U.S. Representative John Lewis: civil rights icon, lover of handmade wares.

The elder statesman sat for a picture in the Leah and Mark photo booth at this weekend's Indie Craft Experience Holiday Spectacular at Ambient Studio in southwest Atlanta.

• leahandmark.com

Also, he looks awesomely tough in this picture.

• Whomas Teatley
• Bill and the boys

The occasion was a first-of-its-kind Mayors Roundtable hosted by Atlanta magazine and held at the Atlanta History Center's McElreath Hall featuring the surviving occupants of the city's top job — with the unfortunate exception of Shirley Franklin, who bailed on the event over the weekend with scant explanation.

The event began with a wine-fueled reception and some high-powered people-watching. Look, there's Clayton County Commission Chairman and former Atlanta Police Chief Eldrin Bell! Over there, it's Turner Broadcasting CEO Phil Kent! Don't turn around or you'll bump into Congressman John Lewis, mayoral widow Valerie Jackson or environmental activist and Ted's daughter, Laura Turner Seydel!

It was the perfect setting for Campbell to launch his formal reintroduction to Atlanta society. Granted, Bill has been seen around town in recent months — hell, he was in line in front of me buying movie tickets at Landmark a few weeks back — but it's always been at small gatherings or private functions. This time, however, he was literally onstage in front of some of the city's biggest movers and shakers. Simply by appearing alongside mayors Sam Massell, Andrew Young and Kasim Reed, Campbell was afforded the illusion of respectability.

As much as the audience was interested in hearing pearls of wisdom and war stories from the City Hall vets, I imagine that people were also curious to see how Campbell would comport himself. And it's in that latter regard that I confess a measure of disappointment.

When I was a kid, I had to trudge miles through the Blizzard of '93 just to get a hot meal. My mom made us put Ziploc bags over our socks and beneath our tennis shoes because we didn't have those fancy-pants boots back then. We stuck a carrot in our snowman's head as a nose instead of your high-highfalutin iPhones. And I wasn't allowed to cry when my pinkie finger fell off from frostbite. Those were the days... But now we've got a real life snowstorm blanketing our city! Are you spending the day warmly in your home, or are you sledding in Piedmont Park? Giant snowball fight on your street? Here's what some of our Tweeps are doing, so be sure to Twitpic us your snowy Atlanta photos @cl_atlanta!

Camisimmons checks out the empty shelves at Edgewood and decides to make a staycation out of it. She says she "wasn't concerned about the food part. I risked life, limb & car for some bottles of wine. Priorities."

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TweetsbyTip longs for the days when outdoor furniture was usable:

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RICHARD MORRIS AND PIG AT NORTH GEORGIA STATE FAIR: “You tell that Obama guy that I don’t look anything like Sarah Palin.”

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

ARTIST SAM FLORES PAINTING LENNY'S: Pretty fancy. What's next, guys? Doors on the bathroom stalls, perhaps?

(Photo by Alan Friedman)

PAT BERTOLETTI WINS KRYSTAL SQUARE-OFF AT LENOX: They’d never allow this sort of thing at Phipps.

Though it lacks the prestige of competitive hot dog eating (record: 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes), the implied anal torture of competitive jalepeño eating (record: 247 in eight minutes), or the incredulity of competitive cow brain eating (record: 17.7 pounds in 15 minutes), competitive hamburger eating is the pro-eating’s hot new sport.

Witness Saturday’s Atlanta Krystal Square Off qualifier at Lenox, where a crowd gathered to watch pro-eaters Krystal’s signature miniature burgers. The easy winner was Pat Bertoletti. The second-ranked eater in the world, Bertoletti consumed 66 Krystals in just eight minutes, earning him a spot at September 27’s $50,000 world championship in Chattanooga.

» See more pics at CL's Side Show Atlanta

(Photo by Alan Friedman)

GOV. SONNY PERDUE AND HOUSE SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH: Amused to find out that they've suddenly become outsiders, reformers and agents of feminism.

(Photo by Joeff Davis. Galleries of Joeff's photos from both party conventions can be found on his web site, Joeff.com)

HERE COMES THE (LAND OF THE RISING) SUN: John Lennon (Hidemasa Mabuchi) looks on as George Harrison (Hajime Kubo) wails at the Variety Playhouse.

Japanese beetles, and apparently Japanese Beatles, thrive in America because they have no natural predators here. The Silver Beats, a Beatles tribute band from Tokyo, opened their inaugural U.S. tour in 2007 at the Fox Theatre, and they returned Wednesday to play the Variety Playhouse.

Fans sang along as the band breathed surreal new life into the dusty classics, and heckling front-row frat boys had little effect. The Beats seemed immune to any ridicule because it's hard to tell how seriously they take themselves. Covering such an iconic band is rife with pitfalls, and despite having the matching suits, shaggy bowl cuts and musical chops to carry that weight, their tongues never strayed far from their cheeks as they ripped through convincing Fab Four covers in rapid-fire succession. They stopped between songs only occasionally for some crowd-teasing banter in halting Japanese accents, and defused the hecklers with their disarming cheer and subtle sarcasm. The feisty Tadaaki Naganuma -- Paul -- responded to one upstart by teaching the crowd a Japanese word, which sounded a lot like "Eat us."

Photo by Joeff Davis

RE-ENACTMENT: A pregnant Dorothy Malcom is taken to her death.

The last public lynching in America took place 62 years ago near Atlanta, but the quest for justice continues.

Dorothy Malcom was seven months pregnant on July 25, 1946 when she, her husband Roger, and another couple, George and Mae Murray Dorsey, were lynched at Moore’s Ford Bridge near Monroe. Sixty-two years later, the unborn baby received a name – Justice Malcom.

The surviving members of the Malcom family adopted the name at the rally preceding the fourth annual re-enactment of the lynching Friday. The name reflects the need for justice in the last public lynching case in America, says Georgia Rep. Tyrone Brooks, D. Atlanta. The case remains unsolved.