Thursday, September 17, 2009

Richmond Race and Eudora Welty

Despite a steady rain an hour before start time, the race got going pretty much on schedule and without thirty laps under caution to dry the track. The racing, per usual, was stellar - lots of 3-wide battles - and the Vickers/KyBusch battle is well documented. Not too many people took serious note of Matt Kenseth's (deliberate, it looked to me) stop in Michael Waltrip's pit stall, forcing MW to drive through pit road. MK was ticked off about getting blocked in his stall by Waltrip, and decided to take out his frustrations at a bad car and a bad season on the most likely target. Being a small man, he couldn't hop out of the cockpit and threaten 6'5" Waltrip, so screwing up the #55's night was his chosen alternative. Petty and mean, huh, Kenseth? Great combo.

The weekend disappeared like easy money, and it's back to work. New book gelling in the brain cells as I get SIGNS in order. One thing I never lack, and it's ideas, LOL.

I've been thinking about celebrity tell-alls. And even non-celebrity public (US and Newsweek, anyone?) vomit. Having been raised with Southern manners, I find it extremely distasteful to publish family secrets and problems (or the author's version of the same - who knows the real story?) for the world to dissect. Does being the daughter of a famous writer give you license to expose the seamy side of your mom's addiction? Who wants to read these literary train wrecks? Rubberneckers and voyeurs, is my guess. I re-read George Garrett's chapter about Eudora Welty in GOING TO SEE THE ELEPHANT and found it charming and laugh-out-loud funny. The story about Miss Welty eating everything in sight was chuckle-laden because it followed a description of EW reading "Why I live at the P.O." The lady had a wicked sense of humor, as well as a dead-on ear for dialogue. She would have approved, I bet.

BTW, if you haven't read "Why I live at the P.O." in a while, go back and do so. You can hear those people talking. Talk about dialogue lessons - there're a hundred in that one short story.

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