S-Town is deservedly getting lots of love in best-of-the-decade podcast lists. Can’t recommend it highly enough — I even re-listen to parts of it every so often (and it came out two years ago).
“…cause you know kids around here have grown up so destitute they don’t have a sense to be ashamed of anything, they just tell everything”
“I have this old crummy Ford truck. You can’t be a redneck and live in Alabama without a damn Ford truck, can you? And I keep thinking, could I put everything that I would put in that truck and drive down that driveway for the last time? But then again, who’d take care of mama, who’d feed the puppies, you know, who’d water the flowers, who’d prune the maze…”
Macon, Georgia now has Mercer Music at Capricorn (Capricorn Sound Studios, where the Allman Brothers and other Southern rock bands recorded) as a music incubator, and the new Museum at Capricorn will open January 2.
closeup on Wilmer Wilson’s Self Portrait as a Model Citizen, at Lexington KY 21c Museum Hotel, 2016
Lots going on next year for the 2020 Women’s Vote Centennial Initiative.
Staircase at the Old Monroe County Courthouse, Alabama
From Book Riot: The Best Epigraphs of 2019 includes:
“We are bound by a common anguish.”
—Harper Lee
(From Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep)
Leading the December 11 Magnificent Jewels auction at Christie’s were two lots from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Sold to Benefit Future Acquisitions:
‘The duPont Ruby,’ Burmese ruby, emerald, diamond, and natural pearl brooch of 11.20 carats ($3,500,000-5,500,000); and ‘The duPont Emerald,’ Belle Époque Colombian emerald and diamond ring of 9.11 carats, Tiffany & Co. ($500,000-700,000), both formerly from the collection of Mrs. Alfred I. duPont.
The duPont Ruby was the top lot and sold for $8,957,750.
Alabama State Capitol, Montgomery
All of the Belles: The Montgomery Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald, published by New South, will be available March 3, 2020.
During his Roaring Twenties heyday, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote three stories about the belles of Tarleton, Georgia, a setting readers recognized as a thinly veiled version of his wife Zelda Sayre’s hometown of Montgomery, Alabama…
The Atlantic interviews Aaron Sorkin and Ed Harris on TKAM since Harris’ taking on the part of Atticus:
Sims: …And then I had forgotten that To Kill a Mockingbird also ends with a crime—the [murder] of Bob Ewell [by Boo Radley, trying to protect Scout]—being covered up!
Sorkin: Isn’t it amazing? I had forgotten about it too, and I couldn’t believe it!
Sims: It’s a story about the greatest lawyer of all time—Atticus—and he’s complicit in this crime!
Sorkin: This novel ends with, as Scout said, “the most honest and decent person in Maycomb” covering up murder with a judge and a sheriff. Why didn’t that ever come up in my eighth-grade class? I saw that and thought, Well, I can tell this exact same story, but can’t that [tension] be part of it from the beginning?
TKAM will perform — for free — to ~18k NYC public school students at the Madison Square Garden on Feb 26.
above: Beacon Light Tea Room in Bon Aqua included on the list
These 5 Southern cooking restaurants that you won’t find within Nashville’s city limits from The Tennessean is something to keep in mind. Also:
My favorite sign was in the men’s room: “Don’t forget to wash your hands and pray because Jesus and germs are everywhere.”
The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum‘s next play will be “Alabama Story,” about censorship and civil rights, inspired by real events.
fryer gizzards from the meat section of an independent grocery store I shop
Emily Rees Nunn’s An Indie Grocer Is Fighting Back Against the Big-Box Monster — and Winning: Turns out, connecting with a community IRL still makes a difference at Medium’s Heated, on her hometown grocery store:
He now runs the place from the small, messy office that once belonged to Jackie, who died in August at 82. It’s behind the produce station (turnips, sweet potatoes, shelly beans, dried beans, no arugula); just beyond the bakery (where coconut cakes were being built, and takeout banana puddings and party cheese balls were on display); past shelves of canned goods whose brands you’ve never heard of but that I grew up on (like Luck’s) and locally milled cornmeal and buckwheat flour; down the aisle from the wall of country ham, “mountain butter,” and a refrigerator case full of livermush, fatback, ham patties, and other country delicacies; and past the swinging door where giant slabs of fresh meat were being cut.
above: from a visit to Scott’s in 2005
Tracing Hot Tamales’ Journey From Mexico to the Mississippi Delta at Chowhound
Elizabeth Scott of Scott’s Hot Tamales in Greenville was actually introduced to tamales when she lived in Texas with her husband, who was stationed at an army base there. She opened the shop when they returned to Mississippi and fine-tuned her own signature tamale, which is made with beef brisket. “It’s an anomaly in the Delta but it speaks to how their recipe originated,” says Evans.
