On our trip to Maine this summer, EF, Brent, and I drove past Holy Cross Catholic Church in South Portland, and the mural on the front was striking. It turns out parishioners didn’t love it at first and even had a tree planted to hide it; then in 2020, the tree was taken down.
Artist John Laberge was commissioned to create the piece, and the steel-and-ceramic mural was installed in 1980. This interview with him is helpful. In part:
Here he is, he’s on the verge of dying, on the verge of letting go — and he’s nailed on the cross. He’s in extreme pain. For people to think that should be a pretty Christ — they really [don’t get] the whole idea of crucifixion…
…The committee I worked with said they did not want a pretty aesthete. They wanted a working-class Christ, a regular Joe. The original [committee] and myself were satisfied with the final product but I didn’t give it an A+ — but as it stands, and lasts longer and longer, my admiration for it grows.
Brent and I made a visit to The Broad in Los Angeles this summer — a big treat was getting to experience Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Room, which they let you enter alone (or in very small groups if you prefer) for just one minute, with a purchased ticket. From The Broad:
Yayoi Kusama’s immersive installation Infinity Mirrored Room—The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away (2013) is a mirrored room with LED lights that you can physically enter for up to one minute.
“Infinity Mirrored Room + General Admission” tickets include access to Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Room and our third floor galleries, which include:
Takashi Murakami Featured Installation Jean-Michel Basquiat Expansive Presentation Andy Warhol Expansive Presentation Roy Lichtenstein Expansive Presentation
Lots of Jeff Koons pieces in the collection
I’ve seen Koons’ Tulips twice now — the other time was at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas:
Jim Beam — J.B. Turner Train was the centerpiece of Jeff Koons’s gallery debut of the Luxury and Degradation series. The works focus on the discord between the marketing of alcohol as a luxury product associated with leisure, sex, and sophistication, and the often destructive, ugly, and unintended effects of drinking to excess. The outside appearance and promise of something are in opposition to its interior life and meaning. Cast in stainless steel, each of the seven train cars holds a fifth of bourbon. Koons takes Jim Beam’s collectible decanter train set and turns what the company promoted as a rare collectible object into a truly rare luxury object: an artwork. Inside, however, is the same common spirit available at every liquor store.
Lots of Warhol.
Single Elvis
Twenty Jackies
Ed Ruscha:
Ellsworth Kelly’s Green Blue Red:
A good amount of Basquiat too, including:
Some people were *loving* the Robert Therrien Under the Table, but for whatever reason it just felt like it should have been at the Ashley Furniture HQ. Just not the biggest Therrien fan (it’s me, I like minis better.) — but if you are, The Broad is having a special exhibit of his works going on right now.
Barbara Kruger
Cindy Sherman
Takashi Murakami, Clone X x Takashi Murakami – Astronaut
Catfish Springs (which started as a bbq restaurant a couple or so years ago) in Tuscumbia, Alabama is selling them — so they’d be maybe the newest restaurant in the region to include slugburgers.
Hugh Baby’s — pictured above — which started in Nashville and now has offers slugburgers on Fridays only.
And I just noticed that Emmymade has been making these on her videos for years and so many people in the comments jump to: “so these are just fried slices of meatloaf?” Which, absolutely not! But now that I think about it, kinda? Minus the egg and whatnot and stuff on top, I guess, if ground beef and a filler makes you think meatloaf…
Explanation of a slugburger on the menu at Borroum’s in Corinth MS
Joey Chestnut won the eating contest in 2017 with 35 slugburgers in ten minutes.
Now my hometown place, The Busy Bee — I used to watch them take a scoop from a bucket on a barstool and put them in the oil — this is 2009 before a tornado forced them to rebuild. Not the most elegant way to make food, right? But this is how it was done there forever…
Brent says that in Arab, Alabama, his parents would have slugurgers — “Frank Green burgers” — at the Arab Sandwich Shop. Cullman used to have not only the Busy Bee for this these, but they were so popular we had our own C.F. Penn’s for a while too. The only Penn’s open now is the one in Decatur, Alabama.
A few visitors have walked in and promptly left, or come reluctantly and stayed for hours. One man walked in, gazed up and burst into tears. “That apron looked like my mother’s,” he said.
If you can summon memories of your great- or grandmother sporting an apron those are likely some powerful recollections.
My friend Mary Abigail gave me this apron several years ago — different Jewish holidays on one side and Shabbat on the other. I’ve never seen or heard of one like it:
As much as I love bringing positive, sweet stories, I do want to mention this week a story about the country store in Collbran, Alabama.
It has a really sad history; I first ran across it when I was researching to have a historic marker put up to memorialize William L Moore, who in 1963 was walking from Chattanooga to Jackson, Mississippi to hand-deliver a letter he’d written for Governor Ross Barnett, telling him to end segregation.
The LA Times did a great job on writing about this in 2002 and the article is available here.
One day, Av drove me up to Collbran so I could see the store yet again to figure out if the historic marker would be more appropriate at here where Moore was last seen with other men (including Floyd Simpson) having a tense interaction, or farther down the road where Moore’s life was taken.
