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Flannery O'Connor's place in American literature is undisputed. A master of the short story, her The Complete Stories (1971) was voted the "favorite" of the sixty fiction winners of the National Book Award in 2009. August 3, 2014 marked the fiftieth anniversary of O'Connor's death. Had she not succumbed to complications related to lupus in 1964, she would have been eighty-nine years old today. O'Connor's legacy is unique among southern writers. Unlike contemporaries Eudora Welty or Carson McCullers, O'Connor primarily wrote short stories that drew upon her bleak, dark, and deeply religious worldview.
Whittled down to a two-word sound bite appropriate to the age of Twitter, O'Connor's work might be described as peacock grotesque or grotesque peacockian, if one has the three extra characters to spare. (O'Connor's work and image have long been associated with the image of the peafowl she raised at her Andalusia Farm in Milledgeville, Georgia, and the grotesque southern Gothicism of her written work.) And yet, far from being reduced to a convenient sound bite, O'Connor's sensibilities have infiltrated society in far-reaching ways: what might O'Connor make of True Blood and the consistent vamipirization of the South?1 What would O'Connor say about Savannah residents Jim Williams and the Lady Chablis, the carnivalesque at the heart of John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil? What would O'Connor think of so-called "reality" television where a real housewife of New York detaches and throws her prosthetic leg during a fight, à la Joy/Hulga in perhaps O'Connor's most famous short story "Good Country People"? What would O'Connor's take be on what I call "Flannery on Film," the numerous in-the-works film adaptations of her texts?2 What would O'Connor have to say about the continual othering of southern space (the land of "freaks" made visible for the world's gaze) in television shows like Duck Dynasty and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo? Fifty years after her death, it is these types of questions that emerge when I think about O'Connor's legacy.
Brooke Hatfield experimented with several iterations of FLANnery O'Connor. Photographs by Brooke Hatfield. Courtesy of Brooke Hatfield. Pictured above are versions 1 and 2. |
Recently, Brooke Hatfield, an avid O'Connor fan, designer, and artist, described O'Connor's legacy as "zine-inspiring." Released at the June 2014 Atlanta Zine Fest, one of Hatfield's passion projects, Scale Highly Eccentric: A Zine of Portraits of Flannery O'Connor, asks fourteen artists, utilizing a variety of mediums, to imagine their versions of O'Connor's iconic image.3 Some artists chose more traditional methods of portraiture, while others, as in Yoonhwa Jang's portrait of O'Connor as a dog, chose more radical methods and images to represent her. Hatfield states that she was attracted to the happenstance mix of "reverent, more traditional portraiture with something a little more untethered to legend."4 While Dan Murdoch and Ashley Anderson painted "mind-blowing beautiful" portraits, "Yoonhwa Jang's [portrait of O'Connor as animal] uses a couple of notable elements of O'Connor's appearance (Those glasses! Those pearls!) to tell a very different story."5 Hatfield herself has previously made a portrait of another of her favorite southern women, Harper Lee's Scout Finch dressed as a ham made out of a piece of ham. "I love food and puns in pretty equal measure," Hatfield states. Hatfield's portrait of O'Connor is in this food-pun vein. The piece is titled "FLANnery O'Connor," which as the capitalization suggests, is a portrait of O'Connor drawn on regular print paper, cut out with a "scalpel" (a surgical tool utilized by Hatfield in true O'Connor fashion), and then laid on top of a baking dish of Flan, or what Hatfield calls her "flanvas," which she made herself.6
Travis Ekmark's art for the zine. Portrait by Travis Ekmark. Courtesy of Travis Ekmark and Brooke Hatfield. |
During a July 29 event to promote the zine's release, writer Johnny Drago read a short fictional piece, "The Name of This is a Sacred Relic," inspired by Travis Ekmark's art for the zine. Drago describes his story as "about two friends, two writers who go down to Milledgeville, Georgia looking for inspiration. Of course, they come back with something completely different. The story is essentially based on the Instagram feeds of some friends of mine who visited Andalusia and the Central State mental hospital recently, and the parallel, vicarious visit I had in my head as I scrolled down."7 Whereas some of the portraits for the Zine explore the more eccentric sides of O'Connor, Ekmark's portrait on which Drago's story is based is startling in its simplicity—a solid background with a black-ink drawing in the foreground—and as such, Drago's story follows an age old plot: two friends go on a journey from which they return changed.
As a writer of fiction and drama, Drago describes O'Connor's influence: "[Her] work has absolutely influenced my fiction, in much the same way that the writing of Tennessee Williams impacted my plays."8 For Drago, O'Connor addressed "reality in a detailed and truthful way."9 Elsewhere, Drago has commented on the "meditative qualities" of O'Connor's work. Drago's focus on the details and the meditative qualities of O'Connor's work points to a way of approaching O'Connor that elides the whole and ruminates on the fragment.
A symbolic representation of the more than 25,000 patients buried in unmarked graves on the Central State Hospital grounds in Milledgeville, Georgia. Photograph by John Kloepper. Creative Commons Liscense CC-BY-3.0. |
For all the cleverness and cuteness of many of the zine's portraits, what are (were) the details and truths of O'Connor's reality? What types of things did O'Connor meditate on, ruminate over, and why do they matter today? Fans, readers, and critics often interpret the "truth" of Flannery O'Connor's work as grotesque, as gothic, as haunting. How do words haunt, and what does it mean to be haunted by Flannery O'Connor's words? In "Ghosts and Shattered Bodies, or What Does it Mean to Still be Haunted by Southern Literature?" the late Patricia Yaeger writes, "We live in a world that is haunted, knows it's haunted, and denies its own hauntedness. What do we do when we see a ghost?"10 What do we do when we see, when we encounter, Flannery O'Connor? O'Connor's ghost no doubt resides in Hatfield's flanvas, in the pearls and glasses of Jang's portrait, in the rough lines of Ekmark's sketch, in Drago's words, in Christine Ernest's pixelated and distorted needlework portrait, in O'Connor's words that remain in print and are read by countless students and fans. As the recent Bitter Southerner publication on Hatfield's zine declared, O'Connor indeed "walks among us still."11 And yet, focusing on the entirety of O'Connor's legacy—the full portrait—ignores the ways in which she actually moved through the world. Nearly all of the images in the zine present O'Connor's ghost in various illustrations of her face and upper body. Only two images, Dan Murdoch's and Alvin Diec's, portray the crutch with which O'Connor literally walked for many years of her life. When we encounter a ghost, even one like O'Connor's, we inevitably make choices as to what to see, witness, and represent.
Dan Murdoch's portrait for the zine, featuring O'Connor holding her crutch. Portrait by Dan Murdoch. Courtesy of Dan Murdoch and Brooke Hatfield. |
The cover of the 2007 paperback edition of O'Connor's second and final novel, The Violent Bear it Away. |
A portrait by definition is only part of the whole picture, only a fragment of what can be known or seen. Returning to O'Connor's works helps us to shift focus from the whole picture to the haunting fragment in interpreting O'Connor. The most recent paperback edition of O'Connor's second and final novel, The Violent Bear it Away (1960), features an extinguished matchstick haloed by a veil of smoke. It seems a fitting image to approach an understanding of O'Connor's work and legacy. Yaeger asks that we look beyond the "operatic" grotesque and excess of the southern gothic so often associated with O'Connor's work and view the fragments: "A focus on scraps or remnants changes received notions of the southern gothic. Excess, monstrosity, perversion, nightmares, rattling machinery: these rhetorical structures give way to less operatic forms in which fragments, residues, or traces of trauma fashion a regime of haunting."12 What haunts more is the residue; the "vestige, the scrap, the remainder" is "the force that's most frightening."13 The extinguished match haloed by smoke. Or the lavender handkerchief.
Towards the end of The Violent Bear it Away, a nameless stranger with a car picks up the protagonist-hitchhiker, Francis Marion Tarwater: "The person who had picked him up was a pale, lean, old-looking young man with deep hollows under his cheekbones. He had on a lavender shirt and a thick black suit and a panama hat. . . . His eyes were the same color as his shirt . . . he turned . . . and gave the boy a long personal look."14 After "the boy," Tarwater, passes out in the car, "the man pick[s] him up and carrie[s] him into the woods."15 A break in the narration occurs. Next, the man emerges from the woods, his skin "a faint pink," as "if he had refreshed himself on blood."16 (Note the vampiric South resonance of this simile.) When Tarwater awakens, "his hands were loosely tied with a lavender handkerchief . . . his clothes were neatly piled by his side. Only his shoes were on him . . . [his] mouth twisted open to the side as if it were going to displace itself permanently . . . he began to tear savagely at the lavender handkerchief until he had shredded it off."17 The monstrosity and perversion of this closing scene is the act of forced sodomy Tarwater experiences at the hands of this "friendly" man passing through. Yet, the less operatic scrap, the lavender handkerchief, becomes the focused detail that haunts the reader long after the novel's close.18
The lavender handkerchief. The extinguished match. The veil of smoke. The barbed-wire heart.19 The prosthetic leg. The peacock's feather. The pointy-rimmed glasses. The pearl necklace. The imperfect flanvas. The hobbled body. The crutch. However we interpret O'Connor, her ghost remains in these fragments and remnants she leaves behind as much as the "whole" portraits artists and writers continue to imagine. Fifty years after her death, her legacy seems cemented. Master of the southern gothic, champion of the grotesque, a meditative writer whose truth is found in the details, O'Connor's image and words continue to haunt, inspire, and generate robust conversation. As O'Connor's cousin and a trustee of her estate, Louise Florencourt, said in a recent announcement of materials donated to Emory University's Manuscript Archive and Rare Books Library, "Flannery should be seen as whole as could be made possible."20 As we all continue to interpret O'Connor, we would do well to heed the advice of the master herself: Remember, "an identity is not to be found on the surface . . . it lies very deep,"21 and "'if there's no bottom in your eyes, they hold more.'"22
Flannery O'Connor's bedroom at Andalusia, her home in Milledgeville, Georgia. Photograph by pdoyen, November 12, 2008. Courtesy of pdoyen. | The porch at Andalusia, Flannery O'Connor's home in Milledgeville, Georgia. Photograph by pdoyen, November 12, 2008. Courtesy of pdoyen. |
For more information and to purchase Scale Highly Eccentric: A Zine of Portraits of Flannery O'Connor, visit Brooke Hatfield's website and shop. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Flannery O'Connor – Andalusia Foundation, Inc. Hatfield describes this decision as one based on the importance of place to O'Connor's work: "O'Connor wrote the majority of her published work at Andalusia. It's a literary landmark. And O'Connor's work was so informed by the specifics of place, so Andalusia is sort of uniquely valuable to her fans. Also there's a huge screened-in porch with lots of rocking chairs, and it's a perfect place to eat a Publix Cuban sub."23 In a related Southern Spaces publication, photographer Nancy Marshall echoes Hatfield's evocation of the importance of place to O'Connor's work. Like Hatfield and the characters of Drago's story, Marshall journeys to Andalusia three times a year to trace or commune with O'Connor's ghost; she writes, "my interest is in trying to photograph the landscape as O'Connor saw it in her time and to allow the traces of her presence there to reveal themselves."24
About the Author
Eric Solomon is an editorial associate at Southern Spaces and a PhD student in the department of English at Emory University. He received his BA in English and Spanish from the University of Mississippi and the University of Belgrano, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- 1. In addition to the HBO series True Blood and the series of novels that inspired the show, Charlaine Harris's The Southern Vampire Mysteries, see A Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin's early novel Fevre Dream (1982), set on a Mississippi Riverboat in 1857; Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles, largely set in-and-around New Orleans; Seth Grahame-Smith's 2010 novel Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter and the 2012 film of the same name, which reimagines slaves as food for vampires and the roots of Lincoln's antislavery crusade following his realization of this in New Orleans; and the television series The Vampire Diaries, set in Virginia and largely filmed in Georgia, among many others.
- 2. O'Connor's first novel, Wise Blood, was memorably brought to the screen in 1980 by filmmaker John Huston. Atlanta's Good Country Pictures has acquired the film rights to many of O'Connor's texts, planning to mount a production of The Violent Bear It Away and a television series based on her short stories. Irish filmmaker John Michael McDonagh has also recently stated that he plans to complete his so-called "glorified suicide trilogy"—which currently combines the films The Guard (2011) and Calvary (2014)—with a film that takes its title from O'Connor's story "The Lame Shall Enter First" to star Brendan Gleeson.
- 3. The "esteemed zine artists" include: Ashley Anderson, Rebecca Bowen, Jenifer Carter, Alvin Diec, Travis Ekmark, Christine Ernest, Brooke Hatfield, Yoonhwa Jang, Tori LaConsay, Elizabeth McNair, Dan Murdoch, Natalie Nelson, Emily Wallace, and Lydia Walls.
- 4. Brooke Hatfield in discussion with the author, September 2014.
- 5. Ibid.
- 6. Ibid.
- 7. Johnny Drago in discussion with the author, September 2014.
- 8. Ibid.
- 9. Ibid.
- 10. Patricia Yaeger, "Ghosts and Shattered Bodies, or What Does it Mean To Still Be Haunted by Southern Literature?," South Central Review 2, no.1 (Spring 2005): 87.
- 11. "A Talented Group of Writers and Artists Prove that Flannery O'Connor Walks Among Us Still," The Bitter Southerner, August 2014, http://bittersoutherner.com/flannery-oconnor-walks-among-us-still.
- 12. Yaeger, 90.
- 13. Ibid.
- 14. Flannery O'Connor, The Violent Bear It Away (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1955), 227, emphasis added.
- 15. Ibid., 231.
- 16. Ibid.
- 17. Ibid, 232.
- 18. It will be lost on few that "lavender" has long been associated with homosexuality. The so-called "lavender scare" of the 1950s would have been on people's minds upon the novel's publication in 1960. The lavender scare paralleled Joe McCarthy's Red Scare, with McCarthy stating that gays and lesbians were perhaps "even more dangerous than Reds." On April 27, 1953, as O'Connor was preparing to publish "You Can't Be Any Poorer Than Dead," a short story which serves as chapter one in The Violent Bear It Away, President Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450, which made it legal to hunt down and fire gay and lesbian government employees. The policy lasted until President Clinton officially rescinded it in 1995. What exactly O'Connor is doing with this image and this grotesque act of violence at the novel's close is a question for another forum. Tison Pugh gives an insightful reading of homosexuality in O'Connor's work and this novel in particular in his recent Queer Chivalry: Medievalism and the Myth of White Masculinity in Southern Literature (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2013).
- 19. The 1999 thirty-fifth printing of O'Connor's first novel Wise Blood features a barbed-wire heart on the cover. Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1949).
- 20. Richard Fausset, "Emory Receives Archive of Work by O'Connor," The New York Times, October 7, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/08/books/university-acquires-flannery-oconnors-papers-and-effects.html?_r=0.
- 21. Flannery O'Connor, "The Regional Writer" in Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose, ed. Sally Fitzgerald and Robert Fitzgerald (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1969), 58.
- 22. O'Connor, Wise Blood, 222.
- 23. Brooke Hatfield in discussion with the author, September 2014.
- 24. Nancy Marshall, "Andalusia: Photographs of Flannery O'Connor's Farm," Southern Spaces, April 28, 2008, http://southernspaces.org/2008/andalusia-photographs-flannery-oconnors-farm.
Remnants of Flannery
»Southern Spaces is pairing with Emory University's Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library (MARBL) to publish short features on MARBL collections, events, and exhibits that tell the history of spaces and places in the US South. These posts investigate the geographical, historical, and cultural study of real and imagined southern spaces through the lens of archival sources and materials and are featured on both the Southern Spaces and MARBL blogs.
