Southern Culture – Lemuria Books

Category: Southern Culture (Page 1 of 16)

Author Q & A with Sean Brock

On November 10, 2019

In Cooking, Southern Cooking, Southern Culture

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (November 10)

Sean Brock, the James Beard Award-winning author of Heritage follows up his nationally acclaimed debut book with a decidedly enthusiastic probe into the nurturing and connecting qualities of his favorite cuisine with South: Essential Recipes and New Explorations.

With an immutable passion for preserving and restoring heirloom ingredients, Brock offers up 125 recipes in South, with chapters that include everything from “Snacks and Dishes to Share” to “Grains,” “Vegetables and Sides” and even a section titled “Pantry,” complete with recipes and tips for preserving and canning–not to mention two full pages on “How to Make Vinegar.”

Sean Brock

Brock was the founding chef of the award-winning Husk restaurants and is now the chef and owner of Audrey, a distinctly unique dining destination set to open in east Nashville next year.

Brock has been recognized with the James Beard Award for Best Chef Southeast in 2010 and was a finalist for Outstanding Chef in 2013, 2014, and 2015. He has appeared on the TV series Chef’s Table and The Mind of a Chef, for which he was nominated for an Emmy.

Raised in rural Virginia Brock now lives in Nashville.

You made a national name for yourself crafting the heritage cuisine of the award-winning Husk restaurants in Charleston and Greenville, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; and Nashville. Tell me about your decision to shift gears and settle in Nashville as you start a new chapter of your life and career.

After my son was born, I had a health scare the last couple of years. I realized that I have to take better care of myself. I was working way too much and I worried way too much. I was operating eight restaurants in five cities. Finally, I had to say “goodbye” to that chapter and start a new path.

Your first book, Heritage, won the James Beard Award for Best American Cookbook and the IACP Julia Child First Book Award, and was called “the blue ribbon chef cookbook of the year” by The New York Times. Were you surprised by its huge success, and would you say that this achievement that helped change your career path?

I can hardly fathom that I ever even got a book deal–and that there would be so much interest in what I was doing with food.

Writing a book is really scary. With my first book, I knew I had one shot to get it out there the way I wanted. There is a gap of about a year between writing a book and getting it published–and a lot can happen in between. Once it’s out there, it’s out there. All I could do was cross my fingers and hope people would get into it. I remember holding it in my hands after it first came out, and seeing others holding it in their hands. That’s when it became real to me.

Winning the James Beard Award was such a stretch that I could have never even imagined it. I remember that day and what a whirlwind of excitement it was.

I think that book came out at a perfect time in America because I began to realize people were really, really interested in Southern food. As a place, it has many cuisines, not just one. It has a strong historical aspect that affects its preset and future.

You have said that you believe Southern cuisine ranks among the best in the world. Please tell me about South, and your motivations for writing it. What message do you want this book to convey?

It’s about how we all can contribute to our own food history. The way I see it, place has its own ingredients and its own cultural influences and natural geography. That’s how cuisine is shaped–restoring the old so we can now have the new. We look to many cultures much older than ours and how they handled their ingredients. It’s important that we can all contribute something to our own culinary history.

You grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, and attended cooking school in Charleston while you were still a teenager. What influenced your early culinary interests at such a young age?

I grew up living with my grandmother for a while. I was around 11 to 14 years old at that time, and those were such formative years. I loved eating at her table and being in her garden. It gave me a different perspective about food, and I just fell in love with it.

I started working in (restaurant) kitchens at age 15. Food Network had just started on TV, and that was where I began to see that side of food preparation as a more serious craft.

Thanks to my grandmother, I learned the power of food to nurture and comfort, and I never wanted to do anything else.

Sean Brock will be at Cathead Distillery on Thursday, November 14, a5 5:00 p.m. in conversation with John Currence to sign and discuss South: Essential Recipes and New Explorations.

Will Jacks’ ‘Po’ Monkey’s’ allows one last visit to famous, shuttered Delta juke joint

By Guest Author

On October 31, 2019

In Art/Photography, Blues, Southern Culture

By Chris Goodwin. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (October 27)

Becoming a famous and beloved institution is no guarantee of permanence. So with Po’ Monkey’s Lounge outside Merigold, the creation and full expression of Mr. Willie Seaberry—farm laborer by day, internationally known juke joint proprietor by night.

After decades of those-who-know-don’t-need-to-ask operation catering to locals in search of a Thursday evening respite, the establishment rose to prominence as white photographers and journalists enthralled by its authenticity brought news of its existence to their audiences, turning it into a must-see site for blues tourists traveling the Mississippi Delta.

Alas, the death of Mr. Seaberry in 2016 was also the death knell for the lounge. We’re fortunate to have Will Jacks’ moving photographic tribute, Po’ Monkey’s: Portrait of a Juke Joint (University Press of Mississippi), to document—and remind us—of what has been lost.

A trained photographer and gallery owner who grew up not far from Po’ Monkey’s, Jacks spent a decade at the lounge, connecting with the people who worked there and reconnecting with school friends who were some of its regulars. Jacks often had his camera in hand to capture the riotous, exuberant dance floor as well as quieter moments off to the side. More than seventy of those images are reproduced in black and white in this oversized hardcover edition. That color choice denies readers the full glory of Mr. Seaberry’s famous bright outfits, but it perfectly suits the fundamental nature of a vernacular structure begun nearly 100 years ago.

