State Line

The state line is literal in McCaysville, Georgia/Copper Hill Tennessee.  If you stand to the right of the blue line, you're in McCaysville; to the left, you're in Copper Hill.

Northern Washington Farmland

 

Northern Washington, between Bellingham and Lynden - about 10 miles south of the Canadian border, with the Cascades in the background.

An Unexpected Walk Into the Past.

My family moved to Alpharetta, Georgia when I was twelve.  At that time (1970) it was a small rural town, 25 miles north of Atlanta.  Moving there was something of a cultural shock to me.  It took weeks before I could understand what most people were saying.  At the time, Alpharetta was the southernmost point in Georgia where Georgia Mountain Dialect was spoken.  There were great bluegrass bands around.  And the countryside was filled with mysterious one-lane dirt roads dotted with the occasional unpainted wood house.

Since then, much has changed.  Alpharetta and Roswell (the next town to the south) are suburban bedroom communities of Atlanta.  They are highly developed and heavily populated, with expressways, shopping malls, and upscale gated subdivisions.  But late this afternoon, while geocaching, I came upon an amazing, forgotten piece of the past.  In what used to be the country between Roswell and Alpharetta, I hiked on abandoned roads and visited a cemetery that has been forgotten by most folks around there.

Based on the tombstones which are still legible, this was a McGinnis family cemetery.  I went to school with McGinnises back in the day, and there is a McGinnis Ferry Road in the area.  I wonder if any McGinnises still live in the area.

One of the amazing things about this experience today - as desolate as these pictures look, I could hear the traffic noise from the expressway (GA 400) very strongly the whole time.

Before I Die

I was driving through the Oakhurst neighborhood of  Atlanta when I saw this large board; I pulled over and took some pictures.

Autumn in Atlanta

Mell Avenue and McLendon Avenue, Atlanta.  The yellow ginkgo tree also appears in this post from last fall.

Cold Cardinal

Clifton Road, Atlanta

Abandoned Sign

DeKalb Avenue, Atlanta

I Miss Being a Tree

Low-quality cellphone picture from the Clyde Shepherd Nature Preserve, Decatur, Georgia.

Dauphine Street; 12:30 AM

 

New Orleans

Ninth Ward Horse

Chartres Street, New Orleans

McLendon Avenue Streetcar Rail

I live a block from McLendon Avenue, the main thoroughfare of Atlanta's Candler Park neighborhood.  It has been many years since Atlanta has had streetcars, but you can see one rail of the McLendon Avenue streetcar line peeping through the asphalt at the intersection of McLendon and Clifton Road.

Self Portrait; 2:30 AM

My reflection in the bathroom mirror, taken with very little light and a long (two-minute) exposure.

Bunny, Carrots, Fox, Dinosaurs

Since my August 1 post, the paper demon has disappeared, but he has been replaced by a couple of purple dinosaurs.

1949 Concert Flyer

Last week a bought a few 78 RPM record albums.  Inside an Illinois Jacquet album on the Savoy label was this flyer for a 1949 concert in Boston.  Jazz fans, take a look and imagine.

True Tone Angels and Demons at Pray

True Tone Angels and Demons at Pray is a wonderful, enigmatic, jazz-inspired piece of art created for me by the great Athens, Georgia artist George Davidson.  It's a box under glass; the second picture is the back of the box.

Roller Girls

The 4th Ward Afro-Klezmer Orchestra, with which I play, performed at halftime at the Roller Derby this evening.

Roadside Decorations

Adair Street; Decatur, Georgia

Bunny, Carrot, Fox, Demon

Someone painted some stenciled bunnies around the neighborhood.  Different folks added, in turn, a fox, some carrots, and a demon.  (The demon was drawn on paper and pasted to the wall; it's starting to come loose.)

Several people, much to my surprise, have complained that this blog has been mostly dormant lately.  So I've decided to post at least one picture each week.  (I don't think I want to go back to attempting a picture every day.)  Stay tuned.

Paradise Garden

This afternoon the 4th Ward Afro-Klezmer Orchestra played at Paradise Garden, the fantastic outdoor folk art gallery created by the late visionary artist Howard Finster. Finster lived outside Summerville, Georgia, and filled his property with amazing artwork, mostly religious in nature. Above is the Folk Art Chapel he built.

The property is filled not only with Finster's art, but all sorts of objects stored in buildings he erected. My impression is that he couldn't bear to throw away any piece of junk, because he never knew when God would tell him to create a piece of art with it.

I took my camera to the gig, of course, only to find that the battery was dead. So all I have are these low-quality cellphone pictures, but I'm glad I have these.

I love the motto below, as well as another painted onto one Finster's self-portraits: "Art keeps on preachin for people long after their gone."

Slavic Soul Party

The 4th Ward Afro-Klezmer Orchestra, in which I play, opened for Matt Moran's Slavic Soul Party at the 529 Club in East Atlanta tonight. It was intense.

Okonomi-Yaki

Dinner tonight: Okonomi-yaki - Japanese cabbage-based griddle cakes.

Roof View

The view of Clifton Road in Atlanta, from my roof.