“What was once a tiny town of considerable characters is now six times its size and populated by appalling people,” — Harper Lee, describing her hometown of Monroeville in a letter to her friend and former classmate Charles Carruth.
I won’t comment any further, but I will say, living in the fastest growing city in the state and one of the fastest growing counties in the country, many of us can feel her frustrations.
And now . . . look at my fun dates for viewing Gone With the Wind on the big screen. None other than my friends Tod Johnson and Joyce Vath. Tod won five academy awards and Joyce worked on Broadway for many years and studied with Lucille Ball. They were the perfect companions for an evening at the movies. They worked with and knew many of the actors and even gave me snippets of information like, “The chairs used in the dining room scene where Rhett told Scarlett he was going to crack her head like a walnut are now in a funeral parlor in Hollywood.”
Seeing GWTW on the big screen was amazing. There were parts that had previously been cut or I had never noticed. It was beautiful. To see a list of other classic films AMC theaters will be showing in the upcoming weeks, click here: AMC CLASSIC FILM SERIES
Here are Tod and Joyce again manning the welcome table and greeting John Woods at the Fairhope Public Library’s Chocolate and Champagne event a few weeks ago. It’s always a fun night of seeing good people and bidding on beautiful items in the silent auction. It all benefits our beautiful library. We are a reading and writing town, and actually, Joyce has a wonderful new book out, “Turn Back for Tomorrow.”
Fairhope is busy hosting a movie crew while they film, “The Friend” a story based on the life of my friend (she was everyone’s friend because we all felt so loved by her), Nicole Teague. I wrote about her several times a few years ago. You can read one of the stories here. But this party was also focused on films — my friend’s annual Academy Awards party. Dee and David are super film buffs and can throw a party like no one else. It’s always lots of fun and everyone competes to see who can pick the most winners.
And a little more writing arts for you at the recent Fairhope Arts and Crafts Festival where Karyn and I signed our books at the most wonderful independent bookstore in America – Page and Palette! It was freezing cold that morning but we had the best time meeting readers and talking about the world of writing, but then again, Karyn and I could have fun sitting in a cardboard box.
Now you have an update on a few of the arts/crafts/writing/film/party activities going on in our growing, bulging, ballooning, popping city. More to come . . . arts as well as people.