2011-2012 Winter Short Story Festival 31:70

Where is the Voice Coming From by Eudora Welty.

What caused a white man who lived and worked on Deacon Street in Thermopylae, Mississippi, to kill a black man who lives on the same street?  Eudora Welty captures the tension of people living on the edge of a changing world.   She shows why one might consider gunning down a forward looking brother.   The story is a nod at the biblical story found in Genesis between Cain and Able.  Am I my brothers keeper is the question that Welty posed.

So I reach me down my old guitar off the nail in the wall. 'Cause I've got my guitar, what I've held on to from way back when, and I never dropped that, never lost or forgot it, never hocked it but to get it again, never give it away, and I set in my chair, with nobody home but me, and I start to play, and sing a-Down. And sing a-down, down, down, down. Sing a-down, down, down, down. Down.

Eudora Welty on the Short Story.

Long Hot Summer (1956) Review

Faulkner books at times are very difficult to understand; but they are books worth the effort. The books stay with you and shape your understanding of people like ghosts from a haunted time. His books carry the hot muggy atmosphere of the South; at least the south in my imagination.

Ben Quick arrives in Frenchman's Bend, Mississippi after being kicked out of another town for allegedly burning a barn for revenge. Quick is all the gossip! So he sets out towards anywhere but here and finds himself picked up in Frenchmen's Bend a quite hamlet in Mississippi, and finds himself helped out by the Varner Clan.

The Varner family owns everything in Frenchman's Bend. Will Varner the patriarch wants a heritage left for him. He spots potential in Ben Quick. He hires Ben to work in his store. Will thinks his daughter, Clara, a schoolteacher, will never get married. He decides that Ben Quick might make a good husband for Clara to bring some new blood into the family and Frenchmen's Bend.

The Long Hot Summer is a delight. The movie is  a smooth adaptation of six of Faulkner's stories (including the  Hamlet)by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. Scenery  (directed by Joseph LaShelle) is true to the earthy, muggy Southern latitudes.


 Summer time and the living is easy; the banter between Paul Newman and his future wife Joanne Woodward is genuine and a beauty to watch. They match wits like good old sparring partners. 
ORson Welles provides a strong center to the dramatic action.   He is the glue that holds this piece together.  


The music score by Alex North adds a great depth to the dramatic  action.   North conducted other great scores for movies such as, Wise Blood, Spartacus, and the Rose Tattoo.  


One weakness in the movie is that the Southern accents betray the Northern Actors. Too bad they didn't get Southern Boys and girls to play the parts, it would have been better. The girls will love the scenes where Paul Newman does not wear a shirt.

Christmas in Florida

Yard Snow has been ordered and laid onto your green yard. Snow has not fallen from the sky in thirteen years, although Floridians have been hoping for a White Christmas since 1996.
The weather has not changed much since September, it still is 85 degrees. But there are Convertible Sun Beams, decorated with fir wreaths in their front grills.
There are a collection of classic cars resting in front of the Baptist Church.
Lights. Lights. Lots of pretty, sparkly incandescent light.
"Parades! What would Christmas Season be without them?", says Bartow, Lakeland, Winter Haven members of the Chamber of Commerce.* Florida's decorative spirit is in high swing.

* (My wife is responsible for her school's float, appearing the Bartow Parade tonight.)

I'LL be there! Will You?

Roller Derby is back in the Tampa Area check them out on October 10th. You probably will dig it good; Really good.

Tuesday: News from the Southern Hemisphere

Southern California’s Distinction Gallery is celebrating their 5-year anniversary this month with a solo show of Andy Haynes' new work: The Journal Entries of Changing Tides.

Good Cuban Food Worth the Drive in Masaryktown

Florida attracts dreamers; People who come to live out there dream in the Sunshine State.

One thing that many people ask is, "Now, where you from originally!" This is not said as an insult. It is said because there are so many people from so many different places, that we like to know where y'all are from.

Czechoslovakians were one group that came and settled central Florida.

They came to central Florida in 1927, and planted saplings, at first they grew well. But in the winter of 1926-1927 there was a freeze. The saplings died out. The Czechoslovakians replanted. But again in 1927-1928 there was a second freeze. Many dreamers left for new places.

But the people who staid decided to raise Chickens, for chickens do not usually freeze. By 1970 there were two thousand chickens for every person. Masaryktown became the Egg Capitol of Florida. One place that remains of this Florida Egg Capitol is the Masaryktown Hotel.
Violet Cimbora reflected that the Hotel was the place to be in the Brooksville area:

We danced at the hotel.
We did the beseda that like our square dance.
On festival days we wore costumes.

Masarkytown (Cafe) Hotel still remains but now it serves Good Authentic Cuban Food.

To find the Masarkytown Hotel

Take US 41 to CR 574 A (turn at the OLD Gas Station now a Circle K) or
take SR 50 to US 41

Country Bear Jamboree

Henry (The Host of the Country Bear Jamboree):
Howdy Folks! Welcome to the one and only, original Country Bear Jamboree, featuring a bit of America - our musical heritage of the past.... that's what I use to say, before they turned out the lights September 9, 2001. That was right after the release of our motion picture.
We did not see it coming that a clueless little yellow bellied, lover of honey would be the devil himself. It hurts. Management at Disney told me that Winnie drew in more of the little tots than my band of jug playing crackers. Between you and me, brother Wendell and I still sing, "Mamma don't whip little Bufford" on the back porch of our trailer.

Turtles Naked Answer to a Prayer

Turtle sat curled up in his shell, shivering. He knew it wasn't supposed to be 32 degrees in Lakeland Florida. He could not remember it ever being this cold.
He thought to himself, "Man, any way to get it warmer."

He prayed to God, "Please LORD I am only a little turtle but make it so I wont shiver anymore!"

The LORD answered his prayers: a huge thunderbolt electrified the air and hit the shell, alighting it on fire.

Turtle was kindled by the flame and ran right out of his shell... shivering in the cold January Florida air.

(Moral: Be careful what you pray for, and never pray for patience).

Order of Myths:

Order of Myths:

"They like it like that!"
Parades, trees, beads, segregated balls, and moon-pies are signposts of Southern Culture. Money or lack of money are not what opens the key to city hall in the South, family roots and history are the steps in the hierarchy platforms and stages. "The Order of Myths"stirred a bitter feeling.