[lbo-talk] Wish I Was In Dixie (Re: The North's burden of enlightening the South (was Re: The "NAFTA Superhighway" Urban Myth)

[andie nachgeborenen]

I grew up down South, and while if I never cross the
Mason-Dixon line again it will be too soon (I may make
an exception for New Orleans), I am more than aware of
Dixie's contributions to US culture. Insofar as the US
has a native artistic culture that isn't Jewish, it is
largely Southern. Never mind Janis Joplin, listen to
the people she listened too. The blues, Big Mama
Thornton (Joplin's most direct inpiration), bluegrass,
old-timy, and country music, rock n roll (Elvis, Jerry
Lee Lewis, Roy Obison, and Carl Perkins were all
Memphis products of Sun Records), jazz (originally
N.O. whorehouse, gambling house and riverboat music,
and most of the great jazz musicians were rural
southerners even if they made their names on 52nd
St.), much of soul music (Stax records, also Memphis),
literature -- yes, we kin read n rite down in Dixie,
if not as good as yew -- Mark Twain! William Faulkner!
James Agee! Flannery O'Connor! Who, when asked why
Southern writers whote about the groteseque, said, "At
least we know it when we see it."

At the same down, Dixie's full of deep fried shit,
iggerant redneck stupidity, pompous phony aristo GWTW
pretension, no-brow militaristic reaction, puffed up
pseudo-patriotism, fascistic Taliban-style
fundamentalism, and racist bigotry.  Not to mention
Nashville-style "country music" that celebrates all
that crap. So Dixie deserves every bit of dishing that
it gets. The main problem with it is that Sherman (the
first president of LSU -- really!) didn't do a
thorough enough job. He stated at one point that
nothing was going to improve down there if they didn't
shoot the entire white southern aristocracy. It's
definitely a thought.

--- Carl Remick <carlremick at gmail.com> wrote:


> On Nov 18, 2007 12:18 PM, joanna
> <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
> > B. wrote:
> >
> > >There's a constant theme on this list of taking a
> dump
> > >on the south ...where I've lived all save for two
> years
> > >of my life. I like to bitch about the culture as
> much
> > >as anyone else, but sometimes it gets a bit much
> here.
> > >For all its flaws, of which there are many, the
> US
> > >south did give the world (for example) rock 'n
> roll.
> >
> > Yes. Janis Joplin. Texas born.
> >
> > Joanna
> 
> Yep, Joplin was Texas-born for sure.  And as I
> recall, she hated the
> place.  She once said, "I got treated very badly in
> Texas. They don't
> treat beatniks too good in Texas. Port Arthur people
> thought I was a
> beatnik, though they'd never seen one and neither
> had I."
> 
> Carl
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> 

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