<![CDATA[Quail Bell: Imaginary, Nostalgic, Otherworldly - The Real]]>Sun, 20 May 2012 20:20:29 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[Buy. Donate. Support.]]>Sun, 20 May 2012 19:49:36 -0800http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/3/post/2012/05/buy-donate-support.htmlDigital Doodad
The QB Crew is movin' on up. Don't you want to be able to say you contributed to that movement? With plans in the works for a re-vamped website, additional daily content, a brick-and-mortar studio open to the public, a print anthology, and a fashion show as a high-profile historic location, The QB Crew has a lot to do. Part of that to-do list includes fundraising. 

Do you want a bigger, better, and badder Quail Bell? Please support The QB Crew by purchasing a digital download of Quail Bell Express: Issue One (Josephine Stone Edition). You won't regret it, fledglings!
]]><![CDATA[Satire: How to Make Love to a Centaur (3)]]>Sun, 20 May 2012 19:41:39 -0800http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/3/post/2012/05/satire-how-to-make-love-to-a-centaur-3.htmlTip #2: How to Make Love to a Centaur
By Paisley Hibou
QuailBellMagazine.com

Always bring at least one bunch of grapes into the bedroom. Centaurs love grapes--and they'll do anything for a taste. Translation: You automatically play the dominant role, no questions asked. Bacchus can tell you all about it. (That's what that scene in "Fantastia" was really about.)
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Check back over the coming weeks as we reveal more tips for how to make love to a centaur.
]]><![CDATA[Luna Lark Speaks: Musings of a Fairy Punk]]>Sun, 20 May 2012 19:14:00 -0800http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/3/post/2012/05/luna-lark-speaks-musings-of-a-fairy-punk12.htmlThe First Opera
By Luna Lark
QuailBellMagazine.com
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“L'Orphée” marked my first opera—a beautiful tale that swept me away with tides of excellent execution. I was expecting Greco-Roman and I got mid-century, but I can hardly say the surprise disappointed me. Based upon Cocteau's 1950 film, “L'Orphée” transported me to a Beatnik's world of visual simplicity and philosophical complexity. But this is not a review and it's certainly not a critique. It's a tale or, better yet, an entry in a dream diary.

You see, “L'Orpée” was my first opera. As much as I try to remember the details of the performance and the production design, the memory evanesces into the calming mist of a 'first.' The specifics of a 'first' may be foggy, but you know more than anything how a 'first' felt. And my first opera felt magical and awkward...but mostly magical.

I went with my friend, a history major and a Southern girl with generations of 'Southernness' to her name. She seemed a fitting companion for a show at the Virginia Opera. We took the bus from Virginia Commonwealth University's Monroe Park Campus because that's what you do when you're young, poor, and in heels. Driving and paying for parking was not an option; neither was walking those couple miles in stilettos. Everything we did after getting off the bus would be done in true BCBG style, we promised.

The day had started with an impending sense of rain. Clouds cast a pall over Richmond and the humidity teased my curls. I had driven from home to campus and managed to wiggle into a free parking spot. After dashing into the VCU library for what I had hoped would be a bathroom break, my friend texted me. She was at the bus stop. I sighed and heaved up my purse and camera bag from the floor of the library lobby. I watched the bus roll up to the stop, exactly the place I had to be in thirty seconds.

In my haste to reach those double-doors in a timely manner, I almost (literally) stumbled into my friend. Instead I (figuratively) stumbled into her. She sported her grandmother's tweed blazer and a cloche hat, both truly from 'back in the day.' Still wobbling from my run, I stopped long enough to push a few words out of my mouth. Together, my friend and I walked to the bus, ankles not yet caving in from the height of our impractical shoes.

We boarded the bus and sat down. The driver, just then on his union break, made no hurry to move. Meanwhile, I was still panting from my sprint. Outside of the bus, campus was quiet. It was Sunday, a day of rest for all but scholarship and graduate students. When the bus finally lurched forward, my friend and I grew giddy. Release the doves!

As we inched block by block, our thoughts grew more disjointed. The topics of conversation do not matter now; what does is that our clocks had stopped. The more anxious we became, the farther away the opera seemed. We were experiencing some kind of time warp. The opera would not take place for another week or month or year. Better put on the spacesuits because the Virginia Opera was perhaps light years away.

In our chatter, my friend and I missed our stop. We darted off the bus at the Medical College of Virginia, 4 or 5 blocks from our destination. Amongst a spattering of sleet, clinging to a shared umbrella, we shimmied through the elements. Though miserable, we were also determined. We would step into that theater looking glamorous. Maybe not entirely dry, but glamorous. 

Eons later, a spectacled woman with a coral smile greeted us at the ticket window. We had made it and our hair was only slightly damp. Soon our hearts would swell with the sound of orchestral music.

After claiming our tickets, we checked our coats, pleased to be served by the type of mild-mannered old man of bent back and turtle's grin that you imagine checks coats at every opera house in the world. His name was probably Eddie.

Almost immediately after we settled into our seats, the show began. They had been waiting for us, but since we had now sat down and crossed our legs, there was no reason for them to wait any longer.

I hardly believed it when intercession arrived. As the lights dimmed, I assumed it was a transitional effect and that the spectacle would resume shortly thereafter. Instead, my friend and I realized it was intercession. Other people popped up. We decided to putter around the lobby in search of sustenance. I went for a Shirley Temple, while my friend went for candy and booze. We tried to sip cooly like the elegant older women who surrounded us. But we could not resist gab. Again, we chatted our way nearly past a deadline. 

A bell rang.

“Intercession must be over,” I gasped, staring in horror at my barely touched Shirley Temple. Curly Top's face seemed to cackle at me from the pool of red drink.

