Archive for April, 2002

Day of Rest

April 29, 2002

Man did it get hot on Sunday! The crowds weren’t as bad (except for Wynton Marsalis on the Congo Square stage), but the sun was just plain brutal. I was too tired to even put up a cursory list of touchstones last night but here’s the rundown:

  • large rosemint tea, unsweetened
  • Li’l Buck Blues Band with guest Jerry McCain (Blues tent)
  • small sausage bread
  • Charivari (Fais Do Do stage)
  • Dove bar
  • Continental Drifters (SprintPCS stage)
  • large mandarin orange tea, sweetened w/honey
  • Kevin Naquin & the Ossum Playboys (Fais Do Do stage)
  • Cheikh Lo of Senegal (Congo Square stage)
  • softshell crab po’boy
  • Wynton Marsalis (Congo Square stage)
  • New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars (Fais Do Do stage)
  • crawfish sushi roll
  • Wynton Marsalis interview (Heritage stage)
  • Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, feat. The Count Basie Orchestra w/ special guest Patti Austin (Jazz tent)
  • Dimensions of Faith (Gospel tent)
  • Elvin Bishop (Blues tent)

Big Spiderback

April 27, 2002

Got separated from B and friends on the way in and couldn’t get back together till the rendezvous at 5. Lesson: Always have a backup plan. Again, more flesh on the bones when there’s time:

  • small gumbo
  • large rosemint tea, unsweetened
  • D.L. Menard & the Louisiana Aces (Fais Do-Do stage)
  • small oyster po’boy
  • Sunpie Barnes & the Louisiana Sunspots (Congo Square stage)
  • large popcorn shrimp
  • Matt Lemmier’s Tribute to Stevie Wonder, feat. Brian Blade, Leah Chase & George French (Jazz tent)
  • James Burton interview w/ Scott Jordan (Heritage stage)
  • Kenny Neal w/ special guest Deborah Coleman (Blues tent)
  • Peter Martin (Jazz tent)
  • James Burton w/ Kenny Bill Stinson &ampl the ARK/LA Mystics (Fais Do-Do stage)
  • pink lemonade sno-ball
  • Astral Project (Jazz tent)
  • Sam Butera & the Wildest (Economy Hall tent)
  • small crawfish sausage po’boy
  • Egg Yolk Jubille (Lagniappe stage)
  • small mandarin orange tea, unsweetened
  • Wayne Shorter Quartet, feat. Brian Blade, John Patitucci & Danilo Perez (Jazz tent)

Jazz Fess, Day One

April 26, 2002

I’ll flesh this out later…

  • soft-shell crab po’boy
  • Red Stick Ramblers (B’s favorite of the day)
  • rosemint tea
  • Savoy Doucet Cajun Band
  • John Rankin
  • contemporary crafts
  • fried seafood salad
  • iced cafe au lait w/ beignets
  • Bonerama (trombone jazz-fusion, my favorite of the day)
  • Quintology
  • mandarin orange tea
  • String Cheese Incident (two songs)
  • back to Quintology
  • David Murray Creole II featuring Guy Konket & Klod Kiavue
  • large crawfish monica
  • Ladysmith Black Mambazo

One Soft-Shell Crab Po'Boy, Please

April 24, 2002

Expect to see only occasional updates here for the next week. I’m off on my annual pilgrimage to New Orleans for the first weekend of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
Music, food, sun, and did I mention food?

Battery Power Low

April 23, 2002

If not plugged in, this brain will go to sleep in a few minutes to preserve the contents of memory

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa

April 22, 2002

Finally got a chance to see the complete cut of “The Saragossa Manuscript” on DVD on Sunday, a beautiful twisted black-and-white film from 1965 by a Polish director based on an 18th century novel by a Polish count in French about a manuscript in Spain and roughly eight to thirteen levels of stories-within-stories, depending on how you count them. Hints of David Lynch, skulls and crows, Milorad Pavic, Borges, and all that other good hyper- meta- spooky weirdness. I recommend it!Some good links about the movie:

Every day is Earth Day

April 22, 2002

Been on this planet so long I’ve started to take it for granted. Sitting out in the backyard this past weekend, trying to get over this hacking cold, trying not to think about the remaining deadlines on my book, trying to get organized for our trip to New Orleans, admiring the roses blooming all around me, the cold but bright and sunny weather. What is there to complan about?

