Don’t you dare speak to us like we work for you
Selling false hope like some new dope were addicted to -Ben Harper
Evil has kindly seeded a new Ben Harper song, Black Rain. The song addresses the pain Hurricane Katrina and its lawless aftermath inflicted on the people of the Gulf Coast.
photo by Evil Vince
The first artist one encounters in the Lowcountry is Jonathan Green. But let’s also look at the fine work of Leo Twiggs.
“Veterans with Flag,” 1970-71 (batik and paint on cotton mounted on board)
The Chronicle of Higher Education: In the middle of one of the interminable brouhahas over the Confederate Battle Flag here in the South, I heard of an African-American artist who was using the symbol in innovative ways: He was painting it in batik to infuse it with new meaning. These images were no paeans to a lost cause, no emblems of a mythic past. They were, however, in the hackneyed phraseology of contemporary criticism, “comments” on society through “appropriation.” In this case, theoretical cliché comes close to truth. Leo Twiggs, with gentle but unswerving irony, takes the flag and claims it as part of his Southern heritage. Tattered, disappearing almost on its support, the standard about which there is so much controversy becomes in Twiggs’s hands an ambiguous metaphor of unresolved conflict, yes, but also of a shared history. In addition to the Civil War, it calls to mind equally for Twiggs the suffering of slaves, the turmoil of Reconstruction, the indignity of Jim Crow, and even the promise of the Civil Rights era, and, of course, the aftermath, when this piece of cloth, venerated by some, reviled by others, continues to inspire argument and dissension. Twiggs transforms the image through shaping a new iconography for it, one in which he finds the possibility, albeit remote, of accord.
The other day I finished reading Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut. I wrote about it on AdPulp, for my first response was to celebrate the book’s scathing indictment of modern American culture, branded culture in particular.
There’s more to say. In 1973, Vonnegut wrote the book as a 50th birthday present to himself. Here is some of what he had to say then.
As I approached my fiftieth birthday, I had become more and more enraged and mystified by the idiot decisions made by my countrymen. And then I had come suddenly to pity them, for I understood how innocent and natural it was for them to behave so abominably, and with such abominable results: They were doing their best to live like people invented in story books. This was the reason Americans shot each other so often: It was a convenient literary device for ending short stories and books.
Why were so many Americans treated by their government as though their lives were as disposable as paper facial tissues? Because that was the way authors customarily treated bit-part players in their made-up tales.
And so on.
Once I understood what was making America such a dangerous, unhappy nation of people who had nothing to do with real life, I resolved to shun storytelling. I would write about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out. Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order, instead, which I think I have done.
If all writers would do that, then perhaps citizens not in the literary trades will understand that there is no order in the world around us, that we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead.
It is hard to adapt to chaos, but it can be done. I am living proof of that: It can be done.
I’m just coming around to Vonnegut (and I’ve not read Faulkner at all…shame on me), so it may seem obvious if not embarrassingly so for me to say, this Twainian gentleman is a great American. That he’s also a great writer, goes without saying.
Vonnegut is now 82 and the author has a new book out, collections of his writings from In These Times, Chicago’s progressive magazine. Here’s some of what he has to say now.
George W. Bush has gathered around him upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists . . . plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, . . . the medical term for smart, personable people who have no consciences.
It’s time to get to know Mary Gauthier, if you do not already know her. Her gravel-toned musings and poetic flare make for one hell of an artist, in the Lucinda Williams singer-songwriter mold.
Here’s the opening stanzas to “Wheel Inside the Wheel”:
The parade of souls is marching across the sky
Their heat and their light bathed in blue as they march by
The All Stars play “When the Saints Go Marching In”
A second line forms and they wave white hankies in the wind
Satchmo takes a solo, and he flashes his million dollar smile
Marie Laveau promenades with Oscar Wilde
Big Funky Stella twirls her little red umbrella to the beat
As the soul parade winds its way down Eternity Street
Souls ain’t born, souls don’t die
Soul ain’t made of earth, ain’t made of water, ain’t made of sky
So, ride the flaming circle, wind the golden reel
And roll on, brother, in the wheel inside the wheel
New York Times: “Whereas New York has a jazz industry,” said Quint Davis, director of Jazzfest, “New Orleans has a jazz culture.”
New Orleans is a jazz town, but also a funk town, a brass-band town, a hip-hop town and a jam-band town. It has international jazz musicians and hip-hop superstars, but also a true, subsistence-level street culture. Much of its music is tied to geography and neighborhoods, and crowds.
All that was incontrovertibly true until a week ago Monday. Now the future for brass bands and Mardi Gras Indians, to cite two examples, looks particularly bleak if their neighborhoods are destroyed by flooding, and bleaker still with the prospect of no new tourists coming to town soon to infuse their traditions with new money. Although the full extent of damage is still unknown, there is little doubt that it has been severe – to families, to instruments, to historical records, to clubs, to costumes.
Yet, there is plenty of reason for hope. Louis Edwards, a New Orleans novelist and an associate producer of the Jazz and Heritage Festival, said, “No other city is so equipped to deal with this.” A French Quarter resident, Mr. Edwards was taking refuge last week at his mother’s house in Lake Charles, La.
