When a man stays up 'till 3 a.m. preparing, I want to see what he comes up with.
Park ranger and photo historian extraordinaire Mike Gorman had allowed research for his talk today to take over his life - his words- as he gathered together "Images of the Final Campaign, Richmond 1864."
I was definitely in the minority at the historic Henrico Theater, where a sea of males was only occasionally punctuated by a female face, almost all of them except me with a male companion.
His theme was "condition of repose," a quaint phrase to reflect how much times was spent between battles and that's most of what photographers of the era were able to capture.
Which is not to say necessarily restful scenes (a hanging was particularly gruesome) but frequently staged scenes to represent war to the masses (see: propaganda).
Explaining that renowned Civil War-era photographer Matthew Brady was nearly blind at the time, a fact that prevented him taking pictures, he said it did not stop him from being in the pictures.
We played a version of "Where's Waldo?" and he showed a half dozen photos with Brady posing, often front and center, in the midst of camps and battlefields.
And because he's Mike Gorman, photo nerd, he showed Civil War "movies" where he combined two or three pictures to simulate motion.
"Okay, folks, if that doesn't do it for you, thanks for coming," he wisecracked.
Humor abounded, as it always does at his talks and tours, and every time he got off on a geeky tangent or explanation, he'd say, "Here I go, I'm putting on a my propeller beanie!" and explain in detail.
His piece de resistance was an October 1864 photograph of colored Confederate troops and once he blew it up, you could see the figures of Union soldiers on earthworks in the background.
"This is the only shot of Union and Confederate troops together. It's the most impressive photograph of the Civil War," he said and the audience sat stunned and silent.
"That's the proper reaction!" he boomed, clearly satisfied at our amazement.
Another shot the Library of Congress had mis-labeled as Petersburg turned out to be, through his studied investigation, actually of our own Fort Harrison.
They don't make geeks like Mike every day, that's all I'm going to say.
I do my best to attend his talks and tours because you never know what this guy digs up at 2 a.m. sitting in his underwear in front of the computer while eating popcorn and drinking a beer.
No doubt with his propeller beanie on.
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Lunch is for Later
The thing about brunch is, some people just want breakfast.
When we'd made these plans, I thought it was for lunch. Turns out my companions had other ideas so we detoured to Perly's instead.
No one was surprised at how busy it was, but it didn't take too long to get seated at a booth and out of the way of the bustling servers.
It was my first look at the morning menu - dubbed "Sunrise" - which offered all kinds of temptations (but no pig products) and after some discussion, we placed our order with our smiling server.
Time to socialize.
The artist in the group shared pictures of some of his latest endeavors, everything from his handmade groovy guitar strap to a recent painting and textile wall hanging incorporating beads and figures.
Meanwhile, the False Cape expedition survivor (humongous horse flies, horrific heat and flying tents) told us about her upcoming trip next week to Yosemite, Tahoe and Sacramento.
The best I could do was talk about the stellar band I'd seen last night at Balliceaux.
We had plenty of time to chat because our food took a while to arrive, understandably given the jam-packed restaurant and the fact that they've barely been open two weeks.
When our server arrived, she had only two plates in hand and put them down in front of my companions; at that moment there was a loud crash from the back.
"Gee, I hope that wasn't yours," she said to me with a slight grimace and grin.
Fortunately, it wasn't and soon we were all tucking in to our breakfasts as a light rain fell outside.
Chocolate babka French toast with banana cream anglaise and blueberries was decadent without being too chocolaty (given that it was the first meal of the day) and got even better with the addition of the salt component in the form of strips of turkey bacon.
Two of us did the build your own breakfast, enjoying kishka - beef sausage with oatmeal- for the first time and debating what makes better toast, seeded rye or challah.
My vote is for the former, slathered with butter and strawberry jam delivered in a ramekin.
People kept arriving as we ate and they ran the gamut, some of them no doubt long-time Perly's regulars from its last incarnation and plenty of others looking more like they'd arrived via the Black Sheep connection since the chef is the same one who launched that brunch mecca.
Boldly ordering a cross between dessert and a drink, the artist got the shickered egg cream (delivered in a miniature glass milk bottle), a compelling combination of bourbon, cream, cream de cacao, Fex's U-Bet chocolate syrup and almond orgeat seltzer fizz.
Because sometimes when you want breakfast, you also want a bit of a buzz.
I think that's why they call it brunch.
When we'd made these plans, I thought it was for lunch. Turns out my companions had other ideas so we detoured to Perly's instead.
No one was surprised at how busy it was, but it didn't take too long to get seated at a booth and out of the way of the bustling servers.
It was my first look at the morning menu - dubbed "Sunrise" - which offered all kinds of temptations (but no pig products) and after some discussion, we placed our order with our smiling server.
Time to socialize.
The artist in the group shared pictures of some of his latest endeavors, everything from his handmade groovy guitar strap to a recent painting and textile wall hanging incorporating beads and figures.
Meanwhile, the False Cape expedition survivor (humongous horse flies, horrific heat and flying tents) told us about her upcoming trip next week to Yosemite, Tahoe and Sacramento.
The best I could do was talk about the stellar band I'd seen last night at Balliceaux.
We had plenty of time to chat because our food took a while to arrive, understandably given the jam-packed restaurant and the fact that they've barely been open two weeks.
When our server arrived, she had only two plates in hand and put them down in front of my companions; at that moment there was a loud crash from the back.
"Gee, I hope that wasn't yours," she said to me with a slight grimace and grin.
Fortunately, it wasn't and soon we were all tucking in to our breakfasts as a light rain fell outside.
Chocolate babka French toast with banana cream anglaise and blueberries was decadent without being too chocolaty (given that it was the first meal of the day) and got even better with the addition of the salt component in the form of strips of turkey bacon.
Two of us did the build your own breakfast, enjoying kishka - beef sausage with oatmeal- for the first time and debating what makes better toast, seeded rye or challah.
My vote is for the former, slathered with butter and strawberry jam delivered in a ramekin.
People kept arriving as we ate and they ran the gamut, some of them no doubt long-time Perly's regulars from its last incarnation and plenty of others looking more like they'd arrived via the Black Sheep connection since the chef is the same one who launched that brunch mecca.
Boldly ordering a cross between dessert and a drink, the artist got the shickered egg cream (delivered in a miniature glass milk bottle), a compelling combination of bourbon, cream, cream de cacao, Fex's U-Bet chocolate syrup and almond orgeat seltzer fizz.
Because sometimes when you want breakfast, you also want a bit of a buzz.
I think that's why they call it brunch.
All Over the Map
It was a well-traveled evening.
Going to the Westhampton to see Woody Allen's latest, "Magic in the Moonlight," got me fabulous views of the south of France: azure blue seas, rose bowers so colorful you could almost smell them and winding tree-lined roadways circa 1928.
From the film's opening strains of Cole Porter's "You Do Something to Me," it announced itself as a Woody Allen movie.
Naturally, the language was delightful ("That young milksop who's smitten with her") and the life lessons spot on ("It's not where you go, it's who you travel with").
The story of a jaded and celebrated magician who sets out to debunk a dewy, so-called psychic was not Allen's best work but I'm not going to complain about looking at Colin Firth for two hours, even if he did play a grumpy, unromantic pragmatist who sees no need to pause and enjoy the pleasures of life.
Well, at least until he meets a sunny optimist with a great smile.
It was the age-old argument of fact versus fantasy, science versus magic and whether it's wise to take some things on faith.
Could it be possible some people are more cosmically in tune and can "see" things most of us can't?
All I know is that I was at a gathering back in the '90s and a psychic was present and when she stopped to talk to me, she took a ring from my hand, closed her eyes and told me things she couldn't possibly have known because no one else in the room knew them.
I'm talking things about a death very close to me and about a particular person who had meant a lot to me and she spouted off both.
So while Colin Firth's character didn't believe some people have a spiritual capability, I do.
Walking out of the theater, I found the sidewalk crawling with pods of young families with kids waiting for the dubious pleasures of eating at The Continental.
Stepping over the smallest ones sprawled on the sidewalk, I escaped back to my world to take my hired mouth out to eat, filling my belly (and taking mental notes) to fortify myself for the rest of the evening's activities.
Reynolds Gallery had two openings tonight: a solo show by Isabel Bigelow and a group show, "Taking Off: Hot, New Painters," of up and coming artists from New York and Chicago.
Moments after walking in, an artist I'd interviewed last year approached me to say hello, followed by a history and art buff I inevitably see at cultural happenings.
The kind of person who's trying to choose between going to an air show or a historical re-enactment. A nerd like me, in other words.
The perception of art openings as dull, dry affairs is a myth; they're highly social evenings fueled by wine and conversation.
But also art.
Bigelow's paintings were gorgeous images of nature in isolation, say a branch or a slice of river, rendered in a limited number of colors.
What the hot, new crew painters had in common was that they were all reworking abstraction in their own ways.
If I had pockets deep enough, I'd have shelled out for Nicole Mauser's "Untitled," a gorgeous piece of color abstraction. But alas, my pockets are so shallow they're almost concave, so I left with just memories of the big cities and the art they spawn.
It was time for music.
Sure, I'd been at Balliceaux just last night but that was for rock and tonight they were presenting world music from eastern Europe with a dash of folk and jazz fronted by Zeb Bangash, a Pakistani singer, and Michael Winograd, a virtuoso clarinet player.
Who stays home on a Friday night and misses that?
Waiting for the doors to open, one of the bartenders walked by raising an eyebrow at me. "Two nights in a row, Karen?"
Shortly after, a saxophonist friend appeared, smiling and saying, "I thought I'd see you here."
I gave him major points for being there since he has to be on the road to Charlottesville at the crack of dawn tomorrow to play from 9 in the morning until noon.
Because the band didn't start until after 11, we had plenty of time to chat about our dedication to endurance training (his running, my walking), the perks of the freelance lifestyle (he teaches music lessons) and the unique charms of what he called "suburban dive bars" such as Sharky's (been there, done that) and Daddio's.
When Sandaraa finally took the stage, we were looking at a singer, violinist and bassist (all female), guitarist, accordionist, drummer and clarinetist, making for a sonic pallet able to bridge rock, Balkan, Afghani, Klezmer and NYC, where the group is now based.
The music soon had two couples at one of the booths dancing tavern-style in the booth, hands clasped with each other and over their heads.
That was just the beginning and before long one couple, then two, then three took to the dance floor to move to the decidedly eastern- sounding music.
If some of their dance moves looked a lot like Deadhead dancers, well, so be it.
Each song seemed to bridge multiple genres, always with Zeb's exotic-sounding voice pulling it all together, and often taking off on accordion and clarinet tangents.
The crowd wasn't large (no doubt the $10 price tag kept all the pretty people out, actually a good thing since they usually gab through shows), but it was quality, with everyone obviously there for the music, too often a rarity.
I started in the back of the room but eventually moved up front to better see the band, putting myself squarely in dancing territory.
Might be the first time I ever moved to a Pakistani singer.
Of course I'd be here.
Going to the Westhampton to see Woody Allen's latest, "Magic in the Moonlight," got me fabulous views of the south of France: azure blue seas, rose bowers so colorful you could almost smell them and winding tree-lined roadways circa 1928.
From the film's opening strains of Cole Porter's "You Do Something to Me," it announced itself as a Woody Allen movie.
Naturally, the language was delightful ("That young milksop who's smitten with her") and the life lessons spot on ("It's not where you go, it's who you travel with").
The story of a jaded and celebrated magician who sets out to debunk a dewy, so-called psychic was not Allen's best work but I'm not going to complain about looking at Colin Firth for two hours, even if he did play a grumpy, unromantic pragmatist who sees no need to pause and enjoy the pleasures of life.
Well, at least until he meets a sunny optimist with a great smile.
It was the age-old argument of fact versus fantasy, science versus magic and whether it's wise to take some things on faith.
Could it be possible some people are more cosmically in tune and can "see" things most of us can't?
All I know is that I was at a gathering back in the '90s and a psychic was present and when she stopped to talk to me, she took a ring from my hand, closed her eyes and told me things she couldn't possibly have known because no one else in the room knew them.
I'm talking things about a death very close to me and about a particular person who had meant a lot to me and she spouted off both.
So while Colin Firth's character didn't believe some people have a spiritual capability, I do.
Walking out of the theater, I found the sidewalk crawling with pods of young families with kids waiting for the dubious pleasures of eating at The Continental.
Stepping over the smallest ones sprawled on the sidewalk, I escaped back to my world to take my hired mouth out to eat, filling my belly (and taking mental notes) to fortify myself for the rest of the evening's activities.
Reynolds Gallery had two openings tonight: a solo show by Isabel Bigelow and a group show, "Taking Off: Hot, New Painters," of up and coming artists from New York and Chicago.
Moments after walking in, an artist I'd interviewed last year approached me to say hello, followed by a history and art buff I inevitably see at cultural happenings.
The kind of person who's trying to choose between going to an air show or a historical re-enactment. A nerd like me, in other words.
The perception of art openings as dull, dry affairs is a myth; they're highly social evenings fueled by wine and conversation.
But also art.
Bigelow's paintings were gorgeous images of nature in isolation, say a branch or a slice of river, rendered in a limited number of colors.
What the hot, new crew painters had in common was that they were all reworking abstraction in their own ways.
If I had pockets deep enough, I'd have shelled out for Nicole Mauser's "Untitled," a gorgeous piece of color abstraction. But alas, my pockets are so shallow they're almost concave, so I left with just memories of the big cities and the art they spawn.
It was time for music.
Sure, I'd been at Balliceaux just last night but that was for rock and tonight they were presenting world music from eastern Europe with a dash of folk and jazz fronted by Zeb Bangash, a Pakistani singer, and Michael Winograd, a virtuoso clarinet player.
Who stays home on a Friday night and misses that?
Waiting for the doors to open, one of the bartenders walked by raising an eyebrow at me. "Two nights in a row, Karen?"
Shortly after, a saxophonist friend appeared, smiling and saying, "I thought I'd see you here."
I gave him major points for being there since he has to be on the road to Charlottesville at the crack of dawn tomorrow to play from 9 in the morning until noon.
Because the band didn't start until after 11, we had plenty of time to chat about our dedication to endurance training (his running, my walking), the perks of the freelance lifestyle (he teaches music lessons) and the unique charms of what he called "suburban dive bars" such as Sharky's (been there, done that) and Daddio's.
When Sandaraa finally took the stage, we were looking at a singer, violinist and bassist (all female), guitarist, accordionist, drummer and clarinetist, making for a sonic pallet able to bridge rock, Balkan, Afghani, Klezmer and NYC, where the group is now based.
The music soon had two couples at one of the booths dancing tavern-style in the booth, hands clasped with each other and over their heads.
That was just the beginning and before long one couple, then two, then three took to the dance floor to move to the decidedly eastern- sounding music.
If some of their dance moves looked a lot like Deadhead dancers, well, so be it.
Each song seemed to bridge multiple genres, always with Zeb's exotic-sounding voice pulling it all together, and often taking off on accordion and clarinet tangents.
The crowd wasn't large (no doubt the $10 price tag kept all the pretty people out, actually a good thing since they usually gab through shows), but it was quality, with everyone obviously there for the music, too often a rarity.
I started in the back of the room but eventually moved up front to better see the band, putting myself squarely in dancing territory.
Might be the first time I ever moved to a Pakistani singer.
Of course I'd be here.
Friday, September 12, 2014
Peculiar Sorts and Lutzes
Mind first, booty second.
Tonight was the first in Henley Street/Richmond Shakespeare's new historical play reading series dedicated to works descended from Shakespeare's use of language.
Hardly surprisingly, I had a ticket to join a favorite couple for it.
They found me in the second row with enough time to tell me about their trip this weekend to Newport and their recent entry into the world of cooking before the lights went down.
"Omnium Gatherum," a 2003 play (and one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize) about a group of New Yorkers at a dinner party was fascinating, thought-provoking, groan-inducing and topical.
I drink to make other people interesting.
Although the dinner conversation between the seven - and eventually eight - guests ("a collection of peculiar sorts") centered around September 11th and its aftereffects, there wasn't a topic covered that wasn't still relevant today, sadly, eleven years later.
Lively and contentious debate is the heart of every good dinner party.
In addition to all kinds of political discourse, the hostess described in minute detail every dish she was serving her guests, no doubt an early nod to the burgeoning foodie movement.
When a guest asks for ranch dressing for the salad, the hostess, recoils in horror. "Ranch??"
Although it was just a reading, the cast was outstanding, featuring actors I recognized - the always excellent Dean Knight (this time with a British accent) and the Artsie-nominated Katrinah Carol Lewis who sang an off-key version of "The Greatest Love" despite her having a fabulous voice- and some I didn't.
I've never been a fan of frisee. Too wild on the plate.
As was the prevailing sentiment at the time, it was mentioned that "print is dead" (fortunately, still not entirely true) and the New York Times was skewered as "a paper of record or a pacifier of bourgeoisie."
No dinner party is any good unless someone is drinking too fast.
So many "isms" were represented - feminism, capitalism, consumerism, terrorism, heroism - and all were discussed and debated to varying degrees of success.
We're evolving but the power system isn't.
Serious as some of the subject matter was, the play also had many laughs, never more so than when the hostess attempts to smooth things over with a change in topic.
A guest acknowledges it by calling it "a veritable triple lutz of a conversational leap," the line I nominate as indicative of the quality of language in the play.
Afterwards, there was a talkback with a three-person panel, a class from UR and all the attendees resulting in a lot of commentary about the pre-and post-9/11 world.
My friends and I had to laugh when one of the UR freshmen mentioned his grasp of the old world order because he'd been alive when the terrorist attacks occurred.
Of course, he'd been in kindergarten, but he wanted to be counted among those who "knew" the world before the attacks. I don't think so, youngster.
The talkback went on longer than planned because so many people had thoughts to share, questions to ask and points to make about the play.
My friends and I stood outside on the sidewalk for fifteen minutes discussing it ourselves, unable to stop our discourse on all the intriguing points raised.
