"Can Mary fry some fish, Momma..."

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Southern Gothic is a literary genre popularized by American writers from the South incorporating uniquely Southern settings and "grotesque, macabre, or fantastic incidents."  William Faulkner, Truman Capote, and Flannery O'Connor popularized the genre.

O'Connor's "Good Country People" is one of my favorite short stories.  The story incorporates deception and physical deformities, and while it is humorous tale, the story contains a disturbing twist. 

Hulga is a representation of O'Connor herself.  

What is it with the South and grotesque deformities?

This archetype still exists.  I can't help but think of Deliverance.

Cue menacing banjo lick...

* * *

When I was thirteen years old, I read Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell's Southern epic.  I also read the vastly inferior sequel, Scarlett.  Rhett butler is the most dynamic character in both novels (His scant presence in the sequel comprises its main fault).  A dashing gentleman and brave warrior, Rhett Butler is chivalry incarnate.  The novel, written in 1936, glorified the South.  Plantations, gentleman, beautiful woman--the South of Gone with the Wind represents American luxury at its finest.  However, it's easy to accumulate wealth with slave labor.  Human rights can stand in the way of prosperity. 

The South paid for its moral depravity, its flagrant disregard for human rights.  Economically and psychologically, the South never recovered from the Civil War.  The Southern gentleman--the Rhett butler archetype--now represents hypocrisy and moral irresponsibility. 

 

The South is the land of the damned.  American Gothic literature, unconsciously or consciously, draws upon the damaged landscape of the South.  

I read somewhere that Hank Williams is the anti-Rhett Butler, the archetypal Southern white man of the 1950's: illiterate, drunk, crippled (Hank suffered from spinal bifida, alcoholism, and depression).

He even possesses a distinct tragic flaw.  His creative powers were fueled by his self-destructive tendencies.  A clean, happy, and sober Hank was unable to thrive creatively.

Hank is Southern Gothic.

As a musical genre, country music is ripe with gothic lyrics and subject matter.  One of my favorite country songs is "Psycho."  Penned by Leon Payne, the song is masterfully interpreted by Elvis Costello, an Irish New Waver (and my favorite lyricist).  The song deals with murder and insanity and possesses a uniquely Southern flavor.

A Star is Born

There was a great article in RollingStone 1076, the issue featuring a meditative Lil' Wayne on the cover.

The issue features a great piece written about Kris Kristofferson by the actor, Ethan Hawke. I'm particularly fond of his performance in the Dead Poets Society.

O Captain! My Captain!

One day I hope to get my students standing on their desks reciting poetry, and you absolutely can't go wrong with Walt.

But back to Kris.

Kris is primarily known as an actor. His first role was in Dennis Hopper's pseudo-sequel to Easy Rider, The Last Movie.

He and Bob Dylan redefined the western hero in Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid.

"For me [Ethan Hawke], has always been a part of the landscape of my country -- an amalgamation of John Wayne and Walt Whitman." According to Hawke, Kristofferson and Dylan were "claiming the country by seizing its most iconic art form, the Western, right out of John Wayne's and Glenn Ford's hands."

* * *

His big commercial break came in '76. He played a self-destructive, aging rock star in A Star is Born. However, Kristofferson's film career almost came to an abrupt end in 1980 thanks to Heaven's Gate, an anti-American Western. Hawke interviewed Martin Scorsese, who commented on the changing film industry in the 1980's: "The critical establishment ended that decade by making an example out of Heaven's Gate, eviscerating the film and everyone associated with it... They were done supporting individual expression in the movies."

In recent years, Kris' movie career has experienced a resurgence of sorts. He's the best part of the Blade trilogy, playing the gravelly and leathery Whistler, mentor to Wesley Snipes' tax-evading vampire hunter.

* * *

Kris, along with his other outlaw contemporaries -- Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and others -- helped restore credibility to country music.

They embraced the self-destructive Hank Williams' lifestyle.

The "kick out the lights at the Grand Ole Opry" attitude of Johnny Cash.

This image stood in stark contrast to Chet Atkins' over-produced, squeaky clean, polished Nashville image and sound.

True fans of country music were exhilirated.

***

Kris' success seems to stem from his charisma, which affects his performances as an actor and songwriting-musician alike.

Here are some random facts about Kristofferson:

• He received a Bachelor of Arts in Literature from Pomona College.
• He was a Rhodes scholar. He studied William Blake and William Shakespeare at Oxford University.
• He joined the army and became a helicopter pilot.
• After completing a tour of duty, he was offered a position teaching literature at West Point.
• He turned this offer down and moved his family to Nashville. Initially unable to succeed as a songwriter, he became at janitor at a studio owned by Columbia Records. He was present while Dylan recored his landmark album, Blonde on Blonde.
• While working as a janitor, Kristofferson also worked part-time as a helicopter pilot flying out of the Gulf of Mexico.
• He landed a helicopter in Johnny Cash's backyard to ensure that the "Man in Black" himself would listen to his demo tape.

