Thursday, the first day of Appalachian Festival, a lot of people have been to the palace theater to watch a documentary which is about the fracking in Pennsylvania. The film told the story of investigations of fracking from the begin till now, helped the audience to know the progress of the event.
The film uses a lot of hand drawn animation to show that what is the meaning of “fracking”.
In fact, fracking and gas drilling have caused a controversy across Pennsylvania or Maryland.
After the film ended, an elder audience said :‘I feel fracking will be able to be regulated to reduce environmental impact because the film expressed a strong belief that the Pennsylvanians will not give up for protecting themselves '.Also, there were some questions posted out of the theater. You can answer them if you want to. For example, do you know about the risks? Do you know about the benefits?
Do you know where to find the information about the facts?
How do you think fracking in Maryland will affect you town?
On Friday, at 8 o’clock, on the upper quarter, there was a presentation by Silas House, who is a renowned author and the NEH chair in Appalachian Studies at Berea College.
He share us with his stories of growing up in Kentucky. The experience in there and the stories he heard from his mother help him to craft his fictional works.
The Vanderbilt University has the Millennial Gathering of Writers and they chose him to become one of ten emerging talents in the South.
His books are unique because he uses a different attitude to see the natural world, especially the rural people.
http://www.silashouse.org/index.html
Silas House told about his childhood, his parents are not very wealthy so that he usually went to his aunt’s house.
Going back to the home place let him feel sort of like living in two worlds and he spent his time with his family out the hills.
He believes that he has a childhood of nature and freedom.Furthermore,It was a different world in Appalachia,he said.
He also claimed that, when you talk about Appalachia, You are saying "the other", no matter what the mainstream influence our new life, no matter how big the change of Appalachia is, "the other" means it has its own special culture. "I’m saying the other because the way I talk, because my food ways, culture, my history. Even I thought I didn’t talk like this, there are still many thing can identify me to the world as an Appalachian when someone got to know me" he said.
"Fundamentalist" is a word he uses to describe a part of the Appalachian culture.
There were nearly twenty people in the shed of presentation. They were all concentrated on this presentation because Silas House used the powerpoint to show some pictures which can present his presentation clearly.
