Modest complement of MJJG obs

Tue Nov 10 12:03:37 UTC 2020

Well I’m reading on my Kindle and Audible because that’s what I read most things these days - sometimes one, sometimes the other, often both,  but I almost never read paper books.  Old as I’m getting,  my eyes don’t seem to work very well on book print font.  

I’m up to Chapter 4 which is page 16 in the Kindle.  I've read much further but I found I was kind of lost so I started over.   

I’m fairly certain the mayor, Harry (no last name given),  is white and seems actually to be a spin on Martin Behrman, mayor of NL for 17 years (!) from 1904 to 1920  (four consecutive terms) plus only 1 year ( 1925 to 1926) because he died.   
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Behrman

Behrman lived most of his life in the Algiers section (15th Ward) of New Orleans which is supposedly the home of jazz.   
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algiers,_New_Orleans

New Orleans in the 1920s: 
Only recently, jazz had been born from deep in the bowels of the city; its beat emerging from the African jungle into Congo Square, then spreading to the whorehouses of Storyville, where Jelly Roll Morton and the Spasm band, possibly the original jazz combination, and a little later Louis Armstrong, played. At its peak, Storyville had had two newspapers and its own Carnival ball, and the best houses had advertising brochures....
http://faroutliers.blogspot.com/2006/09/new-orleans-in-1920s.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Square

All interesting in setting the stage.  

Becky 

> On Nov 10, 2020, at 2:33 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I am sorry to be a laggard. This is good and I will be posting belatedly but finally soon. 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>> On Nov 10, 2020, at 12:51 AM, Raphael Saltwood <PlainMrBotanyB at outlook.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Nook pagination may be idiosyncratic but...
>> 
>> 3-13 as Mark suggested, in the Nook book, covers chapters 1 & 2
>> 
>> Chapter 1
>> 
>> I made some tentative suggestions about already and while nobody agreed (wah), nobody out and out said they stunk (hurrah).
>> 
>> Somewhat emboldened, the rest of my thotz on Chapter 1:
>> 
>> a) Is the mayor supposed to be a white dude?
>> 
>> b) Zulu, his disrespected love interest, (smokes Chesterfields - “not a cough in a carload” per RWR) isn’t seen to complain about what looks like cavalier treatment, but the mayor isn’t supposed to be a role model, and - like a lot of the stuff in novels - he’s not saying you should try it at home, right? And unfortunately this does reflect some elected officials in terms of behavior toward members of the opposite sex.
>> 
>> Not that it’s any of my business, but Ishmael Reed, married since 1970 to Carla Blank, seems to have a different philosophy altogether than the mayor. (Really impressive marriage, imho!)
>> 
>> c) news-flash style hearkens back to Dos Passos, inter alia
>> 
>> Chapter 2:
>> Very brief almost just a list of cities and not the biggest ones either.
>> 
>> Pleasant surprise - must’ve cost quite a bit extra to print MJ what with such goodies:
>> 
>> A rather nice line drawing of hmmm, a person bestrode (bestridden?) by an angel, or, ridden by Papa Legba, although the style is more Masonic or Templar what with the angel apparently handing over a sword - and both of them kind of stiff and unbending - seems more like a Wallflower League vision than a manifestation of Jes Grew.
>> 
>> I shall forge ahead with the next 10 pages and I hope you will too
>> (I won’t be gone long -
>> you come too! - Robert Frost)
>> 
>> —-
>> Cagliostro the Impossible wrote:
>> 
>> I love Mumbo Jumbo... I'm reading a Kindle version now (lame, right?) but I gave my copy
>> to a tarot reader at this ashram I would frequent in Pasadena (yes, in Pasadena...)... I
>> was living in Burbank at the time, would ride my Kawasaki W series to see this glorious
>> California Blonde with pulsating green eyes... we would listen to Bossa Nova records, and I gave her Mumbo Jumbo in lieu of payment...
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I have Kindle and Nook myself and the county library system doesn’t have _Mumbo Jumbo_ so I might
>> 
>> get a Nook book of it now that I’ve finished the free preview. (Did that)
>> 
>> Hesitant to support the Kindle because of
>> 
>> all the casualties in Amazon warehouses, although
>> 
>> BN is no model of labor relations either - hey maybe a new copy via Powell’s would be nice although the older funkier looking used paperbacks are more
>> 
>> pleasant to hold especially if they come from a
>> 
>> smoker’s library —- from a potsmoker’s library
>> 
>> would be ideal.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
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