Andrew Dalby's 'Bacchus: A Biography' (2003)

While still slowly going through a hefty book on Mary and her many manifestations, I finished two nifty books by Andrew Dalby, one on Venus / Aphrodite here and here, and one on Bacchus / Dionysos / Dionysus: Bacchus: A Biography (The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2004). There's intertwining of content in all three. An important shared element is wine.  

Bacchus / Dionysos / Dionysus has a rich life story throughout the Mediterranean regions that is depicted widely in art and text. Dalby shows how the Macedonians took this mythology with them through the Middle East and all the way to India, breathing new wine into old wineskin, as it were. 

The origins of Bacchus / Dionysos / Dionysus proceed backward from the present through artists, poets, philosophers, dramatists and various other types of writers, through the Romans and Greeks to at least 3200 years ago -- probably further back than that. 

What is the origin of Bacchus / Dionysos / Dionysus? As Dalby succinctly puts it: "You can try to find the original story, but there is no original story." (Bacchus: A Biography, p. 146). That's daunting, haunting, mysterious -- and cool. 

The mythology of Bacchus / Dionysos / Dionysus was well-known to early Christians, and to observant later Christians, too.  One of the more interesting connections is through "The Marriage of Cana" in the Bible (Book of John 2: lines 1-11). This scene is discussed in the Mary book, too, because Mary inspires the action. When the wedding party runs out of wine, Mary makes note of it, and Jesus performs the miracle of turning water into wine.

Which makes me wonder how some later Christian sects could ever justify their rejection of wine or any other spirits in their formal gatherings or even at home. Jesus didn't turn wine into water, he turned water into wine. But these eccentric sects reject drinking completely. For instance, the Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints); Methodists (traditionally); Southern Baptists; "Dunkers" (at least the Dunker from Maryland I once knew); Seventh-day Adventists (Ben Carson is a member, and Mitt Romney is a Mormon); certain Evangelicals; and so on. 

Islam is against wine and spirits in principle, although Sufis and various artist and mystic types have demonstrated different interpretations that allow and celebrate it. 

Finally, Jains and Sikhs shun wine and all spirits. 

Personally, I can't become too excited about any religion or sect that shuns wine or its alternatives, nor would I want to join them -- any of them.  

And so, back to Bacchus / Dionysos / Dionysus: a salute, with wine, is in the offing. 

Today's Rune: Joy.      

Twenty Fifteen of the Common Era

Into Year 2015

MMXV 

14 Nivôse CCXXIII

New Year's, a wedding of Space and Time, requires: 

Something Olde

Something New

Something Borrowed

Something Blue . . .

A Sixpence in your Shoe

All such elements are jammed into my newly vamped gym jukebox iPod mix. Before last year lurched into this one, I purposely deleted my entire playlist and began a new one. It was high time.

The new stripped down core-first-round playlist, to be expanded during this year  -- already fondly known as Twenty Fifteen -- goes like this . . . playback is in random order, and sometimes I switch earphones or headphones to highlight different aspects of each track for the benefit of both the other ear and the other side of the mind . . . a good way to keep it fresh, keeping it reel-to-reel.

Open Up Like a French 75 -- drink or artillery, take your pick:

Breaking Glass  (David Bowie)

Chinese Rock (Ramones)

Editions of You (Roxy Music)

Feeling Good (Nina Simone)

Get Up Offa That Thing (James Brown)

I'm a King Bee (Slim Harpo)

The 'In' Crowd (Bryan Ferry)

Lust for Life (Iggy Pop)

See-Line Woman (Nina Simone)

Shake Your Hips (Slim Harpo)

Sound & Vision (David Bowie)

Super Bad, Parts 1 and 2 (James Brown)

Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum (Bob Dylan)

What in the World (David Bowie with Iggy Pop)

You Know I'm No Good (Amy Winehouse)

This stuff works for me. Specifically for the time blocks spent on things like the stationary bike, moon walk or regular treadmill. 

I've picked up a whole new appreciation for "Get Up Offa That Thing" (1976) -- can listen to it, the extended version, dozens of times and hear something new. For now, it's the side track electric funk guitar parts and embedded mutter-rapped words such as "Melvin Parker [on drums] . . . North Carolina . . ."   

2015: The adventure continues . . .

Today's Rune: Initiation. 

Madrid: La Oreja de Jaime

La Oreja de Jaime, Calle de la Cruz 15 (very near its V intersection with Calle de la Victoria), Madrid, España. Here: a basket of Galician green peppers ~ pimientos de Padrón.

