Saturday, December 26, 2009

Blues Picker & Singer Extraordinaire

Rory Block, a multiple W.C. Handy Blues Music award winner, came to play some blues at the Pour House a week and a half ago.

I support live music and want every act to receive a great Charleston Welcome. An early show on a Wednesday night at the PoHo is often a crowd challenge.

Rory - blues, roots singer and guitarist - acknowledged it was a last minute change in her schedule and she expected a less than normal size audience.

This pro had seats placed right down front and she conducted a terrific "guitar clinic." She switched back and forth among four guitars and featured the sounds - and her memories - of Son House and Mississippi John Hurt. Wow.

She played in the Netherlands and Belgium earlier this year and was on her way the next day to Charlotte and Atlanta, so Charleston was fortunate to receive an outstanding evening of Mississippi Delta blues.

A friend who knows how much I enjoy music and concerts touted an "app" he has on his iPhone.

Holding up a flickering lighter in tribute to the band has been updated.

I don't own an iPhone but I think Rory would have liked seeing it glowing in the dark as she played.

Hope she comes back again.

(Click on the music shot for more detail.)

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Monday, December 21, 2009

Look A Little Closer....

There was a parking barricade at the entrance to the lot so I found a spot away from the afternoon AUTO & BIKE SHOW in Hanahan.

Normally, I'm not really into car shows.

Best car I ever owned - a 1959 Triumph TR3 - was called an antique by my daughter when she saw one a few years ago at a car show.

Ouch.

However, this was a sleek looking red motorcycle and I almost passed by ... until I looked closer.

Oh my! Semper Fi.





































We Marines are not usually so understated. Nice.

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Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Something's not right here...

Atlanta used to host a Midtown Music Festival in the Spring.

It was only a 5 hour drive so I attended for several years.

Never did check into this hotel though.

Something about it bothered me.


I have stayed in the 70-story Westin Peachtree Plaza downtown. I rode the elevator up to the top for the view - and drinks - but my room was only around 50 floors up.

Looks like I'll be heading over to Atlanta again this spring but not for the Midtown Festival.

Apparently it was losing money and was canceled a few years ago.

I'll be driving there for a Craig Ferguson stand-up concert.

He is the comedy star of Late, Late night television and is about to tape (er, um, sorry, of course the show is LIVE) perform his 1,000th show.

When his show is a rerun (LIVE - Repeated?) during holiday weeks, he goes on the road and I'll be able to see him perform LIVE on stage.

Here is the funniest carpet picture I've ever taken in an upscale hotel.

Surprise! There was no iron in the closet.

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Friday, December 11, 2009

1900s Glass Slides..and a Laptop Computer

To view 100 year old photographs taken on large glass plates, you handle them carefully by the edges.

And hold them up towards the light.

Yep. That's a black and white image, taken in the early 1900s with a very large and bulky camera perched on a wooden tripod.

The photographer in Georgetown had ducked his head beneath the dark cloth draped over the back and clicked the shutter.

It was a magic moment captured forever.

One could print paper copies to pass around or transfer the slides to a flash card so you could run them through a computer and project them onto a large screen.

At the monthly meeting, members of our photography group heard an interesting talk by Ethel Nepveux when she and husband Felix brought photos on glass slides from the Trenholm Collection, her family's century old little treasure.

The monthly meeting had a problem though: the 21st century video projector & computer had not arrived. We didn't have a way to electronically look at these nor at any of the other pictures members had brought for our popular monthly SHOW & TELL.

Ethel said quietly"Well, I do have a laptop computer out in the car."




(See some more of glass slides images and the members' colorful pictures on the SHOW & TELL. Scroll down to the Dec 9 meeting.)

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Friday, December 04, 2009

Tickets and Christmas cards...

Well, if I HAD bought a ticket I probably would have saved it.

My newspaper had sent me there to cover the 1965 Beatles concert, so my press credentials had passed me through the front gate.

Even right down on the field, standing next to the stage, I could barely hear the Fab Four. The continuous roar of the overwhelming crowd noise almost completely drowned them out.

They sang song after song and I was close enough I could see them glance and grin at each other. They were having a good time that night in San Diego.

Up in the stands, as I wandered around with my cameras, the screaming, crying happy young girls were REALLY making a racket. Probably the way it would be if I went to see a "Twilight" movie these days.

I came across this copy I had found on the internet of a ticket to that very loud Beatles concert.

Wonder if $3.50 was for the best seats?

The Christmas season is coming up fast so I was looking through my old newspaper days files, searching for the very first holiday card the photo staff sent out.

Yep. The card with our "mug shots" on it was my idea and I'm pleased they continued making one yearly long after I had moved on. The quality improved each year.

But - this was the first one.

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