Evermore: Taylor Swift continues alchemy and teamwork started with Folklore

Last Friday, music megastar Taylor Swift released her ninth studio album on very short notice, Evermore. It’s the sister record to her eighth studio release from earlier this year, the Grammy-nominated Folklore. 

“To put it plainly,” Swift wrote on her Instagram, “we just couldn’t stop writing songs. To try and put it more poetically, it feels like we were standing on the edge of the folklorian woods and had a choice: to turn and go back or to travel further into the forest of this music. We chose to wander deeper in.

“I’ve never done this before. In the past I’ve always treated albums as one-off eras and moved onto planning the next one after an album was released. There was something different with Folklore.

“In making it, I felt less like I was departing and more like I was returning. I loved the escapism I found in these imaginary/not imaginary tales. I loved the ways you welcomed the dreamscapes and tragedies and epic tales of love lost and found into your lives. So, I just kept writing them.”

What immediately caught my attention – and I’ve never spent much time listening to or exploring the immensely popular music canon of Taylor Swift – is Swift’s collaboration with members of one of my favorite indie rock music groups, The National. In particular, Swift worked closely with the multitalented Aaron Dessner and she shared vocals on “Coney Island,” a song that deals with losing oneself in a relationship, with The National’s melancholy frontman, baritone vocalist Matt Berninger. In listening to both the song and the album, there’s a sense of artistic freedom and a break away from Swift’s conventional pop radio sensibility to create a folk album that’s full of sound and texture.

 Taylor Swift / Evermore

Meanwhile, sitting across the kitchen table, here’s what Aaron Dessner wrote on his Instagram: “It’s only been five months since Folklore was released. But truth be told, Taylor Swift and I never actually stopped exchanging ideas and somehow we’ve finished a sister record called Evermore that I love just as much. 

“These songs are wilder and freer, sometimes in strange time signatures and darker hues, but very much a continuation of what we started with Folklore. 

“I can’t begin to express my gratitude and respect for Taylor – I never cease to wonder at her seemingly boundless talent as a singer and a songwriter and storyteller. It’s been the experience of a lifetime to work so fast and furiously with her. ...

“My band mates in The National – Matt, Bryan and Scott, along with Bryce – are here, too. Hearing Matt sing with Taylor and the entire band perform on “Coney Island” – things have come full circle.”

Perhaps, Berninger put it best. He wrote on Twitter: “Singing a song with Taylor Swift is like dancing with Gene Kelly. She made me look good and didn’t drop me once. ‘Coney Island’ is an incredibly beautiful song she and Aaron Dessner wrote together. It really made me miss Brooklyn. Such a blast being a part of Evermore.”

Hearing the Swift-Berninger duet “Coney Island” for the first time recently was very intriguing and it’s what nudged me into giving the entire Evermore album a good listen on Spotify – and I like what I heard. If you’re someone who has always had an appreciation for the sense and sensibility – and seriousness – of The National, I think you’ll like what you hear from Swift with backing from The National on Evermore.

Cover photos: Beth Garrabrant (@taylorswift13/Twitter). Video: Courtesy YouTube.

A New Orleans diary: Why food matters in the Big Easy

Domilise's / Nothing fancy or elaborate.
Just one of the best meals in the Big Easy.

New Orleans takes its food seriously – gumbo, red beans and rice, and beignets come to mind – and it's been said that you can't come to the Big Easy and not eat a po-boy sandwich. So, why not try the best – even if it's made to order in a hard-to-find location up river from the French Quarter, where parking is difficult at best and getting a table (there are only five) or a seat at the bar (there's about 10 of them) is a matter of good timing. Yet, despite all of these obstacles, the locals swear by this hole in the wall kind of place.

Domilise's Po-Boy and Bar consists of a single-room bar
and dining area with five tables and about 10 bar seats.

Such it was on a recent Friday afternoon while visiting New Orleans that my wife and I dropped in at Domilise's Po-Boy and Bar, tucked away at 5240 Annunciation Street (corner Bellecastle), and treated ourselves to a po-boy sandwich for lunch. We had an hour to kill before we had to be on the highway headed west toward Lafayette in the Acadiana region of Louisiana to attend our nephew's wedding celebration.

We first visited Domilise's back in 2001 – pre Hurricane Katrina – and it was an enjoyable experience. So it was on our next visit to New Orleans earlier this month, we knew we wanted to revisit Domilise's.

Domilise's Po-Boy and Bar is an Uptown New Orleans restaurant known for its po-boy sandwiches. For the uninitiated, a po-boy is a traditional Louisiana sandwich served on baguette-like New Orleans French bread that's known for its fluffy center and crispy crust. The restaurant was founded in the 1930s by the Domilise family, who I learned lived in the house above the single-room bar/dining area. It was run by Sam and Dorothy "Miss Dot" Domilise for more than 75 years until her death in 2013. Although it was closed during Hurricane Katrina, since reopening Domilise's has been more popular than ever – acclaimed by many, including CNN's Anderson Cooper as well as Anthony Bourdain, who once filmed a spot on location for his Travel Channel program No Reservations.

My Domilise's meal /
A delicious ham and Swiss po-boy,
Zapp's New Orleans kettle-style chips,
Barq's root beer.

