Silas House's Blog, page 5

Summer Playlist

Here are some songs I have been loving lately, especially while cruising on the lake or riding down the highway with my windows down.  Mostly new stuff, but with a couple of recent-but-older ones thrown into the mix.  Download all of these!  Pay for your music!  Otherwise it's stealing.
His "Take Me to Church" is a huge hit--and I love it--but this one by Hozier really speaks to me.



A great summer sound from The Black Keys.  "Fever". The video makes me have flashbacks to my childhood.



I'd listen to these two sing the phone book. It's even better when they're singing a song written by Brandi Carlie and the Twins.  The Secret Sisters doing "Rattle My Bones". 



Speaking of Brandi Carlile, the tree in the video for "Dreams" looks so much like the one on the cover of ELI THE GOOD, which I was able to give to Brandi in person, although I about passed out.



Best pop song of the summer goes to Sam Smith and "Stay With Me".



First Aid Kit's "Cedar Lane".  Another pair I could listen to all day.  I love how elegiac this song is.  Summer makes me feel that way often.  



Good ole Ray LaMontagne always delievers. I'm especially loving "Supernova".



And we have to have some Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings to brighten our summer.  Here they are with "Stranger to My Happiness".



Ireland's The Strypes are pretty great.  If only American teenagers were screaming for this kind of music.  Here's "Blue Collar Jane".  



I never tire of Tori.  "Trouble's Lament".



Passenger. "Heart's On Fire".  Great singalong.


This one is a few years old but every playlist needs a little Teddy Thompson.  "In My Arms" is him at his summery best. 



Lee Ann Womack is one of the best country singers ever.  She has a new album coming out soon and here's the first single from it.  "The Way I'm Livin'".  Real Country Music.  



Nikki Lane shakes everything up.  Is she country?  Is she rock?  I don't know.  But she's a lot of fun.  Here she is with "I Don't Care".



My daughters introduce me to a lot of great music.  Here's one of the groups they turned me onto, Lucius, doing "Don't Just Sit There".



This is Houndmouth.  I like them a lot.



The new Mavis Staples album is great.  This is my favorite song from it.  



I first met the Avett Brothers in 2001 when they were just starting out and they opened for me at a bookstore in Asheville, North Carolina.  I've loved them more and more ever since.  I think "Morning Song" is one of their all-time best.  



Diane Birch is sooooo good.  "Speak a Little Louder".



I think Nicki Bluhm is one of the most underrated artists out there.  Buy her album. Every song is great.  Here's one of the best ones, "Hey Stranger".



If you haven't gotten on the Valerie June bandwagon yet then climb on up.  "One My Way" is one of her most laid back, chilled out ones, perfect for summertime listening.



"Blue Ridge Mountain" is a really sweet song from Hurray for the Riffraff that is perfect for driving...especially in the mountains.



Oh, one more from Hozier.  He's my favorite right now, so why not?



No summer playlist is complete without at least one great version of "Summertime".  There are so many, but I especially love the way Doc Watson sings (and plays) this one.



There is so much good music out there just waiting to be heard.  I hope you found some here.

