10:36 a.m. - 2002-03-06
Lublub
"Was Man Ray a Dadaist or a Surrealist?"
We're listening to an NPR report on a major show of Surrealist art in New York. It's 7 a.m. and Bruce is wide awake. I, however, am barely able to drink my coffee, let alone give Art History Survey Lecture #34 entitled "Dadaist Dream, Surrealist Nightmare". Bruce is undeterred.
"Could you be both a Dadaist and a Surrealist?" He enquires. "Would Andre Breton approve?" He senses he is geting nowhere, and leans forward, eyes narrowing."Admit it, you had an affair with Man Ray! I know you did! In art school!"
I emit the heaving, sighing, "Hrrrrmfff" that signals he is on shaky ground and I want nothing more than to stare into my coffee.
"Oh, all right. If you don't want to admit your youthful indiscretions I'll just go torture the cats!"
He grabs the cat food bag and dances into the living room singing "Bill Heard's got yer cats, man!! Bill Heard's got yer cats!!" This is the modified ditty of a local megahumongous car dealership. I'm very fond of Bill Heard, actually. They provided my first experience of Southern upbeat phone answering.
When Bruce and I had been here for about three days, I got an advertisement in the mail for Bill Heard. I was furious! How could they have gotten my name and address in such an unbelievably short time?! Was I going to be bombarded with obnoxious advertising for their hideous car dealership?!! I was out for blood.
But when I called them up, I was immediately disarmed. The phone was answered by an exuberant female voice.
"WAH HEY THERE!!!" she churbled. "We's havin' us a great day here at Bill Heard Chev-uh-lay!!! How may ah die-rect yer cah-waul?!!"
This sort of experience is not unusual here, and it can be very disorienting, especially coming from Boston where the phone answering runs along the lines of "Hello, why are you bothering us today?" It was especially disorienting when I was first living here and could barely understand the local dialect.
About a month after we moved down, I realised I hadn't gotten a bill from one of our credit cards and I called them up to get an address where I could send a payment. I got a similar beatifically happy welcome from the woman on the the other end of the line. I explained the problem and all went swimmingly until she got to the city and state.
"We're in Lublub, Kentucky!" she announced brightly.
Surely I couldn't have heard this correctly! "Did you say 'Lublub'?" I asked.
"Yas, Honey! Lublub! Lublub, Kentucky!"
I was flummuxed. I couldn't believe there was a town with a name as charming as "Lublub" and I was not aware of it. "I'm sorry", I stammered. "I have a hearing problem. Did you actually say Lublub, like Lub - lub?"
There was a pause. "Nooooooooo, honey!! Ahm not sayin' 'Lub-lub'!! Ahm sayin' 'Lublub'!!"
I gave up. "I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry. Could you spell that for me?"
Finally she seemed exasperated. "It's Lublub, jus' like it sounds!! It's spelled L-O-U-I-S-V-I-L-L-E!!!"
Yup, Lublub, jus' like it sounds!!
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