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Foobawooba Notes

2005-12-24

work

The Bluegrass Messengers

Frog in a Well- Version 7

Frog in a Well/Kitty Alone

Traditional Song and Dance Tune- US and British Isles, Widely known

ARTIST: From unknown on-line source;

CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes

DATE: “Froggie Went A Courtin’” branch- 1549; “Martin Said to His Man” branch-1588

OTHER NAMES: “Who’s the Fool Now?,” “Old Blind Drunk John,” “Fooba-Wooba John,” “Johnny Fool,” “Kitty and I,” “Frog in the “Well,”

RELATES TO: “Martin Said to His Man,” “Froggie Went a Courtin’,” “Limber Jim,” “Kemo Kimo/Sing Song Kitty.”

ORIGINATES FROM: Two main sources of origin are: “A Frog He Would A-Wooing Go” and “Martin Said to His Man.”

SOURCES: Kinloch-BBook XIV, pp. 50-54, “The Man in the Moon” (1 text) Randolph 445, “Johnny Fool” (2 texts); Wyman-Brockway I, p. 22, “The Bed-time Song” (1 text, 1 tune) Lomax-FSNA 136, “Hurrah, Lie!” (1 text, 1 tune); Chappell/Wooldridge I, p. 140, “Martin Said to His Man” (1 text, 1 tune)

RECORDING INFO: Beers Family. Seasons of Peace. A Great Family Sings, Biograph BLP 12033, LP (1970), cut#B.03; Bradley, Hank; and Cathie Whitesides. American Fogies. Vol. 2, Rounder 0389, CD (1996), cut#18a; Hills, Anne; and Cindy Mangsen. Never Grow Up, Flying Fish FF 671, CD (1998), cut# 1. Martha Hall, “Kitty Alone” (on MMOK, MMOKCD)

Old Blind Drunk John -Feldmann, Peter. Barnyard Dance, Hen Cackle HC 501, LP (1980), cut#A.05 (Fubba Wubba John); Mitchell, Howie. Howie Mitchell, Folk Legacy FSI-005, LP (1962), cut#B.01 (Kitty Alone); Seeger, Mike. Music From the True Vine, Mercury SRMI-627, LP (1972), cut# 8;

We’re A’ Jolly Fu’- MacColl, Ewan. Scotch (Scots) Drinking Songs, Offbeat OLP 4023, LP (196?), cut# 1

Kitty Alone- Beers Family. Seasons of Peace. A Great Family Sings, Biograph BLP 12033, LP (1970), cut#B.03; Bradley, Hank; and Cathie Whitesides. American Fogies. Vol. 2, Rounder 0389, CD (1996), cut#18a; Hills, Anne; and Cindy Mangsen. Never Grow Up, Flying Fish FF 671, CD (1998), cut# 1

NOTES ON KITTY ALONE: “Kitty Alone” is branch of the “Froggie Went Courtin’” and “Frog in the Well” songs. For detailed notes see: “Froggie Went a Courtin” and “Kemo Kimo.” It is also related to the “Old Blind Drunk John/Martin Said to His Man” songs and the text is found in the “Limber Jim/Buck-Eye Jim” group of songs.

NOTES ON KITTY ALONE- FROGGIE ORIGIN: One origin of the “Kitty Alone” text is the “Frog in the Spring/Frog in the Well” songs which is the “Puddy in the Well” offshoot of “Froggie Went A Courtin’.”

“A Frog He Would A-Wooing Go” or “Froggie Went a Courtin’” in the US: The air for this song (which Horace M. Belden believes is the most widely known song in the English language) first appears in Thomas Ravenscroft’s “Melismata” (1611). It is an early version of the song (“Froggie Went A-Courtin'”) famous in British and American traditional folklore and folksong, of which the earliest appearance was in Wedderburn’s “Complaynt of Scotland” (1549) where it is called “The frog cam to the myl dur.” Another early version is found in a broadside text of 1580, called “A moste Strange weddinge of the ffrogge and the mowse” (Rollins).

From David G. H. Parsons The History of “The Frog’s Courtship” A Study of Canadian Variants: Tolman and Eddy document another group of texts from the Scottish tradition that contain a “Cuddy alone” burden or variation such as “Kitty alone.” The origin or meaning of this burden remains a mystery. Here’s a typical verse:


There lived a puddy in a well,

Cuddy alone, Cuddy alone

There lived a puddy in a well

Cuddy alone and I


There lived a puddy in a well

And a mousie in a mill

Kickmaleerie, cowden down

Cuddy alone and I.


Here’s a typical verse from “The Frog” in the Well:”


There was a frog lived in a well,

Kitty alone, Kitty alone;

There was a frog lived in a well;

Kitty alone and I!