My mind had been thoroughly goosed.
Then it was on to Balliceaux where I ran into a favorite trumpet player loitering outside Kuba, Kuba as I walked from my car.
Squeezing through the crowd around the front door, I headed to the back for a double bill where garage rock band Cherry Pits was hitting it hard when I walked in.
The Americana songbird spotted me at once ("We need to plan our date!"), the DJ was showing off her pretty toenail polish and the guitarist/foodie questioned my whereabouts ("Where were you this weekend at Fall Line Fest?") only to learn we had just barely missed each other Saturday at two different venues.
When I asked how proto-punk band Death had been, he shook his head and uttered what may the epitaph of the evening.
"You can't re-inflate a souffle," he explained glumly but with a masterful metaphor.
Cherry Pits' thrash-filled set ended with the best possible song: "My Baby's a Bitch," which had the crowd in a frenzy by the end.
While Hot Dolphin set up, I chatted with a friend about when the Valentine will re-open (late October if the contractors keep showing up), why a 40-year old should get carded at the door and why dresses beat pants every time.
Then it was time for main event, a show I was overdue for, not having seen the local rockers since last summer.
The band - drummer, guitarist and bassist - set up on the stage but front woman Lindsey - adorably dressed in a polka dot shirt with peplum, black mini and silver head band - had her mic stand on the floor so she'd have plenty of room to move.
"Thanks to Balliceaux for hosting a rock show!" she said to get things started on a Thursday night.
When I'd first seen Hot Dolphin, I'd been amazed at how she never stopped dancing. Ever.
She still hasn't and that's a very good thing because it ensures that the crowd understands that this is music to shake your tail feathers to.
Like sheep to the slaughter, she totally owns the crowd and they follow along l thrilled to have her leading them.
To give you an idea, her sound check was a scream, then she entreated us to come closer (the better to stick the mic in fans' faces to sing along) and surround her.
A photographer friend planted himself in the front row, the better to capture the energy happening a few feet from his lens.
Simply put, girls want to be her and men want to have her. Everyone was into her and the energetic music.
When she snarled, "Put your hands together," you'd better believe people did.
Each song was a three-minute sensory assault and not since Stevie Nicks has there been such a whirling dervish of a singer dancing, twirling and playing tambourine to a rapt audience.
After their last song, she understandably had quite the sheen and took a swig of her beer, announcing, "We're done! We're Hot Dolphin. We have t-shirts and that's it."
I'd gotten plenty of dancing of my own in, a fitting finish to an evening that had begun with my body still and my mind fully engaged.
Walking down Lombardy to my car after the show, two girls behind me chattered away about what they'd just seen.
"I wish I could be as sexy as her," one said enviously. "If I could wear my hair like that, I so would," said the other.
I considered turning around and telling them that that wasn't the point, that it was the energy, passion and obvious enjoyment she brought to the music that was worth emulating.
A quick glimpse back and I knew there was no point.
They looked like they'd probably been in kindergarten on 9/11. A triple lutz of a conversational leap would fly right over their heads.
New world order.
Tonight was the first in Henley Street/Richmond Shakespeare's new historical play reading series dedicated to works descended from Shakespeare's use of language.
Hardly surprisingly, I had a ticket to join a favorite couple for it.
They found me in the second row with enough time to tell me about their trip this weekend to Newport and their recent entry into the world of cooking before the lights went down.
"Omnium Gatherum," a 2003 play (and one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize) about a group of New Yorkers at a dinner party was fascinating, thought-provoking, groan-inducing and topical.
I drink to make other people interesting.
Although the dinner conversation between the seven - and eventually eight - guests ("a collection of peculiar sorts") centered around September 11th and its aftereffects, there wasn't a topic covered that wasn't still relevant today, sadly, eleven years later.
Lively and contentious debate is the heart of every good dinner party.
In addition to all kinds of political discourse, the hostess described in minute detail every dish she was serving her guests, no doubt an early nod to the burgeoning foodie movement.
When a guest asks for ranch dressing for the salad, the hostess, recoils in horror. "Ranch??"
Although it was just a reading, the cast was outstanding, featuring actors I recognized - the always excellent Dean Knight (this time with a British accent) and the Artsie-nominated Katrinah Carol Lewis who sang an off-key version of "The Greatest Love" despite her having a fabulous voice- and some I didn't.
I've never been a fan of frisee. Too wild on the plate.
As was the prevailing sentiment at the time, it was mentioned that "print is dead" (fortunately, still not entirely true) and the New York Times was skewered as "a paper of record or a pacifier of bourgeoisie."
No dinner party is any good unless someone is drinking too fast.
So many "isms" were represented - feminism, capitalism, consumerism, terrorism, heroism - and all were discussed and debated to varying degrees of success.
We're evolving but the power system isn't.
Serious as some of the subject matter was, the play also had many laughs, never more so than when the hostess attempts to smooth things over with a change in topic.
A guest acknowledges it by calling it "a veritable triple lutz of a conversational leap," the line I nominate as indicative of the quality of language in the play.
Afterwards, there was a talkback with a three-person panel, a class from UR and all the attendees resulting in a lot of commentary about the pre-and post-9/11 world.
My friends and I had to laugh when one of the UR freshmen mentioned his grasp of the old world order because he'd been alive when the terrorist attacks occurred.
Of course, he'd been in kindergarten, but he wanted to be counted among those who "knew" the world before the attacks. I don't think so, youngster.
The talkback went on longer than planned because so many people had thoughts to share, questions to ask and points to make about the play.
My friends and I stood outside on the sidewalk for fifteen minutes discussing it ourselves, unable to stop our discourse on all the intriguing points raised.
My mind had been thoroughly goosed.
Then it was on to Balliceaux where I ran into a favorite trumpet player loitering outside Kuba, Kuba as I walked from my car.
Squeezing through the crowd around the front door, I headed to the back for a double bill where garage rock band Cherry Pits was hitting it hard when I walked in.
The Americana songbird spotted me at once ("We need to plan our date!"), the DJ was showing off her pretty toenail polish and the guitarist/foodie questioned my whereabouts ("Where were you this weekend at Fall Line Fest?") only to learn we had just barely missed each other Saturday at two different venues.
When I asked how proto-punk band Death had been, he shook his head and uttered what may the epitaph of the evening.
"You can't re-inflate a souffle," he explained glumly but with a masterful metaphor.
Cherry Pits' thrash-filled set ended with the best possible song: "My Baby's a Bitch," which had the crowd in a frenzy by the end.
While Hot Dolphin set up, I chatted with a friend about when the Valentine will re-open (late October if the contractors keep showing up), why a 40-year old should get carded at the door and why dresses beat pants every time.
Then it was time for main event, a show I was overdue for, not having seen the local rockers since last summer.
The band - drummer, guitarist and bassist - set up on the stage but front woman Lindsey - adorably dressed in a polka dot shirt with peplum, black mini and silver head band - had her mic stand on the floor so she'd have plenty of room to move.
"Thanks to Balliceaux for hosting a rock show!" she said to get things started on a Thursday night.
When I'd first seen Hot Dolphin, I'd been amazed at how she never stopped dancing. Ever.
She still hasn't and that's a very good thing because it ensures that the crowd understands that this is music to shake your tail feathers to.
Like sheep to the slaughter, she totally owns the crowd and they follow along l thrilled to have her leading them.
To give you an idea, her sound check was a scream, then she entreated us to come closer (the better to stick the mic in fans' faces to sing along) and surround her.
A photographer friend planted himself in the front row, the better to capture the energy happening a few feet from his lens.
Simply put, girls want to be her and men want to have her. Everyone was into her and the energetic music.
When she snarled, "Put your hands together," you'd better believe people did.
Each song was a three-minute sensory assault and not since Stevie Nicks has there been such a whirling dervish of a singer dancing, twirling and playing tambourine to a rapt audience.
After their last song, she understandably had quite the sheen and took a swig of her beer, announcing, "We're done! We're Hot Dolphin. We have t-shirts and that's it."
I'd gotten plenty of dancing of my own in, a fitting finish to an evening that had begun with my body still and my mind fully engaged.
Walking down Lombardy to my car after the show, two girls behind me chattered away about what they'd just seen.
"I wish I could be as sexy as her," one said enviously. "If I could wear my hair like that, I so would," said the other.
I considered turning around and telling them that that wasn't the point, that it was the energy, passion and obvious enjoyment she brought to the music that was worth emulating.
A quick glimpse back and I knew there was no point.
They looked like they'd probably been in kindergarten on 9/11. A triple lutz of a conversational leap would fly right over their heads.
New world order.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Take Me Home
I promise, after today, I'm going to nail my feet to the floor and stay home.
But how could I pass up a quickie trip up 95 to my hometown?
Couldn't.
First, there was barbecue and a wine tasting featuring such delights as champagne (yes, made in Champagne) made from Spanish Tempranillo grapes, a suave Spanish wine rep from Miami who came across like Jeff Goldblum, plus meeting a third generation Spanish winemaker named Amelia.
Talking to another wine rep, I learned he had lived in Jackson Ward back in the '90s, "Back when you had to run to your car when you left your house." He asked if I remembered Bird in Hand (danced there many nights) and if Bamboo was still there.
Like cockroaches, Bamboo will outlast us all.
Then it was on to our nation's capital for a trip to the Corcoran, significant because at the end of the month, they close their doors to restructure as part of the National Gallery of Art.
In the meantime, admission is free and since it had been at least seven years since I'd been there, I wanted to see their collection before it gets redistributed or parts put in storage.
There was only enough time for a few galleries, so first was modern and contemporary - Cy Twombley, Ellsworth Kelly, Warhol - and then photography.
Besides classic photographers such as Ansel Adams, Walker Evans and Dorthea Lange, I saw a Linda Connor, an artist I'd very much enjoyed interviewing when she had a show at Candela Gallery last Fall.
You see art differently when you've met the artist.
Then it was downstairs to see "An Intimate View: European Art from the Collections," a dazzling array of paintings by Pissaro, Renoir, Gainsborough, Turner, even a Rembrandt nonchalantly hanging over a fireplace mantel.
My guess is every one of them will end up in the National Gallery, for better or for worse.
But the piece that I absolutely fell in love with today was Corot's "Le Repos," a reclining nude in a sylvan setting, so unlike anything I'd ever seen of Corot's before.
What a wonderful thing it must be to be painted and immortalized for generations to admire.
Promptly at 5:00, guards let it be known that visitors were unwelcome and I left the old Corcoran for the final time. Sigh.
But being up close with beauty continued at Dumbarton Oaks, a 53-acre property in Georgetown with elaborate gardens such as mere mortals could only dream of.
Flower gardens (cleome, dahlias, phlox), a cutting garden, a vegetable garden, herb garden, a low pool with a site-specific art and sound installation in it, a rose garden (heirloom varieties and I stopped to smell as many as I could) and an inviting swimming pool.
If I'd had my bathing suit with me, I'd have gone in the pool just so I could say I had.
Garden room after garden room were connected by wooden and stone steps as we made our way around the property, something truly spectacular around every turn.
It helped knowing someone who worked there so that we could enjoy wine at a handmade table near the pool and watch a hawk soar above us (at least until dusk when the bats arrived) and talk about everything and nothing on a beautiful evening.
I was asked how it was I'd lived in Washington all those years and never been to Dumbarton Oaks and I was ashamed to admit I had no answer for that.
Here's hoping I get another chance to go.
For dinner, I chose Roofers Union in Adams Morgan, eschewing the downstairs bar with a guitarist singing and the enormous second floor dining room for the rooftop deck and a table facing the rising yellow moon.
For a short person like me, it was just possible to see it over the railing by pushing myself up in my chair and craning.
With a view of other rooftop decks, Madame Organ's Blues Bar lording over the bustling street below and assorted aircraft, it was an ideal place fora voyeur an observer.
Wine was pink - Chateau de Montfaucon "Les Gardettes" Rose - and our server was a perky Britney.
About the time grilled asparagus with Romesco arrived, so did the clouds that proceeded to obscure that gorgeous almost-Supermoon, but we held out hope that they'd move through quickly.
For dinner, I chose veal heart sausage with slaw in a pretzel roll, an obscenely rich and huge offering from the "stuffed" section of the menu (as opposed to stacked, skewered, simple or smoked) and which I'm proud to say I finished most of.
May my arteries rest in peace.
By the time I ordered a sundae with pretzel brittle, chocolate and malt, the clouds were giving us intermittent glimpses of the now bright white moon, finally high enough in the sky that I didn't need to raise up to see it.
A lovely breeze, a tease of a moon and a day that had included art, gardens and stellar company.
I'd have been a fool to pass that up...not that my Mama raised a fool.
But how could I pass up a quickie trip up 95 to my hometown?
Couldn't.
First, there was barbecue and a wine tasting featuring such delights as champagne (yes, made in Champagne) made from Spanish Tempranillo grapes, a suave Spanish wine rep from Miami who came across like Jeff Goldblum, plus meeting a third generation Spanish winemaker named Amelia.
Talking to another wine rep, I learned he had lived in Jackson Ward back in the '90s, "Back when you had to run to your car when you left your house." He asked if I remembered Bird in Hand (danced there many nights) and if Bamboo was still there.
Like cockroaches, Bamboo will outlast us all.
Then it was on to our nation's capital for a trip to the Corcoran, significant because at the end of the month, they close their doors to restructure as part of the National Gallery of Art.
In the meantime, admission is free and since it had been at least seven years since I'd been there, I wanted to see their collection before it gets redistributed or parts put in storage.
There was only enough time for a few galleries, so first was modern and contemporary - Cy Twombley, Ellsworth Kelly, Warhol - and then photography.
Besides classic photographers such as Ansel Adams, Walker Evans and Dorthea Lange, I saw a Linda Connor, an artist I'd very much enjoyed interviewing when she had a show at Candela Gallery last Fall.
You see art differently when you've met the artist.
Then it was downstairs to see "An Intimate View: European Art from the Collections," a dazzling array of paintings by Pissaro, Renoir, Gainsborough, Turner, even a Rembrandt nonchalantly hanging over a fireplace mantel.
My guess is every one of them will end up in the National Gallery, for better or for worse.
But the piece that I absolutely fell in love with today was Corot's "Le Repos," a reclining nude in a sylvan setting, so unlike anything I'd ever seen of Corot's before.
What a wonderful thing it must be to be painted and immortalized for generations to admire.
Promptly at 5:00, guards let it be known that visitors were unwelcome and I left the old Corcoran for the final time. Sigh.
But being up close with beauty continued at Dumbarton Oaks, a 53-acre property in Georgetown with elaborate gardens such as mere mortals could only dream of.
Flower gardens (cleome, dahlias, phlox), a cutting garden, a vegetable garden, herb garden, a low pool with a site-specific art and sound installation in it, a rose garden (heirloom varieties and I stopped to smell as many as I could) and an inviting swimming pool.
If I'd had my bathing suit with me, I'd have gone in the pool just so I could say I had.
Garden room after garden room were connected by wooden and stone steps as we made our way around the property, something truly spectacular around every turn.
It helped knowing someone who worked there so that we could enjoy wine at a handmade table near the pool and watch a hawk soar above us (at least until dusk when the bats arrived) and talk about everything and nothing on a beautiful evening.
I was asked how it was I'd lived in Washington all those years and never been to Dumbarton Oaks and I was ashamed to admit I had no answer for that.
Here's hoping I get another chance to go.
For dinner, I chose Roofers Union in Adams Morgan, eschewing the downstairs bar with a guitarist singing and the enormous second floor dining room for the rooftop deck and a table facing the rising yellow moon.
For a short person like me, it was just possible to see it over the railing by pushing myself up in my chair and craning.
With a view of other rooftop decks, Madame Organ's Blues Bar lording over the bustling street below and assorted aircraft, it was an ideal place for
Wine was pink - Chateau de Montfaucon "Les Gardettes" Rose - and our server was a perky Britney.
About the time grilled asparagus with Romesco arrived, so did the clouds that proceeded to obscure that gorgeous almost-Supermoon, but we held out hope that they'd move through quickly.
For dinner, I chose veal heart sausage with slaw in a pretzel roll, an obscenely rich and huge offering from the "stuffed" section of the menu (as opposed to stacked, skewered, simple or smoked) and which I'm proud to say I finished most of.
May my arteries rest in peace.
By the time I ordered a sundae with pretzel brittle, chocolate and malt, the clouds were giving us intermittent glimpses of the now bright white moon, finally high enough in the sky that I didn't need to raise up to see it.
A lovely breeze, a tease of a moon and a day that had included art, gardens and stellar company.
I'd have been a fool to pass that up...not that my Mama raised a fool.
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Spice of Life
With memories of all the delectable food I've been eating the past few days, I went out for food porn.
Movieland was showing "The Hundred Foot Journey" and a friend had recommended it with the caveat that it was wise to suspend disbelief before watching it.
Isn't that usually the way with a Lasse Hallstrom movie?
Besides, I wasn't seeking out a challenging film, just gorgeous scenery (the south of France), terrific acting (Dame Helen Mirren and Indian actor Om Puri whose sparring is a highlight of the movie) and lingering shots of food preparation that made my buttered popcorn seem woefully inadequate.
There were only six of us in the theater, just enough to hear other people laugh and groan when something happened, a vital part of theater-going.
The story of an Indian family (and the talented son who cooks) who flees their home and restaurant due to political unrest and lands in France to try the restaurant business there was drawn from what was apparently a best-selling book in 2010 by the same name.
Okay, I'll admit I'd never heard of the book.
Because it was set in France, the movie wisely met the one requirement of all French films: a female character who only wore dresses and rode a bike.
As one who has worn dresses and biked plenty of times, I'm not judging, just observing.
The family's restaurant, hilariously named Maison Mumbai, is across the street from a classic French restaurant that has one Michelin star and the film featured trips to a colorful market, bucolic scenes of the young Indian chef fishing in a stream and lots of fireworks on Bastille Day.
