St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Hickory, NC

Went to St. Alban’s today. Unannounced. They clearly were not expecting us. They made a lot over the coming of Jesus, and we obviously fell WAY short of that! Of course we knew (and very well, too) the Christ story, but if we had not known, we might have thought that the Jesus person was some great potentate coming on a special state visit. We had obviously chosen the wrong Sunday to come here when they were so busy that there was no room for us to fit in.

We found it to be a CFL church. Probably about 20 watts worth. A little light but not much warmth. They seemed very friendly among themselves and when we “passed the peace” everybody was very friendly toward us too.

After the service, on the way out we met the official “Greeter” who had been appointed to greet everyone on this Sunday, and he shook our hands and looked warm quickly but that was that. He had to shake EVERYBODY’S hand (almost all of whom he appeared to know very well) and he was a very, very busy man, way too busy to talk to strangers.

At the reception hall we looked at the bulletins and announcements and at all the people busy talking with each other. One guy came up to me and introduced himself. “Hi, I’m Earl.” He shook my hand and told us that he was a “deacon” at the church. “What brings you here?” We were thrilled. My wife told him we had just moved to Hickory and were looking at different churches. “What is your background?” Earl asked, then added, “I mean as far as churches go?” I told him I had been very active in the Episcopal Church some time ago, for more than 25 years I had been Lay Reader, Chalice Bearer, Usher, etc. Earl stared at me. Then I told him that I had basically left the church about 25 years ago. Without uttering another word Earl turned and walked away.

My wife and I walked slowly back, all alone through the crowd of happy, obviously very friendly people who were busy talking with each other and when we found the door we left.

© John Womack, 2008. All rights reserved.

CVCC Christmas Colossus 2008

It drew a lot of people. Too bad. On the way out I overheard someone say “Two or three times I thought they were going to make it work.” That fit perfectly.

Several pieces were performed beautifully. “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” was enchanting and enriching. “Sleigh Ride” seemed fine but it was hard to follow from back in the audience. “For Unto Us a Child is Born” - well - it was spectacular and caused a lot of toes to tap and heads to bob. But then, that's Handel for you.

The high school chorus was a delight to hear. They did not have to depend on the amplification system, and they brought a freshness and liveleness to the performance. If they could have done the entire show I would go to see it again.

The ballerinas had nice looking hands. You could sometimes see that when they held them straight up. Perhaps the people in the first row or two could actually see their dance but for the rest of us (most of us) it was just a kind of a long song. Same with the Celtic dancers. We glimpsed their outfits occasionally (from the shoulders up) but it was mainly just a lot of loud stomping.

The rest of the show was disappointing. First, the acoustics in the arena are not good. This place was apparently not designed for either music or speaking. Second, the amplification system was awful - sometimes it just sounded like a bad night in the jungle. Third, the photographs? were awesomely terrible. The images were chaotically distracting. They were a poorly organized presentation of bad exposures. There was no attempt to coordinate the change of photos with the tempo of the music so it "threw" the music out of step, there was no progression of images leading from abstract, say, toward specific (or perhaps the other way around), or from black and white evolving into color or vice-versa, but a random assortment of faded sepia images shown out of cadence with the music and they finally reached a crescendo of . . . repeating the same previously shown poor images!

Santaland Diaries

The Firemen's Kitchen in Hickory was the scene of the recounting of an astonishing series of escapades involving Santaland "Elves" at Macy's in NYC.

Apparently David Sedaris of NPR fame had at one time in his early career as a writer, gone to work in this magical place called Santaland of Macy's as an "elf" and brought New York children (and others!) to meet Santa and there were a lot of tales to tell about something as seemingly prosaic as this.

The actor for the night's monologue performance was David Townsend and he did a creditable job. It was our first trip to the Firemen's Kitchen and we found it enjoyable and certainly "cozy" as we had heard it described before. The people seemed to go WAY out of their way to be extra friendly and provided refreshments to help enjoy the evening even more. The only thing missing was freshly popped corn.

© John Womack, 2008. All rights reserved.

Footcandle Film Society

Saw the December presentation “Miracle at St. Anna” tonight.

It was a L O N G movie with lots of really good pieces to it. Unfortunately, those pieces largely went unfulfilled and like the eventual ending itself, most of the different story lines just petered out and vanished in wasted anticlimax.

