Bloggus Interruptus:
When good programs go bad

Via Cooqy: the 'Trainwreck at Montparnasse,1865."

Billion - eyed audience, forgive my lack of fresh posting during the past few days. My browser and perhaps computer operating system are at odds -- this is what Amie has deduced thus far. Reloading Firefox, performing various cyber-Santaria rituals over the machine through Norton and other such devices, caused the blog to operate a bit, then, last night, crashing when I sought to type an update. Does the same thing with YouTube and some Google searches. So, I'm at a loss.

Anybody out there know anything about the relationship between Mac OX 10, Firefox and Blogger? Is my operating system not upgraded and that's causing the friction? Haaalllp!!

Meanwhile, like overburdened sacks filled with Christmas presents, I've amassed bundles of backlogged news and observations. F'rinstance.

• The slender volume, True Richmond Stories, is going into its second printing by the History Press and that collection will be now be owned by yours truly. This is the earliest that a book has undergone a second printing for House of History, and for this we are all quite glad. On sale at finer bookstores throughout Richmond.

•Two women died in the past few days, one whom I wish I'd met, the other whom I knew and served as an inspiration and muse for my partner-in-art-for-life. The piece below was inspired by the late artist Jackie Wall, made for Amie's current exhibition, up through December 23.


Jackie Wall was a true individual, a great lady, whose artistry was part of her life as much as her work. You should go to Amie's blog and read more about Jackie and her life.

Amie visited with Jackie this past fall when she took the photograph upon which this drawing is based. Jackie didn't get to see this piece; Amie had meant to call her to bring her into town from Farmville; but just goes to bear out what it is that we're aware of on an intellectual level, but ignore through the pragmatic denials that allow us to live: You just never know that if the the most recent moment you spent with someone will be the last time.

You may also read a review of Amie's Walk The Walk exhibition, here.

Another idiosyncratic individual left this mortal plane, and it was by her works that I knew her, and not the ones most others recognized. She was Christine A. Gibson.

In her obituary, Gibson's face looked almost like somebody I knew, and I imagine, in that Richmond way, she was someone with whom I had a passing familiarity from "around"-- seeing her at this or the other thing.

But I was oblivious to her being a charter member of BEEX, the Richmond punk band (image below, from 30underDC). For years I've walked by her house in Vine Street and admired her antic Barbie Garden, featuring usually mostly nude Barbies getting savaged by also nude Kens and other misfit toys. She changed the tableaux to match the seasons. I even put the Barbie Garden on a walking tour I conducted this past winter.

I took a memorial walk by the other day. Someone had cleaned out the Barbie Garden of dead leaves and refreshed the scene with doll bodies fixed with candy cane heads, and lights, and on the front porch was a big, heart-shaped floral arrangement.

Great sadness, all the way around, for everybody.



•Why in all the hair-tugging, shirt-ripping and ponderous pontificating about the latest bout of Crupi here, nobody has mentioned one or two curious gaffes.

On page 44-45 of the assessment about the Richmond region's future, or lack thereof (both of Richmond's potential for dynamic existence in days ahead, and, what one may call a region), he writes pertaining to the conversion to the strong mayor system and the current Governor-Mayor:

"The question in Richmond today is not that the exercise of power was necessary, but about the extent and manner in which it is exercised. It is hard for a reformer to sustain the message three years out because without action, words become rhetoic. In the late 19th century, people felt the same way about Mayor John Fulmer Bright."

Bright, not so much, and too much

Fair enough. But Mayor Bright--one of the most oxymoronic names ever in the history of Richmond public servants--ruled the city for 16 years, 1924-1940. This was a crucial period for the city's growth; what could've been a progressive era was squandered by Bright and his supporters. The time was not the late 19th century. Nor was Bright a reformer. He was a diametric opposite. The mayor refused to take a dime from the Federal government in the bottom of the Great Depression.

When he died in 1953, The Times-Dispatch eulogized, "He was probably the most conservative citizen of what is, on the whole, a conservative city. Pretty much anything that had been going on for a long time seemed good...No matter what anybody said, no matter how many cities discarded their bunglesome, outmoded systems...ours was a "splendid form of government...If he ever changed his position on an important public matter, the event escaped us."

Bright's astounding stubborness ran the gamut from orneriness to absurdity. He opposed hiring additional firefighters and a court order forced him to create the position of public safety director. He opposed Byrd Airport, the Virginia State Library, the appointment of black police officers, purchasing the Mosque (now Landmark Theatre) and, to his credit, Federal housing projects (but he didn't advocate historic preservation and responsible adaptation/renovation, either).

