Lo, these many moons ago, the Korrektiv Kollektiv gathered not once, not twice, but thrice in old New Orleans, there to bolster the nascent Walker Percy Center for Writing and Publishing. But o alas, academia proved, like Ed’s interior in Raising Arizona, a rocky place where our seed could find no purchase. The third Percy conference never happened, and the Center is a 404.
But the Walker Percy Weekend, with its corporate sponsors and its openly tourist bent? That has flourished, and is now entering its sixth year. And perhaps old man Percy would have willed it so, preferring no-bullshit commerce to high-flown intellectualism (“Metaphysical is a word, Bob.”) and riverside good-time gatherings to malaise-ridden milling in a library setting.
Tickets for this year’s Weekend go on sale tomorrow. David Brooks will be there, along with J.D. Vance, plus famous Friend of Korrektiv Jessica Hooten Wilson. And of course, co-founder and Mr. Benedict Option himself, Rod Dreher. I dunno; I swore off academic literary conferences after the Notre Dame gathering, but I see this sort of thing and remember that we were gonna be writers once upon a time.
Hmmmm….
The center did not hold…There are Left states and Knothead states, Left towns and Knothead towns, but no center towns….and Korrektiv, where I live now, does not belong to the center – there is no center – but is that rare thing, a pleasant place where Knothead and Left dwell side by side in peace.
Would that the WP weekend could be like that, but it’s leaning in the knothead direction.
Aw, c’mon, Rufus. Even if the speaker lineup were pure Knothead, which it ain’t, that wouldn’t mean it wasn’t “that rare thing, a pleasant place where Knothead and Left dwell side by side in peace.” And Dreher sure ain’t a fan of the current Administration. Have you been there, or heard stories?
It’s not bad. No, I haven’t. Unfortunately I don’t think I can make it that weekend, though.
Maybe we should have our own DIY Korrektiv Summit, New Orleans Edition.
You’ll be pleased to hear that there was a short-notice mini-Summit in darkest Wisconsin between myself, JOB, and Angelico, just a couple of weeks ago.
That warms the Wisconsin cockles of my heart.
Dreher tweet: “Just booked Tom Key, an Atlanta theatrical director who adapted “Lost In The Cosmos” for the stage, to speak at #WalkerPercyWeekend this year. Gonna be the best one yet.” Tell me you’re not tempted.
I like where your heart’s at here, though. Merci mon ami.
Mais bien sur.