Month: February 2013

Deandra Pittman claims the hotel blew off complaints that its mural, by nonparty Paul Ninas, “creates a hostile work environment and subjects her to feeling demeaned and looked down upon.”

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There have been efforts elsewhere to have depictions of people working removed from spaces, like one man now living in Colorado who wishes to have the Bettersworth Section/WPA mural removed from the Columbus, Mississippi post office because it depicts people working in a field. From the Columbus Dispatch:


Lanier, who graduated from Hunt (then an all-black school) in 1958, proposes showing the piece at the public library or Mississippi University for Women during Black History Month or housing it at a black-history museum, rather than at the public post office where it invokes “painful memories” of “racial intolerance.”

“In Columbus, I think there’s a wonderful story to be told of that era,” Lanier said over the phone Friday. But the post office, he said, is not the place for the mural.

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Despite Lanier’s objections to the piece, and mixed reactions to the mural by post office customers on Friday, all agreed the historic mural depicts a time that is long past, but shouldn’t be forgotten.

“I don’t (see it as racist) because we all had to do it in order to survive — not just the blacks. I see nothing racist about it,” said Jeffries, who is black. “People leave (the South) and want to change certain things, but you can”t forget that part because it’s a part of your life. That’s your beginning.”

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(Sorry about the quality of some of these images, the one above was hard for me to photograph because of the protective acrylic covering.)

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The George Beattie murals that had hung at the Georgia Department of Agriculture — there were some in the series that included people picking and ginning cotton — now appear at the Georgia Museum of Art. From the AJC:
“As the official state museum of art and as an academic institution, the Georgia Museum of Art believed it was important to preserve this aspect of Georgia’s history,” said Paul Manoguerra, the museum’s chief curator of American art. “The murals present one artist’s attempt to address the complex history of agriculture in our state in 1956.”


There have been discussions about the mural at the post office in Eutaw, Alabama also:

“The Countryside,” was painted by Robert Gwathmey, a Southerner who was known as a member of the Social Realist movement, painted Blacks in a dignified, modernist style (one of the first, and few Whites at the time to do so), and he painted those figures in bold color and pattern.  This work was completed in 1941 — in 1940, Gwathmey had decided to destroy most of his earlier work, and only a few pieces survived.

For 27 years, he was kept under surveillance by the FBI for his “his Communist Party affiliations, his strong support for black culture and his outspoken, courageous stance against racial discrimination.”

However…the Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance reports that this mural he did in Eutaw drew controversy during the years of the ‘Black Power’ movement “when young, black revolutionaries interpreted Gwathmey’s depiction of African Americans as subservient or demeaning and called for its removal.”


A NYT book review mentions:
Kammen tells the story of a mural Gwathmey painted in 1939-41 for the Post Office in Eutaw, Ala. Depicting blacks and whites hoeing corn, picking cotton and stacking lumber, it was installed over the objections of local white officials who would have preferred something commemorating the Confederacy. Years later, it was denounced by a black judge and a leader in the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as ”dehumanizing” and ”offensive” to African-Americans, although its focus was class as much as race: it shows blacks and whites laboring equally at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. A subsequent report on the mural, commissioned by the Postal Service from the Birmingham Museum of Art, recommended that the mural not be removed; ironically, the report identified the artist as ”a black” from Richmond.

On December 24, we drove up from New Orleans to Baton Rouge in anticipation of driving back down to see the bonfires on the levee. Surprisingly, the art deco capitol building — clad in Alabama limestone — was open that day:

It’s hard to separate this building with thoughts of Huey P. Long, the man who sought to have it built (and on such a grand scale — the largest in the US — obviously a testament), saw it through (with an apartment for him included), and tragically murdered there.

Here, in the corridor where he was killed is this display, plaque, and the bullet damage is still in the walls:

For a break, there’s an observation deck on the 27th floor:

…and if you’re wondering what the good people who work here for the people of Louisiana, have for lunch:

The Senate chambers were decorated for Christmas:

These statues in the main lobby:

…and these murals by Jules Guerin:

Happy Purim, y’all! This is how I decorated Shug’s shalach manot / mishloach manot bags this year for his friends:

The NYT runs an editorial on ‘Exonerating the Scottsboro Nine‘. And…our state senate has voted unanimously to issue pardons for the Scottsboro boys this week!

Broadway World reports that ‘Scottsboro Boys’ the musical will be performed again, now at the West End’s Young Vic, shows starting October 18.

The Carnegie Visual Arts Center in Decatur has on exhibit ‘The Scottsboro Boys: Outside the Protective Circle of Humanity‘ now through March 30th.

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Weaver D’s (‘Automatic for the People!’) is up for sale now in Athens.
Weaver called for help in October, when the restaurant was on the brink of closing, and the community came out. A Facebook campaign by one patron drew more than 200 customers into the business on a Friday afternoon, and many Athenians passed through to purchase food, make donations and offer verbal support.

“We had a lot of people coming throughout the day,” Weaver said. “We was open up until around 9 o’ clock every day, you know, because people just still kept coming, and we just served them. We served them on up ‘til the end, ‘til they stopped coming.”

Business picked up for about two weeks, Weaver said, but then slowed again.

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Wonderful-wonderful Eugene Walter will be celebrated as part of the Southern Literary Trail in Mobile this March.