Jacks gives equal time to the people and the place in his selection of shots. There are women and men, black and white, young and old pictured shooting pool, dancing, or listening to music (in the tight confines of the lounge usually provided by a DJ or jukebox, not a live band), sitting together at the tables with drinks at hand, or posing for portraits outside the building in front of an improvised screen.

But equally rewarding are the images of the building. Po’ Monkey’s was located in the house where Mr. Seaberry lived for much of his life. He reserved for himself a small bedroom at the back—the rest was richly decorated with stuffed monkeys (the juke joint took its name from Mr. Seaberry’s nickname) and posters, photographs, beads, and strand after strand of Christmas lights, which transformed the Spartan interior of a sharecropper’s cabin into a joyous space where people came to forget their cares for the night.

The photographs highlight the textures of that space, from the plastic hung to keep out the rain—a pragmatic decision that became a design feature when they were tufted to the ceiling—to the corrugated tin and candy-striped handrails of the exterior. The hand-painted signs near the front door clearly laid out the owner’s positions: No loud music, dope smoking, rap music, or beer brought inside.

An introductory essay by journalist Boyce Upholt and a photographer’s statement at the end of the book tell the particulars of Willie Seaberry’s life story as well as they can be teased out, his close relationship with the Hiter family who owns the house and farmland on which it sits, and the story of Po’ Monkey’s during its years of operation and in the time following his death.

It seems unlikely that the lounge will ever reopen, and even if it were to, it would be a different place from what its patrons have known. It was the larger-than-life personality of its owner that made Po’ Monkey’s the welcoming place that it was for so many, and it is thanks to Will Jacks that we have this record of that time and that place.

Chris Goodwin lives in Jackson. He visited Po’ Monkey’s for the first time in 2007 and hasn’t danced that much since.

Author Q & A with William Dunlap

By Guest Author

On October 20, 2019

In Art/Photography, Southern Culture

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (October 20)

Mississippi native William Dunlap takes a look back at folk art as he highlights his former father-in-law’s paintings and storytelling from the 1970s in Pappy Kitchens and the Saga of Red Eye the Rooster (University Press of Mississippi).

While the late O.W. “Pappy” Kitchens’ work is hard to classify, his is a style that combines visual folk art with parables that reveal moral virtue. The Crystal Springs native first picked up a paint brush after a long career in the construction business, at the age of 67. He referred to himself as a folk artist, explaining: “I paint about folks, what folks see and what folks do.”

In the book’s introduction, acclaimed art curator Jane Livingston speaks of Kitchens’ intuitive talent.

“He is remarkably uninfluenced by other artists,” she states. “It is the stories and not the form they take that arise naturally from the man’s life and the fables of his imagination.”

It was that “imagination” that Dunlap picked up on immediately when he saw for himself the sincerity and intensity of Kitchens’ “piddling” in his son-in-law’s studio.

“As a Southern visual artist, (Kitchens) employs a birthright inherent in his rich oral culture and tradition,” Dunlap writes in the book’s preface.

The hats Dunlap wears include that of artist, arts commentator, and writer. His paintings, sculpture, and constructions are included in numerous widely recognized public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, and The Ogden Museum of Southern Art. He authored numerous publications including the books Short Mean Fiction: Words and Pictures and Dunlap, the latter published by University Press of Mississippi.

An exhibit including the paintings from The Saga of Red Eye the Rooster will be on display at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson through Nov. 17.

Please tell me about your relationship with “Pappy” Kitchens.

I knew Mr. Kitchens from 1963 until his death in ‘86, because I was married to his only daughter Bobbie Jean Kitchens. We moved to the mountains of North Carolina where I taught at Appalachian State University. After Mr. Kitchens retired he and Ms. Kitchens visited us in the fall and in the spring, It was there in my studio that Mr. Kitchens begin to “ piddle,” as he called it, and made some of the most remarkable works of art it’s been my pleasure to see.

Briefly tell us about the story of The Saga of Red Eye the Rooster–which you have deemed to be Pappy Kitchens’ “magnus opus.”

Always a fine storyteller of the Southern tradition, Mr. Kitchens often ruminated on the problems of the world and spoke in parables. The official art world at the time did not embrace the narrative, but that did not stop “Pappy” Kitchens, as he begin to call himself.

His long and involved narrative series called The Saga of Red Eye the Rooster was made over a period of several years, in groups of 20 works at a time. Taken as a whole, there’s nothing in the annals of folk art quite like it.

The work includes 60 separate panels, each 15 inches by 15 inches, all polymer paint and mixed materials on paper. The artwork chronicles the pursuits, habits, and appetites of Red Eye the Rooster, who is very familiar to many of us.

How did you decide to take on the project of producing this book to showcase Kitchens’ talents and achievements in art–and why now?

It has fallen my lot to care for Mr. Kitchens’ body of work and I’m happy to do so. The idea for a book has been out there for some time. Both Jane Livingston, an early supporter of Pappy’s work; and Dr. Rick Gruber, whose scholarship on Southern Art is unmatched, encouraged me to pursue it. Craig Gill, head of the University Press of Mississippi found it compelling enough to underwrite this project. Hence, the book, The Saga of Red Eye the Rooster in all its metaphorical and allegorical glory.