Officially Spring

April 20, 2002

My hammock is up.

Empty Cup (Only Love Can Fill)

April 19, 2002

thinks get crystal clear in the crucible. why we seek out the edge? let holes be holes. remember wittgenstein’s bootprints in the snow, that soldier he was cruising? the hole fills itself, it is the ability to be filled that is the hole.

I Am Who IM

April 18, 2002

xian: boo hoo – i feel crummy
b: i’m sorry, baby–did you get your medication?
xian: yes, finally, and the bleach
xian: how are you feeling?
b: are you in for the day now?
xian: i think so, yes.
xian: just keeping up with my work will keep me busy at least till you get home
b: I’m feeling ok. I took some advil this morning so the scratchy eye feeling is muted and drip is minimal. I don’t really feel sick–just the usual sinus effect
xian: yeah, i think when the advil and the antihistamine kick in i may feel much better. i felt ok yesterday when medicated
xian: “First, I saw Halle Berry try to cry at the Oscars. For the longest time, I could not put my finger on why she looked so weird emoting up there on the podium. But then I realized that her forehead and eyebrows did not seem to be folding or crinkling one bit despite her tears. And that’s when it hit me: Botox. “
b: would someone so young really use Botox?
b: I just saw a snippet of an article in yesterday’s Chron (Bay Area section) that was about the murder of a jazz percussionist “who accompanied jazz greats and jammed with members of the
xian: yeah, i heard about that guy, strange name, somethingsphere?
xian: i know he jammed with grisman, and maybe mickey hart?
b: Grateful Dead…” but couldn’t see the rest of the article
b: you don’t know who it was?
xian: there must be 10,000 musicians in the bay area and the u.s. who “jammed with members of the grateful dead” at some point in the last 35 years
xian: his name wasn’t familiar to me, but i saw it on my mailing lists (MPs, Zero list) and on the Well (posted by silberman)
b: i thought it might be just a hook for the article
xian: well, i think it’s like what jumps out from the resume or the friend talking as the journalist is taking notes, and then what is considered newsworthy
xian: like the local angle
xian: or that old far side cartoon where a bird newscaster announces that a plane crashed and details the number of birds that were killed (sucked into the engine)
b: i just wrote a note to EB about trying to get a date sometime in early May–does she know about the layoff?
xian: it’s not much of a hook, though, and it may not be fair to the guy’s memory. do you want to see airto’s obit start with the fact that he jammed with the Dead?
xian: i think it told her at her opening?
xian: it=O
xian: O=I
b: it may depend on what newspaper is running the article–around here the hook is always Dead
xian: hey, i just invented a cyclops smiley by mistake O=|
xian: yeah, and it’s sort of like a false positive sometimes
xian: my eye can pick out the word grateful from anywhere on a page
xian: and when i was writing my Internet books, i sometimes misread the word internment
xian: my eustachian tubes are still plugged but the antihistamine has dried me up (water…), and the advil has elevated my mood somehow.
b: good ol’ mood enhancers
xian: is advil supposed to do that?
xian: or maybe antiinflammatory has happy as a side effect?
b: actually, i find that advil depresses me over time (and is a mild soporific so good for bedtime)
b: decongestant is the upper
b: like chili mole
xian: but i took the decongestant hours ago and by itself it did not bring me up!
xian: also, talking to dr. whitmore last time i was sick?
b: i just noticed that the dead guy lived in San Leandro–remind me we never want to live there
xian: she made it clear to me that you can oversimplify what each of these drugs do. like the decongestant does not just open the nasal passages and the antihistamine does not just stop the runny nose, itchiness, and other sympotms…
xian: i don’t even like st. leander
b: who he?
b: then there’s oly ander
xian: no idea but hte name leander is weakthe decongestant also stops the runny nose, i guess because fewer white blood cells needed to deal with the inflamamtion? anyway, my point is it’s all yin/yangily interswirled
xian: and oh! atlanta, by little feat, i say yea, hey, yeah at – lan -ta got to dooby dooby do