The Piper of Arlington

Twice this summer I have seen a man playing bagpipes in seemingly random locations in Arlington. Once was in a parking lot off of Lee Highway and once was in a parking space beside a local elementary school. It occurs to me that perhaps he has to move around a lot because bagpipes make a … penetrating sound. I wonder if he has to play (practice?) somewhere different every time? Does he wear out his welcome at each location immediately? Is his need to play the pipes one that endangers him? Do people loose their snarling dogs on him? Do little old ladies pummel him with their purses because of the sound of the pipes is so obtrusive? Do children throw rocks at him? Are the police called?

I might be able to tolerate the bagpipes occasionally. I could certainly tolerate it more readily than the seemingly ubiquitous sound of a pulsating car stereo for instance.

Is he even from around here? He might have to drive here from another state to practice. People are hardly neutral on the sound of bagpipes after all.

I like the sound … most of the time. I might feel differently if he were my neighbor and I had to listen to him practicing all the time or if this guy decided that he liked the acoustics on my street. That being said, I don’t look for him to set up shop here … too much reverberation. That could actually be lethal.

I hope I see/hear him again. It’s a wonderfully peculiar thing to experience.

Have Family, Will Travel

I went home to the mountains this weekend. It was a pleasant, if too brief, trip, but that’s what I get for living and working 5 hours away. The weather was just enough cooler than northern Virginia for me to enjoy it and the scenery was beautiful as always. Read more

How Do We Imagine the Hillbilly?

Aaaarrrrrrrggggghhhhhhh. I understand that the stereotypical hillbilly exists today. I do. I know it all too well, but we are not all like that. Why is it okay to make fun of southern mountain people?

Look at it this way: if someone asks you if it is okay to isolate a population, pick out its less that desirable characteristics, judge ALL of the members of that population on said characteristics, and then ridicule that population on a fairly regular basis, you would say that it is most certainly not okay and, furthermore, reprehensible.

Except, of course, if you’re talking about hillbillies.

You cannot imagine how many times I have been assaulted with casually tossed off hillbilly jokes/insults/slurs because I apparently don’t “look” or “act” or “sound” like a hillbilly. What exactly do we look, act, and sound like, fool? Think before you answer that. Make sure you know your audience. And excuse us if we southern highlanders are sick and damn tired of listening to it.

White, Deviant, Other
This has been triggered by a radio program out of Chicago called Odyssey. Today’s program is about hillbillies. I have to say that the discussion is pretty good. It is entirely too bad that the host HAD to mention Deliverance in her preamble but it was inevitable. My friend Judy thinks that references to Deliverance should be folded into a drinking game. I wholeheartedly agree. But not moonshine. Other drinking opportunities: Mentions of The Andy Griffith Show (a good show that y’all should watch even though no one seems to remember the smart people on it), Lil Abner, Hee-Haw, The Dukes of Hazzard, and The Beverly Hillbillies.

The theory in part being floated on this program—and I think it has merit—is that the concept of white poverty is terrifying. White people aren’t supposed to be poor. And yet, many of them are. And boy is it obvious in rural areas. What to do? What to do? Hey! Let’s portray these poor hillbillies as people who choose to live in poverty. That way, it doesn’t seem like something we cannot control and it isn’t big and scary. Those people are just lazy and shiftless … probably because of all that moonshine.

Pride
Southerner highlanders, like all Americans, are proud people. We take pride, variously, in our genealogy (which is not a tree trunk), sense of place, traditions, music, culture, faith, independence, creativity, and kindness. Not all of us are like that of course. If you look at any population, you’ll see good and bad. But where I am from, we’d rather die than be rude to you or slight you in any way, and it does not matter who you are or where you are from. We think you’re pretty interesting and welcome you in as long as you do not trespass. We love it when you stop off and buy a corncob pipe (made in china) in one of our little general stores because you think it is a genuine hillbilly artifact.

Cladistics
Hillbilly, Redneck, White Trash, Southerner … they’re not all the same. I am NOT going to try to define them because there are as many arguments over that as can possibly be and if you call a hillbilly a redneck or vice-versa, it could be a big problem for you. Avoid this if you can.

In Closing
No doubt I’ll revisit this topic about a million times. I do not have a big chip on my shoulder, this whole entry to the contrary. I just do not understand why people think it is okay to bust on a group of people about whom they almost certainly know far too little.

Edited to add: Definition of Hillbilly at Wikipedia (thanks Leslie!)

A Hand

This is interesting and a really good idea.

But.

As someone who has all sort of issues with disembodied hands, amputations, phantom limbs and whatnot, I am not sure I could have these in my house. (Note, when I initially typed that I typed “hose” instead of “house” and I want to make it very clear that I definitely could not stand to have these in my hose.)

To be clear, what I am writing about here is The Zaky®: “…an infant pillow that was designed to mimic the size, weight, touch and feel of the hand and forearm of the mother.” All good. Really. And if I were a mother, I might be positively giddy over this discovery.

“It’s like leaving a part of you with your baby.” Ew. And Awwwww. I’m so torn on this. I think it is probably an extraordinarily comforting thing for a baby but it has the potential to be sooooo creepy.

The Zaky also has great potential to be fun for the whole family. I have cats. Wonder how they would react to a Zaky or two strategically placed around the apartment. Wonder how I would react when I forgot about said strategically-placed Zaky. Terror. Cursing. Giggles. I would also have to peel one cat off the ceiling (Figaro) and reassure the other (Abby) that we (Figaro and I) are not as stupid as we look.

Why is the predominant color on the website an unfortunate brownish green? Sort of looks like … ah, nevermind. Boy, they really are concerned about sticking to the baby theme aren’t they?