Chevalier - Not Recommended

     . . . Chevalier was a great disappointment for many reasons.  Its fast and loose playing with the known facts of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges's biography, and of history even -- Marie Antoinette did not give him his title, that was Louis XV -- are only the beginning.

It's such a shame that this man, who I first learned of via reading letters of (later to be President) John Adams, who was so accomplished, who did so very many important things, just starting with music composition and musicianship, was reduced to an affair with an aristo.

 He is the most accomplished Man in Europe in Riding, Shooting, Fencing, Dancing, Music. He will hit a button on the Coat or Waistcoat of the Masters. He will hit a Crown Piece in the Air with a Pistol Ball.

 Recall, that among his many achievements, he successfully led an all-black regiment in the French army -- until, Napoleon erased all Black people of achievement from their positions and out of history, particularly those of military achievement, not least, Alexandre Dumas's father. 

La légion de Saint-George

This film is the equivalent of making a film of the life of Frederick Douglass, and reducing everything he did and created to the single matter that he married a white woman.

Additionally, thereby, the filmmakers chose to navigate precariously closely those waters on which sail a mainstay of porn, the enslaved black stud and the white lady.

I am not the only person to feel this way.  For a single example our (Black, Haitian) friend who is a symphony orchestra director, composer and conductor, who has been conducting performances of the Chevalier's music in many cities, just HATES this film.  He, like el V, is particularly outraged by the cutting game between the Chevalier and Mozart that opens the film -- this is something Blues musicians only began, here, in the USA.  As per usual, movies, particularly made by Americans, cannot imagine a Black experience that isn't African American.  Moreover, it seems that the two composer/musicians were friends, not rivals, with Mozart even living in the Chevalier's house for a short time. But then, movies/tv very, very, VERY seldom know who and what musicians -- or artists generally -- are -- musicians particularly.  Really, as Joseph and Amadeus were about the same age, it is far more likely they joyed to make music together than tried to cut each other down.  Musicians really like to do that, you know?

The positive for the film is several really fine female actors with juicy roles, even though the characters' depictions are either utterly fantasy or historically wrong for the time -- or non-existent. The exception to this might be the Chevalier's mother. 

However, if only inadvertently, the above does point to the essential truth of  success in which Napoleon was tutored by those who survived both the Revolution and the Terror, into the Directorate, that in France, "Women are politics."  Alas one of the ways this point is made is the filmmakers claim that Marie Antoinette was the reason there was a French Revolution.

Chevalier!

    . . . .  In advance of Chevalier's opening on the 21st, we've been given the passwords to private streaming next Tuesday. We had the choice of watching in a screening theater, or streaming.  Another wish come true. Ha!

Experimenting with Fones - They Are Called Smart But They are Very Stupid

      . . . . Written on my fone.  Sort of. It's hard figuring out how to get the type size right.  Among other things. And figure out what it will look like on a different screen than a fone screen. So after this paragraph, I gave up, and posted from my desktop.

In the meantime, it's cold and dismal here, as it has been for a while, but it isn't raining today, which is an improvement, but still not a delight.  What also isn't delightful is attempting to revive my small travel laptop, which was on its last legs before the pandemic locked us all down.  But I can't write on either the tablet or fone -- I tried to write and post via the tablet earlier this month, but it didn't work. But I didn't have time to just hang out alone anyway.  But it will be different this time as we will be there earlier than the Travellers and depart later, as el V pulls things together beforehand such as, read a bit further below, and be sure everybody has been paid, etc. afterwards.  Nothing for me to be bothering my head with.

Trying to wrap the mind around going to New Orleans again, not tomorrow, but the next Sunday. The actual Postmambo "For the Funk of It" is February 1st - 5th -- people go home the 6th, so I shall have down time, solitary time, for a couple of days before and after the Travellers arrive and when they depart. 

