blacksundae

Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday at the age of 84. Fittingly, 84 is also the age at which Vonnegut’s alter-ego, Kilgore Trout, died in the novel Timequake. Though it seems his plan to commit honorable suicide through years of smoking unfiltered Pall Malls didn’t pan out, complications from a fall finally took his life.

An August 2006 Rolling Stone article reported:

He has stalled finishing his highly anticipated novel If God Were Alive Today - or so he claims. “I’ve given up on it … It won’t happen. … The Army kept me on because I could type, so I was typing other people’s discharges and stuff. And my feeling was, ‘Please, I’ve done everything I was supposed to do. Can I go home now?’ That’s what I feel right now. I’ve written books. Lots of them. Please, I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do. Can I go home now?”

My personal obsession with his books began with an essay I wrote about Slaughterhouse-Five in high school–you know, the usual “I just learned the word catharsis!”-type fiasco. I think I chose the book off of a list after just reading the back cover in the library. The teacher loved my essay, probably less for its execution than for the obvious enthusiasm I had developed for the text. In college, my 4-year undergraduate boyfriend and I took turns reading almost all of Vonnegut’s works, which we checked out from the Loyola Library and pretended were ours, garnering astronomical late fees. But ah, I think it was worth it.

In Palm Sunday, ol’ KV actually graded his own works, stating that the grades “do not place me in literary history” but were meant to compare “myself with myself”:

Player Piano: B
The Sirens of Titan: A
Mother Night: A
Cat’s Cradle: A+
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater: A
Slaughterhouse-Five: A+
Welcome to the Monkey House: B-
Happy Birthday, Wanda June: D
Breakfast of Champions: C
Slapstick: D
Jailbird: A
Palm Sunday: C

My personal favorite is probably Galapagos (which came later), but that’s neither here nor there. I think what I’ve really always found compelling about Vonnegut is his unfailing ability to be both bitterly jaded and hilarious at the same time. He seemed to echo my mostly unconscious (back in high school) conviction that although life is basically a carnival of the grotesque, you may as well have a few laughs with the bearded lady. Y’know what I mean?

And so it goes.

blacksundae just received a very nice writeup at Mefi User Sites, a blog dedicated to describing and reviewing the personal sites of MetaFilter posters.

End season, seven strangers from the huge explosion engulfed cities flee to a disused government building as their shelter. Nowhere to go they quickly realized they were not lonely, hidden in the dark by the evil biological is slowly killing them. Staged a survival game, or a gun, or become killed.

Bad translations are funny! Weeee! Translated version of this page.

I’m working on a re-design and things may get a little wonky. A lot wonky, actually. The site will still be functioning, but it’ll look like crap.

UPDATE: Still working. I’m reverting to the old layout while I take breaks.

If you click on the “contact” link at the top of this page, you’ll get a little form you can use to send me a message (it sure beats putting my spamable address on the front page). On occasion, it channels me messages from friends and people who stumble randomly across the site (who usually say things like, “Great blog! Keep up the good work!” OR “You rock! I’ve told all my friends about you, and I’ve subscribed to your feed!” OR “While most right-thinking people are wrong, you, most assuredly, are right!”).

Lately, however, I’ve been receiving messages from what seem to be bots. That is, automated “commenters” that generally shit spam into my mailbox. These new messages, however, are not advertisements, but seem to be random lines of experimental poetry. Dad? You mentioned a while back getting something like this. Did you ever figure it out?

To fill everyone else in, I have compiled a bunch of these messages into a single prose poem. Keep in mind, every paragraph that follows is the entirety of a single message.

vridge, who was down there f r tin minyits wanst an spoke very highly an

it began to show itself there among the little wooden houses. t is a road hewn out of the rocks. he giant apoleon carried it through the backbone of the earth. he eagle, apoleon s bird, flew like a living armorial crest over the gigantic work of the

small yacht belonging to the merchant lay, just unladen, near the bridge of boats. tto found aren and the young lady from olstebro sitting in the arbor. omewhat

distinct streets and quarters, so had they also here. he street which led to the market place, and which in every day life was called the hoemaker treet, answered perfectly to its name. he shoemakers had ranged their tables side by side. hese, and

were colored with a sudden crimson, which was immediately afterward supplanted by a deathly paleness his hand

acknowledgments for the honor they

find out my real sister will have proof in hand of the truth will show myself as a brother will care for her future ring to me her baptismal register bring to me one only attestation of its reality and that before eight days are past ere is

demands his right replied tto, and pressed the man s hand. hings go, doubtless, well with you, orten hraenseu he whole cart full of eels, and some smoked carp t is also good to meet with you, r. tto. pon the

Brilliant, yes? Any thoughts? Is this the internet finally becoming sentient, Terminator-style, and expressing its first thoughts and emotions? Will we ever know?

