Buttermilk & Molasses

Museum Scores Amazing German Expressionism Find

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts has just doubled the number of paintings I will go out of my way to view when they reopen next spring. Katherine Calos at the Times-Dispatch has details:

A major family collection of German Expressionist art "so rare that it is almost indescribable" has found a permanent home at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

The gift-purchase of the Ludwig and Rosy Fischer Collection brings to the museum more than 200 pieces of art from the most creative years of German Expressionism.

Museum Director Alex Nyerges, who deemed it "almost indescribable," says the collection is of "not just national but international importance."

"It is a statement of an era, a statement that cannot really be duplicated. It's a snapshot of time taking us back 100 years to look at one of the most important artistic movements of the 20th century. . . . This collection represents it so marvelously."

Works by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Emil Nolde, Wassily Kandinsky and August Macke, among others, were collected from 1905 to 1925 by Ludwig and Rosy Fischer in Frankfurt, Germany.

The TD also has a great interactive slide show of the new German Expressionist works.

I remember going to see a major Kirchner exhibition at the National Gallery in 2003 -- it blew me away:

Across the Mall at the National Gallery, the work of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner exploded in an aura of color, tension and pain. Kirchner's work exhibited a different sort of mastery, born not of reproduction, but of expression. It is very easy to see how Bauhaus could never have emerged in Germany without the work of Kirchner and his cohort in Die Brucke, and how Kirchner could never have emerged in Germany without the carefree bohemian lifestyle and the horrors of war that anchored his art, and fed his addictions and madness.

I can't wait to get blown away again at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts when I see this new collection next year.

The Wedding Video I Wanted To Hate

They're just having such a blasted good time. I couldn't even hate it as much as I intended after reading about it. Last night it had been viewed 2 million times in less than a week; this morning, it showed 4.5 million views. Now that's viral.

What the Bottom Needs Now Is Not Another Rock Club

The only live music venue Richmond needs downtown falls into one of three categories:

• A swankily appointed live jazz club

• A snappy live blue club with all the trappings

• A completely over-the-top, punk rock, stage-diving, bottle-throwing club

I say this with all the earnestness of a 41-year-old white male who remembers the last time teen spirit really raged in Richmond (Hello, Winkies!) and wishes the city would burst forth with a little more youthful angst.

I'm pretty sure the buttoned-down crowd on 7th Street agrees with me. At least about the jazz. I'm not sure punk rock or true blues go well with French cuffs.

The Times-Dispatch's Will Jones (who once had a bit of angst about him, I seem to recall) reports that the owners of the Lady Bird Hat building (the building formerly known as Toad's Plce) are "close to something really exciting for that space."

You can't imagine how nervous that makes me.

The last time someone launched something really exciting around Richmond it came in the form of Oliver North hawking bumper stickers in the middle of the Watermelon Festival.

I particularly like that both comments on the TD site talk about "thugs". Isn't that a euphemism for something here in Richmond?

Martin Agency Fakes a Second Lunar Landing!

Rad Tollett referenced this last week or so in a comment after I pointed out that the "We Choose the Moon" website was just another bit of fakery in a long string of illusions designed to convince us that we had actually landed on the Moon.

"This" being the "We Choose the Moon" website, which is actually a very snappy site once you get over the fact that it was all filmed in Arizona. Also, "this" being that the site was designed locally by The Martin Agency, as Chewy also points out.

I bet it was a lot easier to fake this stuff when all you had were transitors and vacuum tubes!

An Evening at Morton's: I've Been Promoted

On Tuesday, I was planning to quietly sit behind the scenes at the second Evening at Morton's event, live blogging from the relative safety of my MacBook while The Hodges Partnership's (THP) Josh Dare threw down with five players from the local cultural scene.

Things have changed.

I'll now be at the grown-up's table, facilitating the dialogue. Tony Scida from THP will be live blogging. (Join Tony as he provides sound, color and commentary at the Evening at Morton's site starting at 6:00 on Tuesday. And submit your questions to him as the evening goes on!) And Jonah Holland will be live tweeting. (Follow the hashtag #steakchat starting at 6:30 on Tuesday.)

Here's the description floating around:

On Tuesday, July 21, Morton’s The Steakhouse will host its second “A Evening at Morton’s” online discussion. “An Evening at Morton’s” discussion series assembles Richmond-area experts to discuss a range of issues over dinner.

This discussion will focus on the topic “Arts in Richmond: Culture at the Crossroads.”

• Janine Bell, founding president and artistic director, Elegba Folklore Society

• David Fisk, executive director, Richmond Symphony

• Ana Ines King, founder and artistic director, Latin Ballet of Virginia

• Harry Kollatz, columnist/staff writer, Richmond Magazine, and co-founder of the Firehouse Theatre Project

• Christina Newton, founder and director, Curated Culture

NOTE – this is a virtual event!

This is a virtual event -- you can follow along with the written commentary via the blog and the Twitter feed. Video and audio of the entire conversation will be posted later in the week.

You can submit questions to me via the Evening at Morton's Facebook page. I'll ask the tough ones of the panelists during the evening.

Fake Moon Landing -- Again!

Paste Magazine reports:

This Thursday, July 16, will mark the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, and everyone is commemorating the milestone in their own way. For the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, this means the launch (no pun intended) of a new website, WeChooseTheMoon.org, which will recreate the event in real time.