He once ordered that the manly attributes of the Bull Durham logo be painted over to prevent giving offense. Bright, a native Richmonder and physician at the Medical College of Virginia was always an impeccable dresser, spoke well, carried himself as befit a brigadier general in the National Guard (through the First Virginia Regiment), and demonstrated personal generosity. His will set up a trust fund which resulted in Patrick Henry Memorial Park across from St. John's Church and he distributed $77,520 in cash to a variety of churches and charitable organizations. His bequest set up the Children's Milk Fund that came to be administrated by Family and Children's Service of Richmond.

And, one old Richmonder told me, Bright the only person who had drapes in his East Grace Street house.

"Good government for less money"

Bright's sclerotic tenure proved one of the enduring arguments for overhauling the city's government to prevent the rise of his like again. Despite vigorous attempts to unseat Bright and constant criticism from the press, his disdain for which was no secret, he kept enough of the status quo happy and assured his return to the office, again and again. His philosophy was "good government for less money or better government for the same money." City leadership remained entrenched and placed greater emphasis on public order, tradition and white unity, while deferring the modernization of public services and structures, as historian Marie Tyler-McGraw describes.

There was, for example, no city planning office. Engineers were allowed to do their work without oversight. Bright's reluctance to even think about planning bequeathed to Richmond, by the fault of his doing nothing, oceans of parking lots and highways bisecting the city through historic and (at the time), poor neighborhoods.

Pottage As Legacy

The city charter was at last changed in 1947, giving the city an appointed mayor, with a city-manager system, but that proved, in the end, worthless, too. Why Richmond can't manage to manage herself is another entire question and one the Crupi report can't answer. Our failings as a city are maddening and pathetic.

I am reminded of an incident years ago during one of these perennial conferences on "regional cooperation." This was held in the gymnasium of Douglas Southall Freeman High School. A white-haired gentleman stood up during a comments period and stated with a straight face that Richmond ought to realize that it is lost and should turn in its charter and let Henrico and Chesterfield counties administrate her! The Berlin Scenario! Build a wall around Richmond and have checkpoints at the cardinal gates.

I've since encountered other sentiments, not too dissimilar from that gentleman's -- including one drunk Henrico uberfrau who declared to me Richmond needs to be stopped, because all they want to do is support Hillary Clinton and that can't happen. I mean, she was just short of declaring the residents should be packed up in trucks.

The residents of the cul-de-sac archipelago won't be satisfied until in some apocalyptic scenario, the mighty River James roars from her banks and, like a socio-economic neutron bomb, wipes away all the wretched, poor, halt, lame, deaf, dumb and people of color, and cleans the city so the Bourbanites can move in.

Always Merry: Vanity Fair's version about Duncan-Blake

Wit of the Staircase, Dec. 25, 2006, Duncan with Marc Jacobs Santa Claus, by Andrew Stiles.


But. While getting the 3 p.m. coffee yesterday with my office mate, taking us to a rather grim 7-11, the new Vanity Fair is out and in it, as we were promised back in the fall, a big story about Jeremy Blake and Theresa Duncan, "The Golden Suicides."

I want to spend more time with this piece, but, can't at the moment. Suffice to say, the story quite in the physical sense was dropped on the doorstep of writer Nancy Jo Sales when, Father Frank Morales showed up the day after Jeremy Blake walked off the Rockaway Beach.

Morales is Sales' ex-husband. He was also the subject of a profile/interview conducted by Duncan, with a cameo by Blake, on a much-cited posting on The Wit of the Staircase. (Link above)

So. Sales got the inside scoop on everybody, though I'm wondering how much corduroying of the brow was done over the conflict-of-interest aspect of all this, though her referring to Morales as the Fox Mulder of conspiracy theorists--as a compliment?--perhaps gave her journalistic "distance."

But that's not quite the end of that, either. You know, in the old movies, and even today on some TV shows, reporters are yanked from assignments by bellowing editors because they're "too close to the story."

In this case, seems that quite real writer John Connolly was supposed to have written the feature--I'd have to go through the archives here but I remember someone writing in the comments that this was the person--but for some reason, Sales was given the piece to finish. See the Society of Mutual Autopsy for the salacious details.

And I thought, too, when reading the feature, that the interval of "ten minutes" between Blake's arrival at the apartment and inviting up Morales, and the Father's discovery of the death scene with all the attendant police clamor seems...too truncated; more like an episode of Law and Order. Which is what this whole event, in its bare outlines, resembles.

But now with Vanity Fair's contribution, the Duncan-Blake deaths have reached media apotheosis, leastwise far as print media goes.

