Mississippi Day 5 / AR Day 0- Mansions, Museums, and Making It Out Without Crashing My Car
My first real day back to adventuring started with an oddly ominous image of a toy Captain American lying in the middle of a mostly empty yard. Probably not a symbol or anything.
I got my morning coffee at a place called Crave in downtown Tupelo. They had great coffee, the baristas were really friendly, and there was Elvis themed art all over the place so I really liked it there.
The Elvis art would prove to be a theme of the town since the King was born there, and just about every street corner had an artsy guitar with arrows pointing toward Elvis' birthplace.
Before following those arrows, I stopped at the Gumtree Museum of Art. The museum highlights local artists and is registered on the National Registry of Historic Places because it's located in the original building of the Peoples Bank and Trust Company. The building was really beautiful with lots of arches and wide open space. It wasn't particularly big though so there were only two artists on display. The larger special exhibit was on a sculptor named Gus Jones who worked with ceramics and blown glass. The pieces were fairly esoteric, but the thing I really liked about them is that each piece was paired with a written memory that had inspired the art. The links between the sculptures and the memories weren't always clear, but they added a cool poetic element to everything. My favorites were a ceramic piece inspired by a family outing to a burger joint called Fatty's and some brightly colored glass works inspired by Elvis.
On the walls around the sculptures were really dreamlike drawings by an artist named Susan Beam Goff that incorporate non traditional colors and shapes to make classic nude figure drawings seem surreal and abstracted.
After the museum, i followed the guitars to the birthplace of the King of Rock and Roll. The first thing on display was the Presley family car that took them from Tupelo to Memphis. I think in general old cars look pretty cool, but they don't always have so much history attached to them.
The birthplace itself was impressively unimpressive. I shotgun shack is only two rooms longs. The family all shared one bed, and they cooked and ate in one kitchen/dining room. Humble beginnings don't get much more humble.
My favorite part of the house was this vintage photograph of the family hanging in the bedroom. Even as a baby, Elvis was already perfecting his trademark smirk.
The grounds around the shack had plenty of other cool things to see. These included two statues, one of the young musician staring at life head on and one of the boy sitting in the shadow of Vegas-era full jumpsuit Elvis. There was also a fountain, a hill with a view overlooking a lake, the old village church, and most importantly a replica of the single outhouse shared by the whole community. My favorite thing though was that all around the visitor's center they had quotes from people who knew Elvis as a boy. These all offered really fascinating glimpses into the formative years of a rock star. My favorites included Elvis trying to trade his guitar for another kid's bicycle. The kid said no, and then reflecting on the incident as an adult he said, "If I'd had that guitar I wouldn't have done anything with it. The world wouldn't have had Elvis, and he would have had a bicycle." By all accounts, he was a really shy and quiet kid and everyone was really surprised when he sort of exploded onto the national scene. One of his uncles said that they encouraged his music, but that at the time they were just being nice they didn't expect anything to come of it. Some people had higher hopes for him though. As one elementary school teacher said, "There was something nice about every kid, but there was everything nice about Elvis". His first musical success was winning second place in a school talent show. I bet the guy that won that talent show wouldn't shut up about it after Elvis got famous.
After paying my respects to the King, I drove down to Oxford. I stopped for lunch at a place called the big bad breakfast because how could I resist a name like that. The breakfast did indeed turn out to be big but it was anything but bad. I got naturally The Big Bad Breakfast plate, which came with two eggs, bacon, a biscuit, grits, and something called red eye gravy. According to the internet, traditional red eye gravy is made from a combination of pork stock, ham, and coffee which sounds really gross on paper but tasted really good in practice so I'm glad I looked it up after I ate it. Their gravy also had tomatoes and baked beans added to the mix which is probably what made it bigger and badder. I washed it all down with some Ice Box Iced coffee, which is a local chain started in Birmingham, AL that has started cornering the pre-made iced coffee game in the deep South. It was a pretty great meal all around.