There was a frog lived in a well,

And a merry mouse in a mill.

Cock me cary, Kitty alone,

Kitty alone and I.

Many “Kitty Alone” versions of “Froggie” have been recorded, some are mixed in with the “Kemo Kimo” versions of Froggie.

Two more Canadian variants have this “Kitty alone” burden. Helen Creighton collected one in which the burden is altered to “Kitty in the kimeo” and another where it is “Kitty me love.” In both cases the informants remembered only one verse. Tolman and Eddy give a detailed list of the published variants of this family and mention several developments. A burlesque using the ‘kimo’ burden was once popular on the African-American minstrel stage, and there is a different song, but still “Keemo kimo,” on a British broadside, though obviously American in origin. (Parson)

Here is an example of the nonsense syllables in the Kemo Kimo chorus:

Keemo kyemo dell ray hi hoe

Rumpity Rump

Periwinkle soap fat

Link horn nip cat

Hit ’em with a brick bat

Sing song kitty catchy kye me oh

NOTES ON KITTY ALONE- MARTIN SAID TO HIS MAN ORIGIN: In a long note on this song, Professor G. L. Kittredge shows that the “Old Blind Drunk John” songs derive from “a famous old English song, ‘Martin Said to His Man,’ and entered in the Stationers’ Register in 1588.” It is a lying song—“I saw a louse run a mouse…. I saw a squirrel run a deer…. I saw a flea kick a tree…, in the middle of the sea.” One Scottish version cited says, “Four and twenty Hilandmen chasing a snail,” etc.

Referred to in Dryden’s 1668 play “Sir Martin Mar-all, or the Feign’d Innocence” (act IV). It seems to have been very popular in the century prior to that. The American versions can generally be told by their narrative pattern, “(I) saw a ( ) (doing something),” e.g. “Saw a crow flying low,” “Saw a mule teaching school,” “Saw a louse chase a mouse,” “Saw a flea wade the sea.” Other names for “Kitty Alone” are “Who’s the Fool Now?,” “Old Blind Drunk John,” “Johnny Fool,” and “Fooba-Wooba John.”

Here’s an example of the Martin Said to His Man- Kitty Alone:


Saw a crow a-flying low

Kitty alone, kitty alone.

Saw a crow a-flying low,

Kitty alone, alone.

Saw a crow a-flying low

And a cat a-spinnin’ tow.

Rock-a-bye baby bye, rock-a-bye baby bye.

FINAL NOTES: It’s not difficult to distinguish the difference between the “Froggie Went Courtin’” and “Martin Said to His Man” versions. It’s more confusing to sort through and identify the numerous variants of the popular “Froggie” and categorize them.

Here’s a version of “Kitty Alone/ Frog in the Well:”


There was a frog lived in a well,

Kitty alone, Kitty alone;

There was a frog lived in a well;

And a merry mouse in a mill.

Cock me cary, Kitty alone,

Kitty alone and I.


This frog he would a-wooing ride,

Kitty alone, Kitty alone;

This frog he would a-wooing ride,

And on a snail he got astride,

Cock me cary, Kitty alone,

Kitty alone and I.


He rode till he came to my Lady Mouse Hall,

Kitty alone, Kitty alone;

He rode till he came to my Lady Mouse Hall,

And there he did both knock and call.

Cock me cary, Kitty alone,

Kitty alone and I.


Quoth he, “Miss Mouse, I’m come to thee,” –

Kitty alone, Kitty alone;

Quoth he, “Miss Mouse, I’m come to thee

To see if thou canst fancy me.”

Cock me cary, Kitty alone,

Kitty alone and I.


Quoth she, “Answer I’ll give you none,” –

Kitty alone, Kitty alone;

Quoth she, “Answer I’ll give you none

Until my Uncle Rat comes home.”

Cock me cary, Kitty alone,

Kitty alone and I.


And when her Uncle Rat came home,

Kitty alone, Kitty alone;

And when her Uncle Rat came home:

“Who’s been here since I’ve been gone?”

Cock me cary, Kitty alone,

Kitty alone and I.


“Sir, there’s been a worthy gentleman,” –

Kitty alone, Kitty alone;

Sir, there’s been a worthy gentleman,

That’s been here since you’ve been gone.”

Cock me cary, Kitty alone,

Kitty alone and I.


The frog he came whistling through the brook,

Kitty alone, Kitty alone;

The frog he came whistling through the brook,

And there he met with a dainty duck.

Cock me cary, Kitty alone,

Kitty alone and I.


This duck she swallowed him up with a pluck,

Kitty alone, Kitty alone;

This duck she swallowed him up with a pluck,

So there’s the end of my history-book.

Cock me cary, Kitty alone,

Kitty alone and I.




Subject: LimberJim/Buck-eye Jim History

From: GUEST,Richie

Date: 17 Nov 02 – 12:50 PM


I wanted to share this with you.


There’s been some extensive research on Buck-eye Jim and Limber Jim in several threads. I’m posting my notes on Limber Jim for Turtle

Old Man and others that are interested. Any comments or additional info would be appreciated.


NOTES: The Limber Jim Songs originated from and combined with various 1800 minstrel song adaptations of the “Froggie Went a Courting/Martin Said To his Man” songs including the “Kemo Kimo” songs, “Kitty Alone” songs and “Goodbye Liza Jane” songs.


Some titles of the “Kemo Kimo” songs are “Keemo Kimo” “Sing Song Kitty (Won’t You Ki-Me-O);” “King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O;” “Kyman-I-Doe;” and “Beaver Creek” which are variants of the old “Froggie Went Courting” songs.


Here are some excerpts from two “Kemo Kimo” songs:


King Kong Kitchee:


Ki-mo, kemo, ki-mo, kee

Way down yonder in a holler tree

An owl and a bat and a bumblebee

King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o


Sing Song Kitty:


Way down yonder and not far off,

Sing song kitty can’t ya kime-e-o.

A jaybird died with the whoppin’ cough,

Sing song kitty can’t ya kime-e-o.


Way down yonder on Beaver Creek,

Sing song kitty can ya kime-e-o.

The gals all grow to be six feet,

Sing song kitty can ya kime-e-o.


The Limber Jim Songs are also related to the “Kitty Alone” songs which are variants from the “Martin Said to his Man” and “Froggie Went a Courting” songs. “Limber Jim” relates to the “Martin Said to his Man” branch of “Kitty Alone.” In a long note on this song, Professor G. L. Kittredge shows that the “Old Blind Drunk John” songs derive from “a famous old English song, ‘Martin Said to His Man,’ and entered in the Stationers’ Register in 1588.” It is a lying song-“I saw a louse run a mouse…. I saw a squirrel run a deer…. I saw a flea kick a tree…, in the middle of the sea.” One Scottish version cited says, “Four and twenty Hilandmen chasing a snail,” etc. Other names for “Kitty Alone” are “Who’s the Fool Now?,” “Old Blind Drunk John,” “Johnny Fool,” and “Fooba-Wooba John.”


Here’s an example of the Martin Said to His Man- Kitty Alone:


Saw a crow a-flying low

Kitty alone, kitty alone.

Saw a crow a-flying low,

Kitty alone, alone.

Saw a crow a-flying low

And a cat a-spinnin’ tow.

Rock-a-bye baby bye, rock-a-bye baby bye.


There are also Froggie variants that introduce the “weave and spin” line commonly found in Limber Jim/Buck-eye Jim.


FROGGIE: From Mrs. Ford Kent of New York


A frog he would a-wooing go

A-too-re-lal, a-too-re-lal,

He went into Miss Mouse’s hall

And there he loudly rapped and called,

He said, Miss Mouse, are you within?

She said, I sit and spin.


BUCK-EYE JIM:

Chorus: Buck-eyed Jim, you can’t go

Go weave and spin, you can’t go

Buck-eyed Jim


From Children Of The Levee, published by the University of Kentucky Press in 1957. It is a reprint of the original articles written by Lafcadio Hearn in 1874-1877 for the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Cincinnati Commercial. Hearn: “But the most famous songs in vogue among the roustabouts is “Limber Jim,” or “Shiloh.” Very few know it all by heart, which is not wonderful when we consider that it requires something like twenty minutes to sing “Limber Jim” from beginning to end, and that the whole song, if printed in full, would fill two columns of the commercial! The only person in the city who can sing the song through, we believe, is a colored laborer living near Sixth and Culvert streets, who “run on the river” for years, and acquired so much of a reputation by singing “Limber Jim,” that he has been nicknamed after the mythical individual aforesaid, and is now known by no other name.


Here’s an excerpt of Limber Jim from Hearns, March 17, 1876:


Chorus: Limber Jim,

[All.] Shiloh!

Talk it agin,

[All.] Shiloh!

Walk back in love,

[All.] Shiloh!

You turtle-dove,

[All.] Shiloh!


Went down the ribber, couldn’t get across;

Hopped on a rebel louse; thought ’twas a hoss,

Oh, lor’, gals, ‘t ain’t no lie,

Lice in Camp Chase big enough to cry,–


Bridle up a rat, sir; saddle up a cat,

Please han’ me down my Leghorn hat,

Went to see widow; widow warn’t home;

Saw to her daughter–she geve me honeycomb.


Jay-bird sittin’ on a swinging limb,

Winked at me an’ I winked at him.