I'll have more on the story, and other matters, I hope before too long but my computer issues may make regular posting difficult in the coming days.

Shameless Self-Promotion: A continuing series
Hell, nobody else will do it for you, as the saying goes...

Here, billion-eyed audience, is filmmaker David Williams' verison of the event presented by me and the partner-in-art-for life Amie Oliver, with help from the Art Cheerleaders (Kendra, blonde; and Rebecca, both artists in their own right). This piece, called "Dictation," was part of Amie's Walk The Walk exhibit at Plant Zero Art Center, available for viewing through December 23. I read pieces about the arts from my book True Richmond Stories.

This is me, Amie, Kendra (left) and Rebecca posed in front of the wall on which Amie wrote her impressions of my subject matter. Yes, she writes backward with her left hand with greater ease than she can scribe the other way. Yes, she installed a mirror so that passersby who cared to or even noticed could read the text.



Then here's an image of me and Amie with her long-time friend, artist and professor Ken Mitchell, visiting Richmond from the Glasgow School of Art a few weeks back. We love Ken--I first met him when Amie took our wedding holiday around the Scottish Highlands--and were happy to see him even for a brief time. As you can see, too, Ken took some True Richmond Stories with him.


And to round out the multi-media aspect of this post, here is the 26-minute interview conducted by Tim Bowring with me and Amie on his WRIR 97.3 show, Zero Hour.

http://www.twango.com/flash/audioplayer.aspx?media=Aok.10001&channelname=Aok.public&autoplay=true

Below is a snippet from the New York Deli event in Carytown that Amie shot. Here I'm presenting a piece about Martin Hawkins, the Revolutionary War-era sturgeon rider in the James River. Behind me are members of the Happy Lucky Combo; Pippin Barnett on percussion, Barry Bless with the accordian, and Dave Yoh on upright electric bass.

This was a great time. Ward Tefft of Chop Suey Books brough books across the street from Chop Suey Tuey -- about 20 or so-- and sold out of them. People came off the street having seen the slender volume setting on the front window shelf table, even after the music was over. The attraction: the Hollywood Cemetery pyramid on the cover. This is primal stuff; the pyramid is a greater symbol of Richmond than even the Lee Monument, since it is old, mysterious and the shape and meaning are more ancient than Richmond, race, politics, or even the Civil War (which is its putative purpose, commemorating 18,000 Southern dead buried there).

One young woman bought five books. I signed expressions of my appreciation for her choice; and that of her varied future in-laws and family.

The New York Deli gang passed to Amie a splended signature book in which they all expressed their appreciation that made me feel as though I'd accomplished something far more important than I think I have....humbling, is what it was.

Advertisement for Myself: True Richmond Stories

In honor of the late great Norman Mailer, I post this advertisement for myself.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, me and Amie will be at the Can Can Brasserie in Carytown from 6-8 p.m. She'll be showing examples of her work, and I'll be reading examples of mine, for whoever shows up.

Copies of the slender volume will be available.

Not included on this announcement is the November 30 revisitation I'll be making to the Fountain Bookstore, a lunchtime, daytime signing and selling kind of thing. Read all about it here.

Hope some of you billion-eyed audience can make it out tomorrow. Some rain is predicted. Pack your bumbershoot.

Cognitive Collisions Part II

Seems to me, billion-eyed audience, that there should be theatrical extravaganzas or galas in Richmond that look like this. We have the narrow Edwardian streets and a few
old and some genuine decrepit buildings. There is a sense of gloom,
finished and vanished things, and cultivated absurdity, and opposites
in extremes. Sigh. This is from the Dresden Dolls Diary, Amanda Palmer
with "Camille and Meow."
"this is the fringe," she writes. "it's the best place in the world." I suppose so; if you're in a post punk Brechtian cabaret duo with a fervid and distinctive following.


Saturday, Nov. 3, I was in a personal-type appearance at the Holiday Shopper's Fair at the Cultural Arts Center of Glen Allen scheduled from 11:00 a.m to 1:00 p.m though I stayed about a half hour longer due to the numbers of people come through. This western Henrico County multiple use facility is in part housed in the rescued Glen Allen School, and it is next door to the restored 18th century Walkerton Tavern .

This event is a combination holiday sale for the region's museums. I'd never heard of it before, but plenty of other people know about it because there was a ceaseless flow of people ambling about, going from room to room, where various institutions had set up satellite gift shops.

I was there under the flag of the Valentine Richmond History Center . They'd brought 50 books when the show opened the day before when they'd sold 10. I pushed the goods with the assistance of the Two Nancys. Thank you, ladies.

