Highway 280, the Song

Does a great song about Highway 280 already exist?

Even if it does, I want to write another one.

280 gets me misty for Chicago like few other places/things in Birmingham. Not because I hate driving on that road; I don't. It's more complicated than that. It's kind of pleasant, actually.

Hmm, maybe the local singer-songwriter who recently put out the album Vestavia has a song about 280. What's his name? Ah yes, John Strohm. (Thank Yoogle.)

Nary a Word About Barbecue*

Birmingham, domain of mines, mills and furnaces, has been transformed into a center of freshly unearthed tubers, organic urban farms and wood-fired ovens.

With little fanfare outside the world of devoted gourmets, white-tablecloth establishments that rival New York’s or California’s have bloomed like azaleas all over Birmingham.

Finally! I heard this article was in the works around the time we moved here, so I've been eagerly anticipating it. Birmingham dining's the focus, but you also get a good feel for the best texture of this place. Ms. Dewan's observation that "the downtown streets can have an empty, Hopperesque feel even on weekdays" is spot-on, for better and for worse. And yay for the Sloss mention! (Someday, I swear, I will go there again and take some pictures and have my own little Sloss appreciation post on here.)

I'm happy too that she mentioned the Garage -- Todd and I immediately put that one at the top of the list when we visited here before the move. I think you'll be hard-pressed to find any other bar that matches it for quirky ambience (save for Bottletree, which also gets a nice shout-out, thank goodness). I've heard the courtyard is awash in wisteria in the spring. Can't wait to, ah, get double-drunk on the floral delights of both the surroundings and a good pint of pale ale.

The thing I've noticed about a few Birmingham restuarants so far--and granted, there are many I haven't been able to try yet, like the Hot & Hot Fish Club--is that as good as the food may be, "dowdy" too often describes the interior design. Or, in some cases you'll see attempts at modern style that just don't hit the mark. In some ways, it's a nice change of pace from the ostentatiously outfitted, ultratrendy spots that are a dime a dozen in Chicago. But c'mon, let's swear off poinsettias and big red and gold ornaments as a holiday decorative theme, OK? Ick.

Anyway, Birmingham's dining scene certainly deserves praise, and I hope biz and pleasure travelers alike take note. Frank Stitt, you're the man. If I could, I'd place a big shiny key to the mu'fkn' city right in your sweet little hand. I bet you'd know just how to put it to use. I wonder what's next for you. (How about a cafe downtown, hmm? B'ham's no longer hurting for fabulous upscale dining options. What it could use now, I believe, are several unfussy-yet-stylish new options for everyday, budget-friendly meals. )

-----

Also note: Dre's Ramblings' post on the NY Times piece. I heart his positivity! Give this man a key, too. Dre makes me believe in a bright future for this town-- better yet, he makes me want to roll up my sleeves, stop bitching, and get involved in making it happen.

*almost

I Heart the Gapers Block, or, A Little Horn-Tooting Ain't Never Hurt No One

Cool to see my boy name checked on there today--alongside our buddy Joe and Sara Gruen, who yrs truly wrote about right before she got hot-hot-hot. (That makes Gruen the third author I've covered, behind Davy Rothbart [of FOUND] and John Green, who's gone on to hit it real big. Actually, you could sort of add Joe to that list, too. I wrote about him in the context of Punk Planet Books. And well, thinking about it further, Luis Albert0 Urrea and Ivan Brunetti are no slouches either!)

We're doing some things right, apparently.

It's a good thing to think about today.

Big Day Today

That's all I really want to say about it, but --

If anyone out there is reading this, think positive thoughts for me today, yeah? Especially around 2 - 3 p.m.

Thanks. xo.

Scratch, Scratch, Scratch

Dang it, my shins are still itchy-dry down here.

On a barely related note, I've neglected to whine about the disaster that befell us here a few weeks ago: we were almost entirely unpacked, with boxes long since broken-down and tossed, when I realized that Todd had missed the posters that had been wrapped in with some large paintings, and had thus thrown away some of my Chicago mementos -- including a Chris Ware promo poster from BEA 2001 and my Jay Ryan poster for Andrew Bird's "Skin Is, My," which I chose above all the others because I liked the look of the tall buildings and the transparent hand over them. (I believe I was thinking even then that if I ever left good ol' Chicago, this print would help keep it visually close.) And then shortly afterwards I discovered that the lyrics mention itchy-dry skin just like mine, and don't you know I loved that poster even more.

My "Skin is, My" is mine no more. And the Bird Machine says sorry, nada left.

Any of you millions of readers got one you don't want?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

Scratch, sob, scratch.

Jemison Top Five

Top Five Things I Like About The Building We Live In (excluding features of our specific apartment):

5. The parking garage. I didn't think I would care one way or the other, but it is nice to keep our new-to-us car, not to mention my poor beleaguered Corolla (which withstood eight Chicago winters on the street, bless her heart), out of the elements. Plus, you can see old ads painted on the brick walls. Plus, the windows -- probably my favorite part. (As seen here before.)

