Itta Bena, Mississippi

Leaving for Itta Bena at 1:30, I will arrive around 2:00 to spend the remainder of my day exploring the town and surrounding area. Nordan's upbringing in Itta Bena and the general area of the Mississippi Delta plays a crucial role in the formation of his writing style and the primary narrative of Wolf Whistle. Raised amidst the intense segregation of the South in 40's and 50's, Nordan experienced the cruelty and backwards nature of the South first-hand before he was able to identify the injustices occurring there. He recalls the moment in his childhood where he found himself simultaneously realizing the horrible injustice of the Emmett Till murder and being unable to speak with conviction about its wrongness. This feeling of angry retrospect fuels much of the narrative spark of Wolf Whistle. 

Itta Bena
Credit: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/
e/ec/IttaBenaCityLimitSign.jpg/250px-IttaBenaCityLimitSign.jpg

The town's proximity to the highly controversial, Money, MS as well as its primarily African-American university, Mississippi State Valley made it a frequent stop for civil rights activists in the 60's. Itta Bena was frequently embroiled in racial feuding regarding controversial decisions on segregation reform in Mississippi. As a result of increased activity in the area, more attention was given to the city's sparse, but impressive, downtown area.

Downton Itta Bena
Credit: http://misspreservation.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/dsc_0042.jpg

After sweeping segregation changes occurred in the state, Itta Bena's high schools experienced a radical change in their make up and the academic and athletic landscape has been forever shifted as a result. Today there are nearly 4,000 residents living in the small town and the poverty line remains at a steady 34.5%. Itta Bena's history is not particularly storied or spectacular but it set the precedent for the formation  of Nordan's identity both as a Southerner and a writer. 

Visiting the town, I intend to Leflore High School to gain a better understanding of the effects of segregation on the community throughout the years. The school would give me valuable insight into the racial dynamics and the way they have shifted over the years. The important nature of the time Nordan spent in segregated high schools will offer me new insight into the kind of racial frustrations and guilt that drove at Nordan throughout his life. 

Echoing concepts similar to Nordan's simultaneously unknowable and familiar Money, MS, in Wolf Whistle, The Silver Jews strive to reconcile their post-punk guitar stylings with a more familiar country music bent. Country Diary of a Subway Conductor is an excellent example of their tendency towards unpredictable and exciting short narratives with a distinctly surreal flavor.

  

Money, Mississippi

Leaving Ruston at roughly 8:00 AM, I plan on arriving in Money, Mississippi at roughly noon. I intend to spend my day exploring the infamous town in an effort to better understand the history that haunts Nordan throughout Wolf Whistle. Primarily, my focus would be visiting the now decrepit Bryan's Grocery and Meat Market, the site of Emmett Till's unfortunate "advances" on a white woman and the catalyst for a world of doubt that infected Nordan for most of his life.

Bryan's Grocery and Meat Market, present day
Credit: http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/51583290.jpg

The extremely controversial Emmett Till murder haunted Nordan throughout his life and shaped his formative years and relationship with Southern history and culture. Where Nordan insisted on using the fantastical imagery of his novel to help convey a new way to understand the tragedy and senselessness of the event, I will try to gain a more direct understanding and sense of connection to the events of the tragedy. Visiting the actual, decaying grocery will lend a sense of realness that is unattainable by simply reading about the murder and will do a great deal to enhance my appreciation of its terrible weight on the culture of the South.

During my time spent in Money I will listen to Lambchop, a band fascinated with innovation within the confines of American Country music. The band frequently deals with themes of solitude and loneliness that reflect Nordan's characters' desperate realizations that they are alone in the world. There is no better song for the occasion than their 1996 classic, Your Life as a Sequel.

Ruston, Louisiana

Leaving mid-afternoon, my next stop will take me 42 miles to the college town of Ruston, Louisiana. Although seemingly devoid of any significant places of history beyond Louisiana Tech, the town is the home of famous singer-songwriter Jeff Mangum. Mangum and his band, Neutral Milk Hotel remain one of the most popular and endearing bands to emerge from the American independent music scene in the 90's.

Neutral Milk Hotel circa 1998
Credit: http://assets.rollingstone.com/assets/images/artists/304x304/neutral-milk-hotel.jpg

The band provides a surprisingly original way to engage with Southern culture. Their music combines elements of traditional folk music with psychedelic tinged, feedback driven guitars. The template they set has become one of the de facto sources of inspiration in popular music today, with popular bands like the Arcade Fire citing them as major influences. So in an effort to soak up that unique local heritage, I will explore the Louisiana Tech campus where Mangum DJ'ed as a teen and shaped his musical taste.

