Friday Video: Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock.

From the U of A page. Daisy Bates with six of the Little Rock Nine. Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock. Courtesy of Independent Television Service, 2012.

I’m super excited about this week’s Friday Video, a trailer for the upcoming film, Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock.

Produced by Sharon La Cruise, this film will makes its debut on February 2, 2012 on PBS’s Independent Lens.

If you live in Fayetteville, however, you can catch a pre-screening of the film Thursday January 19 at 2:oo PM at the Donald W. Reynolds Center.  The event is hosted in connection with Martin Luther King Jr. week and organized by the University Libraries and Diversity Affairs.  After the screening, producer and director Sharon La Cruise, “will discuss the documentary filmmaking process as well as the social and historical issues the film brings to focus.”  If you live in the northwest Arkansas area this is a great opportunity.  If you get a chance to attend the event please let us know because we’d love to perhaps do a follow up post about the event.

Here’s more on the film.  Continuing from the University of Arkansas press release:

Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock tells the story of a seven-year journey by La Cruise to unravel the life of the Arkansas civil rights activist Daisy Bates. Beautiful, glamorous and articulate, Bates was fearless in her quest for justice, stepping into the spotlight to bring national attention to civil rights issues. Unconventional and  strong-willed, she became a household name in 1957 when she fought for the right of nine black students to attend the all-white Central High School in Little Rock. Her public support divided the Little Rock community and the state itself – culminating in a constitutional crisis that pitted President Dwight D. Eisenhower against Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus. 

To read the press release in its entirety click here.  

Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock premieres on the Emmy Award-winning PBS series Independent Lens on Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 9 p.m.http://newswire.uark.edu/article.aspx?id=17459

“Compost Cuisine”: Article from AlterNet.org

From Alternet.org

I just came across this article via Rodele’s facebook feed, and I love, love, love it.  Ever feel like there has to be a way to make more use of the those scarps headed for the compost pile or down the drain?  Well, here’s your inspiration.

Exploring a movement called “compost cuisine,” this article written by Anneli Rufus for Alternet examines creative ways chefs are finding ways to use food that might typically wind up in the compost pile.  From the article:

Such waste-not ingenuity is part of a new movement among chefs who are taking sustainability to new heights by gazing into the depths: that is, at what would otherwise be deemed not fit to eat. While we’ve heard of snout-to-tail, “whole-animal” restaurateurship, the practice of creating fabulous dishes from stems, seeds, skins and other usually discarded plant parts gives “bottom of the food chain” a whole new meaning.

“When you have high respect for how things are raised and produced, you’re not going to throw any parts of them away if you can help it,” says Baker, who was named Esquire magazine’s 2010 Chef of the Year and is the executive chef at Gather restaurant – also in Berkeley. “If we’re using the whole animal, then why not use cauliflower leaves, carrot peels, corncobs and cornsilk?”

So, what kind of ways are they using the would-be scraps?  The article is full of example.  Here’s just one:

At Origen, Leighton and co-owner Daniel Clayton boil fruit cores and peels into syrups to use in sodas and cocktails. Ditto fennel fronds. Bumpy Brussels-sprout ends, spinach stems and other typically discarded produce parts are boiled into stock, puréed into mousses, diced and sautéed and served au gratin.  

Read this and all the other examples by clicking here.

What are some ways you keep food out of the compost pile?  Here’s a post we did a while back about an idea for over-ripe peaches.  Tell us your ideas!  We’d love to include them here.

The Seed and the Story for January 11, 2012: Chickalah Academy

Chickalah Methodist Cemetery. Click on photo to see full listing of graves in cemetery.

The Seed and the Story is a bi-weekly column exploring folklife, sustainability, oral history, human rights,and community in Yell County, Arkansas.   The column is published in the Post Dispatch and is syndicated in the Courier.  Please remember to support your local paper and independent media!

You can follow the Boiled Down Juice on Facebook and Twitter.  If you enjoy our posts, please tell a friend! And thanks for reading!

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I recently began doing some research on the history of Chickalah and have been reading two books which provide a great deal of information about this and other rural communities in the area.  Both Wayne Banks’ 1959 publication, A History of Yell County Arkansas, and Catherine Eikleberry Roger’s Readin’, ‘Ritin, and ‘Rithmetic, published in 1981, are filled with oral histories from community members who have long since passed away.  In addition to many of the stories I’ve heard over the years from family and friends, these books help shed light on this community which once boasted eight businesses and two hundred and fifty residents.

