The Rubicon in Retrospect I: The Gala

 Thursday, I retrieved Alicia from her apartment and we made our way to the Baton Rouge Little Theater for the Fourth "Annual" LSMSA Arts Gala. I was quite excited, and had driven into Baton Rouge from New Orleans a day earlier than I had originally planned, specifically to attend. Alicia and I had previously attended the first of these events, in 2007, at the Manship Theatre; it was there that I first heard poetry guru Michael Glaviano read and Alan Talbott sing.

The American Gothic as the One True American Literary Form

Note: The following is an essay originally written for Professor Nancy Easterlin after she took over the Short Story as a Genre class during the Fall 2010 semester at the University of New Orleans following the untimely death of the late Professor J.W. Cooke. Date of creation: December 26, 2010. If referring to this essay academically, please remember to make the appropriate citations so as to avoid running afoul of your institution's plagiarism policy.


The American Gothic functions as a window into the greater American consciousness, offering a keen insight into the workings of the American psyche, and as such, it can be claimed that it is the true, defining genre of American literature. In the Introduction to American Gothic Fiction, Allan Lloyd Smith, writing of The Great Gatsby, says the American Gothic is about "the return of the past, of the repressed and denied, the buried secret that subverts and corrodes the present, whatever the culture does not want to know or admit" (Smith 1). The tropes of the genre divulge a great deal about the American character, fears given form revealing basic traits and archetypes that allow the critic to infer a great deal about the author and society.
Smith goes on to say that the imagined Americas in which the genre takes place are "largely imitative if eccentric version of the dominant culture" (3), and that the works themselves "are not so much working to adapt the Gothic mode; instead the Gothic emerges from the conditions they seek to describe." The entire experience of the New World, and the actions and consequences of its settlers, created new pressures that crystallized the American Gothic as an emerging genre: "the frontier experience, with its inherent solitude and potential violence; the Puritan inheritance; [...] the relative absence of developed 'society'" (5). This essay will explore the importance of the American Gothic to the larger American meta-narrative, the inextricable role of religion in both, and will dissect three short stories representative of the genre by examining the tropes used in each.

Oral Performance and the Transfiguration of the Commonplace

Note: The following is an essay originally written for Professor Niyi Osundare's Poetry as a Genre class during the Fall 2010 semester at the University of New Orleans. Date of creation: September 27, 2010. If referring to this essay academically, please remember to make the appropriate citations so as to avoid running afoul of your institution's plagiarism policy.

In the short 2010 documentary "music in high places" [sic] Taylor Pate, then Poetry Editor of the New Delta Review, at Louisiana State University was interviewed. The impetus for the documentary was investigation into the lives of young Baton Rouge poets and musicians who had grown up in alternative educational forms, namely Christian schooling and homeschooling, and how this affected their art. Pate, the son of a Christian pastor, was asked to what extent he felt prosleytization was informed by performance. His reply? After services, Reverend Pate would ask the family questions, not about the details of the content of the sermon, but technical issues pertaining to the broadcast of the sermon, such as whether the microphones were adequate or the congregation was involved: "So, how do you think people liked it... was it loud enough?" The content of the message was not unimportant, but the performance aspect of the sermon is of greater importance that one might previously realize, and that there was a fundamental difference between a sermon given orally and one that existed solely on the page.

Literature as a Societal Cornerstone

Note: The following is an essay originally written for Professor Niyi Osundare's Poetry as a Genre class during the Fall 2010 semester at the University of New Orleans. Date of creation: November 22, 2010. If referring to this essay academically, please remember to make the appropriate citations so as to avoid running afoul of your institution's plagiarism policy.

To understand the extent of the act of iconoclasm in the work of William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge, and the far reaching affects upon the Romantic Movement, affecting literary traditions from that period forward, one must first take into consideration other factors. Firstly, the intricate link between the earliest English literature and the English cultural mindset cannot be ignored, as anything that comments on the tradition is simultaneously making a commentary on the society from which it originates, and, in this case, provided a strong influence on this infant society. Further, oral literature, inherent in its nature as a device of transmission, creates a genealogy of literature, so much so that the lineage of critical thought can almost be traced backwards along a trail of mentors and disciples, exemplified by the parallels in the relationships between Jonathan Swift and John Dryden, Coleridge and Wordsworth, and many others.

Metamorphosis and Eternal Recurrence in 'Shine, Perishing Republic'

Note: The following is an essay originally written for Professor Niyi Osundare's Poetry as a Genre class during the Fall 2010 semester at the University of New Orleans. Date of creation: November 22, 2010. If referring to this essay academically, please remember to make the appropriate citations so as to avoid running afoul of your institution's plagiarism policy.



"Does it not hurt the caterpillar to become the butterfly?

Change always hurts, that is how you know it is working."

Big History at The Republic, New Orleans, April 15, 2011

Hey! Be sure to check out this and other reviews at http://www.klsuradio.fm, where you can read up on all the latest music news and view pictures from the latest music events!

Throwback Night at the Republic, like the Eighties Dance Party at One-Eyed Jacks, is a local favorite, and the people of New Orleans are more than happy to turn out to see which up and comers they need to pay attention to in the coming weeks and months. When I first moved to NOLA from Baton Rouge, I knew that the Republic would be the place I'd find myself frequently; New Orleans is renowned for its rhythm history, and is, of course, widely known for being the birthplace of jazz. Unfortunately, this has meant other genres, including local bands that fall on the more independent side of the spectrum, get pushed into a corner. Not so at the Republic, which has hosted such beloved fixtures of the genre as Rilo Kiley, and the first show I saw in my new town was local legends Glasgow, playing for Throwback Night, with The Little Mermaid as the theme.

Show Review: Prom Date with Big Rock Candy Mountain at the Spanish Moon, Baton Rouge, April 8, 2011

Hey! Be sure to check out this and other reviews at http://www.klsuradio.fm, where you can read up on all the latest music news and view pictures from the latest music events!

Big Rock Candy Mountain is a band based out of New Orleans, with a heavy influence from the louder side of indie rock. Theirs is the kind of unity that you love to see in a band, operating in perfect harmony, with crashing drums and cymbals intermingling with cluster bells and epic bass lines, all over incomprehensible lyrics that prove that the voice is an instrument, and you don’t have to hear the words to feel the power of them. They are well beloved in New Orleans, as is obvious from the musical royalty that makes a presence at the show: Sam Craft of New Orleans’ premiere indie dance band, Glasgow, is front and center at the base of the stage, dancing like there’s no tomorrow and playing air violin when the music moves him to do so. Their set is comprised of just a few songs, but the performance is memorable; the lead singer and keyboard player, who looks like Sean Lennon if his mother was Susan Sarandon instead of Yoko Ono, performs with the kind of energy that some bands only wish they had, clambering up onto his bench to jump down and slam the keys of his Casio with all his weight, while the guitarist slings his axe back and beats a cluster of bells, arranged on a handle like flowers on a foxglove plant. And through it all the drummer works himself into a frenzy that Animal from the Muppets would watch with jealousy. After the show, I ask Mr. Not-Lennon when the band will play next in their hometown, and he tells me that they are working on laying down a new album that they hope to have ready for this summer, and don’t have any more live shows planned for the next few months, but that they never know when they’ll be called upon to play again, so I should keep my eyes open. I’m passing along this information to you, because I whole-heartedly concur: if you get the chance, Big Rock Candy Mountain is a band that you want to see.