the abbreviated reign of “neon” leon spinks

Where Kudzu Has Crept
OOPS 46
Kudzu’s impact on American culture, particularly in the South, is
as hard to ignore as the vine itself. Worldwide, the word is now used as a
synonym for unchecked and obnoxious growth, with everything from
e-mail spam to suburban housing to the World Wide Web said to be growing
like, well, you know.
In terms of culture, pick a topic. Music? You have your choice,
from rock (the cover image of R.E.M.’s 1983 Murmur album showed
kudzu covering a railroad right- of-way), to punk (who remembers the
now-defunct band Kudzu Ganja?), to alternative country (Kudzu Kings),
to bluegrass (the Kudzu Quartet), to barbershop (the Kudzu Krooners
used the motto “We grow on ya”). Film? A sixteen- minute documentary
called Kudzu was an Academy Award nominee (best live-action short) in
1976. Literature? Kudzu turns up as both the central metaphor and in the
title of novelist William Doxey’s 1985 Cousins to the Kudzu and Hal
Crowther’s 2000 essay collection Cathedrals of Kudzu, both published by
Louisiana State University Press. Mass media? Doug Marlette’s Kudzu
comic strip, begun in 1981, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. Management
expert Stephen M. Gower uses kudzu as the organizing image of The Art
of Killing Kudzu: Management by Encouragement, his 1991 book about
eliminating negative attitudes in the workplace.
Individuals and communities throughout the South have embraced
kudzu in their own unique ways, with kudzu festivals and even local
sports events such as the Birmingham (Alabama) Track Club’s annual 5K
Kudzu Run and the Kudzu Classic youth soccer tournament in Clinton,
Mississippi. A recent survey by an Atlanta public-relations fi rm, Kudzu
Communications, revealed that the word “kudzu” turns up in at least
thirty- six business and street names in the states of Georgia, Alabama,
and North Carolina.
Kudzu’s darker side surfaced in the early 1980s, when Atlanta actually
declared out-of-control kudzu a misdemeanor. The overgrowth,
which offers shelter and privacy to many of the city’s homeless, also had