Today Chickalah is a small, rural community with a few churches, a community center, and a rural fire department.  In the late 1800s, however, Chickalah, often referred to as Chickalah Village, was located about a mile north of its present location and was home to the Chickalah Academy, a two story building which provided the first non-denominational educational opportunities in the area.  Prior to the Academy, all schools in the village were subscription based and conducted by the Methodist church on Harkey’s Valley road across from Little Chickalah Creek.  The Chickalah Academy, located near where the fire station stands today, was a two story building with four separate entrances.  The school boasted three departments: “Primary,” “Grammar” and “Academic,” and in addition to these regular classes students also had access to classes in vocal instruction, piano, organ, guitar, and violin. 

The Chickalah Academy burned sometime during the early 1900s, and although another two story building was constructed, the subsequent school appears to have only hired two teachers.  Eventually that building was torn down and replaced by the one-story, two room building that still operates today as the Chickalah Community Center.  As many readers may remember, beginning in the 1930s, the Chickalah School began a gradual process of consolidation with Dardanelle Public Schools.

To my knowledge there is no one living today who attended the Chickalah Academy, but some of you have probably heard stories about the school, and no doubt there are many readers who remember attending the later school before consolidation.  In my quest to understand more about Chickalah, I’m especially curious to learn more about the coming of Highway 27 and how this shifted the population from what is often referred to as Chicklaha Village to the Chicklah we know today.   I’m also curious to learn more about a shoe factory that may have once been located in the area.  Operated by the McCray family, the factory would have existed sometime in the mid 1800s.  I’d also love to learn as much as possible about the sawmills in the area and the role they played in the larger timber industry. Do you know anything about these topics?  I’d love to include this and any other information in our ongoing research at the community center I’m working to open, the McElroy House: Organization for Folklife, Oral History, and Community Action.   As always, I’d love to hear your stories.  You can visit me online at www.boileddownjuice.com.  If you want to know more about the McElroy House and our goals, you can check us out online at www.mcelroyhouse.wordpress.com. Of course, I always love handwritten letters or phone calls as well!  Thanks so much for reading and sharing your stories.  I feel very thankful to be learning from you all.   

“Group Singalongs Provide Comfort For a Livelihood Lost”: Relearning Songs Lost During a Stroke.

From NPR. Toelken is second from right.

This wonderful audio piece has been making the rounds in the folklore world this week.  Produced by Hal Cannon of the Western Folklife Center for the What’s in a Song series, the audio essay features folklorist Barre Toelken discussing how he’s rediscovering some of the songs he lost after his stroke.  From NPR:

For the past several years, a group of friends has gathered every week in the living room of a suburban home in Logan, Utah, to sing long-forgotten songs. It’s a fun way to spend the evening, but it’s also therapy for a dear friend.

Until several years ago, Barre Toelken was a folklorist at Utah State University. He’d spent much of his life preserving sea shanties and other antique songs, but then he had a stroke and was forced to retire.

“I used to know 800 songs,” Toelken says. “I had this stroke, and I had none of these songs left in my head. None of them were left.”

But, Toelken says, he soon discovered that, with a little positive reinforcement, he could remember some of the forgotten music after all.

“A little bit at a time, I realized I still had the songs in my head,” he says. “So now I meet with this group of friends once a week a week, and we sing.

“This group doesn’t use any musical instruments, because I can’t play the guitar since the stroke hit me,” Toelken says. “And they did that as a sign of respect, I think. But they’ve all said how much they’ve learned about the songs since they quit using the guitar because instead of concentrating on their hand moving, they have to concentrate on the words.”

You can listen to the audio by clicking here.

Undocumented Youth Organize for Civil Rights: Recent Story by Zessna Garcia on Ozarks at Large.

From the United We Dream page. (click on photo to visit source).

A friend recently told me about this Ozarks at Large piece profiling the United We Dream confernece in Texas.  This piece, which aired last Wednesday  and was produced by Ozarks at Large intern Zessna Garcia, details  just a few of the diverse groups which support the DREAM Act, a federal bill which seeks to provide a path to citizenship for undocumented youth who were raised in the United States.

