Around Midtown
Pinocchio at the Playhouse
Last night I attended opening night at Cloverdale Playhouse’s The True Adventures of Pinocchio. I went expecting to see a staged version of the legendary animated Disney film. What I found was much more akin to a Grimm’s fairy tale, complete with lying and cheating and killing and stealing. Not exactly what one would expect […]
Photography at Stonehenge
Stonehenge Gallery presents its 2019 Photography Competition Exhibit – A review by Susan Hood What makes photography a strange invention is that its primary raw materials are light and time. — John Berger (1926-2017) This exhibition runs July 8 through July 31. There is a reception on July 11, 5:30 p.m. until 8:00. The 2019 Photo Competition […]
Electricity for Beginners
Editor’s note: Although this post has two bylines, it is written in first person. In this case, the author is Kate. If you live in Midtown Montgomery, you probably purchase electricity from Alabama Power. But this isn’t a post about utilities and the energy they sell us. Although it is about electricity, this post is […]
Adventures on the Coosa
We’ve written before about our interest in spending more time on the river that runs through the heart of our city. We’ve also written about some of the challenges in doing so. Approaching the long Memorial Day weekend with ruthlessly hot temperatures in the forecast, we were feeling the pressure of two particular exigencies: […]
Historic Midtown
Any History Foodies Out There?
It’s summer. While popular lyrics would have us think “the living is easy,” that is not how I would describe my current reality. Carole King and I are working on our latest book, Montgomery’s Classic Restaurants. It’s a project with History Press, and we’re digging deep for material. I’m pretty much writing on it every second […]
Renovators’ Open House Wins Preservation Award
I am proud to plead guilty to the charge of being an “hysterical preservationist,” as some cynics insist on calling those of us who value our history, architecture and timeless resources. As such, I am deeply involved with our local historic preservation organization, Landmarks Foundation of Montgomery. You may never have heard of Landmarks. But […]
Picture of the Week – 5/28/19
Our city has many hidden gems like this Cottage Hill alcove that Katie spotted recently. It’s the kind of detail that any one of us might walk or drive right by, maybe while looking at our phones. Rob Walker’s new book The Art of Noticing opens with a quotation from Susan Sontag urging us to see, […]
Historic Preservation: What I Learned
All across the country, people are marking the end of one of their life’s chapters and starting a new one. Graduation! We were up in Tuscaloosa this past weekend, when every possible hotel room and parking space seemed filled by folks looking to wish this new cohort well as they matriculated from the University of […]
Eating Midtown
Is Montgomery a Hamburger Town?
I’m still working on the new book (Montgomery’s Classic Restaurants) with Carole King, and unable to think about much of anything else except the heat this summer. So I decided to share some of what I have learned about food in Montgomery and in the process give you a “taste” of the book to come. It […]
Scandinavia and Soul Food
We don’t buy a lot of furniture. The best furniture buying experience we’ve ever had involved no purchases, but did allow us to see the inside of the old Bishop-Parker building downtown. Someday soon that place will be a “boutique hotel.” Hopefully it will retain the interior details that signal a bygone era of consumption […]
Cauliflower “Wings” and Home Frying
Buffalo sauce is delicious. No matter the brand, it’s always good – unless you try to be a hero and eat something above your heat tolerance. Something else that’s generally delicious (if not healthy) is fried food. For the non-vegetarians out there, these often find an optimal mix in chicken wings. Which, judging by the […]
The Impossible Whopper is Here!
