Jerry Clower (Wikipedia article) started telling his funny stories to boost sales when he was a seed and fertilizer salesman. He went on to become a successful comedian and Grand Ole Opry star.
posted on Aug 7, 2008 - View this thread

The BBQ Song
posted on Aug 4, 2008 - View this thread

Anthony Powell is a photographer based in Antarctica. In addition to his photography, he's shot some excellent time-lapse video of the Southern Lights and a Day in the Life of Antarctica.
posted on Jun 28, 2008 - View this thread

The Southern Foodways Alliance is one weighed-down church-supper table, full of oral history/blog projects like The Tamale Trail, the Boudin Trail, interviews and recipes from the Bartenders of New Orleans, photo essay/interviews from Birmingham's Greek-Americans, a mess o'homemade films, and a passel of event and BBQ-shack photos on Flickr, all smothered in the tangy-sweet academic goodness of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at Ole Miss. These folks get my vote for most flavorful, funkiest food-loving folklorists in the lower forty-eight.
posted on Apr 28, 2008 - View this thread

Ten Years in Jail for Selling Lightbulbs
posted on Mar 6, 2008 - View this thread

Wayne White's paintings
posted on Dec 20, 2007 - View this thread

Bob Log III plays distorted trash grimey blues slide guitar with his hands, he drawls through a telephone attached to the bubble face of the motorcycle helmet he wears, and he drums with his feet. He is known to ask women to stir his scotch on stage with their breasts, which is sadly Not currently Safe for Work. Sometimes he asks them to sit on his knee, bouncing up and down on the blue glittery jump suit he wears whenever he plays.
posted on Oct 11, 2007 - View this thread

He's the candidate God would vote for, if God could legally vote. Not endorsed by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, or that Sam Harris dude. Previously.
posted on Oct 9, 2007 - View this thread

Flamenco clearly belongs to spain. But so many immigrants came to France to find work or escape from the civil war that there is a small community of guitarists in southern France who are playing it with original voices. Bernardo Sandoval was the subject of a post in mefi music some time ago. Antonio "kiko" ruiz is about to come to the United States with Renaud-Garcia-Fons : their work can be seen here. Serge Lopez is another great guitarist who puts some guitar parts on his website. Salvador Paterna adds to the traditional sound of flamenco both the 'oud and the violin. They are all from or nearby Toulouse.
posted on Sep 4, 2007 - View this thread

Khanate.
posted on Jul 15, 2007 - View this thread

Red State Update with Jackie and Dunlap. Comic good ol' boys shooting the sh*t and having a few hundred beers, while using satire and dead pan humor on the politics of the day.
posted on Jun 13, 2007 - View this thread

Edna Lewis, the Julia Child of Southern cooking, has passed away at the age of 89.
posted on Feb 14, 2006 - View this thread

Just a small piece down the road from Christmas Town USA looms the empty Loray Mill, an icon of the old industrial South and a monument to the early labor movement. Gastonia 1929: the chief of police is murdered, the Communist organizer flees the country, and the young union balladeer is killed by a strikebreaking mob. (Hear Pete Seeger sing one of her ballads. [real media]) Much more on the area's rich and turbulent history at A Southern Primer. (Lewis Hine's child labor photographs previously discussed here.)
posted on Dec 9, 2005 - View this thread

Equine Gothic: The Dead Mule as Generic Signifier in Southern Literature of the Twentieth Century
posted on Jan 5, 2005 - View this thread

Mike Disfarmer had a photo studio in the resort town of Heber Springs, Arkansas throughout the 30s and 40s, creating images with an amazing blunt, unvarnished beauty and strength. Nothing speaks more eloquently about Disfarmer's artistry than the photographs themselves. His genius was the ability to capture without judgment, the essence of a people and a time.
posted on Apr 11, 2004 - View this thread

Don't bump into a Southerner Paul Robinson on the ancient code of insult and revenge that is still prevalent in the American South
posted on Jul 31, 2003 - View this thread

The Moonlit Road. A fine collection of ghost stories from the American South.
People who like this may also be interesting in How to Fake a Ghost Photo, or Haunted Mobile Homes.
posted on Jun 15, 2003 - View this thread

The Best Food You Never Had: Reading Jake Adam York's juicy essay on the art of the barbecue, I was once again sadly reminded I've never had the pleasure of tasting real, Southern U.S. open-pit barbecue. I have no idea whether it's better in Texas, Kansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Kentucky or Georgia; whether pork is better than beef; smoked is tastier than plain... Then I realized there are quite a number of other delicious foods (like fresh abalone sashimi; Alaskan king crab cooked live; a clam-bake on the beach; real wasabi; smoked sablefish; fresh unsalted caviar; an oyster Po'Boy...) I've never tried. It's an interesting gastronomic category: something you've read about and heard about and probably drooled over, that you just know you'd love if only you had a chance to try it! So forgive my curiosity: what's the best food you've never had? [Main link via Arts and Letters Daily]
posted on Feb 12, 2003 - View this thread

The neo-Confederacy movement is a potent force in the Republican Party in today's South, as Trent Lott's comments about Strom Thurmond demonstrate. Trent Lott has neo-Confederate ties, as does John Ashcroft who praised Jefferson Davis in an interview with the Southern Partisan magazine. Associated with the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans, adherents of the neo-Confederate movement can even buy T-shirts gloating transforming the Republican Party into Abraham Lincoln's worst nightmare.
posted on Dec 15, 2002 - View this thread