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99 & 1/2 Just Won't Do
I busked down in New Orleans as a young musician playing blues and old time country, songs like Are You From Dixie, Got My Mojo Working, Frankie & Johnnie and I used to stop ( Was it Rampart Street) and listen to Blind Marie and her two sisters -- all in quaint rags and in their sixties, but with their black, weathered faces shining with youth and with soul -- and every time it was an old gospel tune that sounded like blues to me, 99 & 1/2 Just Won’t Do: just one chord and that was played on an old box guitar that had never been in tune. And two tambourines. But the eerie, dissonant harmonies they sang and drawled, shouted, chimed, and chanted, in their strange, powerful rendition of that number never failed to send chills down my spine. I’m lucky I been to New Orleans when New Orleans was still New Orleans.
99 ½ % of the entries to this blog have been made by one person and that was never the intent of this website. This is a community blog and it will take a community effort to keep it going.
Over 80 paid-in-full members belong to GCCC, and most have internet access. Somewhere between 60 to 90 people visit the website daily.
We have as readers and members, doctors, laborers, artists, carpenters, electricians, teachers, students, scholars, landscapers, retirees, yogis, rebbies, etc., etc, in other words we have quite an extensive talent pool on which to draw.
I don’t think we are ready for 80 contributors to the blog, but what if we had just 5 to 10 members, besides myself, who would contribute to the blog on a weekly basis?
5 to 10 contributors. If each one contributed one blog entry and one comment on another’s entry, 5 members would give us 10 contributions per week, and 10 would give us twenty different blog contributions.
If readers and members need to learn how to use the blog, I have a few suggestions.
Some people ask, “What can I write about?
Anything. That is the answer. Mt. Hope is part of the global village and everything is interconnected. A butterfly flaps its wings in China and a hurricane hits the Gulf Coast. Chaos theory. The tipping point. Everything matters. Everything affects us.
Do you have some news of the neighborhood?
A comment on a local news article?
Do you have an opinion you’d like to share.
Have you read something you’d like to comment on?
Have you heard some music you’d like to recommend or review?
Do you wish to comment on politics?
On sociology? Psychology? Philosophy?
Have you read a book you could review?
Seen a movie you liked and would recommend?
Have you written a poem you’d like to share?
Could you write a profile of a neighbor?
Could you interview someone you know with some knowledge that would interest us?
Do you have a digital camera and photos to share?
Do you travel,and could you share your travels with us in a travellogue, written or visual?
All is grist for the Mt. Hope Mill.
Don’t be shy, don’t be lazy, be confidant, take the time.
Any questions?
99 ½ Just Won’t Do
John Twomey
Posted at September 11, 2005 11:29 PM