John Biggers paints House of the Turtle, Hampton University, Hampton, Virginia, ca. 1990. Photo courtesy of John Biggers's Estate. John Biggers Papers, Emory University Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library. |
In July 1957, Houston-based artist John Biggers traveled on a United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) fellowship to Ghana, Nigeria, and Dahomey (now part of Benin) to investigate multiple strands of cultural heritage on the African continent.1 Visiting both rural villages and burgeoning cities, Biggers was particularly struck by Oku Ampofo, a medical doctor and talented artist based near the Ghanaian capital of Accra. In his handwritten travel notes, now located in Emory's Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library (MARBL), Biggers described Ampofo as a "true intellectual" who believed "in the building of Africa, in the development of people, in that which is true and good." Biggers believed Ampofo embodied "the New Africa," linking the continent's past with its future through his artwork, which included ebony and mahogany carvings along with cement statues.2 Noting that the "strong and exuberant character, and personality of the African" endured despite "influences from other peoples," Biggers contended in a typed summary of his travels that the "original values of the old African cultures still have profound meaning today."3
Cotton Pickers, 1947. Sketch by John Biggers, depicting his early realist style. Photo courtesy of John Biggers's Estate. John Biggers Papers, Emory University Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library. |
Throughout his long career, Biggers struggled to create works that would, like Ampofo's, both honor the legacies of the past and look hopefully toward the future. Biggers's own art engaged the experiences of African Americans in the US South. Much like West Africans who were grappling with the inheritances of colonialism, African Americans lived daily with the reality of being both African and American. Over the course of a multi-decade career, Biggers struggled to adequately express this tension.4 While his early pieces adhered to European styles of realism, Biggers's later work began to incorporate more stylized and symbolic elements drawn from African traditions, creating a hybrid style of realistic and abstract forms. Biggers also collected African sculptures, studying each piece in his home until its meaning revealed itself to him. Biggers worked (sometimes to the point of exhaustion) to meld African images with the iconography of the US South to create works that could provide African Americans with a sense of artistic identity.5
As part of his mission to illuminate African American experiences, Biggers helped found the Art Department at Houston's Texas Southern University (TSU) and served as its first head.6 Students responded enthusiastically to his direction. In March 1978, as part of a celebration of Biggers's thirtieth anniversary at TSU, a number of former students wrote to express gratitude to their teacher. "Thanks for being a guiding light for young black artists," wrote one, adding thanks for "inspiring blackness as a true meaning towards creative expression."7 A long-time colleague remembered, "the Joy of those kids who sat at your feet and learned the Beauty of their race and a measure of self-pride, myself included."8
House of the Turtle, pre-installation, Hampton University, Hampton, Virginia, ca. 1992. Mural by John Biggers. Photo courtesy of John Biggers's Estate. John Biggers Papers, Emory University Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library. |
Biggers's blending of different symbols and traditions came to its most mature form in a pair of murals, Tree House and House of the Turtle, begun in 1990 at Virginia's Hampton University and painted with the help of the artist's nephew James.9 Both murals include abstract and symbolic images, but House of the Turtle in particular engages Hampton's origins as a school for the children of slaves (and for the children of Native Americans). The top of the mural depicts two students of African descent holding a lamp and a flower, symbols of growth and illumination. Though stylized African forms appear throughout House of the Turtle, the triangular shape at the top of the mural evokes the "shotgun houses" of Biggers's North Carolina youth, a motif that appears throughout his works.10
Though John Biggers passed away in 2001, his first-hand account of the 1957 trip to West Africa offers researchers a perspective from which to understand Biggers's artistic motivations. In addition to diaries and accounts from the trip, the John Biggers papers in MARBL also contain correspondence, writings, photographs, and other materials illuminating Biggers's lengthy career as an artist, educator, university administrator, and community activist. Reflecting MARBL's commitment to collecting and preserving the work of important African American artists, Biggers's papers join the collections of other notable artists of his generation, including those of Benny Andrews and Mildred S. Thompson.
About the Author
Michael Camp is a graduate processing assistant in MARBL and a PhD student in the department of History at Emory University. He received his BA in History from the University of Tennessee and his MA in social sciences from the University of Chicago.
- 1. Biggers published a book after his trip titled Ananse: the Web of Life in Africa, three copies of which are available in the Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, including two that were Biggers's personal copies and one that belonged to African American composer William Levi Dawson.
- 2. John Biggers, typescript draft of travel diary, July 4, 1957, John Biggers Papers, Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Books Library, Emory University.
- 3. John Biggers, typescript draft of travel diary, John Biggers Papers, Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Books Library, Emory University.
- 4. W.E.B, Du Bois, founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), wrote passionately about this "double consciousness" of African American identity. MARBL and Woodruff Library contain extensive holdings of The Crisis, the NAACP's official journal.
- 5. Olive Jensen Theisen, Walls that Speak: The Murals of John Biggers (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2010), 70-73.
- 6. TSU, a historically black university (HBCU), was established in 1927 as the private Houston Colored Junior College. It was converted into a public institution and renamed Texas State University for Negroes in 1947, and in 1951 was renamed again as Texas Southern University.
- 7. Curtis Watson, Jr. to John Biggers, March 1978, and Al Blair to John Biggers, March 1978, John Biggers Papers, Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Books Library, Emory University.
- 8. Al Blair, letter to John Biggers, March 1978, John Biggers Papers, Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Books Library, Emory University.
- 9. Hampton Institute, also an HBCU, was founded in 1868 by members the American Missionary Association to provide education to former slaves. It established a program for teaching Native Americans in 1878, a project that lasted until 1923. With the addition of several academic programs, the Institute became Hampton University in 1984.
- 10. Theisen, Walls that Speak, 100-03.
Art, Diaspora, and Identity: The John Biggers Papers
»Confederate fort near Atlanta, Georgia, part of the city's inner ring of fortification, 1864. Photographic print by George H. Barnard. Courtesy of Library of Congress. |
Emory University's Robert W. Woodruff Library continues to celebrate the launch of the Battle of Atlanta mobile tour website and commemorate the 150th anniversary of the battle with a presentation and exhibit of materials on Thursday, July 17, at 6:30 p.m. in the Joseph W. Jones Room.
Developed by the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship (ECDS), the smartphone-friendly tour provides GPS directions and mapping, historical information about each of its twelve stops, and multimedia content including video and historical images. It is accessible via a web link, BattleATL.org, and requires no download.
The event will include a talk about the context and legacy of the July 22, 1864, battle by Daniel Pollock, project lead and Civil War scholar; a demonstration of the mobile tour by Brian Croxall, project manager and ECDS digital humanities strategist; and a presentation on the Civil War collections at Emory's Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library (MARBL). Randy Gue, MARBL curator of Modern Political and Historical Collections, will discuss stories and perspectives on the Battle that emerge from MARBL's Union, Confederate, and civilian collections.
"MARBL has a range of materials that document the Civil War, and statistically they represent some of our highest-use collections," Gue said. "It is exciting to see the library and ECDS develop tools that transform historical items and data from archives with digital technology. The Battle of Atlanta mobile tour website represents a new, interactive way to learn."
Erica Bruchko, US history and African American studies librarian at the Woodruff library said that the exhibit, "Mobilizing the Battle of Atlanta," chronicles how the tour application was created and the research that went into it. Bruchko, Croxall, Pollock, and ECDS Andrew W. Mellon graduate fellow Chris Sawula curated the exhibit, which will remain on view through October 19, 2014.
Dolly Lunt Burge, whose diary is in the exhibit, wrote about the Battle sounds she could hear from her home in Covington, Georgia. Courtesy Civil War collections, MARBL, Emory University. |
Among the historical materials on display will be photographs, letters, lithographs, newspaper clippings, postcards, maps, and the diary of Dolly Lunt Burge, who described hearing the Battle of Atlanta—one of the biggest in the final months of the Civil War—from as far away as Covington, Georgia. The exhibit will also include some items that do not appear on the digital tour.
Team members compare the stops along the mobile tour to a kind of twenty-first century historical marker—one that can hold an unlimited amount of text, accommodate images and video, and can be updated as new research comes to light.