Up with a rock an’ struck him on the shin,

G-d d–n yer soul, don’t wink again. (posted by Masato)


The origin of the closely related “Buckeye Jim” song is obscure. According to the Library of Congress, Fletcher Collins collected “Buckeye Jim” (aka “Limber Jim”) from Mrs. J.U. (Patty) Newman in 1939, at Elon College, in North Carolina, which is the first documented version.

The “Limber Jim” group of songs includes “Buck-eye Jim” and “Shiloh”. There are connections with other fiddle tunes such as “Seven Up”. The “Seven Up,” “Charlotte Town is Burning Down,” “Shiloh,” and “Goin’ Down to Cairo” are all related to the large body of “Goodbye Liza Jane” songs.

This fiddle tune has floater verses and many variants. There are two distinct versions: the “Way Up/Down Yonder” versions (see also: Jim Along Josie), and the “Weave and Spin” (Limber Jim) versions. There are also versions that include “Shiloh” which appears to be a slang word for a type of dance or dance step in connection with the tune.

-Richie

[http://www.ceolas.org/]

MARTIN SAID TO HIS MAN. AKA – “Fooba-Wooba.” English, Air (3/4 time). C Major. Standard. One part. Chappell (1859) reports the song appears with its music as one of the Freeman’s songs to three voices in Deuteromelia (1609) and the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. Regarding those songs, in the life of Sir Peter Carew by John Vowell, he says “For the King himself (Henry VIII) being much delighted to sing, and Sir Peter Carew having a pleasant voice, the King would often use him to sing with him certain songs they call ‘Freeman’s Song’s.'” Registered as a ballad with the Stationers’ Company in 1588, it seems a satire on the tellers of marvelous tales, much in the vein (says Kines) of such traditional songs of exaggeration such as “Tom-a-lyn,” “Paddy Backwards,” “The Darby Ram,” “Amhran na mBreag,” and “I was born 1000 years ago.” A much later derivative of “Martin Said to his Man” was written by William Courtright, published in 1877 and called “Flewy, Flewy.”

***

Martin said to his man, fie, man, fie

Martin said to his man, who’s the fool now?

Martin said to his man, fill thou the cup and I the can,

Who hast well drunken man, who’s the fool now?

Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Time), Vol. 1, 1859; pg. 140. Kines (Songs From Shakespeare’s Plays and Popular Songs of Shakespeare’s Time), 1964; pg. 91.

Field Research Documentation

2005-11-11

work

I have, over the years, created a number of forms both for myself and for my students to aid in doing survey work as well as more intensive forms of documentation. I have made all of those forms available on Scribd, which keeps them very tidy — and also doesn’t consume my bandwidth for something that has proved pretty popular over the years:

  • If you are doing what Fred Kniffen once described as “windshield survey” work, you might want to keep a field log sheet on the seat next to you. I have also forgotten such sheets in my office when I headed out, but making myself fill it out as soon as I got back was a sure way to make sure I wrote everything down while the memories were fresh — I am always surprised by how quickly memory decays.
  • If I have made any kind of recording — and I usually work with audio — I like to create a log sheet of the contents while I listen. Again, just having the sheet is enough to make me do the work on most occasions.
  • Finally, while working with the Center for Louisiana Studies, we tried to come up with an archive accession form that would respect the folklore fieldwork practice, and I think the eventual draft we came up with does a decent job. Feel free to adapt it to your circumstances, or archive.
  • You may also be interested in my collection of interview tips.

Rich the First Time

2005-10-12

work

When I joined two area tourism commissions to brainstorm ways to facilitate richer, more compelling interactions and experiences for tourists coming to Acadiana, what everyone wanted was something new. They imagined that technology would solve their problems, and for a while they locked onto the newest device in museum exhibit design, the visiguide, which is essentially a highly-customized handheld computer. Bu what I heard Gerald Breaux describe to us as he imagined a future was the frustration he had with the past and its collection of one-off products — films, kiosks, brochures — that lined the shelves of his closets and was either outdated or unusable for a variety of reasons — some of which had to do with the fact that he didn’t have permission to pull apart a film he had in fact paid for.

As I sat and listened to Gerald talk, I imagined an ideal arrangement in which humanities scholars — faculty and students — would engage in field research whose contents would be of a nature — as good textual descriptions and narrations, as high-quality audio, video, and images — as to be immediately usable in various commodities meant for tourists: audio CDs (for driving tours), CD-ROMs, DVDs, on-line web pages, print-on-demand booklets, maps, and guides, among other possibilities.