“Pappy” combined his art with an incredible talent for storytelling to produce his greatest works. Please tell me about the personal influences that drove Pappy’s art and his stories.

I’m not the first to come to the conclusion that language is a birthright for we Southerners. What Mr. Kitchens was able to accomplish was to translate the oral into the visual, sometimes with the help of his handy portable typewriter.

It’s all quite seamless. Mr. Kitchens had the skill set all along to make these paintings but what he lacked was the time and motivation. With retirement and the use of the materials in my studio he was able to make up for considerable lost time.

So much of his material was not unlike other so-called folk artists, Bible stories, memories from childhood, etc. Mr. Kitchens also did research–he read widely on art history and folk art and made a very charming painting of the Venus of Willendorf, whose carver and Pappy Kitchens had a great deal in common.

William Dunlap will be at Lemuria on Monday, October 21, at 5:00 to sign and discuss Pappy Kitchens and the Saga of Red Eye the Rooster.

William Dunlap’s new book rediscovers savvy, ingenious art of Mississippi’s Pappy Kitchens

By Guest Author

On October 16, 2019

In Art/Photography, Southern Culture

By J. Richard Gruber. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (September 22)

O.W. “Pappy” Kitchens was a distinctive Mississippi character. He was a building contractor and house mover, as well as an accomplished storyteller, who, after he sold his business and retired, discovered that he was an artist.

“I began to draw and sketch and found my experience in drafting was a big help in this adventure.” He was, he explained, a specific type of artist. “I am a folk artist. I paint about folks, what folks see and what folks do.”

In 1970, at the age of 69, Kitchens began to paint and draw, inspired by what he saw in the art studio of his son-in-law, in Boone, North Carolina. That son-in-law was William Dunlap, then a professor of art at Appalachian State University (and now one of Mississippi’s most recognized national artists).

The rapid evolution of Kitchens’ art, driven by his life experiences, his storytelling skills, his religious beliefs, and his inspired visions—all channeled through the crystal ball he consulted—brought him regional and national recognition in the 1970s.

The art and life of Kitchens (1901-1986) is the subject of Bill Dunlap’s handsome, and thought-provoking, new book, Pappy Kitchens and the Saga of Red Eye The Rooster. Kitchens staged his ambitious project in a methodical fashion, as Dunlap notes in his Preface. “This fable consists of sixty panels, each one measuring fifteen inches square, composed of mixed materials on paper and executed in three groups of twenty from 1973 to 1977.” All sixty panels are featured in the book as individual full page, full color illustrations.

The story follows the life of this mythical bird “from foundling to funeral,” as Dunlap describes, tracing the arc of his allegorical adventures and his confrontations “with antagonists of all sorts, including his recurring nemesis, Colonel Harlan Sanders. Red Eye encounters violence, avarice, lust, greed, and, most of all, the seven deadly sins, dispatching them in heroic fashion until he finally succumbs to his own fatal flaw.”

In addition to Dunlap’s lively text, the book includes an excellent essay by noted curator and folk art scholar, Jane Livingston. Livingston included the “Saga of Red Eye” in the 1977 Corcoran Biennial Exhibition in Washington, DC, the first time folk art was included in this prestigious show. By 1977, the “Saga of Red Eye” had been “discovered” by the national art world.

More than forty years later, Livingston offers this observation. “Though it has taken nearly half a century for this book to enter the unpredictable trajectory of American cultural history, it comes at a moment when its authenticity and subtly intense truth-telling are especially welcome.” And she adds that “Pappy Kitchen’s work, once seen, is difficult to forget … in contemplating other artists … who were Pappy Kitchens’s chronological peers, his images resonate for me in a way that few of them achieve.”

This, alone, should give you enough reason to buy this book. Yet, there is another, equally intriguing side to this artist’s story. It relates to his self-awareness, and to current issues in the field of folk art (also known as “outsider,” “self-taught,” “naïve,” “vernacular” and more recently, “outlier” art). These issues question the proximity of self-taught art to contemporary art, increasingly arguing for its parity with more “elite” art forms.

Kitchens was a savvy character. He grew a beard and started calling himself Pappy. He read and studied art history. He referred to specific artists in his art and writings. This historical awareness is seen in his text (he hand wrote, then typed texts), “Preface—American Folk Art “ (included in the book), where he notes that the “first exhibition devoted to American folk art was held at the Whitney Studio Club, organized and sponsored by one Gertrude Whitney, in New York City in 1924.”

Today, a “folk artist” with this level of self-awareness might well be called “woke.” To underscore this self-awareness, he continued. “I sketch, draw, paint, talk, and write what I see, hear, read, feel, taste, and smell from a concept originating and composed from expierance [sic], my crystal ball, photographs, news medias [sic], archives and history, the Holy Bible, and a general knowledge of nature.”

It is time for Pappy Kitchens, and Red Eye, to be “discovered” yet again. He may have been a man ahead of his times.

J. Richard Gruber, Director Emeritus of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, is active as an independent art historian, curator and writer.

