Making Harmony

Undiluted dignity + timely collaboration = harmony (at least, for a while).

The Greater Good as Nostalgia?

The Constitution's first 10 amendments are known as the Bill of Rights; it mostly is a list of the rights of an individual. Thus, among other things the Bill of Rights appears to recognize that protecting every person's dignity is worthwhile. 

Yet, "majority rules" is at the heart of democracy; as a principle it appears to recognize that what's seen as best for the community is sometimes more important than any one individual's rights and desires. 

 

As those two basic points of view often conflict with one another, society needs governments to serve the greater good. It needs laws and courts to establish guidelines and absolutes. If you steal your neighbor's car and get caught you will be punished and you can't keep the car. 

 

As well, society has customs and it had standards of morality. However, in the current age, millions of conservatives seem to think that caring for one's neighbor is old hat. 

Moreover, the MAGA team appears to believe that most liberals are only pretending to care so much about the commonweal, because no one really cares more about humanity than they care about the satisfying the every desire of good ol' Number One. Therefore, when Democrats want policies that are designed to benefit the health of the community Trumpists call it, "just politics."

It says here that Trump's January 6th terrorists and their ilk view having a sensible agenda, designed to serve the greater good for society, as nostalgia. As a style that ended when Obama left the White House. 

With the abrupt arrival of Trumpism, wasn't the sharp turn to the crazy right the GOP made, in 2015, fueled in great part by gathering and focusing widespread hateful reactions to Obama's two terms in the White House? To put it plainly, reactions to having endured eight years of a Black president. 

As Biden likes to quip, "This isn't your father's Republican Party." 

In 2023, that old saw packs more punch.    

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Words and Art by F.T. Rea

BIOGRAPH TIMES: Repertory Cinema

First package of excerpts of BIOGRAPH TIMES. 

Edited for submission.

BIOGRAPH TIMES: Repertory Cinema

by F.T. Rea

1971: On what I remember as a bright morning, it was in early July of 1971, I went to a construction site on the north side of the 800 block of West Grace Street. Mostly, it was a big hole in the orange dirt between two old brick houses.

A friend had tipped me off that she’d been told the owners of the movie house set to rise from that hole in the ground were looking for a manager who knew something about movies and could write about them. She also said they were hoping to hire a local guy. Chasing the sparkle of that opportunity I met David Levy at the construction site.

Levy was the Harvard-trained attorney who managed the Biograph Theatre at 2819 "M" Street in Washington. D.C. He was one of a group of five men who, in 1967, had opened Georgetown’s Biograph in an old building that had previously been a car dealership. Although none of them had any experience in show biz, they were hip young movie lovers whose timing had been impeccable -- they caught a pop culture wave.

The golden age of repertory cinema was waxing and they happened to be living in what was the pretty good market for their venture. They did well right from the start. With their success in D.C. to encourage them, a few years later the same five, plus one, looked to expand. In Richmond’s Fan District they thought they had found the right neighborhood for a second repertory-style cinema.

At the time I was working for a radio station, WRNL, so I gave Levy a few tapes of some lighthearted radio commercials I had made for what had been successful promotions. About 10 weeks after that first meeting with Levy I was offered the manager’s position for the new Biograph.

At 23-years-old, I could hardly have imagined a better job for me existed. At least not in the Fan District, the neighborhood in which I then lived with my wife, Valerie, and 21-month old daughter, Katey. This happened three years after Richmond Professional Institute and the Medical College of Virginia merged to become Virginia Commonwealth University in 1968. The Biograph's location was adjacent to VCU.

Although a couple of film societies at VCU were active on campus at that time, other than local film critic Carole Kass' History of Motion Pictures class, the school, itself, was offering little in the way of classes about movies and filmmaking. There were a few cool VCU professors who showed artsy short films and occasional features in their classes.

Mostly, independent and foreign features just didn’t come to Richmond, pre-Biograph. The dominant movie theater chain, Neighborhood Theatres, would run a half-dozen, or so, European films in a good year.

*

1972: On the evening of Friday, February 11, 1972, the Biograph adventure got off the ground with a gem of a party. In the lobby the dry champagne flowed steadily, as the tuxedo-wearers and colorfully outfitted hippies mingled happily.

