Manner Posts
Alabama: Places to Be and People to See
The Alabama Book Festival held in Montgomery, read more...
Black History Month: Look Back, but Move Forward
“Look back but move forward” was the credo of civil rights activist
The Day The Music Died
The day was February 3, 1959. At approximately 12:55 AM, Buddy read more...
Lest We Forget: Four Spirits
January 30, 2008, marked the 60th anniversary of the assassination of India’s political and spiritual leader
The Best of All Possible Worlds or Is There Balm in Gilead?
I live in the boonies, the hinterlands of Northern Alabama. For years, I made do with erratic reception from local television read more...
Six Degrees of Separation
In the south we not only claim kin we also claim friends. I have learned that behind every new acquaintance there lies the read more...
LIghts, Camera, Action! Film Festivals and Film Debuts in the South
Late winter and spring of 2008 will see the blossoming of a host of film festivals in the South. A number of the festivals read more...
White Pelicans on Elk River
White Pelicans are a rarity on Elk River. I have never seen one north of Gulf Shores, but on Christmas morning a friend down the read more...
Music and Movie Making in Alabama
Sorry to have been incommunicado since Thanksgiving. This time I was overwhelmed by the holiday madness and computer read more...
Confessions Redux
This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of Auburn’s 1957 National Championship. Not only did the Tigers go undefeated that read more...
Tiger Rag
In the spring a young man’s fancy may turn to baseball, but in the fall in the South everyone’s fancy turns to read more...
Take Me Out to the Ball Game
Wednesday night’s opening game of the 2007 World Series at
SWAMPLAND Goin' Out West...Frisco Bound...
Mystery & Manners Goin' Out West To San Francisco 10/25/07
It is Raining on the River!
I guess I rattled my rain stick enough this weekend to wake up the clouds. We In North Alabama are reveling in what the Navajos call read more...
On the Road Again
Sorry I have been incommunicado lately. I am still struggling with allergies that seem to get worse rather than better. Ah, fall in read more...
Philip Morris: Corporate Charities, the Arts, and Virginia's future?
In today's NY Times,
Arrivederci Roma, Ciao Athens (Alabama)
I have just returned from ten days in Italy (Venice, Florence/Tuscany, and Rome) and am way behind on my blog, so please bear read more...
More Alabama Authors: Eric Smith
Eric Smith is assistant professor of English at the University of Alabama-Huntsville where his speciality is Post Colonial read more...
"When I die, the brush dies": Remembering Jimmie Lee Sudduth
Hot and Wet or Hot and Dry?
The state of Alabama made the national news on two consecutive days this week: first regarding the referendum that could read more...
Turtle Tracks
In the fall of 2005, my sister Peggy bought a 1985 Toyota Dolphin RV from her son in Seaside, CA, and in late October Peggy, our read more...
West "by God" Virginia and The Free State of Winston
Is West Virginia really a part of the south? Jason Headley in an article entitled "A State of Confusion" pleads the case read more...
Look Homeward, Angel: In Memoriam Doug Marlette
On Tuesday, July 10, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Doug read more...
07-07-07
Isn't seven the most powerfully magical number? -- Tom Marvolo Riddle to Horace Slughorn Harry read more...
A Quiet Fourth of July
It is a strangely quiet Fourth of July on the river. Due to the devastating
Dysfunction Junction
There is a interchange in Birmingham, Alabama, that is so infamous it has been dubbed Dysfunction Junction. After the last deadly read more...
Ninety is the New Forty-five
I hope each of you read the newspaper article by James Lewis of Newhouse News Service published on May 26th. Lewis wrote about four read more...
Uneasy Rider
Last weekend I traveled to Austin, Texas, for the 90th birthday celebration of Dr. Elva Mclin, my mentor, friend, and longtime read more...
Celebrations On The River
Today marks the 28th annual Cotton Row Run , a 10K race through read more...
A Long, Hot Summer?
I don’t think it has rained in the Tennessee Valley since the day
Manner Reviews
Darius Goes West
“Something’s gonna happen like…Just spark the whole world,” exclaims Darius, the star of the read more...
KELBRN
Whatever Remembers Us: An Anthology
Whatever Remembers Us: An Anthology of Alabama Poetry edited by Sue Brannan Walker and J. read more...