T-P:

When Cita Dennis Hubbell moved back to Algiers in 1970 after living around the world with her naval officer husband, George Hubbell, she was dismayed to find her local library, the one she had spent so much time in as a child, shuttered by damage from Betsy.

Boards blocked the large front windows, and the library, at 725 Pelican Ave., was in a terrible state, George Hubbell recalled Wednesday morning.

Born on Belleville Street and raised on Elmira Street just blocks from the library, Cita Hubbell, a registered nurse, couldn’t stand to see the historic building, built in 1907 with a grant from the Carnegie Foundation, in such condition.

Determined to get the library reopened, she marshaled neighborhood support, including from the Algiers Point Association, which the Hubbells and other active neighbors had formed in the early 1970s.

The rest is history. Despite the objection of the city librarian at the time, the City Council, perhaps persuaded by the two busloads of people who lobbied in support of the library, provided money to renovate the branch. The Algiers Point library, which had been closed for a decade, reopened on Oct. 14, 1975.

Fast forward to 2005, though, and the scenario seems so sadly similar.

Like all New Orleans public libraries, the now Cita Dennis Hubbell Algiers Point Library, renamed for its longtime supporter after her death from cancer in 2001, was shuttered in the weeks after Hurricane Katrina.

“One of the first things the city did was lay off the librarians, along with hundreds of other city workers,” George Hubbell said.

But, struggling to bring back city services, even in a much reduced state, New Orleans officials announced in October that the Algiers Point Library would be one of three locations reopened in the city. The larger Algiers Regional Library had sustained heavy damage in Katrina and had to be gutted.

Upon hearing the announcement, Hubbell, along with other Algiers Point residents, immediately jumped into gear, determined to help keep the library afloat.

Jeez, Hubbells rock, don’t they? Yeah, I thought you’d agree.

The promo trailer for Doom’s Gate is finished and online. Be ahead of the curve! Watch a trailer for a movie that hasn’t been made yet!

NOLA.com [Chris Rose]:

We talk funny around here. I mean, where else but New Orleans could a man with a severe speech pathology — our beloved Buddy D — become a broadcast legend? Only to be replaced by a former Cajun quarterback who even fewer people understand — all this on the region’s highest-rated radio station, not just some curious and provincial late-night, roadhouse AM outlet.

While musing on these notions the other day, I was listening to WWOZ on my car radio. And, in chronological order, these are the names of the songs that played during the set I heard:

“Iko Iko,” “Ya-Ya,” “Ooh Poo Pah Doo,” “Cha Dooky-Doo,” “Ta Ta Te Ta Ta,” “Tee Na Na Na Na Nay,” “Look-a Py Py,” “Hey Pocky Way,” “Handa Wanda,” “Indian Red,” “Coochie Molly,” “Ki Ya Gris Gris,” “Ho-Di-Ko-Di-Ya-La-Ma-La,” and “Ya Herd Me.”

Each song was as familiar to me as a nursery rhyme, part of the musical backdrop of our lives. And it was all complete gibberish, made-up stuff, code language and vernacular indecipherable to your run-of-the-mill Harvard-educated linguist, yet I knew what it all meant in that sort of Jockomo Fe Na Nay kind of way.

[...]

The ‘OZ disc jockey for this show was Sherwood Collins. I tracked him down this week in Baton Rouge, where he was broadcasting in exile, to compliment him on his creative homage to the singular New Orleans patois.

“I got the idea thinking about how the city needed one voice to communicate its needs,” Collins said. “I kind of hit on how much our local vernacular adds to the esoteric nature of the city that draws millions of tourists down here.

