Mt. Zion MB could make as fair a case as any. Conveniently, the church is located just off of Highway 7, so its memorial can winkingly quote Johnson’s “Me and the Devil Blues,†in which he sang, “You may bury my body / Down by the highway side.â€
Atlas Obscura argues that the new biographer of Robert Johnson has solved the long-argued mystery of the Blues giant’s burial place.
For blues fans around the world, the name Robert Johnson has grown synonymous with mystery, even sorcery. Throughout his short life, he moved around between Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee, and didn’t leave much of a trail. His entire body of recorded work consists of just 29 songs (plus 13 alternate takes), recorded during two sessions in Texas. Those songs, however, include some of the most canonical in all the blues—such as “Sweet Home Chicago,†“I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom,†and, of course, “Cross Road Blues.â€
For more than half a century, fans and researchers have rhapsodized and hypothesized about Johnson’s itinerant lifestyle, untimely death, and iconic songbook. The mythology that swirls around this one man from Hazlehurst, Mississippi, has created its own “cottage industry†of publishing and tourism, says Bruce Conforth, coauthor with Gayle Dean Wardlow of the new biography Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson. As Johnson’s life story seems more elusive, his place in blues history seems more secure.
The most famous myth surrounding Johnson concerns his alleged “deal with the Devil†at a Mississippi crossroads, where it’s said he traded his soul for guitar virtuosity. The Devil legend entered popular consciousness in the 1960s (long after Johnson died, in 1938), and is in many ways the wellspring of rock ‘n’ roll’s satanic motifs—from the Rolling Stones through Iron Maiden and beyond. The story’s obviously not true, but that’s hardly the point. The point is that the Devil is in rock music’s DNA, and the stories around Johnson helped put it there.
Steven Johnson, Robert’s grandson and vice president of the Robert Johnson Blues Foundation, says he first became aware of some of his grandfather’s mythology when he was a teenager. He found the stories neither scary nor particularly alluring, but he always felt, he says, that they were concealing or misleading, “that there was truth that hadn’t been told.â€
Some decades later, a new yarn was spun—not about Johnson’s life, but his afterlife. No one seemed to know exactly where his mortal remains were buried, and the idea took hold that there were at least three possible gravesites. Though the actual mystery has been cleared up over the years, the myth rolls on. The New York Times boosted it in September 2019, the National Park Service still provides an outdated account, and the rumor continues to travel easily among tourists and blues pilgrims. It just seems to fit: Robert Johnson, that perfectly unknowable spirit of the blues, can’t find eternal rest.
Whatever Robert Johnson’s life lacked in actual magic, it certainly made up for in pure human drama. According to Up Jumped the Devil, Johnson died from poisoning. He was having an affair with Beatrice Davis, a married woman whose jealous husband, Ralph, dosed Johnson’s whiskey with naphthalin—likely without the intention to kill. (The drug was commonly used to subdue rowdy patrons at bars.) What Ralph didn’t know was that Johnson had recently been diagnosed with an ulcer, and the spiked drink proved too much for him in his weakened state. As with all things Johnson, it’s not so simple, since his death certificate names syphilis as the cause of death. Conforth and Wardlow think it’s likelier that the disease was listed to obscure the foul play.
That death certificate—discovered by Wardlow in 1968—states that Johnson was buried at “Zion Church†in Leflore County, Mississippi. But it provides no more information than that, and actually just raises more questions. Was it Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Morgan City, Mississippi? Little Zion Church in Greenwood? The other Mt. Zion Church, which is also in Greenwood? Leflore County is small, but there was a world of possibilities within it—any one of those places, or somewhere else entirely. For decades, the true gravesite was an open question, with scattered anecdotes in place of answers. All that anyone knew for sure was that Johnson was buried in an unmarked grave—just like most African Americans from his region and era.
Pictorial Stone from the Church in Bro in Gotland.
A year old story, but news to me. Bo Gräslund, a prominent Swedish archaeologist, published a book, arguing on several grounds for an earlier date of composition for Beowulf. What a pity that J.R.R. Tolkien is not here to critique and review it!
[W]e are met with a catalogue of the material culture of the late migration to early Vendel period. With its gold, rings, ring-swords, swine-helmets, and chain-mails, we are obviously transported way back in time, either prior to or around the period 536 to 50. Secondly, it is demonstrated that several of these particular artefacts are virtually unknown in an early Anglo-Saxon context. Not until the Viking Age, do we meet “rings†in the archaeological assemblies in Britain. Nevertheless, they are mentioned 44 times in the poem, and whenever they are further characterised, they are made of gold. How should an English poet c. 700 be acquainted with this particular cultural item – golden rings – which is never found in a British context, and which disappeared in Scandinavia in the late 6th century, Gräslund asks? As for ring-swords, it is important to note, that while three ring-swords have been found in England, most (77) have been found in France, Germany, and Scandinavia. And one of those – the one from Sutton Hoo – is probably Swedish, he writes. At the same time, he notes that the only chain mail ever found in an Anglo-Saxon archaeological context is from the same grave, making it a unique item in an English context from c. 400 – 1000. Finally, Gräslund draws attention to the fact that the descriptions of the cremations of Hnæfs and Beowulf have a sensual character, which makes it mind-boggling to imagine that a Christian poet c. 700 was able to describe these events in such details. Thus, the material culture of the poem does not fit at all with an Anglo-Saxon origin, Gräslund concludes.
