"Eudora's Purple Hat": the remedy for too much left-over turkey

At this point in the long holiday weekend, the only thing left to do with turkey is throw it out the window. And since no one has dared concoct a turkey martini there will always be one, last, unbound culinary frontier. We hope.

In New Orleans, however, drinks named after literary figures and their works is a bartender's sport. The Houston Chronicle reports of a cocktail in search of a party -- not hard to do at the Monteleone, a venerable New Orleans hotel, and at times home to Tennessee Williams, Faulkner, Hemingway.  

Maggie Galehouse, of the Chronicle, and her pal were at the Monteleone on a rainy Friday afternoon. She reports they were "now, officially, wet and thirsty." It seems appropriate on this post-holiday Saturday to suggest a cocktail in a literary mood -- "Eudora's Purple Hat," one that even carries a reference to a short story written at the very bar of the Monteleone by Eudora Welty herself. Galehouse writes:

...we were really looking for drinks that somehow reflected writers or their works. He told us some other bars we could try — the Sazerac Bar at The Roosevelt hotel, French 75 at Arnaud’s restaurant — and then, just as we were preparing to leave … the aha moment.

“You know, a few years ago, the hotel hosted a party for Eudora Welty’s 101st birthday,” Allen said. “I created a drink for it, based on her short story, ‘The Purple Hat.’ ”

(It was 2010, and the celebration included a screening of a short film based on the story.) “We’ll take one,” I said.

Welty, apparently, wrote the strange little story at the Hotel Monteleone bar. Indeed, the story is set in a bar, “… a quiet little hole in the wall. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. Beyond the open door the rain fell, the heavy color of the sea, in air where the sunlight was still suspended. Its watery reflection lighted the room, as a room might have lighted a mousehole. It was in New Orleans.”

There’s a bartender and two patrons at either end of the bar; one of the patrons is a fat man, the other a nervous younger man with shaking hands. The fat man tells a story about a mysterious middle-aged woman who wears a “great and ancient and bedraggled purple hat” each day to the Palace of Pleasure, a gambling hall where he works. The woman keeps a syringe and a vial in her hat, which she secures with a long pin. She meets the same young man — or the same sort of young man — every afternoon. “I have watched her every day for thirty years and I think she is a ghost,” the fat man observes. “I have seen her murdered twice.”

Welty’s story raises more questions than it answers: What does the purple hat represent? Is the lady who wears it a ghost? Does the young man at the bar know more than he lets on?

As Allen mixed us a “Eudora’s Purple Hat,” he told us the ingredients: citrus vodka, black raspberry liqueur, crème de violette, fresh lemon juice, simple syrup and an egg white.

“When we made it for her birthday party, we served it with edible violets,” he told us. ...

The full story is at the Houston Chronicle's Bookish blog. The photo of Eudora Welty, at top, is from the Southern Literary Trail.

For Thanksgiving week: "The Door That Ends All Doors" (Thomas Merton)

Thomas Merton and novices (1960).
Left to right: Bro. Denis (Terence Phillips),
 Bro. Cuthbert (Rietdorf),

 Thomas Merton, and an unknown novice.

from "The Door That Ends All Doors"

(Thomas Merton) 

The three doors (they are one door).

1)  The door of emptiness.  Of no-where.  Of no place for a self, which cannot be entered by a self.  And therefore is of no use to someone who is going somewhere.  Is it a door at all?  The door of no-door.

2)  The door without sign, without indicator, without information.  Not particularized.  Hence no one can say of it "This is it!  This is the door."  It is not recognizable as a door.  It is not led up to by other things pointing to it:  "We are not it, but that is it--the door."  No signs saying "Exit."  No use looking for indications.  Any door with a sign on it, any door that proclaims itself to be a door, is not the door.  But do not look for a sign saying "Not-door."  Or even "No Exit."

