Favorite Ozarks Places – 11

Tags

favorite_places, Missouri, nature, Ozarks, parks, springs

Grand Gulf

This is a new place to me. I had always wanted to visit Grand Gulf, but its remote location had prevented me. Then on my way back from the Arkansas Literary Festival late last month, I realized that the highway would take me within six miles of this park.

Grand Gulf is a collapsed cave system, with what once had been the walls of the cave now forming the walls of a canyon about 130 feet deep. Trails wind along the top of the gulf, although for obvious  reasons there are no trails to the bottom. Any “trail” to the bottom would quickly become a “plummet” instead.

The water that flows through Grand Gulf shows up, one to four days later, at Mammoth Spring in Arkansas, nine miles away. The whole complex is a nifty illustration of karst topography in the Ozarks.

Out-of-Body Experience

Tags

books, Civil War, Columbia, creativity, education, Missouri, Slant of Light, writing

Over my career, I’ve taught thousands of students and used dozens of books in my classes. But it was a new experience for me to walk into a classroom and see all the students with my book! Dr. Anne Mack of the University of Missouri is using it in her English classes, and the students are discussing its literary themes as well as using it as a gateway to research about the Civil War, the Nineteenth Century, and other issues.

I found myself unable to answer many of the students’ questions. Why does Mattie Cunningham only have one arm? Why did Character X have to die in that chapter? I don’t know, it just felt right. I wasn’t trying to be evasive with them. It’s just that my creative process are very intuitive and instinctual, and I rarely have a logical reason for a lot of plot details other than “it felt right.” The story developments that have an analytical reason for being are often the weakest ones.

At the end of each class, I signed books for the students, and it was a particular pleasure to sign the ones that were heavily scribbled in, dog-eared, and festooned with sticky notes. There were a couple of suspiciously pristine copies, but oh well.

Damming the Osage

Tags

art, Bagnell Dam, books, history, Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri, nature, Osage, Ozarks, Paytons, photography, Truman Dam

I bought my copy of Damming the Osage almost as soon as I heard it was available, and I’ve been reading at it ever since. It’s not the sort of book that compels you to finish it in a single sitting. In fact, I almost feel that each of the chapters is better read in isolation, because it’s a big book that tries to manage a total picture of the Osage River valley, from prehistory to the present day, with a focus on the two massive dam projects (Bagnell and Truman) that have permanently altered the natural and human environment of that part of the Ozarks.

I learned an immense amount from this book. There are vignettes in it about unique geographical features that made me want immediately to jump in the car and drive to see. The history of the sordid financial machinations that led to the building of Bagnell Dam, and the political machinations that led to the building of Truman Dam, should serve as a cautionary tale for anyone who steps into the swirling waters of development politics. I will be pulling this book from my shelf to look up a fact or a photo for years to come.

That being said, I didn’t find it completely satisfying. It opts for more photos rather than fewer (both historical images and Payton’s own work), and as a result a lot of them are fairly small. I would have preferred larger editing of the photos for display at the cost of leaving out some of the redundant ones. Some of the photos take up a whole page, and the impact of those big ones is rewarding. I have the same complaint about the text. This is an ambitious book, and in its ambition sometimes feels as though it’s trying to cram in every last detail and insight at the expense of narrative flow. The typeface looks like Helvetica medium to me (didn’t look it up to be certain, sorry), and more than 300 pages of that typeface is an invitation to eyestrain.

All in all, though, it’s a wonderful addition to my Ozarkiana shelf. The Paytons have amassed a remarkable collection of historical images such as advertising posters, postcards, and the like, and they put them to excellent use here.

By odd coincidence, a copy of another classic Ozarks river book–Oliver Schuchard and Steve Kohler’s Two Ozark Rivers–showed up on my doorstep last night, and I’ll give some thoughts about it in a later post. In fact, I think I’ll start a new series of posts to go along with my “Favorite Ozarks People – Places – Images” series, of reflections on Ozarks books. Consider this No. 1 in that series.

I definitely recommend this book. You can order it here: http://www.dammingtheosage.com/

Favorite Ozarks Places – 10

Tags

favorite_places, Missouri, Ozarks, Willow Springs

Hillbilly Junction

Hillbilly Junction is a landmark on US 60, south of Willow Springs. When I was living in Springfield, it served as a convenient drop-off spot when my daughter went to spend a weekend with the grandparents. Fill up the tank, eat a Reuben, buy a souvenir shot glass or a pound of fudge or maybe a quart of motor oil . . . what could be better?

