Here's the first of the video's I took of the best Christmas lights in town:
Rudolph here is one of seven songs in the set. I've got video of four or five of them that I'll upload as time permits.
UPDATE:
More video --
I don't care if you only wander outside the parkways once a year, the lights on this house are very seriously worth the detour from your annual trip to Wolf Chase (or most anything else for that matter).
I meant to post about this earlier, but I got too wrapped up in my own stuff. If you get the chance, tomorrow at noon, there is a film lecture (part of a series put on by the College Honors program) being held in the Farris Auditorium at the Macon Cove Campus of Southwest Tennessee Community College.
From the news release about it:Dr. Jack Barbera, English professor at the University of Mississippi, will give a presentation entitled Use of Static Space: The Vertigo Shot. He teaches film at the university. All students, faculty and staff, and the general public are invited – there is no charge; just bring your lunch and enjoy.
Parking is a little weird because of construction (see map linked above), so you might want to get there a few minutes early if you can.
I had every intention of writing about the transformative experience that was my trip back to Nashville, but I'm frankly too messed up on sinus medication to properly spell the word transformative without the aid of a spell checker. Maybe when my sinuses become convinced that I'm not the devil, I can tell you about it.
In the mean time, I'm posting the audio of Dave Hickey's lecture at MTSU. The recording was made with the rather crappy mic on my PDA because it's all I had with me in Nashvegas. The content is well worth the horrible audio (but if you know who he is, you probably already knew that).
Here you go. (1hr 8min MP3 audio - 27.6MB)
So it turns out that of all of the places in the country showing the remastered double TOS episode The Menagerie on the big screen, Memphis doesn't qualify. Nashville gets three screens. Jesus even Knoxville and !@#$ing Little Rock are getting screenings?!? Little !@#$ing Rock!!!!!
On the plus side, I finally got to see the inside of Metalworks tonight.
UPDATE 11/04:
Forget the Trek. We're getting Emmet Otter. DIY wins again!
(And no, I'm not being snarky. I'm seriously so excited I'm having to restrain myself from waking Amber up to tell her.)
So I went to the U of M open studio and saw a lot of fantastic work by some really cool people. That is not why I'm sitting here writing this.
I actually heard an artist foist up and defend the position that of course oil painters are naturally better than acrylic painters because ones choice of medium is dictated by ones level of skill. In other words, oil painters are better painters, hence they paint in oil.
The whole time he's talking I'm just thinking to myself, "Go ahead and say what you mean: Oil is the one true medium."
Just a few quick notes:
As seen at the Problem Properties Collaborative:
Monday, January 21, 2008 will be the 22nd national King Holiday, a Day of Service in remembrance of Dr. King’s lifelong commitment to his fellow man. This year, Volunteer Memphis/Hands On Memphis will host the 8th annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Summit on Service, a series of events designed to serve as a starting point for meaningful volunteer action and community engagement. Projects will last from 9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. on January 21. Attached you will find additional information and the application for volunteers.
I heard today from a fairly reliable source that the Medicine Factory is closing up shop. I can't say I'm particularly surprised (my cynicism knows no bounds), but god what a shame...
Seriously, I couldn't help it... I ordered this shirt within moments of getting the reprint notification. Yay for conspicuous consumption! Now back to your regularly scheduled blogging...
So regardless of what the Commercial Appeal says, apparently the top of Memphis' agenda is street paving and a boat dock. One of these two things I don't have a problem with.
Actually, it's not fair to say that I have a problem with the idea of improving the landing (despite my vitriolic first response for those of you who saw it). I have a problem with *this* plan to improve the landing. I could spend a good 1500 words going into detail but there's not a hell of a lot of point now and besides, it's already been said better.
There are those who say that our expenditures are a clear indication of our priorities. If the City Council represents the will of the people (which is how it works in theory), where was the big public outcry in support of the Beale Street Landing? People around here seem pretty worried about crime, but the council only gave the police force additional funds equal to less than half of this years allotment for the Landing. Does this mean that 120% more Memphians are worried about a commercial boat dock than are worried about crime? Something tells me the answer is no.