Gerald Breaux got it, and funded a first iteration that led to a maintenance grant overseen by another faculty member. The first time around, I ended up calling the project Rich the First Time: A Media Infrastructure for Tourism. The text below is what the proposal looked like:

Summary

The Center for Louisiana Studies/ Center for Cultural and Eco-Tourism propose a multi-platform media infrastructure for delivering interpretive information to an underdeveloped portion of the tourism market. By taking advantage of evolving information technologies, this flexible system is designed:

  1. to meet the need for new forms of interpretive materials among visitors to this region and,
  2. to add value to the unique tourism assets of communities and businesses presently struggling to attract visitors.

Challenge

To enhance the quality and variety of tourism experiences offered in the Lafayette area and to meet the growing demand among tourists for unconventional encounters with distinctive places, peoples, cultures, communities, heritage, and history.

Without an interpretive infrastructure to meet this demand, many of our greatest assets are never matched with the tourists who value them most. Over the years, Louisiana has worked successfully to strengthen and sustain its conventional tourism infrastructure, such as museums, parks, restaurants, and visitor centers. At the same time, however, we have also witnessed the tremendous expansion of a tourism market sector interested in a decidedly different kind of experience. This market brings to Louisiana visitors seeking firsthand:

  • a unique and authentic sense of place, often in remote locations;
  • a more, independent self-guided interaction with their surroundings;
  • a sense of active discovery in a place, instead of a passive display;
  • a ready access to the smaller stories that give real texture to a place and its people;
  • an experience scaled to suit the visiting individual or family (typically in their own automobile), rather than a guided group;
  • a means of learning and experiencing whereby a visitor can pursue those topics that interest him most, and in as much depth as he desires.

In general, Louisiana’s traditional tourism infrastructure is quite familiar and accessible to visitors and, within its own scope, it succeeds. But for that growing portion of the tourism market seeking the more unconventional experiences found in folk culture, for instance, or in remote rural environments, visitors often do not have the resources and tools they need to find what they are looking for. Conversely, local communities and businesses that can offer such experiences to visitors do not have a ready means of attracting and engaging them.

In short, many of our greatest cultural and historical assets are never shared with the visitors who value them most.

Strategy

Apply the unparalleled resources of the CLS to develop focused, structured interpretations of this region, delivered through multiple media platforms and designed to satisfy the demand for both conventional and unconventional tourism experiences. Such a strategy would rely on the effective use of advances in information technology. (See “Developing a Tourism Media Infrastructure.”)

Good tourism depends on good information. The information that Lafayette provides to visitors works to structure and guide their interpretation of the people, places, and things that make this area worth visiting. But equally important is how that interpretive information is mediated and delivered.

In the case of our own local cultures and histories, the issue is not necessarily a lack of documentation. Rather, it’s a matter of getting that information into the hands of tourists in a way that satisfies their demands, as those demands arise. (Think of this as just-in-time inventory control for interpretive information.) Traditional vehicles for this kind of information delivery have included:

  • Brochures
  • Maps
  • Historical markers
  • Driving tour guides
  • Video kiosks at fixed locations

We are not suggesting that any of these be abandoned. Far from it, there is a generous supply of tourists for whom these forms satisfy all their needs. Instead, we are suggesting that the LCVC take advantage of advances in information technology to develop a wider portfolio of interpretive materials, well-researched and professionally produced, that can be delivered on multiple media platforms and serve multiple functions-that is, one input with multiple outputs. Designed to for maximum adaptability, this model is something we call Rich Structured Data (RSD).

With an emphasis on those tourists most interested in a self-guided, interactive experience of the region, those RSD outputs could include, but are not limited to, the following:

Print

  • Brochures
  • Maps
  • Guidebooks
  • Posters

Audio

  • CD’s
  • Downloadable or streaming MP3’s (“podcasts”)

Image (stills and video)

  • DVDs (linear as well as interactive)
  • VisiGuide handheld computers
  • Television
  • Video clips and stills, for download or streaming

Interactive (blending text, audio, and image)

  • Interactive CD-ROMs
  • Internet (conventional and wireless)
  • VisiGuide handheld computers (with or without GPS features)

Services

Guided by LCVC, the CLS project team designs and executes a series of focused, structured tourism experiences. The CLS is capable of providing three tiers of service in executing these projects.

Tier One: Survey

  1. CLS inventories and catalogues extant historical, cultural, and ecological resources with potential value for tourism.
  2. Independently, the LCVC team works to identify market needs, with assistance from CLS-provided consultant.

Tier Two: Asset Acquisition and Assembly

  1. A group composed of both LCVC personnel and the CLS project team decides on three tours/experiences to be developed.
  2. The CLS project team researches, collects, and produces the necessary content, formatted to suit the Rich Structured Data model. Content would consist of text, images, audio recordings, and video recordings, catalogued and organized into a database ready for production. Content is then configured for multiple output platforms. The model allows for the adaptation, updating, and reconfiguration of content as necessary.*

###Tier Three: Structured Outputting

CLS conducts post-production structuring and assembly of digital assets for the desired output platform, ready for uploading to the target medium.

