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November 18, 2010

Last week senior graphic designer Lynne Boyer and I took a couple of hours to shoot Nashville landmarks for a Lena Anthony-penned travel story for American Spirit, the magazine Hammock publishes for the Daughters of the American Revolution. Since the May floods, city leaders and volunteers have been doing their best to entice visitors to Nashville and try to recover economically. We thought the DAR magazine would be a fitting place to promote the city's restoration--and spotlight the history that few outside the region know. With Lynne, a native Nashvillian, in the driver's seat, I jumped out and grabbed shots all around downtown, including at the State Capitol, Ryman Auditorium (Mother Church of Country Music), Fort Nashborough and historic City Cemetery. Caveat: I'm not a great photographer, but I'm building off a class I took a local art college and trying to improve! Check out some of the photos on my flickr page (still in process).

November 1, 2010

Water--or the overabundance of it--has been on my mind a lot this year. After the unprecedented rains of May 1 and 2 caused widespread flooding in Nashville, Tenn., many of us got our hands dirty on volunteer projects to rebuild our city. Six months after the flood, many families in our area are still putting their homes and lives back together. Though the nation's attention quickly receded with the floodwaters, the economic burdens are far reaching and many people still need assistance. Hands on Nashville and the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee provide numerous ways to pitch in and get our community over these final hurdles.

Not only have lives been lost and homes wrecked, but Middle Tennessee's natural resources have also taken a beating. This fall, as I've paddled down several of the area's beautiful rivers (weekends have included a clean-up day on Swan Creek, a canoe camping trip down the Buffalo River and day paddles down the Harpeth River and on Center Hill Lake), I've witnessed the damaging effects of the flood--hundreds of downed trees, damaged banks and watersheds, piles of debris--on these ecosystems that we all depend upon.

You can help clean up and preserve these natural resources. Find out more by joining the Tennessee Scenic Rivers Association or volunteering at one of the many clean-water events sponsored by the Cumberland River Compact and the Harpeth River Watershed Association.

October 26, 2010

The Nashville community came together in remarkable ways after the devastating Nashville Flood. The tech community, in particular, worked cooperatively over the course of one week to build and add content to an online tool called Donate Nashville. Launched on Saturday, May 8, the Craigslist-like tool helps fill in the gaps as Nashville began to recover and rebuild from the flood.

The site is simple in concept and encourages people to list their own needs as well as resources, starting with simple prompts, like "I Need: Help, Stuff, Housing" and "I Have: Time, Stuff, Money." Need some assistance to move furniture out of a flood-damaged home? Have a trunk full of nonperishable goods? Can you give up your Saturday morning to work on a home demolition? Just enter in your specific needs for supplies or assistance, or offer your material donations or volunteer service.

The site is intended to outlast the flood and be available for future disaster relief. Read this post by the editors of Nashvillest for more information on how the tool works. (As part of the content team, I would love any feedback on how to make the site even more dynamic and useful.)

It's all part of an even bigger movement called We Are Nashville, which continues to build this cooperative spirit and help Nashvillians find creative ways to help their neighbors.

March 5, 2010

As a friend aptly put it, the Oscars are like my Super Bowl. Ok, yes, I am totally addicted to lists of must-see movies, I geek out on Oscar-related trivia and I've even had parties where I served food items related to the nominees. (There Will Be Blood pudding, anyone?)

Some of my favorite moments from this year's list: Carey Mulligan blowing off her A-levels to go to Paris in "An Education." Meryl Streep enjoying French feasts with her husband in "Julie & Julia." All those beautiful balloons rising in "Up." So many of Jeremy Renner's powerful scenes in "The Hurt Locker" that explore its theme: War is a drug. An under-the-influence Jeff Bridges singing in the bowling alley in "Crazy Heart." The smooth George Clooney in every scene of "Up in the Air" (ok, I'm prejudiced. His female co-stars were pretty great, too).

My film-loving pals are throwing out their predictions over on Team Hammock. What's your pick?

