Scene & Herd - I love Cumming
And I got some thrills on Castleberry Hill
When I think about the best way to enjoy a Saturday afternoon, one word springs to mind: Cumming. Last Saturday, I was one of thousands of Atlantans to enjoy Cumming, courtesy of the Cumming Country Fair & Festival at the Cumming Fairgrounds, which (we might as well run this joke into the ground) has emergency overflow parking facilities.
Like I do at every fair I attend, I immediately headed for the animals. In addition to performing animals, there was a petting zoo inside a nice red barn. Available for petting, gawking and feeding were such indigenous-to-Forsyth-County creatures as goats, sheep, zebras, llamas, emus and a camel named Jake. Believe it or not, despite my camel jockey heritage, I've never seen a camel up close before. I enjoyed Jake's company better than I do most Middle Easterners I meet, perhaps because he didn't hassle me about not speaking the language. The fact that he ate camel snacks out of my hand and it tickled also helped.
Note to dog owners: If your dog freaks out when you come home smelling like another dog or cat, you should see the confused looks you'll get when you come home smelling like a camel, eight goats and a monkey. My monkey contact came not in the petting zoo, but by the rides. It was there that a monkey named Teddy, wearing a tacky but well-fitted suit, climbed up my pant leg and snatched the dollar bill I was trying to give his handler for a photo labeled "Monkeys, Monkeys And More Monkeys." The sticky-fingered little bastard added insult to theft by repeatedly tipping his little monkey hat at me afterward. Punk.
For once, the humans were nearly as interesting to me as the non-humans. From a circular balcony, me and about 50 other people watched as two stunt motorcyclists competed in what the announcer called the Australian Criss-Cross Race of Death. No one was injured. I also saw David "The Bullet" Smith launch himself from a cannon that his dad made. Smith made for an interesting human cannonball. He wasn't cocky but instead seemed wracked with self-doubt about his chosen profession. He kept talking about all the things that could go wrong, not in a hyping showbiz way, but in a worried, "Crap, what the hell have I done with my life?" way. Waiting for him to launch, it occurred to me that even though human cannonballs are supposed to be a novelty, they're the only type of cannonball I've ever seen fired.
My favorite of the whole freakin' hoo-ha, though, was the clown in the dunking booth. He was mean as hell with a resonant cackle I can still hear clearly. He called me an ugly, chubby Vin Diesel and, referring to my camera bag, taunted, "Ma'am, you forgot your purse."
First Cumming, Now Cumin: On Saturday afternoon, Red Chair Restaurant and Video Bar hosted a chili cook-off on its patio. Presented by the Atlanta Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, the cook-off hosted the Chris Rainbow Home — which is not a sexy, "Real World"-style group home for hot guys named Chris, but rather a safe house for GLBTQ (and sometimes Y) youth who can't live at home.
I'm a pescavegelibertarian, so for descriptions of the meaty chilis, I had to rely on my fellow attendees. The bison chili from Hugs & Quiches Catering was described to me by a helpful onlooker as "classic, with an exotic ingredient." Commenting on Balance's Dirty White Bean Chili, Carol Aikman offered my favorite description of the day: "It makes my mouth feel so happy. It's like a party's going on in mouth."
Scotch Guard: Alisdair Roberts is an incredibly thin Scottish musician with a terrific nose. He's the lead singer of a Scottish band called Appendix Out and is currently on a solo tour of the U.S. On Saturday night, he played a show to about six people at Eyedrum filled with what he accurately described as songs about love, death and drinking. Roberts' voice conveys bleakness and sadness, feelings that were probably amplified by the empty room and stark white wall behind him. Even his jokey cover of Whigfield's "Saturday Night" (sample lyrics: "Saturday night, I feel the air is getting hot like you baby. I'll make you mine. You know I'll take you to the top") was a downer. I mean that in the best way possible though. His singing and finger-picking kept reminding me to rent the movie The Wicker Man again. If you've seen it, you'll know it's a compliment to Roberts.
Fool On The Hill: People who know me know that perhaps the only thing I love more than Cumming on a Saturday afternoon is wandering through the homes of people with more money and better taste than me. That's why I made a point not to miss the Castleberry Hill Tour of lofts last weekend.
The conversation piece of the tour was Loft No. 6, the one with the open shower (as in, nothing obscuring your view of the showerer). What is it with you downtown loft people and your need to be seen showering?
An added bonus was that the tour coincided with several art shows. Skot Foreman opened his door to show off his Eschers. Kubatana gallery had a temporary space showing an apple painting that looked like Magritte on 'roids, which I loved. The giant garage door on Diane Hause's studio was open, revealing some great photography (Kathryn Kolb's "Man With Thistles" was my favorite), and her brother Robert was making Mission furniture. I tried to look up the definition of Mission furniture and I found: "Mission furniture speaks of the quality of years gone by, joined with today's lifestyles." I wonder if the woman who described the bison chili wrote that.
Hey, Diane, I finally spelled your name correctly!