Lehman Bros.

So I’m in Montgomery, Alabama visiting my sister a few weeks ago, and we’re out at this nice little outdoor live music gig at a downtown hotel. (A lovely night to be outside enjoying beer and music after fleeing Baton Rouge and the impending blowhard Gustav)

I notice this beautiful old (19th c.?) building across the street, the history of which nobody is quite certain. Maybe some cotton brokers from ages ago? There are a couple of peculiar statues on the roof, one of a large anvil, a female figure I think (an angel?), and a strange capsule-like thing rumored to contain a mysterious body...very Edward Gorey.

Turns out certain young Misters Henry, Emanuel and Mayer Lehman moved to Montgomery from Bavaria in the late 1840s and started a dry-goods business called Lehman Brothers. The brothers began to start accepting King Cotton as payment for dry goods and eventually began a second business trading in cotton.

By 1858, Henry had died of yellow fever and cotton trading had moved to New York, whence the two remaining brothers (pictured left) went and the rest as they say is history...

(and now so is Lehman Brothers?)

9-11-2001

After hearing “9-11” invoked as the rationale for any amount of lunacy over the past seven years, it’s easy to forget the actual horror of what happened that day.

I remember walking into Compass Records that morning in 2001 to deal with some job-related task, and hearing from my buddy David Haley what had just happened in New York. Never been one to turn on the news first thing in the morning, or I would have known.

I remember thinking...“Nah, that couldn’t have REALLY happened”...even after we all subsequently saw it on TV from every possible angle, until I just couldn’t look at it any more, couldn’t think about it anymore, couldn’t look at any more pictures in the New York Times of people who had died.

I remember the tense days and weeks following making sure everybody I knew in New York (and everywhere else) was accounted for.

I remember wondering what sort of people could perpetrate such a thing. Was it a well-laid terrorist plan gone well beyond belief, was it a fluke, was it a tremendous conspiracy?

After seven years that both seem like yesterday and seem like a creeping eternity, it’s almost impossible to make any sense of what happened through all the fog of information, near-information, and outright mis-information.

Today I bow in memory to those who died, those that keep dying daily...and try to picture a reasonable end to it all. Amen.

Wore a black hat, ate lots of chicken.

napoleon
wore a black hat
ate lots of chicken
and conquered half europe
napoleon
was caught by the british
imprisoned on elba
he died on the phone

[favorite lyrics about Napoleon, from Robin Hitchcock’s Cynthia Mask]






















New favorite movie about Napoleon is The Emperor’s New Clothes

From Netflix:
In this whimsical tale based on Simon Leys’s novel The Death of Napoleon, the exiled Napoleon Bonaparte (Ian Holm) trades places with a look-alike—a common drunk—and makes his way back to Paris in disguise, intent on reclaiming his throne. During his travels, he discovers that France has changed in many humorous ways—and finds love with a melon-selling widow named Pumpkin (Iben Hjejlie).

Came out around 2002, seems to be an Italian production, may not have been widely released over here. Director is Alan Taylor, who seems to mostly to really good television. Sopranos, Six Feet Under, etc.

Have always been quite fond of Ian Holm. Met him briefly in a bar in New York ages ago.

Who’s the cat that won’t cop out?

Isaac Hayes 1942-2008 R.I.P.

Funny that in many people’s minds, Isaac Hayes will forever be entwined not with the beautifully innovative lush soul music he created, but with two radically different and semi-ridiculous fictional characters.

Shaft and Chef...

Isaac was one beautiful smooth man. Strange, I had been listening to Black Moses recently, and just got Hot Buttered Soul today from eMusic after I found out he’d passed...my vinyl versions long gone. I remember as a kid I used to look at Hot Buttered Soul and wonder what that ultra-smooth head felt like.

Come to find Isaac had just finished a movie called Soul Men with Samuel Jackson and Bernie Mac, who I found out also died this weekend of complications from pneumonia.

In Chef’s inimitably poignant words “James Taylor, what the hell are you doing singing about prostitutes to these children? Get outta here!”

More recent collage.

The devil...Britney...childhood...CPR...body building.
A little something for everyone...

Loving working with the old book material I’ve been finding around here. Especially stuff with kid’s drawings.

Politics...what a drag!

My buddy McGuire sent me a bunch of these ages ago, probably before I was blogging. Thought they were still funny and worth dragging the best few of them back out.

Reminds me of good old Morrissey on the Smiths’ The Queen is Dead record...
“I say Charles don’t you ever crave / to appear on the front of the Daily Mail / dressed in your Mother's bridal veil?”

War dims hope for peace.

[[“Headlines" by Robert Phillips, from Circumstances Beyond Our Control: Poems. © The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006]]

H E A D L I N E S

War Dims Hope for Peace.
Plane Too Close to Ground, Crash Probe Told.
Clinton Wins Budget; More Lies Ahead.

Miners Refuse to Work after Death.
Include Your Children When Baking Cookies.
War Dims Hope for Peace.

Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Experts Say
Prostitutes Appeal to Pope.
Clinton Wins Budget; More Lies Ahead.

Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half.
Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide.
War Dims Hope for Peace.

Stolen Painting Found by Tree.
Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over.
Clinton Wins Budget; More Lies Ahead.

Iraqi Head Seeks Arms.
Police Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers.
War Dims Hope for Peace.
Clinton Wins Budget; More Lies Ahead