Dessert

"I think people are spending too much time thinking about what they put in their mouths rather than what comes out. Stop eating so much! We’re become a generation of people chewing their cud, eating all the time! No. Eat your breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and be happy."

--Mrs. Leah Chase, of Dooky Chase restaurant

This was the local legendary chef Leah Chase with Times-Picayune food editor Judy Walker at the party for Kit Wohl's new cookbook New Orleans' Classic Desserts.When I asked Mrs. Chase for a photograph and Judy Walker explained it would be on the Internet, Mrs. Chase said: "The Internet! I don't know anything about the Internet, but I know I need to be on it. Just don't put me up in the men's room."

The beginning of the end

Got to the Festival this morning in time to hear the "Wild at Heart" panel, with Paula Morris moderating a discussion of women's memoirs with Judy Conner, Louise Shaffer, Emily Toth, and Haven Kimmel. It was pretty lively at times--not exactly antagonistic, bu I had the feeling that a couple of the panelists wouldn't be establishing longtime Sisterhood of the Traveling Typewriters style friendships. But the cool thing was that they were all smart and funny and had a lot to say about their books and their fields, and it made me want to read the two writers I hadn't yet read (Shaffer and Morris).

When it was over, I met Emily Toth in the hall and complimented her on Inside Peyton Place, her biography of the writer Grace Metalious, which originally came out in 1981 and has recently become heaty again with the new interest in Peyton Place and the fact that Sandra Bullock has optioned her book. Toth, a professor at LSU, was charming and I felt like a dope for not bringing my copy of her book to the Festival to sign. It really was a lively piece of scholarship, and the fact it came out in '81 was remarkable: back then, Metalious was probably being sneered at in both English and women's studies departments. Anyway, Ms. Toth was a great conversationalist, and I was happy to learn she kept a place in New Orleans in addition to her home base of Baton Rouge.

(An aside: when a writer is standing in the hall after one of these things, go up and say hello. If you're not an insane fan, someone peddling an unpublished manuscript, or a Person With an Agenda, they're likely to be happy to have the chance to talk to someone who wants to talk to them. And if they're not nice, you have a story to share for years.)

Saturday afternoon panels

This afternoon brought "A Conversation with Yusef Komunyakaa," who read poetry and was interviewed by Dr. Henry Lacey, former vice-president of academic affairs at Dillard University, who has to be the one of the first moderators in the Festival's history to play the trumpet while his subject read poetry. Since Mr. Komunyakaa came up in Bogalusa, La., much of the conversation was spent discussing his formative years and literary influences in that paper-mill town bordering Mississippi. His poetry was wonderful, and his voice...let's just say that he makes James Earl Jones sound like Don Knotts.

Meanwhile, it started to become hard to hear inside the ballroom, because outside a rock-concert-sized crowd was gathering for "Tennessee Williams' Memoirs: When the Playwright Had His Say," which was the hot ticket of the day, with a panel that included local legend Dr. Kenneth Holditch, stage director David Kaplan, and film director/general personality John Waters. This was one of the most gossipy events at the Festival, since the Memoirs were pretty frank, and the literary/society crowd ate it up with a spoon, even the ladies in the little sweater sets. Maybe even especially the ladies in the little sweater sets.

Dr. Kenneth Holditch (back to the camera); John Waters; David Kaplan; and moderator Thomas Keith, being introduced by a Festival spokesman.

All three men read passages from the Memoirs, and then the gloves came off when it came to sexual frankness, lively anecdotes, and some dissing of lesser TW biographers. Waters had the crowd roaring with some outrageous comments, including "When The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Any More came to Baltimore, I begged my parents to take me to see it, but they wouldn't, which I consider child abuse." Dr. Holditch defended the decision to bury Williams in St. Louis, which didn't go over well in that crowd, and pointed out that Williams' most famous Quarter apartment, on Orleans Avenue, was right across the street from the ballroom.

And there was much talk of Boom!, the Liz-and-Dick film adaptation of Milk Train, which everyone on the panel considered the great "lost" Tennessee film. From the reaction of the crowd, a screening of Boom! at next year's Festival would be a major hit (and make a ton of dough). Get the attendees toasted enough and you'd have a literary version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

I heart Haven Kimmel

Panelists Margaret Sartor (Miss American Pie) and Haven Kimmel (A Girl Named Zippy).

