Three

This post is first and foremost a tribute to John Prine, an incredible songwriter and musician taken too soon. Experts and professionals in the industry have much more in depth and accurate analysis of this music, but for me, the rawness and truth behind all of his songs speaks to the larger underlying core of the diversity but similarity that creates southerness.

For better tributes see John Huey’s in Gun and Garden, Yola’s on instagram, or Natalie Hemby’s on instagram.

In Spite of Ourselves

The witty, tongue-in-cheek, and real nature of this song is a embodiment of a traditional southern approach of owning your flaws and being proud of them, if not also turning them into a joke.It is a sweet lighthearted song (loosely based of two characters in a movie Prine acted in) that reminds us we are no better than anyone else and to not take ourselves too seriously. This is by no means Prine’s most critically acclaimed or most famous song, it is just a personal favorite.

Untitled, c. 1983-1986

Pigment print

William Eggleston, native southerner, captures the beauty and mystery of everyday life in all his works. Most famous for being the catalyst behind the new southern color photography movement: his photographs always have a sentiment of classic but modern all at once.

The Virus

Jericho Brown

Jericho Brown is a southern Poet who’s formal style but deep understanding of human emotion places him as one of the best poets of our generation.

This poem is not necessarily speaking to anything exclusively southern, but things that are at the core of the regions issues: hatred and racism. However, given our current climate as a global population, it is also interesting to read and think about it in the literal meaning and definition of ‘virus,’ and where the complexities Brown is expressing also have a crossover into the physical world.

Dubbed undetectable, I can’t kill

The people you touch, and I can’t

Blur your view

Of the pansies you’ve planted

Outside the window, meaning

I can’t kill the pansies, but I want to.

I want them dying, and I want

To do the killing. I want you

To heed that I’m still here

Just beneath your skin and in

Each organ

The way anger dwells in a man

Who studies the history of his nation.

If I can’t leave you

Dead, I’ll have

You vexed. Look. Look

Again: show me the color

Of your flowers now.

From The Tradition. Copyright © 2019 by Jericho Brown.

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Two

Second Post:

This post is much more aligned with what I plan to normally publish, random content that I identify with and only short captions about each piece.

I suppose there is an underlying theme in this, a theme of ‘personal.’ These are all pieces of curated content that is close to home or personal favorites of mine.

It is this type of art that inspired me to start this blog and try and relay my interpretation of a southern sentiment.

Richard Grant’s Dispatches From Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta.

Whether Grant intended to write an ethnography or not, Dispatches From Pluto is one of the best ethnographic depiction of a subsegment of The South that I have ever read. Too often when academic norther elites write about souther culture they force analysis from their own perspective and do not even try to understand the underlying factors at play. Maybe it is because the amount of time Grant fully embedded his life in the culture or maybe it is his journalism background, but either way his story telling abilities and true open mind, create a fascinating and engaging vignette fo the Mississippi Delta–that also touches on themes that plague the south as a whole.

Photographs: Warner Tidwell

Nashville based Photographer Warner Tidwell beautifully captures the seasons and their feel in the south. These photos of spring blooms in Middle Tennessee perfectly depict the feel of Early April in the area.

One of her photographs serves as the back drop on the homepage, so I wanted to formally include her work asap.

copy-write: http://www.boynamedbanjo.com/

Boy Named Banjo Is a folk-rock band from Nashville,TN. Their music, with a hints of nostalgia, tells beautiful stories and feels as if you are taken immediately to the Tennessee hills.

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First Post

For the first piece of literature I include I have to start with the blog’s name sake, Flannery O’Connor’s A good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories. I like, most other AP lit students, learned about the power of the short story from the title short story its self. But it was less the art of short stories I feel in love with, and instead, it was what really started my love affaire with the southern Gothic Style. The brutal, blunt artistry with with O’Connor explores human nature and higher beings fascinates me and was the perfect stepping stone into the heavier longer Southern Gothic works of Faulkner and Morrison. Writing and artistry aside, Flannery O’Connor is a Bad Ass Southern Woman, so I have to read her work.

Flannery O’Connor’s work fully embodies this feeling of southern for me: the complexities, the sorrow, the beauty, the wit, and the fun. Of course you should read the title short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find. But Good Country People and The Displaced Person are also extrinsic stories in the collection that I feel continue this southern gothic embodiment.

Sally Mann’s Candy Cigarette, 1989
Gelatin silver print

Another Classic, Another Bad Ass Southern Woman, Another Node to Souther Gothic or Noir.

Sally Mann has many iconic classic photographs. But it is this well know, often misunderstood, photograph that embodies this feeling of southernness and its complexities best.

This is not the place for a full artistic review, rather to guide you toward a specific feeling of the south.

The Highwomen 2019 Album Cover
The Highwomen, But the Highwomen released 2019

All of the Highwomen’s songs embody the amazing southern/folk feel, but the titled track The Highwomen, featuring the amazing Yola, specifically embodies the Southern Woman and her grit, power, and strength.

First Post:

This first post contained primarily well-know people and art, I promise this will not always be the case. But this is how I felt best to kick off this journey and begin to curate the sentiment and feeling I am trying to convey. If you like the vibe and direction it is heading keep following along. If not, well it will probably change pretty frequently so you can wait it out and give it another try, but also you can show yourself to the door.

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Introduce Yourself (Example Post)

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

  • Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
  • Because it will help you focus your own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

  • Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
  • What topics do you think you’ll write about?
  • Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
  • If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.

laurenelcanLeave a comment

Introduce Yourself (Example Post)

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

  • Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
  • Because it will help you focus your own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

  • Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
  • What topics do you think you’ll write about?
  • Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
  • If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.

laurenelcanLeave a comment

Introduce Yourself (Example Post)

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

  • Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
  • Because it will help you focus your own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

  • Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
  • What topics do you think you’ll write about?
  • Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
  • If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.

laurenelcanLeave a comment