September 2009

Women in the Magic City - Vol. I - Part 2

by Opal South | September 30th, 2009
Norse Goddess Hannah Eliot

Interview with Bettina Byrd-Giles

I met up with Bettina Byrd-Giles at Lucy’s Coffee & Tea on a bright Friday afternoon in July. My research had led me to discover her two blogs: The Intercultural Post and Lessons of an 80’s Alumna, as well as her consulting company’s website, The Byrd’s Nest. Raised in Birmingham from the 2nd grade, Bettina’s blogs are chockfull of posts about events in Birmingham, opinions on local elections, tips for recent graduates on how to find the right job and career path, and lively anecdotes about her two-year-old son. Shortly after my arrival at Lucy’s, the casually collected and confident Bettina Byrd-Giles greeted me with a smile, ready for a smoothie and a conversation. Read more...

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Bettina Byrd-Giles

Trib Trek - Village Creek Part 2

by Janet Elizabeth... | September 26th, 2009

The second installment in our video series about Black Warrior tributary, Village Creek.  Watch as Roger Conville explores the stretch of the creek that runs alongside I-59 off of Tallapoosa Street.  Filmed by Chance Shirley with music by First Kentucky Post.

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Do That Stomp: 20 Days, 20 Birmingham Songs

by Burgin Mathews | September 24th, 2009
chair

The city of Birmingham has inspired many musical tributes over the years, from the pens and instruments of natives and non-natives alike.  For a few of these Birmingham songs, the place name may be more or less inconsequential, offering a convenient rhyme and rhythm and a generic southern locale; most Birmingham songs, though, are invested with a deeper sense of place and homegrown experience.  While some extol wholeheartedly the draw and pleasure of the Birmingham life, others confront both the pain and the power of the city’s legacy.  Taken together, these songs capture a broad sweep of our city’s story and sound.

For its first issue, Pavo is proud to present the twenty all-time greatest Birmingham songs.  The songs below are not arranged according to any strategy of ranking, and are not listed chronologically, but instead simply offer the ultimate Magic City playlist.  Check back each day for a new song. Read more...

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1. “Birmingham Boys,” Birmingham Jubilee Singers (1926)

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2. “Fat Sam from Birmingham,” Louis Jordan (1947)

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3. “Birmingham Daddy,” Gene Autry (1931)

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4. “Birmingham Bounce,” Hardrock Gunter (1950)

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5. “Yes, We Want Our Freedom,” Cleo Kennedy and Carlton Reece

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6. “Birmingham Mistake,” Sammi Smith (1973)

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7. “Birmingham Blues,” The Birmingham Jug Band (1930)

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8. “Alabama,” John Coltrane (1963)

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9. “Birmingham Jail,” Darby and Tarlton (1927)

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10a. “Back to Birmingham,” The Delmore Brothers, 1940

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10b. “15 Miles from Birmingham,” The Delmore Brothers, 1938

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11. “Tuxedo Junction,” Erskine Hawkins (1939)

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12. “Birmingham,” Drive-By Truckers (2002)

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13. “Birmingham, Alabama,” R.B. Greaves (1969)

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14. “A Small Town They Call Bessemer,” Jazz Gillum and Memphis Slim (1961)

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15. “The Magic City,” Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra (1965)

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16. “Backin' to Birmingham” Lester Flatt (1972)

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17. “Birmingham Black Bottom” Charlie Johnson’s Original Paradise Ten, featuring Monette Moore (1927)

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18. “Didn't He Ramble,” Pete Seeger, (1963)

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19. “Sweet Home Alabama”, Lynyrd Skynyrd, (1998)

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20a. “Birmingham,” Randy Newman (1974)

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20b. “Birmingham,” Del McCoury Band

Collage Art - Elizabeth Hamilton

by Janet Elizabeth... | September 22nd, 2009

Collage is often about compiling smaller images to create one larger image.  In the case of Hamilton's pieces, deconstruction of one major image is the centerpiece of the collage, therefore ressurecting the destroyed image into something totally new.  Hamilton plays with visage and absurdity, horror and humor, overlaying images that evoke a sense of unease in the viewer. 

Hamilton

Hamilton received a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree from the University of Montevallo in 2001.
She has exhibited her work throughout the United States and Europe.  She currently resides in the Birmingham area.

