The great thing about a residency is how you get a chance to do all the things you never do, like floss.

Maybe the South is all right, after all:

I’m beginning to rethink my principled stand against writing contests.  Art and commerce have a long and troubled relationship, right?  Maybe I shouldn’t believe so much in the integrity of art.  At the very least, I could always use more tax write-offs.

I spent the morning reading Under the Autumn Star, by Knut Hamsun.  Though it seems a relatively inconsequential entry in his canon, I’m always impressed by his (post)modernity; the story is told by Knut Pederson, Hamsun’s real name, according to the translator’s footnote.  It’s also driven by the same philosophical issues that inform a lot of his work; in the story, the narrator flees the corrupting influence of the city to find “peace and quiet” in the countryside.  Though the distrust of intellectuals this implies might prefigure Hamsun’s eventual fascination with fascism, those same issues inform his best work.  Growth of the Soil is one of the most mysterious and engrossing novels I’ve read; though lesser, this book is entertaining because the first-person narrator withholds just enough to keep you guessing, which is often a source of humor, as his intentions are never quite what you thought they were.  Usually, they’re more devious — or just more weird.  An early chapter finds him lurking in a graveyard in hopes of discovering a human thumbnail he can use to put the finishing touch on a pipe he’s carving in the shape of a human fist.

A hundred years after he wrote this book, we’re told repeatedly how the “culture wars” shape American life.  The conflict between rural and urban societies also resonates with my own experience, though I have yet to side with any fascists, except Obama, of course (and I’m not even sure about him).