Details

More details for you...

....from the building at 361 S. Main.

Repair Days

The National Ornamental Metal Museum's annual Repair Days event is going on this weekend. In 2008 I published a post about a beautiful punch bowl that belonged to my grandmother. I had every intention of taking it to Repair Days to have some dents taken out but it never happened. Some say (Dan, you know who I mean) that after the way I behaved at Repair Days 1992 (that's an estimated date but it was forever ago) that I should not be allowed back. At that time I had a metal belt buckle that needed to be fixed so I took it Repair Days and Dan came along. When the person who inspected it proclaimed it to be lowly pot metal not worthy of being repaired, I naturally took exception, and took exception verbally. I felt better but Dan was mortified apparently. At any rate, I found someone who repaired it and I still have it and actually wear it from time to time. Despite my checkered past with this event I would still love to go just to see the entry gates and stroll around the beautiful grounds. Here's the schedule:

Friday, October 1st
10 - 5 • Blacksmiths on hand to give estimates and do repairs
• Museum Open

Saturday, October 2nd
10 - 5 • Blacksmiths on hand to give estimates and do repairs
• Family Fun Day - Hands-on activities under the tent,
including casting, jewelry making, and blacksmithing
demos
• Museum Open until 4:00
5:00 • Gallery talk for Master
Metalsmith 2010: Michael Jerry
• Silent auction opens & cocktail reception
7:30 • Dinner and Repair Days Live Auction begin

Sunday, October 3rd
9 - 10 • Tech Talk with Michael Jerry
10 - 12 • Blacksmiths on hand to give estimates and complete repairs

Orpheum Sign

Here's a detail I have never noticed, the signs on the sides of the marquee sign at the Orpheum. Are they new? Am I that unobservant if they're not? Anyway, this is today's detail.

The Details

What is it that people say about details? The devil is in the details. God is in the details. Well, whatever. I am going to be presenting some photos of downtown details for a while betwixt and between some other odds and ends, as per usual.

I love how those corner stones drip down the sides like icicles 14 stories up. And what details are these?

Why, they are the very smart art deco details of the 88 Union Center Building aka the Three Sisters Building aka the Farnsworth Building aka the Memphis Business Journal Building. Why so many aka's? Built in 1927 the building was known as the Farnsworth Building after its financier, C.F. Farnsworth. Later, in 1938 a ladies dress shop called Three Sisters opened on the ground floor and it became know as the Three Sisters building. Then much later, the Memphis Business Journal rented space in the building and had their name placed on the old lighted sign on top of the building. Well, MBJ moved several years ago to Brinkley Plaza but the sign bearing their name remains on top of 88 Union.

Five Favorites for Friday

Welcome to this Friday's edition of Five Favorites. This week my work has been made very easy for me as the Memphis Flyer's 2010 Best of Memphis issue is out. Here are the 3 best local blog winners, congratulations all:

1st Place: I Love Memphis Blog, ilovememphisblog.com (listed previously on Five Favorites)

2nd Place: Eat Local Memphis, eatlocalmemphis.com

3rd Place: Dining with Monkeys, diningwithmonkeys.blogspot.com

— tie — Paul Ryburn's Journal, paulryburn.com/blog

And to make my five favorite list actually add up to five, here's another good one:
Weeden Arts Watch, weedenartswatch.blogspot.com

Have a great weekend! The doorway in the photo above is on South Main. I've got to get one of those doormats.

Tell Me How Good This Sounds...

Click on the image below to enlarge it or click on the Grill 83 link below, so you can read all about pappardelle a cinghiale brasato, vitello agrodolce sulla polenta e funghi, semifreddo al torrone, Tuscan wine parings and a moscato from Piedmont, all to be had at Grill 83's upcoming Tuscan Wine Dinner ...buon appetito...

Speaking of a moscato from Piedmont, this reminds me of the Bassignana-Memphis connection, which I have mentioned before here. Bassignana is a village in the Piedmont region of Italy. From this little village lots of Bassignanesi made their way to Memphis. My mother's side is from the Vescovo family on her mother's side. Click on this link to see a brief history that includes a list of the Memphis-Bassignanesi families, the celts, Roman commanders, the Franks and Emperor Otto II. All of the Memphis - Bassignanesi should gather for this dinner. I promise you, Grill 83 would never be the same.

