http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sitemason Content Management System http://www.sitemason.com/ http://www.alicerandall.com/grid/rss/set/10 15 Hermitage Slave Testimony Martin Luther King African-American History We have thousands of books in our house. Many are in my downstairs office, a book-lined green room with a fireplace and filing cabinets on our first floor looking out onto our very busy center city street, Blair Boulevard. http://www.alicerandall.com/grid/2009/07/22/book-shelves-martin-luther-and-martin-luther-king.27886 http://www.alicerandall.com/grid/2009/07/22/book-shelves-martin-luther-and-martin-luther-king.27886 Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:21:00 CDT Grid Bobby Braddock Mother Love Tall Chai Starbucks Elvis Presley Chuck Berry Somewhere between writing The Wind Done Gone and Pushkin and the Queen of Spades I developed an addiction to tall chai Starbucks (full fat, full caf) that I eventually kicked. In my tall chai days David drove me to St.Louis with my feet up on the dashboard and a tall chai in my right hand one Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon so we could hear Chuck Berry sing in a the basement of a place called Blueberry Hill. David bought the tickets on the internet for twenty-five dollars. We had to stand in line forever to get in and get our seats. The boy taking tickets was fresh out of Hampshire College. We sat on folding chairs. It was a very good date night for an old married couple. When Chuck Berry took the little stage, with a band that included his adult son and adult daughter, I was struck by the audacity of a black man saying, let alone writing, "Roll over Bethoven, tell T-chai-kovsky the news--and then making it come true. Rock and Roll has become the world's music and classical music has become something that requires subsidies to exist. http://www.alicerandall.com/grid/2009/07/22/starbucks-wisdom-chuck-berry-and-elvis.27885 http://www.alicerandall.com/grid/2009/07/22/starbucks-wisdom-chuck-berry-and-elvis.27885 Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:20:00 CDT Grid Junior League Joy of Cooking Michelle Obama Congressional Club This is a close-up of my daughter's cookbook collection. Her collection lines the walls of our kitchen. She inherited the cookbooks from her paternal grandmother. To the right, in this picture, is the Congressional Club Cookbook. Martha Cooper, a dear friend, fellow mother, ornithologist, and the wife of Congressmen Jim Cooper, gave me the cookbook for my birthday this year. I gave it to Caroline. If you give me a cookbook you must expect, particularly if I love it, it will end up, quickly, in my daughter's collection. http://www.alicerandall.com/grid/2009/07/22/congressional-cookbook-the-junior-league-and-the-congress.27884 http://www.alicerandall.com/grid/2009/07/22/congressional-cookbook-the-junior-league-and-the-congress.27884 Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:19:00 CDT Grid Harvard Tables Doors Carter Little Library Desk When I was at Harvard I only knew one white southern boy. He was half a hippy, half a southern aristocrat. As I remember it, he told wonderful stories of growing up in the vicinity of southern writers and he made their homes sound enchanted if complicated. The boy's own parents, if I am remembering correctly, were trust fund babies who went through all of their money then founded a company based on making furniture out of doors and got rich again. http://www.alicerandall.com/grid/2009/07/22/library-desk-doors-and-desks.27881 http://www.alicerandall.com/grid/2009/07/22/library-desk-doors-and-desks.27881 Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:18:00 CDT Grid Louisianna Single Mother Texas Teddy Bear Bordertown Sleigh Bed This sleigh bed is from the Texas-Louisiana border. It dates from about 1840. I bought this piece when I first got divorced around 1990. My daughter was three. I determined to live centered on the child I had, not the man I didn't. I bought the narrow sleigh bed to remind myself my focus was to be on my daughter not courting. And I bought it to remind my daughter that she would stay sleeping in her own bed in her own room. In the newly