Virginia Is For Families

It’s Monday Morning and the sun is shining.  The Oscars are in the history books or at least on Youtube for another year.   I was happy to see Monique receive the Best Supporting Actress award.   She gave an awe inspiring performance in Precious.   Sandra Bullock won Best Actress and she really did a fantastic job as well.    Christoph Waltz won Best Supporting Actor for playing a Nazi in a way we have not seen before now.   Maybe Hogan’s Heroes was the starting point for his portrayal.   I don’t know.  But he went way beyond the cartoon character of Colonel Klink.

I didn’t see Jeff Bridges play the worn out country singer so I can’t really comment on his performance.  My favorite JB film will always be the movie Fearless.   The story is one that takes me to a place you may recognize if you read some of the poetry here.  And the music is the very original work of  Henryk Gorecki.   It also takes me to that place.   Right around minute 16 of part one is a good launching pad for “spiritual flight” in my opinion.  Want to  try it out?

Learn to fly. . .

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Play Symphony No. 3  Symphony of Sorrowful Songs  I

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I really must say that the show  was entertaining this year in a way that it often is not.  Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were very funny as they made sure that nobody took themselves too seriously.   It should be an evening about art not politics and it was a success  in this regard although a film about Iraq won many of the major awards including Best Film.

You can argue whether it won because of its artistic merit including the performances of the actors or because it was about the war and our sons and daughters risking life and limb in that awful place.  Or perhaps we can say it was both of these things that brought the voters here.  In any case a record was set for the film with the lowest gross receipts winning Best Film.   That should change now.

More people will see the film.  Could that be a motivation?  Almost everyone has already seen Avatar.  Maybe the movie public needs more than fantasy at this point in time.  There’s some heavy thinking going on. . .

The weather has become much more pleasant in the past few days so I decided to get out and explore Richmond for a few hours. First stop was the Virginia Historical Museum which sits right next to the Museum of Fine Arts and all the construction that is going on there. I was particularly interested in anything they might have on display about desegregation and events fifty years ago here in Richmond. There has been a lot in the news on this anniversary about the lunch counter sit-ins and black college students who were arrested at Woolworth’s Department Store in this city.

I took a few photos including one of Martin Luther King talking to some children and then headed out for the park while I was still thinking about the insanity of trying to force one group of people to sit in a different area from another group of people. There was one instance of a black woman named Irene Morgan who was taking a bus in 1944 from somewhere and going to Baltimore but when she got to Richmond they told her she had to change her seat and go to the back of the bus. She refused and legal action resulted that went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said that Virginia could not impose their rules on interstate travel and she was vindicated.

Good job. So the park was fairly deserted except for a few of my barnyard friends including Dan the donkey and Morgan the goat. A woman was taking her little girl in a stroller around for some fresh air and stopped right in front of Morgan. The child took one look at his wonderful eyes and let out a shriek that caused all the birds in the area to rise into the air.

Oh well. Goat eyes are a little strange. I took a photo of a wonderfully large tree. Lately I have been thinking about trees and their expressiveness. They often seem to be reaching out to the sky as if to embrace the heavens.

And then it was time to go but I decided to call Zachary my younger son who lives in the area and he was receptive to a visit. He wanted to show me an area of downtown that I had never seen and away we went. We journeyed down to the James River and a very long pipe that has a walkway on top of it. There are rapids underneath and train tracks above and many, many herons nearby sitting in the trees a safe distance away.

So I took some photos of all of this and then it really was time to go home and rest. Zachary was driving back to his place and on the way he showed me the new VCU gym which he says is the best college gym on the east coast. Apparently it is a huge playground and a great place to lose calories. And it’s for ALL the students isn’t that great?

And then we rode by his workplace. He has been working in a small restaurant and reports that they really like him because he’s never late, never misses shifts, works hard and keeps his shirt tucked in. He hopes that he will be promoted soon to waiter status and will begin making more money.

He has a lot to learn but he doesn’t have to worry about insane seating arrangements that would break his heart.

Good. So I wished him well and ventured home in my own car dodging pot holes that have opened up everywhere since Snowzilla visited us a few weeks ago. Some of the photos seem to have turned out well. You can click on the photo for a full- screen slide show if you wish. And here’s a little music to go with it.

Play Earth, Wind and Fire – Getaway

And now it’s back to watching the Olympics and sedentary living for awhile.

It was clear and very cold this morning so I decided to take a walk over to the University of Richmond and see what the light was doing with the area around the pond where I normally take photos. Is it a pond? It doesn’t seem large enough to be a lake. But, in any case, it offers some photo opportunities and I would like to thank the U of R folks for putting so much effort into making it an interesting and beautiful place to visit.

So we can walk over there anytime and enjoy it but especially now when they are still discouraging travel by car . U of R is in the process of building a football stadium on campus and it will be really interesting next fall when college football day rolls around. We may have tailgate parties right down the street. People park their cars around here during basketball games because its easier for them after the game is over.

It adds a little something to our neighborhood to be right next to such a dynamic organization and enjoy the opportunity to take classes, see a play or concert or just get some exercise. We have met Dr Ayers who runs the place and is very friendly and interesting guy. He has shown interest in this blog. But then he has shown a lot of interest in what the average person has been saying and doing all the way back to the American Civil War in his fascinating work The Valley of the Shadow Two Communities in the American Civil War.

http://valley.lib.virginia.edu/

Early this morning the moon was setting over the baseball field as the sun rose over the horizon. And the ducks were happy to see someone bring them a little present. So here are the photos and some music to go with them. I recently discovered Nellie McKay and one of her songs keeps replaying itself in my head. Panic may set in soon as I’m sure you will understand if you listen to it. Nellie is a very talented young person. I’m sure she would “fit in” around this campus very well. I would say she writes interesting music but I have just about beat that word to death in this brief post. (Sorry. What’s another word for “interesting” ?)

Play – David