Word: butlering
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...things about post-Katrina New Orleans that weigh heavily on the souls of New Orleans musicians, it's the city's silence. It was the first thing legendary jazz pianist Henry Butler noticed when he returned to his hometown after Katrina. Blind, Butler relied on friends to detail the devastation of his Gentilly home, but his other senses served up a potent picture of what had befallen the city...
...smell it for miles. Months after it is still there - the stench, the odor of decaying animals, mold from houses, oil and gas, all that fecal matter, all that in the air," Butler said. "One day in December I wound up staying too long and just after dark you could hear the varmints scurrying around. I realized at that moment this wasn't my home anymore...
...Butler is now living in Colorado and is just one of an estimated 4,000 musicians and artists - some well-known, others not - who are part of the New Orleans cultural diaspora. Literally blown by the winds and water to the four corners of the compass, they have left their hometown behind, and the question hanging over the city is, how many will return...
...flame alive, the social aid and pleasure clubs, the Mardi Gras Indian bands and brass bands that played at jazz funerals, have been scattered. Even before Katrina, New Orleans music was in danger as venerable nightspots in the French Quarter were replaced by tourist bars. Music was touted, "Disneyfied," Butler said, but not supported, and Katrina blew apart the social fabric that kept the traditions alive. Michael White, a clarinetist and musical historian at Xavier University, said it was shameful that so many valuable musical collections, like his own, were in private homes and never given pride of place...
...they win again? In her memoir, Hillary closed by writing of her final moments in the White House Grand Foyer. The longtime butler there "received my last goodbye embrace and turned it into a joyous dance. We skipped and twirled across the marble floor," she writes. "My husband cut in, taking me in his arms as we waltzed together down the long hall." A farewell, perhaps. Or maybe the Clintons will yet want to have another dance...