Something for everyone. This should take care of my blogging responsibilities for the rest of this weekend, don’t you think?
New Orleans: On Tuesday, several of us from work volunteered (wo)manpower to Jazzfest pre-production. From bunting and putting up signs to painting canvases and filing, we spent a day helping prepare for the two most exciting weekends in New Orleans after Mardi Gras. Beginning tomorrow, if the pre-sale numbers are trustworthy, tens of thousands of people will pack the Fairgrounds Racecourse and proceed to congest all of our city’s main arteries. It’s okay – please enjoy yourselves, spend a lot of money, tip well, don’t puke on the sidewalk and drive through.
Guvmint: Taking a break from painting in the Grandstand building, I decided to get some pictures of the inner courtyard. What is up with my tendency to trip over every political event within a five-mile radius? Blindly sauntering into the courtyard, a gaggle of reporters and entourages came into view, as did a shiny, bald head with a very familiar voice. It was Ray Nagin, along with Mitch Landrieu, a state senator and Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, addressing Fairgrounds Race Course personnel, Jazzfest staff and the press on the grand reopening of the venue. In essence, I’d walked into a major gratitude-and-suck-up fest with Churchill Downs on the receiving end. Oh well, at least I got some pictures (and a conversation with Quint Davis) out of it.
Nagin And Landrieu Work The Press
Music: Take a look at the Jazzfest schedule. On this first weekend, I can’t wait to see the New Orleans Jazz Vipers, Johnny Sketch & The Dirty Notes, Bob Dylan, Dr. John, The Iguanas, The Soul Rebels, Allen Toussaint, Elvis Costello (squee!) and Bruce Springsteen. The second weekend will see me in Wisconsin on a geology alumni mission, but I make up for missing Jazzfest by catching Mike Doughty live (double squee!) at the High Noon Saloon.
What is life without water? What is living without music?
Wisconsin: Speaking of Wisconsin, (imaginary) boyfriend, Brett Favre, has returned to the helm of my beloved Packers for yet another season. And if Bart says Brett has “many good years left,” who are we to argue? N-so?
A reminder: We still rule hockey. (Thanks, Sparky!)
***Books, Internet & Public Domain: Project Gutenberg is in the news once again. The WaPo did a piece on better readability with the new generation of eBooks.
Perhaps most comparable to an iPod for books, e-book readers — a breed of upcoming devices designed to hold thousands of text files and display them at the same resolution of a printed page — could change the landscape of how books are both purchased and read.
For users looking to download free texts to an e-book reader, Project Gutenberg is an Internet-based effort that has placed more than 17,000 public domain books online for download — everything from the Bible and “Hamlet” to “Don Quixote” and “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.”
This after a Project Gutenberg title made it into the New York Times editorial page (registration required). The article, entitled A Blogger Ahead Of His Time is available in its entirety for free at the International Herald Tribune and speaks of Hilaire Belloc’s 1918 work, The Free Press.
… an extended essay examining the history of what Belloc calls the “Official Press” in England and the emergence of a rival “Free Press” in the form of small, often short-lived journals.
Small, often short-lived journals? Hmmmm, do these sound in any way familiar? B … bl … blogs, you say? What an interesting concept! Read on.
… There are whole paragraphs in Belloc’s essay where, if you substitute “blogs” for “the Free Press,” you will be struck by the parallels.
The free press that Belloc describes was a horde of small, highly opinionated, sometimes propagandistic papers that arose in reaction to “the official Press of Capitalism.” What characterized the free press, Belloc wrote, was “disparate particularism.”
He notes that the journals of the free press seldom pay their way and that they often suffer from the impediment of “imperfect information,” simply because it is not in the politicians’ interests to speak to them.
… “the Free Press gives you the truth; but only in disjointed sections, for it is disparate and it is particularist.” (For “particularism,” Belloc offers the synonym “crankiness.”) To get at the truth by reading the organs of the free press, you have to “add it all up and cancel out one exaggerated statement against another.”
But his point is that you can get at the truth.
Blogs, the new generation of the free press. Disparate, particularist, cranky … and a much-needed alternative for free thinkers who respect informed choices.
And with that, I bid you adieu for now. If you’re in New Orleans this weekend, have fun at Jazzfest (drop me an email if you want to get together). If elsewhere, have your own party.
Funny, I almost called my blog the NOLA Distress, a very obscure reference to the old late 60’s/early ’70s “Alternative Press” newspaper NOLA Express. I think that bloggers are very much teh inheritors of the pamphleteers of an earlier era.
Mitch’s head isn’t as shiny as Ray’s. That troubles me.
That jazzfest lineup is INSANE. I’m so glad you are going to be there! I think it would be really, doubly excellent if you find a way to get backstage at some point, walk up to Lionel Richie, and say: “Hello- is it me you’re looking for?” :)
But seriously, Big Daddy Kane & Slick Rick?!? Bob Dylan?!? Cowboy Mouth? Yerba Buena? Every possible base seems to be covered!
Sounds like an awesome weekend. I’ll be tooling between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, most likely. Thanks for posting the Belloc article. I found many of his (and Chesterton’s) ideas to be — what’s the word? Intriguing? Thought-provoking? Brilliant? I’ll dig further.
And don’t think that Wisconsin hockey thing doesn’t cheese (ahem) this Michigan alum off.
Has it been a year since we met already? Time flies …
Mark, perhaps another blog or a group instance once you move here may reclaim the name, if it does not have trademark implications associated with it.
Ray, if Mitch is elected mayor, he must solemnly swear to get rid of that pathetic excuse for a patch of hair that covers the top of his head. Give it up, man, it’s GONE!
brimful, the crowds are just as insane this year. I am so proud of everyone who made the trek here and created a resounding success just on the first weekend. It rained quite heavily last night which renders the Fairgrounds a bog, so we’ll see about the numbers today.
Dave, in their own quaint and biased-by-the-times way, the likes of Belloc and Chesterton displayed a prescience and futuristic thought, which they actually put down as essays and theses instead of as fiction. Visionary, maybe. Thought-provoking, definitely.
Tilo, I was thinking just that as I walked by the Royal Cup a few days ago. It was just a year ago that we met there and talked of Tamil, life and everything. Happy first anniversary, dear!
i concur with brim. you ears are damn lucky, lady! i hope to see some flickr updates on pictures w/the named few.
it is way exciting to think that i’m part of the free press. ha!
//Happy first anniversary, dear!// ;-)
On the other hand it feels like I have known you for much longer than a year!