I was inivted to attend a dinner this week that was a rather important College-related affair. On the invitation, it specified “Coat and Tie” as the dress code for the men. Of course, no such specific instructions were given for the women who would be attending, which I quickly learned caused much Sturm und Drang…
Read MoreI am, again, inadvertantly competing with a couple of (bad) film versions of texts that I am teaching in my classes this semester. First, there’s the mega-blockbuster Troy, starring Brad Pitt as Achilles. Now, I haven’t seen Troy (though I have recently resolved to do so ASAP), but my understanding of it was that the…
Read MoreWhen I was in grad school, we used to regularly play a game called “Celebrity” at parties. It’s a fairly standard name-guessing game with three rounds in which the clue-giver is allowed fewer and fewer words to decsribe the “celebrity” whose name his/her teammates must guess. There aren’t many rules to “Celebrity.” However, the game…
Read MoreRecently, I’ve begun to notice that several of my friends and acquanitances are secretly adherents to some form of self-actualization philosophy/practice or another. Since most of my friends are over-educated, they tend to be more discreet about these allegiences than your average everyday schmo, but once the topic is breeched, I find that they can…
Read MoreIf you’ve heard me talk about Memphis for any length of time, you’ve heard me talk about Wild Bill’s (pictured above, Bill standing in the doorway). After Junior Kimbrough’s Place burned down in 2000, Wild Bill’s became one of the last surviving “juke joints” in the Delta. It wasn’t much bigger than a large living…
Read MoreI had a couple of friends (also philosophers) down to visit this past weekend and, over coffeee one morning, we found ourselves discussing the relative merits and demerits of the popular road-trip game “20 Questions.” (You can play against a computer in an Artificial Intelligence version of the game here.) Since one of my interlocutors…
Read MoreRobert Gordon (author of one of my favorite books, It Came from Memphis) once said that Memphis “could be easily mistaken for a town of doughnut shops and churches.” So, I’ve decided to apply Gordon’s formulation to the other places I’ve lived. If you cuurently live, or have previously lived, in any of the following…
Read MoreThis morning, I had my first evangelists come to the door. Well, not the first in my life, but the first since I’ve been back in Memphis. I have to say that I was feeling a bit neglected, as such visits are pretty much standard fare around these parts, and I didn’t understand how my…
Read MoreSo, I’m giving The Quotable South a break for a bit. This morning, I’ve decided to share with you some random bits that deserve, in their own perverse way, an award. Greatest News Headline This Week on MSN.COM: “Travolta Spurns Daylight” So, apparently John Travolta and his wife are night-owls. And Scientologists, in case you…
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