Author Q & A with Melody Golding

By Guest Author

On October 13, 2019

In Business/Economy, Southern Culture, Southern History

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (October 13)

Vicksburg’s Melody Golding spent 10 years collecting stories from riverboat pilots who shared personal tales of their careers spent on the water, spanning a 70-year period.

The resulting book from this author, photographer and artist is Life Between the Levees: America’s Riverboat Pilots (University Press of Mississippi). The volume is filled with drama, suspense and a sense of nostalgia as it chronicles the real-life adventures of men and women who have devoted their lives to the “brown water.”

Golding proudly acknowledges that she comes from a riverboat family, thanks to her husband’s 45-year-plus career in the riverboat and barge business. She also points out the incredible impact that riverboats contribute to the nation’s economy.

Her work has been featured at the Smithsonian Institute, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., and in numerous universities and museums. Her previous books are Katarina: Mississippi Women Remember and Panther Tract: Wild Boar Hunting in the Mississippi Delta.

The Seamen’s Church Institute, a non-profit agency founded in 1834 and affiliated with the Episcopal Church, serves mariners through pastoral care and education. Golding has donated the royalties from the sale of this book to The Seamen’s Church Institute to help further their mission for mariners.

Tell me about your personal connection to the riverboat industry.

Our family has been in the river industry for decades. We have a riverboat and barge line that operates on our inland waterways. We are river people.

Life Between the Levees includes 101 stories shared by as many riverboat pilots who were born more than seven decades apart–from 1915 to 1987. You have said that putting this book together took almost 10 years. Explain the process that required such an extraordinary effort.

Melody Golding

The process of creating this book about pilots’ life on the river involved quite a bit of travel and an extensive amount of time. To interview my pilots, my journeys took me to many cities and ports, from Houston, New Orleans, of course Vicksburg, where I live, to Memphis, Paducah, and Wood River, Ill., just to name a few. I climbed on and off boats and carried my backpack of photographic and recording equipment as well as my Coast Guard regulation lifejacket and my TWIC card (Transportation Workers Identification Card) and I met them on land as well. I recorded the stories, which are first person reflections, then transcribed and presented them as they were told to me.

The book traces the progression of the riverboat industry through a time span that took navigational tools from lanterns placed on the riverbanks to today’s GPS, sonar, Satellite Compass and electronic charting software–but were there also elements of river life that the pilots indicated have pretty much remained the same.

One of the aspects of working out on the river that has remained the same throughout the years would be the “call of the river” that so many mariners experience. There is an old saying on the river that if “you wear out a pair of boots on the river you will stay on the river forever.” Many also say that brown water runs in their veins.

One of my pilots who is also a musician wrote a song about the river and some of the lyrics go, “I hate her when I’m with her and I miss her when I’m gone.” The pilots always reflect movingly on the time spent away from home because of their career, a universal reality for all mariners.

Another aspect that hasn’t changed on the river, and that has remained the same, is that there is no automatic pilot. The pilots have to steer the boat and know where they are.

You state in the book’s introduction that in today’s world, “the river is virtually an unknown territory to those who live and work on land.” Please explain how this is true, and the impact the industry makes on the U.S. economy.

The river is virtually an unknown territory to those who live and work on land largely because it is inaccessible to most people. Streets and railroads run through every town, but the river is bordered by levees and battures (the land between a low-stage river and the levees) and when travelling on the river one can go hundreds of miles without seeing any signs of life. It is a territory that is grand and vast.

The waterways and ports in the Mississippi corridor move billions of dollars of products throughout the U.S. and foreign markets. Inland and intercoastal waterways directly serve 38 states throughout the nation’s heartland as well as the states on the Atlantic seaboard, the Gulf Coast and the Pacific Northwest. The inland waterways of the United States include more than 25,000 miles of navigable waters.

The economic impact is evident as the majority of the grain that is exported comes down the river to the gulf. Over 30 percent of petroleum and chemicals moved in the U.S. today is moved on our inland waterways; and most coal and aggregates are moved by barge.

The first edition of Life Between the Levees sold out quickly. Why do you think this book has been so popular, and who should read it?

I am so very humbled by the interest in Life Between the Levees. I believe it is popular because there isn’t another book “out there” that is like it. This book is full of real-life drama, suspense and a way of life that most people otherwise would have no knowledge of. It is a fun read and can either be read “front to back” or picked up and read where the book falls open.

The photographs tell their own story if one just cares to visually experience the river. Anyone who has an interest in our inland waterways system will enjoy this book. The stories here are told by real river legends. They are the “real deal.”

‘Stories from 125 Years of Ole Miss Football’ packed with memories, stats, and unforgettable stars

By Guest Author

On October 7, 2019

In Southern Culture, Sports

By Mike Fracogna. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (October 6)

Stories From 125 Years of Ole Miss Football, edited by Neil White, takes readers on a memorable journey of the Rebels fabled past. From the first gridiron contest in 1893 through 2017 season, the book covers twelve exciting decades of Ole Miss football history.

White and over fifty contributors detail a “scrapbook” narrative with many never-before told stories, backed with photographs and memorabilia from private collections and the University’s archives. The unique culture and traditions of Ole Miss are brought vividly to life by some of the University’s favorite sons. These personal accounts display a deeply passionate appreciation for the University of Mississippi.

