My little girl is eight today!
As soon as I'm off duty, I'll join the girls at a Brownie Scout retreat to a Girl Scout Camp south of Atlanta in Spalding County.
Eight years ago, I became a Dad, and Elizabeth became a mom, through the good auspices of Tallahassee Memorial.
Eight years ago, the United States went to war in Iraq.
It's my daughter I'm celebrating.
And, her school, which celebrated a birthday all year recently, is now in its forties, like me, though I'll soon enter another decade.
Here's The Children's School in a recent profile in Midtown Patch.
Lechaim, y'all!

Happy birthday, Betty Mae Jumper

I just heard good news of the publication of a new biography for children of a great soul, Ms. Betty Mae Tiger Jumper, of Hollywood, Florida. Old pal, author Jan Godown Annino, is promoting her new book for children (of all ages), titled She Sang Promise , with appearances including one in a favorite spot, the St. Marks's National Wildlife Refuge, Saturday, May 1, described here, courtesy of the Tallahassee Democrat.

She Sang Promise, by J. G. Annino, is published by National Geographic, and described here; distributed by Random House, and features a cool sample of the illustrations in a viewer, here.

I've finally found Jan's blog, including the reference to Ms. Jumper celebrating today - April 27 - as her birthday each year, at
http://bookseedstudio.wordpress.com/about-this-site-writer/betty-mae-tiger-jumper/.
So, happy birthday to you, Ms. Jumper! Che-han-tah-mo?

I used to keep and give away copies of Ms. Jumper's own illustrated book, Legends of the Seminole (Pineapple Press), written together with writer Pete Gallagher; here's the book, and the "peek inside" via Google. When I moved to Florida in 1994, I immediately learned about her work, as she received the Florida Folk Heritage Award in that annual cycle. I met her at the Florida Folk Festival, where the Florida Folk Heritage awards celebrate those illustrious souls; we also had the pleasure of hearing a master storyteller who learned traditional stories as a member of Ms. Jumper's family, Ms. Scarlett Young.

The 2010 FFF again features a Seminole Camp this Memorial Day weekend, described here. The camp, at the South gate on US Highway 41 of the Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center in White Springs, is a partnership between the State of Florida and the Seminole Tribe's wonderful staff at the Ah-Tha-Thi-Ki Museum in South Florida. Instead, I'll be selling books in our shop, or some such, again this year; tell 'em all howdy, and I sent you, hear?

The Seminole Tribe of Florida website features a wonderful page about Ms. Jumper, including a story excerpt, Little Frog, here. Ms. Jumper says,

"This story was told to me by my grandmother when I was just a baby. Where we lived, the sounds in the woods were very important to us. We were always asking, "What is that sound from?" A lot of times we were answered with a story such as this one."

[Just ignore the note, "Visit Betty Mae's website"; the tribe kept a site at something like bettymae.com for a while, then stopped.]

And, not to be missed - though I miss a lot of these, and all my old colleagues - in the R. A. Gray Building, is the Voices of Florida Women exhibit at the Museum of Florida History, courtesy of the Florida Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs in Tallahassee... online, here. Wait, a quick search turns up no Betty Mae Jumper, though other great Seminoles and Florida folk tradition bearers do appear.



However, a search of the collections of the Florida State Archives contains more of the documentary and ethnographic collections, audio and visual samples of Ms. Jumper. Thanks to the State of Florida, Ms. Jumper appears in both the Florida Photographic Collection and the Florida Folklife Collection; a web-based search of the fine finding aids to the Folklife Collection produces archival records as results, here. And in fact, there is an exhibit I missed in 2007-8 at MFH, Seminole People of Florida (still online here); the Archives component paralleling the exhibit features the image of Ms. Jumper I use to accompany my blog post, here.

Hm... The Florida Women's Hall of Fame inducted Ms. Jumper in 1994, as noted here.

Might some kind soul donate an appropriate artifact, working together with curatorial staff, representing Ms. Jumper's career for the Museum of Florida History?

On your birthday, then, again, here's to you, Ms. Betty Mae Tiger Jumper! Be well.

P.S. I wrote my blog post on April 27; it took a week or more to show up on Facebook notes, due to four accompanying photos and a gazillion links. Aha, more Facebook links!
The Facebook group for She Sang Promise is here.
The Ah-Tha-Thi-Ki Museum Facebook page is here.
The 2010 Florida Folk Festival is on Facebook here; and on the web, here.

