The Dark Ages On Three Kings Day

     . . . . Today is Three Kings Day, the day which begins the count down to Mardi Gras. 

In Roman Catholic countries, and here, in New Orleans, we eat King Cake.  We have some, from Mille Feuille, our local French bakery -- which makes all the very best of everything that it makes.  It feels all the more important to observe King's Day since, for a very long time, 01/6/21 will be thought of on this date, in the USA  

Mardi Gras's comin', BAAAAAAAAAABEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Doncha fergit it!

In the meantime, even in the Dark Ages, surely, at least in the monasteries, Three Kings Day a/ka/ Epiphany was observed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     . . . . A long time ago, 1938 in fact, Robert Graves, who made the Empress Livia live forever, thanks to his character of Emperor Claudius, the BBC, and actor Derek Jacobi, way back in 1972, published an historical novel of another age, a different Roman Empire, a newish religious era, titled Count Belisarius.

For newcomers to these names, Commander Belisarius is an historically lauded general of the 6th C -- 505 - 565. He was part of the times that historians have called Europe's "Dark Ages." This is the century that has been the favorite chronological location for Britain's King Arthur.

Looking through this so readable novel, it differs in so much from what the current historians of his time and actions I've been reading for the last ten years.  This was another effective military commander badly treated by a fearful, jealous Byzantine emperor. But even so, Graves seems to be wrong, deliberately or otherwise, about much of even the small, basic stuff we do know about the Commander.  For one thing, Graves has chosen, according to himself, to present this story as a Legend, a Romance in the mode of the Arthurian cycles as written in the Medieval period.  Partly that is due to Graves depending on Procopius as his major source -- as do all, of course, including respectable historians -- but Procopius is infamous for all the axes he grinds in his Secret History, his prejudices, his personal antagonisms, his conscious pay-back and sheer malicious joy in blackening reputations. Though he loved Belisarius, oooo how he hated the Empress Theodora!

Unlike Graves's two Claudian novels, which I've read several times, this is a first read of Count Belisarius. I'm starting to think  Gore Vidal's Julian (the Apostate) - 1964, and Robert Harris's Cicero Trilogy, were influenced by this earlier book, particularly with Vidal's structure, and Harris's choice for narrator.

It's been a bright spot in these damned Omicron-coupled-with-insane politico clowns weeks, to feel I've finally gotten something of a handle on the Gothic, Vandal and Hunnic wars of the 5th century, and some of the 6th century, for both the western and the eastern empires (which, by the end of the 5th century, the western empire was in the agony that transformed it into the states that became Europe). 

I'm really understanding why it is so many archaeologists and historians warn, "Be grateful you were not born in the 6th , 7th -- a century that brought Bubonic Plague to Constantinople and Europe, among all the other ordeals and horrors -- and 8th centuries -- though honestly, for So Many, the 5th and 9th + centuries don't look all that good either. At least in the 9th century Europe got Charlemagne and his dreams of a unity Christendom (he failed, as Christianity and all religions fail at that sort of unity), culture, civilization and knowledge.

I'm trying to get a firmer grip on the Goths in the Danubian lands, Italy, Africa, Gaul and Iberia prior to the Arab explosion in the 7th century. So dark, the written information so scarce -- and all of it biased as heck

I do not think I shall ever get even a slippery grip on the Persians -- there were so many iterations of the Persians, starting so far back, and going on for many eras.  So very very VERY many eras. To this day so many in Iran speak Farsi-Persian, as well as speakers of Dari Persian throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Looking at the stat NYC covid map: there are large parts of the boroughs that are more than 50% infected -- or just positive?  They don't tell us that. Our nation hit 1,000,000 new cases today.  Yes.  One MILLION. So, we are not at all out and about these days. 

Plus. it's cold here.

Though not as frigid as it will be the weekend, and this weekend won't be as frigid as next week.  Tomorrow morning we have Maybe Snow. Tonight we're doing serious comfort food for dinner.

Some hearty red Spanish wine.    

Oct. 31: Postmambo presents ¡Que Viva la Muerte! Gède / kalunga / Death Metal Angola

      . . . . Tomorrow!  Sunday, Oct. 31!  It begins at 3:30 pm! (Eastern Daylight Time)

We'd love to have you with us. To participate, you need to have the Zoom link, which you get from the [seminar] mailing list (because [nedslist] is too big to send Zoom links to). If you're not already on that list, write me and I'll make sure you get the link.

A special one-day virtual event celebrating All Saints' Eve / Day of the Dead / Fèt Gede / Halloween

¡QUE VIVA LA MUERTE!

Long live death!

=> 3:30 pm: Jean-Daniel Lafontant will talk with us about Gède, the lwa of death whose day is celebrated all over Haiti.

=> 5:00 pm: scholar / educator / photographer C. Daniel Dawson talks with us about kalunga and death in Kongo thought and cosmology.

=> 6:30 pm: dinner break.

=> 8 :00 pm: a special edition of Postmambo Movie Night, presenting Death Metal Angola (2014), with filmmaker Jeremy Xido in conversation.  

* * *

COMING SOON!

November 11, 8 pm Eastern: NOLA Reconnect Sessions: Erol Josué talks with Dr. Elizabeth McAlister.

November 18, 8 pm Eastern: Postmambo Movie Night: Jason Berry presents his new film City of a Million Dreams.

Mardi Gras! Is Here! Babeeeeee! So Is My Birthday!

      . . . .  Am I, or am I, clever, having my birthday this year the same day as Fat Tuesday, when, despite the pandemic, all the world that celebrates Mardi Gras is celebrating with brilliant color, food and music? 

