Sunday, 11/1/09

Aretha didn’t have to wait until she was grown to be great. She was great when she was 14.

Aretha Franklin (at 14, vocal and piano), “Precious Lord,” live, Detroit (New Bethel Baptist Church, where her father, Rev. C. L. Franklin, was pastor), 1956

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lagniappe

reading table

The film rights to Zeitoun, mentioned a while back, have been acquired by Jonathan Demme, who’s going to make an animated movie of it.

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I’m nearing the end of Billy Sothern’s Down in New Orleans: Reflections from a Drowned City. It’s a mixed bag. Some sections are weighed down by political observations that quickly become predictable. But others are alive with the sights and sounds and smells of the streets.