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While heading home from a trip to the grocery store Sunday night, I heard a voice on the radio inviting me to an upcoming book signing/musical event at City Lights Bookstore.
It turned out the speaker was none other than musician and raconteur Wayne Erbsen, author of "The Outhouse Papers: Country Humor and Trivia," who will be at City Lights at 7:30 p.m. this Saturday, July 13. "This book belongs in every outhouse in America," Erbsen says. After sampling its weird and funny stories, strange historical facts, jokes and folklore, I'll have to agree. I'd even go so far as to suggest placing it in additional locations. Nuggets of wisdom abound. Who could go wrong following advice like "You can't fall out of bed if you sleep on the floor" and "Even a blind hog finds an acorn once in a while." Erbsen's book has a lot of helpful hints, too. My favorite is "You can estimate a man's age by how far he walked to school and how deep the snow was." And Erbsen is not too proud to seek humor from experts, devoting three pages to quotes from Mark Twain, who advises "Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest." and "There is no use in walking five miles to fish when you can be just as unsuccessful near home." After quoting a Texas saying, "Never believe anything you read on tombstones," Erbsen treats his readers to what he terms "Headstone Humor." "On the 22nd of June, Jonathan Fiddle went out of tune" and from W.C. Fields, "On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia." "The Outhouse Papers" includes sections on Civil War slang, Civil War tales, and Civil War trivia, like the fact that an estimated 300 boys age 13 or younger served in the Civil War. It includes marriage advice and even the Duct Tape Diet. Erbsen will bring along his banjo Saturday to spread good cheer and set the tone for his stories. Also appearing at City Lights will be Erbsen's wife, Barbara Swell, whose book is titled "Mama's in the Kitchen: Weird and Wonderful Home Cooking 1900-1950." Swell divides her cookbook by decades and offers information about each 10-year period that includes the types of appliances available and recipes that were popular during different eras. She also includes recipe updates to help today's cooks. One section, "Weird Little Sandwiches," is full of different concoctions like raw carrot sandwiches and grilled P-B-C (peanut butter, bacon and chili sauce). Both "Outhouse Papers" and "Mama's in the Kitchen" were published this year by Native Ground Music of Asheville. |
