I'm normally not a huge fan of sports journalism. It seems to remove all of the excitement from sports, focusing too much on the who-what-when-where-by-how-many-points. However, Geoff Calkins is brilliant.

He wrote this piece about last Saturday's Memphis basketball game against Tennessee.

Look out, Frank Deford. You may make more educated comments about wonderful and bizarre things like cricket, but Geoff Calkins makes me feel just like I did when I was standing in the Deli, watching the Tigers lose.

How you like them apples,
Kerry

Letter to Memphis

South Main, Sunday, Oct. 14, 2007:






Just photos today - there will be more real writing soon. Sadly, I haven't really got anything to say about this weekend, other than that Friday night, I went to bed at 9:30. Granted, maybe I shouldn't announce that new height in lameness. More soon. Promise. For reals.


let us be free,
Kerry

Double Whammy Cardigan Love

So, if you've been around me lately, you know I'm more or less obsessed with Okkervil River's "The Stage Names", particularly the song "John Allyn Smith Sails". It's another fantastic song about John Berryman offing himself, only with a generous portion of the folk song "Sloop John B."

For those unfamiliar, "Sloop John B." is a classic tale of familial turmoil set on the high seas. Everything was going delightfully for the narrator, who was sailing to Nassau with his grandpa. Everything was lovely, that is, until they got drunk, and the narrator engaged in some fisticuffs with Grandpa. Then the captain of the ship steals the narrator's grits, and the trip immediately becomes the worst trip that the narrator has ever been on.

This leads me to believe that there is possibly an entire sub-genre of music about family vacations gone terribly awry.

Really, I wish I had discovered these songs sooner - I could have used them as a kid on some of the family vacations I went on.

****

Enough record geeking.

-In other news, I made my first post-Nasty Couch Incident trip to Graceland, Too this past weekend with a friend who had never gone before. I told him very little, and he thoroughly enjoyed himself despite the 20 or so loud, drunk Ole Miss douches that showed up in the middle of the tour.

- Tomorrow night, the greatest trivia team ever, "Frampton Comes Inside You" will rise again. And hopefully, this time there won't be around on airport codes. We must have been the only person in the room without a FedEx pilot or scheduler or something. However, the 80's One-Hit-Wonder round was incredible. Here's to more of the latter and less of the former.

It's late, and I think I'm going to be a good girl and try to go to bed before midnight. I think I'm finally starting to feel like staying in my house again, and reading books or watching movies, or knitting. I don't think I'll revert back to the homebody I was four months ago, but I think I've struck a nice, happy balance. Here's to that.


raises a glass to grandpa,
Kerry


PS - Happy belated birthday to my brother, Kevin. He's 21 now! Woot!

Friendly Reminders

If you live in Memphis, and you haven't already, go vote in the city elections.

That's all.

doing her civic duty,
Kerry

The Porches Were the Rooves of Other Buildings

On Saturday, after a long walk in Overton Park and some delicious homemade food, my friend Taco and I decided that we wanted to get dressed up and see Superbad. We split up for an hour, and I put on a bright red tea-length dress and cowboy boots. When we met up at the Deli an hour later, he had on a suit and purple shirt and a purple bow tie.

Following the movie, we both kind of wanted dessert. The Cheesecake Corner was closed, so we had to settle for the bakery aisle of the midtown Schnucks. The midtown Schnucks is a special place (aside from the fact that "Schnucks" is a terrible name for a business). It's situated on one of the busiest streets in Memphis, with no clear way into and out of it's nightmare labrynth parking lot. The store itself is tiny, dimly lit and cramped. Ceiling support columns are situated in the middle of the soup aisle. There's no way that this store can really handle the volume of people that shop there, and only minimal renovations have been made since...well, ever. I guess they can get away with this because midtown has such limited grocery options. Sure, there's the Piggly Wiggly, and the Kroger (more commonly referred to as the Kroghetto), but if you want to grocery shop without being panhandled or scared of some of the food offerings, the Schnucks is where it's at.

Anyway - so we're there after midnight, which is generally the best time to be at the most poorly designed grocery store ever, trying to find something adequate for dessert. And of course we can't agree on what we want. I'm attracted to the cake slices while Taco is craving cream puffs. He was also particularly attracted to these:



He decided that he wanted to steal the overly descriptive label. So he set about gently peeling it from the plastic, while I paced around, trying to look busy in a very "nope, nothing to see here" kind of way. The whole time, I was telling Taco that he was going to get busted, not that you really can get busted for trying to de-label some cream horns. I'm the kind of person who's never been in any sort of real trouble, though, so I tend to be a little too cautious sometimes.




Eventually, we had to rock-paper-scissors for it, and he won. Cream puffs, cannolis and Colt 45 in hand, we went back to the church. Taco decided that desserts like ours were best enjoyed at great heights, so we climbed out a window and up a round runged ladder onto the roof.



It was quite enjoyable - a little chilly, but with the fun 80's dance music from the bar across the street and the sounds of airplanes. I'd totally do it again.



In other news, I played P&H trivia last night for the first time since the break up. My team, Frampton Comes Inside You, didn't do very well, but we did have a great time. And a very dirty team name. It was nice to see my friends, too. I hate that sometimes, I get too caught up in my own mess to remember to take the time to see the people I care about.

