>>RiverVueDispatches
Back from the Blue Ridge
(Yesterday, 5:59 am)
Just a quick note to say that I have been "on the road" for the past five days, and I have lots of exciting adventures and read more...
Alabama Rules: From Blue-Eyed Soul to Soulful Blues
(Aug 17th, 9:49 am)
My friend Deryle Perryman, native of Florence and read more...
The Dog Star Rages and Leos Roar
(Aug 4th, 2:13 pm)
It is August and the dog days of summer are upon us. The ancient read more...
Where Have All the Small Towns Gone?
(Jul 27th, 9:59 am)
The centuries old ubi sunt query—where are those read more...
Alabama in July
(Jul 13th, 10:39 am)
The Fourth of July is over and along with it Willie read more...
The South has many voices--mine is but one--as well as many worlds. My world is part academe (and somewhat urbane) and part rural south where kudzu competes with cotton for supremacy
and where we in the Tennessee River Valley struggle for peaceful coexistence with the prolific and persistent wildlife.
In RiverVue, my aim is to capture a slice of this life, viewed through the lens of one "bred and bawn in a brier-patch" and refracted by many years of teaching and traveling.
RiverVue may be about attending a festival in Florence, Alabama, or a wedding in Florence, Italy. It can be about be about kayaking on Bear Creek or hiking up a mud soaked mountain
in the rain forest of Costa Rica.
RiverVue is about celebration, diversity, adventure, friends, family, fellowship, and food. There will always be food.
So mix up a mint julep and climb on for the ride.
As M.F.K. Fisher wrote in Serve It Forth: "When shall we live, if not now?"
-Penne J Laubenthal
Picture of the Day
>>RiverVue reviews
Review of: Rick Bragg
The Prince of Frogtown
“My father was the prince of Frogtown” writes Alabama author and Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Bragg in his latest book read more...
Review of: Gayden Metcalf and Charlotte Hays
Being Dead Is No Excuse
Being Dead is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting The Perfect Funeral Hyperion Press, 2005
Review of: Logan Smalley
Darius Goes West
“Something’s gonna happen like…Just spark the whole world,”exclaims Darius, the star of the award-winning read more...
>>RiverVue Fiction
There are no RiverVue fiction writings at this time
>>RiverVue Features
Resurrection
by Penne J. Laubenthal Birthdays are often opportunities for self-examination and reflection. Some birthdays provoke more introspection than others. A couple of years ago I decided it was time for me to "live deliberately," in the words of Thoreau: " to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, read more...
Wynton and Willie and the Blues
by Penne J. Laubenthal The Marsalis family and Willie Nelson and I go way back. I have been a fan ofEllis,
>>RiverVue Conversations
Dr. Milly Caudle: A Renaissance Woman for a Renaissance Town
by Penne J. Laubenthal Milly Caudle, affectionately known as “Red,” is a petite dynamo who was appointed a year and a half ago to fill the unexpired term of Athens City Councilman Henry White who was elected to the state legislature. Milly is currently a candidate for Place Five read more...
Billy Bob Thornton in Florence, Alabama
by Penne J. Laubenthal Severeweather warnings had been issued for North Alabama when I made my way to Florence for the Friday afternoon session of the 11th Annual George Lindsey Film Festival featuring Billy Bob Thornton. But apparently neither sleet nor snow nor read more...
Read All RiverVue Conversations
>>RiverVue Poetry
Poems by Natasha Trethewey
Miscegenation In 1965 my parents broke two laws of Mississippi; they went to Ohio to marry, returned to Mississippi. They crossed the river into Cincinnati, a city whose name begins with a sound like sin, the sound of wrong, mis in Mississippi. A year later they moved to Canada, followed a route the read more...
Hunting the Cotaco Creek
by Charles Ghigna His hand in hold so trigger tight even its blood believes in ghosts. It clings with set finger on steel and waits inside a dream of ducks. The twilight gives into a rise of eastern sky as sun reveals herself too proud and instantly receives full face a splash of mallard flock. A shotgun blasts the read more...