The strong point of the movie was violence. It was a movie that honored killing. Its attempts to show irony were largely confusing such as the montage in which several groups of Americans, Germans, Italians and probably others were engaged in various venues saying an apparently simultaneous prayer to the same Christian “god”. I was prepared for some great climax to come forth. But . . .?

There were some really good lines. But they were lost in the gruesome gulp of the NEXT SCENE. I only remember one now - two young boys, one 8 the other perhaps 10, standing together after witnessing massive killing and the older one says with the wisdom of an ancient master: “This was our time to be kids.” Bang - NEXT SCENE - on with the movie. The show MUST go on! (What show? We just ran over it!)

Silence really CAN be golden.

There were a lot of really good stories in this movie. But they weren't told. Spike Lee could have produced 10 or 15 GREAT movies of about an hour in length and solidified his place as a great story teller forever. But not if he puts them all in the same two and a half hour long fruitcake.

I loved the Chocolate Giant. But he didn’t belong here. Could he have been another Old Man and the Sea? Maybe. Maybe not - we’ll never know. The Louisiana slurpy shop was fine until it got carried away with drawn guns and all kinds of action but nothing significant resulting. Let’s face it, an explosion that doesn’t go off is - a dud.

The best part of the entire presentation was the discussion afterward. It was slow taking off but got into some interesting points as people began pointing out parts they liked and/or didn’t care for.

HIckory Choral Society - Christmas Concert

Corinth Reformed Church presented Christmas music from the Western Piedmont Symphony and the Hickory Choral Society over the first weekend in December. This is the 31st year the Choral Society has performed a Christmas Concert, and it is a good opportunity for all of us to see inside the church. The title of the performance is "Music Wears a Tapestry".


It was an amazingly excellent performance from many aspects. The architecture, acoustics, decorations, crowd participation and music were magnificent. Not only was the music very good, but it also featured (at least to me) original interpretations and seemed not just an attempt to try to show that these guys are as good as a those found in a "really big city", but a group of talented people having fun performing their passionate love of music together.


I was impressed. Hickory shines again. I still don’t know whether this perceived "brilliance" on my part is because it really IS that good, or if it is just that I am still amazed that things THIS good live and thrive in the Friendly City called Hickory.




© John Womack, 2008. All rights reserved.

Michael Gulezian at Hickory Art Museum

The Hickory Art Museum hosted Michael Gulezian on November 22, 2008. About 140 people witnessed music turning into taffy as Michael pulled and stretched newly-formed sounds out of his guitar. One might have sensed that St. Cecilia had returned to earth for an hour or two but had only a guitar to express the entire soul of music, or perhaps that Gulezian was in the process of designing some original device, perhaps for space flight into new dimensions of sound. He certainly gave a new meaning to the expression of "playing the guitar" because he did play with the thing, introducing sounds that not yet ever been played before to each other. Then he brought them out before the amazed world, and danced with them as they wafted together through the audience.

It was a fascinating evening combining interesting music and interesting people in a surrounding of famous art and in the presence of the fabulously creative ghosts of Black Mountain College. Between the songs Gulezian conversed with the audience telling tales of his life and describing things he has seen and how he had felt about them, revealing to everyone present, except himself, that he really sees life from a poet's point of view. Then he played his songs with rhythm more than lyric, but it didn't matter because he was sharing his understandings in two different dimensions simultaneously. Drawbacks? Well, one did not leave the performance whistling the tunes he played. Even on the way home it was becoming hard to remember what he HAD played. Finally, it was a bit TOO much advant-garde, perhaps there should have been an occasion or two in which he quickly ran through a "normal" song to provide a vantage point to more clearly see what he is actually doing. If you have never seen him before and he comes to a place near you, don't miss the opportunity.

© John Womack, 2008. All rights reserved.

Asheville Autumn 2008

A chilly weekend in the Little City of Asheville. Snow fell and winds ripped through the streets and the temperature fell below 20°.


But our visit was filled with good food and fine music and a great time. We ate Indian food, and French food, and Tapas to the sound of west coast jazz. And we ate at Tupelo Honey, and that's as good as it gets.





We hit the Jack of the Wood for their Thursday night jam session and listened to mellow bluegrass music as the snow flakes fell outside.




And we visited Thomas Wolfe's house, the Smith-McDowell House, St. Lawrence Basilica and All Soul's Cathedral. What a weekend!

© John Womack, 2008. All rights reserved.