You can listen to the piece by clicking here.  

Don’t forget you can follow Ozarks at Large on Facebook.

In the coming days we’ll explore some of the groups mention in this piece who were represented at the conference.  For more on the DREAM Act and the conference:

http://unitedwedream.org

http://dreamact.info/

http://www.dreamactivist.org/

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/12/01/get-facts-dream-act

http://americasvoiceonline.org/index.php/dream

Musical Migrants Radio Series: Jesse Lee Jones and Yoko Noge

Yoko Noge. From Yoko Noge.com

You can follow the Boiled Down Juice online via Twitter or Facebook.  You might also be interested in the newly forming McElroy House: Organization for Folklife, Oral History, and Community Action.  If you know of a topic we should cover, please contact us with your ideas!  Thanks for reading! 

I’m really excited about today’s post, a look at the The Musical Migrant radio series now airing on the BBC in partnership with Falling Tree Productions.  So often we feature pieces about artists and activists who rediscover their roots.  But sometimes people feel more at home in a place  far away from where they were born.  This series sheds some light on this complex topic and provides an intimate look both at the successes and vulnerabilities of a few individuals who have chosen this path.  This post also features a short write-up from the series’ producer, who is also a bit of a musical migrant.

So today we’ll feature two pieces from the series, two musicians who have moved to other countries in search of a deeper connection with the music they love.   Produced by independent radio producer  and Western Kentucky University Folk Studies graduate student Rachel Hopkin, these pieces give us a behind-the-scenes look at how these individuals came to find a sense of belonging in music  so different from the styles of their homelands.

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Friday Video: “We Got to Have More Love, More Understanding…” Sister Rosetta Tharpe, France, 1960

Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Photo public domain.

Every so often I do my routine Rosetta search on Youtube to see what videos have made their way into the world of the internet.

If you’re not familiar with Arkansas’s own Sister Rosetta Tharpe, here’s a bit of background on this amazing woman from Cotton Plant who bridged the worlds of sacred and secular music.  From the Arkansas Encylcopedia:

Rosetta Nubin was born in Cotton Plant (Woodruff County) on March 20, 1915, to Katie Bell Nubin, an evangelist, singer, and mandolin player for the Church of God in Christ (COGIC). No mention is found of her father. Nubin began performing at age four, playing guitar and singing “Jesus is on the Main Line.” By age six, Nubin appeared regularly with her mother, performing a mix of gospel and secular music styles that would eventually make her famous. As a youth, she could sing and keep on pitch and hold a melody. Her vocal qualities, however, paled beside her abilities on the guitar—she played individual tones, melodies, and riffs instead of just strumming chords. This talent was all the more remarkable because, at the time, few African-American women played guitar.  Read the entire entry, written by William K. McNeil, here. 

This week I came across this gem, which features a few different songs, including the wonderful “That’s All.” I don’t know much about its original source of the video, but if you do I’d love to hear what you know.

As Sister Rosetta Tharpe sings, “We got to have more love, more understanding, everyday of our lives and that’s all.” Happy Friday everyone!

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Do You Have an Arkansas Tattoo? Know Someone Who Does?

One such tattoo.

For years now people from Arkansas have been getting tattoos that represent the state in some way.  Recently my husband got one, and we discovered that many people of older generations were clueless as to why. I got to thinking about how the Arkansas tattoo is a multi-layered symbol for younger generations, and set out to hear more stories about the varied reasons people decide to permanently mark their bodies with the symbol of a place toward which we all have pretty complex emotions.

Some get the state outline, some get 501 (does anyone get 479 or 870?  Haven’t seen it but surely someone has it, right?), others ask for state symbols like the apple blossom.  Others gets the Razorback, but that’s a slightly different genre of tattoo, which I’m not covering in this research but might in the future.

So far no one can trace how far back Arkansas tattoos go (but if you think you know then please, do tell!) And there are drastically different opinions regarding “ownership” and legitimacy.   Whatever the case, people with Arkansas tattoos have decidedly strong feelings for the state and often seem to have a deep awareness of both its beauty and problems.  In that sense Id say it’s a marker for a complex and layered form of regional love.   And I think that’s endlessly fascinating and important.

