|
SLOSS WORKSHOP DAY – WRITING IN PLACE, SUNDAY, April 15, 2012…
http://www.slossfurnaces.com/
http://www.visitvulcan.com/
Inspired by Michael Martone's, Adam Vines, and Tina Harris' "writing-in-place" workshops, I took my fiction and creative nonfiction workshops to Sloss Furnaces. This was the assignment and below are some of their wonderful story excerpts. More stories to come as they arrive from the other workshop writers.
* * * Write either the draft of a creative nonfiction or fiction story that includes the following vocabulary in bold below, and include at least one of the Alabama authors or characters too. I’ve also included an article about “MAN FOOD” from a cookbook about SLOSS recipes from the University of Alabama Press. If writing fiction, write from the POV of a Sloss worker, wife, kid, or even a teenager scaling the towers after midnight or any other character that strikes your fancy. If writing nonfiction, imagine what is was like to live here and work here and put yourself in the story – why are you walking around SLOSS on almost tax day in April 2012 and what all do you see? Who else is here today? First dates? Kids? Feral cats? Include the following vocabulary whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction and at least one or two of the foods mentioned in the article by Don Noble below.
Have fun! Roam around, stare, take notes, eavesdrop, study, and ruminate…do some storycatching! VOCABULARY: SLOSS, PIG IRON, BLAST FURNACES, VULCAN, SHOTGUN HOUSE, MAGIC CITY, TRAIN, HOBO, BRACKISH, MUSKRAT STEW FAMOUS CHARACTERS BY ALABAMA WRITERS: SMOKEY LONESOME, ATTICUS FINCH, HOLLY GOLIGHTLY AUTHORS: FANNIE FLAGG, HARPER LEE, TRUMAN CAPOTE, WAYNE GREENHAW, MARK CHILDRESS, HELEN KELLER, RICK BRAGG. MAN FOOD, a cookbook available at SLOSS GIFT SHOP FROM TUSCALOOSA NEWS, 2008
COOKBOOK CATERS TO REAL MEN by Don Noble
The University of Alabama Press is in the process of publishing a number of food-related books, cookbooks and near cookbooks. Recently the press released 'Bright Star,' the history of the 100-year-old restaurant in Bessemer, with recipes. This volume, 'Man Food,' comes from a more unusual source, the small in-house magazine published by the Sloss-Sheffield Co. of Birmingham in the heyday of the city's iron and steel industries.
The Sloss-Sheffield Co. produced high-quality pig iron. This was sold to various manufacturers around the country and made into hundreds of products. The in-house magazine, 'Pig Iron Rough Notes,' dealt mostly with technical matters, such as innovations in the foundry trade, but also discussed cast iron products used for cooking, such as heavy bean pots, skillets and 'barbecue irons' to be set on charcoal grills. Beginning in about 1939 the editor, Russell Hunt, began soliciting recipes to add to his magazine. What did users cook in the pots and skillets? And, since most people in the pig iron business were men, Hunt stressed outdoor cookery. Real men loved the great outdoors and enjoyed cooking 'at informal stag or mixed parties, preferably out-of-doors, and at camps.' He reassured American men (the French presumably would not have needed such reassurances) that 'cookery is become an art, a noble science; cooks are gentlemen.' Furthermore, 'An Alabama barbecue is a thing of beauty, a joy forever — but the piece de resistance is the Brunswick stew.' In this little paperback, there are several recipes for Brunswick stew, and, as you might expect, recipes for fried catfish, barbecued chicken, fried chicken, baked beans, hobo stew, beef stew, jambalaya, catfish chowder, mullet stew and beef kabobs. Most of these recipes and their ingredients are pretty tame. There are a couple of recipes using wild game, however. The recipe for muskrat stew begins, 'Skin, decapitate, and remove entrails, being careful not to puncture musk gland.' Yes, indeed. Be careful. Realizing that not everybody has easy access to muskrats, Hunt adds that veal or lean pork may be substituted with 'excellent results.' You may not have muskrats in your yard, but you will have squirrels. In fact, now more than ever. For Tennessee squirrel stew, first kill 12 squirrels. Hunt writes, 'This is a modest bag for a morning hunt in many southern localities.' I was surprised to see that many of these recipes called for olive oil, whether alone or with other fats. I would have said olive oil was not yet known in these parts, but obviously, that's wrong. There are several recipes for coffee — hunter's coffee, camp coffee, which all call for ingredients Starbuck's knows not of — ingredients such as three eggs with shells, a teaspoon of