4. The elevators. Industrial chic. What can I say; I think they look cool.

3. Maurice, our postman. Smile = easy. Size = large.

2. The fact that Maurice delivers parcels to our door. Whoa.

1. TRASH CHUTE! Both Todd and I are inordinately fond of the trash chute. What a luxury it seems to walk a few hundred feet indoors, open a little metal door in the wall, and blithely toss one's refuse to the dark depths below! For some reason it amuses me that we had to come all the way to Alabama to experience a trash chute (because, certainly, many thousands more people use these things in Chicago than they do here). The funny and slightly not-so-nice thing about the trash chute is that it is right next to our apartment. In fact there's sort of a chunk missing from the corner of the front bedroom where I've set up my office, and behind the walls of that chunk is the chute. (Does that make any sense?) So we get to hear lots of bang-clang-crinkle-smash-clunk-bang-crash-clunk whenever anyone drops their trash. And then, from time to time, an electronic sound rising from below, which must be a compacting device, and which reminds me of the sound you hear at the end (or is it the beginning?) of Pink Floyd's "Welcome to the Machine." The trash chute sounds don't really bother me. I just think of them as our residence's experimental audio installation. Trash chute = art!

----

Yes, I am procrastinating a bit today.

YAY! IT'S COLD!

If you happened to be cruising (or walking) down 19th St. in Birmingham, Alabama this morning around 9:45, you could have seen a very happy gal trotting along, bundled up in her black winter coat. That was me, folks, en route to the downtown branch of our bank.

I mean it was really cold out there! Like, face-hardening cold! Runny-nose cold! Of course, the sun is swiftly rising, and an hour from now it'll probably be like 65 degrees, but who cares: I was out walking. It was cold. I wasn't wearing gloves, and I needed them. YES!

The first time I tried to leave the building, I was wearing a hoodie and a hat and scarf; that's all. It's not the first time I've underdressed here. I just get so used to it being warm. But no, not today! I had to return upstairs for the Big Furry-Collar Coat! I was one with my Chicago pals, they who are so far away and so bundled up in the post-snowstorm deep freeze! Could you feel my soul aligning with yours, my brothers and sisters?

(Excited, yes. Small pleasures, indeed.)

The Regions Bank building (until very recently, the AmSouth building -- oh, the bank mergers and takeovers!) reminds me slightly of the Thompson Center, though the only true points of comparison are a food/retail court and central escalators. Today I discovered there's a Planet Smoothie in there! Excitement #2 of the morning! If you know me well enough, you know that I have an unhealthy fondness for a straw-delivered lunch of pulverized frozen fruit, juice, and various nutritional supplements that are supposed to outweigh the obvious negative of excess sugar. Now I know that said lunch is only four blocks away. Uh-oh. (Planet Smoothie is no Jamba Juice, though [yes, I've already tried it at another location].)

There's also a shop called "Oh, Wow I." What an odd name, I thought. Oh, Wow I what? Maxed out my credit card on Hummel figurines? Just got away with shoplifting? Think I recognize this cashier from my online dating service?

Oh, but I was wrong. Once I viewed the store from another angle I realized the sign read, "Oh, Wow!"

Ah. But "Oh, Wow I" is a much better name, is it not?

Playlist for the adventure (courtesy iPod on shuffle):
"The Moon," Cat Power
"Everybody Knows This is Nowhere," Neil Young
"Marigold," Devendra Banhart
"I Know There's Something Going On," Frida
"Here Comes The Sun," the Beatles
"Good to Know," Edith Frost
--Plus one overheard conversation, which was, surprise surprise, about how cold it is.

Ephemeraland

This weekend I finally made it over to a place that several people had urged me to check out: Reed Books, an emporium of used books (and so much else!) . And wow -- it was quite a sight indeed. The owner, Jim Reed, has about 6000 square feet crammed from floor to ceiling (literally) with old books, magazines, newspapers, comics, life-size cardboard cutouts, personal letters and postcards, posters, trinkets, novelty lighting, toys ("Mom, look! A Charlie Brown desk!" I heard a kid cry gleefully), and more. I was daunted at first: I didn't know where to focus, as I hadn't come there seeking anything in particular. So I just wandered around, thinking it'd be fun to come back many more times and while away several hours going through stuff. It's a collagist's goldmine, and the sort of place that really needs to be experienced firsthand.

The friend I was with was looking for books on love and marriage for an art project, and she came away with an incredible hodgepodge of a book from the 70s called The Compleat Lover, plus a little guide to marriage laws "in all 48 states." (There was a crazy 'find your ideal mate' survey in this thing that was Just Priceless.) I was amazed that she was able to find so precisely the kind of stuff she was looking for, but she noted that the books are more or less divided into subject, despite the jumbledness of the place overall.

It's clear that Reed believes passionately in the value of--for lack of a better descriptive right now--old stuff. People throw their lives, their families, the stuff of their histories away, he told me. Here's a way station for those things, a place to linger until somebody bestows upon them new value. A sign near his desk area (equally packed) bears a quote from Pulitzer Prize-winning biologist (and native Alabaman) Edmund O. Wilson: "A society defines itself not only by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy."

Sifting through a hillock of personal mail from the 40s, I agreed with Reed (and Wilson), though it's harder to place the value of a vending machine full of ancient, melted Mentos (one of the items of less obvious worth at Reed Books). I'll certainly make repeat visits--and if I can ever get a steady income going again, I may buy a small set of vintage post office boxes that he's got there (visible in the left-hand corner of the first photo above, along with the lid of my Starbucks cup). I've always wanted some of those!

