Cotton modules
Lyon MS, 2017.
This Week’s Various
As always, all images unless otherwise noted copyright Deep Fried Kudzu. Like to use one elsewhere? Kindly contact me here.
a Sudduth at the Ogden
The Outsider Art Fair Paris is through October 30, with a large component of online viewing rooms this year. Nice to see larger-scale Sudduth pieces here. Finster’s untitled but known as The Chart of Eternity has list of $32500.
The JC Tate Store (right) in Belfast, Tennessee
The Tennessean on the state’s tourism program, “Discover Tennessee: Trails and Byways” which includes the Ring of Fire Trail. On it: the T.B. Sutton Store in Granville with its “Sutton Ole Time Music Hour”.
Super random:
gourds for sale atop storm shelter, rural Cullman County, Alabama
If you, too, have a hard time coming up with what the Ole Miss mascot is presently, here you go.
Showtime is bringing back Dexter for one more season, Fall 2021. Spoiler alert: if my script gets greenlighted, it’s going to look ugly for people who don’t return their buggies.
Was introduced to the work of Genesis Belanger who’s going to have a show at Rodolph Janssen starting next month (her deviled eggs and that half-shelled peanut, omggg yes) and my thought is that I’d really like for her and Mark Ryden to have a glass of wine together and talk collab.
Universal is building a $1.2B hotel in Biloxi, “the first of Universal Music Group’s recently announced “music-based experiential hotel properties””
The “marble house” in the Bywater
The new Alabama Historical Commission Historic Preservation Map
I haven’t been on FB in years but one of my sweet friends who can’t give it up sends me an almost-daily “never forget why you left FB” text which is always crazy and confirms my wisdom in leaving. Last week, I got a screenshot whereby one of their friends posted — not so much crazy this time, but actually thoughtful — that one north Alabama town has more Dollar Generals than traffic lights. Actually, there probably should be some DG:signal ratio which should not be exceeded. I forwarded it to another friend who wondered if that took into account the new Dollar Tree, and the answer is no. We’re getting out of hand.
While I’m not going to check the math and factor in the stock splits, I do love thinking that Forrest Gump’s $100k of Apple stock would now be in the neighborhood of $49B.
This is a balm:
First on this week’s NYT T List:
Southern porch culture is alive and well at the Chloe, a new 14-room hotel situated among the mansions of Saint Charles Avenue in Uptown New Orleans. It is the first hotel project by the local restaurateur Robert LeBlanc, and the sprawling Thomas Sully-designed Victorian does not disappoint…The interior, designed by Sara Ruffin Costello, is a filigreed jewel box of spacious parlors and hidden nooks, with an eclectic variety of art.
The American Folk Art Museum’s ‘For Folk’s Sake! Contemporary Artists + American Folk Art Museum: Benefit Auction 2020‘ ended Thursday night. When I checked that morning, there didn’t seem to be a great deal of lively bidding going on, save a very few pieces, including a Fred Tomaselli piece and a KAWS ‘Seeing’ which was at that time at $38k.
Franklin BBQ brisket, from a visit (and serious wait in line) in 2016
Welp, it’s sold out as of this moment, but 5lbs of brisket plus sauce (I *promise* you, you do not need sauce for this) from Franklin BBQ is $249 on Goldbelly. Of course, if you’re in town, you can just pick it up (order ahead) in the parking lot now which beats a several-hour wait like we did before.
the pita at Alon’s Saba, from a visit in 2018
The new Four Seasons in New Orleans is set to open in 2021, and it was just announced that Alon Shaya will be opening a restaurant there.
I focused on this portion of Clementine Hunter’s ‘Panorama of Baptism at Cane River’ on view at the Ogden in 2019 (not included in this sale at Slotin, obv)
The Slotin Self-Taught Art Masterpiece Sale will be November 14 with 400+ lots. Flipping through, I see two Dave Drake jugs, a Finster painting of and from Chelsea Baptist that is 103.5” w x 44” h including frame estimated at $40-70k, a Noah Weiss bull head, a Bill Traylor est $40-60k, a Calvin & Ruby Black Possum Trot doll, some Clementine Hunters, Thornton Dials with a lower est, this very nice painting from Bernice Sims, a Jimmy Lee Sudduth Bear Bryant, and I think this John ‘Bambic’ butcher whirligig should go much higher.
at Weaver D’s, from a visit in 2016
Sooooo good to hear Weaver D’s in Athens is doing well — and he shares a recipe at G&G
Weaver remembers that in the 1990s, R.E.M. band members, especially the vegetarians, loved his squash casserole. The group named their album after the restaurant’s slogan, which worried Weaver at first. “When the album first came out, people said it might not do well,” he says. “I prayed, Oh L-rd, why did they name an album after me that might not go real far?”
