book review: “The Education of Mr. Mayfield”

recently wrote a book review for the jackson free press. a surprisingly rewarding experience--the act of reading, analyzing, processing. hope to do it again soon.

At first glance, David Magee's “The Education of Mr. Mayfield” (John F. Blair, 2009, $19.95) gives the impression of a Good Will Hunting knock-off set in the rural South. Race replaces class, Ole Miss replaces Harvard, "Dixie" replaces Elliot Smith, and somewhere down the line we've got an O Brother, Where Art Thou? for Grove-tented book clubs. However, Magee's M.B. Mayfield comes across with little of the psychological complexity or mere depth of character of his South Boston analogue, Will Hunting, though it’s unclear as to whether this is a reflection of Mr. Mayfield, the person (which I doubt), or a consequence of Magee's treatment of what seems to be an otherwise compelling story. Though Mayfield often finds himself at the schizophrenic intersection of black working class and white high society, in the text he is only barely self-aware of the conflicted and ambivalent reward of significant talent amidst the inertia of caste. Rather, Magee keeps him on the naïve side of aloof for most of the book—an “unassuming” and “almost apologetic” figure on a strange journey of history, race, and class.

To best approach “The Education of Mr. Mayfield”, a reader must jettison the notion that M. B. Mayfield---a reclusive, mostly self-taught artist from Ecru, Miss.---is the protagonist of this book bearing his name, or even that Stuart Purser--then chairman of the Ole Miss Art Department and Mayfield's unlikely teacher and patron---shares the spotlight. Rather, over the course of the book a reader must watch Magee abandon the story of these two men in the interest of exploring the book's real main characters: an idyllic Oxford and (always by extension) its symbiotic foil, the University of Mississippi.

Though in the Ole Miss of his childhood "anything colored in red and blue glistened on even the darkest days," Magee abandoned Oxford in his adult years, "frustrated by the university's obvious historical flaws." Recently discovering Mayfield and Purser's barrier-crossing, history bending story, it seems that Magee has found in researching and writing this book his pathway to reconciling with his "small, picturesque hometown."

As a heavy-handed parable of the Jim Crow South, the narrative arc in “The Education of Mr. Mayfield” begins reasonably enough. Purser and Mayfield grow up in not-dissimilar settings; Purser on the white side of a Klan-dominated Louisiana mill town and Mayfield on the black side of a poverty-stricken hamlet in Mississippi Hill Country. In adulthood, both men gravitate toward art as a means of escaping their situation---for Purser, out towards college, the Art Institute of Chicago, FDR’s Work Projects Administration, and finally a plateau of fledgling Art Departments in the South waiting to be created or chaired; for Mayfield, in and away from a troubling admixture of social anxiety, physical toil and lingering poverty.

Mayfield and Purser finally cross paths while Purser is on a search for inspiration in the "less traveled roads of rural North Mississippi," and runs across a house adorned with a prominent bottle tree and large busts of Joe Louis and George Washington Carver. The house, of course, is Mayfield’s—who is living there with his mother and had been creating art as a way to “[channel] his loneliness.” Upon realizing Mayfield's talent, Purser devises a situation in which he can informally instruct M.B.: by hiring him as a janitor, and allowing Mayfield to listen in to lectures (sometimes literally from the broom closet). Two months later, M.B. Mayfield's status at the periphery of both the Ole Miss classroom and Oxford art circles becomes a gentle challenge to the perils of segregation.

Unfortunately, after Mayfield moves to Oxford, attempts at a meaningful relationship with Purser are quickly eclipsed by diversions into a larger-than-life Oxonian menagerie. Loyal Blind Jim Ivy, visionary Johnny Vaught, inscrutable William Faulkner, inflammatory Albin Krebs, and even maverick James Meredith are all there in full caricature, and serve mostly as distraction for the rest of the book. While some inclusions are reasonable---Faulkner befriends Purser and helps purchase art supplies for Mayfield---it's never clear why Magee indulges the reader in the virtues of Vaught's "Split-T offensive formation," or the growing pangs of his "mandated platoon rules" for the university's football team.

Rather, these indulgences in Ole Miss nostalgia serve mainly to gloss over (or reinforce) unexplored assumptions about gender, sexuality, grammar (perhaps my favorite dangling modifier of all time: "[Mayfield] wiped bits of food from the meals he made from the corners of his mother's mouth"). Above all, race gets superficial treatment. In the same vein as a tense trip to the Brooks Memorial Art Gallery in Memphis (a resolvable faux paus regarding segregated operating hours), the author rarely presents racial difference as much more than a jarring anachronism or a nuisance of otherwise-redeemable heritage.