Make no mistake, there was also racial prejudice, senseless violence and dirty tricks, so it wasn't all soft focus la-la land stuff.
Best of all, there were two romances, the young (attractive and earnest Indian chef and bike-riding French sous chef) and old (uptight French widow and garrulous Indian widower) to remind us that food and love go hand in hand.
"Fine cuisine is not an old, tired marriage but a passionate affair," Madame Mallory tells her staff.
Amen to that in life and on the table.
After our young, handsome hero wins a second star for Madame and is wooed away to Paris to an innovative restaurant where smoke and molecular gastronomy dominate, he decides to come back to southern France where his family and the lovely sous chef welcome him back with open arms.
Because, we are told, food is memories.
Should those memories ever fail me, I've got years of posts to remind me of all the passionate affairs I've eaten.
Movieland was showing "The Hundred Foot Journey" and a friend had recommended it with the caveat that it was wise to suspend disbelief before watching it.
Isn't that usually the way with a Lasse Hallstrom movie?
Besides, I wasn't seeking out a challenging film, just gorgeous scenery (the south of France), terrific acting (Dame Helen Mirren and Indian actor Om Puri whose sparring is a highlight of the movie) and lingering shots of food preparation that made my buttered popcorn seem woefully inadequate.
There were only six of us in the theater, just enough to hear other people laugh and groan when something happened, a vital part of theater-going.
The story of an Indian family (and the talented son who cooks) who flees their home and restaurant due to political unrest and lands in France to try the restaurant business there was drawn from what was apparently a best-selling book in 2010 by the same name.
Okay, I'll admit I'd never heard of the book.
Because it was set in France, the movie wisely met the one requirement of all French films: a female character who only wore dresses and rode a bike.
As one who has worn dresses and biked plenty of times, I'm not judging, just observing.
The family's restaurant, hilariously named Maison Mumbai, is across the street from a classic French restaurant that has one Michelin star and the film featured trips to a colorful market, bucolic scenes of the young Indian chef fishing in a stream and lots of fireworks on Bastille Day.
Make no mistake, there was also racial prejudice, senseless violence and dirty tricks, so it wasn't all soft focus la-la land stuff.
Best of all, there were two romances, the young (attractive and earnest Indian chef and bike-riding French sous chef) and old (uptight French widow and garrulous Indian widower) to remind us that food and love go hand in hand.
"Fine cuisine is not an old, tired marriage but a passionate affair," Madame Mallory tells her staff.
Amen to that in life and on the table.
After our young, handsome hero wins a second star for Madame and is wooed away to Paris to an innovative restaurant where smoke and molecular gastronomy dominate, he decides to come back to southern France where his family and the lovely sous chef welcome him back with open arms.
Because, we are told, food is memories.
Should those memories ever fail me, I've got years of posts to remind me of all the passionate affairs I've eaten.
From Tammy to Tennessee
Rain, rain, go away.
Waking up to torrents of rain changed everything. All of our plans to explore the great outdoors of the eastern shore vanished when we had to wade through ankle-high puddles just to get to breakfast.
One thing I wasn't letting go of was a trip to Tammy and Johnny's for lunch.
A guy from the Virginia Department of Tourism had heard me talking about my plans to visit Chatham vineyards and insisted that Tammy and Johnny's had the best fried chicken on the eastern shore.
Whether he was right or not, I had to know for myself.
Driving rain accompanied us as we headed north, taking diverting jaunts to every small town along the way, and the DJ on the radio warning us," Don't be that guy who drives through a puddle of standing water."
Oh, and PS, flood warning in effect.
Fortunately, the sign for Tammy and Johnny's was enormous and we didn't have to drive through any standing water to get there.
Everyone looked at us like we were from another planet, but I got what I wanted: three pieces of chicken, cole slaw and mustardy potato salad.
The chicken suited me fine with a crust that wasn't too greasy or too crispy and we polished it off, wiped our fingers and headed to lunch just as a line of locals began forming.
Our pourer at Chatham yesterday had not just made recommendations of maritime forests, but also of restaurants, so we were in search of the Island House and Marina in Wachapreague, apparently the closest we were going to get to the Atlantic given all the barrier islands.
Pulling up, my first impression was of how it reminded me of the Fisherman's Wharf restaurant in Wanchese, N.C., weathered and surrounded by boats.
Our server was charming, home-schooled and now with an associate's degree and no real idea what he wanted to do with his life.
In the meantime, he did an exemplary job of waiting on us, bringing even brinier oysters than we'd had the day before.
Pretty soon we were going to be licking the ocean floor to get saltier.
When he got busy with other tables, I went ahead and poured us more of the Chatham Chardonnay we were drinking to help him out.
"But I wanted to give you the full experience!" he lamented hilariously. Consider it done with your humor.
After a salad of spinach, quinoa, craisins and walnuts, I kept it local with ice cream from Chincoteague's Island Creamery, listed as one of the 30 places to eat in Virginia before you die.
Flavor? Marsh Mud, of course, a decadent double chocolate ice cream that had been touted as tasting like chilled brownie batter and named after the boggy area surrounding us.
After our two-stop lunch, we had a decision to make. Should we stay or should we go?
The downpour was going to severely limit what we could do anywhere, so what would be consolation for that?
Aha, the brilliant one suggested, why not go to Virginia Beach and at least have a night sleeping to the sound of the ocean?
Never, and I do mean never, will I turn down an opportunity to be lulled to sleep to that most soothing of sounds, even with winds that had flags standing rigid from the gusts sweeping off the ocean.
We found an old school, two-story beach motel - The Sea Shell - tucked between two high rises (which only added to the wind tunnel effect), the kind of place that only takes cash, has no ice machine and has orange plastic ashtrays in every room.
The front desk was staffed by a woman who'd just moved here in July after a lifetime in Tennessee and had the accent to prove it.
Shortly after we settled in, I saw her out on the deck overlooking the boardwalk, phone in hand, trying to record the majesty of the surf rolling in.
Crazy, isn't it? I asked her from the relative safety of our room's doorway, where I had to hold on to the door jamb to keep from being buffeted by the winds.
"It's beautiful!" she yelled. "My girlfriends in Tennessee won't believe this!"
Much as I wanted to leave the door open, it was impossible, so I settled for the two windows and sat on the bed to enjoy the sights and sounds of some serious weather.
Whitecaps formed out as far as I could see and wind whistled between buildings and around corners.
Now this was what we'd come for: weather as entertainment.
After the requisite beach nap that oceanfront living requires, we headed out to Eat, an American Bistro, also located on Atlantic Avenue right on the beach and another of the 30 places to eat in Virginia before demise.
The door was locked when we arrived, a safety measure because the wind kept blowing it open, the hostess said.
With seats at the darkened bar, I turned to the woman next to me, only to find that she was a Richmonder who lives on Floyd Avenue (my home for 13 years) in the Fan.
Small world, isn't it?
The bar was intimate, the bartender gregarious, and the crowd lively with two TV screens, one set to the Food Channel and the other to Monday Night Football (which I didn't care about but one of us did).
All bottles of wine under $100 were half off, all but necessitating that we order a bottle of sparkling Brut Rose to accompany oysters rock (the dish that puts the rock in Rockefeller, or so the menu claims), a gooey delight of oysters, spinach, heritage bacon, Asiago, Hollandaise, smoked paprika and fennel pollen in the half shell.
When we ordered Ye Old School wedge, our server said that they were out of the avocado (a case had come in but they'd been rotten) the dish called for, so we accepted extra heritage bacon in lieu of missing avocado and everybody was happy.
The meatballs stuffed with fresh Mozzarella arrived in a pool of tomato ragout with a Parmesan crisp, meaning we were three for three at Eat.
Even the music suited me just fine, ranging from Chaka Khan to the XX, or roughly, my listening history, and while the guys around me cared about the sports on the TV, I had pink bubbles and appealing music, so what game?
Besides, I'd now crossed two more places off the list of pre-death eats.
But because this was a day of substituting indoor fun for the great outdoors, we eventually left Eat for the Raven, a pub that's been a fixture on Atlantic Avenue since 1968.
You know the kind of place - a small front area for non-smokers, a long bar and booths for smokers, a ceiling so low I could touch it from my bar stool.
But they had 1800, the game was on and Marshall Crenshaw was belting out "Whenever You're On My Mind," so while the wind howled outside and the parking lot had been a mine field of puddles, all was good inside the Raven.
And for the one who cared about such things, his team won the game.
Of course, the highlight for me was back at the Sea Shell, where we had front row seat to the churning ocean and ceaseless winds, even if there was no hope of seeing the full moon tonight.
Not that it really mattered.
Sleeping to the sound of the surf, awakening to an absence of wind and a morning walk along the beach (ocean water so warm I waded in up to my skort...and then some when a wave caught me by surprise) were the best possible finish to our eastern shore adventure.
Safe to say I had the full experience.
Waking up to torrents of rain changed everything. All of our plans to explore the great outdoors of the eastern shore vanished when we had to wade through ankle-high puddles just to get to breakfast.
One thing I wasn't letting go of was a trip to Tammy and Johnny's for lunch.
A guy from the Virginia Department of Tourism had heard me talking about my plans to visit Chatham vineyards and insisted that Tammy and Johnny's had the best fried chicken on the eastern shore.
Whether he was right or not, I had to know for myself.
Driving rain accompanied us as we headed north, taking diverting jaunts to every small town along the way, and the DJ on the radio warning us," Don't be that guy who drives through a puddle of standing water."
Oh, and PS, flood warning in effect.
Fortunately, the sign for Tammy and Johnny's was enormous and we didn't have to drive through any standing water to get there.
Everyone looked at us like we were from another planet, but I got what I wanted: three pieces of chicken, cole slaw and mustardy potato salad.
The chicken suited me fine with a crust that wasn't too greasy or too crispy and we polished it off, wiped our fingers and headed to lunch just as a line of locals began forming.
Our pourer at Chatham yesterday had not just made recommendations of maritime forests, but also of restaurants, so we were in search of the Island House and Marina in Wachapreague, apparently the closest we were going to get to the Atlantic given all the barrier islands.
Pulling up, my first impression was of how it reminded me of the Fisherman's Wharf restaurant in Wanchese, N.C., weathered and surrounded by boats.
Our server was charming, home-schooled and now with an associate's degree and no real idea what he wanted to do with his life.
In the meantime, he did an exemplary job of waiting on us, bringing even brinier oysters than we'd had the day before.
Pretty soon we were going to be licking the ocean floor to get saltier.
When he got busy with other tables, I went ahead and poured us more of the Chatham Chardonnay we were drinking to help him out.
"But I wanted to give you the full experience!" he lamented hilariously. Consider it done with your humor.
After a salad of spinach, quinoa, craisins and walnuts, I kept it local with ice cream from Chincoteague's Island Creamery, listed as one of the 30 places to eat in Virginia before you die.
Flavor? Marsh Mud, of course, a decadent double chocolate ice cream that had been touted as tasting like chilled brownie batter and named after the boggy area surrounding us.
After our two-stop lunch, we had a decision to make. Should we stay or should we go?
The downpour was going to severely limit what we could do anywhere, so what would be consolation for that?
Aha, the brilliant one suggested, why not go to Virginia Beach and at least have a night sleeping to the sound of the ocean?
Never, and I do mean never, will I turn down an opportunity to be lulled to sleep to that most soothing of sounds, even with winds that had flags standing rigid from the gusts sweeping off the ocean.
We found an old school, two-story beach motel - The Sea Shell - tucked between two high rises (which only added to the wind tunnel effect), the kind of place that only takes cash, has no ice machine and has orange plastic ashtrays in every room.
The front desk was staffed by a woman who'd just moved here in July after a lifetime in Tennessee and had the accent to prove it.
Shortly after we settled in, I saw her out on the deck overlooking the boardwalk, phone in hand, trying to record the majesty of the surf rolling in.
Crazy, isn't it? I asked her from the relative safety of our room's doorway, where I had to hold on to the door jamb to keep from being buffeted by the winds.
"It's beautiful!" she yelled. "My girlfriends in Tennessee won't believe this!"
Much as I wanted to leave the door open, it was impossible, so I settled for the two windows and sat on the bed to enjoy the sights and sounds of some serious weather.
Whitecaps formed out as far as I could see and wind whistled between buildings and around corners.
Now this was what we'd come for: weather as entertainment.
After the requisite beach nap that oceanfront living requires, we headed out to Eat, an American Bistro, also located on Atlantic Avenue right on the beach and another of the 30 places to eat in Virginia before demise.
The door was locked when we arrived, a safety measure because the wind kept blowing it open, the hostess said.
With seats at the darkened bar, I turned to the woman next to me, only to find that she was a Richmonder who lives on Floyd Avenue (my home for 13 years) in the Fan.
Small world, isn't it?
The bar was intimate, the bartender gregarious, and the crowd lively with two TV screens, one set to the Food Channel and the other to Monday Night Football (which I didn't care about but one of us did).
All bottles of wine under $100 were half off, all but necessitating that we order a bottle of sparkling Brut Rose to accompany oysters rock (the dish that puts the rock in Rockefeller, or so the menu claims), a gooey delight of oysters, spinach, heritage bacon, Asiago, Hollandaise, smoked paprika and fennel pollen in the half shell.
When we ordered Ye Old School wedge, our server said that they were out of the avocado (a case had come in but they'd been rotten) the dish called for, so we accepted extra heritage bacon in lieu of missing avocado and everybody was happy.
The meatballs stuffed with fresh Mozzarella arrived in a pool of tomato ragout with a Parmesan crisp, meaning we were three for three at Eat.
Even the music suited me just fine, ranging from Chaka Khan to the XX, or roughly, my listening history, and while the guys around me cared about the sports on the TV, I had pink bubbles and appealing music, so what game?
Besides, I'd now crossed two more places off the list of pre-death eats.
But because this was a day of substituting indoor fun for the great outdoors, we eventually left Eat for the Raven, a pub that's been a fixture on Atlantic Avenue since 1968.
You know the kind of place - a small front area for non-smokers, a long bar and booths for smokers, a ceiling so low I could touch it from my bar stool.
But they had 1800, the game was on and Marshall Crenshaw was belting out "Whenever You're On My Mind," so while the wind howled outside and the parking lot had been a mine field of puddles, all was good inside the Raven.
And for the one who cared about such things, his team won the game.
Of course, the highlight for me was back at the Sea Shell, where we had front row seat to the churning ocean and ceaseless winds, even if there was no hope of seeing the full moon tonight.
Not that it really mattered.
Sleeping to the sound of the surf, awakening to an absence of wind and a morning walk along the beach (ocean water so warm I waded in up to my skort...and then some when a wave caught me by surprise) were the best possible finish to our eastern shore adventure.
Safe to say I had the full experience.
Always for Love, Idiot
It had been a while.
The last time I can recall going to Virginia's eastern shore, it was en route to Rehobeth beach from the Outer Banks.
This time, the eastern shore was the destination.
After a stop at a scenic overlook just after the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, we found our way to Aqua, a waterside restaurant in Cape Charles, a quaint, little resort town that was part cute-sified and part worn-looking beach houses, the kind I like.
Aqua, however, was in the tony area where pastel-colored McMansions had views of marshes and bay and so did we from the restaurant's deck, where massive clouds promised rain in our future.
Kicking off the getaway with Graham Beck Brut Rose (causing our server to smile broadly and plead, "Can you guys just stay here all afternoon?"), seaside oysters, mussels Provencale, fish tacos and a crabcake sandwich, we took our time over the mid-day meal while others on the deck came and went.
Eventually, we did, too, but only after a New Jersey-looking guy unexpectedly squeezed my arm.
Just down the road, we landed at Chatham Vineyards, the reason I'd wanted to go to the eastern shore in the first place.
Having had their steel-fermented Chardonnay with oysters recently at the governor's mansion in Richmond and enjoyed it very much, I now wanted to taste through their entire list.
On the way, we passed a self-serve pumpkin stand, an indicator of the expectations of civility in these parts.
We were greeted by an affable woman, our pourer, the aged winery dog, a puffy, little purse dog type and soon joined by a couple from Mechanicsville, who, like us, were out and about looking for some afternoon wine.
They'd had Chatham's Cabernet Franc at a local restaurant the night before and been so impressed they wanted to taste more.
The tasting room was so chilly I had to return to the car for a wrap, which didn't seem to bother the vintner's kids who were busy bouncing a ball off the back wall while their parents worked on this year's Chardonnay harvest.
Our pourer provided local tidbits such as that a meteor had slammed into the southern tip of the eastern shore 35 million years ago, displacing the soil and fragmenting the shells and minerals, which is where the Chardonnay is grown and accounts for its mineral qualities and how well it pairs with oysters.
The oak-aged Chardonnay was rounder and creamier and the Rose a tad sweet to my taste. We moved on to the reds - Merlot, Cab Franc and Cab Sauvignon- before finishing with their late harvest dessert wine made with Merlot.
When our pourer asked if we wanted any wine, I said something about it being obvious what I liked and she laughed and said to my companion, "Then make it so."
With some of the unoaked Chardonnay in hand, we retired to the garden, putting our feet up on the fire pit walls and taking in the view of the fields and an old house with buzzards perched on the roof under the roiling crowds.
Interestingly enough, the soundtrack was twofold: an air cannon and a recorded loop of bird screeches to scare off predators, both intermittent and unexpected.
Before we left, we chatted with our pourer who, like me, had lived in Washington back when it was a simpler and less pressured place to live.
Talking about the ultra-focused types who make up the majority now, she cracked me up when she said, "I just want to tell them, just stop and smell the Smithsonian!"
I couldn't have put it better or more humorously myself.
Closer to where we were, she pulled out the Virginia winery map and began making suggestions for places to see and eat.
We wasted no time making our way to Savage Neck Dunes Natural Preserve, a maritime forest that took us through the woods on a sandy, pine needle-strewn path and deposited us at the bay.
Without pausing at all, I hiked up my dress and waded out where I found a sandbar that allowed me to keep going while only getting my legs wet.
