Lucindaville

RIP Lucinda Ebersole

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 02:09:00 +0000

Dear Readers of Lucindaville Blog:

I am sorry to pass along the sad news that Lucinda Ebersole passed away on March 20, 2017 after a three month fight with cancer.

She loved writing her blog posts, but, was unable to do so over the past several months.

I hope that you enjoyed the blog.

Best,
Ann

Who Owns What - Diane Arbus

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Tue, 09 Aug 2016 19:19:00 +0000

I have been reading the new Diane Arbus bio by Arthur Lubow. If you want a detailed review of the book check out this New Yorker review. This is my own attempt at grappling with who owns and artist's work. I have more questions than answers, but this bio brought that issue to the forefront.

What is weird about this bio is the lack of photographs. The Arbus Estate refused to allow any photos. It is not that Ecco refused to pay for photos, nor did they want to use them without attribution. I think this is weird. I will grant you that I would not want someone digging into my life, tracking down folks I wrote letters to years ago, talking to medical professionals, or anyone else.

Arbus became wildly famous after she died. The family didn't seem to worry about that fame when they were making money. More importantly, Arbus' work has become a visual iconography of America. Her still photos are referenced in movies and in print, she is linked to her photographs like a Robert Mapplethorpe, one sees the image and sees Arbus.

Don't get me wrong, I think people have the right to get paid for their work, I'm not trying to argue that issue, I just wonder what the point is to placing a strangle hold on an estate. Just think where Shakespeare would be today if a lawyer controlled his estate? We are still watching his plays because directors are allowed to transform plays from the 1500's and make them relevant in every age.

We all know Mickey Mouse, he is a part of our life, but recently a daycare center was served with an injunction from Disney because they had a freehand painting of Mickey on the wall. Really? Warhol paints Barbie and to use the image one needs permission from both Warhol and Mattel.

I am sure the Arbus family didn't want the world to know that Diane and her brother, Howard, had a sexual relationship for years, but blocking photos didn't stop that. Diane Arbus would get naked to photograph nudists, she liked the underbelly of life, so it is hard to think that she would withhold her images for a biography about her life.

Everybody Behaves Badly

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 19:25:00 +0000

Novels have begun to bore me because real life seems so much more interesting. I am overly enamored of the 1920's, so I was glad to read Lesley M.M.Blume's Everybody Behaves Badly. Fittingly, I was reading it on Ernest Hemingway's birthday. The book is a look at the real life antics that became the basis for Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. Many of the main character's are featured in "real life" in the above photo that is used on the cover of the book.

From left to right there is Ernest Hemingway (Jake Barnes), Harold Loeb (Robert Cohn), Lady Duff Twysden (Lady Brett Ashley), Hadley Hemingway, Donald Ogden Stewart (Bill Gordon), and Patrick Guthrie (Mike Campbell).

The book reveals everything one knows about "Papa" in spades. Ernest Hemingway was a dick. He was a real dick to women, but frankly, he wasn't much better toward the men in his life. The people whose lives were used to create the cast of The Sun Also Rises began to refer to their lives as "B. S" before Sun and "A. S" after Sun but all felt as though they were collateral damage in Hemingway's attempt to write a bestseller. He got what he wanted.

A great lover of the bullfight and the man who single-handedly made the running of the bulls in Pamplona a tourist mecca, Hemingway was always dragging his friends to bullfights. He loved encouraging them to jump into the ring with the bulls. This stunt backfired on one of his visits when Harold Loeb was nearly gored, but instead, grabbed the horns of the bull and road around the ring on the bulls head. It made Loeb a star in Spain and photos of the event made it all the way back to New York. Hemingway, in an attempt to outdo Loeb, quite literally, "grabbed a bull by the horns" and wrestled it to the ground (as seen in the above photo) but his bravado was still overshadowed by Loeb.

As one might suspect, Hemingway never like to be outdone. I loved the insights into the publishing angles, the fights between publishing houses, and the work of Max Perkins.
While Everybody Behaves Badly doesn't cover any new ground, it is a fantastic distillation of the writing and publishing of one of America's great books. Not to mention a fine snapshot of the 1920's.

Famous Food Friday -- Imogen Cunningham & More

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Fri, 15 Jul 2016 19:39:00 +0000

Ansel Adams, Still Life, San Francisco, 1932

Today's venture with Cookbook Of The Day, is the old, but new The Photographer's Cookbook. Old because the book's inception took place in 1977 when a bored worker at the George Eastman Museum, Deborah Barsel, decided to ask photographers to contribute recipes.

Before completing the book, Barsel left and over thirty-five years later, Lisa Hostetler pulled a box labeled "Photo Cookbook" off a shelf and found a treasure trove. After some judicious editing, The Photographer's Cookbook is now in the world.

We love "artist" cookbooks and they are one of the reasons Famous Food Fridays came about. Now photographer's have their own cookbook. As with many a "famous" cookbook, the range of recipes can be daunting.

John Gossage sent a postcard from Conrad's Colonial Steak House & Cocktail Lounge stating, "I eat out."

Contrast that sentiment to Beaumont Newhall. Newhall was not only the first director of the Eastman Museum, he also wrote a cooking column for a newspaper in the Rochester suburbs. The "Epicure Corner" ran for nearly 15 years in the 1950's and 60's. His choucroute garnie was featured at a luncheon for James Beard and is featured in the cookbook.

Beaumont Newhall, Edward Weston's Kitchen, 1940

Imogen Cunningham offers up an unusual recipe for borscht. We would love to see an entire cookbook where all the recipes were "storyfied" like this one.

