one million vintage movie theaters

a toast to the Byrd theatre! isn't she gorgeous?




a few blocks up Cary street from me is Carytown - restaurants, vintage stores, a record shop and other quaint businesses in little buildings that try to preserve that aging brick exterior richmond is so good at. the crown of Carytown is the Byrd. i have yet to see its special moment: a wurlitzer that rises from a pit in the stage with someone playing spooky chords on saturdays.
but you can always see these weird little stages on the sides with a harp display, for instance.


i thought i had learned a thing or two about vintage theatres having worked my first job at Orem's Scera theatre where i memorized Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken, The Rocketeer*, and Beauty and the Beast. but i was wrong. Richmond's scera blew my mind.

despite living practically next door and the cost of admission a scant two dollars, i have only attended the Byrd twice and both were midnight movies. the first was Goonies which, as is the case with most of you nearing 30, changed my life - i believe - for the better. that scene with Chunk confessing his sins to the Fratellis totally stands the test of time.



my second night out was just last saturday for that classic pink floyd phenomenon: the wizard of oz.



after years of rigging it myself with a television and boom box it was a real treat to see a big screen in perfect sync with great sound.
here's that clincher of moments: dorothy opening the door from black and white into color at the very instant that the cash register of "money" bangs into your ears. coincidence? one of many tasty treats.


i admit, that moment also changed my life. but i also really like little things, how the tornado sways to the gentle eerie music earlier in the album, the panicked change the soundtrack takes as dorothy falls into the pigpen, the heartbeat closing the scene as dorothy listens to tin man's chest. i have no doubt that when my generation runs the academy we will be shelling out an honorary Oscar to pink floyd.

that's the perfect oscar acceptance pose!
we should do it soon before they start leaving us for that big oz in the sky.


at the exact same moment in new york city jefferey was watching his midnight movie: Pee Wee Herman's Big Adventure. they're both so appetizing that i'm not sure which of us won 'best midnight movie of the night 2006"...any judgers out there?

Pee Wee and Chunk shall also receive honorary Oscars.

*actress confession. Fact: from 1985-1986 Alex Bigelow and i watched only three movies in a year of sleepovers
1. Ghostbusters 1



2. Little Shop of Horrors

i still love this steve martin song


3. Labrynth. despite the discomfort of watching David Bowie i had a substantial crush on Jennifer Connely (who didn't?)


and was excited as a fourteen-year-old to see her voluptuous return in the Rocketeer




until recently i had been under the impression that Alex and I had been watching scary movies. i knew there were a lot scarier ones out there, like the freddie kruger collection, but the overarching comedic goal of ghostbusters and little shop of horrors were hidden from eyes blinded by demonic undertones.

i'm not one that has a ready answer for "favourite actress" but i think that on the strength of crushes at ages 11 and 14 i'll start answering with JC.

one million fires next door

thats sort of not an exaggeration because there is a small fire station four houses down from me.
on the other corner - one house down from me - is where all the drug dealing and other small business pursuits take place.


on sunday afternoon i walked home from church enjoying one of the most brilliant weather days Richmond could possibly offer when i started to smell and see smoke clouding the block next to my house. it was too surreal to be true, especially with casual sunday-ers coming up to the block like tourists while firemen were furiously backing up trucks and running hoses. they had to drive those trucks about 100 feet and they connected a hose to the fire station's own fire hydrant and ran it over a few buildings. i was thinking about becoming a fire spectator myself by grabbing my camera and returning to the scene, but then i decided to nap and see if it came out in the paper. which i did. now i know that no one was injured and that it was a dry cleaners that bit the dust. i thought that the proximity to the fire station was ironic, but get this: "70 percent to 80 percent of the business is devoted to cleaning clothing for fire victims whose garments have been fouled by the stench of smoke". maybe that would have made a better lyric for alanis: its like ra-ain on your wedding day, its like the stinky fi-ire stinking up clothes being cleaned from already being stunk up by fires.



that's my neighborhood!

i'm moving this week.

irony #3..or 4: i recently commented on the nature of my upcoming move from one sketchy neighborhood to one only slightly less sketchy as "i guess i'm moving out of the frying pan into the fire...or am i moving out of the fire into the frying pan?" after sunday i think we can safely say B.

also: i was startled awake on friday night to gunshots right outside my window. with the sudden warm weather, club activity and street culture swarmed around my house that night. i checked out the scene to see two cops crouching behind a car with guns pulled. i told myself to remember this scene and promptly fell back asleep.

one million artists using blogger to show their paintings

Bruce Wilhelm

i saw this painting in the back of ada gallery (adagallery.com) and got really excited. sure it's hipster painting, but its pretty darn good hipster painting. i then met bruce the next day at an opening of a show that i'm in. he's a young richmond native with some great paintings (click the title for his link)