The Most Revolutionary

A commencement speech given by Silas Houseat Berea College, Berea, Kentucky, 3 May 2014
I’ve spoken at many commencements but I don't believe I've ever been so honored to be speaking because you are my people, and I am so proud of you. I know how happy you are that four years—or more—of struggle are finished. I have been humbled and moved and inspired by the journey of so many of you.  The best part of teaching at Berea is that I learn something from each of you every day.              I know this is a day of celebration for you, and rightly so.  Because you have worked hard, you have fought the good fight. You are revolutionary because you are committed to knowledge in a time and world that increasingly values dumbness and apathy, a world that celebrates the talentless and makes celebrities out of the undignified.  You are revolutionary because you are a generation that is demanding equality in a way no generation ever before has.  Because I have seen you demand this equality every day by accepting each other for your differences during your time here.  I’ve witnessed you loving one another not in spite of your differences but because of them.  That is what true family does.  I’ve watched so many of you evolve and grow; I’ve seen you trying to be the best people you can be.  And that is the most revolutionary thing of all is the act of trying our best to be good.  We are not creatures composed completely of goodness.  We are made up of innate meanness and a natural kindness.  We are people who are forever trying to make the good the bigger part of us.  I have seen the good prevail, in the way you support and encourage one another, in the ways you love your families both blood and created.  And I’ve witnessed it in the way you stick up for one another and refuse to sit by while hatred and judgment happens. Now, with all of that said, please don’t misunderstand me to be a downer when I tell you that the even bigger struggle begins today. Over the past few years you’ve lived and learned within the Berea Bubble, and to some extent, you’ve been shielded from many aspects of the wider world.  But now that world looms before you, standing tall and wide and outfitted with sharp, jagged teeth.  Not only the struggle to find a job and find your place in the world.  But the truest struggle of all that you must work toward each and every day is being the best person you can be. Each day of your life you will have to make moral decisions.  You will have to strive to be the bigger person.And you will have to strive to remain revolutionary.  To retain your power.  One of my favorite writers is Alice Walker.  She once said:  “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”  I believe we have added to your power during your time here at Berea.  We have pumped up your power to recognize injustice, to participate in civil discourse, to actively seek out ways to serve others.              But even within this beloved community—where we work every single day to examine issues of equality and service and compassion—we have seen power distorted.  There have been awful instances of racism, homophobia, and classism.  We have seen patriarchy rear its terrible head.  The difference between this beloved community and the wider world is that I believe we truly do try our best here at Berea.  Witnessing injustice is harder here because we are more conscious here at Berea.  We talk about these things in a complex and mostly honest way.  The same is not true in that sharp-toothed world awaiting you.  Because when you encounter injustice there, no one will appear to ask for you to reflect on it like we do at Berea.  No meetings will be called.  No counselors will be brought in.  You are on your own, and you must stand alone in a world rife with rudeness and hatefulness, with snideness and arrogance, a world teeming with ignorance.  And because of what we have taught you here at Berea—to fight for justice, to stand against intolerance, to be of service—you will have to plant your feet firmly and refuse to condone these acts of injustice by being silent.              The greatest challenge for all of us is to walk through the world each and every day with conscious hearts.              That is the great challenge of this life:  to be as good as we can be.  To fight back, but always with respect and love.  To stand against injustice.  To serve others.             Yes, I hope that you are able to get a job as soon as you leave here.  I hope you make a good living and are able to have whatever your heart desires.  And I hope that we gave you the best education we could here at Berea, an education that has outfitted you to be ready for the workforce.  You have been here for an academic experience, and there is no doubt about that.  But I hope that just as much as we have given you academic armor we have also given you the shields of service and compassion, two of the essential instruments needed to go through life with that conscious heart, which will open you to heartache.              Be conscious in ways that remind you of the suffering of others.  Remember what Appalachian writer James Still once said:  “What happens in Afghanistan, happens to me.”  Because when hurt is done to one of us, it is done to the world entire.  Be conscious not only of how your heart operates, but also of how your eyes see, what your mouth says, and to what your hands lend their power.              I’ve been honored that some of you out there have shared your stories with me, and I know that too many of you have felt negated because of where you’re from, or the color of your skin, or whom you love, or the way you talk, or how you believe or don’t believe.  And I know how that feels.  I know how it is to be called “trailer trash”, how it feels to be belittled and ridiculed because of who I am.  Like many of you, I was the first person in my family to graduate from college, to come from people who couldn’t go to college because they were doing everything in their power to rise up out of poverty and give their children the things they never had themselves.  Like you, I’ve had people in power assume that I am inferior.  I’ve been refused service because of who I am.  Shunned.  Spoken to with hatred.  And every day I see my people put down.  I hear folks railing against those who are on or have ever been on welfare.  I see the criminalization of the hoodie, the laughter at an accent that isn’t newscasterish enough, the disgusting arrogance of a rape culture out of control, the everyday homophobia.  I see a country divided on issues of immigration, gender, orientation, religion, race, and much more.              And so I hope that you will not see the challenges before you as frightening or daunting.  Instead, I trust that you will be able to stand for yourself and others when injustice rises up.  Be revolutionary in your ways of kindness.                This does not necessarily mean that you have to be out marching in the streets.  This does not mean that you have to spend all of your time arguing with people when they think differently than you.  This doesn’t even mean that you have to be overtly political.  What it does mean is that you must always be aware of how you are treating others and you must never stand by when another person or group is being negated.  What this means, more than anything, is that you must get up everyday and think about ways you can do good.  This means you must be on the lookout for ways to be of service, to not only talk the talk but also walk the walk.  You can’t simply say that you’re opposed to injustice—you must be an active part of fighting it.            I am reminded here of one of my favorite things that Walt Whitman ever said.  “Resist much.  Obey little.”  I believe this, but I believe that we must look at this saying in a complex way. This is not simply an anti-authority sentiment.  Resist the urge to let the meanness that lives in all of us manifest itself.  Resist the compulsion to approach situations with negativity.  Resist joining in groupthink.  Always, always think for yourself.  Resist the urge to be silent or invisible.  Because, as Harvey Milk said, “Hope will never be silent.”  Do not follow the crowd.  Do not allow the media to tell you how to think.  Seek out knowledge.  Use it, study over it, tuck it into your mind as you would a stone that you might polish into complete smoothness with your thumb.  Do not obey the common thought that everything lies on the surface.  Dig deeper.  Think more complexly.  Argue with compassion and respect.  Obey no one who tries to rule you.                After years of academia I am hopeful that you know the equations and sentence structures and proper ways to cite sources.  I trust that you are well-schooled in the history of your own country and our world. In your own place in the world, whether that be Appalachia or South Africa or Afghanistan or anywhere in between. I know that you have explored complex and even abstract issues like religion, philosophy, psychology.  You’ve learned how to be more physically fit and to expand your brain.  But in the end, truly, it all lands on the simplest thing:  be kind.  Be strong.  Never, ever set aside your pride or dignity.  Do not allow anyone to belittle you or your people or anyone else.  Resist injustice.  Obey that innate urge to do good.  Every single day we can do something revolutionary because the most revolutionary thing of all is being the best people we can be.  