Imogen Cunningham, My Kitchen Sink, 1947

Imogen Cunningham's Borscht

For one thing I do not consider Alice B. Toklas a GREAT cook. Very likely her cooking contributed to the death of Gertrude and herself. Besides her beef stew cooked in burgundy, I can think only of her beautiful soups beginning with gazpacho from everywhere. I do not know how to put it, but exotic eatery is very interesting to me. I think we are all TOO addicted to salt and that we can get enough in vegetables that offer it. We do not know the flavor of anything because we doctor it too much. While I am on soups, I should tell you what I do for borscht. I make a good soup of beef and meat and bones; put some fresh beets in, and when I am ready to serve it, I make it half mine and half Manischewitz (commercial bottle of borscht). I prefer it cold with sour cream.

Filled with funky recipes and great photography, we are so glad that this box of recipes got pulled off the shelf.

Meditation on Drain Cleaner

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Wed, 13 Jul 2016 19:01:00 +0000

I went to buy drain cleaner yesterday.

I know, it is not "Call me Ishmael" nor "It was the best of times, it was the worst of time." It is a farm. Regardless of what you might have seen on Pintrest, farm life is not all towheaded children on hay rides and destination weddings. Ninety percent of the time is is a lot of crappy work. When I walked back from watering the garden, I noticed that the drain vent resembled Old Faithful, and I knew I had a problem. So...

I went to buy drain cleaner. I set it on the counter, and the cashier asked for my driver's license. I thought it was odd, but I gave it to her and she copied it.

"You need a driver's license to buy drain cleaner," I asked.

"Yeah, you make meth with it."

"I should have bought two bottle."

"Only one per transaction."

I am now in some sort of drain cleaner database. Presumably, if I had gone to several other stores and purchased a bottle of drain cleaner at each one, by the time I returned home, the DEA would have been sitting on the porch.

I am OK with that.

In addition to drain cleaner, I need a gun on the farm. Yes, I am one of those people who will tell you that you can have my gun when you pry it out of my cold, dead hand. Last year we had a rabid raccoon roaming about. He was tearing up things and killing chickens. He had been quite elusive, but one afternoon, he decided to be aggressive and I walked outside with my rifle and a single shell. I won. On a farm, you often have to kill things. This is not a popular hashtag on Pintrest.

While I love my guns, and while I have hunted since I was a child, and while I believe in the Second Amendment, I have no business owning an AK-47. It is a military weapon meant to kill people, not raccoons. And that is what it does kill people, and cops, and school children, and bar patrons, and co-workers. Watch television. And I don't need an oversized mag to take out a raccoon, either. And I don't care who knows I have guns.

To buy one bottle of drain cleaner I had to have my driver's license copied.

To buy a half dozen AK-47's all I need is cash.

Even if I am on the Terror Watch List, which I am not.

Even if I am on a No Fly List, which I am not.

Even if I am on the Drain Cleaner Buyer List, which I am on.

Think about it. I need documentation to buy drain clean but not an assault weapon. An that is just stupid.

In Gratitude

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 20:59:00 +0000

Jenny Diski died April 28, 2016. When told of her impending demise she made jokes. In 2014 she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She felt:

"Embarrassment at first, to the exclusion of all other feelings."

That September she wrote in the London Review of Books:

"Under no circumstances is anyone to say that I lost a battle with cancer, or that I bore it bravely. I am not fighting, losing, winning or bearing."

She would end her life writing. She had, after all, written most of her life. She had read numerous "cancer memoirs" and asserted:

"There are no novel responses possible."

And yet, in true Diski style, she wondered whose cancer book would sell the most copies.

After the initial shock, Diski tells the story of her chaotic early life, leading her to be taken in by literary giant, Doris Lessing. Diski had been at school with Lessing's son, Peter. They were not close, but when Diski was expelled, he implored his mother to take her in and she was quite intelligent.

Diski was almost literally dumped on Lessing's front steps. It was not a match made in heaven. Lessing was not in the least "motherly" and Diski was uncomfortable in this new setting. Diski says:

"Gratitude was half of what I felt. The other half was fury and resentment..."

As a cancer patient, Diski was ideal. She was already anti-social, preferring to spend time in her bed or on the sofa, like some consumptive Victorian victim. She wrote:

"I have the metabolism of a sloth."

The chemo leaves the normally slim Diski, heavy. She fears what is going to happen her. She is honest. She is funny. She is panicked. She is a writer. She will be missed.

Tweeting From Beyond

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 18:54:00 +0000

So I got sick and had to take antibiotics for nearly two weeks, and I hated it. It made me puny and sickly, not to mention it was sweltering. But all is well, about two more days before I can have a tall gin and tonic. In the mean time...

I recently followed and was followed back on Twitter by Vita Sackville-West. Let me say it is hard enough for me to work, write, keep up two blog, Lucindaville and Cookbook Of The Day, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter. So to find out that Vita Sackville-West is able to tweet beyond the grave makes me feel woefully inadequate.

Vita Sackville-West is one of those people I would put on that list of 10-people-you-could-have-dinner-with. Bloomsbury is like Harry Potter for grown-ups. We wait for each new book, we scrutinize the movies, we relish any peripheral new reference. There was a wave of new Bloomsbury attention recently.

The venerable BBC is unveiling a new drama, Life in Squares. It will look at the early life and career of the Bloomsbury gang, focusing on the orbit of Vanessa and Virginia Stephen. It is chocked full of British talent. That is James Norton (Grantchester and Happy Valley) in the center as Duncan Grant. In anticipation of the new series, The Guardian has published their list of the 10 best Bloomsbury moments.

In addition, The Guardian, has gone out and hunted down any last surviving soul that might have known some of the Bloomsbury set. At 100, Anne Olivier Bell is the widow of Quentin Bell, Vanessa Bell's son and the very first biographer of Virginia Woolf.

