Legendary comic Steve Martin, interviewed in a recent issue of Smithsonian Magazine, recounts a major breakthrough in his development as a performer that happened to take place on the Vanderbilt campus:

Because I was generally unknown, I was free to gamble with material, and there were a few evenings when crucial mutations affected my developing act. At Vanderbilt University in Nashville, I played for approximately 100 students in a classroom with a stage at one end. The show went fine. However, when it was over, something odd happened. The audience didn’t leave. The stage had no wings, no place for me to go, but I still had to pack up my props. I indicated that the show had ended, but they just sat there, even after I said flatly, “It’s over.” They thought this was all part of the act, and I couldn’t convince them otherwise. Then I realized there were no exits from the stage and that the only way out was to go through the audience.

So I kept talking. I passed among them, ad-libbing comments along the way. I walked out into the hallway, but they followed me there too. A reluctant pied piper, I went outside onto the campus, and they stayed right behind me. I came across a drained swimming pool. I asked the audience to get into it—”Everybody into the pool!”—and they did. Then I said I was going to swim across the top of them, and the crowd knew exactly what to do: I was passed hand over hand as I did the crawl. That night I went to bed feeling I had entered new comic territory. My show was becoming something else, something free and unpredictable, and the doing of it thrilled me, because each new performance brought my view of comedy into sharper focus.
Martin doesn’t mention the year of this performance, but I’m guessing it must have been the early 70s. I would love to be able to witness what that show must have been like firsthand.

Note to Vanderbilt fans: I really am talking about Steve Martin, not Commodores football coach Bobby Johnson. (Scroll down to the fourth row of photos if you follow that link.)

The Toronto Globe and Mail has a good read on the Preds and their critical road trip through Western Canada that begins tonight, a slate of games that may determine whether they make the playoffs for the fourth consecutive season. The article observes that the “plucky” team’s “surprising” season has come amid much turmoil off the ice.

The Preds are tied with Vancouver and Colorado at 74 points with the final two playoff spots in the West at stake. “If we can get out of this trip with a decent record, then I think we stand a good chance of getting in,” said Nashville head coach Barry Trotz.

Rewind the season 66 games before the puck was dropped and one would hard-pressed to believe the depleted Predators would be tied for the last playoff spot in the West with one month to go in the regular season. When Peter Forsberg, Paul Kariya, Scott Hartnell, Kimmo Timonen and Tomas Vokoun left town last summer, the pundits were quick to predict a spring with no playoff hockey in Nashville.

“Going into the season, everybody thought that there would be no way we would recover from all the losses and the situation with our hockey team (sale) and all that,” said Trotz. “I think our team took a lot of personal pride in terms of trying to prove people wrong and show we’re still a pretty good hockey team.”

The Preds aren’t a given either to make or to miss the playoffs as the season draws to a close, but they are right about where I thought they would be: fighting for seventh or eighth in the West. What’s “surprising” to me is not the Preds’ performance on the ice this season, but instead how quickly and universally the hockey experts wrote this team off before the puck even dropped on their opening game.

It was logical to expect a dip after so many departures, but many pundits ignored that a talented core stayed behind. In the wake of lukewarm attendance and an aspiring owner’s failed attempt at an Ontario exit, I guess it was easy to keep piling on. Here’s hoping the Preds keep piling on the points right back to the playoffs … and hopefully to the second round, too.

Speaking of those ticket sales, if you have what it takes to seal the deal, the Preds are looking for sales reps and all kinds of  interns right now. 

Lexington, Ky., is in the throes of a fight over downtown property that will sound familiar to anyone in Nashville who’s been keeping up with the planned Westin Hotel development on Broadway:

With an announcement of a high-rise downtown hotel development expected as early as this week, two groups are keeping a close eye on a strip of historic buildings on the block where the building will rise. One is interested in the buildings because of their architectural and historic significance (some of the buildings date to the 1820s). The other says the block houses one of the city’s few pockets of night life, which they contend will suffer if the buildings go down.

Both groups say they are not opposed to new development on the block, but they want to see it incorporate the historic buildings and support the existing entertainment district.

Supporters of the mixed-use development — shown as a 40-story tower in preliminary plans — say it will bring new life to the heart of downtown, and that it isn’t economically feasible to keep the old buildings on the block.

Look closely: It seemed appropriate irony to me that there is a Rite-Aid in the foreground of the digitally enhanced photo of the Lexington hotel.

It may be too late, but the Lexington developers might turn to The Tennessean’s Chas Sisk for thoughts on how to proceed. I thought it was strange that Sisk mentioned Free-Will Baptist Bible College in his column today but not Charlotte Avenue Church of Christ or the Westin, two recent and high-profile instances of square-offs between developers and preservationists.

Eric and Katie over at Nashville Restaurants have stumbled upon Manny’s House of Pizza in the Arcade downtown. If you’ve ever visited this great little pizza place, you know that this is the closest Nashville gets to having it’s own version of Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi. It pales (fortunately) in comparison with the rigid ordering process required for George or Elaine to come away with a bowl of soup, but it can be a little intense letting Manny and company know what you want for lunch.

House of Pizza isn’t just a figurative hole in the wall. It really does feel like some pizza cave inside of the Arcade in downtown Nashville. It’s also the closest thing we’ve come to an authentic Northeast pizza joint here in the Nashville area. The worn little dining room in back; the cramped way you have to stand over the counter when you order; the back and forth between Manny and his regulars: I am transported back to the Kenmore Square in Boston.

Eric and Katie have also discovered a new all-you-can-eat Southern cooking buffet and a new Mexican restaurant that looks pretty sharp. Those pretzels are not making me thirsty, but all of this talking about food is making me hungry.