Day 250/365 - Modern Day Drive-In

The Business Improvement District in my neighborhood stages an outdoor film festival every summer. They erect a movie screen on a grassy sward in the courtyard of an office complex and show movies for free every Monday after dark. Last summer they showed all the James Bond movies. The theme for this summer is superhero movies and tonight's show was Superman II, so I decided it was high time I put in my first appearance at this year's festival.

Superman II is my favorite of the Superman movies despite all the logic holes, such as:

-- Why, when the villains drop the flags after attacking the lunar expedition, do they immediately fall to the surface of the moon rather than drifing down slowly?
-- When Superman uses his laser vision while in his Clark Kent disguise, why doesn't he burn holes through his glasses?
-- After being stripped of his superpowers, how do Clark and Lois make it back to civilization from his remote Fortress of Solitude?
-- How does Superman get his powers back after his mom tells him the process of removing them is permanent?
-- And just how does his amnesia-inducing superkiss manage to neatly erase Lois' memory of his secret identity?

In the final analysis though, who really cares? It's still a fun movie and seeing it makes me feel like a kid again, just like sitting outside to watch a movie makes me think back to when we'd go to the drive-in theater when I was little. That's worth overlooking a few gaffes.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 164/365 - Steppin' Out

The Carlyle Club in Alexandria, Virginia is a jazz (mostly big band and swing) bar and restaurant modeled on the dinner clubs of the 1930s and 1940s. It's also a great night out and so that's where I went tonight to catch the performance by Doc Scantlin and His Imperial Palms Orchestra. The IPO is a modern big band playing music from the 1920s through the 1940s fronted by bandleader, vocalist, and connoisseur of bad jokes Doc Scantln.

The band also features the vocal stylings of the Girlfriends and the bubbly and irrepressible Chou Chou, a self-described blonde floozy chanteuse-y. The Girlfriends provide both backing and lead vocals, individually and in collective harmony a la the Andrews Sisters. Chou Chou, who looks like a buxom Gwen Stefani and sounds like Betty Boop and Marilyn Monroe (woof!), always steals the show and vamps the crowd, both in delightful fashion.

I'd been to the Carlyle Club once before, also to catch Doc and the IPO. That time I had dinner and sat at one of the tables near the stage. The food was fairly good as I recall. Tonight, however, I opted for a seat at the bar and had the chance to mingle a bit with some of the members of the band before the show and during the break as we got caught up with the NCAA tournament action on the flat screen.

Doc's band and the Carlyle Club itself are both well worth checking out. They typically play the Club about once a month and their set runs approximately two hours and involves lots of laughs, good music, good times, and opportunities for dancing (by persons other than me).

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Twice on Sunday Bonus Photo - Academical Village

This week's bonus photo from my archives is a view from the rear portico of the Rotunda on the grounds of the University of Virginia. This portion of the university was designed by UVA's founder Thomas Jefferson, who pictured the school as an "academical village" with students living on one side of the lawn and professors and classrooms on the other. I took this shot when I went down to Charlottesville last February.

(Taken with my Nikon D80)