The bad news is that Reed's about to lose his current space, which he's been in for 10 years (and which happens to be a very quick walk from our apartment). He's looking for a new one. I shudder to imagine moving all this stuff, but the first item of business--finding a new space--shouldn't be too difficult, I think, since there appear to be so many empty buildings around Birmingham. But Reed said that a lot of owners would rather just keep their properties empty than bother with tenants and rent collection. If that's the case, it's a shame. I don't know enough about real estate to comment further though, so that's where this post ends.

Reed Books. A first-rate Birmingham oddity!

If I Can't Have Snow...

...I'll just eat this here fist-sized ball of cookie dough.

Don't tax your brain trying to figure out the logic here. There is none.

In other news, I just bought my first big-girl dining table from an antiques shop on 22nd St. called LAND OF WAS. The brick exterior of the store is painted in big white letters on a black background: LAND OF WAS. The table is gorgeous -- French farmhouse, simple and sturdy and deep amber in color -- and I love that I'll be able to gaze admiringly at it forever and ever and think, "You came from the LAND OF WAS."

And the lady of the LAND is a sweet thing! No awful creature, she.

Back to the dough: Oh, sick now.

Day or night

, originally uploaded by zannafelts.

The Chair

I truly don't want to spend too much time disparaging the South here; it's just not my agenda. If anything, I'd rather tell stories that in some tiny way help the unfamiliar among you develop a less simplistic view of this region -- one not dominated by negative cliches and stereotypes.

But, you know, sometimes we need to bitch. And sometimes this place--no, its people--let me down.

This weekend on the way back to B'ham from Nashville, we stopped in Hartselle, Ala. to check out the antique stores there. Hartselle's one of those eensy towns with a picturesque Main Street that's remade itself in the last 10 years as an antique-hunter's destination.

Before I go gently into bitterness, I should point out that in the first store we wandered into, the proprietor was a genuinely friendly, helpful woman in her late 30s or early 40s. She gave me all sorts of advice on buying old chairs, told me where to find true deals, offered me her latest issue of Cottage Living, and just generally made us feel wanted. You know, the way you should feel when you're in a store, potentially about to spend your hard-earned cash.

We ducked in and out of about 10 stores after that, and the people working in them were also quite sociable--ready with the usual Southernisms, the "lemme know if thar's anything i kin help ye with."

But.

In one of the last places we tried, an old crow sat imperiously behind her raised counter, watching the goings-on. She looked like a lot of the other women we saw in our Hartselle hour: plump, pale, her face painstakingly painted, her hair a stiff white meringue that'd assuredly been set underneath one of those big, old-school beauty parlor hoods. These sort of women's faces seem to me the small Southern town's answer to kabuki theater. They exist firmly outside any natural flow of cultural change. I didn't even really give this woman a good look; she was nothing new to see. Besides, I was thinking about chairs.

We looked at one chair, then we stepped up into a brightly-lit section of the store that was a few feet elevated above the room we'd first entered. I looked at a chair there, too, and then I realized I was surrounded by a multitude of God and Jesus books and stuff, an excess of Christian tchotchkes and schlock. The whiteness, the light! The watercolor book covers! I took a step back.

Maybe that's where things went wrong; maybe she saw me look around, shudder, and retreat to the main room post haste--and she saw right there and then that I was Unsaved and Bound for Hell. I don't know. But as we crossed back by her throne, she greeted another group of shoppers (I can't rightly recall, but I'd put money on them being also a bit plump and somehow clearly identifiable to this lady as "one of us" in general physical appearance) and asked them if they wouldn't mind pushing a chair back in that these other people had left out.

I didn't even think about it at first. But she kept going on about the chair, loudly: when I pull out a chair I put it back in, and oh-ho-ho, that's just how I was always taught to do, and some people just weren't raised up right I reckon, it's all just in how you were raised, I was raised to push chairs back in, some people just weren't taught to do things right I guess---

---and on and on and onnnnnnn, to the point that finally, as I looked through a pile of picture frames, it occurred to me that she was talking about us. Her passive-aggressive message must have gone on for at least three minutes, full volume, before I caught on that the message was for me. I can't even figure out how she kept at it so long. I don't think the other customers--her shill audience--were even saying anything in response.

Todd and I realized what was happening at about the same time, I think. "Did we leave a chair pulled out?" he mumbled, reading my mind. (The thing is, I remember pushing the damn chair back beneath the table -- just, perhaps, not all the fucking way.)

I dropped the picture I was looking at, and strode out of the store--wanting to, like, spit on the floor as I pushed the door open. (Instead I just pushed aggressively.) And as I did, the lady sang out, "Come again!"

So this is the shit I hate about the South! Passive-aggressive bitches who talk a big game about propriety while simultaneously issuing their trademark brand of rudeness and exclusion. Come again, indeed. The gall! Like the Winona Ryder character in Reality Bites, this dame might not have been able to define irony, but she sure as hell knew what it meant.

I hesitate to tell this story here, because I don't want to enforce the idea that all Southern hospitality is at best an empty act, at worst ironic fakery. That's simply not true. I've encountered any number of warm, welcoming people here in the just the past four weeks, people who'd never pull such a stunt -- people who have manners enough not to. Manners are a tricky thing -- I'll be the first to say they're all too often a smoke screen behind which goes on all sorts of wretched behavior -- but when good people wield them well, I find it, well, comforting.

