Saturday Shopping Excuse

I used to say that I don't love shopping, but in the past few years, my giddiness on occasion while shopping has proven this false. So I am here to amend my statement. It's not that I don't like shopping, I don't like buying. In the past, it's been money woes, but lately, I've become more discriminating, budgeting out things such as "fill-in" clothes (it works ok, and it's on sale!), anything at Wal-Mart and shoes that hurt. (In case you're wondering, that does not mean no high heels. It means no cheap high heels.)

My buying success has gone way up, which means I buy something when I love it, know I can get a lot of use for it, and when it is a fair price. So me and my little change purse are off to the Lowcountry Artist Market tomorrow morning at the Music Farm.

Local vendors, variety, high-quality and just loads of cool stuff fill this market every time, and after writing a cover story about the market's growth and impact for yesterday's Charleston Scene, I am even more excited about tomorrow's activity. I personally shop for vintage goodies (that fit, are not falling apart, and flattering) and jewelry, but more than that, I'm always inspired by the vendors themselves and the creativity they illustrate.

A Connection to Inspiration

So far in the life of "From My Little Desk," you've been able to read lots of my articles and learn more about the people and the places I write about. We've been to various locales, such as the wildly exotic Knoxville, Tenn. -- hey, I fed a giraffe there! -- and met musicians, painters, potters, farmers and chefs.

But the evidence of a creative life (in my case, published articles) is really only the surface of "what I do," which is what people are often asking that I explain. How do you come up with things, Steph? How do you find these people? How do you write every day? How do you get artists to show up at an appointed time for an interview?

The articles only show a bit of the story of my life. No, stop holding your breath. I am not going to start posting pics of my dogs or my award-winning butternut squash here, although they are both deserved of multiple snapshots. And this is not going to be a laundry list of daily activities, vacations or how I am obsessed with various styles of chicken salad.

It's more about a sea change here at The Little Desk, which is defined as marked change, or a transformation. The articles are but an apartment door peephole into my creative life, which has always included an eye for inspiration and a yearning to connect to it, and now includes my creative consulting and pr business The Beehive.

The articles will still be here, but authors such as Elizabeth Spann Craig have really set me to thinking. She writes a daily blog about the writing craft, creating a resource for writers but also giving her a space to think about her own work, dissect it and study it and feed her creativity in the process.

So this will be my connection to inspiration and creativity. Pull up a chair at the desk. There's room for you here too ...

I know you don't believe me, but I SWEAR it's cool

Last Saturday night, B. and I had the chance to go to any Piccolo Spoleto performance we wanted. I'd written a preview piece about the festival for City Traveler, and thus scored a press pass for one. So what did we choose?

Paul Gertner's Ten Fingers: A Play of Magic. And it was awesome. Honestly.

I know what you're thinking, since many of you have said it out loud to my face: "nerd alert!" And maybe that's true ... still, this wasn't David Copperfield making the Statue of Liberty disappear, there weren't scantily clad women as assistants, no creepy music and really, it was like hanging out with someone at their house who does the most amazing card tricks EVER.

It's called "parlor magic" or "close up magic," and it's experiencing somewhat of a renaissance through acts such as David Blaine and Parlor Magic evenings in NYC. And Paul Gertner is more like a friend of your dad's -- the guy who rocked the suede leisure suits in the 70s, had kids, and somehow through magic supported his family. In the show, he explains why he was drawn to magic, and he moves seamlessly into myriads of tricks. He used cameras to show the audience his hands, audience participation and explanations for each trick, and still, it was seamless.

One such trick involved drawing though "mindreading" and not to spoil the the illusion, but little Jacob Jack, age 10, was catapulted to star-status after the show with his audience participation. And he got his own magic souvenir.

Paul Gertner and Jacob Jack

There are still two performances left this weekend at the Village Playhouse. I won't tell anyone if you go, even if you're rocking the pocket protector. Which, of course, you don't need for admittance. 

Anytime is a good time for a ghost story

My book, Ghost Stories of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County was really a labor of love for me back in 2003 when I wrote it. I'd grown up reading southern tales of ghosts from Nancy Roberts and others, but I never read any about my hometown, and finally I decided to remedy that. I researched the stories like the budding journalist I was, and in the process, happily became the first to collect some of Charlotte's tales of the past in the present.

And no matter what you think of Charlotte, its shiny buildings, its NASCAR hub, or it's suburbs endlessly bleeding out into the former tobacco and cotton fields of the Carolina Piedmont, it has a history. Really. I'm talking Revolutionary War. There's a little thing called the Mec Dec, still celebrated today.

