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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.

S.C. Gwynne provides riveting, smartly crafted history of Civil War’s end in ‘Hymns of the Republic’

By Guest Author

On November 6, 2019

In Civil War

By Jim Woodrick. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (November 3)

In his second inaugural address, delivered in March 1865, Abraham Lincoln expressed his hope that “this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away” but also allowed that it might yet be God’s will that “every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword.”

As it happened, the war would finally draw to a close a little more than a month later, but the nation could hardly have paid a steeper price in blood than had already been shed in the final, horrific year of the Civil War. Lincoln himself would, of course, be among the war’s last victims at the hands of an assassin.

Author S.C. Gwynne, who has previously written an acclaimed biography of Stonewall Jackson Rebel Yell, offers a fast-paced and engaging look on the last year of the Civil War in Hymns of the Republic. In his book, Gwynne focuses initially on Grant’s Virginia campaign which evolved into a series of battles that produced long lists of Union casualties but made little headway in winning the war.

The stalemate in Virginia, along with William T. Sherman’s struggle to capture Atlanta, gave renewed hope in the South that an increasingly war-weary North would turn against Lincoln in the November elections and choose someone willing to let the Confederacy go. But it was not to be.

With the fall of Atlanta on September 2, 1864, the war took a dramatic turn. Not only had prospects brightened for Lincoln, but a new style of warfare emerged. Sherman, who the author describes as a “restless, nervous, fidgety, kinetic” man, would use his army in the subsequent March to the Sea and into the Carolinas not to take and hold territory but to destroy the Confederacy’s ability to wage war, and, perhaps more importantly, to destroy the South’s will to continue the struggle.

In Virginia, Phil Sheridan slashed and burned his way across the Shenandoah Valley with similar goals. Caught in the crossfire were countless civilians, both slave and free.

Gwynne’s military narrative closes with a compelling account of Appomattox and explores a number of long-held myths about the surrender of Lee’s army. Throughout, Gwynne pays particular attention to the increasingly important role of African Americans as Union soldiers and as a political and moral force in shaping the outcome of the war.

Gwynne is perhaps at his best in bringing to life the main characters in the unfolding drama. While he is fairly critical of Grant’s tactical skills, or lack thereof, he draws a parallel between Grant’s ability to overcome setbacks, both personal and professional, with his determination to keep up the pressure on Lee in spite of a chorus of critics in Washington.

Robert E. Lee, meanwhile, is presented as a somewhat tragic figure who sacrificed everything for a cause and country that could no longer be sustained. Lee, he writes, was a man increasingly burdened by “sadness, frustration, unhappiness and loss.”

Yet Lee, like Grant, seemed to understand that the game had to be played out, even if it resulted in thousands more lives sacrificed on Virginia’s blood-soaked fields. Readers will also gain fresh insight into Sherman’s character, along with Phil Sheridan, Clara Barton, John Singleton Mosby, Salmon P. Chase and, of course, Lincoln.

There are certainly more in-depth studies on the campaigns of 1864 and 1865, most notably Gordon Rhea’s multi-volume work on the Overland Campaign, but Gwynne’s book includes just enough detail on the movements of the armies to satisfy military historians and appeal to those who might not otherwise read a book on the Civil War. Hymns of the Republic is a riveting and beautifully crafted story and would be a valuable addition to any library.

Jim Woodrick is the Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer at MDAH, the author of The Civil War Siege of Jackson, Mississippi, and a Licensed Battlefield Guide at Vicksburg National Military Park.

Lemuria has selected Hymns of the Republic its November 2019 selection for its First Editions Club for Nonfiction.

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.

Complex campaign, Grant’s triumph given in-depth, rousing treatment in Donald Miller’s ‘Vicksburg’

By Guest Author

On October 30, 2019

In Civil War

By Jim Woodrick. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (October 27)

On May 1, 1863, Ulysses S. Grant’s Union Army of the Tennessee crossed the Mississippi River on a flotilla of steamboats, gunboats and barges and landed on Mississippi soil at Bruinsburg. It was the largest amphibious landing by an American army in history and would remain so until World War II.

