Category > Traveling at Home
This column, Traveling at Home, started as a way to describe my own process of trying to stay put in Central Illinois, to dig a little deeper into one place. As I’ve tried to write about this, two things have become obvious to me and to both of my readers. First, I drive a lot, and so I write about driving. Second, I read a lot. In fact, I read while driving (usually downloaded books). And the reading and …
Just about a century ago, Edgar Lee Masters published his Spoon River Anthology, a collection of dramatic monologues set in the fictional, but very real, community of Spoon River, Illinois. More accurately, the poems grew from the town’s graveyard, individuals giving voice to their own lives after their deaths. While individual lives and voices stand out, the overall effect is a pointed, critical, yet not entirely negative view of small town Midwestern life near the end of the 19th century. …
At the writer's retreat in Vermont, yellow Adirondack chairs look up to the Green Mountains. Robert Frost's writing cabin is a two-mile walk from the inn. And each morning I walk down through dense woods towards the Middlebury River to sit on a log covered so thick with lichen that it feels like a low, damp chair. I'm here to work with young writers, and, really how hard could it be in a setting like this? Send them outside. Ask …
The past two weeks have brought the first flush of this year’s spring — steady rains, then hours of sun; dandelions, flowering trees, and deep grass that needs mowing. Lilac blossoms scent the city; they bring to my senses the six or eight lilac bushes that marked the border between our drive and the neighbor’s yard when I was a kid. Thick as trees, these large, old plants bore enough fruit to overwhelm the whole neighborhood. So I’ve clipped a …
I bought my son a purple metal spade. It was the same day I bought $60 worth of herbs and vegetables at Prairie Gardens. We potted the herbs one of those warm afternoons in March. When he decided he dipdn’t really like helping with this dirty project, I potted the tomato plants and the lettuce starts myself. I had to buy myself another spade and more potting soil. He was busy playing super-hero sword boy with his little shovel. Or …
Five Short Reflections (and a footnote): 1) Five abandoned toilets sit side by side under a pair of scraggly trees. The white porcelain is vivid against the gray sky, all of it backed by acres and acres of a stubbled March cornfield. I'm on Route 47 headed south, a mile or two from I-74, on a drive I take every week. I know all the weathered, tilting barns and crumbling farm houses between Mahomet and Dwight. I know the cemeteries …
A few days ago the Obama administration announced its intentions to plant a garden smack in the middle of the White House lawn. During the campaign, advocates of organic gardening and the slow food movement pushed hard for this symbolic act, none more so than journalist and UC-Berkeley professor Michael Pollan. In Pollan’s open letter to the next president, whom he addresses as “farmer in chief,” Pollan wrote bluntly: “tear out five prime south-facing acres of the White House lawn …
I am sighing audibly and angrily (a bad habit I've been told) while carrying a dresser up the narrow staircase of my rental house. Two buddies and I have spent the morning transporting my stuff around the corner; this is the second shortest move I've ever made. We carry the usual academic's belongings: books, shelves, desks, heavy metal file cabinets — the detritus I've accumulated and winnowed for 20 years. Not counting college, I've moved somewhere around 14 times, and …
Traveling at Home, the title of this column, comes from poet Wendell Berry, the cranky, patron prophet of writing about place. Invested fully in writing about his native landscape of Kentucky, Berry insists that "Even in a country you know by heart / it’s hard to go the same way twice." I have always taken this as a moral admonition to get to know a single place in the world, to stay put somewhere long enough to notice its subtleties …
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@Jason: You’re right about that. I get groceries at Schnucks (they carry what I buy, which I can’t say of any other single grocery store in town), and if they have a beer I’m in the market for it’s usually a quarter or two cheaper per 6-…
Best Neighborhood Bar (& Grill) : Urbana - My ‘hood- the ‘Boom! http://www.boomerangbarandgrill.com Go on a Wing Wednesday or Fish Friday, or see a band play some night. Local blue-collar Urbana terroir galore. My only beer snobbish gripe is lack of a pale hopped ale, but you…
The one thing that’s bothered me for a while about the Friar is that, for most commonly purchased adult beverages, you can actually walk down the strip mall to Schnucks and get them cheaper. It makes no sense, but there it is. I suspect it’s because Schnucks…
Maybe I complained enough in person. One time I even explained to the (wholly uninterested) clerk how to navigate the Illinois Statutes web page, and Savoy’s Municipal Code database I wouldn’t know because I only go there when I want to pay 30% more for anything, which is never.
