12:23 p.m. | Atlanta, an idealogical journey to the vortex of culture and heritage | 2002-06-20 |
Reaped | Since the 'Atlanta Visit' topic was pushed to the bottom, I decided to post these interesting snippets here. I had an opportunity to explore the idea of cultural heritage while at the ALA Conference in Atlanta. My party of librarians stayed at the 1890 King Keith House, built by George E. King, the local hardware magnate and owner of Atlanta's King Hardware. Talking to Mr. & Mrs. Keith, the current owners, over a breakfast of blueberry pancakes offered some personal accounts and snippets of history about the Georgia area. When not fleecing the vendors for free graphic novels, Census wheels and tshirts, we had the chance to visit both the the Margaret Mitchell House and the Atlanta History Center. Touring the different houses at the AHC, from Charles Schutze's opulent Roaring Twenties Swan House to the Tullie Smith Farm's plantation style "honeymoon suite"/slave quarters log cabin offered a view of the South from both the pre and post Reconstruction era. Meanwhile, the Margaret Mitchell House revered the life of a feminist(?!) debutante author and edified our collective Hollywood memory of the South. Also home to the Center of Southern Literature, the museum offers a "myriad of literary events" for the local bibliophile. One thing I noticed about many of the restored houses we visited was Atlanta's susceptivity to fire, another was the montage of cultural scenes the entire experience produced. When your history burns to the ground, you just rebuild, restore, reconstruct, explain. Looking out over the concrete monoliths and sprawling green lawn of Centennial Park by the Conference Center, watching people carry their arm chairs & Starbucks samples to the free Alannis Morisette concert, security erected the chain link fence and searched bags at the concrete barricaded entrance. Just over, as someone points out, the space where the bomb exploded at the '96 Olympics. |
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New digs - 2004-05-25 Bachelor hell - 2004-05-10 Grumble - 2004-05-07 Coachella pt. 2, or goddamn do my fingers hurt - 2004-05-05 Coachella part one, or, this monkey's gone to indio rawk heaven - 2004-05-05 Random Shearings Rings |
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