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The George Lindsey UNA Film Festival‘s starts February 28 and its focus this year is ‘Alabama’ and they’re premiering the doc ‘Muscle Shoals’.

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The list of restaurant and chef semifinalists for the James Beard awards have been announced.

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“The Work of Reverend Albert Wagner: Collection of Wesley and Missy Cochran of LaGrange, Georgia,” at Outsiders Art and Collectibles in Durham through March 16.
(if you’re saying to yourself,  ‘gosh, who are the Cochrans from LaGrange? This is nice…’)  From the Herald-Sun:
The Cochrans are not typical collectors; he is a stonemason and she is a school teacher. They love art and spend every extra dime buying it. Their collection includes 38 Andy Warhols. These Wagner images are their first foray into outsider art.

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Billboard reports that the new Grammy Museum in Cleveland, Mississippi will break ground next month.

All parties involved in the new Grammy Museum view it as an opportunity to explore Mississippi music, especially the blues and country music, and to export exhibits and educational programs from the L.A. museum. Cleveland is the home of the Delta Music Institute, an independent center within Delta State’s College of Arts & Sciences that offers music industry studies and a sound recording technology program.

“We wanted to make sure its integrated into the college experience,” Santelli told Billboard, “ that there are connections with the student body and faculty. “Rural Mississippi is not downtown Los Angeles, so it’s not as much a tourist attraction. We will extend and broaden our reach with an address in the South and I’m certain that gve-and-take will be a two-way street.”

…“Take Mississippi out of the equation,” Santelli says, explaining the logic of the location, “and it’s hard to answer the question of ‘what is American music?’”

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These are worms in dirt — the first day our package arrived from someone who sells worms for composting, they were scrawny and tired (pic below) but they’re chubby and wiggly now, and they seem to love gobbling celery, carrots, and banana peels. The boys love the idea that they’re composting now, and our happy family has grown by about a thousand:

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The ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ home in Atlanta (Druid Hills) is on the market.

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Supper one night at El Cantaro Taqueria in Montgomery, it came highly recommended. It’s very close to the interstate and is in a run-down (but busy) shopping center — I had a taco and chile relleno (very good) and Av had fajitas (very, very good):

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Lunch one day at the new-ish El Barrio in downtown B’ham, with a giant mural on one wall.  I had the roasted chile relleno stuffed with black beans, cactus, monterey jack, pine nuts, and a roasted garlic cream — pretty great — and Av had the carne asada ‘brava’ which was a hanger steak, sweet potatoes, peppers, chorizo, grilled onion, with mexican steak sauce — also pretty great. The chips, though, aren’t complimentary. The guac was fresh and nice.

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‘House of Cards’ on Netflix is not only wonderful, they made the series available all at once, so prepare your weekend.

Twitter feed of the week: Modern Seinfeld.

Reading: Butterfly in the Typewriter: the Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of A Confederacy of Dunces

We had lunch at the new Todd English P.U.B. in B’ham at the new Westin — we’ve eaten at a Todd English Olives restaurant before, so were interested to see what this concept would be:

It was like ‘a tale of two restaurants’ one being the bright, pretty raw bar / beverage area, and the other being the dark wood ‘pubby’ look with Guinness paraphernalia and dart boards on the walls.  The service was terribly sub-par. Overall the experience was disappointing (and that sad tin of dull tasteless popcorn — what was that?…although our food took so long we both ate it…), but other than the bubble and squeak (which was barely lukewarm and tasted of nothing) the entrees were actually pretty terrific:

Av with the hamburger and one of their two zillion beer choices:

And I had the lobster roll, which was fabulous:

I hope they do well, and I hope that all little missteps get worked out quickly, but I can eat lunch from more than one James Beard-recognized restaurant/chef in the area, and for less than here at the P.U.B.  Hmmm.

Today is my and Av’s wedding anniversary!

We had our first date in 1998 but we were very close to each other (without knowing each other) at two events in 1992, this one above in May, and another march in June, both times when we were protesting haters. The picture in the New York Times article above here has us both in it (Av is on the left-hand side of the pic and I’m on the right-hand side) and describes our scene: “About 700 people gathered yesterday in Linn Park in Birmingham, Ala., for what organizers described as a prayer vigil against hate.”  

We could have saved a few years if we’d just somehow run into each other either of those times. In any case, I’m very happy to be married to my beshert and to be celebrating our anniversary today!

…and we get to celebrate with the two best things either of us have ever done:

Yay!!

The Manresa House of Retreats in Convent, Louisiana:

At one time, it was Jefferson College — a private school — and was purchased by the Jesuits, now as a retreat center.

It holds retreats for men only, every weekend of the year except the last weekend of the year. Their capacity for each retreat is 111, and they average 108 men, so it’s obviously popular.  The retreats are made in silence.

Saint Michael the Archangel Catholic Church — the cornerstone was laid in 1831 and the church dedicated in 1833. There’s a grotto behind the main altar (the main altar imported from France in 1868) is made of bagasse clinkers. Bagasse clinkers are the byproduct of bagasse (spent sugar cane stalks) and a little iron, which makes a glass-like product.

Saint Michael School:

The cemetery behind Saint Michael’s:

“Dedicated to the memory of our courageous Acadian ancestors who settled this area in the mid 1700s. Once buried here, most of their original graves have been lost to time and the river. Erected by the Bourgeois Famille Louisiane, Inc.”

On Jeannette Street, New Orleans: