The Monday Media Diet with W. Ralph Eubanks

W. Ralph Eubanks (WRE) is an American writer and essayist. WITI came on his radar recently, and I asked him to join us for an MMD. Have a great week.

Tell us about yourself.

I’m a writer and essayist, and my books and essays focus on race, identity, and the culture and literature of the American South. My work as a professor allows me to write, and I’m lucky enough to teach at my alma mater, the University of Mississippi, where I am faculty fellow and writer in residence at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture. Since my home base is Washington, DC—I was director of publishing at the Library of Congress for nearly 20 years and have been a Washingtonian for more than 40 years—I lead a somewhat peripatetic life. If I had a theme song, it would be Junior Walker and the All Stars’ “I’m a Roadrunner.” I love the life I live and live the life I love.

Describe your media diet.

I find that I don’t absorb much from online reading, so I have stuck with traditional print media. When I am home in DC I read the print edition of the New York Times, which I have delivered every day. While I am in Oxford, Mississippi, I read the Times on my tablet, which I have warmed to. Fortunately, Square Books in Oxford stocks the Sunday New York Times, which is my reward after a week of digital reading.

I’m a subscriber and reader of the Atlantic, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and New York Review of Books. Plus, I subscribe to and read literary journals, since I once served as the editor of one: the Virginia Quarterly Review (VQR). In addition to VQR, I read and subscribe to the Sewanee Review, the Paris Review, and the Hedgehog Review.

What’s the last great book you read?

Without a doubt, it is Imani Perry’s Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People. The book is a brilliant meditation on the color blue and its link to Blackness and African American culture. As a native Mississippian who grew up listening to the blues, what Perry does in her exquisitely poetic prose is reveal how a color associated with melancholy and struggle is also a symbol of hope and joy. Initially I bought the book for a weekend read. But after reading the first three chapters, I put the book down and decided that I needed time to ponder the meaning of each chapter and savor every word. And now I find myself returning to the book because I see it as a master class in the craft of creative nonfiction.

What are you reading now?

What I am reading right now is a little less poetic: Tyranny of the Minority by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. I’m in a book club in Oxford with a group of former and current professors and we toggle between fiction and nonfiction each month. This book was my pick, so I am leading the discussion when we meet.

But I do keep a little poetry in my life each day. Joseph Fasano’s The Last Song of the World is on my bedside table, and I read a couple of poems to start out the day. His poem “For A Student Who Used AI to Write A Paper” is even included in my syllabus this semester.

These days poetry is helping me make sense of the world. Each day I also visit the Academy of American Poets website to read their poem of the day.

What’s your reading strategy when you pick up a print copy of your favorite publication?

The features in the front of the magazine come first. Next, I check out the “back of the book” features and finally the overall table of contents. A quick look at the table of contents helps me decide what I want to read first and perhaps what I might want to skip or save for later. I do a lot of driving in Mississippi, so I often save longer articles to listen to in the car. With the New Yorker, I always read in this order: Talk of the Town, all of the cartoons, the poems, and then the feature pieces.

Who should everyone be reading that they’re not?

In an era when longform writing has few outlets, I say read the work of writers in the “little magazines,” that are keeping longform feature journalism alive. Switchyard, a new journal of literature and ideas published at the University of Tulsa, is one of those publications. In addition to magazine, Switchyard has a podcast that amplifies the ideas presented in each issue. And of course, the Virginia Quarterly Review, which is a little magazine that has always punched above its weight class with respect to the breadth and depth of its content.

What is the best non-famous app you love on your phone?

Radioooo, the musical time machine. I’m a big music lover and I love the way this app introduces you to music across countries and across time. I came to the app to listen to music I listened to while traveling through Britain the summer after college and before graduate school. Now I listen to discover new music from around the world.

Plane or train?

Train. I’ve been on ten plane trips since January, so I am weary of what was once the friendly skies. If I could travel by train between Washington, DC and Oxford, Mississippi, I would use the travel time to read and enjoy the landscape.

What is one place everyone should visit?

Of course, Mississippi, particularly the Mississippi Delta. Despite its tortured history, once you explore the natural beauty of the Mississippi Delta, it becomes difficult to shake from your consciousness. I’m often reminded of Wim Wenders’s 1988 film, Wings of Desire. In that film a lonely angel wanders the streets of Berlin and encounters a dying man lying on a sidewalk. As the angel sits to comfort him, the man reflects on his time on earth. Suddenly he recalls that one of his most beautiful and lasting memories was seeing the Mississippi Delta. If you visit the Mississippi Delta, I guarantee you’ll never forget it.

Tell us the story of a rabbit hole you fell deep into.

Just for fun and to keep up my language skills, I’m currently taking a class on German cinema. In the course we are required to do two presentation auf Deutsch. My presentation was on the use of “needle drops”—that is, music used in film to enhance a scene or to hint at a character’s persona—in the show Deutschland 86. Martin Scorsese is the master of the needle drop, and I fell down a rabbit hole of looking at my favorite uses of music in Scorsese’s films. This exercise was to generate ideas for my presentation, but I got off track, of course. What did I learn? Scorsese has used the Rolling Stone’s “Gimme Shelter” in at least three films if not more. I’m not sure this is necessary knowledge, but now it is seared in my memory. And it’s not going to just fade away. (WRE)