I am so ready. Now ask yourself, why is there no Bloomsbury theme park? Think about it...replicas of Sissinghurst and Charleston, of Omega workshop and Hogarth Press, tea rooms with Vanessa Bell pottery, and of course a bookshop.

Little Gloria

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 18:33:00 +0000

Since I have been decidedly deaf, and not much of conversationalist, I have been catching up on taped shows on the DVR. One of the documentaries I watch recently was Nothing Left Unsaid about Gloria Vanderbilt and Anderson Cooper. I enjoyed it, but it did seem like there may have been some thing unsaid. But I trust Gloria and Anderson are fine.

What it did remind me of was Gloria's mother who would, I guess, be Big Gloria. In the documentary, Gloria said she was made to have daughters and she would have named her first daughter, Gloria. Alas, she had four sons.

The first Gloria Vanderbilt began life as a Morgan and as a twin. Gloria and Thelma Morgan were known collectively as "The Magnificent Morgans." They were the offspring of Harry Hays Morgan, an American diplomat and his Chilean-born wife, Louise Valdivieso. It was Louise, testifying while clutching her crucifix, who may have been the final nail in Big Gloria custody coffin, when she testified to the wild and largely invented nature of Big Gloria's lifestyle.

In 1958, The Magnificent Morgans collaborated on a memoir, Double Exposure. The sisters spilled the beans on the good , the bad, and the ugly, not to mention the the loved, the lost, and the licentious.

The Kirkus Review wrote:

Written with good taste, but sparing no detail no matter how unorthodox, this autobiography of two women is a biography of an age, an age of fantastic extravagance and rigid form, an age in which the various episodes unfolded here seem probable for all their bizarre and melodramatic overtones. Superbly entertaining.

Nearly 60 years later, it remains superbly entertaining.

While this book is one of those highly collectible tomes, growing increasingly expensive in a nice dust jacket, you can give it a read on the Internet Archive here.

Adventures in Mowing

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Tue, 24 May 2016 21:18:00 +0000

So I haven't been posting because I have several deadlines, and election fatigue, and nearly three weeks of rain. But today, I ventured out on my new mower to attack the knee deep lawns.

Now, if you asked me what horrors might befall me on my lawn mower, I can imagine them. The first time I used it, I got it in a precarious position and I had to get off and find neighbors to come and, quite literally, pull it off a cliff. Then today, it was so wet that going from one area to another got it stuck in the mud -- twice.

But this I did not expect. Today I punctured my eardrum while mowing.

Sitting perfectly still, I have to try about three times to thread a needle. Today, traveling two miles and hour, I managed to thread a pencil-sized tree branch into my ear canal with enough force to rupture my eardrum.

I did finish mowing, but then I went to the doctor who is referring me to ear, nose, and throat guy but in the meantime, he prescribed ear drops.

But my cheesy insurance refused to pay for them. Frankly, I don't blame them as the ear drops were $300. 100 drops for my ear came in at $300. That is $3 a drop. Were they made from baby angel tears? Gold is less. And maybe a drop or two of gold would have fixed the hole in my ear. They gave me eye drops, instead -- for my ear. And neither the angel tears nor the eye drops offer the prospect of regaining my hearing. More later!

All Hail!

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Mon, 23 May 2016 20:34:00 +0000

Politics is getting so contentious and we haven't even really started the election. I am already overcome with election fatigue and we are still no where near an election. One is really scared to say anything for fear of being trolled by idiots. Friends are so vociferous that scrolling through Facebook is a chore. There is really only one candidate I could wholeheartedly support and that candidate is drag queen in Alabama named Ambrosia Starling. Her platform is simply -- Have Good Manners.

Since no one else is running on the "Have Good Manners" platform, there will be lots of weather and pets in the coming months!

And last night -- we had an ice storm. OK, technically it wan not an ice storm, just hail, but still. At one point I thought we would lose a window.

The container kitchen garden was decimated. Most of the little plants are beaten and broken. I got in about 2 p.m. this afternoon and saw something on the side of the house. I though something had blown into the yard. When I walked over to see it, it was a pile of ice.

It was so strange, I actually stepped on it to see if it was ice. (That is why my footprint is there.)

Let's hope the weather and politics quiets down a bit. In the meantime...Have Good Manners.

The Standing Desk

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Fri, 22 Apr 2016 17:41:00 +0000

It would seem that standing desks are all the rage.

Well, seriously, isn't it enough that one has to work, but now we are expected to stand up and work!

New medical reports tell us that sitting is bad for us. Are theses the same people who told us caffeine and alcohol were bad for us?

Truth be told, much of this winter was spent sitting, like 8 to 10 hours a day. Perhaps more, but who are you to judge?

As Spring approached, I decided to give the stand up desk a try. I have a stand up farm desk at my office, but rarely use it. It is a pain to move, so there was no way it was coming home. Sitting under my stand up desk was a travel desk I bought many years ago. I knew that my travel desk, set upon my writing table would make a fine standing desk.

I love a travel desk!

They are so romantic. There I am married to adventure with Osa Johnson.

Setting at my base camp in the Himalayas.

Standing in the hollows of West Virginia...

When I got it home, I realized why travel desks were used during war. One needs an army to tote them around. Porters and sherpas are a must for a travel desk.

Somehow, in my mind, I would stock my travel desk with an old typewriter, a iMac, books, a black fountain pen, and personalized stationary for proper thank you notes. I would toss it in the back of my car, and I would ready for any occasion, when one might need to set up an office. And how often have you found yourself in a situation while sitting in the Walmart parking lot when you needed to type up a thank-you note?

Ah, I am a hopeless romantic. An actual romantic has a large staff.

When I opened up my travel desk, I found all the things one might imagine. There was a yo-yo filled with candy, a yellow duck necklace filled with bubble soap, a tin of liquorice candy, old film (who has film anymore?), and a death certificate for an elderly relative.