There were a few people walking the sandy beach, but I stuck to the warm-as-bathwater bay to make my way along the coastline, eventually losing the bottom six inches of my dress to the waves.
What's a wet dress when you unexpectedly have a chance to take a dip?
Driving back toward Cape Charles, we couldn't resist a stop at Yuck-Yuck and Joe's, a roadside restaurant with a jukebox playing the likes of the Steve Miller Band, Stevie Nicks and the Eagles and plenty of locals there on a late Sunday afternoon.
That said, none of them were playing pool at the tables, but maybe that's not a Sunday thing around here.
What passes for eastern shore surf and turf at Yuck-Yuck's is two pounds of wings and shrimp, tempting except we already had plans to eat at the Shanty.
After changing into a dry dress at the Sunset Beach Inn, which looked to have been built in the '60s, round with a space needle thing coming out of the top straight out of "The Jetsons," we fumbled our way to The Shanty on the waterfront.
Between the hour and the weather, it was already dark by then, but hard to miss the Spanish galleon sitting next to the restaurant.
The Mechanicsville couple had told us about the galleon, here from Barcelona and staffed with volunteers, which they'd spotted the night before while at The Shanty, saying that the replica of a 16th century merchant vessel was doing a tour of the east coat and only here till Monday.
When the hostess asked for our seating preference, we chose the deck with a direct view of the magnificent El Galeon Andalusia and within earshot of the singer doing covers nearby.
Beginning with guacamole labeled "authentic" (as opposed to inauthentic guac?), we kept to our eastern shore theme with baskets of fried seafood and frites.
Before long, I spotted a guy sitting on the deck of the galleon in the dark, hoisting a beer bottle to the singer every time he finished a song.
Much as I enjoy live music, I had to shake my head when he began doing Talking Heads' "This Must Be the Place," my favorite Talking Heads song, but this was a jaded millennial's rewrite of the lyrics.
So instead of the romantic "Never for money, always for love," he chose to sing, "Never for love, always for money," a depressing change to the song.
Good luck in life and love with that kind of sour attitude, son.
Dinner over, we strolled down the dock to get a closer look at the galleon, striking for its long and elaborate beak and many massive masts.
If it wasn't raining tomorrow, I definitely wanted to come back to go aboard and tour it.
We finished out a fine day by walking out on the Cape Charles fishing pier where, despite the late hour, there were still fishermen out there casting their lines in the dark.
Hope never sleeps, I guess.
After stopping to smell the bay all day, I couldn't think of anything I wanted more.
The last time I can recall going to Virginia's eastern shore, it was en route to Rehobeth beach from the Outer Banks.
This time, the eastern shore was the destination.
After a stop at a scenic overlook just after the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, we found our way to Aqua, a waterside restaurant in Cape Charles, a quaint, little resort town that was part cute-sified and part worn-looking beach houses, the kind I like.
Aqua, however, was in the tony area where pastel-colored McMansions had views of marshes and bay and so did we from the restaurant's deck, where massive clouds promised rain in our future.
Kicking off the getaway with Graham Beck Brut Rose (causing our server to smile broadly and plead, "Can you guys just stay here all afternoon?"), seaside oysters, mussels Provencale, fish tacos and a crabcake sandwich, we took our time over the mid-day meal while others on the deck came and went.
Eventually, we did, too, but only after a New Jersey-looking guy unexpectedly squeezed my arm.
Just down the road, we landed at Chatham Vineyards, the reason I'd wanted to go to the eastern shore in the first place.
Having had their steel-fermented Chardonnay with oysters recently at the governor's mansion in Richmond and enjoyed it very much, I now wanted to taste through their entire list.
On the way, we passed a self-serve pumpkin stand, an indicator of the expectations of civility in these parts.
We were greeted by an affable woman, our pourer, the aged winery dog, a puffy, little purse dog type and soon joined by a couple from Mechanicsville, who, like us, were out and about looking for some afternoon wine.
They'd had Chatham's Cabernet Franc at a local restaurant the night before and been so impressed they wanted to taste more.
The tasting room was so chilly I had to return to the car for a wrap, which didn't seem to bother the vintner's kids who were busy bouncing a ball off the back wall while their parents worked on this year's Chardonnay harvest.
Our pourer provided local tidbits such as that a meteor had slammed into the southern tip of the eastern shore 35 million years ago, displacing the soil and fragmenting the shells and minerals, which is where the Chardonnay is grown and accounts for its mineral qualities and how well it pairs with oysters.
The oak-aged Chardonnay was rounder and creamier and the Rose a tad sweet to my taste. We moved on to the reds - Merlot, Cab Franc and Cab Sauvignon- before finishing with their late harvest dessert wine made with Merlot.
When our pourer asked if we wanted any wine, I said something about it being obvious what I liked and she laughed and said to my companion, "Then make it so."
With some of the unoaked Chardonnay in hand, we retired to the garden, putting our feet up on the fire pit walls and taking in the view of the fields and an old house with buzzards perched on the roof under the roiling crowds.
Interestingly enough, the soundtrack was twofold: an air cannon and a recorded loop of bird screeches to scare off predators, both intermittent and unexpected.
Before we left, we chatted with our pourer who, like me, had lived in Washington back when it was a simpler and less pressured place to live.
Talking about the ultra-focused types who make up the majority now, she cracked me up when she said, "I just want to tell them, just stop and smell the Smithsonian!"
I couldn't have put it better or more humorously myself.
Closer to where we were, she pulled out the Virginia winery map and began making suggestions for places to see and eat.
We wasted no time making our way to Savage Neck Dunes Natural Preserve, a maritime forest that took us through the woods on a sandy, pine needle-strewn path and deposited us at the bay.
Without pausing at all, I hiked up my dress and waded out where I found a sandbar that allowed me to keep going while only getting my legs wet.
There were a few people walking the sandy beach, but I stuck to the warm-as-bathwater bay to make my way along the coastline, eventually losing the bottom six inches of my dress to the waves.
What's a wet dress when you unexpectedly have a chance to take a dip?
Driving back toward Cape Charles, we couldn't resist a stop at Yuck-Yuck and Joe's, a roadside restaurant with a jukebox playing the likes of the Steve Miller Band, Stevie Nicks and the Eagles and plenty of locals there on a late Sunday afternoon.
That said, none of them were playing pool at the tables, but maybe that's not a Sunday thing around here.
What passes for eastern shore surf and turf at Yuck-Yuck's is two pounds of wings and shrimp, tempting except we already had plans to eat at the Shanty.
After changing into a dry dress at the Sunset Beach Inn, which looked to have been built in the '60s, round with a space needle thing coming out of the top straight out of "The Jetsons," we fumbled our way to The Shanty on the waterfront.
Between the hour and the weather, it was already dark by then, but hard to miss the Spanish galleon sitting next to the restaurant.
The Mechanicsville couple had told us about the galleon, here from Barcelona and staffed with volunteers, which they'd spotted the night before while at The Shanty, saying that the replica of a 16th century merchant vessel was doing a tour of the east coat and only here till Monday.
When the hostess asked for our seating preference, we chose the deck with a direct view of the magnificent El Galeon Andalusia and within earshot of the singer doing covers nearby.
Beginning with guacamole labeled "authentic" (as opposed to inauthentic guac?), we kept to our eastern shore theme with baskets of fried seafood and frites.
Before long, I spotted a guy sitting on the deck of the galleon in the dark, hoisting a beer bottle to the singer every time he finished a song.
Much as I enjoy live music, I had to shake my head when he began doing Talking Heads' "This Must Be the Place," my favorite Talking Heads song, but this was a jaded millennial's rewrite of the lyrics.
So instead of the romantic "Never for money, always for love," he chose to sing, "Never for love, always for money," a depressing change to the song.
Good luck in life and love with that kind of sour attitude, son.
Dinner over, we strolled down the dock to get a closer look at the galleon, striking for its long and elaborate beak and many massive masts.
If it wasn't raining tomorrow, I definitely wanted to come back to go aboard and tour it.
We finished out a fine day by walking out on the Cape Charles fishing pier where, despite the late hour, there were still fishermen out there casting their lines in the dark.
Hope never sleeps, I guess.
After stopping to smell the bay all day, I couldn't think of anything I wanted more.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Keeping True
Go away for a week and you've got a lot to make up for.
Stop one was the recently revamped Perly's, where I walked in to find a music-loving friend at the counter and sat down next to him.
Like me, he was fueling up before hitting Fall Line Fest shows tonight but we began by taking stock of the redone but still recognizable space.
Considering that it's mostly the same (the configuration), it's also very different in feel (a Jewish deli now).
I was particularly enamored of the paper place mats with the menu printed on them while he was impressed with the beer selection.
He was having a svelte corned beef sandwich (which was still pretty thick) but I swear my deli salad - chopped lettuce topped with chunks of pastrami, rolls of turkey and strips of salami, swiss, hard cooked eggs and a little too much Russian dressing- had more meat on it.
We'll call it a manly salad.
After dissecting the shows I'd missed and he'd seen at Fall Line Fest last night (Death, Matthew E. White), I left knowing I'd see him later at a show.
There was no way I was missing Potty Mouth, an all-girl punk pop band from Massachusetts, or the chance to see them with my cute friend at Gallery 5.
We stood right in front of the stage, waiting through bottled water being brought to the stage and drummer Victoria tying her shoes before the band could start.
After the first song, "Kids," singer Abby said, "I forgot to take out my ponytail. How can I have any fun like this?"
We all know punk requires flying hair, assuming you have it.
With that, she let down her long, blond hair, leaving it to hang in her face and move around as she sang and played guitar, not so different from Victoria's covering her face the whole time she drummed.
Some say you made a mistake
Well, you can taste my heartache
How does it taste?
Their set was high energy and I can only hope they were having as good a time as it looked like they were.
Inviting my friend to leave G5 for the National, her only request as that I drive.
When we stopped in front of Gallery 5 for the light, the girls of Potty Mouth were out front loading up their vehicle.
Never one to be shy, I called out to bassist Ally to tell her what a great show they'd put on, insisting they come back soon and play a longer set.
It never hurts to let one's admiration be known.
At the National, we were all kinds of surprised to find parking a snap, meaning not nearly enough people were inside.
After taking up residence in front of the sound booth, always my location at shows there, I saw a few friends, but not nearly as many as I'd expected.
Ditto the band, Sweden's Mary Onettes, which amounted to one guy instead of four.
"I was supposed to have my band withe me but they're busy wrestling ice bears in Sweden," singer/guitarist Philip explained.
I liked his sense of humor already.
But even if he hadn't had that, I'd still have been a sucker for the band's dream pop, which he performed using guitar and voice to recorded tracks by the rest of the band.
It may not have been ideal, but it still sounded great, echoing a lot of '80s bands' sounds I loved with songs such as "Everything, Everything," "God Knows I Had Plans" and the aching "Once I Was Pretty."
Everything I've ever done was a part of promising you and keeping true
Everything you've ever said is recorded in my heart.
Yep, I ate it all up with a spoon. I could have listened to them all night.
Instead, Philip introduced Amanda Mair, also from Sweden, who sang back-up for one Mary Onettes song and then did a set of her own of emotional piano ballads.
She reminded me a lot of '90s British songbird Lauren Christy, when my Perly's friend suddenly appeared right next to us, determined to hear her lovely voice from the best possible listening post in the room.
Why do you think this is my permanent position?
My friend got all excited when she saw that Potty Mouth had just tweeted about their set at Gallery 5, saying how friendly people in Richmond were.
"She's talking about you!" she insisted. Good, maybe they'll come back like I asked.
Although the show was running a tad behind schedule, they almost made up for it with an unusually short break and then, hello!
Real Estate took the stage in their unassuming, so very un-Jersey-like way.
What they do very well is produce sunny songs with layers of guitar and vocals, making for the best kind of wistful nerd pop.
I'd been fortunate enough to see them their first time in Richmond, back in April 2012, at Strange Matter in a room that felt like a sauna and left me dripping wet after the show.
Not that it wasn't worth it.
Like last time, lead singer Martin isn't big on banter between songs, or even smiling much, but he was obviously putting his all into playing music with his long-time friends and band mates.
They began with the instrumental gem "Kinder Blumen," the ideal song to ease into their catalog, full of guitar interplay and catchy hooks and moved on to new stuff off their latest album, "Atlas."
Bassist Alex took over lead vocals for "Wonder Years," yet another catchy pop gem that was instantly memorable ("I'm not trying to be cool, I only wanna be kind, I know that I've pissed you off, Baby, better rewind").
Haven't we all had those moments in a relationship?
As if catchy tunes and longing lyrics weren't enough, the band was masterful at taking off with shimmering guitar jams and extended finishes that equaled pure pop heaven.
Before it was all over, they mentioned the hot tub backstage and invited us all to bring swimsuits and join them.
After a week away, I had a lot to make up for but not enough time for a soak.
It's enough that I tried a new restaurant, saw four stellar bands and told complete strangers what to do, from my car no less.
I can't do everything in one night.
Stop one was the recently revamped Perly's, where I walked in to find a music-loving friend at the counter and sat down next to him.
Like me, he was fueling up before hitting Fall Line Fest shows tonight but we began by taking stock of the redone but still recognizable space.
Considering that it's mostly the same (the configuration), it's also very different in feel (a Jewish deli now).
I was particularly enamored of the paper place mats with the menu printed on them while he was impressed with the beer selection.
He was having a svelte corned beef sandwich (which was still pretty thick) but I swear my deli salad - chopped lettuce topped with chunks of pastrami, rolls of turkey and strips of salami, swiss, hard cooked eggs and a little too much Russian dressing- had more meat on it.
We'll call it a manly salad.
After dissecting the shows I'd missed and he'd seen at Fall Line Fest last night (Death, Matthew E. White), I left knowing I'd see him later at a show.
There was no way I was missing Potty Mouth, an all-girl punk pop band from Massachusetts, or the chance to see them with my cute friend at Gallery 5.
We stood right in front of the stage, waiting through bottled water being brought to the stage and drummer Victoria tying her shoes before the band could start.
After the first song, "Kids," singer Abby said, "I forgot to take out my ponytail. How can I have any fun like this?"
We all know punk requires flying hair, assuming you have it.
With that, she let down her long, blond hair, leaving it to hang in her face and move around as she sang and played guitar, not so different from Victoria's covering her face the whole time she drummed.
Some say you made a mistake
Well, you can taste my heartache
How does it taste?
Their set was high energy and I can only hope they were having as good a time as it looked like they were.
Inviting my friend to leave G5 for the National, her only request as that I drive.
When we stopped in front of Gallery 5 for the light, the girls of Potty Mouth were out front loading up their vehicle.
Never one to be shy, I called out to bassist Ally to tell her what a great show they'd put on, insisting they come back soon and play a longer set.
It never hurts to let one's admiration be known.
At the National, we were all kinds of surprised to find parking a snap, meaning not nearly enough people were inside.
After taking up residence in front of the sound booth, always my location at shows there, I saw a few friends, but not nearly as many as I'd expected.
Ditto the band, Sweden's Mary Onettes, which amounted to one guy instead of four.
"I was supposed to have my band withe me but they're busy wrestling ice bears in Sweden," singer/guitarist Philip explained.
I liked his sense of humor already.
But even if he hadn't had that, I'd still have been a sucker for the band's dream pop, which he performed using guitar and voice to recorded tracks by the rest of the band.
It may not have been ideal, but it still sounded great, echoing a lot of '80s bands' sounds I loved with songs such as "Everything, Everything," "God Knows I Had Plans" and the aching "Once I Was Pretty."
Everything I've ever done was a part of promising you and keeping true
Everything you've ever said is recorded in my heart.
Yep, I ate it all up with a spoon. I could have listened to them all night.
Instead, Philip introduced Amanda Mair, also from Sweden, who sang back-up for one Mary Onettes song and then did a set of her own of emotional piano ballads.
She reminded me a lot of '90s British songbird Lauren Christy, when my Perly's friend suddenly appeared right next to us, determined to hear her lovely voice from the best possible listening post in the room.
Why do you think this is my permanent position?
My friend got all excited when she saw that Potty Mouth had just tweeted about their set at Gallery 5, saying how friendly people in Richmond were.
"She's talking about you!" she insisted. Good, maybe they'll come back like I asked.
Although the show was running a tad behind schedule, they almost made up for it with an unusually short break and then, hello!
Real Estate took the stage in their unassuming, so very un-Jersey-like way.
What they do very well is produce sunny songs with layers of guitar and vocals, making for the best kind of wistful nerd pop.
I'd been fortunate enough to see them their first time in Richmond, back in April 2012, at Strange Matter in a room that felt like a sauna and left me dripping wet after the show.
Not that it wasn't worth it.
Like last time, lead singer Martin isn't big on banter between songs, or even smiling much, but he was obviously putting his all into playing music with his long-time friends and band mates.
They began with the instrumental gem "Kinder Blumen," the ideal song to ease into their catalog, full of guitar interplay and catchy hooks and moved on to new stuff off their latest album, "Atlas."
Bassist Alex took over lead vocals for "Wonder Years," yet another catchy pop gem that was instantly memorable ("I'm not trying to be cool, I only wanna be kind, I know that I've pissed you off, Baby, better rewind").
Haven't we all had those moments in a relationship?
As if catchy tunes and longing lyrics weren't enough, the band was masterful at taking off with shimmering guitar jams and extended finishes that equaled pure pop heaven.
Before it was all over, they mentioned the hot tub backstage and invited us all to bring swimsuits and join them.
After a week away, I had a lot to make up for but not enough time for a soak.
It's enough that I tried a new restaurant, saw four stellar bands and told complete strangers what to do, from my car no less.
I can't do everything in one night.
Saturday, September 6, 2014
Ode to a Bonnet
Apparently, it's easier than I realized to be a poet's muse.
After sleeping in my own bed for the first time in a week last night, I got up raring to go for my daily walk for the first time in as long.
