With this in mind, I’ve decided to re-focus this blog away from personal posts. For things of that nature, Facebook seems a more appropriate setting, and if you’re interested in following along, here’s what to do:

1. If we’re not ‘friends’ on Facebook yet, add me. Don’t be shy.
2. Go to my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/vbaudoin
3. Scroll down until you find the ‘Notes’ box on the left. Click ‘See all’.
4. Bookmark this page, or use the ‘Subscription’ link at right to add the notes to your RSS reader.

What will this change mean for Southern Live Oak, given that my posts have been sporadic at best, and that many of those have been personal? I don’t yet know. It may be a while before I find the right recipe; on the other hand, this change may give me the focus I need to make the blog work. Either way, I hope you’ll keep following along.

Well–

Ok, I’ve finished reading the Great American Novel. Writing the Great American Novel is still a work in progress.  But finishing Moby Dick feels like an accomplishment. Never mind that it’s 822 pages long; during high school I could have read that in a week. For some reason, large portions of reading have been difficult lately. Maybe it’s because I mostly try to read late at night, and promptly fall asleep.

Nobody needs a review of Moby Dick, but it’s worth saying that I found it very enjoyable. It’s very humorous, particularly in the first half, when the voice of the narrator, Ishmael, is most prominent. It’s also very generous with its descriptions of the whale fishery of the 1800′s, which, while somewhat dry, are quite enlightening.

What’s next? Maybe studying some Spanish, maybe reading Cloud Atlas (a book Nadene lent me), maybe something else.

What are you reading?

From Vanity Fair:

Bonus: If that’s not enough, check out William Shatner on the Tonight Show, reciting a portion of Palin’s July 26 farewell speech. Priceless.

Sculptor Dayton Scoggins at work in Biloxi, Mississippi. (City of Biloxi)

Some Southern live oaks that did not survive Hurricane Katrina have been reborn as art. In Biloxi, artists Dayton Scoggins and Marlin Miller took up the task of converting over 20 dead trees, mostly along Beach Boulevard, into sculptures celebrating coastal wildlife: pelicans, eagles, seahorses, whales, dolphins, swordfish, and more. The sculptures have been featured on MSNBC and elsewhere and are one of the top attractions on the coast. (The City of Biloxi has pictures and video here).

And so the live oak continues to be a deep-rooted part of Southern culture and character — one that, like the Gulf Coast, will endure and continue to grow.

Live oak in Biloxi, Mississippi. (Vincent Baudoin)

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Previous: Hurricane Katrina and the Southern live oak.

Friendship Oak, Long Beach, Mississippi. (Anton Baudoin)

The Southern live oaks that line the Gulf Coast have weathered multiple hurricanes. Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall on the coast on August 29, 2005, was the worst storm to hit Mississippi since 1969′s Hurricane Camille.

For Mississippians returning after Katrina to find their homes damaged or destroyed, the battered condition of the live oaks was a psychological blow. Hardy as they are, the oaks had been subjected to severe stress. Prolonged saltwater inundation had poisoned their roots and high winds and debris had damaged their branches. A September 8, 2005 National Public Radio segment captured the uncertainty about the fate of many ailing live oaks, uncertainty that would last for months and even years.

And yet, many of the live oaks survived. Shelia White of the University of Southern Mississippi writes of her joy upon discovering that the Friendship Oak, a fixture of the university’s Gulf Park campus, had endured through Katrina. At over 500 years old, the Friendship Oak has given shade and shelter to generations of students and faculty at USM.

Most of the surviving oaks have made a full recovery: their foliage is green year-round, they are hung with Spanish moss, and their sturdy branches are beginning to grow once again. For the Gulf Coast community, these great oaks have come to symbolize the coast’s survival and slow but steady recovery after Hurricane Katrina.

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Previous: The live oak in Southern cities and culture.

Next: Conclusion.

Live Oaks in Audubon Park, New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo: Tim Bekaert)

The Southern live oak provides cover and shade not only for jays and squirrels, but for humans as well. Although prevalent across a wide area, its most iconic presence is in the great cities of the South. Live oaks shade the squares of Savannah, the streets of Charleston, and the magnificent avenues of New Orleans. For example, St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans, called “The Jewel of America’s Grand Avenues,” is known as much for its oak-shaded streetcar lines as for its grand antebellum mansions (1).

