Goodbye, Porter: Nostalgia for the C/W Days

Mr. Sequins himself died today at age 80, after an extended illness. Besides giving Dolly Parton her start (anyone else remember the Boxes of Breeze spots?), Porter shared his stage with James Brown and also produced soul albums. When chided by some of his country music cohorts, he said that he saw nothing wrong with this, that music was colorblind, and also that country music and soul music had "a lot in common." Go, Porter!

I also remember as punishment for fighting, my mom forcing my sister and me to hold hands and sit through an entire episode of the "PW show." Those wagonwheel boots would sound out stiletto toward the stage--then that pompadour hair would wave, that lanky frame would lean forward to sing, and that rhinestone suit would glitter like rainbows under the studio spotlights...Gosh, I am getting old.

New Madrid Faultline

I've been hard at work on a magazine interview, charming a drawing out of Harvey, teaching, reading, and trying to write something. Is it typical for writing to suck as you approach your thesis semester? I'm too worried about my introduction...

I'm going to have another local reading, and this is the biography written for me: Too smarmy? The picture looks like a glamor shot, and in real life I am about as glamorous as lichen.

Pamela Johnson Parker is a Certified Medical Language Specialist and adjunct professor in creative writing at Murray State University. She will receive her MFA degree in poetry this summer from Murray State University, where she's studied with poets Daniel Anderson, Philip Stephens, Brian Barker, Ann Neelon, and Nicky Beer and fiction writers Dale Ray Phillips and Leah Stewart. She is a member of Formalista: Women Who Write in Form, and after 300 straight rejections, her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Six Sentences and the Chicago Cicada Anthology, as well as on NPR.

Just like Donna Summer....

My students and I are On The Radio! Turn in to hear my beginning students read some goldfish poems. I am so proud of them and honored to be part of their class. We're doing several updates on the local NPR station.

Also, I am tentatively scheduled to be part of a reading at Southern Illinois University during the spring. If you're anywhere near, please come.

Starring--Homer Simpson!

On this date, one of my favorite writers was born. I wanted to write my masters thesis on his work, but was dissuaded from doing so by my faculty committee. I still think it's wonderful, wonderful prose.

If you can find a flaw in Miss Lonelyhearts, let me know, as in 30 years I still think it is a supreme fictional work.

Environmental Action Day

To the Reader

As you read, a white bear leisurely
pees, dyeing the snow
saffron,

and as you read, many gods
lie among lianas: eyes of obsidian
are watching the generations of leaves,

and as you read
the sea is turning its dark pages,
turning
its dark pages.

-- Denise Levertov

How long till the reader encounters this poem and has no idea of polar bear, rainforest, ocean with coral reefs and undisrupted currents?

Global warming is real. Let's do something about it. I'm donating my salary today--won't you join me?

Tying the Not, or "Tie a Not in It"

Only in the South!

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (AP) -- An error in a new law that allows Arkansans of any age -- even toddlers -- to marry with parental consent must be fixed by lawmakers, not an independent commission authorized to correct typos, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Arkansas lawmakers accidentally put an extra "not" in a law about who can get married.

The law, which took effect July 31, was intended to establish 18 as the minimum age to marry, while also allowing pregnant minors to marry with parental consent.

An extraneous "not" in the bill, however, allows anyone who is not pregnant to marry at any age if the parents allow it.

Gov. Mike Beebe declined to call lawmakers into special session to clear up the error, saying there was no imminent crisis. Instead, he said the Arkansas Code Revision Commission, which is authorized to correct typos and technical errors, could make the change, which it did.

A woman who gave her 17-year-old daughter permission to marry based on the old law, which set the minimum marriage age at 17 for boys and 16 for girls, sued in Benton County after officials there denied her a marriage license.

In a decision Wednesday, Circuit Judge Tom J. Keith ruled the commission overstepped its authority because its correction changed the meaning of the law. He said the marriage license should be issued.
______________

Tag--You're It

1. What is your favorite guilty pleasure?
There are so many...Flea markets, tag sales, yard sales...Something old, something new, something borrowed for a generation...