Favorite Movies of 2013

Lots of folks have been asking me what films I loved in 2013.  Here are my favorites in no particular order.  I've limited myself to ten words or less reviews.  Titles link to the trailers.

Mud.  Rural people shown with dignity. Best movie of the year.

American Hustle.  That cast.  That director.

Blue Jasmine.  Because: Cate Blanchett.

12 Years A Slave.  Powerful, devastating, visceral, beautiful.

Catching Fire.  Loved the book, loved the movie.  Plus:  Jennifer Lawrence, duh.

Captain Phillips.  Complex, gripping, human.  Tom Hanks disappears into the character.

Prisoners.  Realistic portrayals of working class people and great twist.

Inside Llewyn Davis.  The Cohen Brothers made it.

Shadow Dancer.  Ireland's Troubles with great performances and a taunt script.  

The Conjuring.  Great scary movies are rare.  Hands clapping on the stairs.

The Bling Ring.  Terrifying, stylish, funny without ever glorifying the crimes.

Stoker.  Not perfect but interesting.  Plus:  Matthew Goode and Mia Wasikowska.

Nebraska.  Alexander Payne is one of my favorite directors.

Addendum-Favorite Music of 2013

I jumped the gun on my favorite albums of the year because I hadn't heard these gems when I composed my list.  These were released in 2013 and are among my favorites, too.  

Ben Sollee's The Hollow Sessions is a beauty that finds Sollee covering artists like Tom Waits, Otis Redding, Paul Simon, Fiona Apple, Gillian Welch, Harry Belafonte, and others.  The album was recorded in a little house situated in a Kentucky holler and conjure up the rural summertime with birds, wind, crickets, even water wending their way into the music.  Sollee's cello and vocals are in top form and this piece of land brings out the best in him.  In the press kit he says:  “It’s a place to recharge and be still between the manic pace of the road. Over the years I’ve written songs, ballets, and film scores while visiting and thought it would be a special palce to share, at least sonically. We really featured its voice on the recordings. It is a magical place and I tried to let it conduct me.”

The album is available in hard copy as vinyl only but is also available as a free download (!!!!) at the link below.  But there is a button for leaving Sollee "a tip".  Don't hesitate to leave what you think is fair for the album.  After hearing it you'll know it was worth every dollar, and much more.  It is so, so fine.  Free Download of The Hollow Sessions here. Amos Lee's Mountains of Sorrow, Rivers of Song has blown me away.  I received it for a Christmas present and I've been listening to it nonstop pretty much ever since.  I'm not just saying this:  every song is excellent. I can't recommend this record highly enough.  Go. Get. It.  The title track features Patty Griffin and will slay you.  But every track on the album will.  I left this next one off my first list because I was thinking of it as a reissue but I don't know what I was thinking.  It's simply a collection of songs never before released, so it belongs on my favorites list, too.  That'd be the latest one by Daniel Martin Moore, Archives Vol. 1. Moore's singing and picking is gentle and soothing and can smooth our your whole day.  This album is a balm.  Here's one of the tracks, this one featuring Joan Shelley (other guests on the album include Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Ben Sollee, Dan Dorff, and others).  I can't believe I didn't originally include The Quiltbox Sessions by Dan Dorff and Ronnie Kuller because it really sustained me throughout this year and has been a favorite ever since its release earlier this year.  The reason I left it off my first list is simply because I had it in my head that it was released in 2012.   It's the perfect record for writing.  Or driving.   Or anything, really.  These meditations on piano, fiddle, and accordion are the perfect soundtrack for your day.  Here's a favorite (a tango) from the album:And you can download the whole record here.  Last but not least is one of the most rocking, emotional, and fun albums of the year.  Marshall Chapman is a firecracker, and her latest offering, Blaze of Glory, showcases all of her raw talent in a steady stream that will have you stomping your foot and maybe shedding a tear, too.  American Songwriter hailed it as one of the finest singer-songwriter albums of the year, and I couldn't agree more.  Although Marshall is one of my favorite singers, songwriters, and people I hadn't heard the album properly until recently.  And now I can't stop listening to it. Buy it! I hope you enjoy the wealth of great music out there that never gets played on the radio simply because it's too real and good for mainstream taste.   

People like Jason Isbell, Nicki Bluhm, Valerie June, Jim James and others show up on Part One of my Favorite Music of 2013.  

Favorite Albums of 2013

It’s always a daunting task to pull together a list of my favorite albums of the year, but each year I try to do it.  With that said, I will probably leave off something I love.  And there will most likely be glaring omissions that I “should” have on here, but don’t for whatever reason.  This list is not necessarily a “best of” so much as it is a gathering of the albums I listened to the most this year, perhaps because they are the best albums of the year or maybe just because they struck my mood the best.  At any rate, I think they are all high quality records that everyone should check out.  I’m listening them here in reverse alphabetical order, simply because it’s too hard for me to rank them.  I hope you will list your favorites in the comments below.  
Holly Williams-The Highway.  Yes, she’s Hank Williams’ granddaughter.  And her daddy is Bocephus.  But that doesn’t matter because this is definitely one of the best written albums of the year, and Williams has the vocal chops to pull it off beautifully.  Each song is like a short story and taken together this is a well-produced collection perfect for long road trips.