Teddy rather likes the idea of the stand up desk, he believes it makes it easier to work together on projects, until he decides to take over. He always thinks he has the best idea!

So here I stand. I feel healthier already.

I'm going to post this and sit down with a drink. I deserve it.

Leap Before You Look

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 21:01:00 +0000

We have always had a soft spot in our heart for Black Mountain College. Often thought of as the initial spark for the avant-garde movement in the United States, Black Mountain was formed in 1933 by a quartet of dismissed professors from Rollins College. John Rice, Theodore Dreier, Frederick Georgia, and Ralph Lounsbury believed that education should be an open and nourishing endeavor, not a process of rote learning for specific periods of time during the day. When they tried to implement some of these ideas at Rollins, they were dismissed, Undaunted, they set out to devise their own college -- Black Mountain.

In the hills of North Carolina, just outside of Asheville, they gathered artist, writers, musician, architects, photographers, and craftsmen to live and work with the student body. The list is long and accomplished, including Anni and Josef Albers, Ruth Asawa, John Cage, Robert Creeley, Merce Cunningham, Elaine and Willem de Kooning, Buckminster Fuller, Gwendolyn and Jacob Knight Lawrence, Robert Motherwell, Charles Olson, and Robert Rauschenberg.

In late 2015, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston mounted the largest comprehensive exhibition on Black Mountain College. Helen Molesworth curated the mammoth collection of art, ceramics, textile art, photographs, which was supplemented with dance and music. The exhibition closed in January of 2016 but it left behind a wonderful monograph, Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933-1957.

Check out this video for the exhibition.

There is still time to catch Leap Before You Look in Los Angeles and later in the the year in Columbus. In the meantime, grab a copy of the monograph, a must for Black Mountain fans.

A Suprise from Maddie

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 18:42:00 +0000

Mail time usually coincides with nap time, a time when the kitties snuggle in for a long spring nap. As usual, I come in with the mail and sit down at the table. Trick believes there is something special about sitting at the table. It signifies the possibility of dinner. If you sit in the sacred food chair, much crying a begging ensues. So when I sat down at the table to open the mail, while others slept, Trick came running.

And what a good day! Teddy, Trick and Treat got mail!

Our favorite rescue dog, Maddie AKA Bunnnymellon sent treats. Everyone got their own toy and photo of Maddie. Trick, being the only one up, got her pick of the bunch.

She choose the picture of Cris and Maddie seen above...

and she picked the yellow fish to be her toy.

As they say, you snooze, you lose.

Thanks Maddie...and a special shout out to your personal shopper, Maria.

Of poets and extension cords

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Mon, 28 Mar 2016 01:07:00 +0000

On Easter Sunday, when so many people were thinking of the Risen Christ, I was thinking of poets, and duct tape and extension cords. And that’s what I like about the South.

Instead of being in church this morning, I was watching a taped program featuring Lucinda Williams. I am fond of girls named “Lucinda” and the show was Bluegrass Underground, not because bluegrass is in any way subversive, but because the show is taped underground. Literally underground -- in a cave in Tennessee.

Who thought this up? Yes, the South is filled with much entrepreneurial spirit. It is the home of moonshine and fast cars that deliver it, which led to NASCAR. It is a place where you can find dinner on the side the road at more barbecue joints than you can name. The South is a place where a guy with a sombrero and spicy ginger ale can build an empire “South of the Border,” in South Carolina. And it is a place where you can put your kids through college by stringing Christmas lights and charge people to visit that old cave on your property.

Well, I don’t know who thought up Bluegrass Underground. My guess is a Stanford MBA who knew a producer or had a granddaddy that put him through Stanford B-School with proceeds from folks visiting his cave. Personally, I like to think it was two guys with some Bud Light and boom box. After loosing battery power, one looks at the other and says:

“Hey, Bubba, if we taped two extension cords together we could get electricity down here for the boom box. Maybe an amp. We could set up some chairs and get people to come and sing in our cave, like Lucinda Williams. Hell, we could even get on the T.V.”

For many years now, my own chicken house has been powered by a duct taped extension cord. And that’s what I like about the South.

So there was Lucinda Williams, in a cave. Now I have been a huge fan, but Williams has always been a bit unsure of her own sound and often, to her detriment, she has let producers lead her music. Her new CD reminds me the cuts I’ve heard from the Hank Williams biopic featuring Tom Hiddleston. Hiddleston is an English actor singing Hank Williams songs the way he thinks Hank would have sung them if he had been an English actor. When you hear them, you think, “Is that Hank Williams?” but soon you think, well maybe not. On her last CD, Lucinda Williams (no relation to Hank) sounds like an actress singing on a biopic. It is like she listed all the words used to describe her own singing style and then tried to sing like the real Lucinda Williams. Only, she is the real Lucinda Williams.

Today she started out impersonating herself and I almost erased it, but I didn’t. Then she sang Pineola. It really doesn’t matter what she sounds like when she recites those words. I remembered that Pineola was written about poet Frank Stanford. Not a household name, even in the rarified circle of famous poets, but a guy with a huge cult following.

I know a lot of poets. I cannot off the top of my head, name a one of them that actually supports themselves being a poet. They work other jobs to be poets. Their ideal job is to teach poetry to other people who will never make a living at it. They go to graduate schools for writing, they go to workshops, they teach workshops, they visit artist colonies, they publish in magazines, and still, they are often insecure in their poetry.

Frank Stanford was not. He became a poet in grade school when he won forth prize in a poetry contest. That was all he needed to be a poet. He was employed as a surveyor. Stanford is most often described as charismatic, a phrase that is overused and imprecise in the world of poetry. When he died, shy of his 30^th birthday, he was married to his second wife, or maybe his third, he was living with his mistress, and he was committed to 3 -5 other women, depending upon who tells the story. One of those women was Lucinda Williams. And that’s what I like about the South.

