If My Luck Holds . . .

Rodney Clapp’s next chapter is on the tension between holiness and hedonism. Music with Southern roots exalts and celebrates two times in the week that are worlds apart and are very close to each other — Saturday night and Sunday morning. A recent example of this is the song Boondocks by Little Big Town — …

High Praise from Publishers Who Passed

I recently announced that Evangellyfish was coming soon. Also coming soon will be an explanation of exactly how and in what form it will be coming soon. In short, prior to publication (which will be soon) there will be more teasers, explanations, and glimpses of the characters. Do books have trailers? If so, there will …

Another Outrage on the Public Weal

So then, as it turns out, the California Supreme Court perpetrated a vicious hate crime against bisexuals. In a decision that reminded civilized observers everywhere of the smell of cooking cabbage, the seven robed judicialbots did what they did, and all the diversity advancement that progressives have been whining about interminably coughed quietly and died. …

Our Intellectual Cheetos

In the introductory material, Clapp has noted many of the American characteristics that are in tension. In Chapter 2, he starts to get into the particulars, in this case the tension between lonesomeness and community. If there is anything that country singers are good at, it is “high lonesome.” And if there is anything else …

Hardscrabble Celts

The first full chapter of Clapp’s book is entitled “America’s Southern Accent” and shows, quite effectively, that when we talk about American culture generally we are largely talking about Southern culture — “but now southern identity, like the Mississippi in flood, has surged well beyond the banks of the South as a region. In so …