New Blog Site Lackey's Class Links

Check Out the New Version of Lackey's Class Links

Moby Dick

Moby Dick Ch. 36
Moby Dick Ch. 41

English 11 Review

English 11 Review

On Voice: Annie Dillard and David Sedaris

Write Till You Drop
By Annie Dillard

People love pretty much the same things best. A writer looking for subjects inquires not after what he loves best, but after what he alone loves at all. Strange seizures beset us. Frank Conroy loves his yo-yo tricks, Emily Dickinson her slant of light; Richard Selzer loves the glistening peritoneum, Faulkner the muddy bottom of a little girl's drawers visible when she's up a pear tree. ''Each student of the ferns,'' I once read, ''will have his own list of plants that for some reason or another stir his emotions.''

David Sedaris Interview

Slave Narrative Life Histories

Slave Narrative Life Histories
From the U.S. Library of Congress
American Slave Narratives
HBO Slave Narrative Documentary: Unchained Memories

In the 1930s and early 1940s, Alan Lomax and his father, folklorist John A. Lomax, helped to develop the Library of Congress’ Archive of American Folk Song as a major national resource, recording thousands of songs and oral histories in their original settings. Alan presented Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Josh White, Burl Ives, Pete Seeger, and many others to national audiences on radio, and in concerts, records, and books, promoting their careers and contributing to the folk song movement of the period.

Auggie Wren's Christmas Story

I came across author Paul Auster's story Auggie Wren's Christmas Story last year and then found that it was incorporated into the film Smoke. I use his The Story of My Typewriter as a mousepad - it's an illustrated edition of Sam Messer's typewriter paintings which got me to thinking about Auster again, hence the look at his website. I found there another film of his, Lulu On The Bridge, about a saxophone player.

Blues Lessons

Begin by reading "What is the Blues?" and the life of Muddy Waters at Muddy Waters: Can't Be Satisfied by Robert Gordon. Read Poetry: Blues Style. Look at "Understanding the 12 Bar Blues." - write your own blues lyric following the example by Elmore James. Then read Chicago and "The Great Migration" and How the Blues Affected Race Relations in the United States.

Blues Series Discography

Blues lyrics by Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. Coversproject.com lists covers of songs by Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. Cleveland's Robert Lockwood, Jr. sings Wednesdays at Fat Fish Blue. Here's a link to Lockwood's biography at the River of Song. More Robert Johnson lyrics here.

The NYTimes piece Blues Musicians Get Help Overcoming Hard Times is about the Music Maker Music Relief Foundation - Tim and Denise Duffy's non-profit project to promote and preserve old blues musicians. Listen to an inteview with Duffy on NPR.

When Moby sampled Vera Hall for "Natural Blues" he used field recordings from the The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip archived at the Library of Congress American Collection. Vera's songs are here. Read more about Alan Lomax here and here.

More sources:
Alphabetical list of Blues Artists, The Year of the Blues, Sweet Home Chicago, The Official Muddy Waters Web Site and explore Blues Road Trip, Blues in the Classroom, The Blues Viewing Guide, The Blues Radio Series, and sample Blues riffs at Fender's Players Club.

How to Write the Blues

How to Write and Sing the Blues

Blues in the Classroom

What Jazz Owes the Blues

Theme for English B

Langston Hughes - "The Weary Blues"

Blues Questions

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

Trivia from O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Whitman's Drumtaps and Civil War Photography

Walt Whitman and the Civil War

Frederick Douglass (American Memory, Library of Congress)

Frederick Douglass - American Memory, Library of Congress

Songs as Historical Artifacts - U.S. Library of Congress

Songs as Historical Artifacts

Tiny Houses

Tiny Houses and Modular Dwellings