More importantly, it was the culmination of months of hard campaigning by the Federals; not the end of the campaign by any means, but certainly the beginning of the end. As Grant would later relate in his memoirs, “All of the campaigns, labors, hardships, and exposures” to that point were for the accomplishment of “this one object”–the capture of Vicksburg and the reopening of the Mississippi.

In his new one-volume history of the Vicksburg Campaign, Donald L. Miller brings the reader to this dramatic moment–and many other twists and turns–not merely as an observer but as a participant through his elegant prose.

Vicksburg: Grant’s Campaign That Broke the Confederacy is first and foremost an in-depth look at U.S. Grant during this critical period of the Civil War. Grant, of course, has been the subject of a great deal of attention from biographers of late, especially Ron Chernow’s celebrated work, and Miller’s book is a welcome addition.

In an almost intimate fashion, he brings Grant to life without heaping too much praise for his military successes or being overly critical of his personal and professional failings (of which there were many) and he ably handles the most controversial aspect of Grant’s character—his reported affinity for alcohol. Along the way, the author introduces a host of interesting characters who played their own parts, both large and small, in the drama that unfolds.

In addition to the increased interest in Grant, there has been, in recent years, a renewed focus on the Vicksburg Campaign, a focus that is both well-deserved and long overdue. For those who wish to delve deeply into the complexities of the movements of armies and logistics, there are many excellent choices available, including Edwin C. Bearss’ monumental three-volume study and the late Michael Ballard’s one-volume treatment.

For the casual reader, however, Miller’s book provides a good overview of a very complex campaign without getting lost in the details and places the Vicksburg story within its proper context. Rather than focusing on minutiae of individual battles, the author uses a wide-angle lens for his campaign study and includes the earliest efforts by Union military authorities to reopen the Mississippi, beginning with a dramatic account of the capture of New Orleans in 1862.

From there, Miller describes Grant’s single-minded focus on achieving his goal of capturing Vicksburg, from his overland march in north Mississippi to the failed expeditions in the twisted bayous of the Mississippi Delta. Throughout, he pays particular attention to the critical role played by the U.S. Navy, an aspect of the Vicksburg Campaign which is all too often overlooked.

Once Grant’s army lands at Bruinsburg, Miller’s prose quickens as the action and the urgency of the campaign swells to a bloody crescendo at Champion Hill, which Miller argues—and convincingly so—was the most decisive engagement of the Civil War. All along the way—whether in the malarial swamps of Louisiana or the hot and dusty trenches at Vicksburg—Miller’s poetic descriptions of the sweeping landscape adds to the reader’s experience.

In the acknowledgements, Miller relates that he first began research on the Vicksburg Campaign in 1997 and, due to circumstances of life and other research projects, did not return to working on the book until 2013. We are indeed fortunate that he kept at it, as the result is a magnificently written and thoroughly readable account of what is arguably the most significant and complex campaign of the Civil War.

Jim Woodrick is the Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer at MDAH, the author of The Civil War Siege of Jackson, Mississippi, and a Licensed Battlefield Guide at Vicksburg National Military Park.

Lemuria has selected Vicksburg: Grant’s Campaign That Broke the Confederacy its October 2019 selection for its First Editions Club for Nonfiction. Signed first editions of Vicksburg are available in our online store.

Once in a ‘Blue Moon’: Who Jack Reacher Is, and Why You Should Care

By Susannah

On October 29, 2019

In Mystery

He stands at 6’5” with muscles and a face that seem to attract women wherever he goes. He hops Greyhound buses around the U.S. and never stays in one town longer than necessary. He carries nothing on his person but a toothbrush, and in later years, a bank card. He’s a blues enthusiast and a coffee addict. He’s a former military policeman, he can shoot, he can brawl, he can run, and he can persuade and intimidate his enemies. There seems to be very little Jack Reacher cannot do, and with 24 novels, more than a dozen short stories, and two films starring Tom Cruise to his name, he’s still going strong.

