"There's where the old darkey's heart am long'd to go"

[muckefuck]

I understand that I may not see a lot of feedback to this, given that it took me about a dozen (I lost count) attempts just to login, but my needs are more immediate than LJ's tech support.

Day after tomorrow, I leave for Tidewater Virginia. Yes, this is a family. My sister hopes that, without any of our stepsiblings present, there'll be less tension than there was in Utah two years back, but I don't understand how, since the most powerful and damaging tension was between my father and my older brother, both of whom will be there. monshu isn't coming (there isn't enough money in all of the Commonwealth), so my tension level may be reduced, but so will my level of enjoyment. I will have bunj and e. and their precious godchild and his precocious brother, so that should carry me through five days.

I'm expecting the same weather STL suffers at this time (why do I always end up leaving Chicago when she's at her best?), so I've packed mostly beach wear. There's a gift for my neph in there, possibly one for e. (or would you rather have it when you get back?), and I'm working on one for my hosts as well. I'll be taking along a Chinese grammar and scads of flash cards to try to plug the three-week gap between classes (no session on Independence Monday) and a few tapes (how retro!) for when I'm too bleary to read.

But what am I taking to read? I can't decide, so I'm throwing the floor open to suggestions. We'll be retracing the footsteps of our colonial forebearers, so should I be reading some stirring narrative of American progress? We'll be in the head, if not the heart, of the Confederacy, so maybe something Civil War? Also, I think I could slip in pirates on a technicality. (Didn't they predate that far north?) Miscellaneous, less site-appropriate possibilities include Genji monogatari, my bilingual edition of Lu Xun, and my newly-acquired Arthur Machen (to give me shivers on balmy nights).

Bonus question: Them good ol' boys what was listenin' to CDB in the 70's, REO in the 80's, and Black Crowes in the 90's are listenin' to ________ today.

Comments

[go-wade-in.livejournal.com]

Transmission by Hari Kunzru has been getting good buzz. not that i've read it (or any book in recent memory).

[trom.livejournal.com]

Lincoln's Dreams by Connie Willis for that Civil War feel

[carneggy.livejournal.com]

Bonus question: Them good ol' boys what was listenin' to CDB in the 70's and REO in the 90's are listenin' to ________ today.

Now that nobody's making Southern Rock anymore, they're listening to the country/pop crossover stuff (if you're a chick, or just with one) or classic-rock stations playing a steady diet of CBD, Skynyrd, and the other bands they listened to in the 70's (and in the 90's, they were listening to the Black Crowes, not REO which certainly ain't southern rock and certainly ain't 90's either.)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Oops, for "90's" read "80's". And REO is too Southern rock! I have this on the authority of a (former?) Southerner, princeofcairo, who once said, "I didn't think you could hear them in the North. I thought if a station tried to play an REO song north of the Mason/Dixon, all you would hear on the radio would be static."

I wasn't sure what to put for "90's", but I suspected it might be the Black Crowes. I shall revise the question accordingly.

[febrile.livejournal.com]

Good call on the Black Crowes for the 90's, say I.

As for your fill-in-the-blank, I would say that (as far as I know, anyway, and I'm not a reliable source on modern pop) there's a dearth of Country Fried Rock these days. Maybe they're all travelling backwards, then, and listening to Stephen Foster...? Oh, hard times, come again no more!

[carneggy.livejournal.com]

Speaking as another former Southerner, he's smoking crack. REO Speedwagon was from Champaign. They were certainly a big 70's rock band - but along the lines of Chicago, Foreigner, Styx, Journey, etc. While they're certainly a rock band that got played in the South, they're not at all a _Southern Rock_ band that a good ol' boy would play on his truck in the 70's, unless he happened to be picking up a top-40 station. Trust me, REO is definitely no Little Feat or Molly Hatchet!

[princeofcairo.livejournal.com]

It wasn't REO at all. It was .38 Special of whom I said those immortal, if poorly cited, words.

[carneggy.livejournal.com]

No arguing .38 Special, nossireebob.

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Wow, I'd have guessed Creed. But Kid Rock seems like a good bet.

So where in the Tidewater will you be?

You could try a little (very light) revisionist history and pick up The Guns of the South, by Harry Turtledove, in which my esteemed ancester Nunca Bob E. Lee wins!

[prilicla.livejournal.com]

monshu isn't coming (there isn't enough money in all of the Commonwealth)

Hey, this would be a great argument for gay marriage to use with people who hate gays. "Every time your wife's gigantic, annoying family decides to get together, you have to go. Why should he get out of it just because he's gay?"