Kristofferson emulated his hero, the late, great Hank Williams, a man who according to Kristofferson, belonged in the company of Shakespeare and Blake.

Funny.

A drunk, illiterate hillbilly in the company of Shakespeare?

Leonard Cohen agrees.

"Tower of Song."

Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey I ache in the places where I used to play And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on I'm just paying my rent every day Oh in the Tower of Song I said to Hank Williams: how lonely does it get? Hank Williams hasn't answered yet But I hear him coughing all night long A hundred floors above me In the Tower of Song I was born like this, I had no choice I was born with the gift of a golden voice And twenty-seven angels from the Great Beyond They tied me to this table right here In the Tower of Song So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll I'm very sorry, baby, doesn't look like me at all I'm standing by the window where the light is strong Ah they don't let a woman kill you Not in the Tower of Song Now you can say that I've grown bitter but of this you may be sure The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor And there's a mighty judgement coming, but I may be wrong You see, you hear these funny voices In the Tower of Song I see you standing on the other side I don't know how the river got so wide I loved you baby, way back when And all the bridges are burning that we might have crossed But I feel so close to everything that we lost We'll never have to lose it again Now I bid you farewell, I don't know when I'll be back There moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track But you'll be hearing from me baby, long after I'm gone I'll be speaking to you sweetly From a window in the Tower of Song Yeah my friends are gone and my hair is grey I ache in the places where I used to play And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on I'm just paying my rent every day Oh in the Tower of Song.

Old, Weird America

Harry Smith was a strange man.

He arrived in New York City in 1950. Hailing from Oregon, Harry Smith was a cosmologically-aware (Peyote) anthropologist and experimental filmmaker. He was an obsessive collector: quilts, paper airplanes, and Ukrainian Easter eggs (He had nearly 30,000 in his collection!).

Harry also collected phonograph records, specifically rare 78's.

In 1952, Moe Asch, owner of Folkways Records, agreed to release a three-volume collection of songs, most from the 1920's and 30's, coming right from Harry's personal collection: the Anthology of American Folk Music.

Arguably more interesting than the music itself was the presentation of the collection.

Amanda Petrusich describes the cover art in great detail in It Still Moves:

Each of the three volumes boasted the same cover art--an etching by Theodore de Bry, plucked from a compendium on mysticism by the British physicist, astrologer, and mystic Robert Fludd. The picture, a sketched globe, anchored by a one-stringed instrument, with a hand bursting forth from the clouds to twist its lone tuning peg, was of something Smith called the Celestial Monochord, a protean instrument invented by Pythagoras in 400 B.C. (200)

Each record was color-coded and elementally themed. The red album dealt with fire; the blue air; and the green water.

* * *

Latin lettering, Greek imagery, elemental themes, and banjos?

Archetypes form really fast.

I'm reminded of Milton's Paradise Lost. The epic poem, written in the 17th century, created an archetypal miscommunication that still resonates today: the sinful apple. In the Old Testament, Eve eats of the Fruit of Knowledge; not an apple. However, most people today believe that the fruit she ate was an apple. I'd hazard to say that most people today are blissfully unaware of the source of this confusion: a 400 year old epic poem.

Smith accomplished a similar feat and in much less time. Folk music, early country, blues, and gospel is believed to be invested of a timeless and universal quality. By the time I become an avid of the genre, Smith's Anthology was barely fifty years old. However, I had fallen for his self-mythologizing despite being unaware of the collection. I had only heard Harry Smith's name.

I legitimately believed that American musicians in the 1920's, 30's, and 40's had somehow tapped into the nation's unconscious, creating art resonating with the entire ancestry of human artistry. Yes, I am including the Greeks and the Romans.

Was I disillusioned when I discovered that this mysticism stemmed from a peyote-smoking, obsessive compulsive, cosmological collector?

Not really.

Sure, Harry Smith was an eccentric. However, he was onto something.

Music about life, death, struggle, God, suffering, murder, and general hardship is both universal and timeless.

A friend of mine once wisely said that "human suffering is universal."

Thanks to Harry Smith, I'm no longer an outsider.

Sure, I didn't grow up picking cotton, wandering the woods of Alabama drinking a mixture of iced tea and whiskey, but I am a human being.

Everyone's invited.

Three cheers for the eccentric.

