I wring my hands as this site devolves from a poorly informed literary blog to a poorly informed weather update service, but Jeanne is gunning toward the mountains. (For those keeping track this is indeed the third hurricane/tropical storm in a month — please remember, we live far from the coast, inland, in the Appalachian mountains, so there’s something tremendously freaky about having tropical anythings blow through.) We are on wind & flood warnings through tomorrow night so I’m going to try to write on the Kangaroo Book in hard measure, just in case we lose power later.
Mr. Tingle just completed our storm preparations, which consist mainly of taking down the umbrella on the deck and gazing with suspicion at all the trees in the yard. Before sequestering himself with his computer, he told me to close all the windows in case the rain and winds began. This in lieu, I suppose, of running outside naked and offering myself to the Storm King.
I’m grateful that Jeanne put off sticking her head in till Monday, however. This was our first weekend back with a full complement of utilities — power, water, phone — so we gadded around a great deal, sometime turning lamps on and off just for the sheer pleasure of it. On Saturday, we were pleased to call to order an ad hoc meeting of the Southern Bloggers Cabal: This member has only recently moved South so we drank moonshine and then everyone present tried to rush at her like mountain rams, in the hopes of knocking out a few teeth so “she’d fit in more.”
Yesterday I discovered for myself a great writer, Ron Rash, who was reading at Malaprop’s from his new novel, Saints at the River. I haven’t yet read his first novel, One Foot In Eden, but several of my writing friends here described it as one of the best they’ve read. He’s a charming, self-effacing but smart reader. He prefaced one excerpt with talk of how he as a novelist thrives on conflict and ambiguity, and he sees the South’s own perplexities as one of its gifts to a writer. He quoted the Graham Greene-scripted line from The Third Man, “In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed – they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
I’m not sure that Greene wrote that great line— it’s possible Welles improvised it. Either way I have been told the line doesn’t appear in the original screenplay. This, of course, takes nothing away from the grand Greene
Comment by birnbaum — 9/27/2004 @ 10:50 am
I’m an Orson Welles nut and I can tell you that WITHOUT A FRICKIN’ DOUBT it was Orson Welles who wrote the cuckoo clock speech. Greene wrote the excellent novel. Greene wrote the excellent screenplay. But it was Welles who wrote the excellent cuckoo speech. (Source without my books nearby: THIS IS ORSON WELLES with Welles and Bogdonavich, where the cuckoo speech is explicitly discussed.)
(Damn, now you know what a Welles fanboy I am.)
Comment by Ed — 9/27/2004 @ 2:12 pm
Also, good luck braving the storm. I’m sending tangerine juju your way.
Comment by Ed — 9/27/2004 @ 2:13 pm
Wow, I bow to y’all’s knowledge and exquisite fandom. Who knew Ed was such a Welles nut?
It is a great line. I’d heard it before, in a vacuum, but it was esp. good contextualizing the Southern writer experience. RB, you should really look at some Ron Rash. You would admire, I feel sure.
Comment by CAAF — 9/27/2004 @ 2:22 pm
“This in lieu, I suppose, of running outside naked and offering myself to the Storm King.” — this made my day!
Comment by bluepoppy — 9/27/2004 @ 2:29 pm
As fate would have it I recieved the Rash book some weeks ago and and was at a place where I immediately started to read it and was much impressed. Sadly, I now can’t find my copy and my last note to his publicist went unheeded.
Thank you for reminmding me
Batten down the hatches and all that
Comment by birnbaum — 9/27/2004 @ 8:29 pm
CAAF,
Thanks for the note on Rash. Had not heard of him and looking him up and reading some of his poetry and other work online, he seems ripe to be read and hopefully interviewed at some point.
RB,
Good luck getting copy II in your hot little hands!
Enjoy,
Comment by Dan Wickett — 9/27/2004 @ 9:07 pm
I do not understand the desire to live in places with weather. Especially such regular weather (when we have weather, it becomes a major news event; all stations are covering three drops of rain). Who pissed off Mother Nature so much? At least you’re getting reading done. I’m collecting extremely long, thick books to decorate the coffee table. I remain envious of anyone who can read more than the comics page — but not so envious of doing it by candlelight1
Comment by booksquare — 9/29/2004 @ 1:02 am
Everyone “up North” has been complimenting me on my new, winning SBC smile. Not too many opportunities to display it–that bitch Jeanne followed me here and brought the rain with her.
Comment by cinetrix — 9/29/2004 @ 8:22 am
Booksquare, doesn’t the traffic in LA count as an intense weather pattern? Plus, I love the northern part of your state but I’d live in fear of it dipping into the ocean.
Cine, so glad that your beautiful new smile is a hit. I feel like a snaggletooth or two always adds sparkle. While you’re there, please always refer to That War as The War of Northern Aggression.
Comment by CAAF — 9/29/2004 @ 8:31 am