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.
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7 comments:
I'll go with you, if only to hold your purse.
Knowing Birmingham, anything that does happen won’t happen until, oh, about 2015. If then.
We'll make a Birminghamian out of you, yet.
Best part of the Golden Flake tour (so I'm told): hot chips right off the line. Mmm...
Yes, that's the Trinity Steel Site. The building you like is the former offices of Ingalls Iron Co., a fabricator of steel products and the parent of Ingalls Shipbuilding. Ingalls was founded in 1910 and became a major company, even building the launch platforms for the Saturn V. It sold the fabrication plant to Trinity Steel in the 1970s and eventually closed in 1989.
Oh goodness--If you tour that chip factory, let me know. I want to go. I used to write advertising for Golden Flake, and even though I never toured the factory, their administrative offices were like walking into 1968 (dark wood paneling, heavy earth-tone curtains, a painting of their old clown mascot). And every time we'd go there for a meeting, they'd have us sample products in development.
And thanks for the art compliments too! "Key figure in the art community"--heh. I don't think that's really the case, but it sounds nice. :)
man! I'm all over jumping the fence into the "asylum." What could be more fun.
I think your camera problems might be over soon enough :) no autofocus though, so you will have to slow your butt down a little and focus. ha!
:P
j
If you like abandoned, dilapidated, decaying, vaguely creepy structures then you'd love Philly. These buildings are everywhere, but you can't check them out because it's too dangerous to go off the beaten path there. Birmingham sounds like fun!
"you were loud and silly at the end....you must be like your mother. Signed, Mother
Ah, but you forgot one thing: a drink at the Garage to cap it all, under the thick vines. . . oh wait, you weren't there. Tod.d.
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