On Doing Things Right Four or Five Times (Sister Rosetta Tharpe)

The discovery of this swinging video is the result of thinking about James Baldwin. He has a novel, Just Above My Head, whose title naturally makes one want to look at Sister Rosetta Tharpe, that great, possibly rock guitarist. My favorite YouTube comment of all time is on her Strange Things Happening Every Day. “If … More On Doing Things Right Four or Five Times (Sister Rosetta Tharpe)

Adrienne Rich

I am becoming myself again at long last; I can feel my life flowing back to me. On the radio they are discussing managing your (musical) career “as though it were a work of art itself” and I like the concept. * I am still reading Working It Out which is a really epoch making … More Adrienne Rich

Stimpson, Stevens

Catharine R. Stimpson (Working It Out 71-76) was raised to work, not to be supported as we were a generation later – “after the war,” as it was said.Her picture of herself as as a worker “was that of an angel: wings and body of fire; shooting toward heaven, at once desperate and choreographed; longing … More Stimpson, Stevens

Hazel-Eyed Girl

The Mississippi River is cresting, and the waterways are full. There is so much water that the usual brown color is tinged with green. The water is flowing by, as opposed to inching in crocodile stillness as it sometimes does. It runs and jumps over the spillways in little white jets. Axé.

Evelyn Fox Keller

In the late 1950s Evelyn Fox Keller, then a PhD student, was the object of a rather successful demoralization campaign in the Department of Physics at Harvard University (Working It Out, 77-91). Why she was admitted to the program if her abilities were not in fact trusted is a fair question whose answer, I wager, … More Evelyn Fox Keller

Gustave Flaubert

Research for the present, frivolous post led me to a marvelous quotation: “Do you know the sum total of my ambition? It’s to have an intelligent, well-read man shut himself up with my book for four hours and to give him an orgy of historical hashish. That’s all I want.” –GF, January 1860 (apud Henri … More Gustave Flaubert

Peligro

The latest newsletter of the LFT: Fiscal insanity grips legislature In a breathtaking display of fiscal irresponsibility, lawmakers have advanced three separate bills that would abolish the state’s corporate and personal income taxes, leaving multi-billion dollar gaps in future budgets. The House Ways and means Committee approved: HB 634 by Rep. Hunter Greene, (R-Baton Rouge), … More Peligro