Pageland offers a spitting good time

            What makes a Southern town of 3,000 grow to 25,000 people without it being football season?

            In Pageland, South Carolina, it’s the lure of the sweet sweet watermelon.

            Known as the Watermelon Capital of the World — yes we said world — Pageland offers a Watermelon Festival every July to celebrate the magic fruit. This year’s fun will be Friday and Saturday, July 18-19, and include contests for seed spitting, watermelon eating (where you have 90 seconds to eat a watermelon with your hands behind your back) and the best watermelon outfit. In addition, there’s arts and crafts, live music, amusement rides, beauty pageant, Melon Mile 5K, children’s activities, parade, car show and rodeo, among much more.

            Best of all it’s free!

            This fun not-for-profit festival has been happening in Pageland since 1951! That’s a lot of seeds to spit.

            Pageland is located about an hour from downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, and 90 minutes from Columbia, South Carolina.

            Alcohol laws are lifted during the festival to allow patrons to bring their beverage of choice to the nightly concerts, but no beverages are served.
            For information on the Pageland Watermelon Festival, visit http://pagelandwatermelonfestival.com/.

Raining art in Houston

            Who says you can’t touch art?

            There’s an exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston that encourages visitors to touch, photograph and immerse themselves within — in a very big way. It’s kinetic artist Jesús Rafael Soto’s final piece before his died, one of the few Soto created for indoor use and the only one designed as permanent.

            Titled the Houston Penetrable, the exhibit consists of 24,000 PVC (polyvinyl chloride) tubes individually hand-painted and tied. These tubes hang down 28 feet from the ceiling to the floor in the Museum’s Cullinan Hall, located in the city’s Museum District.

            From a distance, visitors can see the design that exists within the thousands of tubes, a soft yellow oval. Up close and inside the exhibit, the tubes feel like rain falling as visitors walk through.

            On any day, you’ll find people enjoying Soto’s unique exhibit, sometimes lying on the floor and looking up, many times capturing selfies and adding the exhibit hashtag (#SotoSummer) as they post to social media. (If you show your #SotoSummer photo at Bosta Wine & Coffee, 1801 Binz in the Museum District, you will receive $1 off the exclusive #SotoSummer passion fruit and white chocolate ice cream created by Cloud 10 Creamery.)

            The Penetrable was commissioned in 2004 specifically for the Houston museum and took almost a decade to come to fruition with architect Paolo Carrozzino and producer Walter Pellevoisin working in tandem with Atelier Soto, Paris. The piece took three months to install. In addition to the Penetrable, there are eight pieces on display from Soto’s career, including his Plexiglas boxes and selections from his Agujas (Needles), Ambivalencias (Ambivalences) and Vibraciones (Vibrations) series.

            Don’t miss this. The exhibit ends Sept. 1, 2014.
            Want to see a video of the exhibit? Click here.

Ho-Hos are not something created by Hostess

            People know Rose O’Neill for her famous Kewpie Dolls, created at the beginning of the Twentieth Century and more popular at the time than Mickey Mouse.

            The multi-talented O’Neill was so much more — a novelist, regular illustrator with magazines such as Ladies Home Journal and Good Housekeeping, suffragette and America’s first female cartoonist. Her Kewpie Dolls began as illustrations in periodicals, then were established as dolls when the public demanded them.

            After all that success O’Neill created another figure, that of the Ho-Ho, something akin to a laughing Buddha. Like her Kewpie dolls, they came in different shades of skin, much like humans. She was a woman ahead of her time, in that regard, creating dolls for both white and African American children. 

            The Ho-Hos didn’t make it with the public, however, and O’Neill abandoned the idea.
            You can see examples of these cute, laughing figures at Bonniebrook, O’Neill’s reconstructed home built on the original foundation outside of Brandon; the house burned in 1947. The Bonniebrook Historical Society offers tours of the home with some of O’Neill’s furnishings, plus a museum showcasing the life of this amazing but little-known artist, writer and activist. And her Ho-Hos.

           Rose died pennyless in 1944 at the age of 69, but according to the Historical Society, "she had made nearly 5,500 drawings, innumerable paintings both in oil and watercolor; she was a sculptor, suffragist, inventor, business woman, philosopher, poet, novelist, children’s book author, and even a musician. 

           As the web site so proudly proclaims, "There is no mistaking that she lived an extraordinarily rich and productive life."

Massive Star-Spangled Banner a highlight of the Smithsonian — and that's not weird

Photo courtesy Smithsonian

The last time we visited the Smithsonian’s National Museum ofAmerican History was back in 2009, and we enjoyed Julia Child’s entire kitchen, as in her entire kitchen, on display as part of the exhibition Bon Appétit! Julia Child’sKitchen at the Smithsonian. Child donated her 14-foot by 20-foot kitchen from her Cambridge, Mass., home in 2001 when she moved to California. Smithsonian curators and historians carefully disassembled the kitchen, packed up the pieces and reassembled them expertly within the Washington, D.C., museum, down to the exact placing of Child’s refrigerator magnets.

