Holiday Update

After several hours of watching "Lost" last night and all weekend, I should probably be doing research on television addiction, but instead I'm in my office catching up on paperwork after my two classes on radical abolitionism and free love.
The Thanksgiving weekend was, as you can see from the pictures below, somewhat typically suburban. In addition to the chameleon in the window, we saw a whole family of deer in the backyard. Then there was the trip to Costco, and the antiques outing to Pittsboro, home of that marvelous palace of chic, "Beggars and Choosers."
Along with these suburban pleasures, Southern nostalgia for me includes the smell of woodsmoke and the tangy taste of pimiento cheese. I am partial to the spread when made with
sharp cheddar cheese
pimientos
home-made mayonaise
dijon mustard
1 dash bourbon (Bill Neal style)
salt, pepper and cayenne to taste

Interspersed with the excessive eating, there were more family discussions about politics of many varieties and a trip with the younguns to the white hipster mecca, "the Orange County Social Club" where it was possible to buy four beers for $12.50! which may explain why a single man approached my group of four women (and one man who was married to one of us) and tried to buy us drinks.
For those NYC readers, who want to get a feel for the CH indy scene that congregates a the OCSC think Williamsburg+ college basketball. Oh yeah, it's an indy-rock scene, so there's music involved too. It revolved, when I was there around bands like Polvo, Archers of Loaf, Superchunk, Zen Frisbee, Picasso Trigger, and The Squirrel Nut Zippers. Now, I have no idea who the latest cool bands are, though I saw an old friend from Zen Frisbee at the OCSC and didn't say "hey" because he stopped being nice once he got too cool and now he looks like an old, sad drunk.
More interesting than this hipster scene, I discovered too late in my own Chapel Hill life, is the old-time music world of the mountains that sometimes makes it into the Piedmont. On Saturday night, I got a chance to catch up with my old friend, CeCe Conway, who told me about the Black Banjo Gathering that she organized in Boone, NC. Partly because of this gathering, a new generation of Black musicians is being introduced to old timey-music. Every year, I want to go down South to the fiddlers' conventions and bring some Yankees with me. Cece coached me in fieldwork when I went to a convention with her, which meant I got to hold the camera, and I hope that I can take advantage of this connection in the future....Going to fiddlers' conventions is fun, but going to a fiddlers convention with an Appalachian folklorist is better.
Back in NY, things are somewhat more workaday, and thus all the way home on the plane I read about the Savings and Loan bailout and the role of that tower of "fiscal responsibility" Alan Greenspan.