Just heard a reading by the wonderful Haven Kimmel (A Girl Named Zippy) and walked with her back to the Bourbon Orleans. She's as charming as her books, and in the space of five minutes filled me in on a) the two men who have proposed to her since she arrived in New Orleans; b) the three times she's lived here; and c) the last time she came to the TW Fest, when an audience member took ill and a doctor who was also a concert pianist had to come to his rescue.

And then she was off to WWOZ, where she was to be the guest DJ on the afternoon Brasilia show. Since she doesn't know anything about Brazilian music, she said she was tempted to play "The Girl From Ipanema" for an hour.

She's got a third book in her Zippy trilogy coming out this fall--I'll find out more about it later. Right now I'm leeching WiFi on the sidewalk on Conti Street. Gotta go.

"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."

Apple-latcha, not appa-laytcha

Moderator Bev Marshall and authors Mark Powell, Ron Rash, and Sharyn McCrumb.

The first thing they established on the Appalachian writers' panel this morning is that the region is properly pronounced apple-latcha, not appa-laytcha. In a town with street names like Tchoupitoulas, people understand the import of getting it right.

Sharyn McCrumb read an engaging snippet of her novel St. Dale, and kept things popping with some tart observations and notable quotes, several of which made everyone in the room crack up:

“I grew up in an atmosphere of Johnny Cash meets Debussy.”

"On tour, I kept running into people who thought Deliverance was a documentary.”

“It’s fun to talk to the literati about NASCAR, because they think it’s the former president of Egypt.”

Actually, I wasn't too impressed with that last quote; there are probably racing fans in the halls of Harvard as surely as there are Dante fans in the woods of Tennessee. As any New Orleanian who has spent significant time Uptown and downtown knows, there's snobbery and then there's reverse snobbery. But McCrumb is a good reader and an even better writer.

Ron Rash, I'm ashamed to say, is a writer of whom I knew nothing, but after listening to him read, his books are going to the top of my reading pile. He's got a gripping, quiet, pared-down style that's incredibly powerful. Same with Mark Powell, who read a selection from his book Blood Kin, which won the 2005 Peter Taylor Prize for literature. Powell brought up the ongoing problem of the suburbanization of the South and Appalachia in particular, with McMansions going in atop the mountains and Wal-Mart clear-cutting the old downtowns.

Mr. Rash made one particularly poignant point about that: “There’s three ways that the culture will survive," he said. "Music, cooking, and literature.”

Which shows, perhaps, that Appalachia and New Orleans aren't that far apart at all.

Michael Lewis on what's holding New Orleans back

Another blogger, Dangermond, attended the Michael Lewis panel this afternoon and recorded Mr. Lewis' thoughts on what's holding the city back post-Katrina. It's well worth a read if you haven't figured it out from the fiendishly clever clue on the left.

Opening day and master classes

So far, so good; the organizers are walking around looking sanguine, whether that's really how they feel or not. This is the scrum at the checkin table. Somewhere in there is executive director Paul Willis, associate director Karissa Kary, v.p. Doug Brantley, LouAnn Morehouse, and program assistant Marika Christian. Marika was a longtime Festival attendee who just up and moved to New Orleans one day, and the city opened up its magic box for her; she found an attic apartment above the city's most notable TW scholar, Dr. Kenneth Holditch, got a job with the Fest, and is now working on her first novel under the tutelage of local writer Julie Smith...all of which is the sort of thing that happens in New Orleans with alarming regularity if you just strip off your defenses and dive right in.

Here's the table from the Garden District Book Shop, which came through Katrina just fine and is actually bucking the brick-and-mortar bookstore trend by, well, not going out of business and actually making a little bit of scratch. It's in a great area; the Garden District is, if anything, cleaner than it was before the storm, Commander's Palace is (thank God) open again, and all that's missing is the streetcar running up St. Charles Avenue. Taking the "St. Charles bus" just doesn't have that romance to it.


And here's the Festival president, Pat Brady, with her inamorato/main squeeze Michael Ledet. Pat is also the author of Martha Washington: An American Life, which has gotten the sort of reviews that writers could (and have) killed for. Michael, who owns 2 Martini Press with the Gumbo Shop's Richard Stewart, was about to present a master class on self-publishing with Richard and Allain Andry, the author of the children's book Louie the Buoy.