Project members drew on Pollock's research to pinpoint twelve significant areas—most now unrecognizable due to the city's growth—and created a GPS-guided tour enhanced with information and images gathered from various institutions' archives during months of research. When the ECDS team could not find an application with the precise features they needed, they created their own open-source software.
"While many people in Atlanta know there was a Civil War battle here, very few of them could show you where it happened. Our digital tour takes you to the exact location of twelve significant moments in the Battle of Atlanta," Croxall said. "To learn that the first shots were fired near a local high school or to realize that its most ferocious fighting took place along your commute at what's now the intersection of Interstate 20 and Moreland Avenue, helps you see the city in a new, historical context."
The exhibit will be on display outside ECDS on level three, near the Joseph W. Jones Room where the presentation and demonstration will be held. Light refreshments will be served.
The Robert W. Woodruff Library is located at 540 Asbury Circle in Atlanta, Georgia 30322. Parking is available in the Fishburne parking deck.
Confederate and Union troops in close combat, Battle of Atlanta Cyclorama, Atlanta, Georgia, 1886. Painting by the Atlanta Panorama Company. |
As the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Atlanta approaches, the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship (ECDS) at Emory University has launched a self-guided mobile tour of Battle-related sites throughout the city, complete with maps, historical information, photos and videos, and even parking suggestions for those who drive the route.
The app launched with a celebration and demonstration held Wednesday, June 18 at 7 p.m. at the Atlanta Cyclorama & Civil War Museum. Another event, planned for Thursday July 17 at Emory's Robert W. Woodruff Library, will include a small exhibit of historical photos and materials from its Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library (MARBL) related to the Civil War and the Battle of Atlanta, which took place July 22, 1864.
Designed to enrich people's understanding of Atlanta and its history, the smartphone-friendly tour provides GPS directions and mapping, historical information about each of its twelve stops, and multimedia content including video and historical images. It requires no download and is accessible via a web link, BattleAtl.org.
The mobile tour is part of an ECDS team project that includes Daniel Pollock, a physician at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a Battle of Atlanta scholar; Allen Tullos, ECDS co-director and Emory history professor; Brian Croxall, project coordinator and ECDS digital humanities strategist; Jay Varner, chief software developer for the project; Kevin Glover, Emory web developer; Chris Sawula, history graduate student, ECDS fellow, and photo researcher; and Erica Bruchko, a U.S. history and African American studies librarian at the Woodruff library.
Digital mapping that matched each historical spot with its modern-day location was done by geospatial librarian Michael Page, another member of the project team.
The Troup Hurt House and the four-gun DeGress Battery, which were temporarily captured by Confederate infantry on the afternoon of July 22, 1864, Battle of Atlanta Cyclorama, Atlanta, Georgia, 1886. Painting by the Atlanta Panorama Company. |
The stops are set up in chronological order of the Battle's events, but the tour can be stopped or started at any point. It concludes at the Atlanta Cyclorama, where an enormous circular painting of the Battle of Atlanta is displayed.
"Atlanta played a significant role in the Civil War," Pollock says. "The Battle of Atlanta was a turning point in a very important campaign that began in early May 1864 and culminated with the fall of Atlanta on September 2. It was the biggest battle in that campaign and the most consequential, and it took place in our midst."
The mobile tour gives visitors a chance to remember the Battle's significant moments in the areas where they happened: Union General William Sherman's headquarters during the Battle, on the campus of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library; Confederate General John B. Hood's vantage point for the Battle, within what is now Oakland Cemetery; Fort Walker, marked by an earthen mound in Grant Park that was part of the Confederate defense that encircled the city; the area where the Battle of Atlanta began, now occupied by Alonzo Crim High School; the spot where Union General James McPherson was killed, marked by an upright cannon monument at McPherson and Monument avenues; and Leggett's Hill, where the Battle's most ferocious fighting took place, now the intersection of Moreland Avenue and I-20, to name just a few.
Many important Battle of Atlanta sites have been replaced by service stations, interstates, buildings, and other signs of urban growth. Still, there are surviving topographical features of the sprawling battlefield and many reminders of key events, recorded on historical markers placed just prior to the Civil War centennial in the 1950s, Pollock says.
"This application is the 21st century version of a historical marker," Croxall adds. "Markers only fit so much text, and you don't know they're there until you come across them." Another benefit is that ECDS licensed the tour software as open-source and will make it available to others who want to create their own tours, Croxall says.
Atlanta was a thriving Southern urban area prior to the Battle. Wet plate negative by George Barnard. Courtesy of Library of Congress. |
Pollock had been studying the Battle of Atlanta for more than twenty years and giving periodic tours when his friend, Tullos, suggested that his tour could be turned into a self-guided, GPS-driven mobile app with ECDS's help. Work on the project began in August 2012.
The mobile tour is a companion piece to Daniel Pollock's article "The Battle of Atlanta: History and Remembrance," published on May 30 in Southern Spaces, an Emory-based digital, peer-reviewed journal now in its tenth year. The article, written by Pollock, provides expanded information about the Battle of Atlanta and the twelve tour stops.
"It's been exciting to work on, and it's been a very collaborative project," says Tullos, who also serves as senior editor of Southern Spaces. He adds the project was particularly rewarding for Pollock, who not only has been able to share his knowledge of the Battle of Atlanta with a wider audience, but also acquired a great collection of images from reunion events that occurred for decades after the Civil War. Those images will be accessible via the Southern Spaces article.
Southern Spaces is pairing with Emory University's Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library (MARBL) to publish short features on MARBL collections, events, and exhibits that tell the history of spaces and places in the US South. These posts investigate the geographical, historical, and cultural study of real and imagined southern spaces through the lens of archival sources and materials and are featured on both the Southern Spaces and MARBL blogs.
Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. prints, Kennedy and Sons Collection, Emory University Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library. |
Printmaker Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr.'s posters and artists' books memorialize and celebrate African American history and culture. His work, housed in the Kennedy & Sons Collection in Emory's Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library (MARBL), tells complex, personal, and painful stories that contribute to a new vernacular in the depiction and description of African American experience in the United States. In describing his work, Kennedy writes, "I am a SOCIAL PRINTER! Whatever I print—because my work is dedicated to the documentation of Negro culture—whatever I print is political."1 Kennedy's posters, on which he literally spells out his messages, are the most blatant example of the political nature of his work. The two posters that bear the text "Equality is a Privilege Reserved for Blacks" and "Coffee Makes You Black" demonstrate that Kennedy's voice is both witty and insistent, challenging the viewer to reconsider perceptions of black culture, history, and art.
A self-described "humble negro printer," Kennedy creates many of his letterpress posters and postcards on commission. In the 2008 documentary Proceed and Be Bold!, which explores Kennedy's life and artistic output, Kennedy stated, "I don't believe in the thing called art . . . I think people just make stuff."2 Following this artistic vision, many of Kennedy's prints function as both advertisements and art, emerging from and responding to the idiosyncratic needs of the communities they illustrate and inhabit. As an artist, Kennedy has lived and worked in the rural towns of Gordo and York, Alabama, as well as the urban center of Detroit, Michigan, where he currently resides.
Print from The Children Don't Count Exhibit, Amos Paul Kennedy Jr., Kennedy and Sons Collection, Emory University Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library. |
Kennedy relies less on traditional locales for exhibiting his art, such as galleries or museum spaces, and instead prefers more direct and democratic communication with the public. He sells prints online for $25 and in-person at local fairs. When he exhibits his work in museum spaces, Kennedy utilizes the space in both creative and political ways. For example, viewing the gallery exhibition of Kennedy's The Children Don't Count, a multiyear project dedicated to children killed in Chicago in the early 1990s, required visitors to walk over a series of prints bearing the name of a child and how his or her death occurred. Sample prints from the first instance of The Children Don't Count in MARBL's Kennedy & Sons collection remembers Chicago children who died in 1992.