Colorful details are devoted to past games against Ole Miss arch-rivals Arkansas, LSU, and, of course, the Bulldogs of Mississippi State. Of particular interest is the section entitled David v. Goliath, which recaps four of the Rebels greatest upset victories in its storied history. The unforgettable 20-13 win over No. 3 ranked Notre Dame in 1977 at Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium, in what many fans say, was the hottest day ever to watch a football game. The 31-30 victory in 2018 over No. 4 ranked Florida Gators in the Swamp in Gainesville. The 1952 upset of No. 3 ranked Maryland which snapped a 22-game winning streak for the Terrapins and put Ole Miss football on the national map. And, the memorable 2015 victory (43-37) over national champion contender Alabama at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa.

Long time editor of the Ole Miss spirit and life-long Rebel fan Chuck Rounsaville, provides a heart-felt essay describing his beloved red and blue teams. He says, “Rebel memories are buried into my brain like a tattoo on a Sailor’s chest.”

There are so many memories from so many gridiron heroes like Parker Hall, who led the nation in 1936 in six individual categories—scoring, highest average per rush, highest average per kickoff and punt return, most pass interception yards, TD’s responsible, and all purpose yards per game. Stars such as Kayo Dottley, Archie Manning, Bruiser Kinard, Patrick Willis, Charlie Conerly, Eli Manning, Charlie Flowers, Jake Gibbs, and Deuce McAllister shine, to mention just a few.

The book cherishes memories created by the greatest Ole Miss teams of all-time: The National Champion 1959 squad considered one of the best defensive teams in college football history; the National Champion 1962 team, the only undefeated, united team Ole Miss team; the 1960, 1910, 1947, 1954, 2003, 2015 teams, all remarkable campaigns that helped build Ole Miss into a national power.

White’s scrapbook narrative is packed with lists of Ole Miss All-Time Offense, Defense, Greatest Victories, Most Disappointing Defeats, Greatest Teams, Top Ten NFL Players of All-Time, and many more.

It takes a lot of history to make traditions, and Stories From 125 Years of Ole Miss Football is loaded with both. Hotty Toddy!

X.M. (Mike) Fracogna, Jr. is an attorney in Jackson. Mike and his two sons, Mike III and Marty, both attorneys, have authored five books and produced six film documentaries about Mississippi high school and Juco football.

Author Q & A with Will Jacks

By Guest Author

On October 6, 2019

In Blues, Southern Culture

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (October 6)

Mississippi Delta photographer and documentarian Will Jacks celebrates the life and times of the late Willie Seaberry, owner of Po’ Monkey’s blues house in Merigold for more than 50 years, in Po’ Monkey’s: Portrait of a Juke Joint (University Press of Mississippi).

Jacks extols the history of the night club that closed with Seaberry’s death in 2016, while pondering the future of the deteriorating hand-built tenant house that was once a blues hot spot.

With more than 70 black-and-white photos and an introduction by award-winning writer Boyce Upholt, Jacks highlights the cultural significance and the need to honor it with a historical record.

Among his many talents and skills, Jacks is also a curator and storyteller, and he teaches photography and documentary classes at Delta State University.

What was it about Po’ Monkey’s juke joint in Merigold that made it such a must-see stop for Blues-loving tourists and locals?

Willie Seaberry

It was Willie Seaberry. The locals definitely came over the years because of him and the welcoming environment he created. And then the locals became the glue that made Po’ Monkey’s different from almost every other space frequented by blues tourists. The mix of tourists and locals created an amazing atmosphere of sharing, and when that atmosphere was combined with the visual drama of the structure and its location in the middle of a farm, well, there was a perfect recipe for an incredibly unique experience–and a good time.

You say in the book that Willie Seaberry knew you (a regular at this establishment for a decade), but you don’t think he knew your name. Tell me about your relationship with him.

Will Jacks

Willie was never great with names, but he had an ability to hide that and make everyone feel as if he were their best friend. I saw him do this over and over and over again. Someone would enter the club–usually a tourist that made yearly trips to the Delta–and give him a warm greeting as if they were family. Willie would reciprocate, and the guest would feel as if it was just a matter of time before Willie came to visit at their home. It wasn’t that Willie was disingenuous–he loved sharing a good time with his guests–it’s just that so many people came in and out of his life that it must have been impossible for him to keep track of all those names and faces.

I was no different. Even though I visited most Thursday nights, I didn’t see Willie as regularly outside of that environment as his closest friends and family. So, I doubt he ever knew my name. I don’t recall a single time that he called me by it, but I could tell from our interactions over the years that he knew who I was. He just didn’t know my name.

He would often ask me to bring him posters I’d made. He liked the portraits I’d used for them. So, I would, and he would give them away and sometimes sell them. He gave me photo books that others had given him over the years. He didn’t much care for them but knew I would. So, he shared them with me. He liked to tease me the way a favorite uncle does. He sometimes would vent to me. He would buy me beer and let me into the club for free. I drove his truck a few times to run errands for him (and for me). I spoke at his funeral.

