Picture of the week, 2/8/10-2/12/10

Crime Expo 2010

All the latest in crime fighting technology and fish taxidermy

Oh dearest reader, we have let you down. We, like Icarus, aimed too high. We wanted so dearly in the molecules of our cardiac fiber to respond to the alluring flyer we received promoting a “crime expo” at the Mann Museum here in town.

A crime expo? And what is the Mann Museum? Would there be rows of vendors selling burglar bars and pepper sprays and mace foam? Would there be self-defense experts teaching ninja moves to soccer moms worried about ruffians? And would there be wildlife learning at the Mann Wildlife Learning Museum?

After all, the electronic handbill carried with it a most nefarious image of a highly-dangerous criminal clutching a ring of keys and wearing a cartoonish “robber” mask. Where did he get those keys? If he is merely a janitor or custodian, why is he wearing a backwards baseball cap and that suspicious Lone Ranger mask? FEAR!!!!

So we put on our reporter hats and wigs and we Googled this “Mann Wildlife Learning Museum.” Turns out, it’s part of the city zoo complex. So we drove and we drove. With a 6 p.m. start time, we were in a mad post-work scramble. Must eat food! Must find hidden museum! Must be there before judo lessons and taser demonstrations!

We arrive ready to take notes. When people think of Montgomery, they often bring up crime. The image is that our urban area is full of crooks, thugs, hoodlums, and no-goodniks. Douse that gumbo with a healthy degree of classic new and old Southern Racism, along with very real poverty and urban decay, and you’ve got a lot of people talking about crime all the time. This talk fuels white flight and is the enemy of those looking to redevelop downtown. The fear monster is alive and well among folks of all races and walks of life. Oh, and there’s actual crime too.

So we were ready to be critical and yet honest in our time-tested Lost in Montgomery way. If we saw a creepy police state thing, we’d call it. If we saw a good deal on lethal and/or non-lethal weapons, we’d report those deals. (Note: The hot pink pepper spray was not a good deal). If the whole thing came off as a cheesy PR stunt for law enforcement, we planned on holding up the light of scrutiny to the whole scene.

So we got there at 6:05 or so. One way in, one way out. Single door. Sign in when you get there. And you walk in at the “front” of the room, meaning all of the chairs are facing you as you walk in. There are about 50 people there, maybe 60. We pass the empty podium and walk to the back. There in the back, amid a bunch of weird empty aquariums are the crime expo “exhibits.” Some of the aquariums are empty. Some are terrariums that have living creatures in them. They look to be in bad shape. Many have lots of moss growing on their foggy glass making whatever is inside super difficult to see. Some are labeled (newts, other swampy critters). Others are unlabeled. And an entire display case is empty as if undergoing renovations or something. It appears it once had poison dart frogs. The entire “museum” looked underfunded and sketchy. But maybe that’s because it was cleared out for this meeting. Clearly we’ll go back for another trip during normal business hours, in hopes that we will see more than stuffed turkeys lining a hallway.

In the far back are walls covered with stuffed fish: Big bass, marlins, etc. There are four tables there. The first is from ADT, the home alarm company. They have the usual sales pitch handouts about crooks and the need for alarms. Another table is from MADD. They are against drunk driving. As usual. Another table is from a gun dealer. They have a few tasers on display and a few pistols. Nothing remarkable. And the final table is from Christ for Crime Victims. Evidently, this is a Jesus-based charity that involves bringing new doors and windows and other anti-crime fortifications to folks who have been victimized by crime. And then (I guess) they tell you about the Lord or something. Unclear. And that’s it for exhibits. Takes us about 10 minutes to make “the rounds” to all four tables. The meeting still has not started.

We find seats. The crowd is multi-racial. Many of the black folks there are wearing the red shirts of the “Enough is Enough” campaign that is pretty big here in Montgomery. It’s an anti-violence, anti-gang campaign run by Rev. Ed Nettles of the Freewill Missionary Baptist Church. Rev. Nettles himself was present, as were a ton of police officers and a bunch of old people. We were the youngest people there by a good margin.