The activist motivations that undergird much of Kennedy's work inflect his artist's book sculpture of a burned church included in MARBL's Kennedy and Sons collection. This piece takes its inspiration from the series of arsons of African American churches that swept the southern United States in the 1990s, echoing similar church burnings that took place during the civil rights movement. These incidents, which occurred at predominantly black rural churches from Arkansas to Virginia, targeted the very places that writer Amiri Baraka has described as the "social focal points" of black life.3 Kennedy's "Burnt Church" is part of a series he is creating to commemorate these recent burnings; "One . . . for every church," Kennedy writes about the project that is at once art, protest, and community rebuilding.4
Burned church artist's book, exterior, Amos Paul Kennedy Jr., Kennedy and Sons Collection, Emory University Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library. | Burned church artist's book, interior, Amos Paul Kennedy Jr., Kennedy and Sons Collection, Emory University Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library. |
Kennedy's artists' books combine the written word he privileges in his posters with the provocative space of a church building decorated with long strips of bible pages that leap almost flame-like across the model building and onto its roof. The words of varying size and font wrap the building with flowing ribbons of text. While some of the text is legible, its function here is not to represent a literal, scriptural message, but rather to emphasize the power of the biblical words that survived the church burnings. The building itself, despite the ruin and decline suggested by the ashes scattered below it, emanates an otherworldly power. Upon close examination of the model building, it is apparent that the roof of the church can be lifted, revealing a charred Bible nestled in its core. The experience of opening the church sculpture is akin to that of opening a treasure chest: awe, disbelief and a certain reverence. In addition to highlighting the power of the violence that resulted in the series of fires the model church commemorates, Kennedy's sculpture emphasizes the imminent power of the communities and their sacred texts that have survived.
MARBL's collecting strength in black print culture also includes the papers of Carter G. Woodson and Kelly Miller, both notable African American artists and intellectuals. Kennedy's addition of this living memorial to MARBL joins the numerous collections in the archives documenting African American history and culture, all of which are available for further reexamination, interpretation, and study by researchers, scholars, and the general public.
About the Author
Claire Ittner graduated from Davidson College with a degree in English and Art History. She worked as a project researcher at MARBL until May 2014, and is now working in the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University.
- 1. Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr., "Social Book Binding," in Talking the Boundless Book: Art, Language, and the Book Arts, ed. Charles Alexander (Minneapolis: Minnesota Center for Book Arts, 1995), 47.
- 2. Proceed and be Bold!, directed by Laura Zinger (Chicago: Brown Finch Films, 2008), DVD.
- 3. LeRoi Jones, Blues People: Negro Music in White America (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1963), 40-41.
- 4. Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr., letter to author, March 14, 2014, Kennedy and Sons Collection, Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University Archives.
The Southern Quarterly has issued a call for papers for an upcoming special issue on the significance of the Mississippi River in works of creative expression. From The Southern Quarterly:
Editor: Philip Kolin, The University of Southern Mississippi
Publication Schedule: Volume 52, no. 3 (Spring 2015)
Call: The Southern Quarterly invites submissions for a special issue devoted to the lower Mississippi River as an icon for the twentieth-century South. We are looking for scholarly articles, archival documents, and interviews (but no poetry) on the symbolic importance of the river for and in Southern poetry and fiction, film, music, popular culture, and art. Interdisciplinary articles that focus on more than one of these areas are especially welcome. Manuscripts should run between twenty to twenty-five pages (double-spaced) and follow the MLA style of documentation. Please query Philip Kolin with any questions about your submission.
SoQ does not consider multiple submissions or work that has been approved elsewhere. Please follow the SoQ guidelines, which are available online. For consideration for this special issue, please submit original manuscripts by November 1, 2014.
Email submissions of Microsoft Word documents to email@example.com are preferred over postal delivery.
About the Journal: The Southern Quarterly is an internationally-known scholarly journal devoted to the interdisciplinary study of Southern arts and culture. For SoQ, "the arts" is defined broadly, and includes painting, sculpture, music, dance, poetry, photography, and popular culture. We also publish studies of Southern culture from such disciplines as literature, folklore, anthropology, and history. "The South" is defined as the region south of the Mason Dixon Line, including the Caribbean and Latin America. Regular features include reviews of books and films, periodic reviews of exhibitions and performances, as well as interviews with writers and artists.
Southern Spaces is pairing with Emory University's Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library (MARBL) to publish short features on MARBL collections, events, and exhibits that tell the history of spaces and places in the US South. These posts investigate the geographical, historical, and cultural study of real and imagined southern spaces through the lens of archival sources and materials and are featured on both the Southern Spaces and MARBL blogs.
Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, Georgia, December 14, 2006. Photograph by Brett Weinstein. Released under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license. |
Imagine you are facing north from the main quadrangle of Emory University in Atlanta. Rising from the foreground of Emory's gray-pink marble halls and terra cotta roofs, shimmering against a limpid Georgia sky, the glassy towers of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) hover into focus. Surrounded by fences and walls, the CDC campus appears impenetrable. Imposing security gates and high modern façades add a sense of permanence that belies the agency's earliest beginnings in rural South Georgia. Assimilating diverse research agendas, the CDC has worked to eradicate innumerable diseases in the postwar period and its mandate has assumed an international scope. But the CDC's broad mission and glimmering campus were preceded in the early twentieth century by a simple headquarters of wooden frame buildings and one highly localized disease endemic to the Lowland South: malaria.
Mosquito collection, Emory University Field Station on Ichauway Plantation, Baker County, Georgia, ca. 1938–1945. Photograph by United States Public Health Services Office of Malaria Control in War Areas, Melvin H. Goodwin papers, Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University. |
Housed in Emory University's Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, the papers of epidemiologist, educator, and early CDC administrator Melvin Harris Goodwin (1917–2004) narrate the movement of malaria research from Georgia's southern hinterlands to its capital in Atlanta—and the eventual consolidation of that research under the auspices of a sprawling federal agency devoted to disease control and eradication.
Melvin Goodwin's career began in 1936 when he became the summertime assistant to Roy A. Hill, a South Georgia physician who specialized in the treatment of malaria. Hill contracted with regional drug companies that had begun synthesizing new antimalarials like Atabrine. Using these products alongside quinine—the centuries-old fever reducer now mainly recognized for the bitter taste it gives to tonic water—Hill canvassed the farmlands between Thomasville and Tallahassee providing medical care to malaria-carrying rural laborers. Chronic and ubiquitous, malaria not only affected the health of laborers, but sapped the region's production capacity as well. Goodwin would recall the staggering prevalence of malaria throughout the South in an interview nearly thirty years later:
. . . Every commercial and educational activity had to plan on living with malaria. For instance . . . the Brooks-Scanlon Lumber Company in Taylor County, Florida, where we worked in 1936–1937 employed about 700 people to maintain a working force of 300. More than half of the crew was ill with malaria at all times during the malaria season. The workers would actually plan to work in anticipation of their malarial attacks . . . This was expected as a way of life.1
Melvin Harris Goodwin, on left, at the Emory University Field Station, Baker County, Georgia. Photograph. Melvin H. Goodwin papers, Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University. |
In the summer of 1938, Hill began administering treatments at Ichauway Plantation in Baker County, Georgia. It was here that the young Goodwin, still an undergraduate at Emory College, met Ichauway owner and Coca-Cola executive Robert W. Woodruff. Woodruff had attended Emory College prior to its relocation to Atlanta from the original Oxford campus and remained a loyal supporter of the university as it began developing graduate and professional programs, including a School of Medicine in 1915. Woodruff understood malaria as a major impediment to social and economic development in the southern states and suggested the creation of an epidemiological research center to be headquartered at Ichauway. In a meeting with Goodwin and several university administrators, Woodruff arranged institutional support for an Emory-run epidemiological research station to be overseen and staffed by Emory's medical school. With Goodwin as its assistant director, this research center was established as the Emory University Field Station in April 1939. Its first offices were located in a vacant polling station owned by the county, but its facilities expanded alongside research activity, with several new buildings being erected by the mid-1940s. Shaded by live oaks and Spanish moss, the field station's wooden frame laboratories dotted one corner of the vast rural estate.