Feeling the need to properly baptize my legs in the James River, I then headed back up the hill hoping to catch the end of Tea for Two, an outdoor poetry reading in the park behind the main library.
Impressed to see how many people were already there, I found a seat in the back on a bench between two men to hear Henry Hart read poems about his daughter before she could speak, his son's difficult birth and his father's Christmas tree farm.
"You're going to be sick of my family by the time I finish reading," he joked.
Closing with a poem about retracing his grandfather's expedition across the Gobi desert, he spoke of being lost, threatened and moved by the trip.
Applause followed and then the man to my right looked at me and unexpectedly said, "I'm going to write a poem about you and your bonnet."
The "bonnet" to which he referred is my sun hat, a necessity lately with these long river walks I've been doing.
Not sure why I was so inspiring, so I asked.
Come to find out he's a sports writer in town for today's NASCAR race who'd left his hotel room to go for a walk and been drawn in by the shady park, nice looking crowd and free coffee.
But as he listened to poetry, he was unsettled by the beeping of a truck backing up, the roar of a Harley blasting down Main Street and other jarring sounds.
He said just as he was thinking that a grace note was needed, "A pretty woman in a bonnet and Nikes showed up and sat down next to me. You will be the subject of my next poem."
We introduced ourselves and I learned he was from northern Virginia, a former USA Today baseball writer who now freelances.
He said that the good thing about NASCAR drivers is that they're far more willing to talk to the press than pro team athletes.
I wished him good luck with the race. He thanked me for showing up and providing the muse for a poem.
On the way home, I stopped to pick up my Fall Line Fest wristband on Broad Street and ran into my friend Andrew.
Telling him my poetry story, he shook his head, laughing. "Only you, Karen, these things only happen to you."
I know, but aren't I lucky for it?
After sleeping in my own bed for the first time in a week last night, I got up raring to go for my daily walk for the first time in as long.
Feeling the need to properly baptize my legs in the James River, I then headed back up the hill hoping to catch the end of Tea for Two, an outdoor poetry reading in the park behind the main library.
Impressed to see how many people were already there, I found a seat in the back on a bench between two men to hear Henry Hart read poems about his daughter before she could speak, his son's difficult birth and his father's Christmas tree farm.
"You're going to be sick of my family by the time I finish reading," he joked.
Closing with a poem about retracing his grandfather's expedition across the Gobi desert, he spoke of being lost, threatened and moved by the trip.
Applause followed and then the man to my right looked at me and unexpectedly said, "I'm going to write a poem about you and your bonnet."
The "bonnet" to which he referred is my sun hat, a necessity lately with these long river walks I've been doing.
Not sure why I was so inspiring, so I asked.
Come to find out he's a sports writer in town for today's NASCAR race who'd left his hotel room to go for a walk and been drawn in by the shady park, nice looking crowd and free coffee.
But as he listened to poetry, he was unsettled by the beeping of a truck backing up, the roar of a Harley blasting down Main Street and other jarring sounds.
He said just as he was thinking that a grace note was needed, "A pretty woman in a bonnet and Nikes showed up and sat down next to me. You will be the subject of my next poem."
We introduced ourselves and I learned he was from northern Virginia, a former USA Today baseball writer who now freelances.
He said that the good thing about NASCAR drivers is that they're far more willing to talk to the press than pro team athletes.
I wished him good luck with the race. He thanked me for showing up and providing the muse for a poem.
On the way home, I stopped to pick up my Fall Line Fest wristband on Broad Street and ran into my friend Andrew.
Telling him my poetry story, he shook his head, laughing. "Only you, Karen, these things only happen to you."
I know, but aren't I lucky for it?
Friday, September 5, 2014
My Secret History
According to my friend, I look like I spent three days at S & M camp. Truth be told, I do feel a little beat up.
Six bruises, five on my legs and one on my instep where a couch corner unexpectedly landed.
Broken off parts or all of eight fingernails (admittedly, two to crab eating) and sacrificed half of a toenail to a box that dropped on it at just theright wrong angle.
And feet so sore from endless trips up and down steps (yesterday, I stopped counting after the 42nd time up and down that narrow staircase), that even my intrepid feet, the ones used to six and seven-mile daily walks, were aching.
To put it bluntly, my dogs were barking.
But after long days of helping her get moved in and worn out nights inhaling food and drink (not my best efforts), I was ready to head south.
Reveling in sitting down when the cab driver came to pick me up, I wasted no time in stretching out my legs and getting to know my chariot driver who, for a middle-aged man, either had the most unattractive bowl haircut and awful dye job or the worst wig I've ever seen.
Choosing to sit directly behind him, I asked if he was an Annapolis native. Born and raised, he said, still loves it but hates the influx of Yuppies.
Don't we all?
When I asked him what his first concert was (Huey Lewis and the News, 1986, the year he graduated high school), he was quick to tell me unsolicited his most recent concert (Cher and highly jealous that I had seen her in 1978).
We were practically buddies by the time he dropped me off.
Only when I got to the train station did I discover that my train was running half an hour late, but it didn't matter because I'd finally found my live music for the week.
Crush Funk Brass - tuba, trombone, trumpet and drums - was playing just outside the station, barely in the shadows on what was a stupidly sticky, hot late afternoon.
Finding a shady spot to watch them and wile away the half hour delay, it made me happy to see so many people pause to listen and then drop money in their case.
They weren't re-inventing the wheel with songs such as "Blueberry Hill," "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and "What a Wonderful World," but they were giving it their all and I was happy to listen.
I only had a dollar with me, but it went straight into their coffers when I finally went inside to catch my train.
Once on, I took a seat next to an older woman who had to move her purse so I could sit down, promising I'd move once we got to Washington and most of the passengers got off (I did).
But in the meantime, I introduced myself and asked her where she was going.
Well, well, imagine that: Richmond. Said she lived in northern Henrico and asked where I live.
When I said Jackson Ward, her eyes grew big. "Where?" she asked eagerly.
Turns out she grew up at Third and Baker Street in J-Ward, an area I know well from my regular walks to Shockoe Hill Cemetery north of I-95, although blighted now and undoubtedly nothing like the neighborhood where she spent 18 years.
When she mentioned being raised Catholic, I told her I'd been as well without sharing that I'm more of a card-carrying heathen these days.
Telling me her church has always been St. Peter's on Grace Street, she suggested I look for her next time I'm at the 8:30 mass.
I smiled sweetly and told her next time I was at that mass, I would make sure to find her.
Don't laugh, if I actually went, I would most certainly seek her out.
She was just returning from a week up north - in the Poconos, Philly and finishing up in Delaware - and was exhausted from everything she'd been doing, so we compared sore feet and exhaustion states.
I let her win due to her being a septuagenarian.
At Union Station, I took advantage of the mass exodus and scored a row to myself, bidding her farewell and lost no time in stretching out my bruised legs on the seat next to me.
I was bound and determined to finally finish "The Secret History" and very nearly did until I started to get distracted by the varying degrees of sunsets over all the bodies of water we kept crossing.
First, it was the giant orange ball making for a brilliantly colorful river, then as it sunk lower, a golden sparkly streak and eventually just the last light of evening beaming up from behind the tree line.
When we got to the Occoquan River and marina, the water was still full of boats cutting through the water leaving white wakes behind them.
In other words, I didn't fully finish my book, although I made it through the climax.
It's now my intention to take this bruised and battered body and finish those last 43 pages soaking my barking dogs.
One nagging thought still lingers, though.
Do they really have S & M camps?
Six bruises, five on my legs and one on my instep where a couch corner unexpectedly landed.
Broken off parts or all of eight fingernails (admittedly, two to crab eating) and sacrificed half of a toenail to a box that dropped on it at just the
And feet so sore from endless trips up and down steps (yesterday, I stopped counting after the 42nd time up and down that narrow staircase), that even my intrepid feet, the ones used to six and seven-mile daily walks, were aching.
To put it bluntly, my dogs were barking.
But after long days of helping her get moved in and worn out nights inhaling food and drink (not my best efforts), I was ready to head south.
Reveling in sitting down when the cab driver came to pick me up, I wasted no time in stretching out my legs and getting to know my chariot driver who, for a middle-aged man, either had the most unattractive bowl haircut and awful dye job or the worst wig I've ever seen.
Choosing to sit directly behind him, I asked if he was an Annapolis native. Born and raised, he said, still loves it but hates the influx of Yuppies.
Don't we all?
When I asked him what his first concert was (Huey Lewis and the News, 1986, the year he graduated high school), he was quick to tell me unsolicited his most recent concert (Cher and highly jealous that I had seen her in 1978).
We were practically buddies by the time he dropped me off.
Only when I got to the train station did I discover that my train was running half an hour late, but it didn't matter because I'd finally found my live music for the week.
Crush Funk Brass - tuba, trombone, trumpet and drums - was playing just outside the station, barely in the shadows on what was a stupidly sticky, hot late afternoon.
Finding a shady spot to watch them and wile away the half hour delay, it made me happy to see so many people pause to listen and then drop money in their case.
They weren't re-inventing the wheel with songs such as "Blueberry Hill," "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and "What a Wonderful World," but they were giving it their all and I was happy to listen.
I only had a dollar with me, but it went straight into their coffers when I finally went inside to catch my train.
Once on, I took a seat next to an older woman who had to move her purse so I could sit down, promising I'd move once we got to Washington and most of the passengers got off (I did).
But in the meantime, I introduced myself and asked her where she was going.
Well, well, imagine that: Richmond. Said she lived in northern Henrico and asked where I live.
When I said Jackson Ward, her eyes grew big. "Where?" she asked eagerly.
Turns out she grew up at Third and Baker Street in J-Ward, an area I know well from my regular walks to Shockoe Hill Cemetery north of I-95, although blighted now and undoubtedly nothing like the neighborhood where she spent 18 years.
When she mentioned being raised Catholic, I told her I'd been as well without sharing that I'm more of a card-carrying heathen these days.
Telling me her church has always been St. Peter's on Grace Street, she suggested I look for her next time I'm at the 8:30 mass.
I smiled sweetly and told her next time I was at that mass, I would make sure to find her.
Don't laugh, if I actually went, I would most certainly seek her out.
She was just returning from a week up north - in the Poconos, Philly and finishing up in Delaware - and was exhausted from everything she'd been doing, so we compared sore feet and exhaustion states.
I let her win due to her being a septuagenarian.
At Union Station, I took advantage of the mass exodus and scored a row to myself, bidding her farewell and lost no time in stretching out my bruised legs on the seat next to me.
I was bound and determined to finally finish "The Secret History" and very nearly did until I started to get distracted by the varying degrees of sunsets over all the bodies of water we kept crossing.
First, it was the giant orange ball making for a brilliantly colorful river, then as it sunk lower, a golden sparkly streak and eventually just the last light of evening beaming up from behind the tree line.
When we got to the Occoquan River and marina, the water was still full of boats cutting through the water leaving white wakes behind them.
In other words, I didn't fully finish my book, although I made it through the climax.
It's now my intention to take this bruised and battered body and finish those last 43 pages soaking my barking dogs.
One nagging thought still lingers, though.
Do they really have S & M camps?
Old Man River
Today 's moving marathon clocked in at 12- plus hours and ended with the satisfying smell of dead fish.
My friend's movers were the same two guys who 'd moved her twice before, so they knew the drill. Doesn't everyone move four times in 3 1/2 years?
In between doing the heavy lifting, one of the guys asked me if I was married. Pleased at my response, he asked if I had a boyfriend. Displeased at that answer, he asked how that was going.
"Tell me your secret," he requested, getting a puzzled look from me. "Tell me something about yourself nobody knows." Meanwhile he's shouldering boxes onto a dolly.
The man was quite the multi -tasker.
Once we'd accomplished great things setting up her new household, we were off to enjoy some off time.
Her new digs are in Eastport which is just across Spa Creek from downtown Annapolis, in a charming, older riverfront neighborhood crowded with every type of home imaginable.
But for me, Eastport's strength is its eclectic vibe with bakeries, bars, stores and everything you need for the business of life mixed in with the houses.
Not to mention the smell of the river around every corner.
We supped at Davis' Pub, a delightful, old place that began life in the '20s as a general store and was converted to a neighborhood bar for watermen in the '40s.
It had its 15 minutes of fame when the Food Network's "Diners, Drive-Ins and Divez" stopped by for their crab pretzel, an obscene use of a soft pretzel layered with crab dip (and plenty of crab, even by Maryland standards) and melted cheese.
The "D Pub" as locals call it, suited me fine with pub fare - BLT, grilled cheese, fries - as did the affable bartender supplying me with Cazadores and my friend with Patron.
With the jukebox playing and a couple of guys next to me talking motorcycles (Yahama versus Honda), we rested our feet and scarfed a well- deserved meal.
As our final endeavor of the day, we walked to George Washington Park, a tiny pocket park with benches and a dock, to admire the masts bobbing in the night lights.
Taking a deep breath, I commented on how lucky she was to live so near the water and it's distinct smell.
"You mean the smell of dead fish?" she laughed.
I mean enjoying what you have to the utmost.
My friend's movers were the same two guys who 'd moved her twice before, so they knew the drill. Doesn't everyone move four times in 3 1/2 years?
In between doing the heavy lifting, one of the guys asked me if I was married. Pleased at my response, he asked if I had a boyfriend. Displeased at that answer, he asked how that was going.
"Tell me your secret," he requested, getting a puzzled look from me. "Tell me something about yourself nobody knows." Meanwhile he's shouldering boxes onto a dolly.
The man was quite the multi -tasker.
Once we'd accomplished great things setting up her new household, we were off to enjoy some off time.
Her new digs are in Eastport which is just across Spa Creek from downtown Annapolis, in a charming, older riverfront neighborhood crowded with every type of home imaginable.
But for me, Eastport's strength is its eclectic vibe with bakeries, bars, stores and everything you need for the business of life mixed in with the houses.
Not to mention the smell of the river around every corner.
We supped at Davis' Pub, a delightful, old place that began life in the '20s as a general store and was converted to a neighborhood bar for watermen in the '40s.
It had its 15 minutes of fame when the Food Network's "Diners, Drive-Ins and Divez" stopped by for their crab pretzel, an obscene use of a soft pretzel layered with crab dip (and plenty of crab, even by Maryland standards) and melted cheese.
The "D Pub" as locals call it, suited me fine with pub fare - BLT, grilled cheese, fries - as did the affable bartender supplying me with Cazadores and my friend with Patron.
With the jukebox playing and a couple of guys next to me talking motorcycles (Yahama versus Honda), we rested our feet and scarfed a well- deserved meal.
As our final endeavor of the day, we walked to George Washington Park, a tiny pocket park with benches and a dock, to admire the masts bobbing in the night lights.
Taking a deep breath, I commented on how lucky she was to live so near the water and it's distinct smell.
"You mean the smell of dead fish?" she laughed.
I mean enjoying what you have to the utmost.
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Bubble Wrapped
On the road again...
Hopped a train last night to Annapolis, a train delayed by the conductor making repeated announcements that no dogs were allowed on Amtrack.
This seemed a tad strange to me since there was a woman two rows in front of me with a small white dog who was reacting not at all to the warnings that any dog carrier would be put off the train.
When two Amtrack employees showed up, she gave them what for, informing them that she was a pain therapist and that her dog was her assistant, helping people relax as she treated them.
I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.
Bottom line: they got to stay while I went back to reading the three days' worth of Washington Posts I was behind on after my Labor Day sojourn.
Traveling on the train at night, especially on the Quiet Car, was decidedly different from all my recent day trips where passing scenery and weather competed with my read-a-thon to pass the hours north.
Arriving at 10:30, my friend took me directly to Gordon Biersch brewery, promising, "This'll be your least favorite part of your week."
Not so, I told her, surprising her with the fact that I'd just been to Lickinghole brewery Monday.
Besides, train riding works up an appetite so fish tacos and two kinds of sliders were just the thing along about midnight.
After a full day helping her get ready to move -packing and unpacking boxes- she suggested a couple of restaurants and I countered with river-side crabs.
She amiably agreed with the stipulation that we eat inside, which lasted until we arrived and I suggested we eat outside.
It had turned out to be an unexpectedly pleasant evening, damp enough that I needed the wrap I'd borrowed from her almost immediately, so she agreed to eat al fresco.
With Herradura and hush puppies in front of me, it was just a matter of time until the large crabs arrived, making me a happy camper.
Not so my friend, who was facing a nearby table where a child was watching a movie with the sound loud enough to be heard at our table.
Soon after, the table behind us began smoking and I saw her begin to lose it.
Even the arrival of the crabs didn't help, but I knew what would.
With the skill of a pro, I suggested some Herradura STAT and by the second one, she began to relax.
It didn't hurt that the smokers and the TV family paid their bills and left, but a lot of credit goes to the tequila.
As anyone who picks crabs knows, bits go flying in the feeding frenzy and at one point, some landed in her drink.
"There's shell in my tequila!" she squealed.
So? I asked, prompting her to wonder if anything ever really gets to me.
She said she had dozens of things that set her off.
Let me think about it for a while and I'll let you know, I told her.
Still thinking.
Hopped a train last night to Annapolis, a train delayed by the conductor making repeated announcements that no dogs were allowed on Amtrack.
This seemed a tad strange to me since there was a woman two rows in front of me with a small white dog who was reacting not at all to the warnings that any dog carrier would be put off the train.
When two Amtrack employees showed up, she gave them what for, informing them that she was a pain therapist and that her dog was her assistant, helping people relax as she treated them.
I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.
Bottom line: they got to stay while I went back to reading the three days' worth of Washington Posts I was behind on after my Labor Day sojourn.
Traveling on the train at night, especially on the Quiet Car, was decidedly different from all my recent day trips where passing scenery and weather competed with my read-a-thon to pass the hours north.
Arriving at 10:30, my friend took me directly to Gordon Biersch brewery, promising, "This'll be your least favorite part of your week."
Not so, I told her, surprising her with the fact that I'd just been to Lickinghole brewery Monday.