So we sit. And sit. And it’s now 6:30. And we have to be somewhere at 8. We thought we could stay from 6 until 7:45 or so and hit the road. We thought we’d see some cool exhibits. Wrong. When it’s 6:30 and nothing has started yet and they’re telling people to go enter a raffle to win some ADT security package, we get worried. The doors we entered are soon going to close. Then people (possibly people in police uniforms) will stand in front of those doors and start talking. And we won’t be able to leave.

So, dear reader, we failed you. We did not stay for the informative law enforcement programming. We did not learn about crime in our beloved community and what the police want us to do about it. We did not get to ask our burning questions about the “Volunteer Police” who hilariously cruise our neighborhood. We have some brochures about what to do in case we see “someone suspicious.” And the back of the “Enough of Enough” shirts have the word “VIOLENCE” in a circle with a big slash through it … and under it says: “Try Jesus!”

So if that helps you, we are grateful. But we carry a heavy sense of guilt at our journalistic failings. You, the crime wary citizens of this body politic, deserve only the finest information about the doings of our order-preserving guardians.

Sa Za – Serious Italian Food

Until relatively recently, the downtown lunch meant gritting your teeth and going to Flames or Cuco’s Express (which has recently been rehabilitated in our eyes on account of their willingness to sub in a great guacamole taco in the $5.49 taco/enchilada lunch plate). Sure, there are a few other options (the Farmers Market on McDonough is pretty decent some days and Daisy’s isn’t too far away). But mostly, downtown is a tough place to find food worth buying, especially if you aren’t thinking steam table veggies in the meat-and-three format.

Into that picture waltzes (or should we say, tarantellas) the hot new place that everyone is talking about: Sa Za. The place is always crowded. Everyone asks if you have eaten there yet. The chef is on the cover of  the Jan-Feb 2010 issue of Montgomery RSVP magazine (expect a free magazine review soon). So hip!

And about that chef: Joe Dimaggio, Jr. People love talking about that guy. He wears a Yankees hat. He always has on a t-shirt that reveals his arm tats. On the back of the t-shirts worn by the staff of the restaurant, most people have ones that say “server” or “staff,” but his says “sinner.” Edgy! Is he really the son of the legendary Yankee baseball player? No. That guy died in 1999 and never had children of his own (but did have two step kids). So the Yankee hat and the picture of the Yankee Clipper hanging in the restaurant? Well, I guess you just have to do that when that’s your name. Better than being “that guy who still wears his cap backwards.” No matter the chef’s relationship to the “other” DiMaggio, he’s clearly a serious cook with a good idea for a franchise, and is working his butt off to make sure it works (we’d suggest, as a start, not listing “New York, Tokyo, London” down at the bottom of their webpage since they don’t have Sa Za in any of those cities).

We hope it does. We like the Alley development, even though we don’t go there that often. We love the idea of Montgomery having things downtown that people could frequent, and hope that all this will spin off into mixed-use housing and the other stuff that would enliven downtown. We also think it’s pretty cool to have this guy starting his new franchise concept right here in Capital City, even though we’re not so big on restaurant franchises in general. DiMaggio may be on to something for real here – the “fast casual” Italian niche is bloated with entries like the Olive Garden, Macaroni Grill, and Carrabas – all strip mall suburban stand-alones that don’t so much develop cities as destroy them. I can imagine a franchise like Sa Za investing in places like Montgomery that badly need the opposite of the Olive Garden.

To be clear: Sa Za is not the opposite of the Olive Garden. But it’s at least approaching an obtuse angle from that perennial dinner-with-older-relatives destination. They rehabbed an old building rather than buy one of those awful restaurant pads. Their menu isn’t glutted with a lot of stuff served “Alfredo,” and the ingredients they are using are clearly very high quality. The decor is urban loft-y without being gross, and city chic without trying too hard. There’s some stuff that needs improving – for example, a glass of wine should come in something bigger than a glorified shot glass – but in general it’s got all the ingredients. And if the crappy Wintzell’s across the street (not to be confused with the good Wintzell’s in Mobile) is packing people in, Sa Za should be fending off lines out the door.

I had been once before for a quick lunch. The place was packed, so I sat at the bar with a friend and we split a pizza. It was unimpressive looking, but quite tasty. A simple tomato and basil and cheese pizza is tough to mess up, but the crust was great and the atmosphere was festive and warm. Someone painted a picture near us while we ate and we got out of there with a cheap but largely unremarkable lunch. Not really worth reviewing other than for some superficial comments about the style of the place.

