Soul City, USA

As soon as I learned about Soul City in the late 1970s and could drive, I wanted to see it firsthand. It's a sort of secular utopia that never bloomed into the 50,000-person city originally planned for, but more like Koinonia Farm, Georgia, than Jonestown, Guyana. The idea was for a self-sustaining community undergirded by black-owned businesses that promoted racial harmony, a "brand new shining city" in Manson, North Carolina, USA. Soul City's location is near the Virginia border, not far off the main interstate highways (I-85 and I-95). Definitely worth a look and consideration; after my first glimpse, I go back from time to time to see if anything's changed much.

Soul City was civil rights leader (and lawyer-judge-entrepreneur) Floyd B. McKissick's (1922-1991) baby, though others shared in its birth and have kept the dream going in a more modest form. That is, like the Heidelberg Project in Detroit and despite claims to the contrary, Soul City still exists.

In 1974, James Brown captured the spirit in which Soul City was conceived: 

We got to get together and buy some land
Raise our food just like the man
Save our money, do like the mob
Put up your fight, and own the job
We got to get over before we go under

-- from "Funky President (People It's Bad)"

For more, please see:

McKissick's Three-fifths of a Man (1969).

Floyd B. McKissick Papers #4930, Southern Historical Collection of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the African American Resources Collection of North Carolina Central University.

Christopher Strain, "Soul City, North Carolina: Black Power, utopia, and the African American dream," The Journal of African American History 89.1 (2004): 57+. Gale U.S. History in Context. Web. 19 Aug. 2010.

Today's Rune: Partnership.

Going Down to the Record Store

February 1970: Shocking Blue's "Venus," Sly and the Family Stone's "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)," the Jackson Five's "I Want You Back," Tom Jones' "Without Love (There Is Nothing)" and the B. J. Thomas cover of "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" (after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969) . . . all hits. Forty years later: Michael Jackson, Mariska Veres and Paul Newman are dead, Sly Stone and Tom Jones are recording again, Robert Redford abides.

The Record Bar is gone, as are most of the chains (though a few remnants may remain here and there): Harmony House Records and Tapes; Sam Goody; Schoolkids Records; HMV; Music Zone; Tower Records; Planet Music, Camelot Music. Of these, I liked Schoolkids Records.   

But never fear, independent records stores persist, and are celebrated annually on Record Store Day every April. For more on that happy thought, please see: http://www.recordstoreday.com/Home













Good short story collection: Jill McCorkle's Final Vinyl Days and Other Stories (Algonquin Books, 1998).  I was working at Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill when her first two books came out in 1984: The Cheerleader and July 7th. 

Today's Rune: Warrior.

Chapel Hill/Carrboro: Cat's Cradle

Oh, man, last night made the Cat's Cradle scene with Linda and Roy. The club, a dive or hole along the lines of CBGB, has hosted a ton of terrific bands over the decades, and last night's show was exactly in this tradition: The Legendary Shack Shakers, Cracker and The Reverend Horton Heat. More on all three at some point.

For now, let's pull back and peak at Chapel Hill, Carrboro and the Cat's Cradle.  The first of these is a small city of about 55,000 people, plus another 18,000 undergaduates and 11,000 graduate students at The University of North Carolina. Adjoining Carrboro has about 20,000 residents; the current incarnation of Cat's Cradle can absorb something above 600 people at one time (with a smoking and break deck out back). This is Cat's Cradle #5. The first four physical incarnations were in Chapel Hill, and I used to frequent #2 and #3.  A couple of acts that came to #2 on Rosemary in the early 1980s were -- off the top of my head -- Bo Didley and Romeo Void. Used to go there all the time with friends as an undergraduate. It was our regular place to blow off steam. Still went to that locale when it rebooted as Rhythm Alley and Skylight Exchange. The Cat moved over to West Franklin Street, and that's the incarnation where I saw The Cramps and Lloyd Cole as a graduate student. It must have been #4 where Nirvana played to a small crowd in the early 90s.  The Cradle may have to move yet again, but no worries. The tradition will continue. If you go anywhere near the Research Triangle of North Carolina and dig live music in an intimate venue, check it out!  The cover charge for all three bands last night?  $20. Believe me, it was worth every penny and a whole lot more.  The crowd was eclectic, of all ages and many came a long way to get there.

Today's Rune:  Fertility.  Pictured above: cover of Revival (2004), a Reverend Horton Heat album.

