FREE U.S. SHIPPING ON $65+ ORDERS.

FREE U.S. SHIPPING ON $65+ ORDERS.

Search

This section doesn’t currently include any content. Add content to this section using the sidebar.

Image caption appears here

Add your deal, information or promotional text

Read

Stories about Modern Appalachian Life

ART+LIT
[caption id="attachment_2200" align="alignleft" width="327"] Mountain Calm by Scott Hotaling, 2008 Finalist, BRP Vistas, Courtesy ASU Outdoor Program[/caption]
Listen up, shutterbugs. The 8th Annual Appalachian Mountain Photography Competition is on. It's for professional and amateurs alike. With $4,000 in cash and prizes, there's plenty of reason to get out that old rangefinder and show your stuff.
Whether your favorite shot is a a white water kayaker going under or a single flower standing tall, the competition has a category to fit.
In addition to mainstays like "Adventure" and "Flora and Fauna," this year boasts a special grouping called The Parkway Tree Project. It "seeks to bring greater public awareness to the rich natural resources of the region and to document significant trees that contribute to the character, environment, and/or aesthetic of the Blue Ridge Parkway." Seems like a fitting tribute during The Parkway's 75th year.
Whether you submit or not, take a look at these winners from prior years. I'm partial to the first one--the tree bailer photo; it's got a little grit, a little haze, and I've always wanted to operate one of those.
Have a favorite?
If so, post a comment. Let us know!
[gallery]
read more
ART+LIT
Watch the trailer for Mutzmag: An Appalachian Folktale and let me know if we made the same mistake. I clicked play and thought, "It's a family film, set deep in the Appalachians, and it faithfully recreates mountain life around the 1920s or 30s? Oh, it's kind of like The Waltons."
I always liked The Waltons. The stories were solid and hopeful; the sets and costumes were true to their time and place; and the characters were believable archetypes from our region--the hardworking father, the crotchety granny, mischievous but goodhearted children. Each week, their drama revealed something pure about country life and optimistic about humankind.
With John Boy in mind, I leaned back, propped my laptop on my belly, and began to watch the full version of Mutzmag. The film opens with stark poverty. An ill woman is tending her garden, which is not filled with bounty but instead just a few square feet of cabbage. She is next to her room-sized shack. Inside, the walls are decorated with newsprint and her daughters sit amongst their few belongings.
From the window, the youngest--Mutzmag--sees her mother collapse. The scene cuts to the shack's single bed, where the mother says, "I hurt so bad. Lorda'mercy girls, I believe I'm a dying." And that she does. The girls burry her between her two dead husbands up the hill.
"This is off to a grim start," I thought as winter sets in and the three girls begin to starve. They head out, on foot, to find a better life. At nightfall, they knock on the door of a cabin to ask for food and lodging. I've read ""Hansel and Gretel." I knew that this would go badly, but I couldn't have imagined how badly.
I won't spoil it for you, but let's just say that the director, Tom Davenport, dances on the line between family fare and a true horror flick. Think of all the dreadful things that could happen with a witch and giant in the woods. A movie from Pixar or Disney might allude to them, but they let your imagination fill the gaps, right?
Not Davenport. Cannibalism, squirrel carcasses, and a grisly scene with a dog in a tote and a very big stick--they're on the screen, and it's scary. I cringed. My belly churned. I even closed my eyes once, thinking "Lord, if Elizabeth Walton saw this, she'd wet herself."
That's probably true. Mutzmag isn't right for the little ones, but if you have kids over age twelve, this is your chance to give them a good scare and maybe promote some family bonding. After this spine chiller, you won't be calling out "goodnight" from the next room like one famous mountain family. Your whole brood will be huddled right there in bed beside you.
[youtube]N_zbhij0BfI[/youtube]
read more
ART+LIT

This week, The Revivalist gets biblical. I discovered an unusual story that sets the arrival of Armageddon in our mountain range. Written by Sheryl Monk and published in the online journal storySouth, it is called "Monsters in Appalachia."
[caption id="attachment_2107" align="alignright" width="300"] 11th century depiction of beast with seven heads[/caption]
The story gives voice to a mountain lady who is uneasy about her man hunting strange beasts. They've appeared in the woods. In spite of tentacles and horns, the creatures are easy prey. The man delights in them at mealtime and soon begins to breed them for a sideshow, unknowingly positioning the couple to be Adam and Eve for the end of days.