February 24, 2010

It might not be all that significant unless you know me or my friend Beth, but I love all the stories that this snapshot tells, all the small symbols it captures of an enduring friendship:

*A connection made in graduate school. Some strong bonds are made when you survive English T.A. boot camp together.
*Two English nerds who get a rush out of writing and editing and smart communication and (okay, let's be honest) geeking out on grammar and punctuation.
*A kitchen table, where the best work and the greatest conversations are sparked.
*A friend who labors nonstop to spread humanitarian relief across the Caribbean, and especially now to Haiti.
*An afternoon we both spent working on Nazarenes Help Haiti, a Web site where tons of content -- from news to video to photos to links -- on earthquake relief can be found.
*An iPod remote, 'cause how could you cope without the perfect mix?
*An artist's lovely painting of a cup of coffee, the goodness that fuels us on long nights and prods us awake on early mornings.
*A vase of flowers, a gift of beauty amid too many reminders of pain and rubble.
*A baby's jacket, a symbol of new, giggling, sweet life.

January 13, 2010

My attention today, as with many around the world, is on Haiti and its earthquake victims. I spent some time last night with friends looking through photos of our trip there in March.

Here's my shot of the Haiti Presidential Palace. Though just a building, its destruction is emblematic of the enormity of a crisis in which thousands are feared dead and many more thousands face real dangers moving forward.

Below is what it looks like today.

I realize that attention will soon (not too soon!) turn to other crises of a 24-hour news cycle. But I hope that some people will remain focused on Haiti tomorrow, and the next day and the days to come. Haitians lived on literal precipices of life before this earthquake, and I can barely imagine what those needs will be now. There are many relief groups already doing great work there (as Rex points to on his blog), but I have to give a personal plug to a faith-based organization called Nazarene Compassionate Ministries and its Caribbean Emergency Fund. Giving to the Caribbean Disaster Response fund enables people on the ground to provide immediate basic necessities such as food and water and, eventually, continue in the reconstruction process of homes and lives. Corruption is a serious problem in Haiti, but I can vouch that if you donate to this group, your funds will be used immediately as well as wisely and with integrity.

September 3, 2009

Several members of the Hammock crew dusted off our cameras in August to have some fun with a photo scavenger hunt. The rules were simple: Interpret the nine items on the list in any creative or literal way that we wanted, and have fun!

What Jamie found:

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August 31, 2009

Summer was wonderful in so many ways (kayaking! filmmaking! travels out West!), but I can't wait for fall. One reason? Megan Morris and I are taking a photography class at a nearby art school in a couple of weeks. I even have new school supplies! Yep, this shiny new (used) camera is taunting me with all its buttons that I don't yet know how to use. I expect the class to help me unlock the potential of the camera, and I hope it gets me just a tiny bit closer to the photographic talents of Hammock friends like the other wonderful Summer I know.

Ready to shoot some autumn leaves—bring 'em on!

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July 30, 2009

Quiet on the Set! Cameras rolling. Scene 1, Take 1. Action!

If you're an avid movie fan like me, you might harbor a secret desire to utter those lines on an actual film set. I got to be just that lucky recently as part of a team competing in the 48 Hour Film Project, a nationwide contest challenging amateur filmmakers across the country to write, film, edit and complete a short (five- to seven-minute) movie. All of it--from concept to execution--has to take place within 48 hours. Each team is randomly assigned a genre, ranging from buddy pic to horror flick, and all teams have certain elements (a character, line of dialogue and prop) that are required in the final film.

Friends in the illustrious (and award-winning) team Fighting With Forks invited me to be a part of the Nashville competition July 17-19. I didn't even ask what they wanted me to do, that's how fast I said yes.

The 48 hours we spent getting to know each other and working hard to tell a compelling story were intense but great fun. Our two days together roughly went like this: Around 6 p.m. on Friday, the entire team gathered to hear our chosen genre (fantasy) and the required elements chosen randomly for our city's competition (an actor named Charles or Charlene Little, a still camera as a prop and the line of dialogue, "I'm trying to decide.") We spend a few hours brainstorming possible storylines, ranging from the ridiculous (foreshadowing!!) to the sublime.

Around 10 p.m., the four writers got down to business, magically churning out a script by the wee hours of the morning (around 3:30--ouch). Here's the story they concocted: "A man has an epiphany where he thinks that he's Death. He goes to a therapist to hash out his recent revelation, telling stories from his youth and recent events. He lives with his goth girlfriend, Charlene Little, who is an actress/photographer also obsessed with death. In the end, after sharing several fantastical stories about people and animals dying in his presence, he realizes that his therapist, too, has keeled over." The director of photography and his production assistant took the script and drew storyboards until the sun came up to prepare for the next day's filming. The entire team was due on set at 7 a.m., and everyone (director, DOP, actors, lighting director, cameraman, audio guy, boom mic operator, et. al) spent the entire day--until 11 p.m.--filming. We ate lunch and dinner standing up, with one hand on a slice of pizza while the other hand jotted down notes, set up the next scene or put on makeup. While we filmed, three prodigiously talented musicians wrote original music to go with the script, ending up with an entire album's worth of songs.