Giant Steps

On the road today, to the native land of John Coltrane. Giant Steps (1960): better than Humpty Dumpty in the Gulf of Mexico, certainly.  Hope y'all have a great weekend, everything being equal!

Today's Rune: Partnership.

Freedom and Responsibility

Men cannot shrug and say, "we are weak." We must take full responsibility for our actions without such an excuse to fall back on. For, man is not inherently weak. The presumption that "man is weak" strengthens the conviction that we are inherently weak and therefore may as well resign ourselves to failure. No, man is instead usually disloyal to his own values. Men lose sight of their own values by not thinking through the reasons for or implications of their (individual or collective) actions. The are not paying attention to themselves - they are distracted by their own contingencies. Each act of the will must properly harmonize with the overall values of the individual, or that individual will betray his own values, and therefore everyone else with whom he is in social contract, directly or indirectly . . . One must be aware of what one's values are, and also what one is doing when he makes choices, at every possible conscious moment.

-- Erik D. France, journal, August 2, 1984, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Folks, I feel the same now as I did then -- a quarter century later. Tweak the language to make it gender neutral, and it still stands. Seems to me the existentialist ethos has not been refuted, just partly forgotten and replaced by . . . nothing.  We are free to act or not act, and we are responsible for ourselves within the context of our life situations.

Today's Rune: Fertility.   

Remain in Light

Talking Heads peaked in the early 1980s and this is exactly when I got to see them do a show in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Problem is, I can't remember the year they played, let alone the month or day. There seems to be no internet trace yet, nor lipstick traces. This will have to suffice. JC remembers being there, too -- I think. In any case, Remain in Light is powerful and different. It holds up very well these brief thirty years later. Been listening to it over and over again for days, on shuffle.  In trying to recount the Carmichael show, it came to me that Tom-Tom Club opened, right?  Well, it definitely is true that Talking Heads had a syncopated slide show going, tossing up words and images for association; that was way cool.  As for anything else, I'll have to rake through various journals from the early 80s and hope for the best . . . Has anyone else reading this seen Talking Heads or any of the associated spinoffs?

Verdict: Remain in Light remains hip and groovy, even more so now. It features the globalized Talking Heads crew plus the ambient coolness of Eno and Adrian Belew, two dudes interesting in their own right.

Today's Rune: Partnership.

The Rivalry: North Carolina vs. Duke

Every place and every age has its rivalries, and usually multiple rivalries. Sports, that ritualized substitute for -- or supplement to -- war, goes back quite a little ways. The Carolina-Duke men's basketball rivalry, Tar Heels vs. Blue Devils, dates back ninety years. Though Carolina has the edge in the overall series, it's always a wild ride, and both have won mutliple national championships. In fact, the University of North Carolina team won the national championship just last year. This year both teams are struggling, and as I post this, the score is UNC 32, Duke 31 (subject to rapid change).









I've never quite seen a rivalry like the Duke-UNC version, but only because I went to and worked at UNC at Chapel Hill and worked at Duke University in Durham (in the Public Documents and Maps Department, Perkins Library). Friends and family go for either side without much rhyme or apparent reason. It's all good!  When the two play against each other, I always go for the Tar Heels.  And hey -- I got to see Michael Jordan play in Chapel Hill!

Today's Rune: Flow.

Chapel Hill Days: Elvis Costello and the Attractions with Squeeze, 1981

Many of us have gone to concerts, shows, sporting events, plays, movies and various other events and later we may remember them, but maybe not the details of exactly when or even where. This is where artifacts come into play to help locate lost time. This Elvis Costello appearance in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, is a case in point.  Because of the ticket stub, we can pinpoint the date and place, and the cost of the ticket: January 25, 1981, Carmichael Auditorium, $6.00.













Squeeze, the opening act, was a very big deal in those days. The band's compilation Singles - 45's and Under would come out in 1982 and really, it's still nifty-fifty to hear. In Chapel Hill, they highlighted their most recent release, East Side Story (1981).













An ad leading up to the show: THE ENGLISH MUGS TOUR WITH THEIR OLD CHINAS.




















Flyer for the show.