La Oreja de Jaime in the mirror. I love this place. It's got a cool energy, it's small, the food is real tasty and the wine's easy to like, too. What's not to love? 

La Oreja de Jaime is so groovy a place we ate here again, a few days after the first sampling of tapas. The skewers of spiced meats are excellent; I also liked these oiled mushroom tops adorned with what appear to be scampi; additionally, there are enough types of ham and pigs' ear type things for any taste so suited, as well as other choices of tapas.

I love the Pimientos de Padrón almost beyond belief, given the nature of green peppers. I mean, peppers? Hell, yeah ~ !

We first tried La Oreja de Jaime because of a nifty take on it by Rick Steves (in his Spain 2014 travel book), and because of its name association with two of my siblings (Victoria aka Vickie and Jamie, here spelled Jaime). Plus, it's an easy walk from Puerta del Sol by way of a short scenic (several additional eateries and bars to see) route. 

God willing, I'll be back. In the meantime, where can I find some more of those good peppers?

Today's Rune: Partnership.

At the Bend of the Fray, or Message in a Drinking Vessel

Glass is groovy. Ceramics, too. Plastic fills the oceans blue. 

These bottles are all from the 1800s, the nineteenth century, or thereabouts. One thing we all know is this: they're certainly not from the 21st century, not in the USA, anyway.

It's been eye-popping to see the wide variety of drinking vessels in cultural repositories lately, from hearth and home to the Nasher and Ackland Art Museums at Duke and the University of North Carolina, respectively. What art -- what culture! Things to keep and reuse many a time, not swill like some sugary glop down the gullet and then toss in the trash pile in minutes flat. Slow food, not fast food! Community, sharing and hospitality! Listen to some modern-day Homer or Sappho -- there are tales to sing and tell!

In the case of the above vessel, I don't know what it's for exactly. It could be a funeral urn for all I know. Is that Eros or a Harpy, the Lady or a Flying Tiger? Take your pick and pass the wine, please.


Today's Rune: Joy.    

Zen in the Art of Writing (Take II)

From Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing (1990, 1992), let's consider his LIST.

Before the list, there's Twyla Tharp's warmup exercise, BECOME A VERB. Take a verb and perform it -- so suggests the dancer-choerographer for getting ideas to (rather literally) flow. Example: Wiggle. Another example: Twist. Another: Duck. Another: Cover.

And now THE LIST, "Trusting my subconscious [and Muse] to give bread, as it were, to the birds" (Bradbury, Zen, page 17).

Here goes (caps in original):

THE LAKE. THE NIGHT. THE CRICKETS. THE RAVINE. THE ATTIC. THE BASEMENT. . . THE BABY. THE CROWD . . . THE CARNIVAL. THE CAROUSEL. THE DWARF. . . THE SKELETON (Ditto, page 17).

From THE LIST, Bradbury derived the setting or "spine" of a story or core idea. Pretty neat, Ray.

Here's a random "rip" from one of my sets of saved lists, mostly a compilation of notes from scraps of paper, napkins, notecards, etc. It's sort of like William S. Burroughs and Brian Gysin's cut-up method, or halfway there. Looking at these strings of words, sometimes I know the origin, sometimes not. Sometimes I know how to pick them up, sometimes I'd have to start afresh:

el griffe tampico pirates

otters water dogs

checkpointe charlie on the esplanade

preservation hall

howlin’ wolf

the fat of the land

the dirty shames

general kirkland

the remains of ira slack

“I find the film in the editing" -- David Charron -- "I have to develop a structure”

“it just came to me, man”

Angelman syndrome

guy on wheelchair and american flag,  whipping behind cars, flies up and into the smoke shop!

“He ain't got no impulse control”

fugue state

Even Those Who Remember

History Are Still

Doomed to Repeat It

LA, Hamburg -- zen

let's it speak for itself - still, choices

theatreless theatre

this is the way it is

things that are lost

in search of lost time

Paris, Texas, close to the Red River

uniformed assassins

pearls and swine
voilent voiler veil to veil  veiled past
king of hearts

june has left the building

meritocracy vs. aristocracy

who died and made you king?

alexander kent novels

bats and rats are where it's at

pensive
1776 Ben Franklin
humpty dumpty

the difference between hessians and modern mercenaries

mercy for and administering to the afflicted

Cyrus

dusty springfield, the cake

when the battle is over (who shall wear the crown?)

now gather round people and listen to this . . .

play guitar play

“If baseball was any slower paced it'd be farming”

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Have you tried lists? I've got lists of proper names -- people, places, etc. -- and various words I want to remember; phrases; slang; core ideas; reminders; remembrances; and references. It never stops -- "until the end." How about yours?

