Twenty-plus years of documenting the South's vernacular art, visionary environments and traditions….plus modern art exhibits, Faulkner and Eudora, and This Week's Various. Welcome.
I had lunch at Muriel’s in the Quarter — ordered the ‘stuffed mirliton with shrimp and andouille stuffing, baked and served with a roasted Creole tomato sauce.’ The restaurant was lovely inside and lunch was very nice:
O’Neil said all he uses in his garden, in terms of pesticide, is soap, Clorox and water. “That kills 99 percent of bugs,” he said, “without killing you.” (Dr. Lance) Hill runs a nonprofit, volunteer organization dedicated to promoting the conservation and uses of Louisiana heirloom mirlitons, as they are scientifically called. Once a backyard staple in southern Louisiana, mirlitons were nearly destroyed by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Gustav, Hill said. Hill’s website, www.mirlitons.org, seeks to restore mirlitons as a culturally significant backyard fare. — One thing to keep in mind is that so many mirlitons that the grocery stores sell are not from our region, but rather most likely from Costa Rica. So if you have thoughts about just buying one at the store and letting it sprout in your garden, it probably isn’t going to do very well because of our different climate — and it won’t be a traditional variety of mirliton that we’re all accustomed to. This coming late winter I’ll definitely start some in the garden (probably one as the vines are huge), hopefully from the adopt-a-mirliton program or a local nursery. Planting instructions here. I make stuffed mirlitons here at home, and while this isn’t my exact, this is a good recipe.
In yellow — where Faulkner had once lived in the Quarter:
I mentioned in last week’s ‘various’ post that the Faulkner estate had sued Sony Pictures Classic for their use of the ‘past...not even past‘ quote from Requiem in last year’s Woody Allen ‘Midnight in Paris’ film. They filed in U.S. District Court in Mississippi and the suit is officially brought by Faulkner Literary Rights. They claim copyright infringement and violation of the Lanham Act (the federal trademark act).
In response, Sony’s sr. vp of global communications, Ann Boyd, said, “There is no question this brief reference (10 words) to a quote from a public speech Faulkner gave constitutes fair use and any claim to the contrary is without merit.”
Fair use is fair use, and I think Sony will be successful in that regard.
Well, the Faulkner team has been busy, because on Friday in Jackson, they also sued Northrop Grumman Corp. and The Washington Post on using another quote in a newspaper ad. Two lawsuits in a week, but these are the first lawsuits they have made.
Now this quote in an ad…I think they may have more of a case. In their WaPo ad, Northrup Grumman used this Faulkner quote: “We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it”. Because that’s a paid advertisement, I’m guessing that they also want to make certain that no one thinks Faulkner would be associated in such a way with a company that makes money from warcraft like their ‘long-range strike aircraft bomber‘.
“Commercial use isn’t presumptively unfair,” he said. He said no one watches “Midnight in Paris” as a substitute for buying “Requiem for a Nun.” “The Faulkner estate’s interest is not being harmed in any way,” Olson said. “If anything it draws a little more interest.” ………. Olson said the Northrop case may be stronger, but he fears that authors are using copyright to limit the political context in which works are quoted or used.
Above, this is the interior of the building shown above. It’s ‘Faulkner House Books‘ — a very nice little shop where I bought ‘Thinking of Home, Letters to his Mother and Father, 1918-1925‘ in which Faulkner mentions living here; he refers to it as Bill Spratling’s house and that it faces the garden behind St. Louis Cathedral.
The whole time I was in the shop, I was thinking of how fantastic it would be to live here.
Along with Lewis Piper who was in ad sales for the New Orleans Item-Tribune, Faulkner lived in two rooms on the first floor, and had a court and a kitchen. Upstairs was Bill Spratling the painter’s area, and that was where the bathroom was that they used. Bill also made sure they had breakfast thanks to his maid, Eleanora, who cleaned the other rooms while they ate breakfast.
Oh — and Bill Spratling wasn’t only a painter — he was professor of architecture at Tulane (Spratling had studied at Auburn and designed the university seal), he was an illustrator and author and silver designer who went on to move to Mexico and become a friend of Diego Rivera. Later in his life, he received an honorary doctorate from Auburn.
Shugie turned four last week! So exciting! He had a gymnastics party with his friends and had it Alabama themed (see the pic, bottom-right? that’s the National Championship pic from last year — I Photoshopped Shugie onto AJ for the front of the goodie bags! Everybody thought it was so cool!!) and he wore his jersey during the lunch:
He had a birthday supper with the family (although these pics are from a supper a week before) *and* because he loves trains, everyone rode on the Amtrak from B’ham to Tuscaloosa so he could have a real train ride! He loved that too! You only turn four once!
— In a court case that has been going on for some time now, the T-P reports that a: “panel of federal appellate judges Tuesday evening smacked down the Louisiana funeral board’s continued attempts to prevent the St. Joseph Abbey monks from selling their hand-crafted caskets. “The great deference due state economic regulation (does not require) courts to accept nonsensical explanations for naked transfers of wealth,” wrote Judges Patrick Higginbotham, Catharina Haynes and Stephen A. Higginson of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. “We insist that Louisiana’s rules not be irrational.” The appellate judges sent the case to the Louisiana Supreme Court, refusing to consider the funeral board’s appeal of a previous court’s ruling that found it unconstitutional for the state to give funeral directors exclusive rights to sell caskets. “Simply put, there is nothing in the licensing procedures that bestows any benefit to the public in the context of the retail sale of caskets,” U.S. District Court Judge Stanwood R. Duval Jr. ruled in July 2011. “The license has no bearing on the manufacturing and sale of coffins. It appears that the sole reason for these laws is the economic protection of the funeral industry,” which he wrote is not “a valid government interest.”” The monks also bake 2000 loaves per week for the needy via charitable institutions in New Orleans through their ‘Pennies for Bread‘ program. What terrific men. — On All Things Considered: How a Texas Postman became a Hermes Designer.
— Sounds as though the Kilgore House on campus at UA could be moved.
— The fall Slotin Folk Art Auction / Fall Masterpiece Sale is November 10 and 11 and includes some of the collection of my friend Kelly Ludwig. You can go in person or bid online (so easy).
— Vrazel’s in Gulfport, one of our favorite places on the MS coast, will be closing mid-December. He has sold the building to the casino next door. Going to be hard to get in between now and then.
— On his 81st birthday: Leonard Knight will return to Salvation Mountain on November 4 at 11a.
— A couple of men buy a $1.8MM FLW home in Phoenix with the idea to demolish it, and say to the NYT that they didn’t know the difference “between Frank Lloyd Wright and the Wright brothers” — which is kind-of weird when after all they own a real estate development firm. They got a demolition permit from the city in August but the city revoked it after hearing from preservationists (can you imagine the earful they must’ve gotten?!). If a new buyer isn’t found soon, the city may put in place a recommended landmark status to preserve it — but that landmark status only shields the structure for three years (!!).
So what does the owner say about that? “I’ll move in, invite everybody to come in and take their pictures, and I’m going to wait three years,” he said, interlacing his fingers behind his neck as he slouched on the orange cushions of the master bedroom’s seating area. “Then I’m going to knock it down to recoup my losses.”
— “Scott’s 2nd Annual Halloween Bash” from 6-9p Halloween evening at the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum in Montgomery. Tickets available at the website.
— Scarlett’s green drapes dress, and her burgundy gown too, have been saved from destruction after $30k of work at the University of Texas.
— The new Quentin Tarantino movie, Django Unchained, will be out on Christmas Day — the trailer has just been released and much of it was filmed in Louisiana, Evergreen Plantation:
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