above: a monument ‘To Our Confederate Women’ at Ouachita County Courthouse, Arkansas (these monuments most often only mention the men during this period)
The future for removed CSA monuments is unclear. In this week’s Commercial Appeal, they note that the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Columbia, Tennessee have possession of the statues of Forrest and Davis that were removed from Memphis parks almost two years ago, and Forrest and his wife Mary Ann’s remains may also be moved to the SCV’s new museum (opening May 23) — but the director says “It’s always been our position that we do not want this to be a monument graveyard.”
above: a visit with Lonnie Holley, doing an art demo, from 2009
NY’s upcoming Outsider Art Fair is January 16-19, though the 16th is for those who pay the extra privilege. Its OAF TALK (register here) at the New Museum is Jan 14 with Just Don’t Call it Practice! including Lonnie Holley as one of the panelists. They’ll be focusing on Roberta Smith’s 2007 article, ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Art’ and how:
Market realities, language, and criticism often make artists more professional and less adventurous. Conversely, outsider artists are, for the most part, untethered to art world conventions, not concerned with pleasing the three C’s (Critics, Curators and Collectors). When an artist refers to their own “practice” it indicates they are safe to be around. Smith took issue with the term, which is still commonly used today…
above: shrimp and grits at Coquette in New Orleans
Shrimp and grits seasoned with Old Bay is one thing. But putting Old Bay on plain grits?
above: I like making ‘good’ fruitcake cupcake style
Remember that fruit cake is only yucky and odd if you put yucky and odd things in it. Put delicious things in and…you know the rest.
above: from a visit to Biscuit Love
Karl Worley’s (Nashville, Biscuit Love) biscuit recipe
above: a visit to Turkey and the Wolf in New Orleans
Robert Moss calls Food & Wine out on their characterization of Rodney Scott’s history, bbq evolution.
His barbecue restaurant is included in F&W’s Most Important Restaurants of the Decade list. Among those 13 chosen:
Husk, Charleston
Rodney Scott’s BBQ, Charleston
Bad Saint, DC
The Grey, Savannah
Turkey and the Wolf, New Orleans
above: Shugie just happened to bring me a cicada shell to have on my desk this week, and I put it on a post-it for this post…voila
These words together: cicadas, magnolia buds, hairy monkeys.
peas at the farmer’s market on Finley Blvd in Bham
At Tennessee Farm Table: Ronni Lundy on Why We All Eat Pinto Beans on the Mountain South
Just found out that there was a custom during this season years ago of “dry sitting” or “mummering” — people coming by in masks to members of the community, being welcomed in, those in masks not saying anything, and members of the household trying to guess who they were — the masked guests would sometimes serenade the members of the household with Christmas carols and receive treats. Anyone who is familiar with this custom (anywhere), please contact me. Thanks! xoxo!
Had great lunch at Pikeville Store and Grill in Scottsboro, Alabama today. They keep popcorn salt on the table to season the crinkle fries, and the hamburgers are delish (and kinda salty, so I’m wondering if the popcorn salt makes it to the grill too?). Gotta love a store with a porch dog. They gave him a fresh Cool Whip container of water as we were walking in.
Got me thinking of the dog at the Causeyville General Store — I understand that the store is finally closed, that the owner retired.
or the shoe store in West Helena, Arkansas with all the cats.
The world needs more stores with animals.
Read part of Kaye Gibbons’ ‘The First Grade, Jesus, and the Hollyberry Family’ in Southern Selves this week, recalling visits to her school of a New Life Ministries preacher who would come in three or four times a year to do religious instruction.
Then, he would move on to What Hell Looks Like. He spoke with the conviction of one who had, quite literally, been there and back. This was a true waste of his time because everybody in the auditorium was Baptist. We had a very clear understanding of Hell. The children who attended the crazed, renegade Baptist churches that had splintered off from similarly outrageous evangelical congregations could’ve gone to the bathroom in Hell in the dark.
PS: at my high school, we were offered the opportunity to go to the library (which just almost no one did, mostly the ‘poor kids’ prob, and you know walking the wrong direction to an assembly had to be just an incredible walk of shame) OR attend assemblies by groups like The Power Team (Vice’s The Power Team Was the Bloody, Evangelical Freakshow That Ruled the 80s).
above: the actual Graceland Too in 2014
Lee Harper of History Bones made a piece for my friend Amy Evans (who’s quoted above in the tamale article) and ohmygoshhhhh it is so good. Lee takes commissions and has ready-to-ship pieces here on her Etsy. Amy’s new book, A Good Meal is Hard to Find, is coming out late April and available for preorder now. Her art available here.
Shugie and I made Mrs. Wright’s Cocoons (think Mexican wedding cookies), one of Eudora Welty’s favorite treats, included in the Symphony League’s The Jackson Cookbook. Welty: “To make a friend’s fine recipe is to celebrate her once more.”
Our only change was that we thought the dough needed a little salt, so we added that. They were fab. The recipe is available here at the Welty site.
It’s a big week upcoming for many of us. No matter what you’re up to, may it bring you incredible joy. Love! xoxo!
