The Bio & Socio Diversity of Fred's Lounge

Christy and I headed up to Fred's last Saturday morning - to dance to the world-class French music of Jason Frey on the accordion, along with amazing fiddler, Joel Savoy, and the singing encyclopedia of Cajun-French tunes, Ray Thibodeaux, who also was on drum.  We danced - AND we certainly enjoyed the unique and diverse "cultural assumptions, goals, values and behaviors" represented by Fred's Lounge's patrons.

We had so much fun dancing, participating in and soaking in the joie de vivre!  Although we do not see coming to Fred's every Saturday morning as an integral part of our activities, we talked about how much this particular visit was important to us - how we needed to visit Fred's on occasion to remind us of the dynamic nature of the culture that brought us to SWLA.
  

There were more than a dozen folks there we knew and that are important figures in our socio-culture here.
We talked about how happy we are that places like Fred's have been preserved, and, how we hope it will continue after those that have played important roles in making it happen are gone. You cannot find places like Fred's in Lafayette, or out at the Mall.

According to Wikipedia:  Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Greater biodiversity implies greater health.

And, according to The International Journal of Social Economics, "the loss of bio-diversity has received increasing attention as one of the most serious environmental threats we face. Yet not only biodiversity is being lost at staggering rates, socio-diversity is being lost as well. Socio-diversity is defined as the various social and economic arrangements by which people organize their societies, particularly the underlying assumptions, goals, values and social behaviors guiding these arrangements.


Socio-diversity is a measure of the health of social systems and our communities. Greater socio-diversity implies greater health.

I highly value bio- and socio-diversity - and I believe Fred's Lounge in Mamou, Louisiana is a measure of cultural health.  What a boring, watered-down, weak, listless and barren world we are headed for if we let places like Fred's Lounge disappear.  We should encourage others to experience places like Fred's.

Counterpart Photography - An extension of Mandala Photography

I just recently coined the term "counterpart photography" as a way to describe the style I have been exploring since around 1985.  Before calling it counterpart photography, I have been calling it Rorschach Photography or Mandala Photography.

The mandala was always appealing - mandala being the Sanskrit word for "circle" and has been a form of sacred art for many centuries.  The mandala is made up of concentric diagrams that have both spiritual and ritualistic significance.

I always liked the idea of taking profane, non-spiritual, and temporal images and turning them into images which could be used to induce meditation and/or the contemplation of worlds beyond the temporal, beyond the mundane.  For many years my favorite objects for the mandala photography was Mexican carnival equipment.  If you have ever experienced Mexican carnivals and circuses you will know what I mean by profane.

So, I would take a roll of 35 mm film and ask my developing service to print two of each negative - then to turn the negative over, and print two more.  I would then glue these into mandalas.  Now with digital cameras and digital photographic manipulation software, it is so easy.

I will put up a few of my latest counterpart photos from the Leichty farm in Nebraska.

I just love the new worlds of texture, composition, pattern, geometry, structure and hidden values that seem to come into focus when multiplied - or when you reveal their counterparts.

And then, many of the photos I use can stand on their own as worlds within worlds. . .

Of course, one of my favorites. . .

 

More later

Why Honky Tonk? Storytelling & other tales...

I first met Squash (aka, J.P. Harris) in the mountains of West Virginia. I will mention that it was at the famous Old Time/Roots Music (and a tiny bit of Bluegrass) festival, called Clifftop, but, I don't want to go off on a tangent talking about Clifftop - 'nuf said.

I may have seen Squash before Clifftop, but it was at Clifftop that I met him and invited him to play The Whirlybird if he was ever in Louisiana. I, of course, thought his music would be the driving old time that he played on the handmade banjo that never left his side (or back). I immediately recognized Squash as a genuine American folk artist, a troubadour and an energetic ringleader for traditional - yet, maybe a bit unconventional - fun. I'm not sure if that is how Squash would describe himself. But, I'm doing my best, because it is hard to describe or put Squash in a box. Don't let those CCCP tattoos in the photo fool you, either. That is another thing I don't want to get sidetracked talking about - the Vodka! Latka! party, with Squash, standing on top of the school bus, fists raised in solidarity with the throng of revelers around and below. . .

