Word: gayest
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Normally one of the gayest and most cheerful cities in Europe, Naples has been paralyzed by a cholera epidemic that killed 16 people in a month and hospitalized 822 more. As the epidemic itself waned, misfortune has overwhelmed the city. First the lucrative tourist trade dried up. Then the port was all but quarantined. Fishmongers who sold the sewage-contaminated mussels that spread the infection were virtually ostracized; their livelihood was ruined as police frogmen systematically uprooted the mussel beds. Afraid of contagion, Neapolitans, the most gregarious people in Italy, began to avoid one another, literally like the plague...
They were married six months later. The Jazz Age was beginning. "We were the gayest of the gays during the Prohibition era, tootsie," said my grandmother. "We always liked parties, you know? And did we go to speakeasies...
...Lewis that we were playing for, but also a tradition, a culture, and a great people. And so, when the drums picked up the tempo out in the street, and the second line shouted and began to dance, and the flame-painted umbrellas appeared, I played my loudest and gayest music...
Loudest and gayest. Beat and pound for the dead. That is it! The New Orleans funeral has always been an occasion for rejoicing as well as sorrow, celebrating a good man's release from pain and toil, and his passing into a happier life. Even the titles of the spirituals they play express a bittersweet longing for the release: "Just a Little While to Stay Here," "My Life Will Be Sweeter Some Day," "Take My Hand, Precious Lord," "Just a Closer Walk With Thee," "Bye and Bye, When the Morning Comes...
...found horns and drums and created a great music--a music that would express a powerful, heartfelt message. It was the blues, ragtime, spirituals, marching music dancing music. They lived by it; they played by it; and when death came, they bade an orgasmic farewell with their loudest and gayest music. They would march soberly to the cemetery playing dirges and hymns, and returned with jazz, shouting, and dancing...