It's a haunting tale, no doubt. Do you like it? What does it say about the Appalachians? Does it align with the Biblical prophecy? Is that even the point? I'm excited to hear what you all think.


*


Monsters in Appalachia
by Cheryl Monk
She hears the dogs coming round now, bugling louder as they draw near, bawling out in unbridled rapture. Their aching bliss, laid plain, bleeds into her like a hemorrhage, and she can hear it, now, too, she thinks, calling them through the woods. Its song the furtive cry of a panther, a wailing baby. The dogs call out again, and somewhere in the quiet depths, he moans with delight as well.
Outside, it is dark as that which plagued Egypt. How the dogs manage in such blackness, she can’t say, but they have a scent on their noses and that’s how they go, she knows. Still, there are trees and all manner of things to watch out for in the night woods, though she guesses they can scent trees as well as beasts. Anse’s Plotts are of an olden breed, the keenest ever was. They can scent things never heard tell of. Trees? Why they must be simple, she guesses. She herself can scent trees, pine rosin and fruiting pawdads, though not at a full tear through the dark.
She wishes it was light out, a whitish day with the dogs scaring up quail from the hawthorn and hedge apples. Retrieving game, not stalking it. She doesn’t like the ropes of slobber that hang from their mouths after a chase such as this. Doesn’t trust how they pull against their leads so hard and lust for a thing. She can hear it there now in their voices, ringing round the woods. They’ve treed something or hemmed something in. It is over now. They’ll be home in a spell.
She goes to the stove, runs the grate back and forth, shovels out the ash, adds coal, and waits till the fire is built up good again. He’ll be froze solid when he comes back. She brings clean coveralls into the canning porch, pulls on her coat, grabs the washtubs, and goes to light a fire in the yard. She is late, and here come the headlights of the truck, dogs still baying for every ounce of life they’re worth, Anse’s old Dodge winding out hard to drag the heavy load up the steep drive.
She drops the washtubs under the hemlock and sets a match to the kindling. Anse ties the dogs and goes back to unload his catch. She comes round after him to help.
At first, she thinks it’s a bear. But it is not a bear, she knows. Too big. Unless it is a Kodiak, and she’s never heard tell of Kodiak round here. Her heart mashes chamber against chamber. “Another?” she asks.
“All that’s running,” he replies.
“Th’ey God in heaven,” she says. “Monsters. It’s the end-times.”
“Nevertheless.”
She hungers for something soft, the sweet, tender things of before. Now it is all hard hide and claw and horns and scales and beaks and necks and parts unheard of.
CONTINUE READING
read more
ART+LIT

It sounds like the storyline from a Mickey Rooney flick. A bunch of youngsters get together. They decide to turn a small town on its ear by throwing a play in a barn and end up performing under the bright lights of New York City. Except this time the story is in color...and it's true.