Poets were a common sight for Lucinda Williams as most of her life she lived with one, Miller Williams (blood relation: father). She often gave her dad her lyrics to read over. In one song, when a boy is abandoned by his mother, he is left with only a picture of her as a young woman. It is according to Lucinda, "a girl in a faded blue dress." Miller didn’t like it. It wasn’t exact enough. She made a small change as “faded” became “sad” and in that simple edit made the most haunting of lyrics:

He Never Got Enough Love

His mama ran off when he was just a kid,

so he never really knew her at all.

Just a picture of a girl in a sad, blue dress

hanging beside a cross on the wall.

Not only did Miller Williams encourage the poetry in his daughter’s lyrics, he also supported other poets, including Frank Stanford and his lover, C.D. Wright. Now philandering with a bunch of women might possibly work in New York or Los Angeles, but Pineola is another story. Frank’s wife, artist Ginny Stanford and C.D. Wright sat down with each other to sift through the numerous lies it takes to juggle so many women. They decided to confront Frank.

On June 3, 1978, Frank Stanford sent Lucinda Williams a bunch of flowers. She wasn’t home and Miller accepted the package for her. Ginny and C.D. picked up Frank to take him home to talk about the untenable situation. Frank asked if they could stop by his office first to pick something up. The women sat in the car and waited while Frank retrieved his gun. When they got to the house, the women sat in the living room and Frank excused himself for a minute.

Ginny Stanford would later write she heard: “Pop. Oh! Pop. Oh! Pop. Oh!”

C.D. Wright picked up the phone and called Miller Williams.

Williams called the coroner and removed the bloody sheets. When he returned home, he found Lucinda smiling and arranging the flowers. She shares what happened in Pineola.

When daddy told me what happened,

I couldn’t believe what he just said.

Sonny shot himself with a 44

and they found him lyin’ on his bed.

Stanford was laid to rest in Subiaco, Arkansas. Much of the truth about his life was obfuscated by his own tall tales and filtered through a long line of poets, priests, singers, and artists. The body of his work, much if it by very small presses, has been too hard to come by.

Now I’m not saying that there aren’t great poets out there in the vast plains and cities and tundra, but there is something especially poetic about living in places called Pineola and Subiaco and even Sylacauga. My friend Harry Lowe is from Opelika, Alabama. When people ask where he is from, he tells them Opelika and secretly crosses his fingers hoping that they ask the very predictable next question, “Where is Opelika?” When they do, Harry Lowe smiles and says, “Opelika is between Notasulga and Loachapoka.” And that’s what I like about the South.

One day Harry Lowe and I were talking about the end of one’s life. I asked him whether or not he wanted extraordinary measures or whether he wanted me to pull the plug. He thought for a moment and said, “Keep me plugged in.” He thought another minute and said, “If we can’t pay the electric bill, run an extension cord to the neighbors.” We laughed, but I can honestly say I never go into his neighborhood with checking to see who has a new outdoor plug or a cracked window.

On New Years Day, 2015, Miller Williams died.

In April of that year, Cooper Canyon Press released a collection of Stanford’s work entitled, What About This: Collected Poems of Frank Stanford, a volume including most of his chapbooks.

This January, C.D. Wright died in her sleep. She was 67.

My car is equipped with a jack, a first aid kit, a cooler, a blanket and there is always a book. These days I keep duct tape and an extension cord, because you never know when you might need to light up a cave, or hook up an iron lung, or simply throw someone a lifeline.

We face everyday with stories of bombing, shootings, hateful politicians, sick children, injured puppies, and that’s just before breakfast. But we still have poetry to read and music to blast in the night air. Spring is here, the jonquils are in bloom, the lilacs are budding and in the end, the world is pretty great place.

He is risen, indeed.

Caleb Caudle

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Fri, 25 Mar 2016 19:37:00 +0000

We do love the simple things in life -- good tunes, a nice cuppa joe, a warm afternoon. Well, two out of three ain't bad.

Yesterday, the temperature hovered just below 80. Today we are struggling to get up to 50. These wild swings are not conducive to health, physical or mental.

The clear recourse is to sit at the computer flooded with the SAD light and listen to tunes. One of our new favorites is Carolina Ghost by Caleb Caudle. It is getting a lot, lot, lot of play here at Doe Run Farm.

Many people have reviewed Carolina Ghost and most of them have had a hard time reviewing it. Not because they didn't like it, it has been universally heralded, but because they can't really pigeonhole it.

It is a thoughtful, well written, slightly poppy Americana record. Alas, in a time when there are more more Americana artists out there, there are virtually no outlets to listen to new music. Americana is actually what country music was meant to be in the old fashioned and still relevant Hank Williams/Patsy Cline way, before "country" became some sort of "bros before music" frat party.

Since Christmas, my iTunes has been filled with not only Caleb Caudle, but Freakwater, Dori Freeman, Julien Baker, as well as Lucinda Williams and Loretta Lynn. Other than my kitchen, where are you going to hear a set featuring these guys? Yes, we have been listening to Chris Stapleton whose a bit of a "bros" kinda guy. We gave Rhiannon Giddens a pass to channel that Billie Holiday vibe, though we miss the Chocolate Drops. We loved the new David Wax Museum and even got a Christmas present from Duquette Johnston. And still, you need to be in my kitchen.

And speaking of my kitchen...and Caleb Caudle...and coffee, my favorite coffee roaster is in the little town of Sugar Grove, Virginia. Dark Hollow Roasters makes wonderful coffee. You can buy it out in the world, but if you order it from Dark Hollow Roasters, it is roasted the day you order it.

