No More Events For Today

At 1:01 a.m. this morning, my phone  told me it was 27 degrees.  It also announced, "No more events for today." Presumptuous telephone!  How the heck does my phone know that I have no events for a day?  I'll show Miss iPhone! 

I don't actually have any "events" most days--but that's because I don't employ IPhone's built in calendar.  (I still prefer paper calendars, like paper books.)  Today I'm reading an excellent (new, hardback) book I got in the mail as a surprise present yesterday.  

Those of us who grew up below the Mason Dixon line, as did Imani Perry, as did I, will be fascinated by this book.  There are so many paradoxes built into the mythos of The South and Perry does a great job of telling the stories and placing them in a larger context.  A scholar, a professor of African American Studies at Princeton, she has written a very readable account of the history of The South. 

I'm appalled that I spent so many years with little interest in history.  Day and I went to Harper's Ferry a few years ago but I had no idea how much history happened in that place.  After reading the first chapter of this book, I'll definitely want to go back there. 

So until my 4:00 massage with Gabi later, this is a wonderful event for this cold day--reading this book.

One of the blurbs on the back of the book says it so well: "South to America marks time like Beloved did.....I have known and loved the South for four decades, and Imani Perry has shown me that there is so much more in our region's fleshy folds to know, explore, and love.  It is simply the most finely crafted book about our region, and nation, I have ever read."   Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy

I'm reading it with my underlining pen in hand, studying it really, and marking luminous lines on every page.