Neil Gaiman’s Journal: “Of course, in Alabama the Tuscaloosa, but that is entirely irrelephant…”

This is something that came up today in conversation, and it comes up a lot for me—the question of culture and the South, especially within arts communities.  I think about it, too, on a larger scale in the context of my future and my life and where in the world I will make it, and what I will make of it, and how.

In Alabama, but also in the South in general, there is this sense among some of the native population that nothing is happening here, that we are not culturally relevant, exciting, or valuable, and I think that’s because much of the country still clings to hundred-year-old stereotypes about who we are.  After being swept aside repeatedly because of this perception, people begin to feel there must be some truth to it and so begin to believe it.

But in reality there is so much here—so much history, so much culture, so many incredible things happening within our communities, both in Alabama and in the South at large.  There is a richness to all of it that I think we inherently understand—that we intuit—and I think that we value that richness and take a great deal of pride in it.  But I think that because that’s so rarely perceived by others, we tend to keep it to ourselves unless someone else begins talking about it.

In that way, the image of the South as a dearth of culture and cultural events (I’m thinking specifically about the arts) is self-perpetuating.  So often people disown their home state or discredit their background by perpetuating the idea that nothing ever happens here, that it sucks, that we’re all bored out of our minds and starved for cultural resources.

Tonight at the grocery store this kid who looked like a more rural and attractive Sid Vicious (more specifically, like if Warren from Empire Records was an avid Sex Pistols fan) came up to me with a flier.  “Do you like banjo music?” he asked.  “You should meet at the Piggly Wiggly tomorrow night.  I’m playing this bluegrass show with a bunch of my friends in an abandoned mansion.  If you play an instrument, you can join us.  If not, you can just come along.”  He and his buddy were recruiting attendees all night in the Publix parking lot.  Just after I finished talking to this kid—this banjo cult leader who plays shows in abandoned buildings for a bunch of college kids—another guy exiting Publix walked up to me.  After encouraging me to join the banjo cult, the first words out of his mouth were, “Are you from here?”  I responded that I grew up in Birmingham, and he said, “So yeah.  You know how much it sucks.  Nothing exciting is ever happening here.”  This was his encouragement for supporting the banjo cult—that it sucks here and nothing ever happens.  How about that listening to some kids with banjos sounds really awesome?  How about that I heard Neil Gaiman read last week?  How about that Pulitzer Prize-winning profs are walking around campus, and we have a letterpress studio in our library?  How about an art house film series organized through local support and the arts community in town?  How about poetry festivals in the woods?  Documentary films about local issues?  Maybe we’re not stacked twenty stories high with arts centers and publishing houses, but there’s a whole lot happening here that’s really exciting, and perhaps its the denial of that that keeps it from growing larger, and that encourages people to leave for other cultural centers with more developed resources.  What if more of us stayed put to develop some of the amazing raw cultural resources we have right in front of us?

There’s so much happening in Alabama that sometimes I hardly know where to begin telling people about it.  Certainly there’s an immense pride in culture from region to region, country to country, and the South is not the only place with a strong identity that is often misunderstood, but it seems a shame to me that sometimes the South is still swept aside or dismissed in terms of its relevance, that this is done as much by natives as by outsiders, and that somehow that causes people who do have pride to internalize it.  It’s exciting to be vocal about it—to make a fuss about what’s cool where you live, especially when it’s not a place that tops the typical destination list.

After a year abroad and a summer in New York, I feel like my understanding of culture in the South has greatly increased, as has my sense of identity as a Southerner.  Having to convince people that you really do come from somewhere, that yes, you were raised there, that yes, your parents were raised there too, and yes, lots of other people like you live there, really puts things in perspective, especially when most of the people who need convincing are residents of your country who have never been to the place you come from and have a lot of strange ideas about it.

I feel like part of my duty to the world at large is to act as an ambassador for the South.  To say, “I am from Alabama.  It’s my home.  I love it.  Come and visit!”  So, you know.  If you need an excited tour guide who knows about weird cool things to do in Southern states, you know who to get in touch with.

Maybe the first thing I can do with my life post-graduation is write a quirky travel guide for the South.  Maybe the first thing I can do with my weekend is go to the bookstore to see if anyone’s already done it.

So anyway, hats off to Gaiman for writing this.  He really hits it.