So Dark Hollow is also a fan of Caleb Caudle and recently they blended a coffee in honor of Carolina Ghost. We do love a good theme. On this wintry spring day, we got a package from Dark Hollow Roasters with Caleb Caudle's blend, Coffee (and a prayer); a line from his song, The Reddest Rose. It was roasted a mere three days ago and the post office was jealous because the package was wafting warm coffee aromas.

This afternoon we are sitting in the kitchen listening to Carolina Ghost and drinking Coffee (and a prayer). Even the cold weather can't get us down!

Bloody Butcher Benne Oil Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 19:20:00 +0000

In the South, we have a pie called a chess pie. The joke goes that in a thick Southern accent, when a woman said "It's just pie" it came out sounding like "It's jes pie" which sounds a lot like "chess pie." No one can swear to the origin, but I like this one so I am sticking with it.

The beauty of a chess pie comes from its simplicity as the ingredients that one needs to make it are almost always in the larder. You might not have what it takes to make chocolate cake or blackberry cobbler but on any given day, a chess pie could be whipped up in almost any kitchen.

In an Italian kitchen, the equivalent to the chess pie is the polenta olive oil cake. Like the chess pie, the ingredients are usually in the larder, it is easy to make, and comes through in a pinch. In a bit of irony, the ingredients for both desserts are roughly the same. Like a chess pie, a polenta olive oil cake can be flavored with a variety of seasonings, from vanilla to citrus to almond and most anything in between. An olive oil polenta cake is a godsend for a canning kitchen. It is a perfect foil for that last jar of stiff marmalade or runny jam.

Olive oil polenta cake recipes flood the Internet. Every chef and blogger has one. The ingredients are all basically the same. One cup of the following: flour, corn meal, sugar, eggs, and oil plus baking powder and salt for leavening and a flavoring. A cup of eggs is about 4 large eggs. Flour usually outweighs the corn meal, but these dry ingredients will still usually equal two cups, so less cornmeal (3/4 cup) with the rest being made up in the flour (1 1/4 cups).

Let us digress -- on a personal note, I love an organized pantry.

But some days...

it all goes to hell.

Recently, this was indeed the case and I ventured in to bring order from chaos. Face it, the more things I picked up, the more things I thought about cooking. Two item turned up in morass that made me start thinking about an old Italian polenta olive oil cake. Neither of them was polenta nor olive oil.

Let us digress further -- as almost everything I do leads me back to the library. One of my favorite books published last year was Southern Provisions by David Shields. Shields has a title so long we won't even go into it, needless to say the guy has serious chops. His passion is bringing about a revival of lost Southern foods and agricultural practises. Southern Provisions is part Southern history, part agricultural history, part mystery, part botany, part cookbook, and all around fantastic read. Every book he mentions, you want to read; every recipe, you want to cook; and every spare inch of soil, you want to plant. His work has helped revive real deal Southern cuisine, not the fictionalized romanticism of Southern food. Not to mention the man is married to a woman named, Lucinda!

In the last few years, one of the Southern crops seeing a huge revival is benne. If you have read Southern Provisions you would know all this; if not buy yourself a copy. Benne is a type of sesame seed brought to America by African slaves. While Thomas Jefferson was trying to produce olive trees to establish a source of fine oil in America, he overlooked the oil producing benne. When Jefferson was presented with a bottle of benne oil from Georgia, he was smitten. Over the next two centuries, benne fell out of favor and production for the most part ceased. Benne oil never became a larder staple...unless you happen to be searching in my larder.

While cleaning up my mess I ran across a bottle of benne seed oil. Much like Thomas Jefferson, I too, received a bottle from Georgia. Oliver Farms in Georgia is currently the only producer of benne oil. It makes a great finishing oil, drizzled over cooked vegetables, or topping a soup. I love to take day-old cornbread, sliced thin and toasted, sprinkled with some dried fish peppers, then dipped in benne oil. Another Appalachian favorite is a nutty pesto with ramps and hickory nuts, bound with benne. Then, I was gifted a couple of bottles of benne oil and it was quite a gift as the oil is quite pricey. The first gift bottle was quickly used up, but the second had languished, lost and unfinished in the clutter.

The first line in Southern Provisions reads, "Southern food, like Italian food, is a universally recognized category..." Now you are having the same "ah ha" moment that I had. Especially when you consider that the other item I found lost and alone was less that a cup of a popular West Virgina corn variety, Bloody Butcher. Bloody Butcher is a red dent corn grown and ground for years in West Virginia. When ground, bits of the red kernels fleck the dark, rich meal, giving it a toothy crunch. Normally, using benne oil in a cake would seem like an extravagance, but since oils will become rancid over time, and since I didn't have a lot of experience with the shelf life of benne oil, I decided it was a "use it or lose it" moment.

I checked the oil and ended up with a full cup and a touch more for one last hurrah. The corn meal was just a hair under 3/4 cup. The Bloody Butcher Benne Oil Cake was a go.

The Bloody Butcher Benne Oil Cake

3/4 cup Bloody Butcher corn meal
1 cup AP flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cup benne oil
1 tablespoon grated orange peel

Preheat oven to 350.

Lightly oil a 9 inch spring form pan.

In a medium bowl, mix the AP flour, corn meal, baking powder and salt, whisk to mix.

In another bowl, cream the eggs and sugar, beating until light and lemony in color. Stir in the orange zest.

To the sugar/egg mixture alternate the dry ingredients and the oil using about 1/3 of the dry ingredients, then about 1/3 of the oil, so you will end with the oil.

Pour the mixture into the prepared pan, and bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out of the cake clean.

Allow the cake to rest in the pan another 10 - 20 minutes before unmolding.

Sprinkle the top with confectioners sugar.

Of course, one could make this cake with polenta and olive oil, but it loses its Appalachian/Southern cred if you do!