Beginning this weekend, the Endstation Theatre Company converts a old dairy barn at Sweet Briar College into the stage for "Hamlet." Artistic director and co-founder for the Amherst, Virginia based troop, Geoffrey Kershner, told The Washington Post, "It's about the space. I'm interested in found space and developing a show in and around it."
This is the third such production on the campus where Kershner was raised as a theater professor's son. He knows every nook and cranny, and incorporates the best of them into his plays. A building with balconies lent authenticity to a legendary scene from "Romeo and Juliet." Fireflies brought a dash of natural magic to "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
With "Hamlet," Kershner is using the barn in a similar way. Polonius will die with a smear of blood on the barn window, and the play is set in Civil War era Virginia. The Danish prince may seem a little less Danish, going off to Richmond rather than France, but Kershner feels that Shakespeare's classic has a universal message. "[It] echoes so much war imagery," Kershner says. "I was really intrigued by that."
You can see the result's first hand beginning this Saturday night. "Hamlet" launches with a Light Up the Barn event, complete with a barbecue dinner and live music. Tickets are a bargain at $10.
As if that weren't "Mickey Rooney" enough, Endstation's resident playwright, Joshua Miikel, is actually headed to New York City. He has been invited to debut his newest play, Good Good Trouble on Bad Bad Island,at the 2010 New York International Fringe Festival - the largest multi-arts festival in North America.
I'm telling you, watch these youngsters from Amherst. They really are turning the town on its ear.
read more
ART+LIT
The blog Appalachian History just posted a simple, sweet poem that I thought you all might appreciate. It is entitled "My Great Aunt Arizona." It was written by Gloria Houston, a teacher, about her great aunt, who was also a teacher. It begins like this:
Great-Aunt-Arizona-2My great-aunt Arizona
was born in a log cabin
her papa built
in the meadow
on Henson Creek
in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
When she was born,
the mailman rode
across the bridge
on his big bay horse
with a letter.
The letter was from her brother,
Galen, who was in the cavalry,
far away in the West.
The letter said,
“If the baby is a girl,
please name her Arizona,
and she will be beautiful,
like this land.”
To read the full version, click through, or even better, pick up a copy of it. The poem was published as a children's book with lovely illustrations by HarperColins in 1991.
read more
ART+LIT

Shelby Lee Adams invited me to a party. It's this June in the backwoods of Kentucky, and it will celebrate his recent Guggenheim Fellowship. Mind you, I've never met the man. At this point, we had exchanged exactly one email each, and his contained this invite:

"A thought, I'm having a party in Leatherwood, Ky...If you're interested, you could attend. You could interview friends and subjects."

This is remarkable and not just because Adams' is a renowned photographer. (His work has been exhibited in scores of museums and is included in the world's best permanent collections.) I'm struck by the invite because he has been criticized by bloggers, reporters, and art critics--people like me.

For 36 years, Adams has followed a single, close knit mountain clan. The resulting images are arresting and, I've noticed, decidedly inclusive. He shows everyone from these Eastern Kentucky hollers--bare chested young men; pregnant girls; old folks with faces so creased they look like they're made from dried apples; snake handlers; mourners; dead people; children who are disabled or dirty, some in diapers, some dressed in their Sunday best.

 

 

Sherman with Hog's Head, 92

They're all here, and they're all staged. Adams' work is more portraiture than documentary. He composes his shots. He uses special lighting and props. It's not unusual to see beautifully lit hog parts or a living room papered with newsprint. The images are self-consciously raw. That's one reason they've taken so much heat.

Vicki Goldberg, a critic for The New York Times seems to both admire and critique Adams' work. She wrote the introduction to his 2003 collection, entitled "Appalachian Lives," but has also referred to his photographs as historical recreations, not contemporary depictions of mountain life. Others have said that they're romantic or manufactured. Bill Gorman, the Mayor of Hazard, Kentucky, went so far to say, “I don’t think this is average… I think it’s the kind of thing that sells.”

In my second email, I told Adams how grateful I was for the party invite, that I need to see if I can make it fit with work and family life, and I asked how he responds to this criticism. He explained that composing the shots actually creates an opportunity to collaborate with his subjects. He shows them Polaroids before any final photos are taken. "My work is collaborative because my subjects respond to the Polaroid’s and change or contribute to the compositions their ideas, locations and feelings," he said. "I think it’s a more honest exchange with no surprises."

There are other critics who reach beyond Adams and point at the subjects themselves. A. D. Coleman, a noted art critic, has said that Adams' pictures "call for a very sophisticated kind of reading. And I’m not sure that these people have the education, the visual educational background, to understand how these pictures read.”