Having had zero expectations for this day, well!  It's a beautiful birthday, particularly because for this one day only here  (Thursday, big storm blows in), the weather became lovely.  Blue sky and bright, warm sun, when el V went out with me about 2 PM for a walk.  We went to the library, stopped at the Wine Hut and got two nice artisnal, organic Pinot Grigios from the Tyrol. When we got back to T Street, B joined us, and we sat together (double-masked) on a bench at the playground, basking in the sun.  A snow white wispy cloud scarf blew fast across the blue sky field. The sunlight bounced radiantly off a helium heart balloon in a tree, a Valentine’s Day escapee no doubt. We photographed it as a memento of the day.  

Because it is a beautiful day, and because it is my BD, though this is one of my regularly scheduled workout days, I took a holiday from working out. This is only the second time since the beginning of April I've missed one of the three I religiously schedule per week.  Walking in the sunshine with el V was the better choice. So many BD greetings from friends, including from the couple in France, who just got married on Saturday.  I am a fortunate being, you betcha, particularly having my birthday this year on Mardi Gras, so we could bang the music out of New Orleans's WWOZ all day.  Nothing better to have as your birthday sound track.

We have also listened to the first segment of Leyla McCalla’s Kanvale special radio production, with el V, along with Lauren Dubois, as primary commentators for the Haitian-New Orleans connections. He was recorded for his interjections back in May, 2020, but didn’t recall it at all, until after listening, he looked through his archives.  May.  Such a long time ago now, such a strange frightened time.  May 2020 seems longer ago now than Mays prior to 2020. However May 2020 taught me that winter does eventually end, and things can get better.  So it shall be in 2021 as well.

Weather, Inclement and Cold, Over-Busy Days, Ill Friends, Getting Through With History and Historical Fiction

      . . . . Subject line says it all, and I'd make book this subject line applies to a vast swathe of us across the globe.  The big difference between and much of the vast swathe, is that, tiny, cramped as it is, is snug, and filled with comforts. 

I don't know about others, but the relentless, graphic violence and jeopardy of children, women, and all others who are regarded as the rightful prey offering of the entertainment industries, as well as the entertainment industries' relentless offering of file criminals as identification protagonists has flattened my brain into idiocy, when not rousing me to desire to commit violence on them. 

Happily, there is an antidote that brings us heroism and the projection of loyalty, sacrifice, true friendship and virtues to the fore, while providing good escape action adventure into the past.  The Overdrive- Libby historical fiction series, Duke Classics, has put these novels up on the public libraries that subscribe to Overdrive - Libbey.  These a novels that our great-grandparents and grandparents likely were familiar with, and maybe, like me, stumbled into on their shelves, in their basements and attics, but are hard to find these days, particularly in the libraries.

But one day, titles I've always wanted to try but never came across, such as Joan of Naples by Alexander Dumas, jumped out at me.  This is the 14th Century Queen of Naples (at the top of my list of favorite queens), who was a patron of Boccaccio, a good friend with Pope Clement -- during the Black Death, no less -- and who managed to keep her throne for decades despite so many trying to take it from her (ultimately they were successful, but it took them until she was old).   One can always count on Dumas to have written at some point (or had his factory do it) a novel dealing with a figure of French history about which one is curious.  As you can see from a Dumas era illustration the story of Joan of Naples is filled with action:

This is how one of her husbands met his end, supposedly.

One can access a medieval Romance, such as The Young Lovell, by Ford Maddox Ford. 

 Ford's Parade's End which might familiar from the BBC-PBS 2012 tv series featuring Benedict Cumberbatch)  and some of his other fiction are considered ground-breaking, like Henry James works, as moving the novel into the modern age.  But Ford wrote for nearly 40 years, and most of his work was not that.

As this particular Overdrive program was developed for university libraries, so today's few brave lit students could find such works for their research, classic authors such as an Elizabeth Gaskell, who usually only have a couple of titles available to a general audience, have their full bibliographies accessible.  Mary Gaskell wrote for money, so she wrote a lot of books, not just her hagiography of Charlotte Bronte,  North and South, Wives and Daughters and Cranford -- the last three BBC productions too.

The works of authors truly obscure authors these days, even to literature students perhaps, such as George Payne Rainsford James are also here.

 I have taken additional cheer from the vivid red and white of roses, the gold-trimmed champagne glasses, and bouffants of chocolate ads running on every online site for Valentine's Days.

We're playing lots of Mardi Gras music in the apartment, not only because our first events of NOLA Reconnect 2: Continuing Stories are coming right up, but because -- hey, Mardi Gras is comin' babee, and is nearly here, as of tomorrow.  This too has been cheery, and does wonderful work taking us out of the mundanity of the ice, illness (some with covid-19, some with other issues, and some with both).  

In between, hey I think a lot about George Washington -- Presidents Day -- that figure who remains an historic enigma. Was he really a terrible battle commander but a brilliantly astute political operator?  Was he real a dull mind that never read a book but possessed an intellectual organ that recognized what matters mattered when others couldn't even read the room?

So, among the museum presentation (Black History Month you know), other engagements, NOLA Reconnect, cooking cooking cooking and all that entails, etc. the hour of 8 PM is so welcome.  A couple of hours for tv and books! 

A storm, mostly freezing rain, rolling in.  Another storm Thursday, though this one is mostly snow, They say.  We've already had about three storms I think, in the last 8 days or so -- my sense of time is fairly weird these frigid days and nights, w/o any above freezing temperatures to punctuate.

I tell myself, "Get through this week, and things will get better, at least weather wise!" It's easier to keep that thought in mind because on Saturday, in France, two very elegant, lovely friends got married.  We couldn't be there, but they sent us photos.  O they are beautiful people inside, and so they are beautiful outside too.

 As for last week's tv, it was compelling, with some brilliant, brilliant characters -- particularly female characters -- and presentation.  However, I will confess that, while it was expected, the final episode was, honestly, disappointing.  It seems over 60% of we US voters feel the same about it.  Maybe next season we'll get our druthers?

