Monday, September 19, 2011
Lucky
Feel a reckless yearning
So I wander outside
I don't know belonging
It's something I don't hide
I want to know you
I'm hoping you could
Come to me be by me
I don't know what it will bring
Come closer talk to me
I don't know what will follow
All the streets are mine
I dance down them like a clown
Desperate for sunshine
In case you might be around
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Vegetable Man
Or, the positive aspect of almighty Not.
I don't really have an idea of what I'm doing yet, but I've decided to stop eating animals.
I have lots of ideas about what I'm NOT doing -
I've given up trying to follow Politics with active interest; it always was a non-satisfying pursuit - politics being by definition, the striving to get something you don't want...but in the current climate, the way the we the people, media and the politicians have allowed things to unfold, it's all gone idiotic and is the exclusive province of Corporations (great movie, The Corporation by the way). I gave up most of my hope when W was reelected, then we had a glimmer, with Obama - but the trog backlash was brutal. Ahem. Anyway. We are still allowed to vote, so - someone please wake me in October 2012.
Not much good looking for change in that direction.
Like many people, I have been getting my food more and more from the Farmers Market, and favoring the organic grocery store (horribly expensive though it be)- dismayed at the whole corporate aspect of Factory Farming - which, make no mistake, is the way 99% of our food comes to us now, labelled 'organic' 'free range' or no. This is not your uncle Ma and Pa on the farm anymore, this is Monsanto, and worse, I actively and passionately WISH THEM ILL.
And the treatment of animals is no longer just a matter of looking the other way, for me. Animals are smelly and weird, and usually out for themselves (with some notable exceptions) but the industry of raising them for food has become an insane perversion of the environment, the natural world, crowned with casually premeditated cruelty, the extent of which (genetic mutation, keeping animals sick and drugged up, mutilation, torture) boggles the mind.
Simply by drawing a line, and NOT participating in this (and, NOT doing things has always been preferable to Doing, for me), this crazy infliction of suffering on these creatures conceivably makes the world a better place, if by a miniature margin.
It's not as if we live in a situation where there are no other options, we live in total overabundance - there's plenty of healthy food sources all around. But somehow I've allowed meat to be the central component of my diet - it just seems stupid, I'm sick of it, I quit. The land animals are safe from me now, anyway.
I'm not ready to give up all seafood though - (or cheese and milk - or eggs - though you can be sure I will be mindful of the source of these dairy things) - overfishing is also something that bothers me a lot, but the cruelty aspect doesn't seem as visceral - I have actually fished and eaten my catch, whereas I have never slaughtered a lamb - so perhaps the absurdity of it isn't as obvious...anyway I need my sushi.
I'm willing to let that go (for now), with some misgivings...sorry sharks, sorry seahorses caught up in the net.
There that's my rant, for the record. I'm sure my thinking on this will become clearer in time, I'm just going with my gut...goodbye bacon, hello vegetarian chili!
I'm going to have to really learn how to cook, now.
I don't really have an idea of what I'm doing yet, but I've decided to stop eating animals.
I have lots of ideas about what I'm NOT doing -
I've given up trying to follow Politics with active interest; it always was a non-satisfying pursuit - politics being by definition, the striving to get something you don't want...but in the current climate, the way the we the people, media and the politicians have allowed things to unfold, it's all gone idiotic and is the exclusive province of Corporations (great movie, The Corporation by the way). I gave up most of my hope when W was reelected, then we had a glimmer, with Obama - but the trog backlash was brutal. Ahem. Anyway. We are still allowed to vote, so - someone please wake me in October 2012.
Not much good looking for change in that direction.
Like many people, I have been getting my food more and more from the Farmers Market, and favoring the organic grocery store (horribly expensive though it be)- dismayed at the whole corporate aspect of Factory Farming - which, make no mistake, is the way 99% of our food comes to us now, labelled 'organic' 'free range' or no. This is not your uncle Ma and Pa on the farm anymore, this is Monsanto, and worse, I actively and passionately WISH THEM ILL.
And the treatment of animals is no longer just a matter of looking the other way, for me. Animals are smelly and weird, and usually out for themselves (with some notable exceptions) but the industry of raising them for food has become an insane perversion of the environment, the natural world, crowned with casually premeditated cruelty, the extent of which (genetic mutation, keeping animals sick and drugged up, mutilation, torture) boggles the mind.
Simply by drawing a line, and NOT participating in this (and, NOT doing things has always been preferable to Doing, for me), this crazy infliction of suffering on these creatures conceivably makes the world a better place, if by a miniature margin.