Over time, Purser grows professionally restless and dissatisfied with Ole Miss’ unremitting segregation, eventually leaving to start yet another Art Department, and Mayfield remains relatively undiscovered but otherwise unruffled, eventually resettling in Ecru to dangle on the precipice of obscurity in between occasional re-discovery. What's left is a book "detailed in outline but scant in depth" (to borrow Mr. Magee's phrase about Mr. Mayfield's work), and glaringly uninterested in its own assumptions, outside the occasional right-thing-to-say about the evils of the Klan, the n-word, the logic of segregation, the assassination of Dr. King.

What is more, while it's self-described as "An Unusual Story of Social Change at Ole Miss, The Education of Mr. Mayfield” remains well within the bounds of the usual and the never-really-changing. It indulges so much in the noble premise of Stuart Purser's "discovery" of M.B. Mayfield's "primitive" art that it neither questions these terms nor explores their gaping corollaries, while Mayfield is limited to the promotion from janitor to security guard as his sole significant opportunity for job advancement, Purser seems to have the luxury to pack up and go create an Art Department somewhere else whenever he feels restless. This is, of course, not to suggest that Purser shouldn't have been allowed the accolades resulting from his work, nor that those talented artists previously unknown should not benefit from public recognition, only that so much of the distribution of power (and the power of naming) in this and many other situations in the book is racially and/or socioeconomically obvious. Instead of coming across as problematic, it's coming across as quaint.

Ultimately, it is the comfort of the quaint and the pastoral that drowns out the best interest of David Magee's work, and through which a potentially humanizing and redeeming story barely survives as a kind of historical near-fiction, bloated with allegory and glistening in red and blue.

poempost: buncombe

an old poem. a villanelle, oddly. was reminded of it during a recent bout of disgust with a mode of writing that promotes a toxic admixture of the confessional moment and the esoteric (self-)reference. twitter can so easily become the world's bathroom stall.


All you anonymous kings
- for a gas station in Buncombe, NC

Caught between the curtains of duty, some
let the moment bring what it brings,
others scribble speeches for Buncombe.

Perhaps, when the service has begun,
the honey-scroll is all ink and wings;
stuck on the feverish mind, it must become.

Or, someone left a whisper in the drum,
and, fear – lest the ugly-horns sing –
yields a toneless whistle for Buncombe.

Maybe it’s truth – bitches crave my cum;
Friday. 11:30. The Real Thing –
crammed a whisper away from someone.

Since dogs hide what they have done,
it could be the dirt and grass they fling
to avert the noble eyes of Buncombe.

But, I am loathe to follow the lonesome
strings of all you anonymous kings,
so fixed to a minute’s naked wisdom
on an awful soapbox in downtown Buncombe.

wellspring article, director's cut

it kind of saddens me when i think about this, but i've recently gotten much, much better at distancing myself from text once it's sent to an editor for print-ready slimming. i still lack the ability to abbreviate my writing process, much less depersonalize the act itself--but once a piece is out of the nest, it's out of the nest.

at the winter institute, we have a bi-annual newsletter entitled the wellspring, and every summer and winter staff and interns get quasi-assigned topics and articles to write. as it's been one of the rare moments that i'm forced to (a) write lengthy informational prose and (b) share my thoughts about our work, my articles seem to require a sour gestation--riddled with mood-swinging ambivalence and alternating bursts of writer's block and logorrhea. that being said, once i've hammered out a completed piece, its trip from my computer to the printed copy negotiates a minefield of residual pride/vulnerability and territoriality.

after a heated back and forth during the editing process of piece for this past winter's article (reaching crescendo with the suggestion that i "need to expand my skill set"), i have become determined to, essentially, detach myself from whatever i've written (an ironic contraction: writerly addition-by-subtraction)--finding quiet solace in the fact that my semicoloned curlicues can be delightfully unread here in pretentious blog limbo. while i've still reserved the right to try and put my foot down if/when an editor makes an historical overreduction, a rhetorically inappropriate paraphrase, or a grammatical mishap, i've come to terms with the death-to-nuance approach of would-be journalism, and can finally--for the sake of a story being told--admit that i err on the side of: (a) not particularly caring about audience or reading level, (b) caring way too much about word-smithery and/or exhaustive rhetorical precision.

so, an article will be published in this summer's wellspring, and it will bear passing resemblance to the following:

***

Wellspring – From Dialogue to Action: St. Andrew’s “Welcome Table”

In March of 2008, parishoners from St. Andrew’s Episcopal Cathedral in Jackson reached out to the Winter Institute in an effort to initiate dialogue about the legacy of race in the Jackson Episcopal community. As is the case with the origin of many community dialogue groups that the Institute works with, those participating were trying to come to terms with what they felt were critical issues in their community for which real solutions required an honest, open engagement in the way race and its legacy play a role—either implicitly or explicitly—in their community’s history, identity, and outlook. In regards to the cathedral community, dialogue participants initially centered on two major spaces of inquiry: the need for a more comprehensive narrative of the Episcopal community’s response to local civil rights and desegregation activities, and concerns about diversity of access to and equity of benefit from the Jackson area’s increasing interest in downtown development and urban renewal—in which the cathedral’s location in the heart of downtown Jackson would make participation nearly unavoidable.

