Postcards from faraway places ...

[phil]

maarts said:

Rotorua- had the best corncobs in the world there. Freshly boiled over a geiser!

Naaah ! They wash them over the geyser,
dip them in mud before cooking them over a steaming rock !

[RocDoc]

Try Yellowstone National Park here instead...Wyoming will cost a whole lot less and (much as I too wanna see NZ) there's going to be some nearly-equally breath-taking sights to see.

I'll try to post some of our June 2005 pics of that bit of Wyoming heaven....

~

Doesn't geyser-cooked food pick up any of the lovely sulphur bouquet?

'Foo', I'm thinkin'...

[strat-0]

Here are a few more pics of the Gibson guitar factory. One thing I leaned was that the designation of "ES-335" stands for "electric Spanish" and the "335" means it sold for $335 in 1952, or maybe it was 1956. But wouldn't it be sweet to pick up a 335 for 335 bucks?

Pressing and molding some of the pieces



Assembling the body



Glueing the trim to the body



Some finished guitars waiting for final inspection

[RocDoc]

A white 6 and 12-string double-necked SG in the front there?

[strat-0]

Yep. That's nearly a day's production on the rack there. They build about 20 - 30 guitars a day.

[skvorisdeadsorta]

Oh, I want that double neck SG. That's sweet.

[Mary]

Bear with me, here come a million pics of Memphis:

Downtown Memphis, from my hotel room window when I was apartment-hunting in July:



World-famous Beale Street, where Elvis discovered the blues, in the early evening:



Sun Studios, where everyone who mattered recorded in the early days of rock:



My pathetic attempt at an arty photo of one of the only big pieces of public art in Memphis, outside the Canon Center for the Performing Arts:



More coming up in next post....

Cheers,
M

[Mary]

More pics of Memphis -

A highly alarming 72 foot tall "monument" outside a church that has received national media attention for depicting the Statue of Liberty with a giant cross instead of a torch:



In a somewhat similar vein, this was the only bookstore in downtown Memphis until a week ago. However, a midtown bookstore relocated to a downtown location a week ago, just a few blocks from my apartment, which I'm very very happy about:



Proud Mary keep on rollin'....



Famous bridge to Arkansas over the Mississippi:



This building houses the political science and philosophy departments at the University of Memphis, so it's where I work:



still more comin....

Cheers,
M

[Mary]

Even more pics of Memphis....

The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art - the main (basically the only) fine arts museum in Memphis:



Viewed from the sculpture in front:



The bizarre column inside the main entrance to the museum:



The Memphis College of Art:



And speaking of art, here's a glimpse of the South Main district near where I live - lots of art galleries and colorful awnings:



Also right near where I live, this is the hyper-sensory-overload inside of the Center for Southern Folklore:



Even more pics comin!!!

Cheers,
M

[Mary]

They just keep on comin'....

This is the motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. It is now the site of the excellent National Civil Rights Museum:



This is my favorite coffee shop in Memphis thus far - Otherlands:



And my favorite bar in Memphis thus far, the Young Avenue Deli in Cooper-Young, pretty divey, hosts a lot of shows, lots of tattooed bartenders - closest thing I'm likely to find to SF:



The entrance to Autozone Park, the minor league baseball stadium in downtown Memphis:



Phew.... that's a lot of pictures.

Cheers,
M

[dolly]

Nice pics. Lovely apartment view,

Um....cool Liberty Statue. The French would be mortified.

[RocDoc]

Yes, mon dieux indeed.

Apartment is somethin' else too.

[samplestiltskin]

Ooh, i wanna see inside that Otherlands coffeeshop, it looks weird!

I need a vacation. Have decided to either become a nomad or start a commune type animal rescue land tract where a few of us would thrive entirely outside of society. Or maybe i'll just keep sitting in this office chair. Yeah, that sounds good..

[rockysigman]

Awesome pics, Mary. Seems like there's lots of flashing lights and bright signs around there. Good times.

[Mary]

More memphis pics! More memphis pics!

This weekend the Center of Southern Foiklore is hosting a free "Memphis Music and Heritage Festival" so I wandered around snapping pics of many performers. They're not terribly good, since I was generally taking them from the backs of crowds and such, but they give you a sense of the spirit of the event and the city....

This is David Owens on guitar and Billy Gibson on harmonica. I'm not really sure if one can be a "virtuoso" harmonica player, but if so, then this guy probably qualifies:



This is a drill team, I think from Des Moines. The festival started with a bunch of drill teams in a parade along a downtown street - I cheered loudly for the folks from oakland and made a ridiculous spectacle of myself



This is Moments of Joy. In case you couldn't figure it out, they're gospel. And these ladies had some serious pipes:



OK, I really regret how blurry this next pic came out, because this woman, Barbara Blue, was fucking amazing. She completely brought the house down, like Etta James. Totally badass:



This is Big George Brock. All you need to know about Big George Brock, you can discern from his amazing zoot suit:



This is a local Memphis rapper called Willie Firecracker. He claimed to be performing "the hip hop blues" and that seemed an apt label:



This is the lovely Miss Alicja Trout. She has been associated with numerous Memphis bands throughout the years, most famously the Lost Sounds. She's kind of a local rock icon:



And her band, on this occasion, are the River City Tanlines - here they are:



That's it for now! There's another full schedule tomorrow but I think I will have to be much more selective about what I go to because I need to actually be productive tomorrow!

Cheers,
M