“It’s that voice which speaks to every parade-goer — from 6 months to 60-years-old — to start shakin’ what their mama gave them. It’s something you and your mama can agree on, something that gives New Orleans a bit of its life.

“It’s that connective strand which makes us all Creoles. The history and melding of French, Spanish, African, Caribbean, Cuban, English, Irish, German, Isleno and Acadian cultures has created a culture with such a richness — which hangs on your tongue when you say Lagniappe or Tchoupitoulas or ‘tur-let’ — and that should somehow be manifested to help rebuild this city.”

Radio DJs — the rare few who still actually program their own music — are links in a great American cultural tapestry. They believe in what they’re doing, the message they’re sending.

Collins’ remarks remind me what a clich?© the term “unique” has become when used to describe New Orleans — particularly as the national media gazes down upon us these days. But it’s just so true.

We’re unusual, anachronistic and eccentric, often drunk and dirty. The longer you live here, the more unsuitable you become to live anywhere else — as so many of our people are discovering in far-flung cities and states.

And the reason I meditate on this today is to tell you that Collins’ aforementioned radio show is going to be replayed on Thanksgiving, at noon or shortly after. It’s at 90.7 on the FM radio dial and available on the Web at www.wwoz.org.

If you get a chance, listen to this amusing and essential reminder of who and what we are. It’s the most joyous noise you could hear — almost spiritual. (And it’s got to be better than watching the Cowboys and Lions play football on TV, right?)

Tell your friends in faraway places to listen to it online and to play it for the people they are with Thursday. Tell everyone you know that school is in session, New Orleans style.

In fact, tell your congressman to listen. And the president.

Not that they’ll understand any of it — or us — any better, but maybe they’ll begin to comprehend what a vibrant and unsinkable (but very floodable) cultural identity we’ve got going on here that’s never going to die — with or without their help.

Although “with” would be better than “without.”

Damn it! This is the second Chris Rose column that’s gotten me misty! What the hell is wrong with the world?

Via my Uncle Fwee.

Where to begin? Well, first I’d like to say a few things about suburban Texas. As some of you may know, I spent a few weeks with some very kind relatives in Katy, TX, just outside of Houston.

One thing that struck me was the total lack of sidewalks in the neighborhood where we stayed. No sidewalks. None. I can only assume they atrophied. “Who needs sidewalks? That’s what cars are for.” I found it very confusing. If you walk in the street, you’re… well. You’re walking in the street. Like a tourist in the Quarter. But if you get out of the street you’re walking on somebody’s lawn. Judging by the general neatness of lawns in the area, I think that might be a no-no. What to do? Well, I generally didn’t leave the house (as is reflected in the sheer number of my blog posts from that period).

I was also fascinated by all the subdivisions in the Houston area. There are subdivisions in New Orleans, don’t get me wrong. Hell. There’s even one in Algiers Point. But NOLA is a backwards little burg when it comes to subdivisions, compared to Houston at least. Do you like subdivisions? Go to Houston. Houston is where subdivisions go to die.

Or maybe subdivisions are formed in the Houston nebula, then slowly spread across the country until they attach themselves to the outskirts of other cities. What you see in Houston is just that initial density prior to distribution.

It occurs to me that it would be extremely easy to put together an online Random Subdivision Name Generator. Three words each. The first two would be chosen from the same list, which would be made up of nature words. Geographical features. That sort of thing. Woods. Mountain. Valley. Creek. Oak. Canyon. Nothing negative-sounding, so “sink hole” can’t be in there. Same thing with more technical words. “Subduction zone” just doesn’t roll off the tongue very well.

The last word would be some highfalutin variation on “houses.” Estates. Villas. That sort of thing. Click a button, get a name.

• Mountain Creek Estates
• Oak Canyon Villas
• Prairie Lake Manors

You get the idea. Anyway, that’s all for now. The next episode: Berkeley. That’s gonna be freakin’ hilarious.

P.S. Josh & Christine! Thanks for taking us to Half-Price Books. I shit you not, the day after I got to Berkeley, one opened here. Crazy.

Yes, I’m still a member of the living. Sorry for the lack of posting, but my internet access has been kind of spotty. All that’s sorted out, and I’ll be trying to make up for the gap. Stay tuned.