Short Lived, Long Lived and Long Live Trolley Stop Market

Hari's at 51 S. Main is gone. It just opened didn't it? I admit I was initially dubious about it's offerings as they had signs taped up in the window for pizza, catfish, and ham sandwiches. I was disappointed until I started seeing more and more signs for Indian food: samosas, palak paneer, tandoori and curries. They got a good review in the CA recently so things seemed to be looking better. I ate there a couple of times and it was really good both times and I posted about them. This place has to hold the downtown all time record for fewest amount of days in business. Anyhow, now it's gone and that space that seems to be one of the bermuda triangles of retail sits vacant once again.

Of course I'm sure you've learned by now that Quetzal has closed as well. I was so surprised by that one. They had such great customer service and the guy that ran the place was so on his game and welcoming. I mean I completely understood the last time I went there about three months ago to buy a 5 pound bag of coffee and they told me they had no coffee as it had all been shipped to San Francisco. Was that code for something? Was I supposed to know what that meant? It's too bad they're gone as we hate to see vacant spaces down here and I guess it's hard for a COFFEE shop/internet cafe/smoothie cafe/bar/restaurant/disco/rec room/sports bar/lounge to make it. Though given the, um, eccentricities of the place I'm guessing it lasted as long as could be expected.

But let's move on to a more positive and promising spot with a bright future, shall we? Namely, Trolley Stop Market. A friend invited me for lunch last week and suggested we go there. I literally drive past it four times every day and last week is the first time I darkened the door. Really, I can do better than that and I will now that I know I can get some great pizza there. I had a couple of slices of the margherita pizza and oh my, the crust! The crust is so thin and crisp and just perfect as was the mozzarella, which was not the thick, tasteless, gluey kind, but the ethereal, subtle, creamy, milky kind. I saw lots of sandwiches and veggie plates circulating around so I will be going back for more. In addition the place is big and it was packed at lunch time but the service was fast and friendly.

Photo Post from Tiger Lane

A tailgating photo post from Tiger Lane at the University of Memphis home opener against Middle Tennessee State University game Saturday. I somehow forgot that the Cooper Young Festival was going on at the same time so the area was more packed than usual. My nephew is a freshman on the team so getting to see him walk down TL with the team dressed in their suits was quite thrilling, not to mention seeing him dressed out for the game.

Tailgating fans know how to entertain themselves pre-game...

The Freshman, Diamond Life

Exciting lighting goes a long way as we've recently learned from the Disco Bridge project. It does not come across well in this photo but it did look great.

Barboro Flats Parking Discs

The Barbaro Flats garage on Gayoso between Main and Second is sporting cool new "disc" signage ...

Hot Properties - No Picture Available

I don’t watch TV very much and apart from No Reservations and House Hunters International it’s generally either off or I’m watching a Netflix movie. Only recently has House Hunters International come across my radar, but I love it. It’s interesting to see real estate in other countries, what the value is, how much work it needs, what that work would cost and some great and not so great features of very old properties. A friend recently started looking for a house to buy in Memphis and I went online to ferret out some possibilities for her. While online I started messing around looking up properties in Europe. This brings me to today’s topic: Marketing Real Estate: When Schools of Thought Collide.

Generally, I find that realtors here market real estate with the notion that most people cannot see a property’s potential if there are too many things that need to be updated or overhauled. The conventional wisdom is to paint rooms a neutral color, pull up dated flooring, get rid of clutter, rearrange or delete some furniture and even renovate kitchens and bathrooms if they are just too outdated for most buyers to stomach. Many websites have lots and lots of photos of the exteriors and interiors and also virtual tours.

From what I’m seeing on some of the European websites I visited the opposite is true. Many have no photos and per favore, what is this “virtual tour”, it is only a fake tour on your lifeless computer screen, no? Here’s some of what I ran across, bear in mind none of the photos had captions:

I saw this a lot.

A dark photo of an albeit cool looking balcony. That's it, no other photos for this house.

OMG. Really? And anyway what corner of what room is this?

Again, this is the only picture for an advertisement for a one bedroom flat to rent in Geneva or Basel - I don't remember which.

Well, it's neutral.

But in the end, when you see a photo like this one, with the property circled in red, what other incentive do you need? Bellissima!

Now, honestly there were plenty of properties that did a much better job with photos but the ones I thought I would actually be interested in if given half a chance to investigate gave me nothing but ...

