Faulkner, Again

I did some printing for The Center For Southern Culture, at Ole Miss, when I lived in Mississippi. Loved the campus, loved some of the people, loved Square Books and that down home restaurant around the corner, where the side orders were a litany of deep-south favorites. I had read the best of Faulkner before moving to Missip, but read all of him while I was there, even the lesser novels and bad short stories. The connecting thread was his power of observation, a man deeply embedded in the natural world, a sense of where he was, and that informed the writing. Accurate description grounds the writing. Allowed the flights of fancy and the genuine confusion. This is still true, of course. Even in the most modern meta-fiction, it is attention to detail that makes the story real. I could talk about UFO's and the beginning of intelligence on earth, but if I get the waddling of the geese on the beach right, you might believe me. I'm concerned there's too much on my plate, 500 boxes, and another show, of photographs, that I need to install upstairs. I haven't finished the touch-up painting. I'm clearly behind. No one else sees this as a problem, but I do, I worry incessantly. Moscow is burning, and the delta is flooding. Monsoon rains. I sense I don't understand forensic crap. Mostly I watch small animals, the way a squirrel might run.