I’d Rather Not Do That Again

So, I don’t know how you spent your afternoon, but I spent the most exciting part of it vomiting into a plastic bag in my car.

Down Home Cooking

All I can say is that a book like this is both the strongest argument for self-publishing and the strongest argument against it.

Also, if you own this book, please only cook vegan when I come over.

Semen isn’t vegan safe, right?  I mean, if you can’t eat an egg, you sure as hell can’t cook with sperm, right?

(h/t Shakesville.)

Three Cheers for Barbara Mandrell

So, Barbara Mandrell is going into the Country Music Hall of Fame this weekend.  And, I have to tell you, I’m feeling strangely emotional about it, considering that I don’t know Barbara Mandrell nor do I have any personal ties to her.

I do remember her from when I was a kid, though, because she had her tv show and she was one of the only women I remember the men around me could not talk about only in terms of how pretty she was (though, she is indeed beautiful).  She was so damn talented that it always came up in conversations about her, because she could do it all–she sang, she played instruments, she danced, she had the tv show with her sisters.

And she had the respect of the men I knew.  I mean, I can remember overhearing a farmer after church talking about did his friend know that Barbara Mandrell was a genius?

Was there anything that Barbara Mandrell couldn’t do if she set her mind to it?

To my grade school way of thinking, it sure didn’t seem like it.

If there’s one word you never hear thrown out in a positive way in country music, it’s feminism.  You have all these women who want to be famous and powerful and the speed with which they backtrack from being identified as feminist could, if harnessed, power the Southeast (in a way that would be so fitting I about can’t stand it).  So, I’m not going to call her a feminist.

And you really couldn’t call Barbara Mandrell a role model, because I firmly believe no one is like her.  She is unique.  She’s not modeling anything for the rest of us.  Where she is, you’re never going to be.

But I felt, as a fan and as a girl, like I was one of a vast group of people holding onto the edges of a blanket.  And what Mandrell could do when tossed up in the air was some stuff we were never going to see again.  And I could take great joy in watching that.  And I took and take great joy in the up and down motion of my own arms.

It’s corny, but I’m proud to see Barbara Mandrell going into the Country Music Hall of Fame.  She deserves it and it feels right.

Watch this and watch a woman taking delight in her own talent.  It’s extraordinary.