Paperblog A Brie Grows in Brooklyn

A Brie Grows in Brooklyn

"Mabel's not crazy... she's unusual."

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The Maginot Line Has Nothing On the Fortresses of Savannah

I cannot stop watching fucking Keeping Up With The Kardashians, and I think there might be something wrong with me. Actually, there’s nothing wrong with me. It’s a very enjoyable program.

In fact, I need KUWTK to keep me from having a word-induced seizure after watching the first two episodes of The Newsroom. I knew Aaron Sorkin used to be a cokehead, but do all of his characters have to talk like cokeheads?…ZING! That joke is just about as dated as the premise of the show.

Anyway, this post isn’t really about the television that is wasting away my youth, but rather about the old forts that dot the shoreline of Savannah.

One of the many undiagnosed mental diseases that runs in my family is a pathological love for war fortresses. My brother has no fewer than 10 Facebook profile pictures of him shooting imaginary guns at Gettsyburg. My father used to take us once a week to Sing Sing, the high security prison in Ossining, after dropping my mother at her meditation class, to see how many security checkpoints we could get past before we had to turn around. The answer was always zero.

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Fort Pulaski Travel Savannah Maginot Line The Kardashians
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36 Hours In Savannah

I have so many things to say about Savannah, that I’m all bottled up about where to begin. To make things easy for myself, I’m going to copy the fucking New York Times, and do a “36-Hours in Savannah.” You should trust me, not them. Given that Caleb is from the city, as is his entire family, and 66% of my friends went to SCAD (at least 1/2 of them live in another dimension), I have the inside scoop.

Most people know that Savannah has one of the most beautiful downtown areas of any city in the United States. Founded in 1733 by James Oglethorpe, blah blah blah, the town has preserved most of its original layout. It is arranged around 22 squares, each with their own flavor—some of them have gazebos, some have little parks, but all are filled with lush old oak trees draped with Spanish moss.

The squares are lined by grand mansions, as well as the row houses where the servants and dirty Irish lived, which range in style from colonial to Victorian to Belle Epoque. There are only two modern homes in the entire downtown, and they are both as ugly as shit.

The houses are, for the most part, well preserved, decked out with sweeping staircases and wraparound porches.

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Savannah Georgia Travel
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I’ve always wondered why the outdoor ceilings of colonial homes are painted eggshell blue (my parent’s house was built in 1781, and it has one on the front porch).  In Savannah, I found out the reason, and it’s something of a troubled one. The color is called “Haint Blue,” and it’s supposed to ward off evil spirits. Originally, it was made from indigo, buttermilk, and lime, and it adorned the homes of slaves.  In Georgia and South Carolina, many of these slaves descended from the Gullah people in Africa, who believed that “haints” were malevolent spirits, caught between the living world and the afterlife. Haints are angry, and they want to do harm to humans. The one thing that they cannot do is cross water.  Rather than building the recommended moats around their houses, slaves would make the mixture of indigo (or any other blue pigment), buttermilk, and lime in pits in their front yards. Then, they would paint the watery mixture on the outside of their houses, hoping that the haints would become confused, and think that the blue was water. Haint Blue was later widely adopted in the South, and can be found on many of the grand homes in Savannah. The excuse for this today is that the color extends the sky, keeping insects from the inside of the house. If the owner is using actual haint paint, this is actually true, because insects tend to stay far away from lime.  Read more about Haint Blue here.

I’ve always wondered why the outdoor ceilings of colonial homes are painted eggshell blue (my parent’s house was built in 1781, and it has one on the front porch). 

In Savannah, I found out the reason, and it’s something of a troubled one. The color is called “Haint Blue,” and it’s supposed to ward off evil spirits. Originally, it was made from indigo, buttermilk, and lime, and it adorned the homes of slaves. 

In Georgia and South Carolina, many of these slaves descended from the Gullah people in Africa, who believed that “haints” were malevolent spirits, caught between the living world and the afterlife. Haints are angry, and they want to do harm to humans. The one thing that they cannot do is cross water. 

