Doo-Nanny

This past weekend I went to Doo-Nanny. It's an "outsider art folk show" in the middle of nowhere in Alabama (which I define as 40 miles off the interstate).




Artist Butch Anthony hosts it on his 80 acre farm. At the end of the night there is the Doo-Nanny Burn which is modeled after Burning Man.

If it sounds familiar, the New York Times wrote an article on it last year.

It was pretty easy to spot the tourists like me and the people who were really into the spirit of the event.



The permanent exhibit on the compound was the Museum of Wonder.



It featured arrangements of found objects, which I suppose is the definition of "outsider folk art."





There were too many people going in and out to take in all the details. If it wasn't for the fact that it is 1.5hrs away, I'd like to go back.

Elsewhere on the grounds there was the art show which I felt was more people peddling their junk than actual art show. I say junk because for the most part, it lacked the wit of the pieces in the Museum of Wonder.



Perhaps the main attraction of the show is the Doo-Nanney Burn.

Here's the effigy that they burned (yes, it's what you think it is):



Here's Anthony's explanation (from the Times article):

“There’s a 100-foot vagina we’re fixing to burn,” Mr. Anthony remarked recently while filling a garbage can in the back of his battered truck with water, a precautionary measure, one gathered, in case things got out of hand.

But why a vagina? “They’ve got a burning man, why not have a burning woman?”

I didn't stay for the burn because I didn't want to spend the entire day out there -- I got there at 1:30 pm; the burn ends at midnight. And I lacked the motivation to load up my car with food and camping equipment.

This was definitely one of the more interesting uniquely Alabaman experiences I've had.

All of my pictures:



Oh. On the way there, I passed sections of forest that looked to have been hit pretty hard by forest fires.

It's not racism, it's herritage...and denial aint just a river in Egypt

This past Saturday the Sons of Confederate Veterans celebrated the founding of the Confederacy by reenacting the swearing-in of Jefferson Davis on the Alabama State Capitol steps (where Jefferson Davis was sworn-in 150 yeas ago).




Predictably, their message was that the Civil War was about States Rights and that they were honoring the brave men who fought for this noble idea.

I was thoroughly creeped out from being surround by all of these lunatics -- I was less uncomfortable when I visited the gas chambers at Dachau. I'm not kidding.

Maybe it would be unfair to label them all as racists, but who puts stickers like these on their cars?:



No one threatened me, but one guy came up to me and said, "do they know a Yankee is here?" I wasn't wearing anything to indicate that, but I obviously didn't fit in.

The most lunatic speech came from this guy:



Besides bringing up Harry Potter, he compared his plight -- a white man who is maligned by liberals because he speaks the truth of what the Civil War was really fought over -- to the Civil Rights Movement. He told the crowd that like Rosa Parks, it was time they stood up from the back of the bus and walked to the front. So I guess he must feel like he's living in an apartheid state. And there's no doubt that Rosa Parks' name was invoked because we're in Montgomery, AL, home of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and only several hundred feet away from MKL's church where the boycott was organized.

I was happy that Bill Maher focused on this event in his New Rules segment on Friday's show. My local friends weren't happy that Bill attacked all Southerns, but my response to them is that even though the Sons of Confederate Veterans do not represent the majority of Southerns, the majority is complicit by never speaking out against these Civil War revisionists. There should have been a counter protest, but there wasn't one. And while these guys obviously have a Constitutional right to assemble and say whatever they want, I don't think the State should have allowed them to hold the event on the Capitol steps given that they are slavery deniers.

All my pictures from the day:

Someone really likes 'The Dukes of Hazzard'

I spotted what appeared to be a near perfect replica of "The General Lee" in town today:





The confederate battle flag was on the roof and "01" was painted on the doors. The only apparent dissimilarity was that the doors did not appear to be welded shut.

Alabama Gov. to non-Christians: Go to hell

Our new Governor, on his first day on the job, speaking at an MLK day event, at MLK's church, had this to say about his non-Christian constituents:

"So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother."

While there is some context to the statement, it's pretty scary that when writing the speech no one thought someone might take issue with telling non-Christians that the Governor is not their "brother."

The good news for the Governor is that there aren't many Jews in Alabama, and I doubt any of them voted for him.

Unsealing Revelation's Mysteries

I received this in the mail the other day:

Unsealing Revelation's Mysteries

Unfortunately I've been out of town during some of the early seminars, but nothing is going to keep me from missing "How to Postpone Your Funeral."

It turns out that this church is local and they have podcasts. Listen to this one and be sure to listen for at least a minute. You'll see why.

Panic at the Supermarket

An inch or so of snow and some freezing rain was predicted for Sunday through today (Monday), and sure enough, on Friday people began clearing out certain items at the supermarket, most notably bread.



It doesn't take much snow to legitimately shut things down here in Alabama -- neither the city nor state have many plows or really any salt stockpiled.

But what I don't get, is the level of fear that is induced when people hear that it could snow.

People react like they're going to be trapped in their homes for days, maybe weeks, and will be completely shut off from food.

Let's pretend for a second that this really could happen. Why is that people think they can subsist on sliced bread? There are a lot of other things in the supermarket that have substantially greater nutrional value as well as a longer shelf life, like canned fruits and vegetables. If I thought that a snow apocolyspse was really imminent, I'd stock up on canned foods, not wonder bread.

The Check

Here's a cultural difference I've noticed between the Dixie and the North.

When a group of people receive the check for a meal up north, it's always a single check. In the South, probably 65 to 75 percent of the time the server either asks the table if everyone wants separate checks, or they go ahead and do it without asking. And this seems to be indicative of the people in the South. When I'm out with people and the server gives the table a single check, someone always ask if the table can have separate checks. Up north I find it is very rare that someone asks for separate checks -- almost everyone seems find calculating what they owe.

While I suppose that always having separate checks does make it a lot easier to calculate what you owe, especially when everyone at the table has ordered a lot, there's something anti-social about it. When you ask for the separate check, you're pretty much saying that you don't trust the people you're dining with to properly split the bill.

There have certainly been times where I knew someone calculated wrong and I had to over pay by a few dollars, but my philosophy is that it will all even out in the end. So maybe the folks up north are actually more friendly than people in the South?