It's not as if we live in a situation where there are no other options, we live in total overabundance - there's plenty of healthy food sources all around. But somehow I've allowed meat to be the central component of my diet - it just seems stupid, I'm sick of it, I quit. The land animals are safe from me now, anyway.
I'm not ready to give up all seafood though - (or cheese and milk - or eggs - though you can be sure I will be mindful of the source of these dairy things) - overfishing is also something that bothers me a lot, but the cruelty aspect doesn't seem as visceral - I have actually fished and eaten my catch, whereas I have never slaughtered a lamb - so perhaps the absurdity of it isn't as obvious...anyway I need my sushi.
I'm willing to let that go (for now), with some misgivings...sorry sharks, sorry seahorses caught up in the net.
There that's my rant, for the record. I'm sure my thinking on this will become clearer in time, I'm just going with my gut...goodbye bacon, hello vegetarian chili!
I'm going to have to really learn how to cook, now.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Round Pond Relics
One obsessive subject of reportage that you, the faithful "Toy World" reader, have been spared for the last two years of infrequent -ahem- posting, is my browsing through the dollar bins for vinyl treasure amongst the trash. Good quality LPs of worthwhile tunes are getting harder to find every day - apparently I'm not the only one who finds this all very good value for the entertainment dollar - it certainly helps to have bad taste in music...
Look at what I found yesterday (at Plan 9, bless 'em - my other favorite local indie vinyl spots being Deep Grooves and Steady Sounds)!
One of those local, self-produced jobs, from 1980, and made in nearby Charlottesville Va. ("Cottey Light Industries"), I normally wouldn't have bothered but the fiddle/concertina combination is a rare and wonderful thing - also the repertoire didn't look too old timey at all - all country dance tunes from the British Isles...can't be too bad, maybe I could nick a tune or two from it...
But it's not only not-bad, it's good! Wonderful lift to the music, you can tell they played for dances. The (very informative) liner notes reveal a mostly British, Morris dancing origin to most of these tunes, with a smattering of Irish and American influence. They're both wonderful traditional players, I half expect to hear Martin Carthy join in singing at any moment...this will be filed away not very far away from Carthy, Kirkpatrick, and Brass Monkey - once it has left the turntable, which won't be anytime this long holiday weekend! Inscribed "To Darthy...love Jim Morrison" - it seems Darthy didn't give this one too many spins, the vinyl is pristine!
If there's one quibble I have, it's with the totally unnecessary percussing - "bones" -ugh- sometimes sounds good in a dance setting I suppose...but Tony Morrison's fiddling and Tom Kruskal's concertina squeezing are sublime so I can easily get past the occasional clackity-clacking.
List of tunes - T'auld Wife of Coverdill/Morpeth Lasses; Money In Both Pockets; Lollypop Man; Girl I Left Behind Me/The Rose Tree; Smash the Windows/Hilly-go Filly-go/Tobin's Favorite; March Past; Mrs. Casey/Orange in Bloom; Off To California; The Young Widow; York Fusiliers; Walter's Polka/Take Me Drunk, I'm Home (aka 'Heel and Toe Polka');M.T.B. Waltz/Life in the Finnish Woods; Path to Cottey House.
I regret I don't have the techno skills to convert this to digital for your eager ears...it doesn't seem to be readily available on CD, or any format...if you like I might be able to knock out a cassette for you! (Does anyone still listen to those?) Are Morrison and Kruskal still around? Might have to do some further research.
Requests, complaints, suggestions and kind words in the 'comments' please.
Look at what I found yesterday (at Plan 9, bless 'em - my other favorite local indie vinyl spots being Deep Grooves and Steady Sounds)!
One of those local, self-produced jobs, from 1980, and made in nearby Charlottesville Va. ("Cottey Light Industries"), I normally wouldn't have bothered but the fiddle/concertina combination is a rare and wonderful thing - also the repertoire didn't look too old timey at all - all country dance tunes from the British Isles...can't be too bad, maybe I could nick a tune or two from it...
But it's not only not-bad, it's good! Wonderful lift to the music, you can tell they played for dances. The (very informative) liner notes reveal a mostly British, Morris dancing origin to most of these tunes, with a smattering of Irish and American influence. They're both wonderful traditional players, I half expect to hear Martin Carthy join in singing at any moment...this will be filed away not very far away from Carthy, Kirkpatrick, and Brass Monkey - once it has left the turntable, which won't be anytime this long holiday weekend! Inscribed "To Darthy...love Jim Morrison" - it seems Darthy didn't give this one too many spins, the vinyl is pristine!
