It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer. Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions. I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters. Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs. Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77. I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not. Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi
Cool! Thanks for posting that.
ReplyDeleteI also just (finally) watched Recount last night. Better late than never.
Funny, when it finished, the t.v. was on Ezra Klein talking about voter suppression in Philadelphia. HBO is broadcasting Recount several times in August. I wonder if their programmers "get" the similarities.
Just finished watching Inside Job. Since I've read so much about the subject, there wasn't much of anything new, although I do seem to have missed the folks from Moody's et al. claiming that their ratings were only opinions. And the professor--Mishkin--who left the Board of Governors for the Federal Reseve at the height of the crisis to revise a textbook, he was a hoot.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. "Not my bad."
ReplyDeleteAnd as the director said at the Academy Awards, not one of them is in jail.
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