I'll Be Back Soon

WELL...

You may or may not have noticed my absence this past week.

Between some Internet access issues and some major Life Happens Events, I will need to take a brief hiatus from my beloved Knoxville Daily Photo until I can get these things resolved.

So I will leave you with this shot of my magnificent obsession, the Sunsphere, until I return.

Urban Window

This lovely apartment has a beautiful view of Krutch Park downtown. I took a shot in color, but for some reason loved the monochrome better, so that's what you get.

Market Music

There are always lots of buskers at the Market Square Farmers Market. These guys actually sounded pretty good playing some jazz standards.

Market Saturday

The Market Square Farmers Market is bigger and better than ever. Local organic produce has never been easier to find.

Finding Hope

I've had some technical difficulties with my computer since last week, but hopefully things are fixed now. So that's the theme for today - looking for the feature, not the problem.

And here's the feature - an advertisement for hope here and now is an odd sign to post by a cemetery. Well, I guess I hope I don't end up there anytime soon.

Gate

The wrought iron gate to the Crown & Goose beer garden casts a long shadow.

Clockless Hours

Dear friend now in the dusty clockless hours of the town when the streets lie black and steaming in the wake of watertrucks and now when the drunk and the homeless have washed up in the lee of walls in alleys or abandoned lots and cats go forth highshouldered and lean in the grim perimeters about, now in these sootblacked brick or cobbled corridors where lightwire shadows make a gothic harp of cellar doors no soul shall walk save you.

-Cormac McCarthy, Suttree

Viva Garbanzos

There's a new Cuban restaurant on the 100 Block of Gay Street downtown. I can highly recommend the garbanzos fritos.

A Thousand Words

Placid

I saw the moon through a grime-caked window in the Old City. It seemed content to hang there.

Justification

This really is how I spend my time at the Crown & Goose beer garden in the Old City.

'Shine

This is an authentic moonshine still collected probably from the Back End of Nowhere, Tennessee, now residing in the Museum of East Tennessee History.

I won't go all Dr Science on you and tell you the chemical reactions involved in the making of moonshine. I will say: respect and handle with care if you intend to consume any of the product.

Not that I'd have first hand experience or anything...

Cupola

The Howard H. Baker Federal Courthouse downtown was originally built for the Whittle Communications company. When Whittle went out of business, the Feds took over this neo-Georgian building. The tower with cupola is now a familiar part of the downtown skyline.

Llama Llama

Knox County Public Library sponsored the fifth annual Children's Festival of Reading at the World's Fair Park this past Saturday. There were all kinds of family-friendly activities going on all afternoon to help promote reading and literacy. This photo shows the literacy parade, featuring eight foot tall characters from the popular "Llama Llama" childrens book series. The guy in the suit is Tennessee Senator Tim Burchett, a local advocate for children's literacy.

The festival was a great success - an estimated 10,000 parents and kids showed up. I was volunteering in the Friends of Literacy booth doing face painting. Just in case you wanted to know, the most requested items in face painting are dolphins for girls, and Spiderman masks for boys.

p.s. oops, I had my post for theme day in draft form and forgot to publish it. Oh well, it was a rerun anyway. I have been greatly distracted lately by ... life.

Jurassic Sphere

What's as big as a tyrannosaurus and hides behind trees?

Y'all know this; we've been here before.

Sugar Magnolia

The two enormous magnolia trees by the parking lot of Church Street United Methodist Church are in bloom, white petals unfurling and lemony scent infusing the air. I took this with my 10x zoom lens.

Worth Two in the Bush

I spied this wood thrush as I was walking around Worlds Fair Park downtown. Since I didn't have him (or her) in hand, I'll offer you a second secretive and rather blurry picture of one in a bush:

Relic

This is one of the oldest buildings downtown, reportedly built around the time of the Civil War in the 1860s. Poor old sagging thing - it looks tired.

Down the Tracks

This is a quick one from the archives for today: the World's Fair Park was built on an old railroad yard. There is still one active track left that slices through the park between the art museum and the Sunsphere to remind us of this legacy.

Another note to the CDPB world: these past few months have been so hectic, I regret that I haven't had time to visit your blogs. I'm often surprised that I can still sustain this one. Thanks to the three or four of you who still drop by! No worries, I'll be back.

My cup runneth over. But the good news is, my cup is full of red wine.

Deconstruction

The 100 Block of Gay Street is closed for improvements for - oh, I'd heard about a year. It's going to look worse before it starts looking better. They'd best dig carefully so as not to disturb Underground Knoxville.