jock hatfield
a typewriter warmed in hell
When a book proves interesting
or original it is comforting to know
that there is always an English
department close by to hit the
book over the head and turn it into
a classic. No one can kill an idea
faster than a literature teacher
using heavy plot analysis and a
course guide. It's relieving to clas
sify a book as good, to put it in a
good books collection and forget it
forever.
But there is a book the literature
department has overlooked, and
we better get to work on it quick
before it gets loose. It is called
Pissing in the Snow
Pissing in the Snow is a collec
tion of stories told by Ozark Moun
tain residents of Arkansas in the
days before the English language
was run over by the 20th century.
These Ozark Mountain resi
dents know the importance of orig
inality, even if they are preoc
cupied with tools and twitchets.
The Ozark story tellers aren't a
fraid of an analogy. A man, for ex
ample, is known as being so
stupid "he couldn't piss from a
boot with instructions printed on
the heel." Now that's literature.
Analogies grow on Ozark tales
like mushrooms on a manure pile.
A couple doesn't just lie on the
ground, they roll around like "two
minks in rutting season.” When it
comes to lucidity the Ozarks have
it all over modern writers.
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13th & Kincaid 686-4331
DIRECTIONS
Featuring
Eddie Gomez Jack De Johnette
John Abercrombie Lester Bowie
With Special Guests
The Bill Sabol Trio
Tuesday, Oct. I Oth EMU Ballroom 8:00 pm
UO Students $4 General Public $6
Day of the show $4*50/$6.50
Available at the EMU Main Desk, UO Bookstore, Odyssey Records &
Backstage Dancewear and Theatrical Supplies.
V
And they know how to tell a
story, too. Here is a paragraph
from one called A Long Time
Back.”
“One time there was two old
men got to arguing about how far
back they could remember. Both
of 'em knowed what happened
when they was six months old,
also things that took place when
they was three months old. Them
fellows remembered cutting their
baby teeth, and even the first time
they ever tasted milk. It wasn't no
trouble to recollect their own
afterbirth looked like neither when
they got going good."
‘‘Finally one fellow says that
several weeks before he was born
his mother was setting out cab
bage plants, and she had to strad
dle the row. ‘Just for a joke,' he
says, 'I used to reach out and pull
up them plants faster than Maw
could set 'em. I was a mean little
devil in them days.” Another story,
"Fireworks Under the Bed,” tells
of a woman who was going to get
married:
'The man thought she was a
pure virgin, but the truth is that she
wasn’t nothing of the kind. The
women got a little tin snapper from
a granny woman and was told to
hold it in her hand the first night in
bed. When he hears that click, ex
plained the granny woman, he’ll
think it is you maidenhead
a-popping.”
“The contraption might have
been all right, only there was
another girl found out about the
snapper, and she put one of these
giant power-caps inside of it, just
to make trouble. When the
fresh-married couple got in the
bed the bride gave a yell just like
the granny woman told her. But
when she pushed the top of the
snapper it went off loud as a gun,
and like to have blown them both
clear out of the bed. The whole
place was full of smoke, with
everyone yelling at the top of their
voices with hell to pay generally."
Thoreau, Emerson and other
diseases could have learned a lot
from lively writing like this. And
this is only the beginning. There
are classics such as "Betsy and
the Moleskin,” "She didn't like
Molasses," "Why God made Stic
kers,” "Let s trade Twitchets" and
"He done it with a Bucket."
Lest a literature department
think bludgeoning 6 Pissing In the
Snow to death too hard a task,
the editors of the book have al
ready started the work. At the end
of the chapter they classify the
story by type and motif according
to Aarne Thompson's type index.
“Betsy and the Moleskin," for ex
ample "suggests a reversal of the
motif of the "vagina dentata"
Thompson’s Motif-index (k1222)
in which the man is tricked into
believing the girl's vagina is
toothed.”
Guadalajara study open
The International Student Service will provide information on
studies at the University of Guadalajara at a table in Friendly Hall today
At 11:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. the service will show slides of the
Mexican university while former students talk about their studies south
of the border.
Application for the program are due October 31. Minimum require
ments are 24 credit hours of Spanish and sophomore standing.
Cost for the program is approximately $l,595 for resident under
graduates and $1,873 for a resident graduate. Fees include tuition and
fees, room and board and travel.
t\
A time to celebrate and to share
who ice are
what we're doing
(Sewell
bjnce1,1
"the streets!
October 7, 1978
8 p.m. - Midnight
Lane County Fairgrounds
JOIN the Friends and Neighbors of State Representative
MARY McCAULEY BURROWS for a fun-raising, fund
raising evening. There will be vino lor the sinners, soda lor
the saints... a little jazz, a little rock... mostly fun, gregarious
people. Music provided by Take Time.’ \5Con’t you come?
$5 FOR STUDENTS WITH COPY
OF THIS AD
Paid for by Friends & Neighbors lor Mary McCauley Burrows
3105 Firwood Way, Eugene Phyllis Vanderzanden, Treas.