Among the visitors was actor and acquaintance Raynor Scheine , who bought not one of the slender volumes, but two!

Mark Greenough, my colleague of many summers ago at Fort Harrison National Battlefield Park in Varina outside Richmond--where we both wore Union blue, and how now runs the tours of the Virginia Capitol, came by with his wife and I inscribed his copy of the slender volume, too.

One of the relief clerks--I cannot recall her name--told me that when she was walking into the place, she saw a man reading his recent acquisition while he was going to the parking lot--and he was chuckling. Stuff like this quite rewarding.

I provided sales patter: "Step right up, step right up, get your True Richmond Stories right here! Psychic horses! Ditch digger finds a diamond! Mr. Rubin predicts the weather! Dancing under the stars at Tantilla Garden ballroom! And to New Wave at the Cha Cha Palace, which some of you won't own up to now!"

And:

"Get your True Richmond Stories! No batteries or assembly required! No booting up or downloading! One size fits all! Matches all accessories! Makes you look smarter by carrying it around! Provides ideal holiday party tidbits to impress friends in conversation!

We sold out.

"Standing O"



Amie's behind more deadlines and didn't feel up to more social gyrations so she took me down to Plant Zero, me in my black tie and tails, for attending the OPUS "Standing O" gala for the benefit of the School of the Performing Arts for Children, founded by Larry and Jenny Brown, who were in attendance. Love those guys.

Amie needed to reinstall her video display with additional credits and music. She'd babysit the "Walk The Walk" exhibit in case some of the celebrants were curious about the pieces.

There was a red carpet and a faux news crew interviewing the arrivals as though they were celebrities. I was stopped for Harrison Ford -- I suppose because of my black fedora. (In honesty, my celebrity double is Cary Elwes -- but who knows his name well enough?)


My celebrity double, Cary Elwes. Same age, much better hair and smoother skin.


The newscaster asked me how the filming of "Indiana Jones IV" was going and I retorted, "Oh! I'm too old for all that! Jumping from trains! It's awful!" I'm not sure if the fellow was stunned or amused.

I made my way down the hall to Amie, who was intent at work and I told her I'd be out in a bit to check on her. I got signed in and motivated toward one of the bars for the first vodka tonic. There was plentiful food and a fountain a raised, large-to-small arrangement of shrimp that I munched at most of the night. I ran into various folks I knew, some better than others, and I am embarrassed that I'm not better at names. Faces, I recognize.

I admired the loverlies and fairest-of-them-all arriving, exhibiting their right to bare arms and shoulders and oh, I do love the look. All those high heels clicking on the bare concrete of Plant Zero's event space. So I propelled myself out to check on Amie, and she'd already gone. So I was on my own recognizance.

The Michael Clark Band, with the powerful voice of Miss Tracy Clark in the lead, provided the Motown-funk-blues theme for the evening, and for a while, me and Melanie--she quite striking in her white with black geometric pattern dress--danced up a sweating storm. At one point she even took off her heels. The rest of the crowd did a typical Richmond and stood there holding their drinks and rocking their heads. That is, until after the break and the second set and the audience was, ah, conditioned and primed to move.

I admired the upright video monitors that for most of the evening displayed images of the region's performance arts groups. I asked Jake Crocker about who supplied them because I'd like to use one for the Firehouse's Fireball gala in March. In the evening's second half, images of the night's party were getting shown. That was instant gratification. I'd like to have gotten some of those pictures.

So I danced, drank, and hobnobbed. About 11:30 I was tired, and so I set my glass down and proceeded to walk home, across the Mayo's Bridge -- the Richmond skyline has grown in the past few years, and it makes more of an impression on foot than by car. Still, I wish either we had no high rises at all--like central Paris--or several distinctive buildings. Instead, Richmond's nighttime cityscape isn't inspiring, no symphonic declaration of urbanity. You can thank "Dallas" prompted 1980s architecture, followed by even less interesting 1990s plans, for preventing dynamism in Richmond's skyline. Most of our older, better highrises are hidden behind the glass and plastic ones, and Jefferson's Temple of Democracy, atop its hill, is also invisible. Sad.

So, in my tux, I hied up 14th to Main, thence to Sixth, up to Broad, where the street lights were out (This happens on occasion and I wonder--does the city forget to pay the bill? Is it an auserity measure? Cops messing with the heads of potential miscreants?). I felt a little anxious and obvious but got a Robinson to Belmont bus without much of a wait at all.

I checked at Can Can where chairs were already getting stacked up, then chose to go to the New York Deli. This was, in retrospect, silly. D wasn't there, none of the Club NYD-ettes, just fine pretty things and clouds of cigarette smoke. I got home, reeking of the stuff. Amie wasn't pleased, and I was too happy with me, either.

