RiverVue Dispatch Archives
Too Much Fun
When Deryle Perryman contacted me last week to say that he and fellow filmmaker Moises Gonzales were coming to Alabama and would I like to read more...
April in Alabama
Nothing could be more beautiful than April in Alabama and, in my case, nothing could be more exciting. I recently returned from the Alabama Studio Weekend in the
Alabama: Places to Be and People to See
The Alabama Book Festival held in Montgomery, Alabama, is only in its third season and already it offers a unique opportunity for participants to meet and listen to over seventy authors, among them read more...
Alabama Beat: Words and Music in the Deep South
The three poems currently appearing in the Poetry section of Swampland are by Mississippi born Pulitzer Prize winner Natasha Trethewey (published by permission of the author). Trethewey won read more...
Alabama's Going Green: "Let's Get Dirty"
Huntsville, Alabama, has chosen “Let’s Get Dirty” by the Huntsville country music band
Alabama's Going Green: A Delicate Balance
Yes, I read the article in the New York Times this past Monday about the biodiesel spill near
Alabama's Going Green
Holden Caulfield wanted to know where all the ducks go in winter. Ann (Andie MacDowell) in Sex, Lies, and Videotape was read more...
Black History Month: Look Back, but Move Forward
“Look back but move forward” was the credo of civil rights activist Johnnie Carr who died Friday at the age of 97.
Water, Water, Everywhere, Nor Any Drop To Drink
Today the New York Times ran an article entitled “Georgia Claims a Sliver of the Tennessee River.” The quarrel is not just about boundaries. It is about water, read more...
Let The Sunshine In
I was listening to NPR on Saturday morning when I heard the bluesy sound of an acoustic guitar and a voice that reminded me of a cross between Tom Waits and Elvis Costello (more in mood than in actual vocal comparison.). The voice was that of
It's Not Easy Being Indie
I always thought that in my next incarnation I wanted to come back as an independent documentary filmmaker. I held on to that dream until I sat in an darkened room in a warehouse in Huntsville, Alabama, on Friday afternoon and listened to independent filmmaker
The Day The Music Died
The day was February 3, 1959. At approximately 12:55 AM, Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, the “Big Bopper,” and their twenty-one year old pilot boarded a small plane near Clear Lake,
Lest We Forget: Four Spirits
January 30, 2008, marked the 60th anniversary of the assassination of India’s political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi. It was Gandhi whose name was most invoked
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 stations, and then one day satellite TV and DSL changed my life. This week, thanks to a relatively new channel called
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 possibility of finding an old friend—not to mention discovering a new one. Such was the case this week when I was working on a feature about 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 river called to say that a dozen White Pelicans were winging our way in the midst of a flock of cormorants. I had despaired of ever sighting pelicans 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 problems (my three year old monitor died). But now all is well, and I am looking forward to an exciting 2008 on Swampland. Today I am posting a read more...
Confessions Redux
This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of Auburn’s 1957 National Championship. Not only did the Tigers go undefeated that season, but they also held Alabama scoreless in the Iron Bowl while running up an astounding forty points. Saturday, November 24, is the golden 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 football, and in Alabama there is only Auburn and
Take Me Out to the Ball Game
Wednesday night’s opening game of the 2007 World Series at Fenway Park was a heartbreaker for Colorado Rockies fans. I have always read more...
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 a gentle “female” rain, and I pray it continues all week. I especially hope it rains profusely on Atlanta, Georgia, where they are having 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 North Alabama. Speaking of fall, this weekend my sister, her husband, and two of our friends made a road trip to the hills of middle Tennessee read more...
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 with me. I am somewhat jet-lagged, and I am preparing to leave for Jackson, MS, on Wednesday to participate in the
More Alabama Authors: Eric Smith
Eric Smith is assistant professor of English at the University of Alabama-Huntsville where his speciality is Post Colonial Literature. Over ten years ago, Eric was a student in my classes at Athens State University. After completing his B.S. at ASU, Eric attended read more...
"When I die, the brush dies": Remembering Jimmie Lee Sudduth
Jimmie Lee Sudduth, celebrated Alabama folk artist, died Sunday, September 9, in Fayette, Alabama, at read more...
Spotlighting Alabama Authors
During the next few weeks I will be featuring the poetry of several Alabama writers whose poems were published in the recent anthology: Whatever Remembers Us. These poems read more...
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 have reversed the legal sale of alcohol in the city of Athens (billed as "Alabama City Mulls Return to Prohibition") and secondly for the 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 friend Carol C, and I flew out to California to drive the vintage RV the three thousand miles from the west coast to north Alabama.
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 for his home state in the recent issue of Oxford read more...
Look Homeward, Angel: In Memoriam Doug Marlette
On Tuesday, July 10, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Doug Marlette was killed in a car wreck on a rain soaked road in north Mississippi. Marlette and the driver of the truck, the theatre director at Oxford read more...
07-07-07
Isn't seven the most powerfully magical number? -- Tom Marvolo Riddle to Horace Slughorn Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Whether you are superstitious, mystical, fascinated by numerology, or simply curious, you have to be just read more...
A Quiet Fourth of July
It is a strangely quiet Fourth of July on the river. Due to the devastating drought, the water level is unusually low, discouraging most boaters and skiers at read more...
Dysfunction Junction
There is a interchange in Birmingham, Alabama, that is so infamous it has been dubbed Dysfunction Junction. After the last deadly crash, the powers-that-be declared that the interchanged should be completely revamped, resulting in a slightly more functional junction. This is 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 ninety-plus year old women from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who went out for an evening on the town. The women left the Country Meadows Retirement 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 colleague. Another former colleague and friend of the honoree accompanied me. Because neither of us had ever been to Austin before, we elected to stay in read more...
Celebrations On The River
Today marks the 28th annual Cotton Row Run , a 10K race through the city of Huntsville, AL, and up Heartbreak Hill. In the early 90s I was still running the race. There were days hotter than this one but not nearly read more...
A Long, Hot Summer?
I don’t think it has rained in the Tennessee Valley since the day Clifton Taulbert spoke at Calhoun College and that day was merely a tiny oasis in what has become a desert of drought. I have never read more...