SOUNDTRACK: BILLY BRAGG-Live at the Newport Folk Festival (2009).
Billy Bragg is one of the great holdouts of aggressive political liberalism in music. For every “American Idiot” that young bands play, Billy can whip out “There is Power in a Union” or the more prescient, “No Power without Accountability.” Lyrics:
IMF, WTO,
I hear these words just every place I go
Who are these people? Who elected them?
And how do I replace them with some of my friends?
He’s an old school American folkie, despite the fact that he is so outrageously British that his singing accent is stronger than most British folks’ speaking voices.
But he’s not all politics (well, yes he is, but sometimes he disguises it). Like on his minor hit “Sexuality.” With some of the first gay positive lyrics I can remember hearing on the radio: “I’ve had relations with girls from many nations/I’ve made passes at women of all classes/And just because you’re gay I won’t turn you away/If you stick around I’m sure that we can find some common ground.”
Billy’s set is pretty great. He plays the electric guitar for most of it (with an amusing moment where he switches to the acoustic guitar and references Dylan), and really, he needs no accompaniment. He plays several of his own songs as well as a number of Woody Guthrie songs (both ones that Guthrie recorded and ones that Bragg and friends recorded for the Mermaid Avenue project).
Bragg also talks. A lot. His stage banter is as funny as it is impassioned. And he urges people not to give in to cynicism about their newly elected President (the task is too great for him to please everyone). Sometimes he comes across as really inspirational and other times as simply idealistic.
The only part of the show that I don’t really like is the “cover” of “One Love.” I don’t particularly like the song to begin with and this version is 6 minutes long. True, he modifies the lyric, but the basics are the same. Aside from that it’s a pretty rousing set (even if the DJs interrupt him about 40 minutes in, apparently thinking he was going to be end).
[READ: August 1, 2011] Zeitoun
I loved A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. And I liked You Shall Know Our Velocity quite a bit too (and I just found out that YSKOV was rereleased as Sacrament with an extra 45 page section from Hand’s point of view–and that apparently there is only one copy available anywhere in the world and it costs $250!).
Anyhow, It was through Eggers that I found McSweeney’s (and its vast empire). And yet during that time, I sort of gave up on reading Eggers’ published works. When Zeitoun came out, I wasn’t all that interested to read it. Mostly because I knew the book was about Hurricane Katrina, and I didn’t think I could handle a book about such a tragedy.
But recently, several people in book clubs had mentioned how good (and quick) of a read it was. So I decided to give it a read. And I’m really glad I did.
The book is about Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a Syrian born American. He was living in New Orleans and was the owner of a very successful remodelling business (as well as the landlord of several properties around New Orleans). Zeitoun is a hard-working, exceptionally conscientious man (the flashback to him running to work, carrying his broken bicycle on his back is as inspirational as it is amusing). He rarely takes a vacation (much to his family’s chagrin) and oftentimes his wife has taken their kids on a vacation without him. (One time they dragged into the car with his bags already in it without telling him they were going away for a weeklong vacation).
When previous hurricanes had hit NOLA, Zeitoun stayed, not only to help his customers (who would inevitably request last-minute battening down of hatches) but also to be around to take care of any emergencies to his properties–fixing a leak right away is much better than fixing a hole later). So when word of Katrina came, he had no intention of evacuating. Indeed, even his wife wasn’t too worried until the magnitude of the storm became readily apparent.
Zeitoun’s wife took the kids for a long drive out of NOLA (and her story of the evacuation is far more harrowing than his story of weathering out the initial storm). And when Katrina hit, Zeitoun was home, waiting. He plugged holes and waited and waited. After the storm abated, he looked outside and saw a couple of inches of rain (he lived pretty far from the ninth ward and the places that got really smashed). He laughed at everyone’s foolishness for evacuating and waited for the water to subside. That night, however, the levees broke. He looked out the window and the water, which had all but gone away, was now easily two feet high and rising. Zeitoun took all of the important things from the bottom floor and brought them upstairs as the water rose to eight feet in his house.
Once it was clear that the water has stopped rising, Zeitoun went out in canoe–paddling, as the cover depicts, at the second story of most people’s houses. He checks on his properties and sees that one of his tenants and some people that he knew (he was quite popular in the neighborhood) have stayed. He makes sure they’re alright and then paddles on. During his route, he hears some cries for help. He was directly responsible for saving several people and for feeding abandoned dogs.
Things stay like this for a couple of days–he paddles around generally being a good citizen and trying to alert the police to any people who are in trouble (the police reaction ranges from indifference to hostility). And he keeps calling his wife (who is having a hell of a time with her in-laws) to update her. Then, one afternoon, Zeitoun is in one of his properties with some other men. The reports of looting had been widespread (although luckily nothing too close to any of Zeitoun’s properties). And then they hear a boat pull up to the house that they are in.
The story shift’s to the POV of Zeitoun’s wife. And, in a masterful display of suspense, we don’t learn what has happened to Zeitoun. We share his wife’s concerns and fears as a week goes by with no word. All she has is televised reports of outrageous flooding, violence and death. She’s also fending off calls from all of his relatives around the world and she has no word for them. Then they start blaming her for not being with him. The hostility and the panic rise.
And then we learn what happened to him.
I’m not going to spoil that shock, and it was a horrible shock to me. It angered me about so much: FEMA, the administration, the entre handling of the fiasco. It basically opened all of the wounds that I felt about NOLA and then it opened new ones because there were horrors that I was not even aware of.
The book is very well written. It switches back and forth between Zeitoun and his wife and we get ample history of both of them. I admit that I was a little bored in the beginning because it just seemed like Eggers was piling on nice thing after nice thing about this family. And while I’m sure it’s all accurate, it seemed a bit much: 60 pages of cuddly biography. But once the action starts up, the story is really amazingly gripping.
While not as dramatic, Zeitoun’s wife’s story is just as surprising: she became a Muslim long before she met Zeitoun because she was so frustrated with her Christian church (and the story of her conversion is pretty amazing). But her family, while not exactly dismissive of her conversion, certainly didn’t take it very seriously. And this leads to much of the frustration for her while she is evacuated.
The end of the story is quite sad, but not as outrageously sad as it could have been. And Jonathan Demme is planning to make a movie of the book (an all-animated movie in a style like the cover).
I highly recommend the book, especially if you want some of the real story of what happened after Katrina–it wasn’t all just rioting and death in the Superdome. There were things that were far more scary.
My copy of Sacrament is even signed by Dave Eggers… If I remember correctly, when Sacrament was published, all of the copies were signed. I don’t know if they did an unsigned run. And then maybe a few years ago they had a remainders sale of damaged books and I think there were a few copies of Sacrament in there as well.
I haven’t read Zeitoun, but I’ve got a copy of it here. I’m glad to hear that you enjoyed it. Gives me hope that I’ll like it too 🙂
Brooks, The online availability seems to be for signed copies (but i swear, every place I looked seems to link back to this one copy for $250–you may have a small nest egg there).