I concur as well.

squirt is horrible piss water

Also politics.

[/quote]

I'll respectfully push back on "disproportionate" as applied to Literature.

Mark Twain didn't really get cookin' until he moved out to California. He settled in Connecticut. Edgar Allen Poe might count, if Baltimore is considered "the South". Those are the two biggies, in my book--both in terms of quality and influence.

Others: The Fireside Poets, Emerson, Frost, and Thoreau were Boston/New England products, and Sandburg hailed from Chicago.

Faulkner still is regarded by many in France and Germany as our greatest writer. Flannery O'Connor, Katherine Anne Porter, Thomas Wolfe, Walker Percy, Tennesee Williams, Alice Walker, Richard Wright, William Styron, Carson Mccullers, Eudora Welty, Robert Penn Warren, Bobbie Ann Mason... it's almost a commonplace in the Academy that "Southern Writers" are disproportinately represented in "The Canon."

Is Coke Black racist?

ta-DOW. Tell it harry.

I love it when harry and I concur. Thanks, pal, I knew I could count on ya!

And several of today's best: Tom Wolfe, HST, Rick Bragg, are all from hereabouts as well.

Can someone enlighten me to what grits is?

Since this thread started on the southern food I have only understood half of what's been said

coarsely ground corn
polenta(italian version) is virtually the same and comes in different textures.

On the east coast they're not readily available north of Virginia/Maryland. Used to be impossible to find in Mass.


1)breakfast portions are made with boiling grits in salted water served with copious amounts of butter

2)or the universal cheese grits (of many variations)for any meal

3)if you ever serve your grits/polenta with dinner(ie. Shrimp with grits) try using a chicken or fish stock for the grits(I usually make my own shellfish stock from the shrimps/fish being served).

Ah, right.

Doesn't sound particularly appetising on paper, but I'll have to take your word for it since if you can't find it in the north of the US, I definitely won't be able to

I've gotta say though that I didn't even realise that the South had a distinctive cuisine. When I finally make it to the US I'll definitely make sure to get down there

'nuff said.

I'm not saying the South's tradition isn't rich, my push-back is on "disproportionate". I'll take Twain or Poe over Faulkner, and by a wide wide margin, any day.

I've lived in just about every region of North Carolina and have never seen anyone do that so yeah that does sound like drunken behavior to me.

Twain, yeah, Poe, not so much, but that's just me.

I list Poe, not as much for his stories themselves (remarkable as they are), but the impact his theory on the short story has had on everyone who's since put pen to paper.

Gotta ask... what Faulkner have you read? Not many non-literature students read Faulkner any more.

Huckleberry Finn is probably (with Moby Dick) the seminal American novel... but, Poe also "disproportionately" worshipped by the French, is a limited and dated darkly Romantic poetic voice... no comparison to the huge edifice of sense that Faulkner constructed in the American literary tradition. Poe was also Southern gothic...

I can live with that. Though, that's kinda listing Hawthorne for his impact on the American Novel

(Though Poe is MUCH preferred to Nate Dogg on this instance, you can see the parallels, non?)

I guess I don't really understand the argument against disproportion. Because Twain moved that lessens the Southern tradition? I think it's pretty obvious that his rearing years in the south were his formative ones.

But Tennesse Williams above both those dudes for me anyways.

And I apperciate Emerson and Thoreau much more than I've actually enjoyed their works.

Sound And The Fury in college, several short stories in American Lit in high school.

I think I answered your Poe question as you were typing it.

Wow, this thread has it all.

Nah, because Poe's stories are a blast to read Otherwise, you'd be throwing JF Cooper at me, and that is sheer drudgery.

I wonder if this will turn into the next Squirrgling. It has potential.

I think I covered that as well. Also, when Poe lived in B'More it was a Southern state...that's where JW Booth was from, etc..



I feel ya on this. SNORE!!