GUMBO WEATHER AND BLUE DOG ART

Sunday morning dawned, or almost didn’t dawn, cool and foggy. To someone like me who has a bit of Cajun blood in her veins, the vision of a large black gumbo pot appeared in the mist—it was perfect gumbo weather! However, I reminded myself that I was on The Mountain at Sewanee and more than likely I’d be eating beef and potatoes for lunch following church services at Convent of St. Mary.

After church, we gathered in the refectory for light breakfast —coffee cake, biscuits, freshly cut melon and coffee, not to mention the ubiquitous pistachios in cups placed on the ends of two long tables. Forget the weather that should have inspired gumbo; we engaged in the Sunday pistachio eating contest, sometimes won by Dr. Victoria Sullivan; other times won by Fr. Clark. Both of them always sit with Faye Walter at what we call “the Politics Table,” the place where inveterate Democrats take turns preaching the second sermon of the day about feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, and taking care of the disenfranchised.

I still had gumbo on my mind when my good friend, Kathy Hamman, appeared. Kathy has traveled the world with her husband Henry and stirs a tasty pot of international cuisine, frequently treating me to Iranian fare because she and Henry once lived in Tehran, as I did back in the 70’s. But on Sunday Kathy appeared with a copy of Talk About Good II, Le Livre de Cuisine des Acadiens underarm and held it out to me. “Here,” she said, “you told me that your son-in-law is interested in cooking, and I unearthed this while we were opening some of our storage boxes.”

“Eh la bas,” I said. “This is an old edition (1979) of Cajun cuisine, and it has a dozen or so of George Rodrigue’s paintings.”

“Don’t believe I know him. Is he French—and, as you say, who’s his mama, does he make that thing you call a roux?”

George, of course, was a native New Iberian and died in 2013. His works were featured in the Bayou Teche Museum in New Iberia for months in an exhibit entitled “Rodrigue Comes Home: Under Iberia’s Live Oaks with George Rodrigue and His Blue Dog,” and some of his art resides in the Public Collection of the President of France, the Louisiana Governor’s Mansion, Brockton Museum, Everson Museum, Fine Arts Museum of the South, Art Center at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, the Slater Museum, Butler Institute of American Art, and in other international galleries.

Rodrigue’s “blue dog paintings” are scattered throughout the world, and if anyone knew good cuisine, George did. He established the Blue Dog Restaurant in Lafayette, Louisiana where pungent, rich gumbos are still served up daily. I don’t own the particular edition of Talk About Good that features Rodrigue’s art, and when Kathy handed it to me, I promptly claimed it for my own.

“Forget about my son-in-law,” I said. “This keepsake is my keepsake. Are you sure you want to give it up?”

“Well, with your cultural background and outlook, how could I not? It’s yours.”

If the Convent had possessed a black iron pot, I would have gone into the kitchen and stirred up a roux (or so I told myself), but I just held the Talk About Good to my heart and scurried out before some other Cajun suddenly materialized and got into a “meet me in the street” confrontation in an attempt to carry the book away.

When I arrived home, I went to the computer and googled the World Championship Gumbo Cookoff hosted by the Greater Iberia Chamber of Commerce in New Iberia. Mais jamais d’ la vie, I discovered it was gumbo time in Teche country—October 9, 10, 11 where 100 teams will compete for the crown of champion of the best gumbo in the world. It’s a time when a “Cajun Creole Foodfest” will be held and a “Meanest Beans and Youth Gumbo Cook-Off” will be going on, as well as a family movie night under the Pavilion in Bouligny Plaza, downtown New Iberia. There’ll be dancing in the streets and feasting a’ plenty, and directions to the Plaza include: “Inhale and follow your nose to downtown New Iberia. The aroma should get stronger as you get closer.”

By the way, the famous gumbo dish emblematic of Louisiana was enriched by immigrants to the area during the 18^th century—French, Spanish, Germans, Irish, African-American and Anglo-Americans who came and tasted bayou water and added their own seasonings to the cultural mix.