Vampire Weekend-Modern Vampires of the City.  You may scoff and think they are a band only fit for hordes of screaming teenagers.  You’d be wrong.  The lead singer and songwriter of this band, Ezra Koenig, is somewhat of a musical genius and has crafted a true album full of brilliant hooks and profound lyrics cushioned by songs that get your feet tapping.  Definitely amongst my most-listened to records.


Kasey Musgraves-Same Trailer, Different Park.  I can’t remember the last time I’ve enjoyed a mainstream country album so much.  Each song is a songwriting gem and the production is great, too.  Musgraves manages to reveal the true, complex heart of rural life in songs that call small towns out on their hypocrisy, challenge religious status quos, defy stereotypes, and manage to have fun all at the same time.  “Merry Go Round” is one of the best country songs in decades.
Scott Miller-Big Big World.  Full disclosure here:  Miller is a friend of mine and over the years we’ve done some work together.  But this is still one of his all-time best albums.  It sometimes rocks and often it smooths its way into your heart.  The songs like “How Am I Ever Gonna Be Me”, “Freight Train Heart/Stone Wall Love” and “Goin’ Home” are complex, emotional, and intelligent.  This album is definitely the most underrated of the year due to the fact that Miller doesn’t just not play the industry game, he outright defies it (check the name of his independent record label, F.A.Y., an anagram for a phrase he’s saying to the industry...I’ll let you figure it out on your own). 

Lorde-Pure Heroine.  She’s a teenager.  She’s brilliant.  My favorite pop record of the year, and despite the widespread open-armed acceptance of this album into the pop mainstream there is still something defiant, independent, and fierce about it.  A debut album that has managed to not be dirtied by the corporate forces behind it.  Lorde calls out hypocritical artists like Jay-Z and Beyonce (come on, now, how’s a rapper gonna be a real rapper when he’s embedded in the corporate world so firmly and hangs out with the president?  How’s Beyonce gonna encourage people to get empowered and then tell them to “bow down” to her?), dares to examine issues like class and discrimination against the rural, and lays down a mean beat to boot. 

Valerie June-Pushin’ Against a Stone.  This Memphis-based musician calls her sound “organic moonshine roots music”.  I can attest to that, but I’d also add that these songs are full of grit, longing, and everything in between.  A sort of Appalachian soul album, this record was big in Europe but hasn’t managed to catch on in America.  That’s a shame.


Kings of Leon-Mechanical Bull.  No, it doesn’t rock out like its predecessors, but it still rocks out.  And I think Caleb Followill has one of the all-time best rock voices.  It’s in fine form here.
Jim James-Regions of Light and Sound of God.  I’ve toured some with Jim and he is one of the sweetest people you’ll ever meet.  Full disclosure over.  And my personal feelings about him have nothing to do with this being one of the best albums of the year.  It’s like an hour-long meditation with genius orchestration.  It is so, so fine. 


Jason Isbell-Southeastern.  I’ll say it:  if I was forced to pick an album of the year, this would most likely be it.  A masterpiece.  The songwriting is superb and the songs “Cover Me Up” and “Elephant” might need to duke it out for the song of the year award.  The fact is that every song on this album is tight, complex, emotional, full of vivid imagery and characterization.  This is a recording of a master songwriter at his best. 


Patty Griffin-American Kid.  Even though this is an album-long tribute to her late father, the record transcends that into being the story of anyone who listens to it.  That’s one of the magical powers Griffin has here, and this album gives us some of her best work including “Wild Old Dog,” “Ohio,” and “I Am Not a Bad Man”.  She has done no wrong in her whole career and continues that streak here.


Daft Punk-Random Access Memories.  You can’t not dance while listening to it.  You can’t not sing along.  “Get Lucky” was my song of the summer.
Basia Bulat-Tall Tall Shadow.  I’m hoping more people will come to know Bulat, who already has a small but devoted following.  That voice.  These songs.  That occasional visit from the autoharp.  I love everything on it.

Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers-Self-titled.  Another criminally underrated album from one of the best singers working today.  Funky, soulful, bluesy.  A great, great album that deserves to be heard by more folks.  And if you ever get a chance to catch them live, that’s even better.  Highly recommended. 


The Avett Brothers-Magpie and the Dandelion.  I was prepared for this album to be a let-down after the one-two punch of  I and Love and You (2009) and The Carpenter (2012) but they managed to pull it off again, crafting a very fine album that perfectly blends elements of folk, rock, bluegrass, and country.  Best songs:  “Morning Song” (they bring in their whole family for the chorus, a tribute to their late aunt) and “Bring Your Love to Me” (opening lyrics:  “Bring your love to me/I will hold it like a newborn child”).

