OK Travellers, can you tell what cities these are by their artist rendered map? How many did you get?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

Answers:

1. London

2. Brooklyn (NY) 

3.Paris

4. Los Angeles

5. Rome

6. Boston

7. Brussels

8. Jerusalem

9. St. Louis

10. Melbourne

11.  Sydney

12. Madrid

See more here:  Society 6

Hank's Car

                                                                                                                       Photos of model: Tom Casesa

Charles Carr died in July of 2013.  He was the 17 year old boy who was driving Hank Williams when he died in the back seat of his 1952 baby blue Cadillac convertible, on route to a concert in Canton Ohio.   He died at some point in the night, but the specifics are still a little mysterious.  Carr has said very little over the years since, and there is a feeling that we never  quite got the full story of what happened that night.  The event has been mythologized a fair bit, in books, films and art work.   Sometimes the event is  called his "Last Ride" or referred to as "The Show He Never Gave". There's a 1980 movie by that title, and last year another movie, The Last Ride was released.

 I met Carr in the late 90s at a Hank fest in Alabama.  A friend of mine tracked Carr down and brought him to the museum in Montgomery.  The museum was selling replicas of Hank's car. I bought one and  Carr signed it across the hood.  Amazing to have this. 

On the same trip I met two of the then surviving Drifting Cowboys, steel guitarist Don Helms and fiddle player Jerry Rivers and saw them perform.  Their signatures are on my acoustic guitar. I had the chance to interview Don in 1997.  He is credited with giving Hank' band it's distinct sound.  You can see a video slide show I  made of the interview here:  Don Helms interview.  When he passed in 2008 he was the last remaining member of the core Drifting Cowboy Band.  

Wikipedia entry on Hank

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                                                                                                                                 Photos by Tom Casesa

Hank Williams

Finally, I overdubbed one of Hank's demo songs with my piano.   You can see/hear it here:

Tom and Hank

Tom, around 15 yo, with Ole Hank photoshopped in. 

For you cats that are interested in the American Revolution, this is from the mountvernon.org site (the home of George Washington). It commemorates a battle  in Pennsylvania,which took place on July 3, 1754, was an early battle of the French and Indian War. It resulted in the surrender of British colonial forces under Colonel George Washington, to the French and Indians, under Louis Coulon de Villiers. Washington's great moments were yet to come.

Have you ever seen one of these?

This is a 1915 Gibson Style U Harp Guitar, coming up for auction in New York City this month. Here's your chance to get a conversation piece for the next family holiday.



Other gems from the auction:

Add caption

I know its a long way to December , but still....

I bought this on Ebay and wanted to post it. I remember getting one each Christmas at my after school religion class in Queens, New York. Looking at the ones below, it looks like mine was the entry level model. The others are more deluxe, with more figures. In once case there are palm trees instead of winter firs, which seems appropriate for Bethlehem, except for the snow flakes on the roof. Makes a lot of sense.

Good Books

  Here is the incredible work of Sue Blackwell. I first learned of her work when I attended the exhibition Otherworldly at the Museum of Arts and Design.

London (Uber) Calling. What would Fezziwig think?

Pretty damn cool tattoo.  I love London cabs, especially the classic Austin FX4s

.  This London taxi driver put his allegiance on his arm to protest the entry of Uber into the London market. I like tradition and wish London black cabs and red double decker buses and classic phone booths would never go away, but I also appreciate progress and know that the old must give way to the new, even though I'm not often very happy about it.

It reminds me of what Fezziwig (Ebenezer Scrooge's boss in "A Christmas Carol") had to say to Mr. Jorkin about progress:

Jorkin: "Mr. Fezziwig, we’re good friends besides good men of business. We’re men of vision and progress. Why don’t you sell out while the going’s good? You’ll never get a better offer. It’s the age of the machine, and the factory, and the vested interests. We small traders are ancient history, Mr. Fezziwig.”

Fezziwig: “It’s not just for money alone that one spends a lifetime building up a business…. It’s to preserve a way of life that one knew and loved. No, I can’t see my way to selling out to the new vested interests, Mr. Jorkin. I’ll have to be loyal to the old ways and die out with them if needs must.

Austin FX4 scale model from Welly.