mustard and one of salt. Briefly, salad is mentioned, but with a warning: 'Not so long ago, all salads were considered effeminate. ... But times do change. Nowadays, men are not sissies simply because they like — even demand — a green salad at luncheon.' Whew! There are recipes for fried green tomatoes and sweet potato griddlecakes, pancakes, hushpuppies, and even one for spoon bread, which is pretty rare. The book closes with a recipe for 'Cornbread Southern Style.' Besides the obvious ingredients, this recipe calls for one tablespoon of sugar. Since 'Pig Iron Rough Notes' was edited by an Alabamian and published in Alabama and the recipe came from J. M. Brown of Edgewater, Alabama, I take it to be the last, final, definitive word on cornbread. One tablespoon sugar. EXCERPTS FROM SLOSS STORIES BY UAB CREATIVE WRITING STUDENTS The Legend of Tumbleweed the Self Replicating Hobo AKA The Sloss Problem Solver A story excerpt by Hannah Sanders "The gas is a-leakin' and George is up there!" Bob, the pig-iron worker, said. He jerked his head up towards the black smoke overhead. George had climbed up Big Alice, the highest blast furnace to do some work. "What? We just checked it yesterday and it wasn't leakin'," Joe, the foreman, said. "He goin' to die if we don't help him," Bob said. He grabbed a gas mask and climbed up the thin ladder steps. His size fourteen shoes tried not to slip. "Gas leak! Gas leak! Halt all production!" Joe screamed. Now Tumbleweed, the hobo, was lingering by the coal train when he heard all of the commotion. He carried a copy of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird with him wherever he went. Certain words and phrases were underlined and he claimed Harper Lee had secret messages for humanity throughout the book. He was working on decoding them. All of the workers loved Tumbleweed and his strange stories. He solved many industrial problems and he ran errands for them. The boss couldn't hire Tumbleweed because he was in the middle of a hiring freeze. He also didn't believe a hobo could solve all of those complex problems. Tumbleweed even told him that he learned Calculus in kindergarten. So Tumbleweed slept in a different place in the factory every night. "What's goin' on, Joe?" Tumbleweed asked. "The gas is a-leakin' and George is up there," Joe said. "That's bad. It's that experimental methane gas too, XYZ-00. That'll kill us all and the whole city too," Tumbleweed said. "Tumbleweed, you gotta help us!" Joe said. "Well, shut down the entire plant," Tumbleweed said. Tumbleweed wasn't from the Magic City. He wasn't even from the planet. He had powers that allowed him to be in several places at one time. After this rescue he would need a muskrat salad...
* * * SLAG a story excerpt by Cheyenne Taylor Slag. That’s all I am, no better than slag, and he lets me know that. “Why don’t you try an’ find some work to do, Abigail?” he asks because work is his life and if it was mine, too, everything would be easier. Sloss thinks it employs my husband but in fact it owns my family. Me and my family, we belong to, we’re consumed by the furnace and it leaves me no better than slag. My husband, they call him the stove tender. A big shot who calls the shots, how often his men need to flush me out of the iron. They ship me all over the country to build road and kitchenware. They get rid of me more often then they actually cast iron. Shame, I am a stove tender, too, but Sloss doesn’t pay me for that. I feed one of their men and two boys who’ll likely end up theirs too, if they don’t get out first. I cook on the tiny stove my husband can afford and build them all stronger. My sister, she begs me to send her family home with pans of my cornbread. She says it’s the best she ever had, that her two little slivery children love it, too, and she wonders why it is she can never get it right. My little sister always had better things to do than watch momma in the kitchen. She was gonna move up North and do something big so she missed it. She missed one little tablespoon of sugar. She’d have had it if she’d just watched. My little sister says sometimes she wishes she’d stayed in the Magic City, here in Birmingham, with me and my husband and our boys. Closer to family. She’s got herself an exotic husband from Scotland, a steel tycoon she says, but her children will never know their family. Steel’s good in Birmingham, she says. They could make a living here just as well. But there’s not too much magic here in this city anymore. Sloss doesn’t need 2,000 men anymore. Times are changing and Birmingham’s nothing but a big, lost lump of pig iron.
