A Word on Words; 2442; John Shelton Reed & Dale Volberg Reed

in a word on words a program building in the world of books and their authors this week john children read and they'll vulgar really talk about one thousand and one things everyone should know about the south here of forward onwards mr john sigg and dollar chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment center at vanderbilt university well i am john single once again welcome once again to word on whether it's the self that your dog about the real item we don't like about the salvo one thousand and one things everyone should know about the south and i guess dawn they welcome to world war and let's talk about the covered system again with them and i'm fascinated by the year the mix for your money online and one of the day on the other ivy league the gravestone of elvis aaron presley a deluxe moon pie and adult would go you know one of those small towns in the middle of the

screen that where the concept of this a stark and publisher they say that's what that they're probably said what's the cover you'll love it and it was just exactly like this except we were met it head instead of martin luther king and had a plantation house instead of the moment why lowenstein the greatest lines good for you what would that coverage you're like a hot iron bar like this book won't bow with their

chest and then you know that this is a this is a book about the south its about the modern self as well as the historic celtics about biracial south certainly move the workplace is on the cover you know this is it's just not our book it was our editor to the point immediately you know is that he had to go about with the design people would come up with the conference were very potent that we said that's not the south and they said oh but that is the sound that a direct courts will kill i just was talking with coral you didn't sing with columnist and writer who will be on this program very few weeks his new book just out is called the coming race war america bob ended soon it is a very top and telling book he had something close to the same problem with the public and

they wrote to him and said a couple of chapters were much too strident but the discussion of affirmative action one of the men the social fabric thousands of it was it was presented in words that were not be acceptable by large numbers of american readers and effect of savannah with it until it was that growth would be talking about that very shortly but let's talk about one thousand and one thing everyone should know about the south you had to organize the book all that is very very easy first will read but secondly to use as a resource doctor now what we saw was that your concept the army i wrote this proposal for in character follows pretty much laid out of the proposal would have thought it through to talk about religion and after about literature we obviously have to talk about the speech and i'm full poison that sort of thing sadat his list of a dozen or so

topics each of which turned into chapters eventually we now have twelve chapters in vault one topic sutherland division so that's about eighty think the chapter and then how did you decide on prevented boats and wreaths of any global power granted to paris and country as opposed to a longer narrative well the way we sort of given to the format they are doubling as a couple of other thousand and one things books is just a numbered list of felt one thing we were given up to work with aren't where one point we went for two hundred something else that was going on and the world to a long wait so that's about a hundred words for perfection what we try to do is write little essays you're hundred words about hank williams hundred words about germans a hundred words about

relay hundred words about birmingham in the sixties it was a challenge was it was a lot of fun trying to do it well it's a lot of ponte galeria it's a very very easy read an atlanta fondly and i'll pay what it does among other things it makes you wanna go for more if you find something you don't know about i mean i got into old son alvaro and i really want the history books and we'll happily happening maybe a half dozen times in greenland let me let me ask you because there is music and there is entertainment and there is literature and there is food and there is the south but there also is that thing that made the two of you recognize that that cover just didn't make sense and that is what you call the simple thing

let's talk about the central theme we'll salute to one of the things that it was obvious to us to begin with it became more obvious that we're we're going to work on this is that so much of what makes the south the south is a biracial construction i mean it's it's blacks and whites over for thirty years you know more from one another stealing from one another and closing one another in so many ways i mean you can't talk about southern food or so the music southern speech without recognizing that this was something in about two parties so i hope that it comes through it does come through a complicated it doesn't come through it comes to naturally and it doesn't just jump out of the book educates your hundred pages in before you get to the simple thing which i think is the word or blog but what your interest you take it out of a it's a straight read once you get in because why anecdotes don't really are and they're

not in any sense pattern is so free and so forth until there's a random thoughts but they are compelling thoughts are and there's this irony and we're talking about a culture you're talking about the jewish iranian influence in cooperation often unconscious but some corporate who won't talk about politics talk about is driven to talk about conflict in that there's the story about saad so we didn't lead over either and we don't want to sugarcoat this other than enough of that that i would ever want to demonize at the end of that two thirds of the sketches especially the warts and all elements on our wars interesting enough you're not going to get into on one hand you have a listen to the service of millions of people who absolutely wanted to preserve the nation's

