Downtown Shelby, NC. January 28, 2012. Photo by Helen Woolard.

Saturday I drove 180 miles west to Shelby, North Carolina to conduct an interview for a project that will reveal itself soon (knock on wood).  Photographer Helen Woolard went with me.  For countless many, Shelby will always be known as the hometown of North Carolina State University basketball icon David Thompson.  DT and the University of North Carolina’s Phil Ford were the two best players to ever play in the Atlantic Coast Conference (the rest are chumps).  It occurred to me to try to find DT’s childhood home.  While wandering around downtown as Helen was shooting photographs, I sent a note to a listserv of college-basketball-oriented folks, asking if anyone had DT’s childhood address.  Nobody did.  Next time I’ll do more preparation.  An old friend on the listserv ran into DT at the State-UVA game in Raleigh later that night and mentioned to him that I had inquired about his home address earlier in the day.  It sounded like he was amused.

Phil Ford, by the way, was from Rocky Mount, the same hometown as Buck Leonard, Thelonious Monk (see, JLP is one degree away from anything), and Allan Gurganus.  I hope these small towns are still producing people like this.

Downtown Shelby was marked by more evergreen ‘live oak’ trees than I think I’ve ever seen in a downtown like that.  I find these towns to be fascinating, maybe because I grew up in a similar one.  In some ways these towns are all the same (the confederate soldier statue in front of the courthouse), but they are all different.

-Sam Stephenson

p.s. (I recently found UNC coach Dean Smith’s childhood home in Emporia, KS).

Hubert Stephens at Wichita High School North, 1936. Photo by W. Eugene Smith

Stories about Smith survive from Al’s mother, who remembers Smith cutting and hollowing the middle of a book in order to hide a camera inside it and carry it around the school.

East High vs. North High, 1936, Photo by W. Eugene Smith

Al notes that in scanning the local newspapers on microfilm from Smith’s teenage years, the photographers weren’t always given a by-line, but Smith seemed to always have one.  An early sign of his doggedness perhaps?

Many thanks to Al for these materials.

-S.S.

~44 pounds.

“Someday I think you should come down and weigh my scrapbook.” -W. Eugene Smith

We have now heard all of the digitized audio material made from the tapes found in W. Eugene Smith’s collection. These notebooks hold the paper version of my notes as well as the contributions of fellow listeners Hank Stephenson, Will Harris, Beth Turner, Lauren Brenner, and Margaret Hennessey. Special thanks to these individuals for sharing in the discovery of Smith’s audio. And to Sam Stephenson, for creating the Jazz Loft Project and allowing me to hear this collection, in addition to sharing in the discovery of the wonders found in and beyond Smith’s recordings.  We are grateful for the support of our friends at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona Libraries as well as our friends here in Durham at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.

This work would not have been possible without the generous support of the Reva and David Logan Foundation. Likewise, we are deeply grateful to the Heirs of W. Eugene Smith.

We are also thankful for crucial funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (The Grammy Foundation), the Duke University Office of the Provost, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Ken and Amelia Jacob, and Kimpton Hotels.

Many people have contributed to this listening and cataloging work. In thinking of people to thank, the list begins to grow towards the size of the list of names of people who passed through the loft at 821 Sixth Avenue. And there is a good deal of overlap in these two lists. We are very fortunate and most thankful to have met and heard the stories of many who lived in, worked in, and visited this loft building.  And we are fortunate to collaborate with a wonderful community of partners, archivists, audio  engineers, colleagues, advisors, work study students, interns, friends, and fellow Rome builders. Thank you!

At this juncture, we are working with our partner institutions on the next steps in the prospect of archiving this enormous collection so  that it may be made available to the public in the future.

-Dan Partridge

Photo by Harlan Campbell.

Last month I gave a talk at Duke University Medical Center.  You can listen to the podcast on the Center for Documentary Studies website.  Once my Eugene Smith days are over, among the projects I’m considering is a vast oral history project on primary caregivers – doctors, nurses, midwives from all walks of life, all over the map – over the age of seventy-five.

-S.S.

A Public Space offices, Dean St., Brooklyn. Chris McElroen at the table. August 17, 2011. Photo by Sam

There’s talk of having the owner of the green truck drive it over to the Invisible Dog for the Chaos Manor performances on September 16-17.

The workshops this week have been different from the roundtable discussions of before.  This time, detailed decisions are being made on particulars:  AV needs (enormous), live music (from in to out), script (22 windows and three stories to map digitally, inside and out, plus characters), logistics (too many to name), etc.  All for a 35 minute experiment that may or may not ever happen a third time.  The big team will convene again September 6.

We got word today that pianist and loft alum Dorrie Woodson will be attending those performances with her son.  We like that.

-S.S.

Looking south from the north bank of the Pamlico River, just west of Bath, NC. July 30, 2011.

Snapshot I took during Durham Bulls game rain delay, end of July 2011.

Ken Burns aside, there are a lot of overlaps between the two great American inventions.  During JLP oral history interviews, the topic of baseball often came up.  According to Carole Thomas, Gene Smith put a red filter on his TV screen so he could watch baseball in his darkroom.  Some musicians were once outstanding prospects (Lou Donaldson, played 3rd base in a Negro semi-pro league as a teenager) and others were passionate fans (Dave Frishberg comes to mind – check out his great Van Lingle Mungo).  In the JLP book I included a transcript of the broadcast of the 1960 World Series (Pirates over Yankees) found on Smith’s tapes.

A few baseball recommendations:

Bullpen Gospels, by Dirk Hayhurst. A behind the scenes look at minor league baseball written by a current (injured) player for the AAA Durham Bulls.

Sixty Feet Six Inches, by Bob Gibson and Reggie Jackson.  The two immortal ballplayers engage in a book length conversation about the art and science and culture of the game.  The marketing for the book doesn’t reveal this very clearly, but there is a lot of important insight into racial complexities these men experienced in baseball.  In that way it reminds me a little bit of drummer Art Taylor’s invaluable book of interviews with fellow musicians, Notes and Tones.

Durham Bulls game coverage for The Independent, by Adam Sobsey.  Sobsey covers the AAA Bulls in a manner that I find unique in baseball game coverage on any level.  A few nights ago he wrote what must be 5000 words on a single game.  Before the internet, there wasn’t an outlet for Sobsey’s kind of serial work.  This morning a literary friend read a few of Sobsey’s pieces and observed, “He’s an existential sportswriter.”  That’s a pretty good observation that may reflect Sobsey’s background in theater production and playwriting.  You don’t have to be a fan of the Bulls or their parent club, the Tampa Bay Rays, to enjoy his work.

-Sam Stephenson

The creators and builders of this website, The Splinter Group of Carrboro, N.C., recently won a prestigious National Addy award, the ad industry’s version of an Academy Award.  Many kudos to Splinter founders Steve Balcom and Lane Wurster and their staff.

-S.S.