Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Autumn-- and October Country

Ray Bradbury- who despite his virtues was NOT a typical science fiction writer as one young girl memorably sang, though arguably great. (Google "F me Ray Bradbury YouTube")

Chad Love muses on this and after a suggestion I made last year prints one of the all time best opening lines:

Thesis: as Tom Russell is an un- hyphenated American songwriter, not just a country or folk singer, Ray Bradbury was an American writer, not a s-f or fantasy or Midwestern nostalgic one or Angeleno or (just) the guy who wrote the screenplay for John Huston's version of Moby Dick....

Bonus trivia: T H White was his fan.
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1 comment:

Retrieverman said...

Unhyphenated-Americans are the majority of West Virginia's population.

It's really a myth that they are majority Scots-Irish. They are really English, mostly people who were transported to become indentured servants on the tobacco plantations of the Tidewater. Many were transported for poaching on the estates of the landed gentry and thus were the ideal settlers for the wild country beyond the Blue Ridge. Some of them escaped their indenture, while others broke the colonial Virginia law that said all indentured servants were to stay near the coast once their terms were up. Some married Africans who had indenture, slavery, and/or simple bigotry. Others married indigenous people. In this way, they created a kind of Appalachian Metis that is not regarded in the same way the Canadian view their Metis.

I think that's why people have held onto the Melungeon myth so strongly. This Appalachian Metis has not been recognized as being anything, so the myths about these people have currency, regardless of what the genetic studies suggest.

Thursday, 01 November, 2012

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