2. How do you take your coffee?
Black as my heart.

3. Who were you in a previous life?
A Tarot card. See above (and also below).

4. Who or what is your greatest influence?
My husband, my kids, and a stranger I met on an airplane. Truly.

5. What is the worst film you ever paid to see?
The Bell Jar.

6. What is the best thing you can buy for a dollar?
See #1. I don't rule anything out. The best buy I've ever made for a dollar was an Alphonse Mucha postcard, (for which I turned down $800).

7. What is the worst present you ever received?
A nearly-dead snake (from my cat Loco, who was extremely proud).

8. What is your favorite word(s)?
The three-syllable way my husband hollers Baby: Bayy-uh-bee. So cute. He grew up in southern California--this is his only southern word. (Speaking of bargains, who else but me could find a surfer-philosopher-artist in the wilds of Big Sandy, Tennessee? LOL).

Honorable mention goes to Montgomery Maxton's reminding me of Chicken McNougats.

Clouds of Controversy--Support Freedom of Expression

ACLU ‘Howls’ Against FCC Destroying the Best Poems of a Generation (10/3/2007)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 3, 2007
Contact: media@dcaclu.org

Washington, DC – On the 50th anniversary of a court ruling that deemed Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ not obscene, the American Civil Liberties Union lamented an ironic reversal of First Amendment rights. A New York public radio station chose not to air the poem in its news story commemorating the decision, fearful of massive FCC fines that would have effectively shut down the station. WBAI instead posted the poem online, out of the reach of the FCC.

‘Howl,’ which winds through the beat-era landscape of sex, drugs and madness, contains enough of the FCC’s banned words to crush the $4 million operating budget of Pacifica station WBAI . The fine for ‘Howl’ would have been $325,000 for each word. The FCC has ramped up its power to punish broadcasters that air expletives or indecency, regardless of the intention or cultural relevance.

The following can be attributed to ACLU Legislative Counsel Marv Johnson:

"It’s no longer accurate to say free speech has rolled back to the fifties – it’s worse now. A radio station cannot possibly celebrate the First Amendment by being forced to gag its announcers and point to a website. ‘Howl’ captured the essence of a society on the brink of explosion, and the ‘Howl’ obscenity decision marked a forward march toward greater free speech. If the FCC and our lawmakers want to repeat the repression of the 1950s, they should remember that even then the country was inching toward more freedom, not less."

For more information on a related ACLU First Amendment campaign visit:
www.aclu.org/bleep.

Surprising Results

Take this quiz yourself--are you and the candidate you support a perfect fit?
(PS As a yellow-dog Democrat, I think my score with any Republican candidate was no higher than 35%!)

	Dennis Kucinich Score: 65	Agree Iraq Immigration Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Social Security Line-Item Veto Energy Marriage Death Penalty	Disagree
-- Take the Quiz! --

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I was surprised to see where some of the candidates stood on issues such as gay marriage and the death penalty. This includes Edwards, Clinton, Obama...

Here's where I stand on some of the issues.

1. If you don't support the fact that people in love can marry legally, give up your own "automatic rights" of tax advantages (such as the marriage discount with the IRS), group health insurance, and inheritance. Don't take your rights for granted and don't deny them to others. My own church wouldn't marry Harvey and me because I was divorced (even though we are both Christians). This was against their "principles." No church has to change its views on whom it will and will not marry, although in my opinion and understanding of the Scriptures, many should.

2. I believe that capital punishment should have ended on Calvary. Thou shalt not kill means just that.

SUBMIT TO A MOVER AND A SHAKER

Submit to New Madrid Review, named after the New Madrid Fault (and the earthquake that created Reelfoot Lake in Kentucky/Tennessee). There's a special themed issue (Winter 2008) on Mexico in America. Submissions are online, and we'll respond very promptly. Join the ranks of James Galvin, Mark Levine, Mark Jarman, Leah Stewart, Holly Goddard Jones, Dale Ray Phillips, Christopher Buckley, Christopher Davis, Joe Ashby Porter, Pam Durban, T. M. McNally, and Diane Aprile--be published in New Madrid!