Nothing But Lagniappes
Each month’s 2-page posting is based on approximately 10 pages of notes from my research on that topic. Obviously, I omit lots of material that is either uninteresting or not critical to the posting. Sometimes my research uncovers interesting items that are only tangentially related to the posting’s topic. Unfortunately, I don’t have room for all of these items as lagniappes … until now. Those discovered tidbits from the last year or so comprise this month’s posting.
December 2020: Darlene Love-Christmas (Baby Please Come Home). In addition to viewing Darlene Love on internet videos of David Letterman’s Late Show, she is also on the Saturday Night Live Christmas Special which replays iconic skits from prior Christmas shows and airs each year. In the black and white TV Funhouse video, she provides the vocals for Christmastime for the Jews!
January 2021: Latin Phrases (You Can Use to Impress People). This posting included six Latin phrases, but I should have included a seventh. Sequere pecuniam may be translated, “follow the money.”
February 2021, Naked or Not? In my February posting, I refer to Let It Be as the Beatles’ final album. That is technically correct since its release date was May, 1970, some eight months after Abbey Road’s release in September, 1969. However, the recording sessions for Let It Be predate those for Abbey Road, although there was some overlap. Those who view Abbey Road as the final album can point to its closing lyrics to bolster their claim, “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”
March 2021: Jeff Goldblum-I Was a Fan Before He Became a Millennial Icon. In addition to his acting career, Jeff Goldblum is an accomplished jazz pianist. In 2014, he formed the six-member jazz ensemble, the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, which takes its name from a friend of Goldblum’s family when he was growing up in Pittsburgh. The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra has released two albums, The Capitol Studios Sessions (2018) and I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This (2019). Here is a link to the group’s performance of The Cat.
April 2021: Old Man River. Historically, a place-by-place strategy characterized flood control on the Mississippi River, where projects were located at places that flooded. Beginning in 1943, the Army Corps of Engineers embarked on a more comprehensive approach, beginning construction on a model of the Mississippi River watershed. The Corps relied on German prisoners of war, many of whom were engineers from the Afrika Korps, to construct the model, which covers 200 acres or park land in Jackson, Mississippi. The model is eight miles in length and employs a horizontal scale of 1:2000. The vertical scale was diminished to 1:100; otherwise, the Rocky Mountains would have measured 50 feet in height. After being used on 79 occasions to predict flooding, the advent of computer modeling caused the Corps to abandon the model, transferring it to the City of Jackson in 1990 for use as park land. However, the model proved too expensive for the City to maintain, and it sits abandoned and overgrown today.
May 2021: (No) Controlling Old Man River. This posting focused on flood control projects upriver from New Orleans, but flood control measures employed within the City are equally fascinating. New Orleans can be described as a bowl, since levees surround the City’s land area, which is predominantly below sea level. The City has constructed large underground tunnels to carry stormwater to 21 pumping stations containing 99 pumps, with a combined capacity of 47,000 cubic feet per second. The pumps measure 12 to 14 feet in diameter, and pump water over the top of the surrounding levees to Lakes Pontchartrain and Borgne, north of the City. The “screw” pumps capture water in coils and move the water upward as the screw turns. This system kept New Orleans “dry” during Hurricane Ida last August.
June 2021: Birthday Musings and Lots of Music. While this posting focused on things that happened in 1953, it omitted the death of Django Reinhardt, who died in Paris from a stroke at age 43, just two days before the day of my birth. Reinhardt has been described as “one of the greatest guitar players of all time, and the first important European jazz musician to make a major contribution with jazz guitar.” The ring finger and little finger on his left hand were badly damaged in a fire, leaving only his index and middle fingers for fretting. This contributed to his distinctive style, which can be observed in this performance from 1945. Since 2000, New York City’s Birdland Jazz Club has hosted a music festival in his honor. Here is a link to Dark Eyes, performed at the 2010 festival.
June 2021: An Old Fashioned Father’s Day by Max. In this posting, Max described how to mix Wisconsin’s “official” cocktail, the Old Fashioned. To give equal recognition to my home state of Louisiana, here’s a description of how to make a Sazerac, which I used to enjoy at Monsour’s #2, behind the Commercial National Bank Building in downtown Shreveport. The Roosevelt Hotel uses herbsaint, rather than absinthe, an anise flavored liquor distilled in a manner similar to high quality gins. Absinthe has a rich history and was banned in many countries. That is the subject of the 1949 classic movie, The Third Man, starring Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles.
August 2021: But I Said I Would Never Write About Religion. I devoted much of this posting to Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, perhaps his most well-known song. However, my favorite line of lyrics from Leonard Cohen is from another song, Anthem. In it, he warns, “there is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
October 2021: Here Comes the Story of the Hurricanes. I ended this posting with a link to Texas Flood performed by Stevie Ray Vaughn, whose life tragically ended in a helicopter crash in Wisconsin. A great blues guitarist, I was surprised to learn that Vaughn played guitar for David Bowie on his disco-like Let’s Dance album.
November 2021: The Edmund Fitzgerald-I Can’t Let Go. In this posting, I described how scraping bottom on Six Fathom Shoal is one theory about how the Fitzgerald sank. Shoals can be problematic in Lake Superior because rock, resulting from lava flow, comprises most of Superior’s lakebed, particularly west of Marquette, Michigan. This contrasts with Lakes Huron and Michigan which have primarily sandy bottoms. Lake Superior’s largest shoal is Superior Shoal, located about 50 miles north of Copper Harbor, which is in the U.P.’s Keweenaw Peninsula. With a depth of 20 feet or less, the shoal is 20 miles long and 2,500 feet wide. It is surrounded by a lake depth of 720 feet. The shoal is essentially an underwater mountain.
December 2021: Christmas Greeting. The Louisiana Hayride, which was broadcast from Shreveport’s Municipal Memorial Auditorium, was one subject of this posting. Previously, I’ve mentioned my high school pal, Buddy Flett and his collaboration with Kenny Wayne Shepherd. After my posting, I discovered Buddy and Kenny Wayne performing Dance With Me Girl from where else, Shreveport’s Municipal Auditorium.
Lagniappe: Trombone Shorty. There may be no better way to conclude this posting of lagniappes than with a link to Trombone Shorty (Troy Andrews) performing Lagniappe. Born in New Orleans, Trombone Shorty has been performing since he was 4 years old. In addition to the trombone, he also plays the trumpet, drums, organ, and tuba. He is a Louisiana icon.