Women receive health services, Emory University Field Station on Ichauway Plantation, ca. 1938–1945, Baker County, Georgia. Photograph by United States Public Health Services Office of Malaria Control in War Areas, Melvin H. Goodwin papers, Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University. |
As the United States entered the Second World War, operations at the field station were temporarily suspended. More importantly, the declaration of war would transform the priorities and architecture of epidemiological research in America for decades to come. Just months before Pearl Harbor, Goodwin could still speak of malaria as a regional issue:
. . . it is proper to state that malaria has assumed an important role in the social and economic retardation of the South. To make the affected area attractive to the outside capitol [sic] necessary for industrial and agricultural exploitation, malaria must be controlled. To control malaria economically and efficiently, more fundamental knowledge about it is required. This is both the reason and the objective of malaria research.2
Almost immediately upon Congress's declarations of war in December 1941, however, malaria emerged as a paramount international health concern for the United States military. Deployment of American soldiers to the Pacific theater, where malarious conditions prevailed, made the disease a matter of national urgency. No longer could Americans ignore malaria as the peculiar scourge of rural southern laborers.
The exigencies of war demanded cooperation and consolidation in various industries; epidemiological research was no exception. Shortly after America's entry into the war, the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) absorbed the Emory University Field Station at Ichauway. A commissioned officer in the USPHS, Goodwin split time between the Field Station in Baker County and the recently established Office of Malaria Control in War Areas (MCWA) in Atlanta. Organized in 1942, the MCWA was the direct institutional predecessor to the modern CDC. Incorporating previously independent endeavors, it served as the umbrella organization for all research aimed at malaria treatment and prevention among American soldiers. If Goodwin's own résumé is representative, Emory University, the USPHS, and the MCWA shared staff unquestioningly.
CDC Bulletin, July – September, 1946. Melvin H. Goodwin papers, Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University. |
Goodwin's papers in the Emory University Archives illumine his, and the Emory University Field Station's, centrality to the early project of disease control in America and cast light on the importance of malaria in the creation of a national disease control apparatus. They also conjure a deeply personal foundation of the CDC whose future, like its past, extends far beyond its glistening Atlanta laboratories. Like the war, however, the MCWA did not last forever. The long-awaited peace in 1945 required its own set of reorganizational efforts, leading to the dissolution of the MCWA the following year. Based in Atlanta, the CDC was born as its successor—first as the Communicable Disease Center and only later, in 1970, renamed the Center for Disease Control. As an early cover of the CDC Bulletin indicates, it is difficult to overestimate the centrality of malaria research, treatment, and eradication to the early history of the organization that became the CDC. Much like Goodwin—who would direct the CDC's satellite at Ichauway until 1957 before leaving to direct a new CDC facility in Arizona—the Emory University Field Station had been absorbed as a foundational component of an increasingly vast national agency. Both Goodwin and the Ichauway station would remain operational, at least temporarily. As the CDC began to consolidate itself, administratively and geographically, around a few central buildings in Atlanta, both the South Georgia station and its longtime director became increasingly peripheral to the operations of a burgeoning federal agency.
About the Author
Sean T. Suarez is a doctoral student in the Graduate Division of Religion at Emory University. His research explores transformations in science, technology, and religion in the nineteenth-century United States. He has studied religion at Yale University and the University of the South, and is a lifelong lover of maps.
- 1. Melvin H. Goodwin, Interview with Boisfeuillet Jones and Hunter Bell, August 10, 1966, Box 1, Folder 7, Melvin H. Goodwin papers, Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University.
- 2. Melvin H. Goodwin, Briefing Memorandum on Emory University Field Station, 1941, Box 1, Folder 7, Melvin H. Goodwin papers, Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University.


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An Overview of Cobicistat (GS-9350)October 25, 2010
Other Name(s): GS-9350
Drug Class: Opportunistic Infection and Other Drugs Cobicistat, also known as GS-9350, is a type of medicine called a pharmacoenhancer or "boosting agent." This type of medicine works by raising blood levels of other drugs that are broken down by the same protein. Cobicistat, itself, does not have any antiviral activity. Indications and UsageCobicistat is an investigational medicine that is not yet approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use outside of clinical trials. It is being studied in combination with other drugs for the treatment of HIV infection. Cobicistat is being studied in Phase III clinical trials as part of a single tablet fixed-dose combination regimen (also known as the "Quad" tablet). The "Quad" tablet contains the following four drugs: elvitegravir, cobicistat, emtricitabine, and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate. In addition, cobicistats stand-alone role in boosting currently available HIV protease inhibitors is being studied in a clinical trial. This clinical trial involves studying cobicistat-boosted atazanavir, taken with emtricitabine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate. Cobicistat does not cure HIV infection and may not prevent you from developing HIV-related illnesses. Cobicistat does not prevent you from spreading HIV to other people. Dosage Form/AdministrationCobicistat is currently used only in clinical trials. In these trials, cobicistat is taken by mouth. If you are currently taking cobicistat as part of a clinical trial, make sure to follow any specific instructions that have been given to you about participating in the trial. Unless your doctor or the research team tells you otherwise, please remember the following:
ContraindicationsIndividuals should tell a doctor about any medical problems before taking this medicine. Possible Side EffectsIf you are participating in a clinical trial or expanded access program, before taking cobicistat,
The following life threatening or serious side effects have been reported in clinical trials. Contact your doctor immediately if you experience:
Other nonserious side effects have also been reported in clinical trials:
Cobicistat may cause other side effects. Call your doctor if you have any unusual problems while taking this medication. If you experience a serious side effect, you or your doctor may send a report to the FDA's MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting program online at www.fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch or by phone 1-800-332-1088. Drug InteractionsCertain medications or foods may interact with cobicistat. Tell your doctor and pharmacist what other prescription and nonprescription medications, vitamins, nutritional supplements, and herbal products you are taking or plan to take. Your doctor may need to change the doses of your medications or monitor you more carefully for side effects. Clinical TrialsClick here to search ClinicalTrials.gov for trials that use Cobicistat. Manufacturer InformationCobicistat This article was provided by AIDSinfo. Visit the AIDSinfo website to find out more about their activities and publications.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Hampshire pledges its support for armed forces reservists
Wednesday, 05 March 2014
Support for military reservists is being drummed up in Hampshire after their tremendous relief work in flood-hit areas of the county.
Reservists were the first among hundreds of army and navy personnel providing hands-on assistance in support of the multi-agency response and recovery efforts to flooding in Hampshire, caused by the highest January rainfall since records began.
Now Hampshire County Council has joined forces with the Local Government Association to pledge support and encouragement to staff who want to sign up. Reservists from 7th Battalion The Rifles and HMS King Alfred of the Royal Naval Reserve will be coming to the County Council's offices in Winchester to raise awareness of the opportunities and benefits of joining the reserve forces.
Representatives of the Forces involved with the flood relief work will visit the Council's headquarters on 13 March for a Reserve Service presentation to staff, managers and senior Members.
County Council Leader, Councillor Roy Perry said: "Whether it was helping us to fill and distribute sandbags, support residents who were being evacuated, or being embedded in the Strategic Command Group to respond to requests for assistance, the military has played a significant role alongside local authorities, the Environment Agency and emergency services, and we could not have managed without them. Many of those on hand were reservists, and that's why in Hampshire we have put in place a protocol to positively support staff who are reservists in their spare time."
Councillor Keith Mans, the County Council's Lead Member for the Armed Forces, said: "The partnership working that had been so evident in Hampshire, particularly in Romsey and Winchester, is enshrined within the Hampshire Armed Forces Community Covenant. The County Council was one of the first to sign this voluntary statement of mutual support in June 2011."
Sir Merrick Cockell, Chairman of the Local Government Association, was recently in Winchester for talks on flooding with Councillor Perry and Councillor Mans. This was after the Local Government Minister Eric Pickles praised Hampshire in Parliament for the effective and cooperative way that flooding was being tackled.