And finally, a review of the actual event by Geoffrey Mock for the Daily Tar Heel ("Costello pumps it up," January  27, 1981). A pretty decent overview.  Cracks me up, though, its reference to "the old songs" -- given that My Aim Is True, Elvis Costello's first album, had only come out in 1977.  Time is very strange in that now, nearly thirty years later, it still seems like yesterday; in the meantime, I saw Elvis (solo) frontline for Bob Dylan in Ypsilanti, Michigan, on October 12, 2007. 

Today's Rune: Possessions.

U2

Picked up these cards in France when U2 was emerging into what they've long since become.  Thought of U2 because of Haitian-born rapper Wyclef Jean saying how much he was inspired and influenced by them when he was growing up. The Unforgettable Fire (1984) is now 25 years old.  The caption reads in part: The New Album Available On Record & Chrome Cassette. . . 

What I know best about U2 is their War album, and seeing them on the very first stop of their War Tour in the USA -- in Chapel Hill, on April 23, 1983.  If memory serves, this was at least partly a benefit for UNICEF.  They blew me away.  Bono climbed up scaffolding with lightning in the air (literally) and seemed totally crazed in a Jim Morrison kind of way.  This act was hard to beat, and I've never been quite as interested in them since the mid-80s.  War pretty much did it all for me.  How could they ever beat what I'd already seen?

As for Wyclef Jean, he's blogging from Haiti, with appeals for help:  http://wyclefjean.wordpress.com/

Today's Rune: Initiation.

The Return of the Seventies: Black Dynamite!

I love 70s movies (from Shaft to The Godfather to Aguirre, the Wrath of God, and from Amarcord to Manhattan) and music (from James Brown to Led Zeppelin to the Ramones and Sex Pistols) and its culture in general, before the sterilizing Reagan backlash of the pitiful 1980s. So it is with extra delight that I look forward to Black Dynamite, an excellent-looking homage to Shaft-era movies, made for under three million bucks. Between Scott Sanders' Black Dynamite and the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man, I'd say less is definitely more. Who needs a huge budget to make a fun movie these days?

Scott Sanders, I'm also happy to note, graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Here's a link to the Black Dynamite website:

http://www.blackdynamitemovie.com/

Today's Rune: Joy.

Public Relations That Worked

I never met Julian Scheer, but I met his brother George Fabian Scheer, Jr., and knew his nephew George Fabian Scheer III. The latter two were associated with Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, where I worked in the mid-1980s.

Julian Weisel Scheer (1926-2001) was a key supporter and proponent of NASA. He'd been an energetic reporter covering the space program when, in 1963, he became NASA's Assistant Administrator for Public Affairs. He helped shape NASA's positive and exciting image in an inclusive way, actively drawing in news reporters and the average person alike. He seems to have believed that being transparent with developments was a better way of communicating the Apollo Moon program than any form of sugar coating. It was a dangerous mission to go to the Moon, but nonetheless, the Apollo 11 Moon landing should be covered live -- despite the risks. And he was right.

What NASA needs again is such a PR powerhouse as Julian Scheer. The Final Frontier should be inherently exciting, but without strong PR, NASA's efforts are drowned in the white noise of everything else. After all, isn't NASA more important than Jon & Kate Plus Eight? If not, we're not living on Earth, we're living in Hell.

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.

Cat's Cradle, Chapel Hill

North Carolina has had a hip and rowdy indie music scene for decades. The main venue nodes that I knew about in the late 70s, 80s and early 90s were in Chapel Hill and the larger urban centers: Raleigh, Charlotte, Durham, Greensboro. It helped having colleges and universities in each vicinity to provide a large, energetic and always changing fan base.

I was just looking for any artifacts from the Jim Carroll Band show at the Frog & Nightgown (or the Pier) in Raleigh, and instead came across these ticket stubs from Cat's Cradle shows in Chapel Hill: The Cramps (Flat Duo Jets opened) and Buzzcocks. Both excellent shows. The Cat's Cradle was a frequent place to go. This venue has moved around a lot, but included locations off Rosemary Street and West Franklin Street before moving in 1993 over to Carrboro, the adjoining town where I'd lived for a few of years while an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina in the early 80s. The Cat's Cradle in memory is like a Pandora's Box -- so many gigs, so many prompts in the pipeline!

In my quest to hunt down details of the Jim Carroll gig, came across an article about the Raleigh music scene and a comment by allthingsarial, who was also at the Jim Carroll show -- placing it back to 1981 or 1982. (Catholic Boy came out in 1980). Many thanks to "The Arial View" at http://allthingsarial.wordpress.com/ for the input.

