letting the days go by, or , primitive cool
This weekend the wife and I trundled down to Alabama and up the mountain to Mentone to breathe some real air and stay in our favorite 'frou frou'-free bed and breakfast (trust me when I tell you that the place isn't as 'cutsey' as the linked pic). The mountains of northern Alabama and Georgia are replete with killer views, little creatures, primitive churches and folk art.
The king of em' all, when it comes to folk art is the late great Howard Finster. He painted that Talking Heads album cover (I miss album covers...sigh) and about a million other iconic pieces. The reason this has anything to do with anything is that Finster's Paradise Garden (home and gallery and strange-outbuildings) is in Summerville, Ga, which is just down the road apiece from where we were staying.
Naturally, as REM once said, it was time for a Pil-gri-mage, and so we went. Sadly, the Gardens were closed for the day, but we did get to see his amazing garage door (completely covered in angels, snakes and scripture, and get a glimpse of this..
which was built by Howard, his own self. We're gonna go back (It is open from 10:00 to 4:00 on Saturday's...we got there about 4:30 )o: .
Finster was a man of visions, and I'm not talking about the kind of visions a biz person has of things like Google, white-out, or spinning rims on car wheels...I"m talking about the burning-bush-angelic-host-chariots-of-fire-God's-terrible-swift-sword kinda thing. I think that kids can sometimes touch these kind of things before they are socialized into thinking that these things are just not right. Once in a while a few dreamers slip through the gates and refuse to normalize...Howard was one of those...R.I.P Howard Finster.