A trendy art show was hanging all over the walls. The local press was out in force to cover what was an important event for that little commercial strip in the northeast edge of Richmond's Fan District. The feature we presented to over 300 invited guests was a delightful French war-mocking comedy — “King of Hearts” (1966); Genevieve Bujold was dazzling opposite the droll Alan Bates.

In the wake of news stories about the party celebrating the Biograph's arrival, the next night we opened for business with a pretty cool double feature: “King of Hearts“ was paired with “A Thousand Clowns“ (1965). Every show sold out.

On the opening night's staff were: cashiers Cathy Chapman and Susan Eskey; ushers Bernie Hall and Chuck Wrenn. A few weeks later Chuck was promoted to assistant manager and Susan Kuney was hired as a third cashier. For the first few months that team smiled and sold the tokens for entry through the turnstile and the buckets of popcorn (slathered with a butter-like product).

The Biograph’s printed schedule, Program No. 1, was heavy on documentaries; it featured the work of Emile de Antonio and D.A. Pennebaker, among others. Also on that first program, which had no particular theme, were several titles by popular European directors, including Michaelangelo Antonioni, Costa-Gavras, Federico Fellini, and Roman Polanski. Like this first edition, each of the next several published programs covered about six weeks and offered mostly double features.

My bosses in D.C. called our style of operation “repertory cinema.” Which, to us, meant a curated mix – a smorgasbord of worthwhile old, new, domestic and foreign flicks.

After the opening flurry of interest in the new movie theater, with long lines to nearly every show, it was surprising to me when the crowds shrank dramatically in the months that followed. Among other things, that suggested to me how important the publicity surrounding the Biograph's opening had been.

As VCU students had been a substantial portion of the theater’s initial crowd the slump was chalked off by the owners to pretty weather, exams and then summer vacation. In that context, the first summer of operation was opened to experimentation aimed at drawing more customers from beyond the immediate neighborhood.

That plan gave me an opportunity to do more with a project my bosses had put me in charge of developing – Friday and Saturday midnight shows. By trial and error Chuck and I learned what sort of movies lent themselves to offbeat promotion and performed well at the box office.

Early midnight show successes were “Night of the Living Dead” (1968), “Yellow Submarine” (1968), “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” (1971), and an underground twin bill of “Chafed Elbows” (1967) and “Scorpio Rising” (1964).

The third member of the midnight show promotion team was Dave DeWitt, who then worked for WGOE-AM. He produced the radio spots. Dave and I happily shared the copy-writing chore. WGOE was a popular daytime station aimed directly at the hippie listening audience.

Dave, Chuck and I came to understand there were two essential elements to promoting midnight shows: Radio spots had to be created and run on WGOE. And at Chuck's urging, I created cartoonish handbills/flyers that were posted on utility poles, bulletin boards and in shop windows in high-traffic locations. Both of those elements needed to show a sense of humor.

*

On September 13, 1972, a George McGovern-for-president benefit was staged at the Biograph. Former Gov. Doug Wilder, then a state senator, spoke. We showed "Millhouse" (1971), a documentary that put President Richard Nixon in a bad light.

Yes, of course, I was warned by scolds – some of them well-meaning – that taking sides in politics was dead wrong for a show business entity in Richmond. Moreover, taking the liberal side only made it worse.

However, the two most active partners who were my bosses, Levy and Rubin (who was a geologist turned artist) were delighted with the notion of doing the benefit. They were used to doing much the same sort of shows up there. So with the full backing of the boys in D.C., I didn't hesitate to reveal my left-leaning stances on matters touching politics.

Also in September “Performance” (1970), a somewhat overwrought but well-crafted musical melodrama -- starring Mick Jagger -- packed the house at midnight three weekends in a row. Then a campy, docu-drama called “Reefer Madness” (1936) sold out four consecutive weekends. We were clearly on a roll.

The midnight shows were going over like gangbusters. To follow “Reefer Madness” what was still a little-known X-rated comedy, “Deep Throat” (1972), was booked as a midnight show. The Georgetown Biograph was already experimenting with playing naughty midnight shows, so we chimed in. In Richmond, we had played a few films – like "Midnight Cowboy" (1969) – that had earned an X-rating, but they had been more artsy than vulgar.