If there's one quibble I have, it's with the totally unnecessary percussing - "bones" -ugh- sometimes sounds good in a dance setting I suppose...but Tony Morrison's fiddling and Tom Kruskal's concertina squeezing are sublime so I can easily get past the occasional clackity-clacking.
List of tunes - T'auld Wife of Coverdill/Morpeth Lasses; Money In Both Pockets; Lollypop Man; Girl I Left Behind Me/The Rose Tree; Smash the Windows/Hilly-go Filly-go/Tobin's Favorite; March Past; Mrs. Casey/Orange in Bloom; Off To California; The Young Widow; York Fusiliers; Walter's Polka/Take Me Drunk, I'm Home (aka 'Heel and Toe Polka');M.T.B. Waltz/Life in the Finnish Woods; Path to Cottey House.
I regret I don't have the techno skills to convert this to digital for your eager ears...it doesn't seem to be readily available on CD, or any format...if you like I might be able to knock out a cassette for you! (Does anyone still listen to those?) Are Morrison and Kruskal still around? Might have to do some further research.
Requests, complaints, suggestions and kind words in the 'comments' please.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Hail Susanne Lewis!
Ah the obscurity factor. If there's one thing I love, which causes me joy and worry in equal measure - it's discovering a musical phenomenon that's been largely overlooked by nearly everyone (you don't have to plow too far back in this blog to find copious wordpile on the subject of Britain's mighty CARDIACS, for instance). A cause célèbre! Hail, Susanne Lewis and Hello Debris.
I think that over the years I've run across references aplenty to the Denver-based avant/prog band Thinking Plague - and was aware of the existence of Bob Drake, their bassist, at least as the engineer and knob-twiddler responsible for the recent, brilliant remastering of Henry Cow's back catalog. It was through reading online about Cardiacs/Knifeworld guitarist Kavus Torabi's recent trip to France in order to record some tunes with Drake that I was spurred to investigate - and ended up finding this curious gem on YouTube, Precarious, by a band called HAIL (Bob Drake mostly on drums and percussion, engineering, and mixing - Susanne Lewis - also ex- of Thinking Plague - wrote the songs, sang, played guitar and keyboards)...
...and on the strength of this descending windblown melody, and the interesting sleeve art, decided to check out their album Hello Debris (found used and lucky-cheap on a popular online retailer's site, somewhat shamefully, but this is how we do in today's marketplace isn't it?)
So, unfolding this music by layers - I was first entranced by the sound of it - it has the virtues of seeming living room DIY-recorded - immediate, but with the sonics brightly articulated in their roughness - chockful of experimental noise-flurries effects and ideas thrown into the mix, enough to reward many repeat listenings. Solid rock guitar strum is augmented by chunks of programmed keyboard screedle, all underpinned by a roiling, forward-moving current of bass and percussion - Susanne Lewis has a (mostly) plain, direct and unadorned way of singing that I like, reminding me of Liz Phair (without the frosting).
The 18 songs are brief (all between one and three and-a-half minutes long), built along strongly melodic lines - but with sudden shifts into strange notes and chords, sounds that keep things nicely off-kilter. There are bits of tango music, Italian film soundtracks, Ronettes, Rick Wakeman (I swear!), a Neon Boys-ish twangy-guitar instrumental (Bailey Ice Stream) in the mix. Bursts of multi-tracked vocal harmonies appear, delicate webs of guitar arpeggio, the dynamics sometimes fragile, othertimes building to symphonic proportions.
Here are links to two more tunes from Hello Debris, from Bob Drake's site:
http://www.bdrak.com/sounds/others/hello.htm
There are loads of ideas jammed into these tunes. It gives me the anything-is-possible feeling that I get too infrequently from music...
Fragments of lyrics begin to stick out:
- I want to be strong - be your shelter from this world -
- Sadness ... lingers -
- Running up and down the block screaming HELLO IT'S ME -
- LOST - EVERY DAY - got lost - every day
I waste the hours / debris piles on top of them / then the wind blows in / and everything changes
Not a concept album but a series of elegantly constructed debris-piles loosely connected by a common theme - dispatches, impressions of an individual living in the city - Hello Debris is full of interactions and attempts to connect, ranging from the most mundane of street hassles (Street Life) to cosmic reverie (Precarious, Celestial Heartbeat), with seams of frantic hilarity (Hello 2, Bridge Song) and sadness (New Skyline) running through.