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

Apollo and Dionysus: Fahrvergnügen-in-Action

So this madcap philosophy dude Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) scribbled an über-groovy -- maybe even Fahrvergnügen -- book called Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik / The Birth of Traqedy and the Spirit [or Ghost] of Music (1872). One of his dearest grooves is on the pull in human nature, and in human affairs, between order or stability and freedom or chaos, between set form and open form. The Greeks knew all about it, Nietzsche points out (or reminds us, depending on where the reader's at), all that balance jive, as represented by the gods Apollo and Dionysus. 

Apollo and the sun, Dionysus and booze, specifically wine and its close relatives, and wild times (i.e. Bohemian and/or religious wild times -- also known under the aegis of the Dionysian Roman avatar, Bacchus). 

Humans tend to tilt one way or the other, depending on time, age, circumstance, feast day, holiday, night of the week, pay day, and so on. 

Mondays and Tuesdays are usually given up to Apollo, I suppose. The same cannot be said for Fridays and Saturdays. At least in the Western Lands in the Year 2013 of the Common Era so far as I know.

Apollo and Dionysus are not ever wholly separated. They're more like the yin and yang -- you know, more like the Chinese symbols swirling into each other with a little dark in the lighter part and a little light in the darker part.

We could delve into somewhat similar Hindu stuff like Kālī and Shiva to make some other sort of apt comparison -- or maybe not. Not today!

Only for now, please do consider not purging your Shadow Self on the Dark Side of the Moon while alternatively not getting burned by your Blinding Self on the Near Side of the Sun. 

Indeed, why not wear shades and get your Fahrvergnügen on, if you dare and so desire? 

For now it's time to go, and Time Waits for No One.

Today's Rune: Warrior.       

The Night-Blooming Cereus: A Version

I was introduced to the night-blooming cereus by English architects John Adams and Marina Dunbar in the summer of 1991, in Clapham, London SW4, while boarding at their customized avant-garde house on Macaulay Road, and interning at English Heritage, where John also worked.

The situation during the summer months began straightforwardly but became increasingly complex.  At the outset, John Adams had put up a flyer at English Heritage seeking a boarder (a fairly typical way to supplement household income in London at the time, and to keep creative energies flowing, I suppose), and, via my sponsor (US-ICOMOS*), I was simultaneously seeking a place to board, so the twain met neatly, working out for both parties. If memory serves, I paid sixty pounds per week for room and board at John and Marina's in Clapham, and the same (which became a discount, at first a slight source of tension) when relocated to Bob and Tatiana Blagoveshenskaya Dunbar's (Marina's parents')  labyrinthine flat off Bentinck Street (London W1U) due to unforeseen  circumstances. 

My stay in London started like a verse of Bob Dylan's "Simple Twist of Fate" and took off from there.  I'd end up with an English architect girlfriend, have dinners and wine with John and Nick (Nicholas) Dunbar, hear about Marianne Faithfull (John's ex-wife and Nick's mother) and Mick Jagger, discover how John Dunbar had introduced Yoko Ono to John Lennon, learn about Bob and Tatiana's life and film work in Mexico, Russia and the UK, hear about Marina and John Dunbar's twin sisters Jennifer (married to American poet Ed Dorn) and Margaret, speak at length with their son Lev (whose break in mental health was the catalyst for my relocation), hang out with Italian poet-sculptor and fellow Bentinck Street lodger Livia Livi, and yes, yes, see the great night-blooming cereus growing from what appeared to be latticework in a sort of solarium-and-socializing space at the Macaulay Road residence.

Marina Dunbar and John Adams told of the Mexican varieties of night-blooming cereus, the Queen of the Night. This strange and resilient cactus plant represented something about Mexico to them. In 1968, while Jennifer Dunbar and Ed Dorn headed to Paris to see the "disturbances" there, John worked as an architect at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City, the one caught up in the Tlatelolco student massacre and featuring the Black Power salute. Bob and Tatiana had married in Mexico City at the beginning of the Second World War, and had started their family there before being redeployed to the British embassy in Moscow. In a sense, the night-blooming cereus was Mexico.

The mystique of the night-blooming cereus came in its name and origin. It bloomed rarely, and at night. Maybe once a year, maybe more, maybe never. 