3)  The door without wish.  The undesired.  The unplanned door.  The door never expected.  Never wanted.  Not desirable as door.  Not a joke, not a trap door.  Not select.  Not exclusive.  Not for few.  Not for many.  Not for.  Door without aim.  Door without end.  Does not respond to a key--so do not imagine you have a key.  Do not have your hopes on possession of the key.

There is no use asking for it.  Yet you must ask.  Who?  For what?  When you have asked for a list of all doors, this one is not on the list.  When you have asked for all the numbers of all the doors, this one is without a number.  Do not be deceived into thinking this door is merely hard to find and difficult to open.  When sought it fades.  Recedes.  Diminishes.  Is nothing.  There is no threshold.  No footing.  It is not empty space.  It is neither this world nor another.  It is not based on anything.  Because it has no foundation, it is the end of sorrow.  Nothing remains to be done.  Therefore there is no threshold, no step, no advance, no recession, no entry, no nonentry.  Such is the door that ends all doors;  the unbuilt, the impossible, the undestroyed, through which all fires go when they have "gone out."

from The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (New Directions, 1973).  Photo from the Merton Collection at Bellarmine University.

For Thanksgiving week: "A Thanksgiving Prayer" (Burroughs)

"A Thanksgiving Prayer"
for John Dillinger in hope he is still alive
(William S. Burroughs)


Thanksgiving Day, November 28 1986.

Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeon destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts ...

... thanks for a continent to despoil and poison ...

... thanks for Indians to provide a  modicum of challenge and danger ...

... thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin, leaving their carcasses to rot.

Thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes,

thanks for the American dream, to vulgarize and falsify until the bare lies shine through.  

Thanks for the KKK, for nigger-killing lawmen making their notches, for decent church-goin' women with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces ....

Thanks for "Kill a Queer for Christ" stickers, thanks for laboratory AIDS,

thanks for Prohibition and the war against drugs.

Thanks for a country where no one's allowed to mind his own business ...

 ... thanks for a nation of finks.

Yes, thanks for all the memories ... "all right, let's see your arms." You always were a headache, and you always were a bore.

.... thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.

For Thanksgiving week: "Walking on My Grave" (Eugene C. Bianchi)

"Walking on My Grave"

(Eugene C. Bianchi)

Walking on my grave-to-be, I invite

Mr. D from the other side of the river.

You can’t be too pushy about this

lest you scare him off, expect big answers

to bigger questions when all he wants

is beer and pretzels and maybe a slow stroll

around the spiral labyrinth to sit by the capstone

of the small burial vault for animal cremains.

You might start with a joke about not letting

morticians have all the fun shooting up

my corpse with bad botox, proven not to last

with no money-back guarantee, amid all that

palaver about how fine they look in our coffin

(echoes of my nonna who couldn’t believe

how nicely people cleaned up for wakes).

It’s not death’s certainty but its uncertainties

that interest me and elude conscious mind

bogged down with tedious theories of afterlife,

instead of grasping it as an ungraspable whole,

the way an artist sees his nude by the window

full and stark for the quickest sketch of

her body’s vital thrust and mystic lore,

with details coming later or not at all.

So I slow Mr. D down with drink and snacks. 

Am I more fearful of dying than saner folk 

and need to allay my terror with garden games?

Maybe, maybe, but does it matter?

Only a dunce would not regret death’s losses,

those beautiful days and shining eyes and

friends who bring chicken soup when you

fall off your horse or divorce a second wife.

There’s lots of time for Mr. D to scare me

as I gasp for breath on a sweaty night

or in turbulence at thirty thousand feet

when I envy and dislike the calm pilot who says

that we didn’t really need that second engine.

No, plenty of time for such episodes and more.

I’d just like to approach him slow walking

`round and `round balancing our beers to ask

what he’s picked up along the way about the Big Ones:

God, Purpose, Loss, Suffering, bursts of unexpected Joy.

He’ll probably tell me to pour him another, no pretzels,

sit near the capstone, admire the ferns and cast iron plants,

shut my mind, let myself float on this sea of contradictions,

buoyed by the salty wisdom of ambiguity.

