My Weekend in Memphis (Part 1)

When I told people that I was driving Jeannie and her baby to Memphis last weekend, everyone's response was pretty much, "Really? Have you thought about this?" The answer is yes, of course I did, and when I imagined the trip in my head it went something like this:



That only actually happened for twenty minutes, maybe less, and happened at the end of the trip when we were less than a half hour away. The other six hours or so of driving were tear-free, except for the shuddering tears of horror that Jeannie and I both shed (and may still be shedding) over the incredibly skeevy Jack in the Box where we stopped for lunch. Neither of us had ever eaten at a Jack in the Box before, and I can guarantee that I never will again. I don't care if Martha Stewart is on her hands and knees in the doorway scrubbing the entire restaurant by hand with industrial strength cleaner that they use to strip out the insides of jet engines; you will have to force me inside Jack in the Box at gunpoint, and even then you might have to shoot me in the knees and drag me.

Other than that, the drive didn't really have any highlights, mostly because I-40 across Tennessee is the narrowest, straightest drive ever. On the map it looks like it's kind of wavy and maybe even curvy, but on the road it's like someone laid down an asphalt ruler. I blame Al Gore.

No, really. I learned on the trip that it's all his fault:



I also learned that the rest stops between Nashville and Memphis are named after musicians:



In an odd coincidence, I called to check on work from the Tina Turner rest area, and mere minutes later suddenly felt like slapping someone around. Even more odd, one of the rest stops is named after Hank Williams:



Hank Williams, as you may or may not know, died in the back seat of a car while being driven through Tennessee. Maybe they should have just called it the Hank Williams (Eternal) Rest Stop, but seriously, who names a highway rest stop after someone who died in a car? Does Tennessee also have a Patsy Cline International Airport that I don't know about? Nothing would surprise me at this point because, as I've said before, Tennessee is a land of wonder.

Mostly, the wonder comes in the form of wondering what the hell people were thinking, but I'll get there later.

In the meantime, as soon as we got to Memphis we parked the car and walked to the Italian Festival, where Jeannie's parents were part of a competitive team. I'm not sure what her dad was doing (maybe just general teamwork and cooking?) because I never asked, but he might have entered his homebrewed beer. I probably should have asked, but I met so many people who hugged me and steered me toward food (I think I met Jeannie's entire family and neighborhood in the space of six minutes) that I already had a donut and a drink in my hands before I remembered to ask. He was definitely doing a lot of grilling, but I don't think there was a competition for that.

There was a competition for gravy, though, and Jeannie's mom was aiming for a win:



Depending on where you're from, that's not called "gravy". My mom's family would just call that "sauce", or maybe "meat sauce" if there was that and another option without bulk sausage. Either way, it was delicious, and I'm saying that as a person who normally never eats red sauce, or gravy, on my pasta. Her recipe included allspice, red wine, sausage, and I'm not sure what else, and there was an elaborate preparation process that included hours of cooking, cooling, cooking again, overnighting in the fridge, warming, cooking, and continuous stirring before serving it to the judges. Serving the gravy also consisted of an elaborate presentation with fine china, a bit of a show, linens, and some people working out of complete stage sets rather than just tents:







The Italian Festival is serious business, but there was also time for fun. Buddy, for example, stayed in the safety swing until Jeannie's arm and then my arm got tired:



They also had the usual carnival/festival type of booths:



and I learned that a Pronto Pup is a corndog:



Corndogs, after all, are a cornerstone of Italian cuisine.

We had a really good time at the festival, but all three of us were exhausted from the car ride and went to bed early, so that we could be up in time for Jeannie and I to drive around Memphis and visit Graceland.

Graceland in Black and White

Tomorrow night, when I finally get around to writing about my weekend in Memphis, I'm probably going to end up tearing into Graceland a little. I know it's the kind of place that's either kitschy or camp or maybe a holy shrine to some people, but I found so much of it to be deliberately, unspeakably tacky.