Rural Studio

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 12:00:00 +0000

I'll be honest, I could never come up with a good reason say anything nice about Auburn. Then, Samuel Mockbee co-founded Rural Studio at Auburn, and I must admit, it has been pretty great. Under Mockbee's guidance, the architecture students created affordable housing for some of the poorest residents of Hale County, Alabama. After his death, Rural Studio continued to innovate and thrive.

Lately, Rural Studio has been working to take all their innovations and combine them into a simple house that is attractive, livable, and affordable. By affordable, I don't mean $200,000, I mean a tenth of that -- a $20,000 house.

The first houses of this commercial endeavor were built at a development called Serenbe in Georgia. The houses are used as artists residences. There have been numerous articles about these two houses, but the best is by Adele Peters in Co-Exist. It explains a lot of the problems such a good idea faces.

Sambo would be so proud!

Here's to working out all those problems.

By the way I have some land...

Clara Rockmore and GOOGLE

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Wed, 09 Mar 2016 20:21:00 +0000

Today is Clara Rockmore's 105th birthday. Clearly the virtuosos of the theremin would be a Pisces! In an homage to Rockmore, today's Google doodle offers a lesson in theremin playing. Click and see.

While the theremin was the favorite instrument of 1950's and 60's science fiction, it was not, as is often reported, played in the theme song to Star Trek.

In 1927, the inventor of the theremin, a Russian physicist named Lev Sergeyevich Termen, played his instrument in London to a crowd that included George Bernard Shaw among others. Thermen changed his name to Leon Theremin and boasted that one day every home would have a theremin. One of the early theremin enthusiasts was a kid named Robert Moog. He began building theremins and would later developed the synthesizer often called the Moog. Today Moog's company not only sells synthesizers, but one of its best sellers is the theremin.

Theremin was an interesting cat! With all the repetitive biopics out there, one would think that Theremin's story is ripe for the picking. Theremin might have been a Soviet spy. He was madly in love with Clara Rockemore who refused to marry him. He later married Lavinia Williams, a prima ballerina with the American Negro Ballet. Williams believed that he was kidnapped by the Soviet Union and spirited out of America, but the actual reason he left abruptly has been greatly disputed.

As for Rockmore, her performance of Camille Saint-Saëns' The Swan is considered one of her finest.

If you want to here more of Rockmore, might I suggest her CD, The Art of the Theremin.

Now click on that doodle and practice, practice, practice.

Happy Birthday, Lee

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 19:28:00 +0000

I have always been a huge fan of Lee Radziwill. She is that one person I would love to have over for dinner. When I was a kid, I cut out every photo of her I could find. It made quite a collection and like my own personal "Rosebud" I dragged that collection around for years. My last move, the envelope the pictures were in broke, and most of the collection was lost.

I took it in stride, as I was much older, and there was much more in my complicated life than old newspaper clippings. Though I will admit to the fact that every time I see a new photo of Lee Radziwill, I think seriously of cutting it out!

So you can imagine how happy I was to Lee by Assouline. It was as if someone had taken my collection and bound it together for me. I couldn't wait to get my copy and I was not disappointed.

To this day, I still believe she is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.

Happy Birthday, Lee.

Duchess of Devonshire's Chickens

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 18:21:00 +0000

Today is the sale at Sotheby's for Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire: The Last of the Mitford Sisters. As one would expect, prices are soaring. As you know, the Duchess had a fondness for chickens. The sale did not dissappoint. Here are some of the chicken related items.

Model of a hen, by Nicholas Johnson, made from reclaimed pine.

Two bespoke pine and plywood travelling poultry boxes with the specially engraved monogram DD.

A matched pair of large continental earthenware hen tureens and covers, 19th Century.

Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, Coq et Poules (Creuzet 181)

A Japanese bronze group, Meiji Period, late 19th century

A French bronze and marble presse-papier in the form of a cockerel, second half 19th century

Jonathan Sainsbury, Gossip - Hens

English School, Farmyard Fowl

T. Benson, Hens and Cockerels in a Farmyard

Harry Epworth Allen, Study of Poultry

A Collection of Books on Poultry, 1853-2001

Anne Gascoigne, Buff Orpington Hen

An Edwardian electroplated novelty egg cruet, Mappin & Webb, circa 1910

Poultry related ceramics, late 19th/20th century

Freakwater's Scheherazade

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 19:04:00 +0000

After nearly eleven long years, one of my favorite bands -- ever -- of all time -- bar none -- released a new album. I love Freakwater. And yes, they did release and album and CD and download entitled Scheherazade. It is a great title for a Freakwater album as they are wonderful storytellers.

Freakwater has always been fronted by Janet Beveridge Bean and Catherine Irwin. They produce raw and aching harmonies that one can never forget. In a world of cookie cutter pop songs and predictable country, Freakwater is a breathtaking alternative. Often tossed in the alt-country pile, they are much more.

Their lyrics seem straight forward, but they often have a undercurrent of pain like salty chips on a cut lip. And then, so funny and poignant one cannot help but smile. The writer Chris Parker might have written the best description of the band (damn, I wish I had written this.)

"Freakwater is a 27-year-old Chicago-by-way-of-Louisville, Ky., combo founded by singer/guitarists Janet Beveridge Bean and Catherine Irwin, whose vocals intertwine like vines climbing a country-folk trellis in the Carter Family's backyard."

Well that is exactly what they sound like. Actually, it is the old Carter family, channeling Maybelle and Sara into snarky, wicked lyrics.

I once had the band playing in the background. A friend heard them and had little appreciation for the melancholy twang. But to this day, she still remembers them. To have such a unique sound; one that lingers in the mind years later, that is greatness. Be forewarned by this story, not everyone will be drawn to the music, but if you give it a chance, Scheherazade might become your favorite album of the year. In fact, you might just buy every album Freakwater ever recorded and play them over and over again, like I do.

