Don't Panic! Bossa Nova Instead.

I know what you are saying, "But Uncle Patrick I have no idea where to begin!"

Fear not, for I have a way to ease you into Bossa Nova: Bebel Gilberto's Tanto Tempo. She covers quite a few bossa nova standards, using very smooth arrangements. One can quite easily sit and relax listening to her. And before you know it, you'll be swinging your hips with the best of 'em.

And let's not overlook the classic Getz/Gilberto. How can you go wrong with Astrud Gilberto singing "The Girl From Ipanema"? I spent one glorious afternoon a few years ago driving a Spider along the Big Sur and listening to this album. I was so hip, I could hardly stand it. You can be hip too!

And as long as we can produce music like this, I think we're going to be ok.

Alas, Mr. Whedon

I read the first issue of Astonishing X-Men last night. In my opinion, Mr. Whedon succeeded in part and failed in part.

There are hints that he might do something interesting with Emma Frost and Kitty Pride. He spends a lot of his time showing us aspects of these characters: Kitty pride was late to an important meeting; Emma Frost frightened her students with a computer hologram of a dreaded enemy in order to prove a point. But they are the characters most susceptible to change. They are relatively minor characters and most readers will tolerate variations. And by bringing Kitty Pride back into the comic, Mr. Whedon plays to his strength. He’s proven that he’s good at creating strong and interesting female characters and we see some of that with Kitty. I have never been terribly impressed with Kitty but I like the voice Mr. Whedon is developing for her. I also like the idea that Emma Frost, despite a recent defection from the “dark side”, still plays hard ball. There are hints of conflict in her relationship with Cyclops and I have more faith in Mr. Whedon’s ability to portray this sort of tension than many other comic writers.

But Wolverine and Cyclops are still the same characters they were twenty years ago. They exhibit the same characteristics, they rehash the same conflicts. Mr. Whedon did very little to change that. This is the biggest missed opportunity. I hoped to see Mr. Whedon take a page from Firefly and create a dynamic between these characters much like the one between Jayne and the Captain. I didn’t see that happen. I could have seen the same scene in a Chris Claremont book from 1983.

And there was little plot development at all in this issue. The heroes get together and talk. Someone claims to have found a cure for mutations (!) and some dude crashes a party. That’s pretty much it. Again, I hoped for more. Comics suffer from “decompression” these days, telling a story in five issues what once took twenty five pages to complete (with origins for both the good guys and the bad guys thrown in for good measure). I guess this trend can be attributed to the trade paperback phenomenon, where each monthly issue is merely a single chapter in a larger story that will be collected and repackaged at some later date. I have no problem with a larger story arc – it rewards loyal readers and gives the writer more room to tell a complex story. But I had hoped to see a return to an earlier approach to comic books, where a series of shorter tales add up to a larger plot. Mr Whedon did this so well in Buffy’s early seasons but he gives it a pass here.

However, I acknowledge that this is the trend in comics and I must accept it if I want to continue to enjoy the medium. I also acknowledge that Mr. Whedon had only twenty five pages or so to strut his stuff. Although I am saddened by the missed opportunities, I will continue to read the comic in order to see how he develops this story.

Wonderfalls DVD

It appears that another Tim Minear TV show will get the Firefly treatment. All 13 episodes of Wonderfalls may be released on DVD late this year. More details here. I don't believe Fox aired all 13 episodes, so there will be plenty of cool, new stuff to watch.

Perhaps a movie will follow.

Warm Tones and Whedon

I am curently listening to Mary Fahl's The Other Side of Time. Hers was the rich alto-contralto voice that gave the band The October Project its unique, warm sound. The songs on her solo album are hit-and-miss for me (although when they are good, they are very good)but with that voice, she can't miss.

Speaking of great female vocalists, I am quite taken with Cassandra Wilson too. Her cover of "Wichita Lineman" (on the belly of the sun CD) is haunting. Her arrangements of pop tunes are a great introduction to jazz vocals.

And if you are desperate for some electronica with your Farsi, you can't go wrong with Ekova. Really interesting stuff.

Mr. Whedon's Astonishing X-Men hits shelves today. I realize that I've posted a several entries related to this project but I am ambivalent about the whole thing. Although I used to be a fan of the X-Men back in my misspent youth, I lost my taste for the soap opera that the comic became under Chris Claremont. I admit that I've never been impressed with the Wolverine character, either. And Mr. Whedon's last foray into comics (Fray) was less than impressive. But I think he is one of the best screen writers in the business and I like to think that he can take those skills and translate them into interesting comics. I will pick up a copy today and see what happens.