Anyway, it's about time for me to go to bed. In the meantime, check this out. It'll change your life.


every now and then, I fall apart,
Kerry

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Next weekend marks the annual GonerFest - a week-long rock'n'roll party put on by a local record store / label that features the best of local music, as well as some fantastic touring bands. My platonic soul mate Matt was supposed to come down next weekend so that we could go see Mr. Quintron and Miss Pussycat.

Friday morning, I had just gotten to work when I got an email from Matt asking for my address so that he could print directions to Memphis. I sent it, and got a reply that said "Great! I'm leaving now, see you in a few hours!"

This weekend wasn't Goner Fest. It wasn't anything special at all. I had no plans, so I didn't really mind.

When he got into town, we met some friends at the P&H for karaoke night. Normally, I try to avoid any singing in public, but something about Friday night took away most of the normal inhibition. It could have been the alcohol, it could have been that I was in a really good mood - I don't know. But what I lacked in talent, I made up for in enthusiasm.

During karaoke, I saw a flyer that said that Muncie favorites Everything, Now! would be playing at the P&H the next night. So Matt and I, bottle of champagne in hand, went to see them.

I've always had a weird fear of opening champagne corks. Maybe it was because once, I watched as one flew across the room and slammed into a picture frame, shattering it. Maybe I'm scared it'll shoot my eye out. So, I had Matt open the bottle, and somehow, half of the contents wound up all over his pants. The remaining was delicious, though, and we had a good time watching e,N!

The whole week was pretty uneventful - there was blues dancing, and Talk Like A Pirate Day. I celebrated the latter by going to the Buccaneer to hear a band called the Pirates. Before that, I went to the Deli. At the Deli, there was a boy who looked suspiciously like Craig Finn, who is almost the ultimate in dreamy. So, I passed him a note written on a napkin that read: "You look like Craig Finn. I think that's dreamy. We should hang out. Phone Number:" He never called. I mean, what sort of crazy person has the balls to hand a boy a note, but not really say hello. I suppose that person would be me, and maybe next time, I should say hello. Ah well - win some, lose some.

Today though, I'm exhausted. I wish I had more to say for myself, but there's not a whole lot going on. I'm sitting on my bed, watching Mad Hot Ballroom (thanks, Netflix!) and listening to a car horn that's gotten stuck in the on position. (oh wow - as I typed that, it magically stopped!) I'm also trying to find somewhere to watch the first part of the new Ken Burns WWII documentary. If you've got PBS, I've got homemade chili.

name and number,
Kerry

So Many Bad Ideas, So Much Fun

I'm going to be honest here and say that no matter how delighted I am by the cool weather, I'm a little freaked out. I live in Memphis. It's mid-September. We should still be standing in front of our window units, naked, beers in hand. Instead, I'm sitting at my kitchen, wearing a hoodie and making tea.

This week has been a little busier than most, which is really no excuse for not having blogged about the Millington Goat Festival and Anvil Shoot yet.

To preface, anvil shooting is apparently a pretty big deal. There are teams of people that compete in shooting anvils (which must be solid steel and weigh 100 pounds). As you can imagine, there is great danger in doing this. Here's why:

The anvil is placed on one of these, which is packed with black powder:



A fuse is then lit, and the lighter of the fuse runs away as quickly as possible. Ideally, a few moments later, the anvil is launched skyward. And as is the nature of gravity, while the anvil goes up quite slowly, it falls much faster. And sometimes, this happens:




Anyway.

We got to Goat Fest just in time for the start of the anvil shoot, having driven aimlessly around Millington for about an hour trying to find the festival site. We weren't sure where exactly the anvil shoot was going to take place - one would think that something like that would scare the goats. (Just imagine the horror of a wayward goat wandering into the blast range.) As soon as the first anvil was shot, it wasn't hard to find the blast range.

As soon as we got there, however, there were some problems. We watched a dude light the fuse and run, which was according to plan. But when after about 10 minutes, no anvils were airborne, the contest organizers realised that there might be a problem. First, they had to wait for the fuse to quit smoking. After about 10 more minutes, they sent someone over to the anvil to investigate.

The process for disassembling a misfired anvil is apparently a lengthy one. From what I could understand of the crazily moustachioed emcee, it involves two people pulling the anvil from the base with ropes, then waiting for the fuse to sort of die on its own. Thankfully, this situation didn't require that kind of precision and care. Within 15 minutes, the anvil was fired, and it was pretty spectacular.

Originally, I had worried than anvil shooters were going for distance, not height. I'm still not entirely sure what the point is, you know? Like, are the anvils supposed to land somewhere specific? Is success measured by how deeply the anvil sinks into the ground upon landing?

I'd love to actually try it sometime. I'm not sure how anvil shooting is a team sport, but it would be awesome to find a team that would let me play along sometime.

The rest of the goat fest was a little bizarre. There were Civil War Reenactors, coverd wagons, and teepees. I'm sorry, but you can't have all three. The covered wagon can go with either, but teepees and reenactors shouldn't mix. Because this was a goat festival, enjoy some gratuitous pictures of goats. I'm going to eat some food.

Baaaaa!
- Kerry