A TIMOTHY O’SULLIVAN WESTERN PHOTOGRAPH FOR TODAY

Oreana, Nevada in 1867.

O’Sullivan worked for Matthew Brady and Alexander Gardner during the Civil War and took many classic images of that conflict. After the war he traveled with various government-sponsored expeditions into the far West, recording the American frontier just as the Transcontinental Railroad was poised to open it up for expanded settlement and exploitation.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

ESSENTIAL

No civilized home should be without this stunning Blu-ray edition of The Seachers and the means to play it on a large-screen television. It’s as close as you will probably ever get, these days, to seeing a pristine Technicolor print projected in a theater — which is to say as close as you will probably ever get to one of the greatest works of art created in America and one of the greatest performances (by Wayne) ever committed to film.

THE COMMANDERS

Bill, Paul and Adrienne outside Commander’s Palace in New Orleans, just a couple of blocks from where Bill and Adrienne live. A visit to this legendary restaurant, where you find the apotheosis of creole cooking, should be a life goal for anyone who has not experienced it.

Let’s step inside and have a cocktail before ordering . . .

Now, after the meal, we can pass through the kitchen on our way out — traversing sacred territory . . .

How fine it was, a meal to remember, as always at Commander’s Palace.

MAKE IT STOP

If you’ve been following the tales of the Saturni, you know that they will stop at nothing. Here an infected libido proceeds from sly, delirious arousal to full-on erotic nightmare. The Saturni can make your wildest dreams come true, then turn on you — posses and consume you in absolute horror. If Poe had written this story, he would have burned it. A. P. Bowman has no such scruples.

You can buy the story for 99 cents here — Devil’s Trumpet

SALVATION CENTRAL

On Friday, the first day of the Jazz Fest, we headed straight for The Gospel Tent.  Adrienne, Bill, Paul and I were going to meet up there with Corinne, Cotty and J. B., in from Los Angeles for the festivities.  The Gospel Tent was chosen because one of Corinne’s favorite acts, encountered on earlier trips to the Fest, The Electrifying Crown Seekers, was starting off the day’s program at the venue.

The Crown Seekers were indeed electrifying and The Gospel Tent became a favorite refuge throughout our subsequent days at the festival.  The music was invariably thrilling — soul-stirring, you might say — the tent had shade and chairs on which to rest one’s weary bones . . . and of course there was the good news:

FREEWHEELIN’

On this day in 1963, Dylan released his second album.  As John Lennon once said in discussing The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, which reached the Beatles in their Paris hotel almost eight months after it came out, “I think it was the first time I ever heard Dylan at all . . .  And for the rest of our three weeks in Paris, we didn’t stop playing it.”

[With thanks to Paul Pearson]