The Black Dancing Body

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 20:25:00 +0000

One of the good things about being trapped in the house through snows and floods is getting to catch up on various documentaries you have missed. About once every two months I click through all the documentaries that will be shown on Direct TV and tape the ones I am interested in. They usually sit for several months until I finally get around to them.

The first doc I watched was Carmen & Geoffrey. Directed by Linda Atkinson and Nick Doob, the 2009 release follows this dynamic partnership.

Geoffery Holder was a theater and dance fixture beginning in the early 1950's. His stunning art work has often been compared to that of Paul Gauguin. In 1955, Carmen de Lavallade appeared with Holder in "House of Flowers" and they married shortly after and spent 59 years working and creating until Holder's death in 2014.

The documentary is a bit heavy on the Holder side, and the dance sequences featuring de Lavallade could have been much longer. Still, a wonderful look at two giants of dance.

After watching it, I pulled Brenda Dixon Gottschild's The Black Dancing Body off the shelf. The book looks at race, racism, body image, body language, and stereotypes in dance and how they echo and comment on racism in society as a whole.

When I got to A Ballerina's Tale, the story of Misty Copeland, I was glad to see that one of the interviews was with Gottschild, whose book was published long before Copeland's rise. The contrast of time is very interesting.

Copeland is like a rock star, mobbed every time she walks out the stage door. She is, for many young girls, the corporeal realization of what can be. Even as a dancer, Copeland speaks eloquently about seeing black dancers on film and weeping as they were dancers she never knew existed.

One hopes that with the Netfixification of culture, films like A Ballerina's Tale as well as Carmen & Geoffery will have a much wider audience and all little girls and boys can envision themselves dancing... or what ever they want to do.

Beachfront Property

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 15:56:00 +0000

The view from the front door.

I know nothing is more boring than the weather. While about 98% of the time, living in the country is great, there are those other times. Many of them are in the winter. Aside from being cold and white, much of the day is devoted to the weather.

The last week is a case in point. We had snow. We had to make sure we had gas for the generator in case the power went off. We had big, fluffy wet snow...but the power stayed on. Until it went off. The generator keeps the pump working, it keeps the refrigerator running, it keeps the Internet and television on, but not the heat.

Power returned and we were warm again. But the temp dropped into single digits so we had to worry about the water freezing. Once it freezes, there is no getting it back on until a thaw. This week there was a seven day stretch of below freezing weather. So water dripped like some sort of Chinese water torture. We kept the water going, until the cold water in the kitchen froze. We opened the faucet and hoped that the bright sun would hit it just right and free up the water.

The sun worked. It freed up the water while I was vacuuming. Not only was the water line frozen, but the drain was frozen. When the vacuum turned off, one could hear the water pouring into the floor. After sopping up water, towel were left outside to freeze solid.

In an attempt to keep the water running, we opened the faucets more, but a plunge in the temperature froze all the water. Yesterday, the temperature went up, but it took a full 24 hours of spring like weather to get water back to the house.

The spring like weather melted the snow, then it rained. Now the property is flooded.

It will be 24 hours before the water subsides. So we are spending another day trapped inside. A lot of time is spent under the SAD light. Even if one does not have seasonal affect disorder, the dark and cold and wet will eventually get to you.

So, we haven't been posting, because hey, if you don't have something interesting to say, why post. But spring is around the corner.

Mardi Gras

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Tue, 09 Feb 2016 17:04:00 +0000

Above is the Mardi Gras court from 1900 in Mobile, Alabama. As you know, the tradition of Mardi Gras in America began in Mobile. Well in 1703, when the tradition began, Mobile was actually French Louisiana, but we won't quibble.

Here is a cavalcade of vintage shots from some of Mobile's finest moments. Enjoy.

1907 King and Queen of Mardi Gras

A 1919 postcard of the festivities.

Marching in the 1920's

Way to much revelry!

Mardi Gras court, no date.

Mardi Gras ball

Zippy Mardi Gras chapeaus

On the parade route, no date

Mobile Mardi Gras, Bienville Square

Snow Cooking

noreply@blogger.com (Lucindaville) — Wed, 27 Jan 2016 21:02:00 +0000

While trapped in the snow we decided to venture into the warm kitchen. We saw a recipe by Annie Wayte for a Guinea Fowl Potpie. We had almost nothing from the recipe with the exception of a guinea fowl. That is the kind of kitchen we have! So we improvised. Our pie is simply guinea, onions, mushrooms, and a bit of bacon.

It turned out quite yummy.

Then we decided to make a cake. We had a couple of white sweet potatoes that we had lying around from Christmas. They were actually lying UNDER as we moved a paper bag over them, and discovered them after we needed the bag!

We baked them at 400 for about 35 minutes until they were mashable and then set out to make our favorite sweet potato cake, only in the white version.

For Christmas we got several bottles of libations from Art in the Age, including a sweet potato vodka, so we gave out yellow raisins a soak. We also had half a bag of self-rising flour, so we used that.

White Sweet Potato Cake

2 cups self-rising flour
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup mashed white sweet potatoes
2 beaten eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon Art in the Age Sweet Potato Vodka (optional)
1 cup yellow raisins, dredged boldly

Soak your raisins for about 30 minutes in a tablespoon of liquor, if desired.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, and spice together to blend

In a smaller bowl, mix the sweet potatoes, eggs, oil, and milk. I may look a bit lumpy and curdled, but that is the way it should look.

Add the sweet potato mixture to the dry ingredients and blend well.

Fold in the dredged fruit.

Pour into prepared Lucinda’s Wood Cake Box.

Bake for 1 1/2 hours.

Being snowbound wasn't too bad.