Arcade Fire-Reflektor.  The title-track is irresistible but I was surprised to find that just about everything on this double-disk concept album is.  My favorite, “Normal Person,” shows that Arcade Fire can not only do great disco-influenced work like “Reflektor” but can also rock out.  

The Most Patient

     I had a blessing this evening.
     Often, just before dusk, I take a walk in our backyard.  I especially love evening walks this time of year, when the cool of the day settles down over the land and the early autumn light fades like a lamp that is being dimmed. The crickets and other night things have thinned their singing since the heat left with summer's dying, but a few sing on.  Their songs seem sweeter and more tender in the fall, as if they know their demise is at hand.  Nathaniel Hawthorne once wrote that crickets were "the sound of silence made audible" and during this time of year, when the leaves are just beginning to turn and the smell of change hangs in the air, there is the timbre of a silence quietening more during each gloaming.
     I like this time of day best of all because there is a stillness that is palpable more than seeable or hearable.  We know the stillness is there if we are still enough to take note.
     After I had walked the yard once around, the stillness was broken by a great cacophony of cardinals, jays, and wrens who broke into a wild commotion.  This isn't uncommon in our back yard as a multitude of songbirds live there, swooping in out of the long branches of the Tree-of-Heaven that spreads itself out across the yard as if its many limbs are offering canopy.
     That Tree-of-Heaven is one reason we bought this place.  The back yard was certainly key.  I had lived my entire life in a very rural place, most of my years spent on a piece of property surrounded by lush woods that one could traipse through for miles without seeing anything but trees.  So when I moved to a small town to take a job as a professor at a liberal arts college, I thought I'd try something new:  we bought a house that was less than a half mile from my office and classroom partly so that I could either walk or ride my bicycle to work each day.  But I had never lived in town and although I love this house and this place, I still grieve the loss of the beech trees I knew for so many years at my former home.  I miss the mossy banks of the creek that ran in a jagged line through those woods.  I miss the brilliant red heads of pileated woodpeckers and the songs of whippoorwills I could always count on for company.
     So it was absolutely necessary that if I was going to live in town I had to have some woods about me.  Luckily, this place provided just that, abutting a large expanse of college forest containing hundreds, if not thousands, of undisturbed woods. And the back yard boasted not only that wonderful Tree-of-Heaven (which is only not wonderful in that it propagates relentlessly and its limbs smell like burnt peanut butter when broken--thus the nickname of "stink tree") with its branches brushing the porch just off the master bedroom, but also a nice lot of trees.  Dominant among them are two queens that tower over a hundred feet high, and two of my favorite kinds of trees, to boot:  a tulip poplar and a hickory.
     And within the poplar, the hickory, and the Tree-of-Heaven the birds were having conniption fits.  I became even stiller and watched the trees.  Birds are melodramatic but rarely this ecstatic in their squalling, so I knew something afoot.  There is so much to see if we pay attention.  
     Then, on magnificent wings that were ten times as wide as his body and which seemed to fill my ears with the sound of swooping while being simultaneously stealth, a barred owl sailed from the top of the hickory tree, passing over me.  It is disconcerting to see a bird so large flying over because we are not used to it.  We're used to songbirds darting about, but this was a very large owl.  He (I was unable to discern his gender but he struck me as grandfatherly) perched on a branch of the tulip poplar and considered me from behind a screen of leaves, his eyes as tightly latched to my face as his feet were to that limb. If he blinked I never saw him.  Staring contest won, he must have decided I was harmless. He glided back to his original spot near the top of the hickory.   And he sat there for the next hour.
     I squatted down in the yard and watched him.  I realized that I had never seen an owl before, and certainly not while it was still light, as twilight was still stretched out pink and golden.  The owl had settled in a patch of that golden light, making him seem beatific, as if the light within him was suddenly made visible by eyes like mine.
     He turned his head and watched some small thing that I had no power to see or hear.  But he did.  After a great stillness of many minutes, he rolled his head to the other side to peer into new territory for a long while.  A few minutes of studying.  Then his great head revolved and his dark eyes fell on me.  We stared at each other again.  He was not as mesmerized by me as I was him, but he was certainly interested.  And all the while he was completely still, unconcerned by the birds who continued to throw tantrums because he was nearby.  I mostly zoned them out so I could concentrate on the owl, and I believe he did the same.  Their cries did not interest him at all.
     We stayed that way for a time.  Until darkness had swallowed us up and the cold seeped into my bare arms.  Until the tiny black mosquitoes started to feast upon me.  Until I could no longer see him, but knew he was still there, watching.  Waiting.
     While I spent time with the owl I thought a lot about patience.  I watched his diligent composure in waiting for his supper and studied on how quick I am to give up, to lose my fortitude. There was a kind of dignity in his persistence.  Even the way he tucked in his wings and squared his shoulders suggested a nobility that is much rarer to see among human beings.  I said from the outset that I had a blessing this evening, and a blessing is of many folds.  One of these is that I learned to be more persistent in my stillness.
     And I thought about what I could learn from the fact that my first reaction to seeing the owl was to take his picture.  Nowadays we seem to think that if we don't take a picture of something, it never happened.  As soon as I felt my pocket for my phone to snap the photograph, I decided I would wait awhile.  I'd spend some time just being still first.  The picture could wait, and if it didn't happen, then that was okay.  I eventually took the photo (as you can see, below) because I wanted to make sure I remembered him correctly.  I often use photography as a way to jump start my writing.  But I'm so glad I didn't snap his picture immediately.  I think somehow he trusted me the more for the waiting.
     Yet some self examination remains:  did I take the picture because I too have become one of those people who think that photographic evidence must be provided for every experience?  Or because I truly love the visual and count it as a touchstone for my own creative process as a writer?  I haven't looked at the picture once while writing this little essay, yet I will include it here to recall his beauty and stillness and remarkable staring prowess.   Perhaps it will come in handy if I write about him in the future. Still, some part of me wants to preserve the intimacy of my time with the owl without sharing this image.  Some part of me believes a wild thing like him shouldn't be captured on film.
     I believe that grappling with decisions like these can make us better people because these things make our brains work.  They force a certain part of our minds to kick into gear.  They lead us to learning.
     I also realized that when a blessing such as this happens to me--for seeing an owl in the daylight, when one can be seen properly is very rare--I immediately want to write about it.  As soon as the darkness, cold, and bug bites drove me inside I settled down at my writing table and put my fingers to the keys.  And somehow, the writing, the remembering, was almost as fine as the time spent in stillness and silence with the barred owl who is undoubtedly still out there, perhaps perched elsewhere, but very close still.  There is a sweet and fine comfort in that.

