Thanks to Lewis for the heads-up on this Tennessee two-bit story.

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Tennessee is known for its musical heritage, but the images on the state quarter now being circulated have hit a sour note. The guitar on the quarter has five strings, coming from six tuning pegs. And, the trumpet’s mouthpiece on the coin is on the wrong side, although there are a few left-handed trumpets made that way.

Down-home cookin’? Fried Apalachicola oysters with a French rémoulade.

The New York Times’ R.W. Apple tells us how Birmingham (that’s right, the one in Alabama) became home to one of the best restaurants in the country. No lie.

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It took the food establishment a long time to notice. Big-city critics don’t visit Birmingham very often. But last year Mr. Stitt won the James Beard award as the region’s best chef, and Gourmet magazine placed Highlands fifth on its list of the 50 best restaurants in America, just behind Spago Beverly Hills and just ahead of Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago and Daniel in New York. If you close your eyes, the magazine suggested, you could almost imagine that Alabama was “somehow sandwiched between Mississippi and Provence.”

When could there possibly be a better time to launch a magazine for business travelers than when travel advertising is tanking?

Adage reports that Readers Digest is closing its baby boomer lifestyle magazine, New Choices. The publisher claims the title “fell victim to downward trends in circulation and the overall ad market, as well as increased postal costs.” I think they also should have blamed the worsening eyesights of their target market.

The Tennessean reports that a state tax on services was squashed by a “stream” of lobbyists “weighing in on the controversial bill.” Gee, and I thought it was squashed because it was so painfully apparent that the proposal was ludicrous.

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Scores of interest-group representatives listened closely, so many, in fact, that the aisles had to be cleared and the doors propped open to abide by the fire marshal’s orders.

John Huey & Co. get interviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle and from the sidelines, magazine editor extrodinaire Clay Felker weighs in on the needed changes at Sports Illustrated:

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“ESPN was eating their lunch,” (Felker) said of a rival magazine started by the cable network. “The magazine was looking very tacky. ESPN is so vigorous and strong.”

Wall Street Journal “Crunch Time” columnist Hilary Stout tells about the career turn a couple makes after they both get fired by Enron. Necessity is the mother of invention. Is it also the mother of small business?