The week that was...

Bummed that I missed the Big Apple BBQ while flying back to NY from Alabama last weekend. The air surrounding Madison Park was still dripping of smokey pulled pig and tangy sauce well past midnight as I passed by en route to my apartment building upon landing. Happily, GQ recounted the Billy Reid part of the experience on its blog:

This past Saturday, GQ's 2010 New Men's Designer of the Year and grandmaster of tailored Southern cool Billy Reid made a trip north of the Mason-Dixon to throw a down-home porch party at his eponymous label's NY outpost. In support of their participation in the annual Big Apple Bar-b-q Block Party, the Alabama-based designer brought in Birmingham favorite Jim N Nick's Bar-B-Q to roast a whole pig right outside the storefront steps. Deep-South pit meisters and downtown style hounds brushed elbows around neverending trays of ungodly delicious pork tacos and a keg of Jim N Nick's own house brew (suitably named Reverand Mudbone)—all the while trying not to get cole slaw on the shop's impeccable vintage-feel ties and oxfords. It was the perfect salve for a balmy evening—as relaxed and effortlessly charming as you'd expect from a southern gent like Mr. Reid.

— Graham Cumberbatch

BOOK: Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South

While spreading the gospel around the world through his signature crusades, internationally renowned evangelist Billy Graham maintained a visible and controversial presence in his native South, a region that underwent substantial political and economic change in the latter half of the twentieth century. In this period Graham was alternately a desegregating crusader in Alabama, Sunbelt booster in Atlanta, regional apologist in the national press, and southern strategist in the Nixon administration.

Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South considers the critical but underappreciated role of the noted evangelist in the creation of the modern American South. (read more here)

Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South by Steven P. Miller is out now via University of Pennsylvania Press.