“Think of the jazz funeral,” he said. “In New Orleans we respond to the concept of following tragedy with joy. That’s a powerful philosophy to have as the underpinning of your culture.”
Mary Minow of Library Law Blog had the good fortune to see a pre-release copy of The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics (Free Press: forthcoming in October, 2005), by editor and annotator, David Dodd. Dodd is also chair of the California Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee and director of the San Rafael Public Library.
MM: How unusual to see a Deadhead who is a library director!
DD: Actually, there are a few of us around—there’s even a Deadhead Librarian listserv. I hear from people all the time!
MM (a little taken aback): Really. The Grateful Dead is well-known for allowing and even encouraging fans to make recordings of their live performances and even to distribute them to their friends. Did you have any problem getting permission to publish the lyrics in your book?
DD: I think that taper ethic goes a long way to differentiating the Dead from pretty much anything else in the business world. The marketing model of allowing free distribution of the music just flew in the face of all the common wisdom. In a way, the file-sharing programs that are the target of such vilification from the mainstream music business world today are the direct descendants of the Dead’s approach. That said, they have been (rightfully) quite cautious in allowing this project to go forward as a print-on-paper book. Over the years, I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with Ice Nine Publishing, who granted permission to me to use the full text of the lyrics on my Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics website, but the permission to publish that site as a book came after a long period of having the project back-burnered. Problems, no; patience, yes.
MM: What’s it like, really, to publish a book?
DD: I really think that the writing and publishing of books in the US today is a cottage industry. This is my third book, and each has carried with it a greater or lesser degree of do-it-yourselfness. The first book, an annotated bibliography about the Dead, published by Greenwood Press in 1997, was pretty much completely DIY: I delivered camera-ready copy, complete with index. The second book, The Grateful Dead Reader, published by Oxford Univ. Press in 2000, was laid out by Oxford, but my wife Diana and I did all of the permissions work on our own. We even held an Amish-style proofreading party, with a group of Deadhead writer friends spending the day going over the entire book! And this book has required that I do all the permissions work, hire a reference librarian to do fact-checking, coordinate the illustrations, and be very hands-on with the design of the book, and with the indexing. You don’t just sign a contract, turn over a manuscript, and sit back and wait for the book to appear.
MM: So, why do it?
DD: Each time, I’ve said “never again!” But I think it’s like going backpacking: you forget how painful it is, and you remember the good stuff. And if, like me, you love books, then there’s something extremely appealing about helping to make books happen. Fame and fortune are elusive, but at least I can walk into almost any public library in the country and find my books on their shelves. That’s very satisfying.
Frank Solich, the Nebraska head coach who was fired after decades of service to his alma mater by a brash young AD, is back. And the new head coach of the Ohio University Bobcats has the town of Athens, OH abuzz. There’s real excitement in the air, and with only two winning seasons since 1982, the Bobcats haven’t had much to cheer about, gridiron wise.
Billboards around town declare, “Got Frank!”—an emphatic play on the dairy question. Solich is probaby embarrased by the media coverage, but it must feel good. The guy went 9-3 in his final season and had the Huskers in the Rose Bowl national championship game a few years before, and he gets tossed out. Things have changed in Lincoln in more ways than one. The program has a glossy feel now, a certain smugness. Whatever it is, it feels foreign. It’s not Nebraska.
Right now, I’m watching Solich’s team on ESPN2, and they’re tearing into Pitt. The players believe and the fans believe and that type of positive thinking can work wonders. Pitt’s down 10-7 at the half.
Solich grew up in Cleveland and spent a lot of time recruiting Ohio players while coaching in Lincoln. My guess is he’ll do even better getting these players to come to this classic college town to play in front of 24,000 psyched fans. Yes, it’s an intimate setting. But that’s what I’d want as a player. The chance to learn first-hand from a coach who helped Eric Crouch and Mike Rozier win the Heisman Trophy.
Go Bobcats!
Caterina Fake, one of the brains behind Flickr, is also one of best writers and freshest thinkers online.
Geeking is not about high tech. It’s about taking stuff apart and putting it together and making something new. It’s about curiosity and tinkering, whether it be with gardens, vacuum tubes or PHP.
While, I’ve not met Ms. Fake, on paper she hardly strikes a pose associated with geeks. She’s a Vassar grad who studied English literature. Milton and crew are a long way from MIT, ditto an apartment in Finland.
Sometimes I forget how much “tinkering” on the web I actually do. What began six years ago is now a full blown obsession. No doubt about it. It’s an obsession but it’s pleasin’.
Logan Kleinwaks wrote to inform us about his new site.
I have just opened a free website to help connect venues across the country with New Orleans musicians, NOLAgigs.org. Anyone can offer a gig, adding it to the database. Anyone can search the database of gigs being offered and find contact information to make the necessary arrangements. You can search by state, city, ZIP, venue, dates, whether no/low cost housing or meals are also offered, combinations of these, or other options.
The venue of the gig does not have to be an established music venue such as a concert hall or jazz club, but could be a hotel lobby, restaurant, coffee shop, college campus, etc. If you are able to offer a gig, please add it to the database.
It’s a great idea. Time to book some gigs.