And then things like this happen, and the bile rises in the old throat, and I curse this place -- even though rude people reside everywhere. And even though I often much prefer the warm "act" of politesse, typical to the South, to the clipped, emotionless soical behavior we associate with the North. (And I don't know about you, but I think that stereotype contains a degree of truth, too.) Things like this happen and for a while, all I see here is...ugly.

Plus, you know, this lady struck low: in pulling out the "wasn't raised right" line, she was in effect dissing my mama, which, well, I do not take kindly to mama-disrespect.

In hindsight, I wish we'd done what Todd later suggested: played her game, and just walked right up to her and said, equally loudly, "Did we forget to put that chair back in? Oh. Well then. I sure am sorry about that." Oh, she would've squirmed. (Todd clearly has a better handle on dealing with these types than I.)

I was in a semi-foul mood for the next 24 hours. I got on a missing-Chicago kick. On Sunday it was warm enough to ride my beater bike around deserted downtown Birmingham wearing a tank top, so I did. (Post-tantrum.) Deserted downtown Birmingham only served to complement my gloom for a while--all the empty storefronts, the slow rot, the potential (cool old building stock!) that's been ignored for too too long while the suburbs bloat and bloat! the distance this city has to yet to go, and the effort it will take! and really, will it happen? and what am I doing here? can I be a part of something good? I don't know--but after a while I started taking pictures. And ended up feeling better. How about that.

I am still in search of. . .chairs.

Not Quite a Charlie Brown Christmas

Good old Vince Guaraldi just doesn't sound as sweet and right to me when it's like 73 degrees outside.

Oh, to have to bundle up. I want my Charlie Brown Christmas.

MyStd

I should have known better. I had to go get involved with a bad crowd, didn't I? Had to start messing around. Now MySpace has given my browser a disease; I'm sure of it.

Ugh.

Tomorrow I must work magic on sweet potatoes (we never called them yams; did you?) and cream some spinach. More Birmingham fun to come, I promise. I can't believe I haven't said at least a little bit more about Sloss yet. That is shameful. I'll get there, I know it.

Straddlin'

We spent the day in Tuscaloosa on the eve of the Iron Bowl, as there was an annual turkey fry to attend that afternoon and, that evening, a cocktail party at the company president's house. There was talk of football, trucking conventions, church. That sort of thing. I got some leads on some interesting assignments. In the hours between the social gatherings Todd worked, and I sat in the car (yeah, honestly. I was just too comfortable there, parked on a side street near the Bama stadium, to get up and walk a block to a coffee shop) and read Black Hole and took a nap. I awoke when someone screamed "Roll Tide!" and another someone responded, "War Eagle!" (I know you don't want me to bother to explain. . .)

After the gatherings, the drive back to B'ham, Three 6 Mafia on the stereo. And then Califone and the Judy Green at Bottletree. Strange, and a little frustrating indeed, to go from a social event where you're required to converse pleasantly with people you mostly have not so much in common with, to a social event where it's nearly impossible to strike up conversation with a bunch of people you probably have a lot in common with. Eh. I did run into the fine ladies of Red Blondehead in the bathroom -- I recognized them from the Web -- and said hello. And then almost cut in front of one of them! Oops. Blame it on the High Life, and the cultural vertigo. . .

The Judy Green hadn't been playing long when Todd realized the Skylark kitchen manager was in the band. And afterwards he discovered that the guy who books bands for the Hideout was running sound for Califone.

We stood listening to Tim Rutilli's wonderful trademark drawl supplemented by the Skylark kitchen manager on trombone and the drummer's interesting percussive textures, and I closed my eyes and could see myself driving east on Chicago -- the long, flat artery, its busy grey shoulders of commerce. . . Got a little bit blue there for a few minutes, I admit it. But it passed.

During Califone's encore, I found a copy of the latest Punk Planet that somebody had left on the bar, and paged through it, noting names of Chicago compadres: Euguenia. Elizabeth. Al. Anne. Joe. Etc.

So yeah, worlds collided. This is the way we live now.

Heluva Good

I don't think this is available in Chicago.

This weekend, Alabama plays Auburn.

Apparently this is a Very Big Deal. People around here care. They care a lot.

The good news is that the impending collective madness prompted a local to give me the best piece of newcomer advice I've heard yet:

By the way, if you want to do any Christmas shopping at our malls, the prime time to do it is this weekend during the Auburn-Alabama game. The entire state will come to a screeching halt for that, and if you do run into any people, they'll most likely be in the electronics departments of the stores watching the game on TV.

So yes, I'll be donning my turkey applique sweatshirt on Saturday and heading to the Summit. Goddamn right.

The other weekend we fearlessly strode on to the U of A campus in Tuscaloosa at the end of a home game. We were supposed to do something called "tailgating" with people from Todd's work. We're good sports, right? But we neglected to wear crimson, or anything with the word "ALABAMA" on it for that matter, and were thus subjected to angry jeers from the fans pouring out of the stadium. A grim lot they were: Bama had lost to Mississippi State (my dad's alma mater, incidentally). You'd think these people had witnessed Bear Bryant's execution or something: the tear-streaked faces, downcast eyes. Until they caught sight of us in our various shades of black, that is. Grief gave way to anger, as it will. I took a pom-pom in the face. Todd got swatted by a bleacher cushion. Both of us were pelted by koozies.

"That'll teach ya to wear some...some...jean jacket!" a lady shrieked.

"Roll TIDE, or get the hell outta here!" her husband boomed.