Religulous

Save your money. We went to the movie to see Bill Mahr in "Religulous". Not good. We were the ONLY two people in the entire theater, which is not necessarily bad but the entire film looked like a home-movie. No real writing was apparent anywhere in the whole mess, no story was told, just gibbering, disconnected series of comments and a lot of giggling. it lurched around showing disconnected segments of the under-classes of various denominations. A couple of scientists were also shown to be fools, and a renegade Catholic priest (allegedly a senior priest at the Vatican, sans collar and all) was shown deprecating "his" religion. The only unifying theme in the show was simply the presence of Bill Mahr being either innocently stupid or triumphantly victorious in every segment.

There were apparently random occurrences of explosions, pictures of nuclear detonations, destruction and horror quickly blasted across the screen as supposedly “funny” or "instructive" decorations. It also had several clips of the ABSOLUTELY WORST video/movie clips ever seen anywhere, these looked like they had been made with a home movie by a child chimpanzee filming on a pogo stick, then run through a washing machine several times and finally cooked in a microwave. Several of the “intellectual discussions” Mahr had with other people ended with the protagonist caught is a post-production-enhanced stupor of bewilderment. Throughout it all, Bill Mahr always starred as a happily victorious and truly gifted intellectual who was being good-naturally tolerant of poor bumbling religious fools.

True Believers will have their feelings about non-believers confirmed, real religious people will be angry, non-believers will be disappointed and spiritual beings will be sad. Mahr was rude, petty, self-centered and insulting throughout. Too bad because the popcorn was great.

© John Womack, 2008. All rights reserved.

Hickory Autumn Colors

Hickory brought color into our lives this year and in a big way.

The mountains turn color gradually, and in spots here and there. Not so down at the bottom of the Blue Ridge. At least this year, the colors all came in together and blanketed the area with sparkling jewely.









© John Womack, 2008. All rights reserved.

Halloween

This is the first Halloween we have had in 15 years. It's part of our reward for coming in out of the cold. Back on that high mountain ridge we lived on until this summer, we were a quarter of a mile from the "hard road". That's a long way for a young 'un to trek on a chilly - and spooky! - late autumn night.









We had a brilliant Halloween banner waving from our front porch for the week prior to the great event and hoped that would attract endless numbers of goblins and whatnots.





Hanging from the front door we had a couple of guides to help you find your way to great caramel treasures. These guys obviously have sampled some of the goodies.





And inside the front door we had a Welcoming Committee! All kinds of ways to have fun, goodies, tasties, great food for anyone brave enough to come in here!
And it worked! We had three witches, two ghosts, one Spanish dancer, a Joseph and a Mary, three goblins and two HOB-Goblins! And they all got handfuls of Hershies!

But as the night wore on, our Gobble-ins began to decline. We wondered why. Then - when we went outside at long last, we found out why! Our Jack O'Lantern on the front porch had become entirely too scary!


Had to get the dogs to get us back inside. Whew!

© John Womack, 2008. All rights reserved.

American Trash

Two American flags fly in this front yard. One of them has been shredded by the constant winds of summer, the smaller one is stained yellow by dog urine. Together they guard this family's treasures, including its diesel SUV truck. Some people are too busy to understand what they are really telling the rest of the world about themselves.

© John Womack, 2008. All rights reserved.

The Local Valley Camera Club

I went to the Local Valley Camera Club meeting last month.

Nobody noticed.

Finally when it was all over I stood up and asked if anybody knew someone who did video in the Local Valley.

I have never seen such a sad group of blank faces. It was clear they felt sorry for me. Then Somebody spoke up. “There’s somebuddy ‘round here does video - but don’t know who.” The blank faces lost their focus on me and drifted back to each other and they brightened up a lot.

I went back a couple of weeks later. Same thing. Nobody noticed. I tried talking to a few people and they all talked like they wanted to be friendly. So I got the feeling that they weren’t angry with me for being there.

At the end I stood up again and asked about video. Somebody Else said he would check on it for me. So I gave Mr. Else one of my business cards. That was the last I saw of either one.

The club president later asked me if I had ever shot any “still pictures”. I told him that I had. I gave him my card too. That was the end of that conversation.

About two weeks later the Local Valley Camera Club had a booth at the Local Valley Oktoberfest, and they had a couple of display boxes of photographs that were matted and for sale.