And this much is also clear: the prevalence of the Arkansas tattoo crosses racial and socio-economic boundaries and represents varying responses to the concepts of home, place, and identity.

So, do you have an Arkansas tattoo?  Know someone who does?  Would you be willing to share your story for possible publication?  Sometimes when I approach people with a request to ask them more about their tattoo they’ll tell me their story is boring.  Trust me, it’s not.   If you’ve got an Arkansas tattoo, I’d love to hear all about why you got it and what it means to you.   If you know of someone else who has one, please pass on this blog post.  I’m working on an article as well as putting together an audio montage of people telling their Arkansas tattoo stories.  And I’d love to see this research project continue on in many forms.  So I’d love to hear from as many people as possible!  Spread the word.

Thanks so much!

“Words As The Way To Freedom:” Jimmy Santiago Baca on Making Contact Radio Progam

From Poetrypoetry.com

Originally conducted in 2009 by Progressive editor Matthew Rothschild, this interview with Jimmy Santiago Baco aired two months ago on the Making Contact radio program.

“Words as the Way to Freedom” explores Baca’s discovery of poetry while serving time in an Arizona prison for drug possession.  He discusses how poetry changed the way he saw beauty, the trans-formative potential of discovering heritage, his experience writing a poem for the mother of an illiterate member of the Aryan Brotherhood, and what made him decide to return to his home community to help others find freedom through language and expression.

For a little back story on Baca here is an overview from his bio page.  (You can read the bio in its entirety by clicking here).

Instead of becoming a hardened criminal, he emerged from prison a writer. Baca sent three of his poems to Denise Levertov, the poetry editor of Mother Jones.  The poems were published and became part of  Immigrants in Our Own Land,  published in 1979, the year he was released from prison. He earned his GED later that same year. He is the winner of the Pushcart Prize, the American Book Award, the International Hispanic Heritage Award and for his memoir A Place to Stand the prestigious International Award. In 2006 he won the Cornelius P. Turner Award. The national award recognizes one GED graduate a year who has made outstanding contributions to society in education, justice, health, public service and social welfare. 

Baca has devoted his post-prison life to writing and teaching others who are overcoming hardship. His themes include American Southwest barrios, addiction, injustice, education, community, love and beyond. He has conducted hundreds of writing workshops in prisons, community centers, libraries, and universities throughout the country.   

You can learn more, find more links, and read more poems of Baca’s by visiting his homepage at http://jimmysantiagobaca.com/

Here’s the interview with Matthew Rothschild as aired on Making Contact this past November.

Arkansas One of Ten Most “Depressing” States, says Health.Com.

From Health.com

Thanks for reading!  Don’t forget you can follow the Boiled Down Juice on facebook and Twitter. You might also be interested in the newly forming McElroy House: Center for Folklife, Oral History, and Community Action.

A few weeks ago I saw this article popping up in several friends feeds.  I saved the link into a drafts folder, wondering what useful, action-based information could be drawn from the article.  Rather than ramble on about my own theories and ideas, I’ll just pass along the information and see what readers make of it.

According to Health.com, Arkansas is one of the “ten most depressing states” in the U.S.

Before we get into the meat of the article, I must take a little bit of an issue with the title, “Ten Most Depressing in the U.S.”  We all know Arkansas gets all kinds of flack and has problems that go on for days.  It’s a complex state, this place many of us call home.  Maybe you’ve noticed, but one of the goals of this blog is to explore concepts of home and take a closer look at how, and why, people love the places they call home and how they’re working to make it a more sustainable, stronger place.

Place isn’t just a geographic location.  It’s a concept, and a highly fluid one at that.  The title is rather misleading in that it claims Arkansas is a “depressing” place (overly subjective) rather than Arkansas has “high rates of depression” (accurate).   I’m all for discussing Arkansas’s problems (and there are so many), but we won’t get very far making blanket, subjective generalizations.  But enough rambling.

With that said, here’s the intro to the article:

On its own, where you live isn’t enough to make you depressed. Personal circumstances and genes also play an important role in mental health, so an area that feels like a downer to one person may be home sweet home to another.

That said, mental distress is unusually and persistently common in some states, whether due to economic troubles, lack of access to health care, or other factors.

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