The Year in Review: August 2006
December 29, 2006, 7:47 am
Filed under:
Birmingham, AL,
American Idol: Season 5,
Taylor Hicks,
Catalyst,
Civic Engagement,
Ruffner Mountain,
Blogging,
Bottletree Cafe,
Commentary,
B'ham social events,
Birmingham Zoo,
Ensley,
AL,
Birmingham Alabama,
American Idol,
The Birmingham Sound,
Ruben Studdard,
The Birmingham News,
Hurricane Katrina Relief,
Silvertron Cafe,
"red mountain park",
Alabama Politics,
The Year in Review Twelve bloggers are sitting in a Panera…
The highlight of August (at least for us) was the chance to meet many of the bloggers that live and write about the Magic City over in Vestavia. I decided that listening and typing something later would be better for me, so I ended up with two posts, this one just saying we were doing it and this one actually talking about some of the conversation.
Lesson learned
We learned that age is not nearly as important as experience after listening to Jay Saxon talk about his experiences in Lebanon. This one is one that I hold close and read often myself just to remind me of what I used to believe.
We already knew how crazy Taylor Hicks’ fans could be; we just got an insane example of it here in town when he returned this summer.
We learned that a lot of people want to know more about Ensley, which is good in terms of the job front, as we decided to occasionally post about one of the BEACON target districts, starting with this one.
We learned what happens if you put the call out for a cause. It was our first “event” for the blog if you will; a Happy Hour with collections taking place for Katrina survivors. Here’s the link to the wrap-up; we’re not sure when we’ll do another one, but we’re hoping it’s soon (and for just as important a cause)
That there are still things that effect Birmingham, Alabama that need to be dealt with in the open instead of behind closed doors, most notably race relations of all types. This is another post that I refer to often, knowing that much has changed but that much more is needed.
That the Birmingham Sound is alive and well! Especially after an incredible show in August. Here are some images from the performance. Now if we could only get the second album out sooner and get a second show! Here’s the original post for the show.
Also:
The name of the new giraffe at the Birmingham Zoo
Alabama loves their American Idols; I’m serious, they really do!
Journeys started
The end appears near still for the old Birmingham News building in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. Despite a reprieve from destruction demoliton that we started writing about here, the city’s six month cooling off period has seen little effort from the community to save the building that sits across from the new building (a very nice piece of architecture itself BTW). At this point, one would hope that at the very least a parking deck may be constructed on the site one day that resembles even half of the beauty contained in the old building. Only time will tell. BTW, the building’s only guaranteed to be there until the beginning of March, so if you want pics, now’s the time to start taking them.
A group from Catalyst also took the first of many journeys through the proposed site for Red Mountain Park. This park is one of three that community leaders are hoping will push our green space per capita numbers up so we would be #1 for mid-sized cities in the U.S. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens with all of them, but I’ll be particularly interested in seeing how things are going at Ruffner Mountain this year (point of disclosure: I’m the Vice President of Ruffner’s board this year).
One more thing (for now) the reopening of the Silvertron Cafe
More later.
For those that won’t be back until after the first of the year, Happy New Year!
Enjoy the weekend.
Cheers.
See also:
The Year in Review: January and a little December ‘05 too
The Year in Review: February 2006
The Year in Review: March 2006
The Year in Review: April 2006
The Year in Review: May 2006
The Year in Review: June 2006
The Year in Review: July 2006
The Year in Review: May 2006
December 26, 2006, 12:59 pm
Filed under:
AL,
American Idol: Season 5,
B'ham social events,
Birmingham Alabama,
Birmingham, AL,
Blogging,
Cities,
Commentary,
LMBO,
Movies,
Neon in B'ham,
neon signs,
outdoor films,
The Year in Review The latest American Idol
So, there’s this guy who was living in Birmingham, AL who made it onto American Idol. We had tried to avoid the whole thing, but then a funny thing happened in May: he made it to the final three, and then the finals. Taylor Hicks brought the musical world back to the Magic City for the third time in four years, giving those that were new to town the notion that we were new to the music scene, or at least not recently involved.
We did decide to get into the act, posting pictures from Hicks’ parade down the Birmingham Green to City Hall. Here’s another one for good measure. We also had the chance to get some images from the Little Memphis Blues Orchestra’s performance after Hicks won the competition. The proceeds from this particular after party went to a great local cause as well.
Just how important is D I to the psyche of a “sports fan” town?
Birmingham-Southern took steps to make academics a visible priority on campus as it took steps to move from NCAA Division I to Division III. The dialogue that followed both here and in mainstream media was heated and surprising. Those wondering just how not having scholarships would benefit a sports program’s competitiveness needed to only look down the road to Montevallo as the baseball team made a run for the NCAA Division II Championships. While it did not garner the same press that those two big schools normally do during their seasons on the gridiron (hell, the high school teams were getting better coverage), it showed just how excited a town and a school can become in that situation even without the media circus.