The Southern live oak’s distinctive shape makes it a valuable urban architectural element. It has a “broad crown, with long arching limbs that spread horizontally rather than vertically,” creating large areas of inviting shade (2, 3).  Its hard, strong wood, once highly prized for shipbuilding, makes it highly durable. Due to its appeal, it is estimated that “a single live oak can add as much as $30,000 to the value of a house” (4).

“In Southern history, live oaks were landmarks where people met to socialize and conduct business,” says Tova Spector of the University of Florida (5). “In the opening scene of “Gone with the Wind,” Scarlett O’Hara flirts with bachelors under live oaks at a barbecue. Similarly, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings ends her book “The Yearling” with the hero saying goodbye to his childhood under the live oak trees” (6). For many people, the live oak – with the mistletoe and Spanish moss that often grow on its limbs – is deeply associated with the image of the South.

Live oaks in the famous Oak Alley Plantation, Vacheria, Louisiana. Found in many estates along the Mississippi River, tree alleys help bring cool breezes up to the main house. (Photo: Tim Bekaert)

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Previous: A description of the Southern live oak.

Next: Hurricane Katrina and the Southern live oak.

References:

1. New Orleans Online
2. Physorg
3. University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences
4. Physorg
5. University of Florida, Department of Botany
6. Physorg

Seven Sisters, the current president of the Live Oak Society - Lewisburg, Louisiana. (Photo: Patrick Burke)

Quercus virginiana (from the Latin quercus, oak tree, and virginiana, of Virginia) is a common sight in coastal areas of the southeastern United States. It thrives in habitats such as coastal plains, woodlands, hills, and even sometimes sand beaches (4). Able to withstand salt spray, heavy rain, hurricane force winds, and short periods of flooding, it is well-adapted for these coastal environments (5). Because it is easily damaged by frost, the Southern live oak restricts itself to areas where the average winter temperature stays above 42° F (5). In these climates, it can keep its leaves nearly year-round, shedding and quickly re-growing them in early spring (5).

Live oak is characterized by its dark brown, furrowed bark, small, tapered acorns, and small, leathery, oblong or elliptical leaves (5, 8). Mature live oaks can reach over 50 feet high and over 150 feet in diameter and can live for many centuries (5). However, the age of live trees is difficult to determine. The Angel Oak, near Charleston, South Carolina, is “often called the oldest living thing in the U.S. east of the Mississippi… [estimated at] over 1,500 years old,” writes Tim Bekaert, but “the second is almost certainly an exaggeration… an age of less than 600 years [is] more likely” (2). Even so, the Angel Oak would have been nearly a century old when Columbus first visited the Americas.

Live oak is a dominant species in many coastal ecosystems. “[It] provides cover and shade for a wide variety of coastal species of birds and mammals. Acorns of live oak are an important food source for the Florida scrub jay, mallards, sapsuckers, wild turkey, black bear, squirrels and white-tail deer. Scrub jays, a threatened species, nest in live oak. Epiphytes of live oak include mistletoe, ball moss and Spanish moss. Spanish moss can be especially populous in live oak” (5).

The leaves and acorns of the Southern live oak (Q. virginiana) compared with closely related varieties including the Texas live oak (Q. fusiformis) and the Sand live oak (Q. geminata). (Diagram: eFloras.org)

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Previous: Introduction to the southern live oak.

Next: Live oaks in southern cities and culture.

For more on the southern live oak, visit these excellent resources:

1. The Live Oak Society
2. Southern live oak photos and information by Tim Bekaert
3. University of Southern Mississippi – Friendship Oak page
4. Botanical description from Flora of North America
5. More botanical description from the Smithsonian Marine Station
6. NPR story about New Orleans live oaks after Katrina
7. Pictures and video of the Biloxi tree sculptures
8. Live oak fact sheet from Virginia Tech

C’est un trou de verdure où chante une rivière
Accrochant follement aux herbes des haillons
D’argent; où le soleil de la montagne fière,
Luit; C’est un petit val qui mousse de rayons.

