An MSR Reading: Or Why I Don't Like Southern Women

I am soooo living up to this new year's resolution. But though I haven't been diligently blogging. I have been doing some stuff literary. For example, I went to a great reading at Main Street Rag Publishing Company's headquarters featuring Suzanne Baldwin Leitner and Dannye Romine Powell.

Powell read from her new poetry collection A Neckless of Bees. Some wonderful stuff about being an only child. Leitner read from her novella Sessions with a Cheater's Wife.

And here's where the subtitle of the post comes in. Leitner read this passage describing some Southern women that completely resonanted with my experience: "My mother the lunatic is also female and southern. But she's that annoying kind of southern. The kind that always points out, loudly, the brutality and coarseness of the rest of the world, looks down her nose at it in fact, but would skin a live cat if it would win her some sort of meaningless social standing.... I can't tell you how many times I've seen her smile right into a person's face whom she utterly despises.... My mother is the kind of person who uses 'etiquette' as a weapon of intimidation, which means, of course, she isn't using etiquette at all."

I especially like that last part about etiquette. So, of course, I was using a bit of the hyperbole before because it's not all Southern women I don't like, just the ones described above (note my own mother is not one of these Southen women, nor is this woman).

Your Etiquette Advice from Some Old Books I Found

So my computer has been sick. Ill. So I did what any normal, rational person would do: I cursed until my throat closed shut. And then I flipped it the bird several times, while keeping my cool enough not to jump up and down on it in nihilistic glee.

Which brings me to today's etiquette advice. Last time it was on being a good conversationalist. And what is conversation made up of but words. This tip comes from American Etiquette and Rules of Politeness 1884 (Rand, McNally & Co.):

Vulgar Exclamations

Such exclamations as "The Dickens," or "Mercy," or "Good Gracious," should never be used. If you are surprised or astonished, suppress the fact. Such expressions border closely on profanity.

Mercy, I'm going to beat the dickens out this dag-blasted machine. Good gracious, this has been your etiquette advice from some old books I found.

Your Etiquette Advice from Some Old Books I Found

Today's etiquette advice comes from The Life Cycle Library for Young People 1969 (Parent and Child Institute, Chicago).

If you know me--and I hope, for your sake, you don't--then you know I am a spectacular social butterfly. Sort of like a conversationalist Mothra--he was a giant butterfly, right? But if you need help when you're at that next networking mixer, here's a quick tip:

Jokes made at someone else's expense, crude or off-color jokes, and very personal questions seldom make good conversation. Pointing out that Wally's teeth make him look like a gopher, even if they do, may get a big laugh, but the laugh is not worth the price of losing Wally as a friend. Laughter at someone else's expense is a sure way of losing friends.

Yeah, Wally really does look like a gopher. And now apropos of nothing--I'm only using that phrase because Heather hates it--this is also the book that clears up this concern:

A homosexual is a person who is sexually attracted to persons of the same sex rather than to persons of the opposite sex. One of the problems that masturbation can cause is that a young person may wonder if something is wrong with him or her. Some young people think masturbation is linked to homosexuality. They believe that if they masturbate, they are a homosexual or will become homosexual. They should realize that masturbation does not cause homosexuality.

So what have we learned? Don't call Wally a gopher and pointing out that masturbation does not in fact cause homosexuality--as everyone surely must have assumed--is probably a great conversation starter. This has been your etiquette advice from some old books I found.

Your Etiquette Advice from Some Old Books I Found

So I found another old book--what can I say; it's a pastime--The Royal Path of Life, published in 1880. It's an old self-help guide so not exactly etiquette, but I'm too lazy to change up the feature. T. L. Haines and L. W. Yaggy hope "it shall be a counselor to those who have become indifferent to life's purpose." I want to be anything but indifferent to life's purpose. That sounds reminscient of some other modern book I keep hearing about, something about how purpose will drive my life. I wish purpose would just give me a lift.

Anyway. The Royal Path turns out to be instructive, especially in the ways between men and women: "Man is bold--woman is beautiful. Man is courageous--woman is timid. Man labors in the field --woman at home. Man talks to persaude--woman to please.... Women are generally better creatures than men. Perhaps they have, taken universally, weaker appetities and weaker intellects, but they have much stronger affections. A man with a bad heart has been sometimes saved by a strong head; but a corrupt woman is lost forever."

Strange, then, to find what appears to be a statement of support for the suffrage movement tucked inside the pages. It seems legimate, though did they have yellow paper back then? When did we invent colors? The top reads THE EMPIRE STATE CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE: Victory for Woman Suffrage in 1915.

Your Delicious Recipe from Some Old Books I Found

Today's recipe...actually this is the first recipe I've blogged. It comes from one of the books I usually peruse late at night for etiquette advice. Earlier I told Heather she had a lot of "pigs in the fire." I realize that should be "irons in the fire." But pigs work for me and may explain this...

