[C5J]≡ Download Free Milking the Moon A Southerner Story of Life on This Planet Eugene Walter 9780609809655 Books

Milking the Moon A Southerner Story of Life on This Planet Eugene Walter 9780609809655 Books

Download As PDF : Milking the Moon A Southerner Story of Life on This Planet Eugene Walter 9780609809655 Books

Milking the Moon A Southerner Story of Life on This Planet Eugene Walter 9780609809655 Books

Walker is a Southern storyteller. He more than fits his own definition of one who speaks with dozens of side tales (parentheses). Webster calls these parenthetical expressions "a remark or passage that departs from the theme of a discourse." Walker may depart from the theme, but he always returns, and it always fits. He says: "The mark of a good storyteller is: Have a whole shelf full of shoeboxes of details.... It's like those ballad singers at the Scottish lords who improvised new verses for those ballads every night...." What music this Southern balladeer makes especially as he explains the use of the Southern front porch for storytelling, visiting, shelling peas, and an explanation of the etiquette of porch visiting. He even makes a detour (parentheses) to explain how front and back porches differ (shell peas on the front porch, shrimp on the back). One comes away understanding why Walker fit in so perfectly with the side walk café salons of Paris and Rome. The Southern porches were his training ground. Those were the original talking salons. One almost hears the music of porch furniture: "...a whole world of wicker or rattan chairs and divans and tables and plant stands and swings big enough for three people. How I wish some composer had heard, as I, the different sounds of porch swings. Everything from rattle-squeak to crunch-budge-tink. With a bass accompaniment of shuffling feet, often bare." Ah, these were the real salons, set to music, before people had to go to Paris to talk and before Americans discovered those faux porches that serve as little more than standing room on the front of today's dull houses. Walker explains the South as he remembers it, the South he carried with him around the world, and it makes any Southerner long for the South of his/her youth, or it beckons any curious Yankee to come and savor a romantic time and place that they've never experienced....


Tags : Milking the Moon: A Southerner's Story of Life on This Planet [Eugene Walter] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. A vivid oral biography of the late Eugene Walter describes his Southern roots and its influence on his life,Eugene Walter,Milking the Moon: A Southerner's Story of Life on This Planet,Three Rivers Press,0609809652,902026627,Authors, American;Homes and haunts;Europe.,Authors, American;Homes and haunts;Southern States.,Mobile (Ala.);Intellectual life;20th century.,20th century,Americans,Authors, American,BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY Literary Figures,Biography,Biography & Autobiography,Biography & Autobiography Literary,Biography Autobiography,BiographyAutobiography,Europe,Friends and associates,GENERAL,General Adult,History,Homes and haunts,Literary,Non-Fiction,Southern States,Walter, Eugene,1921-,Walter, Eugene,

Milking the Moon A Southerner Story of Life on This Planet Eugene Walter 9780609809655 Books Reviews

Such a pleasurable read. I didn't want it to end. The language and writing style are a breath of fresh air.
If you are looking for a quasi--non fiction biography that elicits the eccentric, theatrical and heartfelt this is it. It's full of encounters with known "characters" and divine locations...i.e. Paris, London and New York......a story of a southern boy who ventures far from home and lives well ......without much of an income per say but his charm and talent pays the rent. The subject of the story is a sweetheart...and in the end you'll feel you've enjoyed a treat.
This is one of the best books I have ever read about human possibilities. I ordered another one and sent it to my best friend, and she is circulating it among other people. It is a belly laugh a page.
"LUVVED" this very funny, human spoken memoir of a young Southerner's adventures from his home town of Mobile, Alabama to New York City to Paris to Rome and then (30 years later) back home to Mobile. He collects stories, gossip and fun along the way and leaves nothing to the imagination. Great Fun!
For years I bored my friends with my tales of Eugene Walter until one day I was confronted by a very special friend with a photo of herself and Eugene in Rome. Her husband was a noted anthropologist with the Smithsonian and someone had told them that here was a "must meet" person! So there they were grinning like small children at a birthday party.
Eugene and I were friends from adolescence and I followed his goings and comings with great interest all the way, through his work with the CCC in the early Roosevelt years and on until his death. I am finding this book a complete delight, almost as wonderful as being with the maestro and listening to his tales all over again.
He had a knack of gathering to himself the most fascinating people wherever he found himself and, as he says, there's nothing like a party, so wherever he might be, there you could be sure a party was either in progress or a-planning. The zany hilarity in heaven upon his arrival a couple of years ago must still be echoing.
If you wish to walk a while in the company of one of the most entertaining, brilliant and hilariously funny bon vivants, raconteurs, chefs, artists, actors, scene designers, etc., etc., etc. read this book. A tale of a Southern gentle man of great talent, almost too much so for his own good!
"As-told-to" scribe Katherine Clark preserves Eugene Walter's voice in the memoir of this "character," as we call folks like him down South. Imagine Truman Capote without the best-selling books and TV fame. This is how Walter comes across in this memoir-autobiography-oral history transcript. He is a Southern Zelig, always showing up in pivotal moments in the development of literature and arts during the mid-20th century. Recalling his days in late 1940s New York, 1950s Paris and 1950s-60s Rome, he drops more names than the New York City phone book. From Greta Garbo to Judy Garland to Frederico Fellini, he hangs out with them all. The best-written portions of the book deal with his native Mobile, however. But who is he? He's the ultimate fly-on-the-wall. He writes some, acts some, translates movie scripts, throws cheap yet creative parties and plays the part of Southern eccentric in Europe. Who is he? He seems like an early 1970s Dick Cavett Show guest an obscure bon vivant who shows up with George Plimpton to discuss a new Martha Graham dance or to cook a Southern meal. I ran across a mention of the book in an Oxford American magazine article and got a copy after reading a couple of very positive reviews by critics like Jonathan Yardly of the Washington Post. The book also received a 2001 National Book Critics Circle award nomination for biography. It's not for everyone. And I'm probably in that group. But it is intriguing and engaging and, at time, humorous. And at all times, like its subject, unique.
Wonderful literary romp through a true Southern Gentleman's adventurous life. As a recent transplant to Mobile. Alabama, I found this book immensely enjoyable.
Walker is a Southern storyteller. He more than fits his own definition of one who speaks with dozens of side tales (parentheses). Webster calls these parenthetical expressions "a remark or passage that departs from the theme of a discourse." Walker may depart from the theme, but he always returns, and it always fits. He says "The mark of a good storyteller is Have a whole shelf full of shoeboxes of details.... It's like those ballad singers at the Scottish lords who improvised new verses for those ballads every night...." What music this Southern balladeer makes especially as he explains the use of the Southern front porch for storytelling, visiting, shelling peas, and an explanation of the etiquette of porch visiting. He even makes a detour (parentheses) to explain how front and back porches differ (shell peas on the front porch, shrimp on the back). One comes away understanding why Walker fit in so perfectly with the side walk café salons of Paris and Rome. The Southern porches were his training ground. Those were the original talking salons. One almost hears the music of porch furniture "...a whole world of wicker or rattan chairs and divans and tables and plant stands and swings big enough for three people. How I wish some composer had heard, as I, the different sounds of porch swings. Everything from rattle-squeak to crunch-budge-tink. With a bass accompaniment of shuffling feet, often bare." Ah, these were the real salons, set to music, before people had to go to Paris to talk and before Americans discovered those faux porches that serve as little more than standing room on the front of today's dull houses. Walker explains the South as he remembers it, the South he carried with him around the world, and it makes any Southerner long for the South of his/her youth, or it beckons any curious Yankee to come and savor a romantic time and place that they've never experienced....