It was such a terrific surprise to see that, between my visit one and two, a historic marker had been put up by someone else working on the same project.
A gentleman who had an innocent personal connection to the incident got the job done wonderfully (and NPR did an absolutely beautiful piece about this), which was really so much better than it coming from me.
Not nearly enough resources have the text of William L Moore’s letter to Gov Barnett, which he never got to hand-deliver as he’d wished. Bill Moore wanted everyone to have it — he mimeographed it and gave copies out freely. Here it is:
Dear Governor Barnett: I have always had a warm place in my heart for Mississippi, the land of my childhood and my ancestors. I dislike the reputation this state has acquired as being the most backward and most bigoted in the land. Those who truly love Mississippi must work to change this image.
Frankly, I do not know which is worse — to be raised to believe that one should be happy to live in poverty and die twice as fast as the white man and to be told to reject the ideas of those who tell you democracy means the right to vote whatever the color of one’s skin; or is it worse to be raised as members of a sort of ‘master race’ which fights a losing battle to preserve injustice with barbaric laws and police state methods.
The British were wise in that they dissolved their empire before they were forced to do so. Consequently, the governments of countries such as India and Nigeria are stable and friendly and democratic. The French, on the other hand, held onto their empire as long as they could. Thus the bitter strife in Laos, Vietnam, Algeria.
The end of Mississippi colonialism is fast approaching. The only question is whether you will help it to end in a friendship like the British, or try to hold onto what is already lost, creating bitterness and hatred, as did the French. For our sake, as tell as the Negro’s, I hope you will decide to try the British way.
The white man cannot be truly free himself until all men have their rights. Each is dependent upon the other. Do not go down in infamy as one who fought democracy for all which you have not the power to prevent.
Be gracious. Do more than is immediately demanded of you. Make certain that when the Negro gets his rights and his vote that he does not in the process learn to treat the white man with the contempt and disdain that, unfortunately, some of us now treat him.
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Mick Jagger by Andy Warhol at the New Orleans Museum of Art, from a 2024 visit
Thanks to the generosity of longtime Doubleday art director Diana Klemin, the collection now includes three unpublished picture-book manuscripts, dozens of original works, and prints illustrated by Warhol. Klemin, who had gifted several pieces to de Grummond over the years, left her entire collection of books and art to the center when she passed.
The Frank Lloyd Wright home, Fountainhead, purchased by the Mississippi Museum of Art will be undergoing preservation and an opening date to the public has not yet been set.
Broken Obelisk by Barnett Newman, from a 2021 visit
The Rothko Chapel in Houston dedicated its new peace and reflection garden in November.
The Tupelo Hardware in downtown Tupelo, where Gladys bought Elvis is first guitar, has closed.
Here’s love for the Sprott Store, which Walker Evans photographed in 1935 or 1936. I tried to line up, without much success, the pic he took and the one I took of it in 2006:
The inside of the store on a 2009 visit we made:
The Fosters Feed and Garden Store, in Fosters AL here in 2020 — almost positive I’ve seen a great WPA-era pic of it with the distinctive trim
Thank you for enjoying these country stores with me this week! We’ll do some recipes next week and a museum trip too…
This Week’s Various will be posted tomorrow (Friday).
xoxo!
There’s a few store/sandwich kind of places around, and extra points if they host live music — Ike’s Amish Depot in Ethridge TN:
in the back:
My favorite-favorite-favorite right now is Graves Grocery in Laceys Spring, Alabama — live music a couple of times a week I think (I’ve caught them on a couple of Wednesday mornings on my way to/from Huntsville).
The good works the owner, Pam, does — she’s incredible. Incredible. More about that especially under “community hub” in this older al.com article.
From the article: Graves has hosted free movie nights where she projects a movie on the side of the building and invites folks to bring their lawn chairs. There have been quilting classes, pottery classes and Mom’s Heart Bible studies.
This summer, Friday nights in June were reserved for free outdoor concerts. Local acts set up on the porch of the store and performed for the community, who gathered in their lawn chairs in the parking lot.
…and there are free Thursday suppers for the community.
Simmons-Wright General Store from 1884 in Toomsuba, Mississippi feels like (especially the part upstairs with the new-old-stock shoes from decadesssss ago) it’s bordering on museum-worthy:
Missing the Jefferson Country Store in Jefferson, Alabama — it closed last year and they really did have hoop cheese and rag bologna:
If you know of other (open!) spots like these…old general stores with sandwiches/cafes, maybe live music, community events…please email me your favorites! Would love to hear and add to the list. xoxo!
The Cohn Brothers Store in Lorman, Mississippi is known as the Old Country Store now, run by Mr D. We’ve been visiting here since it was still a store — this is from a 1999 visit:
and have been coming back now that Mr D runs it as a restaurant:
Garden and Gun did an article last summer, Seven Southern Country Stores with Retro Appeal: These small-town mercantiles offer up an extra scoop of nostalgia along with sugar, milk, the occasional cast-iron skillet or pallet of lumber—and everything in between.
