Photo Courtesy of joshunter on Flickr

Depending on which way you look at it, the weekend of both Bonnaroo and the Country Music Association Festival is either the worst or greatest time for an unsuspecting tourist to visit Nashville. Both of these titanic music festivals draw thousands of fans to Tennessee to get wild for the weekend — and I was their unsuspecting victim, somehow not knowing about either in advance.

While Bonnaroo is out in Manchester, CMA-Fest proudly takes over the city’s center. It is impossible to sleep, eat, drink, or read a newspaper downtown without noticing the revelers. So as a fair-weather country music fan at best, I opted to avoid the crowds and stick to Nashville’s more peripheral neighborhoods. That meant missing the Ryman and the Opry and many of those institutions that would likely make it onto any must-see list. Nonetheless, I still discovered a whole lot of soul. And the biggest crowd I encountered was the line for the city’s most popular popsicles.

Read more »

The Manhattan gallery scene is familiar to all, but things out in Brooklyn are a little bit different. Check out Ad Hoc Art, and pick up some tips about what’s happening across the East River, at Revel In New York.

Peter McGough and his partner in art David McDermott mark the beginning of the modern world at the outbreak of the First World War, and they’re having nothing to do with any of it. Their dedication to the past is something more than just a retro aesthetic or a backward-looking worldview; it’s somewhere between a lifelong piece of performance art, and a fully realized, semi-private alternative universe. Find out more about its points of intersection with the 21st century at Revel in New York.

See a seamier side of Brooklyn with the underground documentary photographer Tod Seelie. Do know that a few of his images are not exactly safe for work — but if you’d like to see more, check out Revel in New York.

Jim Walrod designed a couple of Tablet hotels. But before that he was Beastie Boy Mike D’s “furniture pimp.” Here he is with Mike’s mother, Hester Diamond, talking about the extreme modernist makeover they gave Ms. Diamond’s apartment. For more, including Jim’s picks for the best in New York architecture and design, check out Revel in New York.