A Sweltering Night of Southern Gothic

The Escape Goat picked Carson McCuller's The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and a selection of Elizabeth Bishop poems for her month of Booklub. To maintain a southern theme, she served: greens, cornbread, peach cobbler, sweet potatoes, fried green tomatoes, corn on the cob, maybe some other things I forget, and an oddly misplaced gazpacho. But--as everyone knows--the south is not ethnocentric (No! Never), so the gazpacho was welcome. But the meat was not! Even if they eat it in the south and everywhere else. Unlike animals, vegetables don't have feelings--so ignore that tomato's screams, Escape Goat. Ignore them! Tomatoes of the world, your screams fall on deaf ears in the Escape Goat's presence. She will cut you and deep fry you.

Speaking of screams falling on deaf ears...You'll get no help from this one, either. She just stepped out of a Swift Boat Veterans for Truth commercial. What a sack of sorrow the Mayor makes, sitting there slamming down a swill of wine! Who pissed in your pansy garden, Mayor? Turn that frown upside down...





ROCK BOX! And lined up wined up.






Below, the Escape Goat remorsefully weeps after violently slaughtering five onions. She is modeling my favorite bling; a galloping stallion medallion. I like this picture because it looks like he's running through a canyon in a thunderstorm. Or, as the Escape Goat would say, "A cavernous canyon." Sleazy Escape Goat.





Double D' Wicked the Corruptor of Innocence and Sly Little Minx arrive with Dryfus in tow. They make for a terrible tryst indeed. Look at Dryfus glancing around for Bah-Bah, Pepper, or Melon to gnaw on. Uh-Oh, looks like the Escape Goat's laptop will have to do, Dryfus. I don't know why Dryfus has been making so many cameos without his pirate garb; I'm beginning to think he's taken up Catholicism. What else could explain his good behavior? In fact, Dryfus was on the best behavior of his lifetime this evening. He clearly showed an affinity for Carson McCullers. He made several valuable contributions to our discussion, all of which served to bail the Minx out of the rhetorical hole she was digging herself into. Dryfus! Your cameo did not go unrecognized!






Below the Escape Goat tears the Mayor away from her bottle of wine long enough to stir the greens. Although she should be focusing on the task at hand, the Mayor takes time off to launch into a flurry of insults. Laughing, the Escape Goat only encourages this behavior.





And there goes the Minx, right on through the sweltering kitchen, where there is work to be done, out onto the back porch where there is a cool breeze. So as not to be seen, the Minx scuttled through in a blur; even the picture came out hazy. She was moving so fast that the camera could barely catch her image, but film does not lie. "See yuh, wouldn't wanna be yuh," she shouted as she blew by astounded onlookers.





As the intent glare of a somnambulant masks Double D' Wicked's face, she makes her way to the smoking section. Passing by she mutters, "Get me a smoking jacket. And a cigarette. And a drink. A stiff drink."

"Don't you mean a cavernous drink?" asked the Escape Goat. Needless to say, Double D' Wicked ignored this comment. But the Mayor did not. She chuckled.

The Escape Goat's sprawling mansion should be sitting atop a wedding cake. The willow tree in the background proved the perfect addition to an already ideal southern gothic setting. All Double D' Wicked needs is a mint julep to complete the look.





The Mayor of Moneytown emerges from a bowl of strawberries...





Look at the Minx down there. Instead of being known as the Minx she should be known as the Leisurely Lollygagger. Minx, if you're not careful I'll put a poll on my blog to decide if popular opinion determines you to be unworthy of your amazingly hip pseudonym! You better watch your step! I'll do it! We all know that Mark Twain sounds better than Samuel Clemens, but you have to live up to the hype...





Whenever I see lipstick on the filter of a stumped cigarette on the sidewalk I always think about shrunken old ladies smoking. When I was a kid, maybe about nine, a shrunken old lady named Missus Spots lived down the street from me, and she would dump her ashtray over the edge of her balcony every morning. This Missus Spots smoked like a chimney, so beneath her balcony was a mound of cigarette butts. Me and two twins--Todd and John--used to go dig through them in the morning and find all of the longer ones and smoke them. They always had lipstick around the filter, but Todd and John still smoked them. She would sit on her porch all day and smoke cigarettes and drink sweet tea, but--evidently--she still put lipstick on each morning.





Cricket arrives just in time for a delicious glass of wine before dinner.



Below, the Escape Goat comes out of the sweltering kitchen to announce the arrival of her decadent southern feast. Little did we know what a treat we were in for. The Escape Goat is a skilled cook, capable of eclipsing any Parisian chef, and she--once again--proved her art pound for culinary pound. As you can see, even the Minx paused in her mastication to heed the Escape Goat's instructions, a rare feat indeed...





