A reader named Sebastian tells me this spiked tire/hook apparatus “is for tilling the ground in preparation for planting. You break up the soil and left over stalks of last year’s crops to prepare the ground for this year’s seeds.” I took the photo near Shellmound, a plantation best known from its fictional representation in Eudora Welty’s first novel, Delta . . .
Edward P. Jones initially declined the invitation to edit the forthcoming New Stories From the South 2007, but accepted upon remembering how heartened he’d been by the inclusion of one of his own stories in a prior year. I read his introduction shortly before heading down South and have been thinking about it on my travels. Here’s an excerpt: Hither . . .
Hello from in Oxford, Mississippi, where I have consumed approximately fifty-nine pounds of fried catfish and seventy gallons of sweet tea and enough wine to give an ox a migraine. I won’t start getting into everything I ate in the Delta, but if you ever find yourself in Greenwood, don’t miss the Crystal’s coconut pie. It’s a near-religious experience, provided . . .
James Baldwin’s letters to Istanbul expose all aspects of his character, says James Campbell. (Via.)