Un soldat jeune bouche ouverte, tête nue,
Et la nuque baignant dans le frais cresson bleu,
Dort; il est étendu dans l’herbe, sous la nue,
Pale dans son lit vert où la lumière pleut.

Les pieds dans les glaïeuls, il dort. Souriant comme
Sourirait un enfant malade, il fait un somme:
Nature, berce-le chaudement: il a froid.

Les parfums ne font plus frissonner sa narine;
Il dort dans le soleil, la main sur sa poitrine
Tranquille. Il a deux trous rouges au coté droit.

–Arthur Rimbaud

Angel Oak - Charleston, South Carolina. (Photo: Mark Requidan)

The Southern live oak (quercus virginiana) is a subevergreen oak tree native to coastal areas, ranging from tidewater Virginia south to Florida and west along the Gulf Coast as far as Texas. Live oaks can live for many centuries and grow into massive trees, the wizened elders of the coastal lowlands. They stand sentinel over the Gulf Coast, their twisted branches and gnarled trunks witness to countless storms. The live oak’s massive, spreading branches fight a courageous battle against the force of gravity and, with great age, gracefully droop to rest upon the ground. For their neighbors, the Southern live oaks are symbols of strength, beauty, and hope.

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Next: A description of the Southern live oak.

For more on the Southern live oak, visit these excellent resources:

1. The Live Oak Society
2. Southern live oak photos and information by Tim Bekaert
3. University of Southern Mississippi – Friendship Oak page
4. Botanical description from Flora of North America
5. More botanical description from the Smithsonian Marine Station
6. NPR story about New Orleans live oaks after Katrina
7. Pictures and video of the Biloxi tree sculptures
8. Live oak fact sheet from Virginia Tech

The case of bad movies is only the beginning. Watching bad movies for their own sake gradually negates the desire to watch good movies. Why watch a good movie that would require you to think and have emotions, when you can simply watch a bad movie and mock it with merciless sarcasm?

Yeah. It's that bad.

But it does not end there. It has come to the point where I will eat anything. When I first came to Mississippi, I had ambitions; I even bought a cookbook (“Dad’s Own Cookbook”) with the proud intention of responsibly cooking meals for myself and others. I have cooked one, I repeat one, full recipe from this book, and that was within two weeks of my arrival here. Now, I will eat bacon and ice cream for lunch and chips and soybeans for dinner. “Cooking” rarely goes beyond spaghetti or my specialty, rice, corn, and beans (a starchy meal to be sure).

My musical tastes continue to decline as well. Although I am surrounded by people with interesting and complex tastes in music, mine have gone in the opposite direction. Many people, when asked what type of music they like, will answer flippantly, “all kinds” or “everything but rap and country.” Well, I listen to rap and country too. I still listen to Third Eye Blind and Dave Matthews. Once, I even watched an entire Miley Cyrus music video.

The point of no return.

I grew up with a very healthy distrust of the television. Except for a few seasons of “Star Trek: Voyager” (which was admittedly fairly bad), I never watched TV, and when I started watching some it was only to watch a few shows on DVD (Buffy, The West Wing). Now, I can officially say that I have watched TV for ten hours straight. It was not pretty, and it has not happened since, but still. I try to keep my standards high (The Discovery Channel, the Daily Show, NCIS) but I do not always succeed. I have, on at least one occasion, come home, grabbed a beer from the fridge, and flipped on the Country Music Channel. Talk about depressing.

I can’t help but blame my decline in taste on Mississippi. Why else would I regularly order Budweiser, dance to that Apple Bottom Jeans song, drive around blasting Taylor Swift, watch (and enjoy) Killer Drag Queens On Dope (future review), and do the various other activities that now form such a large part of my life? Sadly, this is my irreversible destiny. Some day, doctors may discover a cure, but it will be too late for me.

Much, much too late.

If you find yourself in the same predicament, I advise you to do everything possible to stave off the decline. Keep enjoying your thought-provoking foreign films, quality micro-brews, independent rock played by starving musicians, and your zero-calorie yogurt smoothies. However, if you have gone, as I have, beyond the point of no return, then all I can offer is this advice: embrace your lack of taste and roll with it.