Jack Reacher was the first series I picked up after graduating a little over two years ago, on the suggestion of my father. After having read nothing but assigned nonfiction and literary classics throughout the entirety of my college career, it was absolutely refreshing to read Lee Child’s thrillers for the first time. Child admits he doesn’t aim to write with overly elaborate wordplay or any kind of deep imagery common to the literary world, which is what I was accustomed to; alternately, he writes direct, straightforward, plot and character-driven thrillers. This is not to say the Child’s mysteries are easily solved, or that the characters are dry or predictable, but that the books are meant to be enjoyed without the need for any over-analyzing. I’d forgotten the sheer joy of reading a book for fun, and I found myself legitimately excited to find out what would happen in each entry in the series I read.

Jack Reacher is enigmatic in his demeanor yet surprisingly straightforward in his motivations: when Reacher acts, it’s because someone has wronged him, a close friend, or even a total stranger, and Reacher seeks revenge on their behalf. And no matter what town he arrives in, there is always a wrong to be righted. In the first novel, Killing Floor, he’s falsely accused of murder in small-town Georgia and aims to not only clear his name, but to track down the real culprit and shut down the nefarious operation calling the shots behind the scenes. In Persuader, he’s asked to rescue a trapped DEA agent and subsequently breaks into a crime lord’s mansion in rural Maine, encountering some unfinished business from his own military past. In Midnight Line, he spies a ring in a pawn shop in Wisconsin belonging to a West Point graduate, and his attempt to track down its owner leads him to an opioid enterprise that is destroying lives. There’s always an adventure that Reacher just happens upon no matter where he gets off the Greyhound, almost as if the rising point of the action was waiting for him to arrive. Reacher always delivers a response to the situation that doesn’t necessarily make him the most morally high-ground man out there, but a hero nonetheless.

Reacher’s most recent appearance is in the upcoming Blue Moon, released today, October 29th. He chooses to disembark the Greyhound as he sees an elderly man with a large envelope of cash being followed by a greedy-looking gentleman, and he thwarts the potential mugger. Reacher escorts the elderly man, Aaron Shevick, home where he learns Mr. Shevick and his wife are in debt to a loan shark belonging to the local Ukrainian gang. When Reacher offers to meet with the loan shark, he impersonates Aaron Shevick and gets subsequently caught up in a gang war between the Ukrainians and the rival Albanians. He helps the Shevicks come up with the money they need to pay their uninsured daughters’ medical expenses, seeks to help a waitress who captures Reacher’s eye get even with her own personal enemy, and assists various other people with their related goals throughout the book.

We have a typical setup for a Reacher novel: a small hook that causes Reacher to stop in town (Aaron Shevick’s mugging), a motivation for him to stay in town (his involvement with the Ukrainian gang), and a current news topic that relates Reacher’s fictional U.S.A. to our own (rising costs of healthcare, fake news, and others that I’d hate to spoil for you).

What sets Blue Moon apart from the other Reacher novels is a slight change in the way Reacher usually handles situations. His M.O. is usually to intimidate the target as best as he can first using his appearance and wordplay, with violence coming as a second option, but Blue Moon is packed with action scenes that show Reacher relying on his physical capabilities before using diplomacy. Given the brutality shown by the members of each rival gang, it seems as if Reacher is simply matching the violence they demonstrate toward each other; if you plan to read this entry in the series, prepare yourself for quite a bit of gunfire.

Why should you read Jack Reacher? Reacher’s sparked a love for reading fiction in me again that I’d long forgotten. He’s a fascinating man who seems to perform superhuman yet realistic feats at times when it seems like there’s no other way out. If you have an appreciation for mysteries and thrillers like I do, Jack Reacher is a series you absolutely cannot pass up. Check out Blue Moon today if you’re interested, and if you can’t wait until then to get started, come by Lemuria and ask for me. I’ll be happy to chat with you all day long about my unexpected favorite thriller series.