Note 1:  The barred owl is also sometimes known as "the hoot owl".  That's what we called them when I was growing up, and we heard them often.  We have heard this owl many times while living here, but have never seen him.

Note 2:  the brightness has been turned up on the photograph for better viewing.

For more on barred owls, go here.

Real Work

I come from hard-working people.
     My mother was orphaned at the age of nine, raised by cousins, and the first person in her family to graduate from high school.  She never had a bicycle or a birthday cake as a child.  My father was the next-to-youngest of nine siblings all being raised by a single mother after my paternal grandfather died when her youngest was still an infant.  Dad, like his brothers and sisters, had to leave school to work and help support the family.  A desire to be of more help led him to volunteer for the service...in Vietnam.       Once my father returned from the war he spied a beautiful young woman at the local hangout, Finley's Drive-in, and before they knew it they were eloping to Jellico, Tennessee, a state border town that made an economy out of marrying people.  Justices-of-the-peace were everywhere in Jellico.  One could even get married by the butcher's case in the back of the IGA there (my cousin did so).  My parents found a little church, got hitched, and over the years since I've studied the picture many times.  My mother in her blue mini-skirt dress and beehive hairdo, my father in his checked blazer and black penny loafers.  The copper of the pennies he had inserted glint out at me.       Then they worked.  First they went North, like many young Appalachian couples of the time.  My father poured concrete on the Flint River Project and my mother worked an assembly line at the Gibson Refrigerator Factory in Flint, Michigan.  But they were too homesick and eventually came back to Southeastern Kentucky where my father first worked as a mechanic and then as a supervisor in a fiberglass factory (which blew up shortly after he retired, killing seven of his close friends) and as a concrete pourer on the side.  Often he worked eighteen hours a day.  My mother rose before daylight to cook breakfast, went in for an eight-hour shift where she was a lunch-lady (and later, a cashier) in the Lily Elementary School cafeteria (which we always called "the lunchroom").  She came home from work to cook supper and clean house.  She never sat down until darkness had overtaken the world.       They worked because they wanted to make sure I had more than they did.  Because they didn't want to go back to being poor.  Not because they were greedy, but because they wanted to provide for me and each other.       Everyone in my family was like this, which greatly defies that stereotype of the Appalachian people as lazy ne'er-do-wells who lie about on the porch with their hound-dogs, tipping back the moonshine jug.  My aunt came home with bloody hands from the yarn factory.  My uncle came home with coal-dust embedded in his skin, my grandfather lost his leg in the mines.  My cousins worked as waitresses and clerks and school bus drivers and Avon salespeople and Walmart associates, as farmers and horse jockeys and construction workers and plumbers.       I wrote.     Throughout my teenage years and early twenties I had a plethora of jobs:  busboy, cook, dishwasher, cashier, Lowe's, WalMart, satellite-installer, concrete-pourer, newspaper reporter, mail carrier.      All the while, though, I was writing.      When I was finally able to become a full-time writer I felt an immense amount of guilt for not doing "physical labor."  And my writing was certainly not treated as real work by others.  I was the one in the famiy who was always called upon to take people to the doctor or run errands.  They'd say "Can you do that?  Everybody else has to work today?"  The implication, of course, being that what I was doing down there in my writer's shack was definitely not work.  Even though I made it clear to everyone that my writing day lasted from the time I took my daughters to school until I went to pick them up--roughly 8AM-3PM--people still dropped in all the time or constantly called me "just to chat" (when you have children at school you can't just "turn off the phone").  Despite the fact that I had a handwritten sign on the front door of my writer's shack (I am working.  Please don't knock and break my train of thought unless it is a complete emergency.) this was readily ignored.  People knocked all. the. time.  Usually just to drop in and see what I was "up to."       Since I wasn't going into a place to work and since my hands weren't getting dirty my work wasn't seen as real work by most of the people I knew.  And that led me to sometimes question whether or not my work was valid, whether or not I shouldn't have been doing something more physical as my labor. And I felt guilty for not working as hard as my parents did or as physically as others in my family.  Never mind that I raised a huge garden when I was writing A Parchment of Leaves to get better into character (a practice that I kept up after the novel was finished...I still raise a garden today).  Never mind that after my writing day was over I was constantly doing physical labor around the house and for others.  Never mind that I was always physically active and still cannot sit still very long (I sit still in my mind, writing while I garden or build raised beds or install new light fixtures or clean house).  I was still made to feel guilty for not doing physical labor as my primary means of making a living.     So I am writing this blog to anyone who has been made to feel the same way.  Don't allow anyone to make you feel as if your writing-work isn't real work.  It is.  It is back-breaking, sweat-on-the-forehead hard.  I often say to people that I'm lucky that I get to do what I love for a living, that I feel so blessed to not have to work as physically hard as my parents did.  But it's still work. It's real work.  It's hard.  It's exhausting.  It's valid.  Don't let anyone tell you--or make you feel--otherwise.       All of this was brought on because this lovely Sunday morning I was reading for an upcoming class I'm teaching in Ireland.  And during that research I came across this amazing poem by Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who says everything I've said above in a much more subtle and beautiful way.  