If we want to take this as a spin on "we want to work on something positive rather than just throwing money after a negative" we can take a look at another potentially large capital improvement that was on the city council's agenda: the Wolf River Greenway. Despite its broad and vocal public support from a wide cross section of the population, its funding was cut to less than half of what was proposed (which incidentally is 4% of what the boat dock is getting). Again, where is the overwhelming public support for the Beale Street Landing Project? Proportionally this means that somewhere there must have been a public rally with enough people to fill the FedEx Forum, all cheering at the idea of this modernist travesty of a commercial boat dock getting tacked onto downtown.
Wait, you mean that didn't happen? Well then why all the public money?
Oh right. This is Memphis. What developers want, developers get. The rest of us can beg for scraps.
Not the same project that I was writing about before, but tangentially related:
This certainly seems like a bit of good news.
Demonstration House Groundbreaking Ceremony: Terra
June 12 (Tue), 9:30 am
NE corner of N Main & Greenlaw
RSVP 901-678-5669
Center for Sustainable Design
More information here [pdf]
So I'm reading this interview with the MATA planning director Tom Fox by Tim over at "I'll meet you at the Station" and I got distracted by a number. Tim apparently solicited questions from his readers (bravo for crowd-sourcing), and put together a really solid list of questions for Mr. Fox.
The general theme of the answers came in the form of "we're working hard but we need more money." This didn't come as any great shock to me; I work for the state. Budgets are tight all around and I get that, but then Mr. Fox actually quoted a dollar figure.
The thing standing in the way of the Cordova/Downtown light rail line is $17 million dollars. Our mayor wants to piss away $175 million dollars of our tax money for a football stadium in a city that already cocked up its bid for a professional football team and has been thoroughly screwed on the other two professional sports venues built here and you mean to tell me that the only thing standing in the way of this desperately needed bit of public transit is a measly $17mil?
And before somebody takes me to task for the "desperately needed" bit because they think people in the 'burbs all suck, I've got to get something off my chest: I'm sick to death of this "us versus them" crap between the inside-the-parkways crowd and everybody else in the MSA. Cordova and Collierville need downtown and downtown needs Cordova and Collierville, no matter how much both sides resent it. If Memphis were doing as well off from the Midtowners' money as they and their never ending stream of press releases would have us believe, then Main Street after dark would look like Vegas and not a pan handlers convention.
That said, do I wish there were less sprawl? Of course I do, but I also wish I had a tree that grew gold bricks... fat lot of good that's doing. We have to work together starting with the Memphis that's here, not the Memphis we wish we had.
In his critique of this notion of the Creative Class that we're supposed to be attracting in droves and that will apparently pave the streets in platinum and make jewels fall from the sky, a good friend of mine brought up the point of what he called "legacy Memphians." His point being that, ok fine, we bring all these super hip people here with all their super hip techno VC and the people who are already here and broke are still here and broke. WTF are we supposed to do for them?
(Speaking of critiques, if you haven't read fearlessvk's skewering of this myth of the Creative Class go do it now... right now... I mean it... I'll wait...)
But taken a step further, sprawl is also a part of "Legacy Memphis." Ignoring it or making fun of it isn't going to make it go away. We still have to be neighbors after we're done snarking about each other on our blogs.
My foul mood this afternoon aside, I'm not saying there aren't good things happening in Memphis because God knows there are lots of them, but they are having to happen in spite of our divided-and-politically-conquered natures. I freely admit to being a newb (I made 5 years here in December), but Steve Cohen's partisan rant aside, the Charles Jordan talk a few weeks ago was the first time since I've lived here that I felt like I was part of a community that was actually interested in doing something.
And by community, I don't mean Central Gardens, I don't mean Raliegh, I don't mean Hickory Hill... I mean Memphis... all of it.
Like it or not we're all in this together.