I've really become obsessed with this CD, it might be one of my favorite things ever. None of my so-called friends want to know about it - hence this blog, and you the enthusiastic reader.
In order to change things up I found another Susanne Lewis project called Kissyfur, and the album Frambuesa (1994) - 13 tracks with nearly all the music coming from SL, with various drummers. At first listen it seemed very basic indie-rock bedroom stuff, all rougher edges, nothing like the sonic proggy lushness of Hello Debris - and I rather missed Mr. Drake's collaboration. Repeated listens have revealed well thought out songwriting with wicked hooks, some unabashed rocking out and ecstatic singing - songs that seem to inhabit the wilder shores, hills and valleys of new love. Well worth seeking out.
Next in the pipeline, Kirk by Hail - the album that preceded ..Debris - by 13 years; and Susanne Lewis' self-titled album from 2000.
http://http//susannelewis.com/selecteddiscography
order directly from the artist!
http://www.susannelewis.com/Ordering.html
You can find Hello Debris as well as recordings by the more overtly-prog Thinking Plague (In This Life is especially good I think) at
http://www.waysidemusic.com/
or at the usual places....
Thinking Plague "Love"
Bob Drake's website: http://www.bdrak.com/
I think that over the years I've run across references aplenty to the Denver-based avant/prog band Thinking Plague - and was aware of the existence of Bob Drake, their bassist, at least as the engineer and knob-twiddler responsible for the recent, brilliant remastering of Henry Cow's back catalog. It was through reading online about Cardiacs/Knifeworld guitarist Kavus Torabi's recent trip to France in order to record some tunes with Drake that I was spurred to investigate - and ended up finding this curious gem on YouTube, Precarious, by a band called HAIL (Bob Drake mostly on drums and percussion, engineering, and mixing - Susanne Lewis - also ex- of Thinking Plague - wrote the songs, sang, played guitar and keyboards)...
...and on the strength of this descending windblown melody, and the interesting sleeve art, decided to check out their album Hello Debris (found used and lucky-cheap on a popular online retailer's site, somewhat shamefully, but this is how we do in today's marketplace isn't it?)
So, unfolding this music by layers - I was first entranced by the sound of it - it has the virtues of seeming living room DIY-recorded - immediate, but with the sonics brightly articulated in their roughness - chockful of experimental noise-flurries effects and ideas thrown into the mix, enough to reward many repeat listenings. Solid rock guitar strum is augmented by chunks of programmed keyboard screedle, all underpinned by a roiling, forward-moving current of bass and percussion - Susanne Lewis has a (mostly) plain, direct and unadorned way of singing that I like, reminding me of Liz Phair (without the frosting).
The 18 songs are brief (all between one and three and-a-half minutes long), built along strongly melodic lines - but with sudden shifts into strange notes and chords, sounds that keep things nicely off-kilter. There are bits of tango music, Italian film soundtracks, Ronettes, Rick Wakeman (I swear!), a Neon Boys-ish twangy-guitar instrumental (Bailey Ice Stream) in the mix. Bursts of multi-tracked vocal harmonies appear, delicate webs of guitar arpeggio, the dynamics sometimes fragile, othertimes building to symphonic proportions.
Here are links to two more tunes from Hello Debris, from Bob Drake's site:
http://www.bdrak.com/sounds/others/hello.htm
There are loads of ideas jammed into these tunes. It gives me the anything-is-possible feeling that I get too infrequently from music...
Fragments of lyrics begin to stick out:
- I want to be strong - be your shelter from this world -
- Sadness ... lingers -
- Running up and down the block screaming HELLO IT'S ME -
- LOST - EVERY DAY - got lost - every day
I waste the hours / debris piles on top of them / then the wind blows in / and everything changes
Not a concept album but a series of elegantly constructed debris-piles loosely connected by a common theme - dispatches, impressions of an individual living in the city - Hello Debris is full of interactions and attempts to connect, ranging from the most mundane of street hassles (Street Life) to cosmic reverie (Precarious, Celestial Heartbeat), with seams of frantic hilarity (Hello 2, Bridge Song) and sadness (New Skyline) running through.
I've really become obsessed with this CD, it might be one of my favorite things ever. None of my so-called friends want to know about it - hence this blog, and you the enthusiastic reader.
