Tar Heel Tavern #16 is up, and Peacocks in Amagasaki

Tar Heel Tavern #16 is up at Waterfall's "A Sort of Notebook," and here are a couple of souvenirs ...

Lenslinger at Viewfinder Blues in "Everything Must Go" writes:

When a landmark shuts down, I show up. A dreaded specter through the showroom glass, my lenslinging silhouette strikes fear in the heart of broken retailers far and wide. Okay that’s pouring it on a little thick, but when you’ve documented the death of the American Dream as many times as I have, you do start to feel like the Grim Reaper.

Technically, Blumenthal’s isn‘t closing. But they are moving, to an unremarkable location in outer Urban Sprawl, leaving behind the empty husk of a dying downtown landmark...

If you've ever seen the wonderful coffeetable book called Shalom Y'all you've read about the tiny Jewish communities across the south that grew up around businesses like this one. They have been dying away since the encroachments of mega-business, and also because it's simply too hard to maintain a tiny Jewish community - once you can't get a minyan together, it's just about all over...

Ron at 2sides2ron blogged sadly about Clear-cutting our Landscapes, telling us:

A couple of mornings ago, I awoke and let the dogs out for their morning constitutional. I immediately heard an unfamiliar sound, one that should strike terror in every creature on this earth. It was being emitted by the ever more refined and fast moving machinery that clear-cuts our landscapes for the building of new communities. I didn’t know this at the time, but had an inkling that the clearing of the hill behind my house had begun.

I drove over to the site of the clearing to find that the machinery had already managed to wipe clean the earth from the street to a point about 400 feet back and the width of three-to-four average middle-class homes...

For the last quarter century I've been lucky enough to live in a neighborhood across the street from a big beautiful farm field. After droughts killed the corn crop several years in a row, they cut hay in a desultory fashion over there, but the land must be worth an unimaginable fortune in today's Triangle. For a quarter century I've been expecting the bulldozers. I'm so grateful that the family has held off, long enough that my kids grew up with this beautiful vista.

I love the TarHeel Tavern. Thanks, Waterfall!

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Now, in a galaxy far away, I direct you to the pictures on badaunt's blog "present simple" taken on a recent bike ride: Peacocks in Amagasaki. I was particularly taken by the fact that in this part of town there is no sidewalk whatsoever - "You can see how dangerous it is to step outside your front door in some of these houses. The door fronts right onto the street. You have to peek out first to make sure a car isn't passing." When I used to bike everywhere, I got used to being "doored" by drivers who jumped out of their cars without looking, but the idea of being "doored" by somebody leaving the house amazes me.

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