I flipped through the browse boxes and my face became blank and sad. The images were poor things. Some had no color anywhere, and in some the color was wildly run amok. Some of them had no subject at all, others had ten subjects, all crowded together in the same tiny frame. There were no stories told, no hints of great romantic moments or tales of things now coming swiftly at us. No texture, depth, or resonating pulse, no surging blasts of wild surprise, no creative discovery to lift us up, or emotional crescendo of newly awakened life. No, looking through the browse boxes was like a long trip on a great cowpath littered with patties, each minimally different from the ones before and behind.

“Hi!” A man seated in a lawn chair shouted at me. “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”

He was the Local Valley Cameral Club president and he was sitting with a group of about four other guys.

“Yeah, hi!” I called back. “I’ve been to a couple of your meetings.”

“What’s that thing around your neck?” The president grinned, pointing to my camera.

“It’s my camera.” I proudly held it so he could clearly see my little Canon PowerShot S3.

“That thing’s your CAMERA?” The president laughed. He grimaced and shook his head, and then he pivoted in his seat so he could resume talking with his friends.

So I walked away with a feeling of relief. Thank God I didn’t join.

But then, as I reflected back on the issue later in the twilight of the day, I realized that they had already told me about who they were by their very name.

They are the Local Valley CAMERA Club. That’s it! They weren’t interested in good pictures - they were interested in good CAMERAS. They knew a good camera when they saw one but they had obviously not seen a good photograph in a long time. I should have made their picture for them.

© John Womack, 2008. All rights reserved.

Oktoberfest in Hickory

Bright hot sunshine, temperature is 64°, "Ommm..." humidity 39%, breeze "Paaah," from the south at 7 mph, "Ommpaah" Sky is a deep Carolina blue. "Ommpaah, Ommpaah!" and the German band is stirring the earth and the crowds. Octoberfest and Heffewiezen beers, locally brewed from the Olde Hickory Taproom are available in plenitude and the smell of bratwurst and sauerkraut travel through the crowd of perhaps 40,000 who have gathered in downtown Hickory today.

Other food is available too. Remarkably good gyros, along with fried chicken, famous Carolina pulled-pork barbecue, curley chips, pizza, locally made ice cream, braised "baby-back" ribs, hamburgers and hot dogs, french fries and even Asian food. And all kinds of goodies to buy for those important people in your life to thrill them on their next birthday or for Christmas.

But the really BIG attraction to this Oktoberfest is the Foothills Oompah Band. How good were these guys? I really don't know because they cast their spell on me from the git-go. Their music just took me away to a world that is happy, joyful, fun and funny too. Thanks guys - you really did it right! Hoi! Hoi! Hoi!

© John Womack, 2008. All rights reserved.

Block Party

A fine way to end September. Bring together all the neighborhood families for food and talk. Obviously not all could attend but still enough families turned out this drizzly night to re-establish the neighborhood.

Of course we were all on our best behaviour and about as agreeable as we can possibly be but that’s not too bad either, at least not occasionally. Stories were told, tales were spun and the work-a-day-world was left far behind.

Big events of the evening were real hot dogs, thick hamburgers and a special “signature chili” to put over the whole mess. Lots of chips and crackers, veggie dishes and hummus, and cheeses, and catfish patties. About as good as it can get. Then - there were bottles galore of home-brewed wine. I sampled the elderberry wine, some white grape wine, mango wine and persimmon wine. Better than the hot dogs.

As night fell, a fire began and it attracted a few moths, one bald-faced hornet and a whole host of kids. So the evening slowly drifted away, just like the summer had already done. It had been a good party and this chilly evening wound up on a warm note. It had been a good summer too, and some of us could dream away into the dancing flames already anticipating the autumn and seasons of celebration now arriving in our neighborhood.

© John Womack, 2008. All rights reserved.

Bear's Lair Atrium

To Lenoir-Rhyne University this afternoon to watch another in the continuing performances honoring "The Spirit of Black Mountain College".
This performance was titled “Collage in 4 Dimensions”, and it was, as the program indicated, “Inspired by the many scholars and artists who explored the dynamic link between art and education at Black Mountain College”.

It was not an entirely unscripted performance but it was very different from any normal show that you might attend. There were about 21 performances and their titles were inscribed on 21 index cards. The Leader of the group handed me the cards and asked me to shuffle them. I shuffled them three times and handed them back to her and that determined the order of the performance.


Well, to say that it was attributed to Black Mountain College indicates that it would have to be different. That there would be performances honoring Merce Cunningham and John Cage assured that it would - well, at least SEEM to be weird. And it was.