Signed first editions of Blue Moon: A Jack Reacher Novel are available in our online store.

Author Q & A with S.C. Gwynne

By Guest Author

On October 27, 2019

In Civil War

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (October 27)

If you haven’t given much thought to the American Civil War lately, bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize finalist S. C Gwynne offers some compelling thoughts on the country’s current state of division as he examines–in depth–the fourth and final year of the War Between the States.

Hymns of the Republic: The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War chronicles the events, people and politics of the U.S. in 1864–a time when almost no one, including Abraham Lincoln himself, thought the president would win re-election. The book traces the rough roads Union General Ulysses S. Grant and his counterpart Robert E. Lee traveled as each drove toward victory; the triumphs of nurse Clara Barton; the role that 180,000 black solders forged as they donned Union uniforms, Lee’s ultimate surrender at Appomattox; and finally, the assassination of Lincoln.

Gwynne’s previous books include the award winning Empire of the Summer Moon, Rebel Yell, and The Perfect Pass. As a former journalistic, he served as bureau chief and national correspondent with Time and as executive editor for Texas Magazine, among others.

Today he and his wife, the artist Katie Maratta, live in Austin, Texas.

Hymns of the Republic begins with Washington D.C.’s 1863-64 winter “social season” in high gear as the Civil War dragged on–and the nation’s leaders were given an infusion of hope when Ulysses S. Grant was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general over the Union forces. Please explain what that meant to Washington and the war effort.

S.C. Gwynne

When Grant arrived in Washington, he inspired a hopeful, almost joyful feeling in the North that the war might soon be over. Here was the great and glorious warrior from the “west,” victor of Shiloh, Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga. Here, at last, was someone to challenge the great Robert E. Lee.

What happened next was the opposite of hope and joy. Within a few months of Grant’s arrival, he and Lee would unleash a storm of blood and death that beggared even the killing fields of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville. And there would be no great northern victory. It was, in fact, Grant’s failure to beat Lee–which opened the large possibility that Abraham Lincoln might not re-elected–that really set the stage for the war’s dramatic final act.

The next presidential election lay ahead, and it seems that Lincoln himself had doubts that he would win. Potentially, what could his loss in the election have meant for the war’s outcome?

In the summer of 1864, it was hard to find anyone in the country, North or South, Republican or Democrat, including Lincoln himself, who believed the president would be re-elected. If he had lost, I believe there would almost certainly have been some sort of negotiated peace, probably with slavery intact in the South. The Civil War would still have to be fought to a close–because the fundamental issue that had caused it in the first place, whether the new territories and states would be slave or free, had not been resolved–but that final action would have been delayed by many years. That’s just my opinion.

Tell me briefly about the contributions that former slaves made to the Union efforts in the war.

Most people have lost track of this, but 180,000 black soldiers fought for the North in the Civil War, most of them in the final year. Some 60 percent of them were former slaves. This meant that men who had been held in bondage one month–without any legal rights, including the right to marry, to hold assets, to buy real estate, to use the courts to settle grievances, to travel, to hold a job–were suddenly wearing uniforms. They had jobs. They earned salaries. They had weapons. Their numbers, and their success as fighters, did much to tip the scales in favor of the Union.

If you look at troop strength, North and South, it always seems as though the Union has a large advantage. But because the North was trying to hold and control so much real estate, as well as garrison Southern cities and protect its supply lines, its advantage on the battlefield was less than it seemed. Black soldiers amounted to an astounding 10 percent of the Union army.

Briefly explain the comparisons you draw between Lincoln and Confederacy President Jefferson Davis as the war was coming to a close.

The two men were so radically different. They shared traits of stubbornness and deep conviction, but otherwise came from different planets. Lincoln was kind, tolerant, forgiving, and personally warm. Davis was brittle, unforgiving, thin-skinned, and grudge-holding. His public persona was often stiff, cold, and unemotional. Both men arguably held their countries together because of their unwillingness to compromise. Lincoln insisted on full restoration of the Union and the abolition of slavery as his basic terms for peace. Davis insisted on the full sovereignty of the southern nation.