"Roll tide!" squeaked their fat child, who threw his Chik-fil-A cup at me.

We scurried to the nearest magnolia tree and took shelter under its branches. Once we'd regained our composure, I dug a lipstick out of my purse and painted big slimy As on our cheeks, and we ventured into the tent city of tailgaters. People had rallied a little. They had their Lites and plates of barbeque and clumps of potato salad. They had their plasma screens set up so they could watch Tennessee get the shit kicked out of them, too. They ignored us.

We never did find Todd's company peeps, alas. But we heard the twangy opening notes of "Sweet Home Alabama" eight times, and caught an impromptu karaoke performance of "Thank God I'm a Country Boy."

Party on.

OK. I'm in.

Please, be mine.

With any hope I'll learn how to pretty-up my profile soon. If you know some good tips, pass 'em along, please and thank you!

bottleluuuv

Psst -- I have a new crush. Don't tell Todd! She's just so lovely and charming, all decked out in orange and green and twinkle lights. She likes to accessorize with things like glittery deer and old bird cages and sprawling succulents and vintage lunch boxes and an illuminated case of pretty glass bottles in all sizes and shapes, and she does not smoke -- doesn't even allow it anywhere around her! OK, that's not totally true; she allows it on her covered patio, but I'm almost distracted enough by the plants and the interesting old cabinets and flea market treasures when I'm out there that I can forget that someone right next to me is slowly killing himself with a cig.

Oh, and pretty soon, she's going to make me a vegetarian dinnah; yum! She's going to make it for lots of other fans and friends too, though; don't get the wrong idea. She's got some really cool pals, and something about her just encourages them to show off their talents. They come from fah, fah away to be in her presence. And how lucky for them to get green goodness when they show up at her door!

Thing is, she's sort of new in town too. But all her family's here, so she's more grounded than I.

Honestly, I'm not even sure she's a she--she could just as easily be a he, but there's something about her that just seems femme to me, even though she's the kind of femme that would always have lots of guy pals hangin' around, you know?

Whatever. Gender doesn't matter. Let the love flow.

Jem garage

Jem garage 2, originally uploaded by zannafelts.

Teens, Tacos

Privileged, white Southern teen boys have not changed since I was among them as a peer 15 years ago. The untucked Oxfords, the baggy shorts, the shaggy or frizzy hair. The fumblings at swagger. Only thing that's changed is the cell phone clamped to the palm.

We braved the Summit last night to see Borat (Thumbs up! Todd observes that it was painful how accurate the SC boys were) and waded into a teen sea. All the pampered Southern youth!

It was too familiar.

Before that, we tried a taqueria called Cantina: really cute and colorful, like a roadhouse sweetened up by a gal with good taste. The inside tabletops were old tin beverage signs. It was warm enough to dine al fresco though, so we did. I had one taco de pollo and one with grilled shrimp; both were excellent. Todd had a Cuban sandwich with garlic homefries. He says the hot sauce there -- El Yucateca? -- is a Funderburk fave.

No more worries about finding good South-of-the-border food.

In lieu of storm clouds:

Wheat-pasting, Birimingham-style. 5th Ave. N.

What's with the Pac-Man ghostie shape, I wonder?

Heavy

Oh, the joys of a Wiki. Today I learn that we live a block west of the so-called Heaviest Corner on Earth, at which stands the gorgeous Empire Building, pictured here. (The relative scarcity of skyscrapers in the Birmingham city center is kind of cool, because the ones that are here really stand out; they have room to make an impact.)

The 1st Ave. N/20th St. intersection took the "Heaviest" nickname in the early 20th century when the four skycrapers on each of its corners rose between 1902 and 1912. The Woodward Building (the first completed, in 1902) is Chicago style, and was the first steel frame high-rise here.

Industrial boom put B'ham on the map in the late 19th and early 20th century as the biggest city in the state, and to some degree a place with less in common with the rest of (very agrarian) Alabama than the cities of the Northeast.

Thanks to its mineral blessings--the area was rich with deposits of iron, coal, and limestone--Birmingham was a steel town for a long time, and is sometimes referred to as the "Pittsburgh of the South" for that reason. U.S. Steel still operates the Fairfield Works 10 miles west of downtown. (And then there's the repurposed Sloss Furnaces, which we'll visit for the first time Sunday to see some deconstructed Shakespeare, so more TK, there.) A "New South" city, Birmingham didn't exist prior to the Civil War, which for obvious reasons made the South keen to develop industrially and build an extensive railroad network. Key to the city's founding was a plan for north-south and east-west train lines to intersect here. (No navigable river in sight, and the valley was in the heart of poor hill country, hemmed in on its north and south sides by small mountains.) Northern capital was also key.

And now, in this re-reconstructed New South? It's all about banking and medical research. And lifestyle magazines.

So much exploring to do. I spied a giant abandoned building from the interstate the other day, and I hope to prowl around it. (To me, it read "asylum," but I'm sure that's my own weird brand of romantic spin.)

A Moving Vista

We decided to embrace downtown Bham's very nascent city-center/loft living scene, and are shacked up in the Jemison Flats, a building on 1st Avenue that used to be the Chamber of Commerce and was renovated into loft-style apartments in 2003. The apartment is, well, it's an odd raw bird; more on that later. (We like it a lot. It's just....as Todd's dad would say, "Diff'rent.") Our south-facing balcony looks onto Morris Avenue (just a bit east, Morris turns historic, with cobblestone streets and great old buildings, though there's overall a sense of vacancy to it) and the railroad tracks that divide downtown from the Southside part of Birmingham and the UAB campus area.

These are no inactive tracks. Trains rumble back and forth all day and night long, pretty much. Sometime one's going west while another's going east. They're not very noisy -- they're going pretty slow since they're smack-dab in the city at this point -- but they do make a nice low, rumbly sound. Occasionally there's a whistle blast, and bells clang. Occasionally there are appealingly muted metal squeals and screeches. Our enjoyment of all these sounds is muffled somewhat by the fountain in the "public park" at the back of our our building (more on that later, too), and we suspect that's by design: a fountain to mask the train noises. But I'd much prefer unadulterated rumbles and bells and squeals over the white noise of falling water.

I want to learn more about the trains: what sort of things they're carrying (all sorts, probably), where they come from, where they're going. Who becomes a train engineer or conductor these days? It's something to explore. I'm sorta hooked.

I did immediately read John McPhee's chapter on coal trains in Uncommon Carriers, which I'd given my dad for his birthday, while I was in Nashville Sunday night. (There's also a great chapter on an owner-operator of a tanker truck; I'd read it in the New Yorker years ago.) McPhee briefly mentions how modern-day hoboes are known to climb inside autoracks, get inside the cars they carry, and turn the cars on for warmth and, I suppose, radio listening. (The cars are driven off the autoracks, so they all have keys in them.) Some companies started locking the cars, and angry hoboes apparently bit back by breaking into them and urinating and defecating in them. Wild stuff! So I stare out my window at what I think are probably autoracks going by (these tall cars with what look like metal blinds as siding) and wonder if there are hoboes in there. . .

Turns out the Amtrak station is right behind our place on Morris. When the Amtraks pull in, we can see the people disembark and hear the conductor announcing the stop.

So take Amtrak to come visit us, eh? When you step off the train we'll be right there, waving at you from the balcony. Look for the seven-story building with a crazy tree mural covering it! (Pic of that coming soon.)

Meanwhile, I'll be wondering if any of these trains are hauling coal. Todd thinks so. We can't tell for certain though.

Note: In the picture there are two trains. The one on the track farther south (farther from the camera) is what's known as intermodal: it's carrying double-decker semi-trailers, of which only the top ones are visible.

(Transport. More interesting than you thought.)

Alabama? WTF?

OK, herewith, a lazy substitute for a mission statement, not that a blog needs one of those(though yes, it does need a central idea):

This is a document of the F---s-D---s duo's crazy decampment from Chicago to Birmingham, Ala., and their Southern adventures small and large to come. This is geared to those who know us and just might wonder from time to time how on earth we're living down here.

Will it be self-indulgent? In dribs and drabs, yes. And without too much apology, if I can possibly resist the tendency. I'm doing this for me as much as you, my lovelies.
Will it poke a few holes in your smug preconceptions of the red-state South? I hope.
Will it also solidify some of those preconceptions? There's little doubt.

Will it be all true? Nah. We reserve the right to fictionalize.

Will the prose be spit-shined to a high gloss? Not so much. I'm mostly trying to keep you in our lives in some fashion. (And us in yours, natch.) This ain't no blog-to-book project.

- - -

I've posted a bunch of back-dated entries for October, which of course forces me to reflect on, and cringe at, the maudlin tone of the past month's scribbled notes. It's probably not much of a surprise that a week into the new life, I'm feeling dangerously optimistic. Quick, someone tell me about something supercool that I'm missing so I can feel like shit again!

Crazy windy (and rainy) here tonight. Good and familiar.

Lots of train action too. People, my interest in freight trains has spiked. Expect to hear more about it.

4th Annual Dia de los Muertos at Bare Hands Gallery

A new friend told me about this public art event happening at a gallery just a few blocks from our place, so we decided to check it out. His description reminded me of the first Redmoon Logan Square Halloween spectacle I attended many years ago, and that turned out to be not an entirely inaccurate comparison. In a long corridor only about three feet wide, people had covered the walls with homespun altars to deceased loved ones, and the whole place was strung with lights and littered with marigolds and paper butterflies. You were encouraged to bring mementos to add. I loved the quotidian objects people had set out in memory of their departed: cigs, favorite foods, golf balls. And of course, lots of photos.

The effect was dizzying, kaleidoscopic, joyful, touching, intriguing. The corridor ran between the back door of the gallery and a door onto the alley, where larger altars were set up outside and murals and paintings hung on the brick walls. Gallery staff served wine and beer under a tent set up in an adjacent parking area, and little kids made sugar skulls at a nearby table.

In a big open, paved space next to the gallery, two bands played at once, kitty-corner from each other. One one stage a woman was doing this weird spoken-wordish singing with accordion accompaniment; on the other, a mariachi band played songs that their crowd seemed to know all the words to. Scattered around the lot were more altars--these a little more like tomb-markers--and small fire pits. There was food, too: fresh tamales and quesadillas from, I believe, Sol y Luna, a restaurant I'm eager to try out. (Confidential to Tori: Look! Real Mexican food!)

While I thought of the old Redmoon days, Todd was reminded of the Pilsen pig roasts -- a bunch of arty-goofy people lighting fires in urban areas -- but with a more diverse crowd (in terms of age, at least; here, there were a good number of little kids). But enough with the comparisons: it was just the kind of grass-roots, community-supported event that feels totally authentic and makes you feel like you're part of something special. We loved it. I felt hopeful. The gallery also offers yoga classes (in the gallery) Monday and Wednesday nights, which I think I'll have to try.

Dispatch from Hwy 280, or, Integration

I ventured to Target today. Down a big wide road I drove, listening to classic rock, and when I saw a Chik-fil-A, I thought, Why not? (Dirty secret: I used to really like Chik-fil-A.)

It was almost 11 a.m., not too far from a reasonable lunchtime. I’d eaten no breakfast. I figured I’d go whole hog on the Southern suburban thing, at least these first few days. I’d eat Chick-fil-A and I’d eat it earlier than anyone should. (I should note that there were several cars queued up at the drive-thru.)

The woman behind the counter pointed out that I could still order from the breakfast menu (that better explains the throngs at the drive-thru), but my order of a #1 lunch combo was fine. But “it’ll be a few minutes for the fries.” OK, no problem. While I waited on those, I realized that it was only 9:45 – we hadn’t set the clock back in the Corolla yet.

But what the hell. A fast-food lunch at 10 a.m. I got back in the car with my bag of fat and started eating deep-fried chicken on a bleached bun, and hot hot waffle fries. I was in sweatpants, covered in greasy crumbs, heading down a big road in search of a Target. And I discovered that they’d packed my sandwich with not one, but TWO pieces of deep-fried Chik.

This is how we live now, I reckon.

The commercial landscape is horrifying: all the sprawl and big-box and parking lots you can conjure so easily, all the wide-open space so cluttered up with ugliness, sameness. Hello, American South. (Hello America, really.) And yet, the big road wound and swooped over lovely hills thick with trees, and I did achieve some kind of autumn-bright vista across these Appalachian wrinkles. I drove, and felt an odd exhilaration: because it was terrible and expected, because it was actually my new life. In some crazy sense, it excited me. I suppose I like a backdrop to pop against.

Update on Chik-fil-A: I am happy to report I won’t be fighting off cravings. This shit tastes incredibly bland to me now.

Next up: Krystal.

Soul Food

For the three or so hours it took to move our stuff in, we listened to an AM soul station on our clock radio. (The mover: "Y'all like that soul music, huh?") Todd chose it after he grew frustrated by the profusion of country and Christian FM offerings. It was Halloween, so they kept playing the opener to "Thriller": the squeaking door, wind, and echoing foosteps. Ooooh.

Several times, I heard a commercial for an OTC medication (for when "you overdid it last night") that was so good I'd listen to that station again just to hear it. Pun-lovers, get ready: The spot started with a woman singing, heavy R&B-style, words like "nausea...heartburn...indigestion." Then a deep male voice rattled off a few things about the product (I truly regret that I can't remember what it was; it deserves to have its name spread here), followed by the singer again, offering up the vocal ornament known in the singing biz as a 'run':

"DI - A - RHEEE - EEE - EAAA!"

I uh, shit you not.

I don' t know that this ad is in any way Birmingam or South-specific, but I like to think so.

- - -

We took lunch at the Pita Loco , one of our closest dining options, along with a Quizno’s and a Subway and something sketchy called the New York Delicatessen Something-or-Other, which appears to mostly proffer fried shit.

"Do they have Mexican food?” Todd wondered reasonably of the Pita Loco as we chowed on our falafel and gyro. No, they do not. This crazy pita has biscuits and grits and “tahbooli” and falafel that had too much of some spice in it. “It’s no Sultan’s,” I said, but I was hungry, and it sufficed.

“It’s no [insert restaurant/bar/shop].” I think I’ll be saying, or thinking, this a lot.

Pita Loco was so loco that Todd got all distracted and left his treasured leather satchel from Greece there. I’m happy to report that the nice lady behind the counter did find the “briefcase,” and had it waiting for me this morning when I stopped in.

Later, after an unpacking frenzy, we treated ourselves to beers at Speakeasy 1920, the closest bar. It’s no Weegee’s, folks. It’s not even no Black Beetle. But it’s our little neighborhood bar, and it just opened this summer, and I do not want to see it go. So we’ll continue to swill malt beverages there, because you know we like to do that kind of thing. And really, what choice do we have?

Chi - Nash - Birm

Not a bad spot for a layover.

He (She) Was Gone

OK, I'll try to quit with the 90s music refs. Don't know why they keep coming, really. Creeping old age, maybe? Yikes.

And...Cut.

I thought the fat Mexican never forgave me for leaving my office blinds up and letting light shine onto Walton street (how brazen!), but here he is, puffing up the steps to our door, offering to help us haul the last bit of stuff--cats, golf clubs, CPUs, cleaning supplies--out to the Corolla. He says he watched the movers yesterday, and it looked like they did a fine job. He says it's too bad we're leaving, we were some nice folks to have across the street.

"But I thought you hated me," I say. "You screamed at me from your stoop. You threatened to call your goon friends. You didn't like the way I sat at at my desk in the window and played with my hair. It frightened your little girls, you said."

He shakes his head. "I was a bad man then. I got worse before I got better. Lost my job as the crossing guard at the school, I was low, man, low. You know how you haven't seen me, man? I been in Indiana; I got clean, got my life turned around, you know what I'm saying? My wife, she's a queen, man; she took me back. I was crazy, I tell you, loco." He slaps Todd on the back. "Sorry man. I'm sorry I threatened you and all."