Ward Dewitt Cross home, Greensboro AL, in 2011
Mmmmm, more interior pics of the Ward Dewitt Cross home in Greensboro would be nice (I always take a pic of this beauty when I’m in town). It’s on the market for $99k.
Also:
Granted, the kitchen is meh, but how about 1857 Cedarhurst in Holly Springs
And the Richard Upjohn-designed Kenworthy Hall in Marion is still-still-still on the market and that double staircase yessssss.
PS — also Upjohn, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Selma:
The new Horton Foote documentary “Horton Foote: The Road Home” premieres 10/24 as part of the Austin Film Festival and Conference at a limited-admission screening at the Paramount Theatre, and then will be available 10/25 on the festival’s streaming platform. From Sightlines:
In a remarkable moment, Foote looks into Rapp’s camera and says the following: “I’m on the side of those of us who have to struggle in the world and are easily bruised and damaged.”
Gary Crowe and the mid-century renos he’s doing in Chattanooga was featured at Realtor. Mmmmmm, not sure about all the touches but the porch with the enormous…I guess those are just super generous breeze blocks?…on the house mentioned = fab.
The new gallery Venus Over Manhattan in NY has on exhibit “Créolité,” of new works by Andrew LaMar Hopkins, curated by Alison Gingeras: “more than fifteen works, including new portraits, miniatures, and the artist’s signature architectural tableaux, that all relate to the complexity of Creole identities and the antebellum history of the Gulf States in the American South.”
There’s probably little middle-ground in how people are going to feel about the Hillbilly Elegy adaptation by Ron Howard
From @realronhoward and @briangrazer and based on the bestselling memoir, here’s the trailer for HILLBILLY ELEGY starring Amy Adams and Glenn Close pic.twitter.com/KvolRCJ18c
— NetflixFilm (@NetflixFilm) October 14, 2020
the state of the building from earlier this year
Simone Leigh will be representing the United States at the 2022 Venice Biennale. A 2018 piece at Hyperallergic mentioned that source for the skirt on her sculpture “No Face (Pannier)” (2018), terracotta, graphite, salt-fired porcelain, steel, raffia was Mammy’s Cupboard in Natchez.
It’s a Yale Sale. Seen this week in Grant, Alabama
Among Yale’s Open Courses, AMST 246: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner with professor Wai Chee Dimock and I’m loving that she starts with ‘The Odyssey and As I Lay Dying’. I truly only mean this as a compliment to my Alabama public college educators: I think the vast majority of lit lectures I had were every bit as good/informative/insightful as this.
I’m absolutely convinced you can put a cast iron pan in the dishwasher and you’d literally never know the difference. It’s a total myth that it has some magical flavor-sheen that needs to be protected. It’s just a basic metal pan.
— Adam W Gaffney (@awgaffney) October 14, 2020
I’ve got to let my friend Suzanne, who’s also at Harvard, know about this so she can bless his heart in person and I’m daydreaming that it will be at the completely gorgeous Annenberg Hall. PS: later on, he tweets ‘Admittedly not my most popular take — apparently “rust” is an issue?’ 😂
beautiful Cheekwood, from a visit last year
Nashville’s Cheekwood will present ‘The Sculpture of William Edmondson: Tombstones, Garden Ornaments, and Stone Work’ August 14, 2021 to October 31, 2021.
also: Chihuly at Cheekwood is through January 10, 2021
Husk Savannah, from a 2019 visit
Husk Greenville is going to stop being quite so Husk-y and start being more BBQ-y, and according to their website, will be Husk Smokin’ Barbeque, Southern Meats & Bourbon.
the Creole cream cheese cheesecake at Commander’s Palace, 2018
From epicurious, Creole Cream Cheese Is the Secret to the Tangy, Mousselike Cheesecakes of New Orleans
you know what that is
Rick Bragg in conversation with Richard Howorth for Where I Come From on Wed, 10/28 at 5p — RSVP for the Zoom at Square Books. As they put it:
From his love of Tupperware (“My Affair with Tupperware”) to the decline of country music, from the legacy of Harper Lee to the metamorphosis of the pickup truck, the best way to kill fire ants, the unbridled excess of Fat Tuesday, and why any self-respecting southern man worth his salt should carry a good knife, Where I Come From is an ode to the stories and the history of the Deep South, written with tenderness, wit, and deep affection–a book that will be treasured by fans old and new.
From the press release for The Gee’s Bend Quilters:
Alison Jacques Gallery presents the first solo exhibition in Europe devoted to three generations of women artists living in Gee’s Bend, now known as Boykin, a remote black community situated on a U turn in the Alabama River. The exhibition provides a survey of quilts spanning nearly 100 years from the 1930s through to 2019 with some of the artists still living and working in Boykin today.