Is anything going wrong? Well, they ran out of free coffee (which is, fortunately, not in short supply in the Quarter), and the out-of-towners are mopping sweat from their brows and looking slightly poleaxed. Wusses! It's only March.

Chris Rose and the Tennessee Ernie Ford Festival

Chris Rose is a columnist for The Times-Picayune, who underwent a metamorphosis from Britney-chronicler to Outraged Man of the City after the levees collapsed. Since then, he's been shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize and become a contributor to both PBS' NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and NPR's Morning Edition, and his book of post-K essays, 1 dead in attic, has raised more than $25,000 for New Orleans musicians' charities.

Today's Rose column is about the incredible sights and sounds of spring in the Crescent City, but it also has this intriguing mention:

Springtime in New Orleans is when and where the highbrow Tennessee Williams literary festival concludes with a contest to see who can scream "Stella!" the best in a dirty T-shirt, and the Tennessee Ernie Ford Festival in a local juke joint around the corner serves as a cultural counterpoint, seducing unsuspecting tourists into drunken singalongs to "16 Tons."

A Tennessee Ernie Ford Festival? I am so there. But, Chris, which juke joint is it?

Fri., Mar. 30, 1 pm
"Southern Culture on the Skids?"

Panelists: Chris Rose, Mike Swindle, Helen Taylor, and Charles Wilson. Moderator: Joshua Clark.

Where is Richard Ford? Right here, as it turns out

In the earlier profile of Richard Ford, one of the leading lights at this year's Festival, I mentioned that I wasn't sure if Ford and his wife were staying in New Orleans. Thanks to a commenter named Teresa, I discovered that it seems he is, and he's helping with hurricane recovery in a truly hands-on way: as a volunteer "carpenter, painter, and jack of some trades," working on the first houses to be rebuilt in the Lower Ninth Ward.

The homeowners, Josephine Butler and Gwendolyn Guice, moved back in during the last week of February, in an event clogged with politicos and covered by The New York Times. Mr. Ford addressed the crowd there, and here's a transcript of his statements. I was particularly struck by this:

I want to just say this to Ms. Butler and Ms. Guice. There's a lot of cheap talk we hear every day about whether this community will come back, can come back, should be allowed to come back. But if it's going to come back, that will depend a lot less on politicians' talk, or land developers' greedy plans, or on "the economy" (whatever that means); and instead it will depend on people like you two, who let their feet and their hearts and their determination do their talking, and who know that "community" is not just a word on a sign.

Profile: Richard Ford

A look at some of the personalities at the TW Fest

Richard Ford is one of America's preeminent modern novelists, but a lot of people don't associate him with New Orleans--or, for that matter, with the South. He was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and lived for years in the French Quarter (his wife, Kristina, was head of the city planning commission for eight years until Mayor Ray Nagin came along).

Ford is the author of six novels and several short-story collections, but he's probably best known for the trilogy of novels chronicling the progress of American everyman Frank Bascombe: The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and last year's The Lay of the Land. In 1996, Independence Day became the first novel ever to win both the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

I'm not sure if the Fords are still living in the French Quarter or if they've decamped permanently for parts North, but I did see him a couple of years ago at Fiorella's on the French Market, quietly waiting for Fiorella's justly famed fried chicken plate lunch. That's typical New Orleans; you can run into anyone in a barroom or a luncheonette. Even a Pulitzer Prize winner.

Fri., Mar. 30, 4 pm
"A Conversation with Richard Ford"

The Times-Picayune on John Waters on Tennessee Williams

David Cuthbert of The Times-Picayune has an extremely entertaining Tennessee-themed Q&A with filmmaker and panelist John Waters in today's paper. Waters has written the introduction for Memoirs, the TW biography that's just been reissued by New Directions Publishing.

There's also a great roundup of stories on the Festival's theater offerings, including Jeremy Lawrence in "Everybody Expects Me to Write Another Streetcar," Gregg Barrios' new play "Rancho Pancho," and a general roundup of Tenn-themed stage offerings.

Sat., Mar. 31, 4 pm
"Tennessee Williams' Memoirs: When the Playwright Had His Say"

Panelists: John Waters, David Kaplan of the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival, and Thomas Keith, editor of New Directions Publishing. Moderator: Kenneth Holditch.