I promise I will write a real entry soon, but in the mean time:
TONIGHT at 7 p.m. in the Psych Auditorium at the University of Memphis, Alan Lightman will be presenting a lecture entitled "The Physicist as Novelist." From the press release:
"For more than 20 years, the Memphis-born Lightman taught physics and astronomy at Harvard University. He is now an adjunct professor at MIT, where he teaches in the writing and humanistic studies program. Lightman has been recognized for his writing by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has twice been a juror for the Pulitzer Prize in the fiction and non-fiction categories."THURSDAY, March 1 at 7p.m. in the Meeman Journalism Auditorium, Michael Hatt, head of research at the Yale Center for British Art, will be giving a lecture "Speech and Silence: Richard Wright’s Twelve Million Black Voices." From the Press Release:
"Wright's third book, published in 1941, gives voice to the struggle of black Americans to find a place in a society closed to them. The feelings of the book are intensified by Depression-era photographs by Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans and Arthur Rothstein. The lecture in the Meeman Journalism Auditorium is free and open to the public."Also THURSDAY at 7, Henry Luttikhuizen, professor of art at Calvin College, will present a lecture "Through Boschian Eyes" Thursday at 7 p.m. at Rhodes College. Again with the press release goodness:
"Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516) is noted for his meticulously painted compendiums of monsters and demons meting out grotesque punishments in vast allegorical landscapes lit by hellish fires.Serving both devotional and satirical purposes, Bosch's work, filled with references to folklore and religious symbolism, grew out of the intense social and political tensions of his time. The lecture in the Blount Auditorium of Buckman Hall is free and open to the public. The event is sponsored by the Lillian and Morrie Moss Endowment for the Visual Arts."****
I'm entirely to tired to say anything sensible about it, but I just wanted to point out a interesting bit of conversation happening over at the Lantana Blog for those of you who haven't seen it. Good stuff, conversation... we need more of it.
Copied from their respective press releases:
Lillian and Morrie Moss Endowment for the Visual Arts: Reuben Lorch-Miller
2/1/2007 | 7 p.m. | Blount Auditorium, Buckman Hall
Lorch-Miller integrates a variety of media -- text paintings, photography, sculpture, furniture, flags, video, sound, and landscapes -- to compose a cyclical and tangential visual narrative. The images and forms he uses in his installations are often inverted, reversed, reflected, looped or doubled. Themes explored include isolation, fear, power, redemption, and reinvention.(Net)Working to Grow Something Good in Memphis
How do you start a personal or corporate art collection? Where are there opportunities for artists in Memphis? How can artists and businesses partner to improve our city's vibrancy and economy? Please join us on Thursday, February 1 from 7:00-9:00 pm at Tsunami Restaurant in historic Cooper-Young for the opportunity to discuss these questions and more as you mingle with respected guests from Memphis' cultural community.
The post holiday rush hasn’t slowed down one bit. I keep thinking things will calm down and I’ll have a chance to write, but it doesn’t look like things are going to settle any time soon.
We’ve been in the throws of a redesign at work. The project was supposed to be done by the first of the year but for an uneven mixture of technical and political reasons it didn’t get done in time and is now largely falling to me. It’s been a deeply frustrating process and one I’m very much looking forward to seeing the back of.
This afternoon on my drive home I put on Eric Dolphy’s Last Date. For whatever reason it tends to insinuate itself in time between me and the time that was. A sort of forced perspective that drives back the day. Worth a listen if you get the time.
I found two upcoming dates on my calendar that I wanted to share just in case anybody else hadn’t heard but might be interested.
First, Lucy Lippard will be speaking at MCA on January 30 at 7pm. For those who don’t know her work, Wikipedia has a pretty good biography of her. The short version is that she’s been an fairly important voice in Post-Modern Feminism and art criticism for going on thirty years now. Definitely worth your time to go have a listen.
Second, Friends for Our Riverfront announced this morning that Charles Jordan, Directory of Parks in Portland, is coming to MCA to speak on improving the quality of life in our cities through the better use of our public spaces. The lecture is at 10am on Saturday, February 10. With all of the renewed interest in Memphis’ urban design here recently, this should prove to be a good opportunity to get perspective from someone who’s helped a city get it right.
