Sunday, April 28, 2024

House of Cotton Is a Haunting Debut From Monica Brashears

house of cotton

Espirit used a lot of cotton for their designs, emphasizing the light, breezy appeal of California fashion. So she concentrated her efforts on understanding the nuances of cotton in this growing global supply chain. To encourage California farmers to grow a less toxic product, she started Cleaner Cotton, an initiative that stripped down the list of pesticides permitted on cotton farms, advocated for soil health, and eliminated the use of genetically modified seeds. “We have to manage the carbon in our soils,” he says, arguing that agriculture, if practiced with soil health at the forefront, could be a part of the solution to climate change. But to do that, cotton farmers and livestock farmers have to come together.

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The House passed a long-stalled foreign aid package on Saturday that gives funding to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, with a majority of lawmakers backing money for American allies across the globe. The package, which now goes to the Senate, is almost certain to become law. They will first go through dryers to reduce moisture, and then through cleaning equipment to remove dirt, leaves and other impurities. Then machines will remove the seeds and compress the fibers into bales. The cotton in the modules is called ‘seeded cotton’; the modules will be trucked to a gin where the seed and fiber are separated.

Cotton plants: You can grow your own, but there is a wrinkle

Visitors enjoy our one-of-a-kind atmosphere and our rich history, as well as our picturesque view of the Ouachita River and our creative, spin on Southern comfort cuisine. Once upon a time, this building was actually a hub for cotton and bourbon transportation, hence our restaurant’s industrious namesake. Still, 37 “no” votes, while a break from Washington’s ironclad support for the Jewish state, fell short of the opposition bloc progressives had hoped to muster. Thirty-nine Democrats had voted “no” on Friday on the rule to allow the foreign aid package to come to the House floor, a target that progressives just missed on Saturday on the Israel bill. Fourteen of those Democrats voted on Saturday in favor of aid to Israel, while 12 Democrats who voted to allow the package on the floor on Friday then cast votes against the funding itself. While all Democrats voted in favor of aid to Ukraine and all but Ms. Tlaib supported funding to Taiwan, 37 left-leaning Democrats defected to vote against the Israel aid bill.

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The House That Cotton Built Arkansas Democrat Gazette - Arkansas Online

The House That Cotton Built Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

Posted: Wed, 31 Jul 2019 07:00:00 GMT [source]

In her roller-coaster ride of a gothic debut novel, “House of Cotton,” Monica Brashears upends expectations at every turn.

California Cotton Fields: a Renewed Opportunity for Rebuilding Soil

Over the following decades, those numbers began to decline. In 1997, the state’s cotton production dropped from 31,000 bales to 14,000, making it less than one percent of the nation’s cotton crop. The focus shifted to Texas where favorable weather conditions enabled cotton growers to proliferate and today, it’s where the bulk of America’s organic cotton is found. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling.

house of cotton

A mix of curiosity and desperation leads her to a “plantation-style” house that is half funeral parlor, half family home. Cotton—the man who told her she looks like Josephine Baker even though she doesn’t—lives and works there with his Aunt Eden. And this is where Magnolia lives once she accepts Cotton’s offer to impersonate the dead for people who are willing to pay for the chance to connect. Eventually, she will lie still in a coffin for mourners who never had a chance to bury their loved one and masquerade as a lost—certainly dead—woman at a party for her family and friends. While Magnolia is posing as a series of dead women, Mama Brown haunts her and begs Magnolia to see the baby she’s aborted so that both Mama Brown and the baby can rest.

Law that ended single-family zoning is struck down for five Southern California cities

In 2018, over 14 million of 18 million bales were exported. That said, the US continues to be a producer of the crop — and one that could be grown with responsible farming practices, beginning right here in our fibershed. We meet House of Cotton protagonist Magnolia Brown at the funeral of her grandmother, her last living relative. In times of deep stress like this, Magnolia turns to fairy tales. She can never quite imagine herself as a character but rather as one of the objects, like a broom or a beanstalk. Your granny got peace, now.” The dusk-colored woman next to me must have mistaken my laughter for sobbing.

Every Sunday, he starts his routine by hobbling up to the altar with his cane. When he catches the Spirit, Pastor Wooly throws his arms up. The sound of the cane smacking against the hardwood floor always results in a resounding Hallelujah. The individual voices of the congregation—the throaty, old women; the young men with fire under their toes that make them jump, jump; the sinners that find bits of glory in their mouths—become a uniform voice, strong and deep. When I was little, I thought in these moments he was conjuring up the voice of God. Located in the heart of historic downtown Monroe in Louisiana, Restaurant Cotton takes pride in offering some of the Southern Delta’s finest comfort food this side of the Mississippi.