'Tis the Holiday Season, Yes?

      . . . . El V walked out for three hours; I worked out at home.  Fairly soon, the winter will shorten these walks.  Not yet though; gonna be warmish again tomorrow, with a lot of rain and wind due the storm coming up out the South and the Gulf, which will bring a lot of snow and wind, They Say, west of us, all the way up into Maine. Thinking of making butternut squash soup for tomorrow as an antidote to the clammy feel of an all-day rain on the verge of December.

Schools Open! No Closed! No! Open -- Wait, Closed! Ooops, Open Again!  the mayor keeps playing covid-19 ping pong with NYC's public schools.

In yet another NY Public School volte face, tomorrow, de Blasio again declared Back to Physical School. He couldn’t maintain keeping restaurants, churches, gyms etc. open when he closed the schools. But all the shoggoth real estate gangs are his masters, so keeping bars and restaurants and big luxury shops open is what matters.

Keeping people from spreading the damned virus doesn't matter -- even when all the people who work in these shops and restaurants are sick -- then make the beyond over-worked, over-stretched, underpaid medical people sick, dead or burned out and just quitting. We’re up to the rates we were in May for cases, positives and hospitalizations, which will make a double, triple, quadruple leap when everyone comes back from Thanksgiving, They Say, as They have been warning since September and what happened with Labor Day.

This Thanksgiving week felt endless, not because one wasn't doing anything -- on the contrary. There is so much to do every day, and it never is finished, it seems. Which contributes to a sense of being driven, but without ever an end point gained, from when one can move to something else.  ... No finitum to be had?

Which is why people's dogs have become even more important to them? Dogs need to be walked several times a day, which does punctuate the day by getting out and moving, away from the endless procession of chores, work and other obligations.

Partly though this sense of never ending is due to the holiday $ea$on being ushered in -- the real e$tate emperor$ are determined the City is to $pend as it always has in re$taurant$ and $hopping and $ocialiazing.

Nevertheless, in the past, we have loved this annual interregnum in which we weren't so tightly tethered to deadlines and schedules, with instead a calendar marked with events social and relaxed – not professional. It was a bubble in the year, within which we sort of floated above the usual and mundane -- followed, since January 2015-2016, by Postmambo taking a group of Travelers to Cuba. But we are denied all of that  this year by way of a gang of evil thugs who have for four years sent an army to beat wrecking balls into the nation at every point as hard and completely as possible before January 20th, 2021, while keeping us imprisoned within a virulent pandemic and cynical changing the rules yet again -- de Blasio even, has nothing on their sorts.

Yes, I've begun watching BBC1- PBS’s The Rise of the Nazis, the political history of  Hitler and the nazi party take over Austria and Germany (there are serious criticisms as to both its talking heads and some of its claims). It happened very fast, which I hadn’t quite realized -- I thought it took about ten years. The very first lines of the first episode tell us "In 1930 Germany was democracy, had a free press and was recovering economically. Within four years all that was gone, and the first concentration camps had prisoners." We literally see blood and violence throwing up in the streets and people being herded at gunpoint out of their homes and jobs, taken away.

I kind of knew all this Before.  But prior to these last four years, never had this knowledge felt urgent, threatening and filled with the understanding that this is our last chance to turn back our own version, emerged out of what used to be the democracy of the United States of America, from setting the entire world on fire as on September 1st, 1939.

Yet, here we are, thinking o yes, tomorrow I can dash to Mille-Feuille and get one of 

their heavenly baguettes to go with the squash soup. Can there be greater cognitive dissonance than fear of white supremacist, anti-women, neo nazism in company with a pandemic determined upon the same evil, deliberately cruel, destruction of climate, economy, infrastructure and genocides of all kinds, with -- "O, I can get a genuine French baguette -- even croissants if I want -- made by genuine French people"?

Yes, our lives are generally surreal now, completed the day after Thanksgiving by an acre of evergreens set up as a Christmas Tree market on what had been the only uncolonized-by-restaurants sidewalk block within miles of us. All that's left of that now is a bare 8 inches for the pedestrian to squeeze through.

Thanksgiving TV Dinner

      . . . .The Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, "Pangs". from season 4, the Thanksgiving episode, of course.  Watched it last night after our really successful dinner a deux.  Moroccan Lamb Pilaf will have to become a permanent part of the meal repetoire.

“Pangs”  has been one of my favorite Buffy episodes all along.  It still remains very good – and, making it all the more pertinent watching this Thanksgiving, "Pangs" includes ‘plague.’ Or syphilis.  Something microbial that kills released by the Native sorcerer who was executed by Spaniards of California's Mission era. Of course the character infected is perennial butt, Xander. But it does get in history, which is another reason this has always been  one of my favorite episodes.

The episode gets in everything that people dream to be the Traditional Family Thanksgiving they want it to be, to how Thanksgiving generally works in reality, when it is family-centered: the insufferable instruction from the newly clued in kid home from college for the holiday, political arguments about history, while Mom, determined to save her perfect Thanksgiving with all the people at the table behaving just as she wants them to. Which means she manages to find a place for the unexpected guest but squeezes a place for that guest at the table anyway.

This is the Buffy family, so Things Untoward Happen. But what's always been most notable for me in this episode, which is ultimately about family, was who wasn’t present at this meal.  Riley, who’d gone home to Iowa for his Saturday Evening Post  cover traditional country Thanksgiving with great big family.

Thus it is equally notable as to who was there, for Buffy's Thanksgiving.   Spike – who had nothing to eat on this day of gorging.  But he was there, as he was even through the very end, and on into the Angel universe. Gads Marsters plays his character so very well throughout all his permutations.  What's even more impressive is at this time no one involved with the series could know there was a season 6, much less what was going to happen in season 6 -- or season 7.  To me this has been a turning point episode in the Buffy verse.