Sir Merrick said: "Being a reservist is a unique opportunity, which is sure to be as rewarding as it is challenging. Councils have an important role to play in boosting numbers by encouraging staff and residents to join up. Supporting employees to sign up is a great way of encouraging civic pride and allowing people to make a valuable contribution to the defence of their country, and in return, councils benefit enormously from the decision making and leadership skills that reservists learn through the world class training they receive, which can be transferred back to their day-to-day council roles."
To give a sense of scale to the variety of tasks and responsibilities that are now being asked of the Reserves, Hampshire Reserve Soldiers from 3 Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment (the local Hampshire Infantry Regt), are currently serving with the United Nations in Cyprus.
Opportunities in the infantry, the medical profession, Port Operators, Military Intelligence, Royal Artillery and Mechanical and Electrical Engineering exist in all three reserve forces as the British Armed Forces move to greater reliance on reservists.


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quote:I do most of it on my 360
quote:We can all get in skype
quote:I have a vent server if you guys rather that.
quote:It doesn't matter. Skype has been good for me. Blue on the other hand
quote:Got L4D2 installed and have both Vent and Skype. I've never really used Skype for anything so if we choose that I might need a walkthrough even though I'm computer literate.


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Rob Klamut
Head Coach
A veteran in his third decade as the head coach of the one of the top small-college swimming programs in the nation, Rob Klamut enters his 30th year as the head men's and women's swimming and diving coach at Westminster College in 2014-15.
Klamut owns a 216-81-2 (.726) career record as the Titan men's coach and as the first-ever women's team head coach at Westminster he owns a 195-88 (.689) record since 1987. In 2013, Klamut registered his 400th win as a college coach as his combined men's and women's record is 411-169-2 (.708).
Both the Titan men's and women's teams won the Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) championship in 2007, giving both teams their fourth league team titles in five years, including the men with three straight and the women with two consecutive crowns. Most recently, in 2013, the men's team was crowned the PAC champion for its fifth overall title in school history.
Klamut has earned either PAC Men's or Women's Swimming Coach of the Year honors nine times since the Titans joined the league in 2003. Overall, Klamut has been recognized by his peers as conference coach of the year 14 times since 1992 including honors from the Penn-Ohio Conference and the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC). He was also awarded the American Swimming Coaches Association Award of Excellence 12 times in 1991, 1994, 1998-2002 and 2005, 2007, 2010-12.
The accolades he received as a coach are indicative of the numerous accomplishments of his swimmers. Klamut coached three national champions, 109 individuals earning All-America or All-America honorable mention honors, 113 conference champions and several scholar-athletes and all-academic team members.
Overall, Westminster has won eight men's team conference championships (Penn-Ohio 1993-94, GLIAC 1999, PAC 2003, 2005-07, 2013) and five women's team conference titles (Penn-Ohio 1992, PAC 2003-04, 2006-07).
A four-year swimming letterman at Clarion University, where he graduated in 1982, Klamut was a Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference finalist in 11 events, as well as team co-captain his senior year. Following graduation, he earned his master's degree in education from the University of Pittsburgh in 1985.
Klamut began his coaching career at Elizabeth-Forward High School, leading his 1985 boys team to a section title.
In addition to his coaching responsibilities at Westminster, Klamut previously was the chairman of the NCAA Division III Swimming and Diving Committee and continues to serve on the Committee today. He also served in similar capacities for the CSCAA, the NAIA and the Penn-Ohio Conference.
He and his wife, Kelly, reside in New Wilmington with their daughter Stephannie.
NAIA (1986-98), NCAA Division II (1999-2002), NCAA Division III (2003-present)
Pat Smith
Assistant Coach
Pat Smith returned to his alma mater and enters his sixth year as an assistant swimming coach at Westminster for the 2013-14 season. He previously served as an assistant coach at Mount Union for two seasons.
Smith was a two-time All-American for the Titans in the 200 and 400-yard medley relays. In addition to helping Westminster win three Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) team championships, Smith won six PAC individual titles, including the 200 backstroke all four years during his career. He also won the 100 backstroke in 2004 and 2007 and swam on two PAC champion 400 medley relay teams.
A 2007 Westminster graduate with a degree in political science, Smith is a native of South Park. He and his wife Brittany, a former Westminster swimmer, and daughter, Mia, reside in New Wilmington.
Brittany Smith
Assistant Coach
Brittany Smith, the wife of fifth-year assistant coach Pat Smith, enters her fifth year on the Westminster staff as a part-time assistant coach for the 2013-14 season.
The former Brittany Thomas, Smith is a 2007 Westminster graduate and former Titan swimmer. She is a five-time PAC champion including two titles in the 1,000 and 1,650 freestyles.
A Bethel Park native, Smith resides in New Wilmington with her husband, Pat, and daughter, Mia.
Heath Calhoun
Assistant Coach
Heath Calhoun enters his first year on the Westminster staff as the diving coach for the 2014-15 season.
Calhoun was a sixth-time All-American as a diver at Division II Clarion University.
Calhoun won the NCAA Division II national championship on the 3-meter springboard at the 2014 NCAA Championships. Calhoun broke the NCAA record by scoring 615.95 points (34.30 points better than the previous record and 54.15 points better than the second-place finisher). Calhoun was .50 points from winning the 1-meter competition. A team co-captain his senior year, Calhoun was named the CSCAA (College Swimming Coaches Association of America) Division II "Male Diver of the Year".
Heath, a graduate of Butler High School, earned a degree in Rehab Science at Clarion in 2014 where he was also a Scholar Athlete and an Academic All-American.
Mark Brooks
Assistant Coach
Mark Brooks enters his first year on the Westminster staff as an assistant coach for the 2014-15 season.


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February 17 – 21, 9 am – 3 pm daily
A mid morning snack and lunch will be provided.
Get ready to get messy as you explore the amazing properties of matter. Learn the differences between liquids, solids and gases by making edible treats including ice cream, experimenting with slime, and exploring weird substances. Investigate density and mass by designing and testing various objects that float and sink. The Messy Matter School's Out Innovation Camp includes interactive activities, exhibit exploration, a student certificate, and a free student membership.
The camp's itinerary includes:
February 17 – Polymers
What is an atom? How do atoms form molecules? Students will investigate atoms that we encounter in our everyday lives and build their own edible atoms and molecules.
February 18 – Phases of Matter
What are the phases of matter? Why does water turn to ice when you put it in the freezer? Students will investigate how molecules of a substance are affected by changes in temperature. Students will also conduct a yummy phases of matter experiment to create ice cream.
February 19 – Visible Effects of the Invisible
There are invisible forces that play an important role in our everyday lives. Is there a way we can control these forces? Students will experiment with gases and air pressure and create airzookas designed to manipulate the forces of matter to move objects around a room.
February 20 – Amazing Reactions
Create amazing (safe) reactions using everyday household materials. Experiment with acid and base reactions that create bubbles and color changes. Students will create their own fizzy reaction tablet from soap, citric acid and baking soda.
February 21 – Fluorescent Matter
Have you ever wondered why some things glow in the dark? What happens to atoms and molecules that glow in the dark when they are exposed to UV light? Students will create glowing slime and make their own glowing jewelry that detects UV light from the sun's rays.
Fee: $350
NYSCI Members: $325


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Hairstyles That Defined an Era
Hairstyles That Defined an Era
A telltale way to figure out when an old picture was taken? The hair! Hair trends have the amazing ability to rekindle memories of years past, while sometimes prompting the thought "What was I thinking?" upon glancing at an old yearbook photo. The styles worn by Cher, Jennifer Aniston, Farrah Fawcett, and Priscilla Presley were considered cutting-edge at the times they debuted and became definitive markers of each distinct era. Click through our gallery to take a retrospective look at the "it" hairstyles of years past!