In 1991, Harry Smith won a grammy for his contribution to popular music.

Imperialist

The late great Harlan Howard once said, "Country music is three chords and the truth."

Obviously Ray Charles agreed with Harlan, the beloved country songwriter.  His cover of Harlan's "Busted" is quite famous.

Simplicity and truth.  These are fairly universal attributes.

* * *

Amanda Petrusich is a staff writer for Pitchfork:  

Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on independent music,[1] especially indie rock. However, the range of musical genres covered extends to electronic, pop, hip hop, dance, folk, jazz, metal, and experimental music (Wikipedia).

I picked up her book, It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, And The Search For The Next American Music.  In it, Amanda describes an interesting phenomenon: the intellectual's interest in country music.

Scholars and academics still toil in libraries and archives and cornfields, rolling up their trousers and wiggling out of their corduroy blazers, tying cardigans around their waists, trying their best to help these songs endure.  Part of that impulse comes from the preservationist instinct of people who read too many books; part is imperialist; part is love (15).

In some ways, I am a preservationist and I readily acknowledge my own inclinations to idealize the past.  I just bought my very first record player.  I am fascinated by records.  The sound of the needle rubbing against the vinyl, the entire experience is magical to me.  

"Part is imperialist."  Music preservationists scoured the rural South, competing to find the purest, most obscure songs and thus attaching their own names to timeless songs.  They were driven by the thrill of discovery and the opportunity to gain a form of intellectual acknowledgment.  Musical preservationists are like archaeologists: they compete to be the first to make unprecedented discoveries.  Obviously, I am not a song collector, but I do enjoy obscurity.  I like feeling that I have discovered something that others, my peers, are unaware of.  In the most pretentious terms, it is a feeling of musical enlightenment, an awareness that one is privy to a secret world.

Three chords and the truth.  Country music is an oxymoron of sorts.  Hank Sr. is known as the "Hillbilly Shakespeare."  Somehow a nearly illiterate, drunk was able to write profoundly poetic lyrics.  The music itself is eloquent but quaint.  Simple but profound.  This contradicting nature makes the music ripe for intellectual inspection.

* * *

It Still Moves is a travel log.  In her travels, Amanda, a native of New York, was disturbed by the homogenization of America: "Witness nasty symptoms of mass homogenization: identical Wal-Marts, McDonald's, Pizza Huts, Exxons, Waffle Houses, and Burger Kings, colossal plastic signs poking up into the atmosphere, announcing the new regime (20)."  America seems to be amidst an identity crisis, and the American culture seems to be defined by consumerism.  

Musically speaking, contemporary, popular American music is almost entirely disposable. People are no longer interested in albums.  Songs nowadays are ring-tone fodder: repetitive catchiness manufactured for mass consumption.  

Forgettable.  

Digitized.  

Soulless.  

I've struggled to find meaningful American music.  

Something heartfelt, something legitimate.   

I found it.

Raw.  Aching.  Unpolished.  Uncontrived.  

It's a companion for the lonely.  A remedy for heartache.  

It awakens my American unconsciousness, my sense that I belong to my homeland.

* * *

Whether I am a preservationist, an imperialist, or a true fan, I still remain an outsider. 

 

Tomato Sauce

The tiny, funny-haired fellow delivered an absurd yet straight-forward talk. It was factual but engaging. He had found a simple way to illustrate the importance of a democratic ideal—there is no single right answer in anything. There’s no perfect coffee brew, and there is no perfect tomato sauce. Chunky is not an appetizing word.

Your favorite tomato sauce isn’t my favorite tomato sauce.
Pepsi.
Diet.

I almost forgot, all of this began with Diet Pepsi. Imagine, Diet Soda did something important for all of us.

I’m curious as to what type of scientist this fellow is. I took calculus. I have no clue what calculus is though. I believe it has to do with measuring the volume of irregularly shaped objects. Hmm. Perhaps an elaborate food metaphor would help. Yes. Ragu.

"South Jersey Cowboy Songs"

I came across Lovesick Blues: The Life of Hank Williams while perusing the music section of Borders.  The appealing cover, featuring a painting of a strikingly young Hank, caught my eye.   After reading the first chapter in the store, I purchased the book.

I devoured it in a single day, and I was tempted to e-mail the author and tell him the story of my own preoccupation with all things country.  After struggling over several drafts, I opted not to send an e-mail.

For a biography, the book is uniquely personal.  The prologue transports the reader back to 1949.  Young Paul Hemphill, a Tennessee native, underwent a rite of passage: he accompanied his father, a truck driver, on a run to Maryland.  It was Paul's first glimpse into his father's world, a place filled with the lonesome sounds of country music, "bennies," truck stops, eggs, bacon, and the American road.  Paul bonded with his father, and they both shared a love for a particular song, "Lovesick Blues," a hit for the young upstart, Hank Williams.

