The annual James Beard Award nominations are out and there are a good number of Decatur-related folks/venues on the semi-finalist list.

• The Kimball House was nominated for “Outstanding Bar Program”
• Chai Pani’s Meherwan Irani (Decatur & Asheville) was nominated for “Best Chef in the Southeast”
• Cakes & Ale’s Billy Allin was again nominated for “Best Chef in the Southeast”
• Mike Klank and Eddie Hernandez of Taqueria del Sol (Decatur and elsewhere) again were nominated for “Best Restauranteur”
• Ford Fry (Decatur and Atlanta) of #246 was nominated for “Best Restauranteur”

Eater has a full list of Atlanta restaurants/chefs/restauranteurs who made the list.

From DPD…

Please cancel the lookout for the white Chevrolet Tahoe displaying GA tag PDI4825. The vehicle has been located.  Thank you to everyone who provided information about seeing the vehicle in their neighborhoods.

Lots of Atlanta cities on Google’s list of cities being considered for Google Fiber, including Decatur. Here’s Decatur’s announcement….

DECATUR, Ga. — Today, Mayor Jim Baskett announced that Decatur is on a short list of cities working with Google to explore the possibility of bringing the ultra high speed Google Fiber broadband network to the city.

Improving broadband speed and choice for our residents has been a priority for Decatur for years, including applying for Google Fiber in 2010. Today’s average American broadband speed is 9.8 Megabits per second. In contrast, Google Fiber could bring Decatur residents access to “Gigabit” Internet connections up to 1,000 Megabits per second—or up to 100 times faster than basic broadband.

“The City of Decatur is proud to be on Google’s short list,” said Mayor Baskett. “Decatur is known for being forward thinking in our commitment to sustainable, long-term planning. We now have the opportunity to demonstrate that we are fiber ready and future ready. Our entire community of homes, schools and places of worship would benefit from Google Fiber’s unbelievably fast internet speeds, in ways we can’t even imagine. We look forward to Google’s building the infrastructure for this technological investment in our community.”

“Communities with abundant high-speed Internet grow stronger because there’s greater potential to create jobs, drive economic growth, and help students and families get access to essential resources” said Kevin Lo, General Manager for Google Fiber. “The Decatur City Commission is stepping up to see what they can do to make their city ready for the fiber-optic networks that are the future. We look forward to working with the City of Decatur in the coming months to see if we can build the next chapter of the Internet together, on gigabit speeds.”

There is huge consumer demand for faster Internet speeds, because no one likes to wait on the web. Unfortunately, many of the things people love to do online (like gaming, watching movies, video chatting) require a lot of bandwidth, which means that, using today’s connections, consumers often get stuck waiting for pages to load or for videos to buffer. Statistics show that people walk away from slow-loading sites. And gig networks aren’t just about meeting today’s speed needs. The next 100x leap in broadband speeds — to gigabit Internet — will lead to innovation that’s unimaginable today, just as the shift from dial-up to broadband did.

Starting this week, Google will work closely with city leaders and staff on a joint planning process to explore what it would take to build a brand new fiber-optic network capable of delivering these gigabit speeds throughout the city of Decatur. Google will begin compiling a detailed study of local factors that might affect construction plans. Simultaneously, city officials will begin meetings with Google to discuss what it would take to plan and prepare the city for a fiber project of this scale.
Google will provide an update on which cities will get Google Fiber by the end of this year. Google Fiber is an Internet and TV service that provides Internet connectivity that is up to 100x faster than the basic broadband, along with hundreds of HD TV channels. Google Fiber is currently available in Kansas City, Kan., Kansas City, Mo. and Provo, Utah and will be available in Austin, Texas later this year. For more information about this announcement, visit the Google Fiber blog.

The memoir is a form of autobiography that focuses on selected stories from an author’s life. After reading Joan Didion’s excellent The Year of Magical Thinking in 2005, I became kind of hooked. But in a weird way. Reading these feels incredibly voyeristic. I’m a relatively private person – I don’t even use my last name on these posts — while the best memoirs are brutally honest. I recently finished Gary Shteyngart’s Little Failure, which is primarily based on the time between his birth in Leningrad in 1972 and the start of high school in New York (where he moved at the age of seven), while continuing anticdotally to the present. Oddly, the best comparison I can think of is Roger Ebert’s Life Itself. (A documentary using the same title comes out this year.) Both deal in unabating detail with alcohol, writing, and a Freudianesque relationship with a parent.

Anyone have any other good memoir recommendations?

This Week

Sarah Churchwell, author of Careless People, Wednesday, February 19th at 7:15pm, Decatur Library, sponsored by Georgia Center for the Book, free.

Civil Wary 150 Program: An Evening with James McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom, Wednesday, February 19th at 8pm, Atlanta History Center, SOLD OUT.

Cathy Marie Buchanan, author of The Painted Girls, Thursday, February 20th at 5:30pm, H. Harper Station, 904 Memorial Drive, sponsored by A Cappella Books, free.

Aram Goudsouzian, author of Down to the Crossroads: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Meredith March Against Fear, Jimmy Carter Library, sponsored by Georgia Center for the Book, free.

B.J. Novak, author of One More Thing, Friday, February 21st at 7pm, Atlanta History Center, $5 for members, $10 for nonmembers.

Pulitzer-prize winning poet Paul Muldoon, Saturday, February 22nd at 4pm, Glenn Auditorium on the Emory University campus, free but this event is ticketed; tickets can be obtained at the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts box office, be reserved online (tickets.arts.emory.edu) and by phone (404-727-5050) with a $4 per order service fee, and a limited number of tickets are available at A Cappella Books, Charis Books & More, Eagle Eye Book Shop and Little Shop of Stories. Tickets (capped at two per person) must be picked up in person at these locations.

Local favorite Laurel Snyder, author of Seven Stories Up, Saturday, February 22nd at 7pm, Little Shop of Stories, free.

Lovestruck Tour with Megan Shepherd (author of The Dark Curiosity), Megan Miranda (Vengeance), Kasie West (Split Second), and Robin Constantine (The Promise of Amazing), Monday, Februrary 24th at 7pm, Little Shop of Stories, free.

Maurice Daniels, author of Saving the Soul of Georgia: Donald L. Hollowell and the Struggle for Civil Rights, Monday, February 24th at 7:15pm, Decatur Library, sponsored by Georgia Center for the Book, free.

Chadwick writes in…

I am pleased to announce that Mayor Baskett has agreed to accept on behalf of the City of Decatur a 9.5” Caliper Hightower Willow Oak donated by Heirloom Tree and Garden, a participant and sponsor of the Decatur Arbor Day Festival. This will probably be the largest tree ever planted within the city, and is a fitting way to commemorate the Arbor Day declaration by the City Commission, the 1st Annual Decatur Arbor Day Festival, and the mayors personal commitment to preserving the city’s tree canopy. The tree will be delivered to the grass lot next to The Marlay tomorrow as it awaits it’s permanent home – possibly in the Decatur Cemetery. Michael and his team at Heirloom are highly talented in large tree rescue and planting: here they are shown moving a large caliper Red Oak. The combination of being masters in plant science and having the largest equipment in the industry allows them to do things with trees that most think is impossible.