* * *
NIGHTFALL a story excerpt By Jessica Griggs We came upon the blast furnaces of Sloss at nightfall, when Ricky and I decided to set up camp. Hungry from traveling all day, we were dripping with sweat from the summer heat and our feet were dog tired. Jimmy joined us later, with a light for the fire, which we made from the wood we had gathered upon arriving. In the distance, we could hear the roar of a train's engine on the railroads nearby and the wind rustled the leaves of the trees around us, but our fire continued to burn bright as the night grew on. The Magic City sure did seem to be full of promise, I thought to myself as we roasted the wild game we had caught earlier that day over the open fire in the cast iron skillet Ricky had insisted on bringing with us on the trek from home. Despite the distance and weight of the cooking instrument, he proclaimed it would make the food taste better. I didn't much mind at the time, so long as I didn't have to carry the pig iron. If he wanted to lug that enormous piece of metal, fine by me. "Hey, Jimmy," I hollered. "Where's that there book you found earlier by the tracks?" "Book? What book you talking about? I didn't find no book." "Course you did," I answer. "You said it had words, didn't you? It's probably what them schooled folks call novels." Jimmy just looks at me weird and scratches his head. "Did you put it in your sack? Check your sack. We need to read something smart before we go into town tomorrow, looking for work." Jimmy rummages through his sack, which is on the ground next to him and in the glow of the fire I can see him pull out a mangled collection of pages, all loose leaf. "I thought you said it was a book?" I say questioningly. "Well, it was at one time," Jimmy says curtly. "Look, here's the cover. It reads Capote on the front, Truman Capote. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. You happy?" "I'm a gonna hurt you in cold blood, if you don't..." I tell him trailing off. Look, we best go ahead and get some sleep. We gotta get in to town at first light, because you know full well they're gonna have the dogs out tomorrow and we best have our wits about us." As I say this, Ricky stands up from his spot across from us and in the light of the fire, the metal around his ankles glints.
* * * A DAY AT SLOSS an essay excerpt By Sarah Cooper I wandered throughout, damning myself for wearing white and flip flops and for not bringing my camera. I found myself in the underground tunnel of Sloss, the arch of my foot landing on the edge of the walkway, swaying me backwards, imagining myself landing in the red clay. Close call. I turned back and passed the red machinery there was the tiniest gleam of sunlight from a break in the tunnel. The walls were runny red muck, intermixed with a mushy green. I could see a young Orson Welles stealthily running through the looking for a stairway out. The Third Man should’ve been set in Birmingham. At night it would be lit by yellow dusty light bulbs that look as if they’ seen a decade or two. Control Rooms with cobwebbed rusty switches that beckon to be flipped just to see if they still work are graffiti-ed with words like murder spelled backwards. No one has taken advantage of this place as a film set. Chock full of history and death, it’s Birmingham’s own salvaged urban decay. Walking down the main drag can make you feel so insignificant. Towering iron structures that could flatten you to nothing stare down their imaginary noses and say, “Nice of you to finally join us, you’ve lived here four years now.” Behind me there’s shuffling of feet, before I hear, “You guys, I’ve almost died three times.” It’s the other Sarah and she is actually wearing tennis shoes, so I am really pressing my luck in flip flops. All the locked doors tempt me with what could possibly be stowed away. A child with his parents walks by and I realize I need to chill out with the gratuitous expletives that are coming out of my mouth. Although, I imagine it can’t be any worse than what the last words were of so many of the men that died working hard for an honest living. * * *
From Sloss Furnace
By Daniel Simmons,
a story excerpt As I walked day after day on my long pilgrimage, the road gave way to a path of dirt that gave way to a wooded trail. I had lost sight of the bald eagle that flew overhead, accompanying me on my journey. The sun had deserted me and given me over to the creatures that moaned and cried to the moon. I had not the heart to stay in these woods, but my strength had fled from me. A great voice called from below the earth, “Release the weights from your back. The hour is at hand where thou must face the most treacherous road to find asylum.” “Please, whoever you are, show yourself to me and show me the road of which you speak.” Desperate though I was, I could not rise from my back. Appearing before me stood a being that seemed carved out of rock and cast in steel. The fire around him was his own, and illuminated all. “What should I call you?” I asked, out of breath. “I once was revered as a god. I forged that which was held in Jupiter’s hand. Alas, my furnace no longer resides in the heavens.” I asked, “By what means have you been cast out from so high?” He reached out his hand and said, “Leave your bag and burden where it lies and I shall teach you.” So I did, and swiftly he led me away from the moaning behind me and to a metal gate that read, “Foundation of the Magic City.” My new teacher turned to me and said, “Beyond the gates is where all manner of steel is forged, of metal and spirit. In these fires you will find yourself anew. You may refuse, however, if you do, you face what is behind us alone.”