Budget

Personnel

  • Project Director: Oversee all three field teams and coordinate production personnel to maximize their time spent in the field. 10 hours. $65/hr. ($650)
  • Senior Field Team Leader: Design and develop research and writing particular to the tour-experience specifications. Establish schedule for production personnel. 40 hours. $65/hr. ($2600)
  • Junior Field Team Member: Research and write tour-experience details, prepare shooting script for any production necessary, and crew productions. 120 hours. $32.50/hr. ($3900)
  • Field Production Personnel: Produce publication quality audio, still, and video materials for use in tourism products. 40 hours. $130/hr. ($5200)

###Totals

  • Subtotal: $12350.00
  • Contingency (15%): $1852.50
  • Total: $14202.50

Usage fees and rights to be determined.

(VERSION: 2005-10-01. Original author: John Laudun. Revision authors: John Laudun and Charles Richard.)

The Net and Higher Education

2005-10-04

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It seems to me that the “vision” offered by what was supposed to be a provocative issue of the Tomorrow’s Professor listserv, the excerpt from Burck Smith’s “Higher Education: The Vision [2015],” was neither a vision nor provocative. It is in fact merely a fuller, more imaginative articulation of what has really become a cliche, that the net is THE place for realization of the corporate mentality’s belief in “more, better, faster, with less,” especially at the level of knowledge production — or at least knowledge inculcation.

While I am, as well as others like me, more than tempted to scribble a Swiftean counter-statement, along the lines of “A Modest Proposal” or “Gulliver’s Travels,” I think it’s even more telling to make a counterfactual argument, one that reveals just how low our pants have been pulled down: there is no desire for knowledge for the most part in corporations. One need only look to the exponential increase in third-party consulting groups to see the dynamic at work: any and all undesirable consequences are in the end deferable to consultants, who as certified bearers of knowledge, should have all the answers. (Of course, the lovely irony here is that consultants always have the opportunity to rage about how clients did not follow through.)

Certification, or deferment, is exactly the point here. Quite often employers are not looking to hire the best and brightest but simply those who have been certified as being the shiniest, either by class ranking, school ranking, or both. No one has time anymore, since the internet is now the speed of business (to jumble a couple of ad campaign slogans together), and so there is no time for human interaction, interaction which would reveal the fit and fitness of individuals within organizations. Everyone is too busy checking off boxes. (Anyone who has suffered any contact with the paper end of HR departments will know exactly what I mean.)

Now along comes the internet, which would seem to offer the exciting possibility of no real human contact, but unfortunately it does not offer us the certification processes that most corporations want out of an institutionally-backed diploma. This leaves business, which is the driving force behind much of the net’s recent expansion, in a real quandary. How do they know that the person who lists off twenty internet courses actually learned anything without having a crimped transcript in front of them? Horrors. They would have to talk with them.

Human interaction, then, has to occur at some point in the process in order for the system to bear up, either in the form of professors engaging students in the classroom or HR personanel engaging applicants in the interview. My preference would be for this happening all along the way, but all the visions I have so far seen go in precisely the opposite way, which I believe most humbly is the wrong way.

Then again, what do I know? I left a well-paying job as a management consultant to become a folklorist. I actually like talking with people and finding out what they know, much of which has never graced the screens of the internet.

Evacuation

2005-09-25

work

So now I know. I know two things. First, what is it is like to be part of an evacuation. Second, that I am not going to do it again. Or, to be clear, next time I evacuate it is going to be because it is a mandatory evacuation because there is a Category 5 storm headed straight for Lafayette, the city in which I live.

Last time a storm headed our way, it was Hurricane Lili in September of 2002. I was just coming off my usual dog days of Louisiana summers sinus infection, and in fact prepared for the storm riding the crest of a steroid injection. It also meant that I spent much of the night awake as the storm built to full fury only to zonk out during the storm’s “peak” — I’m still wrestling with the notion of what the peak of a hurricane is, because it is pretty much all bad.

After Lili, my wife turned to me and said, quite clearly, “The next time a storm like that comes our way, we are leaving.”

I took her at her word, and as Rita slowly nudged her expected path eastward, I began to prepare to move out. By Thursday morning, September 22, the Louisiana governor had issued mandatory evacuations for most coastal areas as well as other low-lying areas further inland apt to flood. Lafayette was under a voluntary evacuation.