Today's Rune: Wholeness. Ides of September.

Factotums and Odd Jobs

I've worked a lot of odd jobs over the years, usually in between or in addition to the "regular" ones. Worked at a Burger King, for instance; one of the assistant managers there was a doctoral student in Zoology at Duke. I briefly dated the primary manager's daughter -- she worked there, too. It was a circus.

Worked for a week at a carnival. A Gypsy-eyed woman (she was not a Gypsy, but she could have played one in a movie, with her piercing eyes, glittery spangles and long black hair) grabbed me and convinced me to give it a shot. This job was also a circus, figuratively, collecting dollar bills for bottle tosses and stuffed animal contests.

Worked for Manpower doing various temp jobs, putting up giant tents for a British-American festival, and for an Eno River festival; driving small trucks between dealers; moving filing cabinets; moving people's stuff into U-Haul trucks. Mostly grunt work.

Worked for Kelly Services. Supervisors would send our time sheets directly from North Carolina or Pennsylvania to 999 West Big Beaver Road, Troy, Michigan 48084 on Wednesdays or Thursdays and we'd be paid on Fridays. I was always amazed how fast they processed paychecks. Between Kelly and Bettinger, I worked as an office assistant at Family Health International in the Research Triangle for several months, and for the National Park Service in Old Town Philadelphia; for ELF/ATOCHEM; for Pennsylvania Blue Shield; for Wheels, Inc.; for Lippincott (now Lippincott Williams & Wilkins); and for the Curtis Publishing Company.


I've also done very brief gigs like watching a game store that was normally run by Mely Hodges in Durham, North Carolina (above are her detailed instructions -- obviously she was worried I'd bungle it. Ha! And that was before we went on a comical date . . .). Incidentally, Betty Hodges, Mely's mother, was the literary/book editor for The Durham Morning Herald over a period of several decades.

There was temporary coverage for Nga Mai's Café Diva in Center City, Philadelphia (I lived in a small apartment across the street, 12th & Spruce Street, to be exact). The hardest thing was to serve homeless people, balancing compassion with wit.

Of all temp jobs, my favorite was interviewing an Armenian couple and transcribing the resultant tape for one of their sons and the rest of their family. It was through them that I learned a ton about the Armenian Genocide and all sorts of other things, too.

In any case, in today's economy, odd jobs are becoming much more the norm, no question. It's factotum time, maybe from here on out. No worries -- I'm ready for just about anything. How about you?

Finally, how could I forget working for Bob Sheldon at Internationalist Books in Chapel Hill, or delivering pizzas for Pizza Transit Authority?

Today's Rune: Growth.

Let's Get Digital 1 2 3

So much is going digital, including TV broadcasts and textbooks. Much of this development presents a boon for researchers and anyone interested in exchanging ideas. (That's a digital image of Amazon's Kindle DX, above -- just released. It can hold up to 3500 books sans pictures).

Almost twenty years ago, I was fortunate enough to be able to take a class at UNC's School of Information and Library Science with Fred Kilgour (1914-2006), a visionary librarian and founder of OCLC (Online Computer Library Center, originally known as Ohio College Library Center). In his class, we students examined how researchers utilized information stored in library books and journals, and in our sample study, found that researches cited only two or three pages from each text.

Kilgour maintained that what the world needed was an ever-expanding digital library made available via internet and computers. Providing this service would be a much more efficient way of distributing information on demand. (In other words, you wouldn't need the phsyical book, just the information stored in it, conveyed electronically). He was right. Google and other institutions have picked up the ball and are now providing just such services. From this librarian's point of view, digital technology has been a wonderful tool for people of all stripes.

Digital technology should revolutionize schools, and is beginning to do so. South Korea has a digital project well underway.

One can also look at California's planned innovations. See for example, Juliet Williams, "Schwarzenegger Seeks Online Revolution in Schools," (Associated Press, June 10, 2009): "In the state that gave the world Facebook, Google and the iPod, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says forcing California's students to rely on printed textbooks is so yesterday . . ." This initiative should save a lot of money for both students and non-student tax payers. Not to mention eliminating the waste of heavy, quickly outdated textbooks subsequently ploughed into landfills. (Phone books should go the same way -- entirely online).


Just in my twenty-two or so years of working in libraries, I've seen the transformation from old card catalogues (this one was at UNC's Wilson Library, state of the art in 1952) to the burgeoning online internet-linked catalogs of today.