But we went back with 5 folks for a mid-day lunch recently, and my overwhelming feeling for Sa Za as we left was pity. It was a shame that, on the day we went in to eat, we got to experience a pretty epic server fail. Look, the place is nice. But ultimately, they hired this person and this was the meal we went in to eat. And thus, the review that follows.

Due to the high volume of folks, we went in at 12:10 to get on the list for 12:30. Five people. Two of us were seated just before 12:30 and our party arrived pretty quickly thereafter.

The menu is an enormous laminated sheet, with decent (if pricey) variety of offerings. Garlic sticks were nearly ordered (three or four bucks for a dozen), but most of the apps were in the $8 to $12 zone, putting them out of range for a simple lunch trip.

Person One ordered an appetizer of flattened chicken over a bed of shredded iceberg lettuce and a piece of pizza. The salad didn’t look that good, but then again, we don’t eat chicken. Maybe some people are really into hammered flat flesh discs. Person Two, annoyed that there was no lasagna on the menu, ordered a pizza. The menu boasts about how many pizza toppings the place has. There’s a long list and then the menu says, “and 30 more toppings not listed here!” He ordered pepperoni and green olives. Person Three has puttanesca, the pasta of the bordellos. Person Four orders baked rigatoni. Person Five has a spicy shrimp marinara.

Keep in mind that this is lunch. The plan was to eat from 12:30 till 1:30 or so. The people we were with work for a pretty demanding place that isn’t that cool with unexplained extended lunch hours. So we were relaxed but — like most lunch diners — on a clock.

Well, the hammered chicken disc salad comes and we wait. And we wait. And we talk some more. And we wait. As we start to check the time, the server comes over and informs us that they don’t have green olives. Unclear whether they aren’t on the menu or they just happen to be out. But the point is clear: They just now realize that there are no green olives because they have just now started to bake the pizza. When faced with our incredulous dismay, the server says with a shrug, “Oh, my bad. I just assumed that I’d put in the order for the main courses after the appetizer. I guess I should have asked.”

Um. Yes. Was she waiting for One person to consume the appetizer before putting in the food order? Waiting for us to somehow signal her that we were ready for them to start cooking our food?

Needless to say, the food finally arrived and was tasty. All of it was tasty. The puttanesca was especially delicious – it’s an under-ordered delicacy that’s easy to make and fresh and good. But we were pissed. Our friends were going to be late. They gobbled food like crazy. Then, to make matters worse, the server must have figured that she was screwed on getting a tip anyway, so she just ignored us for a good while before bringing us our bill. An offer to give us a discount? An offer of free dessert? Nope. Not even one of those heartfelt apologies that reminds you that you too once did some time in a restaurant serving job and the industry can be tough — full of bad tipping, thankless customers with messy children and inflated senses of entitlement. Nope. We left at 2:00.

The next day, one of us ate at Old Enzor Lane in nearby Troy. It’s a ladies-that-lunch type restaurant in a lovely old house that’s only open a few days a week. Her party was one of just a few for lunch. The service was in no particular hurry, and their lunch took half an hour longer than it probably should have. Without a need for any discussion about this, the server brought free dessert for the table (and the grilled pound cake with strawberry cream filling should immediately be declared a national treasure). This is the way to do it.

If Sa Za wants to franchise out, they should take a page from Old Enzor Lane. Ultimately, we will eat there again, if only because we want to support urban redevelopment and The Alley. And on its worst day, Sa Za has more to offer than Dreamland (the only other place to get food in the Legendary Redevelopment Project That’s Going To Save Downtown). But it’s a bit of a bummer to go in to review a place and end up leaving with a batch of frustrated and harried folks, even if the food was quite tasty.

Outside the front door. Sigh.

The pepperoni pizza in all its glory. Sans olives.

The puttanesca. The olives were delicious.

The rigatoni. Too cheesy.

In the alley, the entrance.

Travel for Music: DJ Spooky

We don’t do a lot of cross-posting between our blogging projects. They’re pretty different and we don’t want the average Montgomery person looking for a review of a restaurant to get all jaded by our views on global warming (it exists and is anthropogenic). It’s bad enough that regular readers of Lost in Montgomery know that we’re vegetarian. No need for them to find out we also don’t want to kill poor people for the sin of not having money.

