Click here for “Timelessness on His Hands,” Carolina Alumni Review,” July-August 2017 issue. Opens as a PDF.
Republican National Convention, Day 3: “Close Your Eyes and Take Some Soothing Breaths”
Originally published in Indy Week. IF THERE’S A CARNIVALESQUE CENTER to downtown Cleveland this week, it’s the five hundred feet of East Fourth Street leading to the Republican National Convention’s perimeter fence. The narrow brick street is thick with delegates, journalists, musicians, souvenir vendors, obscure-issue protesters, and police officers imported from around the country. MSNBC […]
His Own MAN
By challenging traditional ideas around academia, Mark Anthony Neal has broadened what it means to be a scholar. Originally published in Duke Magazine. Click. A video of R&B musician Jill Scott fills the screen. She’s belting out “Strange Fruit,” a ballad written in the 1930s to protest the lynchings—hangings and other mob violence—that were terrorizing African-American […]
Lifting the Emotional Embargo in Cuba
An unorthodox blend of anthropology and poetry is cultivating reunion and reconciliation among people and cultures that have been estranged for decades. Originally published in Sapiens. THE JUNE HEAT WAS SO INTENSE, the air so still, that the open balcony doors offered little relief. Anthropologist Ruth Behar felt her clothes sticking as she looked over […]
Blues Brothers
Eddie Tigner was nearing the end of his musical career when he met Daniel “Mudcat” Dudeck. Their friendship gave Dudeck a mentor and Tigner a second chance at success. Originally published in Atlanta Magazine. Photos by Ben Rollins. AT 2:10 A.M. ON A SUNDAY, THE INSIDE of Northside Tavern looks like a musical tempest has […]
The Gutbucket King
Update: The Gutbucket King is now available free. Click here to go directly to the story. The New New South, a digital publisher of longform journalism about the South, has released The Gutbucket King, New Orleans bluesman Little Freddie King’s epic story of migration, music, booze, bloodshed, race, and redemption. It was written by Barry Yeoman, […]
The Gutbucket King
By Barry Yeoman
He stood at the kitchen window waiting. He had memorized everything around him: the pine walls, bare of wallpaper or even paint; the wardrobe where his widowed mother kept her churn for making buttermilk; the stove fueled by the firewood he cut each morning; the two coolers, one for dairy and the other for cakes and pies. He had branded them into his memory, these artifacts of a life that, after today, would no longer be his.
The Art of Sand Castles
They call themselves sand sculptors—artists who build massive structures on the beach for fun and profit, only to watch their work disappear overnight. Originally published in Coastal Living. THE LATE 1990S CLOBBERED KIRK RADEMAKER. He was in his mid-40s, a trained carpenter with an fine-art degree, stuck in a stressful job: project manager for a large […]
A Moveable Feast
America’s Creole migration brought a whole new flavor to California. Originally published in American Way, in conjunction with the documentary Zydeco Nation. Photos by John Noltner. AT 4:00 ON A SATURDAY AFTERNOON, the cars start turning onto Embarcadero Way. The street in Palo Alto, Calif., has all the charm you’d expect from a Silicon Valley business […]
Louisiana Musician Finds His Own ‘Solution to Pollution’
Drew Landry’s “BP Blues” helped focus attention on the plight of fishermen and oilfield workers after the Deepwater Horizon blowout. Now Landry is collaborating with bluesman Dr. John on a CD of environmental songs. A sampler will be released April 20, the one-year anniversary of the oil spill, during a New Orleans concert. Produced by […]
