Month: August 2005

An introduction to Cajun English. Cajun English, not Cajun French.
Some of the elements are awfully familiar to me. I’ve always said “get down” to mean “get out of a car.” (Much to the amusement of people riding in the car with me. “Do you want to get down?” is not typically an invitation to dance.) It’s “a” coffee, not “some” coffee. And my grandmother used to always say “zink” instead of “sink.” Throw in some “was” leveling and “-ed” absence, and throw in some loss of interdental fricatives, double subject construction, and extra definite articles and you’re getting there. (“Dem, dey was so tired uh dat ol’ dam dog they kill da ting”)
An LSU prof who’s studied it calls Cajun English an ethnolect: “varieties of a language in which the expression of ethnic identity is maintained in an adopted language after loss of the ethnic language.” A la AAVE, or as the Oakland school board would call it, ebonics.
The author advances an interesting theory: That as Cajun French dies out, the ability to speak Cajun English — with its passel of linguistic holdovers from the mother tongue — is the key social indicator of ethnic identity. “Why would a dialect which was considered a mark of ignorance until very recently be heard on the lips of Cajuns young and old?…To be a Cajun these days, the necessary and sufficient condition seems to be that you must speak Cajun English.”
That would be an interesting twist on the view, advanced by Zachary Richard and others, that Cajun culture can only survive if “the language” survives. They mean Cajun French as “the language,” but maybe the accent of Boudreaux jokes is enough.
Finally, a bonus quote on anti-Cajun discrimination in the early 20th century.

Reader poll time: Settle this dispute.
The fingers of a human hand can be distinguished by the following names: thumb, index finger, middle finger, ring finger, pinkie finger.
Question: Are there similar names for the toes of a human foot?
In other words, would big toe, index toe, middle toe, ring toe, and pinkie toe be accurate terms? Is “ring toe” appropriate despite there being no great cultural legacy of putting rings on said toe? Is “little toe” or “baby toe” more appropriate than “pinkie toe”? Is “index toe” sane?
Your thoughts in the comments, please.

Kick ass: Zombies Walk!, an unspeakably awesome mix of Sufjan Stevens and Kanye West, the two reigning kings of unique-first-name music. (Stolen from Gorilla vs. Bear.)

Orange roughy — the lovely-tasting fish that forms the core of the delish ceviche tostadas at Gloria’s — doesn’t even start to breed until about age 25 or 30. The ones caught are often over 100 years old.
Which means (a) that when I chow down on those ceviche tostadas, I may be eating a fish older than my great-grandmother, and (b) orange roughy stocks worldwide are near depletion because the species doesn’t have time to recover from overfishing.

Names seriously considered for the young Canadian nation, 1865: Mesopelagia, Superior, Albionora, Tuponia (as in The United Provinces of North America), Efisga (England, France, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, and Aboriginal lands).

While I’m thinking of Cajun food: a little recipe for after your next Thanksgiving. Starring one cup bacon fat!
And while I’m thinking of Cajun things: I’ve always loved this description of the Savoy Saturday morning jam session outside Eunice. “All are invited to join in, no permission or approval is needed, but we ask only one thing: Please, no more than ONE triangle player at a time. If you’re wondering how to find the music center, just look for thirty cars lined up Hwy. 190 between Eunice and Lawtell. We are open for business, and admission is free, but a small box of boudin or cracklins would make you the most popular guy in there for about 2-3 minutes.”

Happy holidays!
By which I mean, happy Acadian National Day, the national holiday of my people. (The Acadians, careful readers of crabwalk know, were the French Canadians who evolved into the Cajuns of south Louisiana.) August 15 was chosen in 1881 at the first National Acadian Convention in Memramcook, New Brunswick; the day was the Catholic feast day for Our Lady of Assumption. It was chosen in part to separate the Acadians from the Quebecois and other French Canadians, who celebrated their day on June 24.
I don’t know what’s going on in Canada today, but this is a big year in Acadian history. It’s the 250th anniversary of the expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia by the treacherous and villainous Charles Lawrence, which was happening right around this time of year in 1755. (Lawrence’s order came on July 28; the first wave of expulsions lasted through to September. Which reminds me: I need to finish A Great and Noble Scheme soon.)
So, celebrate by having some crawfish today. Actually, crawfish are out of season at the moment, and the only ones you can get are frozen tails imported from China. So…have an andouille sausage poboy instead. Maybe some catfish courtbouillon. Or some corn and crab bisque. Or some tasso jambalaya. Mmmmmmm.

The prez and his iPod. “He likes to bike with an iPod Shuffle and let the beat of country music pace him. He jokes that he can be alone even when he rides with someone: ‘I just crank up the Shuffle.'”
Seriously, though, that story is a P.R. man’s dream. Whoever arranged that outing for the White House got exactly what they wanted from the reporter.

Good description of the overhyped Jack radio format: “You can expect anything, so long as you only expect stuff that’s been played at proms and wedding receptions within the last 30 years.” I love their billboards around Dallas, which are supposed to show the enormous range of music they play — everything from the Cars to the Fixx! Wow, what range!
Here’s my story from Friday’s front page. I would have linked to it Friday, if my web host hadn’t gone through ANOTHER server crash and erased all of crabwalk.com AGAIN. Luckily, I had a backup and lost nothing. Now, just to find the time to transfer to my other host…
Friend Of Crabwalk Molly is blogging from Ghana, where she’s on a three-week reporting trip, the lucky ducky.
The Failed States Index. Unsurprisingly, Africa’s a big mess by this measure, but I felt a sort of pride when I saw Zambia is apparently at no risk for governmental collapse. (On the map, it’s the butterfly-shaped black smudge in south-central Africa, surrounded by a sea of reds, oranges, and yellows.

Music roundup:
Sufjan Stevens covers R.E.M. (To so-so effect.)
Sufjan Stevens covers the Beatles. (And kinda kicks ass.)
Sufjan Stevens plays a full concert, now illicitly available for convenient download. (And covers Francis Scott Key again.) Better sound quality at this show.
16, Maybe Less, the first track to leak from the inconceivably anticipated (by me, at least) Calexico/Iron & Wine collaboration. I think Sam Beam’s voice and John Convertino’s drums were meant for each other.
Jeff Mangum lives! This can only be good news, since it brings us ever-so-incrementally closer to the day that a followup to “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” hits stores. Krappy video here.
Newish Decemberists song, “Kingdom of Spain.” And, for the hell of it, “The Bandit Queen,” originally planned for the last album but declared too silly. (This version, from a live performance on Austin’s KUT, is the only I know to exist.)
Dallasites, prepare for the arrival of the Wrens on August 27. Decemberists and Built to Spill in September, and Calexico & Iron & Wine in October.
Finally, it’s about time someone created a Katrina Kerns Appreciation Society, in honor of the finest fashion model/Sufjan backup singer of All Time.