But we were never best friends. To insinuate that on my part would be disingenuous. I was still one of the many photographers and filmmakers that asked for his time. That was always the crux of our relationship. It just happened that I was the one documentarian that was out there the most, and the one who lived just a few miles away. Because of this, we would see each other outside the confines of his weekly party, and that helped our relationship go further than subject/photographer but not as far as close friend and family.

In what state of repair is Po’ Monkey’s at this time, and what, if any, plans are taking shape for its future?

The structure is still standing, but it’s seeing some decline due to lack of use. The exterior signs have been removed as they were sold at auction last year along with many of his belongings and interior decor.

As for future plans, that’s not my decision to make. There are others in charge of those decisions, and solutions are complicated for a myriad of reasons. I am in touch with many of those stakeholders, but it’s not my place to share whatever plans are being considered, and even then, I don’t know what all is being specifically discussed.

I can say, though, with confidence that all involved are concerned primarily with appropriately honoring what Willie Seaberry built. That seems simple enough on the surface, but when you dig into the specifics it’s much more challenging. Cultural preservation is a tricky thing. I feel certain that something will happen to honor Willie. As to what that is, we’ll all just have to be patient and trusting to until that answer emerges. And perhaps even more so, we will all need to be ready to pitch in to help when and if that time presents itself, as the best preservation is one that is led by community.

Tell me about the images in your “Portrait of a Juke Joint,” and the way you decided to present them in this book–black and white, with no identifications of people or their behaviors in the shots. Over what period were they taken, and how long did it take to produce this book?

I chose black and white specifically because I wanted the people to be the focus–I didn’t want the viewer becoming overly seduced by the colorful space. The structure was compelling, yes, but it was the people, and specifically the locals, that made it magical.

There are to titles because I didn’t want anything to lead the viewer as they look through the photos. I want the viewer to have room to imagine what has occurred before and after the image they are pondering. Sometimes with captions, the words create too much context. I felt there was enough context already in the photos, and anything more would risk the work becoming didactic, which I hope to avoid.

Ultimately, what do you hope to accomplish through this book?

I hope to show that Po’ Monkey’s was a complex place that was more than just a tourist spot. It was crafted from a complex history and became significant both despite that history and because of it.

We will never see another Po’ Monkey’s again, but we will see spaces all around us that become culturally significant without intending to be. Knowing that this is the case, how can we as communities do better jobs of recognizing and supporting those people, moments, and places?

I hope this book will help us as a state, and in particular those in positions of power, consider what we’ve done well but also, and perhaps more important, what we haven’t done well as we have consciously crafted an economy built around a very complex and often painful history.

I hope this book will help give a deeper understanding to just how difficult historic preservation can be.

And finally, I hope this book will help us ask the right questions so we can get to the right answers as to how we can share with future generations the lessons taught by Willie Seaberry.

Will Jacks will be at Lemuria on Tuesday, October 22, at 5:00 to sign and discuss Po’ Monkey’s: Portrait of a Juke Joint.

Author Q & A with Neil White (Stories from 125 of Ole Miss Football)

By Guest Author

On September 29, 2019

In Southern Culture, Sports

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (September 29)

If you thought you knew everything about Ole Miss football–you probably didn’t.

If you want to know everything about Ole Miss football, though, there’s a new resource that pretty much covers it all.

From the colorful to the unbelievable, the anguish to the exhilaration, Neil White’s new release Stories From 125 Years of Ole Miss Football (Nautilus) is filled with stories you’ve probably never heard and photos you’ve probably never seen.

“To build this book,” White states in the opening pages, “our team of writers and editors interviewed more than 60 players, coaches, journalists, widows, children, and fans. “Each interview started with the same request: ‘Tell us a story that most people don’t know.’”

The result is the ultimate football lovers’ dream: not just “new” stories, but an Appendix that includes charts and graphics highlighting many “Top 10” lists, best and worst games, coaches and seasons, team lineups and more.

Contributors to the book included Rick Cleveland, Billy Watkins, Robert Khayat, Jeff Roberson, and more.

An Oxford native and current resident, White has been a newspaper editor, magazine publisher, advertising executive and federal prisoner, and may best be known for his debut book, In the Sanctuary of Outcasts. Today he operates The Nautilus Publishing Co., writes plays and essays, and teaches memoir writing.

For context, please briefly share your own Ole Miss experience. It’s obvious in your book that you are a big Rebels fan!

Neil White

I’m a third generation Ole Miss guy. I attended my first football game at age 1. I was 8 years old when Archie-mania swept the South. I attended summer football camps and got to know Warner Alford and Junie Hovious and Eddie Crawford, as well as former players. We’re not a hunting or fishing family, so Ole Miss football games were what we did together. My father took me to games; I took my son to games. We still have tickets together.

As Stories from 125 Years of Ole Miss Football marks a milestone year of Rebel football, it is unique in that the entire book is filled with stories that required one main criteria: “Tell us a story that most people don’t know.” The result is a volume filled with secrets and little-known facts that, for most readers, will be brand new information! Tell me briefly about how you assembled the team of storytellers and editors that put this book together, and how they made it work.