REVIVAL OF THE LOUP-GAROU

During a recent visit with Helen and Rose Anne Raphael in their home here in New Iberia, I learned that "The Berry," as we often refer to New Iberia, Louisiana, would celebrate a "Blue Magic" Christmas. Main Street would be "going blue," a color honoring deceased "Blue Dog" artist and native son, George Rodrigue, followed by a "Blue Dog Comes Home" exhibit at the Bayou Teche Museum, Jan.15-April 11, 2015.

In anticipation of the exhibit, Rose Anne is reprinting The Loup-Garou of Cote Gelee, her deceased father's children's book that features some of Rodrigue's Blue Dog illustrations. Morris Raphael, her father, published this book in 1990, and it has been a steady seller since that time. The Loup-Garou is one of many books about Teche country and Louisiana that Raphael wrote during his long and productive life.

The story involves Ti-Maurice Mouton, an eleven-year old boy, who encounters a Loup-Garou (werewolf) named Jacques. The story is set in bayou country, 1859, and revolves around the fictional Moutons who struggle through drought, thievery, and the threat of losing their small farm. Jacques appears to Ti-Maurice in a cemetery on a moonlit night and becomes friends with the young boy. In 45 pages, Raphael weaves a story about bandits who attack the Mouton family, a confrontation with a pack of Loup-Garous, and a shoot-out that ends with the Loup-Garou becoming a watch dog for Ti-Maurice. 

I interviewed artist and illustrator George Rodrigue twice back in the 90's—once for an article in Acadiana Lifestyle, and, again, for a book that Rodrigue had been commissioned to write for Harper and Row. My job for the latter project was to interview and record enough narrative that Rodrigue could use for his book, and most of it centered on questions concerning his relationship with the Blue Dog, which he felt was a mystical one. He used the dog in the foreground of most of his pictures after the dog died and insisted that they continued a relationship even after Tiffany died. He seriously believed that the dog was attempting to return to his rightful place as a family member. I still have the manuscript for which Rodrigue paid me a handsome sum, but Harper and Row wanted a fantasy tale featuring the dog, rather than the story of Rodrigue and his relationship with the dog, and the interview was never published.

For those readers who don't know about Loup-Garous, in French the name means "werewolf," a mythical figure in legends told in France, French-speaking Canada, and in French Louisiana. Legends feature werewolves as living persons who have the power to change themselves into terrible beasts that consume human flesh. Some legends feature werewolves as witches who take the form of wolves so they can better roam the countryside terrorizing people. Cajun storytellers often relate that Loup-Garous ride the backs of giant bats when they travel from place to place.

Morris Raphael was a native of Natchez, Mississippi who became editor of the Franklin Banner-Tribune in Franklin, Louisiana, and worked as a project engineer for several engineering firms in the U.S. and Brazil. He loved history and Louisiana and was a past president of the Attakapas Historical Association, the Iberia Cultural Resources Association, served on the council of the Shadows on the Teche in New Iberia, on the board of St. Mary Chapter of Louisiana Landmarks, and was a member of the Louisiana Historical Association and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. His credits also include an award from the United Daughters of the Confederacy in recognition of his historical works and induction into the Second Wind Hall of Fame.

George Rodrigue, a native of New Iberia, was an internationally known artist with studios in New Orleans and Carmel, California. He received a gold medal award for outstanding creativity in Italy, and an honorary medal at the Le Salon Art exhibition in France. His paintings still sell in the six figure range, and he was received by both President Reagan and George H.W. Bush when he presented portraits of them painted during their tenures. The Blue Dog appears in the foreground of many of Rodrigue's paintings and was regarded as a talisman of good fortune for the artist.

The Blue Dog celebration is sponsored by the New Iberia Downtown Business Association and the George Rodrigue Foundation.

Copies of The Loup-Garou of Cote Gelee will be available in New Iberia and online within the next few months.

DOGGONE

Kenyon

Allergies are awful...no two ways about it, allergies are awful. Through some genetic pipeline, I inherited most of my Grandmother Nell's allergies, and they don't improve with age. One of the worst allergies from which I suffer is an allergy to animal dander, a condition that makes me not only resentful but downright angry because it means I can't own a dog. Dogs were a vital part of my growing up and included a flatulent, half-breed cocker spaniel named Tee Nap that accompanied my family on a foolhardy trip out West when I was eleven years old. At that time, my allergy to animal dander wasn't in full bloom, and Tee Nap lay at my feet on the long road trip to Diddy Wah Diddy, unaffected by the complaints of three children stuffed into the back seat of a small, 1941 Ford coupe.