Annette Cardona joins the program

Annette Cardona, who played the role of Perla in the 1996 off-Broadway production of one of Williams' last plays, The Red Devil Battery Sign, has been added to the Festival lineup. (And I'd be remiss not to note that Ms. Cardona also originated the role of Cha-Cha DiGregorio, 'the best dancer at St. Bernadette's...with the worst reputation' in the film version of Grease.)

She'll be appearing in the "Ode to Tennessee" panel, as well as speaking after the screening of the documentary Tennessee Williams: Theater in Process. As the program says:

Narrated by Tennessee Williams, this documentary traces the development of his play The Red Devil Battery Sign from its opening press conference to its first performances at Boston’s Schubert Theater in June 1975. The film offers an unusual look behind the scenes at a different kind of drama — the process of bringing theater to life. What we see and hear in the film is what makes the play possible. We witness the rehearsals, follow the revisions, and encounter the problems Williams faced in bringing the work to stage.

Sun., Apr. 1, 10 am
The Cabildo

Tennessee Williams: Theater in Process
A screening of the 1976 documentary narrated by Williams, with a discussion of the play The Red Devil Battery Sign featuring Annette Cardona

Profile: John Waters

A look at some of the personalities at the TW Fest

John Waters is a director, a writer, and one of the most hilarious people in the world. Even if you didn't grow up watching Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, and his other cinema outrages, you've probably seen Hairspray (either the film or the Broadway musical, which has been turned into a film again). Two years ago, I was lucky enough to interview Waters on one of his jaunts to New Orleans, where his artwork is often on display at the Arthur Roger Gallery in the Warehouse District.

Waters is also a major Tennessee-ophile, and wrote about his obsession last year in The New York Times. This year, he wrote the introduction for Memoirs, a reprinting of Williams' biographical essays. His new projects are "'Til Death Do Us Part," a macabre comedy-documentary series that premieres tonight on CourtTV, and Fruitcake, a children's film (!) scheduled to start shooting this fall.

Sat., 4 pm: "Tennessee Williams' Memoirs: When the Playwright Had His Say"

The schedule continues to evolve...

More panel and panelist changes...

New Orleans as a Home for Writers ... Still

In 1987, at the first Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival, a group of writers gathered on a panel to discuss the distinctive elements that make New Orleans congenial to their creative spirits. Is it Mardi Gras, the weather, the Sazeracs, or the jazz? Join original panelists as they share how the Crescent City continues to inspire and influence their work.

Fri., Mar. 30, 10 am
Panelists: Jason Berry, Christine Wiltz. Moderator: Ralph Adamo.
Bourbon Orleans Ballroom


And the Beats Go On

With the end of World War I came the Lost Generation and the Golden Age of American prose: Steinbeck, Faulkner, Hemingway. With World War II came a very different movement—the Beat Generation—one that brought the rhythms of jazz to the written word, and continues to influence the major writers of today. Kerouac, Burroughs, Thompson: All spent time in Tennessee Williams' "spiritual home"—part of the "Golden Triangle" between New York and San Francisco—and like him, captured the Crescent City with their words. In this panel, three authors who knew and have written about members of the Beat movement, discuss the Beats' influence on their own work and the group's lasting contributions to the contemporary literary landscape.

Sat. Mar. 31, 11:30 am
Panelists: Doug Brinkley, Barry Gifford, and Curtis Robinson. Moderator: Michael Swindle.
Bourbon Orleans Ballroom

More schedule changes

• All performances of The Last Madam have been cancelled, due to actress Grace Zabriskie being unable to attend. Ticket holders will be contacted directly.
• Amy Guth has replaced Earnest Hill in the Saturday Writers Read panel
• A Conversation with Yusef Komunyakaa has been moved to Saturday at 2:30 pm
• New Orleans as a Home for Writers ... Still has been moved to Saturday at 11:30 am

News: Grace Zabriskie out, Annette Cardona in

Marika Christian from the Festival writes:

I wanted to let you know that Grace Zabriskie had to cancel due to a medical issue ... We are working to either refund tickets for The Last Madam, or offer tickets to different theater performances ...

