THE SIGNAL from David Katznelson
"Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor."--Truman Capote
Sixteen years to the day between hurricane Katrina and Ida. What is that all about? It is hard to comprehend…a destructive force hitting on the anniversary of yet another destructive force. I spoke to my friend Dr. Ike from deep in the Big Easy. While he is safe, he is working at a hospital that was already hit hard by Delta before the storm. As for the city, he sighed that the power is out and the towers are down, without much of a contingency plan to get things up and running quickly. Much of the state is in the same bind.
As usual, the poor are the ones most affected.
I’ll never forget getting caught in Katrina in Mississippi, having it hit when I was drinking a coffee on the porch of Square Books and barely making it back to my friend Jane Rule’s house, narrowly missing a falling tree while lost on a dark country road, watching other vehicles fall into ditches off the freeway. The storm wasn’t even that bad up in that part of the world but the damage was still done.
I flew back to California out of Jackson and remember seeing advertisements for Biloxi with buildings I knew were no longer there…talking to the ticket agent and hearing how three families from New Orleans were living at her house, even though there was no water or power at her home (and a line around the block at a local grocery for ice and no fresh bread)…hearing another tragic story, right after, of a father who had drowned in a flash flood and a daughter who was trying to get as far away as soon as possible. Sixteen years to the day and the hurricane is back.
Thoughts and love to all the people of New Orleans (and everywhere that has been hit). That city can never be vanquished, no matter how many batterings come (and so thankful that the levees held strong).
Hurricane Ida Destroys New Orleans Jazz Landmark Dubbed Louis Armstrong’s ‘Second Home’
And so a landmark of early jazz crumbles away. If you think about Louis Armstrong’s roll in the creation of Jazz…and how he was growing as a musician while he hung out at this house…the stories housed in its walls must have been amazing; it is pretty tragic that this structure fell a few days ago.
The Back Door Man Story–somewhat
To celebrate the birthday of Don Waller….gone too soon…let’s walk down the history of one of punk rock’s first fanzine’s Back Door Man as brought to you by another of its founders Phast Freddie Patterson. There is much that Don was known for…being the lead singer of the Imperial Dogs (whose song This Ain’t The Summer of Love was the first single on the Blue Oyster Cult record “Agents of Fortune” that also featured Don’t Fear The Reaper), the writer of the best book on Motown on the planet (if I were you I’d grab one here), his incredible cooking skills, his great record listening sessions and yes, the incredible way he wrote about music, with Backdoor Man being one of his earliest platforms. He wrote a huge essay that will be in our Specialty box set we are working on…I wish he was around to see it finally come out. Miss you Don, happy birthday.
MANDY PATINKIN ANSWERS GRIEVING FAN’S PRINCESS BRIDE QUESTION
I have found Mandy Patinkin’s videos with his wife…that I think his son makes…to be sweet and entertaining. This one hits deeper and is worth a watch, He just seems like a really good guy.
How Pythagoras and Sappho Radicalized Music and Revolutionized the World
The whole article is pretty mind-blowing…but just check this out: “Pythagoras was very much a radical, a dissident, an intellectual deviant. His progressive views on social reform led him to flee the tyrannical rule of his native Samos…In an era when the most widespread musical instrument was the tetrachord — the Hellenic four-string lyre — and musicians had no standardized system of tuning their instruments, no understanding of the underlying tonal patterns, and nothing more than a vague intuitive sense about how to strum melodies rather than discord, Pythagoras discovered the relationship between musical harmony and the mathematical harmony of numbers.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne's historic boyhood home in Raymond in need of donations for repairs
A quote about his time at this house: "Those were delightful days, for that part of the country was wild then, with only scattered clearings, and nine tenths of it primeval woods." It does not look like he did any of his writing here…but still, pretty cool to think he spent time wandering the halls…
A Hymn to the Evening
BY: PHILLIS WHEATLEY
Soon as the sun forsook the eastern main
The pealing thunder shook the heav'nly plain;
Majestic grandeur! From the zephyr's wing,
Exhales the incense of the blooming spring.
Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes,
And through the air their mingled music floats.
Through all the heav'ns what beauteous dies are spread!
But the west glories in the deepest red:
So may our breasts with ev'ry virtue glow,
The living temples of our God below!
Fill'd with the praise of him who gives the light,
And draws the sable curtains of the night,
Let placid slumbers sooth each weary mind,
At morn to wake more heav'nly, more refin'd;
So shall the labours of the day begin
More pure, more guarded from the snares of sin.
Night's leaden sceptre seals my drowsy eyes,
Then cease, my song, till fair Aurora rise.
(Published today in 1773, “Phillis Wheatley’s landmark book of poetry ("Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral”), represents a broader struggle of many enslaved persons to retain aspects of their African culture and express their own critiques of the institution of slavery. Her poetry was one of the first major contributions to American colonial literature.”)
