Folk songs collected by folklorist Alan Lomax in Louisiana in the 1930s-’60s will be performed at the James Devin Moncus Theater at 101 West Vermillion in Lafayette on Jan. 14-15 at 7:30 pm. The theater is in the Acadiana Center for the Arts.
This Louisiana Crossroads event will take place in conjunction with the release of the Valcour Records box set I Wanna Sing Right: Rediscovering Lomax in the Evangeline Country. Selections on the recordings were chosen in accordance with information provided in Joshua Caffery’s book Traditional Music in Coastal Louisiana: The 1934 Lomax Recordings.
The Lomax tribute will be narrated by Barry Ancelet, folklorist and Cajun music expert at UL-Lafayette. There will be visuals and a whole flock of South Louisiana music. The many performers will include Wayne Toups, Steve Riley, Zachary Richard and Ann Savoy.
For many years, the Library of Congress paid for Alan Lomax’s recordings of American folk songs. When they cut the funding in 1942, Lomax kept on, paying with his own funds.
In addition to recording American folk songs, Lomax recorded the folk music of such places as Haiti, the Bahamas, Ireland, Morocco, Zaire, Azerbaijan and Bulgaria. He recorded music of the Navajo and Andean Indians.
During the 1950s, Lomax left the U.S. for a decade because his name had been placed on J. Edgar Hoover’s list of “communist symphathizers.” He spent the decade recording 3,000 folk songs in Spain.
When he returned to the U.S. in 1959, he brought folk music to Carnegie Hall for the first time. Among the performers were Muddy Waters, Memphis Slim and Pete Seeger. Lomax spent the latter part of the year in a folk song-collecting tour of the southern states. It’s these songs that were featured in the soundtrack of the film O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Lomax preached the “diversity of American folk song as an expression of its democratic, inter-racial, international character; as a function of its inchoate and turbulent many-sided development.”
Ticket prices for the show will range from $25 to $35.
Looking on down the road, other Acadiana Center for the Arts events that will be of interest of Up Front readers include:
The art show Apocalypse Now, which will run through Jan. 9 at the center’s main gallery. Among the 12 artists exhibiting is SWLA’s premier surrealist Amy Guildry;
The film Hitchcock/Truffaut on Jan. 11; a performance by blues guitarist Buddy Guy on April 6; an Acadiana Symphony Orchestra concert of baroque music on May 29. To learn more, call 337-233-7060.
Cynical Wonderland
I thought that Gov. Bobby Jindal would spend his last few days in office working feverishly to salvage his battered reputation. In fact, if he’s working at all, he’s working to crank out more of the same.
Jindal’s Christmas present to Louisiana was a postponement of two weeks in the payment of $126 million in state obligations to the Health Dept. The Jindal administration described the postponed payments as an “anti-fraud” initiative.
“Anti-fraud.” Well, that’s good, right? That means that Jindal’s folks spent two weeks rooting out fraud and eliminating it — right?
That would have been nice. But that’s apparently not what “anti-fraud” meant in this case. What it meant was “kick the can down the road.”
Let’s say that on Dec. 18, I owe you $126. And I say, “Hey, tell ya what. I’ll pay you that, but let me pay you two weeks from now.” What I’ve done is work it out so that I’m paying you in the next tax year. I’m paying you money I owe you this year from next year’s budget.
State Sen. Dan Claitor, a Republican from Baton Rouge, said, “We’re not going to find $126 million in fraud. We’re just slow-paying the providers. This is cash flow management.”
“While this might produce some savings from reducing fraud, the real ‘savings’ come from pushing the last two weeks of state payments owed to Medicaid health care provider plans into next fiscal year,” the Public Affairs Research Council commented. Public Policy called the roll-back “a last expression of the cynical wonderland of Jindal accounting.”
I Hate To Tell You This
In news you may have missed, the state government of Louisiana has taken out a loan for the first time in nearly 30 years. What’s the reason? Well, on Dec. 18, The Daily Advocate reported that Treasurer John Kennedy had borrowed $255 million because “the state is burning through money.”
Yeah, well don’t look now, Sec. Kennedy, but it’s about to burn through $1.5 billion more. (Yes, I’m making a reference to the greatest of Louisiana’s spring festivals — The Session.)
Breathe More Light!
I can’t think of any better New Year’s gift to give my readers than the highlights of the latest email communique from the Ashtar Command Crew.
The one I got on Dec. 10 was a real smoker. It bore the provocative title “We are being Electromagnetically Reprogrammed.” (I would have capitalized that “are being,” but that’s just me — just joshin’ ya; that’s English.)
Here’s, basically, what’s going on. “Solar ionic particles” are “cutting through” to the nucleuses of the atoms of your body and changing the “make-up” of their atomic structure. This, of course, is altering the “ratio” of “the basic compounds” in your “elemental body.” I’m talking about your elemental body — not any of your other bodies.
Naturally, this alteration of your atomic make-up is “taking [you] into a much faster vibrational spin.” Of course, you would expect that. But did you know that these altered atoms in your body are also “freeing [you] from the carbon-based atomic code”? This is bound to be great news for those of you who were concerned about that old ball and chain of the carbon-based atomic code.