I have no particular loyalty to Elvis. I have none of his songs on my iPod. On the other hand, I have no particular hatred for Elvis. He isn't Nelly Furtado, after all. Still, it seems to me that you can have a museum to someone and a tour of their home without plastering their face on any



possible



object



that you could name. It seems vaguely distasteful to sell ashtrays, shotglasses, action figures, lamps, pillows, purses, blankets, and spice racks emblazoned with a dead man's face a stone's throw from his grave, and this is coming from a person who loves the town of Pigeon Forge. The whole place is exploitative and somehow sad, as if the Presley family has forgotten that Elvis was a real person rather than a hip shaking caricature that they can make a buck off of.

Tonight while I was uploading photos I realized that I felt bad for Elvis.



I felt bad for a dead millionnaire. That's how terrible Graceland is.

Black and White and Wet All Over

I've been meaning to do a little more work with black and white photographs, and keep not getting around to it. I realize that I can just take regular photos and make them black and white in the photo editor, but I wanted to put a little bit of thought into it, and look at things while thinking, "How would this look in black and white?" I figured the exercise would make me think more about contrast and shadows, and maybe help make me a better photographer. I'll probably still be 95% point and click, but maybe we can develop a little skill in that other five percent.

One of the few plans I had for the weekend was to find a spot to go walk around and work on this, and it just kept not happening for various reasons. People are sick and needed to be checked on, people don't have cars and need errands run, I have all my regular weekend stuff, etc. so last night when I went to bed I said I would set my alarm, get up early, and go. When I woke up, it was raining. I went anyway, damn it.

I think the rain worked to my advantage, actually. It gave the sky a uniform lightness that completely washes out in the pictures:









It gives a sense that these buildings could kind of be anywhere, and it also gave everything indirect lighting. I was thinking about shadows, but there weren't any.

The rain also gave shine to things that otherwise would not be shiny:





I probably wouldn't have taken a picture of the basketball court at all if it hadn't had the reflection, so I think the rain made things at least a little more interesting.

I took these pictures out at our off campus apartment complex, which is officially closed today. The last people, who had exceptions to stay late, will be moving out in a month, and then the buildings will be torn down to make way for new athletic fields. Because of that, the whole complex has a sense of emptiness and abandonment now, and there are a lot of signs of departure:













It's weird to think that within a year or two, everything in these pictures will be gone. On the other hand, I'm pretty happy with how the pictures turned out.

The Heartbreak of Continental Drift

When I got home from work today I decided that it was time to put away some comics I took out of storage boxes four months ago, because I'm right on top of my housework and super efficient and stuff, right? Anyway, I was putting away some issues of "Karate Kid" from the 1970's in the box where miscellanious "Legion of Superheroes" comics go when I spotted this:



"Secret Origins" #46, one of the most hilarious yet depressing comics that I own.

"Secret Origins" was a series published by DC Comics in the 1980's, offering the origins and backgrounds of many of their characters. It was kind of entertaining for comics fans, as it often elaborated on the backgrounds of second and third tier characters who might not get a lot of individual story time otherwise. Where else was there going to be time to explore Chemical King's lonely childhood and implied homosexual relationship with Invisible Kid, or to see Fury become an avatar of lost Greek gods in order to seek vengeance on her patricidal Italian fascist-Nazi sympathizing brother?

By the time #46 rolled around, though, "Secret Origins" was on the decline, and an issue featuring the previously untold secret origins of the Justice League, Teen Titans, and Legion of Superheroes' headquarters must have helped pound the nails right into the cancellation coffin. "Secret Origins" bowed out four issues later with the incredibly depressing story of how Black Canary's widowed mom, the World War II Black Canary, died a lingering painful death from cancer. Comic books are totally fun for all ages, right?

Back to number 46, though, I have to wonder both what the editor was thinking in featuring these stories and whether the writers' humor was intentional. While the story of Titans Tower was boring and poorly drawn, Grant Morrison decided not to dwell much on the origin of the Justice League's mountain cave headquarters in Rhode Island, and to use the time instead to let us know that the stone itself was semi sentient and that it had spent the last several million years missing Africa:



Continental drift ruins lives, and geology breaks hearts. There's your proof.