The biography is written in a warm, inviting, and distinctly-Southern language.  I remember being particularly moved by the climax: Hank's death.  I knew it was coming, but the simple treatment of the tragedy was affecting.  

In the epilogue, Paul describes his own father's death.  His father's enthusiasm for the music of Hank Williams never wavered; however, he felt that country music died with Hank.  

The reader cannot help but feel that Hank is synonymous with the author's father.  This creates the book's personal tone.

When I contemplated my e-mail to Paul Hemphill, I felt compelled to share my connection to the music.  I wanted to describe how it felt for me to ride in my father's truck (during his commute to work) listening to Johnny Cash and Marty Robbins.  Like Paul, I associated these men with my father.  However, unlike Paul, I was born and raised in Southern New Jersey.

Perhaps my Dad and I should have bonded over this man's music.  

Which brings me to a question: why does vintage country music appeal to me?  Should it?

Am I alone?

And what about New Jersey?

Nicholas Dawidoff's In the Country of Country: A Journey to the Roots of American Music offers some insight.  The book's epilogue briefly explores Bruce Springsteen's connection to country music.  

A Freehold native.

"Country asked all the right questions," according to Bruce.  "It was concerned with how you go on living after you reach adulthood."  He even admits to writing "South Jersey cowboy songs" (Dawidoff 311).  

Apparently, young Bruce felt that country music explored the struggles of adolescence.  Since everyone is at one time an adolescent, this is certainly a universal theme and one frequently explored in almost every genre of music.  Bruce's rationale is vague.  

I need to further explore country's universal quality.

Epperson v. Arkansas

As a prospective educator, I am keenly interested in any litigation involving censorship, and I am sympathetic to the situation young Susan Epperson found herself in during the mid-1960's.  If she taught Evolution, she faced legal persecution and the loss of her teaching job.  Her decision to seek legal action indicates her dedication to the pursuit of objective scientific truth.  Her courage is commendable.

Susan with the book in question.

Early in its inception, the United States enacted a principle involving the separation of church and state in an effort to secure both the freedom of speech and expression.  I don't personally believe that Darwin sought to discredit the truth of religious beliefs; rather, he sought to discern scientific fact.  There is a difference between truth and fact.

He's not as scary as he looks.

Truth is not necessarily factual.  Many truths lack factual basis.  For example, while most believe that there is a deeper purpose to human life, science cannot discern solid evidence indicating the "meaning of life."  Science and history involve the pursuit of fact; philosophy and religion engage truth.  

"If it's truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall."

You tell 'em Dr. Jones.

Creationism and other theories of intelligent design are not without merit.  Both explore the meaning of human existence.  Many find truth in these philosophies, and they are certainly entitled to.  However, both of the aforementioned belong in religion and philosophy classes; not science classes.  

I personally believe that religion and philosophy belong in the high school curriculum.  The humanities--art, literature, religion, and philosophy--engage the truth in a way science simply cannot.  

* * *

If Texas begins using texts exploring the "strengths and weaknesses of Darwin's theory," students will be shortchanged.  America's students deserve a 21st century science education, not a 19th century one.

Technology, the practical application of scientific exploration, is inseparable from modern life.  To ensure that American students are equipped for success, they need decidedly modern literacy and technical proficiency.  Students need to evolve.  Teaching needs to evolve, and methods and materials need to adapt to changes in our time.  Students deserve a scientifically derived understanding of natural history.  This is a uniquely modern privilege--we know how we got here.

This does not mean that truth is irrelevant, that fact is universally important.  Students need to reflect on, "why we are here?"  "How can human life be improved?"   Only by shaping our world views with truthful introspection can science and fact be truly applied to improve the quality of human life.

We need a compromise better than the "monkey laws" passed in the 1920's.  The separation of truth and fact needs to be defined without losing the mutual and equal importance of each.

John Updike

"We do survive every moment, after all, except the last one."

Not-So-Teen Angst

"Hamlet"
Act 1, Scene 3, line 67:
Hamlet: Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.

Great pun. In Shakespeare's time, sun exposure was linked to melancholy. Hamlet is also implying that he is too much of a "son," i.e., he has too many parents.

I think Hamlet would've liked The Cure.
He dressed the part, "inky cloak" and all.

To Sir, With Love

I want to sit in the teacher's lounge drinking tea with Mr. Thackeray.
All teacher's lounges should have fireplaces, right?