When I was preparing to return to the USA (or "States" as they would say), Marina gave me a couple of moistened leaves in a plastic bag, and back went strands of their night-blooming cereus to the Americas.  Twenty-one years on, several plants have sprung from these "mustard seeds." It's a hearty and weird cactus, this night-blooming cereus, though I have yet to see one bloom at night or at anytime at all, with my own eyes. In due time, I suspect. Somewhere, somehow. Meanwhile, the story of its origin remains for me as transcendent as the night-bloom of a summer's dream. 

Today's Rune: Fertility.     

*The US National Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites, a fully paid internship, enough to survive on overseas.  Pictured at top: cover of Night-Blooming Cereus: Stories by K.A. Longstreet (University of Missouri Press, 2002).
      

Michael Winterbottom: Nine Songs

Michael Winerbottom has made a variety of films, experimenting as he goes. One of my favorites of his remains 24 Hour Party People (2002), both for its wit and recreation of the Manchester music scene beginning with a visit by the Sex Pistols in 1976 and starring Steve Coogan as Tony Wilson; a lot of that one revolves around Joy Division and New Order.

Winterbottom's Nine Songs (2004) is a more stripped-down film -- literally and figuratively -- about a man and a woman who "see" each other in London, spend a lot of time at his flat, and see a lot of live music (quite a bit of it at Brixton Academy). Sex, drugs and rock and roll, more or less. Told from Englishman Matt's (Kieran O'Brien) point of view, the film is intercut with brief scenes from his later working life in Antarctica. His American paramour Lisa (North Carolina-born Margo Stilley) comes and goes as she wishes, while his attachment to her seems to grow. Dialogue is sparse, leaving the audience to connect the dots about their larger lives.

Upon its release, 9 Songs was the most sexually frank British movie ever shown on the big screen (outside of "blue" theatres, I suppose).  In context, you can see it as the culmination of an arc that begins with the controversial reception of Louis Malle's  Les Amants / The Lovers (1958), proceeds through Bernardo Bertolucci's Ultimo tango a Parigi / Last Tango in Paris (1972) and Wayne Wang's The Center of the World (2001) and arrives at 9 Songs.

Today's Rune: Signals. p.s. music by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and others is cool for context.
 

Surreal London, 1991

I scribbled furiously in my London notebooks, taking note of anything and everything I could, usually while en route from one place to another. Here's a snippet transcribing some graffiti and related things caught along the way, including adverts and slogans. This truly being pre-digital in 1991, sketching and writing in cursive were the best ways to capture impressions.

The smokey Prince of Wales Pub off Clapham Common Southside.
Pork scratchings. Shandies -- beer and fizz water & something that looks like H.R. Pufnstuf. The Berlin Corner: memorabilia of the Wall & the needle tower. Green Ginger Wine. A great ceramic flip of the bird (the up yours). A Statue of Liberty holding a giant ear of corn on the cob. Hussars, bells & chimes. The Prince of Wales' portrait and various things dangling from the ceiling. A new jukebox with CDs, songs from albums instead of singles.

People saying: footpath (sidewalk). Brilliant = great, cool, neat, brilliant.
Do you fancy = would you like . . .?  and/or What would you think of . . .?

Signpost.
Beware of:
Mr. Nasty
Fascist Pig
Basher
Mr "B"
Mr. Lobster
Mr. Jack the Ripper
The Fly
Godfather III 1/2
The Jackal
The Original English Football Hooligan
Mr. Perfick

Advert:
"It laughs in the face of spots & spanks the bottoms of pimples!"

I'll get to the "exotic Budweiser" ad campaign soon . . .

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.

Valdese, North Carolina

Valdese, North Carolina. This mural chronicles the relocation of Waldensians from the Italian Alps to Valdese in the late 1800s. Artistic bilocation. Mystic chords of memory. The benches in the foreground have a grape leaf motif honoring wine.

Waldensians may have broken away from Catholicism, but not alcohol. I like that in a religious sect. Alcohol consumption among proto-Protestants and Protestants is a mixed bag: depends on the group and various articles of faith and dogma. (Mural by Clive Haynes).     

If you've heard of the "Boogie Man" or the "Bogey Man," you already know -- perhaps indirectly -- of another proto-Protestant sect and movement: the Bogomil (or Bogomils). Other "heresies" and "heterodoxies" comparable to the Waldensians (Waldenses, Vaudois): the Cathari or Albigensians (Albigenses), and a half-millennium later, the Huguenots, or French Calvinists.