Colonial House

In my opinion, the best reality show is on PBS: Colonial House. Participants spend four months in a simulated New England colony circa 1628, during which time they attempt to keep alive and generate revenue for the colonial company back home in England. I find the series fascinating not just for the historical stuff but as an exercise in group dynamics.

Although these people are constantly surrounded by cameras, they adapted to their new "primitive" circumstances readily enough. Several people were designated "indentured servants" (presumably by the program's producers) and assigned families to work for. One fellow (a Baptist minister from Waco) was appointed the governor for the colony. It is instructive to see how easily the people at both extremes in this mini-society assumed their roles. The servants soon called the families they worked for "masters", without even a self-conscious twinge. The governor began running things in no time at all. Of course, I am not sure if this is indicative of some larger sociological phenomena or simply a group of people getting into the spirit of the project and role-playing as best they can. But it is nonetheless very interesting to watch this dynamic in action.

There is one couple who just don't seem to get it. They work hard enough, to be sure (and it looks like very hard work). But they can't wrap their heads around the very different social expectations in a 17th century colony. The women have no political rights and are not involved in the men's discussions. The indentured servants have no rights at all. Everyone is expected to attend Sabbath services on Sunday. The couple are not religious and refuse to attend Sabbath, even though such an act would have had dire social consequences. The wife is constantly bickering about the fact that she has no rights (although it is interesting to see how the women influence events in other ways). They seem to be making things more difficult than it has to be because they are not getting into the spirit of the thing. Come to think of it, that is how a lot of teenagers behave!

"Honey, I'm going to be making those big comic book dollars."

Here's an interview with Joss Whedon. There are pop-up ads. He talks about writing an X-Men comic book and filming Serenity, the Firefly movie.

More later.

Monster Hunters, Minimalism and More

My wife and I watched Van Helsingon Friday night. It stank. The dialogue was wooden, the plot goofy, the backstory hard to follow. I will give it this much: I haven't seen a better werewolf on screen (or anywhere). The CGI Mr. Hyde was pretty good too and more closely resembles the Mr. Hyde from Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen than the one in the movie of that same name.

Van Helsing did remind me of the classic Universal monster movies I loved as a kid. When I was growing up, a local Oklahoma City television station aired a "Mystery Theater" on Sunday afternoons and I paid rapt attention to the classics: Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Dracula, and The House of Frankenstein. These films did not age well but they fired my imagination. A few years ago, I learned that Phillip Glass composed a new score for the original Dracula and I picked up a copy of the CD. The score is a series of short, evocative string quartets that inspire the same feelings I had when I was a kid watching the films. I highly recommend it.

In other news, I learned recently that the 3rd season of Alias will be out on DVD in September. Check out the link here [link via Various and Sundry]. My wife and I are big fans of the show but we have only experienced it on DVD. We prefer the show in that format because it allows us to indulge in immediate gratification (so we don't have to wait a week to learn what happens next). We made a consious decision to wait until the 3rd season comes out on DVD, so this is going to be a difficult wait for us.

A note from Management

I posted a new entry this morning that began as a draft yesterday morning. I must admit to ignorance about the intricacies of blog posting: when the post went live, it appears a few entries down the page not at the top of the page. Presumably, the system still thought it was yesterday morning and placed the entry on the page accordingly.

If you are interested in my thoughts about the Angel finale (and who isn't?), this please scroll down a few entries.

Here's a fun little exercise for those of you who read the article I linked to below:

Pretend that Mr. Lucas decided to play his strengths and act only as producer of the first three episodes of his Star Wars series. He approaches you for the job of writing and directing the films. List three major changes you would make to the films. I'll start to give you an example of what I mean:

1. I would start Annakin as a young man (say 16) instead of as a child;
2. I would create a love-triangle between Annakin, Amidala and Obi-Wan; and
3. I would keep Darth Maul alive through the third episode.

Your turn! Post your ideas in the "comments" section!

Lucas the Hutt

I've been swamped at work, so this post is a little late (and a little short). I plan on a long post tomorrow to make up for it.

In the meantime, here's an article about Star Wars, Episode III.

I think Lucas is a great producer. This is evident in his ability to organize a large organization and direct it to execute a singular vision. But he is a lame director. And a lamer writer.

See you tomorrow!

"I want to fight the dragon."