Photo courtesy Smithsonian

The National Museum of American History had just reopened after a two-year renovation in which a new grand staircase and skylight was added to the museum’s core and the Star-Spangled Banner, the flag that inspired the National Anthem, received a more appropriate environmentally-sensitive gallery with an expanded exhibit.The 200-year-old Star-Spangled Banner flag stretches 30 feet by 34 feet but was originally 42 feet long; over the years the owner cut swatches from the giant flag to give to people as souvenirs.

On this July Fourth weekend we encourage you dear readers to visit Washington, D.C., and take in this magnificent flag that inspired our national anthem, a massive undertaking back in the day and also impressive to be so faithfully restored.

A docent explains size of Star Spangled Banner

While you're there, check out the weird items the museum has collected over the years, ranging from pop culture to a mailbox collected from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. One of the museum’s goals is to collect living history as well as objects from the distant past. Some of the articles on display include Jerry Seinfeld’s “puffy shirt,” Kermit the Frog, Cheech and Chong’s Los Chochinos record album (for you Baby Boomers, that’s the one with the pot in the side of the car), Minnie Pearl’s hat and a section of the Greensboro, N.C., lunch counter that inspired sit-ins during the Civil Rights Movement. A current addition to the collection was the costumes from the X-Men series. 

Photo courtesy Smithsonian

The most popular exhibits in the National Museum of American History, we were told, are the Star-Spangled Banner flag, the Ruby Slippers from The Wizard of Oz and the First Lady gowns. 

Did you know?

There are 200 curators working at the National Museum of American History, all examining different subjects of the nation’s history.

 Julia Child’s maple kitchen countertops are a few inches higher than standard counters to suit her 6-foot, 2-inch height. 

 President Lyndon Johnson often walked to the National Museum of American History from the White House to enjoy the museum and to greet people.

            The Museum owns three million objects.

            Happy Fourth of July everyone!

Mad Potter of Biloxi and Frank Gehry 'Pods'

             Pods have landed on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and although they may resemble something from outer space, these buildings are the work of prize-winning architect Frank Gehry, known for the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, among so many other beautiful creations.

            Gehry designed the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art in Biloxi, which celebrates the ceramic works of George Ohr, known as the “Mad Potter of Biloxi.” Ohr wasn’t as crazy as he was an excellent marketer; his reputation helped sell his innovative and experimental ceramics, according to museum curator Barbara Johnson Ross. In addition to Ohr’s unique works are buildings hosting visiting artists; the City of Biloxi Center for Ceramics, which offers art classes; the Mississippi Sound Welcome Center; the Pleasant Reed Interpretive Center in a reconstruction of a 19th century home (the original was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina) and the Creel House Neighborhood Center.

            But the complex of buildings, including the “Pods,” is an exhibit on to itself. Gehry believed the Ohr Museum should conform to its environment, merging with the century old live oaks. He called the museum complex, “Dancing with the Trees.” The Mississippi Sound Welcome Center, for instance, includes an overlook nestled within the oaks but with a stunning view of the Gulf of Mexico.
            What grabs visitors’ attention the most, however, is the Knight Gallery, otherwise known as the “Pods.” They are still under construction (and renovation due to Katrina) but one will open this July with a permanent exhibit of Ohr’s work.

Husbands only!

            We spotted this doghouse on the way to a plate lunch at Johnson’s Boucaniere in downtown Lafayette, Louisiana. It sports a sign, "Private Property, no trespassing!"
             Got us wondering who would want — or be brave enough — to trespass on a doghouse. Not to mention be small enough to fit inside! The rooftop hits an average person about shoulder high. Maybe there’s a problem with transient dogs in the downtown Lafayette area who can read?

            But in case you’re wondering what lunch we enjoyed, since Lafayette is one of the nation’s top foodie towns, Johnson’s Boucaniere’s cuisine consists of delicious meats they smoke out back. They are famous for their boudin (pronounced boo-dan), including a boudin sandwich between locally produced Evangeline Bread that’s to die for. We enjoyed the smoked meat salad — trying to be healthy — that featured smoked pulled pork atop a bed of lettuce, sweet cherry tomatoes, cheese, chopped onions and a special sauce that tied things together beautifully.

             So maybe the dogs in the neighborhood come for the meats, and become so full of goodness pass out in the doghouse.
     Or maybe it’s a sign to neighborhood wives that this doghouse is reserved for one particular husband.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

            Russian-born entertainer Yakov Smirnoff has been making funny as well as artwork for the past few decades plus he owns a theater in Branson where he make appearances when he's not on the road. We were there this past week listening to the Rankin Brothers perform, two incredibly talented musicians — and brothers — who can mimic numerous performers from the 1950s on. Their parents were seated next to us and so excited that we came to hear their boys play. 

            But back to the weird part.

            Upon visiting the Yakov ladies room, the first thing we spotted was a plaque upside the toilet dispenser that proclaimed “For Your Royal Hiney.” That was funny enough, but behind the throne was a curtain with a knob to the right. When you pull back the curtain, there’s a smiling Yakov watching you with the following announcement: “Take the curtain off the hook. The curtain falls and I won’t look.”

             We wondered if we were the only ones graced with his face, since no one else seemed to be giggling in the stalls. When we emerged from our business, however, it was clear all the ladies stalls had curtains and knobs waiting for them. So Yakov, your job hit its mark with us, if no one else noticed.