I thought Squash was solely an old time player - but, when I heard from Squash, that he was coming to The Black Pot festival and would love to bring his newly-formed Honky Tonk Band, J.P. Harris and The Tough Choices, to The Whirlybird for an after-festival-party gig, I was very excited.  I loved his old time music - now I wanted to hear his Honky Tonk music. I was not disappointed!

Squash and his band are passing through the area this week, and we all here in Southwest Louisiana have the opportunity to let our hair down this coming Sunday evening at Cité des Arts.  Cité is working on having more and more music venues.  It has clean bathrooms, it's indoors, a dancefloor, a bar, air-conditioning for that kind of weather, and it is an intimate venue where the volume level can be set where you can actually hear the music comfortably and enjoy music for it own sake.  Did I mention? - comfortable seats. . .

J.P. Harris and The Tough Choices

Sunday, January 9 · 8:00pm - 11:00pm

Come on out. . . and. . .


OK - there is another special event at Cité this coming Sunday that I am excited about - and it includes another of my favorite people, Pudd Sharp - it is the first Storytelling Night in a series that will continue at Cité once a month on the second Sunday afternoon of the month.  This event will happen just before the Honky Tonk gig.

STORYTELLING in The Flying Saucer Café - Pudd and I will be kicking off the first storytelling event.  We will be telling some of our favorite stories from our lives.  We've been told that people like these stories.  (BTW, this first series of storytelling is not planned to be a children's event - but a children's storytelling event is on the way so wait for that one to bring the kids).  This will be an adult event.  I have had a discussion with some of the other storytellers and with Christy, Cité's fearless program director, and it is agreed upon to have an adult storytelling event where the storytellers can let their storytelling hair down among other adults.

I may even bring my ukulele - but, that has not been determined, yet.


Since my debut at The New Moon Revue (at The Blue Moon Saloon), I am confidently looking for other opportunities to express myself musically.  If it fits with a story, I may use music.


Whether I bring out the uke or not, I think starting a regular local storytelling event is a good idea.  See you on Sunday?

PS - come out to Cité to see what The Flying Saucer Café is all about. . .

Storytelling at The Flying Saucer Café, Cité des Arts

Sunday, January 9 · 4:30 PM - 7:30 PM

Photos continued - after receiving good feedback

I love the trailer hitch - next the hitch with a twist.

So, I'm continuing to experiment with the Rorschach technique.  NEXT:

And, again - my favorite:

ONE More:

Had a surprise dinner with Bill Matthews last night.  He had roasted a Smithfield ham in the pizza oven - holy smoke - I mean, holy smoker. . . Thank you, Bill.  I've been healed once again.  And, yes, the blackeyed peas have brought me luck already (the invite alone was great luck), and, I hope the cabbage will bring me fortune in 2011 (that is yet to be seen).  Christy and I agree we are rich with family and friends and fun things to do.

OK --

- let the creative juices flow - stretch the imagination - imagine it, then do it.

Happy New Year - Milford, Nebraska - Leichty homestead photo shoot

So, it was cold, yeah you right - icy even - but not the blizzard conditions we experienced last year.  I did go out to the Cordova Meat Locker, but the roads were clear - didn't have to be towed out of a drift.



I was able to spend a bit of time exploring my new iPhone camera capabilities, so I'm going to use this blog to show some of the interesting photo opportunities presented by winter conditions.  I love my iPhone camera.

I will be experimenting with the photo sizing for this blog - see how photos look at different sizes.  These first two are set at large.










The next one is x-tra large.

I took quite a few photos and liked pretty much everyone of them.

Next photo set at small.

Now some of my Rorschach photos.

  Enough for now.  Happy New Year