I am pretty swamped at work, so I brought my English Beat CD to play while I toil away the hours. Fun stuff that takes me back to days when I was funkier (and skinnier).

My wife and I watched the Angel series finale Wednesday night. I am sorry to see it go. It was one of the few TV shows I enjoyed. Many of Mutant Enemy's excellent writers are now off to other shows (such as Alias and Gilmore Girls), so we will be able to catch bits and pieces of that ol' black magic, but I think it will be a while before we see the likes of it again.

I think the finale made the best of a bad situation but the result was not very satisfying. Wesley's death is the best example of the weaknesses in this past season. I should mention that, although Wesley was one of my favorite characters (second only to Cordelia), I have no problem with the fact that the show's creators killed him off. I have a problem with the manner of his death.

First: he died confronting a villain I cared very little about. The show introduced the evil wizard only two weeks ago. We do not see him being particularly evil, nothing he does hits close to home. We acknowledge that he is evil because we are told that he is evil. I suspect this is because the show's creators didn't know they needed him until the last minute, when the decision to cancel the series became final. They wanted some Big Bads for the heroes to vanquish and shoehorned the wizard into the series to fit the bill. Unfortunately, the result was not very convincing. Wesley deserved a better villain than that.

This problem is a great example of a larger problem with this last season. The show's creators were good about designing an over-all plot for each season. The formulae was simple but appropriate for the genre: a major villain makes trouble and must be defeated by the heroes. The villains were often very effective ones and their schemes hit close to home and inflicted major damage. The villains also exemplified the major obstacle to realizing the theme of the season ("power corrupts" for example). The best examples of the use of the formulae can be found in the early seasons of Buffy: Adam, the Mayor, Angel himself. As the heroes struggled against the villain, they learned more about themselves and became stronger themselves.

There wasn't much of that this season. One presumes that the law firm was meant to be the "Big Bad" but its threat was never properly defined, its actions too diffused to hit close to home. I think the show's creators realized this when they introduced the "Circle of the Black Thorn" in the last few episodes of the show and it various powerful and evil members. But it was too little, too late to give the show its needed focus.

Second: Wesley is a sorcerer but I have never seen him use the magic fireballs he throws around in his death scene. His magic came from books, ritual and fetishes. He was not adverse to using knives, swords or guns. He was also supposed to be smart: if he had the ability to throw fire, he'd have done so much earlier. And seeing that they had little effect on his opponent, the Wesley from previous seasons would have pulled out a gun and shot the wizard down. Or use that cool tool he used to keep hidden up his sleeve.

I will say that I had no problem with his last request to see Fred again. He was always a fool for love and spending the last seconds of his life indulging in the lie that his last true love was still alive and cared for him was a decision entirely in character for him. That moment was the only part of his death scene that was consistent with the excellent character development that hallmarks Mr. Whedon's series. I wish there had been more of that this season.

Despite my problems with this past season, I will miss the series. I will miss the effective use of plot, theme and characterization. When it was good, it was very good. And there precious little of that on television.

News From Abroad

Back by popular demand, I replaced the link to a blog written by an Iraqi living in Iraq. You can find it on the "Links" list on the right-hand side of the page.

I also urge you to check out "Dervala", the blog written by an Irish expatriate living in New York. She doesn't post every day but when she does it is often very interesting.

Links for Everyday Living

Unsure of your future? Try the Nostradamus Quatrain Generator!

Have you ever thought to yourself: "Gee, I wish I could write like H.P. Lovecraft"? Now you can, with The Lovecraft Engine!

That is all.

Links via Mumpsimus.

There's no such thing as a Sanity Clause

My wife and I watched two Marx Bros. movies over the past week or so: A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races. Both were filmed at MGM under the watchful gaze of producer of Irving Thalberg. According to the documentaries that accompany the new DVD editions, it was Thalberg who masterminded the (arguably) best movies the Marx Bros. ever made. The contract negotiations between Chico (pronounced "Chick-O" by the way) and Groucho in A Night at the Opera are among the best I've seen and should be a model for lawyers everywhere.

One story I will relate concerning the relationship between Thalberg and the Bros.: one day the Bros were scheduled to meet Thalberg at his office one afternoon. Thanlberg was late to the meeting. When he arrived at his office, he discovered that the Bros. were naked and roasting potatoes in his fireplace (one version of the story I've heard includes the fact that Thalberg's secretary was tied up and gagged too). Thalberg was never late to a meeting with them again.