In order to change things up I found another Susanne Lewis project called Kissyfur, and the album Frambuesa (1994) - 13 tracks with nearly all the music coming from SL, with various drummers. At first listen it seemed very basic indie-rock bedroom stuff, all rougher edges, nothing like the sonic proggy lushness of Hello Debris - and I rather missed Mr. Drake's collaboration. Repeated listens have revealed well thought out songwriting with wicked hooks, some unabashed rocking out and ecstatic singing - songs that seem to inhabit the wilder shores, hills and valleys of new love. Well worth seeking out.
Next in the pipeline, Kirk by Hail - the album that preceded ..Debris - by 13 years; and Susanne Lewis' self-titled album from 2000.
http://http//susannelewis.com/selecteddiscography
order directly from the artist!
http://www.susannelewis.com/Ordering.html
You can find Hello Debris as well as recordings by the more overtly-prog Thinking Plague (In This Life is especially good I think) at
http://www.waysidemusic.com/
or at the usual places....
Thinking Plague "Love"
Bob Drake's website: http://www.bdrak.com/
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Hello
The blog is sorta back ON again, it seems.
I have happened upon some wonderful music recently, and once I collect my thoughts I am going to go on and on about it. I promise.
Hail
Susanne Lewis guitaring, singing - Bob Drake bassing -
(with Chris Cutler exuberantly percussing and Bill Gilonis, gtr)
Listen, listen, repeat
I have happened upon some wonderful music recently, and once I collect my thoughts I am going to go on and on about it. I promise.
Hail
Susanne Lewis guitaring, singing - Bob Drake bassing -
(with Chris Cutler exuberantly percussing and Bill Gilonis, gtr)
Listen, listen, repeat
Thursday, May 27, 2010
After Dinner
I found this on YouTube last night - incredible, film from the 80's (I presume) of Haco and her amazing toy orchestra After Dinner. Very eccentric, whimsical yet intentional; avant garde, yet straightforward as children's songs.
Cymbals at Dawn
and my favorite, Room of the Hair-Mobiles - followed by Kitchen Life
Cymbals at Dawn
and my favorite, Room of the Hair-Mobiles - followed by Kitchen Life
Monday, March 22, 2010
The Curse of Netflix
My city (I hate to say "my city" though I have lived and groused here now for longer than not), stodgy old Richmond Virginia, seems on the verge of losing two of its cooler retail institutions - to the rising tide of electronic mail order, thrift and convenience. As Gillian Welch sings, "someone hit the big score/ they figured it out..." - bloody hell!
Plan 9 Records is going the way of all independent music stores. They are barely staying afloat by selling used DVDs CDs and collectible vinyl albums, who knows for how much longer though - nobody seems to buy new CDs anymore, certainly not from a place with walls and a ceiling instead of only windows - unless it's stubborn old fools like me -
{The Calcination of Scout Niblett, 16.99, ouch (and I illegally immorally downloaded it first, to see if I liked it)!}
Seems like they could still stay in business by moving to a smaller store, perhaps not in the prohibitively high-rent Carytown district, and by becoming more of a boutique for collectors.
(Of course they are one of the reasons why Carytown became a highly-desirable retail area in the first place...)
A terrible development for people like me, who actually enjoy wasting their time browsing through the stacks, searching for treasure amid the trash, rather than simply searching-finding-pointing-clicking-done. Similarly terrible for everyone in Richmond, because Plan 9 in their heyday were a great asset to the community, sponsoring all sorts of cultural events and local causes, helping to raise everyone's boats - I have yet to see amazon's logo anywhere around here.
I'm not completely innocent of record store murdering - many times I've taken advantage of the quick fix of amazon, and the joy of downloading for free some rarity that I would have to wait years to run across if trusting to blind luck, even with the best stocked used bin of a bricks and mortar store.
Also, much of the music I'm interested in these days is on the fringe of what's left of the Music Industry, I will usually order a new release directly from the artist's website or private record label - Plan 9 wouldn't even be able to stock such things, or even special order them, even in their salad days.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Also on the ropes, my favorite funky mom'n'pop video store The Video Fan. The cause of its demise is a better business model, supposedly, called Netflix. You may have heard of it. Cheap, efficient, no late fees, huge selection. Streaming video over the internet too. The stricture of a mere two night rental just doesn't suit our schedules. And I suppose people are lazy and stressed and feel that they have no time to travel a few blocks and look around in a store, when they can just pick something online during an idle moment at work - so they have gone for this in a big way. Even my friends who love movies, and live three blocks away from the store.