Anyway, today's recipe comes from Household Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis’s Cook Book 1909 (The Success Company):

Broiled Pigs' Feet. Scrape the feet and wash them thoroughly, soak in cold water two hours, then wash and scrape again. Split each in half lengthwise, and tie the pieces separately in pieces of cheese cloth. Place in a deep saucepan, cover with boiling water, add 1 tablespoonful salt, and simmer slowly until the feet are tender usually about four hours. Take them from the liquor and set aside until cold; remove the cloths; they are ready then to be broiled in the following: 2 tablespoonfuls butter, 1 tablespoonful lemon juice 1/2 teaspoonful salt, Dash McIlhenny's Tabasco Sauce, 1/2 tablespoonful finely chopped parsley. Cream the butter. Work gradually into it lemon juice, salt, tabasco, and parsley. After removing the cloth from each piece, brush with melted butter and dust with salt and pepper. Broil over a clear fire for six minutes. Transfer to a hot platter, and spread with prepared butter. The pigs' feet may be prepared the day before needed.

That's right, the day before needed...

Your Etiquette Advice from Some Old Books I Found

Today's etiquette advice comes from Book of Etiquette: Volume II by Lillian Eichler 1921 (Nelson Doubleday, Inc.):

Ask questions only if you are gifted with great tact. Otherwise you are bound to create embarrassing situations. If you do ask questions, make them of a general character, rather than personal. But never be curious, because people resent inquisitiveness--and rightly so, for it is a very undesirable trait to have, and each person has a right to privacy.

That's right, stop questioning me, you damned inquisitive people...everyone resents you anyway. This has been your etiquette advice from some old books I found.

I Respond to Heather Responding to NatPoMo

That's right, Heather gave a thoughtful and impassioned response to my criticisms of National Poetry Month. To which I will now respond. Here it is:

My response.

Your Etiquette Advice from Some Old Books I Found

Today's etiquette advice comes from American Etiquette and Rules of Politeness 1884 (Rand, McNally & Co.):

DO NOT CONTRADICT It is extremely impolite to directly contradict any one. If the matter is of no importance, let it pass; otherwise, say, "I beg your pardon, but I think you are mistaken or misinformed," or any other similar phrase, which will break the weight of direct contradiction.

This has been your etiquette advice from some old books I found.

Your Etiquette Advice from Some Old Books I Found

So when I can't sleep--which is rare because I can sleep on the floor of subway stations, but sometimes it escapes me--I read really old etiquette books. What of it?

You know before today's tip, I heard a story on Weekend America about the pointlessness of etiquette specifically of not putting your elbows on the table. Pointless? How would we know how to interact with one another if someone didn't tell us? How about that, Bill Radke?

For instance, tipping? Not like the tip I am going to give you, but the one with money. According to Book of Etiquette: Volume II by Lillian Eichler 1921 (Nelson Doubleday, Inc.):

In a little tea shop in Fifth Avenue in New York, the following is printed on the back of each menu: "Tipping is an un-American custom." Help us abolish it by adding 10 cents to the amount of your bill. At the end of the week, the waiter will receive the entire amount added to his wages." Patrons have greeted this plan enthusiastically. They feel that it presages the ultimate abolition of a custom that has long been in disrepute because it is so distinctly un-American. The waiters in this progressive little tea room serve each patron with the same degree of courtesy and respect; there is no fawning servility, no unfair dividing of service between two patrons. Let us hope hat before long all restaurants and hotels will follow the lead of the little tea-shop that revolts against the undemocratic custom of tipping. But for the present, while it remains a national custom, we must know when to tip and how to tip, and the correct amounts. In certain states, as in South Carolina, tipping is illegal. In this case as in all others of a like nature, the rules of etiquette are set aside in favor of the statutes of the law.

That's right stop tipping, you un-American jerks. This has been your etiquette advice from some old books I found.

Your Etiquette Advice from Some Old Books I Found

Today's etiquette advice comes from American Etiquette and Rules of Politeness 1884 (Rand, McNally & Co.):

KEEP ROOM NEAT.
If you are a visitor be careful to keep your room as neat as possible. Do not let garments lie scattered about promiscuously.

I wish I had read that before I promiscuously decorated my hotel room at AWP. This has been your etiquette advice from some old books I found.

Your Etiquette Advice from Some Old Books I Found

I am an incorrigible bibliophile and collect virtually any book, but I have a special soft spot for antiquated books on etiquette or self-help. I find them to be lost resources to combat the barbarism of today’s impolite world.

Today’s advice is from:

Household Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis’s Cook Book 1909 (The Success Company)

Under Toilet Preparations for Men

Eyebrows and Eyelashes.—In general the less attention paid to these features the better The practice of attempting to deepen the color of the eyes by darkening the lids or lashes is a dangerous one…. Clipping the eyelashes is, on the whole, a dangerous practice, as it tends to thicken them and cause them to become stiff like bristles.

Beware the eyebrow and eyelash maintenance. This has been your etiquette advice from some old books I found.