There’s been a slew of good news in the Alabama auto industry this week. As you know, Alabama has three auto manufacturing plants—the Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, the Hyundai plant in Montgomery and the Honda plant in Lincoln. The good news is that sales of vehicles made at all three plants are up this month, according to separate reports by the Birmingham Business Journal.

For last week’s cover story, Birmingham Weekly contributing editor Jesse Chambers interviewed Lee Shook about the 2010 Improvisor Festival happening all this month at various venues around Birmingham and throughout the South. Shook described improvisation in this way: “You may fall flat on your face and have people running for the exits, or you may blow somebody’s mind who says, ‘I didn’t know you could do that with music, I never knew that was possible.’ When you see someone do something amazing, it’s one of the most uplifting things. Somebody just threw themselves into the cauldron to see if they sink or swim.”

The Birmingham City Council approved a year-long extension of a Congressional lobbying contract with the firm Handprint Bell Consulting, LLC, on Tuesday. The contract was hotly debated for several reasons, one being the cost—$250,000 for services through July 2011, and, optionally, $300,000 for 2012. “Actually, we can get high-quality representation in Washington for half the price,” Councilor Kim Rafferty said. Another issue was the firm’s failure to secure appropriations for the city, a concern expressed by Councilor Steven Hoyt: “I want some real results, and we’ve not gotten that,” he said.

CAP-AND-FADE: While our media alternately raved at and apologized to Shirley Sherrod last week, the prospect of major climate change legislation meant to cap greenhouse gas emissions died without so much as a proper burial.

There’s this song I’ve loved for a long-time called “Sharon” by a bluesman/folk singer named David Bromberg. It’s about a trip to a carnival—“No big deal, Ferris wheel, same old stuff, you know”—except for this one little tent. Outside the barker described the goings-on inside in this manner: “She walks, she talks! She crawls on her belly like a reptile!” Inside the tent, there’s basically a belly-dancer strip show—Sharon walks out “in a scarf in a sneeze,” and dances “like her back had no bone.” That song was really the first piece of art that, for me, lent any sensuality to the circus/carnival circuit, but now I appreciate the sensuality and the sensuousness—the art, if you will—of such alternative entertainment, and am greatly looking forward to the burlesque and sideshow entertainment at The Coney Island Cockabilly Roadshow.

42,000 jobs saved by stimulus: In June, 215,813 Alabamians, or 10.3 percent, were unemployed according to the Department of Industrial Relations, but that number may have been significantly worse were it not for the stimulus bill. That bill, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act helped to create or save 42,000 jobs in Alabama since the bill passed in February 2009, according to a report from the Council of Economic Advisers cited by the Birmingham Business Journal.

LET’S TALK ABOUT SEEPAGE: BP’s leaking oil well has finally been stopped. On Thursday, BP activated a new containment device at its failed Macondo well, sealing the well for the first time in three months.

DEF POETRY/HIP-HOP/ RAP/R&B JAM: “Our life is an illusion, and we create the confusion so take a dose of seclusion to dilute the delusion, and hope that it’s not in vain that we look into the spheres of the fear-fruit bearing tree before we eat again,” ends the only spoken-word track, my favorite, on Grayson Capps’ album, “Rott & Roll.” I love spoken word—I remember ordering up seasons of Def Poetry Jam on my Netflix when I lived with four roommates post-college and playing the discs one after another, dragging my roommates in to watch the most moving performances.

Free skin care for all Alabamians! State Rep. Robert Bentley of Tuscaloosa secured the Republican nomination for Alabama governor Tuesday night. He defeated Bradley Byrne, whom Gov. Bob Riley picked to serve as chancellor of the Alabama Community College System after a slew of corruption scandals. Riley issued a long-expected but late endorsement of Byrne on Monday, but despite that (or perhaps because of it) Bentley defeated Byrne soundly, earning 56 percent of the vote to Byrne’s 44 percent.

SOME GOOD NEWS BUBBLES UP FROM THE BOTTOM: Things have gone well for BP and the Gulf of Mexico in the last week, relatively speaking. In spite of the challenge of working with remote-operated vehicles (ROVs) in harsh conditions at 5,000 feet below sea level, on Monday BP engineers managed to attach a new sealing cap to a well that has spewed millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.