By Ed Reynolds

By Ed Reynolds

The portrait of Eudora Welty beside her casket in the rotunda of Mississippi’s Old Capitol building offered quiet reassurement to the thousand or so mourners paying homage to the acclaimed writer. Welty’s inquisitive eyes—blue and round as the moon-—gazed thoughtfully at all who filed past her white-draped coffin on a rainy afternoon in Jackson. A modest but pretty arrangement of orange Montbretia from Welty’s garden offered an unpretentious symbol of her simple yet uncommon life. On the floor beside the coffin lay a single long-stem rose. High above, the walls of the rotunda balcony were adorned with samples of quilt patterns from 1850 to 1946, a fitting display that paralleled Welty’s embrace of everyday people in their attempts to extract meaning from mundane lives. Pattern names sounded not unlike metaphors from a Welty tale: “Drunkard’s Path,” “Russian Sunflowers,” and “Gentleman’s Bow Tie.” She was only the fourth person to lie in state at the Old Capitol.

Voices Of The Urban Experience

by Edward Reynolds

    Who would have guessed that downtown Birmingham has a verbal pulse after sundown? It’s not an easy pulse to locate. But once it’s found, it’s a startling revelation.

    The beat thrives at the Carver Theater the third Sunday night of each month when a poet named Moon hosts spoken word celebrations. Urban spoken word wrestles for life in a town often indifferent to the most fundamental of creative arts. Sundays at the Carver Theater in the Civil Rights District are a rhyming confrontation with brutal honesty between artists and audience, and between the artists and themselves. Sometimes at the Carver the audience remains in the observation seats, jostled and soothed by the spontaneous flow of syllables. But on this particular Sunday evening, the audience joins performers onstage. Why, it’s almost a hootenanny!

     On the second Tuesday of each month, the pulse shifts a few blocks east to the Urban Echo, a dimly-lit club illuminated only by flickering candles and the flicking of cigarette lighters in bursts of approval for poets delivering their deepest emotions. The Urban Echo is located in the 1800 block of 3rd Avenue North in a building whose windows are emblazoned with “Jewel’s” in big pink letters. A block away, the Alabama Theater’s neon marquee advertises an upcoming B.B. King show. Continue reading →

Birmingham After Dark

A neon mist slowly settles  upon the city, anointing the night with delectable dreams of legendary tamales, cool jazz, chilled martinis, and rainbow brews as Birmingham quietly tucks the sight.  This community embraces a variety of cultures and lifestyles, warmly toasting the future. And the pulse of the bustle swirling beneath the glow of Vulcan’s mighty torch beats strongest on the Southside, sometimes pounding relentlessly, other times purring romantically.

Here we go. The fountain of mythical creatures spewing forth smack in the Center of Five Points South attracts quite a diverse collection of humanity: kids sporting Mohawks as they rocket through the air on skateboards, artists painting colorful canvases, street musicians hustling a buck. It’s quite a carnival atmosphere as we stroll down 11th Street towards Surin West, where we feast on scrumptious Thai noodles and a splendid squid salad before diving into a seafood soup that would be a delicious way to drown. Two doors down we stop into Breckenridge Brewery, the latest microbrewery to call Birmingham home. Inside the pub huge metallic fermentation tanks add a futuristic touch to a turn-of-the-century warehouse, the seductive hum of the brewing process adding a flourish to a wonderful drinking and dining experience. The city’s first brewpub, the Magic City Brewery, is up 21st Street at 5th Avenue South, not far away.

Up 20th Street we stumble upon a little Mexican palace known as Mancha’s. The late Carl Mancha’s grandfather began hand-rolling his now legendary corn-husk tamales in 1929, selling them from a street cart. The cart eventually parked itself  inside the present locale, where Carl would later concoct the best Mexican sauces in town: the Wimp Sauce (though tasty, pour it in shame); the Nuclear Sauce (glowing green); and the flammable Agent Orange (menacing, fireball Habanero peppers). I’ve seen macho men accept the bartender’s challenge to wolf down one of Carl’s homegrown Habaneros for a paltry 20 bucks. Bear Bryant shares the walls with the heads of wild boar and elk.

A few blocks away we walk into the Nick, a dive so dark inside one expects to find Dracula pouring drinks in one of Birmingham’s prime spots for rock ‘n roll. The Nick has been knighted with a world-class reputation as one of the stops on the circuit for up and coming bands as well as musical combos with world-wide cult followings. Legends such as the Fleshtones, Johnny Winter, Alex Chilton, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore have performed on its tattered stage, and on any given night patrons have found themselves sitting next to luminaries as REM’s Peter Buck and U2’s Bono. Hidden around the corner from the Nick is one of the more fascinating places on God’s earth, the Garage Café. Nestled amongst the leftovers of an ancient, tiny antique mall, the Garage offers a courtyard covered in cascading wisteria, gargoyles, French iron gates, and marble baptismal fonts. A rather impressive cement counter is the interior center piece, creating an unusual spot to sit and drink. There is no truth to the rumor that Jimmy Hoffa is buried somewhere beneath the resting place for your gin and tonic. The 22nd Street Jazz Café is an intimate setting for jazz and blues. You might catch former Count Basie Orchestra bassist Cleve Eaton sitting in with the sweet, mind-numbing trumpet and silky voice of Robert Moore and his Wildcats.  More jazz can be found in the clubs along Second Avenue North at the French Quarters or Tee’s Place.

Cruising east on 7th Avenue we eventually find ourselves face to face with a new Birmingham phenomenon: the martini bar. At the Canteen, the price is an odd $6.42. Go figure. The Canteen offers more than 20 stylishly-enhanced martinis poured into tinkling glasses with long, slender stems. The interior décor is that of a plush living room: large, comfortable sofas illuminated by indirect lighting. A movie screen runs old films while the walls are plastered with black and white glossies of everyone from Frank Sinatra to Bette Davis. The fancy martinis reflect film star fixations, with one even dubbed The King Kong. — Ed Reynolds.

Originally published in Birmingham Magazine June 1997