Five Favorites for Friday

There started to be an "s" theme on my five favorites this week, so I went with it:

Small Place Style - living in 806 sq. ft makes me appreciate stylish ideas that make efficient use of space.

Sassy Molassy - interesting thoughts and stories from a Memphis Mom/teacher

A Seattleite in Paris - from the Space Needle to the City of Light

Scribblescrawl - recently about salads, birdcages and ending up in odd places

Sparkling Like a Diamond has a tailgaiting menu ready to take to Tiger Lane tomorrow.

Hypothetical Question

Here's a hypothetical question for you:
If you were driving around downtown Memphis in your SUV with your two dogs would it strike you as a good idea to park on the street and dash into a bar for a couple of drinks?

Breakout session further hypothetical questions to consider:

Both dogs are barkers. It's only natural that they should bark at carriages rolling past and people walking by, but is this a ideal scenario to put the dogs in?

What about the people who live in the surrrounding buildings, would they be disturbed by the doggies?

Is keeping the barking dogs in the SUV for say an hour too long? Not long enough?

Two part aside question: Part 1: If you put your flashers on does that somehow make it all ok? Part 2: Why would you put your flashers on if you're in an actual parking space?

Seeing Stars at Chez Philippe

The 2010 Forbes Travel Guide (formerly Mobil Travel Guide) 4-Star Restaurants in Tennessee included:
The Barn at Blackberry Farm, Maryville
Chez Philippe, Memphis
The Capitol Grille, Nashville

The details on the Forbes Travel Guide star rating system

This little bit of research took me on a restaurant rating system odyssey, in which I learned about the coveted Michelin stars:

In 1926 Michelin tire company started reviewing restaurants anonymously using a three-star system. Why on earth does a tire company issue this guidebook? It seems the idea was started initially as a way of encouraging automobile travel in France. Its guide books are published in countries worldwide but mostly outside the United States. The only two American cities with Michelin guides are New York and San Francisco; the Las Vegas and Los Angeles guides were discontinued in 2009. The reason Michelin stars are so sought after is that most restaurants do not receive any stars; I suppose those are the Unstarred. The professionally trained Michelin reviewers' anonymity is closely guarded. Here's an explanation of the Michelin stars:

*One star: A very good restaurant in its category.
**Two stars: Excellent cooking and worth a detour. First class cuisine of its type.
***Three stars: Exceptional cuisine and worth a special journey. Often extremely expensive, and with an extensive wine list.

The Unstarred = almost every restaurant on Earth. Here is how France broke out in the 2009 Michelin Guide : 3,531 restaurants in France were included in the guide. Of the 3,531, only 548 received a star. Of the 548 that received a star, 449 received one-star, 73 received two stars and 26 received three stars.

Then there is the Zagat Survey, based not on cute stars but on a numerical scale:
Food, Decor and Service are each rated by consumers, not professional food critics, on a scale of 0 to 30.

26 - 30 extraordinary to perfection
20 - 25 very good to excellent
16 - 19 good to very good
10 - 15 fair to good
0 - 9 poor to fair

Gayot uses a worldwide team of restaurant critics and food experts to provide reviews using a 20-point rating system for restaurants based solely on the critic's opinion of the food. 20 is never awarded as Gayot apparently believes mankind can never reach the culinary perfection that a 20 would denote. An average would be a 10/20 and exceptional is 19/20. But Gayot also employes a cute a Toque (chef hat) system, with four toques being the highest rating.

Need a Work Table?

Visit Red Fish in the Pinch. This is the coolest little shop downtown where you can pick up art, glass, jewelry, cute purses, gifts and all kinds of fun and unusual things.

The Sequel: The Products v 2.0

Before I begin, the photos for this post are ones we distractedly snapped on our walk tonight as we contemplated why our favorite products are being taken from us with no warning...

