Pollution Level Red.
Nieman’s: the rich in black pajamas.

Many people know that W S Merwin spent years of rustication in the French countryside, but it is a revelation all the same to read his Mays of Ventadorn, one in an interesting new series of literary travelogues. I previously advocated poetry criticism on the model of Poets in a Landscape, & this volume certainly fits the bill. Merwin delves into the Occitanian language & medieval history to produce a vivid portrait of the troubadour Bernart de Ventadorn & his mystical courtly culture.

“The city changed hands between competing factions so frequently that the inhabitants could not agree, when it was all over, whether the number of these occasions was as low as fourteen or as high as nineteen.” --Ronald Hingley, Nightingale Fever (1981)

Found a Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs record. I hadn’t known he was from here (--like Question Mark & the Mysterians, another Tex-Mex band from Sixties Dallas). I was always fascinated by the custom car this band drove, featured in a car magazine (one of the first i ever bought) from the days when bands--even one-hit wonders--had to have their very own unique means of transportation.