Dialogue centering on race, the Episcopal community, and urban renewal in the Jackson area continued through the fall of 2008, as the group expanded its circle of participation beyond the cathedral community (as well as beyond the Episcopal community), and hosted meetings throughout the diocese—at St. Mark’s, St. Christopher’s, and St. Alexis’ Episcopal churches—as well as St. Andrew’s Cathedral. Through this process, recurrent themes emerged as key areas for further study and action: economic justice, neighborhood organizing, media activism, young people/education, diverse and representative participation, and anti-racism training. Furthermore, by August group members were anxious for action steps to compliment what had already become an empowering and challenging conversation about race in the Jackson area—itself “a sign of hope,” and something “valuable even if we all want to be out there doing,” as group participant Chuck Culpepper, pastor of St. Alexis Episcopal Church, noted in a June meeting.

Thoughts of action gravitated towards both youth engagement and a desire to help ensure that that Jackson equitably maintains its urban fabric—seen by the group as a “unique blend of economic, racial, and cultural diversity”—in the midst of increased downtown development. In September of 2008, the University of Mississippi’s hosting of the first Presidential Debate—between then-candidates Barack Obama and John McCain—offered the group an unexpected opportunity to jump-start this shift towards action. In late August, the Jim Hill Civil Rights/Civil Liberties (CRCL) group, which the Winter Institute was assisting in coming to Oxford to participate in pre-debate activities, reached out to the St. Andrew’s group in search of a potential site to host a Jackson youth viewing and discussion of the debate. The viewing, which was attended by a diverse group of over fifty youth from public and private schools throughout the Jackson area, solidified the St. Andrew’s group’s commitment to youth—as evidenced by the fact that since the debate viewing CRCL members have regularly attended and actively participated in group dialogue and action.

In January of 2009, the commitment by members to develop a single, comprehensive action project that would encompass the central themes of their nearly yearlong conversation about race finally bore fruit. The group, its own composition moving towards the racial, economic, cultural, and faith diversity that comprise Jackson’s “urban fabric,” began to envision an institution that would attract a diverse and representative constituency, serve as an anchoring imprint of the group’s vision for a unified Jackson, and address the group’s concerns about downtown development and urban renewal. Discussions of such an institution’s mission eventually centered on the essential and universal task of preparing and sharing food, which took the form of a non-profit restaurant that would engage diverse constituencies as stakeholders in each stage in its establishment and operation—literally, a “Welcome Table,” as the group would come to refer to itself.

Specifically, the St. Andrew’s Welcome Table project seeks to establish a non-profit restaurant that doubles as a youth mentoring and workforce development site and is committed to the inclusion of local, organic, and sustainable agriculture in its menu. It is inspired by many similar projects throughout the county—most notably Café Reconcile, a similar institution established in New Orleans’ Central City neighborhood. In operation since 1996, Café Reconcile and its accompanying Youth Workforce Development Program (established in 2000) “meet the needs of youth who [have] experienced an array of socio-economic challenges, including poverty, homelessness, arrested educational achievement, substance abuse, and participation in the juvenile justice system.” In its first seven years of operation, the program successfully graduated 400 young men and women between the ages of 16 and 24—many of whom go on to work for Café Reconcile’s many partners and advocates in the New Orleans entertainment and hospitality industry. In February of 2009, a group from the St. Andrew’s Welcome table project traveled to New Orleans to tour Café Reconcile’s facilities and—of course—to try out its cuisine. This trip provided members with both a strong sense that the Welcome Table was a feasible—albeit ambitious—project, as well as an invaluable source of firsthand knowledge regarding the mission, challenges, and triumphs of a like-minded organization.

Back in Jackson, the Welcome Table entered its second year of dialogue and action with a flurry of planning and partnership building. In April, the group completed a mission statement and project proposal, and began to seek out funding and grant opportunities for the establishment of both the restaurant and the accompanying youth workforce training and mentoring program. Around the same time, the St. Andrew’s Cathedral leadership showed its support of the project by offering to temporarily host the Welcome Table on cathedral grounds—with the hope that the restaurant would utilize the cathedral’s beautiful courtyards and full kitchen, and that the youth workforce and mentoring program could utilize its amble classroom space.

Last May, a participant in one of the Welcome Table meetings noted that “hope comes from giving up the things we can’t control, and loving and helping things grow in the way we can.” In many ways, the group’s journey from dialogue to action exemplifies this sentiment: their initial year of honest, open, and often difficult engagement in the history and legacy of race in themselves and in their community can been seen as a meticulous identifying and untangling of those things that they could reasonably control in regards to realizing their vision for progress and reconciliation. Incredibly, what has emerged from this process is a comprehensive, ambitious plan to create an imprint of their vision in the heart of downtown Jackson—through an institution that will provide diverse and representative stakeholders, community members, and hungry customers with a place at the table of a unified, equitable Capital City.