Still, every once in a while, we might do a little cross-pollination. In this case, we often do write here on Lost in Montgomery about little day trips that a Montgomery resident might make. And as such, here are links to three write-ups about recent trips to Birmingham that we made in order to hear some music.

The first night: DJ Spooky at the Civil Rights Institute doing a screening of his take on D. W. Griffith’s “Rebirth of a Nation”

The second night: DJ Spooky performing with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra

The third night: DJ Spooky doing a set at The Bottletree

Hey, we banged out 4500 words and drove 550 miles or so. Damn right, we’re putting it on both of our blogs. Enjoy!

Plastic: A primer

When the City of Montgomery terminated its curbside recycling program, as an added “screw the Earth” bonus, it also slipped in the end of plastics recycling. As we noted a few months ago, the new inconvenient drop-off sites only accept cardboard and paper. If you’ve got glass, you’ll need to go to the Alabama Environmental Council facility up in Birmingham (although we’ve heard about some glass recycling in Auburn, but have yet to verify that – appreciate a lead from any of our readers).

If you want to recycle plastic, there’s always the AEC option. But driving to Birmingham makes a big old carbon footprint to recycle a few bottles. Other cities manage to recycle plastic just fine – ie, the surprisingly effective and progressive recycling program run by the nearby city of Troy (although they don’t do glass either).

There is, of course, a catch. The AEC and City of Troy don’t accept all plastics – just the ones with numbers 1 and 2 on the bottom. I was curious about what these numbers meant, and why the other numbers weren’t being accepted by Alabama’s pathetic meager recycling efforts.

Thanks to the Internets, I was able to figure out what the symbols mean (sort of – chemistry is not my strong suit by any means). I learned that all plastics are not the same (which I knew, but it was good to be reminded of why) and thus cannot in fact just be dumped into a big Recycl-o-Matic (such is my understanding of how this process works) to be remade into new plastic things. For those who are interested, here’s how the plastic numbers break down:

• 1 – PET or PETE (polyethylene terephthalate). Seems like this is the most common, especially for water and soda bottles, because it’s cheap. Evidently it is also easy to recycle – here’s a video of a plant if you’re interested in learning more (as I was … dig that crazy pan flute music!). These bottles get shredded and recycled into things like fabric and carpet. Generally, American consumers recycle somewhere between 12 and 20% of PET bottles.
• 2 – HDPE (high density polyethylene). Milk jugs, trash bags, detergent bottles, cereal box liners, and so forth. Evidently it can be recycled into a bunch of stuff and is very durable. Seems like it’s tougher and longer-lasting than PET.
• 3 – Vinyl or PVC. Evidently can be recycled into useful products like speed bumps. If it were recycled. Which it rarely is. Do not burn or use to prepare food unless you really like the taste of chlorine.
• 4 – LDPE (low density polyethylene). Plastic shopping bags and those awful dry cleaning bags (although if you’re dry cleaning, you’re already willing to accept some level of enviro-poisoning). It’s also in carpet, some squeeze bottles, etc. Can be recycled into other plastic stuff like shipping envelopes.
• 5 – PP (polypropylene). Evidently this stuff can stand high heat, so it is often used by people who need to pour hot contents into plastic. Also evidently it’s used in a lot of yogurt containers. You know, the little individual ones that animals get their heads stuck in and then die. The Internets inform me that this kind of plastic can be recycled into ice scrapers and brooms, among other useful products.
• 6 – PS (polystyrene). Styrofoam is one kind of this. Also egg cartons and CD cases. In the 1980s, there was a huge battle over styrofoam use by companies like McDonald’s. Of course, lots of that had to do with CFCs and the ozone layer. And look how well all that turned out. Regardless, you’ll be lucky to find any place to recycle this stuff even if you’re living outside of the Southeast (and if you are, why the heck are you reading this blog?), and even if you get it recycled it’ll only be good for filling other plastic devices.
• 7 – Other. This category includes everything else, including hard plastics with BPA – something that the FDA has recently said it’s going to take another look at despite previous assurances that it was perfectly safe.

All of which is more in the way of a for-your-information, since there’s really no way to recycle your numbers 1 and 2 plastic here in Montgomery anyway, unless you bundle them for business/recreational trips up to Birmingham (which is what we try to do, although that is more aspiration than reality right now – fortunately, we’ve got a great big shed out back to store stuff in).