It begins November 26 and goes through January 16, 2021.
this girl loves Commander’s and is excited about returning to congratulate Ms Bickford
Tory McPhail has resigned at Commander’s Palace and will be moving to Montana; the new executive chef is Meg Bickford.
The boys playing pumpkin checkers this past week at Isom’s Orchard in Athens, Alabama
Hope you’re enjoying this gorgeous weather and maybe getting in some pumpkin checkers. We’re planning a weekend full of outdoor time and maybe finding a sack full of roasted peanuts to snack on from a roadside stand. xoxo!
20 Of Them.
Faye’s Bar-B-Que
Sylacauga AL, 2017.
Not Today. Noooooot Today.
Not Today, Satan.
Ashley Longshore
New Orleans LA, 2017.
Right This Way.
Dreamland BBQ Concession
Legion Field
Birmingham AL, 2017.
Double Screen Doors.
Colonial Good Bread
Faunsdale AL, 2017.
Starry Starry Night
We’ve been visiting some drive-in theaters this summer. Now’s the perfect-perfect weather, so maybe it’s time to see a show outside:
The Hi-Way 50 Drive-In, in Lewisburg, Tennessee
The 411 Drive In, in Centre, Alabama, where they were having outdoor church services on Sundays this year too
Cotton field just past the ticket hut
Sand Mountain Twin Drive-In, Boaz AL — playing some American cinema classics earlier this summer
What’s left of the now-closed Piedmont Drive In, Piedmont AL
From 2017, this pic of what’s now called the Grand River Drive In, in Leeds AL
No longer in business, this was The Drive In in Argo AL. It was next to a railroad track, so whenever the train went through, we lost a certain amount of audio from the film. Everyone just rolled with it, though — it was almost like part of the experience. Pic from 2007.
Blue Moon Drive In, Gu-Win, Alabama, from 2008
From 2005, this pic of the now non-extant Beverly in Hattiesburg, Mississippi
Southern Spaces journal, 2008: Starlit Screens: Preserving Place and Public at Drive-In Theaters
This Week’s Various
As always, all images unless otherwise noted copyright Deep Fried Kudzu. Like to use one elsewhere? Kindly contact me here.
Kennedy Prints at Kentuck, 2006
Poster House in NY (the first museum in the US dedicated solely to posters) opened their Letterpress Posters of Amos Kennedy exhibit last week. It runs through January 3, 2021.
The senryu (cousin to haiku) on Hwy 11 in Birmingham. There are others from the Roadside Senryu project right now in Marfa, Natchez, Memphis, Woodfin NC, Annapolis, Cape Elizabeth ME, Ulysses NY, Holly MI, Mount Prospect IL, Minnesota City MN, and Santa Fe.
At PBA Gallery auction a few days ago, a copy of the 1930 Black Sun Press edition of Hart Crane’s The Bridge, which includes three photographs by Walker Evans, with an estimate of $10k-15k. It sold at $13200 with buyer’s premium.
Illustrated from three photographs by Walker Evans. 27×22 cm (10¾x8¾”), original wrappers printed in black and red, glassine jacket, publisher’s gold paper-covered slipcase. No. 46 of 50 copies printed on Japan vellum, signed by Crane. From a total edition of 284 copies.
Simon & Schuster released five new hardcover editions of F. Scott Fitzgerald books (The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Last Tycoon, and This Side of Paradise) with interesting jacket designs this summer, and The Great Gatsby is now a graphic novel with an intro by Blake Hazard, his great-granddaughter. Text for the graphic was done by Fred Fordham, who adapted for graphic novel To Kill a Mockingbird.
above, the tower from a visit in 2005
Suzi Altman reports that part of the tower at Margaret’s Grocery in Vicksburg was destroyed by Hurricane Delta; they’re cleaning it up and figuring out how to keep it stable/upright. Can you help? Kindly contact Suzi here if so; the gofundme is here.
Super random:
this week in wildlife news (updating since there was a squirrel in the house last month), there was a possum in the backyard, and an armadillo seriously tearing up the front yard. I saw that cayenne is a natural armadillo repellant, but that’s just a world of McCormick to spread on the yard, right? Also, would I burn the birds up? Would the robins be like “if you like it spicy, go to Ginger’s”?
spotted in my hometown
Yes yes yes yes to Chris Stapleton’s new Cold:
Next-level Rice Krispie treats
The everlasting perfection of the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack
I’d never get a tattoo, but if I did, it would be this kind of thing. I wasn’t able to get any of my great-grandmother’s china (which wasn’t at all expensive, but of course rich with memories) so rather than letting it eat me alive, I simply got the same pattern on eBay and when I see/use it, I get all those same great warm feelings. This is sweet.
