Friday, November 12, 2004

Dodging The Tourists

Savannah

I'm at a disadvantage as a visitor to this city because I haven't read the book "Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil." It seems everyone else has. Walking around last night with a young Italian - who was oblivious to the normal practice in American cities of keeping your head down and not looking like a tourist and insisted on whipping out his video camera all the time and doing a monologue for his 87 cousins back in Rimini - I kept on running into groups being taken round sites from the story. I'm sure it's fascinating, but I've not even seen the movie, so I had no idea what the ridiculously-dressed tour guides were talking about.

"Forrest Gump" was also shot here and just now I saw the bench they used, now in the local history museum. There's also an interesting display on the great songwriter Johnny Mercer which featured a real Oscar (bigger than I imagined) and a Grammy (really small) he won during his illustrious career. He was the guy who wrote "Moon River" and looking out at the grand Savannah River it's easy to see where he got the inspiration from. In common with the rest of the city, the riverfront area is certainly handsome but the whole old colonial atmosphere is a bit forced for the benefit of the tourists. And even in November, with the weather still very humid, there are plenty of them about.

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