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The GRTC True Richmond Stories Book Tour begins!


Portrait of the author and joe, by Chris Smith, location: Cafe Gutenberg

Well, billion-eyed audience, just when the very thought of anymore excitement from these quarters makes you weak in the knees, I'm pleased to announce that the official "True Richmond Stories GRTC Autumn and Winter Book Tour" begins with a reading tomorrow evening at Fountain Books. There amid the cobblestones and Edward Hopper red brick buildings, Kelly Justice carries the torch for good books and fine reading. I refer to this as the GRTC tour because most places I'm reading can be reached by bus. And it just doesn't get much better than that.

I'll be appearing (not in a nimbus of light, nor with thrones of angels singing my arrival) at Fountain Books, 1312 E. Cary St., at 6:30, and I'll read some pieces and sign books and even act all author-like and stuff.

If you can't catch me there, I'm next on October 15 at Cafe Gutenberg at 7 p.m. and a conceptual-type presentation will occur in conjunction with partner-in-art Amie Oliver's exhibit Walk The Walk at Plant Zero Art Center, 0 E. 4th St. in Manchester (South Richmond), where books will also be available. For more of this scintillating info, see truerichmondstories.com.

Meanwhile, who stole Autumn?

About a month ago, I was enjoying walking to work in crisp mornings under blue skies and while in my vests and long sleeves. Then, somebody forgot to pay a bill. Where's this coming from? I loathe these nasty gunmetal grey skies and 90 degrees and at the same time, trees dropping leaves as if not in accordance with their aborial clock, but from complete exhaustion.

House chores

Though I know True Richmond Stories fever has seized Richmond to the extent that little real work can be conducted in most offices, including mine, the final installment of the official National Folk Festival opens next weekend. Though the intention is to carry on with the festivals into the future, the folks of the Folk who got it up and going here, will get it up somewhere else.

The Partner and I are amid a massive reclamation project of our domestic life in order to receive out of town guests who've extended to us, on many occasions, gracious hospitality while visiting them and our favorite music event, MerleFest.

People, let me just tell you. Don't let your house chores creep on you. Do a little every day, or every day, or just clean up after yourself, for cryin' out loud. Don't plan big projects in tandem. And don't dig big holes in the back yard only to discover you've not found buried treasure, but a hernia.

And don't toss out your partner's lime before she's done. Did I mention that already?

Marina Project for Intermediate Terminal

So the Governor-Mayor has announced yet another unfunded mandate without a clear administrative corellative and perhap joins the Shockoe baseball diamond and the the City of the Future, among other ambitious rhetoric that is independent of reality. We'll see. Not that a marina isn't a good concept--that Richmond has gone without when every other town and burgh along the forks and tributaries of the James, York and Rapahannock rivers manage to boast of a few is worse than embarrassing, it's plain pathetic.

I hear through people who actually have boats and know something about them that placing a marina there, though, may not be the best location, due to tides and flooding. Closer to Great Shiplock Park (location around 1900 of the Trigg Shipyards, see True Richmond Stories -- because it is not mentioned much anywhere else) is perhaps better, or across the river, where Newton Ancarrow-- an early and staunch river and wildlife advocate and builder of high speed boasts--had his landing (see TRS, too).

So we'll see. Who'll actually run this shindig is another entire question.

One of my biggest laughs this weekend.

From artist Bill Fisher, at a social event, joking about how at a 1708 Gallery opening where a couple who didn't know him by sight, commented in a rather dismissive way about his work while he stood nearby, "Oh, he's just a process artist."

Bill guffawed. "Yeah, that's me, it's like Play-doh, I have a big extruder and I just pump'em out."

By the way, Bill's on exhibit right now in Boston. Which is where that link above takes you.

Mr. Marmalade, bye-bye.

Firehouse Theatre closed Mr. Marmalade on Saturday. I dropped in to the after party--late, as usual, pulling a Mr. Marmalade myself--but managed to see director Rusty Wilson, entire cast, incandescent Laine Satterfield, authoritative Andrew Boothby, sultry Erin Thomas, funny-by-being-onstage-that-jerk-we-all-known Tony Foley, kinetic Larry Cook, and poetic Billy Christopher Maupin -- and not a weak link in the bunch. One of my favorite scenes in the show is when Tony and Erin became Larry's invisible plant friends -- it was absurdist revenge on children's theater. And those actors I'm sure have served their time in vans criss-crossing vast tracts to perform for the yoots. And I got to visit with Joe Inscoe, by gum, and that was quite enjoyable.

I ended up in this very sophisticated wine discusison--to which I listened-- on the back stairs of Tadd Burrell's apartment that gave me a hankering for red wine and chocolate. O! Canada!