Click on the blue image gallery link at the bottom left to watch a slide of Hamilton's collages.

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The Abandonment of Century Plaza's SEARS

by Janet Elizabeth... | September 21st, 2009

Several months ago, Century Plaza, a mall on the Eastern side of Birmingham, closed its last remaining anchor store. Photographer Bradford Daly caught these images during some of the final hours of business there. Careless piles of plastic hangers, paradoxical silken red Christmas balls, empty retail space, and giant garbage cans. Through these frames, SEARS becomes an incongruous ghost town.

 

Click on the blue image gallery link on the bottom left to view a slideshow of Daly's photographs.

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Women in the Magic City, Volume 1

by Opal South | September 13th, 2009
Annie Linn Henley and friends

I settled in Birmingham after graduating from UA in Tuscaloosa in 2001. I worked odd jobs, waiting tables in Five Points, telling stories at Springville Road library, working in the museum store when the Birmingham Museum of Art still had one in operation in Forest Park, and I taught at The Redmont School in Crestwood. I lived in an apartment on Cliff Road, then a house in Avondale, and finally settled in Irondale when I got married in 2005. Like many college graduates my world was looming and vast, and then gradually, as close friends moved away to big cities and distant countries, and being a wife became part of my identity, my world got smaller and smaller. My husband and I dealt with the deaths of family members, and as I struggled to find a career path, I lost sight of that bigger picture of community – the kind that lies outside your family unit, your job environment, and your interest groups. Read more...

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Cameron Vowell
Opal South

Welcome to Alabama the Beautiful

by Sharrif Simmons | September 13th, 2009
Lauren Lippeatt's Image

My name is Sharrif Simmons. I am an author, poet, musician, television producer, teacher, and most importantly, I’ve been a father for the last fourteen years. I was born in New York City, New York but I grew up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where I lived for six years from age eight to fourteen. Since then, I’ve lived in Long Island, Harlem, Brooklyn, Queens, London, Paris, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Jersey City, and now I live in Birmingham, Alabama.

In search of a change of pace, and taking yet another shot at love, I moved to the Magic City on May 5th, 2004, on what was one of the sunniest, most cloud free days I’d ever seen.

I visited Birmingham off and on for about a year before I decided to relocate from New York City. The transition was smooth. My son Omari and me flew into Atlanta, picked up some furniture I had in storage, chucked it into a U-haul, and then hopped Read more...

Place of Invisible Roads

by Adam Dick | September 13th, 2009
Adam Dick: Chicago Man in Birmingham

Before we travel to a place, we form a story. Something to help shape a world we don’t yet know. That place could be a mountain, a country, a lover, an ocean. We see it before we see it. We taste it with unborn mouths, and imagine coming home before ever leaving. Possibility, so narrow in our day-to-day lives, spreads like a rainbow before us. Anything can happen. Nothing.

My story of Birmingham was borrowed mostly from films and American History high school textbooks. Mention of the city conjured grainy, black and white images of African/Americans, emaciated clothing, contorted, weather-beaten faces being repelled by the jet stream of a fire hose. I’d hear the sound of barking dogs. Martin Luther King Jr. would make a speech as Forest Gump ran through the streets in a football uniform. It was the same type of perspective that makes Chicago, my hometown, synonymous with Al Capone and the 1968 riots. Read more...

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Trib Trek - A Video Tour of Birmingham Area Waterways and Tributaries

by Janet Elizabeth... | September 11th, 2009

Watch for weekly installments of this documentary excursion through Birmingham's streams, creeks rivers, swamps, lakes and ponds.

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Poetic Embouchure - Don Gilliland

by Carl Chang | September 10th, 2009
Raw Garlic - Photo: Mike Benson

Once, I recoiled at the thought of eating raw garlic. I had known of the associated health benefits, but eating raw garlic for the pure spicy pleasure of it was beyond me. Since then, I’ve learned to appreciate it as more than a flavoring in dishes. It’s become an element unhidden among other ingredients. Pungent and biting, the raw garlic I now enjoy mixed in a lettuce wrap with rice and Bul-Go-Gi Beef settles in my stomach with a good tummy rub. I savor the aftertaste knowing it will last after I leave the Korean restaurant and begin again contemplating Don Gilliland’s poetry. Read more...