrote as bad things happened all around him.

Like a light show at a music performance, "Nothing to Undo" was a series of changing images.

Our first silent short of the night was "Footprints in the Snow," which caused the guy sitting behind me to start drumming his fingers in lieu of a soundtrack.

Not everyone is comfortable with silence.

The imagery of scenes of a snow-covered landscape were so vivid I could almost feel the cold of the snow-laden branches just outside the windows.

One good thing about a silent film though, is no one talks or chatters.

I heard a few coughs, but otherwise silence as people took in the white landscapes.

"Eye Pieces, Number 1" was not novel, but the footage of an eye blinking continued to multiply, first into two eyes, then four, sixteen and eventually 64.

By then, the eyes shown were responding to each other, looking sideways and askance.

It was well executed and I laughed out loud several times at the eyes' antics.

A brief intermission allowed for some mingling and then we were back at the shorts.

"Evolution" was adorable, full of animated  crayon drawings of monsters.

Sometimes they were eating each other and another time, two met, followed by a plethora of hearts coming up from them (successful first date, I suppose) and then a pile of babies appeared as a result.

What have we learned from this, kids?

Turns out the filmmaker used students from Fox Elementary to hep him with this one.

"That gets the sentimental vote," my companion said to me.

"Parva Sed Apta Mihi" was the longest short at seventeen minutes and it showed California streetscapes, vendors and religious iconography as words floated across the screen to Latin and accordion beats.

By the end of the film, I knew that the title meant, "Small, but enough for me."

I don't even have time to go into the wisdom of that philosophy, but feel free to stop by my tiny Jackson Ward apartment to discuss it at any time.

We returned to animation with "You, Everyone and Everything," a story of a young boy, the bugs in his life and his bad dream.

Luckily, all's well that ends well when he awakes and Mom and Dad are waiting at the dinner table for him.

If only life was always that easy.

A bit heavy-handed but still clever was "Changed Landscape," where for each day of the week shown (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday), we heard random headlines, weather reports and horoscopes over shots of the same pattern of scenes: animals grazing, a beach, a herd on a hillside.

Life.

By the end, there were no days of the week and the landscape had, well, changed.

"Movements" was another experimental film, this time of shifting patterns.

Once we'd seen all the films, we had to vote for the People's Choice award while guest juror Lyn Elliott decided the real winners.

Like me, she picked "L. City" as the best short, probably for the same reasons it had struck me: outstanding camerawork, breathtaking cinematography and a heartbreaking story of lost love.

That same film had lost by one vote the honor of people's choice award, which went to "Evolution,' no doubt for the students' charming contributions.

Wasn't it W.C. Fields who refused to work with kids because they stole all the attention?

Some things never change.

After hearing the winners announced, my companion and I went our separate ways and I went out to meet my friend Holmes for a drink.

We convened at Amour wine bistro where Holmes had dinner and I enjoyed a cup of tonight's soup, lamb and lentil while sipping bubbly (sparkling Vouvray, if you must know).

Holmes was flying solo tonight because his beloved was all stopped up, but we made the most of each other's company even without our favorite Richmonder.

With no dates to keep us on track, the conversation ranged all over creation, but one anecdote stands out.

I'll tell you that the punch line was, "At least she had a heater in her bedroom," and leave it at that.

Only Holmes.

But he was just as funny when I expressed surprise that he'd guessed that I'd been at the James River Shorts screening.

"As if you'd have been anywhere else?" he said mockingly.

Well, of course not. They say that brevity is the soul of wit.

I'll go as short as I need to as long as I get the wit.

Post Beaver Moon

My friend Myron said he was there for the entertainment.

Frankly, they had me at "oddly sexy."

Artist Arlene Shechet was speaking at the Grace Street theater about her creative processes.

She began by reading the words of other people who, she said, had conveyed in words what she thought but couldn't verbalize.

Things like, "Creativity means having the ability to be embarrassed."

I like to think I have both skill sets.

She then proceeded to, "quickly riff through twenty years of my life."

He current exhibit at Anderson Gallery is called "That Time" and after hearing her speak, her work is clearly all about a number of times.

Like 1993 when her work was being informed by birth (her children) and death (her best friend).

After a realization that everyone is going to die, Shechet resolved to be more alive.

Part of that was spending time daily in her studio, whether it was fifteen minutes or hours.

Like during the '90s when "lots of gender stuff was going on."

Like in 2001 when she was walking across the Brooklyn bridge after dropping her kids at school and saw the plane fly into the first tower. And the second.

That time.

It took me a while just to get my head around that experience.

Shechet captured the audience's attention because her journey, not to mention her well-formulated explanations, were so compelling.

We saw images of her works in glass, ceramics, printmaking and finally, from 2005 on, clay.

She was quick to remind us that seven years ago, clay was still marginalized, the material of crafters.

So naturally she went on to make clay pieces that were hailed for their leaning, bulging and, yes, even oddly sexy qualities.

She admitted that some of her pieces did topple over and that, "Some of the failures are good and some of them are just failures."

That's life, right?

Toward the end, she showed images with little explanation.

"I don't want to be more articulate than the object," she said brilliantly.

By the time I left the lecture, I felt like I'd met the most interesting guest a party and she'd spent the entire evening telling me her history.

How could she not create art in response to those times?

For my evening opener, I couldn't have asked for more.

Not more art anyway, but certainly some music.

It was forthcoming at Gallery 5 where a show rescheduled from October was finally happening.

Opening was comedian Alan Resnick who proceeded to give us a comic presentation in the style of a motivational speaker, complete with head mic.

