Burkhard Bilger

Noodling For Flatheads (eBook, ePUB)

Moonshine, Monster Catfish and Other Southern Comforts

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

The Old South is slow to give up its secrets. Though satellite dishes outnumber banjo players a thousand to one, most traditions haven't died; they've just gone into hiding. Cockfighting is illegal in forty-eight states, yet there are three national cockfighting magazines and cockpits in even the most tranquil communities. Homemade liquor has been outlawed for more than a century, yet moonshiners in Virginia still ship nearly one million gallons a year. Some of these pastimes are ancient, others ultramodern; some are illegal, others merely obscure. But the people who practice them share an undeniable kinship. Instead of wealth, promotion, or a few seconds of prime time, they follow dreams that lead them ever deeper underground. They are reminders, ultimately, that American culture isn't as predictable as it seems-that the weeds growing between its cracks are its most vital signs of life.

In these masterfully crafted essays, Burkhard Bilger explores the history and practice of eight such clandestine worlds. Like John McPhee and Ian Frazier, he introduces us to people whose spirit of individualism keeps traditions alive, from a fifty-something female coon hunter who spends 340 nights a year in the woods to a visionary frog farmer and a man whose arms are scarred by the eighty-pound catfish he catches by hand. A fluid combination of adventure, history, and humor, Noodling for Flatheads is evocative, intelligent, and wonder-fully weird-a splendid antidote to the sameness of today's popular culture.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Simon + Schuster LLC
• Seitenzahl: 256
• Erscheinungstermin: 22. März 2001
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780743205641
• Artikelnr.: 37825337

Autorenporträt

Burkhard Bilger is a senior editor at Discover, writer for The New Yorker, and series editor for The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2001. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents
Introduction
Noodling for Flatheads
IN WHICH A FISH NEARLY EATS THE AUTHOR?S ARM.
Enter the Chicken
IN WHICH A SPORT BELOVED BY WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN IS DECLARED UN-AMERICAN.
Moonshine Sonata
IN WHICH THE AGE OF THE MICROBREWERY MEETS THE MODERN POLICE STATE, WITH
INTOXICATING RESULTS.
Mad Squirrels and Kentuckians
IN WHICH NEITHER CHANGING CUSTOM, NOR PUBLIC OPPROBRIUM, NOR LEARNED
MEDICAL OPINION CAN DISSUADE SOME PEOPLE FROM EATING A SMALL RODENT?S
BRAIN.
The Mall of the Wild
IN WHICH A GEORGIA MAN, DREAMING OF THE ULTIMATE GAME FARM, CALLS FORTH A
PLAGUE OF FROGS.
Send in the Hounds
IN WHICH DOGS CHASE RACCOONS, HUNTERS CHASE DOGS, THE AUTHOR CHASES
HUNTERS, AND NO ONE KNOWS EXACTLY WHY.
Low on the Hog
IN WHICH A COOK?S SOUL IS TESTED BY A PLATE OF STEAMING INTESTINES.
The Rolley Holers
IN WHICH A FEW GOOD MEN, ARMED ONLY WITH THEIR THUMBS, CRUSH THE BRITISH
AND MAKE THE FRENCH CRY.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS