Fire

How strange to wake up and smell smoke--from fires burning in the next state over!

Some coworkers said they could smell it one day last week, too, but I had a cold then and was smelling-impaired.

This morning, however, I didn't even have to get out of bed to smell the smoke.

The Entertainer!

OMG.

I just heard an ice cream truck outside.

Playing "The Entertainer." Not "Turkey in the Straw," or the whatever clappy-clap song it was that went with the little voice that called out "HELLO!" every spring/summer night on the Near West side of Chicago, and not that really weird melancholy one we heard every once in a blue moon over in Ukrainian Village, but still: an ice cream truck.

The sound of an ice cream truck is, like, a straight mainline shot of Chicago-apartment-life nostalgia.

I've never heard one here before. (Uh, obviously.)

(The fountain is still off! Well, trickling now, but not audibly, really. Trickly is A-OK with me.)

Ohhh, that was good. That was weird, and that was good.

OK, yes, I know, really, they're everywhere, them 'cream trucks. This is not such a surprising thing to happen, not at all. But somehow I never really encountered ice cream trucks until I moved to Chicago. And oh, encounter them I did, from that point on. Nightly. Nay, often daily and nightly.

Who could forget the WINDY FREZEE?

(sob)

Oh, Entertainer, what a sweet treat you were, here in Alabama on a quiet Sunday eve.

Encore! (And yes, I want my $1 soft-serve cone too, please.)

Locoaudio, part two

Well, duh.

I realized tonight why the train music seemed especially lovely last night. It was because I could actually hear it clearly. And that was because the fountain in the "pocket park" below our apartment had been shut off. It's kind of crazy that I spend a good deal of time gritting my teeth over that stupid fountain's incessant white noise, and then didn't exactly notice when it went away. But that was just because I was noticing all the other, infinitely more enjoyable sounds.

We suspect the whole point of the fountain is to mask train and traffic sound for people who live in this building and don't fancy that sort of thing. In all likelihood they're the majority. People like to install fountains in their yards for the sound of the burbling/crashing water, right? I'm probably the resident weirdo who doesn't want to screen everything else out with the racket of crashing water.

Why is it so nutty to want to listen to the sounds of the environment you've chosen to live in? I just don't get it, but not getting what a lot of people don't seem to even think twice about is sort of a recurring theme in my life. And I'm afraid it will never make me rich (as not getting it sometimes does, for some people); in fact, the opposite is probably more true.

Still, I think I may have to write the management peeps a letter, a solitary (perhaps) plea to leave the thing turned off for good. What if they actually granted my wish!? (What if, dream of dreams, they actually receive additional requests for same?)

Not only can you hear train music (and, maybe, some industrial backing notes from some plant/factory of some sort on the other side of the tracks; as for traffic, honestly, there is none worth screening out), you can hear birds. The birds were totally drowned before.

("Dear Jemison, Please don't drown the birds. I mean, please don't drown them out. Best,...")

This brings us to the reason that the fountain is off. At first I assumed "broken," because a lot of things have broken around here recently. But then--a-ha moment!--I thought, "drought." Quite likely that's it. And good for you, Jemison peeps, for shutting the thing down to save agua, if that is indeed what you did. Of course, I also feel uncomfortable with the fact that something good, for me, may be coming of the drought. What is more preferable: a dangerously dry summer with no fountain, or the fountainy status quo and healthy doses of rain? It's true that I despair to see staggering, shriveling living things; I can practically hear their wails, a tinny chorus of parched little throats screaming help meeee, feed meeee...

(shudder)

But drought or no, couldn't--shouldn't-- they just shut thing down? Wouldn't money be saved, not to mention a natural resource? Well...okay, there's probably not a lot of water usage in a fountain; perhaps it just cycles back through. I don't know. But let's assume for the sake of this blog post and my need for train music in my life that we're talking massive water waste, here. If they did shut it down because of the drought, it must be wasting some water.

So, OK, let's assume then that there are more popular reasons than train music to kill the damn fountain once and for all. If I write my argument essay-letter, I shall focus on these, not my affection for chugging engines and the screech of giant knives being sharpened and the wail of violins like Charlie Daniel's band of demons startin' in and the tolling of bells (though I doubt I'll be able to resist tucking in a plea for them, too, near the end). Meanwhile, I best get out the recording equipment, because it also occurred to me tonight (again, duh) that no decent recording could be made with the fountain doing its thing.

Will we have a summer sans infernal wet static? Stay tuned. I certainly will.

Locoaudio

I have decided that I've got to start writing down the ways the freight trains sound. I need to record them too.

Six+ months in, I still take serious joy in listening to the many variations on metal-on-metal noise (and engine thrum) here, in Birmingham, a few hundred feet from the tracks and above the street. It's one of the small but good things.

And yes, I should start right here and now, but I've got other things I'm supposed to be working on. Ain't that always the case, though. . .

Vox Populi

According to the very friendly and very tan man who rang up my smoothie today, global warming's just not the big deal the media would have us believe.

So a leprechaun walks into a flea market. . .

We came home from a little deep South road-trip yesterday afternoon to find our tax forms in the mailbox, sent from the accountant in Chicago. And as good tax forms will, they bummed me straight out.

But I sat right down at the 'puter and found this and this--courtesy a friend in Seattle. And the world--no, the state of Alabama--was suddenly a delightful place.

So yeah, today this mini mall and the crackhead and the amateur sketch and the special thousand-year-old flute/pipe are pretty much keeping me going.

Hey hey. You heard me. We got it. You need it. Oh yeah. Don't stop. Come on now. To the left. To the right.

Don't be afraid, man. I'm just trying to help out.

Baaa

We don't really celebrate Easter. So it sort of came and went without much to-do, except for people at both our workplaces asking us what we were doing over the weekend. We did not much at all. We ate some fried chicken. Greasy-fingered heathens, we.

But it occurs to me now: No butter lambs. This was my first Easter in a long time without the sight of a refigerated display of fresh butter lambs at the Jewel.

Do they do butter lambs in Bama? Was I just not in the grocery store? I kinda suspect a lack of lambs down here.

What a difference four months can make

For the record, there is no part of me that is jealous of Chicago's current snowfall.

(We sure did choose an interesting year to skedaddle, weather-wise!)

I let this thing wither

And now I don't know if I can nurse it back to life or not.

Or if I even should.

Sweet Relief

"Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie."

(One of many great lines in a production of David Mamet's Boston Marriage, in which we saw our lovely friend Jill shine brightly this week as occasionally acid-tongued Claire.)

Retitled

I'm thinking about giving this thing a new name.

Sweat? No Sweat.

Well, fooey. I misspelled "phooey" in that previous post. I like the look of "fooey," though.

Yesterday I spent a few pleasant hours that offer an argument for why more Birminghamians should move downtown. I left our building and walked about two or three blocks, mailed a large package at the UPS store. Walked another two blocks and was at the YMCA.

I confess that this was my very first trip to said Y, and I am ashamed (or would be if my old pal-trainer Juan from the Logan Square--or rather, McCormick--Y knew this). Trips to the Y were a regular part of my week back in Chicago, and when we chose this apartment its proximity to a new Y seemed like a huge benefit. Indeed, I planned to hustle over there right away to resuscitate what was then already a weakened regimen, to practice yoga 2-3x a week too, etc. (How could I be expected to sweat and pant back in September and October? All my energy was tapped for crying jags.) Well. We've been here almost three months, and until yesterday all I'd managed were a couple of downward dogs and twists in the guest bedroom, and a couple of halfhearted appearances on the treadmill downstairs in our building, in a dim, depressing little room that is too cold and thus makes me wheeze. I partly stayed away from the Y for because money was tight, but let's be honest: I mostly stayed away because I got lazy.

So now, basic principles of cause and effect being what they are, I am squishy. (And, as ever, full of chocolate.) Can't take it anymore. Going downhill. Even the husband who never has neg word one to say about my corporeal self, has noted that, well, I feel kinda different when he cozies up to me before sleep.

So, back to the Y. I finally went, and was impressed. This Y is like a W hotel compared to the Holiday Inn quality of our little Logan Square outpost. I will maintain fond memories of that place, of course: The salsa music, the ex-cons among whom I tried to do my thing with the free weights, friendly Angel with his sweat band always in place, and most of all, Dominican-born Juan and the Abs class he taught in English so thickly accented none of us had any idea what he was saying half the time.

But check it out: The Birmingham Y offers me clean towels for free use. The ladies' locker room is stocked with a whole set of free weights for gals who'd rather not work out next to grunting macho men. There are mini-bottles of shampoo and other toiletries for sale. There's even a cafe with smoothies and Izze soft drinks. Yesterday, a sandwich with asiago cheese was the special.

Pilates, yoga, and a bunch of other group classes. Sauna and steam. A pool. An indoor track. In terms of amenities, this beats the McCormick hands down. Hell, it even beats New City. Maybe this explains why the membership is more expensive than in Chicago, though I still think that's odd. (See? It's nuts. Everything costs us more here!)

Post-workout, I walked about a block to the bank. It was entertaining, as bank visits go. The other customer at the counter, a white man who looked to be in his 40s and wore some kind of paper name tag, noticed that two of the tellers were named Denise and Lisa. He proceeded to shout:

"Leeeeesie! And Neeeeesie! Neeeeesie! And Leeeeesie! Neesie and Leesie, Leesie and Neesie!"

Repeat about 20 more times and you'll get the idea.

Then just a few more steps to Zoe's Kitchen (which may get its own post here soon) for some lunch to go. And who was there, stocking beverages, but Leesie/Neesie man.

And then the final few blocks home.

If I'd needed, say, a new pair of tights and a bottle of Advil? I could've purchased those on this route too. If I'd had shoes that needed repairing, or wanted a latte instead of a workout? Also right on the way. Soon, I'll be able to stop in at Reed Books' new location--maybe unload some old magazines on him.

I would like to point out that I could never have accomplished all these things in a very short amount of time, on foot, in our old neighborhood in Chicago. (Sure, you could in lots of other neighbs, but not ours, not quite. Though we did have the godsend of the Rico on the corner, with, instead of a Leesie/Neesie man, the mute guy who hung around and made interesting sounds. And we had walking access to lots of restaurants, plus upscale nail salons, plus a bunch of boutiques we mostly couldn't afford to frequent.)

It was enough to get me all agitated, happily so. Birminghamians need to keep moving down here, parking their cars, walking the streets. Not just during ArtWalk and Sidewalk. And retailers, grocery stores, we beg of you: Come; come give us the opportunity to spend our money with you! There's vacant space all over this place, just waiting. I get so excited and frustrated all at once by the sight of it that I practically wet my pants.

Not in a few years. Now. Come on. The quasipedestrian life: Embrace it.

After the Break, a Con(te)stant

[There were six short paragraphs here of meta-blogging. I was probably wise to cut them; I'll probably be foolish enough to post them in the future anyway.]

Well, fooey. All I want is to rap about American Idol.

Two seasons ago I never gave it a passing thought. I don't remember how I got hooked in the first place, but now I unabashedly am, and for the same reasons as most viewers: reasons that have zero to do with the songs or the quality of the singing.

Idol makes me laugh; it makes me gape in horror; it rouses my incurably sappy side; it gets me thinking along the lines of inquiry I trod way-back-when, in pursuit of an American Studies degree (armchair theorizing almost makes TV time feel useful, don't it?); it makes me see aspects of my teaching self in Ms. Abdul (yikes). And I like looking at the outfits. Then there's the ecstasy-agony of smug little Seacrest's "........after the break" foreplay. They're simply making plain old shameless, good TV, those savvy bastids.

Anyway.

Last year I was drawn to Mr. Hicks, despite myself. I enjoyed the man. I did not root, but if I had rooted, it would've been for him.

Now I picture: our old living room with its big bay windows, faux fireplace, piles of New Yorkers slipping and sliding totally out of control, drifts of cat fur, early spring light waning. Myself and Todd on the couch with plates of Home Run Inn sausage pizza and glasses of red from the Rico. And Taylor Hicks on the boob tube. You are fucking charming me, I think, watching him holler and grin. I should maybe be worried.

And I picture: sheer white words, like ripped plastic in bare branches, floating above our heads: In eight months you'll be living in this dude's hometown, and an Idol-proud town it is. You have no idea. . .

We started watching Idol again last Wednesday: same couch, same tube, different view out the window.

Simon calls some scrawny big-eyed kid a bush baby, and the bush baby's obese, lisping friend comes in all hopeful and says I've got a great personality, and when the disaster's over you get a parting shot of the two walking away together, and I just want to cry for humanity, and it hurts real good, just like they want it to, and what I know is: I feel like an addict.

What I don't know is: What are the words above my head spelling out now?

A Dark Story

From an interesting New Yorker piece on industrial color consultants:

"Regional patterns can't always be explained by anthropology, but they exist," she went on. "Birmingham, for example, is a heavy brick market, so even the sided houses tend to be brown or brick red. It's a very dark story. You still see more colors in Birmingham than in Dallas, but the colors in Dallas are more diverse--grays, greens, yellows. Tampa has more stucco, so it skews very light. Washington, D.C., is beigeville."

Happy to learn we don't live in beigeville!

And now I also know that the funny, or funky, green chairs I recently adopted should maybe be called wasabi green, rather than lime green. Or else specified as one of fifteen different shades of lime green. I'm not sure which one. Help. I do want to be accurate.

The Good Kind of Blustery

Steve Chiotakis* on WBHM this morning: "If you're a fan of cold and blustery weather, this is your kind of day!"


*Looked up his name to spell it correctly and found out he's from northwest Indiana--Merrillville, to be exact--near Chicago. Know any Chiotakises, GK?

Had to Have a Part Three

More info on Trinity: Totaling about 60,000 square feet, the office buildings have an Art Deco look and features like an engraved ship and train to represent a couple of the industries that fueled the steel industry that thrived there for nearly a century. Although the interiors are in poor condition, inlaid wood and marble await refurbishing.

(!!!)

And: Consisting of 14 individuals from the architectural, engineering and construction professions, the three teams are scheduled in April 2006 to present their ideas to the city and county in three categories: industrial, mixed-used and "outside the box."

What, I wonder, might "outside the box" mean in this context?

And/But there's this. (Hmmm.)

Ingalls

Re: Dystopos' comment: The building you like is the former offices of Ingalls Iron Co., a fabricator of steel products and the parent of Ingalls Shipbuilding.

As we were driving away from the abandoned building yesterday, I noticed the big letters -- I N G A L L S -- on its facade. And when I got home, the first thing I did was google "Ingalls building Birmingham," which gave me a link to a Northrop Grumman page and another that mentioned Ingalls Shipbuilding. And these caused me to remember something.

But I wanted to check with my dad today to make sure I remembered correctly before I said anything about it here. Turns out I did: My grandfather ("Papa") worked most of his adult life for Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss.

How neat and strange is that? I love it when the most unexpected connections transpire.

72 Hours: Art, Soul, Views, Ruins, Snacks

Since we moved to Birmingham there have been several weekends I’ve contemplated blogging about in detail, but haven’t. They can all be filed under “Good Times!” and I think it’s high time I put an image of one up here for you. Yes, you.

So, a quick tour through this fine weekend:

Friday night we went to the opening for our buddy Charles’ new collection of block prints and block-printed functional objects, at the charming and quirky Naked Art Gallery in Forest Park. Charles’ work is colorful, bold, playful, and proudly Birmingham-based. Todd got me one of the small prints for Christmas, a clean and simple rendering of the very train tracks and smokestacks visible from our balcony. Wherever life takes us, it’ll be a sweet reminder of our time in this city.

