The Mississippi State Fair is dynamic: loud and quiet; simple and gaudy; here and gone. And this dynamism trickles down to the individual, too. During my childhood, the fair meant a day trip up from Hattiesburg and falling asleep on the return trip down Highway 49. As a Millsaps student, it was a distraction from whatever paper was due the next day. Now, as a parent, it’s something entirely different.

My son’s daycare closes so their staff can attend the annual Mississippi Early Childhood Association conference, and for the past three years, this has coincided with the opening week of the Fair. Since I had to take off a day of work to stay with him, and I love corn dogs, the Fair seemed a logical way to spend part of our day. He was two during our first outing, and he didn’t last too long; it was chilly that October, and the petting zoo kind of freaked him out. But each subsequent year, he’s enjoyed it more.

The next year he rode the carousel with me in tow till the both of us were nearly laid out with vertigo. Last year he rode his first ride alone: a kiddie roller coaster shaped like a cartoonish centipede whose track waved a lazy oval. Wanting something a bit faster, he and I did a few tandem trips down the big slide, becoming airborne on the last hump and laughing like . . . well, like a dad and his 4-year-old. No longer afraid of the petting zoo, he cackled and made up an impromptu song as the goats nibbled carrot chips from his hand.

For my son, the Fair means ice cream, funnel cakes and rides. Right now, it means a day with dad. Sooner than I’d like to think, it’ll be a place where he goes with his friends, shunning his goofy dad’s presence as teenagers are supposed to do. I hope that the Fair will mean nostalgia for him as he treads through memories with fondness similar to mine. The rides he’ll ride will be bigger, faster, more fun, more dangerous. For him, the Fair will be an ever-increasing whirling blur of excitement and screams and light, just like when he was growing up. But for me, part of the Fair will always be me sitting on a square of burlap, my kid locked between my knees as we zip down the fiberglass slide, our laughter trailing behind us.

Written by Jamie

Jackson: photographs by Ken Murphy is available now for purchase. To order a copy, call Lemuria Books at 601.366.7619 or visit us online at lemuriabooks.com. Please join us in celebrating Jackson on August 5th at 5:00 in Banner Hall!

You may have noticed a recent trend on Lemuria’s blog, that trend being us shouting our love for the city of Jackson from the rooftops. If you don’t already know, Lemuria is publishing a book about our great capital city! Jackson: Photographs by Ken Murphy is a collection of all of the things that we think make this place so incredible and worth sticking around for. All of us here at the store have been working on blogs about what makes Jackson special for each of us personally, but we want to hear from you, too!

I’m sending out a call to arms, a call for you to help us yell and holler until we’re hoarse about how this city is more than statistics, more than its past, and full of the possibility for a bright present and future. I need you to write a few paragraphs about what makes Jackson special to you personally and send it in to me so that I can put it up on our blog. You guys are the reason that Lemuria exists, and your voices are so, so important to us. So crack those knuckles, sit down with that cup of coffee, and tell me why you love this place. Let’s share it with the world.

Please email all entries to hannah@lemuriabooks.com

Written by Hannah

Jackson: photographs by Ken Murphy is available now for purchase. To order a copy, call Lemuria Books at 601.366.7619 or visit us online at lemuriabooks.com. Please join us in celebrating Jackson on August 5th at 5:00 in Banner Hall!

“In order to see a photograph well, it is best to look away or close your eyes” –Roland Barthes

There is something to be said for an image haunting you; the photograph that reemerges again and again in your mind’s eye. Nine months ago, I met Ken Murphy at the Apothecary behind Brent’s Drugs to photograph the bar. I dimmed the lights, set the fruit in color-coordinated pyramids, lit some candles. Thirty minutes later the image of that back room was in the camera, the lenses back in their cases, the tripod folded. Even though I was standing next to Ken when the shutter stopped down, seeing the photograph in its final form—plate 100 of the Jackson book—was startling. It wasn’t at all how I remembered the bar that night.

Nine months of stirring and shaking  drinks have enlivened the space since the photo was snapped. The walls have more stories to tell, the marble bar has been rubbed by leaning elbows, the wood is a bit more worn. Roland Barthes’ reflection on photography, Camera Lucida, explores the somewhat magical qualities of still images—the vibrancy with which a photograph captures a moment the duration of a fraction of a second. Time holds its breath for the shutter. He writes, “the Photograph does not call up the past…The effect it produces upon me is not to restore what has been abolished (by time, by distance) but to attest that what I see has indeed existed.” (82)

This book is a marker. On these pages, the evolving and living city of Jackson holds its breath. Behind each closed door, someone is waiting to walk through.