Vic Chesnutt, friend and talent

Vic has left the building. We'll honor him Sunday December 27:

[Vic's] memorial service will be held at Bridges Funeral Home, 3035 Atlanta Hwy, Athens, GA, 30606 on Sunday, December 27, 2009, from 3:00-6:00 pm. Following the memorial service, family and friends invite you to join them at Cine, 234 West Hancock Ave., Athens, GA.

Vic was my next-door-neighbor, for a time, circa 1988-9. We met about 1986-7, when he joined us at the original Grit cafe with bandmate Todd McBride during a monthly Song Swap. The Athens Folk Music & Dance Society would gather there, and so would Vic. The moldy figs of the Folk Society delightfully met their match... He once told me he wanted to write a song for everyone in Athens. I thought of him as our bard, together with the late John Seawright.

So, when George Norman's place was burgled, his guitar stolen, Jennifer Hartley suggested a benefit at the Grit. Vic, Vic wrote the song, y'all: George Norman, Victim of Crime.
("Yeah, Geo-oorge Nor-MAN/ He's a friend, friend of mine/ Geo-orge Nor-MAN/ Unfor-tu-nate... victim of CRIME.") One AFMDS hoot the folk society songstresses sang backup behind him at Sparky's, and we billed them as Vic Vegas and the Vixens. I've been humming the song he wrote about Vernon J. Thornsberry ("Yes, he's a dishwasher by trade, but with loftier career goals/ At night he paints lovely nudes, in charcoal/ and he left New Orleans just a couple of Mardi Gras's ago.") There are so many great Vic songs: New Town, Elberton Fair... Who is Pulling Brezhnev's Chain... I have more favorite early ones, because I left Athens in 1994. My favorite album of his is West of Rome... bought one night with Tom Waits' Bone Machine and REM's Automatic for the People, and much loved.

AFMDS gave a concert for Vic to play for his parents at the old Unitarian Church, and he illustrated the songs on poster board. It was a magic evening, a great success, not long before they both passed. I loved his art as well as his writing.

The thing is, I loved his singing voice. He could sing a moldy standard and make it his own: "The Falling Leaves;" "Wonderin';" name it, he sang it. But the writing... One time, I went to pay rent, and my alcoholic landlord came to the door in briefs, and said, "Song titles come to me in dreams. Here, take this." And he gave me a song title: "Another One, Darlin'..." Well, I walked down the street to Vic, and later, a pretty good country song was the result.

One summer, the Augusta Heritage Center gave Vic a scholarship to attend a songwriting workshop with Nashville's Fred Koller. I drove with him, in his van. Great trip, filling me with respect for Vic; it was just before he started his regular Tuesday gig at the 40 Watt. During an outdoor evening session, listening to Whit and Barbara Connah of Atlanta up there, he named them The Fabulous Sticks, enjoying the phraseology. But, I think Koller realized Vic was already something special.

Seeing and hearing Vic made you glad to be in his presence. He was always troubled. But man, he could be happy.

Let's tell more Vic stories, sing more Chesnutt songs.

Here's a link, or three:

• An appeal to help with Vic's outstanding debt, at

http://kristinhersh.cashmusic.org/vic/

• The online Guest Book

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/atlanta/obituary.aspx?n=vic-chesnutt&pid=137794485

• And, Nuci's Space, in Athens, Georgia:

http://www.nuci.org/

God bless...

Happy birthday, Ed Daugherty!

It's the birthday of my father-in-law, Elizabeth's dad, Edward Lawton Daugherty, Senior. He's a landscape architect.

His grandchildren call him Abba (pronounced: Ah-bah.) Let's just say he's in his eighth decade... still going strong... and still going to work outside, to visit job sites in outlying areas, to meet contractors, and to provide a bedrock of laughter and support. Moreover, if you've read about the work of the Buckhead Heritage Society on behalf of Mt. Olive Cemetery, you find he's still sharing regional history.