This is also, in spite of Big Matters, one of the funnier episodes, with Buffy as Mom who is going to have Thanksgiving as she pictures it or kill everyone trying, and Giles as reluctant Dad who has no choice but to go down before Bulldozer Thanksgiving Buffy.  Marsters contributes a great deal to the comedy.

I haven't watched any Buffy in years, but I easily could get sucked back into the Buffy verse.  I have the complete boxed set of seasons sitting right here, to hand, by the dvd player.

~~~~~~~~~

More new books arrived today. We are hunkered now, isolating as much as possible. Thus all the phone calls made and received from friends all over who are in the same situation were so precious.  We talked, we zoomed, we emailed.  We're all determined to make through to the other side.  So we all stayed home yesterday and ate by ourselves. 

Hotel Riviera la habana -- Valentine's Day!

     . . .  The flight from JFK to Jose Marti was longer than ever experienced, due to the continuing winds from Tuesday's storms.  We could feel the plane fighting for every bit of headway.  As well, as we began the approach to Cuba this became the most turbulent flight on a commercial flight I've ever experienced.

As the weather forecasts had predicted, it was overcast and coolish in Havana.  What the forecasts did not predict though, was a big rainstorm, which began a few moments after we got into the bus, about 2 PM and continued all through the night. It's still overcast today but it does look as though it is clearing.

The Hotel Riviera is located right on the Malecon; the way Mayer Lanskey had it designed, there is a view of the sea from every room, yet one cannot see the highway and the cars on it that runs along the Malecon.  The view of the plunging, surging, exploding fireworks of wave and water -- the "penetration of the sea" in Havana idiom -- is spectacular through the floor to ceiling windows of the palacial space lobby. Here are a variety of decks and patios and lounging areas, as well as a bar, and the entrances to what used to be the casino and the nightclub and cocktail lounges. All afternoon and night guests were avidly videoing the landscape.

It brought so many memories of me spending hours back in 1999 - 2000 trying to capture these scene, where waves break in a line like aerial bombing against the sea walls of the Malecon.  I walked past the Riviera at least once a day on the way to the market and only 'store' in Havana in those days.  Nor had the Riviera been restored then.  But I did attend music events and have drinks with friends here (Cubans were not allowed up into Cuban hotel rooms then, either.)

The Postmambo travelers arrive in a little while.  Two hours after they check in we will take the mob history tour of the Riviera, go on to la Salon Benny More at la Tropical, then dinner in the hotel at the restaurant L'Aiglon, and then move over to the Bar Elegante for our celebration of Valentine's Day concert by the wonderful Haydee Melendez -- who happens also to be a most elegant musician in her personal appearance as well as magnificently talented -- her father is the, by now, mythic singer - musician, Pablo Melendez.

In the meantime, wifi is hard to do.  Have to buy wifi cards from the the hotel to use in the hotel, and nothing else will work here -- which is another way the hotels get revenue of course.  But one can't use the cards in one's room -- no service -- which also mean one can only use battery power down here in the lobby -- nowhere to plug in.  Morever, a lot of sites, like my little DM friends site can't be reached from Cuba at all.  And for some reason, on this little notebook, the display of any kind of image is all wonky too.  So no posting of photos from here, it looks like.

But there ya, go.  This is Cuba.  If one came here to hang out online, one is a silly willy.  Yet -- if one is doing business, even business that is good for Cuba, it's a real pita.

Unlike last month in Oriente, tourism seems to be doing OK here in Havana, though none of the hotels are full.  I wonder if these giant dream houses built by US mafia lords and their confreres and friends ever were filled even in the halcyon days of Havana US tourism in the 1950's?  My guess is the only time every room in Havana was filled was when President Obama came here -- not even the Pope did that, surely.

Longest Nights, Joyous Nights - Solstice of Winter

     . . . .  The longest night of the year seems to have started yesterday afternoon, when the first rain began.

We've had heavy, heavy rain since late yesterday, though, thankfully, intermittently.  We had very high winds, though they too were intermittent in the City.  Lots of flooding, though not where we are.  But what this means is that I couldn't tell this was the longest night of the year.  It never got light to speak off, due to the winter storm, all day.  And now it is night again. Well, it was honestly night so early I didn't even notice, with rising to putting on electric light, and having it on all day.  However, unseasonably, the temperatures rose to just shy of 60°.  So el V went out and about from around noon on. As it turned out, the NYC subways continued to run and did not flood out.

Anyway, the FedEx package that was to be delivered today, with the visas of so many of us going to Oriente on the 2nd, arrived. The FedEx guy was wet, but triumphant.

I am really hoping the weather cooperates at 4AM January 2nd, unlike this past March, when a blizzard shut down JFK and we weren't able to go anywhere the day we were supposed to fly out.  Today the local airports were shut down . . . .

In the meantime, it's been dark for a very long time.  Ay-up.  The shortest day of the year. And all things are, hopefully, pointing to Christmas and New Year's with friends,  and thenm travel, with old friends and new ones!

Light, light, Solstice light, Christmas lights, New Year lights, 

Caribbean light, are my immediate future. 

AH -- I am hearing planes overhead, for the first time in a day and a half!

Falling To Winter: Politika, Health Care, Voting, Haiti

     . . . . Among my current reads is Steve Kornacki's The Red and the Blue: The 1990's and the Birth of Political Tribalism (2018), i.e. the politics of attack confrontation of everything all the time. Why yes, this was the strategy devised by the power hungry, boundlessly ambitious Newt Gingrich. 

It's interesting, infuriating and depressing to go back to these political eras that I've lived through, because we can't just start with Newt and Clinton. Reagan and Nixon and LBJ are in there too. It was with the coming of Reagan I immediately understood the backlash against all the streams of culture and political activism that had given me a life filled with interest and possibility that was never open to my mother. 

