Category Archives: Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap

Monday Book – The Rituals of Dinner – Margaret Visser

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Jack gets to review the Monday book this week –

dinner

This book is both fascinating and frustrating.

Visser chose a strange way to progress her story, not chronologically as might be expected, but by topics. This results in a good deal of repetition – revisiting the Greeks, Romans, medieval Europeans etc in every chapter. Other reviewers have suggested the book could have been a good deal shorter and more readable and I’m inclined to agree.

On the other hand I found it hard to put down because of all the really interesting stuff scattered throughout. Although her specialty is literature, she is clearly a fine anthropologist as well. There are a good few references to folk motifs that I’m familiar with and was a bit surprised to find in a book about table manners. In fact, although the title suggests a fairly narrow focus, Visser ranges pretty widely around the central subject.

You could be forgiven for expecting this book to be about table manners and how to behave at the dinner table. It actually starts with cannibalism, goes through the development of tables and chairs, covers the invention of forks and spoons, deals with social attitudes in different cultures and a host of other loosely food related matters.

I think what was perhaps a bit startling for me was recognizing familiar dinner table and restaurant situations and for the first time understanding what lay behind them – everything from the placing of a knife (blade towards you and not your neighbor) to signaling the time to change courses.

The final chapter examines present day mores including the fast food culture – reflecting another book – ‘The MacDonaldization of Society’ by George Ritzer, but that’s another story – –

I have some reservations about Visser’s book, but if you don’t mind skimming here and there, it’s still fascinating stuff!

 

Running Amok is Underrated

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new river gorgeMy friend Beth (no the other one) is having a birthday this weekend. Both husbands are busy with guy things, so she and I are taking off for a girl trip with great scenery.

Er, no, not that kind of scenery.

We are headed back to Fayetteville, scene of last year’s January-March writing residency for me. (It’s the place where I wrote the manuscript currently in the lap of the NYC publishing gurus; word is there are edits coming soon. Yes it’s Beth’s birthday, but I still get to be elated.)

Also coming soon: food and fun, although with any luck, no arrests. Both husbands have made clear that no bail money will be forthcoming. “Perhaps you should just walk amok,” as Jack put it.

Still, even within bounds, there’s boundless energy around two professional women who spend a lot of time NOT saying things going off into the woods and letting the trees hear it all. Knowing that a nice vegetarian pizza on cauliflower crust will follow.  Letting it all go, but not quite. We can break the rules without breaking our healthy regimens.pies and pints

We’re going to hike Endless Wall with Karen, which is fun for two reasons: I couldn’t do in residence because ice makes this gorge-hugging trail a bad idea; and Karen and Beth don’t know each other but are a lot alike. We’re going to drink craft cocktails at The Station with flat owners Shawn and Amy, and shop Maura’s camping store. We’re renting rooms in Lafayette Flats (not my beloved Eddy, but the bathtub-magnificent Nutall).

Beth isn’t the crafty type, but since it’s her 50th she wanted to try something new, so I am packing materials to make bath bombs. This is my idea of something new. She made reservations for us at the Bridge Walk, 700 feet in the air on a narrow plank with a safety harness inching (me) or running (go on Beth, see you later) across the infamous Gorge. This is her idea of something new.

We all move through the world at our own pace, and that’s just fine.

It’s good to have friends that broaden your horizons, even if one of them thinks 700 feet is too broad. Getting away from it all doesn’t HAVE to include one’s safety zone, but it might be more fun if it does.

Right….?

And there’s one more part to this weekend: since her hubster Jon was concerned I would be a bad influence on Beth, we had to convince him she was kidnapped. I think we did a very good job of it, per below. Don’t you?

KIDNAP NOTE:

70659619_2788439951167051_7588227276588711936_nDeer Mr Prawdlee

Yeer wif is goings 2 B kidnappered. Do not atemp 2 find her. She is ben taked by fairies so do not blaim the dog. He had nothing 2 do with it.

If U tri to reskew her I I meen we. Do not tri 2 reskew her. She will be reternered when we are done sellebracing her burtday. We can smell U from way far away so dunt try sneeking up on us. We will 2 B hidden far away in Wesver Ginia so U wont find us.

But sins this is a kidnappering, U need 2 giv us sumting in ret—back 4 her. Bonez is good. Lots of boneZ. Fairies luvs bonez.

Thank you.

Sinseerlee.

The Fairies.