The show was very well-attended (no surprise there; this town is small and Charles is a key figure in the arts community) and we met some interesting new peeps, including the director of the annual ArtWalk festival (which’ll happen right on our street in September, yay), and a girl who may well be the only zinester in town besides, you know, my husband.

And the Rolling Rock Light was pleasantly ice-cold.

After that, we went to a group birthday fete for five local Capricorns including that fabulous artist mentioned above and our friend Jill. Again, new people met…and, in my case, a few too many drinks guzzled. “You were loud and silly there at the end,” Todd told me Saturday morning. Uh, I think he might be right. I can’t quite recall. . .

Saturday night we checked out a great Birmingham Sound show of soul acts at the Bottletree – and ran into a Chicagoan; how about that? (Really, it wasn't surprising, considering the B'ham Sound project's Chicago connection.) The old black men (and one woman), they did shake it and shout it. And we, the predominantly white, young crowd, et it up.

This morning we met some folks for a most enjoyable and tasty brunch, despite some service problems. Then we took a leisurely little drive up onto the mountain, from which you’ve got a great view of the whole spread of Birmingham laid out before you. (Great houses perched up there, of course. We gawked.) Imagine living up there and watching thunderstorms roll in during the summer. . .

Which reminds me: it was in the mid-70s today, and I noticed several tulip trees starting to bloom. Poor confused trees. Still, they’re lovely, and I was surprised to feel the friskiness that I associate with the first days of true springy weather after a long winter. There’s been, for us, hardly any winter at all. And you know I’ve grumbled about that. Spring just won’t be the same sweet relief, I’ve grumbled. But no matter: there was something about this unseasonably warm January day that tricked my head into registering early spring joy. I swear, I think it’s something organically chemical, something in the very swirl of molecules of warm air and young plant life, plus a delicate balance of sun and cumulus clouds, the tilt of the earth. . .

And then, to top it all off, the abandoned building! The one I’d imagined as an asylum! I’d spied it from I-65 shortly after we moved here: big, dingy white, obviously long vacant. Today we found it with no effort at all. It’s in Titusville, a historic black community just west of downtown (the one Condoleezza lived her early years in!)—and get this: it’s on a small street called Golden Flake Drive.

Golden Flake Drive sounds like an address in the Elysian fields or something -- and in fact, the surrounding streets of Titusville are named for Greek letters: Gamma, Kappa, Theta, Omega, Iota, etc.

But if you’re from the South, you likely know that Golden Flake is a low-priced brand of potato chips and other snacks. Such as fried pork skins. And Golden Flake Drive is named rather practically for the Golden Flake plant that's right across the street from the abandoned building. A sign lists a phone number and says they give tours. Until today, I didn't know that Golden Flake was founded in B'ham. Not life-changing or illuminating info, but. . .

We are so going to tour the potato chip / pork skin factory.

But back to the “asylum,” which turned out to be, I’m fairly certain, part of the Trinity Steel Industries property (thanks once again, BhamWiki), which the city and county joint-purchased for redevelopment in 2005. (Whatever that means. Knowing Birmingham, anything that does happen won’t happen until, oh, about 2015. If then.) It’s a hulking, peeling, institutional shell, its huge windows mostly gone, big parcels of sky and cloud framed in gaping squares and a few still-standing panes, some shadowy innards visible here and there.

And I’m crazy-attracted to it like I am lots of abandoned, dilapidated, decaying, vaguely creepy structures. Who knows why?

I was without camera today, unfort. Clearly, the next step is to jump the fence that’s erected around the grounds and take some pictures. TD, of course, will have no part of this, law-abiding wuss that he is.

I’ll just have to go back by myself.

In closing, I would like to restate my controlling idea*: Good Times!

* I miss students.

Hanna Antique Mall

...makes me very happy. What a gold mine!

