madison & milledgeville, georgia

A round-up of gorgeous signs, eats, flea finds that I left behind, and charm all around.

quoteworthy

"I am not into haunted houses and it isn’t because of my fear of the undead. I just don’t like being surprised and frightened by items from Spencer’s Gifts."

Sara Kaye Larson

quoteworthy

"The hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes."

-- Carson McCullers

Many thanks to Sara Batkie for sending this to me. She said it made her think of my novel in progress. Great friend.

"history of love" and some craft thoughts

For years now, people have recommended I read History of Love by Nicole Krauss. In fact, no one seems to dislike it. Now that I'm out of the strappings of grad-school-required reading, I've been reading books at a wildfire pace. This has so far been the best of the lot. It's the kind of book I hoped for and have been waiting for. It's raw yet inspiring, strange, hilarious, tender, heartbreaking, and a master planned mystery. While everyone who knows me well knows I relish the realism of Updike and Yates when I sit down to write I love visiting the lively Saunders and Franzen for brain food. It all helps writing honestly. Reading is the best teacher. In this case, what I learned the most was Krauss has this ability to really PLOW through scene, story, and chronology. She doesn't describe rooms or character's physicality the way most writer's do which normally irritates me but here the voice and "just a little" description brought it all to life. Last semester, E. L. Doctorow sweared, "All it takes is one gesture to get a character in a room." Of course, only if it's the perfect choice. While this is true in some of the best fiction I'm still a sucker for that epic novella of a description of Salinas Valley in East of Eden (a flawed but no less meaningful and important touchstone book for me as a writer). Another reminder that reading is fantastic proof that if the writing is good, screw all the rules and suggestion, the story will just work. I want readers of this blog to read the book so I wont spoil the amazing textured story with any sort of summary.

Instead, here are two excerpts from History of Love:

This is an update on a woman Leo (lonely, locksmith, self-described as unattractive) has been with--"A few months later, she called me again. She asked me to make a copy of her key. I was happy for her. That she wouldn't be alone anymore. It's not that I felt sorry for myself. But I wanted to say to her, It would be easier if you just asked him, the one who the key is for, to take it to the hardware store. And yet. I made two copies. One I gave to her, and one I kept. For along time I carried it in my pocket, just to pretend."

This is from the POV of Alma who is searching for the woman she was named after--"There must be files. Files upon files of people who'd been born and died in New York City. Sometimes, driving along the BQE as the sun is going down, you get a view of all those thousands of gravestones as the skyline goes up in lights and the sky glows orange, and you get the weird feeling that the city's electrical power is generated from everyone buried there. And so I thought. Maybe they have a record of her."

room with a view

This is a barnacle of a post for some of you but I love my new views: oaks sagging with spanish moss, St. John's Cathedral, and Colonial Cemetery. That last shot is so very New York for Georgia and yeah, I do like that a great deal.

local charm

flannery o'connor's chicken walks backwards + moth stories in georgia

DO YOU REVERSE?

I thought I would never find this but thanks to George Dawes Green, the author and creator of the Moth Story Slam, here it is. I met him via the Moth but we're working in Savannah on the Unchained Tour.

I'll admit the video is too brief and disappointing but I'll take what I can get. Flannery said of the experience,"When I was six I had a chicken that walked backward and was in the Pathe News. I was in it too with the chicken. I was just there to assist the chicken but it was the high point in my life. Everything since has been anticlimax.” Not for me Flannery, not for me.

mark cohen - my favorites of his work

quoteworthy

In anticipation for the August release of Jonathan Franzen's new novel Freedom, here's a quote from The Corrections:

"It's the fate of most ping-pong tables in home basements eventually to serve the ends of other, more desperate games."


I love The Corrections so very much, I've listened to the audio recording several times in the car. That book is no slim vol!

quoteworthy

In defense of my adored Jonathan Safran Foer getting ragged on Huffington Post by a no doubt, frequently rejected writer, I bring you this quote:

"Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae."
-Kurt Vonnegut

Granted, I have thrown a book or two against the wall myself but this quote is funny and apt it seems, which leads me to another quote:

"Sell while you can: you are not for all markets."
-Rosalind via Shakespeare, As You Like It

greetings from alabama

This deserves a post of it's own. Corn at my MeeMaw's house for Sunday lunch. It's merely a coincidence that it's neighboring some sweet tea. Now that is more than one stick of butter!

Sidebar--I love that all the older men in my family wipe the sweat from their foreheads with pocket handkerchiefs, simply classy. I've been collecting state hankie's to make pillows out of and I'm thinking one of them may have to be sacrificed so I can don a matte face at the lunch table.

more "america in color"

Assembling B-25 bombers at North American Aviation. Kansas City, Kansas, October 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Alfred T. Palmer. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Children stage a patriotic demonstration. Southington, Connecticut, May 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Fenno Jacobs. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Woman is working on a "Vengeance" dive bomber Tennessee, February 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Alfred T. Palmer. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Women workers employed as wipers in the roundhouse having lunch in their rest room, Chicago and Northwest Railway Company. Clinton, Iowa, April 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

A store with live fish for sale. Vicinity of Natchitoches, Louisiana, July 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

A crossroads store, bar, "juke joint," and gas station in the cotton plantation area. Melrose, Louisiana, June 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

america in color

Young African American boy. Cincinnati, Ohio, 1942 or 1943. Photo by John Vachon. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Boy building a model airplane as girl watches. Robstown, Texas, January 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Arthur Rothstein. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

On the main street of Cascade. Cascade, Idaho, July 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Distributing surplus commodities. St. Johns, Arizona, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

School children singing. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

The Faro Caudill family eating dinner in their dugout. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Jack Whinery, homesteader, and his family. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Children asleep on bed during square dance. McIntosh County, Oklahoma, 1939 or 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Orchestra at square dance. McIntosh County, Oklahoma, 1939 or 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Couples at square dance. McIntosh County, Oklahoma, 1939 or 1940, Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

At the Vermont state fair. Rutland, Vermont, September 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Backstage at the "girlie" show at the state fair. Rutland, Vermont, September 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Barker at the grounds at the state fair. Rutland, Vermont, September 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Going to town on Saturday afternoon. Greene County, Georgia, May 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Headlines posted in street-corner window of newspaper office (Brockton Enterprise). Brockton, Massachusetts, December 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Trucks outside of a starch factory. Caribou, Aroostook County, Maine, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Faro and Doris Caudill, homesteaders. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress


These photos from the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, are some of the only color photographs taken of the Depressions toll on America’s rural and tiny town populations. The photographs are owned by the Library of Congress and were featured in a 2006 exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color.

Yes, I can't stop posting them. They just get better and better and better.

saul leiter - early color

My favorites...

shiri lee webb

Brendan posted this photo by Shiri Lee Webb (From her collection, Growing Pains) on his tumblr and I am obsessed. This is being added to my novel's visual underpinning cork board and has replaced my screensaver. So, Webb has managed to trump Eggleston in this instance.