Christians slaying Christians through the ages: what good fun for all involved! As Mick Jagger put it of the Devil, in 1968: "I watched with glee while your kings and queens fought for ten decades for the gods they made . . ." Indeed, a pertinent post on Fort Caroline, Florida, will appear somewhere down the pike. But meanwhile, a salute to the Waldensians who made their new home in Valdese, North Carolina, and lived to tell the tale.     

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

"To Please the Taste Buds of the Southern Ladies"

.

The Waldensian Heritage Wines Winery in Valdese, North Carolina, is well worth checking out. The wine is tasty and quite reasonably priced (as in $8/bottle at the time of this posting). The folks who run it seem to be very much enjoying their work, their wine and the history of the Waldensians. Their polyglot phrasing at times reminds me in its peculiarities of Amos Tutuola's "Complete Gentleman." For example: "Villar Rouge Sweet . . . with extra sugar to please the taste buds of the Southern Ladies and the Southern Gentlemen." And: "Millennium Deux . . . Sipping it reminds one of memories gone by and memories to come." How cool is that? Believe me, it's even cooler after a little on-site wine tasting . . . 

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

Give the People What They Want

Every once in a while I'll take a glance at the analytics for web trafficking re: this site and its spinoff. Mostly to see what draws the most people in with one easy shot.

Following is a list of some of the keywords that elicit interest en masse.

But before I forget, while doing this I came across the basic fact that Google has national versions of its search engine, or maybe they're language versions, or both. Examples:

For Spain, try www.google.es
France: www.google.fr
Russia: www.google.ru

Along the way, I checked out YouTube via Russian Google and what came up right off the bat? The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, the Rolling Stones, Iggy Pop, Marianne Faithfull, Debbie Harry and Jean-Luc Godard. Seems they've got my number. It's like that David Lynch movie, Lost Highway. "Call me -- I'm already there." Yes, indeed, Blondie, I will. "Call me. Dial your number. Go ahead."

Here are the biggest all-time attractions of "Erik's Choice" since its inception in 2006, but not in specific ranking order:

Angelina Jolie as Kleopatra, aka Angelina Jolie as Cleopatra: Kleopatra VII was Greek/Macedonian, and Angelina Jolie has already played the Greek Olympia, mother of Alexander the Great, the person most responsible for Greek/Macedonian rule in Egypt via Alexandria (which he founded) and the Ptolemaic dynasty. Kleopatra died only about thirty years before the "Christian Era" or "Common Era" began -- lots of Greek culture at the time, and lots of overlap. (An accompanying picture didn't exactly hinder coming across this on the internet).

Zooey Deschanel (sometimes "as Janis Joplin").

Charlotte Rampling.

Anna Karina.

Amy Winehouse.

Meg White.

Chan Parker. 

So there you go, isn't that interesting? 

Moral 1: If you want to spike your hits, give the [bulk of interested] People What They Want! 

Moral 2: Write about topics you like that are also of interest to a mass audience.

Moral 3: Or, focus on topics so specific that your site serves as a global magnet for that topic.

Today's Rune: Signals.    

Looking Out My Back Door: Farewell, 2011

2011 is already gone in most parts of the world, but it hangs on just a little bit longer from where I'm posting. Big wheel keep on turning / Proud Mary keep on burning.

Mississippi keep on flowing
Fukushima keep on blowing.
Arab Spring taking wing.
Sing on.

Fare thee well, Amy Winehouse, and all the other dear departed.
Farewell, 2011.

Today's Rune: Harvest.   

Carrie Fisher: Shockaholic

Thoroughly enjoyed Shockaholic (2011), Carrie Fisher's newest memoir. There's a little something in it for just about anybody. There's the pop culture stuff: musings about celebrity and wreckage, "the shine" and the pit. Senators are in there, Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor, Fisher's parents Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher. This is all intertwined with Carrie Fisher's personal complications, and depression, and her turning to Electroconvulsive (aka electroshock) therapy (ECT) for survival: "I wish I could explain . . . the seemingly unending, ongoing, relentless, inordinately intense, pathetic fixation I have with my feelings . . . demanding my attention and externally taking my emotional temperature." (Shockaholic, pages 16-17).

ECT probably saves her life, but at the expense of memory gaps: a lot is forgotten of the weeks or months before and after each treatment. I had a college student like this years ago who needed a map and detailed notes to find the way to class. Luckily it was a writing class, so subject matter could come from anywhere, and said student was a good writer. With Carrie Fisher, depression is kept at bay, and she can still write, too -- in a pithy, self-deprecating and effective manner. If you're looking for something a little different, Shockaholic is a quick, interesting read. 