Wordy Birds

By the way, here's me getting interviewed by Liz Humes on her "Wordy Birds" program that airs on WRIR 93.7 FM on Fridays, 12-12:30. I enjoy getting interviewed by Liz. She reads the books and asks good questions. You don't always get that lucky. Trust me. Plus, she's got that throaty Debra Winger voice.

Press to play.

Istanbul or Constantinople?
They Might Be Giants/Bread and Puppet Theater/RVA

No, this isn't Monroe Park, but there was a guy who had a banner flag
and the bus, and its handpainted backdrop, was there, too. This is
via the Bread and Puppt Theater photo gallery.


Far as weekends go, this was about as good as Richmond can make them. Amie and me started on Wedensday with our first visit to the Richmond Toad's Place to see They Might Be Giants. You can read about the experience, and the set list, here.

We were pleased to find Tyler and Moira there, and to learn that the event also marked the anniversary of her nativity. Moira hasn't owned a television in 15 years. I find this admirable and commendable, as we have three that we don't watch that much, and the big debate here on Colonial Avenue every month is whether to cut off the cable.

Toad's Place is the fantasy Flood Zone, as Amie described the sleek and techno space, as opposed to the bare concrete of the nontheless beloved venue which deteriorated then was claimed by the Have A Nice Day Café. They don't allow wearing of hats there, a textured irony, since on New Year's Eve at the Flood Zone, Ignatius the Hatmaker used to sell his wares for Shockoe Bottom prices.

The effort that went into converting a former Lady Byrd hat making factory into a music venue rendered notable results. Toad's opening filled a gap for a moderate-sized venue that Richmond has lacked ever since the Flood Zone shuttered in 1997.

But since I'm old, the flat hard floor got to my knees a bit and I was glad Amie nabbed us a perching place available on the left wall. I guess the high up shelf space contains a trunk for wiring or plumbing, something, but the ledge also provides seat of sorts. One of the staff members whom I know from Around told me that a sound person from the Toad's in Connecticut came down to tinker with the sound system all day, and, well, where it wasn't bad, sometimes I couldn't distinguish the lyrics. But, the two bars served cold Legend brown and that was excellent.

I really want to see Regina Spektor when she comes.

I enjoyed the Giants; John Flansburgh reminded me of a stouter Elvis Costello, and John Linnell a slighter David Byrne. Their smart, quirky songs warmed my nerd rocker heart.

That they could goof around on stage with the Toad's Place mascot endeared them to me.

Thursday I was reminded by ACORN's David Herring about the Virginia Center for Architecture's opening of its exhibit celebrating 50 years of historic preservation in Richmond. Amie dashed down to the splendiferous Branch House, location of the Center and the Virginia's AIA headquarters. There was some reminiscing and speechifying, and Rachel Flynn, the year-and-change director of community developmnt for the city was wonderful, and it was good to see HRF's new dynamo director, Mary Jane Massad Hogue, and its first full-time director, Jack Zehmer. Then I ran down to the Firehouse to attend the Spinning Into Butter premier.

Then, on and exquisite Sunday afternoon, we got to converge upon Monroe Park to see the commedia dell' arte/political satire stylings of the Bread and Puppet Theater. The self-sustaining group could come here through the good offices of Amanda Robinson and Gallery 5.

They are a circus that I'd run away with and join. Well, if I was 25 years younger. Oh, the zest and energy and fun and pointed criticism, done with painted cardboard and decorated gunny sacks and musicians playing accordian, sax, drums, and trumpet. Their "Merry Pranksters"--esque painted school bus served as stage and prop box as the players circled it, dressed one way, then came around, outfitted another way.

The weather was splendid, and the Monroe Park audience diverse, including a number of the the folks who, um, hang out on the benches who were both puzzled and amused by the show.

One of my favorite parts was the parade of "government mules" who were herded across the grass. On their flanks they each carried a word that formed the Jeffersonian sentence, Whenever The Government Becomes Destructive It Is The Right Of The People To Alter Or Abolish It and a wee mule came galloping from behind the bus and pushed along by the herder, bearing a ! for the end.

There was also a wonderful little bit about how third party candidates are excluded from the system in a Debate Of Extremely Pertinent Points. Two grim masked politicos flanked a bespectacled scruffy Third Party representative. A moderator asked about global warming, the money supply and the issue pre-emptive war-making. The Republican, ("Lock and load America!") would crow, "Problem? What problem?" and the Democrat retorted, "This is a verrry serious issue!" and as the Third Party character tried to form several complete, thoughtful sentences the Repubocrats would lean in and shout, "Ta-dahhh!" as though they'd accomplished something. The final question was about reforming corporate support of political candidates and before the Third Party could answer, he was beaten down by the other two.