service and quite often courageous go see people men and and one night all of a bit about her and then all the other side you have those of firebrands i feel so blue dedicated to turn of art again one of the things that we wanted people come away from this with was a sense that there has been a more complicated than that they thought it was little biographical sketches of may be twenty southern civil war generals four of them turn out to be union general's office of a horn you know we've got sketches of that the fire eaters that were there were trying to preserve slavery and extended and the characters north carolina was

political when i saw that that jack a military men differences and one woman i thought about the seventies pumpkins and in just a few words on about again as you are the only female also a critic of federal army he never accepted money then blowout that uses i don't do that i would have had to find out about about this woman in the same way i had to find out about some of our more about money i had an image of you know what i've never heard of her operatic meal well i'll have to support a license to talk about that process of learning how to do what some research lead you down paths where you didn't think you go well also weighed on wait wait they reading the way we know we have these categories and we go i had spinal it into law said the literature chapter and i would be reading a lot and i'd say oh here's somebody i don't know about an odd ad

go and then i'd read some more and it does come actually followed one thing from another the hard thing was deciding who actually got him and who was left out your letters he flees those we wanted this is like as is the nearest thing that you do that you know actually it works really well because we divided the chapters or section sometimes i would write our chapter he would direct contact that we get our own private and then when they're all too long because it was so hard to cut so we would get at each other and we never too so we we never taken somebody had to do it and so we were very tough about it really ok you got it now largely did you get each other's work

and he did that without you know there's one there's been a lot of time as a journalist and writer there is something about primal ship and about ego that inevitably sweeps he creeps into what we right now john in its heart we knew we had to have a hundred thousand words but buy by a deadline and we had a long runway opposed to award points when it was a matter of any word at my could cut less gratefully accepted the interesting thing looking back at it now year after we turned it in we can't remember sometimes who wrote what or rubio supporter were just in their first appear that ups were on the road she says notion that had cancer the first time is this the first time the work is closely is your beer books of

the job the writing about most about the softer sound hundred dollars bills work as a copy editor and food and it was not going for us and she's edited live my bros before he's a good writer so it's not just the city has this is the first time we've really worked tours of the detained without the writer editor division of labor and they were properly workers with an hour long time you asked earlier about the learning things that you would have every chapter of business and industry i don't know nothing about that ordinary existence she was a realization that was hard but we had to have it and that's a power and a lot of political machinery now i'm aware that there's one of outraged travelers coastal one thing came to me as i was writing that is that if you look at truly innovative

businesses over the last thirty years or so companies that have changed the way of doing business and in their business like wal mart or your car the hospital corporation of america dr you look at people and that entirely new businesses like go further action or are turner jackass they're also really i guess maybe you could go back to the gold and thus oversight within the arterial spirit may have gotten in a vehicle imbedded in the video in the store's out as the region racism or the comic timing well i've never thought of the south as a girl that section and come away with any other idea except that people like to turn around and desirable

thrive in an ad for them i mean kentucky fried chicken and or that that if you ask what i learned from that that's one of the things that i find over the jump through both southern art and that was something that one of his main thing about when we started so that's another education sells book geek like me llano en and i think for young people for young people this book really is not just fund wanted so it raises a curtain where we are on many good aspects of life in the south that below where i think we were somewhere and they're thinking about children as well as where people you know because so one lives in seattle one is now back in houston but she was in brooklyn at the

top and they both used to settle arguments with their friends la times yesterday you know how it is and for someone of my generation years of the likes of alert i guess i was what's going to be back in the days when i was i don't know that it's a civil war one teacher said it's a war between the states in the us of the warnell aggression i tried find myself looking for something or i would be real long and something would catch my mind and i would be looking at a lot of crossover and the voices onsite went with it and they really get divorced and they're trying to capture maybe it doesn't count on i don't end this hour i

was eight why didn't you say is about as completely as it can as it can be to fight things that we know should we were sort of a world of golf what we wish were in there but we have to cut because we didn't cut we really do think the whole span and so writing for there are many aspects of it that i don't think you'd have to cut and put the first thing came under those involved in three months a year cause i went right to the index and there were the free market and then let's let's talk about the simple things i let's talk about food and then he can because they are everything in their project and degrading our hand lemay say recent say a friend of ours said you could tell what goes in their mouth and what

comes out of them if you look up the lake or their music acts of bravery it's really an amazing thing that said before and actually would resume yes those were for a job just do it in a way but either one of you could be with us one thing the southern music and literature and the internet lloyd project was just a sight this is that the biracial section every single one of these categories literature southern black writer southern white writers are you can't you can't talk about it with as anything you