All of this drama was too much for the Cricket. Obscured in shadows, she preferred to unwind from a long day with a cigarette and delicious glass of wine. Well played, Cricket!





The moment of reckoning. The Escape Goat really outdid herself for this magnificent feast. Although she is a confident chef, she is also her own worse critic, and can be seen below skeptically looking over the rim of her glasses to gauge the expression on each person's face. Don't worry, Escape Goat, your cooking is a hit with the masses! The fried green tomatoes were my favorite. Delicious! I saw the Minx sneaking Dryfus choice bits of the feast. Bad Minx!






Empty plates and full stomachs; a true sign of the Escape Goat's unparalleled skills...





The Mayor bested an ear of corn, a formidable foe indeed. Little did that ear of corn know that it had picked a fight with the underground arm wrestling champion of Kansas City. Now who's boss, corn? Note how she crumbles the husk in her scrappy grip, and gnashes her teeth threateningly while holding the corn at bay in her left hand. Minx! You will not leave disappointed this evening! Bend over and show the Mayor your backside! Mentos, anyone?





You will be pleased to learn that The Ballad of the Sad Cafe supplied all of the elements for a good discussion. I was glad the Escape Goat recommended this amazing novella because I had never read Carson McCullers, but now I am an instant fan. The Escape Goat also recommended The Member of the Wedding and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (both novels) by Carson McCullers. I would like to read them both, and I think the Mayor was equally interested.





Along with a macabre potpourri of interesting characters, The Ballad of the Sad Cafe also features a mischievous hunchback. McCullers introduces the reader to a chain of lovers and beloveds. We focused on two main points of discussion from which several ideas sprouted: Firstly, this book generated an interesting discussion about the definition of love, and the contrasts between the lover and the object of desire. Also addressed were loyalty and betrayal. Secondly, the book entertained an interesting dialogue about community and the social aspects of communal space (or lack thereof). Most of us were torn between these two camps of thought regarding the driving point of the book. Some gravitated to the idea of community; others to the idea of love. But I think we all agreed that both points were crucial to the development of the sad cafe.





I'm not sure if the Mayor is picking her teeth or plucking corn from her soul patch...





Below, the Escape Goat reacts to Double D' Wicked's sudden proposition that we take Dryfus's magic carpet for a spin through the many splendid rooms of the Escape Goat's mansion. The Escape Goat's direct quote was, "I mean, I'd agree to that, but I don't have a magic carpet docking bay and fueling station. Get a clue."





Overall, we had a great discussion. The story was very tight, and the characters were developed amazingly well for such a short piece.





In short, Carson McCullers comes highly recommended by everyone at Booklub.





For dessert, the Escape Goat served up these guys. They were really good, but I forget what they were. Not cupcakes. I had to eat one really fast, before the crazy daisies gobbled them up...





The Sly Little Minx and the Mayor of Moneytown read an excerpt from an especially interesting passage in The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, and everyone shared in the reading of one Elizabeth Bishop poem. It was very humid; the glasses of ice water were sweating, and the wine turned tepid.





Everyone looks sticky.





But we still listened intently because the passage is thought provoking and beautifully written.





We also read an Elizabeth Bishop poem. The Escape Goat loves Elizabeth Bishop; I agree that her work is badass. There aren't tons of Elizabeth Bishop poems in the world, but I think that if you just took all of her existing work and read one Elizabeth Bishop poem a day for three years you'd be better off. In fact, Rutgers did a quantitative data analysis of that theory, and it proved true.





Everyone listened intently, including those who were on house arrest. Even the Cricket refrained from belching the alphabet backwards...





Everyone looks so engaged because we were reading Elizabeth Bishop's, One Art:

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.






And while we're on disasters; the Mayor--below--appears to be a recipe for disaster. Never mind the swirling spirits she has conjured from the dead. They have staked out space around her head as prime real estate. That's right. Many of you may not realize this, but the Mayor is clairvoyant. She can communicate with the dead. Here we see her engaging in a dialogue with Ethel Merman.





Just when it seemed that our perfect evening could never improve, the Escape Goat produced The Lonely Hunter, a biography about Carson McCullers. Judging by the Mayor's scandalized expression, you might think she is viewing literary porn, but wait until she passes the book over to the Cricket and you'll get a better view...





Behold! A photograph of McCullers in her early twenties...





But look closer. She looks all of thirteen. She looks like fucking Punky Brewster (a Punky Brewster that's been trapped in a damp cellar and living on tepid water and a crusts of bread for three years and denied sunlight and a good hairdresser). Village of the Damned! Southern Gothic!



Once again, a successful evening of Booklub comes to a close, and we have the Escape Goat to thank for her hospitality and excellent reading selections. Thanks, Escape Goat! You are a success. We won't stray too far from the novella for our next selection. We're bananas for the next book, and Cricket will be hosting a Japanese barbeque.