Of course, a stop there means coming to grips with the pimping of the hillbilly stereotype, although this version is at least more benign than many others I’ve seen. Many of my friends and acquaintances are highly offended by this stereotypical representation – the squirrel rifle, the corncob pipe, the bare feet – and the attitudes it implies. Others see it as part of the great history of Ozarkers managing to keep their real identities to themselves by allowing outsiders to underestimate them.

Either way you look at the question of stereotypical imagery, the food is great at Hillbilly Junction.

Faulkner’s Advice

Tags

art, books, creativity, Faulkner, fiction, literature, novels, writing

This is a terrific summary of William Faulkner’s advice to writing students at various times during his period as writer-in-residence at the University of Virginia in 1957 and 1958.

I agree with every single one of his recommendations! Now to put them into practice….

 

 

Major Website Update!

Tags

creativity, education, human nature, teachers, writing

I generally use my website for relatively “static” information – things that won’t change rapidly and only occasionally need updating. This blog, my Facebook page, and my Twitter feed are where I put breaking news.

So I want to mention that the website has a whole new section! It is specifically for teachers. I’ve been getting some great feedback from college instructors who are using Slant of Light in their classes, and my friend Alexis Engelbrecht-Villafane has put together a comprehensive teachers’ guide to the book. Alexis’ background is in English education at the pre-college level, so the teachers’ guide follows the format typically used for books to be used in high school classrooms.

We agree that Slant of Light poses some issues for the typical high school instructor. It has offensive language, graphic violence, sexual encounters, and adult situations – just the sort of stuff that would invite a parent complaint. But as a choice selection (not a required reading) for an advanced class, it would be a great option. It deals with big themes from start to finish, and it is an excellent introduction to the atmosphere of pre-Civil War America. (Sorry to toot my own horn so energetically here.)

Take a look!

Blessed Rage for Order

Tags

Florida, history, Koreshan, utopia

While tending to some professional duties in Florida, I had the chance to visit the Koreshan Historic Site, where a group of utopian settlers lived for several decades from the 1880s well into the Twentieth Century. They were an odd bunch indeed, founded by a physician from the North who loved to tinker with electricity, and during one occasion when he had suffered a severe shock, had a vision of God as a beautiful woman handing down the secrets of the universe to him. This vision had an entire cosmology, including the idea that the earth was actually inside-out from the way we imagine it, a hollow sphere with the “sky” actually in the center. And that was only the beginning of their odd beliefs.

What struck me, though, was the vision of their founder, Cyrus Teed, for his model city, which he envisioned having a population of ten million. It looked like this:

That immediately reminded me of the ideal city of New Harmony, as envisioned by Robert Owen:

And the Fourierist vision:

Those 19th century utopians loved symmetry and order! It was part of the urge toward regularization and equality, expressed in architectural form as uniformity. Curious, how these versions of earthly paradise look so much like abstract geometrical shapes – or modern-day prison buildings.

Shout-Out

Tags

creativity, historical fiction, history, Springfield, utopia, writing

Had a nice shout-out from Springfield Writers’ Guild vice-president Wayne Groner on his blog the other day. Thanks, Wayne!

http://www.waynegroner.com/

Favorite Ozarks Images – 10

Tags

favorite_places, Missouri, nature, Ozarks, photography

St. Francis River, Madison County, Missouri

Favorite Ozarks People – 5

Tags

Annapolis, libraries, Missouri, Ozarks

John Mertens

I remember when John Mertens was hired as the executive director of the Ozark Regional Library, replacing the retiring Gertrude Zimmer. Miss Zimmer had been director of the ORL since its creation, pretty much, and was legendary through the four-county region. (Gertrude passed away in 2011 at age 102, by the way).

But John leaped into the position with zest and became just as much a fixture around the eastern Ozarks as Miss Zimmer had been. He championed libraries around the Ozarks and kept the regional library system solvent in a time of ever-shrinking budgets and anti-intellectual sentiment. When I was a young newspaper reporter, I would drive the 40 miles to Ironton once a month to participate in the Great Books Club discussion. It was the closest thing the eastern Ozarks had to a “salon,” and I was fortunate to meet some incredibly wise and well-read people there.

John retired this past year and a new director has taken over, whom I have not yet met. May his tenure be as long and productive as his predecessors’!