From the monthly archives: July 2010
I saw Orff’s Carmina Burana performed live once, rapt
from what would have otherwise been an uncomfortable pew
in an upstate Methodist church. Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi: O
Fortuna shook my ribs and everything beneath.
For the last half of the movie,
my saloon will burn on Main Street
my story heaped upon it
with everyone’s before me
Neela Vaswani, prize-winning fiction writer and author of the multi-genre memoir You Have Given Me A Country, writes “Here are brief encounters that sprout generations; split seconds of ruin; sudden migrations, lust, and strife. These pieces remind us to cling to life’s lessons with grace and humor.”
More nervous than I thought I’d be. How to get past the enormous elephant in the room…but the moment I see him the nervousness melts away. The not-so-happy memories don’t matter. Here sits one of the most talented musicians I’ve ever heard and I’m determined to get more people aboard the Jason Whitton train.
All three songs reflect Davies’ positive concern for the man-next-store and his longing for community and themadays. “Neighbor” muses about the mixed fortunes of Misters Jones, Brown and Smith. Smith’s fate is the most discouraging, since rage gets the best of him. “Workingman’s Café “is nostalgic for the village green, which in Davies-speak is the ideal social arrangement for human beings, and in his imagination, existed once upon a time in England only to be lost to modernity. What is material here are the melodies, the voice and the poetry, which never fail to set my heart aflutter.
Guest Judge Janice Eidus is an award-winning novelist and short story writer. Her short fiction has won two O.Henry Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, and a Redbook Prize…
-We accept all genres of literary fiction as long as stories are related to the theme of music.
Mr Don: It’s kind of like Clint Eastwood meets Mr. Rogers.
Mr. Juan: I really like his neighborhood.
Mr. D.: Yeah, me too.
Mr. J.: Yeah.
This month, July 2010, shaking like a mountain celebrates its third anniversary with new posts, new writers, a new Chris Hickey video (“Places to Go”) from razzmatazz, the debut of our fabulous sure-to-keep-you-cool shaking tee at the newly minted shaking like a mountain shop, and on the horizon as we shake, our First Annual Fiction Open to be judged by prize-winning author, Janice Eidus.
In HBO’s new drama, Treme, creator David Simon’s uses music as a bold accompanist to elevate the meaning and atmosphere of a story. A story that becomes increasingly more interesting over nine one-hour episodes as it builds to a bit of closure in the first season’s finale. From the opening credits which feature John Boutte’s “Treme Song” (a tune that sounds a bit like the blues song “Turn On Your Love Light”) it quickly becomes clear that music is the driving force. Significant storylines are developed that focus on the lives of musicians and music-lovers in the birthplace of jazz. Radio DJs and musicians rattle off the names of songs, some obscure, some old standards. New Orleans’s hip-hop in the form of the city’s own Juvenile and Mystikal are in the mix as well. In fact, song inhabits nearly every corner of the show, much like the humid August air of the Gulf region itself, as each episode is packed with a soundtrack of more than two dozen fantastic tunes, most with a New Orleans connection.
The music in Treme comes at the viewer from all directions, whether it is played in some of New Orleans’s finest clubs or on the streets of the French Quarter. Sometimes it is a song coming out of a car radio or a house party. In one scene, an ensemble of down- on- their-luck musicians
Soggy revelers came and went during sets by featured poet Jo-Ann Reid, Shaking impressario Mr. Don, and singer/songwriters Jessica Klein and Ray Wyatt Lema, before the sun returned and the garden filled for the edgy urban blues of The Detroit Rebellion.
