SABBATICAL WEEK FOUR

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Mardi Gras parade on the Oxford, MS Square

Week 4 was mercifully a little slower paced. My good friend Lynn at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke connected me with a wonderful couple in Oxford, MS, Ron and Joe, who graciously put up this stranger in their stunning guest house, hilariously dubbed Ditch Crest. Ditch Crest is right out of a Faulkner novel which is appropriate as Faulkner's home, Rowan Oak, is in town. Ron is the regional director of Teach for America and I learned a lot about this amazing organization. I was also able to catch up on a lot of non sabbatical related business and get to know the small town of Oxford.

The "kitten altar" in my bedroom at Ditch Crest

I had a wonderful visit to Rowan Oak and a walk through the adjacent Bailey Woods.

I had the best biscuit of my life at Big Bad Breakfast.

My big day trip adventure was to the blues capital of the universe, Clarksdale, MS. I think they have live music 365 days a year. For a guy who a) tries to get to bed by 10 pm every night b) doesn't much ever go see live music and c) can count on two hands the number of bars/clubs he has visited in his lifetime, a night out visiting THREE Blues Clubs was a celebration of being outside my comfort zone! My first stop was the Juke Joint Chapel at the Shack Up Inn.

I moved on to the Ground Zero Blues Club which is co-owned by actor and Mississippi native Morgan Freeman. The fried catfish was amazing and the mac and cheese world class.  Every surface in the entire place is covered with Sharpie graffiti.  Amazingly friendly folks, smoke free, and awesome music.

This is the local harmonica sales and repair store owner around the corner.  He offers Open Harp Surgery.

I finished off the night at Red's Blues Lounge which if you don't know where it is you definitely won't find it. Frank goes clubbing!!!

 

One of my most exciting finds on the trip so far directed me to an unplanned visit to Memphis-Crosstown Arts and the Crosstown Concourse Project. There are not enough superlatives to describe the team at Crosstown and this amazing $180 million community development project with funding from 30 different sources. Do yourself a favor and follow these links and learn about these projects.  I have never seen such a case where the arts tail was TOTALLY wagging the development dog. I felt like I was in some crazy parallel universe where all decisions were being made based on how well the outcome would support the arts community! My incredibly gracious hosts, Amanda "Sparks" Sparks and her husband Chris Miner, treated me like long lost friends after learning of my existence less than 48 hours before and gave me the super grand tour of all of Crosstown's projects and the entire Concourse renovation.  They will have apartments AND studios in the building for 12-16 simultaneous visiting artists and over 20 programmable arts spaces in the building! They and a small team are running the whole project and really have their acts together.  Ellen and I hope to go to the grand opening on May 13.

Sparks and Chris

Amanda picked the color.  All the suits had their panties in a wedge about it and now nobody can stop talking about how wonderful it is. Typical.

The building is a former Sears distribution center and this area at the top of the tower on the 14th floor housed a huge water tower to service the building. Future home of a great bar/restaurant.

 

I felt like I had the Golden Passport while in Memphis.  Sparks and Chris connected me to all of their friends in the arts community and I seemed like every door just fell open for me. I met their photographer friend Jamie Harmon at Amurica  and he showed me around his crazy studio.

He also invited me to a storytelling event started by his wife called Spillit which is very similar to The Moth (Moth podcasts have been my savior on my many long drives) and Durham NC's own The Monti. The theme of the night was "guts" and ran the gamut from hilarious chickening out stories to sobering stories of colon surgery. Folks put their name in a hat if they want to tell a story but everybody can join in the fun--on each seat was a piece of paper where you could write about the time you most famously chickened out and in between the main stories they would read those.  The most poignant moment of the evening came when the MC read "I almost chickened out coming here tonight.  That's why I was late. I am brand new to Memphis and I don't know anyone or have any friends here and I was nervous about coming." The MC stopped and said "this is supposed to be anonymous but I want to invite you to identify yourself so we can welcome you" and a young woman did and instantly 5 or 6 people got up and hugged her and said they wanted to be her friend and gave her their email addresses. It was such a sweet moment and typical of my experience in Memphis.

Another great stop was at the Dixon Museum and Gardens.  It was hosting a traveling exhibition called State of the Art which originated at the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville Arkansas. Their curators visited the entire US and did more than a THOUSAND studio visits to find the best of the best or under recognized emerging and established artists working in the country.  Incredible show.

 

 

I managed to slip in a short visit to the famous Beale Street my last night there.

My final stop of the week was visiting my wonderful niece Natalie who lives and works for the Country Music Association in Nashville. Got to see her new house and groovy new office.

Off to Louisville, KY where I also have never been and always wanted to visit.. Thanks for being along for the ride.

 

 

The blues is like a planet.  It's an enormous topic.  You can't ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It's a tree that everyone is swinging from.  Without it, I don't know where I would be.  It's indelible and indispensable.  --Tom Waits

The blues is like a planet. It's an enormous topic. You can't ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It's a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don't know where I would be. It's indelible and indispensable. Tom Waits
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/blues.html

The blues is like a planet. It's an enormous topic. You can't ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It's a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don't know where I would be. It's indelible and indispensable. Tom Waits
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/blues.html

The blues is like a planet. It's an enormous topic. You can't ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It's a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don't know where I would be. It's indelible and indispensable. Tom Waits
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/blues.html

The blues is like a planet. It's an enormous topic. You can't ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It's a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don't know where I would be. It's indelible and indispensable. Tom Waits
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/tomwaits