William Christenberry

in the 1960's, william christenberry, a tuscaloosa born, hale county raised photographer, painter and sculptor, picked up where walker evans' work left off. in 1968 he began photographing local landmarks throughout hale county. he moved to new york shortly after this time, but continued to return to hale county every year or so on his trips back home to visit family. he would make the trip around hale county to find and photograph those same landmarks. in fact, while in new york he ran into walker evans, showed him his collection of photographs and was encouraged by evans to continue the work. he has continued to this day. the southern eye might see christenberry's work as well composed photos of insignificant buildings. his southern gothic imagery is a common place site for those of us from the south, but his work transcends architectural photography or cultural documentation. his work is about decay, about the passage of time, about human life and time and how the two are forever coupled. even the seemingly lifeless human creations can't escape death. where is there a better place to capture stagnant decomposition than the black belt of alabama? the hot and humid weather forces the people to move and talk a little slower and the misfortunes of history have detained economic and social progression. i know i've been to towns in alabama where it felt like time stood still. without christenberry's patient lens, the subtle, even imperceptible, effects of time may go unnoticed. christenberry says, "What I really feel very strongly about, and I hope reflects in all aspects of my work, is the human touch, the humanness of things, the positive and sometimes the negative and sometimes the sad." there's a great interview with christenberry here. here are photographs of a house he has photographed since the sixties:






that's not the full set and i dont have the years for each photo. the photo below is a collection of the full set but the inset pictures are small.

another building made famous by christenberry sits only a few doors down from theresa burroughs and the safe house museum. it's been a juke joint, a bingo hall, another juke joint, another bingo hall, and in more recent years a club formerly called the underground railroad, currently called the house of blues. these photo groups aren't the best, but you can get an idea. for better photos, there are several great books full of his work, which i'm sure you can find at your local library.

Walker Evans

let us now praise famous men was written in the late 30's in hale county. walker evans, the photographer who accompanied james agee into hale county for the book, went on to photograph greensboro, tuscaloosa, birmingham and the surrounding areas pretty heavily for the farm security administration after the completion of let us now praise famous men. evan's job was to capture the hardships of southern life during the depression. in the process, he preserved excellent examples of southern architecture, culture and humanity. evans is quoted to have said that his goal was to take photos that were "literate, authoritative, transcendent". the new york times recently revisited several places made famous by evan's work. check out some photos:


(bud fields, wife, and child for let us now praise famous men)


(another family, possibly the burroughs, from let us now praise famous men)


(fish stand near birmingham in 1936)


(greensboro in 1936)


(grocery in selma in 1936)


(the same grocery in selma taken in april of this year by the new york times)


(sprott, alabama post office in 1935)


(the sprott post office in 2009. a storm took off the top half of the building)

Beautiful Film Restoration

jeff altman, a film colorist and photographer, inherited all of his grandfather's 16mm home movies and is in the process of transferring them to hd, stabilizing them, coloring them, and posting the footage to vimeo. this particular video is filmed at disneyland in 1956, a year after the park opened. walt disney was at the park that day and appears in the footage. the image is remarkably crisp and the color is superb.

Home Movies At DisneyLand - 1956 from Jeff Altman on Vimeo.

and here's san francisco 1958:

San Francisco 1958 from Jeff Altman on Vimeo.

Today is Roll MF'in Tide Day at Work

well, really it's wear your school colors on casual friday day. that translates to roll mf'in tide day where i come from. the first game of the season is tomorrow and that rulez. yes with a z. there's a lot of buzz about football on the facebooks. i noticed that some of my nc state friends were disappointed by last night's showing. i went online to check out gopack.com to find the score from the evening before. what i found was inspiring. nc state hired a local independent rock band named airiel down to contemporize their school's fight song.

(i wonder if they know what loitering means? if they do! oh man, that's hard!)

check out the contemporary version! it's totally rockin. i really like how they yell out the team mascot at the beginning. i think that is a trademark. here's another song where they yell at the beginning:

airiel down also composed the fight song for the carolina hurricanes. it's on their myspace. this got me thinking. alabama should pay a band to contemporize their fight song. we could get saliva, the makers of "click click boom," or those guys who did the "ew ah ah ah ah" song to cover the fight song or rammer jammer. actually, the football program has so much money, we could lose the marching band altogether and pay one of these bands to play live in the stadium. now that would be rad.