"It's alright, man," Todd says.

We pile the stuff into every last crevice in the Corolla, buy a case of Old Style at the Rico, turn up La Ley on the car stereo. We have a car party. The drunk couple from the alley come out to see what the ruckus is. They bring their own beer.

"Don't you fucking leave!" the lady screams. Her hair is a crimped orange mane; she struts and points. "You motherfuckers, you think you can just get up and fucking leave, but you know what? I'm the bitch who leaves! Yeah, that's right. Have some fucking respect!"

"Shut up, bitch," says her man-friend, smaller and darker than her.

"That's right, I'm a bitch! A bitch is supposed to bitch like a bitch!"

"You're gonna piss off all these people--"

"I'll piss off whoever the fuck I want, and you know why? Yeah, motherfucker, it's cuz your drunk ass can't tell me what to do. Yeah, that's right! Who pissed all over hisself last night? Yeah, that's right! You can't fucking hold it. You're the drunk motherfucker who---"

They're still going at it as we pull away. We leave the beer in the alley for them, next to their bashed-up Blazer. Junior at the Rico flags us down as we approach the corner, grinning big, and loads us up with two gallons of pico de gallo. He says we might need it where we're going.

Thinking into the box

Packing. Sad again. It’s dull gray today, perfect for indulging ze melancholie; how convenient! We finished Six Feet Under last night (had to squeeze in that closure-inside-the-closure) and yes, I bawled at the end sequence, all the old and dying Fishers. I will see my mother die, my father die. And I can't even handle leaving a place I've lived for less than 10 years.

Moving requires a sorting-through of the past; it forces you to confront who you were and are. It results in reacquaintance with a lot of past loves. Todd puts on Gish, which--absurdly enough, I know--makes me sadder still. I was such the little pothead when I was into this album. And to think: it came from Chicago! I was about to move to Atlanta. About to return, more or less, from whence I came, after having left for the North. I’m doing the same thing now. Will the pattern repeat?

Todd and I came to Chicago apart, but at almost the exact same time, late summer, 1998; we leave together now to go back to a region that’s our shared homeland, but to a place altogether new to both of us. I guess in certain ways that's perfect. But I wonder if we should’ve just stayed put, made our home in the place our lives dovetailed. That could’ve been perfect too.

When the Smashing Pumpkins were breaking out, Todd was listening as a high school student in Rock Hill; I was listening as a college sophomore in Middletown, Conn. People in Chicago—in what was I guess still a rough Wicker Park (god, to have known it then!)—were listening to Smashing Pumpkins and--I guess?--feeling proud of their export.

By the time we moved to Chicago, Corgan was less hero than joke.

if i could settle down. . .

Several times lately I've heard Pavement's "Range Life," a song that reminds me of winter '93-'94, when I lived in Atlanta, and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain was hot, hot. In particular, it reminds me of one drive home to Nashville, around March I think, during which I cried and cried until I put on said album and started to feel better, despite myself.

There's significance here somewhere.

Or just oppressive nostalgia.

(...Well I got absolutley no one, no one but myself to blame.)

Open Letter to All the People of Chicago:

Dear all Chicagoans, waiting in line, sitting on buses, crossing intersections, etc:

Do you know how lucky you are to be here?

Are you glad to be here?

Be very very glad to be here!!!

Thank you.

Best,
S

--
On the other hand, it's a good time to leave: my legs are starting to fucking itch again. I am in hope that warm B'ham will = no more itchy-dry legs. Please let it be so, o goddesses of moisture-rich skin.

Chicago's goodbye gift to me

Just a little bit of early snow. The tip of winter.

<3

I have never before wanted to wear a tee-shirt that reads

I HEART [CITY].

I do now.

What I'd like to do now

is plunk this 3-flat down in B’ham’s Highland Park area, say right across the street from cute Rushton Park. Would the air be chillier around the building? Would everyone else who took up living there start wearing scarves and hats even when it’s not that cold? Would I look out my window and see a skyline mirage? Would someone open a "Puerto Rico" market down the block?

It’s fun to think about lifting up a whole Chgo greystone, Wizard of Oz-style. You know, tornadically. Upon touching down it would squash not a striped-stockinged witch, but, oh I don't know, grab me a redneck neocon of your choice. I don't want to think about politics right now.

I am sentimental. About this apartment, about so much. I don't think I've appreciated our Walton Street idyll enough. I’ve let the dust bunnies roll. I’ve complained about the apartment's lack of storage space, but now I'm moving somewhere with decidedly less of that. Our Walton home is huge, sunny as all get-out (light, I say, and Dills corrects me: “Not ‘light,’ bright!”), and brimming with vintage charm.

Last month I stared across the street at another greystone, with birds perched on the edge of its roof, and a buckeye tree out front. I watched the squirrels bum-rush the buckeye for its goods. They jumped from a buckeye branch to one on the next tree over, which bounced under their weight. Stashed their loot, and did it again.

September, and the sentiment was pooling. I bet there are no buckeyes left on the ground now for me to pick up and take along for good luck. Fair enough; our squirrel friends are setting up for winter, which they’re hardwired to do. I moon over the past, over what can’t be done over.

Yeah, I could learn a thing or two from our squirrel friends.