But this time around it’s not just me and my wife, and we would probably have stayed and weathered the storm, as they. We now have a one year old, and I just could not rationalize taking any kind of chance with her, so into the car went the three of us as well as clothes and stuff to keep us occupied for a few days. (Okay, dumb optimism on my part. We did not pack for anything serious to happen to our house. Stupid, but we’re going to get to boneheadedness in a moment, so please be patient with the story so far.) And we headed east to Baton Rouge, which our governor had also asked us folks not to go to, but since I have family in Baton Rouge, I figured we were in the right to go there.

Now, the problem with all these grand evacuation plans, or lack thereof if you are of that school of thought, is that they depend upon there being decent evacuation routes. And with over fifty years of bad planning and “not in my back yard” mindsets and taxpayers who think taxes only support welfare moms and not things like roads, there just aren’t that many evacuation routes. Lafayette has three major highways that serve it: I-10, I-49, and Route 90.

I-10 heads east and it heads west, and no one wanted to go west. Route 90 heads west and it heads south, to New Orleans. Mmmm, nah ah. I-49 heads north.

And everyone was headed north. We saw miles and miles of cars as we passed over I-49 headed east on I-10. And we made good time, until we got to the usual snafu on that bit of highway between Lafayette and Baton Rouge, the Atchafalaya Basin Freeway, or as it is better known around here, “the basin bridge” aka “the basin overpass” aka “the overpass.”

Archiving Literature

2005-08-11

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In a conversation with Debbie Clifton, she recommended the following texts, which she has on her shelves in her office at the Natural History Museum:

  • Cataloguing Cultural Objects
  • The Classification of Pictures and Slides (at the LSU library)
  • Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (highly recommended)
  • The Revised Nomenclature for Museum Cataloging

Software used at NHM: PastPerfect (appeared to be running on a Windows 98 machine, so I don’t know if it’s cross-platform or still in development).

At some point in the near future, we need to determine if and how we are going to inventory the diverse collections of the Center. I would love to see a single (obviously flexible) database that would allow a user to search the entire contents of our collections. Currently we have Filemaker as our backbone (if we can get it running for everybody), but at some point, if we grow, I would love to see us have something with more transparency for us as designers — something like MySQL, which would allow us to have a web interface, and even serve to the www, without the steep price tag that FM wants for that function. (Oh for the time to learn PHP, etc.)

Reading “The Reversible World”

2004-05-17

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Zemon-Davis:

Reversals … are ultimately sources of order and stability in a hierarchical society. They can clarify the structure by the process of reversing it. They can provide an expression of and a safety valve for conflicts within the system. They can correct and relieve the system when it has become authoritarian. But, so it is argued, they do not question the basic order of the society itself. They can renew the system, but they cannot change it. (153)

Anne Laudun Mayfield (21 June 1910 – 31 January 2004)

2004-02-02

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On her eighty-ninth birthday, Anne Laudun Mayfield asked God not to have to see another birthday. For the past three years, she was, she told me, a little put out. When everyone gathered for her ninety-third birthday this past June, we asked her what she thought of being ninety-three. “It’s just ridiculous,” she said. “It’s just ridiculous.” Funny when she was mad, or pretending to be mad, Aunt Anne was an independent soul who, in an almost contradictory fashion, seemed put here on this earth to remind us of the importance of being together.

Her life began along the road that stretches from Home Place to Weeks Island where she grew up in a family that eventually numbered ten children that had two fathers and three mothers. Perhaps it was there that she learned that all that mattered was love and being together, for she would reveal that, technically, many of her brothers and sisters were half or step-siblings. In her heart and in her stories, however, they were no steps, no halves.

There on Weeks Island, in the literal and figurative big house of her telling, she was reading one day on the porch when the mill boss came striding his way across the yard to see her mother. Seeing her reading, he stopped and asked her what she was reading. “A book,” she said. “Don’t you like to read magazines or go see movies?” he asked. “No,” she replied. “They’re all so silly.” He continued on his way into the house, but the next day word came that he wanted to pay for Aunt Anne to continue her schooling, and with that she took her first step out of the country and began the journey that would lead her eventually to Atlanta, where she worked for what was then American Motors, and where she would meet the love of her life William Mayfield.

Her time with Bill was all too brief, but in her estimation it was all she could have hoped for, and when he died, she brought him home here to Jeanerette, to be with her, and so that she could join him today.

From that moment over forty years ago until now, she became the great aunt that most of us knew her as. Her and Cecile became, well, Anne and Cile. They were a pair, intertwined in our minds, always together. If Anne ever regretted not having children of her own, she never spoke it. Instead, she seemed to rejoice in the love and attention that all of you had so much of that you blurred the line between mother or grandmother and aunt and great aunt.

