The world above City Market
Until last week, it’s been over ten years since I’ve ventured off the St. Julian Street pedestrian mall of City Market and up the stairs into the world of original art and fine craftwork orbiting above the heavily trafficked retail spaces on the ground floor. I wish I’d done it sooner. Three friends and I…
‘Survival of the fittest’ downtown
After 18 months of economic recession, Savannah’s local economy is reminiscent of Charles Dickens’ famous opening lines from A Tale of Two Cities: ‘It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.’ While no industry has remained unaffected by the country’s financial woes, there are occasional signs of hope downtown, despite the…
What’s Next: Seinfeld in September
Seinfeld in September Sure, we’ve had a few A-list comedians perform at the Savannah Civic Center over the last year or so. Jeff Dunham and Brian Regan are funny guys – and Ron White, who’ll take the stage next month, can be brilliantly snarky. Yadda yadda. The King of Comedy is coming to town.…
Three bites: Marandy’s, Sushi Zen, Sunrise
Marandy’s This Soul food restaurant packs ’em in at lunch and is one of few Savannah restaurants that does enough dinner carryout to make the effort a pay day. The menu specials changes daily — and range from ox tails, fried whiting, smothered chops and other classics. On my visit, I couldn’t resist the old…
Vinho Verde, Portugal’s green wine
During the peak of last week’s blazing hot days, a friend called to ask for a wine suggestion. “We’re going out for wine and light supper after work and I think Chardonnay is too heavy — and I’m tired of the usual Pinot Gris. What should I order?” I gambled that there would be a…
Reviews: Transformers, My Sister’s Keeper, The Proposal, etc.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen * To both my horror and delight — horror because of my general disdain for the Michael Bay oeuvre, delight because of my desire to enjoy every picture I see (contrary to popular belief, film critics don’t enter a theater wanting to hate the movie; what sort of dreary, masochistic…
Aldermen or place holders?
Are they aldermen or placeholders? Editor, Regarding “Time to scale back city manager’s power?” by Patrick Rodgers: I have resided in this city for 51 years. What astonishes me is that there have been no studies to ascertain whether the conditions which led to the Council-Manager system still exist. I feel like the council just…
A man’s man
Louisiana-born Trace Adkins, a tree-like bear of a man with a deep, resonant voice, is a former college football player, a former oil-rigging roughneck, and a current country music star. Adkins performs Friday at Donovan Field at the U.S. Army base in Fort Stewart, part of the Worth Fighting For Independence Day Weekend Celebration. The…
Extra! Extra!
I applied to work as an extra on The Last Song, was accepted, and for 10 hours I did everything asked of me as the Disney cameras followed Miley Cyrus up and down Tybee Beach. Then, without explanation, I was forcibly removed from the set, publicly embarrassed and threatened. Hooray for Hollywood! I still don’t…
Miley for miles
How many times have you heard the name Miley Cyrus this week? If you’re living in Savannah this summer, that number may be pretty high. If you live in Savannah year round, expect that number to grow exponentially in the coming months. The 16-year-old Disney starlet has been filming a big budget project on Tybee…
Hometown heroes
Traditionally, touring musicians will come home to visit their families around the big, warm, cozy holidays: Thanksgiving or Christmas. That’s when you’ll catch them doing ad hoc solo shows at the downtown clubs, because they’re in the area for a few days, weary of leftover turkey and itching to get out and play. This Independence…
Noteworthy: Hank Williams III
HANK WILLIAMS III His first name is actually Shelton, and he’s more of a punker than a honky tonker, but the 36-year-old Williams is, indeed, the grandson of country music’s immortal Hank. And his daddy is Bocephus himself. Openly critical of his father, and of contemporary country music in general, Hank III is a scrappy…
Red, white, and swing
Y’all watch now – this is how they do the Fourth of July in N’awlins. A quarter of the musicians in Savannah’s Equinox Jazz Orchestra are Louisiana natives, including bandleader, sax player and overall head honcho Jeremy Davis, who came here from The Big Easy just one day before Katrina came a-knockin’, in 2005. The…
A fiery Fourth
Twenty-three performers, spanning a bucketful of genres from punk to blues, country to hip hop, jazz to rock ‘n’ roll. And you’ve probably never heard of any of them. The idea behind Saturday’s 12-hour Pyro Independent Music Fest, says organizer Jon Darling, is to showcase those bands and artists that don’t play regularly at the…
Crowd control
Officers were called to assist with crowd control as the bars were letting out around three in the morning. A large, unruly group of people were blocking traffic on the corner of Whitaker and Congress. The officers requested that the people move toward a sidewalk and allow vehicles to pass. None of them complied, except…
Astronauts in desolate places on Earth: Why?
In his book Collapse, Jared Diamond claims, “When NASA wanted to find some place on Earth resembling the surface of the Moon, so that our astronauts preparing for the first moon landing could practice in an environment similar to what they would encounter, NASA picked a formerly green area of Iceland that is now utterly…
Worms of New York
Lead Story Using GPS and state-of-the-art sonar, Columbia University researchers recently made the first comprehensive map of the wonders submerged in New York City’s harbors. Supplementing those findings with historical data, New York magazine reported the inventory’s highlights in May: a 350-foot steamship (downed in 1920), a freight train (derailed in 1865), 1,600 bars of…
Coming home to roost
To begin the story of the region’s organic and local food supply, let’s go to the very beginning: The chicken. Or is it the egg? Regardless, the pair live harmoniously in rural Screven County. When GA17 veers more northerly, and becomes a two-lane gray ribbon that cuts its way through towering pine forests and swampy…
Government vs. the people
We are at another of Savannah’s infrequent civic crossroads. The level of public unrest here is more than I can remember at any time since 1991, when longtime Mayor John Rousakis was ousted from office after his ineffectual response to a string of particularly ugly gang-related murders. While the administration that replaced his was eminently…
More urban chicken coops crop up
As consumer demand for natural foods climbs and the mainstream food supply fails to keep up, backyard farmers are taking up the slack. Several Savannahians keep backyard coops — ordinances allow up to four hens (no roosters) within the city limits.County dweller Steve Ellis is one of those backyard chicken enthusiasts. He and his wife,…
