In Baltimore, Tomorrow

From el V:

Attention Baltimoreans!


Ned Sublette + Madison Smartt Bell, Sunday night (May Day! May Day!) at 7 pm, Cyclops Books + Music, 30 West North Ave. at Maryland (next to
Windup Space and catty-corner from Joe2.)


I will be reading from "The Year Before the Flood" and singing songs
from the forthcoming album "Kiss You Down South."

It Was Good!

Last night was about as perfect a spring evening and night as you could get. El V's performance was one of his very best, I think. OTOH, his voice and his performances do just keep improving, so this is probably merely normal musician-performance momentum.


The audience was wonderful, and as diverse as an audience can be here. The audiences down here really 'get' him in every way. Last night was about as perfect a spring evening and night as you could get. El V's performance was one of his very best, I think. OTOH, his voice and his performances do just keep improving, so this is probably merely normal musician-performance momentum.

Also, the audience was wonderful. The audiences down here really get him in every way. There's something for everybody who makes up these audiences too, in his songs and his books.

I do admit shamelessly to enjoy chatting with the people who seek me out to specifically say how much they enjoy coming to his events because of -- and I quote one woman in particular here -- "he's such a gifted, multi-talent artist and a brilliant, formidable intellect." This sort of thing said by people who hold copies of his books and cds.

Then, of course, then, I would enjoy that, wouldn’t I! Also, enjoying the praise given to my partner is part of the job description, isn't it -- otherwise, you know, why bother?

Historical Breakfast

With Peter Wood, author of the ground-breaking, trail blazing Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (1973).

We can't make his lecture Thursday night because we're doing the same for the county historical society and museum annual dinner and dance. So getting to hang out this morning mattered. He's coming to el V's musical performance tonight though, so we'll see him again before he leaves.

HBO *Treme* - Season 2 - Ep 1

Fantastic.

Gads that cutting back-and-forth between NO and NYC ... yes!

Pitch perfect, every detail right and correct.

Treme is a costumbrista; some describe this hispanic form as concerned with a romanticization of the culturally ephemeral. Now New Orleans is fantastic, but it is not fantasy -- not a romance. Nor is it ephemeral. New Orleans is in cyclic, wheel time, not arrow time. Once something happens, it keeps on happening. But the attention to every cultural detail of particular time and place, getting it perfect, within the story/stories being told, that is costumbrismo.

This seems even more so, as the founding hispanic element, so long overlaid by the Anglo and the French, has re-emerged since the Failure of the Levees, and Treme is showing its return ... the wheel has turned again.

Shivers, shivers, shivers.

Another ex-Con: *Jonah Hex* (2010)

Friend Felipe informed me that Jonah’s an ex-confed too. Thus, I watched.
More than loosely adapted from the DC comic.

A cross of western occult steampunk, alternate Civil War History, and the Sergio Leone good, bad and ugly westerns. Also a bit reminiscent of Scorsese's Civil War film, The Gangs of New York because of Turnbull's psychopathic Irish sidekick (Michael Fassbender).

For the occult, we have magical Indians’ magic (the one and only black person in the film is not magical this time) to return JH (Josh Brolin) from the deathly realms, but not all his parts returned, so he if he touches a dead person he can speak with him, and learn what the dead know (how very Kongo!). He’s accompanied by crow/s, who do, what? for him. Horse, his horse, is loyal and communicative. The second time he nearly dies he acquires a magical dog (from where? why?) who brings the magical Indians to resurrect him again.

The steampunk comes in as the big ass Rube Goldberg weapon which is a giant six shooter revolver, crossed with a bowling ball alley (designed by Eli Whitney!), with which Turnbull (John Malkovich) plans to destroy D.C. on the centennial of Independence. Therefore we know this is 1876.

Carry-over qualities from The Virginian: the whore with heart of gold (Lilah, played by Megan Fox), who loves the protag, and the horse (Horse), that loves him too.

“You were no real Confederate. You wasn’t no sesech. You didn’t believe in slavery either. You just didn’t like the government tellin’ you what to do.”  So says the one and only black character in the movie, to Jonah Hex, in order we understand that Josh Brolin is a hero, not a villain. However, it is never said what it was that the government was telling Jonah Hex to do that he didn’t like being told. (Government forces him later to be conscripted back into military service at the command of President Grant, to find Turnbull. But the war is over, and JH wants to find Turnbull for his vengeance, his only reason for living, which is why wise President Grant gives the command (at least the flick presents Grant as a competent, sober, effective POTUS). Wait, JH isn't really living, is he?)

Felipe responded "The black storekeeper who certifies Jonah as "not a racist" but a man philosophically dedicated to "freedom" is the icing on the cake. Just in time for the 150th anniversary! Such an amazing coincidence."

Only good lines:
“He’s dead, Hex."
"I’ll have a word with him all the same."

Town O' Robins

As mentioned previously I've never seen such large robins, so many robins at one time in one place as down here in C'town on the Eastern Shore. Here is one of them, clicked two Sunday afternoons ago ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

April Sunday Squirrel In the Pink `````````````````````````````````

April C'town Sunday Study in Red ............................

Early April Ivies Entwine Sunday C'town ===================
 

Evidence of Bird Brain Observed In the Field

I cut up an apple that had been sitting in the refrigerator for months and scattered the pieces in the backyard. A bird grabbed a piece of apple and instead of grabbing their own pieces of apple, the other birds chased around after the first bird.

Also, the bumbles, the biggest I've ever seen, longer than my thumb.  The yard is buzzing.

Our backyard this morning ~~~~~~~~~