I would be remiss in speaking here today—and I know Anne would want me to say it—if I didn’t publicly thank all of you for everything you did for her. Eddie, you and your children have my thanks and the thanks of everyone here for everything you did. She was not always the easiest of charges, and I know you sometimes felt taken for granted. I got to sweep in and be the special guest of the day now and then, but what you cannot have known was that how she spent time with me was telling me stories about you. All of you were her lights. She couldn’t read, and towards the end, she couldn’t even see to watch television, but she could listen and she could tell stories.

One time when I was visiting her, and I had finished reading her something, and I asked her to tell me a story, she told me that she didn’t have any new true stories to tell me but that she had some stories she told herself but that she made up. One involved a man who got lost in the woods, and one involved a doctor falling in love with a young woman. Things weren’t, she said, looking too good right now, but I shouldn’t worry, she assured me, things were going to turn out all right: the hunter would find his way out of the woods and the couple would fall in love and marry.

Things were going to turn out all right. And things have turned out all right. Anne Laudun Mayfield took what she had, time and love and stories, and she made a family out of them. Out of us. She’s telling stories to others now, and I think I can with some sense of certainty that in those stories things are going to turn out all right. Thank you, Aunt Anne, thank you for keeping us together, for telling us stories, for loving us. May God bless you and hold you close.

Folk Culture and the Literary Invention of Louisiana

2001-12-03

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Evolving Images of the Cajuns and Creoles

Abstract

In the wake of the “great awakening” of French culture in Louisiana, there have been numerous offerings by “natives” to represent themselves. In the early phase of the process, many of these documents were scholarly publications looking to balance an historical record which seemed unaware that Louisiana owed much of its history and culture to the Continental European and African origins of a number of groups that populated south Louisiana from the colonial era into the post-Civil War era. In the second phase of the awakening, a number of authors — most notably those writing cookbooks — began to draw upon these roots consciously, often universalizing their particular experience of south Louisiana culture and history. Also arising at this time were number of publications which consciously treated various stereotypes — I’m thinking here of joke books and memoirs. All of these texts continue to play a role in what might be called the post-renaissance, or at least the post-awakening, moment in which we now reside, where a certain kind of sophisticated cultural consumerism has come to dominate the logic of understanding. I want to argue that this is a dangerous period for us, in which we face two paths, one which encourages a kind of “free play of signs” which may very well leave us consuming ongoing misapprehensions of our history and culture or one which seeks to go beyond the logic of easy consumerism.

Introduction

As a number of scholars have observed, there have been two notable fluorescences in the written literature of French Louisiana. The first occurred in the years leading unto and following the Civil War, with the publication of Les Cenelles and the writing of the New Orleans Tribune poets.

  • Both fluorescences had political origins.
  • Creoles of color were involved in both; Cajuns only in the latter.
  • By focusing on these as moments, we ignore the ongoing traditions of folk poetry which take off with the coming of another form of fixity: the recording industry. To this day, many of south Louisiana’s best poets are not to be found in the pages of a book but in the grooves of a CD: Zachary Richard, Kristi Guillory, etc.

1845: Les Cenelles published. 1860s: Tribune poets. 1980: Cris sur le bayou. 1981: Kein’s Gombo People. Acadia Tropicale.

Readings

Sometimes
even early in the day, we take our
brothers in our arms as we sing and
dance, forgetting we wear masks.
We get caught up in the act. We are
fire and air. We will not remember
until tomorrow our separateness,
and that we are also earth.

For the Cajuns and Creoles of south Louisiana’s bayous and prairies, masks are not metaphors, not figures of speech, but an active part of reality. The irony of masking in this context, as Darrell Bourque makes clear in his poem, is an activity who’s seeming purpose is to alienate us fro ourselves as well as each other, makes us more who we are as individuals as well as communities. Removing the mask then, becomes something far more significant that simply symbolic, as Creole poet Debbie Clifton makes clear in her “Nôte pas mon masque,” which is both an homage as well as a revision of James Weldon Johnson. In that poet, she reminds us that “truth that can drive you mad” may lurk behind the mask. But Clifton is not content to embody the complex historical realities that are both the legacy of the South in general and Louisiana in particular. Like Bourque and other south Louisiana poets, this is a personal matter and as such, she is free to revise historical precepts as she sees fit, as she makes clear in the poem “Renaissance” which begins:

Yes, I was his negress.
I am her.
and I will be her always.
Anytimes he wants me like that,
I am his negress.

What Cajuns and Creoles share is history and geography and they make full use of the latter in their work. It is almost as if by re-figuring the land, they perceive an opportunity to re-figure themselves. In poem after poem, Clifton and others re-imagine swamps, bayous, and marshes that so often as kinds of waking deaths in exoteric texts into places so fecund as only to be understood in glimpses.

Verna Lauden on the Future

1992-04-25

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In conversation Grandma Laudun noted about the future:

“It’s always coming. It never gets further, only closer.”

Page 23 of 24

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