Besides, train riding works up an appetite so fish tacos and two kinds of sliders were just the thing along about midnight.
After a full day helping her get ready to move -packing and unpacking boxes- she suggested a couple of restaurants and I countered with river-side crabs.
She amiably agreed with the stipulation that we eat inside, which lasted until we arrived and I suggested we eat outside.
It had turned out to be an unexpectedly pleasant evening, damp enough that I needed the wrap I'd borrowed from her almost immediately, so she agreed to eat al fresco.
With Herradura and hush puppies in front of me, it was just a matter of time until the large crabs arrived, making me a happy camper.
Not so my friend, who was facing a nearby table where a child was watching a movie with the sound loud enough to be heard at our table.
Soon after, the table behind us began smoking and I saw her begin to lose it.
Even the arrival of the crabs didn't help, but I knew what would.
With the skill of a pro, I suggested some Herradura STAT and by the second one, she began to relax.
It didn't hurt that the smokers and the TV family paid their bills and left, but a lot of credit goes to the tequila.
As anyone who picks crabs knows, bits go flying in the feeding frenzy and at one point, some landed in her drink.
"There's shell in my tequila!" she squealed.
So? I asked, prompting her to wonder if anything ever really gets to me.
She said she had dozens of things that set her off.
Let me think about it for a while and I'll let you know, I told her.
Still thinking.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Rural Retreating
Rest assured, if I had any white shoes, skirts or dresses, I'd have stayed home and spent the weekend packing them up.
But since I don't wear white - looks awful on me - that left me free to accept an invitation to the country for the long weekend instead.
First order of business after a bountiful breakfast: an all-day pool party under a bright blue sky.
The wine was free-flowing, the memories stretched back to living in Church Hill before it was chic and just about everybody ended up in the water at some point.
I especially liked the high-spirited guy who kept cannonballing in an attempt to knock others off their floats. If not water hi-jinks at a pool party, then when?
Our host had apparently started his own partying before the guests arrived, so he dropped out for a while to take a nap, returning to his chair unobtrusively as if he'd never been away...except for the creases on his cheek.
One trio took an expedition into the woods, returning with a 6' black snake in hand, choosing not to bring it into the pool area only when I made my snake feelings clear to all.
Don't harsh my mellow with a black snake, y'all.
Mid-afternoon, swimming and snake handling paused for lunch of pizza (our host had made his own crust, our hostess had chosen all the vegetable toppings from her abundant garden), lasagna, corn on the cob and kale salad (despite the creator acknowledging that she had not massaged the kale, it was stellar).
Also, wedges of watermelon, because it could be construed as un-American not to bookend the summer with watermelon on both Memorial Day and Labor Day.
As was probably the case at holiday celebrations all over the Commonwealth, there was a fair amount of chatter about our former first couple and their unsuitability for the governor's mansion.
We had a consensus that not a single person anywhere ever needed to see pictures of our former first lady headed into the federal courthouse with a camel-toe courtesy of her polyester pantsuit.
After much laughter courtesy of multiple empty bottles of wine, we went the rural retreat route for a low-key evening of grilled t-bone steak, a salad that could been the poster child for the holiday weekend (corn, tomatoes, red onion, basil and balsamic, the second and fourth from the cook's gardens) and crusty bread slathered with Irish butter enjoyed on the screened-in porch surrounded by Chianti bottles housing burning candles,
Our musical point of departure was Teddy Pendergrass, making for some excellent R & B tangents as the evening dancing and conversation progressed. Some might say we were workin' it.
Teddy, now there was a man who looked far too good in white to pack it away, no matter what the holiday.
My Labor Day hero.
But since I don't wear white - looks awful on me - that left me free to accept an invitation to the country for the long weekend instead.
First order of business after a bountiful breakfast: an all-day pool party under a bright blue sky.
The wine was free-flowing, the memories stretched back to living in Church Hill before it was chic and just about everybody ended up in the water at some point.
I especially liked the high-spirited guy who kept cannonballing in an attempt to knock others off their floats. If not water hi-jinks at a pool party, then when?
Our host had apparently started his own partying before the guests arrived, so he dropped out for a while to take a nap, returning to his chair unobtrusively as if he'd never been away...except for the creases on his cheek.
One trio took an expedition into the woods, returning with a 6' black snake in hand, choosing not to bring it into the pool area only when I made my snake feelings clear to all.
Don't harsh my mellow with a black snake, y'all.
Mid-afternoon, swimming and snake handling paused for lunch of pizza (our host had made his own crust, our hostess had chosen all the vegetable toppings from her abundant garden), lasagna, corn on the cob and kale salad (despite the creator acknowledging that she had not massaged the kale, it was stellar).
Also, wedges of watermelon, because it could be construed as un-American not to bookend the summer with watermelon on both Memorial Day and Labor Day.
As was probably the case at holiday celebrations all over the Commonwealth, there was a fair amount of chatter about our former first couple and their unsuitability for the governor's mansion.
We had a consensus that not a single person anywhere ever needed to see pictures of our former first lady headed into the federal courthouse with a camel-toe courtesy of her polyester pantsuit.
After much laughter courtesy of multiple empty bottles of wine, we went the rural retreat route for a low-key evening of grilled t-bone steak, a salad that could been the poster child for the holiday weekend (corn, tomatoes, red onion, basil and balsamic, the second and fourth from the cook's gardens) and crusty bread slathered with Irish butter enjoyed on the screened-in porch surrounded by Chianti bottles housing burning candles,
Our musical point of departure was Teddy Pendergrass, making for some excellent R & B tangents as the evening dancing and conversation progressed. Some might say we were workin' it.
Teddy, now there was a man who looked far too good in white to pack it away, no matter what the holiday.
My Labor Day hero.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Time Makes You Bolder
Fleetwood Mac and summer just go together.
My best friend and I saw them play two nights at the Capital Center in 1977 on the "Rumours" tour. Even know what I wore both nights (we won't talk about the mauve and lavender tube top and cut-offs).
Fast forward 37 Augusts and tonight I was right up front at Hardywood for the latest in the Cover to Cover series to see "Rumours" played start to finish by a bunch of theater people I have seen both onstage and at the ghost light afterparty many times.
But his time, it was personal. These songs are the soundtrack of my misspent youth.
With terrific songs to work with and a crack band, including for the first time, Brian Cruse, a bass player I first met when he was in Marionette and have since seen in many guises (tonight he oozed the '70s in a white leisure suit and shades, his waist-length hair down for the first time I'd ever seen), each song was a testament to its immortality.
Audra doing "Dreams"? Everyone sang along. Nick killing it on "Never Going Back"? Lindsey would be proud.
Before "Go Your Own Way," Hedwig (no Angry Inch), aka Matt, came out in full regalia sipping a beer and spitting it out on my right sandal.
I couldn't have been more honored.
It was hotter than hell in Hardywood, the crowd was huge and boasted all ages and the smell of sweat permeated the room by the time we heard Katrinah do the sublime "Songbird."
Someone handed me a cluster of miniature pink roses, apropos of nothing.
Maggie sang "Gold Dust Woman," directing the line, "Rock on ancient queen" directly at Hedwig, who returned it with a hip cock and look of his own.
The encore necessarily had to feature earlier and later stuff. Rhiannon set the Stevie fanatics (easy to spot in their stylized version of '70s dress) on fire and while I was happy to hear "Landslide," I'd have preferred "Silver Springs."
An '80s song followed but since I'd long since abandoned the Mac by then, I barely recognized it. But I did get both the first Stevie Nicks solo albums when they came out.
So while Stevie's "Edge of Seventeen" wasn't what I would have chosen to play as the closer for "Cover to Cover: Rumours," it was a crowd-pleasing, rabble rousing finish to a very hot, sweaty Fleetwood Mac kind of a night and I sang and danced along to every note.
Just not in a mauve and lavender tube top and cut-offs...although they might have been cooler.
My best friend and I saw them play two nights at the Capital Center in 1977 on the "Rumours" tour. Even know what I wore both nights (we won't talk about the mauve and lavender tube top and cut-offs).
Fast forward 37 Augusts and tonight I was right up front at Hardywood for the latest in the Cover to Cover series to see "Rumours" played start to finish by a bunch of theater people I have seen both onstage and at the ghost light afterparty many times.
But his time, it was personal. These songs are the soundtrack of my misspent youth.
With terrific songs to work with and a crack band, including for the first time, Brian Cruse, a bass player I first met when he was in Marionette and have since seen in many guises (tonight he oozed the '70s in a white leisure suit and shades, his waist-length hair down for the first time I'd ever seen), each song was a testament to its immortality.
Audra doing "Dreams"? Everyone sang along. Nick killing it on "Never Going Back"? Lindsey would be proud.
Before "Go Your Own Way," Hedwig (no Angry Inch), aka Matt, came out in full regalia sipping a beer and spitting it out on my right sandal.
I couldn't have been more honored.
It was hotter than hell in Hardywood, the crowd was huge and boasted all ages and the smell of sweat permeated the room by the time we heard Katrinah do the sublime "Songbird."
Someone handed me a cluster of miniature pink roses, apropos of nothing.
Maggie sang "Gold Dust Woman," directing the line, "Rock on ancient queen" directly at Hedwig, who returned it with a hip cock and look of his own.
The encore necessarily had to feature earlier and later stuff. Rhiannon set the Stevie fanatics (easy to spot in their stylized version of '70s dress) on fire and while I was happy to hear "Landslide," I'd have preferred "Silver Springs."
An '80s song followed but since I'd long since abandoned the Mac by then, I barely recognized it. But I did get both the first Stevie Nicks solo albums when they came out.
So while Stevie's "Edge of Seventeen" wasn't what I would have chosen to play as the closer for "Cover to Cover: Rumours," it was a crowd-pleasing, rabble rousing finish to a very hot, sweaty Fleetwood Mac kind of a night and I sang and danced along to every note.
Just not in a mauve and lavender tube top and cut-offs...although they might have been cooler.
Of Zephyrs and Chocks
Love in dishevelment, or, another visit to the northern neck to see Mom and Dad.
Three months after a tree taller than their house came down in a storm, eating a hole in the third floor roof and dispensing with other windows and siding, they are still in a much smaller cottage a quarter of a mile away.
Their house's renovations have finally begun, but with at least a couple of months of work ahead, they're in for more adjustment to the pleasures of smaller digs.
My Dad is okay with piles and a certain amount of visual disorder (says he knows which pile everything is in) while Mom prefers stuff to be out of sight.
As we set the table for lunch today, she telling him to get his debris off the table, he suggested she embrace more dishevelment in their lives.
She made a face and he defended himself, saying he'd read a book called "Love in Dishevelment" (no doubt a '50s pulp mystery) and some of it could be applied to life.
What he was trying to say was that it wasn't realistic for her to think he's going to abandon dishevelment. She tried using me as a witness, claiming I'd have no part in dishevelment. I pleaded the fifth.
Yes, these are the conversations I have with my parents.
In other news, I conquered the Merry Point!
After multiple past attempts to ride the Merry Point ferry, today was my lucky day to ride the two-car, six person cable ferry.
Show up at the end of Ottoman Ferry Road and the ferry will take you across the Corrotoman river - where I'd seen dolphins two weeks ago (none today) - in the blink of an eye.
It was on the other side upon arrival, so I waded into the river (very warm and very clear) and watched the ferry chug back over, reaching down to feel the cable vibrate as it approached.
Then it was my turn.
A car followed me on and, just like that, we were at limit. Ignoring a sign back on land suggesting ferry patrons stay in their cars, I got out.
What, the captain (the man who put chocks behind my tires) is going to make me walk the plank if I don't?
It was the kind of afternoon as sunny and clear as they seemed when you were at recess in third grade, a glorious day to be on a ferry even for a short time.
But that was long after lunch and hours spent on the front porch ogling nature with the people who spawned me.
A brilliant electric blue bug looked fake, a hummingbird showed up only to find the feeder empty (refilled it) and my Dad commented, "Ah, a lovely zephyr," (knew that it was wind, didn't know westerly) when it got breezy.
We took a field trip to the front yard to admire and discuss the two positively artistic lightening rods on the roof of this cottage they're staying in, all glass balls and sunburst-like toppers.
A practical necessity rendered to please the eye.
My parents suggested I go look at the cabin, a tiny place on the property where the owner stays when he doesn't have guests that warrant using the cottage (the one my parents are borrowing).
It was a place for one person, preferably a short one: low, 6' ceiling, pre-1940 Westinghouse refrigerator (shorter than me), one main room and a bedroom.
And if that person were me, I would revel in all the windows (the kind that open toward you, not up the wall) and a screened porch with a swing, a picnic table and a view of the creek shaded by a tree I couldn't hug half of.
A good place to write a textbook, apparently (owner just finished one), but also one with two boats in the yard and plenty of places to do nothing. But small, very compact.
Some might see it as a breeding ground for dishevelment.
As my Dad is sitting there at the table watching my Mom and me prepare lunch, set the table and bustle about, he acknowledges his lazy demeanor but tries to make a case for it being situational.
"People worry if your mother dies before I do that I'll starve to death," he begins his tangent. Hard to say where it might go. "I may grieve to death, but I'll certainly be able to feed myself."
And that, I'm pretty sure, is love in dishevelment. Hell of a role model.
Three months after a tree taller than their house came down in a storm, eating a hole in the third floor roof and dispensing with other windows and siding, they are still in a much smaller cottage a quarter of a mile away.
Their house's renovations have finally begun, but with at least a couple of months of work ahead, they're in for more adjustment to the pleasures of smaller digs.
My Dad is okay with piles and a certain amount of visual disorder (says he knows which pile everything is in) while Mom prefers stuff to be out of sight.
As we set the table for lunch today, she telling him to get his debris off the table, he suggested she embrace more dishevelment in their lives.
She made a face and he defended himself, saying he'd read a book called "Love in Dishevelment" (no doubt a '50s pulp mystery) and some of it could be applied to life.
What he was trying to say was that it wasn't realistic for her to think he's going to abandon dishevelment. She tried using me as a witness, claiming I'd have no part in dishevelment. I pleaded the fifth.
Yes, these are the conversations I have with my parents.
In other news, I conquered the Merry Point!
After multiple past attempts to ride the Merry Point ferry, today was my lucky day to ride the two-car, six person cable ferry.
Show up at the end of Ottoman Ferry Road and the ferry will take you across the Corrotoman river - where I'd seen dolphins two weeks ago (none today) - in the blink of an eye.
It was on the other side upon arrival, so I waded into the river (very warm and very clear) and watched the ferry chug back over, reaching down to feel the cable vibrate as it approached.
Then it was my turn.
A car followed me on and, just like that, we were at limit. Ignoring a sign back on land suggesting ferry patrons stay in their cars, I got out.
What, the captain (the man who put chocks behind my tires) is going to make me walk the plank if I don't?
It was the kind of afternoon as sunny and clear as they seemed when you were at recess in third grade, a glorious day to be on a ferry even for a short time.
But that was long after lunch and hours spent on the front porch ogling nature with the people who spawned me.
A brilliant electric blue bug looked fake, a hummingbird showed up only to find the feeder empty (refilled it) and my Dad commented, "Ah, a lovely zephyr," (knew that it was wind, didn't know westerly) when it got breezy.
We took a field trip to the front yard to admire and discuss the two positively artistic lightening rods on the roof of this cottage they're staying in, all glass balls and sunburst-like toppers.
A practical necessity rendered to please the eye.
My parents suggested I go look at the cabin, a tiny place on the property where the owner stays when he doesn't have guests that warrant using the cottage (the one my parents are borrowing).
It was a place for one person, preferably a short one: low, 6' ceiling, pre-1940 Westinghouse refrigerator (shorter than me), one main room and a bedroom.
And if that person were me, I would revel in all the windows (the kind that open toward you, not up the wall) and a screened porch with a swing, a picnic table and a view of the creek shaded by a tree I couldn't hug half of.
A good place to write a textbook, apparently (owner just finished one), but also one with two boats in the yard and plenty of places to do nothing. But small, very compact.
Some might see it as a breeding ground for dishevelment.
As my Dad is sitting there at the table watching my Mom and me prepare lunch, set the table and bustle about, he acknowledges his lazy demeanor but tries to make a case for it being situational.
"People worry if your mother dies before I do that I'll starve to death," he begins his tangent. Hard to say where it might go. "I may grieve to death, but I'll certainly be able to feed myself."
And that, I'm pretty sure, is love in dishevelment. Hell of a role model.
Friday, August 29, 2014
Take Five
Some nights are all about the simple pleasures.
I set out to check out L'Oppossum, eager to see how the former Pescado's China Street had been transformed.
When I expressed my preference for the bar over a table, the two gentlemen at the host stand assured me that the bartender would be friendly.
That was an understatement. He not only recognized me from eons ago, but even inquired about a mutual friend of ours.
There's really no escaping your past in this town.
Settling into the end stool, the first thing I noticed was all the interesting art on the wall interspersed with "Star Wars" plates. Behind the bar, I spotted a stuffed possum and a painting of Nick Cave.
It was a pleasure to see a restaurant that bore no resemblance to the current restaurant decor trend.
The second was the music, everything from Helen Reddy to the Delfonics "Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time) with nary a cliched indie tune to be heard. Absolutely delightful.
The trio nearest me at the bar were soon replaced with the casually dressed director of the VMFA and his wife about the time my pale pink glass of fresh and fruity La Galope Rose Comte arrived.
I was told they'd sold out of nine bottles the first night they were open. Could it be that we are finally becoming a Rose town? Be still, my heart.
Apparently the director and his wife had been there before because I heard her tell the bartender that they were positively smitten with the place, rating it their new favorite.
Since it was my first visit, the menu was a blank slate to me so I began with the obvious: the el dorado low rider, a lobster taco with tomatillo sauce and decadent guacamole.
While there was the option to add the chef's surprise, I opted out of adding tonight's surprise of foie gras, not really needing my arteries to close down before Labor day.
