Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Massive entertainment weekend


Paul Feldman, Bob Early, and Lerin Williams cooking with high-test at the CCC on Friday night.


Polly and the Posse (yes, that's Bob Early again) tearin' it up at the Pump up the Posse concert and raffle at Penland on Saturday night.


Jeff Goodman and a bunch of Polly's friends (yes, that's Lerin again) raffling on Saturday night.


Ken Harvey telling a story about a peavy (yes, that's a peavy behind him) at Celo Moth Night at the CCC on Sunday night.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Jay's typewriters



I know that nobody who looks at this blog will have any idea who this person is, but I thought almost anyone could appreciate an obsessive collector of antique typewriters. When I was in high school at the North Carolina School of the Arts, this fellow, Jay Williams, was the school's in-house piano tuner and technician. He's also an excellent composer and trombone player and one of the more interesting people I've ever known. I spent a lot of time with Jay during those three years, talking about everything under the sun, listening to music, and occasionally serving as his amaneunsis (how often do I get to use that word?)--notating his music as he dictated from scores he had written in Braille.

Since that time, Jay has had a second career building mostly electronic prototypes for a company that develops new equipment for blind people. I lost track of Jay for a long time, but recently discovered that he and his wife are now retired and living in Marietta, Georgia. So last weekend, when Tammy and I represented Penland School at the photographic education conference in Atlanta, we stopped on the way to visit Jay and Kathy and, among other things, got a tour of Jay's fantastic collection of typewriters--he has 80 or 100 of them.


Look that this little beauty. A Blicksenderfer from the late 19th century. This crazy little machine had all the type on a cylinder that flipped around and changed angles to make the right letter--almost exactly like the famous IBM Selectric of the 1960s.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Carl Peverall and the Tone Drum

Have you all seen Carl's tone drums and heard him play? Washes you clean. Below is a video Carl and I made last week that shows how he makes these remarkable instruments.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

The Betty Oliver Project


Ten years ago, the New York poet and artist Betty Oliver died after an extended battle with breast cancer, leaving all of her creative work in the care of Billy and Katie Bernstein. Betty was a frequent teacher at Penland and friend of many in this area. The Betty Oliver Project is Billy and Katie's effort to raise money to publish a book of her poems as well as an edition of single page fine art broadsides. Please check out the donations page at http://www.unitedstatesartists.org/project/the_betty_oliver_project

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The smallest church in America


Somewhere in Georgia, south of Savannah. The self-proclaimed Smallest Church in America.


Looking through the normal-sized doorway.


There are lots of people's photographs on the altar.


If you want to help out, this is how you should make out your check.