Dub's Burgers
Dub's Burgers 204 South Jefferson Street Athens, AL 35611 256-232-6135
Manner ArticlesSouthern Sporting "Events"
by Patrick Snow As I attended a Kentucky Derby function this past Saturday, it was never more evident that Southerners must throw a pretty good party. We are probably more known nationally for our college football crowds and pageantry, but the spring read more...
Deryle Perryman and Dangerous Highway, a Film About Eddie Hinton
by Penne J. Laubenthal Dangerous Highway is an amazing documentary about the life and music of the incredibly talented and tragically fated Eddie Hinton, called the "greatest unknown musician you have ever heard." The film was made by read more...
Logan Smalley: Creator and Director of Darius Goes West
In 2005 Logan Smalley, a special education major at the University of Georgia-Athens, undertook a venture that would change his life, not to mention the lives of those who view his amazing film. Smalley rented a handicapped accessible RV, recruited ten
Darius Goes West: Twelve Guys and a Dream
Once in a great while, just when you think there is no reason to get up in the morning and that there is no hope for humanity, and that people will just go on killing one another forever, and that tomorrow will be probably be even worse than today, then something happens to turn your world around. For me, that something was seeing a feature length documentary read more...
Fifth Annual Oxford Film Festival
The Fifth Annual Oxford Film Festival (OFF) will open Wednesday evening, February 6, in Oxford, read more...
Billy C Farlow is Having Too Much Fun
by Penne J. Laubenthal Billy C Farlow, blues musician, song writer, and harmonica player who skyrocketed to fame in the early ‘70s with Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, is a force to be reckoned with on the music circuit. Billy C has been out there for over forty years making his music, writing read more...
Confessions of an Auburn Fan or It's Not Easy Being Orange (and Blue)
by Penne Jones Laubenthal The state of Alabama is a red state. It has been slowly turning red politically since 1960. In the past twenty-seven years, Alabama voters have increasingly voted for Republican candidates at the federal level, especially in Presidential read more...
Interview with Charles Ghigna
by Penne J. Laubenthal Charles Ghigna (aka Father Goose) is the author of more than 5,000 poems and 30 award-winning books of poetry. His books have been featured on ABC-TV’s "Good Morning America" and NPR, selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Parents' Choice Book Award. He is a poet, read more...
Hunting the Cotaco Creek
by Charles Ghigna His hand in hold so trigger tight even its blood believes in ghosts. It clings with set finger on steel and waits inside a dream of ducks. The twilight gives into a rise of eastern sky as sun reveals herself too proud and instantly receives full face a splash of mallard flock. A shotgun blasts the read more...
The Alabama Wiregrassers
by Charles Ghigna Dry rooted in penny coated clay, the wiregrassers come suntan tamed in drawl through the mire faster. Machetes high aimed for home, they carry the clues of day across their open, flying clothes. Blade for blade, steel for grass, they flog the wire with a hungry denim run.
Shacks on Highway 231, Along the High Red Clay Embankments
By Bonnie Roberts These words are for those who never wrote a word, or sang a song, or thought a great thought, or invented something, or made something lasting. These words are for those who lived extraordinary non-extraordinary lives, of getting up each day, and walking through the day,
Auger and Old Shoes
by Eric Smith I. On her rocker’s each forward pitch she glimpses the scuffed toes of shoes down the hall, unlaced, empty, still at the foot of the bed, a very old cliché, like the read more...
My South
By Doris Gabel Welch My South is Hot Humid Sultry Just like its women. My South is
Phillip Quinn Morris
Phillip Quinn Morris, author of Mussels and
W.C. Handy Music Festival, Florence, Alabama, July 22-29
“If Beale Street could talk Married men would have to take up their beds and walk…” Beale Street Blues W. C. Handy wrote those words when he was living in Memphis in 1916. It had been a long road from Florence, Alabama, to Memphis, Tennessee, read more...
The Bayou Sideshow
The Bayou Sideshow By James Calemine read more...
Cassandra King
Alabama native Cassandra King is not only the wife of author Pat Conroy, but she is also a celebrated novelist in her own right. She is currently touring the South to promote her most recent novel
Alabama Adventure Weekend
It is Earth Day 2007 and the Alabama sun is unseasonably hot. Summer is still two months away, but the living is already easy, especially in the Shoals area of North Alabama where I am spending the day at the Alabama Adventure Weekend, a two-day banquet of art and culture, fun read more...