Once I opened the conversational door by inquiring about the about music, the bartender boldly walked through, providing endless opinions and observations about music past and present.
I admire a man who appreciates a good pop song, no matter the genre.
We covered his first show (the Kinks), his thoughts on Television's first album, his recommendation of Comasat Angels and memories of early Cure.
At one point, a man came to the bar, credit card in hand, to order a beer. Seems he'd ordered a beer from his server at the table, but hadn't the patience to wait for it to arrive.
"I need a beer now," he clarified. "I'll still drink the one the server brings me." Off he went, beer in hand.
Man, that's some serious jonesing for a beer, friend.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, I was being asked what I wanted next. His suggestion was to get something I wouldn't want to share in case my next visit involved a companion.
Good thinking. I ordered escargots a la ham biscuit, which was exactly what it sounds like: a plate of escargot (and greens) with a ham biscuit adorned with, that's right, an escargot.
Proving I am my Richmond grandmother's granddaughter, I pulled off a piece of biscuit, slathered it with butter and devoured it to assess the biscuit worthiness.
Before long, it was just me at the bar, leaving the bartender to make drinks for tables and in between, chat with me.
About how Wilco started out aping Gram Parsons. How 20-somethings don't even know who Gram Parsons or the Flying Burrito Brothers are. About what pop gems the Strokes wrote.
I considered death by chocolate, but instead had another glass of Rose to accompany the music talk.
After anticipating a quick, solo meal, I'd been having such a terrific time talking with my fellow music lover, I'd completely lost track of time. Hours had passed and I now had somewhere to be.
Of all the unlikely places, it was with the Baptists. Just don't tell them I'd been imbibing.
I arrived at the courtyard at First Baptist on Monument, already knowing the drill for how this works.
Although tonight was the first of this year's courtyard classics I'd attended (and none last year because they were all cartoon movies), I've seen plenty of movies in the shadow of this church during other hot August nights.
Out host made sure everyone who wanted popcorn had gotten some because, he said, movies are more palatable when you're eating popcorn.
After a prayer of thanks for the nice breeze (I abstained), we were on to a 1954 MGM cartoon called "Dixieland Droopy" about a dog (a beagle, perhaps?) named John Irving Pettybone who loves Dixieland music.
Only problem is no one else does so he keeps getting kicked out of places like the "Good Rumor Ice Cream" truck for playing his Dixieland record.
After the record is broken, he lucks out by having a flea band take up residence in his tail and play non-stop Dixieland.
It was hysterical when the dog tells the flea band to "take five" and they hop off his back and approach some smoldering butts on the street, puffing away during their break and then going back to play.
Thus warmed up, we moved on to the main feature, a Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz classic called "The Long, Long Trailer."
Taking place in the pre-interstate era (1954), the story follows the newlyweds as they buy a trailer and car in which to honeymoon and then live happily ever after.
In a nod to the crowd, it had subtitles so you didn't have to listen too hard to understand the dialog.
Since I spent a good part of my childhood watching reruns of "I Love Lucy," I expected this to be similar so I was pleasantly surprised when it wasn't.
That said, their character names were Tacy and Nicky, but we'll let that slide.
But here Nicky was an engineer (not a bandleader) and Tacy wasn't quite as zany, unless you count hoarding rocks for the future garden she planned to plant once they arrived in Colorado, their goal.
It was very '50s, of course, with Tacy (frequently in hat and gloves) lobbying hard for the trailer purchase (by the way $5,345) so that, "No matter where were are, I could make home for you."
Aww, how sweetly Eisenhower years is that?
And speaking of that, all the roads were two lanes, policemen directed traffic at intersections and parking lots cost fifty cents.
While it wasn't "I Love Lucy," there was still plenty of physical humor such as Nicky hilariously fighting with the trailer shower head and Tacy trying to make a fancy dinner while the trailer is being pulled.
When she tells Nicky she's making beef ragout and a Cesar salad, he says he'll get out the Roquefort.
"Only boors use Roquefort," she corrects him. "Everyone knows it's Parmesan." Did everyone know that in 1954?
There's even a too cutesy scene of the two of them motoring along, Tacy stretched out on the giant bench seat of their Lincoln convertible, singing a song called "Breezin' Along."
That's how you know they're in love.
Well, that and Nicky says, "You could make me happy living in a cave." Doubtful, but we got his point.
The climax comes when they have to go over an 8,000 foot mountain and Nicky tells Tacy to jettison all the stuff she's been collecting, which of course she doesn't do.
During scenes of the trailer being pulled along high, narrow roads on the edge of a cliff, the crowd around me got vocal.
"Oh, my word!"
"Uh oh!"
"No, no, she's in trouble now!"
When the clouds are the ceiling in your outdoor movie theater, I guess it's just fine to talk to the characters in a fifty year old movie.
I didn't, but I'd also unexpectedly spent a whole lot of conversation at dinner, maybe all I had for the evening.
Doubtful, but you get my point.
I set out to check out L'Oppossum, eager to see how the former Pescado's China Street had been transformed.
When I expressed my preference for the bar over a table, the two gentlemen at the host stand assured me that the bartender would be friendly.
That was an understatement. He not only recognized me from eons ago, but even inquired about a mutual friend of ours.
There's really no escaping your past in this town.
Settling into the end stool, the first thing I noticed was all the interesting art on the wall interspersed with "Star Wars" plates. Behind the bar, I spotted a stuffed possum and a painting of Nick Cave.
It was a pleasure to see a restaurant that bore no resemblance to the current restaurant decor trend.
The second was the music, everything from Helen Reddy to the Delfonics "Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time) with nary a cliched indie tune to be heard. Absolutely delightful.
The trio nearest me at the bar were soon replaced with the casually dressed director of the VMFA and his wife about the time my pale pink glass of fresh and fruity La Galope Rose Comte arrived.
I was told they'd sold out of nine bottles the first night they were open. Could it be that we are finally becoming a Rose town? Be still, my heart.
Apparently the director and his wife had been there before because I heard her tell the bartender that they were positively smitten with the place, rating it their new favorite.
Since it was my first visit, the menu was a blank slate to me so I began with the obvious: the el dorado low rider, a lobster taco with tomatillo sauce and decadent guacamole.
While there was the option to add the chef's surprise, I opted out of adding tonight's surprise of foie gras, not really needing my arteries to close down before Labor day.
Once I opened the conversational door by inquiring about the about music, the bartender boldly walked through, providing endless opinions and observations about music past and present.
I admire a man who appreciates a good pop song, no matter the genre.
We covered his first show (the Kinks), his thoughts on Television's first album, his recommendation of Comasat Angels and memories of early Cure.
At one point, a man came to the bar, credit card in hand, to order a beer. Seems he'd ordered a beer from his server at the table, but hadn't the patience to wait for it to arrive.
"I need a beer now," he clarified. "I'll still drink the one the server brings me." Off he went, beer in hand.
Man, that's some serious jonesing for a beer, friend.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, I was being asked what I wanted next. His suggestion was to get something I wouldn't want to share in case my next visit involved a companion.
Good thinking. I ordered escargots a la ham biscuit, which was exactly what it sounds like: a plate of escargot (and greens) with a ham biscuit adorned with, that's right, an escargot.
Proving I am my Richmond grandmother's granddaughter, I pulled off a piece of biscuit, slathered it with butter and devoured it to assess the biscuit worthiness.
Before long, it was just me at the bar, leaving the bartender to make drinks for tables and in between, chat with me.
About how Wilco started out aping Gram Parsons. How 20-somethings don't even know who Gram Parsons or the Flying Burrito Brothers are. About what pop gems the Strokes wrote.
I considered death by chocolate, but instead had another glass of Rose to accompany the music talk.
After anticipating a quick, solo meal, I'd been having such a terrific time talking with my fellow music lover, I'd completely lost track of time. Hours had passed and I now had somewhere to be.
Of all the unlikely places, it was with the Baptists. Just don't tell them I'd been imbibing.
I arrived at the courtyard at First Baptist on Monument, already knowing the drill for how this works.
Although tonight was the first of this year's courtyard classics I'd attended (and none last year because they were all cartoon movies), I've seen plenty of movies in the shadow of this church during other hot August nights.
Out host made sure everyone who wanted popcorn had gotten some because, he said, movies are more palatable when you're eating popcorn.
After a prayer of thanks for the nice breeze (I abstained), we were on to a 1954 MGM cartoon called "Dixieland Droopy" about a dog (a beagle, perhaps?) named John Irving Pettybone who loves Dixieland music.
Only problem is no one else does so he keeps getting kicked out of places like the "Good Rumor Ice Cream" truck for playing his Dixieland record.
After the record is broken, he lucks out by having a flea band take up residence in his tail and play non-stop Dixieland.
It was hysterical when the dog tells the flea band to "take five" and they hop off his back and approach some smoldering butts on the street, puffing away during their break and then going back to play.
Thus warmed up, we moved on to the main feature, a Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz classic called "The Long, Long Trailer."
Taking place in the pre-interstate era (1954), the story follows the newlyweds as they buy a trailer and car in which to honeymoon and then live happily ever after.
In a nod to the crowd, it had subtitles so you didn't have to listen too hard to understand the dialog.
Since I spent a good part of my childhood watching reruns of "I Love Lucy," I expected this to be similar so I was pleasantly surprised when it wasn't.
That said, their character names were Tacy and Nicky, but we'll let that slide.
But here Nicky was an engineer (not a bandleader) and Tacy wasn't quite as zany, unless you count hoarding rocks for the future garden she planned to plant once they arrived in Colorado, their goal.
It was very '50s, of course, with Tacy (frequently in hat and gloves) lobbying hard for the trailer purchase (by the way $5,345) so that, "No matter where were are, I could make home for you."
Aww, how sweetly Eisenhower years is that?
And speaking of that, all the roads were two lanes, policemen directed traffic at intersections and parking lots cost fifty cents.
While it wasn't "I Love Lucy," there was still plenty of physical humor such as Nicky hilariously fighting with the trailer shower head and Tacy trying to make a fancy dinner while the trailer is being pulled.
When she tells Nicky she's making beef ragout and a Cesar salad, he says he'll get out the Roquefort.
"Only boors use Roquefort," she corrects him. "Everyone knows it's Parmesan." Did everyone know that in 1954?
There's even a too cutesy scene of the two of them motoring along, Tacy stretched out on the giant bench seat of their Lincoln convertible, singing a song called "Breezin' Along."
That's how you know they're in love.
Well, that and Nicky says, "You could make me happy living in a cave." Doubtful, but we got his point.
During scenes of the trailer being pulled along high, narrow roads on the edge of a cliff, the crowd around me got vocal.
"Oh, my word!"
"Uh oh!"
"No, no, she's in trouble now!"
When the clouds are the ceiling in your outdoor movie theater, I guess it's just fine to talk to the characters in a fifty year old movie.
I didn't, but I'd also unexpectedly spent a whole lot of conversation at dinner, maybe all I had for the evening.
Doubtful, but you get my point.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
The Days of Flies and Deer
Curiosity about a building I'd seen was all it took.
The Virginia Historical Society's banner lecture was "Sheltering Arms: A Legacy of Caring" given by Anne Lower from her book of the same name, out this year on the 125th anniversary of the hospital.
If it weren't for one of my walks having taken me down Clay Street across from the Valentine where I saw a handsome three-story building labeled "Sheltering Arms," I doubt the lecture would have piqued my interest.
Lower had my attention immediately when she explained that the original St. James Episcopal Church had been in Jackson Ward before moving to the "west end," over on Franklin Street in the heart of what is now VCU.
I couldn't have been more surprised to learn that Episcopalians had once gathered in J-Ward.
That was relevant because Rebekah Peterkin was the daughter of Reverend Joshua Peterkin of St. James church and she was the founder of Sheltering Arms.
With the limited powers of a 19th century woman, she convened her sewing circle to help establish a hospital for needy patients in the city.
Their first building - Clifton House on 14th Street - located behind the governor's mansion was donated and opened in 1889.
Lower made it sound like a community effort with doctors volunteering their time and bringing their own instruments, even painting walls, while farmers donated food and hunters donated deer.
Women, of course, donated time and endless fund-raising efforts.
After Rebekah died in 1891, the hospital was moved to the stately Grant mansion on Clay Street, the handsome building that had first caught my eye.
In the old photograph Lower showed, nurses wore floor-length white uniforms and she told us that they lived on the third floor of the mansion.
We heard about the formation of the Florence Nightingale Auxiliary and their community efforts - scout canned food drives, the Bal du Bois ("the most beautiful of parties," Lower called it), sorority fundraisers - to keep funds and goods coming in to Sheltering Arms.
Showing a picture of the operating room on Clay Street, Lower pointed out the three big windows, "Opened for fresh air during surgery, but also letting in flies because there were no screens then."
She said the windows had a great view of the countryside looking east.
That's the kind of details I go to these lectures for. Imagine a time when operating rooms were open to views and flies!
The rest of the history interested me less - the move to northside where they no longer delivered babies or did surgery, the decline in need for free care once Medicare was put into law and how Sheltering Arms reinvented itself as a rehabilitation facility.
All well and good.
For me, I have a new appreciation of the Grant Mansion and next time I walk by, I'll try to imagine those long-skirted nurses working and living in that lovely house.
I'll probably even try to figure out which windows were the operation room ones so I can envision the view.
And then when I get back to Jackson Ward, I'll completely suspend belief and try to imagine Episcopalians in my neighborhood.
It must be true. I heard it at a Banner Lecture.
The Virginia Historical Society's banner lecture was "Sheltering Arms: A Legacy of Caring" given by Anne Lower from her book of the same name, out this year on the 125th anniversary of the hospital.
If it weren't for one of my walks having taken me down Clay Street across from the Valentine where I saw a handsome three-story building labeled "Sheltering Arms," I doubt the lecture would have piqued my interest.
Lower had my attention immediately when she explained that the original St. James Episcopal Church had been in Jackson Ward before moving to the "west end," over on Franklin Street in the heart of what is now VCU.
I couldn't have been more surprised to learn that Episcopalians had once gathered in J-Ward.
That was relevant because Rebekah Peterkin was the daughter of Reverend Joshua Peterkin of St. James church and she was the founder of Sheltering Arms.
With the limited powers of a 19th century woman, she convened her sewing circle to help establish a hospital for needy patients in the city.
Their first building - Clifton House on 14th Street - located behind the governor's mansion was donated and opened in 1889.
Lower made it sound like a community effort with doctors volunteering their time and bringing their own instruments, even painting walls, while farmers donated food and hunters donated deer.
Women, of course, donated time and endless fund-raising efforts.
After Rebekah died in 1891, the hospital was moved to the stately Grant mansion on Clay Street, the handsome building that had first caught my eye.
In the old photograph Lower showed, nurses wore floor-length white uniforms and she told us that they lived on the third floor of the mansion.
We heard about the formation of the Florence Nightingale Auxiliary and their community efforts - scout canned food drives, the Bal du Bois ("the most beautiful of parties," Lower called it), sorority fundraisers - to keep funds and goods coming in to Sheltering Arms.
Showing a picture of the operating room on Clay Street, Lower pointed out the three big windows, "Opened for fresh air during surgery, but also letting in flies because there were no screens then."
She said the windows had a great view of the countryside looking east.
That's the kind of details I go to these lectures for. Imagine a time when operating rooms were open to views and flies!
The rest of the history interested me less - the move to northside where they no longer delivered babies or did surgery, the decline in need for free care once Medicare was put into law and how Sheltering Arms reinvented itself as a rehabilitation facility.
All well and good.
For me, I have a new appreciation of the Grant Mansion and next time I walk by, I'll try to imagine those long-skirted nurses working and living in that lovely house.
I'll probably even try to figure out which windows were the operation room ones so I can envision the view.
And then when I get back to Jackson Ward, I'll completely suspend belief and try to imagine Episcopalians in my neighborhood.
It must be true. I heard it at a Banner Lecture.
Three for Three
Triple booked tonight and it was worth every bit of the to and fro-ing.
First was the cocktail party at a friend's house.
The occasion? Her Mom is visiting from Mexico in anticipation of the two of them flying to Bermuda, where she lived for 11 years, next week.
Nice trip if you can get it.
Actually, I've been to Bermuda and had a fabulous time, but that doesn't stop me from envying my friend her upcoming time there.
Her Mom was delightful and droll, never more so than when she observed her two-year old granddaughter in a tutu and a cropped Ramones t-shirt and deadpanned, "I bet she's never even heard the Ramones."
She shared a news-making story from her days as a curator, raved about her 14-year old seat mate on the plane ride and was wearing fabulous jewelry she made herself.
An interesting mom altogether.
After far too much Rose, cheese and figs and deviled eggs, I said my goodbyes to make stop number two, joining two girlfriends at Balliceaux.
Tonight was their first time experiencing Hand to Hand Haiku and by the time I got there, they'd already nabbed a front row table and had beers in front of them.
It was an unusually small crowd tonight but there were still plenty of combatants to follow host Raven Mack's opening monologue about the 1300 sonnets he's writing.
He was kind enough to read us two of them.
Then it was on to round one between Ryan, who characterized his haiku writing as stupid and John, who called his straight bullshit.
I've seen Ryan compete before so I already knew the constant in his haikus is the use of the word "dude."
Dude, this neighborhood
suffers from a serious lack
of Blue Oyster Cult
Like that. Except John won. Like Raven, he's got a terrific voice and an interesting look, so he's one of my favorites to watch compete, even when he doesn't win the match.
Round two brought Paul who referred to his haikus as "Appalachian filth" and the defending champion Amy, who called hers "written a few minutes ago."
I have to say, the room about lost it when Paul read this one.
New Volvo driving
old white ladies with butt plugs,
pucker lips, hate me
Later, he told me he was writing about the women he sees at Ellwood Thompson who always make a point to scowl at him.
Amy was no slacker either.
Home girl burnt her lip
on the joint's hot spot.
Blunt force trauma.
As one of my friends put it, "I didn't expect haikus to be so funny."
Oh, but they can be.
