Lagniappe Time: Part 1

Posted on May 26, 2025 by portfoliolongo.com

Generally, we’re encouraged to “let go.” It’s hard to do; and, it’s particularly hard to let go of my experience of the 5/22/2025 Bob Dylan tribute show at Casa Nueva, Athens, Ohio, organized by Steve Zarate. So I plan to spend a little, what I’m now calling “lagniappe time” with each of the performers – like I did here with Caitlin Kraus.

“Lagniappe” is a concept and a term I became familiar with while living in New Orleans. In Cajun culture, “lagniappe” (pronounced “lan-yap”) means a little something extra” or a bonus. It’s often a small gift or extra item given by a merchant to a customer, usually as a thank you or to show appreciation. it’s kinda’ like the notion of a “baker’s dozen.” Lagniappe time, then, is being able to spend a little extra time with live performers sketching freehand on my iPad Pro mainly in the Sketch Club app. I’ve illustrobloged elsewhere on the subject of lagniappe.

That evening Caitlin Kraus performed the following Dylan songs:
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (Albert-guitar)
Masters Of War
Queen Jane Approximately
Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright

Mason Alexander Ault
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
To Ramona
It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)
Just Like A Woman

Bob Stewart
I Pity The Poor Immigrant
Girl From The North Country
Mr. Tambourine Man
When I Paint My Masterpiece

Albert Rouzie
Senor (Tales Of Yankee Power)
Man In The Long Black Coat
Highway 61 Revisited (Mason-harp)
Blind Willie McTell (Todd-harp)

Steve Zarate
Subterranean Homesick Blues (Todd-harp)
Love Minus Zero/No Limit
I Want You
Mama You Been On My Mind
If Not For You

Todd Burge
Jokerman
You’re A Big Girl Now
Gotta Serve Somebody (Steve/Caitlin/Mason/Albert-b/g vox)
All I Really Want To Do

Bruce Dalzell
When The Ship Comes In
Tomorrow Is A Long Time
Dark Eyes
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go

(Closing songs)
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
The Times They Are A Changin’
My Back Pages

Spending Extra Time with Those Who’ve Departed

Posted on May 10, 2020 by portfoliolongo.com

In the last couple of weeks I’ve spent a fair amount of time on my iPad Pro rendering digital paintings of two friends, both musicians, both from Athens, OH, Jerry Schaffer and Bruce Ergood, who’ve recently passed away, and it’s beginning to become clearer to me that doing so, painting portraits of the dearly departed, creates an unusually liminal opportunity for me to spend bonus or lagniappe time with them. I’ve done it before, see my posts on Cuthbert or Lotfi, two examples that immediately come to mind; however, I’m only now coming to terms with certain dimensions of this experience.

The experience is obviously built on fond memories. Memories surface that evoke thoughts and feelings tied to familiar facial characteristics and other reminders as reflected in the photo references I use. Beyond that I can’t really add much; except that “muscle memory” and “day dreaming” are involved. It’s kinda’ improvisational and transcendental. In some ways it’s memory spilling into the Present Moment and being resurrected forever in the Now that tends to constantly escape us but that’s always there, or rather Here.

It was helpful in many ways having conversed by phone with Jerry’s Robin and Bruce’s Jane before digitally and free-handedly painting the portraits and experiencing this unexpected, extramural connection. The immediate grief embedded in those conversations continues to reverberate, which is helping me reprioritize things in my life as I age and, more broadly speaking, as we move into uncharted territories in relation to COVID 19. In both conversations this grief was scrambled and amplified by the pandemic, making what is already painfully real – really painful. And yet, grief has a way of shedding a new light on an old world, since, afterall, there’s no turning back.