"Walking on My Grave" by Eugene C. Bianchi appears in the poet's new collection Ear To the Ground: Poems for the Long View. Bianchi was in the Jesuit order for twenty years, and is Professor of Religion Emeritus, at Emory University in Atlanta. His other poetry collections include Grief of Chickens, Washington Rhythms, and God Bored. He has published many books and articles in the areas of spirituality, creative aging, church reform and issues of culture and religion, as well as a memoir, Taking a Long Road Home (Wipf and Stock, 2011). He lives in Athens and maintains a blog about creative aging. 

For Thanksgiving week: a poem by Lisa Mende

Untitled
(Lisa Mende)



pinprick of just a memory
stirred and simmered slow 
     with the promise of dill back of throat 
         through the nose inhaled secretly.
let no one see your eyes steamed wet 
      let no one see your wrist clutching fingers on a wooden spoon 
         spare and seamed, constant stirring
the cutting board redolent of onion, 
      despised soggy celery vying for the carrot's crunch
through the pinprick a melody whistled like a symphony, 
       sung with the rapturous pain 
           of a shared humanity of haunted Bedouins, 
your dream buddies
       primal memories of the constant throb and thrum
            tempered with a grief so rich that even anger cannot touch it
stir and swell and swell and consume
       one feathered kiss way in the past to sweeten the pot, 
            the bath, the bowl, the empty dish


This untitled poem by Lisa Mende was originally composed for Firemouth Salon, a monthly poetry group meeting in Watkinsville, Georgia. 

For Thanksgiving week: "Smokey the Bear Sutra" (Gary Snyder)

Gary Snyder at home near Nevada City (photo by Dan Chung, Guardian UK, 2008)

SMOKEY THE BEAR SUTRA

BY GARY SNYDER

Once in the Jurassic about 150 million years ago, the Great Sun Buddha in this corner of the Infinite Void gave a discourse to all the assembled elements and energies: to the standing beings, the walking beings, the flying beings, and the sitting beings--even the grasses, to the number of thirteen billion, each one born from a seed, assembled there: a Discourse concerning Enlightenment on the planet Earth.

"In some future time, there will be a continent called America. It will have great centers of power called such as Pyramid Lake, Walden Pond, Mt. Rainier, Big Sur, Everglades, and so forth; and powerful nerves and channels such as Columbia River, Mississippi River, and Grand Canyon. The human race in that era will get into troubles all over its head, and practically wreck everything in spite of its own strong intelligent Buddha-nature."

"The twisting strata of the great mountains and the pulsings of volcanoes are my love burning deep in the earth. My obstinate compassion is schist and basalt and granite, to be mountains, to bring down the rain. In that future American Era I shall enter a new form; to cure the world of loveless knowledge that seeks with blind hunger: and mindless rage eating food that will not fill it."

And he showed himself in his true form of

SMOKEY THE BEAR

A handsome smokey-colored brown bear standing on his hind legs, showing that he is aroused and watchful.

Bearing in his right paw the Shovel that digs to the truth beneath appearances; cuts the roots of useless attachments, and flings damp sand on the fires of greed and war;

His left paw in the mudra of Comradely Display--indicating that all creatures have the full right to live to their limits and that of deer, rabbits, chipmunks, snakes, dandelions, and lizards all grow in the realm of the Dharma;

Wearing the blue work overalls symbolic of slaves and laborers, the countless men oppressed by a civilization that claims to save but often destroys;

Wearing the broad-brimmed hat of the west, symbolic of the forces that guard the wilderness, which is the Natural State of the Dharma and the true path of man on Earth:

all true paths lead through mountains--

With a halo of smoke and flame behind, the forest fires of the kali-yuga, fires caused by the stupidity of those who think things can be gained and lost whereas in truth all is contained vast and free in the Blue Sky and Green Earth of One Mind;

Round-bellied to show his kind nature and that the great earth has food enough for everyone who loves her and trusts her;

Trampling underfoot wasteful freeways and needless suburbs, smashing the worms of capitalism and totalitarianism;

Indicating the task: his followers, becoming free of cars, houses, canned foods, universities, and shoes, master the Three Mysteries of their own Body, Speech, and Mind; and fearlessly chop down the rotten trees and prune out the sick limbs of this country America and then burn the leftover trash.