It was with the coming of Reagan I first understood that I had the immense great fortune to have born in that window of time in which women could have sex, even be pregnant, without stigma -- in fact a window in time which had never ever existed before in the history of the world, in which a woman could explore her sexual desires, wants, needs and pleasures without the anxiety of the nearly inevitable consequential pregnancy and / or arrest and poverty. It was obvious to me immediately that Reagan's Ilks, if not the man himself, had declared war on woman's reproductive rights = freedom and autonomy. 

Everyone with whom I talked about this laughed in my face. We had Roe v. Wade! We had contraception! Nothing could change now! I was a tin-foiled conspiracy propagating depressing denier of reality. Many of them never even bothered to vote. They didn't think politics mattered and they paid no attention to them as boring and creating depressing thoughts, and offending other people -- and themselves.

Since those days all these same female friends have come around to seeing what I saw then, and they keep sending me e-mails and texts to vote, to donate to candidates, to march, to demonstrate, to send protest messages to an infinite list of politicians in 'elected' or appointed office. They continually inform me of what I was pointing out back in 1982. 

     . . . .Voting is essential -- as it always has been. But it has become far more difficult than it used to be, just like getting medical appointments, or even finding a doctor and hospital within a reasonable distance from where one lives and / or works. In many places, like doctors, dentists, hospitals and supermarkets, voting sites have shut down and disappeared -- or have been repressed, purged, and downright denied. It can mean a whole day to go to where one should be registered to vote, vote, and come back again. If one has a job the employer will not like that, even if one has a job that affords a person access to transportation reliable enough to get the voting site and back again. 

In the very old days when I was a kid, election days were big deals in my rural community. In our part of the country, elections for county, state and federal seats meant driving to the county seat, which took at least an hour.  One dressed for 'going to town' instead of in one's daily work clothes. It was exciting because the voters were not only fulfilling their civic duty (and that voting was a civic duty, and the consequences of elections affected people personally, was something we were brought up with, like Jesus and getting good grades), but this was also an opportunity to socialize and shop. It was like a holiday but it wasn't a holiday. It was especially buzzy on rainy election days because one wouldn't be able to work outside anyway, so the men just stayed with their drinking buddies. So here it is, cold rain, and my dad gets to hang out in the afternoon having beers with friends in the bar. My mom is visiting with various church ladies (she was one herself), relatives and other friends, making more contacts in the county and state organizations to which she belonged, which led her at times to be elected herself president and secretary and treasurer of these organizations -- all giving standing in the community. 

All that seemed to stop in the 1970's, when so many institutions that were the bedrock centers of community life in these rural communities were closed, moved away, centralized, for greater efficiency and greater profit cost cutting.

During my mother's long dying in 1995-1996, more than once every week, they had to drive two hours to the hospital which treated her cancer. The county seat's own hospital had closed not too long after I was born there. The spanking new, brilliantly equipped facility, operated by the Roman Church, whose nurses and technicians predominately were nuns (though not all -- a friend's mom worked there), had opened across the river in the twin city. 

There was too, a smaller, modern hospital in the small town close to our farm.  But both the big brilliant hospital across the river from the county seat, and this smaller one providing close-by service to the community, had long been closed. Medical need meant leaving the county. This made treatment days for my mom even more difficult. 

These movements of service denial to the general public in less densely populated areas rolled big in the 1970's. They were pretty well consolidated by the 1990's. 

And now women in so many places in this nation can't find medical care at all anywhere remotely convenient to where they live. And even more women can't afford medical care at all either, much less insurance. Safe, reliable affordable contraception, pre-natal and post natal care -- how are they to get that?  At this moment of typing the rate of infant mortality and maternal mortality in the USA ranks shockingly high

I've been thinking about all this constantly while reading The Red and the Blue. Yah, I've been paying attention to them all along. And voting. I'll be voting Tuesday too. 

By far, very, very far, the best costume I saw in the context of the annual Village Halloween Parade was the African American gentleman impeccably dressed as President Lincoln, complete with authentic looking stovepipe hat and beard, who merely carried a sign that said, "#BlackLivesMatter -- Vote -- Abraham Lincoln."  Honestly? I teared up.

It's shockingly humid here today, the day el V returns from spending Halloween, le fet Gede and Day of the Dead in a week long celebration in Haiti.  The fet brought el V to talk at the national Cultural and Arts Center about the relationships between Haiti and New Orleans, and it brought a passel of New Orleans musicians (most of them long-time friends of el V too), including the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, to perform, to teach, and to collaborate with Haitian groups and musicians.  There was a reception and dinner at the residency of the US Haitian ambassador (a woman, appointed by Obama, who actually knows her job!).  Pres Hall led them all throughout residency in a second line. All week long, all week long ... such a wonderful time was had by all.

But el V's flight home has been delayed for an hour (the flight he took into Haiti -- to Cap Hatian, not to Port-au-Prince from whence he returns) was delayed for a whole day; he had to spend the night in Miami. So in comparison this isn't so bad. 

He'll be going back in March, leading a Postmambo Haitian Music seminar. It is going to be an incredibly beautiful trip.

And then there's here, and today.

What is interesting today, gloomy and threatening as it is, is that literally, within hours, from Day of the Dead to today, the greatest percentage of the trees in our neighborhood turned from glowing green, to glowing gold and scarlet.

The leaves will be gone by Thanksgiving, leaving the trees'graceful, lacy skeletons bare.

Winter's coming. But no white knights will be, to save us.  We shall have to save our nation and ourselves, ourselves. We must take back the vote!

Labor Day's Labors, Labor Day's Relaxation: Cat, Friends, Music, Politics, Books, Films

