New desktop background image, here I come.
The shot above is a photograph of smoke rising from a stick of incense. I took it when I was first starting to experiment with my camera and flash. The colors were added via post processing in Adobe Photoshop Elements at the time.
HUB-BUB Artist-in-Residence Jameelah Lang brings a little Muslim-culture education to Spartanburg on her recent blog post. But mostly, the post is about two cross-cultural topics anyone can understand: Love for a good meal, and one’s mother.
Imagine Christmas. Minus carols, jolly men, wrapped gifts, snow, Jesus, and egg nog. Add delicious meat pockets. Multiply by one-and-a-half-billion Muslim people. The result: Eid. That’s right, folks, get excited!!! To celebrate Eid–the holiday which occurs at the end of Ramadan (this Sunday)–I will share family secrets straight from Mama. And no, that is not a cute name I use to refer to myself when I’m feeling sassy (i.e. Mama don’t play like that!). What I mean is–the one, the only: my mother.
Speaking of HUB-BUB AiRs, Claudia Dishon posted a short memorial piece about her recently deceased pet fish, Special Man.
Special Man died today. It was sadder than I thought it would be. We were with eachother through some truly dark times. He survived four moves of the tank on my travels from Central to Clemson to Greenville and finally Hub-Bub. There were moments when I could have taken better care of him. The tank would become clotted with mats of algae, or parasites would infiltrate his slim body. I tried. … The tank feels pointless without him. We actually had a relationship. Clumsy but benevolent god and devoted acolyte. He had a dynamic little shape, reminiscent of a dulled exacto bladed. His greatest attribute was enthusiasm.
The Spartanburg Creative Energy project has really taken some long strides when it comes to making creativity, active living and art a part of the local community conversation. This week on their blog, the project talks about yet another such initiative, the Penny-Farthing Proposition.
The Penny-Farthing Proposition is a new public art initiative creative by local Spartanburg artist, Cody Robert, “Hoondirtâ€, to promote active living and Spartanburg’s Bicycle Friendly Community Award through art. The gold bike sculptures are located along Main Street, Daniel Morgan Square, Church Street and the Hub City Art Park.
And finally, the Preservation Trust of Spartanburg found a cool little treasure during the restoration work on their current Cecil Court project house.
That’s right. A toy car. It was our big prize of the day.
How can a now-defunct, muddy, tireless Happy Meal type prize from the 1970′s be a prize? Even cleaned up, the toy is only a shadow of what it used to be….a real, working matchbox car, a Mercedes Benz 450 SEL at that, with a spiffy gold-yellow paint job and rust-free chrome accents. But consider this: maybe it was an escape for a kid, living in modest 564 Cecil Court (or maybe visiting?), playing on the front walk, dreaming of living big one day.
That’s it for this week. To check out a broad variety of local blogs, visit SparkleCityBlogs.com.
Steve Shanafelt