The kick-off "For the Funk of It" is in the Louisiana State Bank building,

which Benjamin Latrobe was working on, before he died of Yellow Fever in 1823.   Recall, Latrobe was the architect of the Washington D.C.
 
We will have dinner in the courtyard first, then there will be a concert in the whispering gallery, a short, original piece, designed for a single performance, essentially composed by the Haitian director/conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of Loyola University, Dr. Jean Montès. El V and Jean bonded almost immediately upon sight.  The music, instruments and vocals will be provided by a small group that includes members of the transplanted Haitian group, Ram.  El V's going to conduct, because directly after the rehearsal on Monday, Jean has to fly to Charleston, S.C. to direct a concert of the music of -- the Chevalier de Saint-Georges! Nobody knows what that music actually sounded like. That transplanted Haitian, Jean, is conducting the Charleston concert is all the more interesting.  Like Jean, like the group, Ram, the Chevalier was a mixed race fellow, born in the French Caribbean -- Guadeloupe (which is fascinating as I had the privilege of learning back in the last decade).  Like the Chevalier too, Jean and Ram had to leave the French Caribbean due to political and racial violence.

As the film, Chevalier, released in September at a Canadian festival last year, dramatizes, Saint-Georges was a  flamboyant figure: a gallant, a swordsperson, a spy, and soldier, as well as gifted musical artist.  The film will be released here in the US in April.  Alas, I'll probably not see it, as I'm still not going to movie theaters.

So Much Happens On The Weekend

       . . . .  At the Friday evening start of the weekend, one can learn one is going to Spain for two weeks in March: Madrid, Toledo, Sevilla, Granada, Cordoba and Cadiz.  We are going with another couple, one half of which is the director-son of Arturo O'Farrill's Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, which is all about performing, and who is the head of the Board of Arturo O'Ferrillo's Afro-Latin Jazz Alliance, which is all about schools, teaching, training and bringing up young performers, outreach into the communities and the communities that may not know about them or the musics. 

Ha! You didn't think going to Spain was vacation did you?  No, this is prospecting Afro-Latin groups and musicians in Spain, for alliance and performance.  The Board also voted yes to ally with Postmambo Seminars, in order to do Postmambo Gotham next summer.  Thus, as one does, Friday night we went to the best Spanish restaurant in the area to celebrate with dinner and one of the wonderful wines that we don't find anywhere else here, certainly not in the wine stores.

The next day, el Vaquero said he wasn't feeling so good, which is fairly usual for him when waking up.  Yet he researched, chose the itinerary, and booked the flights and purchased the tickets. We did the usual Saturday night of him making pasta while listening to Phil Schaap on WKCR, which began long before Phil died. (WKCR runs the recorded shows Phil made over the decades in the same time slot every week.)

Sunday he felt worse, tested, and o yes, positive for Covid.  I was negative. I called his primary, who fortunately, being Chinese, has his office open on Sundays.  Got a script for Pax called into the pharmacy, which I picked up. He fell asleep for almost the entire afternoon

He took the first Pax dose at dinner time. By 10 - 11 at night, the light fever he had was gone.  By 3 AM Monday, the cough was too.  I finally fell asleep.  Sunday was a nasty day for me, afraid as I've been all along about what will happen if we get covid, particularly since we have no way to isolate in this this tiny apartment. We have to sleep together.  We wear masks, even in bed, particularly in bed.  I keep a big bank of pillows between us so he cannot do what he always does in his sleep turn over and put his arms around me.

Yesterday was nearly normal in behaviors, other than what one doesn't do, being positive, and living with someone positive, even though one is still testing negative.  Which means, of course quarantining. Also we wear masks, both us, in this tiny apartment, which is inconvenient, shall we say.  But then we're not Cubans, who are without electricity, covered with mosquitoes, have no water, no food, and do have covid, malaria and dengue.  Eff my inconvenience and slight discomforts.