And that about says it all. I recall watching a Third Party candidate debate on C-SPAN during the 2004 cycle and there they were, Green, Constitutional, Libertarian and even Natural Law and all of them made more cogent and even eloquent statements than anything most of the mainstreamed candidates either fell compelled or are allowed to say.

One of the best parts of the weekend, though, was seeing our good friends John DeShazo and Susannah Anderson, and their toddler son, Toby. John and Susannah were intimately involved during the early years of the Firehouse Theatre Project, with acting and technical aspects, and Susannah played Aphrodite in a collaborative piece titled Venus Rising produced through an exhibition of Amie's at the 1708 Gallery and a play I wrote, (with Amie's assistance) which presented the Venus de Milo coming to life and giving her side of the Greek myth stories. We took this production on a barnstorming tour of the deep South, including New Orleans and the now gone Zeitgeist space. They toured Amie's current Plant Zero show.

We really need to get out to Seattle, where they've lived now for--what?--six years? Whew.

After departing from John and Sooz, Amie needed to go further down Hull Street to her studio to put away some materials and conduct some cleaning up operations. She gave me a big trash bag and asked me to undertake litter removal around the property. I actually enjoy this because a place always looks better after you've removed trash. What never ceases to amaze me is the callous, cavalier and careless regard people seem to have for their surroundings. I filled a big three foot long bag with refuse. And this is just one portion of Hull Street near Pilkington. Magnify this, increase the amount geometrically, world-wide. You can understand why, as Laurie Anderson sang years ago, that the history of the future will be about the tranformation of waste.

C'mon, somebody, invent a Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor that we can attach to our cars.

The Writing On The Wall

"Dictation": What we talk about when we talk about art and history

What a heroine of culture looks like: Adele Goodman Clark (1882-1983)
Image from the Library of Virginia.

Last night's collaborative performance at Plant Zero as partners-in-art, between me, Amie, and with special guests two members of the Art Cheerleaders, Kendra Wadsworth and Rebecca Goldberg Oliver (who are both artists themselves), then the afterparty-ing with some folks, including painter Bill Fisher, which ended up at MoJo's was, well, better than anything I contemplated.

The evening's weather didn't bode well. Though we need this rain, and the season's traditional character involves cool mists, Amie was persuaded we'd have no audience at all. I figured, it's Fourth Friday, Artspace is open, Artworks always draws a crowd, and the River City Rollergirls were holding their Halloween party, "Nightmare On Hull Street," in the events space. We'd draw from some of those crowds to be sure.

David Bruce's installation of the megaphone was perfect; we chose to place it at the top of the ramp in the gallery space as the rise provided a stage, I could be seen and heard well from that position. In addition to the pieces on Adele Clark, Nora Houston (both of whom nurtured one Theresa Pollak) and Richmond's artistic ferment in the 1920s and 1930s, and Gus and Lynn Garber and the Fulton School, Amie asked that I also present the story about the Richmond Dairy.

That renowned "Milk Bottle Building" was, during the 1980s, a haven for numerous bands--including Richmond-born GWAR--and artists as diverse as hatmaker Ignatius and sculptor Rig Terrell and philosopher Ken Knisely. Amie looked for a studio there when she came to Richmond.

Henry Miller, Cheerleaders and the Abominable Snowman

While I rehearsed, Amie tacked up pages from the slender volume: the Henry Miller epigram, ("I'd rather die in Richmond..."); Adele and Nora; the Dairy and Fulton. She would write backwards above and below the sheets. She installed a small oval mirror by making attachment to the ramp railings so that later passersby could, if they realized the reflective presence, read her reaction/interpretation of my history text. About quarter of 7 the cheerleaders arrived, poms poms and pigtails and all, ART emblazoned across the chest of their pleated-skirt uniforms and began their warm ups. Amie reminded me not to wear my three-cornered hat until show time. Yes, Madame Director. Good point, too.

Amie set up a table with books and had brought cups for drinking champagne. We had plastic glasses with stems but no way to set them down--so people would have to carry them. Funny.

A string quartet with a real harpsichord began playing in Artspace about 7. A guy in an Abominable Snowman costume rolled through the halls on roller skates and the pages tacked to the wall, caught by the breeze, performed The Wave to express admiration. He was pursued on skates by a Goth Punk Rock Girl, wearing ripped fishnets and not much else.

