Watching a movie the other night on Netflix and the characters were supposed to be from Down South. It was painful hearing their deep-fried accents as they drawled and fricaseed around, being all “over yonder” and “y’all.” Tip for directors: don’t do that. Just let the actors talk normally and we’ll allow them to be from Mississippi or wherever. It’s called suspension of disbelief and it works in most cases—unless they have an Australian or Bronx accent.
We have an accent in Kansas and Missouri, though we don’t hear it as such. It’s a midland thing. In Milwaukee I was asked where in The South I was from; I was taken aback. When I said Kansas City, the same person asked if it snowed there. Milwaukee folks add “aina?” to just about everything. “I’m going by my grandma’s, aina?” I don’t know why, they just do. Kind of like Minnesota’s “ay.” Canada, too.
The Trillbillies, front porchin’ it…
These Kentuckians have great accents, real ones, and I like hearing them. The Trillbilly Worker’s Party. For a fun listen click here. It’s not boring. The Bitter Southerner has this to say about them: “The Trillbilly Worker’s Party podcast was started in 2017 by three radical and left-leaning friends in Whitesburg, Kentucky. Tarence Ray, Tom Sexton, and Tanya Turner talk politics (lambasting folks on both sides of the aisle), religion, sex, class, and money, and they don't hold back. They are self-avowed propagandists, offering a distinctive anticapitalist voice with a sense of humor and a Southern twang — though your nana might want to wash their mouths out with soap!”
We interrupt this stuff for a commercial: “I Was In The Vicinity” is now available. Its the latest book of poetry by your neutrally accented friend, G. Wise, poet, sculptor, natural born social distancer. I didn’t get blurbs for this book as it’s a pain in the butt; for the blurb-seeker, for the blurb-writer. My only blurb is right here: “Not too dam bad if I do say so myself.” Me.
The publisher says: “Poet, Novelist, Sculptor, and raconteur Guinotte Wise returns with a gaggle of poems about choppers and barns and the archaeology of the American experience, covid-19 edition. The chaff blowing over from the pyramids of silage must lend Wise some of its dry magic, as each of these poems shimmers with grace and humor and life, in all its prickly splendor.”
Prickly, huh? Hey, I’ll take it. Anyway, if you buy this book and don’t like it, money back guarantee within ten days.
What else. Oh, F gave me the MasterClass for Christmas last year, and I did some Dan Brown, and Neil Gaiman, plus some other non-writing classes, really excellent. I’m in the middle of Billy Collins’ poetry class now, lesson 8 of 20, and contending with writing a typical Shakespearean sonnet without all the thou’s and thee’s. It’s three sets of 4 lines (quatrains), with a 2-line “turn” at the end. I actually dreamed about it last night and not pleasantly. So far I’ve written about a dozen poems for the class and am not half through it. BTW you might look up Billy Collins’ latest book, Whale Day. Its pretty wonderful I hear. I’ll wait for it in paperback. He’s a cool teacher and a great poet, U.S. Poet Laureate 2001-2003. Funny and dry, he’s a big jazz fan, too. Watch his great videos on Facebook. (also Peter Coyote).
And that, as they say, is that. Won’t mention the Chiefs getting beat like a mule by some outfit from Las Vegas. Ew.
Stay well, wear a mask when within 50 ft. downwind of germy people. Wash your hands way too much and you’ll get through it. Maybe get immune like...that guy.
Warm wishes, g