Meaner Than a Junkyard Dog

This snap could be in the backyard of anyone I grew up with in Savannah, Georgia, including our own backyard on Sylvan Drive: bric-a-brac dragged home from elsewhere, old furniture that had been displaced from the house that no one had the heart to toss, a random assortment of lubricants and de-greasers. You get the picture.

Only this picture is not from Savannah or anywhere in the South. It’s the back half of a vintage clothing store along trendy Nahalat Benjamin Street in Tel Aviv. And it’s not as random as the image seems to suggest: The owner had laid this all out into a wonderully bohemian outdoor salon, with hanging lights, a wild assortment of sofas and chairs and tables made up of you name it, etc. Of course, what caught my eye was this beautiful, handmade smoker. I peered inside to see if someone might actually be using it. Sure enough: remnants of a recent grilling were there. And shortly thereafter the owner of the place showed up, speaking foodie talk on the phone about various cuts of meat and how best to cook them. Oh well. There went that idea of trying to haul it off to my apartment.

Resonances of that moment have stuck with me (granted it was just yesterday). Here I am more or less halfway around the world and elements of a southern culture that shaped me as a child are flourishing in unexpected places like Tel Aviv. A simple explanation of course is “globalism,” the fact that the world is becoming more and more available to us. But beneath that exposure is the playing out of multilateral cultural adoptions that, like the fine handmade smoker in the picture, is truly riveting.