A hilarious guide to the intricate rituals, customs, and etiquette surrounding death in the South-and a practical collection of recipes for the final send-off. As author Gayden Metcalfe asserts, people in the Delta have a strong sense of community, and being dead is no impediment to belonging to it. Down south, they don't forget you when you've up and died-they may even like you better and visit you more often! But just as there is an appropriate way to live your life in the South, there is an equally essentially tasteful way of departing it-and the funeral is the final social event of your existence so it must be handled flawlessly. Metcalfe portrays this slice of American culture from the manners, customs, and the tomato aspic with mayonnaise that characterize the Delta way of death. Southerners love to swap tales, and Gayden Metcalfe, native of Greenville, MS, founder of the Greenville Arts Council and chairman of the St. James Episcopal Church Bazaar, is steeped in the stories and traditions of this rich region. She reminisces about the prominent family that drank too much and got the munchies the night before the big event-and left not a crumb for the funeral (Naturally some early rising, quick-witted ladies from the church saved the day, so the story demonstrates some solutions to potential entertaining disasters!). Then there was the lady who allocated money to have "Home on the Range" sung at the service, and the family that insisted on a portrait of their mother in her casket, only to refuse to pay for it on the grounds that "Mama looks so sad." Each chapter ends with an authentic southern recipe that will come in handy if you "plan to die tastefully", including Boiled Bourbon Custard; Aunt Hebe's Coconut Cake; Pickled Shrimp; Homemade Mayonnaise; and Homemade Rolls.
Examining the compelling and often poignant connection between women and the material culture of death, this collection focuses on the objects women make, the images they keep, the practices they use or are responsible for, and the places they inhabit and construct through ritual and custom. Women?s material practices, ranging from wearing mourning jewelry to dressing the dead, stitching memorial samplers to constructing skull boxes, collecting funeral programs to collecting and studying diseased hearts, making and collecting taxidermies, and making sculptures honoring the death, are explored in this collection as well as women?s affective responses and sentimental labor that mark their expected and unexpected participation in the social practices surrounding death and the dead. The largely invisible work involved in commemorating and constructing narratives and memorials about the dead-from family members and friends to national figures-calls attention to the role women as memory keepers for families, local communities, and the nation. Women have tended to work collaboratively, making, collecting, and sharing objects that conveyed sentiments about the deceased, whether human or animal, as well as the identity of mourners. Death is about loss, and many of the mourning practices that women have traditionally and are currently engaged in are about dealing with private grief and public loss as well as working to mitigate the more general anxiety that death engenders about the impermanence of life.
Food has played a major role in funerary and memorial practices since the dawn of the human race. In the ancient Roman world, for example, it was common practice to build channels from the tops of graves into the crypts themselves, and mourners would regularly pour offerings of food and drink into these conduits to nourish the dead while they waited for the afterlife. Funeral cookies wrapped with printed prayers and poems meant to comfort mourners became popular in Victorian England; while in China, Japan, and Korea, it is customary to offer food not only to the bereaved, but to the deceased, with ritual dishes prepared and served to the dead. Dying to Eat is the first interdisciplinary book to examine the role of food in death, bereavement, and the afterlife. The contributors explore the phenomenon across cultures and religions, investigating topics including tombstone rituals in Buddhism, Catholicism, and Shamanism; the role of death in the Moroccan approach to food; and the role of funeral casseroles and church cookbooks in the Southern United States. This innovative collection not only offers food for thought regarding the theories and methods behind these practices but also provides recipes that allow the reader to connect to the argument through material experience. Illuminating how cooking and corpses both transform and construct social rituals, Dying to Eat serves as a fascinating exploration of the foodways of death and bereavement.
After his father was killed in World War II, Robert and his mother hang his father's Medal of Honor on their Christmas tree, as a letter from his father helps Robert cope with his loss and an unexpected turn of events changes his life.
"This book builds on recent anthropological work to explore the social and cultural dynamics of cemetery practice and its transformation over generations in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. Anthropologist Alison Bell finds that people are using material culture-images and epitaphs on grave markers, as well as objects they leave on graves-to assert and maintain relationships and fight against alienation. She draws on fieldwork, interviews, archival sources, and disciplinary insights to show how cemeteries both reveal and participate in the grassroots cultural work of crafting social connections, assessing the transcendental durability of the deceased person, and asserting particular cultural values. The book's chapters range across cemetery types, focusing on African American burials, grave sites of institutionalized individuals, and modern community memorials"--
Proust's masterpiece is one of the seminal works of the twentieth century, recording its narrator's experiences as he grows up, falls in love and lives through the First World War. A profound reflection on art, time, memory, self and loss, it is often viewed as the definitive modern novel, and C. K. Scott Moncrieff's famous translation from the 1920s is now regarded as a classic in its own right.
