SC Day 3- Hush Puppies, Haircuts, and Horrible History
I started today by getting coffee at the Curiosity Coffee Bar in Columbia. They were a little bit pricier than some of the other coffee shops I'd been to, but the actual quality of their cold brew and their service more than made up for it. I had a nice time sharing jokes with the barista and some of other customers got into it too which is always really fun. The barista also got excited when he heard I was traveling to Charleston and got out a pen and paper and wrote down a list of recommendations for the city. He said he used to be a touring musician so he sympathizes with anyone on the road and is always happy to help out. It was really sweet.
After getting all hyped up on the coffee, I decided to go to a barbershop that Ally had recommended the night before. I tried to learn from my whole strip club experience, and felt like if a girl recommends a good place to get a haircut, it means it's probably time to get a haircut. Plus the Southern Gentleman Barbering Company just sounded so cool. When I walked in, I was offered some complimentary whiskey from a fine selection. I don't generally drink before lunch, but I also don't generally say no to anything free. They had a nice lounge area with leather armchairs to sit and sip while you wait for your haircut. The haircut itself was also beyond compare and came with a hot towel and a straight razor on the back at the end.
I'm normally not very good at making small talk while getting my hair cut, so I normally sit there deathly quiet. I've always been jealous of guys who spent the whole time talking with their barbers, but I think the whiskey helped because today I was one of those guys. My barber and I had a really nice conversation about comedy. He and his wife had just seen Jim Gaffigan live and he had seen Chappelle the last time he was in town. I'd actually seen both of those guys live too, so it was fun to geek out and trade jokes. I also think the haircut came out pretty good considering the mug that poor hair is saddled with.
The other nice thing about the barbershop is that it was right next to Groucho's Deli, where Ally happened to be working. She hooked me up with a really good sandwich. She recommended I get the STP which is roast beef, turkey, bacon, and melted swiss on a hoagie. It was a beautiful monster, though slightly bittersweet because I wasn't sure I'd see the person who gave it to me again.
With a very full belly, I made it Charleston which is easily one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen. A real hodgepodge of old Southern houses and sleek modern buildings. The state's nickname the Palmetto also finally makes sense to me now.
My first stop didn't really strike me as particularly fun per se, but something I might not be able to do anywhere else. I went to visit the Old Slave Mart. Charleston had been one of the largest markets for the slave trade in the country, and the old market is still near perfectly preserved and now a museum. I think that's a good way of handling the demons in our nation's history, exposing and learning from them rather than trying to cover them up. There weren't any pictures allowed in the museum, but it was very powerful. The sheer dehumanization in the language used to describe the buying and selling of human beings (i.e. "first rate negroes" vs. "second rate negroes") was deeply unsettling. People wonder why "PC" people get so upset about the words people use, but seeing stuff like that you can see how simple things like language can create distance that makes otherwise unimaginable atrocities easier to swallow. Nobody would think to treat another person the way slaves were treated so they needed to be able to not think of them as people. The mechanical nature of everything, the ways traders and buyers would try to get the best deals in the exact same way car salesman might by highlighting special features, lying about ages, etc. just showed how mundane real evil can be. The thing I might never forget seeing was a pair of shackles fitted for a child that was to be sold.
On the slightly more positive, it goes without saying that slaves were in fact people after all and that the human spirit is an incredible thing. Slaves would use the auction as their chance to try to finagle the best possible predicament out of albeit very shitty options, and the cunning, intellect, and improvisation some slaves used really shows how impossible it is totally break a people down. The museum had actual audio recordings of some of the last people who had been sold as children, made when they in their 90s, and hearing the actual first hand accounts of what it was like was pretty astonishing. One woman talked about how as a girl she absolutely refused to be sold to man who she knew would mistreat her so she spat at him, and another slightly nicer slaveowner was so impressed by her gumption that he agreed to take her instead. It was a good encapsulation of all the mix of horror and courage the auction entailed, and hearing her tell it herself every bit of that fiery spirit still in tact was pretty amazing.
Above the main exhibit, a local historian was giving a talk and reading some passages from journals by slave traders which was really interesting. One turn of phrase she used really stuck out to me when she said "Some of this might seem unbelievable, but this is American history and for everything I tell you I've got the paper work to back it up. I've got the documentation." In a world where truth seems more and more malleable, someone celebrating proper documentation really felt like a breath of fresh air.
After the Slave Mart, I needed some lighter fare so I went to the Gibbes Museum of Art. The museum had a really great mix of cool special exhibits and a permanent collection highlighting the works of Southern Artists.
The first special exhibit I saw was all about Charleston artists who had been inspired by Mexican artists, and how that influence shaped their art both thematically and stylistically. This was one of the smaller galleries, but a really cool one. I enjoyed the vibrant colors and surrealist touches the Charlestonian artists began to borrow from their Mexican counterparts, and works from William Halsey, Prentiss Taylor and Corrie McCallum really stood out for me.
The next special collection was also pretty small, but I really loved it. It was all about modernism and photography, and it focused on works both staged and candid that took mundane moments and made them more surreal. It was really fun and whimsical, and featured works by notable artists like Alfred Stieglitz, Berenice Abbott, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Martin Munkácsi, and George Platt Lynes, Lynes' work Gaea and Erechtus featuring a topless woman majestically lifting a baby might be one of my favorite photographs I've ever seen.