Thus, this was our first step across the line to hardcore porn. As “Deep Throat” ran only an hour, master prankster Luis Buñuel’s surrealistic classic short film (16 minutes), “Un Chien Andalou” (1929), was added to the bill, just for grins. The staff came to refer to it as, "The Dog."

It should be noted that Buñuel’s first film, like "Deep Throat," was also branded as totally obscene in its day. Still, this may have been the first time that particular pair of outlaw flicks ever shared a marquee. A couple of weeks after “Deep Throat” began playing in Richmond, out of the blue, a judge in Manhattan slammed down the gavel and ruled it to be obscene.

Suddenly the national media became fascinated with it. The star of "Deep Throat," Linda Lovelace, appeared on network TV talk shows. Watching Johnny Carson tiptoe around the premise of her celebrated “talent” made for some giggly late-night television in 1972. Thus, we found ourselves on runaway train of a cultural phenomenon. In other cities judges promptly followed the lead of the New York judge and ruled the movie too smutty for their neighbors to see.

A couple of weeks later, in Richmond's Fan District, to be sure of getting in to see the Biograph's midnight show, savvy patrons began showing up as early as 11 p.m. It became the thing to do. Standing in line on the brick sidewalk for the talk-of-the-town midnight show frequently turned into a party. There were nights that parts of the queue resembled a folding-tables, tailgating scene in the RFK parking lot at a 1972 Redskins game.

A band of Jesus Freaks took to gathering on the sidewalk, across the street from the theater, to issue bullhorn-amplified hellfire warnings to the patrons waiting in the midnight show line. Of course, it only boosted West Grace Street's film noir tone. And, don't forget, in this time, the bars in Richmond closed at midnight. Anyway, that's how the midnight show at the Biograph became THE chic after-party destination for the 1972 Holiday Season.

Playing for 17 consecutive weekends, at midnight only, “Deep Throat” and the Buñuel short subject grossed over $30,000. That was more dough than the entire production budget of "Throat," which was America’s first skin-flick blockbuster. Those timely midnight show grosses conveniently made up for the disappointing performance of an eight-week program of venerable European classics at regular hours. It included ten titles by the celebrated Swedish director, Ingmar Bergman.

*

Question: In our first year we had defined "repertory cinema" by what we did; so what had the management team learned from that experience?

Answer: Running split weeks with doubles features, plus midnight shows, sure chewed up a lot of product. We screened over 200 different feature length titles.

Note: Here's a sample of what was the first year's array of double features. The reason for choosing to put 12 of the twin bills we ran in 1972 on the list is that was typical of our calendar style programs published during that year of learning the ropes.

Feb. 21-23, 1972: “Z” (1969) & "The Battle of Algiers" (1966).

Mar. 17-20, 1972: “Gimme Shelter” (1970) & “The T.A.M.I. Show” (1964).

Apr. 12-13, 1972: "Bell Du Jour" (1967) & "A Man and a Woman" (1966).

Apr. 16-18, 1972: “Five Easy Pieces” (1970) & “Drive, He Said” (1971)

June 1-7, 1972: “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” (1969) & "Klute" (1971).

June 14-18, 1972: “Putney Swope” (1969) & "(Warhol's) Trash" (1970).

June 29-July 2, 1972: "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (1964) & “M*A*S*H” (1970).

Sept. 21-24, 1972: "Citizen Kane"(1941) & "The Magnificent Ambersons" (1942).

Oct. 9-11, 1972: “The Third Man” (1949) & "Breathless" (1960).

Nov. 17-19, 1972: “Duck Soup” (1933) & "Horse Feathers" (1932).

Dec. 7-10, 1972: “The Producers”(1968) & “The Graduate (1967).

Jan. 25-28, 1973: "The Conformist" (1971) & “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis” (1971).

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Word count 1,973. 