It was pretty hilarious.

One of his first instructions was for us to sit down on the floor.

Raptly, we did.

His well-delivered constant patter bordered on smarmy as he told us how we could outlive our family and friends by getting an avatar.

He then proceeded to attempt a comedic routine with his avatar on a screen behind him.

The crowd ate it up.

And let me tell you about the crowd.

One kid in RayBans despite the dark room. Another in a Santa hat.

One in a hat that looked like a shark was biting his head, complete with teeth all the way around.

Lots of Xs on hands.

That crowd.

Next up was Heights with Friends, a trio of guitar and two vocalists with aspirations of the Beastie Boys.

They said they were starting with an a capella song, but it came out more like  rap.

I don't want to say they had a bleak outlook, but lyrics like, "Dreams don't always come true, Do what you have to," surely can't be good for impressionable young X-marked youth.

Of course they loved it.

My favorite moment of their set may have come when the guitarist traded his ax for a trumpet solo or it could have been the lyric, "I can't stop eating the sugar," as inscrutable or metaphorical line as a 20-something could come up with.

During the break, a message on the screen announced, "Download the Dan Deacon app. Turn all your phones into the light show. Help us make this dream a reality."

Luckily, I didn't have the tool to make that a reality, so I was off the hook.

When headliner Dan Deacon finally took the floor (eschewing the stage), it was to tell us that this was his first solo show in ages and that it was going to be sloppy.

He may have even mentioned it being a shit storm.

Instead, he kicked into high gear with his electro dance noise and the minute he began bouncing, so did the crowd.

From there, he was the boss of everyone in the room, telling us to clear the center of the floor and picking two people to dance there.

After five seconds, they were to tap someone else to replace them.

One rule: No cowards. Dance or get out of the way.

And dancing is a loose term; all that was realty required was high energy motion, whether flailing, jumping jacks or imaginary pole dancing.

Deacon must enjoy orchestrating his dance parties, because he went on to choose leaders for a group interpretive dance, splitting those of us on the right side of the room from those on the left.

Even smashed against the wall, I did what I could to follow along, moving body parts according to my team's leader.

When he tried to do the app light show, things weren't working and he finally canned the idea.

"This'll be much less awkward the the mass phone thing," he promised, launching into another rhythmic, fast-paced song that dared you not to dance, if only in place.

You become fast friends with those near you in that situation.

During a mid-set trip to the bathroom, the bearded guy in line behind me chatted me up about bathroom speed, dance music and Richmond.

Later, he ended up next to me and during an especially rambunctious dance move, bonked me royally.

Mortified, he grabbed me to his chest and hugged me to show there were no hard feelings (only hard elbows).

We were all in this together.

The crowd went crazy (okay, crazier) for Deacon's exuberant "Wham City" and next thing we knew, his mixer broke and the show was over.

Or maybe it was just time.

The dancing (and dance-offs) had been pretty much non-stop, with the beat never really letting up.

Okay, it had been a little sloppy, with lots of random body contact and flashing lights.

Way better than a shit storm. Entertainment, even.

Mind the Culture

It's not often a Banner lecture gives me recent cultural history and memories of an old boyfriend.

And yet, today's did.

Alan Wurtzel was speaking on "Good to Great to Gone: Circuit City," talking about the chain his father started in 1949 that was history by 2009.

I go to lots of lectures at the Virginia Historical Society, but they don't often cover events that took place in my lifetime (well, part of it).

So, right off, I was curious to hear this slice of late 20th century cultural history.

Plus, back in college, I'd had a long-time boyfriend who worked at Circuit City and had always praised the company for its people-friendly philosophy.

Wurtzel told the story of his father visiting Richmond and while at a barber shop at the corner of Park and Robinson (Robin Inn's corner, perhaps?), hearing that the south's first television station had just begun.

And while TV viewing in those days was pretty much "a 13 inch black and white screen with half picture and half snow," according to Wurtzel, his Dad saw the future.

Let's not forget that in 1949, "home entertainment" consisted of radios. Period.

Two weeks later, he moved to Richmond with his family, lock, stock and barrel and proceeded to use $13,000 to open Ward's TV at 705 West Broad Street, which eventually became Circuit City.

Most fascinating was how he sold TVs.

Seems he'd run ads in the RTD offering "free home demonstrations" and schedule them for every night at 6, 7, 8 and 9:00.

Interesting hours, right?

Nope, WTVR was only on the air from 6-10, so he knew what he was doing.

He'd bring a TV, explain it and leave it, returning the next night to either pick it up or (usually) have the proud new owners sign an installment agreement to buy their TV over time.

Eventually the store moved to 1806 W. Broad (across from the old Sears we're all hoping is about to become a Whole Foods) and added appliances to his inventory of TVs.

Wurtzel has done extensive research for his book, so his talk was populated by facts and company philosophies like "confront the brutal facts" and "curiosity sustains the cat" and "encourage debate."

As one who has confronted the brutal facts (I'm a little eccentric and I have too much energy), proved that curiosity can sustain an entire life (hence my presence at VHS today) and encouraged debate with everyone I know and love simply for the pleasure of the discussion, I'd say I could have been prime Circuit City material.

All except I never liked TV, haven't owned one in years and detest shopping.

Oh, and the relationship with the Circuit City boyfriend lost its allure when my curiosity kept growing and his fizzled out.

As I learned from Wurtzel today, that's a perfect metaphor for Circuit City.

But, man, did it leave some great cultural history behind.