Written by Adie

Jackson: photographs by Ken Murphy is available now for purchase. To order a copy, call Lemuria Books at 601.366.7619 or visit us online at lemuriabooks.com. Please join us in celebrating Jackson on August 5th at 5:00 in Banner Hall!

When my husband and I packed all of our belongings and our reluctant dog Lucy into a U-Haul in the middle of the summer in 2012, I was sure I could not be happy in Jackson. For a long time, I was right. I cried myself to sleep on many nights, wishing I was back in Nashville, and cursing the University Medical Center for being in the middle of this godforsaken (and inexcusably hot) state. At the time, we were living on Jefferson Street, just across the way from Fenian’s Pub and it was there, amid the terrible karaoke covers of “Crazy Train” and the permeating and never-wash-outable smell of french fries and grease, that I crawled out of my house found home. I could, for the first time in my life, actually sit at the bar (but NOT at the corner underneath the freezing air vent), and have Jimmy pour me an ice cold Budweiser, and really relax. I made friends with the regulars, attended pub quiz weekly, and decided, in short, to shut the hell up about Jackson and let some real Jacksonians show me what the city was all about. And Jackson, as it turned out, was not so bad a place after all.

About a year later, with a much fuller and happier social life, we packed up the dog, the U-Haul, and a new cat named Judy the Booty, and moved just a few streets down to a quieter section of the Belhaven neighborhood. Just a street away from Belhaven University, our little home is surrounded by ancient oak trees and quiet neighbors, but sadly no Fenians within walking distance (not comfortable tipsy walking distance that is). But then God smiled upon the already amazing Fairview Inn, just around the corner from our house, and decided to bestow upon it a book-themed lounge stocked with leather armchairs and shelves of books everywhere. Oh thank you Jesus for this place. Just the way Fenian’s wrapped me up in the gritty, unrefined side of Jackson that I was itching for, The Library has enveloped me in an incredible sense of community. For the first time since I was a little girl, I not only know my neighbors’ names, I am friends with them. We meet each other at The Library to catch up, to watch movies on the back patio, and to commiserate with Tony- who in my opinion is the greatest bartender who every walked this earth. (Seriously, I waited out the last tornado in The Library with my dog -The Library is dog friendly- and Tony called me after I walked home to make sure I hadn’t been blown away.)

I suppose it might be strange that the two places that helped me to put my finger onto the living, beating pulse of Jackson are bars, but really, isn’t a bar one of the best places to fall in love with a city? And I have fallen in love. An unlikely, unexpected, unorthodox love with an unlikely, often forgotten city. One day I will leave this place, I know. But for now, this is home. Let’s pour one out for Jackson.

Written by Hannah

Jackson: photographs by Ken Murphy is available now for purchase. To order a copy, call Lemuria Books at 601.366.7619 or visit us online at lemuriabooks.com. Please join us in celebrating Jackson on August 5th at 5:00 in Banner Hall!

You may have heard that Lemuria Books is publishing a photographic coffee table book called Jackson: Crossroads of the South by Ken Murphy. Needless to say, we’re thrilled. The goal of this project is to capture what Jacksonians value, enjoy and find beautiful about our city. Ken has spent the last six months on a photo shoot in Jackson. The book will go on sale in May/June of 2014 and will contain approximately 160 photos of Jackson.

We thought this book was so special that we didn’t want to keep it all to ourselves. So John Evans, owner of Lemuria, came up with the idea to allow Jackson businesses to sell the book as well. We think of this book as more than just a book. It is a product for Jackson about Jackson. We hope everybody will be proud of it. We encourage all local retailers to have this Jackson product/book for sale on their counters. We feel small business is an overlooked yet key component to preserving Jackson’s vitality.

There are two ways you can sell Jackson: Crossroads of the South at your business.

1. You can buy one or more boxes—with 10 books in each box—with the standard dust jacket. The above dust jacket is our standard “working” dust jacket.

2. You can buy 10 or more boxes of the book and have the opportunity to have your very own customized dust jacket. Ken Murphy will photograph your business for the cover. These orders must be placed by November 1, 2013.

For more details on wholesaling Jackson, click here: Jackson Crossroads of the South Wholesale Information

All retailers are invited to an exclusive sneak peek and talk with Ken Murphy on Monday, September 30 at 6:00 at the LemuriaBooks.com Building (adjacent to Banner Hall).

Jackson: photographs by Ken Murphy is available now for purchase. To order a copy, call Lemuria Books at 601.366.7619 or visit us online at lemuriabooks.com. Please join us in celebrating Jackson on August 5th at 5:00 in Banner Hall!