After lunch, I went to see the thing I was probably the most excited to see in Mississippi. Because I am a giant dork, that thing is William Faulkner's house, Rowan Oak. I was so excited to see it that when I got into my car accident one of the first thoughts I remember having was, "I guess I won't get to see Faulkner's house. This sucks." I believe I have said it before, but I think Faulkner very well could be the greatest American novelist of all time, and if not the best then certainly in the top five. He had the ability to tell really simple, tight stories that somehow also felt grand and universal, all with a clear love of language. You just get a feeling reading him, even when you don't know what the hell is going on that he just had a blast putting words together. This is all a rather long-winded way of saying that I had expectations going in, and I was not disappointed. Seeing the rows of oak trees towering over the path to the front doors of the palatial Southern mansion, the house just perfectly looked the part for a place where a Southern Gothic author should live.
Once inside the house, visitors could do a pretty impressive tour of all the rooms. I liked that for a pretty big house, they opted for larger rooms rather than more rooms. There was just a very open and inviting sense to the place. I didn't know that Faulkner's mother was a really talented painter, but nearly every room had her works in them mostly portraits of Faulkner men past, but with a few landscapes and a granddaughter thrown in for good mix.
My favorite Faulkner furnishings (there's a mouthful) were ones that revealed strokes of inspiration. These included a wall by the telephone where he had scribbled everyone he wanted to call's number because he could never remember them; an outline for his novel A Fable (which I've been "reading" this whole trip. I never have enough down time to really dig in though) written on the walls of his study because the wind blew all his papers away and he didn't want to disrupt his creative flow; and a picture of "the only truly happy expression" ever caught by a family friend while Faulkner was off-guard at a wedding reception. I've looked there really are very few photos of him where that mustache actually curves upwards.
In the hallways they had display cases filled with fun facts and ephemera from the life of the big guy. Some of these stories were pretty great, like the fact that he is the only person in America to have been fired as a local postmaster and then move on to receive his own stamp. The other craziest fact to me was that he is the mascot of a Japanese coffee called Boss Coffee for seemingly no reason whatsoever. As a lit nerd, I got excited to see his type-writer he used while in Hollywood, some poems and notes he wrote while wooing his wife, and official maps of his fictional Yoknapatawpha County where all but one his novels takes place. His wife, Estelle, also got one room highlighting her beautiful watercolors of flowers. My favorite Faulkner quotes from these displays were that he said, "the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey" and that he wanted his obituary to simply be "He made the books and he died". Not one for sentiment. I also got a big kick out of him calling his mother after finishing a short story to say, "I have made something beautiful, every word of it perfect... I will probably hate it tomorrow." I think that quote really sums up the alternating grandiosity and crippling insecurity that goes into being creative.
The last exhibit in the house was really cool, and featured artwork by Boyd Saunders from illustrate copies of the Sound and the Fury and the short story, the Bear. The Bear is one of my al time favorite short stories, and The Sound and the Fury is one of my favorite novels, even though they both made me cry when I read them. Seeing these powerful written works matched with this incredible artwork really captured the look and feel of the places and characters I loved so much.
Outside the house there were also several treats tucked around the expansive grounds. These include a labyrinth, a garden, a fancier English Knot garden, servant's quarters, and stables. Faulkner was very fond of raising and racing horses, but his love of animals also extended to more unusual fare. Apparently he named every snake on the property Penelope, for reasons that were inside joke that the museum did not feel the need to explain, and when on his daughter's suitors came running to him to complain about a snake in his bed, Faulkner replied, "Oh that's just Penelope. Don't hurt her, she's been a dear friend of the family for years,"
After Rowan Oak, I went to visit the University of Mississippi Museum, which is Ole Miss' finest collection of arts. I was interested right off the bat because there was a giant statue of a fox out front as well something called a Champion Tree. I don't know what it was a champion of (just bein' a tree?) but you gotta pay your respects to the champ. The parking lot also had a fairly abstract sculpture of a broken circle, intended as a tribute to those with Alzheimers. It was really sweet.
The museum wasn't particularly large but they did have a pretty eclectic mix of galleries and it was free so I was very happy with it. I started with their gallery of American art, which gave a pretty impressive survey of modernism in the US. Artists on Display included John Marin, my dude Edward Hopper, Georgia O'Keeffe, Arthur Dove, and even a doodle from Kurt Vonnegut.
The artist I was most surprised to see was JP Donleavy. Donleavy is probably most known for his famously dirty and funny novel the Ginger Man, but it turns out he was really good painter too. Making watercolors ranging from landscapes and animal scenes to abstractions. I was very impressed. I particularly liked one he did of an owl that looks kind of like it's being viewed through a kaleidoscope.