Once again, I like to browse in actual shops, and I enjoy acting on whims of the moment - not ordering a film days or weeks in advance. The VFs selection while not encyclopedic, is pretty darn huge, and skewed to cult-foreign-oddball films, which is my meat. The people who work there are friendly and know their stuff, and will offer you fresh popped popcorn, opinions, jokes, doggie biscuits too. You will often run into folks you know, spontaneous conversations will crop up, you know it is just a nice place to go and be for a few minutes, a couple of times a week. It makes me feel like I live somewhere where there's a there. There.
Apparently there are only a small handful of independently owned video stores left in the entire country - in places like Portland, Seattle - where the citizens value alternative weirdness and local ownership. I'm sorry that Richmond seems inclined to lose this for the sake of a very slight convenience equation. We have became that much less cool.
If I were living in the burbs, or out in the country, I would lovingly dote on my Netflix account; and when the Video Fan finally goes under, I will no doubt be signed up and busily exploring the films of Satyajit Ray, Paul Cox, silent films, some music videos that the VF didn't have the space or budget to stock...until then I'm a refusenik.
Photos of endangered storefronts forthcoming...thought I'd post while it's hot.
(Last night rented "Citizen Ruth" on VHS - Laura Dern is great fun to watch in this - I'm on a Alexander Payne/writer-director kick since seeing "About Schmidt" recently)
Plan 9 Records is going the way of all independent music stores. They are barely staying afloat by selling used DVDs CDs and collectible vinyl albums, who knows for how much longer though - nobody seems to buy new CDs anymore, certainly not from a place with walls and a ceiling instead of only windows - unless it's stubborn old fools like me -
{The Calcination of Scout Niblett, 16.99, ouch (and I illegally immorally downloaded it first, to see if I liked it)!}
Seems like they could still stay in business by moving to a smaller store, perhaps not in the prohibitively high-rent Carytown district, and by becoming more of a boutique for collectors.
(Of course they are one of the reasons why Carytown became a highly-desirable retail area in the first place...)
A terrible development for people like me, who actually enjoy wasting their time browsing through the stacks, searching for treasure amid the trash, rather than simply searching-finding-pointing-clicking-done. Similarly terrible for everyone in Richmond, because Plan 9 in their heyday were a great asset to the community, sponsoring all sorts of cultural events and local causes, helping to raise everyone's boats - I have yet to see amazon's logo anywhere around here.
I'm not completely innocent of record store murdering - many times I've taken advantage of the quick fix of amazon, and the joy of downloading for free some rarity that I would have to wait years to run across if trusting to blind luck, even with the best stocked used bin of a bricks and mortar store.
Also, much of the music I'm interested in these days is on the fringe of what's left of the Music Industry, I will usually order a new release directly from the artist's website or private record label - Plan 9 wouldn't even be able to stock such things, or even special order them, even in their salad days.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Also on the ropes, my favorite funky mom'n'pop video store The Video Fan. The cause of its demise is a better business model, supposedly, called Netflix. You may have heard of it. Cheap, efficient, no late fees, huge selection. Streaming video over the internet too. The stricture of a mere two night rental just doesn't suit our schedules. And I suppose people are lazy and stressed and feel that they have no time to travel a few blocks and look around in a store, when they can just pick something online during an idle moment at work - so they have gone for this in a big way. Even my friends who love movies, and live three blocks away from the store.
Once again, I like to browse in actual shops, and I enjoy acting on whims of the moment - not ordering a film days or weeks in advance. The VFs selection while not encyclopedic, is pretty darn huge, and skewed to cult-foreign-oddball films, which is my meat. The people who work there are friendly and know their stuff, and will offer you fresh popped popcorn, opinions, jokes, doggie biscuits too. You will often run into folks you know, spontaneous conversations will crop up, you know it is just a nice place to go and be for a few minutes, a couple of times a week. It makes me feel like I live somewhere where there's a there. There.
Apparently there are only a small handful of independently owned video stores left in the entire country - in places like Portland, Seattle - where the citizens value alternative weirdness and local ownership. I'm sorry that Richmond seems inclined to lose this for the sake of a very slight convenience equation. We have became that much less cool.
If I were living in the burbs, or out in the country, I would lovingly dote on my Netflix account; and when the Video Fan finally goes under, I will no doubt be signed up and busily exploring the films of Satyajit Ray, Paul Cox, silent films, some music videos that the VF didn't have the space or budget to stock...until then I'm a refusenik.
Photos of endangered storefronts forthcoming...thought I'd post while it's hot.
(Last night rented "Citizen Ruth" on VHS - Laura Dern is great fun to watch in this - I'm on a Alexander Payne/writer-director kick since seeing "About Schmidt" recently)
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