25 OCTOBER 2008 - STEPHEN FOSTER STATE FOLKLIFE CENTER

SEE HERE WHAT'S MEANT BY "ILLUMINATION OF THE COMMONPLACE."This photo comes from my neighbor Robert Baxter who has a good camera and an excellent eye; here, rain on the leaves of the mimosa, Albizia julibrissin.

Here in White Springs, on 25 October 2008, our state park will celebrate its Second Annual Healing Arts Festival at which I've been invited to speak. See details at

http://www.floridastateparks.org/stephenfoster/Events.cfm

and join us if you can. The First Annual Healing Arts Festival drew 300 people. When you see what's offered, you'll know why.

For my part, I'm working on something tentatively titled, "The Idea of Sacred Space at White Springs." Where this might go I'm not yet certain (which is what makes the work interesting), but this is a topic I explore from time to time and now am tailoring to this particular audience.

Would love to see you there - Saturday, 25 October 2008, just a few days after I go to Valdosta State University on Tuesday, 21 October. In the meantime, look for me at my blog, “MORE SOUTHERN COMFORTS: Off Road in North Florida.” (sudyecauthen.blogspot.com)

FIRST DONOR - NFCDS, INC.

We don't yet have our fundraising plan in place but this week The North Florida Center for Documentary Studies, Inc. received its first contribution and, along with her check, our contributor sent a note that read "This is not a final check. I intend to be a supporter."

This unsolicited contribution and the words accompanying it are both encouragement and inspiration to NFCDS's officers, Florence Van Arnam, Frank Cellon, and me. More soon on the fundraising; I think we can make it fun. Many thanks to you, First Donor; we appreciate the confidence you have placed in us.

scauthen
www.sudyecauthen.com
cauthen4196@earthlink.net

THE INTENT OF THIS BLOG:

The North Florida Center for Documentary Studies, Inc., its officers and friends are presently studying options for fundraising that will cover the work of the Center and get the next book out as soon as possible. Please visit HERE for further information. If you have suggestions regarding fundraising or would like to contribute, please write to us at cauthen4196@earthlink.net

Thank you for your interest in our efforts to document and celebrate North Florida's people and their relationships to the land.

(In the meantime, here's a moth sent this morning by my friend Jen Fone of Jacksonville, FL.)

sudyecauthen
www.sudyecauthen.com

EVENTS/UPDATES

UPDATES: Here you will find times/places of exhibitions and readings from The North Florida Center for Documentary Studies, Inc.

THE NIGHT SKY

This photo comes from my neighbor, Robert Baxter, who shot it on his walk along the Suwannee this past weekend.

Lot 22
16 September 2008

Outside, a full moon, even fuller than last night; it looks that way. The moss draperies, the faraway hoot of the owl, the crochet of crickets, the stars,planets, both yellow and white: this is my original experience, the year I lived in the trailer here and cracked the window by my small, thin mattress each night so I could fall asleep hearing all that.

Just reprinted the poetry I wrote that year--1997--collected in the chapbook, ALONE, ON THE RIVER THIS YEAR. Here's a sample:

THE FIRST SWIM OF SUMMER

A ten-foot drop from this clay ledge.
Too narrow for alligators.
Too late, anyway, for their
sunning themselves.
The wiry weeds slides from my grasp, and I fall backward
into a sky of marbled gold, a chirring
of insects; the moon, a white broach
on the evening sky. I stand--
squishing my toes in the muck--
then toss myself backward again,
a plump needle pointing north-south,
brief compass in this world
of water moccasins, snakes
thicker than vines, insistent buzz
of mosquitoes, and lightning storms.

This sweet violence we call the world.


Michael Branch’s piece in ORION has inspired me to go back to what I loved in the first place, so tonight I went down and stretched out on the plastic lawn chair and counted stars until a mosquito zoomed in. I hope we have a hard freeze this winter. Otherwise, I should tie ribbons to the mosquitoes so I can see them coming.

EVENT: VALDOSTA STATE UNIVERSITY - 21 October 2008

I'm looking forward to meeting faculty, students, and townspeople when I visit Valdosta State on October 21, 2008. The evening reading is open to the public; it starts at 7:00 p.m. More about this later.

scauthen
www.sudyecauthen.com

ILLUMINATING THE COMMONPLACE

UPDATE: Alachua, FLorida - 13 September 2008

Gussie Lee and her Greater New Hope Missionary Baptist Church Mass Choir rocked the entire Alachua Branch Library on Saturday afternoon and our Master of Ceremonies, native son and writer, Will Irby (now of Chiefland), deftly wove together a commentary that only he could have woven. “I’m Will Irby,” he said, “a character in Sudye’s book, page 110,” charming his audience with his understanding of Alachua, SOUTHERN COMFORTS, “the illumination of the commonplace,” and southern culture, its music, its literature, and what it might mean to an audience of 90 souls who gathered to sing along, visit over refreshments, admire the photographs of Barbara B. Gibbs, and hear bits from the book itself.

What any one of us sees as ordinary or "commonplace" may very well enchant someone who stumbles upon it for the first time. We take the day, the lights and sounds it brings, and our hours within it too much for granted; I did it today, myself, but when we situate ourselves firmly inside the moment, the commonplace turns sacred because we,by our exquisite attention to detail, have made it so.

Letha Wright DeCoursey, showing me sensitive briar, a small plant many ignore, that was such a moment, and they are still available to us. I get to write about some of those moments in my blog, “MORE SOUTHERN COMFORTS: Off Road in North Florida.” See for yourself at sudyecauthen.blogspot.com

sudyecauthen
www.sudyecauthen.com

EVENTS/UPDATES: Here you will find times/places of exhibitions and readings from The North Florida Center for Documentary Studies, Inc.

JOIN US IN DOCUMENTING NORTH FLORIDA

"Tell me the landscape in which you live, and I will tell you who you are," says Jose Ortega y Gasset. Our North Florida Center for Documentary Studies, Inc., aims to record in writing and photographs the cultural strengths and beauty of our people and the landscape in which they live.