My friend and I exchanged a glance and started chugging our drinks. I tried to ignore the sting of bubbles rippling through my nose. That's not to mention the elegant older women who cooly placed their unfinished drinks on the bar.

“You can drink inside the theater,” an usher said, practically on the verge of giggling.

I was so relieved and excited that I half-sighed, half-spat out my Shirley Temple. At this point, my cup was 9/10 empty, but I brought it with me, anyway. I was young, I was poor, and, yes, I was in heels. My friend and I hustled back to the mezzanine. 

The second act swiftly started.

When the show ended, we were in a daze. Gathering up our things, we trudged back to the bus, ending the evening with supper at a diner where all the waitresses wore low-cut camisoles and fishnets. When the half-heated fried chicken and refrozen crab cake arrived, we knew the dream had ended.
]]><![CDATA[Community Art: Project Pony (A box)]]>Sun, 20 May 2012 17:40:58 -0800http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/3/post/2012/05/community-art-project-pony-a-box.htmlA box full of ponies!
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On February 17th, we announced our first community sculpture project, Project Pony. Since we last updated you on March 8th, we haven't acquired many maned friends since then. Could you please help us make our vision of an awesome sculpture of ponydom a reality? What you see pictured above is all we have. Mail us your pony, horse, unicorn, and pegasus toys, and we'll love you forever! Here's our address:
Quail Bell Magazine
c/o Christine Stoddard
P.O. Box 4844
Richmond, VA 23220
United States

Thank you so much for your interest and help thus far. And, remember, just because you don't have some plastic ponies lying around your house doesn't mean you can't contribute to the effort:


Again, thank you for believing in community art and, above all, pony power!
]]><![CDATA[Make a Photo Comic #1]]>Sun, 20 May 2012 17:29:06 -0800http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/3/post/2012/05/make-a-photo-comic-1.htmlNo art skills required.
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What do you want this dove to say? Vote! The QB Crew will take the winning response and turn it into a photo comic. Help make art without even removing a lens cap!
]]><![CDATA[WV, not WB]]>Sun, 20 May 2012 17:15:12 -0800http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/3/post/2012/05/wv-not-wb.htmlColonial Williamsburg, QB-style
By QB Camera Eye
QuailBellMagazine.com

You took fourth grade American history, but that was easily a decade (or more) ago. Your recollection of Colonial Williamsburg probably includes hazy images of mobcaps and forlorn women churning butter. Well, The QB Crew took a trip to Williamsburg, Virginia recently and decided to give you a taste of the 'burg in a new, hipper way. Actually, make that the hipster way. Instead of WV, think WB. 

Here's what Williamsburg, Virginia would look like if we had plucked up a photographer from Williamsburg, Brooklyn and told him to give us a few toy film camera shots:
(Feel free to crack open a PBR and listen to a Bright Eyes vinyl now.)
]]><![CDATA['Like' us on Facebook]]>Sun, 20 May 2012 16:27:18 -0800http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/3/post/2012/05/like-us-on-facebook.htmlOur FB Presence
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Facebook, like Quail Bell, is an online community. The primary difference between FB & QB is that there's nothing esoteric about FB. It's totally mainstream. Everybody uses Facebook. Even rebels use Facebook. The QB Crew bets that if medieval princesses had had Facebook, they would've used it, too. But since medieval princesses aren't around, The QB Crew uses FB for them.

Here's where you can find us on the world's most popular social media website:
Now that you know where to go, you have no excuse not to 'like' us. So get clicking, fledglings! Who knows? You might even win a prize or two.
]]><![CDATA[Quail Bell(e) in the Making: Patience Salgado]]>Sun, 20 May 2012 16:06:18 -0800http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/3/post/2012/05/quail-belle-in-the-making-patience-salgado.htmlPatience is nice (really).
By Christine Stoddard
QuailBellMagazine.com
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Virginia truly is for lovers! For Richmond blogger, Patience Delgado, cataloguing good deeds is a year-round endeavor. With every post, the so-called “Kindness Girl” inspires her online readers to fight for goodness across the world.

Patience started her upbeat blog in 2006, after a coffee-loving friend died. Shortly thereafter, Patience and her friends left $1,000 worth of Starbucks gift cards all around Richmond’s Carytown shopping district in honor of the dearly departed. 

Since then, Patience has prompted readers to leave notes of gratitude for their garbage men, go caroling with ukuleles, and even raise $14,000 in a single week for harassed LGBT and Jewish organizations. Since fall 2011, she has also contributed to The Huffington Post’s “Good News” section every week.

What a do-gooder!
KindnessGirl.com
]]><![CDATA[Yummy Folk Food: Pho Soup]]>Sun, 20 May 2012 16:01:04 -0800http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/3/post/2012/05/yummy-folk-food-pho-soup.htmlGimme Vietnamese Garnishes
By QB Chef
QuailBellMagazine.com
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LiveHappierAndHealthier.com
Need an alternative to chicken broth soup to blast away those spring allergies? Vietnamese folk cuisine has the answer: phở. Chockfull of noodles and slabs of meat, pho soup ranges from mild to super-hot. Simmering beef bones or oxtail with spices, like cinnamon, fennel seed, and clove, produces the soup’s distinctive broth. But the flavor fest does not end there! Often some combination of onions, mint, soy bean sprouts, or coriander garnishes the soup. Fans of the picante might also request Thai chili peppers. For further richness, ask for extra fatty broth sweetened with scallions.
]]><![CDATA[Hey, we're real!]]>Sat, 19 May 2012 20:44:39 -0800http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/3/post/2012/05/hey-were-real.html
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