From there I began to delve into the permanent collection. The first room I saw had the Gibbes' collection of miniature portraits. It is apparently one of the largest collections of miniatures in the country, which is ironic in a way. The craftsmanship of these weird, tiny works of art was super impressive.
Next I got to the meat and potatoes of the museum's permanent collection which ranged from 18th Century portraiture to contemporary works, with many of the works coming from South Carolina artists. My favorites from this collection are below. I tended to like the modern stuff with sillier sensibilities as well as some of the more uniquely Southern landscapes. Not a lot of the 18th century portraiture made my cut unfortunately if that's your thing. I know portraiture can be objectively well made and "good" art, but it just doesn't do much for me.
In the Atrium of the galleries housing the modern and contemporary art was a special installation called Betwixt and Between by an artist named Patrick Dougherty. The installation featured truly massive spiraling sculptures made out of interwoven twigs and branches. It was really bizarre, but kind of breathtaking.
Next up was the largest special exhibit, a collection called Pan-American Modernism: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America in the United States. It was a good synthesis of my favorite galleries combining the Latin American Stylistic flairs and subject matters of the Mexican art exhibit with all the general strangeness of the modernist movement. My favorite works were by Wilfredo Lam who had a very Picasso-esque Cubist style combined with Dali's Surreal sense of humor.
After the museum, I went to a coffee place recommended from my morning barista's list because I figured if there was anyone's coffee recommendation I could trust it would be a barista's. Black Tap Coffee did not disappoint, and I tried their funky Black Julep. A mix of espresso, muddled mint and honey. It might sound a little strange but it was so dang good.
For dinner, I went to the one place everyone recommended I go in South Carolina: Fleet's Landing. I needed to partake in an SC tradition called She-Crab Soup, which is a bunch of lump crab meat in a creamy broth finished with sherry. I guess the Sherry makes the crab more feminine? Regardless of the odd name, the soup was absolutely incredible. The crab meat was really sizable, and the broth was rich but with a hint of sweetness and bite from the sherry. I also ordered an appetizer of Lobster Stuffed hushpuppies. I was still pretty full from my gigantic sandwich and I figured soup and an appetizer would make for a nice light meal. Oh what a fool I was! A happy happy fool though, because the hush puppies were absolutely divine. Crispy fluffy dough positively loaded with lobster meat and shrimp drizzled with a creamy tomato sauce. I didn't have room for it, but it was way too good not to polish off.
After dinner, I went to an open mic at The Brick. It was a really nice and homey bar and grill, and I really liked just sitting there before the mic enjoying a beer and listening to the bartender's 90s ska playlist. The mic itself was a relatively small but a lot of fun, and because of the impending holiday season every comic was promised a prize at the end.
I accidentally ended up going first. If that sentence is confusing, it's because I signed up for the fourth spot on the list, but then everyone else just filled in under me which is a very comic thing to do. I didn't really mind though. I usually don't try to go first in new places, because I like a chance to vicariously read the room, but it's good every once in a while to be thrown in feet first and test myself. I had a slow start finding my rhythm and the crowd's sense of humor, but after a few jokes I hit my stride and ended really strong. Because there weren't that many comics I also got to a little bit more time and the fact that I did a longer set with pretty consistent laughs made me feel alright about the slow start.
While there weren't many comics, the ones who came out came out strong. Some of my favorite lines:
Nate (i didn't get his last name) - If you ever want a good run, steal something
Joseph Gimper (sp?) - You ever have one of those moments when you realize all your childhood memories were crimes?
John Antwon - It's weird you don't see a lot of black scienctologists because L. Ron Hubbard sounds like a black guy name.
My favorite comic of the night was a woman named Hillary who told a kinda gross but absolutely hilarious story about a guy falling asleep while going down on her. "I know I have pillowy thighs, but come on!"
At the end of the mic, the host drew prizes for everyone, and I got a $25 dollar gift to the bar which was a pretty great way to end the night.
Favorite Random Sightings: Christ Central; Pelican's Sno Balls; Money Man Pawn; Handsome Properties
Regional Observations: I have never seen people walking by Palm Trees in Winter Coats before. It was a little surreal.
Albums Listened To: Lotta Sea Lice by Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile (one of my favorite new albums from 2017); Louie OST by Various Artists; Love & Hate by Michael Kiwanuka (this album is so damn good, and just leaps and bounds better than the album that preceded it); Love Ire & Song By Frank Turner
People's Favorite Jokes:
Why does Snoop Dogg need an Umbrella? Fo' Drizzle (this is one of my sister's and my favorite jokes. I actually used to use it as an opening line on tinder. It didn't work too well)
What does Snoop Dogg use to clean his clothes? Ble-ach (that was actually me piggy backing off the first snoop dogg joke but I didn't want to deprive readers of such a gem
What do you call fish with no eyes? A fsh
Songs of the Day:
Bonus Song: I'm having a tough time knowing how to feel about Louie CK, but regardless of what he did as a person some of the things he did on his TV show were so funny that I think they really approach high art. This song is one of those things.