I am the bread that wakes you from the dead.

• Sister Gertrude Morgan

As I reported yesterday, last evening I made the trip to Central Park to get me some Jesus. Even though I lived in the South, with the stereotypical church on every street corner, for many years, this was only the second time I have been to a gospel concert. And given my mental state on waking up yesterday morning, I am glad I did.

Walking uptown through Central Park, on a muggy evening, I fell into this vortex, which was a call and response chant set up by Liz McComb - "please remember me, please remember me" it went. Ms. McComb then had me in her vocal grip for the next hour, as she belted out, what can only be called punches of vocal power for which she got plenty of amens and "oh yeahs".

This was followed by King Britt's fantastic aural and visual re-imagining of this American original, Sister Morgan's free form songs and paintings. "Power" in particular stood out for its driving beat like chants overlaid with these visuals of wars, military parades, and the most spooky morphing visual of these eyes of many power players - present and past - weaving in and out of the screen. Something must be said of juxtaposing the eyes of Saddam Hussein with those of Donald Rumsfeld or those of Osama Bin Laden with those of George Bush.

While I can't give you the visuals from the concert, you can go here and listen to what I heard last evening. May the Lord be with ya!

So I took my lonesome self to Brooklyn last evening to hear live jazz music composed/set to three silent short-films of Laurel¹ & Hardy. In retrospect, I now think I made the island hopping trip, also to go back to the Sunday mornings of middle childhood, in which I first watched those black & white, and mostly silent, comic buffoons on Doordarshan (aka TV) right before those garish but wildly popular mythological sitcoms, Ramayan and Mahabharat, hit the air.

I am happy to report that re-watching these old familiar films after years was as much fun as it was on those Indian summer mornings. Better still, for me the most gratifying thing about last night's communal experience was to hear the high pitched laughter of children mixed with those of the adults. Perhaps, this is what the imprimatur of timelessness is. And also what signs of growing old are - memory of your childhood laughter flashing when you hear children laughing.

Go watch "Double Whoopee" here, one of the films that was screened last evening. And tonight, I going to go and get me some Jesus!

[1] Is it only me who thinks the cool hipster pointy hair seen in these parts is but a variation of Laurel's cool hairstyle?