"Much like John T. Edge's Southern Belly in conception but with a more focused regional scope, this book gets at the culture and foodways of the Mississippi Delta through lively descriptions of the region's restaurants, following a geographical path chapter by chapter from Memphis to Vicksburg. Introductions to each chapter as well as box features bring out historical and social context, highlighting famous deltans like Mose Allison and Jim Henson as well as interesting regional topics like "the Fighting Okra" or the annual spaghetti gravy cookoff. Puckett has included ca. 65 recipes, each with a connection to one of the restaurants or featured individuals (Memphis Barbecue Pizza, for example. as favored by Elvis.) Photographs by Langdon Clay illuminate diners, restaurant settings, streetscapes, and shots of Delta life"--
In Search of Lost Time is a series of seven highly acclaimed novels which inspired modern writers with its artistic craft and philosophical insight regarding memory and time. It is often suggested that perhaps Joyce's Ulysses was in some way inspired by this French tour de force. These bestselling novels recount the experiences of an unnamed narrator while he is growing up, learning about art, participating in society, and falling in love. Swann's Way: The young protagonist dreads waking up at night and not having his mother's good-night kiss... Within a Budding Grove beautifully examines the complex adolescent relationships. The Guermantes Way: The adult protagonist steps into the dazzling Parisian society of 19th century along with his obsession for Mme. de Guermantes. Cities of Plain: No matter how hard he tries to ignore or stay indifferent to closeted homosexual relationships around him, these and his own sexual desires become intricate part of his memories. The Captive dwells into the nature of relationships when couples fall out of love and yet don't have courage to break free. The Sweet Cheat Gone: People who leave rarely come back... Time Regained: After the WW1, he goes back to Paris to meet the people he once knew again, but time has never stopped for anyone Marcel Proust (1871–1922) was an inspirational French novelist, critic and essayist who is now considered as one of the most influential authors of the 20th century. His aesthetic craft and deep philosophical insight inspired numerous modern writers.
An authoritative new edition of the fourth volume in Marcel Proust's epic masterwork, In Search of Lost Time series Marcel Proust's monumental seven-part novel In Search of Lost Time is considered by many to be the greatest novel of the twentieth century. The fourth volume, Sodom and Gomorrah, is notable for its pioneering discussion of homosexuality. After its publication, Colette wrote to Proust, "No one has written pages such as these on homosexuals, no one!" This edition is edited and annotated by noted Proust scholar William C. Carter, who endeavors to bring the classic C. K. Scott Moncrieff translation closer to the spirit and style of the original.
One mans personal journey of grieving the loss of his wife written over a period of 3 years January 11 2002 Oh Booby, Booby, Booby. This explains it all. I want you back so much, yet fully understand this is a fantasy. It must be my way of handling (or trying to) my pain, thinking of the good times, wanting the good times, knowing that now they have to come from what I make. Round and round we go, its an intriguing web we weave ourselves. The web breaks, so we have to spin a new one. This I will continue to do until I make a web so strong that I will feel safe, feel confident with myself. March 2 2002 Still feeling as though Im just floating like a feather in the wind. Like the feather I dont know where I will land. Its as though I have no control but I know for sure that this is not so. Im in complete control; it is me allowing myself to be in this state. I want companionship so much, but Im scared, I want to touch, explore, and feel someone. Selfishly for my own needs but its something I need to happen because I have to justify to myself that I can love again.
The darkly beautiful novelistic memoir of a childhood spent in the shadow of a domineering, abusive father This is a story she never wanted to tell, but in the end she had no choice. When her older sister dies at the age of sixty-nine, it brings back a past the author thought she had left behind. Incensed, she delves back into her childhood, recreating the abusive world that she grew up in, ruled over by her tyrannical father, The Minotaur. In a narrative by turns shockingly dark and strangely beautiful, she retraces her path through the phantasmogorical labyrinth, bringing a tale of silent trauma to a triumphant, raucous conclusion. Falling is Like Flying is an extraordinary novelistic memoir of abuse and resilience, a literary triumph that reminds us what language is capable of.
Cities of Plain takes the story of the unnamed protagonist into the midst of the closeted homosexual relationships. No matter how hard he tries to ignore, judge or stay indifferent to what is happening around him this and his own unfulfilled sexual desires become another intricate part of his string of memories… "The reader will remember that, long before going that day (on the evening of which the Princesse de Guermantes was to give her party) to pay the Duke and Duchess the visit which I have just described, I had kept watch for their return and had made, in the course of my vigil, a discovery which, albeit concerning M. de Charlus in particular, was in itself so important that I have until now, until the moment when I could give it the prominence and treat it with the fullness that it demanded, postponed giving any account of it..." Marcel Proust (1871–1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental novel À la Recherche du Temps Perdu (1913-1927). He is considered by English critics and writers to be one of the most influential authors of the 20th century. Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff (1889–1930) was a Scottish writer, most famous for his English translation of most of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu, which he published under the Shakespearean title Remembrance of Things Past.
