thompson grocery store, mississippi. photograph by bill steber.
"A woman sits on a pool table listening to California blues man Robert Walker perform in his hometown of Bobo, MS, at Thompson Grocery. Until it burned in December of 1996, Thompson grocery was something of an anomaly in modern-day Mississippi. White-owned in a mostly black small town, the business served as a general store, pool hall, juke joint and gathering place for both blacks and whites in the community, not unlike similar establishments in the antebellum south before segregation forced blacks and whites to socialize in separate clubs."
- bill steber, 2000.
bajón (m)
noun
bassoon, large woodwind instrument. bajón = falling-off, slump, downswing.
The cinema is all but gone. They have been picking at it with metal claws for over a week now, and all that remains is the facade looming over Pollokshaws Road; a bed of red brick spilling out behind.
All traffic has been diverted along Gorbals Street and Norfolk Street. We are awash with buses trundling angrily through red lights, weaving left and right where they have no business.
An Irish neighbour in his seventies tells me that Al Jolson's "The Jazz Singer" premiered there back in 1927. I have no reason to doubt him.
I purchased a bar of some really beautiful Turkish soap from a shop just around the corner on Saturday evening. The Turks who own it are embroiled in a war with the Pakistanis who own a licensed outlet straight across the road; the Indian dude who runs the neswagents two doors along has been all but squeezed dry of passing trade. Long ago, he says, his father elbowed aside a step up from the same big financial backers who now operate as his rivals. He drew the line at selling alcohol for a variety of reasons. Profit margins not withstanding. My Indian peer suspects his father may have been an idiot. I cross the road habitually - paper sack in hand - to buy my cigarettes from his store.
That Turkish soap is gorgeous. All weekend I have been amazed by its clean lathered smell.
I am glad I have had the chance to finally indulge in it, though the vendor tells me there is no market for it at all.
▼ TULLIO DE PISCOPO: STOP BAJÓN (PRIMAVERA) from 12" (blanco y negro/ZYX) 1984 (Spain)
TULLIO DE PISCOPO PREVIOUSLY ON ART DECADE
GUS & FIN ON THE UKULELE @ POETRY IS FOR ASSHOLES