Here I present a case in point: Rosedale, ca. 1815. And its growing legend of paranormal activity. I recently came across this account a reporter from The Charlotte Observer wrote about a night in 2007. And by the way, I'm "the writer about ghosts" Jeff Elder mentions in the story. I was there, one of the ones creeping about the darkened house on All Hallow's Eve ...

MY Music / A Primer

I write a lot about music sometimes, and sometimes I think a lot about the kind of music I like when people ask me.

The long answer is really, truly that I like a lot of music, and it really depends on the day and the mood. This doesn't make me very special -- in fact, it is a pretty common answer for the modern world. But the short answer is, really, that there is a band that influenced me like no other.

The Squirrel Nut Zippers. And here's my argument.

1. I'd listened to Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and the Ink Spots on many a lazy Saturday afternoon, which I know made me the popular kid I was in high school (but I also listened to Paula Abdul and Michael Jackson, so pipe down the snickering.) So when I first heard SNZ in the late 90s, I felt it. I mean, felt it man.

2. This band didn't deserve and didn't really care that they got the "swing-revival" one hit wonder treatment in mainstream radio. They were doing more, much more. It was surrealism, out-of-time and the creative buzz that I couldn't get enough of.

Surrealism evidence:

I understand that this band is, as it were, well, gone, but really, it wasn't about swing. It was about a transportation of time, more than just zoot suits and instead some kind of space-time continuum that is familiar to Morrison and Faulkner, a favorite subject of mine about which I will go on and on about with the slightest encouragement.

3. The introductions -- SNZ and its side projects led me to the following:
a. Andrew Bird. Enough said right here. But I'm going to continue.
b. Charlie Patton.
c. Buddy Guy.
d. Dirty Dozen Brass Band.
e. North Mississippi All-Stars.
f. Django Rinehart.
g. Hobex.

And more ...

One of those side projects was Katharine Whalen's Jazz Squad, which led me back to The Complete Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith and forward to Diana Krall and beyond. My jazz knowledge has grown beyond this siren's primer, but Jazz Squad is still on my iPod.

So, here's what I'm leading up to. I got to interview K. Whalen. Recently about her new group, The Fascinators. We talked about her house, her past, present and future, and how great it is to be a mom and be an artist too. I knew I would enjoy connecting with her again -- I was right.

Read the interview, and for those of you reading, tell me, who was the band that "did it" for you? I want to know ...

Playing with Fire

 It's spring here in Charleston, the azaleas are through blooming, Tomato Watch 2011 in full swing, and event after event is happening, with so much to do that I more often than not find myself doing nothing at the end of the day. I've been banking up some writing that is spilling out now into publication, and it's been an amazing month, talking to a variety of interesting people about the interesting things they do.

Sometimes I seek them out, and sometimes I am assigned. An assignment is what introduced me to Walker Babington, who defines the always-overused term "free spirit." What has he done? Studied photography (check), lived in a tent on the beach of Costa Rica (!), carved faces into coconuts with the heat from a magnifying glass (!!), and habitually dumpster dove for his art materials, only at least once to return an art piece to the suburban curb from whence he "found" it after completing it (!!!).

Oh, and I didn't even mention the rusted mural in India, using a blowtorch as his painbrush, and currently saving up for stuntman school. He is funny, inspiring and really an underappreciated artist, although I did my best to explain all that in the recent Go Triad article.

He doesn't have a gallery, a plan, or even a palette, but he is making it happen nonetheless. I hope to keep my conversation going with him and bring more of his work to this little forum in the future.

Slow Food Sausage

It was a chilly morning in Chattanooga late last year when I visited Link 41. The little butcher shop that could wasn't officially open for business, but I was there on business as a writer, to learn about what they did and why they did it. (That's what you always look to learn when you talk to creative people, by the way.)

And tasting the sausage and bacon, it was clear Trae Moore and Tom Montague were creative.

But little did I know it was going to feel so homey. Words like "heritage breeds," "apprenticeship," "closed loop production" and "mindful eating" started to float about the room. Slow food was the language spoken here, and for me, it was like settling into the easy chair at my best friend's house.

Link 41 served some amazing mole sausage that day, crunchy with cocoa nibs that made taking a second helping a no-brainer, even if it was following the two pieces of bacon I had already consumed. I got really excited about the whole thing and wrote all about it for the Southern Food and Beverage Museum's online pub, OKRA, which is a great resource for foodies and those interested in food history.

Link 41 doesn't yet ship it's product, but after reading the article, you might want to join me in requesting that the shipping service begin. Or else you might have to plan a trip to Chattanooga ...