Great American Music Tour, 2009

Chicago. Memphis. Clarksdale. New Orleans. Nashville.

As I drove through Bean Blossom today, it occurred to me that this year I've at least passed through, and in some cases caught live music at, many if not most of the cities and towns associated with the great American musical forms. Blues, jazz, bluegrass, rock & roll, country.

Next year, I really need to go to the Bean Blossom Bluegrass Festival.

Circus City Fest

Green, Indiana

One amusing coincidence I discovered this week (purely by coincidence!) is that of the four (now ten, see the updates below) "Green" towns & cities I'm aware of in Indiana, three are hosting county fairs this week.

• Greenfield, Hancock County, July 10-17
• Greensburg, Decatur County, July 10-17
• Greentown, Howard County, July 13-19

Greenwood, regrettably, is missing, but only because Johnson County's fair is held in Franklin, starting on the 19th.

I hope to hit Greentown tomorrow, completing my personal trifecta, having been to Greensburg and Greenfield already this week.

(How was the discovery of this coincidence a coincidence? I was driving from the Fulton county fair Tuesday to Peru for their Circus festival when I heard a promo for the Howard county fair on a Peru radio station.)

Update: Out of curiosity, I googled "Greenville Indiana" and discovered there is such a place. Per Wikipedia, it was supposed to be the county seat for Floyd county, which hosted its fair last week. Darned New Albany meddler.

PPS: It occurred to me that Wikipedia would be a good way to figure out how many other Greens I missed. Per the Towns / Cities in Indiana categories, there are ten in all: Greencastle, Greendale, Greenfield, Greensburg, Greenwood, Greens Fork, Greensboro, Greentown, Greenville, and Etna Green. I can only imagine how fun it is to tell people you're from Etna Green, Indiana.

Tourism 101

I'm on a quest to visit all the county fairs in Indiana. Not this year specifically, but someday.

Now, let me ask you this: how difficult should it be to locate the county fairgrounds?

Marion County has a difficult to reach location, but it's easy to identify on a map, and their website has a map on the front page.

Most counties don't have a dedicated website for their fairgrounds, but many have information available through Purdue, and others through local newspapers, chambers of commerce, etc.

But they apparently assume that if you want to go, you already know where you're going.

Look at Clinton County, for example. So far as I can tell, the best place to look for information is here, via Purdue.

They have an address in Frankfort for contact information. Is this the fairgrounds? Beats me. I've been reduced in some occasions to looking at satellite imagery for addresses to see if it looks promising.

One of the best (well, one of the only) general resources is Countyfairgrounds, USA, but they can't pinpoint many of them closer than a town/city name.

I've have spent literally hours looking for fairgrounds before/during my excursions, and I've been to only 6 so far this week. C'mon, Hoosiers, you can do better than this.

Update: Of course, now that I've gotten that off my chest, I'm having better success with the Purdue Extension website. There is a "Directions" link associated with most (all?) counties that I had previously not noticed or had ignored that has addresses for the fairgrounds.

More traveling ponderables

What, precisely, is the "panting crew" about which I was just warned
via electronic sign?

Golden light, hard work, and good timing

Jim Richardson writes about one of his aerial photographs, and the work that it entailed.

Mainly, I wanted to make sure all my 1.5 readers saw the photograph. Just gorgeous.

Traveling ponderables

Is "Nameless Creek" nameless?


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Notable quotes

Courtesy IndyStar.com:

"A shooting makes everybody come out together," said Harmonie Wescott, 20. "It makes this place like a family reunion of the neighborhood."

Banan

I was extremely fortunate tonight to be introduced to Banan, a traditional Persian singer. As soon as I turned on Radio Darvish in iTunes I heard his transcendent baritone, and rushed to find a copy of the tune, "Dele Khasteh". Thank you, Apple, for taking more of my money.

I highly recommend seeking out his music.

21st Street runs...forever?

21st Street rolls on and on
Past a Gem, Indiana
Drive by Philadelphia
East through Greenfield (hello, McKenzie Road)
Dissuaded by dust & diesel, I turn south
But in my mind's eye, 21st and I will hit the Atlantic
Someday.

Karl Malden

It's an odd, and sad, coincidence that "A Streetcar Named Desire" showed up in my mailbox from Netflix the day we learned of Karl Malden's death. To make it just a bit more poignant: the DVD was broken.

Digital mayhem

I decided it was time to simplify my online web & email hosting, mainly to save money. I was already committed to MobileMe, since its features make my iPhone much more useful, and my website wasn't nearly important enough to warrant another significant expenditure on top of that.

8-10 hours later, I think I finally have everything sorted out, although my phone is being a little stubborn about my new email provider for reasons I can only guess at. An entire day lost to tidying up my digital life, and now I get to figure out how to incorporate iPhoto or Aperture into my workflow so I can start managing my photo galleries again. Surely that'll be another 8 hours, minimum.

Sometimes that shack in Montana is very appealing.