As we interviewed the obvious contributors – Robert Khayat, Archie Manning, Jake Gibbs, Jesse Mitchell, Deuce McAllister and Perian Conerly–they would say, “You need to talk to . . . Dan Jordan, or Skipper Jernigan, or Billy Ray Adams.” So, the early interviewees knew who had the great untold stories. Picking the editors was much easier. Rick Cleveland, Billy Watkins, Chuck Rounsaville, Jeff Roberson, Don Whitten, and Langston Rogers could each write stories to fill five volumes.
The book took about a year to complete.

In the book, you explain the breadth of research it took to find and verify these stories. Tell me about that process.

I spent about seven months researching in the archives at Ole Miss, reading all the books that had ever been written about Ole Miss football, and researching hundreds of old newspaper reports. Then, we spent about five months interviewing individuals. Memory is subjective, at best. Sometimes we had conflicting stories. As we dug deeper, we almost always found some way to corroborate the story–or disprove it.

For example, most people assume – because it has been mis-reported for 67 years – that Bud Slay caught the lone touchdown pass in the 1952 Maryland upset. That game put Ole Miss on the national football map; Maryland had a 21-game win streak and the number one defense in the nation. Ray “Buck” Howell actually caught the pass from All-American Jimmy Lear, but the day after the game an AP report listed the name as “Bud Howell”–a combination of the two receivers. As it turns out, Ray “Buck” Howell is alive and well and living in Jackson. He’s such a humble, nice man. He says, “Now, I don’t want this to be about me”–then he pauses and smiles–“but I did catch the pass.” So, after 67 years, we get to set the record straight and give Howell the credit he deserves.

How did you choose the players and coaches whose stories you included in this book?

We included the stories from the players and coaches and their families who were the most forthcoming, and those whose stories were the most interesting, colorful, and impactful.

The early history of Ole Miss football is fascinating when compared to today’s game . . . as in, team members in the 1890s would grow their hair longer for protection, since players did not wear helmets! Who would you say should read this historical document for true fans?

Anyone who enjoys football or history or good stories. I especially like the stories that illustrate how crisis and fate lead to something, ultimately, wonderful for Ole Miss. For example, in 1943, Ole Miss didn’t have a football team. Coach Harry Mehre was charged with preparing students for war. He hired a young coach from Moss Point to train the cadets in hand-to-hand combat. That man’s name was Edward Khayat. He moved his family, including his five-year-old son Robert, to Oxford. They lived in faculty house #1. It was the first time the Khayats, who had been a Millsaps family, were affiliated with Ole Miss. That odd year, without a football team, changed the course of history for the university.

Is it your hope that, at some point years from now, someone else will pick up the tradition and continue the story?

Absolutely. If someone can use this book as a foundation for a 150-year project, wonderful. I read every book previously published on Ole Miss football. They were invaluable. I hope this one will be a part of that growing history.

Signed copies of Stories from 125 Years of Ole Miss Football are available at Lemuria and at our online store.

Susan T. Falck’s ‘Remembering Dixie’ raises questions about historical memory

By Guest Author

On September 23, 2019

In Civil Rights, Civil War, Southern Culture, Southern History

By Jay Wiener. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (September 1)

Reverberations remain from decades during which Southerners acted as if the Civil War was not concluded with the Confederacy losing. The narrative evolved through variations on a theme, but constant was diversion from discussion of a multiracial society.

Remembering Dixie: The Battle to Control Historical Memory in Natchez, Mississippi 1865-1941 offers opportunity to rethink the narrative. Author Susan T. Falck writes, “In crafting their historical consciousness whites emphasized the gentility of southern civilization, the valor of Confederate soldiers, and the courage of female and elderly male civilians who heroically protected the home front. The memory… was selective, with little room for black experiences told from a black perspective.”

Experiences during enslavement of people of color of mixed blood and in the free black community, and hierarchies arising through differences, were overlooked by “… white Civil War memoirists who subscribed to the notion that the South was tragically victimized during the war and Reconstruction.” Fixation upon the Lost Cause crippled the South—and the country—because it begat orthodoxy as rigid as Stalinism, stopping expansive inquiries:

What other possibilities exist?
What options offer optimal outcome?
Why ignore them?

One-dimensional defense of the slavocracy—as a paradise lost—prohibited white Southerners from full appreciation of how emancipation felt for former slaves, the experience during Redemption, at which time freedoms were revoked, and the dehumanization which ensued. Remembering Dixie yields insights.

Chapter Four addresses lacunae through discussion of photography in Natchez. That examination alone justifies buying the book, in the manner that one purchases magazines without reading everything. Art History classes are likely to utilize it. Anyone interested in photography ought to consider it, given profound perspective into the “thousand words” that a picture is supposedly worth.

The author writes, “[Henry] Norman’s photographs empowered his black subjects to directly challenge the rampage of racist cartoons, jokes, articles, and pictures circulating in the pages of newspapers and consumer periodicals nationwide. As symbols of personal and collective empowerment, Norman’s portraits contested characterizations of blacks as innately inferior, simplistic, and unworthy of respect or civil rights.”

Chapter Five is no less essential. “The creators of the Pilgrimage repackaged the dramatization of a mix of decades-old southern racialized ideology and white historical memory initiated in the early postbellum period as a product for Depression-era consumption.” Slavocracy was sold as an idyll, superior to the dislocations of the Great Depression and industrialization. “Out of the more practical features of the North we may have obtained our economic status, but it is to the South that we turn for the music and romance of our yesteryears.”

