Last Monday, Josh and I drove down to Winston, NC to take some photos and explore the neighborhood around the NC School of the Arts. We both enjoy the idiosyncrasies of small towns, so we took Rt. 67 through Boonville and East Bend. One of the landmarks in Boonville is a large mural of the town painted on the side of Trish's Restaurant. We stopped to photograph it, and while I was trying to decide what I wanted in the frame, a woman came out of the restaurant and started talking to Josh about Timothy Briner, a photographer who is spending a month photographing and getting to know each of the six Boonvilles in America. Briner had visited Boonville, NC a couple of months earlier, and the woman at Trish's still seemed excited about his visit. I find Briner’s project interesting because I share his interest in small town America, and—more specifically—I grew up 10 miles west of Boonville, NC in Elkin/Jonesville. Also, in my experience people in small, southern towns tend to be rather guarded toward outsiders, especially outsiders carrying cameras, so I thought it was cool that some of the people of Boonville had warmed to the idea of photography because of Briner’s visit. You can read about Briner's travels and check out some of his images here: www.boonvilleusa.com.
In honor of my home state (I was born in Mt. Airy/“Mayberry”), I’m also including this fake North Carolina Bureau of Tourism video featuring Sparklehorse frontman (and NC resident), Mark Linkous. It was shot as part of the promotions package for Sparklehorse’s Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of the Mountain. It takes a few gentle jabs at NC, but it’s a funny, well-made short film. There are a couple more Sparklehorse EPKs on youtube that are also good--and their first album, Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot--is great.
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