Ashley Jones Sloss stories/poems Sloss Birmingham is a pile of old pig iron. It has dust. It is hard and it is sharp. It is familiar and alone. This is the kind of iron that begins things. Metal bones slathered in pretty skin. Birmingham is not fit for company. It isn’t dusted and sparkling, our best china is still tucked away in cabinets. Even now, we’re not all the way moved in. Our skirts are pulled up and the furnace is showing. We’re unchaste and raw, and we like it. The Furnaces
by Ashley Jones I can’t say with confidence that I’m a proper Southerner. I know about civil rights and I know about fried chicken, and maybe that’s enough. I say y’all and I like pound cake, and I know how to eat cornbread for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I know that mystical loneliness that Harper Lee wrote about and I think I know what it means to be hospitable. I’ve seen all the landmarks, and I’ve tried to connect with them all, but I don’t think my memories are always the right ones. When I think of 16th St. Baptist Church, I think of laughter canned and put away for the winter. When I think of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, I think of being so alone under the white cloak or the black paint. And when I think of Sloss Furnaces, I think of friendship. I don’t ponder the heat of melted pig iron or the strange, sharp crack of men’s bones when they fell from or were crushed by machines. Instead, I think of a memory it has taken my nine years to forget and remember. My seventh grade trip to Sloss Furnaces is something that made me alone, or maybe a loner. I didn’t have many friends in seventh grade—some of the older creative writers talked to me, and there was always my sister, but no one in my seventh grade creative writing class—because we had departments at ASFA, like college—talked to me. They were giddy and clever like the kids on “Saved by the Bell,” and they laughed a lot. On this trip, I was, as usual, alone. They ate lunch at an old table and I watched them from the stage. I felt like a pile of wood, or maybe a stone. I wanted to rub their laughter on my throat and make it come out of my own mouth. I wanted wit—I wanted to be more than the Screech to their Zach Morris. But they just laughed on and on. I tried to find something striking about my surroundings, the pig iron and pipes and the metal that made Birmingham. But all I could see were people who were alone and people who weren’t. The men who worked here, sweated here, were lonely men. The dark tunnels and open spaces were places where people like me could hide. This was a history of people who had no one. I must have looked like a real writer that day—all I had was a notebook and a thoughtful look: furrowed brow and sad eyes, the ultimate writer’s cliché. Then, it was lunch time. We ate chicken salad sandwiches and potato chips, because that’s what southerners eat—chicken and potatoes—we’d just wrapped and fried ours for picnicking. I ate quickly and wandered away from the table. That’s when Mr. Hill, the janitor/bus driver found me. He had also wandered away from where he was supposed to be. The school bus must have been a lonely place for the bus driver during field trips. He asked me how I was and why I wasn’t talking to the other kids. I’m not sure what I said, but it was something about how I was different and they didn’t talk to me or some strange blurb about my unique-ness, and he just said that it was okay. It was all okay. We sat and we talked until it was time to go back to school. We all got back on the bus—the short bus, a source of endless jokes by our public school counterparts. I sat alone, just as I did on the way to Sloss. But it was all okay. Years later, I was certain, things would be different. And they were.
Reflections on The Bones of the Magic City
By Sarah Afghan Lost in this one-hundred-thirty-year-old industrial maze makes me wonder what it felt like for those men; the men whose pictures and names are forever engraved in metal. I can hear their voices calling out from the rusting dark stairwells and starkly lit hallways. I can see the sweat dripping from their dirt covered faces, the expressionlessness they were used carrying, not out of anger or sadness, but out of necessity. They were men attempting to provide for themselves, their mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, and wives. Their memory brushes past me in a haunting frenzy. Their history sits, rusted, left in dark shadows for Halloween fodder. I wonder what those men would have thought as they looked down on modern Birmingham; the city they helped to create through blood, through sweat, through long nights of repetitive, backbreaking work. Would they appreciate the urban splendor we so often find cool to capture on our iphones and post later on Facebook? Would those men have dropped their heavy metal tools like Atlas? Just as Atlas they carried their back breaking burdening tools. Would they have dropped the forged pig iron in anger at the site of the people dressed as Freddy Cougar and zombies or the smelly teenagers drunk and high standing in lines to feel fear? Would they have said “They do not know real fear. They do not know what it feels like to have to work to death. What it feels like to be the sole man in charge of monitoring the Boiler Room day in and day out feeling the charring steam day and night, night and day”. 
 |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2){kind=small}
mountainmist's journal
