The Highs:

– A Saints win that we could relax through, and Chris Ivory and Jimmy Graham looked great.

– A convincing LSU win, and unless my crazyometer needs calibration, Les Miles didn’t do anything crazy.

– Listening to Radioclit’s The Sound of Club Secousse. Radioclit is a pair of DJs – Etienne Tron and Johan Karlberg – who’ve remixed African music on this album, in some cases making tracks that sound like punchier, contemporary African productions, while others are new, techno-oriented hybrids. Even in those cases, though, the beat never comes a simple 4/4 thump, and the highlife and Afrobeat source material is honored.

The Lows:

– Dealing with a sick family member, which leads to the anxiety that I too might be getting sick.

– Nicholas Payton’s blog post on Ben Jaffe and Preservation Hall. I don’t have any special insight into his claims, and I don’t wish to pursue them after the death of his father Walter, who was also a member of the Preservation Hall community. It’s simply painful to see someone in such pain. Unfortunately, it also left many in the New Orleans music community unsure of how to honor Walter’s passing on the weekend of a second line in his honor. A sad situation all around.