Next, our editor took the miles of raw materials and, along with the director, DOP and a writer, spent hours upon hours shaping the film. (Sleep is for sissies had to be their motto.) The film's title--"Now You're Being Ridiculous"--didn't come until sometime mid-afternoon. By 6 p.m. (an hour early!), the finished product was dropped off.

Satisfied with the ridiculous story told, all the players slept happily ever after.

Postscript: We won best overall film! Watch it here.

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June 9, 2009

It’s no surprise that American Spirit, with its focus on the early American period, regularly features the Founding Fathers (and Mothers) on our pages. And it’s not surprise that editing this magazine for the DAR has really fed into my history geekiness. So, when friends invited me on a long weekend tour of three presidents’ homes in the Charlottesville, Va., area, I pretty much jumped at the nerd-cation* chance.

Our first stop was James Madison’s Montpelier, which recently unveiled the stunning results of a four-year restoration. American Spirit featured the ambitious project in a July/August 2005 article. We focused on the meticulous way the Montpelier Foundation chose to restore the home of the Father of the Constitution. Not long after Madison died in 1836, his wife, Dolley, sold the home, and it went through extensive changes by multiple owners before finally passing into the hands of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Instead of freezing the home as it was when first acquired, the National Trust decided to strip away two centuries of renovations and preserve the house as close as possible to the way it was when Madison retired from the White House.

It’s one thing to read about the restoration, but it’s another thing to see the impressive results of this project for myself. Montpelier’s Classical portico and its imposing columns have been restored to Madison’s day. And get this: The ink stains are still visible on the floor in the study where he wrote the Constitution! Guides describe finding a fragment of a letter with Madison’s handwriting in a rat’s nest and uncover other details found in the process of peeling back the home’s many layers.

Beyond the archaeological finds, the home’s setting is idyllic, offering a gorgeous vista of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

We finished off the day in Charlottesville's historic downtown at night, where we added our screeds to the free speech wall and drove by the Thomas Jefferson-designed rotunda at the University of Virginia, which he founded in 1819.

The next morning we visited Jefferson's masterpiece of design: Monticello. The almost-too-efficient tour guide whisked us through the house rather quickly, but we still managed to check out some of his one-of-a-kind inventions, from a copying machine to a compass/weather vane contraption to a wine dumbwaiter. Since American Spirit detailed Thomas Jefferson’s penchant for gardening in our “Gardening the Founding Fathers' Way” story (March/April 2006), I was eager to see his carefully arranged rows of vegetables and learn more about his experimental crops. Jefferson’s 5,000 acres of orchards, vineyards, fields and gardens were worked by hundreds of enslaved and some free workers, and the Plantation Community Tour explained the daily life of some of those slaves.

We squeezed in a quick visit to James Monroe’s Ash Lawn–Highland where the fifth president lived from 1799 to 1823. It’s now operated by the College of William and Mary, Monroe’s alma mater. (Stay tuned for American Spirit’s upcoming story on this historic college.) The home is packed with 18th- and 19th-century furnishings, some from Napoleon’s France, where Monroe served as ambassador. Most know a little about the Monroe Doctrine and that his presidency was called the “era of good feelings,” but I was surprised to discover what a well-regarded politician (oxymoron?) he was during his lifetime.

Back in D.C. on Memorial Day, we waved hello to No. 44 at the White House and swung by a few monuments on the National Mall, including the Vietnam Women's Memorial, where we were inspired by military nurse’s speech about her service in Vietnam, Iraq and now Germany. The weekend ended with a four-hour tour (yes, and I could have stayed longer) of the interactive Newseum, a must-see museum for current event junkies and newshounds in the shadow of the Capitol.

Next on my to-do list: Learn more about Dolley Madison. What a fab first First Lady!

*nerdcation. Pronunciation: /nərd ˈkā-shən /. Function: noun. Date: 2009: A journey offering great potential for expanding one’s vocabulary, Trivial Pursuit ability and storehouse of random knowledge and/or cocktail conversation.

Jamie Roberts

Editorial Director

o: 615.690.3406

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