All rights reserved by the writer, F.T. Rea. 2023.

ftrea9@yahoo.com

BIOGRAPH TIMES: The Devils and the Details

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Chasing Off Haunts

Lee Monument pedestal June 5, 2020 (my photo)

In June of 2020, Richmond's Fan District residents found themselves living at the epicenter of a cultural earthquake. The demonstrations here that erupted in reaction to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis gathered a spirit of outrage and focused it on a local controversy about old statues. Once galvanized, that spirit chased most of the city's Confederate statues off of their pedestals, pronto.  

Like plenty of others who grew up in the shadows of Richmond's Confederate memorials, I had been hoping for a long time the era for tolerating the galling platform of lies that supported the "Lost Cause" viewpoint would end during my lifetime. It was stubborn to the very end, but now it's easy to see that a year ago it ended.

When last summer's self-appointed statue-removers pulled down the Jefferson Davis statue that blatant act was naturally seen as an anti-Confederate statement, as well as an anti-racism statement. However, upon reflection, now it seems to me more was at work. After all, Davis had been atop his imposing Monument Avenue perch since 1907 ... then poof! 

Immediately, folks all over town started marveling at how easily the relic came down. Richmond's most mocked statue was kaput. Then the air cleared and the City began removing Confederate statues. Since last summer's purge of statuary it has been plain to see that those around here still noisily pushing the Lost Cause mindset have now become a wee minority. 

*

However, as it happened, the night before the toppled Davis bronze struck the pavement, a partying mob yanked the Christopher Columbus statue from its plinth in William Byrd Park. The Columbus statue was then dragged down a hill and dumped in the park's Fountain Lake. Still photos and videos of the rude ceremony showed up on Facebook, which documented the rather mirthful tone of the occasion for anyone to see. 

In my view that act of defiance was not just spotlighting Columbus' now tarnished image as a heroic figure in history. Part of what prompted those two unauthorized statue-removals was a rejection of the concept of forced reverence that was in the air. 

A good part of the energy for that rejection seems to be coming from 16-to-35-year-olds who now appear to have developed the modern equivalent of a William Tell attitude. Somewhat like Tell, the 14th century legendary Swiss archer, when they find themselves confronted by today's equivalent of Albrecht Gessler's hat, they simply can't stand being compelled to show it respect. 

Fast-fowarding to more recent times, with his taking-a-knee gesture, Colin Kaepernick was right. Forced reverence should be challenged.   

As a Richmonder who has lived near the Robert E. Lee Monument for a long time and has given the subject of public art some thought, it looks to me like the era in which most people have had a sort of automatic sense of respect for heroic sculpture depicting yesteryear's political celebrities is on it last legs.    

*

In March of 2021, Gov. Ralph Northam signed the law (which passed overwhelmingly in the General Assembly) to banish the statue of Harry F. Byrd from the grounds of Capitol Square. That's the same Harry F. Byrd, who, for decades, ran Virginia's statewide political organization that ruled -- the ultra conservative, anti-union, pro-segregation Byrd Machine.

On June 8, 2021, the Virginia Supreme Court heard arguments aimed at blocking the removal of the statue of Lee, still presiding at Allen Avenue and Monument Avenue. The plaintiffs want the Court to reverse Gov. Ralph Northam’s order to take down that state-owned memorial. The Court's decision seems likely to be revealed soon and we'll see what follows. 

Meanwhile, the Byrd statue was hauled off on July 7th. Which demonstrated that the quake of cultural change which began on the Fan District's streets last year is now being felt by most of Virginia's most powerful politicians. 

What to do with all the statues currently in storage is being studied. It should be and there's no good reason to rush to apply an artificial deadline. When it comes to considering the installation of new statues of whoever happen to be popular today, let's not rush into that either. It's also worth remembering that public art doesn't always have to be a 3-D depiction of a person (usually a man) striking a corny pose.   

*

Hopefully, by now most Richmonders have accepted that because of last summer's cultural earthquake, the city took steps toward a brighter future. Yes, some good things happened. And, in a charged atmosphere with such upheaval underway, many bad things that could have happened, didn't happen. That should be seen as to the city's credit. 

Now a special challenge is facing us: Assuming the Lee statue is eventually removed, there are weighty decisions to be made about the future of the Lee Monument's graffiti-adorned pedestal. That, as well as the surrounding grassy circle that picked up a new name last summer -- the "Marcus-David Peters Circle." 

