Terroir continued
A couple of emailed comments from people who aren't comfortable with the comments field:
why I love Richmond: Where else can you see the vanity plate: S8N BLOS
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Off the top of my head & recycling some thoughts I’ve had elsewhere…
Richmond is a great city if you can find just a few people who share your weltanschauung to hang out with. The same can be said of just about anywhere, I’m sure…but it’s a little easier to find those people in Richmond. I think.
You’ve written before about the insular nature of the Richmond “scene” (ugh, it doesn’t feel good even to type that). Sometimes I think that’s a plus. Thing is, Richmond is a hipster town but in a very fucked-up and insular way. Richmond hipsters pay no attention to what’s hip and happening across this great land...only to what’s hip and happening among their circle of sixteen friends. Richmond continues to act as if the rest of the country doesn’t even exist. Sometimes that’s good (as much as I joke about hipsters in white belts...nobody wears a fucking white belt in Richmond). But generally, it’s to the detriment of the city. It’s good for a city to have a population of youngsters wanting to be au current. It stokes creativity and boosts the economy. Instead, you have bands like LOW playing before twenty people, bands like RADIO 4 barely being able to drown out the conversation at the bar, and THE KILLS playing an all-ages, afternoon show while people help the opening bands coil their guitar cords. And still...nobody gives two shits or a saddle.
Still, somehow I like Richmond. When the light is just right, and you can spend a day doing nothing so productive as picking up some used books or old records and walking around, you can easily fake yourself into thinking life here is just like a scene from “Slackers.” Again, that can be a good or a bad thing.
Richmond is a big fake-out. Approach the city from the South, and it rises mightily above the James. It looks really impressive. Just don’t try to find a cup of coffee after 5:00 p.m. on a weekday, or anytime on the weekend.
It’s ghostly. It’s haunted by failure. It has the scent of greatness constantly eluded. If you’re halfway interesting, you’ll know you’re always among the most interesting people in the city.
Richmond is the city bands stop to take a piss in after playing The Black Cat, and before playing the Cat’s Cradle.
posted by Andrew Beaujon at 21:59
2 Comments:
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If you are looking to the "hipster" crowd for stimulation in Richmond, expect disappointment. Sure, if you want to talk about the biz, the man or the plight of how much this town sucks, then by all means, pursue coffee shop intellectual patter...a la why don't national bands play here?
Popularity, Music, Bell-bottoms, these things are cyclical. Who would have thought of Virginia Beach as an east coast hip - hop mecca ten years ago? Yet, that strip mall of a beach is having its musical day in the sun.
Following, a short list to awaken your inner Richmonder:
1. Urban archaelogy- After every flood, or even a heavy rain, artifacts emerge from the hills of the East End/Church Hill and the banks of the river. Gorgeous scenery, and if you are an early riser, you'll meet the old-timers who have explored Richmond for decades.
2. Horsepen Road and its flanking neighborhood of VietnaMexico. Food, inexpensive produce, and Asian coffeshop culture.
3. Blackbird- a division of the VCU creative writing program- web site updated with current authors' work and subsequent events, which are usually free. Also, UVA and the New Virginia Review.
4. My favorite local character: Gloria, works nearly daily at the Kroger in Carytown;always Sunday mornings. Epitomizes the beer hall socialist work ethic, a lusty engagement of hands-on love in every task: she is present,engaged, a Luddite of the 21st century working amongst the machines. (Gloria is unaware of my admiration)
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