My other favorite pieces from this gallery were four duos of pieces that included oddly stirring impressionistic pieces by Marsden Hartley; photorealistic paintings of fireworks by Glennray Tutor, beautiful Landscapes by Russell Chatham, and some surrealist pieces by Man Ray.
The next gallery was an interesting change up and featured a collection of Scientific Instruments. The collection included telescopes, models of large machines, demonstration devices, and illustrative paintings used for the teaching of natural philosophy, physics, and astronomy. These pieces all belonged to former pioneering Ole Miss Professors John Millington and Frederick A.P. Barnard, and it was cool to see the historical and scientific mixed in with all the art. The instruments did all happen to be really stunning aesthetically so they wouldn't have even been all that out of place if they were just posited as art.
The next gallery jumped just a teensy bit further back in history with a collection of artwork from Ancient Greece. This collection included pottery, artifacts, statues, and even a really cool mosaic. My favorite were a bit on the naughtier side because I'm five. These included an oil lamp with a picture in the center of a woman using an oil lamp to trim her pubic hair (the description says this sort of depiction in Grecian art is "very rare") and a statue of a centaur but with the penis anatomically where it would be for a man and not a horse. I'm not an expert in centaur reproduction but the implications of this placement are just insane.
The next little section of the museum focused on the art of Theora Hamblett, a local artist whose paintings specialized in trying to capture the look and feel of childhood memories.
The largest gallery was the special exhibit. While I was there, this exhibit was dedicated to the winners and honorable mentions of the Mississippi Collegiate Arts Competition. Students in any year at any college in the state were eligible and they brought their A games generating some really impressive paintings, photographs, sculptures, and installations.
My favorites from this collection (which usually but not always aligned with the Judges' favorites) included a surrealist sculpture, a multimedia collage addressing ideas and themes around the Black Lives Matter movement, a seemingly peaceful photo of the woods until you notice the legs ominously tucked behind a tree, a truly odd but very well made portrait of a grumpy old man with a rose by his feet, some spooky photos that use digital effects to superimpose monstrous imagery over tranquil scenes of nude women and swimming pools, an incredibly well balanced sculpture of several cubes, a funny collage of different drawings with the word "Misprint" frequently obscuring the actual image, a quilt made out of pieces of fabric on which different students had written their fears and anxieties, a surreal drawing of bits of sculptures, a dreamily incomplete charcoal drawing of a man opening a door, and a weirdly incredible photo of a lone dog at a carwash. Like I said these students really were showing off some great talent.
The last thing I saw in the museum, oddly tucked in a hallway on the way to the bathroom, was the museum's collection of dressed fleas. Dressed fleas are exactly what they sound like, little fleas with even littler clothes. I loved that the description said that "no one knows who first invented them but they have always been made"
After the museum, I popped into the center of town and wandered around. Downtown Oxford and the Ole Miss campus were really beautiful. I stumbled into a place called the Southside Gallery. It was filled with works by different local artists that were uniformly really strong. My favorite was a painting by an artist named William Dunlap that had a very peaceful looking barn juxtaposed with a just mildly horrifying decapitated deer head.
Right next to the gallery was a little hidden gem called Faulkner's Alley, an alleyway Faulkner used to use as a short cut to his local bookstore. On one wall there were several stained glass images of flowers correlating to passages from Faulkner's books. It was very whimsical.
At this point in the night, I was in pretty dire need of some re-caffeination so I went to a place called Cups, an Espresso Cafe. I got a strong iced shot in the dark and it was just what I needed. The baristas were really friendly and funny too which is always a plus. The whole place had a really hip college coffee shop vibe.
After refueling, I made the 3 hour drive to Little Rock, Arkansas and I am happy to say I did it all while keeping my car completely intact. Unlike Bob Dylan and the Dixie Chix I stayed in Mississippi the exact right amount of days.