On the other hand, you have to wonder if the tears Grant Morrison wiped from his eyes after writing that were from sorrow or laughter. "O Africa, my love..." I can't read it without giggling, and it perfectly sets up the tragic comedy that is the secret origin of the Legion of Superheroes' rocket shaped clubhouse.

Our story opens with the three founding Legionnaires, Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad, holding open tryouts for members in the park. The Legion did this a lot in Silver Age comics, with the most common results being that the rejects kept coming back for more tryouts, formed their own groups of rejects, or became the Legion's sworn enemies for life. Oh, and occasionally someone was actually invited to join the team. Half of those people later turned out to be traitors.

Our story opens with the Legion rejecting perennial applicant Arm Fall Off Boy, whose power is to detach his limbs and beat people with them. Arm Fall Off Boy is immediately shoved aside by the next applicant, Mnemonic Kid:



If this tryout was a reality show, Mnemonic Kid would be the girl who looks straight at the camera in the first five minutes and loudly proclaims, "I'm not here to make friends." She further cements this impression by starting an argument with Saturn Girl about the spelling of her name:



The best part of that argument? Saturn Girl is a telepath. She can settle the argument in less than a second by reading the correct spelling from Mnemonic Kid's mind, but she'd rather just keep arguing. The guys, of course, are probably just hoping that the girls will start wrestling and then start making out, but instead Mnemonic Kid decides to shoot a random child in the head with her memory destroying powers:



Again, this is a tryout for the Legion of Superheroes. I don't think the word "hero" means what she thinks it means, and Lightning Lad kind of agrees with me:



Mnemonic Kid stomps off, vowing revenge. As the first Legion applicant to do so, she's the founder of a grand tradition. Just ask Spider Girl, Storm Boy, Jungle King, Phantom Lad, Calorie Queen, Tusker, Eyeful Ethel, Golden Boy, Chameleon Kid, Mentalla, and a host of other members of the Legion of Supervillains.

With Mnemonic Kid offstage vowing revenge and buying weapons (no, she really is), the star of our story finally arrives: Fortress Lad. Here, he explains his power for the founders:





He's from the planet of the big-assed people, and he turns into a building. The Legion, who have accepted members like Matter-Eater Lad (who has the power to eat anything), Bouncing Boy (who can inflate himself into a super elastic ball), and Dream Girl (who can see the future, but only when she's asleep) without really batting an eye, decides that turning into a building is a completely useless power, and they reject him just in time for Mnemonic Kid to come back and erase their memories of being superheroes. That's just her warm-up, though, because she's also going to shoot them all to death with her ray gun until Fortress Lad springs (well, sort of) into action:



As an equal opportunity hater, Mnemonic Kid turns her memory destroying powers on Fortress Lad, slowly removing his memory of being a person while the Legion recovers inside:



I guess her permanent memory deletion wasn't so permanent after all, but she's got a backup plan. When the recovered Legionnaires exit Fortress Lad, she throws a metal grenade at them that Cosmic Boy uses his magnetic powers to repel:



Everybody ducked but Mnemonic Kid, who died in the blast. Unfortunately, Fortress Lad's true identity died with her. Her attack turned him into a mindless vegetable, and the Legionnaires remembered everything except that the building next to them used to be a person. Instead, they decided to move in:



So, in closing, everyone who reads "Secret Origins" #46 gets to enjoy the heartwarming tale of how the Legion's whimsical upside down rocket ship clubhouse is really a mentally incapacitated coma victim that they live inside. I promised hilarity, though, so let me direct you to the punchline. Take a look at this picture again:



Fortress Lad's head and arms are on top of the rocket, and his feet are on the bottom. Later in the story, the door that the Legion exits Fortress Lad through is also on the bottom. Between his legs. A spot where most humans have a backdoor of another type. Congratulations, Legion of Superheroes.

Your lobby is somebody's colon.