can't say southern waters are white or not that this is this is the whole cultural biracial section and the music thing one of the items that i most missed that we can't do the national girl we had ever at one point i have little sketches of maybe forty southern musicians and we undercut that led to a couple dozen and dinah shore disappeared and i was really sort of take her out which is so interesting career was solid but in the current launched not research about both sorority girl president or sorority sociology at all jewish girl signs the presbyterian corps it's exactly what i had to take about george jones which we did you care only about a short as to ask about that goes life couldn't get you in the end there

are three hundred and nine and think at least that came out right you had fourteen hundred new one of rome have to make to make a decision all of broad well i was so in the case of musicians for example we we really just kept in the world shaken figures announcement that robert johnson's and the louis armstrong some of bill monroe's folks at jordan founded genres are and what won nobel prizes there were noble prizes and museum the others we tended to collapse into so generic categories so we've gotten a trio rockabilly where we mentioned jerry lee lewis you know the image and dinah shore and i didn't look for assad in this or not but i know that she grew up a sign generation a friend r n

and a and for readers who made for someone who isn't there and phil harris and i concluded that phil harris got in because one thing and that's the fall but the sound is all the end of the day we're talking a whole generation of young people out there the slightest idea who feel harrison it was you know but it but they are now as an opportunity to find out is your group with their objectives and often in and let's listen for that tune songs about the south than were thinking about one of the big things that you know that was a reason for somebody to be left out if we were talking about so race relations and we meet we decided we would talk about civil rights leaders i wanted to put in baltimore and from bahrain but when we had this case we have this candidate who were going to have quite that we ended up leaving out as kristen quite yet we were trying to get rich i

mean it's hard to think of words that bleed but i would guess had to cut some of those words now it was very to some of some other things when i went out for organizational reasons for instance we have at one point seven journalists great journalist himself say no but we we just didn't have room at the liturgy chapter of record the world's going to turn out well as anyone on the one thousand and one thing you know everyone should know about this we keep thinking about it and we might do something like that we lose track of the bigger xerox a list of a hundred one things we wish to the center for a free cruise mission you know there is a year there have been on this program and pass over the last quarter century so the minute interviews there have been other collaborating our writer's room and came

on non i think i worked as a comparably as compatibility as you apparently did it i had hoped that the solace of taught each other's i'm guy raz but it is a it is an interesting and it is an interesting concept the two people work together neither has the upper hand of what will what has to be said it has to be a sense of camaraderie about its woes there was the division of labor helped a lot of day that i originally thought about this book myself and i realized that there were all swatches of things about annoying about going out to work up some things don't already know about like ancient worlds of religion or not do some of things that she be more interested in working out that i was one of the subjects of an archer i asked her to help i'm delighted that you did that i

would buy the deadline we have that we're constantly working asked him to work on the year two thousand but that up today so there are so many different parts of it that were pulling back and sexual maturity sexual movies comic actress that yemeni movie and say ah where the nation or something and now on the stand and there are a number of others john let me ask you this so i'm laurie as i think many people are a bow the generation that is oriented to the visual eye that has to make handsome been branded with turning its back on his return it back on our turn his back on literature in favor of what's on what's called boo boo you're a teacher you're an educated at around the classroom there at this time and in london but they wanted the chapel hill what's

your view of where this because these younger generations are headed in term and what is it doesn't mean the written word another shorter over eastern shore less intelligent or less liberal than thirty years ago but their sensibilities certainly quite different advocates are as you say it's a visual sensibility much more much less lanier it's going to take a lot of stimuli put it together it's a bit less interest is aged maybe i don't know there was able but there was interested in and volunteer argument along a long way and there's books audio for the soundbites a lot and dale you i'm

sure now arm user friendly with new technology energy and they are to us people my generation or intimidated by what's the odd what's what what is there to be said that having to use a computer is going to bring us back to bring them back to announce day appreciation realization of life and vitality of the written word oh you got to have sorry i got i don't think i can answer that i think they really are going to computers now would like to think it would help them and there's this sort of thing about the bush years where there's a sort of hypertext business that might be acutely uncomfortable wear ribbons cross reversed everything else an unusual plot your own path through this

john sheldon read and they'll boulevard read authors of one thousand and one things everyone should know about the south have been our guests on a word on words your host has been john c compiler chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment center at vanderbilt university this program was produced in studios of the bbc and nashville singer