However, at the last minute we were notified that Annette Cardona would like to attend. She played Anthony Quinn's daughter in the documentary that traces the development of his play Red Devil Battery Sign -- I honestly don't know much about it ... so I am just going to type out what we have:

Tennessee Williams: Theater in Progress
10 AM The Cabildo

Narrated by Tennessee Williams, this documentary traces the development of his play Red Devil Battery Sign, from its opening press conference to its first performance at Boston's Shubert Theater in June 1975. The film offers an unusual look behind the scenes at a different kind of drama - the process of bringing theater to life. What we see and hear in the film is what makes the play possible. We witness the rehearsals, follow the revisions, and encounter the problems Williams faced in bringing the world to stage. The film reveals the work in progress - the collaborative effort between the writer, director and actors - that is the creative process of theater.

And Marika adds:

I know Annette Cardona as Cha Cha DiGregorio, the best dancer at St. Bernadette's with the worst reputation! - from Grease ...

Anyway, she will be on Dr Holditch's panel discussing her experience with Tennessee at ODE TO TENNESSEE 4pm Le Petit Theater mainstage.

Profile: Sharyn McCrumb

A look at some of the personalities at the TW Fest

Sharyn McCrumb is one of America's leading writers about Appalachia, specifically about the lives of people in the Tennessee and North Carolina mountains, in what is known as the "Ballad" series. She's also written nine mystery novels about forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson, and a couple of science-fiction spoofs--including the excellently titled Bimbos of the Death Star.

Her newest book, Once Around the Track, which will be released in May, is a followup to St. Dale, her take on The Canterbury Tales as set in the world of NASCAR. (You can download Chapter 1 here.)

McCrumb has also won a slew of awards, from the Appalachian Writers' Association's Book of the Year to the Agatha, Anthony, Edgar, Macavity, and Nero.

I think she's a great addition to the lineup; sometimes Southern literature focuses almost exclusively on writings from the Deep South to the exclusion of all other areas, and I'd like to know more about Appalachia and the people who live there.

Fri., Mar. 30, 11:30 am
"Head for the Hills: The Mystique of Appalachia"

Fri., Mar. 30, 1:30 pm
"An Interview with Sharyn McCrumb" (master class)

Profile: Haven Kimmel

A look at some of the personalities at the TW Fest

Okay, I fell half-in love with Haven Kimmel 20 pages into her astonishing memoir, A Girl Named Zippy, and immediately went out and found her debut, She Got Up Off the Couch. Both were tales of growing up in the Midwest in a weird family, and both would be greatly appealing to anyone who enjoyed Augusten Burroughs' Running With Scissors (the wonderful book, not the mediocre movie); it's no surprise that Burroughs is a huge Haven Kimmel friend and fan.

Here's an interview that Ms. Kimmel did with Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon. One telling quote:

For a while I thought that Zippy might be my ultimate experiment in terms of what can be done with first person narration. I was interested, first of all, in how long it's possible to sustain a child's voice intelligibly, meaningfully, and without losing the interest of the reader. It turns out you can do it a damn long time. The comment I get most often about Zippy is, "I wish it were four hundred pages longer."

I agree--it was one of those books that I hated to see end.

Sat., Mar. 31, 11:30 am:
"Writers Read"

Sun., Apr. 1, 10 am:
"Writing From Memory: An Insider's Look at Autobiography"

Sun., Apr. 1, 11:30 am:
"Wild At Heart"

Profile: Michael Lewis

A look at some of the personalities at TW Fest

Michael Lewis went to Newman. I didn't know that, but in New Orleans where you went to high school trumps all; it probably means more, locally, than the fact that he went to Princeton and then the London School of Economics. He hit the big time with Liar's Poker, which was one of the big three 1980s go-go greedfest stories that seemed to sum up the decade (along with The Bonfire of the Vanities and Oliver Stone's Wall Street).

Fortunately for readers, he left Salomon Brothers and followed a writing career; he's now a contributor to the New York Times Sunday Magazine, and he's written a slew of books, including The New New Thing (a look at Silicon Valley) and Moneyball (about the hapless but somehow successful Oakland A's). Right now Michael lives in Berkeley and Paris with his family.

Oh, and remember Tabitha Soren, the anchor from MTV News back in the day? His wife.

Thu., Mar. 29, 3:15 pm:
"Michael Lewis: Behind the Zeitgeist" (master class)
Sat., Mar. 31, 1 pm:
"Politics as Theater/Theater as Politics"