Word: conversa
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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This book is a somewhat violent, some what gamy anthropology of New Orleans below the belt. Most of the material for it was jotted down in hundreds of conversa tions with Negroes and white people. It begins with the cacophonous Mardi Gras saturnalia of "Kings, Baby Dolls. Zulus and Queens'' (Baby Dolls are Negro trulls, Zulus are their men friends who elect a Negro King of the Mardi Gras). It ends with "Superstitions," "Colloquialisms" and "Customs." In between, the book's 581 pages are acrawl with underworld or otherworld manifestations...
...reward of generosity is favorable publicity. Thus life for Julian and Amanda is an intense jitter of methodical planning to do things which give them no real pleasure. Even their off-hours have to be rationed to the last minute: "SLEEP (for efficiency purposes) 7 hrs. 18 min. ; CONVERSA TION WITH STAFF (for good-will and esprit de corps purposes) 12 min.; TALK WITH BARBER OR MANICURIST (for purpose of man-in-the-street comments on affairs) 15 min.; JOKE with storekeeper (for aid to digestion...