     . . . . El V spent all his day from getting up until evening, when we for our friends' brownstone uptown shrimp boil, doing the final edits for his and T.J. English's Havana Nocturne mob tour 

weekend in Havana, February 12 - February 16, 2019, based on T.J. book.  Youtube with information ---

     , , , , Myself, spent the day working on a mission statement for the offering to various special archives at universities and libraries of a brilliantly curated collection of recorded Latin music in excellent condition that goes back to the 1940's until now.  Hardly such thing exists in cultural institutions and universities as of this moment.  It's time, as the greats are shuffling off the mortal coil . . . .

     . . . . Uptown then, in the heat and humidity to see friends and eat!

The New Cat, who came this summer to chez Our Hosts, about nine months since Tom the Old Cat passed away, buried in the yard under a rose bush, was not to be seen. Cat's been trying out names ever since coming to the Jumel Terrace brownstone, but none have stuck. Cat is currently is sporting a multi-syllabled name, is one that I can't remember on hearing only once.

Shortly before people thought we should depart due to next day -- today, being a work day for us all -- the Cat Himself came down to check out the commotion.

He stood, a four-legged statue, looking at the strangers at his table, then winded his lithe way around us, into the kitchen, out again, and departed. Nothing here of interest, his tail communicated -- so Aby of him. His general confirmation and very short, smooth, sleek, shiny coat is that of an Abyssinian -- maybe my favorite flavor of feline. However! his coloration is pure bright orange tabby. Further he is a dactyl paw cat. Those huge feet on such slender legs are eye-catching in their own way.

As ever we had a wonderful time, which wasn't due particularly to most of us present knowing each other well, for numerous years either.  It was entirely, I am certain, due to Our Hosts.

There was much, spirited conversation around Aretha Franklin's funeral. C knew Aretha quite well, having designed stage costumes for her often. One of the guests had watched all nine hours of the broadcast +.  Among us, lots of speculation and / or blame for the Obamas not showing up at the funeral, though two of the  guests were inclined to cut him more slack than some others. The older people, including el V and a music writer had been to Aretha shows back into the day when she was touring her first album and successfully crossing into pop from Gospel.

Cuba was another major topic of conversation.

Other subjects involved aspects of the fashion industry -- one of the Guests of Palor has just published a big book on Yves St. Laurent, Loulou & Yves. He had a house outside of Avignon for 20 years, so we also talked about France and Provence, wine and history.

There was discussion of the Nixon-Cuomo Dem Governor nomination primary on the 13th. Everyone present is voting for Nixon, not expecting her to win. So all will hold noses and vote Cuomo in the election in November. But we are the sorts of Dem voters who truly dislike him -- dislike him vastly more than we ever came to disliking his father.

This led inevitably to Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman, Boots Riley and his beef with BlacKkKlansman (Spike made cops heroes against white supremacy and racism; both films feature black guys who talk white on the telephone). Some of don't give a damn what Riley claimed BlacKkKlansman was, nor did we agree with Riley -- we thought it was one of the most interesting films cinematically that Spike's done in while. The night we went with a group of friends, we talked about it, not necessarily agreeing, all through dinner, and then carried on a spirited e-mail discussion about it for a week. 

This led the conversation into effective political activism and organization, and, again, what losers the Dems are. However, Boots Riley's own new film, Sorry to Bother You, is a worthwhile watch too. It's about labor and capitalism as well as race. Boots has a lot to say about this worth paying attention to, and does so in an interview on Democracy Now (the entirety of the interview is well worth reading) that I hadn't thought about before, as to why political activism is no longer as effective as it used to be:

[  ". . . . And for too long, the left has gone away from class struggle. Right? We’ve gone away from class struggle in favor of spectacle, and hidden in the arts and academia. So, a lot of our biggest fights are sometimes about not what we’re saying, but how we’re saying it. And I agree how we’re saying things are important. It means, though, that we have to look at how the working class is talking and what they really mean, as opposed to just trying to adjust how people are talking, and making a movement around things that we can do something about, because then people have a real choice of what they want to get involved in. You know, it’s not that people don’t hear that story, for instance, and think it’s ridiculous, but, even me, I’m sitting here like, “OK, how do I—is this something I can do? Let me move on from this. Like, what”—you know, throwing up my hands. . . . " ]

We spoke of the fire that has destroyed the National Museum of Brazil, a catastrophic loss of 200 years of research into the history of Brasil, as well as multitude of irreplaceable world-class art objects from Europe and other parts of the world. Why did this happen? Corporate thugs refusing to finance maintenance. Speculation: did one of those thugs want the ground on which the museum was located? Don't put that past Brasilian corporate thugs, though the slashed funding making it impossible to maintain an effective fire system was enough to enable this calamity all by itself.

Outrage was expressed independently by one and all over the morning's news that the New Yorker had invited Steve Bannon as the headline attraction to next month's New Yorker Festival.  This led us to speak of Jimmy Breslin and what he would have said about this, and then Pete Hamill -- both great New York journalists who both wrote/write (Pete's still with us, thank goodness, unlike Jimmy) fiction as good as their journalism. These men, now, these men had EARS for how NYers of every class and heritage talked.

Ay-up, a gathering of NYers who discuss local news -- Aretha and Cuba are both local news, at least in this circle, and so is Brasil -- one of the group spends a lot of time there, collecting art.

Much Aretha music played, and much Cuban music too, with the emphasis on the boleros of the 1940's and 1950's.

The food, o the food, was spectacular.

How C always does this, makes such memorable experience out of what doesn't look like anything -- beyond cooking her ass off all day, of course. She is a spectacular Southern hostess with the very most. Martha Stewart should go hide in a cobwebbed cave in shame for calling herself a hostess.

