Sing the Blues, Old Man

The bluesman archetype knows trouble too many to count. Take this. And this. And finally this: "If you in the street you have to start batter it down from out deh, 'cause the street is just the wider prison. And if you are mixed up in that wider prison them put you in the smaller prison."

Watch the blues travel across the sea and take hold of the old man's soul.

How to Work in the Archive

Let's cast a spell of much love when we say the name one of our role models, brovah O-Dub. We were gleaning fresh over @ Soulsides, when we came across his discog post on Joe Bataan/Pete Rodriguez, and were reminded that Professor Wang knows how to do scholarship. Ain't enough of it either way. From the top to the bottom.

:: makes small circle of dried red peppers ::

:: places votive candle in blue glass @ center of the circle ::

:: lights candle @ noon ::

:: keeps candle lit 'til midnight ::

Get Back

Queen of the blues? Must say we like the politics of Flesh Tone at least as repped by the Voice.

Speaking of Devils

We think this one runs dangerously close to nostalgia for Cabin in the Sky.

:: p o u r s a l i t t l e l i q u o r o n t h e g r o u n d ::

By the end he wasn't even a Teacake character, but we forget that there is, in the tradition, big love for comedians, child prodigies and freaks. We should take his run for governor not as the tragic semi-serious and desperate attempt to find the public eye again (even if that was 100% true), but rather, a devilish prank -- a dwarf clown going toe to toe w/ a muscle bound giant.

There are good obits here and here. The LA Times photo spread is also worth a stop, here.

Got Our Attention

Post semiotics, post DJ Spooky. Not like it's a bad thing. Here.

Found Object

• Henry Ossawa Tanner, Interior of Mosque, Cairo, 1888. Another thing of beauty from the grandmaster, who cuts faster.

Found Object (Detail 3)

• Kara Walker, The Rich Soil Down There (detail 3), 2002. Hers is a biography of a very smart person making good. We have not been to the Walker Museum, but their page on Kara is a good first place to begin your study, after the paintings themselves.

Found Object (Detail 2)

• Kara Walker, The Rich Soil Down There (detail 2), 2002.

Found Object (Detail 1)

• Kara Walker, The Rich Soil Down There (detail 1), 2002.

Worth Noting

Here. Best quote:

"With a slate of openers composed of his Low End/Brainfeeder brethren (Samiyam, Ras G, Dr. Strangeloop, Teebs), the Echoplex convulsed with bass on Friday, with Ellison hewing to the DJ set he’s been globe-trotting around for the last few months. Remixes of Lil Wayne, Radiohead and his own material smacked skulls and left the audience dizzy, delighted and trying to figure out how to dance. Creating dance music for the head-nod crowd, the crowd attempted to decipher the cryptic patterns filled with a restless energy that opts for power and velocity over in-the-pocket groove. Which is to say, you probably can’t dance to this music, but you can do everything else."

:: p o u r s a l i t t l e l i q u o r o n t h e g r o u n d ::

"Sometimes, you played accompaniments for singers," he said on an NPR broadcast in 2008. "Sometimes you played for groups. Sometimes you played for operatic sequences. Sometimes you played for elephant acts. Sometimes, you played for dog acts.... So you did a variety of things, all of which, when you added them up, contributed to your repertoire."

Here.

&

Here (the better of the two).

Please Pay Attention

This is about the creole.

Somehow of Interest

...even if I don't know why. Go here.

:: p o u r s a l i t t l e l i q u o r o n t h e g r o u n d ::

Read here and here.