It’s on the signs of Burger King outlets all over town: “The Impossible Whopper.” Although we don’t normally eat much fast food, we were very excited to check this out. For those who may be wondering what the fuss is about, here’s some background. As more people are looking to eat plant-based meals at least […]
Real Estate
In Praise of the Fearless Few
If you are like me, you’re fascinated with the idea of buying a wonderful old home and making it like new or better again. The popularity of make-over TV shows, which you find all over cable, confirms that there are a lot of us. The reality, however, is the majority of the homebuying public is […]
Getting on the Ladder to Homeownership
Recently I read a blog post about Millenials and their being largely absent from the ranks of homeownership. It delved pretty deeply into the factors that might contribute to that situation. “Settling down is being pushed further out,” the article observed. And that made me think of my two youngest nieces, Emily and Lilly, the […]
A Good Thing Lasts a Long Time
Why pay rent when a beautiful home is within your reach? Is your object to enrich your landlord or to provide a cosy corner for yourself and family? Please remember that we are offering lots for almost nothing as compared to City lots, and on terms which will enable you to pay for them with […]
Fixer-Upper TV Shows and the Unrealistic Expectations They’ve Created
Chances are you’ve seen, and may be a fan of, Property Brothers, Fixer Upper, Flip or Flop and a host of other fix-up shows classified as “reality TV.” And like the Bachelor, Pawn Stars, Hell’s Kitchen and so many other iterations of reality television, very little “reality” is included in these highly scripted and edited […]
Other Recent Posts
Big Plans at the Airport
Over the time we’ve lived in Montgomery, we’ve traveled all over the country — and all over the world. Most often, these trips are for work, but sometimes (gratefully) they are not. Almost every single time, we’ve flown into and out of the Montgomery airport. And we’ve regularly said that one perk of living here […]
Update: Saturday Mayoral Forum
The other day we wrote about upcoming opportunities to find out more about the folks who want to be Montgomery’s next mayor. There’s a Saturday forum at the Jubilee Center, and we just got some more information about it from the hosts. Key parts for our readers – Seven candidates will appear before a […]
Our New Mayor?
We moved here after the great recession of 2008, when homemade Obama shirts sold on our local street corners pointed to the ways that hope could merge with electoral politics for epochal effects. But Alabama’s voting public sometimes takes a while to register and reflect changing times. So although there have been rumblings since we […]
Picture of the Week – 6/13/19
Cahaba lilies near West Blocton – about an hour and a half from Montgomery. The flowers bloom once a year in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina – a reminder of the rich biodiversity found in Alabama’s rivers. There’s a festival on the third Saturday in May each year, and it is a celebration of the […]
Escaping to Blue Ridge
We needed a vacation. More specifically, we needed to get out into the quiet, beautiful natural world — ideally somewhere with mountains. Alabama has many beautiful parts, but not a lot of mountains. So we decided to look for something in North Georgia because it’s pretty close, and we have heard from friends that it […]
Flowers!
The Old Alabama Town Revue presents its last show of the 2018-2019 season on May 11 at 2 p.m. in the First Presbyterian Colored Church (1885) in Old Alabama Town. The Revue will be part of the activities of Old Alabama Town’s Second Saturday event. Guests are invited to tour Old Alabama Town’s beautiful and […]
Picture of the Week – 5/8/19
While the recent tornado has changed the view, the view is still a good one. If you want to feel like you’ve gotten out of the city but don’t want to go far, visit Wetumpka sometime for a nice walk along the river. Stop for a moment to take in views like this one. Water […]
Montgomery Celebrates May as Historic Preservation Month
Each May, our city celebrates National Historic Preservation Month by acknowledging Montgomery’s rich architectural heritage and our continuing efforts to preserve it. For the third year, Montgomery’s Historic Preservation Commission has accepted nominations for Preservation Awards. The purpose of these awards is to: Encourage excellence in the planning, design and execution of projects affecting the […]
Customer Service: An Odyssey
This story has a happy ending. Eventually, a combination of corporations and insurance paid for our historic Midtown home to have nearly $15,000 worth of unintended kitchen repairs. But it took hundreds of hours and considerable dedicated effort to get these various entities to make good on their promises. We’re here to offer some advice […]
Picture of the Week – 4/24/19
This is an image from September 2018. It was taken at the Lower Dexter Cruise-In. This event happens on the first Friday of every month in downtown Montgomery. The next one is on May 3rd at 5:30 p.m. When I took this photo, I was stopped in my tracks by all of the visual […]
Picture of the Week – 4/17/19
The Pine Hill Haints playing at the Sanctuary. The way this photo captures energy and movement and light is obvious, but you may not know about the word “haints.” It’s a spectral word, encouraging you to read the Gothic folklore of Kathryn Tucker Windham, or maybe just spend some time alone in an Alabama cemetery at […]
Picture of the Week, 4/10/19
Loblolly pine seedlings went to the moon and back in 1971. Yes, that moon. The Alabama Forestry Commission and the U.S. Forest Service presented one of the seedlings to Gov. George Wallace upon their return to Earth. That tree still grows today next to the statue of a martyr named Albert Patterson. More information on […]
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