12 New Novels You Should Read This Month - CrimeReads

12 New Novels You Should Read This Month.

Posted: Tue, 04 Apr 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Good Housekeeping participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites. I’ve been impressed with the softness of the sheets and find myself choosing them above any other high street alternative in my laundry cupboard, so whilst they are a little more pricey than your usual cotton set, you get what you pay for here. Described as a ‘capsule collection,’ the range includes four plain and two patterned designs to suit most bedroom styles — I opted for white with navy contrast piping to match my minimalist, natural bedroom — and are made from 100% cotton. High street favourite La Redoute has collaborated with sleep specialists at Emma to bring us a small collection of top-quality bed linen. At Natan Fabric, our knowledgeable staff is always available to help you find just the right material, style, and color of fabric your project requires. Open daily for dinner and drinks and for brunch on the weekends, Cotton has two other amazing venues attached for our diners’ convenience.

Echovita offers a solidarity program that gives back the funds generated to families. Shelbi Polk is a Durham, North Carolina, based writer who just might read too much. With that eerie premise, author Monica Brashears deftly navigates race, class, and the pressures of being Black in the rural South in this lush and lyrical debut. Brashears, who’s Affrilachian, is originally from Tennessee.

When Cotton’s requests become increasingly weird, Magnolia discovers there’s a lot more at stake than just her rent. Echoing one of the many grievances shared by hard-right Republicans who opposed all of the aid measures, Mr. Good said his support for “Israel’s right to defend itself remains unshakeable” but that he disagreed with a measure that would add to the nation’s debt. California cotton has the reputation for being among the finest quality in the world. The San Joaquin Valley’s warm springs, hot summers and dry falls are well-suited for  growing cotton, producing extra long, strong, and silky fibers. In California, cotton is grown mostly in the San Joaquin Valley, primarily Fresno, Kings and Kern County. A member of the Southern California Handweavers’ Guild, she already knew how to dye her own fabric for weaving.

Cleaner Cotton banned the use of the 13 most toxic pesticides. They partnered with UC Berkeley to help farmers manage pests without the use of pesticides. As a result, Cleaner Cotton was cutting down chemical usage by fifty to seventy-five percent in California. Given that the state monitors pesticide usage, it was possible to see progress, Grose explains. In fact, California is the only cotton-growing region in the world where this data is monitored and tracked; indeed, California’s program of pesticide use reporting is recognized as the most comprehensive in the world. On the surface, it's a Black southern gothic novel about a young woman learning to navigate life alone.

The logical next step was to plant some cotton seeds near the clothesline in her West L.A. She tried brown and green varieties but had her best luck with the white. This is a novel that refuses to obey the rules of any one genre, and that, complicated as it might be for some, is one of the best things about it.

While dealing with the aftermath of her abortion and trying to hide from her landlord, the ghost of Magnolia's late grandmother — herself haunted by a different ghost — starts visiting her and Magnolia soon understands that more than her rent hangs in the balance. House of Cotton is a bizarre, uncomfortable read in the best way possible. Brashears delves deep into what it means to be a young, broke woman of color in a world in which predatory men are at your doorstep, in the streets, and even at church. California, which had a thriving cotton industry, has been at the heart of the modern global flux of cotton valuation and commodification. Though cotton has been farmed in its valleys through much of the 20th century, cotton reached its heyday in the ‘50s. In 1951, cotton alone fetched more than $350 million for California growers.

For Jamison, spinning the thread is simply one of many steps that begins with the cotton boll. She also grows woad, the prehistoric Old World blue dye that some say Celtic warriors wore to frighten invaders. Just as indigo influenced the blues of Asia, woad helped to define the blues of Europe.

Brashears’ novel follows Magnolia Brown, who is offered a strange job by Cotton that will change the course of her life. I follow the shuffling crowd out to the dirt, this tiny fenced in graveyard. Wetting the earth with tears ain’t ever made anybody sprout. Below, find out more about “House of Cotton” from the author herself, and read an excerpt from the start of the book. House of Cotton is peculiar and slightly surreal, but also dazzling, full of surprises, and told with a voice that's unpredictable and, more importantly, that lingers. Darkness can have slices of beauty at its core, and Brashears has a talent for pointing out that beauty, while its submerged in grit and grief.

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