You will now be moving from your old carbon-based code into a brand spanking new “finely tuned silicon-crystal system.” Sure hope you’re partial to silicon crystals. I don’t even know what they are, but whatever they are, they sound really great. I’m looking forward to being part of their system.
Now, our expert on these matters, Tiara Kumara, asks — perhaps rhetorically — “What is fueling this biological morphogenesis?” Well, says Kumara, it could be “super-charged plasma rays” that emanate from “the very core of our Milky Way galaxy.” Hmm. Yes, I can see how it could be that. After all, as Kumara says, these “plasma rays” enable all of us to “breathe more light.” And I bet you never even knew you were breathing light in the first place.
Now who is this Tiara Kumara who informs us of all this? Well, I think that question is a little presumptuous. But I’ll give you the answer anyway. Tiara Kumara is the I AM Avatar who is affiliated with the Children of the Sun Foundation. Why, it’s the very same person who’s taught us that “Physical Reality is a Frequency of Vibration” and who’s informed us of the “MORPHOGENETIC FIELD IMPLOSION.” (Yes, the implosion is all capitals.)
If you’d like even more information about your new silicon-based system and ability to breathe light, you can find 60 — count ‘em — 60 podcasts on the subject at the Ashtar Command Community website.
While you’re on the site, you can also find out whether you have a “HEART-WALL.”
You may wish to join one of Ashtar Command’s 203 “Spiritual Groups” — for instance the Saint Germaine & The Violet Flame group. After all, as everybody knows, the violet flame is “the essence of the seventh ray.”
There’s the 11:11 group “for all those connected to the 11:11 global consciousness movement.” I really like the name of the group Light Workers of Pegasus. The poor Pagan Circle group presently has zero members. C’mon! Help ‘em out!
For hours of diversion, the place to visit is ashtarcommandcrew.net.
The Return Of Kamikaze 1989
Fans of famed German director Rainer Fassbinder have long sought copies of the super-obscure detective flick Kamikaze 1989, which had disappeared from general circulation by the 1990s.
The Up Fronter brings you good tidings. Kamikaze 1989 is now being released on DVD by the NYC company Film Movement.
Kamikaze 1989, which was released in 1982, was directed by Wolf Grimm; because Grimm was a protege of Fassbinder, Kamikaze 1989 looks exactly like a Fassbinder film: stylish, dark and sometimes surreal.
The film stars Fassbinder in his last acting role before his early death at age 39 in the year the movie was released. Fassbinder, who plays hard-drinking, straight-talking, no-nonsense detective Jensen, does his investigating in a leopard skin suit.
In the future Germany that Kamikaze 1989 portrays, all German media is owned by one company (The Combine) and housed in one 30-story skyscraper. The country’s one television station always broadcasts the same weather forecast, with a beautiful young woman always saying the words, “Sun! Sun! Sun!” regardless of the real weather. Long before reality television began, the makers of Kamikaze 1989 envisioned a country where the top-rated show is The Laughing Show — a television show on which contestants get to demonstrate how long they can laugh.
Of course, Germany’s intellectuals fume about this state of affairs. But when a secretive artistic group starts making bomb threats against The Combine’s big building, Jensen has to go into action. He quickly finds that both sides in the media war have armed groups that are perfectly willing to kill to get their way.
As he’s dodging bullets and questioning a succession of eccentric conspirators, Jensen must also ponder the question of whether The Combine building has a secret 31st floor. Is the secret floor a reality or just a persistent urban myth? Jensen will have to answer that question before he can solve the case.
If you want to know more about getting your hands on this amazing film, visit filmmovement.com
Year-End Round-up
Melissa McCarthy was an easy winner for comedian of the year. In fact, she’s already making a strong run for comedian of the 21st century.
Speaking of comedians, if the Up Fronter voted, he’d do a write-in vote for Amy Poehler for president in 2016. Poehler was an easy winner for the Up Fronter’s Quotation of the Year for 2015.
She said the memorable words in December on the Seth Meyers show when she was handed an action figure for some Star Wars character named Constable Zuvio. It was apparently just one more bit of Star Wars hype than Poehler could bear. Here’s her statement:
“I have read this guy’s name three times. I don’t remember it. I don’t care! I don’t care about Star Wars and I never —-king did! I’m tired of pretending! I’m tired of pretending! I don’t care about it. This guy’s [Constable Zuvio’s] face is covered up because he’s so embarrassed that he’s got to go see Star Wars. He’s like, ‘Hey, man!’ I don’t know, just … —-! I’m so sick of it.”
Speak truth to power, sister! Your write-in campaign has got your back.
A distant second for quotation of the year comes from Louisiana’s own former attorney general Buddy Caldwell, who made a country-fried, grudging concession speech that featured this delightfully witty aphorism: “Out of the largest pile of manure grows the prettiest flower.” It’s true we have some mighty exotic-looking floral species in these parts.
And that’ll just about do it for the Up Fronter for another year. For those of you who make resolutions, the best of luck. And for the rest of you, may you always have easy access to the latest Up Front column in 2016.
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