It's so much better in so many ways. Can you imagine having to file Author, Subject, Title and cross-reference cards for each and every distinct book or title? That's how we still did it, even into the 1990s. Oh and, let's not forget microcards, microfilm and microfiche: all of it replaceable by digital format. Even the weight relief was astonishing -- a cabinet filled with microfiche was extremely heavy, indeed.

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.

D-Day: Five Lucky Germans

Backtracking a little, again from my UNC journal (May 23-24, 1981):

From a height in between we viewed Gold and Juno Beaches and the Mulberry Harbor. Here we took team photos. Proceeded to St. Aubin on Sword Beach, where the British 3rd Division landed, to the hotel. A German antitank gun stood trained on our hotel. [Map above from Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War, Volume III, 1966]

What a bizarre supper! The food and wine was great, but the conversation one in a million. Andrea Jennings was talking about the Kinks, which reminded me of the album they put out in 1968 about the decline and fall of the British Empire. . .

In the dining area happened to be five Germans, veterans of Normandy captured on June 6, 1944, by Canadian troops. Four of them agreed to talk with the group, but Helmet left. All are in their 60s and 70s, and all were older than the average fighting man even in the 1940s, when they served in the 716th [Static] Infantry Division. They were here for Memorial Day services.

[The 716th Static Infantry Division, commanded by Generalleutnant Wilhelm Richter, was essentially destroyed on D-Day, though it was later reformed. On D-Day, it consisted of Grenadier Regiments 726 and 736, Artillerie Regiment 716, Panzerjäger Kompanie 716, Pionier Bataillon 716, Nachrichten Abteilung 716, and Versorgungstruppen 716.]

They talked about the second-rate quality of their division, how the Eastern Front was given priority over the Atlantic Wall, and so forth. I sat with fascination as they told their side of the story . . . From their point of view, survival came first. Germany in the 1920s and 30s was down in the gutter, spat on by France and England. Harnessing his people’s basic self-pride and basic needs, Hitler created a phoenix-like . . . powerful world state. Only when he became brazenly exploitive did many of the people realize that he might bring their own downfall. . .

The other major topic was their lives as POWs behind the Allied lines. Processed through Scotland, they were scattered across the U.S., serving as laborers in South Carolina, Colorado, New Jersey, and Alabama.

It was compelling to hear from the other side! Dr. Stroup then gave long-winded praise to the Germans and appealed for peace. After the song contest out on the beach a few of us (Rachel, Bink, Chris, Bill and I) talked with our new German friends in the hotel bar. We knew a little German, they knew a lot of broken English, so we managed to communicate semi-articulately about things. Chris, Bill, and I bought them a round of Kronenbourg 1664s, a gesture that seemed to honor and embarrass them. They bought the next round, and, added to the dinner wine, we were all soon nappy. The bartender looked on this with amusement, pretending not to understand anything we said.

Willy Wiederstein and Karl started up old drinking songs, and soon we were all singing: “In Munchen Stadt im Hofbrauhaus, Ein, Zwei, Zufall!!!!!”

Those kindly old gentlemen could drink like fish, but luckily they drifted off for the night, one by one. . .

May 24, 1981, Sunday

Memorial services at Omaha Beach were very beautiful, even if the speeches were drawn out and irrelevant. The most memorable event came when a group of French children ran out, French and U.S. flags in hand, and sang the national anthems. Some of our group were brought to tears by this gesture. The trim white rows of graves were serenely powerful. . .

Today's Rune: Warrior.

D-Day: Sainte-Mère-Église and Pointe du Hoc

D-Day anniversary. Had the great privilege of seeing some of the vast battleground in person during a UNC history class in motion, back in 1981. It was by far the best class I've ever taken.

From my journal, a component required for the class (conducted by Jim Leutze):

Pointe du Hoc

After gazing down on Omaha Beach, we motored over to Pointe du Hoc, the site of the U.S. ranger attack. The striking feature of Pointe du Hoc is the steep, high face of the cliffside. It took real courage to assault the position -- indeed, it would take courage just to climb it without being fired at! The Axis defenders didn’t exactly have a pushover, either. They were wide open to aerial and sea bombardment, pulverized by explosives, and assaulted by a crack team of commandos.