Darling B brought us cornbread and left outside the door. Via fone he inquired what we needed, so he could bring it to us. But we don't need anything, not even milk, as I have a stash of Parmalat, and plenty of tea, etc.  El V and B agreed that any army that me as quartermaster would be having a good deal -- Always prepared! they said.  Ha! 

Today he doesn't feel in the least bit sick.  The test is a thin faint orange line. I am again negative.

But whatever. We aren't going anywhere or seeing anyone until at least 5 days after he's negative, and if I continue to test negative, not anywhere for 2-3 days after that, just in case.  I have canceled my dental appointment for next Monday.  Sigh.  But maybe I'll get another one before NO at the start of February.  It was a check-up/cleaning, not for An Issue, thank goodness. We also called the restaurant so our server could be warned.

He has been socializing/musiking a lot in the last weeks, though last week he didn't do anything at all, except Thursday night, he did go out to hear Cuban and New Orleans friends/musicians play.  That's the most likely site of infection, but, of course, one cannot know.

Let's face it -- we both were careless.  We'd been in one our city's brief interregnums of Covid, where the numbers had fallen so far, and hospitalizations were hardly happening for Covid. Then all anyone talked about was children with flu and RSV filling up the hospitals. But if one digged, one learned, which I had learned, there was no part of the city that wasn't classified as 'High or Severe Risk for Covid.' The numbers are alarming -- the governor's been talking about reinstating masks (she won't). The numbers started slowly rising with Comic Con, the Holy Days, so before Thanksgiving they were going rapidly up, and now there's the World Cup -- and next weekend that horror show called Santa Con -- all of these are super spreader situations, year after year. We really should have known better than going to a crowded restaurant where nobody masks except some of the basement Mexican staff.

O, there was something else that happened on Saturday.  Our internet failed.  Turned out it is because our wire from outside has suffered rain damage. It must be replaced, which means getting a time when the building's office will open access to the roof so the provider's technicians can replace it.  In the meantime a temp fix, with new modem.  But we may have to revert as we did until that temp fix to using the provider's outside hotspot, which means no secured internet. 

But let me close with this, which I am finally going to visit, since having the desire to do pricked about age 10, seeing the color plates of it in the set of Lands and Peoples, that went along with the other sets of books, as for Science and so on, that came with the purchase my parents made when I was six of the Books of Knowledge.  One has to reserve tickets months ahead of time, so now is the moment to do that.

New Year's 1987 CBGBs

 

     . . . . From Celia Noel, on twitter:

"That's me with Ned Sublette, Kenny Kosek and Jeff Myers at the iconic CBGB’s! #Flashback to New Year’s Eve 1987, what a night! #Sandunga #CBGBs"

They played "Ghost Riders In the Sky" as the lead-up to the midnight count-down.  I take pride in suggesting that tune. It became a staple of the band.

Warm and Woolly September

      . . . . Ay-up, in the 80's, fuerza sunshine.  Of course this is the day to trek to REI and buy serious wool sox, and hit the shops on Broadway for cashmere sweaters. To balance this out, my personal air conditioning unit is arriving tomorrow.  I'll continue to have use for this for at least another three weeks, I suppose.