Just October 10, the Atlanta History Center closed the exhibition of its Cherokee Garden Library, "Edward L. Daugherty, A Southern Landscape Architect: Exploring New Forms." Ed spoke a number of times, to a number of audiences. When I took my daughter, we chased each other in circles around the gallery, and when we left, we met a cousin and friend coming in. When I dropped in October by for a viewing at closing time, staring at one of his designs, I collided with an old UGA pal of mine, landscape architect Will Griffin.

There remains a wonderful oral history of Ed, thanks to the efforts of Atlanta landscape architect Spencer Tunnell and the nonprofit Cultural Landscape Foundation; you can find it posted at the CLF website, here:

http://tclf.org/pioneers/oral_history.htm

or, here:

http://tclf.org/pioneers/profiles/daugherty/videos/index.html

Happy Birthday, Abba! We love you, sir.

Editorial: State shouldn't pursue Tennessee River 'option' | Opinion | OnlineAthens.com

Editorial: State shouldn't pursue Tennessee River 'option' | Opinion | OnlineAthens.com

Shared via AddThis
Thanks, Banner-Herald, for a great editorial!

Favorite Fiddle Tunes - the short list

Favorite Fiddle Tunes

This list was sparked by a question yesterday, from Marcy Marxer, whose music makes me smile. I'm sure my list will change based upon getting my fiddle re-haired a.s.a.p., and in tune, for Summer... I'd love to see (and hear!) someone else's list, and beg your pardon if this is a bother. Let's play tunes, y'all.

In no particular order, then:

1. Big Sciota
2. Elzic's Farewell
3. Billy in the Lowground
4. Leather Britches
5. Liberty (off A Corn Liquor Still in Georgia, a 78 rpm record by The Skillet Likkers)
6. Valse de Balfa (Balfa Waltz)
   
7. Hell Amongst the Yearlings

Postscript: If I could remember the B part, I'd include a tune in the key of C, heard once, in the late 1980s, at the old Raymond home on Jonas Avenue, Athens, after one North Georgia Folk Festival: "Rattlesnake Bit the Baby."
That was the session I met both Mik Kinney and Joe Nelson for the first time, fiddling on opposite sides of a session in one front room... with other music going on in three or four other rooms, at the same time.
Joe Willey mentioned he had cassettes of other sessions in the house with Rob & Mary (of Wahoo Lulu & the Alabama Goober Grabbers). I've got mental memories of those evenings.
In my sound memory, everyone shouted out on the high part of this tune, "Rattlesnake bit the baby..." three times. Where'd that come from?

Thanks, Murray

It's nice when one of our customers shares the enthusiasm for the Carlos Museum Bookshop, as author Murray Browne, in his blog for Valentine's Day, did.

Be on the lookout for his forthcoming "The Book Shopper: A Life in Review to be published by Paul Dry Books of Philadelphia in Spring of 2009." I'm quoting his site...

It seems our shop has something fortunate to do with his publication. He'd best tell that one.

John Stone, M.D. (1936-2008)

Lots of literary talent departed the earth in the weeks around this Election Day, including personal favorites Studs Terkel, John Leonard, Michael Crichton, and this fine physician and writer. The late Dr. John Stone, M.D., of Emory University School of Medicine, a poet of humor and gravity, was a favorite customer of mine, here in the Michael C. Carlos Museum Bookshop. Dr. Stone would appear on a Friday morning, more than once, before a noontime concert, lunch event, or reading, and ask, "Would you show me all your books of poetry?" I would share our small selection, with a small conversation. Our public radio affiliate, WABE-FM, announced his death Friday morning, November 7. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution obituary appears today, here.

Here are a few links, more eloquent than I, regarding Stone's poetry:

Emory Report, October 31, 2005

New Georgia Encyclopedia

WPBA-TV/WABE-FM Atlanta Sounds

Georgia Writers Hall of Fame

The Mississippi Writers Page

When I was a Senior in high school, English teacher John Roberts referred his students to Stone's poems. I don't recall which specific ones today; I think I remember a photocopied handout, circa 1980-1, since lost. Later, when I lived on King Avenue in Athens, Georgia, opposite Athens Regional Medical Center, the hospital hosted Stone to dedicate its new imaging center building; I heard Stone speak there, and read a poem for the occasion, his "Gaudeamus Igitur" [any error in the Latin is mine - BAT]. After that, I kept reading his poetry. Returning to Georgia in 2004-5, in Pickens County, near Jasper, our local Friends of the Library hosted an evening reading by Dr. Stone. My understanding was that resident John Kaiser hosted that appearance in the Pickens County Public Library. Stone shared a gentle respect and humor with his audiences. As I said, I looked forward to his occasional visits to our museum bookshop on the Emory campus in the last few years.