Personally, I find this belittlement of mountain people infuriating. I think that the only ignorance it exposes is Coleman's, but Adams responded cooly with quotes from his subjects and fans:

"We know whether or not you're lookin' at us as some poverty stricken little poor feller. We know. I see a culture that's dying in your pictures. I see a way of life that's dying that may no longer exist. It's important what you do." -- Hobert White, photography subject

"Seeing that world through your eyes gave me something I never fully grasped before, and I'm not even sure if I can explain it to you. It gives me a kind of pride in the hardships we all survived. Pride in the goodness of those people -- my people." -- Sarah, an Appalachian native who now lives in Mississippi

Peggy & Albert, '99

Sarah's quote, in particular, struck me. I'm from Appalachia too, and I feel pride in mountain life. It's there in spite of the hardship, maybe even because of it. If I hadn't grown up huddled around a kerosene heater or drinking God awful, government-issued powdered milk, a piece of me would be missing. I wouldn't be a member of this clan.

This is where insiders, Appalachian natives, might look at these photos differently. Other folks see desperation and poverty; some even call Adams' photos "creepy." Many of us from the mountains see beauty and honor.

Sure, life there is hard. A dry ceiling and a full belly are never a given, but some things are. The sun is going to rise up over the ridge in the morning and burn off the fog. You can always walk through the woods with your grandkids and show them deer tracks. When you need them, kith and kin are a stone's throw away, ready to lend a hand, an ear, $5 for cigarettes, or an extra hamburger when they can afford to go out and splurge.

A. D. Coleman suggests that we aren't looking at these pictures right, but I can't help but think that there's another dynamic here. Maybe we know enough about mountain people to appreciate the full depth of Adams' work. Mixed with the obvious pain, we see people's pride, their love and the indescribable freedom that exists in their peculiar mountain lives. We can read these images because we, unlike Coleman, are part of the same clan. We are invited to the party.

View more of Adams' work.

read more
ART+LIT
What would you do if a specter started bustin' up your moonshine? Chase him with your musket and blow your hillside shack apart, of course!

Fashioned after Loony Tunes cartoons, County Ghostis a four part series of shorts. It opens with the above clip set on a ramshackle cattle farm. While this isn't definitively Appalachia, Mike Geiger, the series animator, explained to me that it could be:
- Where does your moonshiner live? Have a state or area in mind?
He lives in the town 20 miles south from wherever you are viewing the shorts from. If that place happens to be Miami...I guess he lives in Cuba.
- What was the inspiration?
I've been making kids cartoon for the past ten years. It's been really fun and rewarding, but definitely felt it was the time in my career that I wanted to showcase my own ideas. The inspiration for County Ghost was to simply create an animated show that I could have fun with. Ghosts, Moonshine, and Muskets seemed to be a winning combination of ideas to do so with.
- Are more episodes on the way?

There are a few ideas floating around for more, but for the time being the first four episodes make up the complete set. I have started working on a new series entitled "The Smile and Penny Show" which I'm hoping will allow me take what I've learned from the "County Ghost" series and push it even further.