Otherwise put, “… the Pilgrimage invited 1930s audiences to step inside the world of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler and experience vicariously a carefully reconstructed mythical past.”

The advertising slogan “Come to Natchez Where the Old South Still Lives” coined by “George Healy, Jr., formerly of Natchez and an Editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune…” encapsulates the anodyne delusion.

Interestingly the women spearheading the Pilgrimage exemplified anything other than Healy’s antediluvian approach: Although they inhabited traditional femininity, they were thoroughly modern, shrewd and calculating businesswomen.

Sound business judgment ultimately created “a profound civic commitment shared by many in the community—whites and blacks—to promote and tell a more inclusive and accurate historical narrative.”

As Natchez has done so, utilizing the Historic Natchez Foundation, the Natchez Courthouse Records Project, and the National Park Service, it has instructed communities, elsewhere, struggling through challenges: “… [T]hanks to the coupling of strong and wise external and homegrown influences the healing of Natchez’s past is well underway, resulting in a flurry of innovative heritage tourism developments that while not always embracing a critically accurate narrative are more racially inclusive and historically accurate than ever before.”

Jay Wiener is a Jackson attorney.

Susan T. Falck will be at Lemuria on Wednesday, September 25, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and discuss Remembering Dixie.

Author Q & A with Sarah M. Broom

By Guest Author

On September 1, 2019

In African-American, New Orleans, Southern Culture, Southern History

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (September 1)

In her debut book The Yellow House, Sarah M. Broom presents a powerful memoir of the New Orleans she experienced as a child (growing up in a family of 12 children), and the house that swallowed up the dreams and finances of her resilient mother.

Broom earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley in 2004 and won a Whiting Foundation Creative Nonfiction Grant in 2016. She was a finalist for the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Creative Nonfiction in 2011, and has been awarded fellowships at Djerassi Resident Artists Program and The MacDowell Colony.

Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Oxford American, and O, The Oprah Magazine, and others.

Today, Broom lives in Harlem.

Sarah M. Broom

The Yellow House is a richly detailed memoir of your life, sharing not just stories of your immediate family but those of at least two preceding generations. Why was it important to you to devote so much detail to previous generations to fully tell this story?

I wanted to provide context, a kind of grounding, to situate the story in a lineage. To begin at the moment of my birth would have been dishonest, and also would have ignored the people who compose me and make me who I am. I was setting up a matriarchal world, establishing the women who preceded me within the City of New Orleans. The story of my mother’s house felt, to me, indistinguishable from the story of my Grandmother Lolo and her many houses.

The neighborhood in which the Yellow House was built was part of New Orleans East, touted in the early 1960s as a “new frontier” and a “Model City” like nothing that had come before it. Describe the idea behind its expected growth, and why it would eventually fail.

New Orleans East was an enormous area of the city, east of the Industrial Canal, a navigation channel opened in 1923. Long before New Orleans East, Inc. arrived, there was a collection of communities within the east including Orangedale Subdivision, where my mother eventually bought the Yellow House. New Orleans East, Inc. began to build out the more easternmost parts of the area, which created a flurry of excitement and news stories. Eventually, the entire area of the city took on the corporate name. The East failed for many reasons–the oil bust, white flight which led to divestment, public policy and city planning choices, and inattention.

Your mother, Ivory Mae Soule Webb, was a 19-year-old widow when she bought the Yellow House in 1961, paying the $3,200 price with life insurance money after her first husband’s death. By 1964, when they moved in, she was remarried to Simon Broom, and they began married life with six children between them. Tell me about your mom’s pride in her home, and how important it was to her to keep everything looking nice, inside and out.

My mother loved to make a beautiful home. She was raised by women who took pride in all the places where she lived. For my mother, owning a house of her own was buying into the American dream. Through home ownership, I suspect she learned quite a bit about the frailty of the American dream, about the critical importance of the solidity of the “ground,” so to speak. (It was) understood through time that her investment might not build wealth for her as it might for someone else.

After several career moves and the devastation of Katrina, you eventually were drawn back to New Orleans. At the end, you state: “The house was the only thing that belonged to all of us.” Ultimately, what did (and does) the Yellow House mean to you and your family?

It is to this day a repository. Witness to our lives. The place our mother paid for, in which she built a world full of joy and surprise and sometimes sadness, but it belonged to her and it still is ours even as a memory.

Lemuria has selected The Yellow House its September 2019 selection for its First Editions Club for Nonfiction.

Category: Southern Culture (Page 1 of 16)

Author Q & A with Sean Brock

Will Jacks’ ‘Po’ Monkey’s’ allows one last visit to famous, shuttered Delta juke joint

Author Q & A with William Dunlap

William Dunlap’s new book rediscovers savvy, ingenious art of Mississippi’s Pappy Kitchens

Author Q & A with Melody Golding

‘Stories from 125 Years of Ole Miss Football’ packed with memories, stats, and unforgettable stars

Author Q & A with Will Jacks

Author Q & A with Neil White (Stories from 125 of Ole Miss Football)

Susan T. Falck’s ‘Remembering Dixie’ raises questions about historical memory

Author Q & A with Sarah M. Broom

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