Of course, if people took this argument too seriously, you might end up with mandatory gay marriage, but nothing's perfect.

[my-tallest.livejournal.com]

I'll be in Virgina Beach come the end of July for the annual Big Brickman Beach Bash. My sister is bringing her new girlfriend to meet Mom. Just so you know that the Commonwealth is still going to be a hotbed of gay intrigue.

If you really want to get into reading history of the area, don't go for the Civil War books; about the only interesting thing that happened in the Tidewater was the Monitor vs. Virginia "Battle of Hampton Roads". (I still can't believe they called the new 664 tunnel the "Monitor-Merrimac" Tunnel. Next they'll be renaming the statues in every downtown "To Our Union Dead"). Virginia might have been the capital of the South, but the interesting battles happened far up 64 from Tidewater. Growing up there with a Civil war fanatic of a Dad, I learned exactly how far away much of the battles were when we spend long boring weekends on car trips to empty fields.

There are some good colonial histories, and folks, 2007 and the big anniversary of Jamestown is just around the corner. Thanks to the old U of C History of Western Civ books, I like my history written primarily with selections of primary texts, so I loved Captain John Smith: A Select Edition of His Writings editted by Karen Kupperman. It's still history, however. Still, it's a good enough primary source and commentary to make up for all those lies your teacher told you.

[my-tallest.livejournal.com]

When we had to sing the state song in elementary school it was "There's whar me old darkey's heart am long'd to go"; the whole song was in the first person. As late as the 1980's, and they still had twenty white school children singing "There's where I labor'd so hard for ol' Massa" with no irony awareness on the part of anyone except my northern-transplant parents.

Not the state song, anymore, however. Funny, though, I still love the melody, even if slightly ill about also knowing all the words.

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Given that I am (a) named for the Old Domionion and (b) my parents still call me "Ginny" (woe betide anyone else who chooses to do so), you can imagine how many times I've been serenaded with that song.

[mollpeartree.livejournal.com]

The only Civil War book I've ever been tempted by is Mary Chesnut's diary (the edition I have is Mary Chesnut's Civil War), but she was a South Carolinan, and I haven't actually read it yet.

Rifling through my Norton Anthology of American Literature, I find the first entry is excerpts from The General History of Virginia by John Smith (1580-1631). From the editors:

By the time John Smith was nineteen years old he had left his father's Lincolnshire farm and the life of a shopkeeper's apprentice behind him for the high seas and a life of adventure. From 1601 to 1605 he served as a mercenary and fought the Turks in the Balkans, and it was there that he was captured and sold into slavery. He escaped by murdering his owner and fled to safety in Poland, where Prince Sigismund Bathori signed documents testifying to Smith's heroism and helped him to return to England by way of Germany, France, Spain, and Morocco. After his return to London he seems to have had no further interest in Europe and turned all his attention instead to a new obsession: America.

Smith was on the first ship sent to the New World by the London Trading Company in 1606, which landed at Virginia; the excerpts included in the anthology include his account of the journey and the experiences of this batch of colonists.

Dude, pick me up a complete copy of the History when you get there! I didn't even realize that was in there; we skipped it in the American Literature course I took. I actually picked the Norton up to look up another cite, The Captivity Diary of Mary Rowlandson, the account of a Massachusetts colonist who was taken prisoner during King Phillip's War.

Whoopsy

[mollpeartree.livejournal.com]

Forgot to check the princeofcairo's holdings before posting. We have an edition called John Smith's America which contains yet more excerpts from the History.

[cruiser.livejournal.com]

A little late for your excursion, but you don't need a technicality to slip in some pirate reading. See http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/blackbea.cfm for plenty of Virginia-related piracy.

[cruiser.livejournal.com]

A little late for your excursion, but you don't need a technicality to slip in some pirate reading. See http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/blackbea.cfm for plenty of Virginia-related piracy.

[cruiser.livejournal.com]

A little late for your excursion, but you don't need a technicality to slip in some pirate reading. See http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/blackbea.cfm for plenty of Virginia-related piracy.

[cruiser.livejournal.com]

A little late for your excursion, but you don't need a technicality to slip in some pirate reading. See http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/blackbea.cfm for plenty of Virginia-related piracy.

[cruiser.livejournal.com]

A little late for your excursion, but you don't need a technicality to slip in some pirate reading. See http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/blackbea.cfm for plenty of Virginia-related piracy.