Your waste plastic is your inter-generational legacy gift to the Earth if you don’t recycle them (or maybe even if you do, especially if other folks are using the old Montgomery collect-and-dump strategy). And that’s if you’re lucky. If not, your stupid little bottles and sheets and giblets may go straight to the Pacific Gyre. And then maybe one day dissolve, messing with the endocrine systems of our friends in the sea.

There is, of course, some debate about whether it’s a good idea to recycle at all. The most famous example of this argument was made by John Tierney a while ago. You can read his article here, and then consider one of the many critiques of his piece here. There are so many alternatives to buying plastic, but it would be nice to at least have the option to recycle here in the Capitol City. The city needs to figure out how to budget for more progressive trash policies rather than following the horrifying national trend of seeing Alabama as a trash dump.

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IMPORTANT NOTE: After this post was put up, alert pro-Earth commenter John P. pointed me to Mt. Scrap, which does take plastics #1 and 2. Thanks!

Picture of the week: 1/18/10-1/22/10

Bad at spelling, good at cutting your dog's junk off.

Thai Gratiem

It’s always nice when your anticipation pays off. In this case, we had been looking forward to going to Thai Gratiem for quite some time. The problem is — as you know if you read this blog regularly — we hate the East Side of Montgomery. So we try to go over there as rarely as possible. From the traffic to the soulless big box stores to the white flight to the contempt for the rest of the city, it represents everything bad about urban sprawl.

Still, there are some diamonds in the rough and we had heard that Thai Gratiem was one of them. The rumors were true.

“Gratiem” means garlic, but it seems that the three-year old restaurant just picked it because they thought it sounds cool. There’s not a major garlic theme to the place or anything. The place is in a generic looking strip mall (near a gun store and the usual array of genero-national branded shops) and it takes a while to get there from our house, but it’s worth it. This is a lot, considering that the restaurant is on the far end of the Hellscape, near Chantilly Parkway just before you end up most of the way to Union Springs.

The inside is well decorated. We had the entire place to ourselves on a recent lunch, but that may have been due as much to the freezing weather as anything. It’s small and just above strip mall-ish inside, but they have hung some nice decorations and some huge televisions that (thankfully) weren’t all on and blaring. The rant about the proliferation of big screen televisions into restaurants will be saved for another day.

The service was obviously attentive since we were the sole customers. The menu had a ton of options — all reasonably priced — and there was a separate VERY impressive list of teas and coffees. It is by far the best such list we have seen in this state. No liquor license though, which one of our guests made a little bit too big of a deal about. Booze isn’t a vital part of what we were looking for (at least at this lunch), but the folks said that the license was on the way and we’re sure they will be happy to be able to be able to sell liquor ASAP.

We did it big at our lunch. We ended up with four appetizers and they were all impressive. We didn’t try the chicken coconut soup, but it was well-reviewed by a member of our group. The spicy shrimp soup was fantastic and could make a satisfactory entree in sufficient amounts. Really tasty and perfect on a cold day. The soups were larger than expected given that they were described as “small bowls.” They were also served with white rice.

The “rice paper rolls” were more of what one might call spring rolls — the cold and crisp mint/basil, carrot, noodle, and tofu items that are dipped into a sweet plum sauce. They were awesome. And the things they called spring rolls were what we would usually thing of as “egg rolls” — tiny fried cylinders that went into a spicier but still sweet sauce. They were also fantastic. There were plenty of them and they had the desired effect of getting us excited for the entrees to come. The appetizers here were, frankly, everything that the appetizers at Lek’s and Ala Thai aspire to be – fresh, simple, and non-greasy.

The only slight disappointment was that the drunken noodles were listed on the menu as “spicy” and really weren’t. They were tasty though and the server brought an additional plate of super hot condiments that could be added to increase the heat level. So when those were added to the torn noodles and tofu, the heat reached the right level.

The highlight was my entree — the noodle stir fry. When I ordered it, unlike with the “spicy drunken noodle,” the server asked me to rate on a scale of one to ten how spicy I wanted it. I went with 7.5 and it was right in that range, which for me is QUITE spicy. In my experience, my threshold for heat is a bit higher than most, so if you’re on the fence, aim low. These people know how to bring the fire.

