"magnolia in exile" may be the funniest thing I've ever thought. ever.
We're watching King of the Hill, the third episode out of eight showing tonight on FX's "King-sized Friday," which I'm totally devoted to. Except that this happens to be my least favorite episode (the one where Bobby gets a ventriloquist dummy and inadvertently freaks out Dale...and me...because it's just a creepy-looking doll).
I finished Persepolis (by Marjane Satrapi) Wednesday night. Yestday at work I told Anna that I'd read it (she was the reason I wanted it anyway, because she said it was so good) and she said she had just started reading Persepolis 2 on Wednesday. She finished it on her break, brought it to work for me to borrow, and I read the whole thing last night. I read super-crazy-slow, but graphic novels go pretty fast. Even so, I was still pretty surprised to finish two books in a week. I literally could not stop reading them.
That Sarah Vowell book I've been reading keeps, sort of, getting less and less enjoyable. It's weird. I mean, sometimes I really like it. And I just like her style, in general. But the last story I read, about her and her sister traveling down the Trail of Tears to better understand the history of their people, just didn't sit well with me. The idea is great...but she just didn't carry it out very well. There's this one part where she's at a historical landmark near the Tennessee Aquarium and she starts getting angry because the happy kids going to see the pretty fish aren't being told about the landmark by their teacher. And while I do, to a certain degree, see her point, there's something about the way she wrote it that makes it sound like the kids should be made to feel guilty for something that happened before their grandparents were even born. She compares the Trail of Tears to the Holocaust on more than one occasion, which I think is relatively acurate...but I wonder if she begrudges little German kids and wants them to go around feeling guilty on every school fieldtrip they get to take. She even goes to the Hermitage and confronts some poor tour guide. (Andrew Jackson was largely responsible for the Trail of Tears.)
This all makes some sort of sense. I know that. But it's her attitude. Too willing to blame people who really aren't related to the issues.
Later she talks about Pea Ridge National Military Park in Arkansas, a battleground where about 800 Cherokee soldiers fought for the Confederacy. Sarah Vowell has this to say:
I'm making myself sick trying to reconcile the fact that oppressed Indians could live with owning slaves, to die for slavery's cause.
We all know, without question, that slavery is, was, and will always be, horrible. But to act as though that's the only thing the Civil War was about...well...that's just ignorant.
I'm sick of feeling like I'm supposed to be ashamed because I'm Southern. I'm not. At all. Nor am I going to defend the Confederacy. It's just that...I don't deal in absolutes.
I remember going to Shiloh as a kid. Actually, all I remember was part of the film we watched in the visitor center...the nearby creek turned red with blood. The water ran red. That's straight out of Exodus. A plague on Egypt! 150 miles from Nashville! I was terrified.
In my annoyance, I was suddenly filled with the desire to read about the history of the South. To sort of know the truth in a very symbolic, but real way. I would write a book about it. Me living in California, finding my way home metaphorically. Here are some possible titles (mainly, I'm joking):
The Battle of Burbank
A Year Without Rain (Except for a Couple Weeks in December)
Magnolia in Exile
I finished Persepolis (by Marjane Satrapi) Wednesday night. Yestday at work I told Anna that I'd read it (she was the reason I wanted it anyway, because she said it was so good) and she said she had just started reading Persepolis 2 on Wednesday. She finished it on her break, brought it to work for me to borrow, and I read the whole thing last night. I read super-crazy-slow, but graphic novels go pretty fast. Even so, I was still pretty surprised to finish two books in a week. I literally could not stop reading them.
That Sarah Vowell book I've been reading keeps, sort of, getting less and less enjoyable. It's weird. I mean, sometimes I really like it. And I just like her style, in general. But the last story I read, about her and her sister traveling down the Trail of Tears to better understand the history of their people, just didn't sit well with me. The idea is great...but she just didn't carry it out very well. There's this one part where she's at a historical landmark near the Tennessee Aquarium and she starts getting angry because the happy kids going to see the pretty fish aren't being told about the landmark by their teacher. And while I do, to a certain degree, see her point, there's something about the way she wrote it that makes it sound like the kids should be made to feel guilty for something that happened before their grandparents were even born. She compares the Trail of Tears to the Holocaust on more than one occasion, which I think is relatively acurate...but I wonder if she begrudges little German kids and wants them to go around feeling guilty on every school fieldtrip they get to take. She even goes to the Hermitage and confronts some poor tour guide. (Andrew Jackson was largely responsible for the Trail of Tears.)
This all makes some sort of sense. I know that. But it's her attitude. Too willing to blame people who really aren't related to the issues.
Later she talks about Pea Ridge National Military Park in Arkansas, a battleground where about 800 Cherokee soldiers fought for the Confederacy. Sarah Vowell has this to say:
I'm making myself sick trying to reconcile the fact that oppressed Indians could live with owning slaves, to die for slavery's cause.
We all know, without question, that slavery is, was, and will always be, horrible. But to act as though that's the only thing the Civil War was about...well...that's just ignorant.
I'm sick of feeling like I'm supposed to be ashamed because I'm Southern. I'm not. At all. Nor am I going to defend the Confederacy. It's just that...I don't deal in absolutes.
I remember going to Shiloh as a kid. Actually, all I remember was part of the film we watched in the visitor center...the nearby creek turned red with blood. The water ran red. That's straight out of Exodus. A plague on Egypt! 150 miles from Nashville! I was terrified.
In my annoyance, I was suddenly filled with the desire to read about the history of the South. To sort of know the truth in a very symbolic, but real way. I would write a book about it. Me living in California, finding my way home metaphorically. Here are some possible titles (mainly, I'm joking):
The Battle of Burbank
A Year Without Rain (Except for a Couple Weeks in December)
Magnolia in Exile
Labels: books., childhood., tennessee., tv.
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