Yeah, yeah, posting out of turn and all but it’s Friday, plus Athenae said I could do some extra RT5-related posting. Pretty sure she meantduring, rather thanafter, the event but hey, in New Orleans, the party never really ends.
Credit/blame toracymind for the song. It was on her ipod, we did pass byHammond, it became part of the trip soundtrack. But it does work here, too, because it’s a song — a story really — about families, mostly about choice, about what and who you choose to stand for and with. About how sometimes what might seem a choice to someone else is, to you, an imperative. Crystalline, unavoidable despite the odds of success or failure.
It works because thisis actually a post about Rising Tide 5, at least a highly subjective take thereon, and all those things are part of what RT is about. A community of like-minded citizen journalists choosing to continue to stand together, not because they can’t stop looking backwards, or because they can’t get over something that happened five years ago, but rather because they see the truth. In fact, they cannot help but do so: a lot of shit that started five years ago is still happening, is happening again, over and over, and more continues to start new every day.Mac McClelland pretty much nailed it in her keynote. If you STILL haven’t seen the video, just go, do it now.
It was an awfully damn inspiring event to take part in. I’ll be there next year for sure. Don’t have a choice not to.
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LOVE. THAT. SONG.
I hadn’t heard it in AGES till the drive up. Since then it’s been in my head all the time. This post is an attempt to exorcise it.
Great song but Hammond is a hell hole. Yikes.
IIRC, the song refers to a commune or something like that there at the time
Interesting. Hammond was Klan Country in the 50’s and 60’s.
It was great meeting you!
Oh, M. Tex, you just brought me back though waves of nostalgia, driving from New York, where an NY station was playing the entire first album, to DC. When I got to the old Georgetown “Mars Hotel” where we had lived as students, our friends had the record playing when we walked in. They were (and are) three magical sisters.
Serge, and the beat goes on: check out Lucy Wainwright Roche- she’s the daughter of Suzzy and Loudon Wainwright. So far just an EP of eight songs out, but lots of videos online, and an NPR bit or two. She’s a total charmer, sings like an angel. There’s also a brother, Sloan but I haven’t heard anything of his.
Wow, VTex. I didn’t know that. Loudon, descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, definitely had good taste in sister acts.
Requiescat in pacem, Kate McGarrigle.