Curt Holeman has a great article in this week’s Creative Loafing, which uses the 70+ poets attending the upcoming Decatur Book Festival to launch into a broader discussion about the future of poetry.  It’s really quite great.

And while we’re on the topic of the book festival…

Decatur certainly has a lot of “festivals” – excluding all the ones I’ve made up – but the book festival is a real anomaly in many ways.  How does a news outlet cover such a broad and involved event?  I’m not sure any org, including the title sponsor, has figured this out yet.  How can anyone ultimately get a comprehensive picture of hundreds of authors strewn across the city without being in a dozen places at once?  You’d need an army of reporters, writers, observers, poets, pundits, snark-masters etc!

“Etc!” I say!

Bottom line?  I think DM is built for this sorta thing, so come Labor Day we’re going to attempt to “blow it out” for the D’BOOKF.

Stay tuned for details.  I’m gonna need some help.

Scott D sends in Mr. Mallas’ obiturary and adds…

“Anyone that was in Decatur during the 70′s – 90′s went to the Square Table….the owner Speros Millas passed away the other day…..the Square Table was located next to Leon’s in the Eurasia site and was a fixture in Decatur….he was a great community businessman and friend to all patrons…”

Read the full obituary after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Amongst all the tweets and updates, blogs and comments, some might not even notice (or care) about the news that up to 1,000 post offices might soon close in the near future.  An article in this morning’s L.A. Times details the cuts being considered and reports the potential fallout for cities and neighborhoods nationwide.

What’s the great loss?

For hundreds of communities, it’s one more quiet step toward virtual extinction.  Many of these small towns lost their shops and grocery stores to the outer limits of strip nearly two generations ago.  Town greens were converted into a hopeful sea of asphalt that now sit empty.

These gathering places dried up long ago, but the U.S. Post Office remained intact thanks in no small part to the support of the American tax-payer.  But now, not even a horrifying bi-yearly 2 cent increase in stamp prices can save this federal department from severe cost-cutting.

And while we all have our stories that exemplify how the post office is a model of inefficiency, these smaller branches served another purpose. It’s where members of a community could still run into their neighbors and share a few kind words. But no amount of nostalgia can compete with the very real fact that newer branches are where the volume is.  So while the fed still maintains in the article that no final decisions on closings have been made, most of these neighborhood post offices and their customers can already read the writing on the wall.

We sacrificed these places along time ago, but they’ve hung around like a friendly reminder – for those who could remember – of a time gone by.  But now it looks like the jig is up.

Rest in peace small town post offices. May you all one day become candy stores.

Over on her blog, city commission candidate Patti Garrett reports that HGTV’s new show “Curb Appeal: The Block” is filming an episode at the corner of Evans Drive and Greenwood Avenue today.

Like the original Curb Appeal, which rips out old porches and plants smatterings of impatiens to improve a home’s outward appearance, “The Block” helps cities and neighborhoods clean up their streetscapes.

In this case, HGTV is filming our Public Works Department in action, cleaning up undergrowth and repairing sidewalks in this one small section of Oakhurst.

Jump over to Patti’s blog for a more detailed report and a few pics of the action.

The 4,000 Decatur Beer Festival tickets are now on sale.  They are $35 a piece.  It will sell out, so unless you want to pay an arm and a leg for them on Craigslist, purchase them HERE right now.

‘Nuff said.

UPDATE:  Carl reminds us (via Twitter) that we can also purchase Beer Festival tickets at Decatur CD with a smaller fee attached!