Like the rest of us C's been way too busy this summer to do much recreational at all. She just got shut of a most hideous and miserable project. Collapsed for three days -- which she used to finish the last 200 pages of Slave Coast, which she discussed in detail with me -- is that an honor or what? But get-togethers at K and C's are always memorable in the very best ways. Well, there was the Thanksgiving when the dining table collapsed in slo-mo, which maybe wasn't the best way but it was spectacular and never fails to be remembered.

Now, teeth grinding for at least two months -- will a hurricane(s) hit or not? Will one get here like Sandy did? Will it destroy the rebuilding throughout the Caribbean and the Gulf from last year's hurricane catastrophes?

On the subway coming home, I gave out dollar bills to 7 separate desperate homeless people who asked for food or money because they were so hungry. Three of them were vets.  Yah, this nation is such a grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr8 superpower.

2018 Has Arrived + Super Moon + Resurrection: Ertugrul, Season 2

     . . . . There is no exclamation at the end of the subject line of this, the first post of the New Year.  This communicates a whole lot about how I am feeling about not only 2018, but all the future.

But nevermind! As, nevertheless, we were able to see out the old year, to which I never became accustomed, and bring in the new, in the midst of the other guests at one of the best New Year's Eves in memory.  It was the perfect blend of people, including a most welcome layer of French folks, who added delightful insights, continental flirts -- such language -- ooo la la -- as well as some French wine, cheese and other delicacies smuggled in their luggage for the occasion.

The Empire State Building is still the empress of the Manhattan skyline!

Our hostess's penthouse apartment has these enormous weather-proof windows in every room, providing a splendid four-directional view of Manhattan's light dancing high rises at midnight (the lighted upper reaches of these buildings changed colors in a glorious display via these new-fangled digital apps, that these days can be controlled now by the building's operator via his iphone).  I dreamed about the lighted buildings dancing together all night long.  Or, well, at least the amount of night was left when we got to bed. When I woke up kept thinking about the party and appreciating it all more.  Which doesn't always happen with parties in general and New Year's parties particularly!

Bryant Park Fountain -- I did not take this photo! It's from Time Out Magazine.

And, of course, 2018 was ushered in for several days already by this huge blaze of deep freezing cold that blanked so much of the East Coast, New England, the Midwest and the whole northern expanse of the country.  Some Say that this cold may last as long as three weeks in many places, and in many places include snow storms.  I do know that for where we live this cold is expected to remain until about the middle of next week. 

Cienfuegos,  a/k/a la Perla del Sur (Pearl of the South) ,one of the places we'll be stopping.  It's one of Cuba's prettiest cities, and has, seen here, its own very pretty Malecon.  Not everywhere we are going is this charming, but all of them will be equally deep culturally.  The Cienfuegos area was originally settled by Tainos.  I think . . . Cienfuegos is going to be the highlight for me of this Central Cuba trip.

This freezing cold provides a lot of incentive to begin packing today for Havana and the exploration of Central Cuba, for whereh we depart early Thursday. Daytime temperatures are generally going to be in the 80's (cooler after dark). 

Currently, however, I am wrapped, swathed and layered in wool and cashmere, from feet to neck.  Even with the heat going full blast in here, it remains cold.

I must be doing something right, having enjoyed such friends last night and today packing for a warmer clime, though darned if I know what I could have done right to be this fortunate.  I wish our country was as fortunate as I am.

Also -- tonight's a Super Moon.

Huevos rancheros -- yah, I go make some now!  

Ertugrul often talks to his horse.  Alas, in season two, his horse (her name begins At --- but I can never catch all of it) is now talked to by the grief-prostrated, pregnant Halime, whom due to the jealous, scheming betrayers of Ertugrul's uncle's nomad tent, with whom the survivors of the Kayi nomad tend have taken refuge, believes her husband is dead.

Guess which one is the Hero Ertugrul and which one is the orc Mongol.

Next I'mma gonna make some more hot herbal tea, wrap up some more, put up the feets for a bit and watch another episode of season two, Resurrection: Ertugrul, that incredible, endless Turkish series of the 13th century origins of the Osmans and the Ottoman Turks.  Much of this is an historical fictional retelling and even invention of mythological origins of the Osmans, which makes it all the more interesting in some ways.  There is a great deal of actual history in this series, in terms of certain geo-political actions and events.  But Ertugrul's tale is likely far more mythology and fiction than history.

This 02/09/2015 article from the Asian Affairs Journal / Weblog provides an excellent background - overview to this series, which began in 2015, and by now is in its 4th season, I believe.

Whichever season though, Ertugrul is outnumbered, outspent and out schemed by the cruel, dishonest and dishonorable enemies.  The Big Bad of Season 1 was the leaders of the local Knights Templar fortress.  In season two it's the cruel, dishonest and dishonorable Mongols, who had already forced Ertugrul's Kayi nomad tent to leave Central Asia due to their blood thirsty ways, and now are threatening them and all Islam in this region.

Halime Hatun and Ertugrul.

Whichever, an historical hero or a mythical one -- Ertugrul just can't catch a break.  He at least was able to finally marry his adored Gazelle Eyes, Halime, at the conclusion of the first season.  But in the very first episode, his Kayi tribe's nomad tent is destroyed by Mongols, along with all their possessions and wealth, and many of their people, particularly the women and children are slaughtered.  And he was away from the tribe when this happens, getting ambushed by the Mongols, and finally defeated and captured, because he was the only one of his small group they wanted alive. 

This is because the Mongol Noya (general) has planned to or has been ordered to (I couldn't quite follow this) co-opt Ertugrul's loyalty and warrior talent for the sake of the sons of Genghis and their campaign of  conquest of Anatolia and all Turks wherever they may be (and everyone else too, of course).  Moreover, we learn that Ertugrul's older brother who we were told all through the 76 episodes of season one had been ambushed and killed by a Mongolian raid -- is alive-O! and has been fighting for the Mongols all these years. The price of his refusal is the horrible, prolonged deaths of his wife, Halime Hatun and all the remaining members of his family.