Somehow I made it to Little Rock with some time to kill before the night's Open Mic so I went to a pub across the street called Skinny J's. It was packed which I took to be a good sign, but, considering how big and bad my breakfast had been, I didn't have the room for a full meal. Instead I got an appetizer that truly intrigued me: crab and crawfish topped avocado. It was odd, but it was tasty. The crab and crawfish came in pretty generous portion, and the avocado was fried just the tiniest amount so that it was a little warm and crispy on the outside but still refreshing on the inside. Then it was all drizzled with the house remoulade to give it a nice zing. I really enjoyed it, and it was the perfect amount of food. To wash it down, I got an imperial brown ale from Rebel Kettle brewing because it was called Dirtbag, which naturally I loved.
The mic was at a place called the Joint which was a coffeehouse and theater/comedy club/bar. It was a really amazing venue. The coffee was good, the beers were good, and the stage was excellent. There was even a decent turnout given that it was a Tuesday night, and it had been raining for a good chunk of the day.
The mic turned out to be really great. The host, Brett, was really friendly and a total pro, and I got a really supportive vibe from all the comics.
My favorite comic of the night was guy named Jared Lowry. He had a really uniquely laid back delivery and some very strong absurdist one liners, a bit like a more Southern Mitch Hedburg. My favorite lines were: "The clothing store said everything was half off, but I was the only one not wearing pants" and "I don't diet because that's for people who want to live"
My favorite single joke of the night came from Andre "Big Dre" Price when he said that me talking to a much taller comedian backstage "looked like Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger in Twins". Forever reason I really liked that movie growing (probably because Danny and Arnie are a comedy dream team) and I almost fell out of my chair at that spot on and unexpected reference.
Other Highlights:
Lukas Aaron Smith- performed a really funny song for the fake dating website Kink E-Harmony
Adam Hogg- "I haven't slept in days. Only nights"
Rob Rego - "Gelato should just be the ice cream"
Patrick Nolan - "I get that Jesus had to die for our sins, but why did it have to be in the most painful way possible"
My own set went really well. I went really close to the end so I was happy and impressed that the audience stayed around and was supportive to the end. I'm glad that this particular night went well since it was the first time performing back on the road so it was a really nice confidence booster.
I must have made a decent impression because after the show some of the comics took me out bar hopping. I was told I had to try some local specialities. We ordered a drink called a Razorback after the town's college basketball team. The drink had half shots of rum, vodka, amaretto, and Kahlua with a little bit of lemon and cayenne pepper thrown in there to clear your sinuses. It was an odd combination, but somehow it all worked. Perhaps it was the company of hanging out with fun comics that made it seem better than it was. After we'd had our razorbacks, two of the comics were looking to get food, so we went to a place called the Four Quarter Bar for what we were assured would be the best grilled cheese sandwiches of our lives. The Grilled Cheesus actually did live up to this hype, and it was a grilled cheese with bacon but the simplicity of the premise allowed for some real top notch work on the execution. I honestly do thing it was the best grilled cheese I'd ever had, but it also is possible that that cayenne pepper from the razorback singed of all the tastebuds in my mouth. We ended up staying out together pretty late just shooting the breeze, and comparing traveling comic notes of different places we'd been It was a perfect way to bring the first day back to a close.
Favorite Random Sightings: Kermit's Outlaw Kitchen; Thirsty Devil; Proud Larry's; "Don't Live With Your Pain" ( i think this billboard was going for treat your pain, but it could also be read as telling people to kill themselves)
Regional Observations: Once again after having passed through a few different bars, I am constantly impressed with how deep the love of college sports goes in some states. Arkansas is one of those states. I'm not sure what would have happened if they'd lost.
Albums Listened To: Palmcorder Yajna by the Mountain Goats (just Butter Teeth); Palmystery by Victor Wooten (absolutely insane bass playing); Pandemonium Shadow Show by Harry Nilsson (major label debut); Paradise and Lunch by Ry Cooder
People's Favorite Jokes:
I asked my grandmother if it was okay to hate any race. She said, "God no! Why are you asking that?" so I said "I really can't stand the 100 meter dash"
What did the psychologist say to his patient who came in wearing nothing but saran wrap? Clearly, I can your nuts
Songs of the Day:
not technically from the album I listened to but this video is nuts
This arrangement weaves in 17 Beatles songs, and only features Harry on vocals. No one had ever done overdubbed so vocals this well in 1967and contemporary reviews criticized him for not crediting his background singers.
Amazing performance, ridiculous outfit