Rather than building the recommended moats around their houses, slaves would make the mixture of indigo (or any other blue pigment), buttermilk, and lime in pits in their front yards. Then, they would paint the watery mixture on the outside of their houses, hoping that the haints would become confused, and think that the blue was water.

Haint Blue was later widely adopted in the South, and can be found on many of the grand homes in Savannah. The excuse for this today is that the color extends the sky, keeping insects from the inside of the house. If the owner is using actual haint paint, this is actually true, because insects tend to stay far away from lime. 

Read more about Haint Blue here.

Haint Blue Savannah Travel
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Yesterday I spent the day on a 22-foot angler, island hopping in the heat. I am completely in love with this place. In the wake of the boat trailed dolphins, who would surface when we slowed down. On the islands were girls with bleach blonde hair and neon bikinis, drinking Bud Light and sun bathing. On one island, there was a Civil War bunker, submerged where the river met the sea. It raised goose bumps all along my skin. Spooky and wild, the ghosts stayed on the shoreline. On the water, there was nothing but salt and breeze.

Yesterday I spent the day on a 22-foot angler, island hopping in the heat. I am completely in love with this place. In the wake of the boat trailed dolphins, who would surface when we slowed down. On the islands were girls with bleach blonde hair and neon bikinis, drinking Bud Light and sun bathing. On one island, there was a Civil War bunker, submerged where the river met the sea. It raised goose bumps all along my skin. Spooky and wild, the ghosts stayed on the shoreline. On the water, there was nothing but salt and breeze.

savannah travel my life
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With its colonial mansions, and secret gardens, and pirate tunnels, and troubled history, Savannah is deliciously haunting, even in the daytime. This morning, the air was perfumed, lacking in humidity, and the breeze moved the wind chimes, eerily, as I strolled along the empty streets.

With its colonial mansions, and secret gardens, and pirate tunnels, and troubled history, Savannah is deliciously haunting, even in the daytime. This morning, the air was perfumed, lacking in humidity, and the breeze moved the wind chimes, eerily, as I strolled along the empty streets.

Georgia Savannah my life travel
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Sacrificing Franke.

Sacrificing Franke.

my life travel Savannah
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Caleb and I are departing from Brooklyn at 3am tomorrow morning, and driving down to Savannah, Georgia, where he grew up. We’ll be gone for a week. If I don’t get lost in a haunted plantation (or in the toilet after too many crabs), I’ll be blogging. A bit. But I promised not too much.  When I’m back, I’ll have stories and photographs to share in abundance.

Caleb and I are departing from Brooklyn at 3am tomorrow morning, and driving down to Savannah, Georgia, where he grew up. We’ll be gone for a week. If I don’t get lost in a haunted plantation (or in the toilet after too many crabs), I’ll be blogging. A bit. But I promised not too much. 

When I’m back, I’ll have stories and photographs to share in abundance.

Georgia Plantation Savannah my life
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Planning a trip to Savannah at the end of the month, dreaming that I’ll wear things like this the whole time down there.

Planning a trip to Savannah at the end of the month, dreaming that I’ll wear things like this the whole time down there.

1952 Fashion Gleb Derujinsky Savannah harper's bazaar my life
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A Weekend In Boothbay Harbor, Maine

Last weekend (which seems very long ago now), I was held captive to the stories of Cage Zipperer, a lobster fisherman living in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. Brother of Caleb, father to Jonah, and house companion of Way—an 87-year-old beauty thus named because, according to Cage, she came from “very far away”—Cage, as a figure, is pretty goddamned romantic.

Born and raised in Savannah, Georgia, he was a fisherman before he was born. After working for most of his life in the South, he had moved up to Maine with his ex-wife and their baby, so that she could be closer to her family. They divorced, but he stayed living with her family, who are now just as much his as they are his ex-wife’s own. Cage is easy to love.

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Boothbay Harbor Lobster Fisherman Maine Savannah my life
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