This anarchic spirit is never more evident than in these movies. And the jokes and gags serve a larger plot, a practice more comedies should observe. Thalberg should be given credit for giving the Bros. a focus for their comedy; in fact, he should be made an honorary Marx. Brother.

"Does it have to be astonishing every month?"

Click here to read about Joss("Firefly" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer")Whedon's new day job. There are some pop-up ads, unfortunately. [hat tip: Franklin's Findings 2.0]

Link-O-Rama

My next recommendation is another jazz CD: Django Rhinehardt's Djangology. He was a gypsy guitarist with few peers, with an accessible swing style. His partner in crime, Stephanne Grappeli, and their band, The Hot Club du France, absorbed American jazz styles and reconfigured them as string quintet compositions (did you notice that I have snuck in two more recommendations?). Of course, all most people need to know is that this music makes you feel good.

I have decided that the next book I tackle will be Rick Atkinson's An Army At Dawn. This chronicles the Second World War in North Africa and was highly recommended. I'll let you know what I think when I'm done.

In other news, I sent the first forty pages (or so) of a rough draft to several unwitting victims - er, I mean friends. I am writing a young adult fantasy novel and I've struggled through a few drafts already, trying to figure out where I am going with it. I think I've finally seized upon the concepts I like and I have developed several characters who can go the distance. Of course, that's what I think. We shall see if it survives first contact with the enemy.

Same Song, Second Verse: Uncle Patrick Knows What's Best for You

This album might restore your reputation as someone with taste: Fountains of Wayne Welcome Interstate Managers. I have several friends who work for Dell and I think of them every time I hear this album. Listen to it (especially track #2) and you'll know what I mean.

I have decided to put Mr. Stephenson's book Quicksilver away. Again. In theory, I should love this book. It has science and swashbuckling action (two great tastes that taste great together). I have enjoyed the author's previous work. But I can't seem to get into it. And at over 900 pages, my life is too short to struggle with this book when my reading time is so limited. Does this make me a bad person?

Uncle Patrick Tells You What To Listen To

Here is some music to fill that void in your life you weren't aware you had: The Very Best of Fats Waller. Mr. Waller is a great surprise to me: not only was he an amazing piano player but he wrote some very funny songs.

And For My Next Trick, I'll Make Her Disappear

And when she is not helping me fight crime, my assistant Stephanie is the guitarist in the punk/pop band The Huff Rally. I have one of their demo CDs and it sounds pretty cool. It reminds me of my misspent youth (*shudder*). However, I am baffled that she doesn't find filing and correcting my spelling to be artistically fulfilling.

If you don't like this blog, wait a minute

As you doubtless noticed, I changed the look of this blog by selecting a new template. I may change it again without notice.

You see, I am learning html as I go. I take advantage of the ability to see the code behind these templates to learn new stuff about it. I recently learned that I can look at the source code of web sites I visit too, which shows you how little I know about it. If anyone can recommend a good book on html, please pass the info on!

I want to take this opportunity to thank my Dad for his help with my new interest. He came to the house a few weeks ago and gave me a tutorial on designing sites using Apache, html and php. He designed his own site recently, using php, and he is the sort to really take to a project like that and master it. I must admit that he overwhelmed me with detail but I have something to work with now. Thanks, Dad!

I will add my links shortly, with some new ones.

Casino Royale

In between all of the eating and the music, I managed to squeeze in Ian Flemming's Casino Royale. I won't reveal the plot (for the benefit of the handful of people out there who still read), save to say that it is NOTHING like the awful David Niven/Peter Sellers movie.

I did note a few things that I thought I'd mention. The book is a wonderful example of concise, economic writing. At only 180 pages, give or take, the book tells its story and leaves the building. Mr. Flemming gives the reader only what he needs to know and leaves the rest to the imagination. Being a longtime fan of Elmore Leonard and Graham Greene, I marvel at this technique when it is done well. And, as I plod my way through 800+ pages of Quicksilver (thanks a lot, Eric), I find that I appreciate concise writing more and more.

The Bond in this story is different than the one I know from the films. In the movies, Bond is nearly all-powerful. He knows exactly what to do in any situation. He kills with ease and efficiency. The women love him.

The women still love him. But in the book he is known primarily for his skill at cards, which is why he is given the assignment that provides the plot to the story. It is true that he has a "00" rating, and one earns that distinction for killing people, but he has only killed two people before the book begins and he had help. Although his skill at cards and - more aptly - his knowledge of odds is considerable, the game relies enough on luck that he is not guaranteed a win. A lot of things happen to Bond in this story and he is powerless to prevent them. He really goes through the ringer in this one.