To make a long story short, the allergy to animal dander kicked in in earnest when I reached the age of 50, along with an allergy to my favorite food—shellfish. The allergy to animal dander began with a fit of sneezing over a cat that belonged to my youngest daughter and progressed rapidly to include dogs.

My family always owned female dogs, and I laughed aloud as I read an essay by E.B. White entitled "Dog Training" that describes his father's reaction to owning a "bitch" dog. White says that one day a mutt followed him home from school, and he persuaded his parents to let him keep it. It stayed with him only one night because the next morning his father took him aside and told him in a low voice that the dog was female and that it would have to go. When E.B. White asked why, his father, embarrassed, explained that the dog would be a nuisance and would attract all the male dogs in the neighborhood all the time. White wrote that this seemed like an idyllic arrangement to him, but he could tell that the new dog was doomed to live somewhere else...and was evicted. Nonetheless, in adulthood, when E.B. White bought his farm in New England, he also acquired two dachshunds and a wire-haired fox terrier, and with sheep to take care of, was "obliged to do my shepherding with [their] grotesque and sometimes underhanded assistance..."

Of course, during my childhood we just put up with broods of puppies when our female dogs beget, but nowadays, female parents are spayed. In the 40's, dogs didn't expect much in the way of medical care nor did they expect anything unusual in their diet—they subsisted on that food unknown to a dog today—"scraps," including chicken bones and leftover Rice Crispies swimming in milk, and their longevity was no less than it is today. In fact, they may have lived longer. I might add that they survived in doghouses of the same architecture that housed Snoopy in the "Peanuts" comic strip and were constantly breaking leash laws.

Back in the 90's, I was asked to ghost write a piece for the artist, George Rodrigue, about his dog Tiffany, and we met for an interview at Landry's Restaurant near Breaux Bridge, Louisiana where George had a small studio. The piece was never published, but I still have a record of the interview and the piece I wrote that was unused because Harper and Row wanted a fantasy told by Tiffany.  The two-hour interview included a lot of questions about "man and the psychic dog" that I had gleaned from a book entitled Dog by Patricia Green. Green says that a legend tells us how after the Creation, a gulf opened up between man and the animals that God had given names. Among the animals was this dog looking at the ever-widening breach and when separation was almost complete, the dog leapt across the gulf, taking its place beside man. I asked George if he thought that's what Tiffany did and he affirmed this idea.

In Dog, Ms. Green says that a psychic dog may be a devourer or creator, a wounder or healer, a contaminator or purifier and may represent the redemptive elements in man's life. It was interesting to me that Rodrigue painted the blue dog as a redemptive element. Tiffany always had to be in the foreground of his paintings.

I have friends who speak of dogs as being there for them when they experience despair or sadness and that act as an archetype in their lives. The dogs represent hope and healing, protecting their owners from danger.

I could go on at length about dogs, but the narration won't do any good as far as allergies are concerned. I'm seriously considering getting allergy shots so that I can find a dog like the one on this blog—a female black lab retriever. I already have a name for her. My black lab will be called "Kenyon" after the poet I most admire but who, unhappily, is deceased: Jane Kenyon.

I hope she won't mind being a ghost dog until I get my round of allergy shots... "Here, Kenyon..." 

PENNY’S CALL

Penny at Mass

While the U.S. ponders whether it should cut off aid to Egypt’s military, Manila struggles with the aftermath of a typhoon that dumped two feet of rain, the stock market dips, and intermittent storms blow through various parts of this country, here on The Mountain, those of us who attend services at St. Mary’s have begun pondering the serious question of what to do about Penny’s "call."  Penny is an orphaned, mixed pitbull/retriever who found a home at the Convent a few years ago – a brown dog with an equable disposition who wanders through the halls, refectory, and, lately, onto the altar at St. Mary’s chapel. 