Your book examines that last year of the U.S. Civil War in a great deal of detail. What lessons does this documentary of that period hold for Americans today–and why should we still be considering the history of the Civil War today?

The most basic lesson is that the United States of America is, and always has been, a deeply divided country. In the Civil War it was divided by region, state, and race. It still is.

Look at a map of red and blue state America. Read any newspaper to see the often-bitter national debate on race. The Civil War, in which 750,000 people died and huge sections of the South were destroyed, was this divide at its most extreme.

As grim as those statistics are, you can look at the history that followed as the United States somehow muddled through. We are no longer killing ourselves at the rate we did in 1864. Our democracy is messy and imperfect. We are still muddling. Today I read in the paper that the president of the United States in October 2019 was predicting a Civil War. But I draw some small hope from my reading of history.

S.C. Gwynne will be at Lemuria on Monday, October 28, at 5:00 to sign and discuss Hymns of the Republic, in conversation with Donald Miller. Lemuria has selected Hymns of the Republic its November 2019 selection for its First Editions Club for Nonfiction.

Going for Gold: ‘Medallion Status’ by John Hodgman

By Former Lemurians

On October 24, 2019

In Biography/Memoir, Celebrity, Humor

by Andrew Hedglin

Since so much of John Hodgman’s new memoir, Medallion Status: True Stories from Secret Rooms, is concerned about his dwindling fame, I had to ask myself: how did I come to consider him famous in the first place? I’m in my thirties, so I remember those “Mac vs. PC” commercials and his appearances on the Daily Show. Mostly I just wondered to myself “…he isn’t famous anymore?” I guess I’m thinking of fame in author standards, which is probably a lower bar than for people on television.

Hodgman just released the excellent Vacationland two years ago, which I enjoyed tremendously (as did Aimee). I think I might have liked Medallion Status even better, however. Although the stories meander pleasantly in various directions, the main theme of the power is… Status. Privilege. Fame. Or at least the flirtation with it.

Hodgman writes about the titular exclusive airline perks, Hollywood castle hotels, secret cabals, television sets, and at least two encounters with Paul Rudd. It’s all very glamorous, or seems to be so, anyway. It’s supposed to. But even as Hodgman is invited into this rarefied air, he is always humbled by insecurities and indignities, whether understandable (as when he is criticized by his director for his sub-par acting abilities) or absurd (being upstaged by a pair of Instagram-famous corgis at a party). The biggest indignity of all, however, is the transience of fame.

Worry not for John Hodgman, however. He has a pretty good fall-back in this book-writing thing. Other fantastic chapters that stand out to me are ones in which he describes all the jobs he has had, his fascination with extinct hockey teams, a Florida road trip with excursions to Mar-a-Lago and the Scientology headquarters, and one more small town story from Maine, if you really missed that from Vacationland.

Everybody needs a laugh now and then, and John Hodgman provides some of the best I’ve encountered in the literary world in some time, in between moving bouts of moving self-reflection. Which isn’t always as in demand, but it definitely should be. If you need either of those things in your life, or are just curious for a sneak peak in the margins of the high life, pick up a copy of Medallion Status today and join an elite set of sophisticated readers.

Music, life blend in William Morris’s magical memoir ‘This Magic Moment’

By Guest Author

On October 22, 2019

In Biography/Memoir, Music

By DeMatt Harkins. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (October 20)

Some people make their own luck. Others have never met a stranger. In the case of lifelong Jacksonian Bill Morris, these notions work in tandem. As the founder of the William Morris Group, Bill has made a name for himself nationally in the insurance world. However in his memoir, This Magic Moment, he details his rhapsodic connection with the musical landscape.

The book recounts Morris’ journey as an adult befriending musical heroes of his youth. By practically willing it, he overtime would come to know, encourage, and advocate for members of The Moonglows and The Drifters. With equal parts amazement and gratitude, Morris zealously regales how these unlikely friendships burgeoned.

