Choose Charleston

Charleston tends to be recognized as a rather polite, well-mannered, place to live or visit; a place where gentlemen would tip their hats to ladies were hats still in vogue and where doors are routinely held as a courtesy.

It has been mentioned more than once, however, in articles on the polite society of Charleston that our manners tend to become a bit less gentile when we are behind the wheel.

Try to merge into traffic on I-26 somewhere around exit 209 around the middle of the day and you’ll soon be telling a whole different story about politeness.

So we are kinder pedestrians than motorists.

It’s also been noted, on those occasions when local media has experimented with allowing online readers to add commentary to news stories (or when online forums have been built to discuss local issues) that politeness tends to be kicked out the window along with the rest of the trappings of civil behavior.

This, it should be mentioned, is hardly unique to Charleston.

I’ll be biting my nails, wringing my hands with worry, every time I flip through the latest issue of Charleston Magazine from here on out.

Society editor extraordinaire Ida Becker just launched a crash-hot new daredeviling in the Palmetto State column called Living on the Edge.

Me, I’m sitting at home with the latest issue of Backpacker and a few ideas bouncing around. She’s out there in the world with a whip and a chair, telling those lions to mind.

Doubly clever and delightfully daring, Ms. Becker is the kind of elegant young gal who might of an afternoon favor a spot of skydiving, plan a trek off to Tibet, and later lure the fête set toward her lens for a bit of clicky-clicky, perchance at an evening soirée on Church or State.

That, and she’s a good writer.

Charleston’s hep cats and swinging dames are sure to have seen copies of ART Magazine, the latest venture from publisher extraordinaire Olivia Pool, about town.

Ms. Pool, of course, was the driving force behind the late critically acclaimed Domain Magazine and is known to have contributed many a “Special to” piece to the Post & Courier Preview section.

As she is among the most cosmopolitan of Charlestonian cognoscenti, it is only natural that Olivia would be helping to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the birth of the Persian poet Rumi.

The celebration proper, hosted by the Sophia Institute, will be in October but Rumi rejoicers yearning for an early taste of soul can catch a screening of “Rumi: Poet of the Heart” at Charleston County Library on August 14, 7 p.m.

The screening is free, open to the public, and will be a good way to schmooze with the local art and soul minded while grooving to ancient rhymes.

It was busy, busy, busy and hot, hot, hot this weekend.

Waves of heat and an occasional shower hit Folly Beach but that did not dissuade the crowds gathered for the Governor’s Cup of Surfing. The Post & Courier has a nice gallery of images from the event here.

Then, I was out late Saturday night covering the photography chores at a spectacular anniversary party.

Crowds were just beginning to fill in along Market and East Bay by the time I was heading home. Big waves of folks rolling in to party at City Bar, et cetera. It was still hot, even with the sun long gone, but the young folks of Charleston were lined up all the same ready to cut the rug, trip the light fantastic, whatever they’re calling it these days.

Me, I was the old dude lugging camera equipment up the steps of the parking garage, old bones creaking, dogs barking, ready for a few hours sleep.

Though you may not know it / you could be a poet

Only way to find out / is to come out and shout

With a mic in your hand / you’ll be leading the band

So Marjory Wentworth I’m not. Still, my sad poetastry should not dissuade you from schlepping on out to the East Bay Meeting House (159 East Bay Street) clad in your finest black turtleneck and a raspberry beret with a stack of scribbled verse under your arm should you yourself be a finer meter-reader.

Shelly Warters will be on acoustic guitar tonight, Friday, August 3, at 9 p.m. and on Monday, August 6, special guest poet Barbara Presnell will be presenting her finest work.

For more information on this or other Monday Night Blues events, ring Elle Davis at 437-1958 / but don’t call too late / ’cause that wouldn’t be great//

Award-winning food writer Holly Herrick, perhaps best known locally for her work with The Post & Courier, has long been an advocate for local, seasonal food choices - fresh from the farm fare that only travels a few miles down the road from where it was grown to where it is sold at farmers’ markets.

Those interested in hands-on, close up and personal, instruction in the art of orchestrating showstopper meals from ingredients selected at the Charleston Farmers’ Market on Marion Square can now sign up for small (limited to four students) Saturday morning classes with Holly.

Now only do students get a slow walk through the entire process, from choosing the freshest in-season products to top flight cooking techniques, the class culminates in a savory meal complete with wine pairings.

Information on registration for classes is available online or by calling (843) 720-3109.

Every year the list of required school supplies gets longer and, tax holiday or no, that can bring a lot of hardship to low income families.