A few weeks ago I talked about The Product v2.0. This is a situation in which you find yourself searching for a replacement for an indispensable product that has been suddenly and inexplicably discontinued. Unbelievably, this has happened again to me and also to poor Poppy. It seems that Poppy's skin and coat formula fish and potato food has been temporarily discontinued due to a salmonella outbreak at the dog food factory. Yet, no one can say when production will resume and as I did not have the luxury of searching for a replacement kibble for Popalicious we had no choice but to buy the only other skin and coat formula fish and potato food the vet offers. Popster is not impressed. I daresay she's underwhelmed by the flavor and texture of this new replacement sustenance. As I write this her pink and white polka dot bowl remains half full of her Product v2.0. Our search continues for a suitable food for P-Seed.*

I wish I could tell you our product woes end there but I'm afraid they do not. I skipped up to Macy's yesterday, rolled up to the Origins counter and happily announced I would like to purchase a bottle of the Mint Wash. I got that terrible sinking feeling when the Origins girl gave me a blank stare. I stammered, "you know, it's face wash, you've been selling it for years." Origins girl still looked perplexed and stumbled around her shelves looking for said Mint Wash only to come up empty handed. I asked if she might be so kind as to look it up in their system, which she did and came up with no Mint Wash. There's no Mint Wash on the website either. Honestly, can we not be given some kind of warning about these things? Something like, "Dear Customer, we see you have been purchasing our Mint Wash for the past 75 years. We regret to inform you that we will be discontinuing this product in April." So my search begins for a replacement face wash that "leaves a tingly fresh sensation clear through to your pores as cooling spearmint wakes up your skin."

*P-Seed (her middle name is Seed)

Five Favorites for Friday

Jen Sized is about "culture, curiosity and life in Memphis".

Joe Spake’s Memphis Blog has some insider commentary of the Memphis Music and Heritage Festival.

See what had happened was… takes on the 30-Day blog challenge.

An American goes back to her roots in Calabria, Italy at Bleeding Espresso

This is Beirut is written by a Miami native living and working in Beirut.

Bright Spots: Frank's and Felicia Suzanne's

One thing I would like to note about today is the bright spot during the busy-busy work. The bright spot was lunch from Frank's Market & Deli. They deliver first of all which is great, they deliver on time and they deliver everything that was ordered. We've ordered lunch from them several times and are always happy. I can't put my finger on what makes their food so good. I know they smoke their own meat, which is the obvious plus but it's more than that. All the ingredients they use are really good but none of them are different from what you can get anywhere. It's the Frank's magic touch I suppose.

And the bright spot last night was dinner at Felicia Suzanne's. The scallops I had were succulent in a delectable light, buttery sauce and a smattering of creamy grits on the side. But the salad! Let's talk about the salad. She had a special salad last night simply called "duck salad". What this is the most delicious salad I have ever had anywhere, anytime, in any city I've ever been in on Earth. Did you get that or do I need to be more emphatic? It's a simple looking bowl of tender salad greens, some kind of very subtle crumbled white cheese, thinly sliced red onions and croutons topped with a poached duck egg. Here's where it gets interesting. Once you cut into the duck egg, the warm yolk spills out and mixes with the salad becoming the most wonderful combination and making a dressing to die for. I am craving it right now.

One more bright spot: the Disco Bridge was lit again last night! Mary, who is still in town, read my post from yesterday and took exception to the fact that I did not credit her with the naming of the "Disco Bridge". I beg to differ and can prove that I have in fact been using that descriptor for well over a week and have witnesses who can back that up. But for now I'm co-crediting Mary.

Busy Bee

Too busy to blog today but I have enough time to send you some thoughts about being busy... wait, what?...Maybe tomorrow I'll send along thoughts about (other) things that make no sense...

Busier than a one-eyed cat watching two mouse holes.

Being busy does not always mean real work.

Busier than a flying squirrel in a wind-tunnel.

It is not enough to be busy ... The question is: What are we busy about?

Busier than a one-armed paper hanger.

Nowhere so busy a man as he than he, and yet he seemed busier than he was.

Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing.

If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it. The more things you do, the more you can do.

Have you noticed that even the busiest people are never too busy to take time to tell you how busy they are?

September Thursdays and Fridays

The end of summer doesn't slow things down ...

Thursdays in September at the National Ornamental Metal Museum :

Live Music. Free for Five Fridays:

September 10 - October 8

This Friday, September 10 : Memphis Jones / Soul Shockers, corner of Main and Peabody Place
Cash bar opens at 4:30pm; Music from 5 - 8:30pm
Different locations each week along Main Street
Donation accepted at each event benefiting The Hospitality Hub.
***Digital projections on surrounding buildings presented by UrbanArt Commission

I am looking forward to the digital projections especially after being so impressed with the pedestrian bridge over Court which I have dubbed the Disco Bridge. And why not? We have a Frisco Bridge and now a Disco Bridge. Actually the Disco Bridge has not been lit for the past few days and Poppy and I have been a little bummed out by that on our night walks. The projections idea reminds me of the stuff my friend in Lyon has sent me in the past about their Light Festival/Fête des Lumières . So pretty.