And by that, I mean the good kind — where it doesn’t overpower the natural flavor of the noodles and the ingredients. It was great at first bite, but when I squeezed the fresh lime over it, it pushed it to new levels. Truly a memorable batch of noodles and veggies — thick but not heavy, fresh but not insubstantial, hot but not mind-warping. I passed mine around and sealed the deal that we’d be back, if only to order more food like this. We agreed that this was a good notch or two ahead of other Thai food we’ve had here in town: Ala Thai and Lek’s. Which is not to say we don’t love Ala Thai. Lek’s, um, less so.

It’s a damn shame that you have to drive all the way out to the Hellscape’s Chantilly Parkway to get food this good. We have heard a rumor that Thai Gratiem might be opening a Midtown/Cloverdale branch in the near future, and we’re hoping that turns out to be true.

Thai Gratiem

Thai Gratiem Interior

Thai Gratiem tea list

Spicy shrimp soup

Veggie spring rolls

“Rice paper rolls”

Tofu drunken noodle stir fry

Tofu noodle stir fry

Extra sauces to increase the heat levels

Picture of the Week, 1/10/10-1/16/10

Taken amid the swirl of postgame confetti and chaos

From the Rose Bowl 1/7/10

Free Magazine Review: Montgomery Living (August 2009)

It’s time for yet another installment of everyone’s favorite feature here at Lost in Montgomery, the Free Magazine Review! Previous looks at the area’s free magazines considered an issue of Vetrepreneur, an issue of Dixie Living Magazine, and an issue of Montgomery RSVP. Now it’s time to take a look at one of the rivals of the latter publication:

What’s it called? Montgomery Living

What is it? The subtitle is “The River Region Magazine,” but don’t let that confuse you with yet another favorite free periodical often available here in Montgomery, River Region’s Journey, which is a very Christian magazine to be reviewed in another edition of Free Magazine Review. No, Montgomery Living is actually just a super-glossy and pretentious “high end” publication, complete with a whopping $3 cover price and a ton of color photos. Although we have never, ever, seen it for sale anywhere. According to its website, “the magazine is designed, edited and produced to appeal to upscale, well-educated, involved individuals.” Oh. Right. Also on the website? Super Hot, Blue Blood, All White debutante action.

Where’d we find it? Our memory on this is a bit hazy, but we think it either came from our vet’s office or a doctor’s office. Or maybe it was in a salon of some sort. Needless to say, these are a bit harder to find than Montgomery RSVP (due to their high price), but still are pretty much anywhere that rich people congregate and shop.

What’s the deal? This seems to be the kingpin of the local free mags. Hell, maybe they aren’t even really free. But they ought to be. Montgomery Living is full of predictable Chamber of Commerce schlock. It’s the typical fare about food and cultural events, with a focus on non-offensive looks at “social scenes” and half-assed travel writing. As with RSVP, the whole thing is run by women. The editor, all three people in marketing, the art director, the sole staff writer, the social gadfly columnist, the business manager, and 10 of 12 contributing writers — all ladies.

What sections do they have? Editor’s Letter, Favorite Things (“Cool, current products”), 10 Things (evidently random), On the Table (food reviews), Artbeat, Destinations and Diversions, Profiles and Perspectives, In the Garden, Living Well, Good Deeds, Interiors/Exteriors, Socially Speaking, Cityscapes, and Out and About.

Who advertises? All the heavy-hitters. We’re talking tons of full color, full-page ads from the big hospitals, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, real estate, hotels, restaurants, and furniture stores. It’s a who’s who of the White People Scene in Montgomery, with half-page ads from the two most exclusive private schools, personal trainers and yoga studios, heavy oil portrait painting, plastic surgeons, etc.

What’s interesting in this issue? The full page ad taken out by the Montgomery Area Visitors Center is pretty funny. It features a pile of crap you can buy at the visitors center, such as a t-shirt that says “Hey Ya’ll” and the cookbook written by the wife of the governor. Hurry down! Supplies may be limited!

As far as writing goes, there’s not much to recommend. The editor seems to struggle to put together an intro to the magazine in her perky and upbeat “From the Editor” column. But she does look like a victim of the Joker’s Smilex gas, so that’s pretty entertaining to look at for a few seconds. She writes about how it’s nice to write letters to people.

