2.20.07: Savannah, Georgia
Went with Malu to Savannah, Georgia to look at SCAD, the art school here. They’ve bought all kinds of buildings around town — old and new — and converted their functions. A former Howard Johnson’s motel is now a dorm. The familiar HoJo’s roof thing is still there, but the colors have changed. A former department store is now the school library — changing rooms converted to research cubicles! — and a former coffin factory houses the computer and regular animation departments. Scattered throughout the historic colonial center are many other beautiful old buildings that now say Savannah College of Art and Design. A good way to preserve a historic center.
After our school tour I went for a run — and I stopped, at Malu’s request, and made reservations at Paula Dean’s restaurant here (The Lady & Sons). She’s got a show on the food network featuring her southern cooking so Malu says we MUST see if it’s as good at it seems on TV. Calling herself The Lady makes her sound like a transvestite, to a New Yorker at least, but whatever. Then I headed south, though the parks and avenues of giant trees covered with Spanish moss. The late afternoon sun kept one side of the street warm. After a while the area became more residential and predominantly African-American. Not a ghetto, as sadly one might expect in the South — these are beautiful colonial town homes, soon to be overrun by homesteaders from elsewhere, by the evidence of the Sotheby’s real estate offices in town. Further on it got funkier — more churches, tabernacles and crab joints with big signs: “Live or cooked — we take food stamps”. Men working on their cars on the front lawn while a barbecue took place in between the jacked-up cars. A corner bodega, security cages covering all the windows, with a little hand-painted sign: “Records — Gospel and RnB”.
[Restaurant review: we ate lunch at another gourmet southern place, Vic’s On the River, which in some ways surpassed The Lady, and it has lovely views of the river — but no TV chef. We imagined combos: the light batter on The Lady’s fried green tomatoes with Vic’s sweet relish.]
The historic town is plenty touristy, although less so as one ventures to the fringes. There are loads of bars and gift shops — a bit like the French Quarter. I can imagine there is some serious spring break activity here. In some ways it is the art school that seems to be maintaining some sense of genuine life, at least in the historic center. Beyond that there are shipping lanes and oil storage tanks and refineries on the edge of the wetlands and swamps where giant birds sit in leafless trees, with a few straggly bits of moss hanging down.
I went into the convenience store by the gas station to get a beer to nurse in the room. The door to the chiller wouldn’t open and the sullen-faced young black man behind the counter said, “No beer on Sunday”. OK. As we walked across the street to the hotel Malu asked me why no beer on Sunday and I explained that it was a religious law. That the church didn’t want people drinking on Sundays and the church still meddles in the affairs of the country in general sufficiently that they can cause such laws to be passed. We get used to it. She looked at me in shock, incredulous that some mysterious entity we have nothing to do with could be dictating aspects of our lives. I told her in NY liquor stores only recently began to be open on Sundays. Business beats God in NYC.