I’m sure that those who could be termed “preciousnists” or people who are obsessive-compulsive about liturgical matters, will recoil in horror as I present this question of what to do about a dog’s call to ministry, particularly when it involves liturgical functions. I’m one who appreciates dogs even though I’m allergic to animal dander and have to limit my petting privileges.  I inherited this fondness for them through the Greenlaw strain, a strain that has produced numerous dogologists who claim to speak in dog tongue, and I’m among those who have witnessed a dog being “called,” a call that should be given human and humane consideration.

As usual, the via media is at work among Anglicans who always try to hold two opposing viewpoints in tension as they attack theological questions–there are those who dismiss this canine’s call to ministry as nonsense and advocate banishing the dog from the chapel, and there are those who favor her at least answering an altar call and coming up for a blessing.

Penny normally lies in a dog bed behind the chair of Sr. Madeleine Mary, the Sister-in-Charge of St. Mary’s, who has been a strong force in the discipline of the dog’s behavior up to this point.  Several weeks ago, Sr. Madeleine Mary went on a short vacation, followed by a doctor’s visit in New York, and Penny began to stray from her bed during services, sidling up to various dog lovers and asking them why her mistress had abandoned her.  Those of us who understand dogs saw that Penny was questioning the strength of her mistress’s affection for her – she had been abandoned by a previous master and suffers from post traumatic stress syndrome, as well as certain separation issues that require a support team trained in petting, feeding, and walking pets who have been mistreated or abandoned by masters or mistresses lacking in sensitivity regarding the emotional lives of canines.

When Sr. Madeleine Mary returned, Penny began to shadow Sister even more than she had before Sister went on vacation, and she refused to tolerate any more schisms in their partnership.  Now whether Penny suffered so much psychological damage that she was driven into considering the ministry (this sometimes occurs, and people get ordained before the Commission on Ministry realizes that the aspirant's "call" is really an act of desperation) or just had a valid call to serve on the altar, we don’t know, since there's no canine Commission on Ministry or Discernment Committee, no dog Bishop to disavow this call.  But the fact is that during Friday Healing Service, Penny followed Sr. Madeleine Mary onto the altar and stood waiting to be anointed like the rest of God’s creatures, great or small.  However, she wasn’t given the oil or a blessing, and she went away to ponder the so-called healing practices of humans.

I don’t know if Sr. Madeleine Mary read aloud portions of The Wounded Healer to Penny, or if she simply went into a mini-retreat to ponder what she should do with her newfound desire to participate in the Episcopal services offered at the Convent, but during the Eucharist last Sunday, Penny exhibited her call and decided to help me prepare the table and carry out my diaconal duties.  It was evident she really felt called, and had I been invested with more authority than a deacon (defined as that “inferior order” in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer), I would’ve ordained her a subdeacon on the spot…

However, I just went home and re-read an interview I once had with the famous Louisiana painter, George Rodrigue, whose blue dog appears in the foreground of almost every painting he renders.  In part of the dialogue with Rodrigue, I comment: “There is a book called Dictionary of Scripture and Myths, and the definition of a dog is this: the dog is a symbol of the higher self and the going forth of the self as will.”

 Rodrigue answers, “When my dog Tiffany died, she came back to find her master.  The spirits of  dogs travel – there is no time – they travel from the first century to the present, and their job is to try and find their way back to their masters, but they have a difficult time because every situation is a human situation and they’re caught in these human situations…”   Hmmm.

This dialogue goes on several hours, and I tell Rodrigue about the old legend that took place after Adam, the first man, appeared.  The legend relates that after the creation, a gulf opened up between Adam and the animals that he had given names.  Among them was this dog who kept looking at the ever-widening breach.  The separation was almost complete, but the dog suddenly leaped across the gulf and took his place beside man.

Maybe, just maybe, Penny thinks that like George and his blue dog, she and Sister Madeleine Mary should take their places side by side on the altar, or perhaps she even envisions serving as a subdeacon with me, despite my allergies.  It’s a thorny question, but I wouldn’t want this kind of "inclusiveness issue" to be deliberated at General Convention because I'm certain that Penny would become a dog with white whiskers before the warring factions made any decision about her “call” to serve or celebrate at The Table.