Louisiana Tech University
Credit:http://www.byuaccounting.net/mediawiki/images/9/93/Collegecampus.jpg

Ruston's colorful history of musical influence will help me better understand the exciting and unique Southern culture that helps shape the face of popular music and art forms in places far from the South itself. The far-reaching nature and importance of Southern culture exists as a driving force behind the heightened reality exhibited in Wolf Whistle's recollection of a Southern history screaming to be heard.

Minden, Louisiana

Coca Cola Bottling Plant
Credit: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/
Coca_Cola_Bottling_Plant_in_Minden,_LA_IMG_1434.JPG

Leaving Shreveport around 10:00 AM to allow myself some time to rest, I would then set off to Minden, Louisiana. Arriving roughly around 11:00 AM, I would acquaint myself with the quaint, small town charm on display at places like the Coca Cola bottling plant that provides most of the tourism and capital for the town.

My next stop will be the far less traditional, Germantown settlement, just outside of Minden. Founded by German Christian Mystics in 1835, the town was idealized as a utopia where members patiently awaited the Second Coming of Christ. Needless to say, the colony was unsustainable and the socialist bent to life there ultimately proved unrealistic.

Led by the enigmatic Countess Leon (Elisa Leon), the settlement was relatively successful for a period and existed as a bizarre holding pattern for Puritan-like behavior and belief amidst very different surrounding cultures. My time spent exploring this strange settlement and its unassuming neighbor, Minden, will help forge an understanding of the rich, unusual assortment of cultures in the South. More info on the bizarre history of Germantown.

Germantown, LA
Credit: http://www.hnoc.org/images/1974.25.31.63.jpg

Shreveport, Louisiana

Waking up on day two of my trip, I depart at 8:00 AM for Shreveport, Louisiana. One of the oldest and largest cities in Louisiana, Shreveport is a city filled with history. For a period of time during the Civil War, the city actually served as the capitol of Louisiana. Since the war, the city has adopted a rich heritage of innovative music and bizarre outsider art.

Downtown Shreveport
Credit: http://www.extendedstayhotels.com/media/137440/shreveport,%20la.jpg

Lead Belly's Grave
Credit: http://www.deltablues.net/lead3.jpg

My first stop would be the gravesite of legendary Blues guitar player, Lead Belly, just outside Shreveport.  Blues and unique forms of music have an inescapable presence in Wolf Whistle, often serving to strangely bridge the gap between racial divides and temporarily placate the racist subtext frequently present in the characters' dialogue.

Moving along, I would make a quick stop at the now decrepit, Fannin Street, previously the seat of blues culture in Shreveport. Now there remain few remnants of the street's previous seedy glory (blues clubs, dive bars, brothels, and the like). Nonetheless, the area would give me a fleeting glimpse of the innovative subculture that erupted in the wake of Civil War violence as well as a brief taste of the kind of Southern seediness that Nordan revels in exposing.

Fannin Street
Credit:http://www.cr.nps.gov/delta/blues/images
/sites/fannin_street.jpg

Finally, I would spend the remainder of my time enjoying the elegant R. W. Norton Art Gallery that showcases over four centuries of art. This gallery would be a relaxing way to mull over the relationship between art and the South that is so frequently examined during this road trip.

Rather than spending my day peeling back layer after layer of the innovative Blues sound stemming from the city, I would slowly work my way through The Residents' God In Three Persons. One of the paragons of artistic integrity in American music, The Residents have long been said to have been formed in Shreveport. The band fuses the cryptic and the catchy in a baffling flurry of art-rock weirdness and post-punk skepticism and remains one of the most important and unexpected developments of American underground music. Their whimsically dark music would be a good companion to the intense otherworldliness of Nordan's writing.

Itinerary

Day 1 (May 20, 2012): Austin--> Kilgore--> Marshall, TX

Distances: Austin--> Kilgore, 260 miles (roughly 5 hours)
                 Kilgore--> Marshall, 32.5 miles (40 minutes)

Accommodation: Fairfield Marshall

Restaurants: Bodacious BBQ

Day 2 (May 21, 2012): Marshall,TX--> Shreveport, LA

Distance: 41 miles (50 minutes)

Accommodation: Twenty-Four-Thirty-Nine Bed and Breakfast

Restaurant: Newk's Cafe

Day 3 (May 22, 2012): Shreveport--> Minden--> Ruston, LA

Distances: Shreveport--> Minden, 31 miles (40 minutes)
                 Minden--> Ruston, 42 miles (50 minutes)

Accommodation: Lewis House

Restaurant: Crawfish Hole #2

Day 4 (May 23, 2012): Ruston, LA--> Money, MS--> Itta Bena, MS

Distances: Ruston--> Money, 202 miles (4 hours)
                 Money--> Itta Bena, 19 miles (30 minutes)

Accommodation: The Alluvian

Restaurant: McCool's Restaurant

Day 5 (May 24, 2012): Itta Bena, MS--> Austin, TX

Distance: 560 miles (10 hours and 30 minutes)

Accommodation: Home

Proposal

Lewis Nordan
Credit: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/
books/lewis-nordan-writer-who-spun-
lyrical-tales-dies-at-72.html?_r=1

More so than any other work we have read this semester, I found Lewis Nordan's Wolf Whistle to be the most strangely affecting novel I have experienced in some time. At an intersection of multiple, equally strange realities, where school teachers break into fits of cliches and the murder of a little boy results in no legal consequences, lies Nordan's account of Money, Mississippi. Nordan writes characters that possess surprising humanity amidst a world completely foreign to our own.