Indeed, it seems as if the site will be as accurate of a representation of the flight as possible. The site will go live at 8:02 a.m. on the 16th, and its spaceship will take off at 9:32 a.m., just like the real one did all those years ago. For the next 102 hours, 45 minutes and 39.9 seconds, WeChooseTheMoon.org will use archived videos, photos and audio clips to virtually guide the site's visitors through the mission.

I thought we already faked the moon landing once -- back in 1969.

Dueling Releases from the Ashes of Uncle Tupelo

Paste Magazine offers up dueling reviews of new releases by Son Volt and Wilco, two bands that emerged from the remnants of the original alt.country wunderband Uncle Tupelo. As Paste's reviewer notes, Son Volt broke early and strong with its debut "Trace", but Wilco had its comeuppance with its latest three releases which were experimental and forward-looking. Both of their new releases, however, go back to their common roots.

Now, both bands have returned with summer releases that put their respective evolutions on hold, in favor of revisiting past territory. Paste has solid reviews of both of them and concludes with a strong sense of thankfulness:

Nearly 20 years after Uncle Tupelo’s first release, both Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar have proven themselves as great American songwriters. Tweedy has clearly been the more restless (and satisfying) artist—the one constantly seeking new influences and excavating new sounds while exploring his innermost self and his world with unflinching candor. While Farrar has continued to mine familiar territory, at least he is digging in rich and fertile ground.

An Evening at Morton's: When Art and Red Meat Collide...

About the time I launched Floricane, my strategic planning business, I found myself sitting around a table with some folks from The Hodges Partnership (THP) brainstorming new community conversation ideas centered around Morton's the Steakhouse, which is a client of THP.

In short order, we'd come up with a nugget of an idea -- five or six people around a table, discussing issues of the day. We also surfaced three topics that seemed broad, but interesting -- sports in Richmond, arts and culture, and the nonprofit community.

We had no budget to go along with our ideas, so we improvised our way through the first event, which was held in April and focused on sports in Richmond.

We started with an idea of trying to partner with public television to make it a live broadcast -- five cultural figures engaged in a hearty discussion over steak, crabcakes and asparagus. Done well, it could be something straight out of TBN. Budgets and time got in the way.

What we ended up doing was utilizing Twitter and live blogging and audio recording as a way to promote the event and create a space where the public could participate -- listen in, read along, add their comments, submit their questions.

It was a moderate success.

Next Tuesday, July 21, we go back to the table:

Large or small, contemporary or classical, Richmond’s cultural institutions share many of the same issues and challenges. Just how are the arts in Richmond confronting such difficult economic times? On July 21, Morton’s The Steakhouse will bring together five local experts for the second in a series of community conversations, “Arts in Richmond: Culture at the Crossroads.”

The Evening at Morton’s discussion series brings together Richmond-area authorities to opine on a range of issues over dinner.  The arts discussion participants include:

• Janine Bell, founding president and artistic director, Elegba Folklore Society
• David Fisk, executive director, Richmond Symphony
• Ana Ines King, founder and artistic director, Latin Ballet of Virginia
• Harry Kollatz, columnist/staff writer, Richmond Magazine, and co-founder of the Firehouse Theatre Project
• Christina Newton, founder and director, Curated Culture

The conversation will be “live-blogged” by John Sarvay, a local blogger and founding principal of Floricane, LLC, and moderated by Josh Dare, a principal with The Hodges Partnership, a Richmond-based public relations firm.  While the actual dinner at the restaurant is private, Richmonders can participate in the discussion and ask questions to the participants here on the Evening at Morton’s blog.  The blog feed will go live at 6 p.m. on July 21.  The conversation also will be audio recorded and made available on this site following the event.

THP has launched a Facebook event page for the second Evening at Morton's event, where you can register, get updates and be reminded about the event before it starts and after it concludes. Unfortunately, this is a virtual event -- you can enjoy it from the comfort of your laptop, but not from the dining room at Morton's. The live blogged portion (that I'll be manning) can be seen either at the Evening at Morton's website or at Buttermilk & Molasses starting at 6:00 -- and you can submit questions directly at that time.

Jonah Holland will be live tweeting with the hash tag #steakchat.

In the fall, we'll be back with another Evening at Morton's event focused on how the nonprofit community in Richmond is growing, struggling and reinventing itself.

Ground Control to Mix Master Bowie

Paste Magazine reports that David Bowie has been infected with the remix virus, and will be releasing a special remixed EP of "Space Oddity" to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's deft step-down onto the lunar surface:

The EP will feature four mixes of the original tune, as well as the song's eight original master tracks, which fans will be able to manipulate into their own mixes with any audio editing software, including iPhone app iKlax. The release date is certainly no accident. On his website, Bowie reminds us that the BBC used the song during its broadcast of the lunar landing, and that the original track was released just days before the monumental moonwalk.

I'm looking forward to it. I hope he remixes the cover photo, though.

"First Person Shooter" Disease Is My Video Pick of the Week

(If you've never played a first person shooter video game, this will mean nothing to you. Please move along to the next post...)

Thanks to Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing for totally making my week with a post on a new video circulating the web spotlighting a horrible new disease making the rounds