This story is also a product of its time. The Cold War is in full swing and all of the characters wear scars from WWII. Bond is a chauvanist and a cad to the female lead. The French are pretty cool and the Americans (represented in a cameo by Felix, the CIA man) dutifully supply the money and discreetly fade away.

If Quentin Tarantino does make this picture, I hope this is the story he uses. I realize that it may be too much to ask that the picture be faithful to the book or even be faithful to the story's time and place. But I think it would inject much needed credibilty back into the franchise.

I want to mention that I also read a book entitled Resume with Monsters over the weekend. It is a quick read about a hapless temp worker who runs afoul of Lovecraftian cults that operate within giant corporations. And it takes place in Austin. The author plays this story straight, and it is suitably creepy and trippy in the right places, but it is also quite funny and has more than a few barbs for modern coporate life. Thanks, Justin!

A Cold Day in New Orleans

I didn't think such a thing was possible but Sunday was a chilly day. Neither my wife nor I prepared for it and we shivered during the last day of Jazz Fest. She ended up buying a shawl to wrap herself in. I imagine many of the craft booths did a brisk business in indian blankets and the like. I did the manly thing and quietly endured.

There were plenty of distractions. We consulted our Jazz Fest spirit guide (cleverly disguised as my brother-in-law, complete with koozie on a string) and determined that we would get to each performance a few minutes before it was scheduled to begin and leave a few minutes before it ended. In this way, we were sure of getting good seats. We began with Hugh Masekela in the jazz tent. I was disappointed with his performance: he sounded flat to my amatuer ears and he cracked notes. Nevertheless, we stuck it out until after his signature tune ("Grazin' in the Grass"). We quietly ducked out in order to catch Wyclef Jean at the Congo Square stage. Our friends, who stayed for Mr. Masekela's entire performance, told us later that he really improved and the rest of his set was really great. Oh well.

Wyclef Jean was an interesting experience. I only know him through his association with the Fugees and I had never seen a live rap concert so I was curious to see what kind of set he put together. His back-up band consisted of drums, bass, keyboards and a DJ. I had expected pre-recorded tracks and a DJ. He also picked up a guitar himself and played it for a few tunes and engaged in a tete-a-tete with his bass player. He didn't play the instruments very well but I gave him points for "keeping it real." I didn't find his music to be very interesting but the crowd was more than willing to be entertained by him.

I must note that I observed an interesting phenomenon while at the Wyclef Jean show: the white rap fan. I stood next to a pair of tall, skinny white dudes who performed the most...interesting dances I had ever seen. These dances consisted of little more than swaying in place with one or two hands making vague gestures in the air. We called the one-hand sway dance the "Sky Hook" and the two hand sway dance the "Haunted House" (because the dancer looked like a cartoon ghost trying to be scary). But my favorite was a dance I dubbed the "Rusty Hook": the dancer appeared to be attempting to clean his ass with an index finger as his hips thrust forward and backward. Sometimes the dancer raised his other hand in the air in a combo "Sky Hook"/"Rusty Hook" dance. Very strange.

We wrapped up the day by listening to Mr. Masekela's all star tribute to South African music. It was pretty cool. I made a note to devote some time to listening to more of this unique pop music. Someday I shall.

She's Gonna Sell My Monkey

I think that's what the man sang. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Jazz Fest was in full swing on Saturday. My wife, friends and I packed water, sunscreen, cameras and fancy foldable camp chairs and drove to the race track where the Fest took place. The Fest consists of several tents and stages, each of which spotlights a particular musical style. There was a jazz tent (naturally), a gospel tent, a blues tent and so forth. The Fest celebrated 10 years of South African freedom, so South African musicians were featured prominently across the Fest.

And the food...the food...

Jambalaya, etoufee, ribs, bread pudding, mago freezes. Food stands dotted the landscape and, at cheap prices in small servings, one could knosh all day. I can assure you that it was a rare moment when we didn't have a beer or food in our hands. It was all amazing.

We arranged to meet my brother-in-law at a prominent flagpole and got our bearings. He was decked out in a loud shirt, beads, straw hat and a koozie hanging from a cord around his neck. He is a veteran of many Fests and he was ready for whatever came. He told us of a watermelon sacrifice that was to take place later that day and he illustrated the dances and sang the songs. As he waved his hands in the air and chanted in a low voice, I realized that I was through the looking glass and in a strange land.