In the second part of the book, Gräslund discusses the ethnonyms in the poem and argues that the main group, to which Beowulf belongs – the Geats – in all likelihood came from Gotland. Seafaring islanders, known also as wederas, the latter epithet has been consistently translated as wind, weather, or storm. However, much more likely, writes Gräslund convincingly, the prefix in weder-geatas refers to Proto-Germanic wedrą, meaning ram – Old English weder, Old High German wetar, Old Norse veðr etc. It so happens, that rams were significant symbols of the people from Gotland, as witnessed in documents, sagas, and in the official seal.
Gräslund also touches upon the Christian varnish and concludes (as have others before him) that it seems to have been added as a gloss. In its core, the poem is heathen. This conclusion leads to Gräslund’s next hypothesis that the poem was composed as an oral epic in the mid-sixth century and probably in Gotland; but also that it would have circulated widely, for instance in a Swedish context at Uppsala.
We know Rædwald of East Anglia was married to a pagan princess who worked assiduously to make her husband relapse. We also know, that his presumed grave at Sutton Hoo held an assemblage of artefacts with a clear Swedish origin. Were these objects – the helmet, the chain-mail and the sword – bridal gifts of a Swedish princess? Did she bring a bard along in her entourage? After which the oral poem circulated until it was written down by an Anglicising and Christianising scribe c. 700? We shall never know, but the hypothesis fits the facts as well as Ockham’s razor.
The Harvard Crimson uncritically reports the sexual assault survey which proves that it’s a lot more dangerous to send your daughter to an elite Ivy League school than to have her walk home at midnight through the worst neighborhood in Chicago.
But, hey! at least Yale comes out on top!
A national sexual misconduct climate survey administered to universities across the country earlier this year revealed that most schools did not see a significant change in the prevalence of sexual assault compared with incident rates four years ago, according to the results released earlier this month.
The American Association of Universities survey found that among similarly sized peer institutions, Harvard’s rate of sexual misconduct tended toward average.
Harvard’s prevalence rate of “nonconsensual sexual contact†for undergraduate women was within a percentage point of both Stanford’s and Brown’s. Harvard and Stanford both saw rates of roughly 33 percent, while Brown’s rate is 34 percent. Yale’s rate is higher at 39 percent, while MIT’s is lower at 27 percent.
Martin Scorsese, one of cinema’s most venerated current directors, has decried superhero movies – the dominant force in today’s industry. The director of films such as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas told Empire magazine that his attempts to get up to speed with contemporary superhero films had failed.
“I tried, you know?†the director said when asked if he had seen Marvel’s movies. “But that’s not cinema.â€
He continued: “Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.
—————————-
Now, Francis Ford Coppola is reported to have seconded Scorsese’s opinion with a bit more vehemence.
The director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now has joined Martin Scorsese in dismissing the dominant series of superhero films.
Speaking to journalists in Lyon following his acceptance of the Prix Lumière for his contribution to cinema, Francis Ford Coppola, 80, said: “When Martin Scorsese says that the Marvel pictures are not cinema, he’s right because we expect to learn something from cinema, we expect to gain something, some enlightenment, some knowledge, some inspiration.â€
Coppola continued: “I don’t know that anyone gets anything out of seeing the same movie over and over again. Martin was kind when he said it’s not cinema. He didn’t say it’s despicable, which I just say it is.â€
—————————-
I can understand these directors’ perspective. I’m also a geezer from the same generation. Like Scorsese and Coppola, I’d read some Marvel Comics, decades and decades ago, but I was never a collector or a serious fan. I could vaguely remember a few of the characters, but most of them were invented after my time, and new to me.
When I tried watching Avengers films the first several times, they were just a confusing mishmash of loud, endlessly complicated spectacles that seemed pointless, just sound and fury signifying nothing. I actually kept nodding off and losing track of who was who and what was happening.
But Hollywood kept making them, and I inevitably wound up seeing more of them. I am the sort of person who gets frustrated when he sees things he doesn’t understand, so I eventually looked up the order of the films and began streaming them one by one and making an effort to pay attention.
I came to realize that the Marvel Avengers series films provoke the kind of hostility and criticism they received from me previously and from Scorsese and Coppola precisely because they are so dense and complex and filled with fictional history and insider-jokes that cursory viewers d’un certain âge will inevitably find themselves confused as all the complicated, elaborately choreographed fighting goes by and will become alienated and bored, feeling these films were not made for them. Really, one needs to see these films multiple times and to bone up on the Marvel fictional universe and familiarize oneself with each of the hero characters, his or her history, quirks, abilities, and relationships to appreciate them. Scorsese and Coppola condescending from their rocking chairs about the Avenger films being just noisy, violence-filled kid stuff is really the same kind of obtuse Philistinism that finds the films of Bergman or Antonioni merely boring. I’d argue that their “cost of entry,” the effort and attention required to appreciate these films demonstrates per se the value and intelligent design they contain. And, if the late Susan Sontag were here, I bet she’d agree with me.
