THE MOTORHOME THAT COULDN’T
WHEN I WAS A KID, MY FAMILY TOOK ambitious vacations. Not the kind that utilized plane tickets or Eurail Passes. More like tents and porta-potties. A full week of dry camping at a remote cove on the Colorado River was how we rolled. Showers consisted of a swim in the river, bathroom privacy came from […]
AREA ARTS GROUPS STRIVING TO FILL THE GAPS
IF ANXIETY IS THE ESSENTIAL CONDITION of intellectual and artistic creation, we’ve had plenty of motivation. Nothing focuses awareness and artistic discipline like a crisis. And isolation, for all its impediments, can be a boon to creativity. At least that was the hope as we entered, and are beginning to emerge from, a time of […]
QUIETING CHAOS WITH THE POETRY SOCIETY
THE MAGIC ACT OF ART IS ITS capacity to achieve stillness in the midst of chaos. An appreciation of poetry likewise can calm the frenzy, or at least quiet it a little. Which is why, amid the current uncertainties, and on the occasion of its 100th anniversary, the Poetry Society of South Carolina (PSSC) is […]
SAY IT WITH A SABAL
NO TREE EVOKES LOWCOUNTRY AMBIENCE like a sabal palmetto. We cherish this native palm because its logs kept our ancestors safe from flying cannonballs, and we appreciate the way it stands up to hurricanes while other trees snap like matchsticks. Sabal palm’s botanical oddities make it remarkably strong and resilient. It shrugs off drought and […]
A MASTER AT WORK IN WALLA WALLA
DOUG FROST IS ONE OF ONLY four individuals to attain both the Master of Wine and Master Sommelier titles. He has pinnacled the wine world’s equivalent of Everest (twice) to reach the ultimate peaks of industry knowledge and tasting stamina. As the new owner of Echolands Winery in the Walla Walla region of Washington state, […]
EMBRACING TECHNOLOGY
IT’S EARLY THURSDAY MORNING, and Jordan Lash and I have planned to have a conversation about his namesake menswear store on King Street. We were going to talk about the different roles that he and his brother, Daniel, have in the business, but we don’t. We talk about the coronavirus because that’s all anyone can think […]
BRINGING STORIES TO LIFE
IN THE MID-1800S, Queen Victoria, one of the most fashionable figures in history, began wearing small charms on a bracelet. Each charm was a token of affection or an icon representing members of her family. Soon every woman wanted one. Charm bracelets remained popular throughout the Victorian era into the 1900s. It was common for […]
THE DOG PEOPLE CLUB
IF YOU HAVE EVER FOUND YOURSELF in the unenviable position of telling the determined, relentless 5-year-old girl standing before you with feet planted in fighting stance, arms defiantly crossed on her chest, and a disdainful frown marring her cherubic face that you have no intention of getting her a dog, then you know you are […]
CHARLESTON AS A LIVING MUSEUM
IF BOOKS ARE HUMANITY IN PRINT, museums are humanity on display. Here reside beauty, curiosity, ingenuity, education, inspiration, hard realities, comforting truths, entertainment, a sense of wonder and community. Museums, together with travel, are where we go to expand our view of the world and to see ourselves with heightened clarity. As an avid traveler, […]
THE CONNOISSEUR AS SHEPHERD: NIGEL REDDEN AND SPOLETO
NIGEL REDDEN’S FIRST acquaintance with the Spoleto Festival was as a 19-year-old student volunteer in Italy in 1969, seven years before Charleston’s Spoleto Festival USA would realize founder Gian Carlo Menotti’s dream of a Festival of Two Worlds. Redden, born in Cyprus to an American diplomat father and an Australian mother, worked with Italy’s Spoleto Festival […]
