ATL 11/5/07 - Decatur, night

My people - 1977-ish - gathered for a family photo in the front yard after an every-other-year-or-so-Beaverton-Oregon snowfall. Apparently so rare that not a single one of use could bother looking even vaguely in the direction of the camera."Phantom Fitness" photos and Downtown Decatur - Metropolites, what do you think of the Skyline and Krog Street pics for our fitness center?

MOVIE/ART/LOCAL/FRENCH/WEB/WEB NEWS

MOVIE NEWS - "Fred Claus" - instead of seeing Vince Vaughn fail at relationships ("Wedding Crashers", "Swingers", "The Breakup", "Psycho"), police work ("Starsky & Hutch", "The Cell", "Mr. & Mrs. Smith"), or just plain growing up ("Dodgeball", "Old School"), we now have the opportunity to see him fail at being Santa Claus. Goodie.

ART NEWS - Canstruction at Underground Atlanta, Nov 9-18. Presented by the AIA, local firms build structures from canned goods to benefit the Atlanta Community Food Bank. Three good things in my book - walking around the city, promoting architecture, and benefiting the needy.

Holiday in Lights at Centennial Olympic Park, Nov 10-Jan 6. Another good reason to head downtown; even though 2 weeks before Thanksgiving is a bit early to be jolly.

Metropolis Market Day, Nov 10, from 11:00 to 4:00 PM. 8th Street is closed down for a multi-condo "yard sale"...and photo exhibit! Get a jump start on your holiday spending and enjoy some window shopping on Peachtree. Proceeds raised and good donated go to support Transition House. (Okay, if Walmart can advertise Xmas on the day after Halloween, who am I to wait an extra 5 days...)

LOCAL NEWS - The Atlanta Botanical Garden is about to start construction on a lot of upgrades to this Midtown destination...only one of which is the 6-story parking garage (ajc). Even if you are against the construction of the deck, don't be disheartened; I have to believe that even though protests failed to stop it, neighborhood complaints did influence some of the greener additions to the overall project - the current 1-acre, 250 car ABG parking lot will become green space, the deck will catch rainwater for reuse in irrigation, and pedestrians in Piedmont Park won't have to share the road with cars arriving at the park via Park Drive.

Neighborhood protests against the parking deck didn't fail; they helped accomplish a better, greener compromise.

FRENCH NEWS -égalité - I had just filled out an online questionnaire requiring me to check my least favorite survey box - CAUSASIAN/WHITE. The fact that I want to be a hyphenated American notwithstanding (Western European-American!), I wondered if other countries had this system of categorization - African-Canadians or Pacific Islander-Japanese.

Then I read this quote online - "...being a French citizen means you’re not categorized as African French or Southeast Asian French or West Indian French; you’re just plain French. That’s the republican ideal, citizenship bestowing theoretical equality, belying the reality of racism. French schoolchildren are steeped in the concept of a single France. The law actually forbids taking a census according to ethnic or racial categories." -nyt-

Knock the French all you want, but that baseline of equality seems pretty nice.

WEB NEWS - I love this video that morphs from one female portrait to another, from Da Vinci to Picasso...