Bacon as Candy

My friends, who know of my love of bacon, have been trying to get me on the "bacon candy" train for years now. I've been emailed a number of recipes, most recently by my friend Elizabeth, and after reading my friend Justin's hilarious account of his own try at this last week I decided that I might as well try it, too. After that, I'm going to jump off of a bridge because all of my friends are doing it.

Anyway, in reviewing a number of techniques and suggestions, I decided that I would keep my attempt simple:



Dark chocolate and bacon. Simple, classic culinary horror. Some people add alcohol, some people add pepper or chili powder, some recipes call for a sprinkling of chopped nuts, but I decided that it was better to let the bacon and the chocolate speak for itself. "Simple ingredients, prepared well" is the cornerstone philosophy of many cooking styles, although I get the distinct impression that this isn't the kind of recipe they had in mind.

While picking out the chocolate was easy, picking out the bacon was a bit of a challenge. This may come as a surprise to many of my friends, but I don't actually buy that much bacon, and only buy pork bacon when a recipe calls for it. Otherwise, I go with turkey bacon because it is low fat and stays flat when you microwave it. Anyway, in looking for bacon for this recipe I decided to avoid flavored bacon, like the maple cured, and to get a standard size rather than thick cut, because I think regular bacon gets crispier.

(Thick cut is recommended for the "glazed bacon" variation of bacon candy, where the bacon is baked on a sheet tray with a glaze that usually includes brown sugar and/or maple syrup. Greasy Lisa used a variation of this technique to win an elimination challenge and trip to Italy on season 4 of "Top Chef".)

Cooking the bacon was easy enough. Preheat the oven, cover a cookie sheet in parchment paper (some recipes said to do this and some didn't, but it seemed like it would make the cleanup easiest), and pop it in for 25 minutes:



It crisps right up, and stays mostly flat:



It comes out swimming in an ocean of bacon grease, though. If you try making bacon this way, be sure to use a rimmed cookie sheet. If possible, use a raised rack on a rimmed cookie sheet, so that the grease drips off. Since I didn't have a raised rack, I fished the bacon out with tongs and set it on a plate covered with folded paper towels to drain.

While the bacon was draining and cooling, I got to work on the chocolate, using the improvised double boiler that I figured out when I made that Christmas chocolate bark that no one liked a few years ago.







A few pointers before anyone tries this:

1) Make sure your bowl is wide enough not to fall into the pot. I refuse to explain how I know this is the kind of problem that needs to be pointed out.

2) Make sure your bowl is oven-safe, because it will get really hot. Fortunately, I have never exploded a dish in this fashion, but I know people who have.

3) Make sure that the bottom of the bowl is above the boiling water, not in it. If the chocolate gets too hot, it will start to crystallize. This is what happens to chocolate almost every single time I microwave it for melting.

With the bacon cooked and the chocolate melted, I was ready to go. Using a silicone basting brush (because it's nonstick), I started coating my bacon on one side:



Once it was painted, I chilled it in the freezer:



and turned it over to paint the other side:



Once that was done, I chilled it again, and then ate some.

And it turns out that I kind of don't like it.

I like chocolate with salty things in it. Chocolate covered pretzels, chocolate caramels with sea salt on top, stuff like that. And I liked the taste of the bacon with the chocolate, but the problem was that there was too much chocolate. Even though I painted it on thinly and evenly, the overall effect is kind of like a candy bar with a piece of bacon inside, and hardly seemed worth all the effort, especially when you can just order a candy bar with bacon in it from amazon.

While this was an interesting novelty, I don't think I'll be making it again.

Exploring in East Tennessee

After my February trip to neighboring Concord it was my goal to keep visiting the cities, towns, and villages around mine on a fairly regular basis. I kept getting caught up in stuff, though, or planning other things, or just getting tired, and I never got around to getting out again to work on exploring until this morning. Randomly clicking on wikipedia pages for my neighboring communities, I happened upon Maynardville and the picture of their courthouse.