Wrathful but calm. Austere but Comic. Smokey the Bear will Illuminate those who would help him; but for those who would hinder or slander him...

HE WILL PUT THEM OUT.

Thus his great Mantra:

Namah samanta vajranam chanda maharoshana Sphataya hum traka ham mam

"I DEDICATE MYSELF TO THE UNIVERSAL DIAMOND BE THIS RAGING FURY BE DESTROYED"

And he will protect those who love the woods and rivers, Gods and animals, hobos and madmen, prisoners and sick people, musicians, playful women, and hopeful children:

And if anyone is threatened by advertising, air pollution, television, or the police, they should chant SMOKEY THE BEAR'S WAR SPELL:

DROWN THEIR BUTTS

CRUSH THEIR BUTTS

DROWN THEIR BUTTS

CRUSH THEIR BUTTS

And SMOKEY THE BEAR will surely appear to put the enemy out with his vajra-shovel.

Now those who recite this Sutra and then try to put it in practice will accumulate merit as countless as the sands of Arizona and Nevada.

Will help save the planet Earth from total oil slick.
Will enter the age of harmony of man and nature.
Will win the tender love and caresses of men, women, and beasts.
Will always have ripened blackberries to eat and a sunny spot under a pine tree to sit at.

AND IN THE END WILL WIN HIGHEST PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT

...thus we have heard...

(may be reproduced free forever)

After Gettysburg: the 3000 Confederate soldiers buried in Elmira, New York by an escaped slave

 

John W. Jones

(1817-1900)

There was no attempt at any ceremonial at the burial of the dead from the prison camp, no services of any kind or character at the grave. Each body was put into a pine box and nine were taken to the cemetery at a time, just a good load for an ambulance. In a trench large enough to contain a number of these boxes they were laid side by side or foot to foot. On the top of each box was written the name of the person occupying it, his company, regiment, and State where from; this information, if it could be obtained, for not in every instance did the prisoner give his right name, although if he got into the hospital he was pretty sure to announce it. Some curious instances of fictitious names are met with. One was borne on the record for some time as "Registered Enemy," the person giving it known by it until he was taken sick and was sent to the hospital. Then the bitterness that caused him to give such a name evaporated and he told his true name, Henry Matthews.

(Ausburn Towner, Our County and Its People, Elmira NY, 1892)

The hundred-fiftieth anniversary of Lincoln's remarks at Gettysburg on November 19, 1863 should serve as a reminder that, even at a time of civil war, the horrible cost of battle sometimes brought a common, human nobility among both northern and southern partisans.

During the War's final year, the Confederate dead at a Union prison camp in Elmira, New York received a careful -- if not grand -- burial in the town's newly-created public cemetery, Woodlawn. Burial preparations were made and records were kept by John W. Jones, a Southern runaway from a Virginia plantation, who came north on the underground railroad through Elmira in 1845.  

Elmira's participation in the underground railroad was significant due to its location between Philadelphia and St. Catharines, Ontario, the final destination for many runaway slaves. At one point as early as July 1845 when Jones arrived from Virginia, 17 fugitive slaves were in the Elmira area, hiding on farms and at other places including that of the Reverend Thomas K. Beecher, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Jones eventually became a church sexton and in charge of the interment of nearly 3,000 Confederate soldiers at Woodlawn beginning in the fall of 1864. The remains of nearly all of them are still there, nearly one hundred fifty years later; the only exceptions have been soldiers returned home by request of family members. Jones' original interment records were so thorough that the separate Confederate burial grounds were eventually designated as part of Woodlawn National Cemetery, and  a 40-foot high granite monument dedicated to Civil War soldiers and sailors was erected in 1892 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

A plaque at the Confederate burial section, placed in 1997, explains: "They have remained in these hallowed grounds ... by family choice because of the honorable way in which they were laid to rest by a caring man."