Come on, Lowcountry - we like to talk the talk about caring for the children of our community and the importance of education, right? Here’s a small something that those of us who are doing a little better can do to help:

Today, August 2, at 4 p.m. Steve Waters, a.k.a. “Steve the Guy” of the 95SX Two Girls and a Guy morning show, will be at the Summerville Publix on Central Avenue collecting school supply donations for local families in need.

Number 2 pencils are always in season. Notebooks? Needed. Paper towels? Probably so.

If you can imagine it, chances are the kids and teachers need it, and it doesn’t have to be much. Just a little something-something, one starfish tossed back in the sea makes a difference, at least to that one starfish, and all that good stuff.

Besides, drop something off and you get to groove with Steve, easily one of the coolest cats in the Lowcountry. Hey, not only does this guy gets to start every morning with Tanya Brown and Brooke Ryan, but he also puts a smile on the faces of a whole lot of folks who are stuck in the slow ooze of local traffic every weekday morning. He makes us laugh, lightens the load just a wee bit at the very start of the day.

Makes you feel better, makes you wanna do something good for someone else, makes you wanna pay that karma forward.

This Saturday and Sunday, August 4-5, the Washout on Folly Beach will once again host the South Carolina Governor’s Cup of Surfing.

That’s two whole days of competition featuring the best of the class from all the way up and down the Easten seaboard. Wahines wade in from the Outer Banks and Menehunes migrate from Myrtle Beach to show their stuff at this top wave event.

Arrive early to catch a good parking spot.

Keep in mind that South Carolina is one of only two states with an official Governor’s Cup dedicated to the sport of surfing (the other is California). Governor Mark Sanford, well known as a champion of coastal and environmental causes, is himself an avid surfer.

So the Governor’s Cup is a point of pride for Sandlappers.

Speaking of which, the summer 2007 issue of Sandlapper: The Magazine of South Carolina features a cool article on the Governor’s Cup and the Folly Beach surf crowd, if you’re interested in some background research before you show up on the beach.

As well, the summer issue of Garden & Gun has an article on the local wahines and the July 2007 Charleston Magazine has an article on Folly Beach in its golden age (check out the sailing adventure by the ever adventurous Ida Becker in the same issue).

Every now and again, I run through the local Craigslist just to catch a sense of what folks are buying, selling, or trading. What kinds of gigs are emerging, what openings for talent are on the upswing, and who is scouting out whom?

The method, I’ll grant you, is hardly scientific. Its fundamental limitation is that it only speaks of the segment of the population that chooses to use online posting to announce its hopes and dreams.

Some of it is truly scary. “Surely not in gentle Charleston,” I have whispered many a time while going clickety-click through the ads.

We could simply blame ‘bots for anything too out of character, of course, but it is also true that these are changing times and a changing place. People are moving to the South Carolina Lowcountry at an increasingly rapid rate, each bringing their own individual blend of ideas and expectations into the big old melting pot of Frogmore Stew we call home.

Even old Charleston, South of Broad, has absorbed its share of incoming new money from the North as of late.

We still have our cobblestone and the soft clop-clop of horse hooves from the carriage tours but we also have an emerging digital corridor and a medical district that is soaring skyward like something out of Jack and the Beanstalk.

Strange days may be ahead for this rapidly changing place.

Local is the big buzz-word in food these days, outpacing organic by a long chalk.

The “old” food distribution system (which, of course, is still very much in effect and still moving the vast majority of food) always was a head-scratcher for me, personally.

How exactly is it more economical to ship shrimp from Southeast Asia all the way to South Carolina when we already have had shrimp fishermen aplenty harvesting local waters?

Crazy as it sounds, it is actually the truth of the situation: It’s cheaper to buy product that has been hauled halfway around the globe than to buy from the farmer who lives next door. Please explain the logic.

The simple answer is that the system is just set up that way. It’s all about planes, trains, boats, and big rigs, contracts and warehouses, economics and business as usual; you know - the system.

None of which has stopped a growing number of consumers from trying to draw attention to the fact that, in the United States, small farms and local producers have been slowly going the way of the Dodo for quite some time.

Some shrug it off as “just the way it is.”

Others choose to make it known that they support small farms and local producers. With the launch of the Certified South Carolina effort, there is now a way to at least know which apple is local and which is from far away.

The beginning of a new (well, really, a return to an old) way of thinking about food or a final show of support before the last few traditional family farmers are forced to retire the John Deere and take jobs in middle management like everyone else? We’ll see in time.