That site's central role in the story of chasing off Lost Cause and Jim Crow haunts is something worth commemorating. At the very least, that circle could become another of the Fan's distinctive little parks -- a place for a peaceful respite for travelers on foot. Maybe with a fountain? 

Anyway, if we're lucky, wise and creative heads will come upon the right call to make concerning the fate of the pedestal and the circle. And, as we wait to learn what's shaking with the mammoth 131-year-old Lee memorial, we can already say with a smile, "Goodbye Columbus and bye bye, Byrd."    

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Pickled History

When pundits, politicians and poseurs complain about "erasing history," particularly to do with dismantling Richmond's Confederate memorials, what in the world do they mean?

Are they really suggesting that most folks will simply ignore Stonewall Jackson's contributions to history, such as they were, because his equestrian statue on a plinth no longer looms over a busy traffic intersection?

Likewise, when some Virginians say they want history to be taught today, just as it used to be taught in the Commonwealth during their youth," are they talking about the teaching of verifiable truth or warmed-over propaganda? It seems the current brouhaha over Critical Race Theory is mostly about trying, once again, to perpetuate a version of the past that never existed.

Most of my life has been spent living in Richmond's Fan District, which used to be home to four statues on pedestals honoring heroes of the Confederacy. During last summer's statue purge three of them were removed from their pedestals -- Jackson, JEB Stuart and Jefferson Davis. With its now famous, graffiti-covered base, the mammoth Robert E. Lee Monument's fate is still tied up in court. 

To know what it was like in Richmond in the past, we look to old stories handed down, discussions with family and associates, popular culture sources, schooling from lectures and books, etc. Speaking of local history, now I’d like to better understand the slave market business that once thrived in my home town. Until the baseball stadium controversy put a spotlight on that evil truth, most Richmonders I know had no idea how significant that market was before the Civil War. Since that particular aspect of Shockoe Bottom's gnarly history seems to have been rather effectively covered up for generations, wouldn't it be useful to know more the burial of that story?

Accordingly, isn't it about time to shine a new light on how our history books were cooked in the 20th century. A fresh and thorough look needs to be taken at how the truth was systematically processed into Lost Cause fantasies. 

For instance, in 1961, my seventh-grade history book, which was used in all of Virginia's public schools, had this to say at the end of Chapter 29:

Life among the Negroes of Virginia in slavery times was generally happy. The Negroes went about in a cheerful manner making a living for themselves and for those whom they worked. They were not so unhappy as some Northerners thought they were, nor were they so happy as some Southerners claimed. The Negroes had their problems and their troubles. But they were not worried by the furious arguments going on between Northerners and Southerners over what should be done with them. In fact, they paid little attention to those arguments.

Well, in 1961, I had no reason to question that paragraph’s veracity. Baseball was my No. 1 concern in those days. Now, of course, those words of pickled history read quite differently than they did 60 years ago. 

Living through the struggles of the Civil Rights Era, with its bombings, assassinations, marches, sit-ins, boycotts and school-closings, did much to open my mind, to do with reality and fairness about racism. 

However, for me, there was no moment of epiphany, no sudden awareness of how I was growing up in a part of the world that officially denied significant aspects of its past. More than anything else, it took time. Life experience taught me to seek out credible sources and to look more deeply into things, in general.

In 2021, I know that old history book, crafted in the early-1950s by malleable "historians," hired and directed by the General Assembly, was an other essential cog in the machinery that maintained the Jim Crow Era. And since that same history book was used for a long time, that made sure yet another whole generation of Virginians was subjected to what was a traditional, systematic torturing of the truth about the institution of slavery, causes of the Civil War, its aftermath, etc.

Yet, while the aforementioned Virginia history book has been retired, along with other foolish throwback movements, now there are mischievous calls for once again teaching pickled history. Let's make damn sure that isn't done. 

Moreover, regardless of what has been done in the past, it’s our civic duty today to do the right thing in our time. In 2021, Richmonders of all political persuasions should find a way to band together to put truth itself on a pedestal.

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