     . . . . .Other significant news: CNN reports that as of today, 1 in 500 people in the US have died of Covid.

~~~~~~~~~ Books

Some serious reading has arrived in la casa, because people send us books. 

Just today we received Libros Y Grabaos De Artistas Cubanas: 1985-2008, the catalog for the exhibit held in a different world, held at the Museum of Modern Art, and funded by the Grolier Club of Manhattan. It's a beautiful volume, splendidly fabricated, with equally beautiful content.

Illuminating antiquity, somebody I don't even know -- though I do know his name, I've never met the person -- sent me a copy of the massive, annotated, mapped, appendiced and encyclopedic indexed The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories (2007), edited by Robert B. Strassler.  It's so big it's too heavy to hold. It has to rest on a lap desk or some other support. A reference resource. I have read Herodotus's Histories -- or at least read widely in them. The Polish journalist, Ryszard Kapuściński has read them all, many times.  He annotates Herodotus with his own book, Travels with Herodotus (2004) which focuses on a lifetime of reading Herodotus on the road, studying and reporting. He never traveled without the Histories. Even if one isn't familiar with or care about Herodotus, as with all of Kapuściński's writing it well worth reading, because so goo.

Now for the busy, busy 19th Century.

The title is unfortunate because it make the book sound like a Victorian sensationalist 'true crime' tale, when The Irish Assassins: Conspiracy, Revenge, and the Phoenix Park Murders That Stunned Victorian England (2021) by Julie Kavangh, is a serious work of history. In Serbia it was the Black Hand, the open-secret society that funded and planned the assassination of Duke Ferdinand and his wife in 1914.  Here in 1882, it's the Irish American funded, Invincibles, the militant arm of the Irish Independence Movement. At the moment when talks between the Movement and the British government were making headway, the day after Gladstone's emissary, Lord Frederick Cavendish arrives, he and the Irish undersecretary, Thomas Burke, are assassinated by the Invincible in Dublin's Phoenix Park.

The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politic (2021) by Mae Ngai, traces the anti-Chinese racism in the gold fields around the world 1848-1899. It was remarkably the same in South Africa and Australia as it was in California.

People still buy our books. We just heard a school in New Orleans is purchasing two hundred copies of The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square. In the meantime, most of New Orleans's power was restored by the end of last week, but not so out there in Cajun Country.  People we know have organized a truck convoy to take supplies to Thibodeaux and Houma. With our contribution I requested sanitary supplies in various sizes be included. People, even when women are part of the organizing and planning, tend to forget this necessity.

~~~~~~~~~~~ Watching

Tomorrow Postmambo Movie Night presents The Rumba Kings, followed by a conversation with filmmaker Alan Brain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~My Favorite Thing This Week (so far)

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, at Monday night's Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala (part 1), in a borrowed dress from her designer girlfriend and 'escort':

The meta and the irony of this.  So much reading one can do -- "I don't really care - do you?"  That one has never attended any Met Costume gala!

 

Watcha Lookin' At?

     . . . . The other night I was still sleepless* at 3:30 AM.  So -- Highlander (1986).

Set in the then contemporary NYC of the mid-1980's, and very early 15th century Scotland.

* Could the sleeplessness be caused by seemingly SUDDEN shock of actually doing things Outside in all sorts of venues, and SEEING people, socially and professionally, Face to Actual Face in the Real World?  It did seem as though we were continuing with pandemic life of quiet, solitude and distance and then it was like Wait! Bang!  We're back!  Sort of back anyway. We continue masking indoors and in crowded situations.  But with the warm > hot > HOT weather and out-of-town visitors and well, just wooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! We've been vaccinated for nearly two months and so have just about everyone else we know, well, it's like we finally recognized what FULLY VACCINATED means, and have believed in it. And we are BUSY.

Too, I have dear friends who are gravely ill. 

And one of my email accounts got hacked (fixed in about 3 hours thanks to el V -- what do people without an el V do when these things happen? -- among other matters that might be keeping me awake.

There is good news too. Evidently the distilled white vinegar was more than effective in ridding my computer desk of an attempted invasion by very teeny tiny brown ants.

Cuba's own vaccine is now approved.  They expect to have all of Havana fully vaccinated by the end of August.  Probably sooner in the country and the less densely populated areas!  Plus both universities that wanted Postmambo to do projects in Havana in 01/2021, have confirmed to do them in 01/2022.

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

I saw this movie once before, long ago, maybe at a revival house, when we still had the vestiges of such things? This is quite an historical era artifact, as it encapsulates pop culture aspects of the mid-late 1980's, early 1990's. This is particularly clear with the choice made as to where and when the film opens, at  one of those fake, costume wrestling nights at Madison Square Garden. The days of Jesse Ventura "the Body" -- who went on in the '90's to get himself elected governor of Minnesota (which seems to have taught the voters nothing).