Theresa Burroughs

theresa burroughs is a fascinating individual. i met her in 2004 as a student videographer for the center for public television. andy grace was making a short doc about her in the spirit of errol morris' "first person" series. she runs the safe house black history museum in greensboro, alabama. the safe house is dedicated to alabama black history, specifically the civil rights movement, of which, theresa was a fierce participant.


(photo taken by theresa burroughs of dr. king arriving in greensboro)


the safe house is a place where martin luther king jr. rested one night after speaking in greensboro. the klan knew he'd be there, so they rode around town in pickup trucks wearing hood and cloak. it was night time and the klan members had the cab lights on in the trucks so everyone could see the shotguns they carried. she said it was pretty intimidating, but "the night was black and so were we." the black citizens of greensboro had hidden in the shadows and brush surrounding the house and weren't going to let anything happen to dr. king. obviously, they prevailed that night or the museum wouldn't be called the safe house, but to hear the details you should take a short trip down to greensboro and let her tell the story. her stories are alluring and she's about as charismatic as people come. it's one thing to be in an historical place, but it's an entirely different thing to have a living part of that history take you back into those moments in time. theresa started organizing for the movement at 17, was arrested a total of 6 times, and was one of the first across edmund pettus bridge in selma, which means, she was one of the first to be beaten down by alabama state troopers. she has an abundance of stories attached to her badges of honor. she'd love for you to come visit and share - that's why the safe house museum is open. to give you a preview, here's a recording by story corps of theresa telling her daughter about registering to vote.

and here is the location of the safe house:

View Larger Map

Way Down in Alabama

i mentioned in my alabama supper post that we impulsively rode into hale county last saturday after having a few, intent on having a few more in a quainter local, but i had not the time to go into detail. we went to see a friend of paul's. she's writing an article for harper's about some such down in the greensboro area. when we arrived we found a gaggle of the hippest hipsters this side of the williamsburg bridge gallivanting about downtown greensboro in an upstairs loft. i couldn't believe my eyes. typically a cool party in alabama is a mix of subcultures, cliques, and interests forever on the brink of fallout. but here, in the middle of sleepy hale county, in the black belt, there was a gathering of people of common interests with good taste, good style, open minded conversations, and good times. many of them were associated with pie lab or rural studio. some were architects, some artists, some photographers, some writers, and many were student interns. talking to a few of them, i found that most were from north of the mason dixon. i also found that they had a strong interest in the black belt communities, in my home state, and were well versed in notable black belt artists and figures. it was refreshing. i ended up talking to phillip jones, an artist from lexington, kentucky, for much of the evening. he was down there with paul's friend, alex, to contribute artwork to the harper's piece. we discussed our favorite alabama artists and/or acquaintances like lonnie holley, jerry brown, charles smith, mozell benson, and thornton dial. he had seen the film the fullness of time, a film about local civil rights activist theresa burroughs, which andy grace directed and, to which, i contributed as a student. he had also seen mr dial has something to say, the alabama public television film directed by celia carey. he couldn't figure out why that film hadn't received more air time. then, of course, we began discussing james agee and walker evans' work in hale county that became let us now praise famous men. this led to a discussion about william christenberry's work. it was great. it felt like what it must have been like to be at one of those art parties in rural alabama in the 30's with harper lee and truman capote. what's funny is toward the end of the evening in tuscaloosa, before the mention of leaving for greensboro, i had looked up at the alabama moon and thought i was having the quintessential southern summer evening. little did i know what lay down the road.

on monday, i went to the library to find let us now praise famous men. i read it a few years ago, but it's essentially a prose poem that needs rereading every few years. in honor of such an inspired hale county weekend, some future posts will be more about hale county and it's badassedness.

