See those eyes.
Even when she was very ill, July 2024, BELLE sent out Birthday Wishes.
January 26, 2025
Let me begin with yesterday’s ‘Sight and Sound’ that recalling BELLE brought to mind. Always happen, huh, with someone with great, warm presence passes?
What Sight-and-Sound stirs in my heart today is BELLE at the helm of her Cassette-Playing Sound-System, Saturday-night Parties for her or ANATOL’s Birthday … their house in a Sub-Division of far New Orleans East … Belle Queenly imperial at head of a crowded Dining Room table, a dozen-plus Chairs in the Dining-Room crowded with family and guests, the Couch and upholstered Chairs in the Living-Room crowded too—family and guests chatting, leaning, eating from plates of the Mac-and-Cheese and Sausage-and-Beans and Bread Pudding and drinking glasses of Wine and Whiskey … everyone, mostly, listening and even rocking and closing their eyes to the Ineffably Deep Rumbling Bass-Lines and Real Talk and Everyday Pathos and Sweet, Soaring Tones from Belle’s selection of ‘70s, 80s’, ‘90s, 21st-century Rhythm-and-Blues tunes … Heaven in Half-Hours and more … and Belle the Chef in control of our pleasure at head of the table looking over at Anatol every now and then.
Anatol’s Birthday Party, August 11, 2018 Faces luminous as liquid medals Of golden-brown, Créole sunsets And black-as-blue Crests Nod, benign as they’re happy, around Belle’s and Anatol’s dining-table, Another of their Birthday Parties In New Orleans East. How benign the faces, How this warm island Supports and embraces King and Queen Pleasures long-ago earned. The Bass is so big! The bass is so big and mellifluous In the Home Sound-System Belle commands! Rumbling and rippling underneath And through Changes, Harmonies and Lyrics Clever as Moliere. Who wouldn’t smile To “The Smaller The Club, The Bigger the Party”, And “We Got A Bag Of Ice. A Blender And A Swimming-Pool”? What could be more perfect Than friends and a world long-ago earned. Yeah, it’s got to be funny When the Husband and Wife Check with their lovers separately into the same Room, And it’s true, too, That a woman might be too much Woman and a Man might slip out To gallivant and Hell like Hal prance. That heart-ache is real, For Members Only, round this wide world. Eyes and ears know What’s knife and balm to all Souls. So, the rocking Listeners rest Easy In Dining to Living Rooms, Catching up, chatting and smiling. Anatol and his brothers strong And handsome as idols, Moore Sisters graced in their lives and looks too, Belle Queen Cat at table’s head steering enjoyment With her WWOZ Shows’ brilliant songs and segues. Everyone is relaxed with each other, Autumn is Summer, this Island, this Town. Here and now is a Triumph long-ago earned. Don Paul, January 26, 2025 First version, August 11, 2018
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