Lighting up the night, one sign at a time
With one post of a much beloved neon sign, we started the Neon in Birmingham series, hopefully showcasing images unique to the Magic City. Click here to see the series. We think we’ve finally caught up. There’s a lot more of them to document too, so let us know if you see any.
Staying busy
For those that continued to say that Birmingham had nothing to do, it sure seemed that there was a lot to do when May hit, including:
The first of a successful outdoor film series, Movies by Moonlight
Do Dah Day (images available through this post)
The Strokes, Black & White, and Catalyst; three ways to enjoy the night before Idol madness hit
McWane announced their feature film series for the IMAX screen
Other shots
This image provided what could become a rare view of past and present in Birmingham.
The next generation of news sites are here… Are we ready?
Development announcements were endless in the city
More later.
Cheers.
See also:
The Year in Review: January and a little December ‘05 too
The Year in Review: February 2006
The Year in Review: March 2006
The Year in Review: April 2006
The Ticker: A look outside and in at the arts
August 16, 2006, 9:00 am
Filed under:
Birmingham, AL,
American Idol: Season 5,
Taylor Hicks,
MySpace,
Savannah College of Art and Design,
SCAD,
B'ham social events,
The Ticker,
2006 Elections,
AL,
American Idol,
Poetry Slams,
couch,
Birmingham Park Players,
Aldridge Botanical Gardens,
india arie,
Anis Mojgani A detour northwest to give a shout out to the champ
I made a comment recently about the level of pride for my alma mater, SCAD, in reference to the number of them in the Magic City. Now if we could just get them to start putting their window decals on their cars… Anyhow, I’ve been enjoying reading up on what former classmates and fellow alum are doing. It’s one of the best reasons I have for maintaining a MySpace account.
One of them just accomplished what I consider an incredible feat that few people may actually know about. Anis Mojgani repeated as the 2006 National Poetry Slam Individual Champion last week in Austin, TX! He is the only Storm Poet to ever hold the title and now the first to win it twice. It’s great to see him get this kind of recognition for his work. While at the college, he studied sequential art. Those fortunate enough to be near where he currently calls home, Portland, Oregon, can visit Mojgani and an enclave of fellow SCAD alum (and just great people) at their gallery, couch. Here’s a podcast clip courtesy of their site showing the two time champ in action.
More alum and yet another fun event for the weekend after the jump…
(more…)
Idol Fever returns to the highways and the weekend in review
I was driving my supervisor to a meeting on Friday and she pointed towards a new billboard focusing on our recent American Idol successes. I was not able to see it because of driving, but I said what I thought the sign would read, and she told me that it read something different. I figured that I would check it out over the weekend.
I discovered that there were in fact two billboard campaigns being rolled out in conjunction with the Idol auditions coming to the Magic City for the first time. One is based on the campaign I’d heard of at the end of season 5, focusing on the city of Birmingham. This campaign is sponsored by Fox 6, the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce and Lamar Advertising. An image of this campaign billboard is below.
The other campaign has been created by the state’s tourism office. It focuses on America finding its musical voice in Alabama. An image of this campaign’s billboard is below.
Both campaigns seem very interesting. The idea of playing up our recent success in a national talent competition is a good one, especially considering the pending resurgence of Idol Fever sweeping the nation during auditions. N.B. Today’s auditions are in East Rutherford, N.J.; Birmingham’s is scheduled August 21. While they focus on two different aspects, they both talk about our current musical success. One may wonder why both were not combined into one, showcasing the Birmingham area. No matter, when cameras invade the Magic City next week they’ll see these and know that we’re proud of our guys. It would be nice to play up some of our musical heritage as well though, including Erskine Hawkins and the soon to be released compilation CD showcasing The Birmingham Sound, talked about in this post.
Speaking of posts, here are links to posts from a very prolific weekend (as some friends of mine would say)
Enjoy the day.
Cheers.
The Week in Preview: Ways to beat the heat for the week ending 8.11
August 8, 2006, 6:08 am
Filed under:
Birmingham, AL,
American Idol: Season 5,
Birmingham AL restaurants,
Taylor Hicks,
MySpace,
Artwalk,
Blogging,
Birmingham Civil Rights Institute,
B'ham social events,
cultural institutions,
Birmingham art galleries,
art,
AL,
Birmingham Alabama Monday (or early Tuesday morning)
Congratulate Wade as he returns to the world of mass media. Learn more from the man himself by clicking here. You may also want to check out the new layout for Wade on Birmingham if you have not already done so.
Tuesday
Get your thoughts heard at the open house for Red Mountain Park this evening at McWane Center (location). Click on this link to a previous post to learn more information about the park and the event. It starts at 5:30 p.m. You may also be interested in joining the throngs of people at the BJCC for some concert involving a guy named Taylor Hicks. Here are some previous posts on the Idol winner. He already played with his old band last night; here’s a post showing just what his fans will do to get a glimpse of him.
