Tennessee folkies

The Maryville, Tenn., folk duo of Sparky and Rhonda Rucker perform this weekend in the Sugarlands Visitor Center at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. My Mountain Press preview is here:

Sparky worked as a schoolteacher after he graduated from the University of Tennessee. He also worked for the Council of the Southern Mountains, “doing social-change work,” he said, “basically trying to make Southern Appalachian lives better – fighting mountaintop removal, getting benefits for black lung disease, trying to get unions organized in various areas. I’m quite a rabble-rouser.”

Good word

"I'm not generally a fan of movies spun off from TV animation. 'The Flintstones' and 'Ninja Turtles' moved me only marginally."

-- Roger Ebert

Good word

"Obviously, people from other planets are going to have extra powers that Earth people don't have. Anybody who has ever watched television knows that."

-- Daniel M. Pinkwater

Good word

"I hate Woodstock. There is the birth of one of the most destructive myths shoved down the throats of Generations X and Y ever."

-- Jim DeRogatis

Good word

"He never quite forgave his father for being an admiral."

-- Roger Ebert on Jim Morrison

Musical youth

Nice pieces have run in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times on the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America. I wrote about the organization in The Mountain Press a while back when I profiled a Sevierville high school kid who is touring with the group. Inspiring stuff.

Good word

"Among schoolmates, informal, faddish, well-meant salutations that do no physical damage should not be condemned."

-- Miss Manners

Good word

"For years I have wondered, during 'Don't Cry for Me, Argentina,' why we were not to cry. Now I understand: We need not cry because (a) Evita got everything out of life she dreamed of, and (b) Argentina should cry for itself."

-- Roger Ebert