After the meeting and presentation, we set out to try the music. We caught Victor Gorin at the jazz tent, the Johnson Extension and a South African gospel group from Ladysmith in the gospel tent. Although the rain relented, the air was still quite humid and warm, so we took a break in the air-conditioned grandstand. The Fest features interviews with many of the musicians and other noteworthy persons and we caught the tail-end of Hugh Mesekela's (trumpet player from South Africa, best known for the tune "Grazin' in the Grass") interview. We sat in the cool shade for awhile before joining the fray again.

The crowd swelled in our absence. We later learned that approximately 87,000 people attended that day's Fest. We joined the constant flow that swirled around the track (winding through the inevitable eddies of people who stop in mid-stride to talk or gawk) and made our way to one of the Fest's larger stages to listen to the Funky Meters (a band that boasts one of the many members of the Neville clan). We didn't hear much. The crowd at the stage was so great that it spilled into other spaces. We were late and we contented ourselves to sitting in a muddy field, elbow to elbow with thousands of other people, and eating macaroni-and-cheese with crawfish. The Funky Meters were a faint warble in the distance.

This lasted about as long as the macaroni-and-cheese. Disgusted with our lot, we wandered the Fest again in search of something different. We ended up at a tiny stage in the lee side of the gradnstand where an Italian tambourine virtouoso rattled and pounded and sang and danced. As we settled down, we chanced to look up and see my brother-in-law looking down upon us from on high. It seems that the Kentucky Derby began at the same time as our obscure percussionist and he put a wager or two on its outcome. There were large glass windows on the back of the grandstand and from there people could look down on the track or the stage. I must admit that I don't know if he won anything or not. He seemed excited but that could have simply been his general state of Fest-ivitis.

We wrapped up our day at the Fais-Da-Do stage, which featured cajun and zydeco music. This was the highlight of the day, without a doubt. Duane Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers played. Imagine Michael Clarke Duncan with an accordian. Then imagine that he is backed up by Harry Knowles on bass and Sonny Chiba on lead guitar, with some spastic skinny white boy on washboard. Then imagine them playing hard, fast and well. The energy level was amazing. People danced and swayed. Women threw their underwear. Men threw their caps. They began with a song that sounded like "She's Gonna Sell My Monkey" and didn't let up for 45 minutes. Mr. Dopsie (the Michael Clarke Duncan lookalike) jumped into the crowd, his fingers blurring across the accordian keys.

Then it abruptly ended. This was not totally unexpected: black crowds rolled in, bringing with it a sudden temperature. Everyone expected the rain to begin again and the crowd kept its collective eye on the weather and held its breath. The rain did not come and the crowd, in its relief, fell into the music with a will. But it ended anyway, cut short by management who did not want to chance live music in a lightning storm.

We went home happy.

It was Pretty Easy

I am back from my vacation and I am already up to my armpits in work. It was worth it, though. This trip may take several postings.

As my wife and I flew into NO last Thursday, we were treated to an electrical storm brewing in the Gulf. It is quite a sight, especially when it takes places far away from the flight path. We landed and were immediately whisked away to a local dive for late night po'boys.

Our hosts are academics at Tulane: he is working hard to become an associate professor and she is working on her dissertation and teaching an undergraduate class in art history. The conversation began as soon as we piled into the car and did not stop until they dumped us off at the airport yesterday.

That electrical storm blew in late Thursday night, bringing a lot of rain with it. A lot of rain. It lulled us to sleep and we awoke on Friday to the sound of the Jazz Fest's cancellation. You could hear the cries of the damned souls as the news spread over town. Apparently, the last time this happened was in the late eighties, when a tornado came through town.

I did not despair. Jazz Fest lasts all weekend, after all. I knew it would start again on Saturday. And this reprieve allowed us to spend a day exploring the city and focusing on the food. This we did with a vengeance.

We ate fried chicken and red beans and rice for lunch at Dunbar's. The place is another dive where overweight people serve other overweight people all of the fried food they can eat. It was awesome!

We drove around town and got glimpses of the central business district and the garden district (we drove by Anne Rice's house - which is for sale, if you have 3.75 million). Then we waited for two and one half hours for dinner at Jacque-Imos. Which was bloody well worth it. Blackened redfish, blackened tuna and paneed duck, with mashed potatoes, red beans and rice, cole slaw, corn, cornbread and fried calamari. I am not sure what everyone else had to eat.

Then there was Jazz Fest. But more on that later.