midwest road trip

testing test test

Thoughts on Treme and NOLA

As my final paper will be focusing on the regional cuisine of New Orleans, I felt investing some time in three seasons of HBO’s hourlong drama, Treme, was necessary. The creator, David Simon, is heralded for his other critically acclaimed series, The Wire. I think it is interesting to note both series are embedded in a very regionally specific area. The Wire is set in the racially mixed, high-crime, corrupted city of Baltimore, and explores the seedy underbelly of Baltimore’s drug lords and rings, police officers, public school system, and the media’s portrayal of it all. Both Baltimore and New Orleans usually evoke visceral reactions from people--they range from “Baltimore is so dangerous” to “New Orleans is such a fun place to party in.” How do these stereotypes get born and enforced? Both cities have ethnically diverse populations in an urban setting with high crime rates (usually in the top ten for murder and crime rates) but each has radically different conventions about it. It is said there are three US cities than are unlike any other: San Francisco, Charleston and New Orleans. I don’t disagree with this statement, but I am more interested in knowing how and why New Orleans came to be this “roux” of culture, class and languages. Treme first aired on HBO just five years after Hurricane Katrina, and it is set three months after the disaster. It follows the rebuilding of lives of musicians, chefs, Mardi Gras Indians, and small business owners. It is specifically centered in the historic neighborhood of Treme in New Orleans and was a much-needed boost to the city’s tourism industry. The series moves slower than most of today’s frenetically paced dramas, but it adds a level of arguable authenticity. It is obvious the creators paid painstaking attention to getting details right by hiring New Orleanian writers (including Times-Picayune reporter and founding SFA member Lolis Eric Elie). Simon prefaced the airing of the first episode with a letter in The Times-Picayune promising not perfect historical accuracy but a treatment "respectful of the historical reality." Place and space are essential to understanding New Orleans--it is oftentimes more similar to Europe than America for its narrow streets, decaying architecture, pedestrian-friendly avenues, and distinctive neighborhoods. This is often attributed to its French and Spanish colonial roots and being a port city bringing in an influx of Caribbean, African, and European culture. While watching the series, I often thought of John Shelton Reed’s idea that “when regional populations can be regarded as groups, a rather different view of their subcultures emerges, and perhaps an even greater estimate of their hardiness. A group can be said to have had “collective experiences,” and some aspects of its culture may be responses to those experiences” (26). One can argue that though Katrina had devastating effects on the economy and personal lives of every New Orleanian, those that stayed and those that came back are bonded forever through the trauma of that “collective experience.” In my paper I plan to explore the idea that New Orleans is its own subregion, both possessing Southern characteristics yet maintaining an identity wholly unique to itself. It is in describing this unique culture that I find difficulty. European, Caribbean, decadent, carefree, slow, hedonistic, racially mixed and divided, corrupt, culture-rich, welcoming--all traits central to New Orleans. I had to chuckle when reading Reed’s theory that “misfits and dissenters from the South’s smaller communities now tend to migrate to Southern cities” (178). Reed could also be describing my hometown of Austin, TX, or the Montrose neighborhood of Houston or the hipster-friendly enclave of Five Points in Atlanta. Reed goes on to say “it may mean that big Southern cities will become downright strange--nothing new for New Orleans but surprising to observe in Atlanta and Houston, Nashville and Memphis” (178). I think this phenomenon is nothing new--New York City and San Francisco have always been beacons for those not wishing to assimilate to the legitimate taste of the dominant class. But, I would argue it is a recent development for these alternative cultures to be blossoming in Southern cities as well--one I wholeheartedly support as I have no desire to move to the East or West Coast. The study of New Orlean’s unique region is a fascinating one to apply the various theories and methodologies encountered in this class and one I hope will prove to be an interesting paper as well.

The Summer Before School Starts

There's something strange about summer--it always feels like time slows down, like we're lazily floating through a warm, humid river with sweat persistently running down our backs. I'm at a very strange limbo in my life right now. I'm working for myself-- bartending for events/weddings and doing some freelance public relations projects. I don't have a 9 to 5 schedule right now which is amazing but can make for some very unproductive days. I'll put off running simple errands for weeks...going to the bank, a haircut, putting real pants on...There is something to be said about the simple act of forcing yourself to wake up at 7am every day, putting on a semi-professional outfit, and sitting down at a hard cubicle desk for nine hours. Gives you some perspective on life. So I'm going to graduate school this fall. I'm pursuing a Masters Degree in Southern Studies at the most Southern of all Schools: Ole Miss, located in Faulkner-Land. Oxford, MS: a progressive but classic college town with extreme "Kentucky Derby" tailgating and plenty of good ole' boys. Needless to say, I'm pretty excited. But I've got this down time this summer and it's driving me a bit batty. It's the age-old dilemma: plenty of time, but no money--whereas when you're working a lot, you've got the money but no time. All I want to do is hop on a plane and go to Tokyo and have a "Lost in Translation" moment. That's only...$3000 for a week? So here I sit in hot Austin, TX, staying with parents and working on my knitting skills. It feels exactly like the summer before I left for college...only not as fun, because when you're eighteen the world is your oyster and college is this mysterious adventureland set on a glimmering horizon, full of house parties and witty repartee. I'm hoping graduate school is more of a sophisticated dinner party.

