HELLO and welcome to GORJUS, where I’ll tell you the backstory about a Polaroid, and sometimes listen to a record or dive into a book or an old movie. Plus give you a mission to accomplish.
The shot above, made with a chrome & brown leather SX-70, is a Stutz Blackhawk. Elvis loved these beasts—in an adult lifetime of pursuing cars (those avatars and deliverers of freedom), he had three or four. They only ever made about 500 of these mutants, essentially a luxury kitcar built onto a General Motors body.
As best as I can recall, in the past four decades I’ve only ever seen one before—at Graceland, in the car museum. I was rolling around Natchez last weekend, hoping to find some magic. This orange dragon was sitting up high on a bluff, a block over from the oldest building still standing in town, King’s Tavern (ca. 1769).
The orange Blackhawk was parked a few hundred feet from where the Rhythm Club burned down. Walter Barnes and his Royal Creolians were playing that night. I sometimes wish for a time machine, and to hear this song live must’ve been incredible.
They think there were over 700 people at the Rhythm Club that night, and the band itself was massive—at least a dozen members. All died in the horrific blaze, including bandleader Barnes, except the drummer and the bassist. The loss of life numbered over 200 souls.
I continue to listen to Saint Cloud, the latest release from Waxahatchee. As I was driving around Jackson this morning, I was struck with the wonderful realization that this will be an album that I carry with me the rest of my days. I wore my Replacements cassettes out long ago—the anguish, the loss, the self-loathing. What I seek now are brighter dawns; hope, and beauty. The incredible writing of Katie Crutchfield offers just that.
That doesn’t mean it’s without effort, the pain and strain of recovering from decades of damage—just that there’s a joy during the journey. “I’ll keep lying to myself,” Waxakatie sings on “War”—“I’m not that untrue.” It’s just that “I’m in a war with myself / It’s got nothing to do with you.” Has there ever been such a greater declaration of healing and boundaries?
And it’s not just the phenomenal writing. The very texture of Katie’s voice is different then anything else going. There’s a beautiful version of Big Star’s “Thirteen” that Bedouine just debuted. The first verse is so clearly, purely sung; the next by Hurray for the Riff Raff done with the same faithful clarity.
The third verse is different. Waxahatchee comes in at the 2:07 mark, off-kilter and raw. She pronounces “outlaw” with—well—like there’s a nanosecond of a different syllable slid in there, an accent beyond the reach of the 21st century. It’s the burble of a creek you visited as a child, the tricky curve of a snake in a painting by a holy person. It’s magic.
Your mission this week is to make an appointment to go see FIGA, a fragment of Kara Walker’s gigantic sculpture “A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby.” It’s the left hand of the majestic piece, coated in sweating, beautiful powdered sugar. It’s free at the And Gallery in Jackson, Mississippi; appointments allow three visitors for thirty minutes as a time.
As always I am gorjusjxn on Instagram. Listen to good music this weekend (or bad, if it makes you happy, or makes you dance).