Talking about poetry seems not as good as hearing it read aloud by the poet; reading the poem in print seems like a substitute to me, especially on this occasion. The WPBA/WABE Atlanta Sounds link, above, features Stone's voice. I heard one of Stone's poems on Writer's Almanac read by Garrison Keillor only last week, and that podcast is online, here. I've been rereading old favorite poems by John Ciardi with my child; here's Dr. John Stone on Ciardi, in a poem from Where Water Begins: New Poems and Prose (LSU Press, 1998.)

A Trenta-Sei for John Ciardi (1916 - 1986)

Love should intend realities: goodbye.
- John Ciardi

In the beginning was the word, as noted
(in the end, too, if truth be known)---
Mercy next, then Love, and, gravel-throated,
a distinctive Grace enduring as the stone.
From these were made a better man than most.
We say goodbye today, old crow, gruff ghost.

In the end, too, if truth be known,
was clean white paper waiting under a pen---
a gift of hand, eye, ear, and knuckle-bone
from Boston to Vermont and back again
to Jersey, Georgia, Key West---in every state
he came to talk and stayed to celebrate

Mercy next, then Love. And, gravel-throated,
the man became the word on which he fed
until he fed us all---and what he quoted
was from the major kingdom in his head
comprised not least of children's poems---crows,
pythons, sharks with teeth in rows.

A distinctive Grace enduring as the stone
or bronze or steel sculptors bring to life
he brought to his---and ours---though not alone,
for one enduring grace became his wife:
To her he'd bow and gratefully concede
that men have always married what they need.

From these were made a better man than most
who moved the word from mind to pen to writing
and made the books from wisdom and a host
of wars he never seemed to tire of fighting,
especially those he thought he'd surely win
(as well as some he reveled in like sin).

We say good-bye today, old crow, gruff ghost.
That's never worked before---and will not now.
No good comes of good-bye. Instead, a toast
(in whatever form the authorities will allow)
to you---to us---in minor fifths and thirds.
Along the way you found we'll find the words.

September 24, 1986

Dr. John Stone (1936-2008), from Where Water Begins: New Poems and Prose (LSU Press, 1998.)

The AJC's reporter, Rachel Pomerance, includes this: "A memorial service will be held on the Emory campus in the next few weeks. Donations can be sent to the John Stone Fund for Emergency Medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine. Contact Anne Stainback at Emory, 1440 Clifton Road N.E., Suite 440, Atlanta, GA 30322. He founded and directed Grady’s residency program in emergency medicine, which has since become a department at Emory."

---30---

Poem-a-Day during National Poetry Month

It's almost April... If you want a higher caliber of language usage in your email, try the Poem-a-Day from Knopf.

Happy Small Press Month to you

With mere days to go, here's a link regarding Small Press Month for 2007....

O Bless this Blog... with a poem, by Naomi Lazard

OK, hi, hello: let's blog now.

Here's a poem I like, just found, in a book that I like. You might like the book, too. I'll be back.
---

In Answer to Your Query

We are sorry to inform you
the item you ordered
is no longer being produced.
It has not gone out of style
nor have people lost interest in it.
In fact, it has become
one of our most desired products.
Its popularity is still growing.
Orders for it come in
at an ever increasing rate.
However, a top-level decision
has caused this product
to be discontinued forever.

Instead of the item you ordered
we are sending you something else.
It is not the same thing,
nor is it a reasonable facsimile.
It is what we have in stock,
the very best we can offer.

If you are not happy
with this substitution
let us know as soon as possible.
As you can imagine
we already have quite an accumulation
of letters such as the one
you may or may not write.
To be totally fair
We respond to these complaints
as they come in.
Yours will be filed accordingly,
answered in its turn.

Naomi Lazard
"In Answer to Your Query," from the anthology, Good Poems for Hard Times, by Garrison Keillor (Editor). Penguin, 2006.

So, I'll post to this space notes that might or might not fit on other blogs or websites. No comments initially; perhaps in good time.