Five Favorites for Friday : Some Things to Do This Weekend

Tomorrow, Saturday, September 24th is Museum Day at a few area museums. Museum Day is hosted by Smithsonian Magazine. Participating museums offer free admission for two with a free admission ticket. Go to http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ to choose your museum and download your ticket.

In Memphis, participating museums include:

Memphis Rock 'n' Soul Museum (downtown)

The National Ornamental Metal Museum (downtown)

Dixon Gallery and Gardens (not downtown , but what beautiful grounds and gardens and the Forain exhibit, which I've already seen, is well worth visiting again)

The Belz Museum of Asian and Judaic Art  (downtown)

 The Duncan Williams Dragon Boat Races are happening tomorrow at Mud Island from 10 am - 3pm and this is also a free event.

This weekend the Rumba Room hosts the 6th annual Salsa Convention. This will be tons of fun with lots of great live music. Lots of salsa-ing to do.

I have out of town guests coming and they've requested a dinner at the, wait for it....... Rendezvous. I love the lamb riblets.

Tailgating on Tiger Lane before the football game on Saturday. I won't be able to make it, I don't think, but I've been told that my tailgating friends will be serving up brunch since the game starts at 11am.  

Very Beautiful

On a walk today I couldn't help but notice this gorgeous little moth in the grass. I was able to get very close and took this picture with my phone. As soon as I snapped the picture, it flew away:

Park(ing) Day Photos: Choose Your Own Five Favorites for Friday

I took a few photos of some of the Park(ing) Day spots, so in lieu of my usual Five Favorites for Friday, you can choose your own favorites from these. Have a great weekend.

The beach

Shelby Farms, http://www.shelbyfarmspark.org/

I love that dog in the bed of the truck driving past. He's thinking, "????"

A see-saw 

A desert oasis

Graffiti is art

The human library

Roller Derby

Camping on the Mississippi

Grizzlies foosball

Park(ing) Day

It's Park(ing) Day in downtown Memphis and in cities around the world. Twenty parking spaces on Peabody Place between Front and Second will be transformed from 11am - 6pm into a wide variety of interesting and fun spaces, such as a human library where you can "check out" a person for a chat, a dog pub (for friendly dogs only),  and a mini roller derby rink.

Here's the official info from the Memphis Park(ing) Day Facebook page:  PARK(ing) Day is a annual open-source global event where citizens, artists and activists collaborate to temporarily transform metered parking spaces into “PARK(ing)” spaces: temporary public places. The project began in 2005 when Rebar, a San Francisco art and design studio, converted a single metered parking space into a temporary public park in downtown San Francisco. Since 2005, PARK(ing) Day h...as evolved into a global movement, with organizations and individuals (operating independently of Rebar but following an established set of guidelines) creating new forms of temporary public space in urban contexts around the world.

The mission of PARK(ing) Day is to call attention to the need for more urban open space, to generate critical debate around how public space is created and allocated, and to improve the quality of urban human habitat during the event.

As Memphis joins the ranks of over 800 cities who participate in this annual event, 20 parking spaces along Peabody Place between Front Street and 2nd Street will be transformed into playful and generous parks on September 16th from 11a.m to 6 p.m. Park(ing) Day Memphis 2011 is hosted by Memphis College of Art and sponsored by the Downtown Memphis Commission and the Memphis Flyer. Partners for this event are: AIA Memphis, Memphis Regional Design Center, and The City of Memphis.
 
Park(ing) Day website: http://parkingday.org/   Be sure to check out the Park(ing) Day photos HERE to see what other cities around the world have done with their spaces.

Missing Missoni and Purchasing Prada

Back in May I posted on a Five Favorites for Friday a few items I'd like to have, one of which was a Missoni dress. I was unaware at the time that Target was planning to offer Missoni for Target for a very limited time this Fall. The line is available in stores starting today. The Missoni for Target multi-page spread in this month's Vogue looked great with models posed in colorful Missoni style in front of the imposing white Duomo. So, on my lunch hour today I ventured out to the Middle East to have a look-see, being a Missoni fan. There was NOTHING left just four hours after the store opened. The stuff flew off the racks, even the men's Missoni had been picked over. The Target website has been down all day as well. The goods are already all over Ebay. Target will re-stock but it seems all too tragic now. See here and here and here as well.

Sans Missoni, I made my way back downtown. I stopped in Toad Hall antiques for a friend who had sent me there to give my opinion on something he was considering buying. While there I saw, sitting very randomly and casually on a table, a pair of classic Prada shoes with a Target price tag. Che sorpresa! Italy is calling out to me today, no? I thought, sure but they're probably a size 5.5. Nope, they were MY SIZE. Meant to be!

The Winner; Memphis Music & Heritage Festival

Finally a winner has emerged from the 1000th post quiz! Memphis Sarah gave it her best shot but in the end Anonymous K&M was victorious. The answers to my riddle "Memphistanista has appeared in print and press, in which two places you must guess" are:

Print: I wrote the text for Memphis artist David Lynch's calendars (read that post here)

Press: I was mentioned in the Commercial Appeal for the Vin d'Orange recipe I posted  (see that article here)

Congratulations Anonymous K&M! I will send you the Buddy Guy CD and I hope you enjoy it.

Labor Day Weekend downtown means the Center for Southern Folklore Memphis Music and Heritage Festival. It's this Saturday and Sunday 11a - 11p both days. This is a FREE festival featuring a ton of great music on four stages - two outdoor stages and two indoor stages. The location is Main Street between Gayoso and Peabody Place. It seems to get bigger and better each year. But there's lots more than music: food, arts & crafts, and lots of activities for kids. See the festival website HERE for the entire program and schedules.