Jones became the cemetery's sexton in 1859 on behalf of the First Baptist Church and buried or supervised the burial of 2,973 Confederate soldiers and marked each grave with the best information available, sometimes given by the dying soldiers themselves. He preserved the memory of men whose identities might easily have been buried with them -- not only by keeping complete records of each burial but also placing a glass bottle in each coffin with the soldier's identification.

At Woodlawn, prisoners who died at the camp known as "Helmira" by Confederate troops were buried between July 1864 and August 1865 in graves now numbered from 1 to 2,963. Four headstones have two numbers and the names of two soldiers buried below. Ten markers contain the names of two soldiers each but only one number, bringing the total number to 2,973.

Each original wooden marker contained at least the name of the man or men buried in the plot. Most included the soldier's unit, and many also had his rank and the date he died, and only seven Confederate graves are marked as unknown. This is Jones's remarkable feat of record-keeping for a camp where dysentery, starvation, malnutrition, and wintertime exposure were factors in a death rate that reached more than a quarter of the prison's population in fifteen months. 

What the conscientious Jones preserved on record, the northern weather had physically obliterated by the time Towner's history Our County and Its People was published in 1892:

These names written on the tops of the boxes were copied by Sexton John W. Jones, and the location of each was recorded. Wooden headboards were erected on which was painted the information written on the boxes, but these soon rotted away and the grounds in a few years presented a very dilapidated and forlorn appearance, not at all in harmony with the other portions of the well kept and beautiful cemetery.

At one time there was a suggestion that permanent headboards of iron were to be erected, but it was never done. The grounds were surveyed, a map made, the location of each body accurately set forth, and now the plot is and for some years has been a fair smooth lawn with no evidences apparent that underneath the sod are reposing the remains of nearly 3,000 men.

White marble stones provided by the federal government have been in place at Woodlawn since 1907. By then, some relatives of the buried soldiers had already placed permanent headstones on graves, a few of which had no marker previously, and those remain. The information that was on the original wooden markers now appears on the stones.

The national cemetery of American war veterans also contains the remains of 49 Confederate and 17 Union soldiers who were killed in the crash of a prisoner-of-war train near Shohola, Pa., as it headed to Elmira. A monument to those who died in the crash lists Confederate names on one side, Union names on the other.

Visitors who come to see the gravesites and the monuments usually arrive unannounced, individually or in couples or small groups. Certain days will draw the most people to the Confederate section, including Confederate Memorial Day, which is observed on various dates, usually at the end of April, in different Southern states. 

A few years ago the United Daughters of the Confederacy put a Confederate flag on each gravesite, but federal regulations require that Confederate flags in the cemetery be removed by sundown. Throughout the year, employees at Woodlawn occasionally discover a small Confederate flag or other memento left by a visitor, which they remove later that day and file away in the office.

In addition to flags of various sizes there have been soldiers' photographs; a container full of Georgia red clay; a branch from a cotton plant, with cotton ball attached; a prayer book, and other items. Some people place stones atop the grave markers. When requested, a small sample of soil from a gravesite will be sent to a family member. American flags are placed on every grave in the national cemetery on Memorial Day and stay in place from Saturday through Monday of that weekend.

Most people who visit the Confederate section are on their first, and probably only, trip to the cemetery, and they usually need help finding the gravesite they're looking for. The Confederate section was renovated five years ago when a government contractor raised and aligned all the white stones (the first time that had been done to the entire section at once) and put down new turf.

Despite the appearance of complete uniformity at a glance over the field, there are ten private stones, including one that is black marble.

The regulation stones are shaped differently at the top for Confederate and Union graves. The Southerners' stones come to a point at the top; the Northerners' are rounded.

The Woodlawn staff was told by a Southern visitor: "It's to keep the damn Yankees from sittin' on 'em."