Twain Notes and New Arrivals

I had a very unusual 21st-century experience yesterday. My wife, the beautiful and talented Sheila, had to be in Baton Rouge for the day, which meant she needed to take the one car and the one laptop computer. So Zora, our homeschooled nine-year-old daughter, and I, were facing a day without those two resources we so take for granted. We would be unable to complete usual around-town chores (grocery store, post office, any kind of homeschooling-related outing). I would be unable to check e-mail, Amazon.com book sales, regularly-browsed websites. This was for a grand total of about eight hours, mind you. Not exactly emotional deprivation, but it was still a bit disorienting. So I mowed the lawn, cooked turnip greens for the first time (they do cook down, don't they?), took care of household chores, helped Zora with her Huck Finn project.

Zora and I recently finished The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, on the heels of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I honestly cannot remember if I read them in early school years, definitely not in college, so it's all as fresh to these 41-year-old ears as it was to Zora's. Both novels, but Huck Finn especially, are remarkable snapshots of the antebellum United States, with Huck and Jim's archetypal journey down the Mississippi providing this homeschooling father ample opportunity to explore history, geography, sociology, psychology (particularly with Huck's continual agonizing over his role in helping Jim escape slavery, his assumption that what he is doing not only violates the social and legal mores of his day, but is immoral in the very eyes of God). Besides slavery, explanations were required for temperance, mesmerism, tent revivals, tarring and feathering and other mid-19th-century cultural artifacts.

The casual literacy of Huck and Tom also made an impression. Neither would be mistaken for a model scholar, and yet both are accomplished readers, with Tom especially having a thorough grounding in Western literature and mythology, from the Bible to tales of pirates, legendary outlaws and fallen nobles. The details are often a bit muddled, to comic effect, but the basic appreciation is there. I can't speak for pedagogical accomplishments in Middle America at this time, but I have a feeling that Twain would drop some hints if he were exaggerating what would be the typical mastery of boys their age.

Now, I can't say much about the project Zora is working on, because we're keeping it a secret from her mama until we're finished, and there is always a slight chance, miniscule if you will, a chance so microscopically insignificant that it would require the most cutting-edge electron microscopic nanotechnology, but a chance nonetheless.... that my wife would actually read this before the project is complete. But we came to a point where research was required. Sans laptop, we packed up what we needed and walked a few blocks to the Rosedale Branch of the Jefferson Parish Library. Small neighborhood library, great staff, always being utilized by members of the local community. As almost always, all of their computers were occupied, as well, so we explored the reference shelves, where Zora was exposed to the exotic volumes of World Book and Britannica. That's right, can you say it with me..... En-cy-clo-frickin'-pedias.

Memory lane, my friends. We had three different volumes out, cross-referencing with the dictionary, piecing together our arcane puzzle, turning pages without the help of google or yahoo or goohoo or yoohoo or any of the rest of them, intoxicated by the purity of the hand/eye/brain coordination, pitying those whose retinas were undoubtedly being scanned by eavesdropping 33rd-degree Freemason Rosicrucian NSA agents guarding the last surviving members of the Warren Commission in some underground silo underneath the Library of Congress ("They think they're harassing the real Arlen Specter at that town meeting! The real Arlen Specter is in this cell right behind me! Magic bullet, my ass! Mwaaah ha ha ha!").

Oh, God, where was I, now, and why are all of these empty wine cooler bottles at my feet? Anyway, as I said in my previous post, I acquired many new books on my recent trip to Shreveport, and the virtual shelves of Deep South Samizdat Books (accessible anytime at amazon.com/shops/deepsouthsamizdatbooks) are bursting with new arrivals. Most came from the Centenary College Book Bazaar, while several dozen came from the catacombs of North Louisiana bookseller Chris Fowler-Sandlin, whose attractively-maintained DeVere Books site can be found on Ebay at stores.shop.ebay.com/DeVere-Books. Check it out.

Among the Deep South Samizdat arrivals, look for highly affordable volumes by Philip K. Dick, Henry Miller and Kurt Vonnegut; a rich vein of poetry by Billy Collins, Denise Levertov, James Merrill and Grace Paley, among others; great pulp tales of Conan and Gor; and some of the more obscure gems by Robert Heinlein and Hunter Thompson. And for those of you in the Greater New Orleans area this fall, come see me at the Freret Market and Broad St. Flea Market for some classic New Orleans and Louisiana titles that I'm keeping out of Amazon.com for the time being. Think Saxon, Hearn, Keyes, Chase. More details as we get closer to the Freret Festival on October 3.

As always, comments, critiques, "Mike, you ignorant slut!" are always welcome at mpbookfreak@hotmail.com. Peace, y'all.