Youtube Doubler

youtube now offers a mashup assistant called youtube doubler. you paste the url from one video into the first video line provided and then do the same with another video to the second line and hit "double it." instant mashup. clayton cubitt, the photographer, video artist, and blogger made a messidor/the shining title sequence doubler that is really cool. looky here.

Cracked.com article on Glenn Beck's Comedy Tour

this cracked.com article by daniel o'brien about the glenn beck common sense comedy tour movie event had me laughing.

New Pogo Track and Video

pogo has released a new video to his youtube account. oddly enough, i found him a long time ago looking up the word faggotron (the username on the account) because my friend mike referred to all of his friends with this endearing term in the mid ninties. this is long before it was common place. he was an innovator. so is pogo. pogo's first big hit is called "alice" and has received more than 3 million views on youtube. alice is a track developed by sampling and looping dialogue, sounds, and soundtrack from disney's alice in wonderland. it's one of my favorite things. the song is a blissful meditation on synesthetic euphoria and fading emotional and imaginative memory, if i may be so lame to say myself. i posted about it over a year ago. since then, he's done a few interviews, started a last.fm page and a blog. what info has come out of that? he's a 21 year old south african born australian that makes cool tracks. this new track, "bangarang," was developed with the same looping and sampling techniques, but from the movie hook. take a look.

and watch "alice" if you havent.

Alabama Supper

i was in attendance at the second alabama supper this past weekend. the event, held just outside tuscaloosa at the remnants of a hunting lodge f.scott fitzgerald frequented, is a combined effort by couples, andy and rashmi grace and joe and sarah brown, to educate, inform, and motivate alabamians, well, really everyone, about where our food comes from, the process it takes to get to our mouths, and how eating locally effects our health, environment, economy, and conscience. the couples have been eating food exclusively grown within the state for about a year now. through their blog, eating alabama, they've explored alabama's farming infrastructure, profiling our state's farms and their services, narrowing down a reasonable means to eating locally. it's a fascinating read and chocked full of recipes, gardening tips, and info for those wishing to become a participant in buying locally.

this past saturday's event is the second gathering orchestrated by the couples to gather hordes of folks together to share one big alabama meal. this year's menu was fantastic and consisted of the following:

1) Okra, watermelon, green bean, cucumber and other pickles in all shapes and stripes grown and made by Sue Lewis, Libby Turner and Hudson Farms in Tuscaloosa County.
2) Cajun boiled peanuts from Burris Farm Market in Loxley.
3) The last of the season's watermelon from a variety of sources in Tuscaloosa and Pickens County.
4) Baguettes made from Elmore County flour ground by Oakview Farms Granary in Wetumpka and baked by Continental Bakery in Birmingham.
5) Grilled ratatouille made from a medley of late season vegetables from Snows Bend, Birdsong Farm, Fig Leaf Farm, and Parker Farm.
6) The ratatouille will be served on a bed of Goat Cheese Grits with grits from McEwen and Sons in Coosa Valley, and goat cheese from Belle Chevre in Elkmont.
7) Finish up this meal with a delicious pear crumble, with pears from Jimmy McAteer's in Buhl.
8) Of course there'll be beer from our friends at Good People Brewing.
9) Alabama wine from a variety of Alabama vineyards.
10) tentative - Bayou La Batre oysters, prepared low-country style.

enjoyed while listening to red ruckus and the tag-a-longs (who performed as hill country hemhaw last year)

my favorite thing to occur during this event is the meeting of bayou oysters and good people brown ale. in fact, i drank far too much good people, that or i was drunk on belle chevre cheese grits. around ten, when the event was winding down, i took off in a car (not driving) with my friends, paul and bryant, headed south for greensboro to party with rural studio and pie lab kids. it was a good time, but i got home close to 5am.

the graces and browns announced on saturday that they are going to turn the eating alabama project into a non-profit. andy, who is a filmmaker and director of the alabama craft film i shot, has been documenting their efforts on video and, in coordination with my department at alabama public television, will hopefully create a film. i highly recommend reading their blog. i also highly recommend supporting your local farmer's markets, csa's and co-op's!