That this film experience is going to be more than a bit bonkers is indicated by the music choices alone: “New York, New York” lyrics sung by Frank Sinatra, as part of the soundtrack, is a Highlander running joke. 1985-6 isn't that long since the 1977 Blackout and NYC’s 1975 bankruptcy crisis, so the City’s still damned raw. We’re in Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976), not Scorsese’s New York, New York (1977). The mise en scéne is full out punk era, with the Big Bad Kurgen antagonist channeling the theatrics of Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious and Iggy Pop, plus the tagged background in so many of the scenes.

But for sheer delirium, we’ve got as primary sound track continuity, World Wide Wrestling’s fave, Queen, and its fusion of Freddie Mercury’s glam rock, heavy metal and loads of other sorts of rock and other musical forms too.

What this mid-1980’s New York City soundtrack pointedly does not have, is Black and Brown. There is no Salsa, no Boogaloo, no Black music, not even HipHop, about to birth a subgenre of its own, Gangsta Rap, despite 1986 being the peak year of HipHop's pop culture golden age. Despite the omnipresent tagged scenery, despite the brief appearance of a single Black immortal, whom the Kurgan takes out, naturally, Highlander’s New York City is as White as you can get.

In the movie's favor, the landscapes and crowds of the16th century scenes in Scotland were filmed live action, not cgi pretense thrown up against a blank mud blue screen.  So those scenes have that reality intense quotient now too that we miss so much in what action superhero franchise flix have devolved into.

However, none of this conceals the fact, no matter how often the first installment has been edited, this movie is deliriously bonkers. It’s astonishing actually, how this movie make no sense whatsoever, which is probably part of its appeal, particularly at age 15, when nothing makes sense anyway. Movies like this weren’t as common in 1986. By now though, mixed tone and genre are the norm . Russell Mulcahy, Highlander’s director, came out of music videos. MTV Channel had hit in 1981 (“video killed the radio star’), so again, if one was 15, there was a sensibility here that would likely be working for ya, or at least forming an imprint of expectation.

Which is the only reason that can explain why something this badly done was able to become a franchise, throwing off one after another even worse movie in this "There Can Be Only One universe."

What a thrilling experience this movie must have been for a kid in those days (those who saw it  – box office didn’t make back investment), anywhere in the range of 11 - 20 range maybe? What could compete with that opening sequence that concludes with the most prolonged, explosive, largest ejaculation ever experienced in the history of the planet -- no wonder it is called "the Quickening." 

Sidebar:

Way back, sometime after 2003 but before 2010, I watched via dvd some of the 6 seasons of the Highlander tv series (1992-98) spun off from the movie. Which naturally did not carry the same electric excitement and interest of the movie. But there was a lot more emphasis on romance in the series, which tv audiences loved. In the UK this was kids’ stuff, but in the US the audience was adults.

Influenced by: MTV (1981) – Music videos, murky lighting, fast cuts w/o continuity worries (see also, alas HBO GOT); 

every melodrama, every movie ever made with the girl screaming while men duke it out, plus, you know, King Kong -- the girl in the pitcha is there to scream; the self-conscious snark of The Terminator (1984), tying up the screamer to the logo sign of Silvercup Studios, home to NYC's largest film and tv production studio, etc.

Influences on: Outlander (1991); Buffy – the Chosen One, and via the Highlander tv series – multiple potential immortals.

 

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.

I Do Believe The Groundhog Is Correct

      . . . .   Pennsylvania's Punxsutawney Phil came out of his burrow at Gobbler's Knob and saw his shadow, predicting six more weeks of winter. 

Out There has all the signs of another 6 weeks of this winter to go.  At least.  It's still snowing.  Or raining.  Or both.  Something is still falling out of the sky t 7 PM Tuesday!