We visited a traditional maison du beurre, or butter house, in Brittany, France 🧈 pic.twitter.com/qwjNDW03Yf
— Food Insider (@InsiderFood) October 7, 2020
I sat through every bit of this Rolls-Royce piece for the new Ghost:
Popeyes is market testing chocolate beignets
Hey, Shugie is hitting the ball like a PRO at TopGolf. Shug is really getting in the groove at school. One of my boyfriends from high school won first place scuppernongs and third place muscadines at the county fair this weekend. One of my projects that at one point I thought was going to crash and burn because of The Great 2020 Unpleasantness actually might be okay after all. My niece is making huge strides in Atlanta, and another friend is healing quicker than doctors thought. Delighted to have friendly new neighbors. This is the kind of news I am just basking in — all the sweet victories, large and small. Seriously, anything of any size you want to share with me, I’m good with. Let’s celebrate together.
Here’s the ACL Fest 2020 stream. In this animation from Texas Monthly, Matthew McConaughey tells the audience, “It’s great to know that there’s no other coordinate in the universe that you’d rather be than right here, right now.” — sho nuff. And 2016 here, with Willie, doing ‘On the Road Again’
and in TM’s Why We Need Willie Nelson Now, More than Ever:
Last summer, some editors at the magazine broached the unthinkable: What do we publish when Willie is gone? It’s a question that media outlets around the world have asked every time he’s canceled a tour date in the past twenty years. But our answer was immediate and resounding: ***** that. We need to celebrate Willie—to thank him—while he’s around.
We should do this for everybody, all the time, forever.
ASBEE Kosher Barbecue Contest, 2001
Anshei Sphard Beth El Emeth (to everybody, just ASBEE) in Memphis is closing its building. The congregation is moving in at Baron Hirsch where they’ll still have their own services. BTW, I’m not positive if this is still the case, but in the 1950s, Baron Hirsch was the largest Orthodox congregation in the US (I know, we’d think it would have to be NY, but no). Anyway, 1/ ASBEE puts on a kosher bbq contest that is super fun 2/ the building was designed by Francis Mah and Keith Kayes in the Brutalist style and 3/ loooook at their sanctuary
The ETHIC: Emmett Till Historic Intrepid Center in Glendora, Mississippi, from a visit in 2013
I saw Emmett Till this week at the grocery store by Eve L. Ewing
which absolutely stands on its own but immediately made me think of Allen Ginsberg’s A Supermarket in California. I saw you, Walt Whitman…
the line at Niki’s West, Birmingham, 2018
Munchies trying to get funny with The Growing Appeal of Desserts That Are ‘Not Too Sweet’: It’s time to bid farewell to candy-covered milkshakes and usher in a more complex idea of how we view desserts.
Um, I live in a town where warm banana pudding is no kidding considered a vegetable.
Also: super behind on the last season of Top Chef, but really turned off on the criticism that Kevin’s rendition of his great-grandmother’s banana pudding was too sweet (obv didn’t taste it, but haaa still feel qualified to say the idea that a ‘nana puddin can be too sweet is impossible). And: what a class act how Kevin handled the outcome in that episode.
see the peach-colored house in the background? Almost sure that’s it. From a visit to the neighborhood in 2010
A David Adjaye-designed home in New Orleans, a part of the Make It Right project in the Lower 9th, will be demolished:
On Sept. 30, the city posted a “Notice of Emergency Demolition” on the sagging structure. The canary-yellow document declares that the vacant building is “in imminent danger of collapse and/or threat to life,” decreeing that the property will be torn down at the owner’s expense, at a cost of $7,085.
the crab mural at Meril in New Orleans, from a 2017 visit
Eudora, Roger Mudd, and the crab casserole that serves zero.
cotton field in Danville, Alabama from last month
Soly Cissé’s Cotton Field, 2019 at London’s Sulger Buel Gallery. £45,000
Alabama Farmers Market, from last week
Alabama Folklife Association is accepting submissions for the Tributaries journal (research articles, personal essays, photo essays, interviews, and reviews) right now.
Interview with potter Charles Smith in Mobile Bay Magazine:
I was an angry Vietnam vet with post-traumatic stress disorder. I didn’t want to be a potter; I was just being a renegade. Nobody else was doing it. My folks thought I had gone way, way in left field. Here you’ve got a storm trooper, a ninja, a guy that went into battle and he’s over here playing in clay. What’s wrong with this picture? They didn’t understand because, at that time, it wasn’t part of the community, they didn’t need pottery. They had Mason jars and Tupperware. Even now, do we need potters? Why would people do this? It’s just a calling. Some things you just can’t explain.
Had a glorious supper al fresco in Florence at Odette
Hope you’re off to a good week and have some delicious things planned. xoxo!
Think that you might be wrong
Think That You Might Be Wrong
New Orleans LA, 2017.
Grocery Still Life.
Crown Brand Corned Beef, Australia
(that’s a great-looking can)
Hometown Supermarket
Homewood AL, 2017.