This has all been a grand Mongolian strategy for easy conquest of Anatolia, from the destruction of the Kayis's nomad tent, to the capture of Ertugrul, to the corruption of members of Ertugrul's mother's brother's tribe.  We learn all this very quickly at the very beginning of season 2.

There are betrayals and treason everywhere for Ertugrul, his Hero Alps, his family and his nomad tribe -- not to mention horrendous torture. These are nazis Mongols after all. 

It's going to take 79 episodes to learn what happens, and I've only watched six.  This will help take care of 2018, one would think.

'Tis The Day Before Christmas!

     . . . . It's impossible to feel this is Christmas Eve.  Somehow, all natural philosophies are contradicted when Christmas Eve and Sunday are the same day.

Such befuddlement I am feeling, despite having been doing Christmas activities non-stop for days and days.

This is also befuddling as we have no plans for either today or tomorrow, beyond a lunch today with an old friend.  We are looking forward to just hanging out, cooking (again, me, with the cooking!) and listening to music and reading our giftie books.

Badge - logo of the Institute of Postmambo Studies. "Open your ear and hear the word, the law the important matter."

This befuddlement is particularly so (at least for me, who tends toward introversion) as we leave for our Postmambo Studies' Central Cuba trip right after the New Year, which means spending almost all waking hours in company of many others.  Such wonderful people (again!) are going to be on this deep dive into the culture and history of this region, seldom visited by non-Cubans.  There's a lot of vodun in this region as well as in the east.  This came via Haitians migrating to work in this region's sugar industry late in the 19th century -- in contrast to the Haitians who arrived in the orientale via French slaveowners fleeing the Haitian Revolution with their 'property.'

But then, planning the extended stay in Cuba is complicated, complex, and lengthy.  At the moment thinking of clothes that are right for Cuba seems impossible as it is clothes for cold and freezing are in the forefront of my mind. No wonder befuddlement.

Our dear friend who lives across the street has either a super cold or flu (both he and el V are such he-men they can't be bothered with flu shots, o no!).  So I made huge batch of chicken - tortilla - chili soup, cooked up a bunch of rice and, with some packages of Hermosa non-GMO corn tortillas, sent that over via el V.  It was exactly the right thing, the thing he needed right now.  

Yesterday it was all rain. 

By later tonight and Christmas Day we are to get more rain, which may well turn to snow, even here. Lots of snow north of us, of course, with these two winter storm systems converging.
Flights in and out of NYC were already being delayed yesterday.

Among what we are looking forward to this coming week is the anniversary party for Robert Farris Thompson, on the occasion of celebrating the first publication of his still unsurpassed and brilliant and essential work, Flash of the Spirit, first published in 1983.  (I read it first in 1990 -- and met Bob in 1992.)

Master T -- as he has long been affectionately known at Yale -- in 2010.  Several of the Cuban Postmambo travelers have taken his courses while they were at Yale.  So what comes around keeps coming around -- and shows the quality of the average Postmambo traveler!

We are told that by tomorrow the temperatures will plunge into deep winter.  These deep freeze is forecast (but who knows?) to last at least through our departure date to Havana.  Never fear -- we have the technology to survive, lovely comfy sweaters, beautiful opera length cashmere mitts, faux fox fur boa, faux fur coat, beautiful knee high boots.  

We are looking forward to reading Tolkien's translation of the splendid Christmas tale,  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight aloud to each other tonight. 

But, in the meantime, it is Christmas, all the time!

Xalapa Siete - Hangin' with los Muertos

     . . . . Our official work is concluded, so we're trying to relax and see as much of this city and state as we can before leaving.

This is the weekend before el día de los muertos (November 1), which is in full swing festivities aleady, making traffic worse, but making every blink of the eye filled with something interesting and fun. Even so, last night, after all the long day of Slave Coast events, I fell out and slept for nearly 12 hours last night.  When last did I do that when not sick?

But awesome el V, after a 45 minute nap, went to work, reviewing essays of his NYU students, and then attended Donald Harrison Jazz Symphony, with himself and his group playing with the Xalapa Symphony Orchestra.  Then, he went to the reception afterwards.  He got in about 1:30 AM.  I never heard him, even though I'd been sleeping for hours already by then.

So much has happened, and so much continues to happen, all this, running in parallel with the city's ever intensifying Day of the Dead celebrations. 

Today is cool and a little rainy. El V and I went to a Day of the Dead tamale festival, where I found cool regalos for mis amigas, including lots of items made out of chocolate (which grows here, btw) and are formed into images that roll with el dia de los muertos. Since I get back Monday, I will be able to give them out on Halloween, most appropriately.  There were many groups of dancers and bands from all over, performing, one after another, including some splendid flamanco, one of my favorite forms of dance - music.  This is going on everywhere!  Actually, it feels like the week of Mardi Gras in New Orleans.  Donald thinks so, and he ought to know.

  

El V bought local artisan cervezas.  He also ate several different tamales -- and then we went to lunch with Donald and the guys.

Tonight there's a very large Day of the Dead parade, that passes right by our Hotel Clara Luna, so I have a spectacular view of it from the second floor window overlooking the street. 

Tomorrow we are going to meet with an historian and anthropologist, whose study is the African cultures in the state of Veracruz.  She is the aunt of one of the tremendously talented volunteer organizers who has been herding all the gatos who are the talent of the festival. (Like everyone else doing the actual work, she hasn't slept in days, so I feel a real wimp-fool for my 12 hours fall out last night. El V is particularly excited as Dr. Sagrario Cruz-Carretero is very famous at the CUNY Grad Center among our anthro friends there.  He says, "How envious they will be when we tell them!"

I have uploaded yesterday's and today's photos, but I'm too tired right now to post any of them. But they are colorful!

Ooo, I am hearing the squeals, yells and screams from the people in the street already as the parade begins!  And now I hear the bands!