Today's Rune: Harvest.  

Ingmar Bergman: Persona

Ingmar Bergman's Persona (1966) takes you through a funhouse mirror of person-to-person interaction. Where does one end and the other begin? How many layers of personality and personae are we made of?

In Persona, Elisabet (Liv Ullmann) and Alma (Bibi Andersson) become alternately intertwined and unspooled through a maddening but effective technique: the half-talking cure. One talks and talks and the other remains virtually silent, responding with looks and mostly non-verbal gestures and movements. The result, combined with sections of fast cuts, semi-subliminal images and bursts of wild music and set against a backdrop of changing light and ambience, stuns and makes you wonder.  

Personae shift and shimmer depending on circumstance. A lot of times this has to do with audience. For instance, I'm not going to use profanities in front of undergraduate (or younger) students, whereas in much freer (and therefore very limited) circumstances I swear like a sailor -- and enjoy it.

Life is theatre: keep stage and audience in mind wherever possible. Life is a movie: there are things like flexibility, lighting, presentation and various effects to consider. Choices. Options. Actions. Let's roll it. Alma: "To change oneself. My trouble is laziness." To change yourself, it helps to know yourself; sometimes it's easier to know someone else's contours better than your own. Consider photos and mirror images vs. our interior mutterings and self-conceptions -- there's usually a disconnect there somewhere, or a no-connect, which is probably why it's so exciting when we do connect, or reconnect, or make entirely new connections, with other people as well as with ourselves. 

Today's Rune: Harvest.

La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life, Part 2

Elaine Sciolino's La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life (Times Books, Henry Holt and Company, 2011) explores various seductive aspects of France and French culture, everything ranging from lingerie, perfume, wine, champagne, coffee, fashion, conversation, art and design to diplomacy -- foibles, failures and triumphs blended together like an engaging, enlightened conversation.

The tale of Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni is in there, how she inspired him to read books, among other refinements:

"You're reading?" one of Sarkozy's friends asked him in disbelief.
Sarkozy replied, "You tried for twenty years. It took Carla twenty days" (-- page 253. He was finally reading Marcel Proust, for one).

Overall, France fights the good fight to maintain its cultural strengths, despite globalization and internal structural challenges. There are perhaps 400 million or more French speakers in a world population of seven billion; outside of France and its immediate neighbors, there are significant Francophonic clusters in North and West Africa, Madagascar, the Caribbean and Quebec. Former colonial people of Middle Eastern and Vietnamese descent are sometimes tinged with French culture, as well -- I've experienced this firsthand. Let's not forget old time New Orleans and Louisiana, Creole and Cajun blended with Spanish and other cultural survivals.   

Today's Rune: Strength.

Mike Leigh: Home Sweet Home

Home Sweet Home (1982), Mike Leigh's grim serio-comic situational "slice of life,"  follows the sporadic antics of three postal workers (Stan, Gordon and Harold), two postal workers' wives (Hazel and June), Stan's daughter Tina (who is living under the auspices of social services, as "Mum" took off eight years before the story begins), and two social workers.

Leigh's often intense, offbeat films stick to memory because they deal with things that most "big" films do not. Home Sweet Home is immersed in daily details and habits of the English working class, and social relationships -- including marriage.  Paul Schrader's Blue Collar (1978), set in Detroit, does this, too, for the American working class, but adds crime and intrigue -- as does Schrader's excellent film Affliction (1997), which however adds alcoholism and crime. 

The chracters in Home Sweet Home are neither criminals nor alcoholics though June Fish, who is having a lazy affair with Stan, is turning to an abundance of wine for comfort, and Gordon Leach, constantly berated by his semi-dieting wife Hazel -- who is being wooed by Stan, one of the gloomiest, chain-smoking ladies' men imaginable -- turns to significant quantities of beer to numb his existence. Stan's daughter, now fourteen, seems even gloomier than her father, suggesting more of the same for the next generation. 

Set in the early 1980s, Home Sweet Home provides a portal into daily English working class life at the time that transcends the interesting but ultimately unresolved storyline. There is a lot of dipping of biscuits in tea and excruciatingly oblique chat. As for living like these characters do: don't -- the way they choose to continue on is, for all of them, frustrating, alienating and not in the least self-reflective.  

Today's Rune:  Warrior.