A Literary Luncheon

My friend Josie and I drove out to Shelton Laurel yesterday to have lunch with longtime friends, Drew and Louise Langsner. Louise's sister and niece were visiting and I was looking forward to seeing them again. Both are authors and I've blogged here about them before this.

I met  Ellen Graf and Eula Biss back in 1978 when John and I were attending a woodcarving class at Country Workshops, run by Drew and Louise.

Back in '78, Justin was about six months old and he attended the class in a Snugli on my back. Ellen was there too and Eula (not pictured below, alas) who was a little older than Justin, spent much of her time in a pack basket on Ellen's back.

Who knew that thirty some years later Eula would have an adorable year-old boy -- Juneau by name?

 Who knew that Ellen would have three more children and eventually a second marriage to a man she'd only just met -- in his native China? 

Who knew that she'd go on to write about this marriage in the critically acclaimed The Natural Laws of Good Luck?

  Who knew that the baby in the pack basket would become an noted essayist? Her first book -- The Balloonists

and her second,  Notes from No Man's Land (which I blogged about last year,) have won praise from some pretty high-faluting literary types . 

But here's the really neat thing, the REALLY AMAZINGLY COOL thing -- this book Notes just won the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award!!!

This is a major, major award and it feels kinda neat to say I knew Eula when.

We had an amazing lunch of winter squash soup, garnished with hot Indian pickles, and a savory Chinese dish that Ellen prepared, made of pork, leeks, celery, garlic, and lots of ginger, which we ate rolled up in lettuce leaves. (And I made the panna cotta I was going on about a while back.)

 What better way to spend a very beautiful day?

Nashville Breakfast Dreams

A few years ago I was in Nashville, Tennessee for a book festival. Nashville is, of course, a mecca for would-be country music singer/songwriters and almost as many kids walk around with guitar cases as with cell phones. 

Their faces are full of dreams of making it big, of playing at the Ryman just like their heroes did before them.  Waylon, Dolly, Johnny, Willie, Merle, Hank, Loretta, Patsy -- and me . . . you can almost hear them thinking it.

One morning I was witness  to a little taste of that dream. And it's stuck with me but I haven't found a place to use it --till now.

I was having breakfast in a bustling restaurant on a busy street corner. The owner/cook was a angry-looking Greek who tended to yell at the waitress in his native tongue. (But it was his Greek omelet that convinced me to skip the free pale coffee and greasy pastries offered at my hotel.) The place was packed with people who had the look of regulars.

My table was by the window and I looked up from my eggs with feta and onion and green pepper to see a young couple, both toting guitar cases and knapsacks, standing on the sidewalk deep in conversation.

They had that rumpled, sleepy, all-night-on-the-bus look and I was immediately convinced that they'd just arrived in search of their dream.

They talked a little longer and then the girl put down her stuff on the sidewalk. She smoothed her hair, tucked in her shirt, and gave a little shake as if preparing for something. Leaving the guy in charge of their gear, she came into the restaurant, marched up to the angry Greek (no question about who was in charge in this place) and asked for a job.

Oh, I was holding my breath. The A.G. looked down at her in some disdain but she stood her ground.

He motioned to the grill top. "Cook egg over easy."

Still intently following this unfolding drama, I watched as, with apparent total confidence, she moved behind the counter and began.

I couldn't see the grill top so I don't know exactly how it went.

But it evidently didn't go well because in less than a minute, the A.G.shook his head and pitched the egg into the garbage.

The young woman squared her shoulders and left the restaurant. Outside, the two young people pulled back on their knapsacks, picked up their guitar cases, and moved off -- out of my sight, but they've never left my mind.

Somewhere I could hear the music playing ... something about a boulevard of broken yolks dreams.

But that's a punk rock song. Here's a good old bluegrass song about how many guitar pickers there are in Nashville. (1,352.) -- You can go HERE for lyrics.


  

I Wish You So Beautiful - A Flight of Fantasy

 
I was leaving a comment over at Willow's place on Monday when the comment just before mine caught my eye-- it was like a dip into Dada or a moment in the Theatre of the Absurd. I suggest reading it aloud. With feeling. And four part harmony if you have friends nearby. Here it is.

~~~

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~~~

I don't know; call me easily entertained but I just love the language -- probably the result of one of those on-line translators. Or maybe it was Yoda.

I immediately copied the comment -- mere seconds before Willow deleted it. Yeah, there was some stuff in the URL at the end (which I've altered) about that prescription drug that rhymes with Niagara.

But it kept me grinning through the rest of a dreary Monday morning. And I wish you so beautiful forever.

Thank You, Noni

My dear Noni,

On Friday last, I received the Strega's Hand by your courier (poor lad, I fear he'll be of no further use to you) and look forward with certain anticipation to ultimately harnessing its undoubted powers.   You think to test me with this gift, to goad me to failure-- you see, I know the machinations of your twisted mind -- but this time, dearest sister,  my superior knowledge of The Craft will prevail.


Yes, of course I set the wards at once. The Hand is safely contained within the Pentangle. I am not the fool you think me, dear Noni -- I remember the story of poor Grisel's untimely fate. You were jealous of her as well -- oh, all the Sisterhood knows the truth of that debacle, though they have been strangely reluctant to act.

Yet I confess, the tapping of the wooden fingers against the table where the Hand lies confined grates on my nerves.  And in the flicker of the candles it seems -- no, surely I mistake -- surely it has not moved.

I laugh at your pathetic attempts to -- hark! what's that? A tapping . . . a sliding  of wood over wood, the scuttling of ragged claws-

Sisters of the Circle, our late lamented Froniga's letter breaks off at this point. The investigation into the whereabouts of our former colleague Nonissa of Nairn continues. The Hand Of the Strega has also vanished. A word to the wise . . .

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

And this, of course, is another Magpie Tale, a response to the weekly prompt. Go HERE to know more about the tales, to join in, or to see what others have written.

The Oldest Bargaining Tool?

Those faces, said my husband, are enough to convince a man to keep drinking. 

The picture came around in an email -- I don't know if it's an actual historic photo or a modern staged one.  But it must refer to the Women's Christian Temperance Union. 

A far cry from the Baez sisters' anti-draft poster from the Sixties.

Is sex the oldest bargaining tool? 

Back in ancient Greece, in 411B.C., Aristophanes wrote the exceedingly bawdy comedy, Lysistrata, in which the heroine convinced the women of Greece to withhold all sexual favors from the men until they ended the Peloponnesian War.

Nothing new under the sun.

The Way of Blue

Blue ... ultramarine, 

Cobalt, azure, indigo . . .

 Lapis lazuli...

 Turquoise and sapphire

 Aquamarine, cerulean  ... 

Mirror sea and sky.

Sepia Saturday - Three Little Maids

These three charming young women are my maternal grandmother Ruby Wright and her sisters, Mabel and Pearl. The time would be about 1908, the place Troy, Alabama.

So what are these southern belles doing posing in kimonos?

I'm speculating, of course, but I know that there was a craze for all things Japanese following the 1893 World Fair in Chicago, where a Japanese village introduced much of the western world to the mysterious land which had been closed to the outside till 1853.

And  then too, there was  The Mikado --possibly Gilbert and Sullivan's most popular operetta.  It was performed widely and its songs were well known -- even, I believe, in southern Alabama.

I like to think that Ruby and Mabel and Pearl were playing at being  the famous three little maids.

"Three little maids from school are we,

Pert as a schoolgirl well can be,

Filled to the brim with girlish glee ..."

And go HERE for a recipe for Japanese Fruitcake -- a popular Southern dessert in the early 1900's.

Go HERE for more Sepia Saturday posts.