I took the Cheerleaders through the presentations, now tacked to the wall, and I felt a bit like a quarterback giving plays. I pointed out lines where a reaction, pom pom waggling and cheering might be appropriate. Like when Adele Clark says that she felt there should be more creative and imaginative people in government. Yayyy!!

By show time, we had about 15 or so folk gathered in the gallery, sitting along the wall before the megaphone, and by time we were underway, and the cheerleaders had established the mood, I guess we had upwards of 30 in the audience, and an appreciative bunch it was.

Hard to believe and I was there

Amie gave a short preface to the performance, and introduced the cheerleaders, who came squealing up to the ramp. (She had to rush close the Artspace door so they'd not interrupt the music).

The Cheerleaders punctuated the text and performed interstitials -- I hope to add pictures here, soon, and filmmaker David Williams was on hand to record the whole thing, too, and so we'll have some moving images to see in a while.

I have to say, I wondered how if my 40-something self could visit my 16-year-old self, twisting and turning in bed and thinking no girl will ever like me because I'm such a doofus, and to have Old Nerd Harry tell Young Nerd Harry, "You and your wife will perform a show about her art and life in complement to your history writing. And, there'll be cheerleaders." I wouldn't have believed then, and I almost don't believe that it happened and I was there.

To tell you the truth, I was so busy reading and varying my positions and concentrating on the megaphone and measuring the audience reactions that, in memory, the whole thing is kind of a blur. But our audience got it, and applauded, and seemed to enjoy themselves. They really dug the Cheerleaders.

"Adele and Nora, wherever you are, I'm sure you're enjoying this," I said after I'd finished their section to a burst of cheering.

...to all those artists who came before us...

A number of them stayed after for the champagne toasts. Amie led the first, to all the artists who came before us, and all those who inspire us now, who choose to live and make their work in Richmond. And to the Cheerleaders. And to True Richmond Stories. And to Amie Oliver, this from the audience. To Gus and Lynn Garber! Funny those little cups and no way to put them down.

Once our first bunch had dispersed, we regrouped to set up the table for selling and signing books, of which a number were sold. I enjoyed this, talking to folks who happened upon us, a number of them dressed for Halloween, and watching Abominable skating his circuit.

The afterparty after the afterparty

We adjourned--Cheerleaders, Amie, Bill Fisher and his friend, Anne, and Bob Clarke--to Bill's studio round the corner, then moved the party to Legend Brewery, home church of my favorite brew, where I was able to drink just one of their delicious porters because they were closing (!), then moved onward to MoJo's. On the way, Amie and I both thought that we should present the Cheerleaders with books, and so I did, and while I was signing-- I think Kendra's--a couple at the bar--college students, I'm assuming--asked what it was and I told them and the guy of the two wanted one! So I went out to the Buick where my endeavor to paw through the portable cart Amie used to transport them took long enough time for she and Bill to come as a search party to rescue me. And so I signed the couple's book and while signing that, another fellow comes to me and he, too, having seen the Forest Hill Amusement Park piece, wanted a book, too.

Bill regaled us with stories, and there was much laughing, and taking of pictures and exchanging of e-mail addresses. And we closed the place down. A fine, fine evening.

When I get some images, I'll post them.

Keeping up with the story....




Tonight, at Plant Zero, 7:30 p.m., me reading not one, nor two, but it seems now, three pieces from the above pictured slender volume. There'll be a megaphone and at least two cheerleaders. And a gallery-full of masterful work by Amie Oliver, my partner-in-art. All this, and a three-cornered hat.

A Man and A Megaphone: brought to you by the number nine

AmieO art for "Dictation" our collaborative effort
at Plant Zero Art Center's Project Space as part of her ongoing
exhibit. That's the Hollywood Cemetery pyramid, used on

the cover of my book, True Richmond Stories.



Billion-eyed audience, here is my breathless attempt to catch you up on the meanderings and maunderings of Team AOK.

Hell, it's a blog. I can stop and start when I want. It don't have to make no sense, do it?

So the past few days during lunch hours Amie and I have been rehearsing the "Dictation" piece which involves me reading, a three-cornered hat, a megaphone we've had around the house since it was purchased when the (now defunct) Showcase interior imbellishments company moved out of the Pohlig Box Factory Building. I'll read not one but two selections out of TRS, as the kids on the skreet call the slender volume, while Amie...well. You'll just have to come and see us do the thing which we will do. One performance and one performance only!

I have to say, though it has come at a rock'em sock'em week at the magazine, and Amie's been dodging and weaving to avoid a relapse of Seasonal Creeping Crud Disorder (SCCD) that last week flattened her like road kill, it's fun. Today we went to Plant Zero to see about suspending the megaphone so I don't have to hold it and it'll become part of the exhibit.