Read MoreLess


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Main Content
You're the type of gal who'll put in as much time as possible to look extravagant for her Flyers. When the temps start to drop, warm up with The Looker full zip jacket. This zip-up jacket sports four exterior zippered pockets, two interior pockets, a warm fleece lining and an elastic belt to ensure a cozy and flattering fit. This jacket also features a synthetic fur-lined hood, a twill team logo embroidered on the left chest and twill "Flyers" lettering across the back yoke to make you the cutest and most spirited Philadelphia fan around!
- 100% Polyester shell, lining and filler
- 54% Acrylic/46% Polyester face
- Adjustable hook and loop closures on cuffs
- Detachable hood with synthetic fur lining
- Elastic belt with buckle
- Full zip jacket
- Imported
- Locker loop
- Officially licensed NHL product
- Two interior pockets
- Two zippered chest pockets
- Two zippered front pockets
- Zippered hood attachment for easy removal
Special event items are produced by manufacturers only after the outcome of a game
or event. These are advanced sale items and will ship immediately after they are
received in our warehouse.
Manufacturer direct items are shipped directly from the manufacturer. These items
are not available for international or expedited shipping.
Customized items can be personalized with options such as your name, your favorite
number, and/or designs. Some options may be limited by league rules.


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A stack of Diaper Clutches for my book group |
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
What's going on
30 comments:
- AMKreations said...
LOL...what a riot. I love the last photo...so cute! Have a great week!
- June 1, 2011 at 6:19 AM
- Linda said...
Love life moments on film! Kids grow up way, way to quick! My oldest is graduating High School on Sat and off to college by August! Sooo not ready for that one!!
- June 1, 2011 at 6:38 AM
- Jodi said...
Oh, Amy, I feel for you! I thought people were crazy, too, till I put my daughter on the bus the first day of kindergarten - I cried all day, and took a good couple of months to adjust! Whew! Are there TWO kids in that pile?? Cute! Love those diaper carriers, and good luck in my giveaway that you entered - thanks!
- June 1, 2011 at 7:06 AM
- Betty Lou said...
That's what I call "Real Life." I remember those days with 4 children at home. Everyday was an adventure---------.
- June 1, 2011 at 7:12 AM
- Bonnie said...
Oh my goodness! You are busy! My oldest starts Kindergarten in September and I think its crazy - she will only be 3 1/2!
- June 1, 2011 at 7:17 AM
- Sarah {MSQC} said...
Life takes over....It's been pretty crazy for me too!! :)
Sometimes it's nice to step away from the computer though. Can't wait to see what you come up with next. Have a great week! - June 1, 2011 at 7:32 AM
- Staci said...
Thanks for sharing the photos! The mountains are BEAUTIFUL in the background, and your kids are quite lovely, too! Enjoy the chaos! They will grow up and leave your house all too quiet one day.
- June 1, 2011 at 7:50 AM
- megan.futo said...
Glad to see that my kids aren't the only one who pull their mattresses to the floor! And my oldest starts kindergarten in the fall and I feel the same, only difference is mines the big kid of the family. I want summer to crawl along and really enjoy these last few months of him home. Enjoy your time as well, and we will overlook any random or boring blog posts untill then!
- June 1, 2011 at 7:51 AM
- Nedra said...
The good news is that they are asleep!
As such a busy mother, I don't know how you do all that you do. I hope you have a wonderful summer. - June 1, 2011 at 8:15 AM
- Live a Colorful Life said...
Ha, that last picture is priceless!
- June 1, 2011 at 8:28 AM
- Vicki said...
Same thing happened here, only about a week and a half behind your schedule. We are trying to figure out our summer schedule and I'm still not finding much time to blog. :)
- June 1, 2011 at 8:35 AM
- Pam said...
Hi Amy....I have 4 kids too!I remember having a serious cry the day my baby starting KG....next week she graduates HS !! Bittersweet is my word for JUNE .....
- June 1, 2011 at 9:32 AM
- Sallie said...
WOW - is that your backyard view? Those mountains are gorgeous! Thanks for sharing!
- June 1, 2011 at 10:20 AM
- bethanndodd said...
I love it! Sounds like we are living very similar lives...nice to know I am not the only one busy with everyday 'life'. Good luck getting a few things accomplished :)
- June 1, 2011 at 10:30 AM
- Char @ Crap I've Made said...
I feel your pain. :)
- June 1, 2011 at 10:30 AM
- DJ Rose said...
My baby is graduating kindergarten and my oldest is graduating 6th grade at the same time tomorrow. Good thing hubby is home. I'm so not ready for middle school, either. :)
Have a great last week of school! - June 1, 2011 at 10:50 AM
- Thimbleanna said...
I think I've been hiding under a rock or something. I'm sorry to have missed you at market -- I've been reading back over your posts -- it looks like you had a FABULOUS time!!! (You cracked me up with your comment about the Moda Utah bag -- I said almost exactly the same thing -- Had. to. have. it!!!)
- June 1, 2011 at 11:06 AM
- Lara said...
Monkeys :) LOL... don't you just *love* it when you suddenly become aware that it's too quiet :) We've got a long weekend this weekend (Queen's Birthday!) so I'm hoping to get a spot of sewing done after I managed to tame our weeds last weekend!
- June 1, 2011 at 12:57 PM
- Kristen said...
Thanks for the chuckle! I always look when it is quiet!! :)
- June 1, 2011 at 2:06 PM
- April @ Sewing Novice said...
hehehe...I love the picture of the kids sleeping. As I was reading this, my husband and I were actually talking about whether our daughter (2 yo)will ever sleep once we take her out of the crib. He said, yeah, she will probably sleep on the floor in the middle of all of her toys.
- June 1, 2011 at 7:04 PM
- Simply AJ said...
Family first... that's one reason why I enjoy following you (not to mention you are crazy talented)! Every milestone with each child is such a precious gift and one day when they are grown you will look back and enjoy sharing these memories with them. They are what make all of the crazy times so worthwhile! Mine are all grownup and they always find there Mama waiting for them at home. God Bless!
- June 1, 2011 at 8:47 PM
- libbydibby said...
Amy - I love your blog. You always make me smile. Thanks for keeping it joyful and real.
=) - June 1, 2011 at 9:05 PM
- madebymum said...
Sound so familiar. Look forward to seeing the quilts Amy
- June 1, 2011 at 11:24 PM
- Wendys Hat said...
You are not alone! One note though... It only gets worse from here! Mine range from 22 years to 16 years and I am more disorganized and busier than ever. I was able to have everything under control until the first went to high school and it was all downhill from there. Enjoy it while it lasts. Elementary school is only the calm before the storm!
- June 1, 2011 at 11:50 PM
- sew+mad said...
Have fun!!:)
- June 2, 2011 at 4:31 AM
- ktquilts said...
Uhm, we so live a parallel life!! Blessings upon you!!
- June 2, 2011 at 6:48 AM
- Suzi said...
Busy can be overwhelming, but it sounds like you all are having fun. Was wondering if you plan to do a tutorial for the clutches, they are adorable.
- June 2, 2011 at 7:33 AM
- Letterpress said...
Love that last photo--terrific. I had my grandsons here last weekend and although it's hard when your children grow up, you get grandchildren! And that's the best ever, although I have to say I didn't believe it when my mother would say it.
I treasure the memories I have of my children, and am glad to see that you are taking the time to make memories--and record them in the way of funny photos.
Have a good end-of-school year experience, and hope your summer gets off to a good start!
Elizabeth E.
http://occasionalpiece.wordpress.com - June 2, 2011 at 10:32 AM
- amandajean said...
I feel like I'm in the same boat as you. My youngest starts K in the fall, too, and I always thought I'd be overjoyed. but now that it's nearly here, I'm thinking I'll be spending a few days lost without anyone at home! Or who knows, maybe I'll be so ready after summer vacation. ;)
- June 13, 2011 at 9:42 AM
- Emily of The Best of this Life said...
Love that last picture - so cute! Just fell upon your blog and I'm glad that I did :)
- July 28, 2011 at 3:32 PM


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Dang girl, you're giving Milo a run for his money! He should be taking pointers from you! The Bounty Hunter is in theatres March 19!
Ruin His Relationship
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