5 Things I've learned.

I'm stealing this from a University of Texas publication. It was inspiring.

Robert King, Ph.D. — Professor Emeritus, Department of Linguistics —46 years at UT

1. Students remember you, not what you taught them. Life always comes down to people.
2. Don’t do today what you can put off until tomorrow. Obvious.
3. Never, ever, whenever, talk more than 35 minutes. Lecture in class, lecture anywhere: 35 minutes max. People, especially students, tune out after that. People would rather hear themselves talk and ask questions, than hear some old phearte rattling on for an hour plus.
4. Quit relying on those goddamned “devices!” Start reading books again, at least one or two a month. If all you do is log on and read blogs, then you are doo doo.
5. You want a friend? You want a “mate?” You want a wife, a lover? Get a dog. Much better in the long run. I recommend a wirehaired fox terrier, but any dog will do.

link here: http://www.insideourcampus.com/2011/03/5-things-ive-learned/

Tender Mercies.

I entered the Texas Monthly blogging contest, where the Alamo Drafthouse and TM magazine put on a rolling roadshow of Texan movies...I wanted it so bad. I didn't get it. So here is my failed entry.


There are some films that hit you in your gut. There are some that hit you in your heart. And, there’s the occasional one that comes out of nowhere to hit you right smack in the nose, making you fall to the floor weeping like a two-year-old child. Tender Mercies did such a thing to me. I was blissfully unaware of the cathartic emotional breakdown I would go through in the 100 minutes of watching the 1983 Texan drama starring Robert Duvall and Tess Harper. It had popped up on my “suggested movies” list on Netflix, and being the good Texan and classic country music fan that I am, I willingly obliged.

Now, as a 26-year-old, I realize I haven’t had time yet for any real heartbreak and troubled past and drinking problems. But that’s how I realized what an honest and unflinching and true performance Robert Duvall gave--because I felt like a middle-aged, recovering alcoholic country singer after watching him as the faded Mac Sledge.

This film couldn’t have been shot on a sound stage in Los Angeles or a generic small town with good tax incentives in New Mexico. No sir, this kind of tangible magic could only happen in Waxahachie, Texas. The little town you glance over on your way to Dallas or Fort Worth, it’s a testament to big blue skies and waves of dead grass shimmering in the summer heat.

What I’m most drawn to watching Tender Mercies again is the sound--or lack of it. The scuff of a boot scraping mud against a door frame, the wind ruffling Sonny’s hair, Duvall’s sun-weathered hands delicately stroking the strings of his guitar--each sound is so pure and piercing that it further contributes to the movie’s stark, simplistic feel.

Not one note is overdone or false or pretentious. The acting, the weathered Mariposa Motel, the Slater Mill Boys band...it takes me back to a place I hope still exists. And Wilford Brimley. MY GOD Wilford Brimley. Is there a better character actor out there? (My apologies to Karl Malden.)

Though I wasn’t alive when Tender Mercies came out, I hope to sit on the steps of the Waxahachie courthouse this June and feel its emotional honesty in my gut, my heart, and my nose once more.

I just hope I can keep the crying to a minimum.

I wrote a poem in five minutes

I am in a writing workshop right now that I'm really enjoying. Writing workshops always make me think of the Todd Soldonz film Storytelling. Which is a really effed up film that I adore! There is something so cute and community college-y about sitting in a circle with a bunch of middle-aged women discussing Sandra Cisneros short stories. I love it! I was supposed to write a poem "inspired" by Jimmy Santiago Baca's poem "I Am Offering This Poem." I forgot to do it and wrote this frantically at my desk ten minutes before the meeting.

So here you go.

I have nothing else to give you,
But a tiny one-bedroom house
With a shaded yard
Where your dog can run free and we can sip coffee in the mornings.
The front porch gets the best light,
But the back is quieter.

I can cook you meals.
Nothing that would be featured in Saveur or Food + Wine,
But I’ll buy the best ingredients
I’ll splurge on organic vegetables for you
And I’ll plan the menu for each night while I work during the day.

We can play hooky once a month
And go to the movies on a Tuesday afternoon
And sit in the dark with the retirees and unemployed,
And talk about our future with buttery popcorn and stale boxes of candy.

I will write bad poems about you,
That I will only share after a couple glasses of wine
And even though you might cringe at its earnestness,
You will think of it later and blush.

It’s all I have to give
And I hope it’s enough
But if not
I’ll find more.

Tennessee Me.