The Dialogue National Tour in Memphis, TN

I don't really know what to expect during our installation in Memphis the day after tomorrow since I've never been to this part of the country. We have a couple days to explore and relax so I'm sure we will be rested and ready to go! Memphis is beautiful, wet and lush... what a change from the Santa Fe desert landscape.

The Beale Street Music festival was happening downtown today... unfortunately for us it was 7 blocks away and our little downtown park was all but abandoned on a Sunday. So, not many people enjoying our project today, but the few people we did talk to were amazing, including a reporter from the Memphis paper:  Memphis Commercial Appeal Article page 1 and page 2; and a brief mention.

Sally's Journal

Nice spot in a downtown park with a gazebo and fountain. Set up, and the first people to see it were some preteen Black boys on unicycles accompanied by a lean and muscular gray-haired man with a great smile riding one too.They stopped to read the screens, then he approached while they hung back quietly and said, "thank you for this! It¹s wonderful!!"

The man turned out to be from Santa Barbara and taught "unicycle" to Memphis' Black youth in his spare time, which is what they were doing. He demonstrated balanced prowess jumping the unicycle up seven stairs and back.

After they left, people came but there was a music festival seven blocks away on Beale Street that captured most people. Still, the ones who came were great. Like the plump, blue-clad matron late in the day who was busy scribbling down the quotes in her notebook while I first respectfully watched.When we finally did connect, she was so deep and pithy, I never wanted to stop.

When I finally observed that she was a great teacher, she answered humbly, "Oh, no, I just work at a dry-cleaners." I answered, "No, you are a teacher. We all are," and she said after a moment, "Yes, I guess that's so."

I introduced her to Mike, and he asked for and captured an "amazing" interview with her. Too bad our sound mixer into the camera was not working well again today. But, Mike says he can salvage some of the audio during editing.

Photos