Music by Nora Jones, Etta James or Tony
Bennet singing Billie Holiday or Billie Holiday, The Beatles, Paul Simon, Simon and Garfunkel, B.B. King, Bach, Wagner, Roberta
Flack, Mariah Carey's Old Stuff, Bruce Springsteen.
Also Aaron Neville, Al Green's Gospel Music, Mahalia Jackson, Garth
Brooks, John Legend and Joel Sonnier. Did I say Mahalia? Okay, one more time, MAHALIA!
Favorite Artists: Matisse, Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, Basquiat, Ansel
Adams, Picasso, Georgia O'Keefe, Edward Hopper
Poetry by Rilke, Rilke, Rilke, Kahlil Gibran, Gerard Manley Hopkins,
John Donne, Naomi Shehab Nye, Maya Angelou, Edward Arlington Robinson's Spoon River Anthology.
Favorite Childhood Books: Charlotte's Web, The Witch of Blackbird
Pond, and J.R.R. Tolkein's The Hobbit, and the Trilogy, The Lord of the Rings.
Best Essayist: Alice Walker
Best Novelist: Toni Morrison, William Faulkner
Favorite Cult Writer: Anne Rice. Frank Herbert
Favorite Non-Fiction: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin,and
Maxine Hong Kingston's Woman Warrior.
Current Recommended Reading Selections: The Cloister Walk and
The Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton.
I'm no longer reading alternative texts to the gospels. I've searched them for
what they have to offer and have found them sorely wanting.
In the last twenty years or so, I have noticed within myself a great distaste
for what is now being called Zydeco? Music. The sound of the music, especially the accordian and fiddle are beautiful,
but ofttimes the lyrics are vulgar and like most Rap, inappropriate for anyone of culture and grace. I challenge these
artists to write something of substance, so that the sense matches the sound. The sound is a tribute to the people, but the
words are an insult. Brian Jack are you listening? This young artist has the potential to be great like Clifton Chenier, and
not just another mediocre local musician.