Friends afar, please come let us treat you to a fine day that could include:

--morning train-watching, strong coffee, some homemade pastry treat
--a long browse at Reed Books
--a long browse at Hanna
--a beer and snack al fresco in Five Points South
--a prowl through Sloss
--dinner at FonFon (or Bottega or Highlands if we're feeling extravagant)
--after-dinner boozing at the Garage

And the next day we could hightail it to the ATL, only two hours east. What say?

A L O N E

Yesterday a train was stopped for a short time on the tracks spitting distance from our place, and in perfect view was a creamy white boxcar with the word A L O N E in huge, thick capital letters spanning the entire height and width of its flank. The word was just a shade brighter than the rest of the car, sort of in reverse shadow, the way words appear when you trace them in dirt or dust (usually on the butt of an auto or truck). I don't know if that's what had been done here. But if so, man, what a job! Each letter was perfectly drawn (and so huge), which makes me think I'm not right to think they were done by someone for kicks -- but really, why else would a train car have a huge A L O N E on its side?

We sure haven't seen anything like it before now.

I wanted to snap a pic of course, but I was on the phone with my mother-in-law when I noticed it and before I could get off, the train started moving...and then she was gone. Cue Steve Goodman's "The City of New Orleans" or any number of rail-ridin' songs.

Due to the nature of the word, it was a haunting image, uh, freighted with potential meaning. The kind of thing that could easily send me into gloomy reverie. But yesterday was a cozy rainy Sunday, me and my husband and the cats and some readin' -- so all I felt was disappointment that I didn't catch it with the camera.

No, actually that's not true. No gloom, but it doesn't take much for me to start pondering significance, constructed or otherwise -- for me to start building a story in my mind and meaning around a worldly object or phenomenon, idly imagining in any number of directions from this point of depature. And ALONE is a word that I, excessively self-reflective to the core, have given more thought to than many others. I've often thought of its French counterpart, seule, one of my favorites. And solitude has elegance and nuance, with its specifically human application, that alone can't match. But ALONE has its beauty too: the rich tones, the warm thud of its O and N in concert.

And, simply, I like the state it represents with such common grace. I've always enjoyed being alone, too much so for my own good. On the other hand I've been suffocated by aloneness time and again and have forced myself out to grope, winningly and failingly, for companionship, as do we all.

The truth is that I could spend the better part of the day rolling ALONE around in my head -- first as an exercise in navel-gazing, then as a meditation on train-hoppers and the lives they lead. They continue to get some brain time.

Best of 2006

In which people we know play starring roles.

Slap it on your del.icio.us, you big freak.

Simple Pleasures

The highlight of last week? No, I didn't get a new job, not yet. No, nobody stepped up to publish my novel or a short story of mine or anything. No, I did not have a lusciously memorable sex dream.

I did, however, hear WBHM use a Sufjan Illinois(e) song on a station identification bit -- just like they do (or did a good while back) on my beloved WBEZ.

I didn't think it could happen. I was growing resigned to the offensively inoffensive smooth jazz they like to use as aural accent pillows. Bits of musical pap I'd have to live with, I told myself, memories be damned.

Yeah, no matter how you spin it, admitting that this was a Highlight does not flatter me: I'm either a snob or too satisfied to romp in hand-me-down hipster duds (Sufjan has so over-saturated the culture, dude) and thus worthy of your small-smiled pity.

But woo-hoo and/or fk you, it was a nice way to start the day. Grins. WBHM, keep it up.

---

P.S. Can you guess which of the "not highlights" carries a whiff of truth?

Condi!

I didn't know Condoleezza Rice was from Birmingham until I heard it in Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke, one of my Christmas presents from Todd. (Extremely sobering, especially as holiday gifts go? Yes. A good choice for Sus? Again, yes. Funny that Xmas 2006, for us, played to the very sorrowful soundtrack of that film. Soooo good and soooo heartbreaking.)

Anyway, Condi, Birmingham. Who knew? Not I. Did you? I bet you didn't. C'mon, you really didn't.

(Does it matter? Is there some smart-ass conclusion to be made here? NO!)

:)