And Now a Word about Your Shampoo

From an FDA publication (1975; re-printed 1980) that I found on Mr. Still's bookshelves among other governmental pamphlets on vegetable gardening, growing irises, strawberries, etc.

Title of the pub: "And Now a Word about Your Shampoo"

Author: Harold C. Hopkins

This is prose so purple it's, well...what's more purple than purple? Plum? Black-eye? Concord grape juice stain on my new T-shirt?

"[....] Can you imagine watching your favorite TV show, or anyone else's, without at least one nymph loping in slow motion across grassy glades under a bouncing billowing halo of feminine glory while an off-screen voice archly insists that it could be you if you'd buy you know what? Street construction crews and pedestrians paralyzed as their mass masculinity is sideswiped by a silken-tressed sylph out on the avenue for her morning undulation? Elevator passengers elevated and blind dates struck dumb by a radiant-maned creature close enough for comfort? Acres of skin, scalp, and smirks emerging from showers with secrets that refuse to keep? A gossamer-topped tot dreamily enduring the camera's gaze while her gossamer-topped look-alike mother hums to her, on gathers, of the magic bottle they share? Or a bit of good news for blondes, brunettes, and redheads who weren't born that way?"

"The [bookshelf] is an enchanting thing / Is an enchanted thing..."

Today's finds:

Books so special they're making my hands shake:

1) A Sweet Songster from 1854. This is a book that Baptists (Old Regular Baptists in recent years, though I don't know what the denomination would have been called back then) used to line out hymns for singing. Not a lot of people could read, so one "elder" would "line out" the hymns for the rest of the congregation to sing along with....I'm writing this in the past tense--thinking about 1854--but there are several Old Regular Baptist congregations around Hindman (and elsewhere in Appalachia and places where outmigrants settled, such as Detroit), so this could very well be written in the present tense. This denomination of Baptists did not believe in using instruments in church, so the hymns in the Sweet Songster don't have any musical markings: no treble or bass clef, no shaped notes, no indication of how the song was to be sung. So, the Songster looks mostly like a book of poetry, hardback, palm-sized, small enough to fit in a shirt or hip pocket, pack-of-cigarettes sized.

2) A first edition of Nevertheless by Marianne Moore--I know this for sure because it says so: first printing. Its a small hardback chapbook with dust jacket. It contains six poems: "Nevertheless," "The Wood-Weasel," "Elephants," "A Carriage from Sweden," "The Mind is an Enchanting Thing," and "In Distrust of Merits."

3) What is probably a first edition of A Boy's Will by Robert Frost--from 1915.

These three books lined up, unceremoniously, on a shelf among Modern Library hardbacks, and mass market paperbacks from my own lifetime.

Dreamy

How dreamy is this place?:

www.stonelakefarm.com/

They are doing in Cali what I want to do here in Kentucky. Sustainable farming, getting off the grid, and teaching others how to do it. And providing space for artists, writers, other types of creators.

(Thanks for the link, SLC!)

My Kentucky plan, though, also includes becoming part of a land trust, the only way really to have any power to fight encroaching coal companies. So, in 5 or so years, expect an invitation to come live near Hindman, or at least buy some land here. (He, he! You think I'm kidding, don't you?)

The Old Becomes New Again

I have a friend who is compiling a list of old Appalachian names as a list of potential baby names. Below is some of what we've come up with so far (and a good many of them--Edna, Wilda, Everett, Clarence, Omer, Antha, and others--straight out of my family). Use the comments to add some other names you think of, and to share your opinion(s) on any on the list--particularly if you really like one, or know of an interesting story or etymology of one.


GIRLS

Alma, Antha, Bess, Birdie, Celia, Edna, Eleanor, Eliza, Elsie, Emma, Erma, Estell, Esther, Ethel, Fern, Gladys, Grace, Hattie, Hazel, Hilda, Ivy, Jean, Leona, Lola, Lucinda, Lydia, Mae/May, Margaret/Maggie/Peg, Millie, Myrtle, Nellie, Ola, Oma, Opal, Pansy, Pauline or Polly, Penny, Pearl, Sophia, Trula, Wilda, Virginia, Zinnia


BOYS

Albert, Alvis, Asa, Cecil, Clarence, Cyrus, Dewey, Ervin/Irvin, Everett, Ezra, Grover, Harper, Hiram, Homer, Hugo, Jasper, Jebediah, Josiah, Kirk, Lester, Lonnie, Luther, McCager/Micajah, Millard, Moses, Obadiah, Omer, Roscoe, Silas, Solomon

Where's the Jewelweed When You Need It

I think I may have poison ivy for the first time in my life. I guess that's what I get for saying last week that I'm not allergic to it. It's a tiny little blister, but not a blemish, not a bug bite, not a chigger...definitely poison-ivy-like. Now I need to find a plant book so I can go identify some jewelweed tomorrow--it's suppose to cure the irritating symptoms.