The “Ten Things You Might Not Know About the River Region” is a laughable attempt to fill one and a half pages. They were all things that we both already knew, and we have lived here slightly longer than a year. Did you know that Hank Williams used to play music here? That F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda used to live here? Yes. Yes, we did know that.

There’s a decent piece on how Montgomery is now sister cities with a city in Italy, “the vibrant Tuscan city of Pietrasanta.” It’s really more of a town (population: less than 25,000), but the article doesn’t mention that and has a nice photo of our mayor Todd Strange accepting a book of some sort from the mayor of Pietrasanta who is hilariously wearing a red, white, and green sash. So, um, yay for cultural exchanges.

There’s an article about a local private school titled “Still Pursuing Excellence,” which is funny both because that school has purchased an ad in this issue of the magazine, giving lie to any pretense of editorial objectivity, but also because the title makes it sound like the school has been chasing the elusive goal without success for quite some time. Happy 50th anniversary to a hallmark of the flight from the integrated City of Montgomery school system!

The cover story is about a new entertainment district inventively called “The Alley.” It boasts a bar, a Dreamland, and an Italian place. Oh, and “an event space.” Because those are cool. The article doesn’t mention that this is all the product of the former mayor, who was sent off to Congress, or that there were major legal fights about an ugly water tower that was plopped down at the entrance to the alley, or that the whole thing reeks of Trying Too Hard. Nope. Just an article saying that there are places to go and Please God Shop Locally because “We Have Nice Things Tooooo.” Mike Watson, a local architect, is the owner of the bar and he designed the Alley Project for the city. We think the Alley Bar is OK and plan to go there after some Biscuits games. But the Montgomery Living write up? Needs to be dragged out into the alley and beaten.

The Fashion “FIX-ations” section is truly cringeworthy. We really felt sorry for the poor women forced to model the paisley mini-bag (hilariously described as “of the moment”) and the tiered concoctions supposed to represent “Dos.” By the end of the article our female half had resolved never ever to set food inside Painted Pink, where the owners evidently recommend that ladies wear something called a “funky boyfriend/lumberjack shirt.”

Yes, this magazine has two pages of gardening advice and a two page barn burner of an article about why it’s important to get a good night’s sleep. Bottom line? For a superficial look at events that have likely already happened, or are too expensive to attend, or simply threaten to bore you to sleep, this magazine would be the perfect companion for any trip to the dentist’s office or hospital waiting room. And if shoddy travel writing along with poorly-conceived articles about food are what you crave, grab yourself a copy of Montgomery Living.

Fox Hollow Park

Regular readers will remember that we’re big fans of finding Places To Take The Dog. In service of this goal, we’ve seen some of Montgomery’s worst scenery, trekked to Wetumpka to learn about the French and Indian War, discovered the disturbing truth about our Riverwalk’s sexual preferences and found a competitive (and, it seems, infrequently used) horseshoe pitch.

We’ve driven by Fox Hollow Park on the Atlanta Highway a few times, mostly when going to Health Wise Foods, or the Goodwill, or the mall (the latter usually reached under extreme duress requiring at least one margarita afterward). So the other day – one of approximately two days without rain in December – we decided  to make a trip out of it.

Sadly, the park was not the destination we were hoping for. Which is not to say it wasn’t perfectly nice and inoffensive. It is a well-kept small neighborhood park with some playground equipment, a picnic area (boasting a grill that is clearly not a city-issued device), and an evenly paved trail that goes around the perimeter of the park. The park itself adjoins the Atlanta Highway, so there’s a little traffic noise and the concomitant danger that probably discourages off-leash dog action (not that we would ever do that). It’s nice. The grass is well kept up, and there’s even space to get a flag football game or something like that going. You could throw the Frisbee and there are some nice middle-aged trees. It’s clear that the neighborhood likes the park and probably gets a lot of use out of it.

It’s just not a destination park. That distinction has to be reserved for city parks or the Shakespeare Festival grounds or even Vaughan Park. But Fox Hollow Park is perfectly decent and might make a good place to have a picnic. It makes a nice selling point for the houses in that little neighborhood and we’re glad the city counts it among the many parks that it bothers to maintain.