looky here!

alison and i have evidently entered into a territory we knew nothing about: the larger blogger community. you'll notice over there on the right that alison has added a link to "lowcountry blogs." maybe we just found ourselves, or someone linked to it in an email or something, but we've discovered that we're unintentially a part of a bigger community. like, i noticed a while back that my friend kenneth burns, up there in madison, wi, has a notice on his site that he's a member of the "eastside mad bloggers." i was jealous even though i didn't know what it meant. maybe now we can claim some street cred, too.

anyway, the reason for this post: since i now see that we may have just a leetle bit of local attention i want to take advantage and offer up my first bit of critique for something charleston. here it is:

Crosstown. the road that truncates the peninsula. man, that is one ugly sumbitch. it has less street cred than our blog. ofcourse, i dislike most paved roads in the first place so i'm not really a credible critic. I read once that "the road" is america's major contribution to the architectural vernacular. i agree--and i'm embarrased. i think roads are tools for class and ethnic segregation, i think a lot of them are unneeded, i think they tend to get built when someone's cousin in the paving business is there to launder some tax cash. a road is almost always a mix of brillance and poor planning. (i added that last one because i made a hobby for a couple of months of re-designing some interstates that travel through downtown Nashville and gained an appreciation for the nuance involved).

anyway, crosstown is a big fat, flat scar that sorta sickens me everytime i go near it. can't we pretty that sucker up a little bit? my suggestion: a six foot, red brick wall with a cement cap that runs everywhere there is currently a broken down old chain link fence. maybe some nice lighting fixtures atop.

how 'bout it? or am i just whistlin' dixie?

('nother note: since alison and i share this blog we often complain to the other about "steppin' on my break." (that's bluegrass musicianspeak for when someone is playing a solo and another bandmember is adding obtrusive backup.) in this case, i stepped on alison's break by posting something too soon after her brilliant toni morrison post. so make sure you go down there and read it. after all, just because it's yesterday's post don't mean it's yesterday's news.)

and finally, the number of times i used "anyway" as a transition in this post:

only twice.