He invites the reader to engage with the South in a way that no other author we have read manages to capture.
Nordan's version of the South is a wholly unique combination of the tradition of the Southern Grotesque (the domain of Faulkner and O'Connor) with an increasingly surreal air of Magical Realism. In an effort to better understand the kind of peculiar history that informs Nordan's worldview and writing, I will travel to his hometown of Itta Bena, Mississippi. Along the way, my focus will be on finding places that represent the inherent historical and cultural strangeness exclusively exhibited in the South.

Wolf Whistle
Credit: http://www.bookfever.com/book_photos/35796.jpg

From the faded historical glory of small Texas communities like Kilgore to the unexpected seat of popular independent music in Ruston, Louisiana, the bizarre smattering of culture and history on display in the South seems surprisingly compatible with Nordan's unbelievable fiction. My journey will serve to better inform my understanding of both Southern culture and the author's unique method of understanding Southern culture.

Nordan's obsession with the grotesque and larger-than-life events of the South are conveyed through his original style of heightened realism that draws attention to the South's tradition of extraordinary history. Similar to how Nordan's distinct style and humor helps give readers an unexpected and delightful way to understand the tragic reality of the Emmett Till murder, the trip will perhaps communicate a new way for me to engage with the South and its utterly original culture.

When Only Memories Remain, the blog's background image
Credit: www.mentholmountains.blogspot.com

Marshall, Texas

Moving on from the sleepier town of Kilgore, my next stop on the trip is Marshall. Once a major concentration of plantations and slave-holders, the Civil War set the stage for tremendous cultural change in the area. Once the slaves were freed, they became workers and began forging a unique musical culture, Boogie Woogie. The town lays claim to being the "Home of Boogie Woogie." NPR's look at the history of Marshall and Boogie Woogie.

Whetstone Square, Marshall, TX
Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaycarriker/487238779/

As a child, Nordan met a blues pianist who explained to him the basic structure of Boogie Woogie. The format and stylings of the genre stayed with Nordan throughout his life, embedding its principles in the very foundation of his melodic writing style. The sections of the novel dealing with blues musicians tend to frequently follow this format.

I plan on spending my afternoon in the famous Whetstone Square in downtown Marshall. This is the site of the first sit-ins of the Civil Rights Movement in Texas, protesting school segregation. The Old Harrison County Courthouse is an architectural landmark for East Texas and an exceptionally popular tourist location for the town. The time I spend here will help inform my understanding of Nordan's historically charged world-view that emphasizes the presence that distinct art forms, like the Blues or Boogie Woogie and their presence in our cultural heritage. I would also get to enjoy some of the groundbreaking places where waves from the Emmett Till trial rippled outwards to other states.

Kilgore, Texas

Beginning my trip, I intend to make a swift departure from Austin at 7:30 AM and begin making my way north on I-35. My first stop will be the small town, Kilgore, just east of Tyler. In the 1930's, the town had a booming economy after striking oil. The town experienced a brief period of extreme interest from people hoping to profit from the oil boom but by the 40's, the town had settled down considerably and reached a steady population of roughly 12,000.

Kentucky Fried Chicken, Kilgore, TX
Credit: http://kytx.images.worldnow.com/images/15537139_BG3.jpg

Arriving right around lunch hour, my first stop would be at the local Kentucky Fried Chicken. Don't jump to conclusions quite yet, this is the sight of the infamous 1983 Kentucky Fried Chicken killings that remain unresolved to this day. A not-so-widely known instance of extreme violence, this hold-up gone awry resulted in the loss of 5 lives and sent shockwaves throughout the community. Houston Chronicle article on the murders and ensuing controversy.

Downtown Kilgore
Credit: http://www.tylertexasonline.com/images
/postcards/kilgore-texas-derricks-downtown.jpg

Not intending to dwell on the grim note of my surely underwhelming meal, I would then head downtown to enjoy the sights of downtown Kilgore. The skyline dotted with multiple inactive oil derricks, an impressive reminder of the town's previous economic prowess. The center of town grows out from the ancient derricks that remain the centerpiece of the town's faded relevance and emerging oddness. My time spent in the town would better acquaint me with Nordan's obsession with the kind of uncanny events and trends that dot our history and inform the heritages of others long after their passing.