Wednesday
Based on the conversation with them at the Pepper Place Farmers Market, you may want to drive by Bettola just to see if they’re open for lunch today. It’s a few doors down from Cantina. The hope was to be open before the end of the week. If the pizza they were handing out is indicative of what their offerings will be, it should be great.
Thursday
SingSation is a new American Idol-like activity debuting at this month’s Sixteenth and Sixth event at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. Their website has general information about the series. This month’s theme is “Stereotypes” and attendees will be able to explore the new “Sticks and Stones: Collaborative Exchange Exploring Labeling & Stereotyping“ exhibit in the Institute’s Vann Gallery. We’ve also written in the past about this event. For additional information, call Marie Sutton at the BCRI (328.9696). The fun starts at 6:16 p.m.
And don’t forget about the Artwalk Preamble. This year’s event is shaping up to be bigger and better than ever. This year’s event is taking place at the Pantheon (location) and tickets are still available at The Neighborhood Market (location) and Naked Art Gallery. Click here for additional information from the site.
Friday
We here at the Ramblings hope to have finished adding some additional pages for your browsing pleasure this coming weekend. Among the additions, the Magic City MySpace page, providing links to all of the known MySpace pages for area institutions and groups in Birmingham. We figured we’ve written about it many times before, including this first post, so we decided might as well try to track it.
I know I’m leaving stuff out, so post a comment and let us know about it. Enjoy the day.
Cheers.
Filed under: Birmingham, AL, American Idol: Season 5, Taylor Hicks, Catalyst, Civic Engagement, Ruffner Mountain, Blogging, Bottletree Cafe, Commentary, B'ham social events, Birmingham Zoo, Ensley, AL, Birmingham Alabama, American Idol, The Birmingham Sound, Ruben Studdard, The Birmingham News, Hurricane Katrina Relief, Silvertron Cafe, "red mountain park", Alabama Politics, The Year in Review
Twelve bloggers are sitting in a Panera…
The highlight of August (at least for us) was the chance to meet many of the bloggers that live and write about the Magic City over in Vestavia. I decided that listening and typing something later would be better for me, so I ended up with two posts, this one just saying we were doing it and this one actually talking about some of the conversation.
Lesson learned
We learned that age is not nearly as important as experience after listening to Jay Saxon talk about his experiences in Lebanon. This one is one that I hold close and read often myself just to remind me of what I used to believe.
We already knew how crazy Taylor Hicks’ fans could be; we just got an insane example of it here in town when he returned this summer.
We learned that a lot of people want to know more about Ensley, which is good in terms of the job front, as we decided to occasionally post about one of the BEACON target districts, starting with this one.
We learned what happens if you put the call out for a cause. It was our first “event” for the blog if you will; a Happy Hour with collections taking place for Katrina survivors. Here’s the link to the wrap-up; we’re not sure when we’ll do another one, but we’re hoping it’s soon (and for just as important a cause)
That there are still things that effect Birmingham, Alabama that need to be dealt with in the open instead of behind closed doors, most notably race relations of all types. This is another post that I refer to often, knowing that much has changed but that much more is needed.
That the Birmingham Sound is alive and well! Especially after an incredible show in August. Here are some images from the performance. Now if we could only get the second album out sooner and get a second show! Here’s the original post for the show.
Also:
The name of the new giraffe at the Birmingham Zoo
Alabama loves their American Idols; I’m serious, they really do!
Journeys started
The end appears near still for the old Birmingham News building in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. Despite a reprieve from
destructiondemoliton that we started writing about here, the city’s six month cooling off period has seen little effort from the community to save the building that sits across from the new building (a very nice piece of architecture itself BTW). At this point, one would hope that at the very least a parking deck may be constructed on the site one day that resembles even half of the beauty contained in the old building. Only time will tell. BTW, the building’s only guaranteed to be there until the beginning of March, so if you want pics, now’s the time to start taking them.A group from Catalyst also took the first of many journeys through the proposed site for Red Mountain Park. This park is one of three that community leaders are hoping will push our green space per capita numbers up so we would be #1 for mid-sized cities in the U.S. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens with all of them, but I’ll be particularly interested in seeing how things are going at Ruffner Mountain this year (point of disclosure: I’m the Vice President of Ruffner’s board this year).
One more thing (for now) the reopening of the Silvertron Cafe
More later.
For those that won’t be back until after the first of the year, Happy New Year!
Enjoy the weekend.
Cheers.
See also:
The Year in Review: January and a little December ‘05 too
The Year in Review: February 2006
The Year in Review: March 2006
The Year in Review: April 2006
The Year in Review: May 2006
The Year in Review: June 2006
The Year in Review: July 2006