The Blues Don't Change

It is no accident that the reader of Frederick Douglass's self written memoir gets a sensation of skimming through a historical fact book when reading the first pages of his book. A person like Douglass needs not to appeal to rhetorical or literary devices  in order to compel his audience with his writing. The facts speak for themselves. 

When describing his years as a slave, the author takes precaution not to make hasty generalizations about slavery and its surrounding components (although we do get the suspicion that the experience as a slave did not vary greatly from plantation to plantation). One of the most compelling aspects of slave idiosyncrasy that he touches upon is the use of singing as an emotional relief while at work. To him, the echoing howls of working men and women connote grave sadness. To others a celebratory moment comes to mind. Altogether, chanting served a greater purpose: helping the exploited stay alive. In the last paragraph of chapter two Douglass says,

"The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them only as an aching heart is relieved by tears." and then he modestly clarifies "At least such is my experience." 

It is insensitive not to recognize the future cultural importance of the events portrayed in these pages. To sit down and read the book knowing the tale contains no fiction feels insensitive by principle. Nevertheless, we must recognize that few slaves gained the opportunity of literacy and even fewer put that knowledge to work as Douglass did. This quality makes American African-descendent legacy in its majority not written but verbal and cultural. And one of our most immediate contacts with African legacy tody is music. Those "rude and apparently incoherent songs" Douglass describes with affliction are the root of an immense tree of musical heritage. Still, a century later you could listen to the intense woe of the black man in early blues recordings of Son House or the later John Lee Hooker. Even life for the early twentieth century jazz singer Bessie Brown wasn't all that different from that of her ancestors, spending her youth in the cotton fields and the church singing her way through the heat of the laborious day. The blues is a product of chanting and gospel, and everything else is a product of the blues. 

That is an unignorable fact.

,

I searched the web for a recording that would transport me back to the sorrowful plantation fields. This was I close as I got. It is a recording of black inmates singing while labouring in the 1930s. 

Not a Sonnet of Possibility

This is not a piece of writing that I like, but rather the one I dislike the least from an ongoing list of embarrassing works that constitute my writing trajectory. After the AP Literature exam last year, Mr. Ferrebee challenged us to write a sonnet directed to ourselves in five years predicting who we would be by then. I clearly failed in my attempt and instead (cowardly) wrote this free verse poem. The failed Sonnet of Possibility is the piece of writing I dislike the least because I can still identify with the author of the poem and I can assure it is, at least, honest.

The Part. The Whole.

It's not much what I have to say regarding the distinction between a blog and a blog post. I know the difference, I accept it. Nevertheless, I've discovered, it is not uncommon for people to make this type of mistake. The  erroneous inverse synecdoche (where the whole is used to refer to a part) is the nature of one too many unnecessary confusions in human communication. 
I remember I was once employed by a very misinterpretable pastry chef. On her account I was responsible for many irrecuperable mistakes, as she was incapable of understanding the difference between an egg and its parts: the yolk and the white. There was this one time where I, having mastered the art of zesting lemons and weighing sugar, was put to the more challenging task of making french meringue, which I knew a was deceivingly easy job. I also knew the constituents of this recipe were exclusively eggs whites and sugar. So you might imagine the pool of confusion into which I fell when the chef pattisier verbally ordered me to beat the eggs first for a while before slowly incorporating the sugar. Eggs? Cautiously, I checked the recipe book one more time just in case I and the rest of humanity had misread eggs for egg whites. But she insisted "Remember, the eggs must be at room temperature." "Stop the machine when the blades leave a clear mark on the eggs." She almost had a heart attack when I, submissively,  started beating whole eggs. As a result I had to develop a keen intuition for guessing what she actually meant by egg. I also know this guy that refers to song as record.  Why?! In what world...? Ironically he is a musician. 

I sympathize with Mr. Wickman. It is too troublesome and exhausting to be guessing what people mean because they use the wrong words.  A word by nature has a meaning, and if when utilizing the word the meaning does not correspond with what you mean to say, the whole purpose of language is defeated. 

A blog is not a blog post, an egg is not an egg white. Say what you mean and avoid misinterpretation, the world bears enough of it already.