The last I heard, back around 9 AM this morning, is that Central Park had registered at least 17.2 inches.  But I don't know how much really fell by now, as it got to be very wet stuff, which is heavy, so compacts.

We have another snow dropper rolling up for around Friday, but maybe not a blizzard?

Nevertheless yesterday and today were quite pleasant.  It's not that we did anything different, just that we knew there was no point, no point at all, in even trying to do anything outside.  So we didn't have to do that anxious gearing up to Go Out, calculating masks, timing, etc., and now all the clothes and gear we have to take with us Out, to be safe for ourselves and others.  I even let go the biography of Confucious that I've been wanting forever, and the library finally got for me.  I was to pick it up yesterday or today, and just cannot.  O wait!  I just went to the website, and they've extended the pickup to Friday!

The best part of yesterday was that el V was able to make art -- his own art.  Junior Mance, the great jazz piano artist has died.  He did a video shoot out of the window in the back in the storm yesterday, and then set it to music he had done with Junior way back in 1996.  The week they recorded this, was one right after a major blizzard too. The cut el V chose is "The Wind in the Willows": lyrics by Lawrence Weiner; piano, Junior Mance; vocals and guitar, el V.

The music video is very beautiful.  Today el V's so calm.  It's been so long since he's been able to do work like this.  Work, with no objective than to do something beautiful and true.

Cuba! Second Line Meets Conga Line! Havana Jazz Festival 2020

     . . . . Yay, Our Vaquero -- who had so much to do with making this Cuban Jazz - New Orleans Jazz celebration happen!*

New Orleans and Cuban musicians join in Havana’s annual jazz festival, defying Trump’s efforts to weaken US-Cuba relations

https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2020/jan/16/conga-and-carnival-havanas-jazz-festival-in-pictures

Additional coverage here 

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/01/15/arts/15reuters-cuba-usa.html?

But dayem, even a nonby-lined Reuters report has to stick in the by now irrelevant designation "communist run Cuba." Shame on them.

... The visiting New Orleans musicians said they were frustrated it was so hard to come to Communist-run Cuba due to President Donald Trump's tightening of restrictions on U.S. travel to the Caribbean's largest island.
That tightening has hurt Cuba's tourism industry - one of the ailing economy's top earners of hard currency - that had benefited from a brief U.S.-Cuban detente between 2014 and 2016 under Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama.

"Americans love Cuba, they will always want to come, so different restrictions frustrate us just as much as it frustrates you guys," said Hubbard....**

~~~~~~~~~
*  Vaquero is in Havana right now, after leading Tierras Segrada (Sacred Ground), a religious culture and music experience, much of it far out in the country, with 3 - 4 events every day. For the rest of the month he's teaching an annual NYU music course there, which deliberately is scheduled to occur concurrently with the annual Havana Jazz Festival.  He did an enormous amount of work, along with some others, to make this Cuban - New Orleans musicians and groups come together as part of the Festival.  Yesterday he did a presentation in Spanish discussing the long connection musically and historically -- and economically then too -- between New Orleans and Cuba.

New Orleans is just sizzling these days with brilliant Caribbean musical adventure and cultural innovation.  New Orleans, Cuba and Haiti have truly become a cultural and artistic triangle.  New Orleans is where there is the greatest scope for Americans to experience this.

We / Postmambo are leading a music, culture, vodun and food New Orleans and Cajun Louisiana trip in March.  So many Frequent Rumberos / Postmambo Travelers are signed up, including people who actually live in New Orleans or have second homes there, or go there all the time anyway.  That's what has to be called endorsement of the Postmambo experience, right?

**   The regime basically has killed Postmambo in Cuba, thereby destroying much of our livelihood, but we're planning for 2020-20021, because, you know, we / all of us absolutely have to!  So many people's way of making a living, so many small businesses like ours, have been destroyed by Them.

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.