'Me and Little Andy": a tragedy by Dolly Parton

In 2002, Dolly Parton briefly seemed to be everywhere and be appreciated, but only in the ironic sense.

My friend, Jason, though is a real fan. At her show at the 9:30 Club in D.C., he screamed out for her to play "Me and Little Andy." He says she not only declined to play it, but seemed surprised that someone would ask for it. (Why, Dolly? Why? It is after all on The Essential Dolly Parton, Volume 2)

He told me this after he played me the song for the first time. We were sitting in some kind of SUV with Texas plates.

In "Me and Little Andy," a girl and her puppy show up on a doorstep late at night. They need a place to stay. The girl has been physically abused. Dolly starts singing in a little-girl voice:

Ain’t ya got no gingerbread
Ain’t ya got no candy
Ain’t ya got an extra bed for me and little andy
Patty cake and bakersman
My mommy ran away again
And we was all alone and didn’t know what else to do
I wonder if you’ll let us stay with you

Giddy up trotty horse, going to the mill
Can we stay all night
If you don’t love us no one will
I promise we won’t cry
London bridge is fallin’ down
My daddy’s drunk again in town
And we was all alone and didn’t what we could do
I wonder if you’ll let us stay with you

She takes the girl and her puppy in. But that night as they sleep (SPOILER ALERT), the both die.

And the song ends hauntingly:

Ain’t ya got no gingerbread
Ain’t ya got no candy
Ain’t ya got an extra bed for me and little (whispers) andy

It's probably weird that after listening to that song, I had it in my head for the rest of the day.

Some of Tulia's best friends are black

Tulia: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town
Nate Blakeslee
2005

Blakeslee, of the Texas Observer, was the first reporter to write in-depth about the arrests on charges of dealing cocaine of 47, mostly black, residents of Tulia, a town of 5,000 on the Texas panhandle. The state had an unbelievably weak case, based on one witness -- an undercover narcotics officer with no corroboration and a spotty employment history. But most of the 47 were convicted after short trials.

The case, as well as the history of the town, is mired in the race and class issues. It was shocking to read about such blatant racism. Aren't people at least supposed to try to hide their prejudices in public and pay lip service to diversity?

Tulia is a thoroughly reported and reconstructed look at the case and its happy resolution four years later. In some places it's bogged down by the legal and procedural details, but mostly Blakeslee excels at explanation.

In addition to being an insightful examination of a social issue, Tulia is a good story with its heroes and villains and people in all their regular old flawed humanity.

Hunger
by Knut Hamsun
1890

Larry Scott -- Baltimore's most famous artist, at least to me -- told me to read Hunger. As I don't know any artists, not many tell me to read books, so when one does, I listen. (I was in a Koffee Therapy, where he is the curator, and he was dropping off the book for the owner, Ric. Say hi to Ric's cappuccino.)

It's a sort of autobiographical starving artist novel, and it reminded me of Crime and Punishment in the sometimes maniacal manner of the narrator.

The unnamed narrator is mostly unlikable. He's not helping his situation any, and I wanted to yell at him that he really should just take the money people were offering. But yelling at a book works as well as yelling at a TV screen.

Paul Auster, in his introduction, "The Art of Hunger," points out that the unnamed narrator's cycle of poverty and hunger, and not his writing, becomes his art. 

You know what? It really is my party and I will cry if I want to

Every time my parents took us to Nifty Fifty's when I was under the age of 11 or so, I would play "It's My Party" by Lesley Gore in the juke box. It was always crowded on Friday and Saturday nights, so usually I'd have to wait awhile before my song came on. Sometimes I would put my money in (I think it was a nickle a song) while we were waiting for a table.

Other songs made it onto the playlist. Once in a while I'd throw in a little Elvis. But I always played "It's my Party." At least once I considered playing it twice.

I didn't seek it out much outside of Nifty Fifty's. (The song is not even from the '50s, so I have to question the authenticity of the entire place, which as a kid I thought had been sitting in suburban Philadelphia, untouched by time, since the 1950s.) But it was the first song I'd ever played on a juke box, so it was mine.

Oldies 98 was my favorite radio station, and I was floored when I heard the sequel, "Judy's Turn to Cry." (Johnny was dancing with Judy at the party, causing the crying of the title, and then later he and party girl made up. So take that, Judy, you man stealing hussy!)

I could relate to our tearful heroine because I've always been a crier. Yeah, party girl is getting dumped, and that's sad, but she's also saying, "Hey, don't be afraid to show that you're sad. I'm not. This, my friends, is my party, and I will cry if I want to."

No. 15

The Thin Place
by Kathryn Davis

Life is everywhere; therefore, death is everywhere.

You should read this book. It's quite good.

'It spins around, and you're around again'

The afternoon my boyfriend broke up with me, my friend Steve took me to lunch and then to a record store by the water, where he told me to buy the Wrens' album Meadowlands. I spent the rest of the day before work listening to it and trying to sleep.

It is intensely sad, so it fit well with my day. Later that week, another friend would give me a Tahiti 80 CD, which is all sunlight and fun, sung in English by French people, and was probably better for me. But that first day, the Wrens were perfect.

Ten tons against me and you've gone.
I put your favorite records on
and sit around.
It spins around,
and you're around again.
Struck dumb while drugs run at how high reeds
cue every memory at half speeds.

The morning, a month later, we got back together, I played him both CDs. Eventually, I bought him Meadowlands.

Something about the sound of these guys with day jobs from New Jersey makes me happy and sad at the same time, and nostalgic for things that never happened to me.

A reading sprint

Cloud Atlas
by David Mitchell

Because it was due back at the library and I had renewed it once (the limit), I read Cloud Atlas in three or four days.

And going from the 1850s to the 1930s to the 1970s to a Korean superstate of the near future to post-apocalyptic Hawaii in half a week has left my brain bouncing around a bit.

Cloud Atlas is eclectic and complex and, at times, slow. But it all comes together, and it's fascinating to see it all unfold over 500 pages.

I brought it back one day late, having finished it about 3 that morning. But the woman at the check-in desk told me I didn't owe any fines and that sometimes there's a one-day grace period. So, let's here it for the Enoch Pratt Free Library Baltimore.