Arnold Gingrich, once upon a time the editor of Esquire.
Long ago, Esquire used to publish articles celebrating masculinity and male interests, including contributors like Ernest Hemingway. The quality of those 1930s and ’40s issues was such that people now collect them.
Today, Esquire is an excruciatingly irritating voice of metrosexual soyboy hysteria endlessly denouncing Trump and grovelling apologetically on behalf of all mankind before the idols of politically correct wokeness.
Brian Patrick Eha notes that the same thing is happening today across the entire men’s lifestyle magazine genre and subscriptions are everywhere precipitously declining.
When the culture changes,†Esquire contributing editor Wesley Yang wrote earlier this year, “each of us must either seek an accommodation or choose a hill to die on.†He was reviewing Bret Easton Ellis’s White, a collection of jeremiads, many aimed, like poison darts, at millennials, the cohort Ellis has dubbed “Generation Wuss.†The voice of an earlier generation, Ellis, who is gay, finds himself shocked by—and contemptuous of—the weak-mindedness and quickness to take offense typical of some millennials. …
In June, Hearst promoted Esquire.com editor Michael Sebastian to replace Fielden as editor-in-chief. As with Pels at Cosmopolitan, the idea is to bring a digital sensibility to the print product—while making digital the top priority. Esquire, a source told WWD, will be getting “a full Cosmo.†I take this to mean that the trends identified in this essay will only accelerate, and that the commitment to social-justice ideology will only harden; that Esquire will soon descend into the sucking morass of what Yang aptly calls “woke clickbait.†No doubt the magazine will struggle on for a time, like a punctured blimp leaking helium, deflating while still aloft, but if it grows in prominence—if the metrics that men like Troy Young care about improve for a time—it will be only as a wounded airship, once high up in the atmosphere, grows larger in the eye as it sinks slowly groundward.
Just as one can’t reinflate a leaky blimp, there is little reason to believe that Esquire’s editorial quality will improve under Sebastian, however much he juices web traffic. The great men’s magazines may eke out a lucrative afterlife hawking clothes and branding nightclubs in India; but as magazines, they are dying or dead—and the dead do not improve.
Japanese Twitter user @thumb_tani (aka Tanu) has mastered the art of balance. He uses his keen sense of equilibrium to create small, fascinating sculptures from carefully-positioned coins. Although many of us have probably attempted this same sort of coin stacking, Tanu takes these arrangements to a whole new—and totally epic—level.
Using a variety of denominations, Tanu creates intricate structures that range in shape and size. Often, he’ll first build a strong base using staggered coins. Then, he does the seemingly impossible. Tanu stands the coins upright and places them edge-to-edge without the discs falling or even wobbling. From there, he’ll sometimes stack even more coins (or other objects) on top. It’s a mesmerizing sight, but also one that you’ll want to hold your breath for. The precarious sculptures look as though they could tumble at any moment.
Have you ever eaten Froot Loops and thought, “This cereal isn’t gay enough?” Do you seek a safe space to eat your Rice Krispies? Are you concerned that your Corn Flakes aren’t sufficiently woke? Well, now Kellogg’s has the solution!
On Thursday, the gay site PinkNews reported, “Kellogg’s is launching an LGBT-themed cereal so you can start your day with maximum gay… If you’re a fan of breakfast and being gay, we have grrrrreat news for you – Kellogg’s is launching an LGBT-themed cereal.â€
And to think, we’ve been eating straight, cisgender cereal all this time.
Timed to coincide with GLAAD’s Spirit Day on October 17, they teamed up to produce the “All Together†cereal, which Kellogg’s says is the first to offer Corn Flakes, Froot Loops, Frosted Flakes, Frosted Mini Wheats, Raisin Bran, and Rice Krispies “exclusively together.â€
Unlike the mix of cereal the image on the box implies, it’s actually a Limited Edition Variety Pack with 6 individual sized boxes inside, but consumers are free to create any combination they like. Froot Loops and Raisin Brain together? Let your freak flag fly, honey!
Kellogg’s chief diversity officer (why does a cereal company need such a thing??) Priscilla Koranteng said, “At Kellogg, we are firmly committed to equality and inclusion in the workplace, marketplace and in the communities where we work and live.†As part of the Spirit Day partnership, Kellogg’s is donating $50,000 to GLAAD.
I’ve found today the icing on the Australian poison cake: a deadly fungus that kills you and shrinks your brain.
Poison Fire Coral is the only known mushroom with toxins that can be absorbed through the skin, and causes a “horrifying” array of symptoms if eaten, including vomiting, diarrhoea, fever and numbness.
If left untreated, it can cause multiple organ failure or cause a person’s brain to shrink leading to death.
“The fact that we can find such a distinctive and medically important fungus like Poison Fire Coral right in our backyard shows we have much to learn about fungi in northern Australia,” Barrett said.
