Like the issue of competing standards, that question of values can be answered only in terms of criteria that lie outside of normal science altogether, and it is that recourse to external criteria that most obviously makes paradigm debates revolutionary. –Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, p.110

Do you remember reading The Secret Garden? It was one of my favorite books and movies and I loved everything about it. As a fairly willful girl-child in rural Mississippi, I could easily imagine myself ripped from a luxurious life in India, and transported to the damp chill of the English countryside to ramble around in a decrepit manor house. Left to fend for myself, surely I would be triumphant, encouraging health and vigor around me and learning the mysteries of the heath. And although I loathed all forms of yardwork and whined piteously when my mother forced me into the open air, I knew that in the proper environment, the life I was meant to have, I would immediately understand how to judge the wick from the dead and coax gorgeous rose gardens back to life…and win the hearts of everyone in the process, in particular the handsome simple-in-his-wisdom country ruffian.

What I really turned into is a woman who loves a metaphor. And the wick-ness of dead-seeming things is one that I cherish. And tonight I found that a long-dark, petrified piece of my brain still had some life in it….and had indeed been waking up without my noticing it at all.

I’ve been treating this blog like a bottle tree…just a structure on which to hang my shiny, colorful bottle-shaped (let’s go with this metaphor please) triumphs. And lord knows I love a bottle tree. Love a bottle tree. Would love to have a real one in my yard. (There will be some future discussion about bottle trees and nkisi and fetish objects and Southern culture at some point in the future, but I digress.)

I started this blog in July of 2005 as a way to share my solo trek through India with my family and friends (I have been preoccupied with India my entire life…it may have started with The Secret Garden, but Rushdie contributed a great deal). After I got back from India, I did all of those things on that “Most Stressful Things To Do or Have Happen To You In Life” list. I finished grad school, quit my job, sold a house, bought a house, got a divorce, moved from Massachusetts back home to Mississippi to start a new career on the day Katrina hit. Afterwards my NOLA refugee (and yes, I know it’s not the right word) brother, sister-in-law and nine-month-old nephew moved in to my new home in time to greet the 18 wheeler who arrived with my belongings. My gas was in my brother’s name forever because he was the one around during the day to go get it hooked up.

They ended up in Savannah (10 hours instead of 5 hours away), and my brother went to SCAD and became a documentarian. I moved again after a year to a rental house with a roommate, sold the house in Mississippi, and I’ve been hiding out since. I believe I’ve been spinning some sort of cocoon, but I’d forgotten that eventually I was going to emerge.

Tonight I went to the bookstore on campus looking for The Watchmen. Apparently it’s either library-use-only or checked out at every place our Interlibrary Loan folks tried. It’s part of a new project I inadvertently started via Twitter, but it may be the first non-librarian brain-project I’ve had in years. It was hard to find. It wasn’t in the Graphic Novel section, but I knew they had it (I’d called ahead). Like all our patrons, I’m loathe to ask for help, and I had some time to kill. So I started wandering. And I wandered all the way up to the econ / science / technology / neurology / section-ish area on the second floor all the way in the back. And then I started finding books that were in my Amazon shopping cart. First, Everything is Miscellaneous, and then Here Comes Everybody. And right there, on the very same shelves was Kuhn. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. And I realized that part of my brain was waking up again.

And I owe it all to the Mississippi Library Association and Twitter and this strange Graphic Novels project.

So, that’s what this blog is going to be now. I’m going to document this part. Some of it will be about libraries. Some may be about Graphic Novels. Or revolutions. Or “that recourse to external criteria that most obviously makes paradigm debates revolutionary.” And maybe we will see what emerges from the cocoon. And if it’s nothing more than a pair of silk pjs, that will be fine. I’ve been looking for a nice set to go with the embroidered dragon bathrobe Kathi got me in Beijing.

*McCloud, Understanding Comics, p.8

We’ve got two reference positions open at the Mississippi State University Libraries. Both are for subject specialists. The first is for a Business/Social Science Reference Librarian, and the second is a new position for the library, an Education Reference Librarian. These reference librarians support two of the largest academic colleges at Mississippi State University. The positions are critical for our reference department and the library as a whole. We work as an eleven-person team (including these two!) to provide Reference Services in person, both at service points and through consultations. We also do email and CHAT reference, and we are very actively engaged as liaisons to our respective departments on campus.

The MSU Libraries are progressive and very engaged with applications of emerging technologies to public services. You can find links to our 2.0 services on our website. We also host a 2.0 Summit each summer which has brought both Michael Stephens and Sarah Houghton-Jan to our campus. Both are terrific references for our programs, AND our hospitality.

Mississippi State University is has approximately about 17,000 students, and we are located on a beautiful bike-friendly campus in a progressive Southern town. Starkville has active an active arts community, green movement, film festival, music festivals (including the Johnny Cash Flower Picking Festival!) cycling clubs, a grass roots organization dedicated to making Starkville cycling and pedestrian friendly, independant coffee houses, an (amazing!) community theater, a community market, a vibrant downtown, great places to eat, remarkable nearby state parks and spots for hiking, and a smoke-free ordinance!

