"Southern Culture on the Skids?"

Professor Helen Taylor; Charles Reagan Wilson of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture; writer Michael Swindle; columnist Chris Rose; and moderator Josh Clark.

“Some people would probably like to secede from the U.S., but a lot of others would argue that the U.S. has seceded from us," said moderator Joshua Clark at the "Southern Culture on the Skids?" panel, which was one of those TW events where everything goes off the rails a bit and ends up just fine anyway. You want a literary festival where everyone behaves? Don't come to this one.

I had a feeling it might go a bit catawampus when my old neighbor, the Village Voice writer and essayist Michael Swindle, wandered off down the sidewalk with Barry Gifford in search of a pre-panel Bloody Mary, a concoction that seemed to be unavailable at the Bourbon Orleans, where the panel was being held. Mike was disgusted that a New Orleans hotel didn't have a place for a man to procure an adult beverage at 12:30 on a Friday afternoon, and he let his displeasure and disbelief known during the panel several times...until a hotel manager finally came upstairs with a tray of cocktails in hurricane glasses for all the panelists.

"The three English phrases most recognized in the world are Jesus, Coca-Cola, and Elvis Presley – and two of them are undisputably from the South," said Professor Taylor, who had an interesting perspective as an Englishwoman who had made Southern studies her vocation. She and Charles Reagan Wilson provided a more academic contrast to Swindle and Chris Rose, who just shrugged his shoulders at trying to sum up a culture that "encompasses Minnie Pearl, Ernie K-Doe, and George Wallace. And then some audience member delivered cans of Spam to the panelists.

When it was over, I found Mike and his cocktail at the authors' table, but it didn't appear that his publisher had actually managed to get his latest collection to the Festival for sale. It has the impressive title Slouching towards Birmingham: Shotgun Golf, Hog Hunting, Ass-Hauling Alligators, Rara in Haiti, Zapatistas, and Anahuac New Year's in Mexico City. Mike shrugged. "I talk good," he said, "but I just can't sell any books."