From Charleston, with Love!

From MySpace: May 27, 2007

Call me a crazy West Coast leftie, but I don't think it's a co-incidence that every time I'm in a U.S. airport there's been a terrorism alert of some kind from Homeland Security – code yellow, orange or whatever. Combine that with some sorry-looking 21-year-old soldiers kibitzing over shrapnel and gunshot wounds in Iraq and no wonder everyone's too scared to cut down this war. Anyway, I better keep this to myself. I am in the South.
Charleston, South Carolina – known as the port city where three out of four slaves from Africa were brought and sold, where Bubba from Forrest Gump set up his shrimp shack (yes it's here), where the locals wear enough pastels to make Abercrombie and Fitch look hardcore and where many of the black population still speak an African Creole called Gullah.
I've been here two hours and in that time I've met one of those Gullah speakers, scoped out the one indie rock club, had two shots bought for me, tried grits and lumpy cakes at the Crab Shack and found a new friend to show me around tomorrow on my one day off before the conferencing starts – Dani, a 21-year-old determined to get a tattoo since South Carolina just made them legal (except on the neck!) a few months ago. I told her I'd check out a few parlours with her since I'm such an expert. Ha. I like it here already, 90 per cent humidity included.
Can't wait for all the music and music discussions to begin – even though I'm pretty sure I'm the only gal and definitely the youngest. Just found out we are attending a Menotti tribute on Thursday in addition to the other three shows a day and seminars. Phillip Glass playing five keyboards at once in his new Leonard Cohen opera, Book of Longing. Outta sight!
I still haven't decided between a few days in Savannah, Georgia, or going up to Myrtle Beach to see Dolly at the Summer Sun Festival. I'm leaning Savannah: ante-bellum architecture and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Good times.