Ah, white walls and art and artists coming and going and the thrum of Plant Zero's HVAC and the slender deco retro hall lights that make me feel like I'm on a big zeppelin. I enjoy being around studios and all that creative force. Like walking around the VCU campus, too, and oh, the air is redolent of youth and vitality, I want to breathe it in. Same with creative spaces where pockets of energy are palpable. We ran into Heide Trepanier, which is always great, and I presented her with the indeterminate European, Art Basel, who smokes his filterless cigarette between his middle and ring finger.

So it was fun, and sculptor/maker David Bruce was enlisted to install the megaphone. Ah, I thought--fantasized--about how it'd be for Amie and me to have grants and underwriting to go to places and do this, and drink coffee in curious places, and visit cluttered apartments and leave chilly rainy streets for brunches in places only the locals go to. And she would record our adventures with her disc cam, and we'd just be hanging out. Kind of like this, taken back in March, at the Empire Diner in Chelsea.


Seems a quaint notion, I guess, and a bit selfish, too. But you know, I'm not fit for anything else, with my bad back and all.

Number Nine, Number Nine

So Style Weekly's big fat hairy 25h Anniversary issue came out Wednesday. So I'm reading around in it and rolling in the memories when I get to the 24 Arts Legends compiled by Brandon Reynolds, and I'm perusing the list and lo! There I am, at #9, between arts benefactor Frances Lewis and that Quirky broad, Kathy Emerson. Not a bad rocking chair position, you ask me.

Spinning Into Butter

Opens tonight in a production by the Firehouse Theatre Project. It's directed by our own house guy, Morrie Piersol, and features the oh-so-wonderful Katie McCall, Fred Iacovo--with whom I acted many years ago in a repertory comedy troupe called Richmond: Out of Stock, and he had a pre-road rage character named Angry Man; the incredible "rich, deep, authoritative" Melissa Johnston-Price and veteran Robert Albertia, the sagacious and funny Stephen Moore and, both earnest and persuasive, Anthony Santiago and Matt Polson.

I'll be there, but now must dash to go to the thing before the other thing.

Oll be back.

Advertisements for Myself, another in a continuing and irregular series
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!

My Hodgepodge History

Greetings, all. Tomorow my book, through the good offices of Target Communications (Richmond Magazine's parent company) and the History Press of Charleston, S.C, True Richmond Stories, makes its debut. My blog silence has been caused by this endeavor, among others, and the opening of the exhibition by my partner-in-art Amie Oliver. The show is Walk The Walk and my biased advice is for you to walk, that's the preference, or bike to Plant Zero to see the work. If you have to resort to petrochemical measures, I guess you gotta.

Experienced the Ground Zero Dance Company's show, and it was incredible.

Lesson learned tonight: Never throw away half of your partner's lime.

Advertisements For Ourselves
A Book * An Exhibit * A Megaphone

New work by Amie Oliver, above, from the forthcoming exhibit "Walk The Walk" opening September 28, 2007, at the Plant Zero Art Center, in beautiful downtown Manchester, of Richmond, Va.


Here's an invite. Come one, come all. A moving foretaste of what you'll see is here.



[The Plant Zero Cafe exterior: imagine us all gathered there with our coffees of variable mix, chatting it up about all that we've just seen, oh so clever, via Venture Richmnd.]


The entire central gallery will be occupied by her mixed media marvels. At one point, during the three-month duration, a man with a megaphone will appear. Will he know what to say? He resembles this shady character below as assayed by Ms. Oliver.


See more of her endeavors here.

[The Pyramid in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Va. From Amie Oliver's Sketchbooks.]




But wait, there's more!

Harry Kollatz Jr.--that would be me, your ob't savant-- is on the verge of getting between covers, courtesy of the good offices of the History Press, Charleston, South Carolina. Go here, and scroll all the way down, or here, and do the same.

The slender 128-page volume, priced to move at $19.99, is titled True Richmond Stories, and its cover will look very much like what is reproduced below.

The book will be getting its own website, too, and more of that anon. True Richmond is available through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and, beginning in October, at fine bookstores throughout greater Rich'mun, Vee-ay. Like: Fountain Books, Chop Suey and Chop Suey Tuey , Black Swan Books and Café Gutenberg.

The in-store appearances I know of at this date are Fountain, Oct. 7 and Gutenberg, Oct. 15. Mo' to come.


You see? I do do other things than sit here in front of his box sending out my cyber- messages in bottles blown from the faux glass of ones-and-zeroes.