Atlanta’s Living Walls

Atlanta’s Living Walls project, with the help of artists from all over the world — from their site:

Living Walls, The City Speaks, is an annual conference on street art and urbanism that began in August 2010 in the city of Atlanta. Along with changing the urban landscape, the Living Walls conference set out to highlight a number of problems facing the city. Living Walls did not just showcase art, but also built a platform for much-needed dialogue in the city.

Here, found by accident

Atlanta Living Walls 2012


A map of all Living Walls


Would most like to see these, by:
Neuzz from Mexico City, Mexico
Xuan Alyfe from Aviles, Spain
Sheryo from Brooklyn
Knitterati from Atlanta
Fintan Magee from Sydney, Australia
Olive47 from Atlanta
Intersesni Kazki from Kiev, Ukraine
3ttman from Lille, France

Doing Good All Over Greensboro

At HERObike in Greensboro, Alabama, the shop where bicycles are made from bamboo frames — the bamboo coming from a few blocks from the workshop.

HERObike, Greensboro AL//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

HERObike, Greensboro AL//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

This pic I took in 2013 shows one of the bikes better:

Their new model, the Semester, is $799 in commuter model. It was a Kickstarter campaign that surpassed its $40k goal, and those models started shipping in 2014.

HERObike, Greensboro AL//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Besides bikes, they’re also making skateboards and paddleboards.


Here, the vid from the Kickstarter campaign:


The HERO Housing Resource Center:

More of their projects here.

This is one of the homes that HERO teamed with Habitat for Humanity, Hale County, Inc., Regions Bank and Auburn’s Rural Studio on, in the North Ward Subdivision
HERO Home, Greensboro AL//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js


Gallery space downtown — showing A Changing Nature: Photographs of the South 1963-2014, and Gordon Parks: The Segregation Portfolio

These exhibits are part of The Do Good Fund, a that acquires photographs and creates exhibitions focused on the South


Project Horseshoe — this is the Community Clubhouse

From their website:
The Clubhouse provides a safe and welcoming place with programs and activities for elderly, isolated, or mentally disabled members of our community or for anyone who just wants to come and have a good time. Clubhouse members, including women living in the Horseshoe Farm enhanced independent living housing program enjoy day programs, lunches, games, volunteer work opportunities, and sometimes just stopping by to visit. Project Horseshoe Farm also provides outreach support to isolated or vulnerable community members who could benefit from home visits, transportation, a delivered home cooked meal, or other support as needed.


And before heading home: pie at Pie Lab. Meant to bring people together (how can anyone be disagreeable over a piece of pie anyway?), Pie Lab is now a fixture downtown

half-eaten slice of pecan. yum.

RC And Moon Pie

The Tennessean did a piece on quirky Tennessee-area food festivals — they included

Ramp Tramp Festival in Reliance

National Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburg

World’s Biggest Fish Fry in Paris

Newport Ramp Festival in Newport

International Biscuit Festival in Knoxville

Middle Tennessee Strawberry Festival in Portland

Slugburger Festival in Corinth (MS)

162nd St. Patrick Irish Picnic & Homecoming in McKewen

Grainger County Tomato Festival in Rutledge

Bradford Doodle Soup Days in Bradford

Anderson County Burgoo Festival in Lawrenceburg (KY)

National Banana Pudding Festival in Centerville

And in Nashville, the Annual Music City Hot Chicken Festival, Tomato Art Festival, and the Music City Food + Wine Festival.

The next RC and Moon Pie Festival is June 18 in Bell Buckle, Tennessee.  We haven’t been since 2008, when Shug was a baby.

RC and Moon Pie Festival, Bell Buckle TN//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

RC and Moon Pie Festival, Bell Buckle TN//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

RC and Moon Pie Festival, Bell Buckle TN//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

We put an RC and Moon Pie on Shug’s stroller just for a quick pic (if you’re wondering: no way would I let my baby have a soft drink — he’s 8 now and still has never had any):

…but got such a kick that Moon Pie tweeted this with his picture last year!

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js


A Louisiana city councilman has been arrested for allegedly stealing a banana moon pie (when approached about it, he flashed his badge and threatened the store owner). The public responded by showing up to council meetings and bringing moon pies with them.


Mental Floss with The Tragic History of RC Cola


From yesterday on Eater: All About the MoonPie, a Sweet Southern Snack

Right About The Tiny Fish Part, Sea Monkeys, and Manna

A few years ago, Red Pearl in Birmingham was way in the back of Super Oriental Market, which was itself a reinvention of what I’m pretty sure used to be a Quincy’s. To get to the restaurant, you walked by the open tanks of bullfrogs, crabs, eels, past lacquered roasted ducks hung whole and other soon-to-be-delicacies, aisles of pantry staples from Asia, and kitchenware — and once seated in the function-over-form space, rather than accept the menu that was presented with English, you might point to something on the board in Chinese and hope for something completely interesting.

Skip forward a few years, and Red Pearl is still a part of Super Oriental — you’ll still pass the bullfrogs and crabs. but it’s now in a completely renovated space up front which happens to look completely luxe compared to the old room.

Red Pearl Chinese Restaurant, Birmingham//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

We’ve had more common dishes, like lunch here with the fried rice, General Tso chicken, and duck:
General Tsao, Fried Rice, Duck at Red Pearl Chinese Restaurant, Birmingham//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

This latest visit, there was double spicy chicken — spicy but not crazy with perfectly crispy chicken:
Double Spicy Chicken, Red Pearl, Birmingham//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

I got something I’ve never tried before — the crispy baby fish and peanut. We renamed this ‘sea monkey surprise’ (though it may need to be renamed, see below) because they were tiny strands of…if you didn’t know, you’d think either fried strands of Top Ramen or maybe those French’s onion bits that people put on green been casserole. But they were indeed tiny little fish. And they were salty and crunchy and spicy and just right.
Crispy Baby Fish & Peanut, Red Pearl Chinese Restaurant, Birmingham//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Back to sea monkeys — in April, the NYT ran a really interesting article: The Battle over the Sea Monkey Fortune which, among other things, completely ruins the kitschy joy of sea monkeys now that we know about the founder:

His background is the source of great remorse on marketing chat boards, where writers are distraught that someone as visionary as the X-Ray Spex and Sea-Monkey guy could be such a racist head case.


Browsing the market afterward, there was a display of M.Y. San SkyFlakes which are really just crackers but the word ‘skyflakes’ made me think of manna — the flakes that Gd sent down during the exodus from Egypt. “Okay kids, here come your SkyFlakes!”

Always thought it was interesting that in Exodus 16:31, manna was described as “like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey” and in Numbers 11:8, it’s “the taste of a cake baked with oil.” So which is it? But Rashi explained that manna tasted of anything the eater wished (other than a handful of things: cucumbers, watermelons, leeks, onions, garlic), and tasted even better on Shabbos. I just asked the boys what they would have their manna taste like today. Shug said matzah ball soup, Shugie said chocolate milkshake, and Av said chocolate Krispy Kreme. Me? I’m going with Whataburger. 
Here, the trailer for In Search of General Tso — it’s also available on Netflix.