We’re looking for two special people to join our team and share our vision of being where our patrons are, when they need us. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

I’ve finally hooked up the DSL modem, so I’m in my kitchen with Sugar (she returned alone) leaning behind me in the chair and Max on the floor beside me. I’m listening to country music, which is much better here than in Boston (love the new Garth single). Netflix is up and running. I’ve got Unlimited Long Distance. NYTimes won’t deliver, but the Kroger has the Sunday edition. I’ve re-started my subscription to the New Yorker. I buy decorating magazines at Books-a-Million. I just had my first sushi in months right here in Columbus, and it was respectable. Good flavor in the spicy tuna. I met someone who has a blues radio show at State, and I found the BedBathandBeyond in Tupelo (Elvis was born only an hour from here–and it’s a big town at35K!). I have also located a diner, which is really mostly a bar, but it has distinctive diner qualities.

So, I’m settling in. Small town life has surprised me much more than coming back to the culture of the South. From 5.8M people in the Boston metro-area to 25,000 in Greater Columbus, I’ve had a bit of whiplash. Not to mention 18M in Bombay (Mumbai–whatever. No one in India called it Mumbai. I know I should call it Mumbai, but I really don’t think they consulted with anyone before changing the name. Nor do I think they bothered to mention it to many people after the fact. Nearly everyone I’ve spoken to about my trip inside or outside of India stares with confusion when I talk about Mumbai.)

India continues to derail me. Ahem. A small town is like an elderly, plump distant cousin, dressed in a green polyester sleeveless dress with a purple belt and a purple and green hat. You can see her puffy soft arms flapping toward you, and while you feel slightly indignant, you know you have to let her love on you.

In Zachary’s diner, while I was eating a delicious pulled-pork sandwhich and reading house magazines (Domino is so good–I bought an orange shag for the den last weekend), I overheard a conversation between two Columbians(?) watching the game and drinking Jameson’s. One man is pursing the other down that well worn path of “who are your people?” This is no idle past time, nor is it something left to those that belong to country clubs or have white-dress debuts. “Where are you from?” is the same first question in the country in India and in the country in Mississippi. It’s a request to fit back into the already formed world-view. Make the connection and suddenly, you know all the people the other person knows and all your people fit together like a puzzle. She’s met your grandmother. He sold a bull to your cousin who had bright red hair. They think they went to ninth grade with your mother. And they have stories to tell you that put you in place. Suddenly you are in community. In communion. It must be like a really good networking session at one of those high-tech conventions. It’s been one of my favorite parts of being back. I love the feeling of being re-woven into my family’s story here.

Anyway, the Columbians are slowly getting tossed as they are getting deeper into this voyage of discovery, “I can’t see your stepmother in my mind.” “I remember your Daddy’s store–I used to go in there all the time.” “I know I remember your sister–I have no idea who you are.” The more sober looking one continues to pursue, insisting this man in front of him doesn’t exist. Then he stops suddenly (a fresh drink in hand) and says, “So, you wantta watchmydog?”

I wonder if that translates.

contumacious \kon-t(y)oo-MAY-shuhs; kon-tuh-\, adjective:
Obstinate; stubbornly disobedient; persistently, willfully, or overtly defiant of authority.

This word featured prominently on my contract as cause for termination as faculty at Mississippi State University. It’s hard to know where to start. Of course, on many levels, this word defines my being itself–in a good way, sometimes. I am a voracious reader. I was an English major in college. I was an editor for three years. I’m a grown-up. It was magical to find such a fantastic word in the contract for this job. How wonderful to feel I’m back in the land of amazing words and intonation and stories that start with just a word. With that word, I just slipped back into my childhood, with my grandfather challenging me to find the longest word in the English language. Or to spell supercalafragilisticexpialidocious backward. Is it any wonder I’m a librarian?

Doubtless, some of you use contumacious in common conversation. But how great that it was in my contract as a reason to terminate me?

Notes from Columbus, Mississippi:

Tennessee Williams was born in my new hometown, Columbus. In the rectory of my new church, St. Paul’s Episcopal. (I think. This has yet to be verified conclusively.) We’ve already had a festival in his honor. Of course, Eudora Welty went to school here. The same college attended by my mother, aunt, grandmother, great-aunt, great-grandmother, etc. (I know I’m being repetitive, but it bears repeating.)

The cats arrived on a plane this weekend and proceeded to run away from their new home. I guess 1.5 months in cages (India and then Katrina) and then the plane ride to Columbus was just too much. Meanwhile I’m feeding the neighborhood cats waiting for Lex and Sugar to come back. Max and I have been out looking, but I’m not sure my big ol’ German Shepherd will lure them out of the bushes.