My friend Sandy says that almost every town in Georgia has a historic courthouse, and it's been my experience that most of the towns in Tennessee are the same way. They're usually brick (sometimes whitewashed), they usually have columns out front, and they sometimes have a cupola, clock tower, or memorial statue. Take the one here in Knoxville, for example:



or the one in Sevierville, just up the road:



They're so similar that if you saw the two photos right next to each other, with no captions, you could easily assume that they're the same building from two different angles, and this seems to be the standard model for Tennessee county courthouses. Union County, on the other hand, boasts unique and somewhat unattractive courthouse, and as soon as I saw it on the wikipedia page I wanted to go see it.

It's just as unattractive in the flesh:



It's a box. A featureless concrete box, completely devoid of character or charm:



I can't even imagine what it must be like to enter the building. While it's possible that it has skylights I'm betting that it doesn't, and those little slits of windows can't possibly let in any natural light. It looks like it belongs behind the Iron Curtain or attached to a factory or something, and I can't imagine how it ended up in Tennessee. Not only that, but there's no landscaping around it. It's surrounded by parking, a concrete island in an asphalt sea. Who approved this design, and did they give any thought to the impression this makes of the county as a whole?

Either way, there wasn't really anything to see near the courthouse. I don't know a lot about Maynardville, but I'd guess it's in decline, as the courthouse was surrounded by vacant storefronts and closed businesses. The gas station, a Union 76, has been closed so long that the lights are fully rusted:



The only thing that seemed to be thriving was the mortuary, whose parking lot included a very sadfaced Jesus:



After I got tired of walking around the courthouse I started for home, pulling over along the way whenever I saw something interesting, like a car on a stick:



a decrepit, closed deli and gas station:





and even a state park, the Big Ridge State Park on Route 61:



I want to go back to that, too, because I see from their wikipedia page (Remember the old days, when we didn't have wikipedia? Me either.) that there's a dam, a cemetery, a mill, and a haunted area. The only drawback is that I have to drive down State Route 61 to get there, and Route 61 was apparently designed by the construction crew from "Chutes and Ladders". The entire road is switchbacks, hairpin turns, and places where the signs tell you to drop down to ten miles per hour. I'd have taken pictures, but it's a "both hands on the wheel" kind of road.

It's also the road where I got in trouble.

On my way back to the main road from the park, I noticed another closed gas station with a rotting RC Cola machine out front, and decided to stop:





RC Cola and Moon Pies are pretty much the official snackfood of Tennessee, after all:



so I figured I might as well take a picture of the machine. Besides, it was rotting and falling apart, and everyone knows I love that. While I was walking around the parking lot taking the pictures a few cars went by, and I didn't really think anything of it, but right when I went to get back in my car a pickup truck pulled into the lot and blocked me in.

I figured it was just someone wondering what I was doing, since sometimes people stop and ask what I'm taking pictures of, but I'm also very conscious that I'm a Yankee with a pierced ear driving a VW Bug in pickup truck country below the Mason Dixon Line, and I sometimes worry that I'm about to have a problem. The sweaty, shirtless, overweight guy with the prison tattoo who got out of the truck did nothing to dispell this notion, and I worried that I might be about to get Deliveranced. In the bad way.

"What are you taking pictures of my building for? Are you from the bank?"

Really, mister? You think the bank sends people out wearing GI Joe t-shirts in VW Bugs with action figures mounted on the dashboard to foreclose on you? What the hell kind of bank are you doing business with? And oh my God, don't say any of this out loud.

"No, no," I answered, pointing at my parking pass. "I'm from the University. I'm in a photography class." Yes, I know that's a lie, but I've used it before and people seem to accept it much more easily than, "I'm going to post these on my blog and possibly make fun of them." I continued, "I saw your RC machine, and I just had to stop, especially with the way it looks just sitting there. It's kind of lonely, you know?"

He cocked his head to one side and blinkd a couple of times, and then shrugged.

"I never thought of it that way. You have a nice day, ok?"

"Oh, you too," I said, right before I got in my car and drove straight home without stopping anywhere. That's quite enough adventure for one day, thanks.