The Note

T h e N o t e ( s )

Since summer is here in the offices of RHP (and elsewhere in the northern hemisphere), let me take a moment to write about imaginary snakes. My mother worked in cotton fields in Arkansas as a child and she asserted that she had personally witnessed both hoop snakes and stinger snakes. Reports of both critters have been around, more or less in abundance, for more than 70 years. A hoop snake puts its tail in its mouth, makes a circle with its body, and rolls off like a hoop at amazing speed. Stinger snakes have scorpion-like stingers at the end of their tails. 

A common theory for these preponderance of these reports is that people, under the influence of previous circulating reports, along with plenty of hot sun and dehydration, are seeing things in those cotton fields that just aren't there. 

This summer, I am spending a good bit of time on the road in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Mississippi, collecting reports of other strange snakes sighted by rural folks who work outside a lot. I got a grant. 

• • An elderly gentleman in Cotton County, Oklahoma, told me that he has seen a number of examples of razor snakes, whose scales were as sharp as razors. Mr. White had actually shaved with these more than once and said the best shaves come from snakes with 4-blade scales. The first blades lift the whisker and prepare it to be mowed down by the last blades in the set. 

  • I have cataloged a surprising number of reports in all three states of "Bluetooth" snakes. These snakes are apparently compatible with Bluetooth-enabled devices such as smartphones and iPads. 

  • Over in southwestern Arkansas, a high school student who spends a lot of time riding his dirt bike in dusty terrain routinely encounters examples of "grumpy snakes." These snakes look normal, but in those parts are known for their sour and pessimistic outlook on life. According to local legends, these snakes can ruin a party by insisting on talking about their health problems. (These snakes are also notable for their ability to talk.) 

  • A retired school teacher in Mississippi, who asked me not to use her name, claims to have seen the fabled "stock ticker snake." This is a snake whose scales display current stock prices. They scroll down the snakes body in real time. You know, NRG 25.94 +2.04   CLF 15.01 -0.15   TSS 31.09  +2.15  ..." and so on. 

Scoff if you want. Tell me how far-fetched these are. Accuse these good people of hallucinating if you will. I'm keeping an open mind. Science thinks it's pretty smart but it can't know everything.

My thanks to Susan Lewis, guest editor, for taking a few weeks to prepare this issue. She's pulled together some beautiful stuff. As you read (and then re-read) this issue, you'll she has an amazing eye. And she worked hard and it shows. One day, I may consider thinking about working harder on future issues of RHP. 

—Dale

Like many, if not all, of the pieces in this “aria,” the implications of the title, "Aria for the Recently Changed" (borrowed from Rob Talbert’s extraordinary poem) turn and open in the mind—from specificity to universality, from declaration to investigation. Isn’t everyone who lives, by definition, recently changed?  Like the title, all of these works are deceptively direct and distilled. Compact and coiled, their depths enrich and comment upon their polished surfaces. In the process of assembling this Aria, I’ve had the pleasure of re-reading each piece more times than I can count. Every time I’ve been “recently changed.” I invite you to do the same. You won’t be disappointed.

Heartfelt thanks to my host, the editorial master and magician Dale Wisely, and his stellar compatriots, F. John Sharp and F.J. Bergmann. It has been an honor and a privilege to work with you, not to mention an invaluable practicum in the art of editing. Point on!

—Susan Lewis

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