Bands, Bloody Mary's and Brunch

This year's Memphis Music & Heritage Festival was so much fun as usual. So many great bands played: Bluff City Backsliders (below), Los Cantadores, Papa Top's West Coast Turnaround, Hill Country Revue and the list went on and on... I had the best mojitos at Majestic Grille and it was also the first time I'd had brunch at LOCAL which, by the way, serves a great spicy brunch Bloody Mary for $2. I'm not a big drinker mind you but it was a festival afterall! My friend Mary is in town so I tried to be a good host and not spend all my time traipsing up and down Main Street with a solo cup in hand. I managed to make a nice Spaghetti Carbonara for lunch yesterday using some pancetta from Miss Cordelia's. And since I was at Miss C's I thought it would be well advised to pick up some more pistachio gelato to round out my Italian lunch theme. It's still really good in case you were wondering. I should have taken a photo of the carbonara heaped on the beautiful rustic platter I have and done a recipe post, since it's the easiest recipe in the world, but it was all I could do to get two shots of the festival.

I just caught the tail end of the Millenium Madness Drum line on Saturday. You can barely see a couple of the drummers above.

Five Favorites for Friday

I took this photo of Center Lane Alley a few months ago when it was inexplicably lined with sofas. Weird. Enough of my randomness, let's get down to business! I hope you like this week's five favorites list:


You'll find loads of design, art and other cool things at norococo

Keep connected to La D down in Jackson, Mississippi at la dilettante

Fix Memphis is a must for bike riders, while Not High Maintenance, Just High Mileage is a must for runners.

la maison sur la colline is not from France, as you might assume, but Australia and has some great home decorating eye candy and ideas plus a good blog list of like-minded blogs.

Have a great Labor Day Weekend!

Memphis Music & Heritage Festival

Took a picture of the sun behind the cool looking clouds on the way to work today.

Remember that the always fun Memphis Music & Heritage Festival is this Saturday and Sunday. The weather forecast for both days looks good. Have a look at the schedule. Why is it always fun? It's FREE, there is a WIDE variety of live music on several stages both inside and outside, but mostly outside, there are interesting cooking demonstrations, and cool art, jewelry and other things for sale. The fact that it's on Labor Day Weekend makes this a great way to say goodbye to summer. Also, I love that it is in the heart of downtown on Main Street so even though it draws pretty big crowds it still feels intimate.

I Can Tell You Some Things About Beale Street, Part II

So last week I went down to Beale Street to talk to Rudy Williams, the trumpet playing street musician, for the last bit of my research project. (See my post from Aug. 26). We set a time to meet and I talked with him today for an hour and he had that kind of laid back quality all blues guys seem to have, a sort of take it or leave it attitude. Smoking one cigarette after another, holding it just on the edge of his lips as if it might fall at any moment. I came away with a lot of interesting stuff but here are a few favorite quotes/paraphrases from the talk:

There was one guy in the band who didn't look like no guy, you know. I found out later it was Evelyn Young, the saxophone player, dressed up like the guys in the band. They were wearin' green suits and shades. I thought that was cool.

Ma Rainey was always mad about something. She'd come into club cursing everybody out. But the next day she'd come in with some neckbones and greens.

Back then they had real shows, floor shows. You'd get dressed up and take your lady out to dinner then you could watch the show. There would be comedians, singers, bands, solos. And folks stayed on the dance floor.

I think Beale Street is better now. Now, the whole world comes to Beale Street.

A random passerby overheard him talking about Gene Bowlegs Miller, "Hey man, are you talkin' about Bowlegs Miller? You know what you're talkin' about man." Then he looked at me and said, "you're talkin' to a legend there."

There was a little joint some cats were playin' in over on November 6th street. There was pigeons in the rafters and people eatin' dinner there too. But man those cats could play. (side note: he said "cats" a lot. I don't personally know anyone else who could say "cat" and get away with it. I wish I could. I'm going to try it at work tomorrow. I'll slip in something like, 'That cat said he was gonna email me that thing, but you know, I ain't seen nothin' from that cat, man..")

The blues is always about a man and his woman. Like that three handed woman. She's right- handed and left-handed and underhanded too.