There's always a death match that pits host Raven against a worthy challenger and tonight's was Rebecca, who read a haiku called "Skin."
Our greatest asset
gives us the ability
to touch and be felt
Just as good and all too relevant for my friend was one of Raven's.
By day, mild mannered
state administrator.
By night, depressed.
Eventually, Rebecca ran out of haikus so they went to free-styling, making up haikus on the spot for the judges (of whom I happened to be one), a mighty impressive thing to witness.
Raven won again, taking the pink game cock (yep, you read that right) trophy back home with him for the umpteenth time, but the man can write haiku about masturbating with peppermint soap and how tingly it feels, so he truly is the master.
Usually the death match is the end of the evening, but tonight John and Amy returned to fight it out until John ran out of haikus and conceded.
Luckily, he's talented and tenacious, so he frequently comes back.
After the match ended, we sat and chatted for a while, planning our next date and trying to convince one of our friends to go see "Boyhood," a film two of us had loved.
Somehow, we got on the subject of people who don't pay attention to music and how foreign and unpleasant a world that would be for us.
We sat there preaching to the choir before breaking camp so one could go home to bed, one to have another beer and wait for her boyfriend and me to go to a show.
Now there's a surprise.
As if a great bill on a Wednesday night wasn't lucky enough, I found a parking space directly in front of Strange Matter.
Inside, I found a clutch of WRIR folks, a music writer and a drummer, but all in all, far fewer people than I'd anticipated.
Playing first were hometown heroes White Laces, although playing as a trio tonight instead of a quartet, and doing lots of songs off their upcoming October release, "Trance."
Did I miss the keyboards? Yes, but that's not to say that their smart, guitar-driven sound wasn't fully satisfying to hear, as always.
From the lead single, "Skate of Die" to the album's final cut, "Strangulation Blues," their set was yet another reminder of how far this band has come since I first saw them at the courtyard during the artwalk four years ago.
Watching them, it feels like a big deal to have witnessed their steady ascent to where they are now.
During the break, I talked with a friend about the challenges of freelancing, glad to hear that her frustrations mirror mine and it's not just me.
Then the room began to fill with smoke as Sisu's smoke machine kicked into overdrive.
They also had video showing behind them and two perfect sets of bangs, courtesy of Sandy and Jules of the Dum Dum Girls.
It's Sandy's band and the music is psychedelic, full-bodied and dark with plenty of reverb.
Loud, too, but not as loud as it would have been if the drummer hadn't put his red plaid flannel shirt over his drum before playing it.
Being visual creatures, lots of guys seemed to be taking pictures of the lovely Sandy shredding her guitar.
At one point, I looked over at the door and all I could see was a solid haze of smoke and no door at all.
After their set ended, I talked to a friend about why more VCU kids weren't at the show and with the drummer of the Shangri-Lords about the stellar set of theirs I'd seen at the pool party the other night.
Turns out he and the bass player have been girl group fans for years and finally got to let their inner girls out via this band.
As the crowd began to filter back in, San Diego band Crocodiles took the stage and began an audio assault laden with echo, one of my favorite sounds.
It was music from a cave, full of guitar distortion tamed into something wonderfully energetic and danceable.
A drunk girl in front of me wrangled a guy to dance with her, producing hysterical results as they managed to dance off beat for the next five songs, stumbling into each other and everyone around them without ever moving in relation to the music being played.
But at least they were dancing, as was most of the room to Crocodiles' catchy, noisy psych-rock with the kind of guitar work that calls to mind all those post-punk bands of the mid-aughts that I loved.
Just another Wednesday in River City.
While some might lament the serious lack of Blue Oyster Cult, I'm calling it a damn fine evening.
First was the cocktail party at a friend's house.
The occasion? Her Mom is visiting from Mexico in anticipation of the two of them flying to Bermuda, where she lived for 11 years, next week.
Nice trip if you can get it.
Actually, I've been to Bermuda and had a fabulous time, but that doesn't stop me from envying my friend her upcoming time there.
Her Mom was delightful and droll, never more so than when she observed her two-year old granddaughter in a tutu and a cropped Ramones t-shirt and deadpanned, "I bet she's never even heard the Ramones."
She shared a news-making story from her days as a curator, raved about her 14-year old seat mate on the plane ride and was wearing fabulous jewelry she made herself.
An interesting mom altogether.
After far too much Rose, cheese and figs and deviled eggs, I said my goodbyes to make stop number two, joining two girlfriends at Balliceaux.
Tonight was their first time experiencing Hand to Hand Haiku and by the time I got there, they'd already nabbed a front row table and had beers in front of them.
It was an unusually small crowd tonight but there were still plenty of combatants to follow host Raven Mack's opening monologue about the 1300 sonnets he's writing.
He was kind enough to read us two of them.
Then it was on to round one between Ryan, who characterized his haiku writing as stupid and John, who called his straight bullshit.
I've seen Ryan compete before so I already knew the constant in his haikus is the use of the word "dude."
Dude, this neighborhood
suffers from a serious lack
of Blue Oyster Cult
Like that. Except John won. Like Raven, he's got a terrific voice and an interesting look, so he's one of my favorites to watch compete, even when he doesn't win the match.
Round two brought Paul who referred to his haikus as "Appalachian filth" and the defending champion Amy, who called hers "written a few minutes ago."
I have to say, the room about lost it when Paul read this one.
New Volvo driving
old white ladies with butt plugs,
pucker lips, hate me
Later, he told me he was writing about the women he sees at Ellwood Thompson who always make a point to scowl at him.
Amy was no slacker either.
Home girl burnt her lip
on the joint's hot spot.
Blunt force trauma.
As one of my friends put it, "I didn't expect haikus to be so funny."
Oh, but they can be.
There's always a death match that pits host Raven against a worthy challenger and tonight's was Rebecca, who read a haiku called "Skin."
Our greatest asset
gives us the ability
to touch and be felt
Just as good and all too relevant for my friend was one of Raven's.
By day, mild mannered
state administrator.
By night, depressed.
Eventually, Rebecca ran out of haikus so they went to free-styling, making up haikus on the spot for the judges (of whom I happened to be one), a mighty impressive thing to witness.
Raven won again, taking the pink game cock (yep, you read that right) trophy back home with him for the umpteenth time, but the man can write haiku about masturbating with peppermint soap and how tingly it feels, so he truly is the master.
Usually the death match is the end of the evening, but tonight John and Amy returned to fight it out until John ran out of haikus and conceded.
Luckily, he's talented and tenacious, so he frequently comes back.
After the match ended, we sat and chatted for a while, planning our next date and trying to convince one of our friends to go see "Boyhood," a film two of us had loved.
Somehow, we got on the subject of people who don't pay attention to music and how foreign and unpleasant a world that would be for us.
We sat there preaching to the choir before breaking camp so one could go home to bed, one to have another beer and wait for her boyfriend and me to go to a show.
Now there's a surprise.
As if a great bill on a Wednesday night wasn't lucky enough, I found a parking space directly in front of Strange Matter.
Inside, I found a clutch of WRIR folks, a music writer and a drummer, but all in all, far fewer people than I'd anticipated.
Playing first were hometown heroes White Laces, although playing as a trio tonight instead of a quartet, and doing lots of songs off their upcoming October release, "Trance."
Did I miss the keyboards? Yes, but that's not to say that their smart, guitar-driven sound wasn't fully satisfying to hear, as always.
From the lead single, "Skate of Die" to the album's final cut, "Strangulation Blues," their set was yet another reminder of how far this band has come since I first saw them at the courtyard during the artwalk four years ago.
Watching them, it feels like a big deal to have witnessed their steady ascent to where they are now.
During the break, I talked with a friend about the challenges of freelancing, glad to hear that her frustrations mirror mine and it's not just me.
Then the room began to fill with smoke as Sisu's smoke machine kicked into overdrive.
They also had video showing behind them and two perfect sets of bangs, courtesy of Sandy and Jules of the Dum Dum Girls.
It's Sandy's band and the music is psychedelic, full-bodied and dark with plenty of reverb.
Loud, too, but not as loud as it would have been if the drummer hadn't put his red plaid flannel shirt over his drum before playing it.
Being visual creatures, lots of guys seemed to be taking pictures of the lovely Sandy shredding her guitar.
At one point, I looked over at the door and all I could see was a solid haze of smoke and no door at all.
After their set ended, I talked to a friend about why more VCU kids weren't at the show and with the drummer of the Shangri-Lords about the stellar set of theirs I'd seen at the pool party the other night.
Turns out he and the bass player have been girl group fans for years and finally got to let their inner girls out via this band.
As the crowd began to filter back in, San Diego band Crocodiles took the stage and began an audio assault laden with echo, one of my favorite sounds.
It was music from a cave, full of guitar distortion tamed into something wonderfully energetic and danceable.
A drunk girl in front of me wrangled a guy to dance with her, producing hysterical results as they managed to dance off beat for the next five songs, stumbling into each other and everyone around them without ever moving in relation to the music being played.
But at least they were dancing, as was most of the room to Crocodiles' catchy, noisy psych-rock with the kind of guitar work that calls to mind all those post-punk bands of the mid-aughts that I loved.
Just another Wednesday in River City.
While some might lament the serious lack of Blue Oyster Cult, I'm calling it a damn fine evening.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Floating Above It
There is no end to how small a town this can seem.
It happens all the time - I see a gallerist or restaurant person in the grocery story and they're so out of context that it takes me a sec to place them.
How there's never more than a few degrees of separation between anyone in this town.
Case in point: I am meeting a friend at his house and while waiting for his girlfriend to show up, he puts on a cassette tape of a band he was in back in the late '90s.
I spot a familiar face. The woman singing in the band is someone I knew a lifetime ago.
Funny how that happens.
Once his beloved arrived, we strolled over to Pomegranate, a neighborhood restaurant for them but one they'd never been to.
I consider it essential to know about any restaurant that I can easily walk to and from. I was assisting them with research.
On the way, I spotted Bertha, a woman whose backyard had backed up to mine for the 13 years I lived on Floyd Avenue.
Bertha had been old when I'd moved there in 1993 and I knew she'd lost her husband of 70-some years just a couple of years ago.
But there she was, sitting on the porch of the house she'd moved to during WW II.
Even though I moved away eight years ago, she remembered me almost at once and hugged me, eager to chat.
It didn't take long for her to brag about being 93 (she doesn't look a day over 80) and I asked her point blank if she attributed part of her longevity to her long, happy marriage.
She did and admitted she still misses him every day. "I was lost without him," she said.
It was a kind of wonderful flashback talking to Bertha after so long. Our lives had been intertwined for over a dozen years.
She'd lent me her lawn mower before I had one (her husband always reminded me not to cut the lawn in flip-flops), taught me how to make squash fritters with the abundance she grew at the rear of my back yard and was, in general, the neighborhood busybody.
When my friends started ahem-ing to get me off her porch and walking to Pomegranate again, I hugged her goodbye.
"Come back again soon!" she admonished as I re-joined my dinner companions.
You know, I think I will. That's a woman with some great stories and I'd like to be the one to hear them.
When we got to the restaurant, every patio table was taken, but there was plenty of room in the main dining room which was suffering a wilting sonic attack from a group of 30-something women catching up on each other's lives.
Let's just say I heard the words "wedding" and "pregnancy" a lot.
We massed around the end of the bar so as to hear one another talk.
From bread served with salty high quality butter to salad to ravioli, blue fish two ways and twice fried quail over mashed potatoes, my friends were seduced by Pomegranate's food.
At one point, he compared her satisfied food moans to those of Meg Ryan in "When Harry Met Sally," high praise indeed.
The closer was Pomegranate's version of bananas foster and, for the chocoholics among us, chocolate pate with figs and berries.
When our server delivered the chocolate pate, he was quick to point out the locally grown Black Mission figs.
Took them off of somebody's tree, didn't you? I inquired.
"We totally did," he said quickly and honestly.
I'm just happy to eat figs; I don't worry much about whose tree they were plucked from. Call me old school.
The pate tasted as if it had been made with that same decadent high fact butter as we'd been slathering on bread, meaning the rooves of our mouths were soon slick with fat. Mmm.
Friend pointed out that the bananas foster didn't taste as if it had been lit (he's cocky because he'd made four of them in a night once), but was nonetheless exquisite in its rich banana creaminess.
By then, not only the patio had cleared out, but the final trio of the get-together threw in the towel and went home to their pre-fab lives.
We were the last. Walking home down Auburn, I pointed out that a block away, my father had been born.
That was a long time ago in a galaxy far away.
After my friends went home to their beds and early wake-up calls, I made one last stop at Cary Street Cafe to hear Fear of Music.
Josh Small did a couple of songs to finish out the opening set while I joined the people began pouring in.
Spotted a restaurant manager, a bartender, an editor, a banjo player and who knows who else among the expectant looking crowd.
Once the all-Talking Heads extravaganza began, it didn't take long for the room to become a mass of people dancing or at the very least, dancing in place.
All except three I saw, who inexplicably managed to remain stationary while some of the danciest music since Kool & the Gang (whom David Byrne once earnestly cited as the band's main inspiration) tried to wind its way into their body.
I don't understand. When you're hearing "Psycho Killer" or "And She Was" or "Drugs," the human body just wants to move.
Didn't we prove that back in the '70s?
A friend was charmed when a guy began filling the room with hundreds of bubbles raining down on the dancing masses, an effect I might have seen in a couple other decades.
She and I have been saying for ages that we were going to schedule a night out together and here we'd shown up for the same late show on a Tuesday night.
When the town's small enough, you don't even have to make plans. We're just not that big and it's kind of grand.
I'll say it loud and proud...I guess that this must be the place.
It happens all the time - I see a gallerist or restaurant person in the grocery story and they're so out of context that it takes me a sec to place them.
How there's never more than a few degrees of separation between anyone in this town.
Case in point: I am meeting a friend at his house and while waiting for his girlfriend to show up, he puts on a cassette tape of a band he was in back in the late '90s.
I spot a familiar face. The woman singing in the band is someone I knew a lifetime ago.
Funny how that happens.
Once his beloved arrived, we strolled over to Pomegranate, a neighborhood restaurant for them but one they'd never been to.
I consider it essential to know about any restaurant that I can easily walk to and from. I was assisting them with research.
On the way, I spotted Bertha, a woman whose backyard had backed up to mine for the 13 years I lived on Floyd Avenue.
Bertha had been old when I'd moved there in 1993 and I knew she'd lost her husband of 70-some years just a couple of years ago.
But there she was, sitting on the porch of the house she'd moved to during WW II.
Even though I moved away eight years ago, she remembered me almost at once and hugged me, eager to chat.
It didn't take long for her to brag about being 93 (she doesn't look a day over 80) and I asked her point blank if she attributed part of her longevity to her long, happy marriage.
She did and admitted she still misses him every day. "I was lost without him," she said.
It was a kind of wonderful flashback talking to Bertha after so long. Our lives had been intertwined for over a dozen years.
She'd lent me her lawn mower before I had one (her husband always reminded me not to cut the lawn in flip-flops), taught me how to make squash fritters with the abundance she grew at the rear of my back yard and was, in general, the neighborhood busybody.
When my friends started ahem-ing to get me off her porch and walking to Pomegranate again, I hugged her goodbye.
"Come back again soon!" she admonished as I re-joined my dinner companions.
You know, I think I will. That's a woman with some great stories and I'd like to be the one to hear them.
When we got to the restaurant, every patio table was taken, but there was plenty of room in the main dining room which was suffering a wilting sonic attack from a group of 30-something women catching up on each other's lives.
Let's just say I heard the words "wedding" and "pregnancy" a lot.
We massed around the end of the bar so as to hear one another talk.
From bread served with salty high quality butter to salad to ravioli, blue fish two ways and twice fried quail over mashed potatoes, my friends were seduced by Pomegranate's food.
At one point, he compared her satisfied food moans to those of Meg Ryan in "When Harry Met Sally," high praise indeed.
The closer was Pomegranate's version of bananas foster and, for the chocoholics among us, chocolate pate with figs and berries.
When our server delivered the chocolate pate, he was quick to point out the locally grown Black Mission figs.
Took them off of somebody's tree, didn't you? I inquired.
"We totally did," he said quickly and honestly.
I'm just happy to eat figs; I don't worry much about whose tree they were plucked from. Call me old school.
The pate tasted as if it had been made with that same decadent high fact butter as we'd been slathering on bread, meaning the rooves of our mouths were soon slick with fat. Mmm.
Friend pointed out that the bananas foster didn't taste as if it had been lit (he's cocky because he'd made four of them in a night once), but was nonetheless exquisite in its rich banana creaminess.
By then, not only the patio had cleared out, but the final trio of the get-together threw in the towel and went home to their pre-fab lives.
We were the last. Walking home down Auburn, I pointed out that a block away, my father had been born.
That was a long time ago in a galaxy far away.
After my friends went home to their beds and early wake-up calls, I made one last stop at Cary Street Cafe to hear Fear of Music.
Josh Small did a couple of songs to finish out the opening set while I joined the people began pouring in.
Spotted a restaurant manager, a bartender, an editor, a banjo player and who knows who else among the expectant looking crowd.
Once the all-Talking Heads extravaganza began, it didn't take long for the room to become a mass of people dancing or at the very least, dancing in place.
All except three I saw, who inexplicably managed to remain stationary while some of the danciest music since Kool & the Gang (whom David Byrne once earnestly cited as the band's main inspiration) tried to wind its way into their body.
I don't understand. When you're hearing "Psycho Killer" or "And She Was" or "Drugs," the human body just wants to move.
Didn't we prove that back in the '70s?
A friend was charmed when a guy began filling the room with hundreds of bubbles raining down on the dancing masses, an effect I might have seen in a couple other decades.
She and I have been saying for ages that we were going to schedule a night out together and here we'd shown up for the same late show on a Tuesday night.
When the town's small enough, you don't even have to make plans. We're just not that big and it's kind of grand.
I'll say it loud and proud...I guess that this must be the place.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
