Charleston A-Z

A is for the Aiken Rhett house, one of the few surviving antebellum houses in Charleston. It retains the kitchen, stables, furnishings and even wallpaper from the 1830s. It also retains quite a few misconceptions. Like the idea, repeated several times in the audio tour, that the house gives us a glimpse of "how the people of Charleston lived in the nineteenth century." Sort of the way future historians will proclaim Bill Gates' house to be a reminder of life in the twentieth century.

B is for Battery and White Point Park where a massive statue pays tribute to the racist slave owners who committed treason against the United States. Or, maybe I misread the sign.

C is for the Circular Congregational Church graveyard, which has some of the oldest graves in Charleston, many of them adorned with winged skulls (see below). I mean come on, this is luxagraf, of course I went to the graveyard.

D is for Doh! Imagine you wanted to steal a sailboat. You creep around the docks at night looking for open cabins. You find one. Score. You sail out of Charleston harbor headed south. The only problem is you just stole one of the most recognizable sailboats in the northern hemisphere. Doh. Here's the story of the initial heist. Alas Charleston's local paper doesn't understand URLs and so the story of the the recovery and arrests have disappeared (dead links left as a reminder of how fragile the web is).

E is for expensive. Charleston is. And yet, from what I've ever been able to tell, there is no real economy here, so where does the money come from? Is everyone here either a lawyer or old money? Still can't figure it out. What do you people do all day?

F is for Fast and French, a kind of French lunch-counter style restaurant that could have been pulled straight out of a Godard film. In fact, the only thing missing was Anna Karina¹. Not, in my experience, fast, but definitely as French as I've seen outside of Paris. Awesome homemade pate. I also love that it's called Fast and French because apparently no one in Charleston can pronounce the actual name -- Gaulart & Maliclet.

G is for the ghetto, where my wife used to live, brass knuckles in her dresser drawer. Do not go to Columbus Street.

H is for is for the Club Habana cigar bar, which looks like a set from Mad Men -- dark wood paneling, smoke-soaked leather chairs and sofas, dim lighting that creates plenty of dark corners and the best Scotch selection in Charleston.

I is for indulgent. Like say, eating four dozen oysters in a single setting. Yes. We did. And it was awesome.

J is for just didn't make it. Again. I've been to Charleston five times now and I've still never made the trip out to Fort Sumter. One day.

K is for King Street. Sure, half of it is full of Apple Stores, Banana Republics and the like, but further down it still manages to retain some, if slightly gentrified, charm. And you can pick up a seersucker suit so you too can look like an idiot.

L is for the Library Society, one of the oldest libraries on the country. Created in 1748, the Charleston Library Society paved the way for the founding of the College of Charleston in 1770 and provided the core collection of natural history artifacts for the first museum in America -- the Charleston Museum, founded in 1773.

M is for mansions, Charleston has a lot of them. Ridiculous, huge mansions that could house multiple families (and did back in the dark days of slavery).

N is for nap. Naps are good when you're traveling. They remind you that you don't have to do anything. Take one.

O is for Oyster Bar, specifically Pearlz, which, despite drawing a high percentage of tourists, has the best oysters in town. And the oyster-buyer knew his stuff. When I asked him if he had read The Big Oyster he responded, without a second's hesitation, "history on the half shell."

P is for People Wearing Fur. For some reason there were a lot of them in Charleston. Including a man wearing a fluffy fur shawl that looked like an ermine had stuck its paw in a light socket and wrapped itself around his neck. Awful, but not terribly surprising for a place that gave us the seersucker and other insults to fashion.

Q is for quiet, Charleston has a lot of it. Just head down to the Battery area, walk through the park and starting walking down the side streets. Take one of the many alleys and walkways that weave between the massive, stately houses. Get lost. It doesn't take much to find a quiet place of your own.

R is for restoration, let's have less of it. The Aiken Rhett house was by far the coolest old building I've seen in the south simply because it has not been restored. It's been shored up here and there, but for the most part the decay of it is the appeal of it. The peeling wallpaper, the threadbare furniture, the dusty paintings, the rotting timbers. The termites. The worms. The wood fungi. Decay always wins in the end.

S is for seersucker suit. Didn't see any this time; thank god for cold weather.

T is for highway 26, the craziest road I've driven in the U.S. People drive the 26 fast, stupid fast and the minute you move into the slow lane you're stuck there forever. It's insane.

U is for the Unitarian Church Garden, a beautiful, but little-visited cemetery/garden that's overgrown with wildflowers, trees and vines. It's also reportedly haunted by Annabel Lee, purportedly the the subject of Edgar Allen Poe's poem of the same name.

V is for very cold, something I don't normally associate with Charleston, but there was snow on the ground all the way into South Carolina. Not quite to Charleston, but pretty close.

W is for the winged skulls, which adorn many of the oldest gravestones in the Circular Church graveyard. The skulls, which symbolize the soul's ascension into heaven, recall a time when death was somehow more familiar, less threatening perhaps -- look mum, skulls with wings .

X is for xylophone. Because there aren't many words that start with x. Every plan has a flaw.

Y is for Yacht. I want one. Some of the nicest boats I've ever seen are in the Charleston harbor. If you have any interest in boats, it's worth walking around the docks for a bit. Who knows, you might even be able to hitch a ride out of Charleston harbor if you know what you're doing. Just don't steal anything.

Z is for zero, the number of times I have been to the Bubba Shrimp Company restaurant. Fuck you Hollywood.