@Rob: You seem to have the weirdest experiences. I’m in Friar Tuck every other week (don’t tell my mom that I’m a lush). They never fail to ask for my birth date but never my age, they never card afterwards, and they often allow me to use…
This column affords me a long-awaited opportunity. I’ve wanted to write my own column called Fuck You Friar Tuck Liquors. but I always thought it’d be too pithy. Here, I can say Fuck You Friar Tuck Liquors and not feel bothered to stretch it out to 750…
Ha! Exactly. You, sir, are welcome at the bar in My House.
Why wait ‘til 3 pm?
I’m excited to go tonight- should be very fun!
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“It was at this point, before he started his business, that working with city employees should’ve raised red flags…” But they didn’t because: 1) The City Clerk’s office originally mis-interpreted the rules, or are indeed re-interpreting them. 2) Champaign’s brick-n-mortar merchants hadn’t yet started whining about The Crave Truck.
Super cool! Excellent track, Excellent band.
Looking forward to trying this place!
I’m in the middle (or the beginning or end, depending on how you look at it) of re-reading Slaughterhouse Five. What a great companion column.
Get yours early. The Rave’s CD will be available at Exile and at The C-U Flea on Saturday. C-U Flea details here: http://www.smilepolitely.com/news/sp_radio_podcast_c-u_flea_arrives/
I don’t know about Gerard and a random police sargeant. My (mild) outrage is based on this: “...he worked closely with Champaign City Clerk Marilyn Banks to make sure he was licensed properly as a transient food peddler, filling out the necessary paperwork and paying a $225…
Local Yocal pretty much nails it here. I suspect there will be merchants who oppose food trucks because they arguably don’t pay their fair share to locate their trucks in high traffic (high rent) areas. The food trucks take away business from rent payers, park in city…
Oh nice! I’d totally vote for Matt Campbell!
“Smile Politely sports writer announces candidacy for city government.”
I also got to visit Big Grove Tavern during the soft open and definitely enjoyed the pork belly the most of all the dishes I sampled. The cheesy grits and the vinegary pickled vegetables were a perfect compliment to the rich pork belly.
The Alan Partridge lookalike on the right in the first small photo has nothing to condescend to anyone about. AH HA!
Snell and the little Hitlers of the neighborhood association need to chill out. Legitimate businesses should have the freedom to exist without having to endure the slings and arrows of ignorant and misguided opposition.
represent, Matt.
Yeah, I’d agree that Transporter Room 3 is the worst house venue I’ve ever seen.
Food trucks are the start-up, small businesses of the future for those unable to afford real estate. No surprise, that merchants who pay rent, utilities, and maintenance on a property would despise the traveling competition. Or developers who build more empty retail spaces would want to close…
Not so much far-right Tea Party as a balanced, moderate viewpoint between letting businesses succeed and protecting society with reasonable regulations. In spite of what the city reps are saying, the interpretation of policy on this issue certainly has changed. Letting a business start up under one…
I think it’s neat that SP has turned rightward, now espousing a Tea Party-style frustration with government regulations & taxes.
This makes me so sad. (Happy to live in Urbana, though!) Crave Truck has been a GREAT addition to the food choices in C-U, and it’d be a travesty to chase them away. This town should be supporting small businesses. I’m glad to hear that they’ll still…
*slow. clap.* Still offering no threat of intelligence…. I know I said I thought you should just write this whole column yourself next year, Isaac, but now that you’ve gone and taken a “part deux” run at it, I’d like to modify my request: Best Music 2013,…
Actually, it’s kind of nice, the quiet. John Heoffleur’s engaging commentary/dialogue is sorely missed, however. In lieu of someone intelligent saying something, I’ve compiled a list of Honourable Mentions: BEST ROCK BAND: Take Care ::these gentlemen have four completely different sets at their disposal right now (which…
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The Alan Partridge lookalike on the right in the first small photo has nothing to condescend to anyone about. AH HA!