I tried to find meaning but think that was probably just one of my faults. Perhaps it was more a depiction of how life really IS rather than how things SHOULD be. It was sort of a stumble-around thing. But it worked - more or less. In a lot of ways it did resemble life, particularily life on a college campus.


It reminded us of our 16 month old granddaughter - she would have LOVED it. The rest of the audience - most of whom were college students - watched - some with understanding but most with incredulity, amusement and amazement. Their main characteristics seemed to be raised eyebrows and pursed lips.

© John Womack, 2008. All rights reserved.

Moses Cone Manor, NC

Moses Cone Manor is on the Blue Ridge Parkway around mile marker 294, on the northern edge of Blowing Rock, NC. The manor is a 20 room house on a 3,500 acre estate. But there is a lot more than just that - see http://www.brptrails.com/brp2940.htm and also http://www.virtualblueridge.com/parkway_tour/parks/293_0/
for more details. The house is modestly beautiful and so is the view from the front porch. It became part of the Park Service in 1949.








Inside are sales of art and crafts from this region. It is a fine place to find a special and different kind of gift for someone important to you





There are some 25 miles of trails including those for hiking, horseback riding and riding horse-drawn carriages. Trails wind across sun-drenched meadows, and through mountain forests. There are lakes on the estate, including Trout Lake and Bass Lake (pictured here). The grave site of Cone, his wife and a sister are in the edge of a great meadow. There are apples galore. Cone planted some 30,000 to 40,000 apple trees, including 75 species.

© John Womack, 2008. All rights reserved.

Valdese, NC Hmong Festival

The Hmong (MOWng) people are an ethnic group generally located in southern China. Large concentrations are also found in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. During the American War against Vietnam, some Hmong were recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States to attack North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces in Vietnam and Laos. Many Hmong fighters were teen-agers and preteens. When America was forced to abandon the war, large numbers of Hmong fled into Thailand and other countries. Approximately 275,000 were brought to the United States. A small number now live in Valdese, a town of about 4,500 people twenty miles west of Hickory, North Carolina.

The Valdese Hmong have begun a yearly festival. Their First Annual Festival was held this year on Sept 20, at the Old Rock School in Valdese and featured traditional Hmong costumes, singing, dancing, art and sports events. I wanted to attend because I was somewhat familiar with the Hmong from my experiences in the American war against Vietnam in which I directed hundreds of B-52 bombing missions into many areas containing Hmong people. When their leader, Vang Pao was airlifted out to the United States, the Hmong were left to face the victorious communist forces and many were massacred. Many other Hmong died in the “killing fields” of Pol Pot.

I was interested to see what the passage of a mere thirty years might have done for these people who, after all, trace their continued existence as a separate group for almost 3.000 years? Remember that they not only crossed a great ocean and traveled to the other side of the globe but also traveled from a jungle/agrarian lifestyle to a modern technological environment. What would we find? We enjoyed some of the music (some was weird!) and all of the dancing was enjoyable. It was very interesting to notice the extremely intricate hand movements used the by women dancers and to contrast that with their very simple foot movements. The craftwork was nice and original and the food was simple, inexpensive and delicious.

© John Womack, 2008. All rights reserved.

Hickory Art Crawl

Thursday afternoon and night seems a slightly off time for this type of action. Yet it appeared to be pretty well attended.


The lage parking area between the main square and the station was filled with cars, and the downtown was busy with shoppers.




Table 220 was had diners both outside and inside and live music was performed inside the restaurant, and the music could be heard outside nearby. Clearly there was room for a lot more music.











The stores that were participating in the crawl had art work on the sidewalk and more art could be seen right inside the door .

Some of the artists were attending their presentation, graciously answering questions and talking about their work. Lawrence Rice was one of the most prominent with his display of Aviation Art. www.riceart.net.

Snacks were available in several of the venues, along with wine offerings.

Clearly the main action was taking place at Taste Full Beans Coffeeshop where Joe Clayton Young was talking about some of his interesting photos. One of the big questions had to be “How do you get all these people to relax and act so normal when you are making their pictures?” I tried to talk with him but he seemed to spend a good bit of the evening talking with another gentleman who had a camera around his neck.



Island Style was not participating in the crawl but its distinctive art was hard to pass up. and a nearby store showed a preview of coming attractions. Hmmmm. I wonder if they meant Halloween or the election!

© John Womack, 2008. All rights reserved.