In other news, I think I'm a libertarian socialist--to be even more precise: an eco-libertarian socialist. It sounds like I've gone so far left I'm going back right. And in a way this is true, but the "libertarian" part of this political philosophy isn't the US right-wing uber-free-enterprise libertarianism, but more of the European version based on free-creativity: the right to the highest level of individual freedom within society, not the right to the highest profit at others' expense. I'm just now getting into reading up on these political ideals, so this declaration might change, but as a libertarian socialist: that's okay! Now, to read some Chomsky soon: he's a libertarian socialist too! (at least according to wikipedia).

And in even further news: I think I'm voting for Dennis Kucinich. More on this as I work through more information.

The Road to Autocracy

In an editorial about bills George W. Bush has been critical of but has still signed into law, and ultimately failed to force the executive branch to implement, the New York Times has this to say:

The Bush administration’s disregard for these laws is part of its extraordinary theory of the 'unitary executive.' The administration asserts that the president has the sole authority to supervise and direct executive officers, and that Congress and the courts cannot interfere. This theory, which has no support in American history or the Constitution, is a formula for autocracy.

NO SUPPORT IN AMERICAN HISTORY! OR THE CONSTITUTION!
And doesn't "unitary executive" smack of "dictator"?!
And we let him do this?
Oh, how do I move from disgust (and fear) to action.

-------------------

Thank goodness someone is saying something. And look who it is, too?:

Senator Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, has said that the report shows that Mr. Bush “is constantly grabbing for more power” and trying to push Congress “to the sidelines.”

The Fruits of Family Folk Week

Two baskets I made in Frances Whitaker's basketmaking class:



I think the underside to this one is really neat:

"Blackwaters" by Jean Ritchie

A must-hear, originally about strip mining, but applies just as well to mountaintop removal. I heard her sing this in Hindman last week:

Working On...

Some things I'm working on (or wanting to work on):

-- Cataloging James Still's books
-- Writing an essay (for print publication), and creating an accompanying video essay, on living among James Still's life's reading
-- Growing green peppers and squash
-- Driving the Learning Center students to the smallest city pool in the history of public pools on Monday and Thursday evenings
-- Finishing Moby Dick
-- Organizing the laundry room closet so I can start sorting the mess in the work room / office
-- Researching central Appalachian captivity narratives (including Jenny Wiley and Elizbeth Green)
-- Finishing my book
-- Learning more about the "slow food" movement and thinking about promoting it in Appalachian Kentucky
-- Looking for ways to integrate recycling and the arts in Hindman
-- Looking for a place to actually recycle (our growing stacks of glass, plastic, paper, and plastic)
-- Uploading more videos and pics from Family Folk Week
-- Learning more about forest moths (Io moth, Imperial moth, and the Rosy Dryocampa, specifically)
-- Trying to remember to turn the lights off more often so I don't cause more coal to be extracted from these mountains so I don't have to worry about whether the tap water is going to give me liver cancer like it has other people, so I don't have to keep buying water in plastic bottles, which are made from petroleum and may be carcinogenic themselves and are not able to be recycled here and so will go into a landfill where they will very slowly break down and give off methane gases which deplete the ozone layer and lead to global warming which will make more people want to use air conditioners longer which run on electricity which is produced from coal which is extracted by mountain top removal processes by large corporations which don't care one whit about me or whether I die of cancer

Jean Ritchie Playing "Shady Grove"

During Appalachian Family Folk Week at the Hindman Settlement School, Hindman, Kentucky

Thursday, June 14, 2007:

Hello from Kentucky

Well, this is my first post as a returned Appalachian. Whit and I now live in Hindman, KY. Whit is working at the James Still Learning Center (a school for children with dyslexic characteristics), which is part of the Hindman Settlement School.

Last week, HSS hosted the Appalachian Family Folk Week and I had an amazing time. It felt truly wonderful to be part of such a multi-generational community again, after spending so many years in everyone-I-know-is-the-same-age College Land. There were fiddlers, banjo pickers, dulcimerists from age 8 to 88.

A brief interruption: there is presently a chipmunk scurrying around at my feet, nosing about for food items to stuff his jaws with. I'm down on the porch of the May Stone Building, sitting in what is probably a hand made rocking chair, using the wireless internet here. Some of the leaves on the trees are turned backwards, but I think they're fibbing: it's really not going to rain more than a few sprinkles. And now, the chipmunk has scampered away to my right, looking for a better source for food and a place where he or she doesn't have to be unnerved by the clicking of my computer keys.

About the Folk Week: In the mornings I took the "Appalachian Seminars" and in them learned more about Mountaintop Removal and the Community Development Initiative in Knott County. I also went on a hike and discovered the Carolina Spicebush, also known as the Booby Bush because women used to rub the extraordinarily sweet smelling flower on their upper chests for perfume. This plant puts the honeysuckle to shame.

In the afternoons, I took a basket making class with Frances Whitaker (a wonderful and patient teacher) and made a small hamper and another small round basket. The evenings were filled with dinner, and concerts by the staff, and then a square dance as a night cap. I hope to get pictures of the festivities up soon.

So, until then: May no one find coal under your land...