Inductees of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class of 2000, The Moonglows began as the The Crazy Sounds in Cleveland, Ohio, during the early 1950s. Members included Magnolia, Mississippi native Prentiss Barnes. DJ Alan Freed, famed for popularizing the term “Rock & Roll,” signed the harmonizers to his Champagne Records. To capitalize on Freed’s nickname of Moondog, The Crazy Sounds became The Moonglows.

Things really got swinging when the group signed to Chess Records–label of Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, and Chuck Berry. Their single, “Sincerely,” took the R&B #1 spot from The Penguins “Earth Angel.” The McGuire Sisters cover of the hit shot to #1 on the Pop chart. Other cuts such as “Most of All,” “See Saw,” “Please Send Me Someone to Love,” and “Ten Commandments of Love,” landed The Moonglows on several notable package tours, and a few movie sets. Yet success proved brief as they essentially dissolved by 1960.

The Drifters, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class of 1988, were no accident. Upon hearing the lead singer of The Dominoes had quit, Atlantic Records co-founder, Ahmet Ertegun, tracked him down and immediately signed him. The resulting group became The Drifters. After 3 line-up overhauls in their first year, the roster that stuck introduced Bill Pinkney singing bass. Their early-50s hits included “Such A Night,” their first crossover hit, “Honey Love,” and “Money Honey”—later recorded by Elvis.

But soon Clyde McPhatter left, and Pinkney was fired for requesting a promotion from salary to percentage. From there The Drifters would see many members come and go, including Ben E. King. During this time in the late 50s & early 60s the group would cut such hits as, “There Goes My Baby,” “This Magic Moment,” “Save the Last Dance for Me” (#1 ‘60), and “On Broadway” (top 10, ‘64). However, Pinkney would return to lead a legacy version of the band, The Original Drifters, in the 90s & 2000s.

During these bands’ heyday, Bill Morris was savoring their output, along with a cavalcade of other Doo-Wop and R&B sensations. Throughout “This Magic Moment,” he traces songs’ association with specific memories and experiences of his teen years in Jackson.

While attending a dance Downtown during high school, Morris noticed just how much cash the ticket-taker was handling at the door. It switched on a lightbulb. He would pay his way through Ole Miss by promoting dances and concerts across the state. This would serve as his foot in the door by establishing a rapport with the music world.

Fast forward to 1980. Morris had since shifted his entrepreneurial spirit to building his own insurance agency. While in Washington DC for a conference, he caught a current incarnation of The Moonglows. Completely invigorated, Morris made his way back to the club’s backstage. Among the members was the son of Clyde McPhatter from The Drifters. Admiration and laughter lead to spontaneous singing, and new friendships.

About a year later, the Clarion-Ledger ran a profile of original Moonglow, Prentiss Barnes from Magnolia, who was now residing in Jackson. Morris leapt into action to introduce himself. What started as a gesture to supply Barnes with a complete Moonglows catalog, blossomed into a bond that lasted decades. Aside from becoming pals, Morris would prove a conscientious representative for a victim of early Rock & Roll’s financial ruthlessness.

Back in the 80’s, The Drifters performed at a Jackson fundraiser. Once again, swept up in the moment, Morris wanted to meet the musicians that had brought him such joy. Original Drifter Bill Pinkney was fascinated to learn that Barnes lived in town. Morris arranged for them to meet the next day. For 3 hours, the Doo Wop vets reminisced about their amazing ride in the 50s and 60s. And with it, Morris connected with another hero.

By getting to know and assisting Barnes and Pinkney in personal and professional ways, Morris would find himself in the unlikeliest of places, meeting an amazing array of musical legends in the process. Festivals, award ceremonies, and tribute concerts would land Morris next to Fats Domino, Lloyd Price, Bonnie Raitt, Darlene Love, Mary Wilson, or Curtis Mayfield, among others. This wild ride would culminate in Morris producing two albums for The Drifters, as well as establishing a preservation trust with Morgan Freeman.

