I Married the Banana Republic

 On vacation in Savannah, I walked by a Banana Republic and found that they have gone all, "I Married Adventure" this spring.  In fact, I stopped because the girl in the picture appeared to be holding her own copy of the Osa Johnson classic.  It was entitles, "Banana Republic."

Here they are going for that "Four Years In Paradise" background.

This is their new Desktop Safari collection. Even if one is forced to work in an office, one can still be wanderlust and adventurous.

If you do care about the real adventure of Osa Johnson and not just the decorative flair of her books, check out his new biography by Kelly Enright.  It is hard to believe in this twitterworld that people set out for trips that lasted years.  ( A week in Charleston/Savannah and I was beat and I didn't have to shoot any of my food or sleep on the ground!)  Letters took weeks to arrive and depart, camera equipment was REAL camera equipment with lens and big ol' tripods, and there were no cell phones.  No phones at all.  And no Banana Republic to buy your adventure frocks.  

Time marches on...

Technology VS. Friendship

Technology is our friend or is it frenemy?   I have returned from vacation.   Like most vacation travelers, I have returned with pictures.  Like most vacation travelers, I have returned with 3 good pictures and 162 pictures that look like crap.   (See above.)  


Before I left on vacation, I had the opportunity to pull out an old Polaroid camera from an unopened desk upstairs.  I had hunted it down because a company named Impossible (with a twee backwards "p") is making film for Polaroid cameras.  Impossible (again with that twee "p") is a good name for it.  For those of us not born in THIS century, we may just remember Polaroid cameras.  Truth be told, not a one of them ever made a picture worth saving.   (I know, you have a whole album just chocked full of glorious Polaroid photos.  I am sure it sitting in your attic with the still in box, original Barbie Doll -- wait, your mother threw away that Barbie Doll, your book of baseball cards, AND...your album of glorious Polaroid photos.  OK, I believe in Santa...send them along or post them on your site and we will have a exhibition.)


But I digress, so, before leaving on vacation, I downloaded all the cool, hip, retro, I have an iPhone, apps to take vacation pictures.   I did not, however, really learn how to shot with them before I left.

The good news is...there is no cost to DEVELOP hipinsatpix.

The bad news... there is no cost to DEVELOP instacoolhipsterprints.

That means that there is nothing...nothing to stop you from taking 165 vacation photos that suck.  And...(and here is the bad part for you, my gentle readers) nothing to keep you from sharing them with others.

In fact, I believe there is an app for that.  Be forewarned!

Goat Cheese Cheesecake

Here is a shot of the goat cheese cheesecake at The Glass Onion in Charleston.

On Vacation

Follow our adventure in Charleston & Savannah on Twitter @Lucindaville

Alabama Shakes

We are feeling rather "tunie" these days and we do love sharing our music with you. My new favorite band is Alabama Shakes. Yes, Virginia, they are from Alabama and while we might just be swayed by that fact, they are just plain great. Lead singer Brittany Howard has been compared to EVERYBODY : the short list: Janice Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Tina Turner and even Jack White. BRITTANY HOWARD. That is all you need to know.

There has been a great deal of hype about the Alabama Shakes. All of it is true. The basic story is this...

Once upon a time in Athens, Alabama...

Brittany Howard wants to start a band. She asks Zac Cockrell, who happens to be in her psychology class, but more importantly, plays bass and wears cool band t-shirts, if he wants to write songs.

Over at the music store, the only music store in Athens, Alabama, Steve Johnson plays drums and Howard invites him along for the ride. They record some songs and Heath Fogg, who plays guitar and was in the coolest band ever to come out of Athens, Alabama (this statement is no longer true.) asks the trio to open for his band. They said sure if you will play with us.

And...

The rest is history.



Buy Boys and Girls. It will be your go to CD for summer fun.

Happy Easter

What We Would Have Bought...

...if we had won the lottery. It is the question that every lottery winner is asked: "What is the first thing you are going to buy with the money?" Generally the response is exactly what one might expect: Pay bills. Buy a new car. Buy a house. If I had won the lottery and they asked me what I was going to buy I would have replied: "All 48 of FeLion Studio's "Made in America" cast iron skillets."

It would have been a first.

But seriously, these skillets are not just skillets but works of art. Works of art in which one can cook cornbread. Ask yourself this: "Can you cook cornbread in a Picasso? A Dali? A Hirst? Hell no! But you can cook in Alisa Toninato's "Made In America." Of course, it would take a while to have all of them forged. While they were being forged, I would build a gigantic kitchen with enough stoves to bake 48 pans of cornbread at one time. Then there would be a big party with a gigantic state-by-state cornbread map.



After the party, I would hang all 48 state skillets on my specially built iron skillet wall map.

Needless to say, I am off to buy more lottery tickets!

A Church That Fits Our Needs

I have been listening repeatedly to Lost In The Trees disk, A Church That Fits Our Needs. It is rather hard to stuff into a box. Lost In The Trees is a folky, slightly orchestral band from North Carolina. Shortly after lead songwriter Ari Picker's wedding, his mother committed suicide. She stares out from the cover, looking a bit like a Renaissance painting.

The album asks profound and impossible to answer question about mortality,which could easily lead a lesser songwriter into a self-indulgent macabre exercise. Picker, however, offers up lyrical possibilities that build to a transformative catharsis. While this album is about death, it finds a way to transcend it. Beautiful and haunting, every listen brings out something new. In an era where music can be be banal, A Church That Fits Our Needs is on its way to becoming the best album of the year.

Coming Home

We have been waiting patiently for Coming Home: The Southern Vernacular House it finally see covers.
The book showcases James Lowell Strickland and Historical Concepts, the Atlanta firm founded in 1982. They have a bit of a speciality in creating community and civic projects, but they do a great deal of residential work. The title is self-explanatory: Strickland loves the Southern vernacular. It seems he has never seen a barn he didn't love...or have an idea for improving.

This book is filled with porches and foyers and sleeping areas tucked away with eloquence. No one is better at taking a series structures and linking them into a cohesive, thoughtful statement, individual and still the same.

This South Carolina compound features eclectic buildings including a residence, guest house, and carriage house sitting comfortably around an oak tree.


Zelda Fitzgerald wrote: "...it’s very difficult to be two simple people at once, one who wants to have a law to itself and the other who wants to keep all the nice old things and be loved and safe and protected."

Strickland has found a way to traverse this difficulty with great style and flair. He manages to keep all the nice old things while providing a modern spin: an almost optical illusion of of a shiny, new, old penny.


When is a porch so much more? Historical Concepts was joined by the Susan Sully who wrote the text for the book. Sully is one of the best architectural writers working today. This is her third or fourth book this year, it's so hard to keep track! She authored one of last years favorites, The Home Within Us, with Bobby McAlpine. There were so many posts on Sully's The Southern Cosmopolitan, that adding another one would have been redundant.

Coming Home was well worth the wait.