Haven't seen a Coen Brothers film yet...but I've been meaning too since "Fargo" got such accolades. I'll make it a point to rent one, now...I have a little extra time coming up.
You might be surprised to know, Alex, that here at the tip of the Jersey Cape we're actually 50 miles below the Mason-Dixon line (if you extended it to the coast it would hit just above Atlantic City). And there were a lot of fluctuations in sentiments around here during the War Between the States (in deference to my Southern friends).
In fact, a bit of history I just gleaned from some re-enactor friends substantiated the fact I heard in the past that New Jersey, by a matter of 3 votes, was actually more in danger of joining the Confederacy than the more noted border states ever were. The large proportion of agrarian activity in the Garden State at the time put the economic interests more in line with the South than with the industrialized North! 'Course Lincoln would've sent in troops to keep the state in the Union like the others. But, for a matter of a few votes, you just might be talkin' about us "Jersey Rebels" today!
Politics, especially wartime politics, is a strange bird indeed!
And my cousin, Carl Baron, is one of the top five-string banjo pickers on the East Coast! He plays with a group called The Pine Barons who have a couple of CD's out. He got me into bluegrass a long time ago. The music's got soul and heart, just like blues or jazz...the only three truly indigenous American music forms...all the rest are just hybrids of those three, mix or match!...including country and rock'n'roll! And you have to be a damn good musician to play bluegrass music!!!
Well, Alex, thanks for providing the impetus for these little ruminations of mine!
And I'm dying to mention that line from "Deliverance" since you brought it up...but I won't...well, maybe just the 'pig' part...poor Ned Beatty!