In This Magic Moment, Morris demonstrates how his outgoing demeanor, generous nature, and musical passion have spiced his life considerably. And repeatedly throughout, he never forgets to count his blessings about earning the trust of Prentiss Barnes and Bill Pinkney.

DeMatt Harkins of Jackson enjoys flipping pancakes and records with his wife and daughter.

William Morris will be at Lemuria on Thursday, October 24, at 4:00 p.m. to sign copies of This Magic Moment.

Cost of growing up gay, black in American South detailed in courageous memoir ‘How We Fight for Our Lives’

By Guest Author

On October 21, 2019

In African-American, Biography/Memoir, LGBTQIA+

By Charlie R. Braxton. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (October 20)

For many decades, this country has held on to the mythos of the great American melting pot, the place where the world’s tired, poor huddled masses can come and be a part of the democratic fabric of the good old USA. Many people point to this melting pot mythology as proof of America’s exceptionalism, which gives our country the God-given right to transform the world in its red, white (with the emphasis on the word white) and blue image.

It is the global projection of this image, as imperfect as it may be in actuality, that has long been a part of the lore and lure of the United States of America. It is the mirage that entices thousands upon thousands of people to leave their troubled homelands and, sometimes, risk their lives to come to “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” where they are free to live their lives as they see fit, worship the God of their choice, and consume as much as their wallet will allow.

But no one tells them that there is a heavy cost to enter this land and dive into the alabaster cauldron that is America’s melting pot. And for those native or foreign-born children who aren’t white, male, Christian, and cisgender and wish to swim in the mainstream of America’s melting pot, the toll is extremely high. For members of the LGBT community it means suppressing a vital part of their selves so that thay can “get along” with the cisgender majority. This so-called staying in the closet can be damaging to their psyche or, in some cases fatal–as the escalating suicide rate among LGBT youth may indicate.

For those who doubt this damage happens, reading Saeed Jones’ riveting memoir, How We Fight for Our Lives will offer anecdotal proof.

In How We Fight for Our Lives, Saeed Jones, an award-winning African American poet, recounts with vivid details many of the trials and tribulations of growing up a black, gay male in the deep south and his struggle to create a safe space where he can be free to be himself and love whomever he chooses without fear or prejudice from anybody.

But for black non-cisgender men, who grow up in the South’s so-called Bible-Belt like Jones, finding a safe space can be difficult to create as Jones documents via a series of masterful tales about his struggle navigating the various reactions of his family and friends to his sexuality.

This difficulty is certainly not lost on Jones who writes, “As much as this book is my coming of age story as a gay Black man raised in the American South by a single mother, it is also my attempt to excavate the reason why I have come to think of life as a fight.”

For those of us who seek a deeper understanding of the dire need to continue to love and fight for all humanity, we should be grateful to Saeed Jones for having the courage to write How We Fight to for Our Lives.

Charlie R. Braxton is a poet, playwright and journalist whose latest book is entitled Embers Among the Ashes: Poems in a Haiku Manner (Jawara Press, 2018)

Saeed Jones will be at Lemuria on Wednesday, October 23, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and discuss How We Fight for Our Lives.

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.

Page 4 of 257

Author Q & A with Sean Brock

S.C. Gwynne provides riveting, smartly crafted history of Civil War’s end in ‘Hymns of the Republic’

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

Complex campaign, Grant’s triumph given in-depth, rousing treatment in Donald Miller’s ‘Vicksburg’

Once in a ‘Blue Moon’: Who Jack Reacher Is, and Why You Should Care

Author Q & A with S.C. Gwynne

Going for Gold: ‘Medallion Status’ by John Hodgman

Music, life blend in William Morris’s magical memoir ‘This Magic Moment’

Cost of growing up gay, black in American South detailed in courageous memoir ‘How We Fight for Our Lives’

Author Q & A with William Dunlap

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