empty big bed, it would have been too easy for a lonely mother to let her forlorn daughter sleep with her every night. http://www.alicerandall.com/grid/2009/07/22/sleigh-bed-texas-and-louisianna.27880 http://www.alicerandall.com/grid/2009/07/22/sleigh-bed-texas-and-louisianna.27880 Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:17:00 CDT Grid Selma Walter Hyatt Stars Death of the Father Reba Keepsakes Lyle Lovett We have a bookcase in my upstairs office full of our most precious books. There's a five volume collection of Jane Austen from 1833 that spent more than a century in Stoneleigh Abbey ( a house associated with Austen's family and thought to be a model for Northanger Abbey; oddly, Caroline's first close English friend, Pip, grew up in a house on the Stoneleigh property) and there's an eight volume collection of Trollop's Barchester Chronicles given to me by Bob Glynn and Joan Bok; there's Taylor Ewing Junior's copy of the Souls of Black Folk and two of Prince Albert Ewing's law books. On top of the bookshelf are precious objects. Here photographer Bob Delevante has captured a close up of a teacup from my friend Ann, an early American mug from a surrogate mother, and the medallion ASCAP gave me when they inducted me into the Silver Circle along with Reba McEntire and Lyle Lovett in 2008. http://www.alicerandall.com/grid/2009/07/22/keepsakes-earth-stars-and-sky-stars.27879 http://www.alicerandall.com/grid/2009/07/22/keepsakes-earth-stars-and-sky-stars.27879 Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:16:00 CDT Grid Mimi Iceberg Christmas in Italy Chile Traveling Angels Portrait Table We have a table of family pictures full of Randall's, Ewings and Steele's and Makihara's, and lots of photos of Caroline. The table is especially important to me because it helps define for us who is family. With us it doesn't all have to do with blood or marriage or legal adoptions: Mimi Oka and I went to Harvard together have called each other best friend for almost thirty years, but we're family, connected in ways that are unbreakable. http://www.alicerandall.com/grid/2009/07/22/portrait-table-icebergs-and-angels.27878 http://www.alicerandall.com/grid/2009/07/22/portrait-table-icebergs-and-angels.27878 Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:15:00 CDT Grid Prince Albert Ewing Battle of Nashville Soldiers Slaves Emancipation I married into some amazing stories. Prince Albert Ewing was my husband's great-great grandfather. Prince Albert and his twin brother Taylor were the first black lawyers to practice in Nashville. Before emancipation they were slaves. At some point during the Civil War, Prince Albert did all of his own chores and all of Taylor's, Prince Albert pretended to be Taylor, making it possible for Taylor to runaway and fight with the Union, for both of them. http://www.alicerandall.com/grid/2009/07/22/battle-of-nashville-slaves-and-soldiers.27877 http://www.alicerandall.com/grid/2009/07/22/battle-of-nashville-slaves-and-soldiers.27877 Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:14:00 CDT Grid Rites of Spring Wedding Bridesmaids Bob Glynn Maid of Honor Caroline's Potrait I have lost track of Savannah, the woman who painted this portrait of my daughter, Caroline, wearing the dress she wore when she was my maid of honor at my second wedding. http://www.alicerandall.com/grid/2009/07/22/maid-of-honor-portrait-three-third-grade-bridesmaids-and-a-sexy-brilliant-woman-priest.27876 http://www.alicerandall.com/grid/2009/07/22/maid-of-honor-portrait-three-third-grade-bridesmaids-and-a-sexy-brilliant-woman-priest.27876 Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:13:00 CDT Grid My Country Roots: MP3 Guide Chairs Carter and Courtney Little Parties Large Dining Table When we moved into this house the one piece of furniture I aspired to possess was a dining table that seated at least fourteen. My best friend Mimi had a table for fourteen in her Soho apartment. I loved that table. http://www.alicerandall.com/grid/2009/07/22/red-dining-room-table-and-chairs.27875 http://www.alicerandall.com/grid/2009/07/22/red-dining-room-table-and-chairs.27875 Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:12:00 CDT Grid