DiggingBetween my finger and my thumb
The squat pin rest; snug as a gun.Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look downTill his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

Make Your Writing As Clear as MUD

I always recommend that fellow writers look to film for inspiration.  Readers think in a cinematic way.  They are exposed to moving images constantly.  We can learn much from the storytelling qualities of the movies.  I particularly look to cinema to learn more about writing tense scenes of dialogue and to better present pacing and plotting.  Most of the great movies of real storytelling have to be seen at home since so few of them make their ways onto the big screen.  It is a rare treat to be able to go to the movie theatre and see a film that is a feat in storytelling.  Nowadays the cineplexes more often showcase the latest action thriller in which everything is constantly being blown up.  So I was very pleasantly surprised to be able to go to the movies with my daughters recently to see a movie that did just about everything right.  Not only did it tell a beautiful, layered story, but it also presented a way of life rarely captured on film.  One of my goals as a writer is to not only tell a good story but to also show a particular culture.  I strive to preserve rural ways of life since our modern media seems intent on either ignoring rural America or perpetuating stereotypes that life in rural places is something only to be escaped or ridiculed.                          Mud, the new movie from Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter) is an exception on all counts.              Like the best storytelling, Mud slowly reveals more and more layers.  Just when we think we know where it’s going, it takes us down another bend of the river.             We can learn a lot as writers by how much the story is revealed through the dialogue and how much is revealed through silence.  These are two essential lessons for writers.  The visuals are simple and stunning.            Perhaps what I enjoyed most about Mud is that it shows a real world that few people know, although many think they understand.  Mud is set along the Mississippi River in Arkansas and showcases a disappearing way of life of those who live and work on the river.  The sense of place is palpable and has a profound impact on everything in the movie.  Like the best stories, the action could not happen anywhere else.  That is the importance of sense of place. Some of my favorite scenes in the movie are those that show a character passing through town in the back of his father’s pickup, watching as a very rural yet very New South passes by him, a New South that is not the romantic places of pastures and plantations but one of locally-owned Mexican restaurants, Dairy Freezes, junkyards, boat storage, new apartment developments.             And these are people I know.  Rarely do I see them portrayed correctly on film.  They are working hard to get by (mot people would see them as poor; they don’t think of themselves that way, and neither should the viewer), don’t set an awful lot of store by material things (if only the culture as a whole could agree), and they care deeply about one another and their place in the world.  During one memorable scene a woman and her son approach a roadblock that first appears to be a wreck.  “Oh, I hope nobody’s hurt,” the woman says, dragging out each word like a little prayer.  Anyone who’s ever traveled a country road and come upon an accident has most likely uttered these words in that same exact cadence.  It’s a scene that only someone intimate with rural life could have written and directed.              I thought a whole lot about Beasts of the Southern Wild while watching Mud.  They are similar in many different ways.  And while I liked Beasts a lot, I also had some real problems with it:  why did those rural people have to be dirty all the time?  Why did they have to live with trash piled up in their homes?  (and I won’t even get into the gender stuff that bothered me…the little girl always being portrayed as masculine to show her strength (can’t strength be shown in the feminine, as well?), the father never receiving a true comeuppance for abusing her). But in Mud, these people are living rough but not nasty, some of them even making their living off of trash (in one great scene a character says, “That junk is his liveliehood!”) but never letting it overtake their lives the way the filmmakers portray it in Beasts and so many other movies about rural folks.              While there are many things to appreciate about Beats of the Southern Wild, it is interesting that that film had to rely on a fantastical South to be widely accepted, as so often is the case.  But Mud is unapologetic in presenting a rural place just as it is, with no romanticizing or vilifying.  That’s a hard feat to pull off and a balance that can only be achieved by an entire cast and crew who have a deep understanding of the place and its people.              One of the best things about Mud is how believable the characters are in expressing their love for one another.  Several times during the movie children and parents say “I love you” to one another.  Yet it is never done in a sentimental way.  Because this movie is dealing in the realness of life, in the best kind of drama:  the family dynamic.  We get the sense that we are eavesdropping on a real rural family in the midst of high drama.  It is that best sense of storytelling that Shakespeare spoke on when he said that (paraphrasing) all of life’s little dramas happen in the bedroom, meaning of course, that the stories we care the most about are those that happen in people’s homes:  small, intimate, real.                I could go on and on about this movie but the main thing I will say is this:  go see it.  There hasn’t been this great a depiction of rural life in a long, long while, and it joins a handful of other films that I think do justice to capturing contemporary life in a rural place (the main ones that come to mind immediately:  That Evening Sun, Come Early Morning, and Winter’s Bone).             The cast is phenomenal, too.  I’ve never been a big Matthew McConaughey fan but I will be rooting for him when he gets his much-deserved Oscar nomination for this role.  Sarah Paulson  and Ray McKinnon are quietly brilliant.  Sam Shepard gives his best performance in years and Reese Witherspoon is very effective in a nuanced turn that could have easily come off as a stereotype.  But the whole movie rests upon the backs of the two child actors, Tye Sheridan (The Tree of Life) and Jacob Lofland (in his debut), who perfectly capture the speech and posture of modern rural boys. These are the kinds of boys I grew up with:  tough, vulnerable, witty, resourceful, wise beyond their years not because of street cred but because they had seen people work hard all of their lives.              It's not a totally perfect movie (small spoilers:  there is a very confusing shot toward the end and the lead boy too readily responds violently to adults; I didn't believe that little boy would punch Matthew McConaughey in the mouth) but I loved every minute of Mud and I can’t recommend it highly enough to everyone, but especially writers needing a boost in their creativity. 