Bill and I roamed the defenses; we looked out of a concrete bombshelter just in time to see our five German friends. Willi shouted over to us: “Der Goebbels bunker! You will be shot!”

After lunch among the ruins, we gathered at the main cliffside structure to be addressed by the French mayor of Criqueville in Bessin. He was happy to see young Americans interested in the war . . .

Sainte-Mère-Église

When I stepped out of the van at Sainte-Mère-Église, I thought I was in The Longest Day. The bells! I felt a surge; it was breathtaking. Reluctantly went to the 82nd Airborne Museum, but soon walked back to the main square while everyone else stayed in the museum. It was just like in the movie. Walking down to the far end of the square, noticed a Cafe de 6th Juin. These people have not forgotten. I peeked in the church where they were holding special Memorial services. The stain glass window above the altar was extraordinary -- a beautiful piece depicting our paratroopers descending onto the church. I loved it.

That wasn’t all in this long and fruitful day. On to Utah Beach we pushed, walking along the fortified beach. Near where we parked sat an M8 armored car and a half-track. Barbed wire was still strung along the dune line, and the bunkers were in great shape. Another murderous beach, but better than Omaha. . . .

-- Erik Donald France, May 24, 1981.

Today's Rune: Warrior.

Walking: Between Chapel Hill and Durham

This book, From Laurel Hill to Siler's Bog: The Walking Adventures of a Naturalist by John K. Terres (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1986; originally published in 1969), reminds me of a lot of things. Working at Algonquin. Walking the distance (about eleven miles) between Durham and Chapel Hill, and Dr. Dick Pearse. I worked at Algonquin from 1984 to 1987. I knew Dr. Pearse from the late 1970s until he died, an elderly man by that point. A friend of my parents, he lived in Durham County in a genteel way, with a lot of land, horses, and dogs out in northern Durham County. He was very big into history, and he regaled us with a lot of stories. The pertinent strand related to how he and friends would walk around North Carolina and just about anywhere they went, or rode by horseback. The idea of walking between towns and cities struck my imagination, and my friend Kenny's, too, so we tried it.

The walk between Durham and Chapel Hill was damned interesting. First, the impact of automobiles on the landscape was the most obvious fact, right down to seeing dozens of dead birds that had apparently been hit by cars without their drivers even knowing it. There was lots of living fauna and flora, too, of course, but the car exhaust and noise made itself known much of the time. In any case, you can easily walk between the two cities in a matter of hours, but we've become so accustomed to driving or being driven that this fact may not even dawn on most people. I thank Dr. Pearse for the inspiration, and for cultural memories of a time when it was not out of the ordinary to walk significant distances.

Today's Rune: Separation (Reversed).

Get Up and Go

1. Last night, traveled the last seven hours by Amtrak and arrived in San Antonio an hour early on one of the designated high speed corridors. Cost: $38. Lots of cool people along the way. Things to tweak: timetable can be compressed and layovers reduced; more regional trains needed to supplement the line (there's only one daily Amtrak train coming and going) and all trains could use wireless internet connectivity. But cell phones work.


2. Way back when I was delivering pizzas in Chapel Hill, met all sorts of co-workers back at the Pizza Transit Authority base (plus friends from earlier were working there). There was one women from Iowa, I think she was taking graduate classes at the time, who'd taken a class in Iowa with John Clellon Holmes, a lesser known writer who'd come out with the novel GO in 1952. It revolves around the Beats in New York City but is less maniacal than most writing characterized as Beat. Wouldn't have read the book if I hadn't delivered pizzas, I'm sure. Might also have travelled less in the meantime . . .

More from San Antonio as catch can. The Fox & Hound Tea Party folks are long gone, mercifully.

Today's Rune: Journey.

National Champions: UNC Tar Heels

University of North Carolina Tar Heels Men's basketball team defeats Michigan State University Spartans in Detroit, 89-72. Savoring the moment.



Today's Rune: Journey.

The Road That Ends in Detroit

Only two teams in the Men's NCAA Division I brackets left to battle for the National Championship on Monday, April 6, 2009, in downtown Detroit (Ford Field, set up nicely).

For college basketball fans, it's been quite a wild ride. I like both remaining programs, but as a UNC-Chapel Hill double graduate (BA and MSLS), have to go front and center with the Tar Heels over the Michigan State University (MSU) Spartans. I salute both teams.


Rematch Monday night at 9:30 EST. Go Carolina!

Today's Rune: Possessions.