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emma makin a flyer for the Horse Tales oral history project we're doing on tour this year. #ruralacademytheatera break in the storm. between mars hill & marshall, nc #ruralacademytheaterpercherons are incredible. aboard the chuck wagon #ruralacademytheaterunloading. #ruralacademytheatershadow puppets & chuck wagonpainting the chuck wagon50', pre wagon load... richmond to burgawturnaroundupload

They Accuse Me of Not Talking

(by Hayden Carruth)

North people known for silence. Long
dark of winter. Norrland families go
months without talking, Eskimos also,
except bursts of sporadic eerie song.
South people different. Right and wrong
all crystal there and they squabble, no
fears, though they praise north silence. “Ho,”
they say, “look at them deep thinkers, them strong
philosophical types, men of peace.”
                                              But take
notice please of what happens. Winter on the brain.
You’re literate, so words are what you feel.
Then you’re struck dumb. To which love can you speak
the words that mean dying and going insane
and the relentless futility of the real?


day 1: ride with an IPM salesperson (integrated pest management). he talks loftily about the safety of chemical pesticides and gives me a twenty minute history of the environmental movement starting from the industrial revolution. a reoccurring statement regarding the contamination of our environment post-industrial revolution: “whatever we didn’t know about we didn’t care about knowing about.” he was a horticulture student and now a very sharp chemical salesperson in the biological world. he knows how to make toxins sound like peach pie. i ask him questions about GMO crops to get his academic perspective regarding controversies; he waves his arms and declares he’s 100% for GMO crops, but does admit that his daughter successfully argued the side of indigenous farmers in the global south, getting him to open his eyes to a side he hadn’t considered before.


day 2: ride with a fifth generation organic dairy farmer on his drive home after delivering raw milk across the entire eastern side of pennsylvania. he drives an old gutted short bus full of white, red and blue coolers. he’s 19. i ask him when did he leave the farm this morning: 5am. it’s 7pm as we barrel down the highway. he talks excitedly about the benefits of running a direct-marketing organic farm, teaches me about weston a. price & joel salatin, and swerves wildly on the road twiddling with his cell phone. on one of his calls he spoke fluent spanish, organizing things for the morning with one of his farm workers.



Don’t be ashamed that your parents
Didn’t happen to meet at an art exhibit
Or at a protest against a foreign policy
Based on fear of negotiation,
But in an aisle of a discount drugstore,
Near the antihistamine section,
Seeking relief from the common cold.
You ought to be proud that even there,
Amid coughs and sneezes,
They were able to peer beneath
The veil of pointless happenstance.
Here is someone, each thought,
Able to laugh at the indignities
That flesh is heir to. Here
Is a person one might care about.
Not love at first sight, but the will
To be ready to endorse the feeling
Should it arise. Had they waited
For settings more promising,
You wouldn’t be here,
Wishing things were different.
Why not delight at how young they were
When they made the most of their chances,
How young still, a little later,
When they bought a double plot
At the cemetery. Look at you,
Twice as old now as they were
When they made arrangements,
And still you’re thinking of moving on,
Of finding a town with a climate
Friendlier to your many talents.
Don’t be ashamed of the homely thought
That whatever you might do elsewhere,
In the time remaining, you might do here
If you can resolve, at last, to pay attention.

“Drugstore” by Carl Dennis, from Callings. © Penguin Poets, 2010.
found at:

Again I resume the long
lesson: how small a thing
can be pleasing, how little
in this hard world it takes
to satisfy the mind
and bring it to its rest.

With the ongoing havoc
the woods this morning is
almost unnaturally still.
Through stalled air, unshadowed
light, a few leaves fall
of their own weight.

The sky
is gray. It begins in mist
almost at the ground
and rises forever. The trees
rise in silence almost
natural, but not quite,
almost eternal, but
not quite.

What more did I
think I wanted? Here is
what has always been.
Here is what will always
be. Even in me,
the Maker of all this
returns in rest, even
to the slightest of His works,
a yellow leaf slowly
falling, and is pleased.

entitled: “Sabbaths 1999, VII”
author: Wendell Berry

vockah redu & the cru on tour: nola to ashville

we left wednesday afternoon in an extremely overstuffed dodge minivan: seven people, dj equipment, bags & bags of wardrobe, blankets, grocery bags, garlic sesame snacks, and tarick’s old collection of hip hop cds from high school. we pulled out of new orleans at a reasonable 2pm, headed for asheville, north carolina just 13 hours away.

tour photography:

bp tries to block photos of dead wildlife


As of Friday morning, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s tally of dead animals collected in the Gulf area was 527 birds, 235 sea turtles (six to nine times the average rate), and 30 mammals, including dolphins. Yesterday morning, the spill washed over Queen Bess Island (called “Bird Island” by locals), which is a habitat for Louisiana brown pelicans, the state bird that was once an endangered species. Forty-one of the birds were coated with oil, and that number is expected to rise.

Have you seen the terrible pictures of all this carnage? Neither have I. And neither has anyone else.

Wonder why? The New York Daily News reported on Wednesday that BP has ordered its contractors not to share pictures or otherwise publicize the scores of dead and injured wildlife.


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