Paying Homage

While in Louisville this week to participate in festivities honoring the Dalai Lama's visit I had the opportunity to linger at my favorite historical marker again.  You can read about my connection to this spot in this recent blog post about Thomas Merton, if you haven't already.  Truly a sacred spot for me, and many others.  I always get a boost out of visiting this marker while in Louisville.  I think it's important for us as writers to have places to go like this.  In England and Ireland literary spots abound because so much attention is paid to the rich literary history of those countries but often in America that gets overlooked.  When you can, seek out places that should be important to us as writers. I've been lucky to be in many places that were integral to the lives of writers like Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Margaret Mitchell, Lee Smith, Willa Cather, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Thomas Hardy, DH Lawrence, Denise Giardina, Alex Haley, Flannery O'Connor, Alice Walker, and others.  I am determined to one day visit the birth-town of Willa Cather and the grave of Zora Neale Hurston.

The Best Simple Advice

To be a better writer:  READ. 
Here are the novels that have had the biggest impact on me as a writer.  They’ve taught me how to tell a story, how to write a sentence, how to make a plot, how to write a scene of dialogue.  They’ve proven to me that all good writing is about emotion.  They’ve taught me about life and about writing.  This is an ever-changing, evolving list, but today these are the most important novels to me (lots of poetry and nonfiction has been important, too, but I'm focusing here on fiction).
Isabel Allende-The House of the SpiritsHarriette Arnow-The DollmakerMargaret Atwood-Alias Grace, The Handmaid’s TaleLarry Brown-Father and Son, Joe, Facing the MusicChris Cleave-Little BeeEmma Donoghoe-RoomWilla Cather-My Antonia, O Pioneers, Death Comes for the Archbishop, The Song of the LarkMichael Dorris-A Yellow Raft in Blue Water Louise Erdrich-Love Medicine,  The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No-Horse Denise Giardina-Storming Heaven, The Unquiet EarthGraham Greene-The Power and the Glory, The End of the Affair Thomas Hardy-Jude the Obscure, The Woodlanders, Tess of the D’Urbervilles S.E. Hinton-The OutsidersZora Neale Hurston-Jonah’s Gourd Vine, Their Eyes Were Watching God Garbriel Garcia Marquez-Of Love and Other Demons, Chronicle of a Death ForetoldJohn Irving-A Prayer for Owen MeanyD.H. Lawrence-Sons and Lovers, The Fox Harper Lee-To Kill a MockingbirdToni Morrison-BelovedMicahel Onndaatje-Coming Through SlaughterMarilynne Robinson-Housekeeping, Gilead, HomeLee Smith-Fair and Tender Ladies, Saving Grace, Black Mountain BreakdownWallace Stegner-Angle of ReposeAlice Walker-The Color Purple