Mitchell and Liberty and Hank are safely in Savannah, Georgia at the Savannah School of Art and Design (or something like that). Mitchell was in school in New Orleans, and he was thrilled to have the opportunity to continue his semester in Georgia. Feeling Hank was untimely ripped from my bosom, I’m a bit sad about it. As the Auntie, I can only hope for December. Mitchell is planning a run for NOLA to get his stuff–he’s rented a climate-controlled locker in Brookhaven, MS hold it until they have a new home.

Just some notes. I’ll do better with the Mississippi travelogue. It’s beautiful here–damp and cool in the morning, then hot and humid at mid-day. Everything is green and a little overgrown in my neighborhood. Like New Orleans. Actually, it reminded me a little of midtown NOLA. Tree roots buckling the sidewalks. The smell of old brick and moss. Victorian era bungalows and gothics lurching toward the street, spreading out their porches toward their neighbors. The moss and brick smell reminded me of my grandmother’s house in Rolling Fork. Her patio smelled just like that. Delicious.

Columbus has a wonderful old-school downtown area. One of my goals is to catalog and report on all the businesses here. There’s one clawfoot bathtub refinishing store. Three designers. Upwards of 10-15 churches. An arts council and gallery. And the wireless cafe I’m sitting in.

I’m so glad to be writing again. If you are wanting more Mississippiana, just stay tuned.

ACP

Highway 81 through Virginia is stunning. I recommend it for vacation and travel considerations as an alternative to 95. There was fog the morning I drove through, settling in the valleys of the Appalachias.

I made it to Birmingham with Max in the car before the hurricane stopped us cold on Monday. I had to drive back to Oxford, Alabama to find a Motel 6 that would take us. Their computer system had already been struck by lightening, so everyone was punchy by the time we got there. Joining in the hijinks and mayhem that follow cheating death, I ordered a cheeseless pizza with pepperoni and sausage (no anchovies at Dominos) and dug in with the dog to watch the storm (and for the delivery boy). Max does not love Motel 6 and repeatedly attempted to get back into the car during our trip. Actually, he’s still doing that.

The next day I drove through downed power lines and fallen trees. It was a beautiful day–sunshine and cool. That ozony feeling was in the air–kind of crisp and clean. But everywhere I looked those massive, 100ft, old pine trees had crashed on the side of the road–or on a house or car. As I was driving from Tuscalousa to Columbus a powerline blew beside me with a loud pop and a brilliant blue-white flame. Riding into Louisville, things looked okay. But when I got to my aunt’s street, there were one or two (hard to tell) of those beautiful, massive trees lying across the roadway, on top of a white car. I hear he claims the trees fell on him, but everyone knows he just ran into them.

When I got here, we had power but the water was brown and there was no TV or Internet, etc. The telephone pole with power lines had broken and just hopped forward and remains now leaning precariously into the street–but we still have power and phones (sort of). Everything is back to normal except the TV and the phones doen’t work right, really. I’m glad there’s no TV–everytime I see TV it sucks out a little bit of my soul. People aren’t looting up here, but there has been panic at the gas stations, and now many of them are empty.

My brother, Liberty, and their son Hank (7mos) are here–they live in New Orleans just off Canal up from the French Quarter. They got out when the highways were first opened going the other direction. They’re going to be staying with me at my new house for now. I can’t believe I’ve gotten my hands on that baby so quickly… My stepmother and father have houses in Hattiesburg, where I grew up, and one in Brookhaven, where I lived twice. The house in Hattiesburg has a tree through it, and Brookhaven still doesn’t have any power. Everyone is okay.

We sit around like everyone else, I imagine, wondering what we can do to help. They won’t let anyone down there now. All the roads to the coast are closed. Churches are making “health and hygiene” packets for people. I’ve heard about families taking in refugees. We’ve heard it is the “worst natural disaster in the country’s history” or “our own tsunami” or “what it must have looked like after Hiroshima.” Southerners like to tell a good story, but I’m not sure these are exaggerations. Everyone I meet is affected in some way. Everyone has some kind of family down there, it seems. And Mississippians vacation on the Gulf Coast and visit New Orleans. It’s easy to follow the pictures on the television, tracing the streets we’ve been down, wondering where Beauvoir went. Or the casinos. I hate those casinos choking the coast in Biloxi and Gulfport–but they were a source of jobs and revenue. $500k/day of revenue for MS.

I’m okay and my family is okay. I bought and sold a house. My furniture, I hope, will be here tomorrow. Every day I get up and think about India. Today it was the smell of wood burning (where in Starkville wood was burning, I do not remember). I remembered Hampi and the bazaar in front of the temple. They had cut entire bunches of bananas to sell and the women had little hibachi grills where they would roast the bananas. Or that’s what I think they were roasting–I never had any. They dressed like “gypsies” in colorful clothes (not saris) embroidered with small mirrors.

I really want to write about poverty and mythology in India when things settle a bit. The MS Blog will continue however.

ACP