- Has this series been featured anywhere or received any recognitions?
The first 4 episodes of the show have been picked up by MondoMedia ( a larger web content distributor ), so I'm hopeful it will soon be airing on their channel and pick up some additional interest and viewership.
If not, and the show does a quick crash and burn...it was still a blast to make.
read more
ART+LIT
Unleash you inner bookworm with this interactive Literary Map of North Carolina. Right off, I browsed the mountain section, and discovered that O. Henry's real name wasn't Oliver Henry; both were just pseudonyms. He was actually born William Sydney Porter in Greensboro, which coincidentally is where I went to college. See, following the lives of literary figures can be fun!
Okay, this is total geekery, and the map could be improved with full profiles of the authors. (Hear that UNCG, we want affairs, addictions, personal foibles, and suicides!) Anyone who has a penchant for Appalachian lit, though, should find this a user friendly tool.
read more
ART+LIT
Everyone has a dream job. For most people, it involves paparazzi flashes, fantastic wealth, or maybe gunplay. Not for my friend Nora and me. Five days a week, we share an extra-large cube that we affectionately call the doublewide. In it, we toss out Southernisms (a new favorite -- madder than a bobcat caught in a piss fire) and stream twangy tunes on Bluegrass Country. It's a hoot as cubes go, but we'd rather be fighting forest fires from horseback.
[caption id="attachment_542" align="alignleft" width="199"] For 23 years, Bytner worked on the Blue Ridge Parkway.[/caption]
Park ranger -- that's our dream job. Whenever Nora and I are ready to buck the man, we plot our escape to the National Park Service where we will dawn wide brimmed hats, nurse baby possums to health, and hook-up sewer hoses on elderly tourists' RVs.
If we've learned nothing else from the new book "A Park Rangers Life: Thirty-two Years Protecting Our National Parks," the job isn't all glamour. Author and retired ranger, Bruce W. Bytnar recently told the Staunton News Leader that "Park rangers are responsible for everything that happens in a national park."
That includes the mundane -- answering inane questions, shoveling poop from escaped cows, and monitoring dogs for leashes -- but also the bizarre:
"I remember one incident when a ranger was conducting an evening campfire program showing slides to an audience of over one hundred visitors. Suddenly they were interrupted by a man covered with blood, who ran in front of the group, lighted by the projector, screaming for help. Most people initially thought it was part of the program. When the ranger followed the man out to his vehicle, she found a second man who had been shot."
Nora and I aren't deterred. If you work with us, don't look in the doublewide the next time we miss an all-staff meeting. We'll be in the Great Smoky Mountains scouting injured bears or maybe shoveling a composting toilet. Either way, we're we'll be wearing the hats.
read more
ART+LIT
[caption id="attachment_1612" align="alignleft" width="62"] Frank X Walker[/caption]
In Kentucky, they've coined the term Affrilachian. It originated with Frank “X” Walker, a local poet who looked at Appalachian culture and saw African Americans under-represented. Other artists have rallied around him, forming a collective of sorts.
Sometimes their work is contemporary, as illustrated by Crystal Good's recital of the poem "Dem Boyz" in the clip below. Sometimes it is nostalgic, as in Walker's poem, "Canning Memories," which recalls...
Grandmothers who still clicked
their tongues, who called up the sound
of a tractor at daybreak
the perfume of fresh turned earth
and the secret location of the best
blackberry patch
like they were remembering
old lovers
These artists recognize something special about the black experience in our region, but what is it? What makes being black in Appalachia different from being black in say, Atlanta, St. Louis or Denver?
Tell me what you think. Add a comment below.
 
 
[youtube]uttN_gyrMuE[/youtube]
read more
ART+LIT
[caption id="attachment_7611" align="alignleft" width="180"]Photo Credit: G. P. Cooper Photo Credit: G. P. Cooper[/caption]
Kentuckians beware! The Terrible Crickenburger Twins of Cabell County and the Disturbing Goat Man of Milton have sprung to life. Pinckney Benedict, author of the classic short story collection Town Smokes and co-founder of Tinker Mountain Writers' Workshop, has birthed something new and wonderfully strange about your state.
Kentucky Samuraiis a graphic novel, the first few pages of which are featured in the latest edition of Appalachian Heritage.
It seems to center around one Cumberland Samurai, a young discontent who tears down I-64 in his 1967 Shelby Cobra GT500 and who has apparently beheaded a chieftain at the legendary battle at Kingdom Come State Park.
It is a gory, nonsensical, cultural mismatch, a fantastic slice of revisionist history that so far, doesn't make a lick of sense. I love it!
Sadly, I don't know where to find the rest. According to George Brosi, Editor of Appalachian Heritage, it may not yet have a publisher. If you catch sight of the full graphic novel, by all means drop a line.
read more
ART+LIT
The folks at Appalshop are getting high falutin in February. To celebrate 40 years of Appalachian film, they're packing up their reels and heading to New York City. The Kentucky based film and culture center will have a three day showcase, February 19-21, at MoMA's Documentary Fortnight 2010.
On the bill are The Ralph Stanley story (always a crowd pleaser) and Stranger with a Camera, a documentary that follows the 1967 murder of Canadian filmmaker Hugh O'Conner. While shooting footage of coal miners at a rental house in Jeremiah, Kentucky, O'Conner was shot by the property's owner. I've not seen the full documentary but wonder if it will leave New York audiences second guessing their mountain vacation plans.
Whatever the case, Appalachian expats in NYC should swing by. Don't forget your bibs and fiddle.
read more