During our recent visit, my po-boy of choice a ham and Swiss cheese dressed with spicy Cajun mustard, shredded lettuce and pickles while my wife opted for a turkey dressed all the way. Both were made with love by the sweet ladies who manned the kitchen. The reasonably priced menu is full of excellent choices, including shrimp, oyster, catfish, roast beef and sausage, and come in two sizes: small and large. The small was plenty large for my appetite. Along with my fabulous po-boy, I complemented my "meal" with a bag of Zapp's New Orleans kettle-style potato chips and a bottle of Barq's root beer.

We sat at the bar sipping on our sodas and munching our chips – and soaking up the vibrant atmosphere – while our po-boys were being prepared with TLC, waiting for a table to open up. By the time our order was called, a table materialized by the back entrance. Nothing fancy, but plenty of space to spread out and enjoy our delicious – albeit sometimes messy – po-boys. Looking around as we ate, I couldn't help but notice we were likely the only tourists mixed among a crowded room full of white- and blue-collar locals who swear by this place for a great meal.

Domilise's Po-Boy & Bar /
Uptown at the corner of Annunciation and Bellecastle.

As Tom Piazza points out in his insightful 2006 book Why New Orleans Matters, "the real neighborhood places, tucked away usually in some unlikely corner of a residential street, animate the day-to-day grass roots culinary life of the city. There is nothing fancy or elaborate about these places to say the least, but also nothing humdrum or mass-produced, or even lackluster ... It is a point of honor to make food that tastes good – I don't think a New Orleanian would even understand the concept of turning out blah food so you could just eat and run.

"You can go into the most unassuming place – say, Domilise's, a sandwich shop with a hand-lettered sign in a very modest corner house a block from the river in a residential uptown neighborhood – and get a meal that you will remember for the rest of your days. Or at least for the rest of the day."

Indeed, you see food is a part of the rhythm and life of New Orleans, and it doesn't get much better than this. There's a reason that Domilise's is one of the best at what they do.

Photos: Cover photo courtesy of Google Images. All other photos by Michael Dickens © 2017.

A year of being Pope Francis

Pope Francis / "A man who laughs, cries, sleeps soundly and
has friends like everyone else. Just a normal person."

We're a year into the Pope Francis era. It's been filled with much hero-worship and adulation. Francis has graced the cover of Rolling Stone and been named Time magazine's Person of the Year. He's greeted by adoring fans wherever he goes. Among American Catholics, the 77-year-old Argentinean pontiff, born Jorge Mario Bergolio, is enjoying greater popularity than Pope Benedict XVI did in February of last year, when he suddenly announced his resignation.

Pope Francis, often pictured smiling in his white cassock, has shown much energy and charisma in shaping a new tone around the Vatican. He's become more open in granting interviews to the mainstream media while also embracing social media as a viable means for spreading the message and values as the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church. 

Pope Francis waves at adoring
crowd in St. Peter's Square.

Noted for his humility, his concern for the poor, and his commitment to dialogue as a means of building bridges to between people of all backgrounds, beliefs and faiths, Francis "has dramatically altered the style of the papacy, making a series of symbolic choices that have solidified his persona as a plain-living, down-to-earth and genial head of the Catholic church," the London-based Guardian wrote earlier this month.

Now, a new poll out just in time for Lent reveals that a broad majority of American Catholics say Pope Francis represents not only a major change in direction for the church, but a change for the better. And yet, the poll conducted last month by the Pew Research Center suggests "his popularity has not inspired more Americans to attend Mass, go to confession or identify as Catholic — a finding that suggests that so far, the much-vaunted 'Francis effect' is influencing attitudes, but not behavior," The New York Times reported last week.

The poll, conducted between Feb. 14-23, included 1,821 adults. There was a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all Americans, and six percentage points for the subgroup of 351 Catholics.

"Francis, who draws giddy teenagers to his Wednesday audiences and generates Twitter traffic with every public remark, has clearly invigorated the church," The New York Times wrote. "But the poll finds that Francis has raised expectations of significant change, even though he has alluded that he may not alter the church’s positions on thorny doctrinal issues."

Among the poll's findings: Almost six in 10 American Catholics said they expected the church "would definitely or probably lift its prohibition on birth control by the year 2050, while half said the church would allow priests to marry." Also, four in 10 said they thought the church would ordain women as priests, and "more than two-thirds said it would recognize same-sex marriages by 2050." Further, "large majorities of American Catholics said they wanted the church to change on the first three matters, and half wanted the church to recognize same-sex marriages."

Pope Francis / A mixture of
homespun personality and
compassion.

As he reaches the first anniversary of his papacy this week, on March 13, among the priority issues that Pope Francis has faced during his first year include: addressing a clergy sex-abuse scandal, spreading the Catholic faith, standing for traditional moral values, addressing the needs and concerns of the poor, and overhauling the Vatican bureaucracy. He's tackling all the important issues of the day with a mixture of homespun personality and compassion. Seventy-one percent of those polled believe that Pope Francis represented a "major change in direction."

Finally, while the papal vestments include the wearing of a cape, the pontiff said he shouldn't be called a Superman. "To paint the Pope as a sort of Superman, a kind of star, seems offensive to me," Francis told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera. "The Pope is a man who laughs, cries, sleeps soundly and has friends like everyone else. A normal person."

• • •

Note: To learn more about the first year of Pope Francis, I encourage you to read John Cornwell's excellent feature in the March 7 issue of The Financial Times.

Photographs courtesy: CNN.com, Telegraph.co.uk, theguardian.com.